Agent for a Cause (The Agents for Good) (14 page)

“I think she’s right James.” Lisa added softly from behind Anna.

After a moment of consideration Flint nodded his head in grim acknowledgment that they were likely right about how Tyre would respond. “I’ve worked with Tyre for many years now and I know places that he frequents from time to time. I knew that he frequented Philadelphia and I’ve been concerned about him ever since the explosion. If he thinks he’s being hunted then he’s completely gone to ground and he won’t frequent any of his usual places.”

“So you’re saying it’s hopeless! That we can’t find him?”

“No I didn’t say that! But it is going to be more difficult to find him. I work with other people like Tyre. We frequent places, but we only have one home, which we keep secret above all else. A friend of mine, Galloway, bet that he could find not only the location of my home within three months, but also Tyre’s. To my surprise Tyre seemed interested in the bet and Galloway offered way too much incentive in order to entice Tyre to take the bet for his own good. Tyre took the bet and so did I. Tyre found Galloway’s secret home in exactly three hours four minutes and forty seven seconds. It took Tyre just over a month to find my home here in Italy. That’s how he knew the address that he gave to you. No one but him knows of this place. I searched as hard as I could for Tyre’s home with no luck. I did find one clue though that I never let on to around Tyre about.”

“What is it?” Anna asked.

“It’s a twelve digit number code that was part of a communication that I know was sent from Tyre’s home. I tried everything I could to crack that code and trace it back to its origin. I even used an old supercomputer to run computations on the number! And I still got nothing!” Flint exclaimed in remembered exasperation.

Anna’s lips curved slightly and she smiled, “Do you still have that code?”

James looked at her askance, “You think you can solve it?”

“Perhaps.”

He got up and went to a table and wrote down the number from memory and returning he handed the paper to Anna somewhat skeptically. Anna didn’t even look at the number, but instead handed it to Kevin. She reached down for her purse and pulled his iPad out.

“Kevin I need you to find where Tyre is living so we can go and be with him.”

He signed something to her with his hands.

“Yes we will stay with him and you two can play more chess games.”

He took the iPad and the piece of paper, which he glanced at briefly. Files began to shift under his agile fingers on the iPad, as James looked on curiously.

James glanced at his watch at almost the same time as Kevin handed his iPad to his mother. Anna looked at the screen, “It looks like a big island. Do you know where it is?”

She handed the tablet up to James, who was looking from one to the other of them, especially at Kevin. He took the tablet with its topography map and the red flashing icon on it.

“It’s Iceland!”

Anna stood up her hands twisted together again with tension, “Do you think you could take us there, please? I hate to ask, but I need help!”

“Within the hour.” James replied.

“Hold on there!” Lisa interrupted.

Pressing on Anna’s shoulder and leading Kevin by the hand Lisa ushered them from the room as she said, “You’ve both come very far and I won’t have you leaving my house without a decent meal to tide you over until you reach your new home. Aunt Maria could you please show our guests to the kitchen and have chef whip something up special for them?”

Anna and Kevin followed the older woman to the kitchens.

Lisa reappeared after collecting Taleah, who had stirred awake at the sound of the voices in the hall. Lisa held Taleah straddled on her hip, as she stepped up next to her husband with a teasing smile. He was still standing there holding the tablet.

“Has the mighty Flint been given a healthy taste of humility today?” Lisa asked with a purr.

He nodded and she laughed delightedly. She kissed him sweetly.

He looked at her, “What was that for?”

“That was for being the wonderfully sweet man that you are to give up your own time to help someone else who is in need.”

She swatted his rear hard with one hand then.

“Hey!” He exclaimed in reaction.

“And that’s so you’ll hurry back to me sugar baby!” She said with her voice full of suggestion.

He reached for her, but she stepped back waving a finger, “Dear, we have guests!”

“So?”

She gave him that look and he broke off his pursuit and chuckled. She took his hand and together they walked toward the kitchen.

“That kid found Tyre in less than thirty seconds! That’s beyond amazing!” James exclaimed on the walk to the kitchen.

Lisa nodded thinking pretty much the same. Out of curiosity Lisa asked, “What did Galloway lose as part of the bet to Tyre?”

James’s face split into a wide smile, “He couldn’t listen to country music for an entire year and during that time he couldn’t listen to any music personally above a volume of six.”

Lisa laughed and then asked, “So what did you have to suffer as a member of the losing side?”

James grimaced, “We won’t go into that now it’s still too painful.”

Lisa just rolled her eyes and laughed.

Chapter Eleven

Fire and Ice

Yet another first for Anna was in the making. There had been the private jet that had dropped her and Kevin off in Reykjavík along with James, who insisted that she now call him Flint.

Now she was hovering in a chopper over the most barren godforsaken looking land she’d ever seen in her life. Nothing but black rock, snow and dead looking grass greeted her eyes. This was Iceland.

It looked cold, barren and very lonely. Still if this was where Tyre wanted to be then she would be here also. But they would definitely be going somewhere warm for vacations!

Flint was flying the chopper and Anna noticed him shaking his head, as a rueful smile played across his features.

“What is it?”

He pointed ahead.

They were just clearing the rim of an up thrust in the rugged terrain and Anna saw a house that reflected crisp clean lines of construction situated in the center of the basin beyond the rim they had just cleared.

“Only Tyre would build his home on the base floor of a dormant volcano.” Flint said laughing.

“Volcano!” Anna squeaked out in disbelief.

“Yeah this whole basin is the caldera of a dormant volcano.” Flint said, as he brought the chopper down onto the icy black rock before the house and then shut it off.

Flint got out and helped Anna and Kevin out of the chopper, but stayed with it as the two began to make their way across the short expanse of distance toward the lone figure of a man standing in the entrance way of the house.

I watched her come toward me. I couldn’t imagine how she had found me, but it was a wild dream come true! My eyes drifted down to Kevin. It had been him of course that had found me I realized.

Thank God for his gifts!

They stepped up in front of me and it looked like Anna had a lot to say, but nothing came out and she seemed to give up on the words as she stepped forward and hugged me hard. I hugged her back and heard her say against my neck,

“I don’t want to be safe if it means living without you!”

I nodded and said, “I’m so sorry! I made a mistake!”

“You’re forgiven.” She leaned back her face all teary, as she shook a finger at me, “But don’t do it ever again Mister, you got me!”

“Yes ma’am!”

I opened the door behind me and ushered her and Kevin inside.

“I need to talk to Flint for a moment okay?”

She nodded, as she started to take her and Kevin’s coats off in the warm interior of the house. It was hard to step away from them, when I had already felt them lost for forever and now they were here with me.

I made my way to Flint, who still stood at the chopper.

“I hope you don’t mind me doing this Tyre. You’re not someone I’d want to hold a grudge against me!”

I shook my head and held out my hand, “Thank you James!” I said using his real name.

“You’re welcome Nikolai.”

We shook hands.

“Your secret is safe with me Tyre.” Flint said, as he gestured to the caldera at large with a wave of his hand. He started to turn to get back into the chopper.

“Flint how do you do it? How do you face living with yourself if anything were to ever happen to Lisa or your child, because of the lives we live as agents?”

Flint looked down at the icy snow at his feet, “I don’t know how I do it Tyre. It truly scares me and it worries me all the time, but you can’t live your life in fear. I do what I can to ensure their safety and I trust that God will do what I can’t. There are no guarantees in life Tyre, you know that. Enjoy the day, because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I’m really glad to see that you found someone to share your life with Tyre! Speaking from my own personal experience I can say that it really sucks to be alone! These women that have come into our lives are like the vital nutrients that we can’t live without and that build us up so that we can accomplish even more than before. Tyre, if I lost Lisa, I would starve to death inside! So I live every moment I’m blessed to have with her, as if it were my last and take the days as they come. You should do the same. Beginning with your wedding night would be a good place to start I’m thinking!” James said slapping me on the back hard.

I nodded and watched him take off moments later, as he headed back to his family even as mine awaited me inside the house behind me.

I stepped inside and dusted the snow off my shoulders. I followed the trail of lights and sounds to my study. Anna was who I saw first and she looked concerned.

“I can make him stop.”

I glanced at Kevin to see him completely absorbed with my smart screen. His fingers traced across it as he felt his way through what was essentially a giant iPad.

“He just started and…”

I cut her off before she could finish, “Its fine. It’ll keep him occupied.” I said taking her hand and leading her from the room and down the hall.

She looked back toward Kevin, “But that TV thing must be outrageously expensive and you probably don’t want him in your personal stuff!”

I opened a door and led her inside before twirling her away from me and toward the bed, as I turned the lights on.

“I could care less right now if he deleted every folder and file and smashed the thing into a million pieces.” I said.

She swung back around to face me smiling, but I could tell she was a little shocked by my domineering handling of her. I stepped out toward her, as I let the door slam shut behind me as the lock clicked audibly.

“Am I moving too fast Anna?”

She looked rather breathless, as she shook her head no.

“Good.” I said as I pushed her over backward onto the bed and then slid onto it myself as I straddled her.

“You know why?”

She shook her head again as she stared up at me, as if seeing me for the first time or at least a different side of me.

“Because right now I couldn’t move fast enough to suit my desire to make you mine!” I said my voice trailing off as I began to kiss her and undress her at the same time.

“A volcano seriously?” Anna asked, as she looked up at me from where I sat on the countertop beside the sink, as she did the dishes.

I gave her a mock look of affront, “Why what’s wrong with it?”

She rolled her eyes and shook a loose strand of her hair from her face back over an ear with a quick dart of a finger.

I chuckled and continued eating my slice of apple pie that she had made, as I appreciated her hard work at cleaning the dishes.

“You know there is a dishwasher.” I said.

She smiled and shrugged, “I know but I’ve never really had a place of my own or one that I wanted to call my own anyway. I’ve longed for years for the simple joy of washing nice dishes in a sink that I could call my own that’s part of a beautiful kitchen filled with nice things.”

I smiled teasingly, “Is it still a dream come true since this dream kitchen is located in the middle of a dormant volcano?”

“It’ll do.” She said softly.

After a moment she asked, “Just what does dormant mean?”

I laughed.

“I’m serious! What does it mean?” She asked looking somewhat miffed at my laughter directed at her.

“It means that it’s been a very long time since it was an active lava spewing volcano. It doesn’t however mean that there’s no volcanic activity going on. This particular caldera sees some activity every 500 years or so. By my figuring we are in year 312 of the volcanic cycle. So unless you’re figuring on living another hundred years and then some, I see no hindrances arising to deprive you of your kitchen.”

She smiled and continued washing the dishes, “Homeowners insurance must be terribly expensive.”

She glanced up as if to glean the answer from my face and she found it in my eyes that were laughing at her.

“You don’t have any insurance?” She exclaimed, as the dishrag almost slipped out of her soapy fingers into the suds.

“Honey this isn’t the States. Iceland’s broke not saying the States aren’t too, but here the loan notice has been signed and delivered. Home insurance is the last thing they’re concerned about. If they don’t pass out flood insurance to people living on a floodplain I doubt they’ll insure against volcano damage for a house located in a lava field.”

She went back to washing, but I could tell she was still bothered. I was done with the pie and with being content just to watch my wife. I leaned over and placed my dirty dish and fork squarely in the middle of her freshly emptied sink and she gave me a censoring eyebrow.

I slid off the counter and up behind her and kissed her neck. I could hear the smile in her voice as she asked, “What are you doing?” As my hands began to pull her shirt up and then over her head.

“Why I’m enjoying the ambient quality of our beautiful kitchen with you before lava flows destroy it all.”

She giggled and stood still facing the sink, as I removed the rest of her clothing.