Dangerous Secrets (35 page)

For a moment the entire arena was silent. She
looked around. The audience swirled like a blurred photograph. Then thunder
struck, a deafening force that broke the calm and clamored to the top of the
building, threatening to tear the domed roof from its hinges. She could hear
her name chanted and the scores went up on the lighted board. She watched the
tens come up one by one. Each of the judges had rated her the same.

She looked for Jack Temple at his post by the
wall. He hadn′t moved. This time, instead of a nod he saluted her win. A
moment later, she was attacked by her congratulating team members and sight of
Jack was lost.

She wondered about him now. Glancing sideways,
he still drove without a word, but apparently with a mission. In Korea, she
didn′t think he knew how much his presence had done for her routine, but
now she wasn′t so sure. He said he knew everything about her. Did that
include her psychological makeup? Could he read her mind, her thoughts? Did he
know what she needed, and had he stood against that wall for moral support or
to send her signals that the worst was over, nothing else mattered? She′d
done her job.

Hart Lewiston was on a transport plane with a
full medical setup on his way to a military base in California. Only a few
people knew a woman, a mere child with fantastic agility, had been instrumental
in getting him out of the prison, and none of them could put the name of Morgan
Kirkwood with that black-clad figure who could skirt the building ledge with
the same nerve-racking calm of a high-wire acrobat. At least no one Morgan
knew.

***

Backwater towns are the worst places to hide.
Small villages and hamlets have too many prying eyes and too many curiosity
seekers. They needed a large city, a place where people were more apt to be
concerned about their own lives than what was going on next door, a place where
there were many transients and no one asked questions or remembered faces. And
Jack needed to make another phone call.

Since they′d left the house in Illinois
they′d been traveling east. A green reflective sign pointing toward
Indianapolis loomed ahead. Jack pulled off the road at the first exit ramp and
headed toward downtown. They needed to get rid of the car, but they couldn′t
pull into a hotel without one.

‶
Where are you going?″
Morgan spoke for the first time in hours, it seemed.

‶
I have a plan,″ he told
her.
‶
There′s
a field office here. I can get us some help.″

‶
No!″ Her eyes shifted to
him and he saw fear there.

‶
What are you afraid of?″

‶
I don′t know these
people. Who are they and why are you willing to trust them to help us?″

‶
Morgan, they′re
operatives of the United States government. It′s their job.″

‶
I′ve been in this place
before. Operatives of the United States approached me. Riddled me with lies and
half truths and got me involved in an operation where I was expendable. I
didn′t like it then and I won′t walk back into that kind of
situation again.″

‶
It′s not your
call.″ His voice was hard. He forced it to be that way. He really wanted
to reassure her. He understood her fear. He′d had the same feelings in
the past, but he knew this was the best course of action. It was regulation, by
the book. Jack wasn′t often a rulebook player. He found rules restricting,
and they often needed to be revised for the jungle, the desert, the terrorists
after him and the powers trying to make it his last day on earth. This had to
be different. This was Indiana, not Iran.

Jack had been the reason Morgan got into this,
but he didn′t have full authority on his side. He′d only known part
of the story at the time and she could have lost her young life. Thank God she
hadn′t. He didn′t know if he could have lived with himself if
anything worse had happened that night.

‶
We need help, Morgan.″
His voice was softer this time.
‶
Backup. Other agents to escort
us back to D.C. I promise you everything will be fine.″

She hesitated, obviously not trusting him. She
had been on her own so long, fending for herself, never really allowing anyone
to get close to her, get near enough to trust. Why should she trust him,
especially if she knew she was here because of an offhand comment he′d
made in a conference room twelve years ago.

‶
Morgan, you′re going to
have to trust someone. I promise I′ll take care of you.″

She sat back.
‶
You already said it
wasn′t my call.″

She lapsed into silence and Jack took it as
consent. He continued toward town, but wasn′t going to drive directly to
the field headquarters. He knew better than to trust out of hand too.
He′d call first, set something up. He had a friend in the Indianapolis
office. Maybe he could even get a call into Jacob, find out if anything further
had developed as to what the real reason was that Morgan Kirkwood had been put
on a hit list. Who was trying to kill her?

And why?

The main street into the center of Indianapolis
was a corridor of insurance companies. Few people expected anything else in
Indiana except the 500, a wide track for race cars to circle. Most have
probably forgotten that Michael Jackson and his entire family were born in
Gary, or that all the music and video clubs have a warehouse address in Terre
Haute. Indiana is only the way to get someplace else. Jack admitted he
considered it that way too. He wasn′t here to stay. It was a way station
on his trip to the capital. He only hoped whoever was after them didn′t
realize they would stop here. At least not until they had vacated the place and
had a clear and definite idea of what the next move should be.

He hated working without a plan, even if it was
one he made up minute by minute. The problem was he didn′t know the
problem and that made it impossible to solve.

***

The air in the conference room on the fifth
floor of FBI headquarters was thick with concern. The newspaper accounts of
Morgan Kirkwood′s house exploding made front-page news in St. Charles,
but was buried on page three of the
Post-Dispatch.
Jacob could thank a quick-thinking agent working at the paper who reported
a gas leak as the cause. The official report revealed a dangerous explosive and
a timing device as the real cause. Thank God, there was only one casualty, a
neighbor named Michelle O′Banyon.

‶
Where are they?″ Forrest
Washington had cut his vacation short when word reached him that Jack Temple
was under fire in the Midwest. Jacob knew the man was concerned about Jack.
Their relationship to each other was the same as Jacob′s to Clarence
Christopher, the director of the FBI. They bonded, became more than
friends—they were family.

‶
Jack called three nights ago.
Since then there′s been no word,″ Jacob replied.

‶
We can′t reach him
either. Apparently, his phone has been deactivated. We did find a known member
of the Korean mob at the out-of-the-way house of the dead woman in St Charles.
What′s the connection?″

Clarence Christopher sat forward. It
wasn′t often the two major arms of the government′s law and order
forces intersected and Morgan Kirkwood didn′t appear important enough to
be the catalyst for this high-level meeting. Unfortunately, Jack Temple had
stumbled into something and Morgan was the pointman.

‶
You tell us,″ Christopher
said.
‶
We
inherited the Kirkwood woman and were given only part of the story. Don′t
bother to deny it.″ He stopped Brian Ashleigh with a wave of his hand.
Both Jacob and Clarence knew how agencies worked. They didn′t reveal
anything that wasn′t necessary. So the file Christopher had read on Ms.
Kirkwood gave her background and a few details of the one and only sanction
she′d been party to. What Ashleigh had in his protected files was the rest
of her story.

Washington slid a manila envelope across the
polished surface of the conference room table.
‶
This is the whole of it,″
he said. Jacob opened it, finding a CD and some papers inside.

‶
The CD is a video history of
her. The notes tell you everything we know.″

Christopher raised a silver eyebrow.

‶
Everything,″ Washington
repeated.

Jacob knew of her involvement in freeing Hart
Lewiston from the Korean prison during the
‵
88 Olympics. Twelve years had
passed without a sound from her and now the Koreans were after her. It
didn′t make sense and Jacob liked things to add up.

‶
Lewiston is a U.S. senator, a
presidential candidate. Does he have anything to do with this?″

‶
We′ve checked him
out,″ Ashleigh admitted.
‶
He′s as clean as snow.″

‶
What about the Koreans?″

‶
We can′t find a
connection.″

‶
Revenge?″

‶
After twelve years?″

‶
It′s a matter of honor.
They probably know she helped free Lewiston and she beat their number one
champion out of a gold medal.″

‶
Makes no sense,″ Jacob
replied.
‶
The
same people aren′t in power any longer.″

‶
What about those that
are?″

***

Just how much money did Jack have on his
person? Morgan thought of this when he left to ditch the car. She wanted that
car. It had taken a fair amount of time to restore it to peak performance. That
car could outrun any police vehicle between here and New York. It served them
three days. It seemed longer. She couldn′t believe he′d only shown
up in her life three days ago. It felt like they′d been running forever.

Morgan looked around at the room. It was
standard Holiday Inn fare, clean, bright and with a view of the pool below. She
thought he′d pick an out-of-the-way motel, something cheap and not the
kind of place you′d expect to find a CIA operative and a fugitive from a
twelve-year-old Olympic competition. Again she wondered about the cost and how
Jack was paying for it. He wouldn′t be stupid enough to use a charge
card, she hoped. If he had, someone would surely have traced them by now. She
whipped around, looking at all the windows and doors, suddenly feeling vulnerable.
Paranoia would invade her mind soon. She needed to talk to him, to find out
what he planned, but they didn′t communicate well. She′d learned
that twelve years ago by a practice pool. And from three days alone in the car
with him.

Morgan was alone and hungry. She had plenty to
survive on for a while. She didn′t know how long. Her plan, if she ever
needed one, was to abandon the house and make her way to Washington, D.C. in
the car. There she would contact Jacob Winston and turn herself in. She′d
met him once and she trusted him. He was a fair man, tall, serious with blue
eyes, and she felt he genuinely cared about her. If he suggested she go deeper
into the program, she would do it. Now she didn′t know. She hadn′t
expected to have anyone with her. She never expected to see Jack after they
returned from Seoul. She never expected to have him look at her and find her
body tingling with unfulfilled longing.

Jack was a problem.

She had to get away from him. Now was the
perfect time, before he got back from wherever he′d gone to dispose of
her car. He worked for the CIA, she thought. He was the professional here. He
could take care of himself. So why was she hesitating? She never hesitated
before. She always knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it. She′d
often had to fight for it, and she′d taken her share of the knocks, but
she could take care of herself. Jack was a hindrance. She needed to be alone,
running by herself, taking care of herself.

She swung around, searching for her backpack.
Loading it over her shoulder, she checked the room for anything else she might
need, then went toward the door. With her hand around the knob she stopped.
Should she leave him a note? He could return and think she′d been
kidnapped by the people looking for her.

Grabbing a piece of paper and pen from the
desk, she wrote quickly, but did not write a note for Jack. She scribbled the
hotel phone number on a scrap of paper and pushed it into her pocket. She would
call him in a few minutes and tell him she was all right. She wouldn′t
wait for him to talk. She wanted to hear his voice one more time, but would not
give him time to talk her out of her decision.

Morgan opened the door and peered into the long
hallway. The carpet, a maroon pattern that gave with her step, stretched the
length to the elevator. Lights at regular intervals bled overlapping pools on
the floor and walls. Morgan looked for the stairs. That exit should be better.
The elevator was a trap, a tiny room, with no escape. When it opened she would
be prey to anyone on the other side of the sliding doors.

Someone like Jack.

Or worse.

She left the room and closed the door. Ten feet
away, in the opposite direction, a red exit light hung over a door marked
‶
stairway.″
She headed for it. The door′s weight, designed to provide protection from
fire, gave as she pushed it open and turned to softly close it. Inside, the
walls were white. Huge pipes six inches in diameter ran up the wall behind the
door.

Morgan turned, took a step and walked directly
into Jack. She would have fallen if his hands hadn′t come out and grabbed
her.

‶
Where do you think you′re
going?″ He squeezed her hard against him. She didn′t struggle
because she knew it was useless. She was caught. His eyes were angry.
She′d seen anger before and it didn′t frighten her.