Shadows Amongst Light (The Spy Who Loves Me) (31 page)

             
Ben seemed to pick up on my uneasiness. He watched me quietly on occasion glancing around to see what I was looking for.

             
By the time night fell, we were half way across New Mexico. We stopped just before the Colorado State Line to get something to eat and to gas up the car.

             
“Momma when are we stopping. I’m tired.”

  Ben had gotten fussier the further away from Washington we got.

              “Ben, were almost home. We’ll stop when we get to the house. Why don’t you stretch out on the back seat and get some sleep.”

             
“Momma, are you okay?” Ben asked me when we were back on the road again.

             
“I’m fine baby, why?” I asked as he lay down with the blanket I’d found tucked around him.

             
“Because you keep looking back.”

             
I didn’t answer. I simply kissed him and smiled. Ben had no idea who close to the truth he had come with those innocent words. I was looking back. Always over my shoulder expecting danger wherever I looked. I felt that I could no longer trust anyone. Including Noah. He’d warned me of a danger, but Noah was just as much a part of The Organization as before. How did I know that I could trust him not to betray me? The answer was simple. I didn’t. I couldn’t trust anyone.

             
By the time we reached the house it was early morning. I was exhausted and had come close to falling asleep at the wheel several times. I’d finally stopped at a convenience store and bought a large cup of coffee to make it the rest of the way home.

             
I unlocked the house and carried Ben up to his room not bothering with unpacking the car. As I turned on enough lights to see my way up the stairs, something about the house didn’t feel right.

             
Outwardly nothing appeared to be out of place. Everything was just as I’d left it a week again, but something wasn’t right. I walked through each room but couldn’t find what it was that was bothering me until I reached my office.

             
In my office, I always kept a picture of Noah and Ben and myself. It was taken a few months before Noah left. I’d put all of the other pictures of him away in a box upstairs, but this one had been so unplanned taken after a beautiful day spent together that I couldn’t let it go. Now that picture was missing.

             
I searched my desk drawers and around the computer but it was nowhere to be found. Nothing else was missing but the picture of us as a family.

             
I sat for a long time trying to understand why someone would want to take that picture, of all things. When my computer and the TV not to mention the stereo system were worth a small fortune.

             
The only explanation that came to mind was frightening. Had someone been deliberately looking for proof of Ben’s existence? Of Noah and my connection? If so why? The team from The Organization knew that Noah and I were ‘seeing’ each other. What would it matter to any of them if we were together now. Unless someone was looking for proof of Noah’s survival after that accident. Perhaps some way to get to him.

             
As far as I knew, no one knew of Ben’s existence except for Adam. Had Adam intentionally tipped someone off? Or perhaps accidentally?

             
For the first time since I’d come to Colorado I was really frightened of remaining. I searched through the few things I had left of my previous life and found the only gun I’d kept. The one that, until I’d walked away from The Organization had been my constant companion.

             
I’d hated holding onto it, but there had been something in the back of my mind that had forced me to keep it. Who ever had been in the house had been a professional. I hated knowing that truth but I forced myself to face it. It was clear in the way that there was no evidence of his presence there. Nothing was disturbed. Whoever was here had known exactly what he was looking for and had no doubt figured I wouldn’t miss the picture.

             
I tried to put all the pieces together, but after being out of the game for so long I found that I was also out of practice. I didn’t trust any of my own conclusions and wished more than ever that Noah were here with me to reassure me that everything was going to be okay.

             
I didn’t sleep that night. I took the gun with me and checked on Ben before gong back to my spot in front of the computer where I’d placed the gun close to my hand.

             
Then I decided to do a little spy work on my own. I found Noah’s laptop from the drawer that he kept it locked away in after managing to pick the lock.

             
Noah never knew how good I’d gotten at that little task. This was one of the secrets I’d kept to myself. I opened the laptop and tried everything I could think of that Noah might use for a password. I found it quiet unexpectedly and quite easily in the date that Noah and I had first met.

             
This was not Noah’s normal work computer. He never allowed me to touch this one. I knew that he still kept Agency information here, even though I’d believed at the time that he was out of the game.

             
Once I cracked the password code I found out just how wrong I’d been about that.

             
There were encrypted emails between Noah and Adam as recently as a few days before he’d left with him. Noah knew what was coming. He knew he would be called back into service by Adam and yet he’d never once told me about it.

             
Now I remembered all those times before he’d left that should have been my clue. How many times had I caught Noah watching me with regret in his eyes?

             
As I scanned through the emails I realized what the danger was. Adam believed that there was a mole amongst The Organization elite members. He’d checked out the new members carefully. Adam believed it had to be one of the original members.

             
There were a couple of notes that hinted at my connection in the problem. Noah dismissed my involvement completely but I could tell that Adam wasn’t convinced completely.

             
Before Noah left there were numerous emails from between Adam, Noah and someone that went by the email name of The Contact. I had no idea who that might be. But as I dug further through the files I found my answer. There were pages and pages of emails from Davis there. I knew instinctively that Davis was The Contact.

             
As I read through the emails between Noah and Davis it was clear that the two of them knew each other personally. I remembered Judah’s warning from the past about trusting Noah. Now I had to wonder if Noah were not the mole. Was it possible that Noah cold betray the organization that he’d helped to found? Even though the emails should have been proof positive I couldn’t believe that Noah was a traitor. I knew the guy too well, didn’t I? I would have known somehow surely? Noah would have given something away.

             
But I was also remembering just how good Noah was at keeping his secrets. How many times had I wondered what his true feelings were for me? What else was Noah keeping hidden from me?               I believed that through all the years we’d spent together here Noah had shared everything with me. Now I knew that there was so much about my husband that I didn’t really know at all. But still I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Noah was a traitor. I’d seen him in action far too many times to believe Noah would ever betray his country or his life’s work. Which left me without a clue who was looking for me, and why they might have taken the picture.

             
But I knew that I needed to find out what The Organization had found out about the mole and soon. I did something then that Noah had taught me a long time ago. I hacked into Matt’s computer.

             
There were literally pages and pages of file information about my brother there. And the things that I learned were as shocking as they were hard to accept.

             
In the few times that I’d actually talked to Judah I didn’t believe he was involved in the Red Jihad other than just as a possible patsy set up to take the fall for Davis, but I was wrong.

             
From the Intel gathered by Matt and his informants, I saw a different picture of my brother emerge. Judah wasn’t just an innocent bystander. There was very clear information that he was in fact the leader of that terrorist cell. My brother had lied to me? Had he called me back to Washington to use me against Noah? Or to harm me?

             
I sat quietly reading through the files and crying at the horror of what I read there. I knew that it was only a matter of time before my connection to Judah. I wasn’t really surprised that Noah had been true to his word. He hadn’t told anyone about my family connection.

             
I glanced at my watch and saw that I’d been inside Matt’s files for far too long. I’d have to get off before Matt discovered that he had a hacker and begin searching for my location.              

             
For the moment I was too shocked by what I’d learned about my brother to consider the danger I might be in by the very connection I held to Judah.

             
“It’s not true,” I said over and over again throughout that long night as I read through the files that gave very graphic details of the carnage my brother was responsible for.

             
Car bombings that had been linked to other groups, explosions and terrorist attacks that had been responsible for literally thousands of lives.
              I remembered the things that my brother had told me about Noah, more specifically the things that he hadn’t said. Had Judah been trying to warn me of Davis and Noah’s connection?               My head literally throbbed from all the hours spent reading through files that held so much damaging proof of Judah’s lies but still part of me didn‘t want to believe what I‘d read there.

             
The computer screen went black and I knew that I’d been caught. I disconnected and shut the system down entirely before a trace could be put on Noah’s computer.

             
Like it or not I was right back in the middle of the past I’d walked away from. But this time it was different. The stakes were much higher. This time my son was in danger along with me.

             
I went upstairs to check on Ben who still slept unaware of the danger I’d discovered. He didn’t wake even when I kissed his forehead.

             
In my gut I knew that we weren’t safe here any longer. Our identities had been compromised. But I couldn’t leave. This was the only place that Noah knew to look for us if he chose to look for us.

             
To protect my child I would have to be on alert at all times. Unfortunately I knew the reality of our situation as well. It would only be a matter of time before trouble showed up on my doorstep. I just hoped that I hadn’t been out of the game long enough not to know how to defend my son when that time came.

             
I awoke the following morning still seated next to Ben’s bed holding my weapon. Luckily, Ben had slept straight through without waking.

             
I found a place to put the gun where I knew that I could get to quick enough but someplace that my son wouldn’t be able to reach. Before Ben woke I took a look around the place.

             
Bo and I walked the parameter of the house, looking for some visible signs of my mysterious thief, but we found nothing. Not even a footprint or a broken plant. Nothing to indicate that anyone had been here in the week that we were gone. And I begin to wonder if I’d imagined the whole picture thing. Had I simply put the photo away someplace, after Noah left and forgot about it?

             
Or had Noah taken it with him and I’d just never missed it until now?

             
I tried to convince myself that was the case because at least that meant that Noah cared enough about our family to want to remember us. It gave me a small amount of comfort to believe that our connection to Noah hadn’t been discovered by someone meaning us harm just yet. Unfortunately deep inside, I knew the truth and it was none of those things.

             
By the time Ben awoke that morning, every window and door in the place had been checked as well as every square inch of the house, every hiding place both inside and out.

             
“Momma what were you doing outside?” Ben asked when I found him in the kitchen a short time later eating cereal.

             
“Oh nothing much, baby. Just taking a look around. I really missed this place.”

             
Since we’d left Washington early yesterday morning, Ben had been exceptionally sullen around me. I knew he was still angry with me for making him leave, just as I was certain that he believed if we stayed a little while longer his father would find us. I decided it was time to clear the air between my son and myself.