White Mountain (30 page)

“Let me know what you find out from Quantico.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

The line went dead, but Jack was already checking his e-mail, hoping for answers from Steven Randolph.
 
He scanned down the list of new messages quickly, then stopped at the second from the last and grinned.

Dubloh7.

That would be Steven, all right.
 
007 indeed.

“So, you think you’re James Bond, do you, buddy?
 
Let’s see what you’ve found for me.”

He opened the message and started to read, and the longer he read, the more he realized that Frank Walton had been the tip of a much bigger iceberg.
 
Every doctor on board that plane had been involved in DNA research and the theory that human genes could be manipulated as a means of everything from preventing birth defects to healing incurable diseases.
 
And what was more telling, according to what Steven had pulled from the archives, they were all in the process of being pulled off their research when the crash had occurred.

He replied to the e-mail, typing in the names of the men who were or had been living here now, including Samuel Abbott.
 
Walton had pulled a scam by living under a dead man’s name.
 
He wondered what they would find out by running the same check on these men.

A knock sounded on his door as he hit Send.
 
Finally.
 
His food had arrived.

“Come in,” he called, and folded down the screen on his lap top.

He stood, stretching as the door swung inward.
 
But it wasn’t Delia who entered with his food.
 
It was Isabella.

He jumped forward, taking the tray from her hands and then quickly setting it aside.

“Is there anything else you’ll be needing?” she asked.

“Forgiveness?
 
Understanding?
 
A hug?
 
I’m not picky.
 
I’ll take any of the above.”

She sighed, blaming herself for her weaknesses.
 
She’d known when she’d offered to bring up the food that he would confront her like this, and she knew, if she was honest with herself, that was why she’d come.

“I can understand about working undercover.
 
I know there are things within your job that are bound to be highly sensitive.”

“Yes, and—“

“I’m not finished,” she said, holding up her hands and backing up so that there was still space between them.

Jack braced himself for the but he heard coming.

“Then get it said.”

“But you can’t just throw down a verbal gauntlet like you did upstairs and expect me to ignore it.
 
Do you know what I’m feeling right now?
 
I feel like the orphan I really am.
 
You’ve made me mistrust the only family I’ve ever known.
 
I look at those five dear old men and see strangers.
 
I’m scared, Jack, and it’s all your fault.”

He frowned.
 
“No, Isabella, it’s not my fault.
 
I was just the messenger.
 
Whatever is going on with them started long before we were born.”

Her lower lip trembled, but she refused to cry.

“What is it, Jack?
 
What’s going on?
 
Why are they afraid?
 
And don’t tell me thy’re not, because I saw it in their eyes.”

“Did you ask them?”

“No, and I won’t.”

“Why?”

The words burned her mouth like acid, but they had to be said.
 
She turned away to stare out at the mountain, and as she did, the flesh on her skin suddenly crawled.

“Because I know that whatever they tell me would be a lie, so if I don’t ask, they don’t have the guilt of that on their consciences.”

“I’m sorry.”

“God, Jack…so am I.”

“Isabella…look at me.”

She turned, her eyes wet with tears.

Knowing it was wrong didn’t stop Jack from cupping her face and then lowering his head.
 
A second later he was kissing her.
 
Gently.
 
Tenderly.

Then she moaned, and his hands slid from her face to her shoulders, then under her arms and around her back, holding her tighter, pulling her closer, until there was nothing between them but growing need.

Heat built, bodies burned, aching with only one way to stop—and it wasn’t going to happen.
 
Not when she was this vulnerable.
 
Not when the possibility existed that he was going to destroy what was left of her world.

“Oh God,” Isabella moaned, as she tore herself from Jack’s arms.

She dropped to the side of the bed and covered her face with her hands.

“This is crazy, isn’t it?
 
Why am I doing this?
 
I must be mad, thinking of you when I should be trying to save myself from this ongoing hell.”

One step and Jack would have been in bed with her, and there would have been no going back.
 
Because he knew his limits, he stayed where he was—his shoulders ramrod straight, his stance braced against temptation.

“You can deny me and yourself and everything in between, but you do not have to save yourself from anything, because I will not let anything happen to you.
 
It’s what I do.”

Her hands dropped to her lap as she looked up, and he could see more in her eyes than he needed to see.
 
If he asker her, she would say yes.
 
Sweet Jesus.
 
That wasn’t helping him at all.

“So, my white knight still rides,” she said, but the smile on her face was anything but friendly.
 
“However, I’m wondering something.”

“What?”

“When you ride off into the sunset…do you always go alone?”

“Damn it, Isabella, you know I can’t make promises right now.”

She stood too quickly, changing the subject before he could say more.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said.
 
“You were hungry, and now your food is getting cod.
 
Here…I’ll move some of these things on the desk and you can eat there.
 
Or would you rather eat in bed?
 
You could watch TV, although I don’t guarantee too many channels.
 
We don’t get very good reception because of the mountains.”

Before Jack could stop her, she was at his desk, carefully moving papers aside to make room for his tray.
 
Suddenly she paused, then picked up a paper.
 
It wasn’t until after she started talking that he realized it was the old photo of the seven doctors as they were boarding the plane.

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

Shit
.
 
“It’s just an old photo.”

“But where did you get it?” she asked.

Suddenly Jack knew there was more than curiosity behind the question.

“Why?”

“Because my father is in it…and I think that’s Uncle Frank on the left and Uncle David beside him, although I can’t be sure.
 
I’ve never seen Uncle David with a beard.”

When Jack didn’t answer, her voice started to shake.

“Jack why do you have a picture of my father?”

Suddenly it all began to make sense.

Well, son of a bitch.
 
Of course.
 
“I didn’t know I did,” he said.
 
“I’ve never seen his picture.”

“Oh.”
 
She handed it to him.
 
“I suppose you had it because of Uncle Frank?”

“Yes.”

She nodded.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I guess I’m seeing the boogey man everywhere now.”

She had turned to leave when Jack called her back.

“Would you do something for me?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it would have to do.

“Would you not say anything to the others about this picture…at least for now?”

“It’s more of the lie, isn’t it?” she asked, and then waved her hand in abject dismissal.
 
“Forget I asked.
 
I’m sure that’s just more of the part you can’t talk about.”

She was all the way to the door when she suddenly froze.
 
When she turned around, new horror was on her face.

“Oh my God.”

Jack knew what was coming, and there was nothing he could say to make it better.

“My father is in that picture.”

“So you said.”

“He was part of the lie, wasn’t her?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said.

“But you’re going to find out, aren’t you?”

“It’s why I came.

She started to cry.
 
“What does it matter?
 
Whatever you think you’re after, it’s bound to have been over for years.
 
They’re old and they’re weak.
 
You saw what your news did to Uncle Thomas.
 
Are you willing to have all of their lives on your conscience?”

“Are you willing to let a man get away with your uncle’s murder?”

“That’s not fair,” she sobbed.

“Life is not about being fair.”

“Then what
is
it about?
 
Make me understand, so I don’t hate you.”
 
Her voice broke as she leaned against the door.
 
“Because I don’t want to hate you, Jack Dolan.
 
Oh God…I don’t want to hate you.”

Her pain gutted him, shattering resolve and homore and everything in between.

“Then don’t.
 
It’s your decision, and that’s what life is all about…living by the decisions we make.”

“You don’t make it easy, do you?”

“There is nothing easy about my job, Isabella, but do not mistake my feelings for you as weakness.
 
No matter what, I will do what I have to do.”

“Then enjoy your food and sleep well, Jack Dolan.
 
If you can.”

She was gone as quietly as she’d come.
 
Jack looked at the tray on the table and knew it was going to go to waste.
 
Something was suddenly wrong with his throat.
 
There was no way in hell he could swallow.

It was thirty minutes pas two in the morning when Vasili Rostov reached Abbott House.
 
Careful to stay in the shadows of the surrounding shrubbery, he made his way toward the back of the hotel and then paused behind a large Dumpster.
 
The only lights on inside the hotel were the night lights in the lobby and in the hallways, the same ones he’d seen every night from his bedroom window.

He wondered if they knew he was gone yet.
 
Chances were they did not.
 
They would have had no reason to go l9ooking for a gardener after the sun had gone down and he’d finished the work that had been set out for him before he’d stopped for the evening.
 
Finishing a job was something he prided himself on.
 
Even if it had been nothing more than clipping hedges and mowing grass, he’d given his word.

He thought of the man who’d sent him here.
 
He expected Rostov to keep his word, too.
 
But Rostov had not survived as long as he had without learning a few things about communist rule.
 
When a project failed, someone had to shoulder the blame and suffer the consequences.
 
The way he looked at it, he wasn’t the one who’d let a top-notch scientist get away to begin with.
 
He’d kept his word.
 
He’d found Vaclav Waller.
 
It wasn’t his fault that the old man had chosen to die rather than acquiesce.

Circumstances had forced Rostov to take this path.
 
It wasn’t one he would have chosen, but he was on it just the same.
 
And to survive the transition, he would need money to make himself disappear.

Fingering the key in his right pocket, he went through a mental checklist of the ground floor of the hotel, including the fire exit, the service entrance off the kitchen, or the doors exiting onto the terrace.
 
The odds were in his favor, and he could think of no one who would threaten the success of his mission.
 
The only guests in the hotel were the five old men and a handful of couples desperate for babies, plus the writer.
 
Rostov dismissed them completely.

He patted his left pocket, feeling the hypodermic syringe within the folds of fabric.
 
It was something he’d intended to use on Waller, but it would serve the same purpose for the woman, instead.
 
Careful not to move out of the shadows, he circled the grounds until he was at the service entrance.
 
Within seconds he had picked the ancient lock.