Taking Fire (8 page)

14

I'm looking for my son.

The words replayed in Bobby's head in a slow loop, as if his mind needed time to process it over and over again.

She had a son.

“Taggart.”

His name on her lips made his heart rate double. She said it with such intimacy, so much uncertainty and anguish, he had to look at her again. And saw the stark fear on her face.

“Taggart. I—”

He shook his head, silencing her. He didn't want to hear what she had to say. Didn't want to see the pain that came with the words. But he not only saw it, he felt it, as she held his gaze, clearly committed to telling him something he knew he didn't want to hear.

He jerked his gaze away. He wanted so badly to hate her with everything in him.

But he hated himself more, because her words had just made him face an awful truth. He might still love her.

He was an even bigger fool now than he was back then, a fool for ever thinking he'd gotten her out of his system.

He hadn't written her off six years ago. He'd written off the idea of them being together by trying to convince himself that he hated her. Yet an idea that had lived for one week out of his life had somehow become a dream. A dream that her life would become a major part of his.

But it hadn't worked that way. She'd gone on without him.

It shouldn't hurt. And he was stupid and pathetic to let the thought of her with another man cut so deeply.

She had a son.

He breathed deep.

Well, hell, why not? He could fill a battleship with the things he didn't know about her.

He clenched his jaw and handed her the keys.

And he felt small suddenly, for holding on to so much anger over a weeklong affair and a bruised ego from six years ago. She had all the rights to pain in this scenario.

Neither of them said a word as she fired up the engine, shifted into gear, and took off.

Maybe she had a husband he didn't know about, too.

Maybe she'd already had both the hubby and the kid when they were in Kabul.

“Why did you make me bully that out of you?” He was surprised his voice didn't match his anger.

She hesitated. “It's . . . complicated.”

No shit.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Who have you been trying to call?”

She made a sharp left turn. “Meir's bodyguard.”

Meir. The son now had a name. And yeah, a bodyguard made sense. Middle East. Mossad agent for a mother.

“He should have picked up right away,” she said, talking more to herself than to him. “The lines are secure, so there's no reason for him not to.”

Unless . . . aw, hell
. “You think whoever targeted you is going after your son?”

“They
will
go after Meir.”

“For God's sake, Talia. Why not just tell me that to begin with?”

“Because I've been hoping I'd reach Jonathan. That he'd tell me Meir was safe. And because telling you . . . saying the words out loud . . .”

Would make it all too real that her son was in danger, he concluded when she stopped and got hold of herself again.

Hate, love, anger, frustration—all of it had to take a backseat. If she was right, if the boy was in danger, they needed to find him. Fast.

“Let's back up,” he said. “You're sure you were the target of the bombing? You, Talia Levine? Not you, the Mossad agent?”

“What does it matter now?” she snapped, then settled herself down. “Because of those news crews, my face is all over TV and the Internet. They'll know that I'm still alive. And they'll go after Meir—if they haven't already.”

“So why did we stop back there? How does that figure in?” He notched his head back over his shoulder.

“Meir had a play date with a friend after school.”

“And?”

“According to the boy's mother, Jonathan waited outside in the car for him. They left at six o'clock as planned.”

He glanced at the dash clock. Almost two hours ago.

And the bodyguard wasn't answering.

Whoever she was dealing with were real bad guys. So bad that they'd bombed a building, not caring how many people died as long as they achieved their goal. But they'd failed to kill her, so now it was on to plan B: rain down enough pain and suffering on her until she wished she was dead, until she prayed for death. All they had to do was take her son.

His gut filled with cold dread, his instincts telling him they'd accomplished their mission. It had been too long without a word from the boy's bodyguard, too many unanswered phone calls.

“Hamas did this,” he said. It was the logical answer. The only illogical thing was Talia's insistence that Mossad wasn't involved. Why else would Hamas be after her, if it wasn't connected to her work for Mossad? Hamas's sole mission was to destroy Israel. Mossad's mission was to stop them. The bombings and retaliations between them had played out for decades on the world stage.

When she didn't dispute his conclusion, he knew he was right. He also knew something was way off base.

“How good is this bodyguard?”

“The best I could find,” she said. “But with Hamas after him, it would take a team to keep him safe. A team or a . . . a miracle.” Her voice broke.

Damn it. He had to stop letting her pain get to him. Of course, he had sympathy for the boy. Of course, he would help her if that was what she wanted. But when this was over, one way or another, he was out of here.

“Where's your husband? Why isn't he here?” The instant the question popped out, he wished he hadn't asked.

“I'm . . . not married.”

He felt something very close to relief. But that stupidity was soon eclipsed by a distant bell of alarm.

It's . . . complicated.

“Where is Meir's father?”

She stared straight ahead, her gaze locked on the street.

That was when a steel fist grabbed his heart. And squeezed.
Complicated.

He stared at her long and hard, afraid to ask. Afraid not to. “How old is Meir?”

She flicked him a glance, then looked back through the windshield.

“How old?” he demanded, as the fist tightened.

“Five,” she said quietly.

He closed his eyes. Felt the world shift beneath him. “His birth date?”

She told him, tears rimming her eyes.

Even though he knew the outcome, he did the math. Did it again, and felt a blow so crushing it sucked the air from his lungs.

But it couldn't be. He'd always used protection. The blood left his head in a rush. Not always. There'd been that one time. That one out-of-his-head-with-lust time.

He stared at nothing, barely breathing. Fought another urge to hit something. Needed to beat the ever-loving crap out of something.

“He's mine?” He barely whispered the words, too afraid to believe them, too rational not to.

Her hands clutched the steering wheel so tightly her fingers turned white.

“He's
mine
?” he yelled. “
That's
the complication?”

She bit her lower lip and nodded—and his world changed forever.

Shock and anger flooded his mind, until a primal rage, huge and raw and ugly, burst out of him. “Five
years
?
Five
goddamn
years
! You never thought to tell me?”

The Expedition swerved wildly, and he realized that he'd gripped her upper arm until he'd hurt her.

He let go. Couldn't stand to touch her.

He stared out the window as the streets rolled by, tenting his fingers on top of his head to keep it from blowing off. He'd never despised anyone as much as he despised her right now. And he'd never longed for something as much as he longed for those five lost years.

A child. A son. His own blood.

A weary resignation rode in on the heels of his anger.

“You hated me that much?” he asked into the tomb of silence filling the Expedition.

“I didn't hate you. I could never hate you. I—”

“Save it. Sorry I asked,” he said wearily. “I don't want to hear anything out of your mouth that doesn't have to do with finding the boy.”

The son he'd never known, who might already be lost to him.

15

“So what's your plan?” The question seemed as surreal as the conversation about the son whose existence he hadn't known about.

“Find Jonathan. He had to have heard the news about the bombing. He'd have taken Meir someplace safe.”

“And that would be?”

“I . . . I hadn't been here long enough to set up a safe house for us. My best guess is his apartment.”

“They'll be looking for your car. We could lead Hamas straight to him.”

“What choice do I have?” Desperation overrode caution.

Unfortunately, he didn't have any other ideas. Just another hundred questions. “Tell me everything. Everything,” he repeated, unable to look at her.

He'd lay odds that the bodyguard wasn't at his apartment. And if he was, he was probably dead. A chance still existed, however, that the boy—his son—might be alive. He needed every piece of information she had if they were going to find him.

“Start with what you were doing at the embassy.”

“I work . . .
worked
there,” she said.

“Right. Undercover for Mossad.”

“No. I'm not with Mossad now. I haven't been since . . . since before Meir was born.”

A knifelike pain sliced him again at the mention of his son
.
Five years. He'd lost five years.

“I started working as a security investigator for the U.S. embassy in Israel after he was born.” She glanced over her shoulder and made a quick lane change. “A couple of weeks ago, when the embassy SI here retired, I was temporarily reassigned here until they found a permanent replacement.”

He remembered Ted telling him that before the bomb detonated. Ted. God, what if he was dead? Dead because Taggart had left him there.

“So you left Mossad,” he said, shaking off the guilt by trying to piece everything together.

“I wanted out,” she said, in a way that made him glance at her. She had that thousand-mile look in her eyes, telling him that her fear for the boy was getting the best of her again. “I wanted to provide Meir with a more stable life. I wanted him safe.” She shook her head. “Look how great that worked out.”

Yeah. Look how great it worked out. Bitterness tasted ugly. Uglier still if he'd let the words out of his mouth. They both knew that if he had been in his son's life, the boy would be safe now. He wouldn't be kidnapped and at the mercy of barbarians.

He swallowed back his frustration. “Did you know this was coming?”

“No. I sensed that something was going to happen. But not a bomb. Not at the embassy.”

“But you suspected something? Why?”

“For the past several days, I've been fairly certain I was being followed. At first, I wanted to write it off as paranoia. You were a special operative; you know what it does to you. You never stop looking for threats, even ones that don't exist.”

Yeah, he knew about paranoia. Now he knew a helluva lot more about blindsides. “So what was different this time?”

“I just . . . I couldn't shake it off. So I went with my gut and tried to reach out to one of my old teammates last week. To see if he'd heard any rumblings. Anything in the wind.”

“And?”

“And I found out he was dead.” She stopped, swallowed, and tore away from a stoplight. “But no one wanted to talk about it. I knew then that something was wrong. I was finally able to get hold of another friend there—I'd been her trainer when she was first drafted. She quietly did some digging for me and found out that over the past five years, my entire team had been killed.” Her voice broke again. “One by one.”

“Christ. Mossad couldn't have given you a heads-up? They had to know you were on the list.”

“The team split up shortly after I left. It's possible that no one put it together that the specific operatives they'd lost had all been part of the same team at one time.”

“So why target your old team specifically?”

She let out a deep breath. “Because we took out al-Attar.”

Jesus. Talk about the past coming back to haunt him. It was because of al-Attar that Talia had targeted
him
.

It was because of Talia's part in the Mossad op that he'd ended a mission in disgrace. And with a son he didn't know.

Anger boiled up again. Again, he tamped it down. It wouldn't help the boy. “Why was al-Attar so important to Mossad?”

Unspoken was,
Why was al-Attar so important that you had to screw me over to get him?

“Because he was a monster,” she said without apology. “His specialty was killing children. Attacking schools, buses. Anything to get to them. The Mossad director lost his grandchild in a school-bus bombing orchestrated by al-Attar. He hit number one on Mossad's wanted list that day. Things are never supposed to get personal. But they do. They did. And that's why we went after him.”

“And I ended up as collateral damage? Is that how you wrote me off?” Fuck. So much for controlling his anger.

“Taggart—”

“Forget it. Forget I said it. Just . . . forget it all.”

Except he couldn't forget anything. He had a child.
They
had a child—a child who could end up as more collateral damage if they didn't get on top of this.

“Is it safe, then, to say that our working theory is that al-Attar's followers considered his death personal, too? That's why they went after you and your old team?”

“It's as good a motive as any. Al-Attar is a legend in Hamas. The most vicious yet charismatic of their war chiefs. His followers are devout. They'd want retribution for his death, no matter how long it took to get it.”

“Why a bomb?” This had been bugging him since al-Attar's name had come up. “And why inside the U.S. embassy? Why not just get you in your car on the way to work?”

She shook her head. “I'm not an easy target. I've always been hypervigilant. And since I found out about the deaths of my team, I've taken even greater counter­measures.”

“So they risked the wrath of the United States government by bombing our embassy?”

“Hamas has no love for the United States, you know that. Al-Attar's followers subscribe to the same doctrine he did. No risk is too great. No blood spared. If they had killed me, they would have managed to hit two birds with one stone and gain a lot of attention for their cause. And the al-Attar Hamas followers wouldn't stop to care whether the majority of Hamas leaders would approve or disapprove of their actions. They've almost become an entity unto themselves.”

She could be right. Hell, Hamas couldn't even get along with their Palestinian brethren.

In the meantime, Bobby had no doubt that all hell had broken loose at the Pentagon as they tried to determine who was responsible. As soon as he got the boy to safety, he'd make sure they knew what he knew. For now, he didn't want any D.C. desk warriors interfering.

“Another thing,” Talia continued, breaking into his thoughts. “Maybe they got desperate. Maybe they had a timeline. Maybe since I'm the last one on their list, they were impatient to tie it all up. Anyway, as soon as I found this out yesterday, I tried to get Meir out of Muscat. The earliest available flight was tonight at nine o'clock.”

“I don't think you're going to make it.” He didn't mean to sound flippant, but it came out that way. He didn't bother to apologize. “Does anyone else know about this?”

“About Hamas? No. I didn't dare talk to anyone. I didn't know if they might have had a mole inside the embassy.”

Something else had been bothering him. “Why didn't you make sure that Meir—”

“Was safe until we left?” she interrupted, her voice glutted with guilt. “I should have. I should have pulled him out of school. I should have had Jonathan get him out of the city. But he'd had such a difficult time adjusting to his first week here. That's why I enrolled him in summer-school classes. So he'd meet children his age. He was so . . . sad. Missing his friends. Missing everything that was familiar. When he came home from school yesterday, he was excited and happy for the first time. He'd made a new friend. He'd been asked over for a play date today. I didn't want to alarm him. I didn't want to disappoint him. So I made a decision to keep today—this one single day—as normal as possible. And he had Jonathan . . .” She trailed off, so clearly miserable with guilt and regret that he was in danger of empathizing.

She slammed on the brakes, shifted into reverse, and backed up past the last intersection.

“What?”

“Jonathan's car. I think I just saw it.”

She made a tight right turn and sped down a street toward a black Lincoln Town Car parked crookedly by the curb. The driver's-side door hung open.

Talia stepped on the brakes, pulled up nose-to-nose with the Lincoln, and slammed the Expedition into park.

“Talia, wait.”

There was no slowing her down; she'd already wrenched open the door and rushed outside.

Swearing under his breath, he unholstered the Glock, then followed her into the sweltering heat.

The Lincoln's engine still ran. Bullet holes riddled the dark, tinted windshield, the glossy black paint on the hood, the doors, and even the roof.

Overkill.

Vendetta.

He caught up with her, stopped her before she reached the driver's door, and pushed her behind him. “Stay back.”

The windows were darkly tinted, and he couldn't see inside. Approaching warily, two-handing the Glock, he walked around the open door, then slowly lowered the gun.

A big, burly guy with personal security written all over him was slumped back against the seat. One bullet hole pierced his forehead; he'd taken several more rounds in his arms, in his thighs, and above the neck of his body armor. Blood ran everywhere.

Talia pushed around him before he could stop her. “Jonathan!”

He caught her when she swayed. Somehow she pulled herself together, wrenched away from him, and jerked open the back door.

“He's not here,” she said, faltering somewhere between relief and alarm after searching inside. “Meir's not here.”

Bobby reached around the steering wheel and pulled the keys. Pulse hammering, he walked to the back of the car and pushed the button on the remote.

Then he waited for the trunk to open, with a crushing mix of hope and dread. And for a moment, his heart stopped beating.

“Empty.”

Talia spun around so her back was to him. She hugged her arms around herself and let her head fall back.

Bad news and more bad news. They could have killed the boy here, but they hadn't, which meant they wouldn't—yet. First, they wanted to make her suffer. The look on her face more than proved they had succeeded.

She was doubtless aware of every possibility, as he was. They could still kill the boy; they could ransom him to get to her; they could send him back to her one piece at a time. Or they could make him disappear and keep her in torturous limbo for the rest of her life.

He quickly searched the town car, looking for any clues or cryptic messages they might have left behind. Nothing. Not even the bodyguard's cell phone.

“We've got to get out of here, Talia.” When she stood there nonresponsive, he grasped her arm and led her back to the Expedition. “They may be watching, and if they are, you can be damn sure they'll come for you.”

He recognized shock when he saw it, and right now, she was frozen with it. And with grief. He wasn't in the best shape to drive, but he was a damn sight better than she was. He guided her into the passenger seat, then got behind the wheel.