Midnight Promises (10 page)

Metal leaned forward a little. “So you don’t think the most likely explanation is that someone you gave a new identity to wants to erase his tracks and eliminate the person who knows his new identity? You don’t think it’s connected to someone you’ve helped?”

If only it was so easy. Felicity shook her head. “No, for three reasons. First, I don’t actually create the heavy-duty documents, particularly passports. I created an Ohio driver’s license for Lauren, but that’s because she was my friend. She had a very nasty man after her. I looked at his computer files and he was crazy and bad, a nasty combo. Like Deathstroke. You’ve got Deathstroke after you, you need help.”

Metal smiled. “Unless you’ve got Arrow on your side. Then you’re okay.”

Felicity smiled for the first time in what felt like forever. “Unless you’ve got Arrow on your side,” she agreed. “But Lauren didn’t have Arrow. She does have Jacko now and, no offense, Jacko, and I mean this in the best possible way, you look like a real badass. Not many people would want to cross swords with you. But when Lauren and I first connected she was alone with bad guys on her trail. Which is why I agreed to provide actual documents. Usually I provide background ID and social media backstopping for the FBI.”

Both Metal and Jacko reacted as if they’d been touched by a cattle prod. “The
FBI?
” Metal asked.

“You didn’t tell me that,” Lauren complained.

“No.” Felicity sighed. “I keep it to myself. But I figure I can tell you two without compromising national security.” She peered at the two men. “What clearances did you have? SAP? I imagine that by definition SEALs have been subjected to SSBIs, am I right?”

Single Scope Background Investigations were thorough and they wouldn’t have achieved elite Special Forces status without passing them with flying colors.

“Yeah.” Metal sounded like he had a constriction in his throat. “You?”

“SCI.” Which was a higher clearance. “I wouldn’t be talking about this if I believed that my work for the FBI was in any way involved. So like I said, what I did as a freelancer was provide background for new identities the FBI, and also the U.S. Marshals Service, wanted created. They’d take care of documentation but I would backstop the identity. I create Facebook and Twitter accounts that go back a few years, I create Amazon accounts with a specific intellectual profile, buyer accounts at major retailers, I could fill their laptops with so much detritus that nobody would question the ID. But I was given the photos of the persons whose identity needed filling out and I can assure you that I have never backstopped anyone who looked like my attacker.”

Jacko pursed his lips, eyes narrowed. “Plastic surgery? Surgeons can turn men into women and vice versa. No problem with changing the shape of a nose or cheekbones.”

Felicity shook her head. “It’s not like I do thousands and so a face or two could conceivably escape my notice. I provide backgrounds for about three or four people a year. It’s very labor-intensive and time-consuming work and I’m only called in when it’s really important that the cover story be good. I work with these people, getting to know their likes and dislikes, so I don’t give a tone-deaf person a passion for classical music or make a couch potato a hiker. They would blow their cover immediately. I would remember the guy who attacked me, even if he had undergone plastic surgery. He was definitely not one of my clients.”

“And people like me? Your extracurricular activities? “ Lauren asked. “You took me off the grid.” She grabbed Felicity’s hand. “And saved my life.”

Felicity curled her hand around Lauren’s. “I only help women outside government work. You were my third. I think the FBI and Marshals Service would really frown on me doing this on the side. I don’t think my helping three women has anything to do with this.”

Lauren shook her head sharply. “If Jorge had found out somehow that you’d helped me get away, he’d come after you to get my new identity, to find out where I was. Do you think these other two women—do you think they talked and unwittingly betrayed you? That the men they were running away from found out about you and thought you might be the key to finding who they were chasing?”

“It’s not that.” She didn’t want Lauren to think she wasn’t taking this idea seriously. But…no. “Lauren,” she said gently. “We emailed each other for, what? A year and half?”

Lauren nodded.

“So, where do I live?”

Lauren’s mouth shut with a snap.

Felicity nodded. They’d communicated often, sometimes sharing intimate details, but Felicty was always very careful never to give away identifying data. It was a lesson she’d learned almost before she could talk. “You don’t know. You don’t know if I live on the East Coast or West Coast, in a city or a town. You don’t even know what I do for a living.”

“I suspected you worked for the NSA or CIA,” Lauren said with a half smile. “Considering the things you knew.”

Close. But no cigar.

“Are you going to tell us what you really know? What’s going on?” Jacko asked, his voice harsh. Lauren slide her gaze to him without turning her head, lips pinched with annoyance.

Oh God, no. Jacko was protecting Lauren, trying to figure out what kind of danger Felicity represented. Lauren shouldn’t be mad at him for that. Having someone watch out for you was…magic. Felicity would give anything to have someone always there, always watching her back.

Metal put a big hand on her shoulder. “Don’t give us any classified intel you’re not comfortable sharing. But the more we know about your life, the better we can try to figure out who’s after you.”

She took in a big breath and turned to him. Watched his face carefully. Though he had thuggish features, thick and rough, and a crooked nose that had been broken several times, she saw intelligence in his eyes. And kindness. And he was demonstrably tough, if he’d been a SEAL. She was safe in these hands. Both Metal and Jacko had been elite warriors, entrusted with ensuring the safety of the country. They’d demonstrated trustworthiness a million times over in their careers. Jacko had saved Lauren’s life and was clearly devoted to her. Metal had saved her life, too, and was sitting next to her just waiting to hear how he could help.

And apparently they’d enlisted the security company they worked for in the quest to help her, not to mention a Portland homicide detective.

These were serious good guys who were offering serious backing.

All she had to do was trust them. Easy enough, no? The freaking US government trusted them.

Her throat seized up.

Not trusting
anyone
was practically the family motto. You’d think the Darins had been vampires in hiding, keeping far from the human race. From her earliest memories on, Felicity had been taught not to trust anyone. It hadn’t been subtle either. Once when she had invited home a friend she’d made in first grade, her mother had the friend out the door in five minutes and had been shaking when she told Felicity never to do that again. Trembling with fear, terrorized.

She’d never invited anyone home, ever again.

There was no place in her head for trust, except for Al. And Lauren. And, well, looked as if Metal and Jacko were now inside the circle. And Metal’s company…

Apparently there was now a dizzying number of people she trusted. Had to trust. There was no choice. She was in trouble and couldn’t get out of it herself. She’d always been self-reliant, never needing anyone, but right now, she could barely stand. Getting out of bed and eating a meal had taxed her resources.

If everyone abandoned her right now, she was as vulnerable as she’d been at the airport. More.

Felicity looked around the table, at these three people. Lauren was almost quivering with eagerness to help. Metal and Jacko were more low-key but they gave off very strong male
we’re gonna do this come hell or high water
vibes
.

Lauren cared for her. Jacko was in because she was Lauren’s friend and it looked like he’d do anything for her. And it looked like Metal was in because…because.

She was walking through Mordor trying desperately to avoid coming into the cone of light of the Eye of Sauron.

Frodo didn’t do it alone. He couldn’t.

And yet and yet…Felicity had never asked for help, not once in her life and it scared the hell out of her. How did you do that? What could she legitimately ask of them and what was overstepping the line?

This was so
hard
.

She bent forward, biting her lips to prevent a low keening sound coming from her, like a wounded animal.

Lauren tilted her head, watching her reaction. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

Felicity nodded. Hard didn’t even come close to describing what she felt. She’d been wrapped in secrecy and distrust from her childhood on.

Jacko opened his mouth and Lauren covered his huge dark hand with her own and he stilled immediately. “Metal?” she said softly.

He leaned forward, forearms on knees, casual, but focused intently on her face. “Sounds like you’re having trouble opening up.”

She nodded again.

“We have that problem sometimes, particularly just back from a mission. We’re trained, and trained hard—with harsh punishment as reinforcers—to keep confidential intel confidential. Sometimes the stupidest thing—saying what the weather was like on a deployment—could be a leak that the enemy could use. There’s no way really for us to know what could be dangerous intel or not so, so basically we just shut up. Married guys who can’t tell their wives anything at all about the last three months of their lives, and I mean nothing. Black hole. And it bleeds over into the rest of your life. Censoring yourself every time your open your mouth is hard, it’s easier just to shut up. But then you find you’re not saying anything to anyone but your teammates, and that’s not good. Not healthy.”

Even less healthy when you don’t even have teammates.

Well, looked like she had a team now. A temporary one. Her first unless you counted Al. And Al was more a mentor than a teammate or a friend. He’d been as old as dirt for as long as she could remember.

“Take your time, but you’re going to have to talk to us,” Metal said, his voice low and calm.

It was time. Was it time? Yes.

“Okay. Okay. This isn’t easy.” Her fists were bunched in her lap and Metal’s big hand covered them both. His grip was warm and hard and secure.

Body is mind and mind is body
, she reminded herself. So she unclenched her fists, straightened her back, made sure her central chakra was open, breathed deeply.

“First of all, I live in Vermont.” When she’d passed through Vermont years ago, right after her parents died, she’d immediately felt at home, felt it call to her. It was only after a few years when she saw a photograph of where her father had worked that she realized it was exactly the same climate, landscape. Her DNA had led her there. “I work on my own as an IT security consultant. I have a high level of clearance but I don’t work on highly classified stuff because I don’t work for the government as an employee. Never wanted to. I don’t like the idea of going into an office. Like I said, through an FBI contact I help provide background on new identities. The FBI IT people don’t have the right touch, they’re not…loose enough, I guess, to put themselves in other people’s shoes. Outside of that I mainly work corporate cybersecurity and we’re not talking defense contractors, we’re talking restaurant chains and tractor manufacturers. They were two incredibly boring but very lucrative accounts and they’ve eaten up most of the past year.”

Metal watched her. It was as though he was listening to her through his ears but also through his skin and bones. He flicked a glance at Jacko then back to her.

“We’ll go through those clients with a fine-tooth comb. And pretty soon we’ll be getting the hotel footage. But in the meantime, there’s something else.”

She looked at him mutely, a pressure starting up in her chest.

“When I was trying to keep you awake before we got to the clinic I did what we do in the field. Ask simple questions so the patient focuses on something, but something easy. The easiest question in the world is ‘what’s your name?’ No way to flub that one.”

Oh God, she knew what was coming next.

“But you flubbed it.” Metal’s face was grim. “When I tapped your cheek to keep you conscious, and asked your name, you know what you answered?”

She swallowed, shook her head no, though she had a good idea what she’d answered. She’d been weak, wounded, exhausted. He’d taken her unawares.

“When I asked what your name was you said, ‘
Felicity Ward—for now.
’ And last night you said your name was Felicity Ward. For now. So I guess the first thing we need to know going in is what your real name is. And why you seem to have several.”

She couldn’t talk.

“Felicity? There’s more, isn’t there?”

She nodded.

Metal’s voice was very gentle but very firm. “The only way we can help you, the only way we can protect you, is to know the truth. Do you see that?”

She nodded again.

“Are you ready to tell us the truth?”

She sat very still. She couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, could barely breathe. This day was a long time coming, but it was here. A lifetime of hiding couldn’t stop this day from coming. Was she ready to tell the truth?

She looked at the three of them, watching her patiently. Metal holding her hand.

Was she ready?

She’d been holding her breath and found she had to gulp in air. Her gasp sounded very loud in the silent room.

Was she ready?

Yes, she was.

She nodded.

Chapter Six

Alexandria, Virginia

Goodkind finally came home. Borodin had been prepared to wait a long time since that
kretin
Lagoshin was making no progress in Portland. For the moment Al Goodkind was their only lead. In the end, though, he only had to wait twenty-four hours. He had only Zolin with him. Milekhin was in the plane.

An elderly gentleman with stooped shoulders arrived in a taxi and entered the front door with a key, carrying a small traveling case. Even without the identifying photo which matched the old man’s face, Borodin knew it was him.

A light in the back of the house came on.

Zolin, who knew what he was doing, detected video cameras at the front, under the porch roof, and said that they were ancient. Zolin slipped out after punching the button on a device that blanketed cell reception within a hundred-meter radius.

He was carrying a combat knife, a Taser, a Beretta 92F in a shoulder holster and a preloaded syringe of etorphine. He also had strict instructions not to use the Beretta. Borodin wanted information without having to tend to a gunshot wound. Not to mention the fact that blood would ruin the beautiful interior of his Airbus.

Borodin knew how to extract information. Goodkind was former FBI and presumably tough but no one held out forever. They had a six-hour flight ahead of them. That should be more than enough time.

All he needed was contact information regarding Felicity Ward’s friends in Portland. The woman had to have friends to have disappeared so completely. A wound required medical care, stitches, antibiotics, a place to recover. Where could she have gone to ground? Goodkind would know. And if he didn’t, Goodkind would be forced to contact Ward with a bloody face and swollen eyes and Borodin would pry her out of her lair.

So much was at stake that Borodin felt an itching under the skin. It had been years since he’d felt anxiety and it wasn’t pleasant.

Since he’d become rich, small troubles had simply melted away and big troubles—well, he had people for that. He wasn’t used to being uncertain about an outcome. His outcomes had all been good these past twenty-five years.

And yet everything about this Deti business—starting from having to find Darin’s daughter—was unnerving.

A hard knock at the window made him start.

Borodin
hated
being taken by surprise. Had Zolin seem him jump? He should know better than to startle him like that. It was true that the cell phone towers were temporarily out so Zolin couldn’t call ahead on his cell, but still.

And then Borodin peered closer. Zolin looked stressed, pale even in the darkness lit only by the streetlights. He had an unconscious Goodkind over one shoulder. Zolin was very strong but had difficulty shoving the man into the backseat of the town car and moved stiffly.

He limped as he walked to the driver’s side of the car.

“What happened?” Borodin asked.

Zolin blew out an angry breath as he checked the rearview mirror and pulled out. “Fucker was armed and
waiting
for me. There must be sensors to the side of the house I couldn’t see. Winged me. Had to wrestle him to the ground. We’re going to keep him handcuffed all the way to Portland.”

Shameful, to let an old man best him. “Are you okay to drive?” Borodin asked, voice cold.

“Yeah.”

He winced as he drove.

“Where’d he get you?”

“Outer thigh. Took a chunk out of it. Didn’t hit anything vital.”

“You’re bleeding,” Borodin accused. Thank God Zolin’s DNA wouldn’t be on record here. But if the American authorities somehow caught him and traced him back to the abduction of a former FBI agent…

Zolin glanced down. “Yeah.” His voice was dismissive. Well, hell. Zolin hadn’t thought it through. Bloodstains were bloodstains. Borodin was going to have to hire cutouts to eliminate the town car, break it down into pieces and spread them over a wide tract of terrain. He hated this, fixing problems on the fly. In a foreign country.

The rental agency would put a black mark against the name of one William Novella who hadn’t returned a vehicle. So that identity was compromised.

“Will you be able to pilot the plane?”

Zolin must have sensed something in his tone because he glanced over to Borodin. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll patch it up and inject with a painkiller. And I’ll be copilot. But you’re going to have to watch this guy. He’s tricky.”

Borodin simply turned his head to look at Zolin. Zolin flicked a glance at him, then gripped the wheel harder and concentrated on the road.

Message received.

They rolled up to the hangar in the general aviation sector of the airport. No one stopped them, no one questioned them, no one paid them any attention at all.

Amazing. Simply amazing. It was as if America had built up a series of private airports all over the country for the rich to move around in, encased in their own private bubble.

When the town car rolled to a stop, Borodin got out and stood watching while Zolin wrestled with the still unconscious body, face an expressionless mask. But he was very pale and the side of his trousers was black with blood.

Milekhin appeared at the top of the stairs and casually descended. Without saying anything, it was Milekhin who carried the body up the airplane steps. Zolin headed up, trying not to limp, like an alpha wolf that doesn’t dare show weakness.

Borodin was last up. By the time he stepped into the luxurious cabin, Goodkind was duct-taped to one of the seats, head lolling on his shoulder.

Borodin had a preloaded syringe of norepinephrine that would wake Goodkind right up. In six hours, a lot of information could be gained, particularly in an enclosed space ten thousand meters above the earth where no one could hear him scream.

Though Borodin sincerely hoped not to have to use the instruments in one of the briefcases. Maybe he’d gotten soft in his years as a businessman, decades after the hard things he’d done in Afghanistan, but he’d prefer not to shed blood if possible. He’d rough Goodkind up a little, test his mettle. Then decide how to proceed.

He didn’t care either way what happened to Goodkind. All he wanted was Darin’s daughter. All he wanted were the Deti.

Zolin had patched himself up and was in the cockpit. Borodin had a platter of cheese and fruit and a nice Sauternes, and then with a sigh, somewhere over the flat plains of the middle of the country, brought out the syringe of norepinephrine, the natural hormone of vigilant concentration, a stress hormone. Goodkind would wake up with a pounding heart, hypervigilant, with an increased blood flow to muscles and brain.

In excellent condition, in other words, to answer questions.

Borodin injected the syringe in Goodkind’s thigh, sitting across from him in one of the hypercomfortable leather seats, separated by a small table. The ideal layout for two businesspeople getting business done.

Which was exactly as Borodin considered it. He and Goodkind were going to have a trade-off. Goodkind had something he wanted—the location of Darin’s daughter. And Borodin held something of value to Goodkind—his life.

Borodin sat patiently while Goodkind rose back up into consciousness, step-by-step. He saw the actual moment when Goodkind became aware, but still pretended to be unconscious. Someone less observant than Borodin would have missed it.

“Welcome back to the world, Special Agent Goodkind,” he said calmly.

Goodkind’s head lifted and he looked directly into Borodin’s eyes. As his medical records indicated, he wasn’t in good shape. He was very pale and from the skin hanging from his jawline he’d lost a lot of weight recently. But his light gray eyes blazed and his lips pressed together in a thin line.

The message couldn’t have been clearer.
Not talking.

All right. The dance now began.

“Now, you might be wondering what you are doing in a plane. You might even be wondering where we are going. And you might be curious as to whether you are going to survive this. Well, let me ease your mind. You are flying to Portland, Oregon with us because we are looking for a young woman I’m told you consider your ward. Which is interesting because that is her name. Felicity Ward. Except it is not. Felicity Ward is actually Nikolai Darin’s daughter.”

Goodkind’s eyes fluttered and his mouth grew tighter.

“Ah, I see these names mean something to you, as they should. Nikolai Darin defected to the West in 1989 with his wife, Irina. And they had a daughter, whose name eventually ended up as Felicity Ward, which is a ridiculous name for a Russian woman. But—ridiculous name or not, we’d like to talk to this young woman because she might know the whereabouts of something that belonged to the Soviet Union and now belongs to the Russian Federation.”

Sudden understanding. Goodkind probably thought that he presented a blank facade but he didn’t. He was fairly easy to read.

“And now, Special Agent Goodkind, we come to the last point I made. Whether you are going to survive this trip. The answer is yes. Of course you will survive this, as long as you give us information that leads to our apprenhending Felicity Ward.”

“Go to hell,” Goodkind growled.

“No doubt I will.” Borodin yawned. He was quite tired. “But not just yet. And certainly not for this. I fought in Afghanistan. I will certainly not go to hell for torturing and killing one American.”

When Borodin used the words
torture
and
kill
, Goodkind’s expression didn’t change.
Pizdets
. A brave man. Brave men were terrible to deal with. Recalcitrant and unyielding.

“However, beyond that, I have no desire to deal with the consequences of, let’s say, commandeering a US federal agent. So once I have the information I need and we have parted ways, you will be free to go.”

Goodkind gave a feral smile. “Riiiight.” Drawing the word out.

“Alas, certain nuances of the English language elude me, but I take it that is sarcasm. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“And yet I have every intention of letting you go, albeit as you would say, a little worse for wear. So. You give me information on Nikolai Darin’s daughter, and when the time is right I release you and no mention of this is ever made by you to anyone.”

Goodkind glared. But he was impotent.

“So, when was the last time you saw or heard from Darinova?”

Those thin lips turned upward. “You can call her that, but she is as American as I am.”

“Indeed. So where is this paragon of Americanness?”

Goodkind smiled fully. “Bite me.”

Borodin sighed. “Another idiom. Probably not a flattering one.”

Borodin smiled into Goodkind’s eyes.

“So, Special Agent,” he said. “It looks like we are going to have a nice, long talk.”

*

Three pairs of eyes were staring at her. Blue, dark brown, light brown.

It was time. She’d been keeping secrets all her life. There’d been secrets in her life since before she was born, even. She’d had to switch identities in the womb. All those secrets, all those years. They felt like boulders weighing her down. Sometimes Felicity felt as though she was at the bottom of a deep well and only knew the world through the opening way up high, unreachable, untouchable.

Lately, she’d felt as if she was choking, only it wasn’t physiological, it was psychological. The choking sensation came upon her more and more often, as if something heavy was on her chest, pressing in. It was her isolation and loneliness, of course. She was a homebody by nature but it was turning into agoraphobia. Talking to people was becoming harder and harder, while at the same time she craved human contact, like a prisoner craves sunlight.

She had three people here who wanted to communicate with her. Well, maybe not Jacko. At times he seemed on the verge of hostility, but that was because he suspected her of endangering Lauren. It didn’t make her angry, it endeared him to her. In her world, affection, loyalty, devotion, love were rare things. Lauren was lucky.

None of the three showed any signs of impatience as she worked through this in her head. Felicity was really good at working through problems in her head. She liked it and she trusted herself. But this time it wasn’t just her head that was involved, it was her heart. And she had a lot less experience trusting her heart.

But you had to start somewhere and these three people quivering to help her seemed to be a good place.

Or not.

How to know?

The man after her might not have anything to do with her past and her family’s past. But if her father was involved, there was no one she could turn to. The Marshals had officially given her one last identity and turned her loose. She no longer had a case officer. The only person in that world that knew of her past couldn’t help. Al Goodkind was old and not well. He’d retired to his country house in Virginia and tended roses and drank bourbon.

Maybe she had her new team right in front of her. And maybe not.

This was horrible. She was tearing herself apart. This had to stop, right now.

“Metal,” she said, turning to him, putting a hand on his powerful forearm. Warmth, strength. Electricity. His light brown eyes seemed to glow.

“Yeah.”

“Can you bring me my computer backpack?”

“Sure.” In a few seconds he was back, placing her backpack on her lap.

Felicity sat still for a moment, fingers stroking the straps. The backpack was gray but she could see where her blood had stained it. She should wash it.

Stalling. She was stalling.

With a sigh, Felicity unzipped the top, took out her specially designed laptop, then dug down deep, ripping open a hidden pocket covered with a flap that had a Velcro closure. The pocket was lined with Kevlar and didn’t show anything on airport-quality metal detectors. It would show up on the FBI and NSA and CIA metal detectors, but for flying she was safe.

She scrabbled with her fingers for a moment. Ah, there it was.

Right after her parents died, she’d kept it close in a small pouch under her clothes. Her last connection with her parents. But she didn’t wear it anymore. She just always kept it with her. If she lost it, she’d lose a part of herself.