Sunday, August 30, 1987

2:46 p.m.

The baseball made a "thwacking" sound as it hit Lee's borrowed mitt. "How was that one?" Phillip asked, obviously proud of the progress he'd made while Lee was away.

"Not bad, Chief." Grinning, Lee tossed the ball back. "Not bad at all. But this time, try rotating your wrist slightly as you release. It'll put some spin on the ball."

Phillip's brow knit into a frown of concentration as he wound up. "Like that?"

Lee winced as he fielded the pitch. "Exactly like that. I can see now why you earned that title."

Phillip shrugged off the praise. "It was only junior league. But the coach says if I keep practicing, there's a pretty good chance I'll be able to play on the high school team this year, even if I am only a freshman."

Lee cleared his throat, his eyes seeking mine before he turned back to our son. "We'll have to make sure you get in lots of practice time, then. But, for now, how about we call it a day? I'm no match for Arlington's Junior MVP."

As Phillip began to collect the baseball equipment, Lee crossed the lawn and sat beside me on the porch swing. "He's developing quite an arm. That coach might be right about him making the high school team."

"Of course, which high school team remains to be seen, doesn't it?" When he didn't answer, I rested my hand on my husband's knee. "Phillip's missed practicing with you. Joe isn't much of a ball player."

"Neither is Jamie, I guess." Lee jerked his head in the direction of the house. "I couldn't get him to come outside."

He tried to disguise it, but I could see the hurt in his eyes. Lee had worked so hard to earn Jamie's trust; now, it appeared, we were right back at square one. "If it's any consolation, he's giving me the silent treatment, too. He's hurt, Lee, hurt and angry. I have a feeling it's going to take more than one of my pep talks to turn the tide this time."

"We lied to him, Amanda. He has a right to be damned angry." Lee's hand covered mine. "For that matter, so do you."

I looked at him through half-lidded eyes. "Did I say I wasn't angry?"

He shook his head then looked away. "You don't know how many times I wanted to walk away from the deception and tell you what was going on."

"What stopped you?" I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"I kept thinking of the alternative. Of what might happen if the knowledge of our marriage made you and the boys a target. Living our lives always looking over our shoulders, waiting, wondering if this would be the day disaster hit . . ." He snorted. "I guess that's exactly what did happen, though. Despite my good intentions, I've managed to rip our family to shreds."

"You know what they say about good intentions." I studied the puffy white clouds that filled the afternoon sky, closing my eyes as a fat, wispy elephant floated by. "The road to hell is paved with them."

There was a gentle pressure as Lee took my hand, his thumb toying with the rings that I was finally able to wear. "I'll bet you're sorry now that you took that package, huh?"

I opened my eyes and took his face between my hands. "The only thing I'm sorry about is that you chose to invent that ridiculous cover story, instead of coming clean about your assignment. I know we have complicated jobs, but this is our marriage, our life together. I want it to be built on a foundation of truth, not lies. Otherwise, we'll never survive, Lee."

Grasping my wrists, he brought my hands to his lips and tenderly kissed the palms. "From now on, Amanda, I promise."

I smiled. "Then I think I have something that belongs to you." Reaching behind me, I unhooked the small clasp and withdrew a thin chain from beneath my blouse. "Mr. Melrose retrieved our rings from your apartment a few days ago," I said as I removed the gold wedding band and slipped it back on his finger. "Wearing yours around my neck made me feel closer to you, but this is where it really belongs." I held his large hand between my own, the way I'd done that day in the Judge's office when we'd exchanged vows.

"I love you, Mrs. Stetson," Lee whispered. "You know that, don't you?"

"I've always known that," I replied through my gathering tears. "That's what kept me going these past few months. That and the hope that, one day, I'd walk out my back door and there you'd be, asking me to put that ring back on your finger again."

He raised an eyebrow. "And if I had, Amanda? You'd have let me in the door, no questions asked?"

"Sure." A smirk played across my face. "Whatever pieces were left when I was finished with you. I'll have you know I'm now a fully certified graduate of the Dr. Pain School of Rear-Kicking."

Lee flashed me a dimpled grin. "That sounds kinda interesting. Once I'm feeling one hundred percent, I might have to test those new skills of yours."

"Anytime." I laughed, accepting his unspoken challenge. "I don't plan on going anywhere, do you?"

Instead of answering, he tilted his head and pressed his lips to mine. His kiss was slow and wondrously thorough, and I decided, in some instances, actions really did speak louder than words. His moist, firm mouth demanded a response; I slid my arms around his neck and pulled him against me. The porch swing creaked in time to our movements as we spent a few pleasant moments necking affectionately. Our kisses soon grew in intensity, like a slowly gathering storm, until the white-hot desire spreading through our veins threatened to scorch us both.

"Do you want to go upstairs?" Lee murmured, his lips traveling down my neck to my shoulder.

I was about to agree when I heard the front door slam violently. I pulled out of my husband's embrace just in time to see Jamie glare at us before taking off toward the woods. I started after him, but Lee's arms held me back.

"Let him go. He can't get far. This place is crawling with security."

"But he saw . . . he must think . . ."

"That we care about each other?" Lee raised an eyebrow. "I certainly hope so."

Shaking my head, I jammed my hands into my pockets and stepped onto the grass, searching for a glimpse of the blue t-shirt Jamie had been wearing.

Lee put his hands on my shoulders as he came up behind me. "Look, Amanda, I know he's had a lot to deal with these past few days, but, as much as you might want to, I don't think you can make this better for him. Jamie needs to work this out in his own way, on his own terms."

I frowned. "I thought you told me that's what you hated most about the Colonel. That he always left you on your own to figure things out."

"Trust me, there's a world of difference between taking a momentary step back and being emotionally unavailable all the time."

His tone was a gentle chastisement. "You're right," I said at last, my lips forming a wistful smile. Hands pressing against my stomach, I added, almost to myself, "I guess I need to stop thinking of Jamie as my baby."

Lee laughed. "You will if you know what's good for you. Boys his age need some space to test their wings. Give him that now, and he'll come to you when he's ready. You'll see."

Blinking the moisture from my eyes, I turned to my husband. "Jamie's pretty lucky to have you in his life, even if he doesn't happen to realize it at the moment. You're a good father."

"It's funny, I never really thought I'd have that chance. To be a father, I mean. Thank you for sharing your sons with me."

"You're more than welcome." I stepped into his embrace, filling my lungs with his familiar masculine scent. It was now or never; I couldn't have asked for a better opening if I'd orchestrated it myself.

"Lee," I said, searching the hazel eyes I loved so well. "There's something I need to talk to you about. I . . . well, we're—"

"Scarecrow, Amanda."

The curt salutation shattered the moment. I felt Lee's body tense, poised for action, as he released me to turn to our visitor. I somehow managed to stammer a greeting as he proffered a decidedly cool, "Hello, Billy. I've been expecting you."

Billy cleared his throat, his eyes darting from Lee's to mine. "Something unavoidable came up."

"Yes," Lee responded in a tone I'd never heard from him, at least where Billy Melrose was concerned. "It always does."

The animosity between them was readily apparent. I watched them face off with grim fascination, much the way a gaper is drawn to an accident on the highway. Despite what he'd said earlier, Lee quite obviously held Billy accountable for his part in recruiting him for this last assignment. As I remembered the agonizing months when Billy's silence had shut me out of the loop, I found myself in agreement.

Our supervisor appeared to understand. An emotion I chose to call remorse had him studying his brown shoelaces before he finally confronted Lee. But when he spoke, his tone was all business. "Let's take a walk, Scarecrow."

"No, thanks." Lee folded his arms across his chest. "I'm done playing these games. Anything you need to say to me, you can say in front of Amanda or not at all."

Billy shot him a challenging look; Lee squared his shoulders and stood his ground. The lengthening silence between them made me feel uneasy enough to want to play the peacemaker, but one look at my husband's face silenced me. Billy must have seen that flint-edged expression, too, because he capitulated with a tired sigh.

"I had intended to brief you yesterday on the arrangements for your relocation," he began, tacitly including me in the conversation, "but there's been an unforeseen development."

"What, the government's all out of new identities?" Lee quipped, the hard edge still evident in his voice.

Mr. Melrose had obviously taken all he intended to. "Cut the crap, Scarecrow. I've got enough to stomach at the moment without your vitriol seasoning the load."

Lee immediately slipped back into agent-mode. "What's gone down?"

Billy licked his lips. "Ali's snatched one of our agents. Francine."

An icy fear wrapped itself around my heart. "Francine?" I repeated, my pulse pounding.

Billy's hard expression softened. "It looks as if we may have wrongly surmised that you were the target of that bombing, Amanda. While our security was focused here, on you and your family, they made another run on Francine last night."

As the reality of Billy's words sank in, all I could manage was a stunned, "No!"

Lee's shock appeared to rival mine. "Are you absolutely certain, Billy? Maybe she's off on one of those weekend sabbaticals of hers."

"I wish it was as simple as that, believe me, but there's no doubt. Arbaalk grabbed her. Beaman saw it go down."

Lee's brows shot up. "Since when does Beaman work the field?"

"He wasn't working." Billy shook his head, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was about to say. "Evidently the two of them had just finished dinner when it happened. Effrom was worked over pretty badly, but he managed to make a positive identification this morning after he regained consciousness. It was Ali's first lieutenant."

"Karras." Lee spat the word, his hands protectively massaging his sore ribs. "I take it your little clean-up operation was a bust, then."

Billy paused for a beat before he answered. "Not entirely, but he and Ali managed to slip through our net when we reeled the others in. We have no idea where they've gone."

"Then sweat his soldiers, Billy! Find out! Karras is a sadistic bastard. It won't take long for Francine to give it up." He closed his eyes for a moment, as if lost in a memory too painful to voice. "How the hell did Arbaalk connect Francine to all of this, anyway?"

Billy shrugged. "Who knows? Crumwald's people think her computer search may have tipped them off. Evidently she'd been conducting a concurrent investigation of her own."

"Damn!" Lee slammed his fist against his palm as he paced. "What the hell was she thinking?"

"I don't know. But there is one upside to all this, I suppose. If Amanda wasn't the target, as we originally believed, then her family—your family—hasn't been compromised."

Lee's eyes blazed. "I doubt that's of much comfort to Francine at the moment."

"It could be, Scarecrow." Billy cleared his throat. "Most likely your cover hasn't been blown, either. It's a risk, I know, but your marriage to Amanda is still a secret—"

"More emotional extortion, Billy?" Lee's voice was deep and low. "First Amanda, now Francine?"

"It's the most expedient way."

"The hell it is! Mobilize a strike team, get her out!"

"A large force won't work here."

Lee sneered. "Is that you talking, or another verse of the gospel according to Smyth?" When Billy didn't dignify his remark with an answer, Lee raised his voice, no longer caring who heard him. "For God's sake, Francine's your friend, too. She's in trouble! If you won't back her up through this Agency—"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to do!" Billy shouted back, anger finally demolishing his control. "Don't you think I know what I've cost you, Lee? You and Amanda both? I'm painfully aware of which one of my agents is in trouble, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year!"

Lee started to speak, but Billy cut him off. "Think whatever you like about me, but it won't change anything. I did what I had to do last May, what was best for everyone concerned—this country as well as you, personally. I wasn't the one who gave Smyth the ammunition in the first place, you know. And if you think he would have had any compunction about exposing your marriage, you're dead wrong."

I saw the muscles in Lee's forearm harden as he stepped closer to Billy, but as my husband's eyes sought mine, I read the bitter acquiescence in them. The mystery marriage had been a mistake from day one; we were both painfully aware of that now.

"Billy," Lee said, his tone modulating infinitesimally. "You were the one who told us that when you find that someone special, you should grab on with everything you've got. That's all we were doing here. We never intended for our personal happiness to end up putting you on the professional hot seat."

Billy's eyes flashed for a moment before they softened, too. "I don't mind a little heat, you know that. I just like to know what direction the fire's likely to come from, that's all."

Lee flinched at Billy's expression. Words were never my husband's strong suit, so I voiced the apology he'd been dancing around. "We were wrong not to tell you, sir. You deserved to know the truth, as our supervisor and as our friend."

As Lee nodded his concurrence, the last tightness in Billy's face relaxed. "This is a damn lonely job in an even lonelier business," he said, his sad eyes sweeping over both of us. "Every day I send ordinary men and women out to do the unthinkable. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't. Friends are a luxury a man in my position can't afford. There are times, though, when you find yourself caring on a personal level. Despite your good intentions."

Lee smiled cheerlessly as he caught my eye. "I hear the road to hell is paved with them."

"I think it is, at that." Billy expelled a long, pent-up breath as his gaze deliberately settled on Lee. Some strange, unspoken communication passed between them, until at last Lee broke the connection. Walking away, he brushed his hand clumsily through his hair in the motion I'd come to realize signaled his distress. "I can't," he whispered harshly. "Don't ask me, Billy."

"I understand." Billy's voice was tight. "You've already given more than your due." Bowing his head, he closed his eyes, the gesture the only sign of his own distress. "You've spent two months with those bastards, Scarecrow. You know as well as anyone what's in store for her before they're through."

Unable to stop himself, Lee turned to me, a look of singular pain embedded in his blue-gray eyes. I could see what he was thinking. "No," I whispered in anguish, even as memories from another place and time echoed in my mind . . .

"It'd be kinder to use the bullet."

Lee's voice sounds flat as Birol gleefully describes my fate. I can almost feel those cold, black eyes raking over me, the twisted desire so readily apparent.

"I'm buying time, Amanda," Lee tells me, his voice rough with emotion. "I'm not going to let him sell you to the Libyans. Two years, three in the desert, the Bekka valley . . . every so often they put you on parade. Then one day . . . I can't. You'd give it up."

"Give what up?" I ask, in little more than a faint whisper.

For the first time, Lee's eyes grow wide and fearful. "The will to live. The only thing a hostage has left."

"Amanda . . . Amanda. Hey, partner, come back to me."

Lee's gravelly voice pulled me into the present. "It's all my fault," I murmured as I looked up into his troubled eyes.

"What is?" he asked gently.

I tried to answer, but, somehow, I couldn't. Lee reached out to steady me as the ground beneath my feet began to sway; I pushed him away.

Bile rose in my throat. Bringing a hand to my mouth, I dashed across the lawn, into the house. I caught a glimpse of Phillip's startled face as I took the stairs two at a time, heard my mother's cry as I passed her on the way to the master bedroom. Reaching the blessed sanctuary of the bathroom at last, I pressed my face against the cool tile.

It didn't help. I locked the door as my churning emotions took physical form. I knew Lee wouldn't be far behind me. I bent over the toilet, hoping to finish before he heard, but I couldn't seem to stop the awful retching.

I closed my eyes, willing the dry heaves to end, but all I could picture was the menacing image of Addi Birol. Except this time, he'd found a new victim to torment. In my mind's eye, I saw Francine's blue eyes widen as Birol began yet another vicious interrogation. Her look of ignorance wasn't a bluff; she knew nothing about the covert investigation I'd initiated under her clearance code. And now I was powerless to help her.

Birol knew it, too; his taunting voice mocked me. "That's true, Amanda. You cut me off from anything that would make this easier on her. You, Amanda . . . you. Amanda. . . Amanda . . ."

"Amanda!" Lee pounded on the door, his voice rising. "If you don't answer me, I'm going to break this door down!"

"Just a minute," I managed to croak as I pushed myself up from the floor. Stumbling to the sink, I rinsed my mouth and straightened my disheveled hair as best I could. But I couldn't will the color back into my too-pale face.

As I opened the door, Lee immediately bombarded me with questions. "Are you okay? What the hell happened out there? You're as white as a sheet!"

The rest of my family shared his alarm. Phillip shuffled from foot to foot, unconsciously chewing on his fingers, while Jamie, who had evidently returned in the midst of the chaos, leaned stiffly against the far wall, his already wide eyes magnified by his glasses. Mother stood between both boys, wearing her worry as a scolding frown.

Though I proclaimed myself to be fine, Lee ignored my protests and insisted that I lie down. As he helped me to the bed, my pleading eyes found my mother's.

She stepped forward to give his shoulder a maternal squeeze. "Lee, be a dear and go downstairs and bring me that open can of soda from the refrigerator. Flat ginger ale is a sure-fire cure for a queasy stomach."

"Please," I entreated, when he seemed reluctant to leave me. "That sounds pretty good."

Nodding her approval as Lee kissed me on the forehead and headed downstairs, Mother turned to Phillip and Jamie with a ready smile. "Now boys, staring at your mother is definitely not going to cure her upset stomach. Go find something else to do and give her some peace and quiet."

Phillip hesitated then grudgingly agreed. "Come on, Jamie," he said, grabbing his brother by the arm. "Let's go play a game of Scrabble."

As Jamie allowed himself to be escorted from my room, I bit my lip. Phillip must be pretty worried to willingly suggest a game where his younger brother was certain to be the victor.

"Okay, Missy," Mother said as soon as the door closed behind the boys. "Where's the anti-nausea medication the doctor gave you?"

"In my nightstand drawer."

Fetching a glass of water from the bathroom, she found the pills and handed me one. Though her expression easily betrayed her thoughts, I was thankful she chose not to voice them aloud. I had enough to deal with at the moment without adding my mother's "if only's" to the rapidly growing pile in my head.

"If only" a decent man hadn't been blackmailed into an indecent lie . . .

"If only" Joe had chosen to give me Lee's letter instead of withholding it . . .

"If only" I had confronted Billy when I'd first overheard his discussion with Dr. Smyth, instead of taking matters into my own hands . . .

"If only" there was a less painful way to make this all right again.

I let out a deep sigh. In a few minutes, Lee would return and together we would make a decision. I prayed that somewhere, somehow, we would find the strength to see it through.