Volcano (26 page)

“What?” Ana asked, turning to Mark, who was filling each of
their
glasses half way. “What did I miss? What did she say?”

Mark grinned. “This time, I wasn’t the one talking.”

“You-” Ana said, accepting the champagne glass Mark had
poured her.

Mark set the bottle aside and hit the “mute” button on the
remote.

Ana looked at him.
“But, we’ll miss
the-”

“We’re not going to miss a thing,” Mark told her, putting
down his glass. “It’s time, Ana. I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“Ready to listen. You told me when-”

“I know I did.
But not tonight.
We’ve been through so much.”

“Exactly. And
now’s
as good a time
as any.
The best time for wiping the slate clean.
For
starting fresh.”

“Listen, Mark,” she began tentatively, “you’re not the only
one who’s messed up here.”

Mark’s gut twisted. “This about McFadden?”

“Partially,” Ana said, “but mostly about us.”

Mark looked deep in her eyes, needing to know this and know
this now. “Ana, what really happened at the cabin? Between you and McFadden?”

Ana pressed her lips together and blinked back the moisture
building in her eyes. “Not what you think. Not what you think, at all.”

“But I found you-”

“I know what you found. Rather, what you think you found.
But what you saw was all there was. There wasn’t going to be anything more.”

“And now?”

“There never
will
be anything more,” she said, laying
a hand on his knee.

Mark pressed his hand on top of hers and clamped her to him.
“Can you promise me, Ana? Promise me there’s never been anybody else?”

“Oh God, Mark,” she said, her chin a-tremble. “How can you
even ask me that?”

But instead of answering, Mark just waited. Waited, praying
to God she could tell him what he wanted so desperately to hear. That there
was
no
Joe
McFadden,
never
had been
any Joe
McFadden, not since right after Costa Negra.

Ana put her own glass down on the table and steadied her
gaze. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But first, I want to ask a promise in return.”
 
Mark’s stomach prepared for the one-two
punch. “I want you to promise me you’ll never doubt me. Swear to me that, when
I tell you something, you’ll believe it to be true.”

“You want me to make this promise
before
you come
clean about McFadden?”

Ana nodded.
“It’s about trust,
Mark.
Between the two of us.
How can I ever tell you
what’s in my heart, if I can’t for a second know you’ll believe it.”

He knew she was right, but still the pledge caught in his
throat as he voiced his oath. “I swear,” he said, damning the burning swell in
his soul. Mark tightened his grasp on Ana’s hand, unsure of what to expect.

Ana brought her free hand to his face and looked up and into
him with her hypnotic brown eyes. “There is no Joe McFadden and hasn’t been for
a very long time. You, Mark Neal, are the only man I’ve ever wanted. The only
man I still want.

“But I won’t lie to you...”

Mark swallowed past the bulge in his throat.

“I was tempted, tempted for a moment with Joe...”

Mark felt the perspiration building at his hairline but
willed
himself
not to react, just listen.

“But it wasn’t about us, Mark. I can see now our troubles
were apart from that. With Joe is was about...”

“Yesterday?” Mark filled in, damning the heat in his eyes.

“Exactly,” Ana said, slipping her hand out from under his
and bringing it to his other cheek so his face was cradled in her palms. “And
the danger, the uncertainty of the moment. But I knew, even then, who I was-
where I belonged. Something inside stopped me, made me believe that. Now, I
want you to believe it, too.”

“I want to believe,” he said, needing to be strong for the
two of them, knowing if he failed her, he would fail them both. So what, about
McFadden and what may or may not have been? Words often lied but feelings
seldom did, and what Mark’s heart said at this moment was that Ana spoke the
truth. Mark raised an unsteady hand and stroked Ana’s silky hair, just as
incredulous now as he’d been when they said their vows that a creature this
beautiful was willingly his.

“Then do,” she said, smiling past her tears, as she lowered
her hands to his shoulders. “Dare to believe. Because deep in my heart I know
you’ve never really left me.
That I’ve never really left you.
This thing between us,” she said, lightly stroking the side of his neck. “I
won’t call it love, because it’s more than that. So much more...”

“Ana,” Mark said, cursing the single tear that escaped the
corner of his eye. “I need to say I’m sorry. Sorry for so many things-”

She shushed him by bringing a finger to his lips. “We’ve
both made mistakes. Maybe it’s time we stopped thinking about yesterday, and
set our sights on tomorrow.”

“No, truly. This isn’t just about McFadden... From the
beginning, when things started happening at-”

Ana arched her lips to his and stopped his words with a
kiss. A kiss that opened up whole new worlds and swept away any darkness and
lingering doubt. And, in an instant, Mark knew he’d been crazy to ever doubt
her. This woman who filled him up with liquid fire and sent heat, like molten
lava, surging to his groin.
His Ana,
now and for
always.
The woman that he loved... Dammit, more than loved-
adored-
with
a passion greater than any that had existed on heaven or earth.

“We’re going to make it, aren’t we, Mark?” Ana asked, tears
streaming from her dark brown eyes.
Eyes that must have been
the gift of an angel.
“We’re going to be okay...?”

There were a million answers to that question, but only one
that really mattered. His father-in-law had been right. They’d been made for
each other, Mark and Ana- just as surely as Albert had been made for Isabel.
And now he was going to prove it, show her what all this time had been lying
dormant in his heart. For Mark ached with a telling need to be her husband,
just as surely as her beckoning eyes said that Ana longed to be his wife- in
every sense of the word.

Mark glanced over at the silenced television, seeing it had
somehow passed midnight.

Well, he'd be damned if they weren’t going to celebrate.
Celebrate so many things, starting with their new beginning.

“Better than okay,” he said, flipping her sideways onto the
couch. “There’s not one goddamned camera in this room.”

The bugler wailed out soft and low, sending his mournful
tune wafting over the simple white markers of Arlington National Cemetery. Ana
reached out and took Mark’s hand in the fading twilight as the Sergeant of the
Guard retrieved the folded flag and settled it respectfully into Joe McFadden’s
hands.

Out of deference to Tom and the man he had once been, Mark,
Albert and Au Yang had seen fit to devise a plan. A plan that called for a
complete cover-up of Mooney’s involvement in the tainted Volcano scheme and
firmly placed the blame on the now-deceased Chinese espionage king-pin Hay Long
and the Arab Al Fahd’s exploded head.

There would never be an official record Mooney knew anything
of Volcano beyond inception of the original plan. It had been Hay Long who’d
invaded the DOS database records in Year 2000, and after stumbling across the
near-perfect plan, had decided to bring Volcano to life. He’d tracked down the
three original team members and weighed their potential for involvement. Kane,
because of his current position at DOS, was a no go. But, Au Yang, then
operating as a
double-agent
in China under the name
Sun-tzu, was an immediate target.

Unaware of his double affiliation with the Chinese and the
DOS, Hay Long had taken an unwitting chance in recruiting the so-called Sun-tzu
into service. For Sun-tzu, it had been an uncanny stroke of luck. He now had
the opportunity to get the goods on the slippery eel Hay Long, who up until
that point, had managed to conceal his physical identity from American
Intelligence, while simultaneously folding himself into a nefarious operation
whose outcome Au Yang could hope to influence.

When Au Yang first learned Hay Long had also secured the
cooperation of the Gray Wolf or Tom Mooney, he’d been incredulous. But then,
after having met with Mooney, he’d seen the situation for what it was. Mooney
wasn’t playing with a full deck and Hay Long had somehow managed to convince
him that what he was about to become involved in was for the good of America.
Probably using old DOS data from the original plan’s development, Hay Long
preyed on Mooney’s growing paranoia of a communist infiltration of the defense
intelligence system. Hay Long even may have told Tom he was Au Yang’s son.
Though this was never verified, it would have further explained Mooney’s
willingness to work with him.

Au Yang, as Sun-tzu, had met with Mooney twice in attempts
to dissuade him from further promulgating Volcano. The first time, Tom had
recognized him as his old friend Au Yang and been genuinely concerned by Hay
Long’s duplicity. Tom had sworn to sever his affiliation. But the next thing Au
Yang knew, Mooney had made connections through Hay Long with an Arab named Al
Fahd and was already plotting the analyst scare.

Au Yang had set up a second secretive meeting. But this
time, Mooney had decried him as an imposter and a damn commie. Au Yang’s son
Hay Long, Mooney had said, had told him the truth...

Au Yang tried to get warnings to the analysts he could, but
the ever-foxy Al Fahd became increasingly difficult to outmaneuver without Au
Yang blowing his cover. Still, he’d used his influence to protect his friends
where he could, among other things by planting the suggestion that US mercenary
John Smith, whom Au Yang understood was really CIA man Joe McFadden, be charged
with Ana Kane’s disposal.

Ana looked across the midnight coffin to where Joe stood,
clutching his Uncle Tom’s flag to his chest. Beside him, Carolyn Walker
steadied his arm with her womanly touch. A womanly touch, Ana suspected, that
Joe could get used to- given time.

Mark tightly squeezed her hand as the Chaplain offered up a
final prayer and the small party at the graveside bowed their heads.
Ana thought briefly of Isabel, safe now at home with her new nanny.
A nanny who’d undergone a most thorough background
investigation at DOS Assistant Director Albert Kane’s directive.
Ana,
Albert and Mark had decided to grant Maria Gonzales some leniency for her
eventual cooperation in revealing all she knew. Her admission of Tom’s final
visit to the DIPAC, and positive identification of him as being
El Lobo,
had
confirmed the broader picture of Tom’s mental imbalance that the rest of them
had already suspected.

Mark and Ana had decided not to press charges, but rather
had helped Maria and her ailing husband Pepe relocate to the southwestern
United States with the assistance of the same DOS Witness Displacement Program
that had once taken such a heavy toll on Albert Kane’s life.

Ana caught a glimpse of her father standing at attention
beside the Quarter Master, and a heat flashed in her eyes despite the early
January chill. Her father was the next in line, Ana realized, returning Mark’s
tightened grip. He was now little more than a vague shadow standing in the
half-light. When Ana’s mother Isa had died, she’d taken Albert’s heart. And
now, cover-up or no, Tom’s death had deprived Ana’s father of his soul.

The service ended with a blood-pounding twenty-one gun
salute. Then, after a few moments of silence, the small crowd dispersed.

“Want to say something to McFadden?” Mark asked, turning to
Ana.

But when she looked over, Ana saw Joe was wrapped in
Carolyn’s arms.

“No, that’s alright,”
Ana
said. “I
think we’d better go. Father?” she said, calling to where he stood motionless
beside the casket. “Coming with us?”

Albert spun slowly on his heels and joined Mark and Ana on
the path that led to the gate.

“I’m getting too damn old for this business,” he told them,
his expression drawn. “I want the two of you to know I’m stepping down.”

“Leaving the DOS?”
Ana asked.
“Now?”

“Already put in my resignation,” Albert said. “And, Mark,”
Albert laid a hand on his son-in-law’s shoulder. “Also my recommendation for my
replacement.”

“Me,
sir?” Mark asked, stopping in his tracks. “I’m
very flattered, but we’re all settled down in Virginia.”

“Be easier for you to keep an eye on my daughter up here,”
Albert said, with a sound swat to Mark’s back.

Mark
eyes fell on Ana’s, but she quickly averted her
gaze and looked toward the sky.

Mark looked from Albert to
Ana
,
then back again.

“Oh no
..
.
No, no,”
Mark
said, shaking his head. “You’re not telling me that Ana-”

Mark raced his fingers through his hair and blew a hard
breath.

For a fleeting instant
Ana
almost
felt sorry for him.
Almost, but not quite.
Ana had
been the victim of duplicity her entire life. The time to turn the tables had
finally come. And
Mark would get used to it
,
she knew he would
. Just as surely as she’d finally adjusted
to the idea herself.

“Ana,” Mark said, shaking his finger, “I never once said you
could-”

Albert raised his brow, but
Ana
just offered up her brightest smile. “It‘ll be alright. You’ll see. The two of
us make quite a team; you said so yourself.”
 
It was true he’d said it in another
context, but
Ana
doubted Mark would argue with her
now, especially in front of her father.