Chapter Ten
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Leaving was hard. Painful. Troubling.
After he left Fiona he passed through three checkpoints to retrieve his car keys, wallet, knife and his .45, before taking a long, slow walk out of the building. He opened the car door, sat in the drivers seat and studied the dim aura of light around the concrete building that held his heart prisoner. He knew the dull ache created by an undercurrent of fear began coursing through his bloodstream that moment when she'd turned away from him, hands above her head, guns pointed at her back.
It was an unsettling image that rose and ebbed during his waking hours, and always sharpened as the day grew longer. Tonight, the humidity threw a pale fog-like blanket over the landscape and muted sound. It was never easy to leave her, or her touch, or her scent, or her taste. Every single time he left, loss renewed itself, expanded exponentially and created an urgency he could barely quell.
He started the car and turned around to go to his mother's house where he knew he'd be able to sleep tonight without either her well-intended conversation or the renewable cloud of cigarette smoke she imparted.
He touched the small, painful lump under his left eye. Although his mother urged him to do something about the bruise, he wasn't about to use ice or do anything to make it go away faster. He needed the discomfort as a reminder of the extreme measure she'd taken to make sure he understood what she was saying.
Fi's methods were not conventional, but they were uniquely Fi. And just as she could make him see something he didn't want to, he knew she granted him the ability to quell her easily pricked temper in a way no one else could. All he needed to do was to put his arms around her and gently hold her with silence until she regained her calm and rational self.
On the drive to his mother's house, his thoughts focused on Fiona's confrontation with Anson. As a DIA psychiatrist, he was familiar with procedures to visit someone in a secure CIA holding facility. It was a simple thing for him to present himself as an attorney.
Anson understood the CIA's conventional wisdom in regard to those they hunted. It was easier to let someone continue to operate with freedom of movement. Easier to follow their activities, easier to link together those who worked with them. Easier to hunt.
Michael had wanted to put Anson on the watch list, but Raines suggested waiting as the better course. It wasn't like Fiona couldn't take care of herself, he'd said.
And as much as he'd wanted to argue with him, it was obvious even an unarmed Fiona could take care of herself.
He was certain Anson had not planned on leaving the prison by ambulance. The psychiatric manipulator failed to grasp the essential element of his confrontation with Fi. He approached her as if he was the predator, the aggressor, an idea Fi so thoroughly disabused him of that Michael was now convinced Anson wouldn't attempt that again.
When he turned down his mother's street, he was stunned by what lay before him, and pulled over and parked two doors away from her house. The street was brightly lit by flashing red, white and blue lights on top three Miami-Dade patrol cars parked at angles in front of the house.
As he walked toward the scene, he heard Laura, his mother's neighbor's squeaky voice. "There, that's her son! Michael. Talk to him. He can tell you what you want to know."
Laura was the neighbor he, Fi and Sam had helped her five years earlier when they recovered money a group of scam artists had stolen from her, and had broken her arm in the process. Whenever his mother was out of town, Laura was very conscientious to keep watch over her house, and he assumed she called the police. Michael walked over to speak to her and the police officer she was talking to.
"We caught someone trying to break into your mother's house, and we need to know if she wants to press charges, but we can't locate her. Do you know where she is, sir?" the officer asked.
"Currently, she's under federal protection," Michael explained and watched the cop's eyebrows elevate as he showed him his agency ID. "What happened here?"
"Over here, Mr. Westen," the officer explained as he returned the ID to Michael. When he looked into the back seat of the vehicle, Michael was stunned. Larry met his gaze then looked away. "We caught him trying to break into your mother's home."
It shouldn't have been that easy.
Michael studied the man in the back of the police car and wondered if this was a gift from the gods or something far more sinister.
"Sir?" The cop said, after Michael had been silent too long. "Is something wrong?"
He shook his head. "Congratulations, officer. You've just arrested one of the CIA's most wanted fugitives. Good work."
Disbelief had the cop frowned at him. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, officer, I am. Excuse me, I need to call this in." With that, he called Raines. "Miami-Dade just captured Larry Sizemore trying to break into my mother's house. You need to . . . no. No, Raines, I am not joking."
He was still on the phone when Sam arrived. He watched him shake hands with one of the cops, exchange a few words with another and then peek into the back of the cop car that held a handcuffed and unhappy Larry. He reached Michael just as he ended his call to Raines. There was a wide smile on his face.
"Now there is something I never thought I'd get to see, good old Larry in handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser. At least he didn't put up a fight, not with three cops taking aim at him, because Larry being Larry, that could have ended differently."
"How'd you get here so fast?" Michael wondered.
"I've been monitoring a scanner since Anson's threats. Heard Maddie's address. Did you notice it looks like Fi's T4 singed his face? Too damn bad he's still alive. I was hoping he'd been vaporized in that explosion."
"Be glad he wasn't," Michael said. "Raines wants to put him in a cell next to Vaughn, and we'll be listening in since they have so much in common . . . me."
Sam laughed. "Your ears are gonna burn, Mikey. Those guys hate you."
"I know."
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Early the next morning, before Larry was relocated to his new confines next to Vaughn, Michael paid his former co-worker a visit. Their relationship as expert and novice had morphed into Larry's obscene obsession with Michael, and no matter how hard he'd tried to eliminate the guy when he reappeared after faking his death, he kept popping back up. Michael hoped this would be the final chapter in a bad book.
He was impressed with the level of armed security surrounding Larry who had escaped from a prison after murdering the warden. Raines made sure the security around Larry was at the same level as Vaughn's. Impressive.
On this visit, Michael kept cage bars between himself and Larry who wore the same color orange as Vaughn, the same color Fi was stuck in, only Larry wore chain-shortened shackles on his legs and wrists. There was no sense in providing Larry an opportunity to do harm, not when Michael could see by the glint in his eyes that Larry would kill him given the smallest of openings.
But Michael had a purpose for this visit. A task to accomplish, and then he'd report to Raines when he was done.
"Kind of surprised you survived that blast, Larry."
"Your girlfriend's not as good as she thinks she is."
"Still, looks like you got nipped. That looks painful," Michael commented, looking at the healing wounds to the left side of his face, neck and arm.
"Michael Westen, free again. How do you do it?" Larry growled.
"Luck," Michael said, shaking his head. "So, did you end up with any money from that diplomatic transaction? Or did Anson take that, too?"
"Anson?"
"Come on, Larry. You know, the guy you paid to get you out of prison. The guy you were stealing those documents for. Anson Fullerton. You introduced us."
When Larry didn't reply Michael had his answer, but he frowned as if he was confused. "You didn't know?"
Larry's gaze narrowed, lethally.
Michael twisted the knife. "Anson, yeah, that was pretty slick convincing you that you had kidnapped him and put a bomb around his wife's neck. He was playing you. Turned out it wasn't his wife. He said he had to go to a lot of trouble to set it up so you thought you were kidnapping him, and then he used you to blackmail me and Fi."
He could tell Larry was assessing this revelation. And not in a good way.
"So, Lar, how does it feel to be a cog in Anson's wheel? Be a useful tool? I've never been fond of that role myself. I bet he was going to pay you with the money you paid him to get you out of that prison in Albania. Adds something to it, don't you think? Which reminds me, why were you trying to break into my Mom's house? She's out of town."
Larry continued staring and not speaking.
"Not feeling chatty. I understand that. Last I heard, they were deciding whether to keep you here or send you to Guantanamo. Got a preference? I can put in a good word for you."
When he didn't respond, Michael grinned. "Not asking twice. Take it easy, Larry."
He turned and left the facility, escorted out by an armed guard, assured that he'd sown all the seeds of injustice Larry needed to fuel his hatred, and, with luck, it'd spill it over on Vaughn. And when that happened, they'd be listening. "Get that Raines?" he asked, angling his face in the direction of his jacket lapel.
The communicator stuck in his ear responded. "Every word. Well done, Westen."
Time to see Fi and tell her the good news.
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"Oh, I don't think that was a good idea," Fiona said, after Michael explained his one-sided conversation with Larry an hour earlier. "Larry and Vaughn in proximity to one another? Was that Raines' idea?"
"They'll be in cages, Fi, inside the highest of high security areas. Raines wants to listen in."
"Does this mean your mom and Nate and Charlie and Ruth get to come home?"
"Not yet. And they're not happy about it, but I'm kind of happy about something else."
Michael was sitting on one of the benches, his back against the table, while Fi was sitting on his lap, her arms curled around his neck and shoulders, her fingers in his hair, his arms around her waist, their faces intimately close, a mere breath away from each other. They had greeted each other as lovers who had been parted for months instead of less than a day, needing everything about each other. Their conversation was soft, low, intensely personal even if their words were not.
"What's that?"
He smiled. "The diplomatic pouch that was to have gone in that box number I finally remembered, was tagged to an MI5 operative in the UK who they had been investigating for almost six months. If it turns out some of those weapons in Anson's Tampa facility were sold to him, then . . ."
"Then . . . ?" she urged.
Michael smiled. "Barry followed that transaction after he found the first one that took us to that law office and connected Vaughn to Anson. I don't think the Brits will want to keep you, not if the damage to the Consulate was caused by a CIA asset who averting a national security breech, kept illegal guns from their homegrown terrorists, and kept several of their people from being burned."
Fi slid to the floor and stood. "Good grief, Michael. That's . . . insane."
"Which part?" he asked. "You helping the Brits or the idea that the way out of this place just showed up? It's a matter of perspective."
"If my brothers . . ."
"Your brothers are going to be happy you're not in prison," he said quietly, "and I will, too, Fi. I will, too."
It was too tempting for Fiona to believe. "Wouldn't the FBI need to agree to that? And what about those two guards who died? Will Anson be charged with that?"
Michael knew how that pained her. "That T4 could be linked to Anson's Tampa facility, so that's why we've requested copies of the forensic ballistics reports. We believe it's the same, but we need proof. If it is, then Anson would make the most wanted list and that should make everyone . . .
Fiona interrupted. "More afraid of him. I wish I would have been able to . . ."
Michael stopped her from speaking by enclosing her in his arms and lowering his lips to hers. "I wish we could have gotten custody of him then, too."
They studied one another somberly. If Fi had killed Anson when he's visited her in prison, she would have been charged with his death. Instead, she had played it safe.
"It would have been a lot easier if I could have called you to warn you what had happened," she said. "We're back to damned if you do and damned if you don't," Fiona said. "I'm tired of it."
"Fi, I'm just hoping we have enough evidence to get you out before the end of the week, maybe the first of next," Michael said softly.
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Ten days later, shortly after the Tampa forensic reports and the CIA analyses were filed with the British Consulate and MI5, and following several intense conversations with the FBI regarding their eagerness to keep a CIA asset incarcerated without cause, Fiona was released.
Raines started the ball rolling and had the paperwork sent to the facility first; then he called Michael.
Michael had been working with Pearce and Jesse on trying to figure out where the most logical places for an information leak inside the FBI when Michael picked up his phone, after checking the caller ID. "Yeah, Raines?"
He listened for a moment before closing the phone. "Got to go," he said and left.
Pearce was amazed with the speed at which Westen left. "Wonder what that was about?" she said to Jesse.
She was surprised to find him smiling. "What's going on, Porter?" she asked.
"Fi's out."
"How do you know that?" she asked. "He didn't . . . "
"The bag's gone. It's in his car. Noticed that on the way in."
"Bag?"
"Yeah. Fi's stuff. He had it packed about a week ago. It's been sitting by the door."
"Brown? Leather?" Pearce said, remembering seeing the bag, then looking beyond Jesse's shoulder toward the door. He was right; the bag was no longer located where she'd seen it. "Huh. You ever think about working in intelligence?" she said dryly.
That earned her one of Jesse's booming laughs, just about the same time Sam came in the door.
"Hey, where's Mikey flying off to?" he wondered.
"Fi's out," Jesse explained.
"When?"
"Dunno," Jesse said, "But . . . "
Sam turned around. "Yeah, her bag's gone."
Pearce shook her head and smiled at Sam. "So you work in intelligence, too."
Jesse laughed again.
Sam shook his head. "I'm guessing we'll see them sometime tomorrow . . . maybe."
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Fi was dressed in the jeans and a lacy camisole she'd worn under the sweater Pearce had loaned her. She was carrying a bag with some small items, which Michael took from her as he escorted her to a grey Honda that didn't look anything like the Charger or her Hyundai. And the direction he headed wasn't toward the loft.
"Michael?" she asked, savoring everything around her. Air. Light. Wind. Sun. Freedom.
He just smiled at her.
They hadn't traveled far when he turned down a quiet street, then another, and one more, before turning into a pleasant, well tended alleyway. There was a garage door opener on the sun visor. He hit it and the door opened and he drove the car inside, closing the door after he shut off the engine. The garage was filled with light from windows and a door at the other end which opened onto a private garden area.
Fi stepped out, while Michael brought her things and then lifted a small brown bag she recognized.
The secluded garden bloomed between tall stone walls on either side, that were draped with colorful splashes of lush bougainvilleas and led to a private porch with wicker chairs. She looked around, a question still in her eyes, but smiled, charmed by what she was seeing.
He followed behind her and set the bags on one of the chairs while he unlocked the back door into a kitchen area. There was a table and two chairs there, refrigerator, stove, microwave and dishwasher. Fiona walked ahead, exploring.
A small living room was next, empty of furniture. It had light colors hidden behind wide blinds that were closed against the sun. To one side, a small bedroom, empty. A bathroom. To the other side what must be the master bedroom with a bed in the center of the room, bare of bedding. An empty walk in closet, and a bathroom with a spacious garden tub and shower and double sink area were opposite the sliding glass door to the garden, hidden now by vertical blinds shut to block the sun, to create privacy.
Michael had been following her, watching her, carrying her things with him. He set them down on the floor.
"Is all of this . . . privacy . . . for us?" she asked as she walked to him and looked up into his face.
He nodded and gave her a small smile.
She closed the small distance between them, then closed her eyes with a sense of bliss as she slid her hands up his chest to tug his head closer to hers. Peace. Homecoming. Reunion. Joy.
Pulling his hands, she tugged him toward the bed, and reached to unbutton his shirt. "I want you to tell me all about this, Michael," she said softly. He offered no resistance when she gently pushed him down on the bare mattress. "But, later, please. Later," she whispered.
He offered her a tender smile and all of his heart as he pulled her to him then turned them so he could look down into her face. He stroked her cheek and held her gaze. "I love you, Fi."
His lips reached hers lightly, softly. "Forever."
She reached to pull him closer still to her. "I need you, Michael." Gently, he brushed away the tear that came unbidden to her.
"And I am lost without you," he said, kissing the salty moisture on her face.