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Authors: Rebecca York

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BOOK: Talons of the Falcon
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Eden had barely stepped out of the van when a tall, distinguished-looking woman emerged from the house. She walked quickly down the steps, projecting a sense of energy and purpose.

“Dr. Sommers,” she said, offering her hand. “So good of you to come. I’m Constance McGuire, Mr. Gordon’s assistant. Would you like to freshen up before your interview?”

“Thank you,” Eden murmured. She wasn’t going to mouth the usual platitudes about being glad to be here when she certainly wasn’t.

As Eden stood in the bright sunlight giving the Aviary the once-over, Amherst Gordon noted the strong set of her jaw. Even with the slight distortion of the closed-circuit monitor, he could tell that she resented being here. Good for her, he thought. At first glance, those wide-set blue eyes and that shoulder-length light brown hair might give an impression of innocence. But there was more to this woman than met the eye. He had expected that from reading her service record.

Gordon continued to study Eden as his assistant led her down the hall toward the powder room. She was slender and of medium height. Even under what must be very trying circumstances, she carried herself with a sense of confidence. His gaze flicked back to her almost classic profile as she closed the door. Her air force picture hadn’t done Eden justice. She was a damned attractive woman. And that wasn’t going to make things any easier for her down on Pine Island.

Behind the closed door, his visitor was making her own last-minute observations. “Remember,” she told her reflection sternly as she compensated for what she saw as her lack of color with a bit of lipstick and rouge, “you’ve got control of your own life. Nobody can make you do something you don’t want to do.” She’d used the line often enough with her patients. She only hoped she believed it herself now.

The pep talk had a salutary effect. When she emerged a few moments later, she had convinced herself she could deal with whatever persuasive techniques Amherst Gordon was going to try.

He was waiting for her in the solarium. The huge sunny room was splendid with potted ficus and schefflera trees and alive with the sounds of tropical birds. A flutter of red and green caught Eden’s eye. As she watched, a parrot winged its way from one of the trees to the slightly stooped shoulder of a man standing near an ornate bird cage apparently feeding a pair of cockatoos.

Gordon turned and smiled in her direction. His left hand gripped the head of a cane. There were deep lines etched between his mouth and his nose—and at the corners of his eyes. His thick hair was almost entirely silver. But it was the eyes that really drew her attention. They were an unusual shade of green, with a keen intelligence that seemed to see right through the mask of composure she had affected.

His first words, however, were not for her but for the bird on his shoulder. “Thank you for announcing Dr. Sommers’s arrival, Cicero.” The parrot squawked and flapped its acknowledgment.

“Settle down so you don’t scare her,” he warned.

Obediently the bird nestled against the gray tweed of his jacket.

“Won’t you have a chair?” he asked Eden, gesturing toward a cushioned seat beside a wrought-iron table. As he moved forward, he leaned heavily on the cane. So that, at least, was no affectation, she thought, smoothing out the skirt of her blue suit as she sat down.

She was sure the rest of the scene had been carefully calculated to create a certain mood for Mr. Gordon’s purposes. However, Eden wasn’t going to allow him to slowly feed her bits and pieces of information the way he had been feeding the cockatoos.

“Exactly what is all this about?” she challenged.

He smiled. “Anxious to get started?”

“Anxious to hear what you have to say so I can go back to Vermont.”

“Second thoughts already? And you haven’t even heard my proposition.”

“I’m waiting.”

Gordon cleared his throat. “The bottom line is that I need the services of a psychologist who’s rehabilitated victims of, shall we say, stressful enemy captivity.”

“I’ve already guessed that much. But if you’ve looked at my records, which you obviously have, you know I haven’t accepted a case like that in two and a half years.”

Gordon nodded, reaching up to stroke the parrot’s beak. “I’m hoping I can persuade you to make an exception. Let me tell you a little bit about the individual involved.” He paused. “By the way, I’ve had your Alpha clearance reactivated, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to disclose this information.”

Eden’s eyes widened. She’d have thought reinstating her clearance would have taken months, not less than twenty-four hours. Before she could comment, Constance McGuire appeared with a tray of small sandwiches, an ornate silver teapot and cups and saucers.

“I thought you might like some refreshment after your trip,” the woman volunteered.

Eden thanked her and took a chicken salad sandwich quarter. She’d been too nervous to stomach the congealed eggs and greasy sausage on the plane that morning. She watched as Constance poured three steaming cups of tea and then took a seat at the table.

Gordon waited while the food was served, and Eden found herself wondering if he were trying to heighten the anticipation. “The story really starts eleven months ago, with a highly classified air force weapons project,” he finally began, as though he were an old-time radio announcer embarking on a tale of suspense.

Despite herself, Eden leaned forward slightly. “And?” she prompted.

“There was evidence that some of the details of the project were showing up in unfriendly hands, so I was asked to put a man on the team who could double as an engineer while he discreetly investigated the security leak.”

Why had Gordon—and not air force security—taken on that duty, she wondered, but suppressed the urge to ask. If she wasn’t going to work with this man—and she probably wasn’t—she was better off knowing as little as possible about him and his high-placed connections.

“I had the perfect agent for the assignment,” Gordon went on. “He was a brilliant air force engineer who had been integral to a number of high-tech projects. He had also worked for me on several occasions, although his official orders always covered any suspicious absences from regular duty. He was everything I needed—loyal, dedicated and smart. More than once I’d put him in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between his personal life and service to his country. And he never failed me when I needed him.”

Eden bit her lip. She thought she knew what kind of sacrifice he was describing. It took an emotional toll—in fact, one that had been too high for her to pay over the long term.

Gordon noted the young woman’s reaction and pressed on. “I think he came through for me this time, too. He had sent a coded message that he had identified the leak and was on his way back from Berlin with the evidence.” He paused for dramatic effect. “But his plane crashed in East Germany.”

Even without knowing this engineer, Eden felt herself shudder at the price he’d apparently paid for his patriotism. When she thought back over the past year, however, she couldn’t remember an incident like that coming out in the press.

Gordon answered her unspoken question. “It didn’t make the papers,” he said. “He was necessarily a loner with no family. And we didn’t want any publicity.”

“But, if he died...”

“That’s just it. Six months later, the other side notified our Secretary of State that he was safe in one of their medical facilities. It seems they’d pulled him from the wreckage of his plane and managed to save his life. He’d been pretty badly burned and had a dozen broken bones. But they’d patched him up, and as a `gesture of goodwill’ they were returning him to us.”

The tea in front of Eden was growing cold, but she’d forgotten all about it. “If they had him for six months, God knows what they did to him,” she whispered.

“Exactly.”

Despite her professed lack of interest, Eden found herself asking, “Where is he now?”

“For two months a special air force security unit has had him down at a facility called Pine Island off the Georgia coast. They’re trying to debrief him, but he’s not saying anything at all. I think he’s afraid the information he learned before the accident is going to get him into more trouble. But that’s not how air force security sees it. They’re convinced the other side has brainwashed him—and gotten the specs on the weapons project he was working on. So they’ve decided he’s expendable, and they’re going to extract what they can out of him, no matter what the cost.”

“They don’t know he was actually working for us,” Constance interjected. “We can’t tell them without tipping our hand to whoever it was that sabotaged that plane in the first place.”

Eden drew in a ragged breath. Sabotage. She had been thinking the East Germans had taken advantage of an unfortunate accident. Now the drama had become even more complex. But she still thought she understood why Gordon had sent for her. “You want me to go down to Pine Island and referee,” she stated.

“Not exactly. There’s an opening on the staff for a psychologist. Evidently they’ve decided strong-arm tactics aren’t working, so they’re going to give the persuasive arts a try.”

Gordon had effectively drawn her into his story, but Eden wasn’t going to let herself become personally involved. Pushing back her chair, she stood up. “I’m sorry. But you can count me out of the party.” Working with torture victims in the past had all but burned her out. Turning to a less demanding job had been a matter of preserving her own sanity.

Connie looked from the agitated young woman to Amherst Gordon. At times like this she almost hated him. His face didn’t show it, but he was holding the ace of hearts and had no qualms about using it.

“Would it make a difference,” he asked Eden slowly, “if I told you that the man in question is Lt. Col. Mark Bradley?”

A sharp pain seemed to knife through Eden’s heart, and she sank back into the chair. The horrible things this man had described couldn’t have happened to Mark, not the Mark Bradley she remembered. But Amherst Gordon’s green eyes told her that it was all true.

“Dear God, no!”

Constance reached over and put an arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

“I’m not going to ask you to make a decision without more information,” Gordon was saying as he got up and walked stiffly across the room to transfer the parrot to a T-shaped perch. “Maybe I’ve made a mistake, and you really aren’t the right one for the case.”

From a shelf near the window he picked up a manila folder. “Why don’t you look over Colonel Bradley’s file and then take some time to think the assignment over?”

Constance stood up also. Without further comment, they left Eden alone in the sunlit room that now unaccountably seemed a bit chilly.

Eden looked down at the cream-colored folder in the center of the table. Finally, with fingers that were far from steady, she flipped it open. The first thing she encountered was a large glossy photo of the man in question. In the picture he was smiling at her with that very masculine, slightly rakish grin that had captured her attention when they first met. Her gaze swept over the raven hair slanted across his forehead, the aquiline nose, the jaw that would have dominated his face had the other features not been so strong. The lines at the corners of his dark eyes had deepened slightly, but they only added a touch of maturity that hadn’t been so apparent five years ago. Mark’s dashing good looks had attracted her first. But she’d learned there was a toughness hidden by that devil-may-care exterior.

She could see his broad shoulders below the twill fabric of his uniform, but the photo had been cropped so that only the first two buttons of his shirt were visible. Against her will, her imagination began to fill in the rest of the picture—the brawny strength of his arms, the crisp dark hair that spread across his chest and arrowed down his long torso to his trim abdomen, the narrow hips, the well-muscled thighs. The way his naked body had felt pressed to hers. The rough texture of his chest against her breasts. That last incredible night he had made love to her, she had been sure he was going to ask her to marry him. The morning after, he had walked out of her life.

They’d been good friends for almost a year and lovers for nine months. But it wasn’t just the physical relationship. They’d both seemed to find something vital they needed in each other. Mark had taught her how to capture the unique joy of each moment together—like fine champagne bursting from an uncorked bottle. At the same time, he seemed to be reaching out to her in a deeper way, as if he were finding roots he’d never had time to put down before. She’d thought the two of them had had something very special together. Apparently she’d been wrong.

She resented the way Amherst Gordon had carelessly ripped apart the scar tissue that had formed over her old wounds. Yet now, with Mark’s folder in front of her, Eden couldn’t help twisting the knife. As though under some sort of compulsion, she began to read on.

The file was a summary of Mark’s service record, plus the special assignments he’d undertaken for Amherst Gordon. The language was bland, but the words gave her a sense of how much danger this man had lived with during the ten years he’d been an agent for the Peregrine Connection.

It was hard to take in. But the part that really wrenched her heart was the medical report from the air force facility where Mark was being detained. Eden felt a wave of nausea sweep over her as she began to read the dispassionate accounts of the subject’s present mental and physical condition. He’d suffered everything from multiple fractures and internal injuries to major skin grafts. Only a man with an iron constitution could have survived.

Apparently he was on his way to physical recovery. But his mental state was another matter. Withdrawn, depressed, uncooperative and quite possibly psychotic—the terms leapt out at her. And from the prescribed course of treatment so far, it looked as though he was going to stay that way. Gordon must be right. Someone down there was desperate to break Mark Bradley—at any cost.

When Eden looked up from the folder, she knew that she had been manipulated by Amherst Gordon. But after what she’d learned, she really didn’t have a choice about her decision.

BOOK: Talons of the Falcon
7.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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