Avenger (10 page)

“Better?” asked Morgan.

“Much. I needed that,” Reigns replied. She was dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting sweater, towel drying her hair. “I felt like shit.”

“It’s amazing how much better you feel after a shower.”

They were in a Gulfstream G650 ultra-high-speed jet, one of an exclusive fleet specifically modified for Intrepid by Gulfstream’s Special Missions Program Office. Outside, the aircraft looked like any other privately owned jet: white, with non-descript markings and insignia. Inside was a different story. The forward section immediately behind the cockpit was the flight-crew cabin and galley. The mid-section was divided into an enhanced first-class standard seating area for six, including a table and briefing area with state-of-the-art digital communications and video facilities. Beyond that, the rear section was divided into two private staterooms, a secure weapons storage area, restrooms and, at the very rear, a small but adequately appointed incarceration space.

Having retrieved the last of the evening meal clutter, the flight attendant had withdrawn to the crew quarters and now the two agents were alone at the table.

Morgan had poured drinks for them. His was Sullivans Cove whisky. He handed Reigns a Bacardi and ice. She dropped into the seat opposite his, draped the towel over her shoulders and gratefully accepted it. Morgan noticed a slight tremor in his hand. He withdrew it quickly, hoping she hadn’t noticed.

“It’s what you wanted, right?” he asked.

She took a long sip. “Yeah, it’s perfect,” she said, openly studying him. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure. So, are you OK? Hell of a day.”

“I’m doing fine,” Reigns said. “What about you? Been a hell of a day for you, too.”

“Me? Don’t worry about me,” he replied, too quickly, immediately doubting how convincing he’d sounded.

“You’re thinking about Dave,” said Reigns. It wasn’t a question.

He nodded, staring into the Scotch. Sutherland had been shot to bits and all Morgan could do was dump him outside the hospital emergency room in a pile of ragged bandages and an ocean of blood. He couldn’t think about it. He had to believe his friend would pull through.

“Just wondering if there’s anything I missed. You know, anything that could have been avoided.”

“I was there, too, remember. We were all in the thick of it. There weren’t many options with all those bullets buzzing around.” Her voice was calm and her words measured. “We had to get Lam out of there and once we were in that car we were sitting ducks, but we had no other choice. If we’d tried to fight it out in the alley or escape on foot we would all have been cut down in minutes. Those guys own those streets and everyone on them.”

“I know, I know,” said Morgan, rattled by her composure. He felt the complete opposite and found himself suddenly resenting her for it. “He should have kept his fucking head down.”

“Dave was trying to protect us by closing that rear door.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” He stood up and paced the gangway. “He knows the score. Anyway, the medics must have patched him up by now.”

After a couple of minutes of silence he returned to the table and took a long drink, barely able to suppress the pain and frustration he felt. His hands betrayed him again, so he pushed the glass away. It slid across the table. Reigns stopped it. Morgan slumped back in his seat and stared up at the ceiling.

“You know, when I was just a girl,” she began carefully, “my mom taught me how to calm myself when I was upset or angry about something. I still do it. I think you should try it.”

“I’m fine, Reigns,” he said. “I’m nowhere near fucking angry yet.”

“Humor me,” she said. He didn’t move or reply, only glared across at her, trying to work her out.

Reigns stood up, took a step around the edge of the table so that she was by his side, and pointed one long, slender finger at him.

“Listen, Morgan, if I have to beat the shit out of you until you relax, I will,” she said. “So, we’re doing this, whether you like it or not.”

There was a brief pause before he laughed. Reigns did too. It was impossible not to.

“OK, OK. Jesus! You win,” he said. “What do I do? You’re not going to swing a crystal on a chain, say ‘look into my eyes,’ or any tree-hugging shit like that, are you?”

“Don’t be an idiot. Get up and let’s go sit in the comfy chairs. This table makes me feel like I’m back in college.”

Reigns took him by the hand and led him to the lounge seats away from the table. She sat him down.

“Sit back. Rest your head. That’s it, get comfortable. Hands on top of your thighs. Eyes closed.”

Morgan obeyed. Reigns reclined his seat and then sat facing him. He could feel how close she was.

“OK, all set?”

He nodded.

“Good. You’re finally doing as you’re told. Now, focus only on my voice and your breathing.”

“What if I start heavy breathing?”

“Shut up. I’ll tell you when you can start heavy breathing.” She gave him a smile he wasn’t expecting. “Take a slow, deep breath. I said, slow. Focus, Morgan.”

“I can’t focus now.” He grinned, eyes still closed.

“We can focus on other stuff later, if you’re a good boy. Now, try again. Take it right down into the very base of your lungs and fill your chest as much as you can. Good. Hold it. That’s right. Now, slowly release the air through your nostrils. Slowly, until absolutely all of it is out. Good. Now, again. Breathe deep. Fill your lungs …”

Morgan had no idea how long it took but he succumbed completely to her, mesmerized by the soothing control of her voice as she gently guided him down into a deep, meditative state. His subconscious streamed images of Elizabeth Reigns. Her smile. Her hair. Her eyes. When she eventually began to lead him back out of it, he remained as he was, sunk into the seat, eyes closed, limbs and body heavy and immobile. He felt as though he was still on the edge of a dream.

“Once we’re done with this job, let’s fly back and check on Dave,” he heard himself say, but his voice was hoarse and disconnected, like it belonged to someone else.

“That’s a great idea,” she replied, her own voice little more than a whisper. “Where will they take him to recover?”

“Back to the SEALS. Coronado. Navy hospital. He’ll be safe there. Plenty of people he knows …”

Morgan’s thoughts drifted again into a disjointed stream of Sutherland, Wu Ming, Africa, and, in the center of it all, Reigns. He could see her, just as she was before she’d headed off to the shower, sitting across the table from him, providing her input to the operational report Morgan was tapping out on the laptop. He remembered how close she’d been, leaning across, adding her unique perspective on what had gone down. After all they’d been through, her energy and resolve were captivating.

Morgan’s previous fixation on taking a leave of absence to rest and recuperate had vanished. He couldn’t even think about that now. No sooner had he resolved that issue than Reigns appeared again. His mind toyed with the intimacy he’d felt with her, being under the spell of her meditation, her gentle tone of voice and the calm she had so easily introduced to his thoughts and feelings. It was the first time he’d been alone with his thoughts since arriving in Hong Kong that morning. Now he was airborne again and en route to London, preparing for whatever the general had in store for him – for them – next. Flashes of his mission to apprehend Chomba in Malawi returned to him and he considered the parallels to the covert infiltration he’d carried out solo in Corfu a year earlier, apprehending the fugitive Serbian war criminal Milivoj Šerifović. Then there was the Wolf. Then Drago. A showdown. Gunfire. Charly – Reigns!

Morgan woke with a start.

“Jesus, did I just fall asleep?”

“Yep, you did,” she said. She smiled at him from her seat, legs crossed, resting too.

“How long?”

“About half an hour, I guess.”

“Bloody hell. Sorry.” He sat up and rubbed his face.

“Don’t be sorry. We haven’t stopped all day until now. What is it that Tom Rodgers says about the body shutting down after an operation? The euphoria of cheating …”

“… the inevitability of death. Yeah, I remember.”

“You feel better?”

“I do actually,” he said. “Whatever you did, it helped. I appreciate it.”

Morgan stood, stretched, walked into the galley and poured himself a second scotch. Reigns joined him. She rattled the ice cubes in her empty glass and handed it to him.

“So, did you get the report done?” she asked.

“Yeah, I sent it off while you were taking your shower. As well as today’s stuff, I had to include my report on Africa. That’s where I was before I arrived in Hong Kong. I just hope I covered everything.” He refilled both their drinks, handed hers back to her and they returned to their seats.

“I wonder if there’ll be any correlation between the African end and the work you’ve been doing here – you know, the networks.”

“It’s very probable,” she said. “So, what happens now? I mean, with Dave.”

“HK cops and Interpol will look after him until our people arrive from headquarters to sort out the details.”

“And what about us? I mean, what usually happens once you get back from an operation like this?”

“Usually, you’d take a break, but I suspect that’s not what the boss has in mind for us. By the time we’re back in London, the Intel team will already have worked through the info we’ve just sent them about today, particularly your observations from the factory. We’ll be back by midnight, London time. Then we’ll get our heads down until we regroup at headquarters in the morning.”

Morgan paused for a moment, looking at her.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing, only what 
the hell made you sign up for this? It’s been bugging me.”

“What does that mean? Why should it bug you?”

“Well, you don’t exactly come from a typical background to be working for this outfit. You’ll forgive me for saying this but up until this morning, you haven’t really been the type – or have you?”

“Is there a type?” she challenged, and sat forward in her seat.

“I suppose not,” he replied. She was right, of course, but still he wanted to understand her. “So, humor me. Let’s face it, you’ve never been a shooter. Apart from the résumé spiel, which I already know, what drew you into all this?”

“You really want to know?”

“Of course I do. I know you can handle yourself, you proved that today.” For a moment he could see that she thought he was deliberately baiting her. He wasn’t. “Seriously, I’m curious. It’s in my nature.”

“Well, if we’re cutting to the chase, I’m here because my father was in the South Tower of the World Trade Center when it came down. God, it’s almost twelve years ago to the day. He worked for Euro Brokers and their floor was above the second impact, United 175. He went to work that day just like any other. I was just a kid. He kissed me on top of my head like he did every other morning, walked out the door and I never saw him again. He was with a group that were trying to get up to the roof, hoping they’d be rescued from there. They didn’t make it. My mother never recovered from it. They were so much in love. Her grief was so intense that cancer took her within two years.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry,” Morgan said quietly. “I had no idea.”

“When the general approached me and I learned about Intrepid, it made a lot of sense to join. I want to make the world better, you know. In any way I can.”

She leaned back in her seat. They fell silent for a long time, quietly comfortable again in each other’s company. Morgan felt a strange familiarity with her and felt guilty for pushing her to dredge up the past and revisit the loss of her father. He enjoyed her company, but she’d been through enough for one day.

“I’ll always be indebted to you and Dave for getting me out of there. God knows what would have happened if you two hadn’t arrived when you did,” she told him.

“Don’t mention it. It’s just what we do, and it’s what you do, too. You’re one of us now, remember? Besides, from what I saw, you had it under control. We were just there for back up, and you’ll be there for us next time the crunch comes.”

“Thanks, but still,” she said. “It was amazing. I only hope—”

“Don’t say it,” Morgan told her earnestly. “Whatever happens, happens. We’ve just got to go with it in this job. Dave knows that. If we were like normal people we’d be back there with him right now, but we’re not normal, not any more. Normal things don’t exist for people like us. If it was me on that hospital bed, he’d be exactly the same.”

“My new reality, huh?” Reigns got up and paced for a while, stretching and arching her spine with her hands in the small of her back.

“I’m afraid so. Trust me, if we’d been anywhere else earlier tonight, we would have found a good bar, got on it and forgotten all about our day, but that wasn’t an option for us in Hong Kong. Your face is known to those people, so we had to get you out of there.” He looked up at her, ready to make another point, when something occurred to him. “Bloody hell! How tall
are
you, Reigns?”

“Five-ten,” she answered with just a hint of light-hearted challenge in her voice. “Why, does that bug you, too?”

“Not at all,” he answered. “Just don’t stand too close to me if you’re in heels.”

Reigns picked up her Bacardi, her long fingers curling around the glass. She paced the center of the cabin. Morgan watched her and knew she was reliving the events of the day, mulling them over, searching for answers of her own. But unlike Morgan’s earlier frustration, she was energized by the challenge. This job, this life, was all new to Reigns. It was exhilarating to watch her.

“Wu Ming was down there with his bodyguards. Showing off his entrepreneurial flair – his factory,” she said. “Asshole. Bald head, black eyes, Chinese-style suit. And the European body builders were down there too, with their buzz cuts and tight suits. When I saw them, a couple of them were already running toward the stairs leading to the room I was in. They’d heard the shots but had to cross the factory floor, through the sewing tables and stools. That slowed them down and gave me the chance to get out with Victor.”