Page 27 of The Ghost

“For the last time,” I told her, “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“I’ll agree not to worry about you if you don’t worry about me,” she teased.

“Then I guess we’re at an impasse,” I said.

“Looks like it,” she agreed, gazing back at the view.

We spent a long moment just standing there side by side. This saying goodbye thing was getting more difficult by the minute. I needed to get in that jet and fly off to Finland, if for no other reason than to get it over with. The sooner I left, the sooner I would be back in her arms. That was the only thing that mattered to me, and the world could go to hell.

Chapter 13

Clark

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I WALKED THEO TO THE hangar bay and kissed him a dozen more times before he got in the cockpit. When he was ready to take off, I was instructed to stand in the control room behind six inches of reinforced glass. I watched the bay doors open and the engines heat up. Then the jet taxied out of the base and took off into the sky, trailing twin flags of smoke behind it.

Theo was gone. But I had a million things to do, so I couldn’t dwell. I knew he would be all right; I just had to concentrate on my own tasks. And the first thing on the agenda was a meeting with the head of the CIA.

I walked through the hallways, deep in thought. All the drama surrounding Ryan’s reappearance poked its ugly head up, causing me to almost miss my turn. Why did it have to be Ryan? Why couldn’t it be literally anyone else from my past? I thought what I had with him was real and pure, but he had turned it into something sinister just by coming back into my life.

I hoped to get some answers. If the leadership of the CIA had been read into his fake death, then they were going to explain why. I would make them explain, if it was the last thing I did. The fact that he was going off on his own mission was a comfort. I wanted to put off my conversation with him as long as possible.

Dumping someone who was possibly an enemy agent could be tricky. I’d killed people after sex before, but I’d never told anyone I didn’t love them. I wasn’t eager to get that particular chore over with, and I just might take Theo up on his offer for backup. With my new boyfriend in the room, I would be less susceptible to Ryan’s charms. That, and Ryan wouldn’t dare put the moves on me if Theo was right there.

I walked into the command center to find Lukas waiting for me. Together, we went to the conference room, where it seemed I was spending a lot of my time. It had to happen, but I would rather be on the flight with Theo than trading secrets with a bunch of stuffed shirts.

Holding my breath, I sat down to wait for everyone else to arrive.

“How are you doing?” Lukas asked.

“Fine,” I said. “When are the doctors going to look at our shoulders?”

“After the meeting,” he said.

I peeled one sleeve down to see if there was anything underneath my skin, but it looked smooth. I didn’t believe there was a tracker, no matter what the intel said. I would have known. I would have felt it. Mr. Ashcroft would have made an appearance a long time ago if he knew where I was.

“Ms. Abrams,” the director of the CIA said, walking into the room.

I stood up, almost correcting him. I had taken the name Abrams after Ryan died as a tribute to him. We were almost married, and I thought that I was doing his memory justice. But now that he was back and proving a much more mysterious figure, I didn’t want to be aligned with him that way.

The only thing that stopped me from speaking was the realization that my other option as far as last names were concerned was Ashcroft. I didn’t want that one either. It was six of one, half dozen of the other, so I opted to stick with Abrams. Maybe I would take Theo’s last name when this was all over. I would much prefer being Mrs. Wells, considering the other choices.

“Why does New Dawn want you so badly?” George asked.

I fixed him with a narrow stare, hating the insinuation that I was somehow still working for Ashcroft. “How should I know?” I snapped.

“Maybe you could start with what you remember about our childhood?” Lukas suggested, cutting the tension with his special brand of pragmatism.

I swallowed, watching as the room filled up with more spooks. They took seats around the table until I was drastically outnumbered. I didn’t realize there were so many of them in the base. American, British, and French, they all dressed the same, and all had the same air of superiority about them.

This was something I didn’t enjoy. I preferred field work to being in the office, mostly because if I didn’t like someone out in the field, I could kill them. I wasn’t wedded to my job, but I didn’t want to escape from the bunker guns blazing. I had to remember Theo. Once he completed his mission, he would return, and then we could escape. Of course, there was the pesky problem of New Dawn, but we could figure that out. I didn’t feel the need to sit there like a worm on a dissecting platter for all these bureaucrats to study.

“Why don’t you tell me about Ryan?” I snapped.

“What do you want to know?” the leader of the CIA asked.

“Did you know he was underground? All this time, I thought he was dead, did you know?” I demanded, unable to stop my voice from cracking.