Eye of the Storm (9 page)

"Yeah." She didn't pretend to misunderstand, just answered the question, backing the car out of the parking lot. "And he'll be back. He'll stick with it until he gets what he wants."

"And what would that be, Simone?" Reece waited a beat, not certain that she'd answer.

"Me." Her lip curled at the corner, a cynic's smile. "He wants me."

"YOU GOT MY BROTHER SHOT, you drew a gun on me, and you sank my Jag. I think at the very least you owe me some kind of explanation," Reece demanded, using his best prosecutor's voice. There were times she loathed that voice. And this was one of them.

They were holed up in two adjoining rooms at the Holiday Inn. Martin was spread out on one of the beds, and Reece was pacing in front of the heavily draped window. Simone had made certain they had rooms facing the front of the hotel on the fourth floor, but despite those precautions, she'd still drawn the drapery.

No one had followed them here. She'd ensured that, using side roads and evasive tactics the entire journey. But one could never be too cautious. And until she had them safely out of this, she was determined to watch Reece and Martin's backs.

"I didn't exactly sink the Jag. That one's really on you."

He stopped pacing to glare at her, his anger palpable. So much for taunting the lion.

"I'm sorry. That wasn't funny."

"No, it wasn't." He started moving again, back and forth in front of the drapes. She'd learned a long time ago that it helped him to process information, but she still found the habit unsettling. "And it's not going to stop me from asking again for some semblance of truth. We are caught in the middle of a nightmare here. And I want to know why."

"I don't know for certain." The possibilities were unfortunately endless. And until she talked to Maurice, there was no way of figuring out who was pulling the strings.

"But you said the killer wanted you." Reece stopped and turned to face her, his stillness almost more alarming than his agitation. "If you know that, then you must have an idea who it is that's doing the hunting. Or at least who is behind it."

"I wish it were that simple." Simone sighed and sat down on the end of the other bed, trying to find the easiest way to explain things. "But it's not. The truth is there are any number of people who could be after me. And most I probably wouldn't know if I ran into them on the street."

"And why is that?" It was a deceptively simple question.

But Simone chose to misunderstand. Putting off the moment when she had to reveal the part of herself she'd hoped was dead and buried. "Why wouldn't I know them?"

"No. Why is there a long list?" Reece still stood in front of the window, so still she could see him breathing. For a moment it was just the two of them and the secret that had torn them apart.

But Martin was there. And the shades of her past. In all its horrible incarnations. The secret she had to share was far less intense than the ones that had preceded it. Yet she still couldn't seem to find the words. She blew out a breath. "Because I used to work for the CIA. Division 9."

"I've never heard of it."

"The CIA?" Martin asked from his spot on the bed, incredulity coloring his voice.

"Obviously I've heard of the CIA." Reece leaned back against the table under the window, his relaxed stance in no way lessening the tension permeating the room. "Just not Division 9."

"You wouldn't have heard of it. It's an off-the-record black ops group used to do the CIA's dirty work."

"What kind of dirty work?" Martin asked, his youthful exuberance making her wish she could lie. But the time for that was past.

"Arms deals, extractions, assassinations—anything they needed done that they didn't want the U.S. getting credit for. We were so far undercover most of the agency didn't even know we existed."

"
Existed?"
Reece asked, his expression still inscrutable.

"Yeah. Things went south close to ten years ago and we were put on ice, and then relocated."

"To Corpus." He said it like it was a curse. But then considering everything that had happened, maybe it was.

"Actually, they put me in Houston." She offered a weak smile. "But I hated it. I wanted somewhere smaller, I guess. Somewhere I could find peace. The first time I saw the bay, I knew I was home."

Reece opened his mouth to argue, but shut it again, his face tight with emotion. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't. We were instructed to keep it all secret. To pretend it never existed. Any mention of CIA involvement was out of the question. They made it clear that there would be repercussions if any of it ever leaked out."

"And so you pretended to be someone you weren't." His words were harsh, but understandable under the circumstances.

"It's not like she had a choice," Martin interjected. He was trying to protect her, and while she appreciated the loyalty, she could also understand Reece's anger.

"Just because I couldn't share my past, that doesn't mean I wasn't honest about other things. A relationship is based on a hell of a lot more than where a person was born or what things they have or haven't done with their life. So yes, I lied to you. About things that didn't matter anyway. The stuff that did matter, like who I really am, and what I want from life—the things that really define a person—those things I never lied about." She'd said more than she meant to. But then, Reece knew how to push her buttons.

"But the things you did tell me—they were all fictional, right?"

"You already know the answer to that." Her lie about her past had cost her her marriage. Which was ironic, because she'd only told it to please Reece. To give substance to the part of him that wanted her to be the girl next door. His parents had been the perfect couple, with him and Martin coming along to create the perfect family.

When his parents died, Reece had filled the void, raising Martin and making a new life for the both of them. By the time she'd come along, the two of them were a package deal. And in many ways Reece had seen her as the icing on the cake. A way to replicate the family he'd lost.

And she'd played to the fantasy. Surprised when he never called her on it. It was only when she'd pushed it too far and forced a confrontation that he'd demanded the truth. But she couldn't tell him. It was as simple as that.

From there, the gulf between them had just kept growing. And she'd watched helplessly as the foundation they'd built crumbled around her like a house of sand. But then the whole thing had been fantasy anyway. Believing, even for a minute, that it had been something genuine and enduring—now there was the real lie.

They stared at each other, Reece's anger at her betrayal arcing between them like a living thing. She'd reached for her own happiness and in the process destroyed his. There was nothing left to say.

"So what happened?" Martin interrupted, forcing them both to break with the past and face the present. "Why did they shut down Division 9?"

Simone tipped back her head, rubbing the back of her neck, her agitated pulse beating against her fingers. "We were betrayed." She started to stop there, to edit the story, and then abandoned the idea. What difference did it make now? "We were in Nicaragua. On a mission to extract a local. He was working with us as an informant, providing crucial information about the drug cartels in the area. He was well connected and the information was invaluable. But he was also an insurgent. Head of a junta opposed to the government of the day. They were planning a coup. But the government got wind of the fact, and sent troops to dissuade them. Our mission was to get our man out before the troops arrived.

"We were already in the country, so it wasn't difficult to access the village. Unfortunately, someone who knew the plan leaked the information."

"Someone on the team?" Reece asked, clearly interested despite himself.

"No way. We'd worked together for years. None of us would ever have put the others at risk. I think it must have been someone attached to Ramirez."

"The guy you were supposed to rescue?" Martin asked, sitting cross-legged on the bed now.

"Not Hector Ramirez?" Reece's eyes narrowed. "You were in Sangre de Cristo?"

"Yes." Simone's gaze met Reece's as understanding dawned.

"There were rumors of CIA involvement."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Martin interrupted impatiently. "San what?"

"Sangre de Cristo." Reece said. "There was a massacre there. An entire village slaughtered when government troops opened fire on what they believed was a revolutionary stronghold. Women and children were killed right along with the men. And afterward, there was never any real proof that there were dissidents in the village. And there was strong rumor among the international community that the CIA was behind it all." His hooded gaze met hers, his lawyer's face again neutral.

Martin let out a long, low whistle. "And you were there?"

"In Sangre de Cristo, yes. But we weren't behind any of what happened. We were only there to retrieve Ramirez."

"But you failed. Ramirez was killed along with the rest of them, wasn't he?"

"Yes. By the time I found him, he was dead. And we were surrounded. Cut off from escape. And since officially we didn't exist, there was no help coming."

"So what did you do?" Martin asked.

"We fought our way out." Simone shrugged, a futile effort to try and shut out the memories, the cries of the wounded and dying echoing through her head as if she'd heard them only yesterday. "People were dying everywhere. I remember a kid standing by a fountain in a plaza, crying. I grabbed her just before a mortar blew the fountain to bits.

"There were eight of us working the operation. Six at the drop zone. Two in the jungle to facilitate retrieval. When we got to the city we split into two groups of three. Code-named 'blue' and 'red'. It made it easier to blend in with the locals. Once it all went south, we worked toward the rendezvous. Blue team never made it. They were slaughtered along with everyone else."

"The engineers from Altech."

"You know a lot about Sangre de Cristo."

"It was an international incident." It was Reece's turn to shrug. "And I've always had an interest in human-rights law." It seemed she wasn't the only one who hadn't exercised full disclosure. But she shouldn't have been surprised. Reece had always been about doing what was right. Good versus evil and all that. Everything in black-and-white. It was part of why she'd fallen in love with him. Too bad the world was all about shades of gray.

"But you made it." Martin urged her back to the story.

"Yeah. We did. Almost lost Bea along the way, but eventually we got out. It took about a month to work our way out of the mountains, and another month after that to make it back to the States."

"And then you were disbanded."

"Quarantined at first, actually. Tempers were running pretty hot, and the CIA was under pretty heavy scrutiny. As I said, we were responsible for handling the Company's dirty work. And after Sangre de Cristo, no one wanted our endeavors coming to light. After things died down, they relocated us."

"And now someone from your past is back." Reece had crossed his arms over his chest, looking every bit the inquisitioner.

"Yes." Simone reached into the inside pocket of her purse and produced the postcard. "When we were relocated, we were given a password—a set of coordinates actually, to initiate a locator program—and the instructions that if anything happened to threaten the sanctity of D-9, we'd be sent a warning. A call to bring us all together again. I got this in the mail today." She handed the postcard to Reece, and Martin got off the bed to stand behind his brother.

"'The storm is coming'?"

"That was the message we were told to expect. The
M
is for Maurice Baxter. He was our handler. The official unofficial head of D-9. He's the only one left who even knows we existed."

"Have you seen him?"

"No. Not since we were relocated. I haven't seen any of the team. The powers that be thought it better if we were separated permanently."

"Weren't you tempted to try and find them?" Martin asked, tipping his head to one side, observing her as if she were a specimen in a lab.

"I'll admit sometimes I think about how nice it would be to talk to someone who understands my past. A kindred spirit, so to speak. But no, I've never tried to find anyone. Nor has anyone contacted me. It was made pretty clear that if we did try, there'd be serious consequences."

"So this message, what exactly does it mean?" Reece waved the card as he spoke.

"'The storm is coming' means that D-9 has been compromised. Conceivably by an enemy. 'Take cover' is code indicating we're to head for the rendezvous."

"And the rendezvous would be the coordinates you spoke of?" Reece as usual had cut to the heart of the matter.

"Yes. The first coordinates will lead to the second and so on until a precise latitude and longitude emerges as the final meeting place."

"But for all you know the rendezvous has been compromised as well. I mean, clearly someone has found you."

"They haven't found it. The beginning of the message is 'trip is fine.' That's meant to signal that the rendezvous is safe. We had alternate messages to cover other possibilities."

"It's just like James Bond." Martin's enthusiasm would have been humorous, except that this wasn't the movies and the game was deadly.

"In the movies the good guys live," Reece said. "I'm not thinking that's the plan here." Even though he was talking to his brother his gaze never left Simone's.