Free Fall (26 page)

“Still? Even after everything I’ve said?” she asked, all the self-doubt in her voice tearing him up inside. “The kind of person I am—a woman who could leave her husband and her children?”

Decades ago when he’d begun his undercover career, he might well have judged her, back when he’d been stuck in very narrow views of right and wrong. He’d seen too much since then to live that way anymore. Life was far more complicated.

“Annie, you are not perfect. Neither am I. No one is. This is likely the worst possible time to tell you, but I loved you the first time I saw you. Each day, as I got to know you better only made me love you more. It made me want to leave behind my old job and teach by your side in reality. To have the privilege to keep right on loving you.”

More of those tears flowed from the strongest woman he’d ever met. “Sam…”

He touched her mouth. “You are not alone anymore.”

She swayed into him, her mouth opening to speak, but he stopped her again. “Just think about what I said. I do not want an answer now when so much is turned upside down in your life. I only told you so you would know, you are not alone anymore.”

She kissed his fingers lightly, then held his hand to her chest. “It’s that simple for you to commit?”

“Not simple at all. But it is true and I have had much longer than you to think through this.”

Her pulse raced against his hand pressed to her heart, a tentative smile pushing through her tears. “Sam, I want to believe I can have that kind of happiness again. The picture you paint of us teaching together is incredible. I want to be with you, if that’s possible once I find out if I even have a future…”

The beautiful smile on her face faded into a frown, her eyes drifting from him to the window, then widening with confusion, then outright fear.

She pointed toward the tarmac outside, toward the halo of halogen lights. “That’s Ajaya, from the school. And one of those agents wearing a dark suit has a gun pointed at him.” The light gleamed off the agent’s cowboy hat. “He’s forcing Ajaya onto an airplane.”

***

Ajaya didn’t know who to trust anymore.

The American agent, Mr. Jones, acted like his friend, but he had a gun out, his hat in place like he was some African American cowboy. He said leaving was for his protection, but he wouldn’t explain why they were getting on an airplane. How much longer would his life be out of his control? When could he become a man and take charge of his own life, his own destiny?

Except he could never have the one thing he wanted most.

To go back. To live with his family and be a child again. The one thing he could never have.

The night wind full of dirt grated against his skin, carrying the sounds from the festival close by. The familiar music and scent of grilling meat reminded him of home. So much so he could swear he heard his mother calling his name.

“Ajaya…”

Mr. Jones pivoted on his heels, weapon leveled.

“Ajaya…”

It wasn’t his imagination. Someone was shouting for him. He looked and couldn’t believe… “Mrs. Johnson?”

Somehow, impossibly real, his English teacher ran toward him. His chemistry teacher Mr. Al-Shennawi trailed protectively behind her. Ajaya didn’t understand how it could be true. But Mr. Jones was already lowering his weapon. They were all on the same side. He was safe.

For the first time in longer than he could remember, Ajaya wasn’t alone anymore.

***

Stella winced as another firework exploded in the sky.

The courtyard celebration was already a security nightmare, full of people in thick layers of clothes that could hide an assortment of weapons—as her kanga hid her gun and the knife strapped to her leg.

Too bad there was nothing to protect her from letting Jose break her heart all over again. She was the smart, logical type. Except when it came to him. She tried to keep her eyes off Jose and his team as they stood in a protective row in front of the dais, red berets a perfect blend for the festive colors.

Her eyes betrayed her and skated front anyway, right to her pararescueman, the tallest one standing lean and strong in the middle. The loss burned over her, almost sending her to her knees. She’d pushed him away, but what choice did she have? Why did she keep setting herself up for this pain again and again?

She couldn’t afford to figure that one out now, not when she needed to focus every ounce of energy on the celebration around her. If they could get through this evening without incident, they might not have answers, but they would have time and space to follow up leads without fear of a national incident involving a major political figure.

Her earpiece chattered with voices from the command post, agents and military guys discussing surveillance. She was on the ground to gather human intel rather than sitting behind a computer. Mr. Smith had gotten past parking her behind a monitor. Not that any of them knew what they were looking for. They were shadowboxing with a ghostly enemy.

Hundreds of guests dressed in ceremonial clothes filled the tents with color—a mix of flowing robes to tuxedos. Women covered their hair with everything from simple headcloths to colorful hijabs. Jewelry, beads, and gold glinted in the lights, creating one distraction after another as she searched for guns, knives, and any other possible weapons. Even the display on the dais containing a case of African artifacts reminded her of how easily she’d turned similar remnants into tools to survive in the warlord’s compound. Except she hadn’t needed them because Jose had come for her. At the compound, he’d pushed through the doorway wearing his full battle-rattle, face streaked with camo paint.

But she’d recognized him without hesitation.

She forced her thoughts away from how she’d known him so instinctively.

More fireworks popped overhead, but otherwise the skies were empty. All flights had been canceled until after the guest of honor made her speech. The airspace would stay clear, no risk of threats from above.

Meanwhile, the invited guests and dignitaries partied on, picking at falafels, fried plantains, the spongy sour cake-like injera, meats, fruits, all local but surprisingly not overdone. In a country full of starving people, excesses would have been wrong—not to mention bad press.

Her mother had fought and sacrificed her entire adult life to help others here. Just as Jose sacrificed his life for others? Was it somehow her fate to love people who gave up a family for some higher calling? What was the answer for her?

A part of her wanted to shout at the Melanies and Joses of the world that this fight was futile. They couldn’t win and they were forfeiting a personal life for nothing. She pressed a finger to her earpiece, sifting through all the chatter. So much going on at once.

Mr. Smith monitoring the placement of security forces as the vice president’s wife took the podium.

Mr. Brown calling in from the entrance checkpoint.

Mr. Jones escorting Ajaya to a secure location.

Voices in her headset competed with the music swelling through the air, played on instruments that were works of art themselves—bamboo flutes, xylophones, kettle and clay pot drums, a kora harp. And those were only the ones she recognized.

Her earpiece filled with the cool logical tones of Mr. Brown. “Heads-up. Suspicious activity in the west corner of the park. Two persons of interest from a student rebel group. Wearing green hats. I repeat, west corner of the park.”

Smith came on the line, barking out orders shifting his security around. Stella angled sideways through the crowd, arching up on her toes for a better view. Damn it, she needed a clearer vantage point. Period.

No one questioned how Brown could remember faces from thousands in a registry of suspicious persons. The man had a photographic memory and a careful attention to detail. And the timing lined up for some kind of move to be made. The vice president’s wife was giving her statement about women’s rights in the region. Gifts were being exchanged, including a doll passed from a local official’s daughter. Beads on the doll’s dress gleamed in the morning sun.

Stella grabbed a light pole and stepped up onto the ridged edge, searching the crowd—until, yes, there were two men walking side by side, both wearing hats that matched agent Brown’s description. But where was he? She searched for his dark suit in the splash of color, careful not to linger on the PJs still creating a wall of strength in front of the dais. She found Smith an instant later, just past the stage.

Jones would have been easy to find with his outback hat, but he was at the airport taking Ajaya into protective custody so he could be moved to the States. So why wasn’t there a dark suit on the west side of the park? Only military uniforms converging for protection as ordered.

Hanging onto the lamppost, she angled around, looking off to the east, which didn’t make sense. Mr. Brown was in the back, watching the west. Except he wasn’t. She saw his dark suit and short ginger hair, spiky on top. Okay, so he wasn’t in his assigned position and he’d called in a report that shifted the bulk of security to the other side of the park. Could be explained away by something as simple as him finding a better vantage point as she had.

No big deal. She was just looking for trouble because of hints of a mole. And there were always rumors and fears of a leak in intelligence.

She glanced back at the rear entrance to see who’d taken Brown’s place…

No one. She slid off the lamppost and back to the ground. Her feet carried her toward the east side of the park, where she’d seen Mr. Brown on the edges of the party.

Brown didn’t make mistakes. He was Mr. Logical, like her. Except right now she wasn’t thinking logically. She was thinking that her every instinct screamed something was wrong about Mr. Brown. That he was the kind who could have cracked codes to get his hands on the list of agents. That he was the kind who would have the aptitude to encrypt the information.

Him and hundreds of other people.

Except he was here and she had questions with very little time to waste waiting for answers. She pushed through the crush of bodies, applause and cheers reverberating over something in the speech. Damn it, she needed to move faster. If she voiced her suspicions over the headset to Mr. Smith, she could divert security in the wrong direction—and Mr. Brown would hear her.

This was a no-win.

Finally, the crowd thinned and she spotted Mr. Brown on the sidelines. Approaching him in the darkened corner didn’t feel right. And when the hell had she started going so much on “feelings”?

Since Jose.

She looked closer. Brown’s spiked ginger-colored hair shone… along with the glint of his gun.

Gun?

Why the hell did he have his weapon drawn? She palmed her 9 mm. Damn, damn, damn, a shoot-out here would be a very bad thing. And maybe his intent was benign. Even so, she couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

She brought her sleeve up to her mouth and spoke into the mic. “Carson here, east side of park. Mr. Brown, why do you have your weapon drawn? Over.”

Mr. Smith hissed over the headset. “Draw down. Now. That’s an order.”

Brown pivoted, fast and sharp on his heels, facing her for an instant. His eyes blared the worst message of all. Desperation.

As if in slow motion, she saw his gun arm swing back toward the stage. Toward the vice president’s wife.

“No!” she shouted, whipping her 9 mm from under the folds of her wrap.

Sprinting, she wished like hell she had Jose’s speed. Her heart leaped in her throat. Her ears roared so loudly she couldn’t have heard a gunshot or screams. She caught a flash of red out of the corner of her eyes. Blood? No. Jose’s hat as he vaulted onto the stage to protect his charge. She ran faster, closing the gap. And thank God the few people in her way dropped to the ground, giving her a clear shot at Agent Brown.

A man she’d worked with for the past six months.

She squeezed off two shots without hesitation, catching him in the shoulder. Ten feet away, Brown spun around from the impact. His fist still gripped his gun.

Pain exploded in her leg. In her head. She stumbled forward toward her target.

Then she smelled it. Blood. Her own. Dripping in her eyes and down the sides of her nose. She fell to her knees and shot Brown again, blasting away his kneecap. Howling, he fell to his side. His gun skittered away. And finally, she let herself sag the rest of the way to the ground.

As she lay on her side, she looked into the eyes of a man she’d trusted with her life and asked, “How could you?”

Sweat rolled down his face, his mouth twisted in agony. “Wouldn’t you do anything to protect your family?”

Her family? Images of her brothers, her father, her mother all scrolled through her mind in the fast-track life review. But then the reel slowed and focused on one face, one man.

Jose. Her family. And she’d foolishly pushed him away. Love and loss seeped through her as tangibly as her life’s blood leaving her body.

Jose was in hell.

Draped over the vice president’s wife, he needed to be with Stella. Each gunshot echoing in his ears ripped a roar of denial from him. He’d done his job, protected the vice president’s wife, but at such a high cost. Stella had been shot. She’d defied the odds to stop an all-out massacre, and he doubted he could have done anything more.

The fact that they’d both been doing their jobs was piss poor comfort. His heart hammered in his ears. Where the hell were his objective instincts from years of training?

A hand clamped him on the shoulder. He jerked, looking to find Bubbles crouched beside him. “I’ve got things here. The Saint too. Go treat Stella. Go.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Jose launched off the stage into the mayhem below. Jose pushed past a couple shoving back against him, desperate to get away. His eyes stayed locked on Stella, the world around him a peripheral blur.

Security had their hands full restoring order. Fang loped up alongside him, medical rucksack in hand that carried enough supplies to treat up to three patients. How fucking ironic that Stella and Brown would be sharing lifesaving gear. Fang kept pace as they dodged musicians huddled by a bandstand. There was no discussing who would treat Brown and who would take Stella.

She was his, damn it.

Fang could care for the traitorous bastard.

A trio knelt around Stella, and he could only see her feet and a trailing edge of the kanga he’d given her. If she was dead… Even thinking it threatened to knock the ground out from under him. He could rub that sobriety coin all damn day and nothing,
nothing
would get him through if he lost the most important person in his life.

“Move,” he shouted, to hell with control and calm, “medic coming through.”

The wall of people parted and… Oh God. The streetlamp bathed her in stark light that revealed everything, too much. Stella lay stone still, her eyes half-open and glazed with pain. A wad of bloodied handkerchiefs lay beside her head, no doubt someone’s attempt to help.

Blood streamed from a scrape along her temple. Most would have gone for that first, but he evaluated fast and ranked it as the least of their worries.

Her thigh wound pumped blood from the femoral artery. She could bleed out in about five minutes.

“Hang on, Stella.” Dropping to the ground, he slapped a hand to her leg and pushed hard while tearing into the medic pack with the other.

He had gear for a splint, tracheotomy, intubation, and countless other lifesaving measures he prayed he wouldn’t need. Finally, thank God, finally his body went into autopilot. A tourniquet for her leg. Bandages. IV antibiotics.

Beside him, Fang treated Agent Brown who kept groaning,
“Let me die, let me die.”

Fang muttered, “Not a chance. You’ll face your firing squad.”

How fucking ironic—and unfair—that Stella had aimed to maim when her enemy had shot to kill.

Her fingers clamped his arm weakly. He looked into her eyes again. Bad, bad idea. Professional distance crumbled.

Her lips moved but nothing came out other than a faint whisper he couldn’t understand.

“Shhh,” he soothed, checking her vitals, willing his hand not to shake as he counted her pulse, simultaneously monitoring the drip on the IV. “You’re going to be fine, Stella. I’m that damn good at my job.”

She blinked up at him. Alive. Awake. For how long?

He shouted over his shoulder, rage and desperation chewing through his gut. “We need medical transport. Stat!” He looked back at her, adjusting her elevated feet. “Stella, stay with us. You’re going to be fine. A transfusion or two and you’ll be kicking ass again. I promise.”

As he checked her pupils he realized… she was blinking in a pattern.

“Morse code?” he asked, focusing on her while listening for updates in his earpiece. Where the hell was the ambulance? “Are you trying to tell me something?”

Yes,
she blinked.
Agent
Brown.

“Agent Brown. We know. We’ve got him. You got him, wounded but not dead. You kept him alive for interrogation.” A siren wailed in the distance. “You did great, Stella. Help’s coming.”

She squeezed his arm again.
Love. You.

“Love you too.” And he meant it, with every cell in his body that screamed for her to hold on. Not to give up.

Come hell or high water, if she lived, he would do anything to make sure he didn’t lose her again. He’d thought he was protecting her by staying away, but she was right. He’d only been shielding his heart from the possibility of losing another family. Yes, he carried a genetic flaw and he couldn’t forget that, but he’d made different choices for his life than his sister and mother. He sure as hell refused to be like his dad, enabling, avoiding.

Jose monitored her thready heartbeat and willed her to stay with him. He and Stella deserved a life together.

Without her, he had no future. “God, Stella, you can’t die, damn it. I want to spend my life with you.”

But he’d waited a second too long to tell her. Her eyes stayed closed, no more blinking messages.

She’d passed out cold.

***

Pain hovered just below the surface under a blanket of drugs.

Part of Stella wanted to stay under the numbing fog, and another part of her insisted she needed to wake up, even if that meant facing the agony of… gunshot wounds.

The hellish scenario flashed through her mind in fragments. Brown’s betrayal. Shooting him. Him shooting her.

Jose’s shout of horror piercing her headset.

Her memory filled with the sight of him leaning over her, treating her, pleading with her to hang on. The fear in his eyes had let her know just how bad her injuries were. By that time, she’d been floating in a cottony cloud of shock.

Was she alive now? Or hovering in a limbo state?

She drew in air and could swear she was actually breathing, except there was no antiseptic scent of a hospital. Her body felt so heavy, anchored by the crisp weight of a thin blanket.

A sheet? She forced her hand to grip the sheet, then move to her face where tubes pumped oxygen to her nose. No wonder she hadn’t detected the standard hospital smell.

At least she was alive. Knowing that, she fought through the hazy pain, fought her way back so she could see Jose and tell him how much she loved him. She wasn’t missing out on that chance again.

Her eyes opened and a chair screeched back against the floor. She turned her head on the pillow and found… her mother.

A smile of relief spread across her mother’s face. “Good morning, kiddo. How do you feel?”

“Mom?” she croaked, then coughed.

Her mother passed her water to sip through a bendy straw just like when Stella had the chicken pox at five years old.

How could she have forgotten that?

Annie set the cup on the bedside table. “I’ll call for the nurse.”

“No, please.” Stella gripped her wrist. “Wait. Tell me what happened first.”

“You’re in a hospital. You were shot twice. One bullet grazed your temple. The other hit a major artery in your thigh.” She squeezed her hand. “But you’re going to be fine. Jose treated you on the scene while you waited for the ambulance. The doctor said Jose saved your life.”

Her voice trailed off and she pressed a palm to her chest. Annie blinked back tears that spoke louder than words of how close she’d come to dying. She owed Jose so much. “And the list, the names?”

“Agent Brown was the leak. It appears he was turned traitor when he built up gambling debts. An enemy exploited that weakness. I’m not privy to all the details, but I’m guessing they may offer him his life in exchange for all his contacts. Regardless, the leak has been plugged.”

Annie clicked through the high notes like the seasoned professional she was and Stella felt an uncanny sense of looking in the mirror. How humbling to think she was so much like this woman whose choices frustrated the hell out of her.

She would get the rest of the details later, once she could link up with her contacts at Interpol. She intended to press hard for the right to sift through every piece of data the analytical Mr. Brown recorded, check and recheck each piece of paper he touched. If he’d falsified so much as an order for candy bars, she would find it.

And she couldn’t help but wonder if she might have been more effective from the start if she’d stuck to what she did best.

Analyzing data.

“Uhm, Stella?” her mother asked, uncertainty looking so alien on her confident mom. “You need to know I’m coming back to the States.”

Pain meds dripping through the IV tube fuzzed regular details like the sun shining through the window and the bedpan on the rolling table.

Sifting through her mother’s words made her head throb. She pressed her fingers against her temple—and winced as she touched the bandage. She’d come that close to dying from a bullet to the brain.

Stella thumbed the remote and raised the head of the bed, wincing at the stab of pain as her leg moved all of a couple of millimeters. “What about your whole witness protection program?”

“A lot of years have passed since I was in the loop.” She smoothed back her silver-streaked hair. “I haven’t been an active agent in so long anything I know is outdated. Maybe I’ve been hiding out here in Africa, afraid to face you and your brothers. Afraid to face myself.”

“Wow, I don’t know what to say.” She reached for the cup and sipped more water to clear her throat and her thoughts.

“I don’t intend to camp in your front yard, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“That isn’t what I said.” The thought of spending more time with her mother was scary, yes, but also… amazing.

“Sorry to be defensive.” She rubbed her bare ring finger where she’d once worn a plain gold wedding band. “I haven’t put together my whole plan, but knowing that you almost died out there and I could have missed the opportunity to see you again? I just want the chance to get to know you and your brothers again.”

“I can understand that.” She felt the same way. Second chances were rare in life. “If you need help, just let me know.”

“I’m a teacher. I can support myself, and sadly, there’s no shortage of orphan schools in the United States as well. I’ve been thinking about that a lot as your agency friends work on placing Ajaya somewhere in the States.”

“What about your, uh, boyfriend?” She hadn’t missed how Mr. Al-Shennawi never left her mother’s side—except for now.

Annie smiled, as if reading her thoughts. “He’s just outside the door. We’ve talked about taking teaching jobs at the same school, maybe lead a beautifully boring life together.”

Stella reached a hand out to her mom, knowing all too well how much courage it took to hope for a happy ending. “I hope your dreams play out for you, Mom, I really do.”

Her mother looked at her extended arm, an olive branch, and her eyes filled with tears. Annie squeezed her daughter’s hand. A sense of peace filled Stella, a lot more soothing than any painkiller dripping from that bag on the IV pole. She and her mother still had plenty to talk through and fences to mend, but they’d made a good start.

“Hey, Mom? Could you do me a favor?”

“Anything. Just ask.”

“Could you find Jose? I really need to talk to him.”

Reaching out to her mother had been a good first step in putting her life back together. But nothing would be okay again until she made things right with Jose. The love she’d seen in his eyes when he’d treated her back at the festival gave her hope. She just prayed she hadn’t been hallucinating from blood loss.

Because the pain in her brutalized leg was nothing compared to the agony she would feel if she lost Jose for good.

***

Jose stared into the steaming cup of coffee his buddy Bubbles kept refilling. The big lug sat beside him on the cracked leather sofa, offering silent support.

The night had been the longest of his life. Hands down. Once he’d stabilized Stella at the scene, he’d been left with no choice but to turn her over to paramedics. Fang had held him back as he’d tried to force his way into the ambulance. Only Mr. Smith’s promise to keep him in the loop had managed to calm him down enough to keep him from getting arrested.

The bastard Brown had survived and was under guard on a different floor of the hospital. Jose had ditched his bloodied ABU jacket, but refused to leave the hospital. He waited, in his camo pants, boots, and T-shirt. The doctor sounded knowledgeable, but trusting Stella’s care to someone he didn’t know in a third world country hospital was tough, to say the least.

Normally he would have flipped his sobriety coin. God knows the painful crawl of hours waiting for word on Stella had been beyond stressful. He glanced at Bubbles. “Thanks for hanging out here with me.”

“No problem. It’s what we do for each other.”

The words resonated, reminding him of how he’d said the same thing to his teammates in the past. They all said it. His team had been like a family to him, helping him keep his head above water, just as he liked to think he helped them.

How much better would it be in a rock solid family? With Stella? Because he knew now. He was in for the long haul. He was a marathon man, after all.

Soft footsteps whispered down the hall, coming closer, around the corner. Stella’s mother walked into the waiting room.

Jose stood, fast, sloshing hot coffee onto his finger. “Stella?”

Exhaustion stamped its mark on her face, her clothes wrinkled from sleeping in a chair. She looked like… a worried mother. “She’s awake and asking to see you. The doctor’s checking her over now.”

Thank God.

The knowledge that she was out of the woods damn near took his knees out. Annie must have known because she reached for him, giving his arm a simple squeeze.

Then it hit him. If he married Stella, he got a family along with her. And what do you know? The thought didn’t scare him. It felt… kind of right.

“Thank you.” He offered her his coffee. “I haven’t even touched this yet.”

“Thanks.” She smiled her gratitude.

Her eyes shifted from him to across the hall where her Egyptian friend stood at the nurse’s station. She patted Jose’s hand, leaving him to go to Stella.