Volcano (15 page)

Carolyn breezed around a corner, almost trampling over Captain
Peterson.

“Captain!” she said, “Thank God, I’ve been looking all
over!”

“Afternoon, Major,” Peterson said, soda in hand, totally
unperplexed. “Just heading back to check on bath time.”

Fire ricocheted from Carolyn’s collarbone to her wrists, as
she grabbed Peterson by her lapels and slammed her back into the wall.

“Major!” Peterson croaked, as the soda can hit the floor and
sent a black geyser spewing.

“You mean to tell me, Captain...” Carolyn said, angling in
toward Peterson, as she gave the lapels another shove, “you intentionally left
your station? That you have no idea-”

Peterson’s fair chin reverberated. “I was only going to-”

“Arrgghh!” Carolyn growled, sending Peterson’s shoulder
blades into the wall with renewed force. “Isabel?” Carolyn demanded through
clenched teeth. “Where the hell is-”

“Major?”

Carolyn turned her head to find Maria standing at the far
end of the corridor, holding a
newly-buffed
Isabel, a
pink-cheeked cherub in tights and a fluffy white dress. “Everything ees okay?”

Blood drained from Carolyn’s
face,
as she looked from Maria to Captain Peterson, then back again.

Carolyn released Peterson and lowered her fists. If the
earth could open up right now, no gap could possibly be wide enough.

“I just took the baby to say goodbye to all her...” Maria
stopped walking toward them, as Peterson cleared her throat and straightened
out her bent lapels. “...
friends
.”

“If you two will excuse me,” Peterson said, stepping out
from between the wall and Carolyn, “I’ll...”

Carolyn looked at her, rattled by the Captain’s trembling
expression.

“Permission to be excused?” Peterson asked.

Carolyn swallowed hard. “Of course, Captain.”

Peterson backed up a few steps before turning.

“Oh, Captain-” Carolyn said, just catching Peterson’s eye.

“Won’t happen again, ma’am,” Peterson said, breaking free
and scurrying away, as three civilian officers from the DIPAC security force
stormed the hall.

Ana stepped from the shower and slipped back into Joe’s
flannel shirt and the panties she’d done her best to wash out and ring dry
inside a towel. Now, if she could only find her way out of here or a way to
ensure trying to get home would be safe.

But, who knew what sorts of dangers lurked in the woods just
outside this safe little cabin? And putting herself in further danger right now
was not a good idea. Not good at all. At least with Joe, Ana felt reasonably
safe. Joe’d always had that way about him.
The diamond in the
rough appeal.
The sort of man any woman could...

Ana paused mid-thought and halted in her tracks as Joe
pressed in through the cabin door and bolted it at his back.

“You alright?” Ana asked, noting the sweat-streaked
undershirt and the hint of moisture that matted his hair against his brow.

“Just been doing some chopping,” Joe said with a heavy
breath. Whatever he’d been
chopping,
had sure taken a toll on his
windpipes.

“Firewood?” Ana asked, doubting his empty arms. A little
nervous tickle settled into her stomach as she weighed his reasons for bolting
the door when this cabin was so apparently isolated in the wilderness.

Joe shrugged a laugh and headed for the kitchen. “Yeah,
well, these old Virginia redwoods will give you quite a work out.”

 
“Do
tell,”
Ana
said, joining him in the kitchen and
surveying his dusty jeans. “Fight back, do they?”

Joe, who’d pulled a beer from the refrigerator, set it down
on the counter. “You
are
tough, aren’t you?”

Ana bit into her lower lip, knowing with a certainty he was
hiding something. “Joe, is there... Did you see something out there?”

Joe took a swig of his beer. “Lions and tigers and bears,
oh-”

Ana swatted him across the forearm. “Not funny.”

“Don’t worry, beautiful, you’ve got me here to protect you.”

“Not funny either,” she told him.

“Hmm
..
.”
 
Joe studied his beer label,
then
looked up with sincere probing eyes. “Well, what would
make you feel better? That some bastard came after me with a pistol and I
chopped him to bits with my axe?”

Ana recoiled.
“Joe!”

“Not to worry about the firewood,” Joe said, striding toward
the bedroom. “I’ll fetch it after I shower, then maybe we can make some chow
and settle our plans.”

“Plans sound good!”
Ana called after him,
as an icy chill shimmied up her spine.
Anything but sitting still in the
middle of the woods with bogeymen coming after them.

***

Carolyn Walker reached over and adjusted Isabel’s car seat
strap. “She’s wriggled out of the shoulder holster again,” Carolyn reported to
Mark, as she wrestled with the baby’s arm to get it back in a safe position.

Isabel giggled, delighted by the Major’s silly game, and wriggled
her round shoulder back out of the harness.

“A real escape artist,” Carolyn quipped with a smile.

Mark, who’d surveyed the scene in his rearview mirror,
chuckled. “Comes by it honestly, I guess.”

“Yes, sir,” Carolyn assured him. “How far’s the cabin?”

Mark checked the map on the seat beside him,
then
focused his attention back on the increasingly winding
road. “Should be just a couple more miles now.”

“Nice to have a place like that to go to,” Carolyn said.

“You bet.”

“Ever been?” Carolyn asked.

“What’s that?”

“To this particular safe house, sir.”

“Didn’t even know it existed.”
 
Mark checked his mirror, but noted
Carolyn displayed no signs of surprise. She understood secrets in this business
were routine- even among family. And in the Kane family, it seemed, revelations
of hidden truths appeared to surface daily.

Mark was glad about the cabin and relieved to have someplace
safe to stash Isabel until this whole sordid mess was over. During the brief
hour he’d checked in at the DIPAC to retrieve Isabel, he’d been informed of
more than one hundred and thirty new occurrences. And the occurrences had
escalated from relatively benign cyber warfare, to stalkings and home
invasions, kidnapings, and
..
.

Mark rounded another sharp curve, gripping the wheel, not
wanting to let
himself
think about it. But, in spite
of himself, his mind reeled back to the gruesome pictorials: the crime scene
photographs the DIPAC had gotten by fax: the broken and mutilated bodies, the
severed limbs...

Mark wheeled around a possum crossing the road as Isabel
squealed with amusement park delight.

Carolyn rocketed an arm across the baby’s chest to keep her
car seat from spilling forward, but said nothing.

Mark studied the map and took a hard left at the fourth
country mailbox.

The sickness
was
spreading and the intelligence work
force was being scared to death. It was an analytical nightmare and the worst
reign of terror against the intelligence community Mark had ever witnessed.
Rather than have themselves- or worse yet their families- face the prospect of
the unspeakable horrors that had already befallen the few who had refused to
cooperate, analysts were vacating their jobs in droves.

The most unnerving aspect of the whole attack was the fact
that the analysts were unprepared. Unlike operatives who were trained in the
field work
and taught to anticipate and thwart danger,
analysts were basically trained for desk jobs. The fact that many of them had
military backgrounds did little to prepare them for such an unmitigated and
unanticipated threat. If Mark had had an inkling of that threat, they wouldn’t
all be here now. He’d have found a way to put a stop to it, found a way to
limit Ana’s involvement and ensure her safety.

Mark gritted his teeth hard against his naivete.
Yeah,
right
. As if Mark had ever been able to limit Ana’s involvement in
anything
she’d put her mind to these last three years.
  

Isabel appeared to notice she was no longer the center of
attention and gurgled in protest, wriggling her fat little arm out of her car
seat strap for maybe the twentieth time in the last thirty minutes.

“She’s very determined,” Carolyn said, tucking Isabel’s
chubby arms back under their shoulder straps.

“Gets that part from her mother,” Mark answered, slowing the
car at the crest of a hill.

***

“Just how are we going to get out of this?” Ana asked,
rummaging through the stash of non-perishables to see if there was anything
worthy of dinner. Joe had cautioned her against going back to Central Virginia
and he’d been right. There were too many risks involved, not only for Ana
herself,
but
for her entire family. At present, she
was better off “dead.”

Joe’s assurance about the coat had helped ease her mind
about Mark’s concern. Joe was right. Mark and her father were definitely smart
enough to figure it out and they’d find a comfort in that connection. At least,
Ana was relatively sure, her father would. She didn’t know about Mark.

“Sure as hell don’t know,” Joe grimaced, tugging the cork
from the wine bottle. “But there’s no sense in letting fine wine go to waste
while we’re trying to figure it out.”

Ana gave him a twisted smile and set a couple of cans on the
counter. “Same old Joe.”

“Some kids never grow up,” Joe returned with a shrug.
“Whatdaya think? Good year?”

Ana took the opened bottle and studied the label.

“A
Valdepenas
. The best.”

Joe pulled two wine glasses from the cabinet. “Gotta say,”
he told her, filling their goblets each halfway, “when your old man plans a
safe house, he does it in style.”

It was true. For all of his shortcomings, Ana’s father did
indeed have class. But now Ana was eager to play the student and have Joe be
the teacher. There was still far too much she didn’t know.

“So,” Ana said, accepting her glass, “your operation was in
the Middle East and that’s all you’re telling me?”

“I told you about Al Fahd,” Joe said, taking a sip of wine
and leaning back into the counter.

“Yes, that you worked for him, but not what you did.”

Joe shook his head. “
Need to know
, Ana.”

It was old intelligence protocol that everyone within the
system was only told as much as they needed to know to fulfill their own
individual missions, particularly when sensitive information was involved.

“Fine,” she said, slowly savoring a swallow that hinted at
birch and cherry. “Then tell me what you think Al Fahd’s connection is to
Sun-tzu and his henchman.”

Joe took another swallow then set down his glass. “They’re
working together on something big.”

“Big, involving computers?”
Ana asked.

“Computers?”

“Information warfare, maybe?”

Joe appeared to consider this, then nodded. “Has something
to do with Y2K.”

“Y2K? But the party’s over.”

“That’s what I said.” Joe scooped up the bottle and refilled
his glass. “Though you’d never know it from the Arab’s stash of balloons.”

“Balloons?”
Ana questioned.
“You’re
not serious!”

Joe shook his head and took a quick swallow of wine. “No, I
wasn’t, sweetheart. All a big, fricking joke.”
 
He gave her a grand sweeping smile she
didn’t quite buy. “Sorry.”
 

“Wait a minute...”
Ana said, holding over
her glass for a refill.
“Y2K...of course!”

Joe poured, then looked up.

“Don’t you see the link? Y2K, computers?”

Joe shrugged. “A bug? What are you saying? And how, pray
tell, are you linking this to Al Fahd?”

Ana surrendered a breath. “I have no idea how I’m linking
this to Al Fahd, Joe. All I have is a gut instinct that is telling me-”

“Uh oh,” Joe said, slowly shaking his head and raising his
wine to his lips. “Gotta watch out for those gut instincts.”

“Why?”
Ana asked.

Joe sputtered a laugh into his goblet. “Because, dear,
beautiful friend, once you start getting that instinct, you’re in trouble. Once
you start getting that niggling sensation that
you
can work the puzzle-”

“I
can
work the puzzle,” Ana interrupted with a
frown.

“I wasn’t saying that you couldn’t.”

“Most certainly were. At least, you were implying it.”

Joe cocked his head. “Look, I was only-”

“I know damn well what you were trying to say, Joe. You were
taking me for a fool. Poor, silly little housewife getting in way over her
head.”

“Hey!”

“No,
you
, hey!”
 
Ana set down her wine and stepped toward him. “And listen to me one damn
minute. I don’t know who you and Mark-”

Joe put his own wine aside. “Mark?”

“Yes, Mark,”
Ana
said, setting her
jaw against its impending tremble. “You both-”

Joe held up a hand between them. “Uh, huh. Don’t you go
putting me in that
mix.
I haven’t even
talked
to
your beloved in over three years.”

Ana slapped a palm down onto the counter top and Joe
encircled her wrist in his hand.

“Listen,” he said, his voice a mellow whisper. “That’s
not
what I meant at all.”

His hand slid up her arm and Ana spun to face him. Suddenly,
she was inches from his chin, inches from his honey-brown eyes and that thick
auburn moustache.