Chapter Six:

CARDIAC CARE UNIT

KRESGE MEDICAL CENTER

08:45 ZULU

            "Good morning, Dad!"

            Clay started at the unexpected greeting and nearly spilled the plastic container of concentrated orange juice over the morning edition of the Washington Post that he had been engrossed in. As he folded the paper and set it aside, he decided that it was a good thing he was through with field work. If Penny could sneak up on him so easily, he'd never stand a chance against a trained enemy operative. He tilted his head and peered over the tops of the reading glasses he'd borrowed from Marks, the tall, thin, fifty-something agent who was currently standing guard outside his door. Penny was sailing into the room at the head of a veritable parade. Through the glass walls he could make out Sarah, Kennedy and Victor Galindez following closely upon her heels.

            "Good morning, beautiful," he rejoined. He put out his arms and Penny carefully cut her way through the barrage of tubes, wires and monitors to step into his embrace. He squeezed her tightly, kissing the top of her head. Then he turned to Sarah, who had made her way to the other side of his bed.

            "Good morning, gorgeous," he said softly. The words were low and deep in the back of his throat as he raised his mouth to hers and kissed her soundly.

            "Mmm… Good morning, yourself," Sarah returned, dropping a second brief kiss upon his lips before straightening away. "I see somebody is feeling better."

            "If you don't mind, I think I'll forgo the lip service," Galindez said as he approached the foot of the bed. "But you do look better than you did last night."

            Clay shot him a dirty look. "Shouldn't you be debriefing at Langley or something?"

            Galindez smiled and shrugged. "I should be, but in your drug induced haze last night you gave me higher orders." He reached into his pocket and dug out a black leather key ring with a gold Mercedes emblem on it. "You'd think after seventeen years in the agency you could find something better for me to do than be your glorified chauffer and valet service. –Nice wheels, though. That buggy corners like its on rails. Did you know it can go from zero to sixty in—"

            Clay shot Mac a horrified look. "Christ! You didn't actually let him drive it!"

            She smiled at him sweetly. "Only in the parking ramp."

            Clay glared at both of them. "Don't tease me," he warned. "You know I've got a weak heart."

            There was a soft tap on the glass and Victor turned to see Kennedy beckoning to him. "I've gotta go," he said, nodding to the men outside. "I already rescheduled one meeting. The DDO won't be happy if I'm late for another." He shot a quick look at Mac. "Anything else you need, you let me know," he instructed. As he turned to leave, he reached out and lightly ruffled Penny's hair. "Good to see you kiddo," he said and shot her an affectionate grin. "You keep your old man in line now, you hear?"

            "Sure, Uncle Vic," Penny promised.

            Galindez waved a hand in response and then strode out of the room and down the hallway after Kennedy and one of the other agents.

            "I'm glad he made it back," Sarah said as she dropped down into the chair beside Clay's bed. "It just wouldn't be the same without him."

            "No," Clay agreed absently, removing the borrowed glasses and setting them down upon the paper. He settled back against his pillows and looked expectantly from Penny to Sarah. "So, what nefarious plans have my two best girls arranged for the day?"

            "Actually, Dad, we're spending the day with you." Penny said, carefully making place for herself on the foot of his bed.

            Clay looked from his daughter to his wife, clearly disconcerted by this announcement. "You know what they say about too much of a good thing," he warned.

            "I'm sure you can handle it," she replied lightly, "and it won't be quite the whole day. I thought Penny and I would take your car and go out for lunch. There are a couple errands I need to run, and we can do them this afternoon while they're running you through your tests. We should be back in time for dinner."

            "Not a wise dining selection," Clay scowled at his breakfast tray. "Take it from the voice of experience."

            They passed an hour in amiable conversation. Something, Clay reflected, that they didn't seem to do nearly enough of as a family. Somehow, they were always too busy. Either Penny had a horse show, or he was out of the country or Sarah had a court case to prepare for. –There was always something, always some sort of project or engagement that required their attention, and so little time for them. –Too little time, he thought. And yet, when he did have the time to spend with Sarah, he didn't know what to do with it. He realized that itt was getting harder to look her in the eye …to talk to her without betraying himself.

He was thoroughly disgusted with himself for letting it come to this. He had spent his entire adult life dealing in secrets and lies. He knew better than anyone the burden that they placed upon a man's soul. He knew the way they had of stacking up, one on top of another, until it was impossible to escape them. The lies were the worst. Each one led to another, and another until it was almost impossible to remember exactly what the truth of the matter was.

--Not that he had ever lied to her. He had sworn to her, years ago, that he never would. He had kept that promise at least, empty though it was, --for though he had never lied to Sarah, he had never told her the truth, either. There was a point, he knew, somewhere along the line that he should have. He should have said to hell with the rules and thrown caution to the wind and told her how it really was, but he hadn't. He'd been too afraid. And with each year that passed, that fear had only grown: the fear that someday that truth would come to light and it would destroy them.

He had taken this sin, like so many others, and tried to bury it deep and forget about it. It had worked for a while, but with the passing of years, the old guilt had somehow managed to claw its way to the surface of his thoughts. If he were to be perfectly honest with himself, he'd have to admit that he'd never really escaped it. If he had, then he wouldn't be spending those sleepless nights sitting up in his chair with only the damned cat for company. He wouldn't have spent all these years sending flowers to a meaningless grave in Arlington. He wouldn't be still waiting for the other shoe to drop. He wouldn't be wondering when she was going to leave him.

He was suddenly aware of Sarah's eyes, fixed hard upon him.

"What?"

"I asked you if you wanted Penny to bring you something to read from the gift shop. I'm sending her down to the cafeteria to get us a snack."

"Oh," he said absently and turned to his daughter. "Sure, sweetheart. Go ahead and pick something out. You know what I like."

"Right," Penny said, reciting her list aloud, "two Pepsi's, two pieces of Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake and a Crypto-quote Puzzle book. Got it."

"Obviously she's inherited your appetite," he said teasingly as Penny left the room.

She didn't answer him right away, and he suddenly felt the intensity of the silence between them.

"Where did you just go, Clay?" She asked quietly. "You certainly weren't here with Penny and me."

He couldn't answer her, and she expelled an angry breath. "What is going on with you? –And don't tell me it's nothing. Something has been eating at you for weeks. What is it?"

More silence. She shook her head in frustration. "Is it your health? Is it something you were afraid to tell me? Is it work?" She drew a shuddering breath, and turned her face away. "…Is it me?" she asked softly, the words sounding strangled in her throat.

It was the last question that broke through the wall of his reserve. He grabbed for her hand, taking her fingers so desperately in his own that she could feel the metal of her wedding band biting into her flesh. "No!" he said quickly, his voice almost panicked. "God Sarah, its nothing like that."

"Then what is it?" She demanded, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Why won't you talk to me?"

"I can't," he ground out.

"Because it's classified?" she asked softly.

The word was already forming on his tongue. It would be so easy, he thought, to give her the answer, knowing she would let it go. But he had never lied to her. Could he do it now? Betray her in the only way that had ever really mattered?

"Yes," he whispered, and felt another piece of his soul slip away.

She looked at him strangely for a moment. "All right," she said at last, and brushed the backs of her fingers against his cheek.

She turned away from him, and moved to the window. She stared for a moment at the multi-tiered flat rooftops of the complex that surrounded them, and the distant shape of the Washington skyline. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you," she said, and he could tell by her carefully casual tone that he was not going to like it. "Now is probably a good time, before Penny gets back."

He felt the dread that had started to ease begin to well up inside him again. "What is it?"

His mind raced with all the usual possibilities: I know the truth… I can't live with the secrets any longer… I'm leaving you… I want a divorce… I don't love you any more…

            "I've taken a case," she said at last, "--one that you're not going to like."

            "For who?" He didn't really need to ask. In truth, he already knew, but considering the stakes, it was necessary to maintain the charade. One lie leads to another…

            "Sergei Zhukov."

            "I see."

            "We've filed for disclosure."

            His stomach clenched. "Are you sure that's wise?"

            She flashed him an irritated glance. "Hasn't he waited long enough for an answer? –Haven't we all?"

            "Some questions are better left without answers, Sarah," he said quietly. "I think we both know that."

            "Do we?" she returned. "Ask yourself this, Clay --Who does it really protect?      –Certainly not the dead, they're beyond the need of it. –Not their families, they're the ones who will never heal until they know. –And they're not asking for the moon, Clay. They just want to know a little bit: How they died, when they died …if they're really dead. Is that really too much to ask?"

            "Sometimes it is."

            She rounded on him. "I can't believe you actually said that. –You, of all people. You were willing to sell your whole career down the river for the Angel Shark families for God's sake!" She drew a deep breath, calming herself. "You told me once that one of the reasons you joined the agency was because you knew it was the only chance you'd ever have of finding out what happened to your father –and you had to make DCI before you found out the whole truth of it!"

            "And when I did find out, I almost wished I hadn't," he reminded her. "I grieved for him all over again, Sarah, and it was worse, because I finally understood exactly how pointless his death had been. It was almost better when I didn't know, when I thought he had died for something that mattered."

            "Almost," she chastised, turning the word against him. She searched his face as if looking for something she could not find. "Why do I have the feeling you know more about this than you've let on?"

            He offered her a thin smile. "Could it be your overly suspicious nature?"

            She shook her head, her expression serious. "I don't think so," she said finally, and hesitated. "Can you honestly tell me that the Company had nothing to do with this?"

            It was a fine line he was treading. Still, he somehow managed to meet her gaze as he replied. "If it was an Agency mission, it wasn't sanctioned."

            "That doesn't tell me anything."

            "I know."

            She looked at him for a long moment. "He needs the truth, Clay. –So do I."

            She wasn't just talking about the case anymore. They both knew it.

            "I know," he said again and this time, he could not meet her eyes.

           

CIA HEADQUARTERS

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

11:51 ZULU

            "I think that about covers it for now, guys." Victor Galindez said, dismissing the small group of analysts who had crowded around the conference table in the narrow room adjoining his office. "We'll save the rest of it for later. Have a good weekend."

            "What's left of it," someone muttered underneath their breath, and Galindez smiled as he gathered together his papers and carried them into his own office. If they thought they had reason to bitch now, he couldn't wait until he sent them on their overseas stint. –Preferably during the Christmas holiday.

            Moving to his desk, he glanced down and was surprised to see his coffee mug, filled to the brim, waiting for him in the middle of his desk. He brushed it with the backs of his knuckles. It was hot. Setting down the papers, he picked up the mug and took a tentative sip. Not only was it hot, it was good. –Made just the way he liked it. He set the mug back down.

            "Ronnie?" he called tentatively, his voice carrying into the outer office.

            A moment later, Ronnie Fong, his slim, dark haired receptionist poked her head in the door. Her delicate Eurasian features were schooled into a polite but bland expression as she presented herself.

            "Welcome back, boss."

            Victor looked at her in surprise. "It's Saturday," he said. "What are you doing here?"

            "I'm your assistant," she replied. "My hours are your hours, remember?" She waited only half a heart beat before adding "Obviously you didn't, --or you would have taken pity on me and requested a temp while you were in Israel. Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain to my boyfriend why I'm unavailable for over three weeks because I have to work from midnight 'til eight in the morning?"

            "So what did you tell him?" Victor wondered.

            She shrugged, "I said I was picking up an extra part time job for a phone sex hotline and told him I needed help practicing. Eventually, he quit asking questions."

            Victor grinned. "I knew that business telephone class I sent you to would pay off sooner or later."

            She nodded towards a neat stack of papers on his desk. "I've laid out your messages, and a few documents that need your attention. Nothing urgent though, I forwarded the most important stuff to you in Israel."

            "Thanks," he said. "I'll take a quick look at it before I go. –Anything that needs to be signed right away? My Tuesday's going to be pretty well tied up with the rest of the briefing on the Middle-East treaty."

            "One or two things," she said. "They're right on top."

            He nodded and sat down at his desk. Pulling the stack from his inbox, he started in. The first one was a monthly budget report. He scanned it quickly, found nothing out of line and scrawled his signature across it before dropping it into his out box. The second was a routine request for information from the State Department. He signed that as well. The third one brought him screeching to a mental halt.

            It was a memorandum from Catherine Gale, regarding a legal action for public disclosure filed with the Judge Advocate General against Naval Intelligence. Since Naval Intelligence had been little more than bit players in this particular instance, they had wasted no time in forwarding a copy to Gale's office at the Agency. Catherine, with her usual efficiency, had looked up the particulars of the case and now a copy had ended up on his desk.

            He scanned the document with a sinking feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. The pleading was filed on the behalf of one Sergei Zhukov by the firm of  ­--Oh Christ-- …Mackenzie, Latham and Roberts. He read the entire document through once. He read it again. He set it down carefully and regarded it as if it were a bomb about to explode. In many ways, he thought, that's exactly what it was.

            Raising his head, he called through the door.

            "Ronnie? Could you come in here for a moment?"

            She appeared momentarily, regarding him over the tops of her fire-engine red glasses. "You yelled?" she said dryly, casting a meaningful look at the intercom on his desk.
            He held up the document before him. "When did this memo from Catherine Gale come in?"

            She glanced at it. "The day after you left. I was going to forward it to you, but I noticed that it had also been copied to Director Webb's office. I called Mandy and asked if this was something we needed to get to you right away, but she said that there was no need. Director Webb was handling it personally." She looked concerned. "Should I have sent it on?"

            He shook his head. "No," he said at last, you did all right. "It's just something regarding an old case of mine. I just wish I'd known about it a little sooner."

            Ronnie still regarded him uncertainly. "It's ok, Ronnie," he said reassuringly. "Look, why don't you call it a week and head on home?"

            "You're sure?"
            He nodded and rose from his desk, throwing the Gale memo back into his in-box. "My hours are your hours, remember? –And I'm calling it a day."  

KRESGE MEDICAL CENTER
PIMMIT HILLS, VIRGINA

12:25 ZULU

"Nice digs, you're coming up in the world."

Clay pushed back the unappetizing tray of tepid soup and orange gelatin and regarded the visitor who stood in the doorway of his private hospital suite. "What are you doing back here?" he demanded irritably. "You should still be at Langley debriefing on Israel."

Galindez shrugged. "Been there. Done that. We covered the important stuff. The rest of it can wait until Tuesday."

"Nice to see you take national security so seriously," Clay snipped. He wadded up his napkin and tossed it onto the dinner tray.

Galindez merely smiled. "I live to serve," he said easily.

Clay shot him a measuring glance. That suit he had on looked at least one wearing past due for the dry cleaners. "Have you even been home yet?"

"Nope." Galindez replied, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets.

"Then I repeat," Clay said, his patience thinning even further, "what are you doing back here? Does Paulina even know you're back?"

Galindez seemed to consider this. "Not yet," he admitted.

"Better hope that she doesn't find out," Clay returned. "Divorce lawyers don't come cheap in this town."

Victor grinned, clearly unconcerned. "Good thing I know a lawyer or two."

Clay shook his head. "Don't look for help from that quarter. Knowing Sarah and Bobbie, they would probably side with the opposition."

Galindez glanced around the room. "Speaking of which, where are your ladies?"

Clay shot a peevish glance at his dinner tray. "They went out for lunch. The cafeteria food didn't appeal to them."

Victor merely nodded, and then turned to shoot a direct look at the agent, sitting quietly in a chair opposite the bed. Wordlessly, the man rose and left the room, quietly pulling the door shut behind him. Clay's green eyes narrowed intently upon his friend.

"The room has been swept," he said casually, "but this really isn't the place to talk shop."

"It's not business," Victor said tersely, crossing the room and closing the distance between them. "It's personal. –What in the hell is going on with you and Mac?"

Webb did not so much as turn a hair, but Galindez could practically hear the steel shutters slamming down behind the olive green eyes.

"What did she say?" the older man asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"It's not what she said," Galindez lied, taking care to keep his expression as flat and unrevealing as Webb's. "It's what she didn't say. It's what you aren't saying. She's worried about you, and you're doing your damndest to keep her at arm's length."

Clay flashed him an angry look. "What is this? Your Doctor Laura impression?" He shoved the table and tray away and straightened up in his bed, his posture indignant. "This is ridiculous!" he snapped.

"Is it?" Victor returned. "You know she slept like shit last night? I could hear her tossing and turning all the way down the hallway. She wanted to be here with you. Why did you send her away?"

He was met with silence. The hazel green eyes were flat and impenetrable.

"What's the matter?" Victor challenged softly. "Afraid you'll talk in your sleep?"

Webb's gaze shifted slightly, and he knew that he had hit close enough to the mark. Snagging the straight backed chair that the agent had been sitting in, Victor brought it close to the side of the bed, spun it around and straddled it. His dark eyes waged a silent war with that cool, green gaze.

"I saw Catherine's memo," Victor said gently. "You never told her, did you?"

Webb glared at him. "Neither did you," he shot back.

Galindez shrugged. "It wasn't my place," he said simply. "I always figured it was yours."

Webb's eyes slid away, silently conceding victory. "You're right," he said finally.

"So what are you going to do?" Victor wondered. "It's not classified as far as the Company is concerned. It never was. We just never told them …and they never told the Navy."

"It's not our problem if the Navy made its own assumptions," Clay said softly.

"It's going to be." Galindez replied. He studied the man in the bed for a long moment. "You could classify it if you wanted to. You are the DCI after all, and it directly involved you. No one would question it."

Webb snorted "You don't think I haven't thought of that?" He laughed harshly, "God, the irony! You might as well just take my name plate off the door and re-hang Merrill Watts's. I'd hate to think that after all the years of despising the old bastard that I finally turned into him."

"Have you ever considered just telling her?" Victor suggested.

Webb sighed. "About a hundred times a day," he confessed. He shook his head. "I can't do it, Victor," he said bitterly. "There are too many things she doesn't know, and I've worked damned hard to keep it that way."

"Are you sure that's wise?"

Clay's laugh was harsh and bitter. "It's not wise, --it's imperative. If she had the slightest notion of the things I've done…"

"She'd leave you?"

A flash of pain crossed his features. "So fast it would make your head spin," he said.

Galindez regarded him for a long moment. "You know," he said finally, "for a man with a Harvard education, you really aren't all that bright."

Rising from his chair, Victor shoved it against the wall and turned back to face his friend. "You should tell her," he said at last, "and you should do it soon, --before she finds it out on her own."

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. "Don't get me wrong, she'll be mad as hell at you –and she should be. But you need to tell her …and she needs to know."

"I'll lose her, Gunny." The words were harsh and desperate and filled with an anguish that Victor Galindez had rarely heard from the likes of Clayton Webb. He wanted to reassure his friend, but he couldn't.

Now was not the time for platitudes. Only the truth would do.

"If you don't tell her," he said softly, "you'll lose her anyway."