Undercover (22 page)

“What happened there?” He looked sympathetic as he said it. He didn't see how he could do the work he did with only one good arm.

“Instant retirement. Six years undercover in South America, and I got loaned to the Secret Service for a year, and took a bullet for the president's daughter. Go figure. So I'm hanging out in Paris. I miss the work, though. There's nothing in the world like getting shot at by bad guys.” He tried to be lighthearted about it, as Ariana listened and felt sorry for him. She hadn't realized until then that he had almost no use of his left arm, and minimal use of his left hand.

“So what's going on here?” Mac asked as they sat down in the living room. Marshall filled him in on what had happened that morning, and two years before that.

“They sound like a bad lot. Seems like it might be his brother.” Mac agreed with Marshall's assessment of the situation, and who was most likely behind it, and why.

“They're working on it now,” Marshall said quietly.

“Maybe we can give you some help with it too.” Mac smiled at Ariana appreciatively. “We can't have a girl like you dragged off by those bastards. We'll get them.”

Sam Adams called them at Mac's that night, while he was cooking dinner for them. It was some sort of stew with vegetables. Sam said they were canvassing their informants for new information and expected some responses within hours. He said something would turn up soon, and he thanked Marshall for getting her to London. “Good work.” He praised him for getting to Mac's safely. He knew Mac by reputation. Everyone did. He had been horrified to hear from Bill Carter how close Ariana had come to being kidnapped again. It had been sheer good luck and good instincts that Marshall had seen the men and acted quickly, and that his car was near at hand. Everything had conspired in their favor, and he was glad too that Ariana had cooperated with Marshall even though she didn't know him. A sixth sense had told her she had no choice.

They had a relaxing dinner with Mac that night, and ate the stew that he prepared for them, which was surprisingly delicious, and Ariana even ate a generous portion too and got some of her color back. And afterward, the two men shared a brandy. Ariana was exhausted from the shock and emotional strain of the day, but she felt safe with the two special agents, and she thanked Marshall again for saving her and bringing her to London.

“There's no better man in the business,” Mac vouched for him. “Can't hold his liquor worth a damn, but best agent I've ever worked with,” he said as Ariana laughed, said goodnight, and went upstairs to the guest room.

“If I were you,” Mac advised him as he poured the brandy into two snifters with a heavy hand, “I'd get confused tonight, and wind up in her bed in the guest room. Might do it myself if you're too cowardly to try it.” Marshall laughed at him, but he knew that Mac was brilliant at undercover work, and one of the most respected agents at the Yard. All the talk about drinking and carousing was just an act he put on to entertain them. He had literally saved Marshall's life in Panama in a drug deal that went sour.

The two men talked long into the night, and Mac was genuinely sad about Marshall's retirement. He knew that the loss of the use of his arm must have been a terrible blow, and he was being very brave and gracious about it. Losing his career at thirty was a tragedy in Mac's eyes, especially for an agent as good as Marshall. It just wasn't fair. They discussed Ariana's situation then, and Mac said he didn't like it. If Luis Muñoz was after her and they didn't stop him, she could be hunted down for years and be constantly in danger. “She can't lead a decent life like that, and she seems like a nice girl.” They both acknowledged that she'd been through a lot, though she seemed to have recovered fairly well. And she looked shaken by her sudden escape from Paris.

Sam Adams called them the next morning, and said that the four men on Avenue Foch had been arrested. The two original men who'd been following her were the low-level thugs they'd identified earlier. But the two more recent additions were more alarming. One appeared on a list of wanted international terrorists and was being detained in France. And the other had a forged passport and no visa, and was suspected of terrorist activities as well. He was a known hit man in Peru, and had been convicted of murder. And all four claimed that they just happened to be in Paris, hanging out at that address. None of them gave the police a clue about who hired them and why they were there. And after Ariana got up, Marshall told her about the four men being arrested. But they had to get to the man in charge, and they hadn't found the link to Muñoz yet.

Eight hours later Sam called Marshall. “Bingo,” he said, the minute Marshall answered his cell phone. “One of our best informants says that Muñoz has been quietly organizing a group of rebels in Bolivia, and he's cut of the same cloth as his brother. He's just smarter about it. And he's waiting for the right time to step up. He's been very careful till now. No one mentioned Ariana, but if Muñoz thinks she knows too much, he'll want her out of the picture so she doesn't blow it for him.

“One of our connections in Buenos Aires is going to expose him to the government, as a subversive. I don't think he'll be able to keep his seat after that. The Bolivian terrorist group he's working with isn't going to sit well with the current government. It makes them look bad. And they can't hold it against him officially, but the connection to Jorge, if he subscribes to the same theories, will hurt him, and the journals will condemn him as a traitor. He may even be arrested. We don't know yet. The problem is that even if we get him kicked out of government, he's still going to be out there somewhere, angrier than ever. Unless we have him eliminated, which is a little heavy-handed by today's standards, Ariana won't be safe anywhere in the world. And you won't be either, if they find out you brought this to us, or they see you with her. It's a serious problem.”

“What are we going to do about it?” Marshall said calmly. He wasn't worried about himself. Drug dealers had been after him for years, after he had burned them or destroyed their operations. But that was the life he had signed on for. Ariana hadn't, and she couldn't live in fear, or hidden, for the rest of her life. There would be no hiding from Muñoz, wherever she chose to live. “What do you want me to tell her?” Marshall asked him.

“Give us a few days to see how things shake out with Muñoz, and then we want you to come in. We can discuss it here. Don't either of you go back to Paris. Both your apartments are too dangerous for now. Do you have everything you need there? Passports?” Marshall told him they did. They had already used them on arrival in Britain.

“Where are the journals now?” Marshall still had had no time to copy them, while he was following Ariana.

“They're at my apartment in Paris. I can send someone to get them.” It was going to be an embarrassing situation when Ariana saw that he had them. She had no idea that they were no longer buried at Bagatelle. But his reading them had saved her life, so he hoped she would forgive him.

“Why don't you have someone pick up the journals, and let us work on the rest here? I want more details about Muñoz and his activities, all we can get. And then we want you both to come in.” It meant flying to Washington, which didn't appeal to either of them. But Marshall knew it would only be for a few days for debriefing, so he could explain how he had deduced what he had, when he had noticed the men following her, and she could explain any information she had from the past. Those meetings were better held in person.

When Ariana woke up, they had coffee together. Marshall filled her in and mentioned they might have to go to Washington, and she wasn't happy about it. But he reassured her that the debriefing would be routine. And he didn't say it, but they were both aware that she would have to find a safe way to live, with bodyguards around her all the time, from now on, if Muñoz was after her. For now, she had Marshall to protect her. He was legally entitled to carry a gun, as a retired DEA agent, and he had asked Mac to get him one the night before, which he had, so he was armed.

Marshall and Ariana went for a walk that afternoon with Stanley and Lili, and talked about everything that was going on. And after they left the dogs back at Mac's house, they took a cab to Harrods, so Ariana could buy something to wear. All she had with her were the T-shirt and shorts she had worn to the park the day before, and a pair of sandals. It took them two hours, but they came back with some decent clothes, and Marshall bought a jacket and a pair of slacks. If they had to fly to Washington, he wanted to be properly dressed for the meeting.

And on the way back from Harrods, Ariana thanked him again for everything he'd done.

“I've been worried about you for weeks,” he admitted.

“How did you know who I was?”

“After I saw the first guy following you, I called Bill. He called Sam to ask him if anything sounded familiar, and he sent Bill a picture, and he forwarded it to me, with the summary report. Everything was there.” Even the baby she had lost, which he didn't say to her. “It alerted me to the fact that you really were being followed. And I saw the photo in the
Herald
Tribune
and recognized you from the park.” But as he explained it, she realized there was a piece missing, and Marshall looked at her with embarrassment. He knew he had to confess—she would find out anyway. “I read the journals,” he said in a small voice, and she looked shocked.

“How did you do that?” There were no copies.

“I saw you bury the box the day I got to Paris. And Stanley dug it up. He's a bloodhound…and I'm an ex-agent. I wanted to see what was in the box. I took it home and read the journals. Something about the story sounded familiar. So I called Bill, and he looked it up. I'm sorry, Ariana. I shouldn't have done it.” He looked morbidly ashamed and apologetic.

“Thank God you did,” she said softly. There was nothing to forgive. His curiosity and good instincts had saved her.

And when Mac came home that night with an excellent Indian dinner, Marshall asked him if he had a junior operative who had time to go to Paris. Washington wanted the box of journals, and he needed some more clothes, as long as someone was going to his apartment.

“No problem, lad. I'll send someone over tomorrow. Give me your keys.” Marshall handed them to him, and gave him the code, and told him where the box was, and the following night, one of Mac's agents walked in with the aviator's box. Ariana gasped when he did.

“I never thought I'd see that again,” she said unhappily. And she didn't want to see it now. She asked Marshall to put it away. She was finished with it forever. And even if Marshall had unearthed it, it was no longer a part of her life. The wound had healed. She refused to allow it to reopen now, even if she was at risk of being kidnapped again. Jorge was out of her life forever.

They sat around talking to Mac that night, and spent the next week waiting for news, while Marshall stayed in constant contact with Bill and Sam on the iPad Ariana had in her purse when they left Paris, and Mac's agent brought his own laptop back from his apartment. And finally Sam called them on Friday night.

“I have good news and bad news,” he told Marshall. The good news was that they had exposed Luis Muñoz as the double agent and revolutionary he was, and he had been removed from the government. The bad news was that he had vanished and no one knew where he'd gone, not even their best informants. “He could be anywhere,” Sam said, sounding discouraged. “South America, North Africa, even Europe. He's a slippery sonofabitch, and a smart one. He has literally disappeared into thin air.” Marshall dreaded breaking the news to Ariana. It meant that she would never be safe again. And then Sam added, “How soon can you both be here?”

“Whenever you want. We've just been sitting here waiting for news. And I'm sure Mac is tired of us by now.”

“How about Monday?” Sam suggested. “We'd like to see you here. And bring the journals.”

“That will work for us,” Marshall confirmed. He told Ariana the next day, and he hated the look on her face when he told her that Jorge's brother had escaped. She knew exactly what that meant. It was very, very bad news for her.

“What happens now?” she asked Marshall sadly.

“I don't know,” he said honestly. “I guess they'll tell us on Monday.” But for certain their lives were about to change.

Marshall and Ariana spent Saturday quietly with Mac at his house. Neither of them went out, and Ariana seemed unusually subdued. She didn't say anything to the two men, but her current circumstances were beginning to make her feel kidnapped again. There were no rebels and no box to confine her in this time, but she was trapped. Danger could have been lurking anywhere. As soon as she was recognized, she'd be at risk. Possibly for the rest of her life. And being under one roof with the two men for many days was bringing back memories of Jorge and his men, even if this was different. Mac and Marshall couldn't have been nicer to her, but Jorge had been kind to her too. She didn't want to fall into Stockholm Syndrome again.

Feeling claustrophobic and anxious, she called Yael that night, and told him that Jorge's brother had sent men after her, maybe after seeing the press photograph in Paris at the Dior party. The photograph had gone everywhere on the Internet along with her story. She wondered if he'd been waiting for her to surface, so he could pounce. Because of her, he had lost his position in the government, and now he had vanished, which made the situation even more dangerous for her. She told Yael that she felt trapped and frightened. He listened quietly while she explained the situation, and it didn't sound good to him either, particularly for Ariana after all she'd been through and her hard work to overcome it. She had just regained her freedom and now she had lost it again, maybe forever. The weight of it on her seemed crushing. He could hear it in her voice.

“Are you feeling guilty?” Yael asked her after listening to her. “About Jorge's brother, or anything else? This isn't your fault. It never was.” He wanted to be sure she understood that. And hearing his calm voice centered her again.

“No,” she said slowly, thinking about it, and always honest with him. “I think I'm just scared, and sad that I can never lead a normal life. I was starting to enjoy my life again. I felt so free, and I wanted to find a job and start working. And now everything's gone wrong again.” Just like when she was kidnapped. “And they've been nice to me here. But I can't do anything. I think I'll go back to the convent when I go back to the States. Maybe I'll become a nun,” she said, sounding despondent. At least Muñoz and his men wouldn't find her there, and she'd have peace. She was twenty-five years old and felt like her life was over. And in many ways it was. It had ended, as she knew it, the day they left for Argentina. It had been the worst thing that had ever happened to her, other than her mother's death. It had ended her father's life ultimately, and now hers.

“Things will probably calm down eventually. He's not going to hunt you down forever,” Yael told her. “He doesn't have the manpower or the funds.” But they both knew that if he became allied with the drug lords, or already was, he would have the money, and maybe enough men, and he would try to find her for revenge if nothing else. “He has other fish to fry than to avenge his brother,” he tried to reassure her. “And if he was worried about exposure, that's already happened. Now he'll go into hiding somewhere, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, who knows where. Sooner or later he'll give up on you. But there's no question, you'll have to be careful for a while. Maybe even a long while.” And it wouldn't be easy for her.

It was different for Marshall, if they were after him now too, if they had associated him with her, or recognized him. If one of them had taken a picture of him, even with a cell phone, they could identify him and find out he was an agent, from their sources. But Marshall had volunteered to give his life up many times, and his identity. Ariana hadn't. He was a willing recruit, even as a retired agent. Ariana had been dragged into it against her will, every time.

“We're going back to the States tomorrow night. To meet with the CIA in Washington on Monday.” That brought up old memories as well. When the CIA were part of her daily life, it had been a terrible time for her. Now they were back in her life, as her saviors, once again. “I hope they let me come back to Paris soon,” she said sadly, but she didn't sound as if she thought they would.

“You'll have to change some things if they do,” Yael said candidly. “You're not set up for any kind of protection here. Maybe you can hire this retired DEA agent as a bodyguard,” he said, and meant it. And she'd need more than just one. She'd need many, but fortunately she could afford it.

“He can only use one arm,” she said, sounding matter-of-fact, and Yael laughed.

“Believe me, those guys are lethal even with no arms. They're trained to survive. Maybe he can help you. Seriously. What you need is a strong protective system around you, and to lie low for a while, until Muñoz surfaces again, disappears for good, or gets killed. All three are possible. And in the meantime, you just have to keep your chin up and be smart. You know you can survive this. You'll be okay. This is different from last time. You're well protected, you're not being held captive, and you're not at the mercy of the men you're with,” he reminded her.

“They feed me and keep me safe from the bad guys,” she said. “Just like Jorge.”

“No,” he insisted, trying to give her perspective. “This is very different. The lines are clear, and the players. The good guys are the agents from all those alphabet agencies, and the one from Scotland Yard. The bad guys are the others. Last time the bad guys were pretending to be good guys. That's what screwed up your head. This time the teams are clear, and everyone is doing what they're supposed to. The bad guys are out to get you, and hurt you if they can. And the good guys really do want to protect you. And you're not dependent on anyone for food.” He reminded her of that too. Even a simple detail like that made a difference. She would have died of starvation and thirst in the forest without Jorge. “You can order your own pizza. And champagne if you want to. This really is different, Ariana. I know it's awful and unfair and very stressful, but you're not totally out of control. You can make choices. They may not be great ones and you may not like them, but you can make some decisions here about how you want to be protected. With Jorge, you had no choice. He had total control.” She sighed, thinking of what he said, and knew he was right, but she didn't like it anyway. He told her no one would.

While Ariana talked to Yael, Marshall and Mac were drinking coffee in the kitchen. It was like old times when they'd worked on an assignment together.

“How do you think she's doing?” Mac asked him, and Marshall wasn't sure. He could see how stressed she was, but she was keeping to herself and not confiding in him.

“This is bound to be hard on her, and give her flashbacks of when she was kidnapped,” Marshall responded. He had seen it in her eyes, from the moment he approached her in Paris. He was grateful she had gone with him willingly. For some reason that neither he nor Ariana could fathom, she had trusted him, just long enough to get her out of immediate danger. She'd probably have been dead by then if she hadn't. “She only just got over this with the deprogrammer. Now she's up to her ears in it again.” She seemed depressed about it, and he didn't blame her. And he had noticed that she was eating very little. She didn't look like she ate much anyway, and was very thin.

“What do you think the boys in Washington will tell you?”

“To get our asses out of Dodge, for a while at least. They may want to hide her somewhere. I can't see them letting her come back to Paris, to live by herself. That would be insane.” Mac agreed with his assessment, and she couldn't live in his guest room forever, although he would have liked it. There hadn't been a woman in his life in years. He'd been involved with another agent, in a different section, for several years, but eventually even she couldn't put up with him, and had moved on to someone else. He was a confirmed bachelor, and made jokes about it. His work didn't leave him much time for fun, or women, and he liked it that way. His assignments had always been more important to him than anything else. Marshall had been no different while he was working, until Paloma. Until then, women hadn't been a priority in his life. Fighting the forces of evil was. It was all that had mattered to both Mac and Marshall for years.

“What about you? You need to be careful for a while too,” Mac said with a fatherly look. He had always been fond of Marshall, he was a great agent and a good man, and they had worked well together and had good times.

“I can take care of myself,” Marshall said, and glanced at his useless left arm, “even with this,” and they both knew he had a gun in his pocket and would use it if he had to.

“Shit luck that,” Mac commented about his arm.

“Maybe not. I would never have forgiven myself if Amelia Armstrong had been killed because I didn't move fast enough. Or her mother. She was eight months pregnant.”

“So you're a hero,” Mac said cynically. “And the bad guys win now, without you to fight them.”

“Nah, you and I are replaceable, Mac. We're good at what we do, but so are a lot of other people. We'll outnumber them in the end. We just keep on trucking.”

“And so do they. They've taken out a lot of good men, just in the years I've been working,” Mac said with a sober look.

“It's kind of ironic that what got me in the end was a random shooter. He got out of a mental hospital six months before. At least it should have been someone clever who had reason to shoot me. This seems so stupid, like killing yourself falling in the bathtub.”

“Not exactly.” Mac grinned at him. “You were defending the president of the United States. That's a little different.” Marshall smiled, and Ariana walked into the kitchen after talking to Yael, and made herself a cup of tea. She looked calmer than before.

“Can I do anything to help?” she offered as she sat down at the kitchen table. She was growing comfortable with both of them, in her forced seclusion with Marshall, and she felt better after talking to Yael. He always got her head back on straight. He had called it a tune-up when they talked, and it had helped. He always did.

“Yes,” Mac answered her emphatically. “Clean my house, woman, and don't forget the windows and floors. You don't expect me to live in this pigsty forever, do you?” Ariana laughed when he said it. Her apartment in Paris had come with a cleaning woman who came twice a week. Ariana hated housework, and had never done it in her life, and had always had others to do it.

“I'm not so great at that kind of thing myself,” she admitted, and Mac made a face.

“None of you young girls are. Argh, modern women, they're useless. All they know how to do is shop and get their nails done. What are we supposed to do with that? Cooking, cleaning, laundry, scrubbing floors—now that's a
real
woman for you!” Ariana chuckled. She loved him. It was hard not to. She thought it was sad he was alone, with no wife and no kids, but Marshall had told her a lot of old agents were like that. And young ones too. There wasn't much room in their life for marriage, relationships, and romance. And it was a bad deal for their women. It made Marshall think of Paloma then while they were talking. She had gotten the worst deal of all, because of him.

They chatted for a while, and then she went upstairs to pack her few things. Mac cooked stew for them again that night, and threw everything in it he had in the fridge except a couple of limes and some packaged chocolate pudding. He had the contents of a bachelor's fridge, usually with the leftovers of some fish and chips he bought on the way home and never finished.

And he produced a bottle of decent wine for the three of them. Ariana only took a sip. She was anxious about their trip to Washington the next day and what the CIA would say on Monday.

“You'll be fine,” Mac reassured her, but she wasn't convinced. And the next morning when Mac said goodbye to them at the airport, he had to choke back a lump in his throat as he hugged Marshall. He had the terrible feeling he wasn't going to see him again, and had never had that feeling about him before.

“Take care of yourself, lad,” he said in a voice thick with emotion after they had checked their bags, and put Stanley with the luggage in a crate. Lili was traveling in the cabin with them, in a travel bag Mac had picked up for them. Ariana was dealing with the woman at the desk and getting her boarding pass while the two men talked. “You two make a nice couple,” Mac said to Marshall in a low voice. “You could do worse, and probably have.” He was only half teasing. He had come to admire Ariana a lot in the past week of living closely with her, and he had great admiration and affection for Marshall, and always had. He thought Ariana a very intelligent, discreet young woman, who had none of the airs and graces she could have exhibited given who she was and how she had lived. He had grown very fond of her.

“Very funny.” Marshall made a face at him, at what he said about them as a couple. He was acting as an active agent, even though he no longer was. His mission was to get her to Washington in one piece, and leave her to the CIA after that. He had no designs on her as a woman. She was a potential victim who needed protection, which was his job, whether officially or not.

“You've got to teach the woman to cook, though. She'll be useless to you otherwise.” Both men were laughing when Ariana joined them with her boarding pass and luggage stub, carrying Lili in the bag. She was only bringing one small suitcase, with what she'd bought at Harrods. Everything else was in Paris, although she didn't have much there either. Her life in Paris had been simple until recently, just working with Yael.

Ariana hugged Mac when they left, and thanked him for his hospitality, and she was sad to leave him too.

“Next time you'll sleep in my room,” he told her with a wink, and she laughed. She knew he was harmless, and had only pretended to flirt with her. Both men had been totally circumspect and nothing but kind and respectful to her. Yael was right. This wasn't like when she'd been kidnapped at all. And she was grateful to both men.