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“I can’t believe it,” Amy had once told him. “It’s like somebody came in the other night and swapped out our little girl with a city slicker.”
This particular city slicker has on a school uniform of black shoes, white knee socks, a dark blue skirt and matching jacket, and a plain white blouse. A Vera Bradley knapsack is on her back. When they come to the intersection with Pine Street, the familiar three-story brick building with a wrought-iron fence stands directly across the street. Morning rush-hour traffic roars, rumbles, and honks by as they wait for the light to change.
As he spends these precious moments with his daughter, two things are rattling around in his reporter’s mind, one being the story that he’s working on. There are just hints and whispers so far from his sources—unexpected movement of military units, meetings of intelligence officials—but Tom believes he has grabbed hold ofsomething.If he keeps tugging, he believes it will lead him to a story about a terrorist attack being planned somewhere here or in Europe.
“Dad?” Denise asks, raising her voice to be heard above the traffic.
“Yes, Hon?”
“Where’s Mom?”
Ah, the same old question, with the same old disappointing answer. After Amy had taken her new job, the two of them told their inquisitive and smart little girl that her mother was a traveling consultant who helped governments research and purchase military-related hardware. Based on Amy’s years of service in the Army, it was the best they could do.
“She’s on a business trip. I hope she comes back soon.”
“Why doesn’t she call? Or email?”
“Well, sometimes Mom’s in a place where she can’t make a call or use a computer.”
Denise sighs. Horns sound up the street. An MTA bus grumbles by, soiling the near air with its diesel exhaust. A distant siren wails from an FDNY fire engine. And among the mass of people waiting for the light to change so they can cross the street, Tom is sure he senses one of his watchers.
That’s the other thing on his mind. For the past few days, ever since Amy left for her latest overseas trip, Tom has been convinced he’s being tailed. Nothing blatant—no, whoever’s doing this is pretty professional—but the sixth sense that has kept him alive while reporting from combat zones has told him folks are out there. A city sanitation worker staring at him for a second too long. A young woman paying undue attention to Tom’s reflection in a shop window. An unmarked white van that deliberately runs a red light so it can pull ahead of Tom’s place of work and stay there.
“Daddy?” Denise asks, interrupting him.
“Yes, Hon?”
She speaks louder. “Polly’s dad is in Brazil working for an oil company. In the middle of a jungle! And he FaceTimes her every night. Why can’t Mom do that?”
The light changes, blinking white for the pedestrians to move, and he and Denise join the crowd as it surges across the street. Tom reaches down to take his daughter’s hand.
She brushes it away.
“Because she just can’t,” he says. As the crowd surges past him,there—a familiar face passes by: the sanitation worker from two days ago.
Now dressed in a fine suit and a tan London Fog topcoat.
Chapter12
I HEARthe hum of an approaching helicopter and take out my binoculars for a look-see. Even though we’re minutes away from the pickup, we haven’t let our guard down. Each of us is responsible for a compass quadrant of 90 degrees, so we’re lying down, weapons out, making sure nobody comes up and surprises us.
My left ear is still throbbing from the quick and brutal radio exchange I had a few minutes ago with a CIA communications officer overseeing our operations in this part of the world. If one cuts out the code words and phrases and obscenities, it reminds me of the fights I used to have with Dad back in Maine:
You were supposed to be back at eleven! It’s almost midnight!
Something came up. It’s the truth.
And what was so important that you didn’t come back at eleven like you promised?
Dad…
I have an idea that when I get back to the States, I’m going to lose a lot more than just my driving privileges.
The sound of the helicopter grows louder.
So what?
I got Jeremy back. And to my bosses, our primary kill mission was a success. And we got some intelligence along the way.
