Читать книгу Let Me In - Donna Kauffman - Страница 11

She stared at him for a long moment, then said, “I thought she was dead. I still can’t believe otherwise, frankly. So how in the hell would I know what she needs, apparently alive, working deep undercover, three years later?”

Derek hated putting her through this, but he had no choice. They had no choice. “You were the only other one who was there. You know your captors—”

“How many pictures did I look through? Thousands. And I came up empty.”

“Maybe she thinks they will show up now, if you look again. I don’t know what she thinks, or thinks you know. Our transmission cut out then, and that was our last contact.”

Tate was doing a damn fine job of using anger as a shield against whatever terrors might be lurking from her past, but he didn’t miss the light shudder that went instinctively through her at his comment.

“I won’t look through your database again.”

“You have a computer?”

She arched a brow. “What? You’re going to hack in? Because if you sign in from any location, you must know it would be like waving a huge red flag.”

“I have alternate means.”

She tilted her head, and he thought she’d ask him to explain, but she didn’t. She’d only demanded he answer whatever questions she asked, and he planned to do just that. He also planned to honor her silent request to not provide information she could have requested, and didn’t. When he could. If he felt she had to know something in order to get them both through this, he’d tell her whatever he had to. She already hated him. If it meant keeping them both alive, what did it matter if he pissed her off a little more?

“Is that what you think CJ wants me to do? Waste hours on end looking through what amounts to the who’s who of terrorist mug shots?”

“It’s a place to start. Do you have any other suggestions?”

“Yeah, that we start anywhere but there.” She slumped back in her chair and rubbed a hand over her face.

“Tate—”

She held up a hand, stalling whatever comfort he might have tried to give her. Probably just as well. Nurturing didn’t come naturally to him. Unless it involved how to raise a good agent.

“I can mentally go back over it,” she said quietly. “Our time out there. Not just at the end, when we’d been found out and taken into custody, but before, when we were still undercover. I know CJ, or I did, better than anyone. I can try to figure out how she might have gotten back in with them, and how she might need to get out, but even with all the mental analysis I can apply, given my three-year-old intel, it would, at best, be a stab in the dark if you don’t have any additional information on where she might be, specifically, and with whom.” She looked at him expectantly.

“I don’t have anything else. We only had those two communiqués. She hasn’t been in contact since. And I wasn’t able to verify anything through what proper channels I felt I could access. My only lead was you.”

“Do you know, for certain, that the faction that held us is still in existence, in power? Are they still operating as they were? Three years, as their world turns, is an incredibly long time for them to remain intact.”

“We’ve of course kept them in our sights since extricating you. But we haven’t been assigned to anything on them since then. As you say, their world changes quickly, as does ours, and they ceased to be the dominant threat.”

“Did you look to see if, perhaps, there has been any other activity with them? Other countries working anything having to do with them? Our allies? Or enemies? Or possibly some other faction within our own government?”

He slowly shook his head. “I did look, yes, but no, there have been no operations that I’ve been able to uncover dealing with them or those who surround them. Definitely not with us.” And they both knew his clearance was the highest there was. What he didn’t have personal access to, he usually had an alternate source to tap into. However, this time he’d been limited in who he could reach out to. “I had to be careful how deeply I searched, and who I asked.”

“But you feel confident that you didn’t miss anything.”

“As confident as I can be.”

“And yet your entire department missed the fact that CJ has been alive for the past three years and apparently working with the same group we were sent to infiltrate.”

“You know as well as I do how easy it is to fall off the radar if that’s your goal.”

“Harder today than it used to be.”

“True. But intel is only as good as the direction we’re aimed in. We can’t gather information on what we’re not looking at.”

She dipped her chin, but her attentions seemed turned inward. He didn’t want to know what she was seeing in her mind’s eye. “So, if they’re no longer a threat, no longer the focus of any kind of real scrutiny, then are you saying they abandoned their plans to acquire plutonium? I know it’s been a couple of years, but surely they haven’t given up on their quest to gain global presence by becoming a nuclear power?”

“No, they haven’t. But the world changes, partnerships change, channels of communication become harder to maintain in the face of continued opposition. Hell, the opposition itself changes.”

“But they’re still trying to do exactly what they were trying to do when CJ and I were sent to infiltrate them? So why aren’t we looking at them? Why aren’t they dead center on our radar?”

“The chain of command changed, theirs and ours, and so did our focus. Some of their alliances crumbled, new ones were established, it’s not the same game now. From what I could learn, the division that held you shot and killed their leader in a double cross six months after you were extricated. It was chaos for a short time as a new power grid was established, but the man who finally prevailed and restored some order to the regime didn’t trust anyone who was left from the original group, so he brought in his own guys. Same mission, same game, but new alliances, new mergers, new connections. The new internal faction was tight and impenetrable, so our focus shifted upward and outward.”

Tate looked up. “So, if all the players changed, then who is CJ working for?”

“Specifically? She didn’t, or couldn’t, say, but she intimated she was working for the same group, so I can only assume she moved up the chain when the regime changed.”

“Then how in the hell can I be of any help? I don’t know any of those players. We infiltrated the lowest level, as supposed foreign operatives working with Italian counterspies they’d tapped a year before. It’s the only reason they’d have anything to do with us as women. We’d just begun to make inroads when Buonfiglio was found out to be a triple threat, working for the Afghanis as well as his government and ours, and flipped on all of us to save his sorry, cowardly ass.”

“Which he didn’t, by the way. He was killed shortly after you retired.”

Something flashed across her face, but she said nothing. Derek thought about letting it go, but decided to nudge, just a little. He needed to know where she stood. “What?”

“Nothing. I just—” She held his gaze, and hers was all steel now, reminding him of their days working together. She’d been rock solid then. She still was now, though she probably thought she wasn’t. Some of that had been trained into her, but mostly it was who she was. You couldn’t make an agent out of nothing, you could only hone and enhance the elements that were already there. And being unshakable was one of her sharpest natural components. It was why she was sitting across from him today, and not in a dusty grave in a desert halfway around the world. “I’m not sorry he’s dead,” she said, at length. “I don’t know what that says about me. No one deserves to die, especially not like he probably did.”

“He was directly responsible for the death or torture of a half dozen people, four of them his own countrymen and working directly on his team. He was a mercenary and, you’re right, a coward. Neither of those qualities generally lends itself to a happy end.”

She didn’t say anything.

“What else?” he asked.

She looked up. “What else, what?”

“You had a look. And it wasn’t simply satisfaction over Buon’s death.”

“You know what I miss the least about not being part of the team any longer?”

“The team, or my team?”

“Yes,” was all she said.

His lips curved slightly. “What do you miss the least?”

“Having my every blink of the eye, flicker of emotion, twitch of the lips examined, analyzed, and probed.”

“You know better than anyone that you can’t just keep your opposition under a microscope. In the world we operated in, you had to keep close watch on your own as well. As Buonfiglio so rightly proved. If the Italians had been paying closer attention to their own, he’d never have gotten far enough to do what he did.”

“We could say the same thing about CJ.”

He nodded. “We’re far from perfect. But that doesn’t mean we don’t try our damndest.”

“I know. I didn’t say I didn’t understand it, the need for it, or even approve of the need for it. I said I don’t miss it. Here in the world I’m in now, no one cares what I’m thinking about, or what my next move might be. I’m not on anyone’s radar. Ever. Claiming that kind of absolute independence and freedom is a heady thing, Derek. Giving up even a shred of it grates. Deeply.”

“Understandably.”

“Then you’ll forgive me if I don’t allow you insight into my every thought.”

“I’m not being nosy. I need to know my partner.” His lips quirked again when she scowled. “Recalcitrant though she may be.” He turned serious again. “It’s been three years. I need to know you, what you’re thinking, the conclusions you are drawing. It could be the difference between success or failure.” He didn’t have to add that that usually equaled life or death. With her, he didn’t have to.

“You’ll have to settle for knowing what I see fit to tell you. As I said before, I don’t work for you any longer. You don’t own me, or have rights to anything I don’t care to give you access to.”

“We’re partners, not team leader and agent. You’re stuck with me now, like it or not.” He lifted a hand, briefly, off the bed. “No need to clarify which side of that you stand on.”

“Derek—”

“I may not have any rights where you’re concerned, but we’re in this regardless of whether or not it’s right, fair, or anything else. We both know that life is often none of those things. I can continue to apologize for dragging you into this, or we can accept that this is the lot we’ve been handed and get to work on solving it.”

“I thought that’s what we were doing.”

“Okay. Then when I ask you a question, I need you to answer me. I’ll do the same for you. Partners, Tate. You know better than anyone what it takes to make a successful partnership. You and CJ were the best team I ever had.”

Now it was her turn to quirk her lips, only there was absolutely no humor in her eyes. “And yet, look where it’s gotten me. The irony, eh?” She stood and shoved her chair back.

“We just started,” he said. “We still have an enormous amount to cover and time is something we can’t waste any more of than we already have.”

“We?” she asked, arching a brow.

“Tate.”

“You need to rest. And I need to…regroup.”

“Tate—”

She picked up the food tray from the dresser. “Neither of us is going anywhere right this second, Derek. I’ll be back later.” She paused in the doorway. “As your partner, I’d advise you to get as much rehabilitative rest as possible. We have no idea what the next few days will bring, but I think it’s a safe bet to assume that the stronger you are, the better chance we’ll have of getting through them.” She didn’t wait for his reply.

But when she turned to leave, she caught the tray on the edge of the doorframe. She corrected the movement immediately, before anything could topple to the floor, but the sudden action revealed two things to Derek: her reflexes were still sharp as ever. But her body was not. It would have taken someone with his dedication to detail to notice, but there’d been a slight, yet definite hitch in her step when she’d readjusted her trajectory and that of the tray. She’d healed from her injuries in a far more superior way than even he’d have ever projected, even knowing her for the bulldog she was.

But while she might give the impression of being one hundred percent, or damn near it, she wasn’t. He knew she’d undergone multiple surgeries to repair the damage done to her limbs, all four of them. You wouldn’t know it to look at her today that she’d ever been as broken as she was. Until that brief, but telling moment.

She’d been out in the rain, hiking the hills. Then she’d come in here and sat in that chair for the past half hour. And now she was paying the price. A price she’d never want him to see. Pride was a luxury people in his line of work often couldn’t afford. She, on the other hand, had every right to it now.

Which was why he didn’t ask, didn’t probe. Now, anyway. He needed to know her limits, both mental and physical. But, for the moment, he’d content himself with whatever knowledge he could gain from keen observation, and past knowledge of his partner.

It was frustrating as hell, but then he doubted he had the corner on that emotion at the moment.

Surprisingly, he must have dozed off shortly after her exit, because the next thing he was aware of was opening his eyes, only to find it had grown fully dark outside. The storm continued to rage on. In fact, as thunder rattled the walls and roof once again, he realized that that was what had awoken him. At least he hadn’t tried to dive off the bed this time.

His eyes adjusted relatively quickly to the darkness which was a relief on more than one level. He was still fatigued, but not groggy. The headache lingered, but was milder now. It felt like the last vestiges of the drugs had finally left his system.

He looked around the room, but even in the darkness, he could see he was alone. Nature was calling somewhat insistently now, and he knew he was going to have to tackle that little adventure shortly, but for the moment he lay still and listened. Once he sorted out the sounds being made by the rain pounding on the roof and slashing at the windows, he could focus on the sounds of the house itself. There were none. No music, no television, no voices. No sounds of domesticity coming from the kitchen.

The latter thought made him smile, imagining Tate’s reaction to that notion. Which led to wondering where she was, and what she was doing. She’d closed his door at some point, but there was a yellow glow seeping through the cracks, so lights were on somewhere. His thoughts gave pause at the idea of her watching him while he slept. On the one hand, he didn’t like the vulnerability implied in the very act, and yet there was something undeniable…comforting, about the idea that anyone absent of nefarious plans would want to watch over him.

He wasn’t sure how late it was. She could be asleep on the couch. The idea of flipping the favor and watching over her in return was oddly far more arousing than it was soothing. Which brought him right back around to the necessary trip he had to make. As he mentally prepared himself to manage the pain he was about to endure in order to get himself upright, his thoughts strayed back to Tate. He should logically be concerning himself with locating her immediately, and making certain all was still well and secure. But his instincts weren’t clamoring. And despite the manner in which he himself had been recently subdued, he doubted the same would happen within the walls of this cabin without rousing him from his sleep.

Which left him to decide between being smart and pinpointing the location of his partner, and updating himself on the time and whatever else might have happened while he slept—but that meant risking her immediate presence, and worse, her help, with his pending adventure—or he could take care of that chore first, then track her down. First, he decided to get himself upright, or as upright as he could, so no matter what happened beyond that, she couldn’t negate his trip altogether and suggest any other solution.

His shoulder screamed in protest as he worked at shifting his weight toward his good side—or better side, anyway—but he’d dealt with his shoulder dislocating before and knew how to manage that pain. It was the other combined radiant points of torture that had him catching his breath, then grunting as he levered himself carefully to a sitting position.

His ribs were seriously not happy with this venture, but careful probing before had already told him they weren’t broken. It wasn’t the first time they’d been banged up, so he knew the difference, but this time the external damage had been to the front, side, and back of his torso, all of which were protesting. Loudly. He knew from his attempts at eating the soup that his left hand was a mess of purple and blue, but Tate had realigned and taped three of his fingers before, leaving him his forefinger and thumb for navigation when needed. At the moment, he had that hand tucked into the sling supporting his shoulder, so, though essentially out of commission and throbbing, it was at least stable and not much of a hindrance.

His face hurt, and his scalp felt like someone had snatched half his hair clean out of it, but he’d already probed it with his good hand and, other than a few lumps and some split skin here and there, everything seemed to still be there. His nose wasn’t broken, but the rest of his face didn’t feel so good. But the split on his cheek and along one eyebrow felt like they were healing, and his jaw, though sore as hell, didn’t feel damaged beyond the bruising. One side of his mouth was still messed up, and he imagined he didn’t look terribly lovely at the moment, but ultimately all of the damage felt minimal. A quick run of the tongue had told him his teeth were all intact. Always a bonus.

His wrists and ankles burned like hell, but with Tate’s quick and thorough attention and ointment, they were healing quickly. That left his legs. It was too dark in the room to see them clearly, and he couldn’t bend at the waist to reach down past his knees, but a gingerly flex of one ankle, then the other, then one knee, then the other, told him they were in pretty much the same condition as the rest of him. Beaten and bruised, but not broken. Still, he wasn’t keen on immediately relying on them to hold him upright. Not without at least a little support. His head felt clearer despite the pounding, but the physical exhaustion he felt was still pretty keen. He knew he’d be wobbly from pain and fatigue, and falling right now would not be well received by any part of his anatomy.

He debated caving, and calling out for Tate, at least for help in getting him upright and to the bathroom. Why he resisted, he wasn’t sure.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. As it happened, there seemed to be one part of his body that was functioning quite fine, thank you very much. He chalked it up to something like early morning hard-on syndrome, even though he knew damn well it hadn’t started until he’d thought about watching Tate sleep. And just in case he thought about trying to lie to himself about that, the very act of thinking about it right now made him twitch.

Yeah. It was going to be humbling enough just getting himself to the bathroom. He didn’t need to do it with her trying not to look at his raging hard-on, while he did it. He also needed that little problem to subside between here and there, and despite the potential shrinking factor her presence might have on his ego, something told him having Tate in the room, touching him in any way, was not going to help diminish anything else.

He eyed the chair she’d been sitting in earlier. It was too far away to even use his toes to drag it any closer. So that was out as a possible support while he stood for the first time. The bed had no footboard or headboard to use for bracing his weight against. Which left the nightstand. Which was located to his left now that he was sitting upright with his feet on the floor, and therefore out of play, as his left arm was in a sling. Wonderful.

He was debating on pushing himself to a stand and angling himself toward the chair as he launched himself upright, but it would also be on his left. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, already feeling the effects from just sitting upright for this long. If he didn’t find some way to get himself going, he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

“Derek?”

The overhead light flipped on a moment later making him wince as the sudden glare brought a whole new level of throb back to his headache. “Don’t,” was all he said.

The room went instantly dark, but a moment later, the nightstand lamp on the opposite side of the bed clicked on, bathing the room in a much softer glow. “Better?”

“Mmm,” was all he could manage.

“I’d ask what the hell you think you’re doing, but I’m guessing there’s no point in that.”

Her voice was still coming from behind him, on the opposite side of the bed, and for that, at least, he was grateful. He wasn’t a modest man, not in the least. His body was a tool for him, and, as such, he kept it in good shape. Beyond that, he didn’t much care what anyone thought of his appearance. He simply did whatever was needed to get the job done. To that end, it didn’t so much bother him that Tate was seeing him sitting there in nothing more than his skivvies, all battered and bruised. She’d already seen it all, as she’d been the one to take his muddied and torn clothes off in the first place.

But that was just the logical part of things. The part he controlled. What was suddenly out of his control, was his almost hyperawareness that he was sporting a whole lot of bare skin that would be available to her direct touch, if she were to so much as consider helping him get up and take even a single step. And his body’s reaction to that notion was also, apparently, well beyond his control. It was crazy, and he could chalk up that heightened sensitivity to everything from the aftereffects of being so heavily drugged, to the damage to his body, to the very difficult situation he’d landed them both in.

But why start lying to himself now?

“I need something to help me balance myself,” he told her, fighting to maintain a level voice. The frustration of his limitations was only compounded by his frustration with his lack of control over himself, but he didn’t need her to know any of that. “You wouldn’t happen to have kept your crutches along with your sling, would you? Just one would do.”

“And you need to balance yourself upright because why?”

He opted for directness. He tried not to snap the words, despite his rapid loss of patience. It wasn’t her he was impatient with. “Because I need to use your bathroom.”

Rather than give him a hard time, or, thank God, suggest an alternate solution that involved a bed pan of any kind, there was a silent pause, then she simply said, “Okay. I’ll be right back. Stay put.”

“Not a problem,” he muttered, but he could already hear her moving down the hall.

She returned a moment later. He felt her presence rather than saw it, as she paused in the bedroom doorway before entering. He tried to shift his weight to look over his shoulder, but that was asking a bit too much of his ribs at the moment. “What’s wrong?” he asked instead.

“Nothing,” she said, and came into the room and around his side of the bed. She was carrying a beautifully carved oak walking stick. The handle was a large, gnarled knot of wood, plenty big enough for his wide hand, and the stick itself was thick and sturdy.

He looked from the stick to her. She had no expression whatsoever on her face. Which told him far more than she likely thought it did.

“It’s beautiful,” he told her, quite sincerely. “More like a piece of art. You sure you want me handling it?”

“It’s the walking stick, or me.”

He reached out his good hand. “Thank you,” he said simply.

“You’re welcome,” she said just as simply, handing him the cane, which clearly was hers, and from the burnished shine on the head of the stick, it had been palmed often by her own hand. “Do you need any help levering yourself up?”

She was handling this about as well as anyone who couldn’t read his mind. Quite probably because she’d been faced with similar indignities in the past. And it was the quiet, simple dignity she was offering him that forced him to get past his own stupid issues with his renegade body parts and accept her offer. “I just need to get my weight over my knees, and I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” She moved immediately, without needing to ask what to do, and sat next to him on his right side. “I don’t want to hurt your ribs, but I need to wedge my shoulder under your arm. You need to lean forward, as best you can, with your palm firmly wrapped around the cane. Use your thighs to push to a stand, staying bent at the waist as best as you can until you have your weight centered. Then slowly—slowly—straighten upright. I know it’s going to be hard with your ribs, but—”

“I can handle it,” he said, cutting off her string of instructions. Not because they were annoying or unnecessary. She was definitely the voice of authority here. No, he cut her off for quite the opposite reason. “Let’s give it a shot.”

“Wait,” she said, and got up again. She moved the stuffed chair until it was angled right in front of him. “If you lose your balance, I won’t be able to keep you upright.” She sat next to him again. “If you can, drop back to the bed, but if you over-project, shift your weight and soft land in the chair.”

He turned his head and looked at her. “Pretty good foresight.”

She smiled a little then, and there was no sharpness to her wry tone this time. “It’s possible I might know a little something about being stubborn and insisting on moving around and taking care of myself somewhat earlier than might have been strictly recommended.”

“You don’t say.”

Her smile widened and reached her eyes for the first time. “I think I just did.” Then she turned face front and leaned in to wedge her shoulder into his armpit. “On three.”