Undercover (23 page)

“Take care, you two. Play nice” were his last words to them, and he never left them with his eyes as they went through security. It was old habit, and he could have used his Scotland Yard badge to take them through, but he didn't. He knew that Marshall had it covered, and he was sad to see them leave, particularly Marshall. He had that terrible feeling again that this would be the last time they'd meet, and he didn't know why. Marshall had returned the gun to him right before they left.

Mac's eyes were damp as he drove home, and he felt his heart ache as he walked into the empty house, saw their breakfast dishes in the sink, and poured himself a stiff drink, thinking about his friend. He hoped he'd be all right, and nothing untoward would happen to either of them.

Ariana stopped and bought magazines on the way to the plane. She bought Spanish, French, and American
Vogue, Time
magazine, and the
International
Herald
Tribune,
and they settled onto the plane in first class on British Air. Normally Marshall traveled coach or occasionally business, but the CIA was bringing them home in first class for security reasons. And they wanted Marshall as close as possible to her, never out of her sight or reach.

“You're lucky they didn't put you in steerage with me,” he teased her, as she looked up from her magazines and smiled. Everything had gone smoothly so far, and he was thinking about Mac as the plane took off. He had enjoyed seeing him again and missed the old days when they'd had occasional assignments together. He had been fantastic to work with, and one of the smartest, bravest men he'd ever known. You couldn't judge from his disheveled, tweedy appearance and casual style. He looked like a befuddled college professor, and was the fastest man with a gun he'd ever seen. Mac had killed three men in seconds one night, and taken the fourth out with a knife with lightning speed. Marshall had been forever impressed by him after that, and they had become fast friends. He promised himself to make time to see him when he returned to Paris and went on his travels around Europe in the coming months.

Ariana didn't say much, and they ate a light meal. She started to read her magazines and was asleep in a few minutes. He covered her gently with a blanket, and the flight attendant smiled. She wondered if they were honeymooners. It would never have occurred to her that they were an ex–DEA agent, and a woman being hunted down, on their way to a meeting with the CIA.

Ariana woke up after two hours, noticed the blanket, and thanked him with a sleepy smile. He'd been watching a movie and stopped it, and took the headphones off when she awakened.

“Are you doing okay?” He looked concerned. He was worried about what might be happening in her head, and how stressed she was. She relaxed back into her seat and sighed as she glanced at him.

“I'm nervous about tomorrow,” she said quietly. “What are they going to do with me? I don't want them to lock me up to keep me safe.” He didn't want that for her either. It wasn't fair, and she was young. She needed to have a life. It never occurred to him that he did too—he hadn't had one in so long. There had been no woman he cared about since Paloma, three years ago. Sometimes it still felt like days. He hadn't looked at a woman since, and knew he never would again. It was too painful to lose someone you loved. And in his case, she had died because of him. He knew he would feel guilty about it forever and had her blood, and their baby's, on his hands.

“They'll probably just assign you a detail of guys for a while. And you might have to hire bodyguards on your own. I can help you find them, if you like. There are a lot of good men around, with minor injuries who can't work for the DEA anymore, or CIA, but are still capable of working in the private sector. A lot of guys do that when they retire, or go out on disability.”

“Is that what you do?” she asked, curious about him. He was very discreet, and never talked about his injury or personal life. She knew he had come to Paris for several months, but didn't know why. She had heard him tell Mac that he'd lost the use of his arm, taking a bullet for the president's family while working for the Secret Service, but Marshall had never told her himself.

“No, I'm done,” he said simply. He didn't sound bitter about it, just matter-of-fact. “Shit happens, as they say. I wouldn't feel right hiring myself out with only one good arm. Maybe at half price.” He grinned, and she winced at the awful joke. She had seen that he could use his hand enough to help himself, but the arm was limp at his side. But he had just saved her in Paris nonetheless. “I was lucky for long enough. The bad guys would have gotten me sooner or later. I pissed a lot of people off when I was working undercover. You can't do that forever, though I would have tried. Sometimes destiny intervenes.” It was one way to look at it, and she had the feeling he was philosophical and at peace about it, which couldn't have been easy, since he was young. He had said he had just turned thirty-one—six years older than she was.

“What do you think you'll do now?” she asked him.

“Travel for a while. Do all the things I never had time to do when I was working. I hadn't taken time off in years.” With his enhanced pension he could do whatever he wanted, except work as an agent. “Sometimes I think I'd like to teach. I know a lot about South America. Maybe foreign policy or something. I'll figure it out eventually. What about you?” He knew she didn't need a job, but he wondered what she did with her time, or would when she was free again.

“I wanted to go into fashion. I was working for an online fashion magazine when we left for Argentina. It was just an entry-level job, but I loved it. I'd kind of like to go back to work in fashion, but I wasn't ready until now. I was going to start seriously looking in Paris, with one of the magazines. Now I don't know what they'll let me do.” She told him then about living at St. Gertrude's for almost a year, with the nuns.

“That always seems like a sad life to me, and such a waste,” he said cautiously, not wanting to offend her, and she instantly shook her head.

“It isn't, honestly. They have so much fun, they're wonderful, and they have such a good life. I loved living with them. They taught me how to grow vegetables.” She was smiling as she said it, thinking of Mother Elizabeth, Sister Paul, Sister Marianne, and the others.

“You can be a gardener then,” he teased her.

“I was terrible at peeling potatoes,” she confessed. “For a while I thought maybe I had been led there for a reason, but the mother superior talked me out of it. I was just scared to go back into the world, and she knew it. I came to Paris to work with Yael Le Floch after that. I'm glad I did, and now here I am again. On the run from kidnappers and rebels. It seems to be my destiny, for now.”

They both watched movies then after that, and landed in Washington on time. They were cleared through customs and immigration instantly, were met by two CIA agents as they came off the plane, picked up Marshall's dog from the cargo, and were taken to the Four Seasons in Georgetown, where they had a two-bedroom suite, and shared a living room. And there was an agent posted outside their door.

“Traveling with you is certainly an experience,” he teased her again. “Last time they brought me in from somewhere, they put me up at a hotel at the airport.” They had put them in the double suite so he could keep an eye on her, and they had the agent outside for insurance. There was no way for anyone to know she was there, but they were playing it safe. There would be no excuse if she got kidnapped or killed right under their noses on U.S. turf. Last time she was kidnapped hadn't been their fault, since she hadn't been in their care. This one would be.

They had been told to stay in for dinner that night, and Marshall ordered a cheeseburger and Ariana a salad from room service. And the hotel was allowing them to have both dogs in the room. Ariana ordered hamburger meat for Stanley too, after she checked with Marshall, and sliced chicken for Lili. Stanley was still looking insulted after the trip. He had hated the crate and traveling with the baggage. And Lili had slept all the way in her bag. The agent outside their room had thought Stanley was great, and played with him whenever he came out when Marshall walked him. He had offered to take Lili out for Ariana, so he took both dogs. The CIA wanted her to stay in the room and out of sight.

Marshall had brought the journals with him in a briefcase, with the letters to Ariana, and had left the battered tin box with Mac. They didn't need it, and he knew that seeing it was traumatic for Ariana. He had offered to make copies of the letters for her, if she wanted them, before he turned them over at the meeting, and she shook her head. All that was over for her. She didn't want to see them again and undo her work with Yael.

They watched a movie together in the living room of the suite, and they both went to bed early. Lili slept on her bed with her, and Stanley was stretched out on the couch in the living room of the suite, nearly the size of a man. Marshall laughed when they left him there, snoring. “He likes traveling with you too.”

Ariana lay awake in her bed for a long time, wondering what would happen the next day, and if there was any news. Maybe by some miracle, Jorge's brother would be found, and she'd be free. It was almost too much to hope for. Sam Adams had called them when they got in, and said he'd see them the next day. They were scheduled to be at the CIA offices in McLean, Virginia, a few miles outside Washington, at nine-thirty. Ariana was up at six.

She ordered coffee and sat reading
The
Washington
Post
peacefully in the living room with both dogs, until Marshall emerged from his room in jeans, to take them out.

Ariana thanked him, and they had breakfast when he came back half an hour later, and they both got dressed. They left the dogs at the hotel, with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door of the suite, so they wouldn't escape if a hotel maid opened the door, and were in the CIA car waiting for them downstairs at nine-fifteen. Ariana was wearing a black skirt and sweater she had bought at Harrods for the meeting, and Marshall was wearing a suit he'd had Mac's agent bring him from Paris. They looked serious and respectable, and Ariana was nervous as they walked in.

Sam Adams was there to greet them, and he and Marshall shook hands. Sam gave Ariana a hug to reassure her, and a few minutes later, half a dozen men assigned to their case walked in. The situation was the same. They explained that Muñoz had not been found. He was loose somewhere, presumably in South America, but he could have been anywhere. And they felt it was more than likely that he blamed Ariana and the information he thought she'd had, for his fall from grace, and certainly for his brother's death. And they knew now that he was a vengeful man, just as Jorge was. Sam Adams suspected that Luis was smarter than his brother, infinitely better connected, and had successfully played his double game for a long time, which suggested he was more clever.

“We have good reason to be concerned,” one of Sam's men explained to her as they sat around a conference room table. They had met the day before to formulate a plan, and Sam approved. Marshall listened without saying a word. He had a feeling he knew what was coming, but hoped he was wrong. “You're in serious danger, Miss Gregory. And until something changes—we locate Luis Muñoz, put him behind bars, or kill him—we can't give you the kind of protection you need. You saw what almost happened in Paris. It will happen again. The minute they locate you, they'll try again, and they won't kidnap you for ransom this time, but for revenge. Or they'll keep you alive for long enough to have you turn money over to them to fund their cause, and then they'll kill you. Your risks are much higher than they were before. Kidnap for ransom is child's play compared to this. And we don't know yet who else is on Muñoz's team, what other government officials we don't know about, who would carry out his orders or do his dirty work.” The foursome in Paris had been a motley crew, recruited from all over South America, among mercenaries, rebels, and paid killers. “You're up against some really bad people here,” he said as Ariana's face grew pale.

“So what am I supposed to do? Hide for the rest of my life? How can I do that?” And she didn't want to—she'd almost rather be dead, she thought as she listened to them. And Marshall was worried by the look of despair on her face, but he could understand how she felt, particularly at her age. Her life was just beginning again, and they wanted to turn it into a prison.

“You don't have to hide for the rest of your life,” Sam explained gently to her, “but maybe for a while. A few years. We want to make that as livable as we can for you, Ariana. I know it's hard. We brought you here to offer to put you in the Witness Protection Program, at a very elite level, with maximum security, in a way that's comfortable for you, while still keeping you safe. We'll work with you to set it up.”

“Like moving to Montana and pretending to be someone else?” she said with a look of horror, as the men around the table nodded. Tears came to her eyes. “What would I do there? I'd be all alone.” It sounded like a fate worse than death to her, not because of the location but because of the way she had to live. Hidden, under an alias, with strangers who'd never know the truth, or who she was. She would have to live a lie, and for how long?

“We can help you hire staff, and we could place some agents with you for a while until you acclimate, but our hope is that you wouldn't need them there. We'd like you in a safe environment until something changes here, or in Argentina with Muñoz. Of course we'd continue looking for Muñoz during the entire time. It might not take long,” he tried to encourage her as tears spilled down her cheeks and Marshall wished he could comfort her, but there was nothing he could say in the meeting, and he knew they were right. It would have been his plan of preference for her too. It was just too dangerous for her out in the world right now, and could be for a long time.