Dangerous Secrets (38 page)

‶
I used the rope.″ She
stopped to focus it in her mind.
‶
I don′t know where it
came from. I′m sure it hadn′t been there long. It was already set
up. It looked like something used in a circus. It was stretched taut and there
was a roller or pulley-type mechanism that I could hold onto and slide to the
ground.″

Jack frowned.

‶
I think the guard, the man who
caught me, was an agent. He must have set the rope up. It was a special kind of
cord, probably nylon, the kind circus acts use. It stretched from the roof to a
point outside the prison fence. At first I didn′t know what to do with
it. The guards were getting closer. I couldn′t scale it hand over hand to
the ground. There wasn′t time to harness Lewiston and send him alone,
then go after him. And I didn′t know who would be on the other end.
Lewiston couldn′t have weighed more than ninety pounds. I slipped the
harness over him and jumped into it with him. The guards broke through to the
roof just as I started the flight downward.″

Morgan was fully in the present now. She no
longer felt as if she was on the roof of the prison in the dark of night with
bullets that could pierce her body and cut her life short.

‶
I knew we were going to fall
hard. It hadn′t rained in the week I′d been in Seoul. The ground
would be hard, packed. We′d be lucky if we were killed. If we only broke
our legs the prison guards would be on us in seconds.″ Her voice was
flatter now.
‶
Lights
were flashing and sirens sounded loud and close. Just before we reached the
ground, the agent I′d made contact with earlier broke our fall. As he cut
the harness, separating Lewiston from me, two cars came from nowhere. A man,
whose face I couldn′t see, jumped out of one of them and took Lewiston.
He got into one car while I was pushed into the second one. It couldn′t
have been more than fifteen seconds from the time we got to the ground until we
were speeding away from the prison.″

Morgan finished. She felt drained, tired, in
need of sleep. She slipped into a chair and hung her head. It had been so long
ago, yet it had been yesterday. She′d never ended that night. She still
lived it over and over in her dreams and in her fear of someone coming to take
back what she had.

For a long time neither of them spoke. Morgan
didn′t have the energy to wonder what he was thinking, what he thought of
her story. Did he believe her? She didn′t think so. Jack was one of them.
He worked with the kind of men who′d sent her into that prison, that
valley of death, and who never thought she would emerge.

‶
It′s funny,″ she
laughed without humor.

‶
What?″ he asked.

‶
The very men who sent me to
that prison are the ones I′m running to now for help.″

He didn′t say anything in reply.

‶
Am I going to survive, Jack? Or
is this another staged play that has only one inevitable end?″

Jack stood up and came to her. She was
exhausted. Her voice was even tired. She could hear it slow to a near slur.
Jack took her arm, pulling her up from the chair with ease. Silently he led her
to her bedroom. Morgan was suddenly tired. She sat on the bed while he went to
the bathroom. She heard the water running. He came back with a glass of water.
Morgan drank greedily as if she needed to replenish the liquid in her body from
her feet up, as if she′d expended all the energy to run the prison hall,
scale the stairs and zipline down the rope to the ground.

‶
Lie back,″ Jack said,
taking the empty glass.

She obeyed.
‶
Do you know who he was,
Jack?″

‶
Who?″

‶
The other man. The guard who
set up the rope?″

Jack shook his head.
‶
You should rest
now.″ He turned to leave.

‶
Who was the other man,
Jack?″

He stopped and looked at her.

‶
The man who cut me out of the
harness. The one who took Hart Lewiston and was so careful to keep his face bidden.
Was that you, Jack?″

He stared at her for a long time. She
didn′t think he′d tell her. She could see the man′s shadow in
her mind, but not clearly enough to put form to it. Yet there was a familiarity
about him, some non-visible imprint that told her she knew him on some level.

Morgan had never thought about that man until
tonight. He′d simply been a savior, a nameless agent there to get her and
Lewiston to safety as fast as possible. Hart Lewiston needed to go to an
airstrip to get him out of the country. She, on the other hand, had a date with
a crowd in the Olympic Pavilion. The two cars separated and Morgan didn′t
dwell on anything else about him except her report that later told her he was
safely away from Korean soil.

‶
It was you, wasn′t it,
Jack?″ she asked again.

‶
Yes,″ he whispered and
closed the door.

***

Jack went straight to the minibar and broke the
seal. He grabbed a one-shot bottle of Johnnie Walker Red and upended it. It was
an incredible story. If Jack hadn′t been there for part of it, he might
not believe it. He felt sick. Had they really done what Morgan believed? Had
they set her up to fail? And had he been an unwitting party to the deception?
If she hadn′t come out of that prison he was there to get her out. If she
were killed trying to get Lewiston out he wouldn′t have been able to get
in.

The lights and sirens had his heart in his
mouth when they suddenly lit up the prison yard and surrounding area. It was
then he saw the rope. He didn′t know how it had come to be there, and it
wasn′t until Morgan was swinging her legs over the fence that he
understood its reason.

The plan was for Morgan to get to the roof and
the helicopter would pick them up and take them to a point between the arena
and the airport. Morgan would be taken off the helicopter and Lewiston would be
taken to a ship offshore. She would go back to the arena and complete her
competition.

Jack assumed something had happened to the
helicopter. It wasn′t unusual for things to change during an operation.
When the lights came on and the sirens sounded, guns would have been trained on
the sky. Landing a helicopter would have been suicide. The rope and the cars
were backup as was the guard inside. If he wasn′t an agent, they′d
bribed him to make sure the roof door was unlocked.

Morgan had to be wrong. If she had been found
in the prison, even if she and Lewiston had been dead, it would have been a
serious embarrassment to the United States. Jack wonder what the truth was.

He shook his head. She had to be wrong, but
somewhere in Jack′s gut he knew part of her story was real.

Chapter 8

The bed was comfortable, a peach-colored
comforter over standard white sheets, covering a firm mattress, but Morgan
couldn′t find a place which complemented her body. She′d turned
over more than once, punching the pillows up then flopping down on them. It
wasn′t her body, however, that was the problem. It was her mind. It was
active, too active and that was affecting her ability to find comfort.

She′d told her story to Jack. Almost all
of it. There were two items she left out. The ring. And the papers. A gold ring
with a heavy crest and some papers written in Korean. That′s what they
were after. What they wanted and were willing to kill her and anyone in her
path to get. They′d already killed one person trying to get to her. Would
they get to Jack? The thought almost cramped her stomach. She doubled up,
folding her arms over her abdomen and drawing her knees to her chest.
She′d lived all these years remembering him, thinking of him swimming in
some pool. She′d relived his kiss, fantasized his arms around her
countless times, but she′d never put him in her nightmare of escape. This
had been a solitary run, one in which she alone made her way to safety. And now
she had his safety on her mind.

She flipped over again. Opening her eyes, she
saw the bathroom in the darkened room. That was why she couldn′t sleep.
What happened there? What she refused to admit or discuss with Jack. It was on
her mind.
He
was on her mind, keeping
her awake. Jack had kissed her, devastated her with his mouth. That was going
through her mind, repeating over and over to the rapid beating of her heart.
He′d been right about her, pegged her as surely as if she were a child
caught stealing.

He was the bad boy of her mind, but she was the
bad girl too. What set her apart was she looked like the debutante. Her
adoptive mother had worked hard to smooth some of her rough edges, teaching her
manners and how to choose the right clothes, taking her to ballets and concerts
at the Kennedy Center. And she was the phenom of the school too. She′d
racked up trophies for gymnastics since she started in the sport at thirteen.

Everything was going for her, popularity, good
grades, friends, a loving mother, but she was attracted to the dangerous guys,
the hard bodies who were often in trouble and whom she could deal with on their
level, yet she shied away from them, thinking that life on the street would
rear up and snatch her back to it. She hated life on the street, but feared she
could be there again.

Jack was like the bad boys. He was the ultimate
dangerous one because he had her heart. He′d discovered her secret
attraction for him in Seoul and he′d used that against her tonight. And
she had been powerless to stop him. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted it from
the moment she discovered it was him pinning her to the floor of her hallway.
She watched him, stared at him when he wasn′t looking, just as
she′d done to the guys in her school. She only looked at them when they
weren′t looking at her. She rarely initiated conversation when they were
near, and often refused dates when asked.

Jack was the epitome of the bad boy, all of
them rolled into one. But with him she couldn′t refuse. She
couldn′t not talk to him. She couldn′t not remember his kiss—either
the one in Seoul or the one in the bathroom.

Morgan sat up and pushed her feet to the floor.
Why had he shown up right now? She′d planned to escape on her own if the
need arose. She would get to Washington, contact Jacob Winston as she′d
been instructed and take matters from there. She could have done it too. She
was sure she would have made it, but now she had no car and she had Jack. They,
whoever they were, had to know he was with her. After the helicopter incident,
there was no doubt that someone would have gone over the house and found some
clue to his identity. He′d already called Washington and that had
resulted in the two of them coming close to being killed. Jack′s quick
thinking had saved them. But if Jack had never shown up, where would she be
now? He′d known to keep silent and stay put when they were in the tree
and he′d saved her at her house and at Michelle′s
‶
cabin″
in the woods. She never would have thought of the water hose.

Morgan stared at the rumpled bed. She gave up
trying to get to sleep. She wished they′d taken an efficiency.
She′d have a kitchen and she could cook something. She liked to cook, but
they were on the ninth floor of a hotel. She could do nothing except return to
the living room and confront Jack.

‶
. . . we don′t believe
she′s dead and we′re going to find her.″ Morgan stopped in
her tracks when she saw Jan. The face of Janine Acres, her former teammate,
filled the television screen.
‶
Morgan is a very self-sufficient woman. Since the
police admit they haven′t found a body we can only assume she
wasn′t in the house and that she′s somewhere alone.″ This
came from Alicia Tremaine. Morgan hadn′t seen Allie in years. She
hadn′t changed. She was still beautiful and poised and in control. She
played the same kind of character on her television program. Morgan stiffened
when the film of her came on the screen. It was the same clip they used of her
every time the Olympics came around. There she stood, twelve years earlier,
wearing a red, white and blue leotard, crushing roses to her chest, tears
spilling down her face like Niagara Falls as she sang
The Star Spangled Banner.

‶
What are they doing?″
Morgan whispered to herself. She took a step toward the television as if she
could stop the action. Jack turned to look at her.
‶
No,″ she
said, the sound coming from low in her throat.
‶
They don′t
understand.″

She went to Jack.
‶
You′ve got to
do something. They don′t know what they′re doing.″

‶
What′s wrong?″ he
asked.

‶
They′ll be killed. Anyone
that has anything to do with me, they won′t hesitate to kill them. They
haven′t an inkling of what′s headed their way.″ She stared at
Jack, pleading with him. She needed his help. He could do something, call
someone, get help for Janine and Alicia.
‶
We have to go back
there,″ she said, more to herself than Jack.
‶
We have to find
them and let them know I′m alive. They have to stop looking for me.″

***

Jacob heard his wife, Marianne, laughing. He
stared through the window, watching her and his three-year-old daughter,
Krysta, splashing in the pool outside their Rock Creek Park home. For a moment
he thought of joining them. The cool water would be refreshing on his skin. His
heart swelled when he looked at Marianne and grew even larger when Krysta was
included in the picture.

Jacob had met Marianne because of his job as
Director of WITSEC, and he often thought with a smile of how much he had
changed since she became part of his life. And how protecting one woman had led
to such happiness for him.

He could always look at the tangible Marianne
and see the intangible need to help someone else. He supposed that was one of
the reasons Morgan Kirkwood intrigued him. Jacob had left the file Forrest
Washington had given him in his office, but he′d brought the CD home.

Returning to his computer, which was constantly
on, he reviewed the CD of Morgan Kirkwood′s early life for the third time
that day. There was nothing confidential about the contents. The paperwork,
back in his office, detailed her interview and training with the CIA prior to
the Korean Olympics. It gave in-depth information on her biological parents,
her life on the street, her adoption, her adoptive mother′s death from
cancer, and Morgan′s career as a gymnast.

The CD played, showing him a younger version of
the woman whose older face he′d seen from a photo in the file in his
office. There was little here for anyone to see. Morgan Kirkwood′s early life
through some photos of her in detention centers, her adoption proceedings which
had been filmed as a matter of court record, several practice sessions in
various gyms with different outfits and different degrees of skills, and her
performance at the Seoul Olympics. The CD moved onto Morgan with a tearstained
face, holding her roses as she sang. Like everyone else in America, Jacob
remembered this moment. In the following interviews when she looked afraid and
alone, she never answered the question of why she sang, more than to say she
thought it seemed appropriate.

He wondered whether Brian Ashleigh and Forrest
Washington had held out on him. Finding Morgan Kirkwood was not Jacob′s
responsibility, just as protecting her wasn′t Jack′s. Jacob dealt
with people in the program, not finding missing persons, but she had raised the
consciousness levels of someone extremely high up in the system. His director,
Christopher, had said it. She was too small a person to concern people like
Brian Ashleigh, yet he′d come personally to a meeting about her. That
intrigued Jacob, but he was finding reviewing her life a waste of time. There
was definitely something missing that made Morgan Kirkwood important.

Jacob read between the lines. At the level
Morgan Kirkwood sat, she must be unfurling some extremely high feathers.
She′d been home from Seoul for twelve years. She′d lived a normal,
unassuming life. Then suddenly Olympic fever hits the country and her life is
in danger.

What was the link? Whose buttons did Morgan
Kirkwood push? Who was pushing back? And with a deadly force.

Krysta′s voice, high and laughing,
pierced the silence, and Jacob knew she was coming in from the water. In a
moment, Marianne would appear and tell him it was time to get away from his
job. She never asked him who he was working with or what was going on.
She′d been part of the program and understood the confidential nature of
what he did. This CD was part of every public television system in the U.S.
He′d seen it over and over on the news since Morgan′s home
exploded, and no sign of her had been found since. But Jacob knew she was
alive. Somewhere between St. Charles and Washington, D.C., she was with his
friend, Jack Temple. They were together and in danger.

‶
Daddy, I went swimming.″
Krysta bounded into his office and ran to him. Her three-year-old voice
couldn′t say
‶
swimming″ correctly, but Jacob understood her.
She climbed into his arms, her swimsuit and body wet from the pool. He ignored
the water and pulled her onto his lap.

‶
How far did you swim?″

‶
As far as Mommy. All the way to
the other side.″ She pointed toward the window. Jacob swung around in the
chair and looked over his shoulder.

‶
That′s wonderful.″
He kissed her wet hair.

‶
Who is that?″ Krysta
asked, switching her attention with lightning speed the way children often do.

‶
One of America′s
heroes,″ he answered, knowing any explanation would be too much for her
to understand.

Marianne came in then.
‶
Krysta,
you′re wetting your daddy.″

Krysta looked at her mother as if nothing was
wrong. Jacob glanced at his wife and his heartbeat thumped. He thought after
five years of marriage her presence wouldn′t affect him so strongly, but
he was wrong. He hoped the urge to make love to her never went away. Even when
they were in their nineties he wanted to look at her and feel this sudden
quickening of his heart.

‶
Come on, it′s time to get
dressed.″ Krysta jumped down and ran toward Marianne′s outstretched
hand. Marianne looked over her daughter at him.
‶
It′s time you closed up
shop.″

‶
Closed up shop,″ the
little girl repeated. They turned to leave. At the door Krysta turned back.
‶
Daddy,
can I be a hero?″

Jacob smiled.
‶
Of course you can.″

‶
Do I get a ring,
too?′′

‶
If you want one.″ Jacob
didn′t understand the reference, but appeased her anyway.

‶
And flowers?″

‶
All heroes get flowers,″
he said.

They left the room and Jacob reached forward to
terminate the program. His hand stopped in mid-air.

***

Jack hung the phone up. Morgan looked at him,
more nervous than she could remember being since she stopped competing. The
garish light of a convenience store on some back highway not far from
Indianapolis washed Jack′s features into craggy shadows that made him
look more dangerous than she knew him to be.

He had led her from the hotel to a black Jeep
Cherokee and driven until the density of the city population gave way to
suburban developments and then to rural farmland.

‶
They′ll be safe,″
he told her.

‶
How do you know?″

‶
Because I trust the people I
just talked to,″ he snapped. She watched his shoulders drop and knew he
regretted it. In a calmer voice, he said,
‶
They′ll find them and
keep them safe.″

‶
Maybe I should try one more
time.′′ Morgan moved toward the phone, but Jack′s hand on her
arm stopped her.

‶
You′ve tried, Morgan. She
isn′t answering that cell phone and you already said it′s been
years since you dialed it. You don′t even know if the number is still
hers. People change plans all the time.″

Morgan felt defeated, beaten, helpless. She
could accomplish nothing, help no one, not even herself, and it was her fault
her friends could die. She should have known. They′d made a pact. It
sounded silly now to think about it. It was what friend did in high school. And
Morgan didn′t have many friends. She hadn′t given that pact a
thought until she saw Jan and Allie on the television screen. They had been so
young at the time. Morgan was eighteen. Her mother had died only two weeks
before and Jan and Allie came to her, both of them fifteen, taking her with
them, back to their families, so she wouldn′t be alone. They had vowed
that summer that they would be friends forever. If any of them needed the
others, they would come. All they had to do was call.