Forget Me Not (25 page)

Flushed with anticipation, her body had other ideas.

She donned her silken pajamas and put her ear to the door. Absolute silence came from the adjoining room. Still, she could picture Gabe in his boxers, sitting in the middle of the bed, back against the headboard, hands clasped behind his head, in an attitude of supreme confidence.

Where on earth would she find the will to deny him? With a quiver of anticipation, she flipped off the light and stepped into the guest room. Expectancy took a nosedive. Gabe wasn't waiting on the bed.

Her unaccustomed eyes scanned me room. There he was: lying spread-eagled on the floor, half-covered by a blanket, his pillow askew, dead to the world.

More disappointed than she cared to admit, Helen knelt beside him and shook him gently. He didn't budge. In the faint glow of the bathroom nightlight, she studied his precise features, the dark fringe of his eyelashes.

His mouth looked particularly vulnerable in sleep. She felt a tug of compassion for him. Poor man, would he ever get enough rest to compensate for his deprivation?

Pulling the blanket over his shoulders, she resisted the urge to brush the hair off his forehead. He could sleep on the floor if that was what he wanted. Evidently, he had the willpower to keep his distance.

Which was more than she could say for herself, at this point.

With a sigh, she headed for the bed and slipped beneath the sheets. The bed felt cold and lonely. She scooted to the edge of the mattress and studied her husband from a distance.

He struck her as a stranger who was yet somehow familiar. He wasn't the Gabe she'd married. That man had been clever, self-sufficient, and ruthless. His strength and intelligence had fascinated her. But, in the end, his emotional detachment had chilled her love until it grew brittle and died.

This Gabe seemed to have a heart where the other had none. Confessing his lonely childhood, he'd laid himself bare. He'd sacrificed his pride by begging for a second chance. He devoted himself to Mallory, the daughter he'd never had time for. Just imagine what it could be like, Helen marveled, if she allowed him to be devoted to his wife.

She marveled at the possibilities. Life could be
good
with this man, if only his memories didn't steal him back. With a wistful sigh, she closed her eyes. Ignoring the yearnings of her body, she told herself to go to sleep. There was always tomorrow. And for the first time in a very long time, tomorrow looked promising.

Gabe rolled over on the cement ledge and found himself staring up at the familiar face of his youngest cell keeper, Jun Yeup. The young man's smile was nowhere in evidence this afternoon. Sunlight slanted through the narrow window to illuminate a broad face, pinched with worry, eyes dark with concern.

Gabe lurched to his elbows. The weight of Jun Yeup's silver cross settled warmly on his own bare chest. "What is it?" he asked in English, never having revealed to his captor that he spoke their language. At the same time, he listened for the usual noises—the sound of his guards in the room next, door, the din of activity in the compound outside. It was strangely quiet.

"Today is Festival of Rice," Jun Yeup whispered, speaking in broken English, his gaze darting to the door. "Everyone go to temple that way." He pointed toward the eastern portion of the compound.

Caught by something in the boy's tone, Gabe searched his gaze. What was Jun Yeup telling him?

He felt an object being pressed into his palm. His fingers closed around it. He could tell without looking that he was holding a key.

A key!
His blood pressure soared. Jesus, God! What he thought was happening couldn't be happening.

"Wait when sun sets," Jun Yeup advised, fear now evident in his whisper. "Then go. Go quick. Go into sun." He gestured. "You see small water. Go with water. Go quick."

Gabe could only gape at his young savior. He'd always known Jun Yeup was different. It wasn't just the cross hanging from his neck, it was the sympathy in his eyes, the gentleness of his touch. Ironically, he was Seung-Ki's nephew, and Seung-Ki was Gabe's chief nemesis. Jun Yeup would pay with his life for letting Gabe escape.

"What about you?" he asked, gripping the boy's sleeve. "You can't stay here. Your uncle will kill you."

Jun Yeup's eyes burned with hope. "I go with you," he seemed to decide with sudden bravado. "To South Korea."

Ah, shit.
Gabe pulled the boy's forehead down to his in a modified embrace. "You can't come, Juni," he said, using his pet name far him. "It's too dangerous." He looked deep into Jun Yeup's dark eyes, needing to convey the truth of his words.

"I go to grandfather," Jun Yeup amended, with a weak smile.

"Good," said Gabe, his throat clogged with sudden emotion. He gripped the key in his fist until the blunt edges gouged his palm. He couldn't believe this was happening. Christ Almighty, he'd been hoping for a break forever!

"Look," Jun Yeup added. With a coy grin, he reached over and lifted a pair of scruffy tennis shoes off the floor.

Glancing at the shoes, Gabe smiled his thanks. They were at least three sizes too small, but they would beat the hell out of bare feet.

Laughter in the compound made them freeze like thieves. Jun Yeup shot across the room to stow the shoes behind the door, out of sight to anyone peering in. With the sound of voices approaching, he lifted a hand in farewell, his eyes blazing with righteousness. "God will see you," he said. He slipped from the cell as silently as he'd entered.

Gabe stared at the closed door, missing the kid already.
God watch over you, too,
he thought, a lump riding high in his throat.

The hours until sunset passed as if in a dream. Gabe plotted his escape, summoning maps and charts from his memory. He weighed the odds of penetrating the DMZ proper or circumventing it. He donned the tennis shoes, wishing he had a knife to cut the ends off and relieve his bunched toes. All too soon, the sky in the ventilation slit began to mellow.

He waited until the compound itself fell silent, until the last tread of footsteps wandered off in the direction of the temple. With a whispered prayer for safety, Gabe rose, key in hand, and let himself out of the cell he'd dwelled in for three hundred and sixty-one interminable days.

Just before closing the door, he paused to look back. The room had been a chamber of hunger, thirst, and physical torment. In that time, he'd relived every moment of his life. It had been a purgatory on earth, a place to review his sins and seek forgiveness. The sudden swelling of nostalgia in his chest surprised him. Surely, he wouldn't miss this hell on earth.

Yet it was there, on that cement ledge where he'd caught only snatches of sleep, that he'd come to terms with his past. He'd reviewed his childhood—years he'd thought he'd forgotten. He recalled how it had felt to be a boy who lost his mother. He remembered how he'd wept for her until it felt that there were no more tears—in fact, no heart at all inside him. He'd recalled his teenage years, understanding for the first time the anger and the despair that had driven him. He' d felt so different from the other kids, so cheated of life's pleasures. Retaliating, he'd lashed out, hurting himself more than anyone.

Thank God for men like Sergeant O'Mally, Master Chief Black, and Commander Troy, men who'd believed in a better part of him, men who'd sparked his desire to rise from the ashes.

Yet, at the same time, none of them had taught Gabe what this cell had taught him—this shrine of penitence and reflection. It had taught him that his true purpose in life was just not to beat back terrorists and keep the world from seething with madness—that was one goal, certainly. But the other, equally important, was to connect with others in ways that were profound and elemental. It was that connection that made life sweeter, gave it purpose, dignity, and power.

Since the loss of his mother, Gabe had refused to connect with anyone. Connection meant potential pain, potential weakness. Given his line of work and the dangers involved, he didn't want emotions to govern him. He'd run from them, putting in extra hours at work, taking part in every mission possible, just to keep from loving Helen. And whenever they'd made love, he'd kept his eyes tightly closed, refusing to feel more than physical pleasure, holding in the love that swelled inside him, freezing her out.

Despite his efforts to isolate himself, he'd failed. He'd discovered in his incarceration that love existed in him, regardless, and thank God. What he'd feared would be a weakness had, in fact, made him stronger. His connection with Helen had kept him alive. Because the one thing he valued more than anything—more than pride, more than patriotism, more than his own body—was his wife. He was determined to see her again, if only to tell her how very much she meant to him.

How many times had he lain on that ledge and prayed for the chance to make amends?

With pressure on his chest and with the recognition that this was it, his chance to make good on a private promise, he shut his cell door quietly behind him.

Then he turned and eyed the room across the hall. Reaching for the latch, he jiggled it and found it locked. No problem. He'd seen more than one of his captors use the key on the lintel above. He helped himself, needing only half an hour or so to avenge his yearlong captivity.

The room was air-conditioned, a luxury afforded to the computers, but not to him. He shivered at the cold and made a beeline for the computer that was booted up and running. Heart thumping, he eased onto an incongruous wicker chair and summoned the basic hacking skills he'd learned in a course offered to SEAL officers a while back.

Entering Microsoft Office through DOS wasn't the easiest trick in the book. It took him more than fifteen minutes before he made any progress. At last he found himself going through folders, hunting for information that could be used against his captors. His skill with Korean font was minimal, but there was still plenty to catch his eye.

Holy shit! Blueprints to weapons compounds.

Inventories of weapons arsenals.

Experimental weapons.

A list of buyers, including Nigeria and Iraq—no surprise there.

He lumped the information together in a zip file. Put in responsible hands, this kind of intelligence would put a dent in terrorist groups everywhere. The compounds in North Korea could be targeted and destroyed. The buyers dealt with.

But how to warn his country? He didn't have time to print the files. Paper got wet, was easily destroyed.

E-mail. He'd send e-mail to someone stateside and attach the files!

With sweat trickling down his bare back, Gabe opened the e-mail. He sat there a moment, struggling to recall the address of his commander.
Think. Think. Think.

He was aware that he'd lost some memories from the concussion he'd arrived with, but this was downright annoying. He and Lovitt had communicated via e-mail on a daily basis. What the hell was his address?

Drawing a blank, Gabe aimed higher. He'd mail this stuff to the FBI, to the Department of Cyberspace Security. But a hunt on the Internet failed to supply him with any specific e-mail address. He settled on the "Contact us" address, adding a explanatory note explaining who he was and what he'd found. Then he fired off the message, praying it would fall into conscientious hands.

A glance at the computer clock warned him that it was getting late. He was pushing his luck, but first things first.

Ducking under the desk, he pulled out the computer case, removed the side cover, and ripped out the motherboard and CPU, smashing them into pieces. In less than ten minutes, he'd debilitated all the computers in the room the same way.

Every instinct screamed for him to leave. He could hear shouts of laughter in the distance. If they caught him now, they'd kill him for what he'd done.

He stuck his head into the hall. He could hear men approaching the back door of the bunker. He raced toward the front, running down the bare hall, naked light bulbs swinging overhead. Pushing through the metal door, he crept up the cement steps that brought him up to ground level.

There were several tangos at his seven o'clock, meandering toward the bunker in a drunken knot. Otherwise, it was a clear shot to the chain-link fence.

Go!
With speed he'd forgotten he possessed, Gabe sprinted toward the fence, expecting shouts to arise at any moment. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, giving him added speed. His lungs felt in danger of bursting. He hit the fence with enough momentum to get him over the top. He slid under the first row of barbed wire. Sharp prongs raked his back and buttocks, but he scarcely felt the sting. He was acutely aware, however, of the voice crying out in Korean, "The American is escaping!"

On the other side of the fence, Gabe set off again, grateful for the too-tight tennis shoes for absorbing the rocky terrain as he slipped and scrambled down the hillside, heading directly toward the golden glow in the sky that marked the sun's descent, due west.

He felt like he'd run for miles when he hit the stream. The gurgling of the water was scarcely audible over the sawing of his breath. He slipped on the muddy bank. Water rushed into his shoes. And then he heard the sound he'd been dreading: the barking of dogs.

He floundered into the water, frustrated that it could be so shallow and so rocky at the same time, coming scarcely to his knees. It felt as viscous as glue, slowing him down when he wanted to run like hell.

Over his shoulder, he caught sight of flashlights, strafing the darkening hillside as the tangos searched for him, dogs straining on leashes as they led the way. Wary of being seen, Gabe crouched lower and moved apelike over the rocky streambed.

Go, go, go!
He pushed himself to move faster, fingers taking a beating as he felt his way.

But the dogs were closing in. They led their masters directly toward him, cutting a hypotenuse across the open land. At this rate, they would intercept his position in minutes.

He was tempted to abandon the stream and race up the hill to his right, but ultimately a move like that would get him caught. Better to stay by the water where he was certain of his direction, where his scent would be washed away.