Shadows Amongst Light (The Spy Who Loves Me) (6 page)

             
No one knew the real reason why my parents had been in that small village in the middle of nowhere that ended up costing them their lives in that mysterious car accident except me and the private investigator they’d hired years ago to find Judah.

             
Through the years, there had been small moments of hope that Judah might still be alive. Two weeks before their deaths, the PI working the case had received a key piece of information. Someone had spotted someone resembling my brother living in the small encampment along the North Carolina State line. My parents had died without being able to tell me what they had found there.

             
Since their deaths and after I’d pretty much resigned myself to the fact that Judah was either dead or didn’t want to be found by any of us, I’d fired the PI. That was the last that I’d believed I’d ever hear about my brother until about a month ago when someone started leaving messages on my answering machine claiming to be my missing brother.

             
At first, I’d simply dismissed the messages as the work of someone very disturbed or perhaps someone who knew about my father’s career and was after money, but when the calls continued, well let’s just say they got my attention. A few weeks ago, I’d spotted the person that I was certain was Judah. I knew that he’d been watching me, just as I knew he was the one leaving those messages. It was around that time that I’d first become aware of the stranger from tonight.

             
I still wasn’t sure why I’d kept my brother’s past from Noah, I mean he was my husband. But then, I guess maybe my brother was still too painful of a connection to my parents’ death to talk about with anyone. Or maybe I really wanted to believe that I wasn’t completely alone in this world.

             
I glanced up as the moon went behind a cloud, bringing the world around me into shadow and realized I wasn’t heading for my apartment after all. I’d come back to the spot where I’d first spotted my brother.

             
The clouds rushed across the night sky at a strange, unusual speed. Watching them took my breath away and made me aware of the dangers of the night. I felt the first uneasy prickle at the base of my spin reminding me of Noah’s words. Reminding me that I was no more prepared for danger now than I had been hours earlier. I’d been foolish to wander off on my own like this. After all how many chances did I have left before I’d reached my limit?

             
From somewhere close behind, I heard a sound that brought my attention back to my current situation. It was not a pretty one. I was alone on an unfamiliar street.

             
It was then that I saw him standing there. My brother. Or at least the man that I believed to be my brother. But even from the distance that separated us, I knew he was no longer the confused young kid that had walked into the night all those years ago.

             
“Judah?”

             
The sound of my voice startled him but he didn’t answer, didn’t move.

             
“Judah, it really you? You’re alive. Mom and dad were right. You’re alive.”

             
I took another step closer when it hit me that the man standing before me was a very different version of that gangly teenager I remembered from the past. A boy of seventeen had disappeared into the night. Before me now stood a man who looked at me with cold, empty eyes.

             
“Judah, I can help you if you let me. Whatever you’ve done, I can help. But you have to turn yourself in Judah. I can help if you turn yourself in.”

             
“Stop.” The first sound of his voice sent me back into the past. That voice was only a thin reminder of the troubled kid I’d known in those days. “Cameron, don’t come any closer to me.”

             
At the sharp tone of his voice, I stopped only a few feet closer to him, watching him more cautiously. After all what did I really know about the man he’d become? The things I knew about Elijah Jacobs made it hard for me to believe they could be the same person. “Judah, it’s okay. You can trust me. I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you. Whatever happened, whatever you’ve done, I can help you.”

             
The sound of his laughter sent a chill through me. It sounded nothing like the boy I’d known all those years ago.

             
“You can’t help me, Cameron. There’s nothing you or anyone you’re connected to can do to help me now. It’s too late for me. I only came back for you. To warn you. You have to get out of this before it’s too late for you as well. Please, you have to stop what you’re doing. You don’t really understand what’s going on here. There are…things that you don’t know. Walk away from this while you still can. Walk away from me, from what you think you know about me. Let go of the past. Get out before it’s too late.”

             
“I don’t understand you? What are you talking about?” I took another step closer before what he had to say next, stopped me cold in my tracts.

             
“You’re on the wrong side, Cameron. You’re fighting the wrong enemy. You can’t win this. What you are doing is destined to fail. Walk away before it costs you your life. You think you know what’s happening here. You think you know who I am. Who you’re really fighting for? You have no idea what the truth is. You think you’re fighting against evil, but you don’t even know what that is.”

             
“Judah, what are you trying to tell me? Tell me what you mean, Judah? Please, help me understand how I can help you? What happened to you, Judah? Where have you been all these years? Judah, did you really do all those things that you are being accused of? Did mom and dad...”

             
I didn’t finish those words. Judah was no longer listening to me. Something caught his attention in a distance. Somehow, I knew my brother was ready to flee.

             
“Wait, Judah--don’t go. Let me come with you. I can help you, Judah.”

             
“No!”  For a moment, his eyes came back to mine--those cold lifeless eyes. But only for a moment. Then his attention went back to something just beyond me in the distance. “Don’t try to follow me, Cameron, and don’t try to contact me again. Stay out of this. Get out of it while you still have the choice.”

             
Without another word and just like before my brother left me standing there, watching after him and wondering if I’d just imagined the whole incident. Had I, in my desperate need to find him again, created this whole incident?

             
I’m not sure how long I stood staring into the darkness, hoping that he would somehow return and dispel those doubts, but it never happened. When I finally gave up and went home to my apartment, it was well after midnight.

             
I unlocked the door to the ringing phone and knew even before I answered the call that it would be Noah. The flashing red light on my answering machine told me that this was not the first time he’d made that call to my number tonight.

             
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

             
“Cameron, where have you been? I’ve been calling you for hours now. I was about ready to go searching for you. What’s up with you?”

             
“Nothing...I just needed to think.”

             
“You
needed
to think? About what?”

             
“About nothing...about everything. I don’t know. Look, I’m sorry that I worried you, Noah, but I’m okay. And, it’s late and I’m tired and I have to be up early tomorrow.” At that out and out lie, I crossed my fingers behind my back and said a silent prayer for forgiveness. I wasn’t scheduled to go into the classroom until next week, but I wasn’t ready to face the inevitable with Noah tonight.

             
“Cameron, don’t hang up on me.”

             
“I’m not, but I don’t want to talk about anything right now Noah, so...goodnight.” At that point, I did hang up on the man that had been there for me through so many bad moments in my life.

             
I was stunned, ecstatic...frightened. Restless. All those emotions ran through me as I went back over every little detail of my first real face-to-face encounter with my brother in over twenty years.

             
Surprisingly I found that there were tears in my eyes. I hadn’t cried in years. Not since my parents’ death. I didn’t know what to do next, but I knew that I had to do something and soon.

             
Surely, the very fact that Judah had come back into my life after all these years had to mean...something? A sign that it was time for me to take a new direction in life maybe? But even if that were true, I still didn’t know what to expect or what I was looking for.

             
I glanced down at my hands that still held the phone and realized that they were trembling. Tonight had shaken me beyond what I wanted to admit.

             
I made coffee, more to give me something to do with my hands and hopefully to stop their trembling than anything. All the while, my mind working overtime. I certainly didn’t need any more stimulation.

             
“My brother is my enemy.” I said those words aloud, barely registering that I’d spoken them at all.

             
“That’s not possible. That’s not possible.” Against my will, I remembered all the terrible details The Organization had been able to uncover about Elijah Jacobs. And one fact stood out above all else. Elijah Jacobs was a cold-blooded killer.

             
How could I even begin to understand much less accept all those terrible truths that I’d seen very real, and very hard evidence of as being my brother’s crimes. How had my brother, the kid that had everything including a promising future ahead of him become a terrorist? How had the two of us ended up on opposite sides?

             
I tried to understand what Judah had been trying to tell me tonight. He’d said I didn’t understand what was happening. Judah told me that I was fighting the wrong enemy. But what had he been trying to imply? That he was actually on my side? That someone within The Organization was really the enemy? As hard as I tried to make sense of it, I found myself coming back to what I couldn’t accept. My brother could not be Elijah Jacobs. He was capable of those terrible crimes. But then, I didn’t really know what my brother was capable of. If what I’d read about Elijah Jacobs were true, then how could I possibly hope to save him from his crimes. And how cruel was it that I’d finally found Judah again under these circumstances?

             
Outside the clouds had disappeared. The moon, rising above the neighboring apartment complex, spreading its light across my balcony into the small window of my dining room where I sat. The allure of the night was just too strong to resist. There was something else in the air tonight. A certain electricity. Almost as if something unstoppable had been set into motion.               For the first time I found myself looking around the dark shadows of lawn below me and wondering. There was nothing there. Or at least nothing that wanted its presence known.

             
“Judah?” My only answer was silence. A strange, uneasy silence of something waiting to happen.

             
It was a long time before I fell asleep that night and even then, my sleep was broken by uneasy dreams that disappeared with the light of day.

             
When I awoke the following morning it was late, but all of my past transgressions were there to haunt me.

             
I’d lied to Noah, the man that I cared deeply about. I’d been dishonest with the team--the people who were responsible for saving my life, and I’d failed to disclose valuable information that might someday be responsible for getting someone killed. I was not in the best of positions here.

             
After I’d made more coffee, I found the old box I’d long ago hidden away in my closet. The box that contained all the information gathered by my parents’ private investigator.

             
Through the years, I’d probably read those documents a thousand times. I pretty much knew all of it by heart and yet I couldn’t help but believe that somewhere amongst those papers there had to be something that I’d overlooked. Some thread of evidence that would have given my parents hope that my brother was still alive. The reason they’d gone to North Carolina in the first place. The reason that had ultimately gotten them killed.

             
After hours of searching, and chasing scraps of paper that seemed to hold some promise, all I’d managed to come up with was more questions than answers. I’d reached nothing but a dead end.

             
It was then that I decided to try another approach. The document that had been passed along to me by Noah. I had known the second that I’d opened it that it contained important information. Information that I believed could be incriminating to my brother. Where had it come from originally and how had Matt gotten the document in the first place.