Secret Agent Sam

Chapter 6

Awareness and adrenaline stabbed through her with the same brutal stroke, like a lance of double-edged steel. The bubble of safety and comfort and sleep that had briefly cocooned her shattered and vanished as if it had never been. Her body twitched and quivered; her hand jerked protectively to the tender place behind her ear, displacing his. Her mind snapped into focus, sharp and crystal clear. Too late!

“I can feel a bump there. It’s still tender, isn’t it? You flinched when I touched it earlier.”

She coughed and mumbled, “I had a few stitches-nothing serious.” Vibrating inside, she sat up and moved away from him, swiveling her body around so her back was against the wall and there was a buffer zone of space between her arm and his. She had to force herself to make the movements slowly, making it seem a casual thing rather than the panicked retreat it was.

“Is that why you cut your hair?”

She gave him a look and a short laugh, surprised because, under the influence of her own guilt, it was the last thing she’d expected him to ask. She looked away again and touched her hair with a self-conscious hand. “Yeah…it looked kind of weird with a chunk cut out of it, so I figured, you know, why not. That was a few months ago-it’s grown out quite a bit, actually.”

“I like it. Looks good on you.”

“Thanks.” Even as she accepted the compliment she could feel his eyes on her…hear his mind humming away, thinking up new questions to ask. To distract him, she nodded toward Tony’s corner, from which the snoring continued unabated. “How can he sleep like that under these conditions? I wish I had the knack.”

“I think it’s something you develop in childhood. In his case, it’s what comes of being one of eleven kids.”

“Wow. Really?” Sam leaned her head back against the wall. “Well, that’s something us only children aren’t ever gonna know about, isn’t it?” Then she checked herself and glanced over at him. “But I forgot-I guess it was different for you, wasn’t it? In foster homes.” She paused, but as usual he didn’t answer. Why had she imagined this might be any different from all the other times she’d tried to ask about his past…his childhood?

She studied his profile…like a menswear ad in a glossy magazine, she thought, with his eyes fixed intently on some far-off place, muscles visible in a jaw too square and uncompromising for the rest of his face. It was an interesting face rather than handsome-she’d always thought so, from the first moment she’d laid eyes on it that long-ago afternoon in the White House rose garden-long and angular, with hollows and creases that made it seem scholarly even without glasses. Without the shield of his glasses, which at the moment were tucked in the pocket of his shirt, his eyes seemed even gentler, somehow, the intensity of their gaze veiled by thick lashes, the fan of creases at their corners more suggestive of humor than that laserlike focus that could be so unnerving.

Maybe it was because of that that she pushed bravely on now, when normally such stubborn and intimidating silence would have caused her to abandon the field like a craven coward.

“What was it like for you? In those foster homes. Were they…good to you?”

Still he didn’t reply, and she felt the familiar hollowness inside…the terrible deadness of futility. Then he shifted in a restless way, and when he spoke, in a gravelly voice that didn’t sound like him, it wasn’t what she’d expected.

“What makes you think I’m an only child?”

For a moment she could only stare at him, unable to make sense of the words, as if he’d spoken in a foreign language. “But you’re-I thought-” She stopped, as the meaning of what he’d said rolled over her like the delayed winds from an explosion. Breathless with shock, she said, “Wow. You mean you-I didn’t know you had siblings. Is it-are they-I mean, my God…”

“Four,” he said, and his voice and eyes seemed almost regretful. But oddly, his body, close to hers but not touching, seemed to hum with tension. “Two of each.”

“My God.” She said it again, dazed. Why didn’t I know? How could I not have known this? Why didn’t he tell me? After a moment she cleared her throat. “Are they-”

“Younger. All of them. I was the oldest.”

It was anger that finally squeezed past the immobilizing shock, both of body and mind. And she was too upset herself, then, to notice the tense he’d used, or heed the quality of his voice-a certain carefulness, as if the slightest puff of breath might scatter memories too fragile to hold up to examination. She plunged on, her outrage building with every word, fighting to keep her voice under control, to keep him from knowing how devastated she was.

“You never told me you have brothers and sisters. I mean-when you said you grew up in foster care, I just assumed…how could you not have told me?”

The better question, Cory thought, wasn’t why he’d never told her before, but what had possessed him to tell her now?

He hadn’t meant to. The words had suddenly appeared, his mind playing a trick like a magician plucking a coin from thin air. And, as it usually was with magicians’ tricks, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how it had happened.

Why didn’t I tell you?

She’d drawn her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, as a barricade against him, he thought, and her eyes, gazing at him across the tops of her knees, were dark with reproach and betrayal. He stared at her, appalled at the pain he’d caused her, unable to think of an explanation that would be enough for her. She’d always wanted brothers and sisters, he knew that. She’d been born two months early, had spent weeks fighting for her life in a NICU, and for her parents, Tris and Jessie Bauer, one million-dollar-miracle baby had been enough. To think, in all the years they’d known each other, after all they’d been to each other, that he had siblings he’d never spoken of, never shared with her…he couldn’t blame her for being angry. One more thing he was never going to be able to make right.

How could he make her understand that some secrets were too shameful to share? That some wounds were endurable only if undisturbed? That sometimes guilt was a hornets’ nest to be tiptoed around and left alone?

“So,” she said in a blunt voice, with a defiant little toss of her head, “Where are they now? Do you see them often?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t seen them in…years,” he said, and saw a spark of new outrage flare in her eyes. In Sam’s extended family, any kinfolk-brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins-were a taken-for-granted part of everyday life. Even the ones who lived far away from the old home place in Oglethorp County, Georgia, managed to come home for the major holidays and family events.

“You haven’t-” Air gusted from her lungs with the word, “Why?”

He looked away. “Because,” he said with a soft sigh of resignation, “I don’t know where they are.”

“What? What do you mean, you don’t know?” And even without looking at her he knew she’d be staring at him with lightning bolts in her eyes, bristling with dismay and disbelief.

He put his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. The cat was out of the bag, the initial panic and turmoil were passing, and he felt a strange quietness now…a sense of acceptance and inevitability. Maybe, he thought, the words had come simply because it was time. Because for some reason this moment and this place were the right ones, crazy as it seemed-the middle of a Philippine jungle, with uncertainty and peril all around, and Samantha back in his life again, and maybe, just maybe, another chance for them to get it right this time.

And suddenly he knew for certain he wanted that chance. He always had wanted it. He just wasn’t sure he was capable of what it would take to make it happen.

Beginning-that was the hardest part. She was waiting for an answer…an explanation he wasn’t sure he was ready to give her. He drew a breath that shuddered with the strain, and when he spoke, the words felt as if they were being stripped from him, like the protective bark from a tree. “We were separated after our parents died. I don’t know what happened to the others. I think some of them were adopted.”

“God…” It was a whisper. She sounded beyond stunned. Sick. “I don’t believe this. They split you up? How could they do that?”

He looked over at her with a faint, wry smile. He took a breath; it was getting easier now. “There were five of us, Sam. There aren’t too many foster families willing or equipped to take on five kids. Especially-” He stopped himself on the verge of saying too much, and finished instead, “since I was almost twelve. The others were a lot younger-adoptable. I wasn’t. So, they did what they thought was best.”

Unappeased, she said huffily, “Well, but-didn’t you ever try to find them?”

You were supposed to take care of them, Cory. They were your responsibility. How could you let that happen?

Guilt caught him unawares. It was an old guilt, one he thought he’d outgrown; a child’s guilt, irrational, black and terrifying. He fought it off and exhaled in a gust, helplessly, unable to laugh, unwilling to be angry. What, after all, was the point?

“Sure I did. I must have run away at least twenty times. Until they put me in a detention center-for incorrigibles, they called it. I was eighteen when they let me out. By that time, I figured, what was the point? The girls had been just babies-two or three, I think-when I saw them last. The boys weren’t much older-”

“No-I mean later. After you…” She was breathing in short shallow sips, as if each one hurt her. “My God, Pearse, you’re a reporter. You have resources. Can’t you-couldn’t you-”

“No.” He said it softly and with finality, praying she’d hear the pain in it and just…let it go. Hoping she could read in his eyes the fear that haunted him…fear of the memories he kept shut away in the dank, dark basement of his mind. Wishing he could make her understand that his refusal to share those memories with her had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the fear. Fear…that if he did unlock that door he wouldn’t be strong enough to deal with the horrors that lurked behind it.

She did let it go, reluctantly, but he could tell by the stricken look on her face and the reproach in her eyes that she didn’t understand, not now, no more than all the times he’d disappointed her before.

It was too hard to look at her, so once again he put his head back and closed his eyes, knowing he was shutting himself off from her. Knowing he was hurting her by doing so. Not knowing how to do otherwise.

After a moment he heard rustlings and scufflings, and felt an emptiness where her warmth had been.

The emptiness and hurt were inside him, too. Probably, he thought, he should just accept that guilt and turmoil were going to be a part of this trip for the duration. That fact had been inevitable from the moment he’d seen Sam standing there beside that antique plane. They had a way of pushing each other’s buttons…of disappointing each other, that no amount of time or distance apart seemed able to remedy.

It’s just as well we split up when we did, he told himself. Lord, wouldn’t we have made each other miserable?

The day stretched ahead of him, tedious and empty. He wished he dared sleep-knew he should sleep-but the memories had been awakened now, and the instant he relaxed his vigil he knew they’d be there, banging on the door.

Banging on the door. Banging and banging…the whimpering of the others, the little ones…

Awake, he could play the mind games that would keep them at bay, but if he fell asleep he knew the dreams would be waiting. Those particular dreams hadn’t troubled him since Iraq; why they should have returned now, at this of all times, he couldn’t imagine. Was it because of Sam, having her so unexpectedly back in his life? Or something else, some combination of circumstances he hadn’t yet untangled?

Either way, he thought, the timing couldn’t be much worse.

Sam lay curled on her side with her head pillowed on her arm. Tense and quivering, she nursed her outrage and anger, too stunned to sleep, or even to feel hurt. Thoughts kept exploding through her mind like bazookas, each one more devastating than the last.

Brothers and sisters. He has brothers and sisters! How could he not have told me? Something as basic, as important as that?

Brothers and sisters-they’re part of what make you who you are. How can you love someone and not tell them who you are?

Damn him. He’s the most generous person I know, except when it comes to sharing what’s inside him. When it comes to that, he’s the…the stingiest person I know.

It’s a good thing we broke up. How could I have loved someone like that?

Oh, God. How can I still love him?

I don’t want to love him.

I wish somebody would tell me how to stop.

Eventually, she must have slept. When she woke up, stiff and aching from lying on the bare floor, the room had become shadowed, and the air had the tired, heavy feel of late afternoon. She sat up, combed her fingers through her hair and looked around. Cory was still over near the door where she’d left him, stretched out flat on his back now, with his arms folded across his eyes. Tony’s corner was empty.

She stood up, raised her arms over her head and did a few stretches and twists to limber up her back muscles, and then, barefooted and carrying her flip-flops, slipped quietly out of the hut.

She found Tony standing on the porch, and as usual, holding a camera in his hands. He turned when she came through the door, grinned at her, then lifted the camera and snapped her picture. She held up a hand in protest and stuck her tongue out at him as she dropped her flip-flops and stepped into them. Then she plunked herself down on the edge of the porch and sat hunched and rocking herself, throwing baleful looks at Tony as he slipped the camera strap over one shoulder and came to sit beside her.

“Did we sleep well?” he inquired in a mock solicitous tone, lifting his eyebrows at the cranky glare she gave him.

“Well, I know you did,” she retorted, smothering a yawn. “You were snoring like to wake the dead.”

“Sorry about that,” Tony said cheerfully. He rubbed the bump on the bridge of his nose with a forefinger. “I think maybe I have a deviated septum, or something. Wouldn’t be surprised-my nose’s been broken a time or two.”

She gulped another yawn and shook herself irritably. Damn.She hated sleeping in the daytime-especially when it was hot and muggy like this. It reminded her of having to take a nap when she was a kid and much too old for naps. Her head felt as though it had been stuffed with wool, and she was thirsty. “I could do with something to drink,” she grumbled. “What time is it, do you know? My watch got left behind with my bags.”

Tony shook his head and held up his camera. “Mine, too. I figure I’m lucky to have this.” He paused, then gave her a sideways look. “Cory still sleeping?”

“I guess so. I really don’t know.” And don’t give a damn, her tone plainly said. A surge of disbelief, anger and hurt rose out of the sullen stew of her emotions to swamp her again, briefly, before receding to leave her feeling even more dismal than before.

She jerked a look over at Tony. “How long have you two known each other, anyway?”

He straightened abruptly, as if the question had taken him by surprise. “Me? Oh…’ bout four years, I guess, maybe more. I was his-” he coughed, belatedly and almost comically embarrassed “-um…his best man. At his…uh…you know…wedding.”

One good thing about this new shocker, Sam supposed, for once the mention of Cory’s marriage brought not even a twinge of pain or a sizzle of anger. She brushed it aside with only an impatient gesture. “He ever tell you about his family?”

His exotic golden eyes regarded her thoughtfully from under short straight lashes. “Not much, no.” He paused, then added, “I know he doesn’t have one.”

“But he did,” she said in a low voice, hunched and intent. “Right? He had a mother and father, brothers and sisters… Did he ever tell you about them?”

He shifted, fiddling with his camera, lifting it to peer one-eyed through the viewfinder then lowering it again to his lap. He looked over at her, still squinting a little. “I know his parents both died. After that he went into the system. Wasn’t kind to him, I know that. He doesn’t like to talk about it much.”

“No kidding.” She paused, then asked, “What happened to his mom and dad? How did they die? Was it some kind of accident?”

He didn’t answer at first. He studied his feet, rocking himself a little. Then he took a deep breath. “Look, you wanna know the truth? I’ve wondered about it myself. Used to, anyway. Don’t guess I’d be human if I didn’t. Hey, I work in the news media-it’s all right there, the information, you know? What I’m saying is, if I wanted to find out, I probably could. I just figure…it’s not my place to do that. It’s not something I need to know. Guys don’t have this need to share their innermost feelings. If he wants to tell me, he will. If he doesn’t, fine. He’s my friend, he’s gonna be my friend no matter what.” He paused…shifted his gaze to the cloud-shrouded mountains. “You, though…that’s a different thing. I don’t know…between a man and a woman, if they plan on being together, seems to me like there shouldn’t be any secrets. So, maybe it’s something you need to know. Maybe it’s something he needs to tell you.”

Her throat felt dry, as though it might tear if she swallowed. Instead, she gave a huff of scratchy laughter. “If they plan on being together. That’s not gonna happen.”

He turned his head to look at her along one shoulder. “Why do you say that? Anybody can see you two’ve got feelings for each other.” He snorted. “He’s sure got feelings for you.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam said acidly. “This from the guy who was best man at his, ‘uh, wedding.’ To somebody else?”

He reared back, holding up a hand. “Whoa, that-okay, that was a bad thing he did, I’ll grant you that.” He darted a look over one shoulder and lowered his voice to a mutter. “I gotta tell you, though-he’d kill me if he knew I was telling you this-the night before the wedding? I could tell something was wrong. I even asked him if he was getting cold feet-you know, kidding around-and he looked at me like…I don’t know, but I’ve seen that exact same look on the faces of convicted felons right after the judge passes sentence, just before the guard fastens on the handcuffs and leads them away. This…oh-Lord-what-have-I-done look, you know? But he just said, No, everything was fine. Then he went and got blasted. Drunk,” he added when Sam stared blankly at him.

“Drunk? Cory?” She gave her head a hard little shake of disbelief. “He doesn’t get drunk. I’ve never seen him drink more than a couple of beers before in my life.”

Tony nodded. “My point exactly. I’d had my doubts before, but that’s when I knew it wasn’t right. She wasn’t the one.”

She rubbed at her throat; the ache there was becoming intolerable. “Then why did he do it?” she whispered. “Why did he marry her?”

He gave her a long hard look and finally said, “Can’t you figure it out? You’re a smart lady-put two and two together.” He held up a finger. “He doesn’t have a family.” A second finger joined the first. “He wants one.” Another finger. “Time is slipping by.” A fourth finger. “You aren’t available, but someone comes along at just the right time, and she is available.” The fingers clenched into a fist. “Bingo-end of story.”

Sam swallowed hard. Her eyes burned. She whispered, “I don’t care. If he’d loved me, he wouldn’t have done it. Couldn’t have done it.”

As far as she was concerned that was a fact, irrefutable, inescapable. And intolerable. Which didn’t keep her from trying to escape it anyway, as she plunged off the porch and headed blindly for the village.

She had no destination in mind to begin with, just that overwhelming desire to flee from thoughts and emotions she didn’t want to face, but after the first heedless steps, she decided she might as well make for the crude latrine the women had led her to earlier. On that trip she’d satisfied herself that their “custodian,” the terrorist spokesman, was telling the truth when he claimed al-Rami wasn’t in the camp. She was fairly certain the hostages wouldn’t be, either-other than the hut the three of them were inhabiting, there simply wasn’t a structure that could have held them. Not one with a door, anyway.

Tonight. He said, “We go to al-Rami tonight.” That’s what I have to concentrate on, she told herself. The job. And she was getting close…so very close.

She almost ran headlong into the phalanx of armed men that popped up out of the jumble of vegetation and overgrown huts to block her way, the so-called “spokesman” at their center with his trusty rifle at the ready. Behind them, Sam caught glimpses of several women waiting with heads shyly bowed, arms full of baskets of food and bundles of familiar-looking shoes and clothing.

She tried to explain, in her best Tagalog, that she was only going to the latrine, but the spokesman adamantly refused to let her pass.

“Go back now,” he barked in his choppy English, which he seemed incapable of speaking without using his weapon for emphasis. “Eat first. Then put on cloths. We go when is dark.”

“Gosh, I was getting to kind of like this outfit,” Sam said to the man as she was plodding back to the hut, reverting to English herself. “You don’t suppose I could keep it, do you? Like those complimentary hotel bathrobes?”

The gunman, stone-faced, didn’t answer. She shrugged and grinned at Tony, who was sitting on the porch where she’d left him, his camera discreetly lowered. She told herself her heart didn’t quicken its tempo when she saw Cory there, too, standing with his arms folded on his chest as if waiting for her, like a stern papa confronting a child caught coming in past curfew.

She resisted the temptation to stick her tongue out at him, and instead gave her head a breezy toss and said, “Hey, look who I found.” Ignoring Cory, she plopped down on the edge of the porch beside Tony and nudged him with her elbow. “Cheer up, guys, they brought your pants back.” And she laughed as he clutched belatedly at the edges of his sarong and tried without success to bring them together over his knees.

Laughing…smiling…making jokes…all to hide the fact that her heart was racing and she was helpless to control it. That her whole body seemed to be singing in response to Cory’s nearness, nerve endings lifting to him the way skin and hair react to static electricity, with sparks zapping and crackling at the slightest touch. Sparks…that could cause devastating explosions, if conditions were right.

She laughed and smiled and joked with Tony because she had no wish to deal with the jumble of emotions and memories and hurt feelings and fears that were her thoughts just then. As a pilot she knew better than to try to fly through that kind of turbulence.

That night’s trek seemed almost a replay of the first. Cory even wondered at times if they might be traversing some of the same territory they’d covered the night before, their guides using darkness as a substitute for blindfolds as they led them in circles to confuse them. In any case, he was determined not to let his own impatience and inner turmoil distract him from experiencing and mentally recording the adventure, and his eyes and ears-not to mention his imagination-were busy as he scrambled in the wake of his escort, dodging branches and trying not to trip over the tangle underfoot.

In different circumstances, he thought, the jungle by moonlight might have seemed an enchanted place, with silvery shafts stabbing through breaks in the canopy like ghostly fingers reaching for something in the shadows clumped below. It wasn’t quiet. Small jungle creatures confused by the half light rustled in the undergrowth and twittered in the branches high above their heads as they kept their nervous vigil against the predators that stalked them by moonlight. It was a hunter’s night; every now and then a desperate shriek from an unlucky victim shattered the busy whispering, rustling calm and sent shock waves skating along Cory’s nerves.

As the night wore on, though, and they left behind the jungle to follow a zigzag track through cultivated fields, his mind, freed of the necessity for constant vigil, began to wander. Perhaps it was inevitable, given recent events, that it should take him into forbidden places…attics of memory he hadn’t allowed himself to visit in years.

A few yards ahead of him, he could see Sam as she walked beside Tony, no doubt trying to comfort him over the loss of his cameras, which were presently in the custody of their armed escort. Temporary custody, Sam had assured Tony, most likely to insure he didn’t photograph any landmarks that might be used to trace the hideout of the elusive al-Rami. Which meant they were getting close…

Now, Cory could hear Sam’s soft laughter, a husky chuckle that seemed to blend with the other night noises, and he felt uncomfortable twinges of…surely not jealousy…as he watched the two shapes lean close for a moment, then veer apart. No, not jealousy-he had no right to that-perhaps envy was a better way to describe the pang it gave him to see the two of them together like that…his best friend and the woman he loved…or the way they’d been back at the hut, talking together on the porch when they’d thought he was sleeping. Not that he worried about Tony, or was surprised Sam would turn to him the way she had; everybody from old people to little children and puppy dogs tended to trust Tony, in spite of his ominous appearance. But he’d felt those pangs nonetheless, and it was only now, walking alone in the early-morning moonlight, that it occurred to him the pangs might be loneliness.

“He doesn’t have a family… He wants one.”

The words he’d overheard on the porch came back to him, along with a stab of resentment. What an oversimplification that was-like something out of a child’s storybook. He was an adult, not a child, and he’d made a fulfilling and successful life for himself without benefit of-or hindrance from-family. The thought of using that as an excuse for bad choices embarrassed him.

Besides, he thought, I had a family…once. A happy one.

As if in defiance, he let them come, then…the sunshine memories.

Dad, coming home from work, and the warm brown smell of oil and dirt and car grease permeating his skin and clothes, and mine, too, when I hug him. It makes me feel safe and good, that smell, and even now, all these years later, the smell of a mechanic’s garage gives me a sense of well-being…a sense that all’s right with the world.

Mom, bending down to kiss me good-night before she rushes off to school, smelling of hand lotion and the dinner she’s left for Dad and me. And that makes me feel safe and good, too, because she’s smiling and her eyes are shining, and I know she’s happy. Not to be leaving me-even as young as I am I know that. “I’m going to be a teacher,” she tells me, and her voice has a breathless excitement that makes me feel it, too. “Maybe I’ll be your teacher someday.”

Impatient, I ask her, “When will that be?”

“Soon,” she tells me. “Very soon-when you’re five.”

Dad and me, just the two of us now, me in my pajamas cozy in my bed, Dad lying on top of the covers, his head propped on his hand while he tells me a story. Sometimes it’s one I already know, like “The Three Little Pigs,” and I chime in with him on the parts I know by heart, like when the Big Bad Wolf says, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll BLOW your house down!” But sometimes he makes up stories right out of his head, and that’s the best thing of all.

They were the last of the good ones, those memories. Very soon after that his dad had gone away to fight a war in a place called Vietnam, and his mom had quit night school and they’d moved to a big city called Chicago, and his mom had gone to work in a store. He’d started school in a strange place, and his mom didn’t smile as much, and she never did become a teacher, his or anyone else’s.

That was the beginning of the gray times. The black times, the terrible times, the times he wouldn’t let himself remember…those had come later.

Dawn came while the moon, now a flat pale ghost, still floated low in the lavender sky, hovering above a bank of clouds that lay on the horizon like cotton batting thrown down to break its fall. The air was cool, and smelled of crushed vegetation and over-ripe fruit. Humidity lay thick on the grass and dripped like raindrops from the trees. A stillness lay over the jungle and fields and mountains alike, as if the world held its breath in expectation of sunrise.

Before it came, however, the trail they’d been following plunged suddenly into dark green shadows, zigzagging downward into a steep ravine. As they descended into the dense jungle growth Sam could hear the rush of water, muffled by the trees, and from somewhere up ahead, voices calling out challenges. Moments later, she, Cory and Tony were ordered, by the usual method-a thrusting rifle barrel-to halt. A new cadre of armed men, also wearing camouflage, appeared to block the path. Those who had brought them from the village hospital melted away into the jungle, all but the leader-the “spokesman,” who instructed them in his usual staccato English to follow the new escort. As they did so, he fell in behind them, stone-faced as always, rifle at the ready, and off they went once more, deeper into the ravine.

A little farther on, around a sharp bend, they halted once more.

“Holy mother,” said Tony.

“Yeah,” said Cory.

“Oh, cool,” said Sam.