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“He’s nobody to me. Not anymore.” Indy shrugged in the passenger seat of the two-door Jeep Wrangler that had been waiting for them in the JFK Airport parking lot, fueled and ready, keys taped beneath the left rear wheel. “There’s no anger left in me, Ice. No hatred. I don’t know if going through that craziness on the plane liberated me from all those dark emotions. I think it did, but who knows . . . maybe if I’d learned about it sober I’d never have felt any anger or hatred at all. After all, it wasn’t personal.”
Ice kept his eyes on the road, swallowing hard to control his own anger which had been simmering for hours now, ever since that insanely cathartic scene on the plane, where they’d both felt Indy’s anger and hatred like it was a living breathing entity.
Ice’s grip on the steering wheel tightened as he took the Georgetown exit from I-95. He’d driven just above the speed limit, making perfect time from JFK to where they were now within Washington city limits. They’d gotten off the plane without any trouble, made their way into the main terminal through one of the doors on ground level, beneath the passenger jetways. Way less risky than trying to sneak out of the airport through the main service gate. So less than three minutes after Jack’s friendly union guys popped the baggage hatch and promptly took their break, Ice and Indy were walking through JFK’s crowded Terminal C concourse, the warmly familiar signs of American fast food sending waves of relief through them both.
They’d hit the restrooms, grabbed blueberry muffins and large cups of hot coffee, and twelve minutes later Ice was handing a parking-lot stub to an attendant and paying in cash, the throaty rumble of the Wrangler’s engine reassuring like a mother’s love.
Except now, almost five hours later, as Ice rumbled the Wrangler around Dupont Circle towards Georgetown, he wasn’t thinking about a mother’s warm love but a father’s cold hatred.
“Your father tried to murder you. Not once but twice. And you don’t take it personally?” Ice did his best to stay calm. It usually came easy, but something had been building in him for hours now. Hours watching Indy snuggled up against his body as their airborne chariot brought them home. Hours wondering what kind of a man could find it in himself to do what Rhett Rodgers had done. Hours during which Ice’s anger simmered and seethed until it turned to red-hot rage, a burning determination that Rhett Rodgers was not walking out of that building alive.
Because thiswaspersonal.
It was personal to Ice.
“Wait, areyoutaking this personally?” Indy frowned at him as Ice drove around the Dupont Circle roundabout and entered the swanky lamplit streets of DC’s Georgetown neighborhood. “Ice, we talked about this on the plane. You can’t just kill a high-ranking CIA official in the middle of DC. You’ll go to federal prison, maybe even get the death penalty. This is Benson’s game, so let him play it the way he wants. We’re going to show up, see if my presence spooks Rhett into doing something stupid.”
“He’s already done something stupid,’’ Ice growled, gunning the Wrangler to make it through a traffic light just as it turned red. “He tried to kill you when you were defenseless, completely vulnerable, unable to protect yourself.” He swallowed thickly, shook his head as he slowed down to take a left turn onto the Senator’s quiet street. “And yeah, this is Benson’s game, which is all the more reason why I need to take control and finish it myself. Benson is playing a game that’s bigger than just the two of us. Which means he will absolutely sacrifice us if he thinks it serves the bigger picture.”
Indy’s frown cut deeper. She shook her head firmly. “Benson saved my life when I was that defenseless infant. You heard Scarlet telling me how Benson ran out of her apartment with me in his arms, desperate to revive me even though it appeared I was dead. He saved me, Ice. Once for sure, and probably twice. And I definitely takethatpersonally. Don’t you?”
Ice gripped the wheel tighter, glowering at the empty street, unable to counter Indy’s argument. Benson was ambiguous like the trickster coyotes of myth and legend, somehow walking that razor’s edge between good and evil, darkness and light, heaven and hell.
Just like the other Darkwater guys said.
Still, Ice thought, this mission was different, more complex, with far more players involved, way bigger stakes. The earlier missions didn’t have the future of the United States on the roulette wheel. What might happen tonight could change the direction of the CIA and the White House—and by that measure the trajectory of the entire world.
No shit Benson had sounded anxious when Jack talked to the guy. Benson had been around the block a few times. Forty years in the CIA meant the guy had made some hard decisions, many of which probably still weighed on Benson’s conscience.
But he’d made those hard decisions anyway.
Sacrificed pawns and knights to protect kings and queens.
Ice had seen how the spooks worked. They were patriots to the death, just like Deltas and SEALs and Rangers and Green Berets. But damn, those CIA guys played close to the edge of ethics, the margins of morality.
Because somebody needed to be out there on that fine line between good and evil.
It took all kinds of patriots to keep America safe from the monsters.
Now Ice exhaled, letting out a bit of steam, relieving some of the pressure. The Senator’s home was coming up, and he slowed the Wrangler to a crawl, then slid into a parking space a block away.
He turned off the engine, took a slow breath, exhaled even slower. Then he took his hands off the wheel, took Indy’s soft hand in his big paw.
Immediately he felt that now-familiar tingle go through him, that spark of energy which reminded him of what they’d just been through together, what they’d experienced in the mind-melting madness of their journey home.
A journey that wasn’t all the way complete.
Which meant they weren’t all the way home yet.
“Look, Indy,” he said softly, gazing into her eyes, taking in her beauty as he pushed away the sickening thought that this might be the end for them both. He forced a smile, doing his best to suppress the trickle of dread tugging at his heart. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us in that house. I hate going into a situation with incomplete information, but I’m used to it, trained for it.”
“So am I,” Indy said firmly, her eyes shining with what Ice knew was a mix of fear and excitement. “We’ve talked about this too, Ice. I need to see Rhett face to face. More than that, he needs to seemeface to face. I am the centerpiece of Benson’s game here. I’m the only one that might be able to trigger Rhett into losing his cool, doing something that justifies taking him out.”
Ice sighed. “I’m still worried about what it might trigger in you, Indy. We should be at the hospital right now doing a brain MRI after that seizure on the plane. In fact, listen, let’s just—”
“No,youlisten,” Indy said, squeezing his hand and leaning close, her gaze cutting into him with a sharpness that retained some of that LSD-induced glint. “I have the advantage over Rhett, don’t you see? What you and I went through together just pulled every emotional trigger that was left to pull in my psyche. And you got me through it, Ice. And because of you, I’m stronger for it.Weare stronger for it. I know it and you know it. And I think maybe that was Benson’s plan—to give us enough time to confront all of that, to win that psychological battle so we could enter this physical battle with an advantage.” She smiled now, leaned in closer, her gaze cutting deeper, her love shining brighter. “Enter this battle together, Ice. Win it together. This is our path to forever. I saw it clearly when I was losing my mind. We both did.”
Ice chuckled darkly. “Well, that settles it, I guess. We saw it clearly when we were certifiably insane. Yup. That makes perfect fucking sense.” He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t quite pull it off with the same conviction as before that mind-bending flight through madness.
