Kate Donovan - Exit Strategy

Which meant Gresley would be there, assuming he’d had his jaw wired or otherwise repaired by then. Too bad. It would have been such a coup to wrangle an invitation to a Brigade meeting. She’d just have to make the most of the time between now and then.

Kell finally responded, admitting, “I don’t know these men well, but I promised them they’d have my undivided attention. For a business deal, like you said.”

“That’s okay. I love being with you, but I’m also dying to get home and see Ray.” She cocked her head to the side. “I guess you’re not really afraid of strangers after all. You’re fine with me, and you’re letting these men visit. Have they stayed here before?”

“All but one. I’ve never met him in person, and frankly, I’m scared to death of him,” Kell told her with a wry smile. “But this business is important to me, so I’ll force myself to handle it.”

Miranda stared, speechless. Was it possible the Brigadier was attending the weekend meeting? If so, she could learn his identity by surveilling the premises, which would be easy to do with the right equipment and a nice, safe spot along one of the hiking trails. She was sure Kristie could arrange for the equipment, but contacting the spinner was a problem, since Kell’s guards had confiscated her cell phone and she was sure they monitored all communications from within the fortress. They had even taken custody of her laptop when they brought her belongings up from the inn.

Somehow they had let the barrette-camera slip by them, but even that didn’t matter since there were so many guards wandering around the place, she didn’t anticipate having an opportunity to use it. In addition to Mike, Joe, Samson and Carl, she had spotted three others inside the fortress, and Kell had said there were half a dozen more patrolling the perimeter.

Still, her mission was proving to be a tremendous success. At the very least, she would walk away from this place with samples of the “power pills” Kell had developed for use by the Brigade’s paramilitary forces. He was also giving her a steady stream of information about the Brigade. And last but not least, she might be able to get a picture of the Brigadier himself as he entered the premises on the weekend!

If she went home with all of that, she and Kristie would be heroes. They might catch a little flack about their methods, but SPIN and the CIA would still be impressed enough to allow them to become permanent members of the anti-Brigade team. Perhaps even to spearhead it.

“Are you upset, Jennifer?”

“What?”

“You’re so quiet all of a sudden.” Kell smiled apologetically. “Believe me, I wish I could invite you to stay longer-”

“Don’t be silly. I have to get home and get kinky with Ray, right? I’ll head back to Geneva tomorrow night-”

“You don’t need to rush away. If you take the drug tomorrow, you’ll have a helluva hangover when you wake up on Thursday. You should stay here until it subsides.”

“We’ll see,” she murmured, concerned about having enough time to pick up the equipment she needed in Geneva and then making it back in time to catch the Brigadier’s arrival. If not, she might have to wait until he departed to photograph him, which would present additional complications.

“I’d rather just take the pill now, Jonathan. Please?”

“If you’re a good girl and take your vitamins, and get a good night’s sleep, I’ll give it to you first thing in the morning.

“I have to admit,” he added in a tone so guarded it momentarily alarmed her, “I can’t wait to see the effect my power drug has on someone like you.”

By the time Kell escorted Miranda to his laboratory at the back of the fortress the next morning, she had spent so much time and effort masquerading as Ortega’s girlfriend, she was almost beginning to believe it herself! It was “Ray this” and “Ray that”-tender stories and sexy ones, all culled from a montage of their one night together combined with their day at his mountain cabin. She had never before played an undercover role for this long, or with this intensity, and she was learning that it was true what other agents said-that after the first twenty-four hours or so, the difficulty wasn’t so much maintaining the facade as reminding oneself that it wasn’t really the truth.

“This is just what I expected,” she told her host as she stood in the middle of a long, narrow room with spotless white walls and gleaming stainless steel tables and equipment. Unlike the lab at BioGeniSystems, the place was spotlessly organized.

“Sorry about the lack of windows. I chose an interior room for my work for extra privacy. But it’s such a large area, I never get claustrophobic in here.”

“It helps that there are doors at both ends of the room,” Miranda told him.

“The monks who built this place made sure there were always a minimum of two exits from any room. I suppose there was a certain amount of political intrigue in those days.”

“Or they were claustrophobic like us.” Miranda eyed her host hopefully. “Time for my pill?”

He chuckled. “Almost. I want to take your vital signs first. And I have a few questions if you don’t mind.”

“Shoot.”

He wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm. “Think carefully. Is claustrophobia really your greatest fear?”

“Yes. Absolutely. I know, I know. Spiders and rats. I hate them, too, but it’s the closed-in spaces that scare me the most.”

“What about fear of the dark?”

“No.” She hesitated, then admitted, “Pitch-black-with absolutely no hint of light-freaks me a little.”

“Heights?” he asked, watching the meter on the dial as it recorded her pressure.

“No.”

“Strange or novel situations?”

“Love ’em,” she assured him.

He laughed. “Lucky you. Okay, so we’ll go with claustrophobia. Next question: if you could change one event in your life-prevent it from happening-what would it be?”

Miranda bit her lip. The obvious answer-the night she became Ortega’s dupe and ruined her career-was something she couldn’t reveal to Kell. And in truth, while it was the first example to come to mind, she knew there was something else-another defining event-that haunted her even more completely.

“When I was fourteen, my father was thrown from a horse and ended up with both legs paralyzed. If I could change that, I would.”

Kell seemed surprised. “That’s very unselfish. He’s lucky to have such a great daughter.”

“It’s not unselfish, Jonathan,” she assured him sadly. “My life changed that day, too.”

“Go on.”

Miranda frowned. “I don’t see why we need to go into this. But okay. Here goes. My dad was the proverbial best dad in the world when I was little. He was fun. Full of life. He adored me, even though he probably really wanted a son. Anyway, he was an active sports-man-rodeo, guns, archery, hunting, fast cars. He wasn’t around much because he was always off with his buddies, having fun, or drinking, or whatever. But when he came home, he lit up the world for me.

“After the accident, obviously, his life changed and he was miserable. Bitter and mean and depressed. Everyone understood that, including me. Then one by one, people got fed up. His friends first. Then finally even his doctors. Even my mom. He said such hurtful things to her. To all of us.”

“How long did this go on?”

“For me? Until the day he died, eight years later. But Mom left after two years. She tried to get the court to give her custody of me, but I told the judge I wanted to stay with Dad. Not just out of guilt, but because I kept thinking the old Dad would return eventually. The guy who loved us. But he never did. He never again showed interest in anything I did. It was strange, because he had been so proud of my archery skills and my marksmanship. But after the accident, he didn’t want to hear about any of that. It took me a while to understand that he was jealous, which makes sense, but still…”