Body Double (23 page)

T
hey walked along the edge of the highway in the dark, and rounded a bend in the road. The C-5 came into view, and Amanda glanced at Mark.

His jaw hung loose, stunned. “Hell of a parking place, hon.”

“We use what we’ve got.” She smiled and clasped his hand, oddly content to be touching him.

He squeezed her fingers. “I thought about you a lot while I was in that tomb, Amanda.” His voice turned sober. “And while I knew you were with my double.”

She wasn’t ready to tell him what had happened between her and his double, but it looked as though she wasn’t going to have a choice. And, being honest with herself, if their positions were reversed, she would want answers now, too. She could hardly ask more from him than of herself. But, oh, man, would she like to. “Mark, you know how I feel about men—because of my…”

“Father.”

She nodded, even now unable to make herself say the word aloud. “But I trust you, and things between us…well, they got…intense and personal.”

“How personal?” He didn’t look at her. “A little personal or really personal?”

“Really personal.” She swallowed down a boulder that seemed to have wedged in her throat. God, this was hard. Much harder than she had imagined it would be, and that had been pretty bad. “Later, I found out you weren’t you and I felt as if I’d betrayed you. And I felt betrayed.”

“You felt pissed off,” he countered, still not meeting her gaze.

She didn’t know whether or not to be grateful, but it felt like a merciful thing. “That, too,” she admitted with a little shrug. There was little sense in denying the obvious. “I finally trust a man, and he isn’t the man I think he is. He’s someone pretending to be the man I trust. Yeah, you bet I was pissed. But I was…other things, too.”

“I can imagine.” He worried at his inner lip with his teeth for a long moment, then stuffed his hands in his pockets. “You were embarrassed because you’d been fooled and manipulated.”

“Yes.” She definitely had been.

He went on. “You were furious because you hadn’t been able to tell the difference between him and me, and outraged because you’d finally let your guard down to a man and he deceived and used you.”

She blew out a sharp breath that puffed her cheeks. “All of that, too.”

He stopped on the road and turned to face her. “But most of all, I think you were scared of what might have happened to me, or what was happening to me. Am I right about that?”

She searched his eyes, her own heart, and knew that hid
ing her emotions and locking them in her internal safe was part of her past, not her future. “Yes, you’re most right about that.”

He clasped her shoulders, the night breeze ruffling his hair, blowing cool on her heated face. “I understand, Amanda,” he said softly. “All of it.”

The backs of her eyes burned. He couldn’t
know
or
understand.
“You don’t,” she insisted, determined to get this out in the open. If they were going to go anywhere in this relationship, they had to start with a foundation based on truth.

“I do,” he insisted. “Honestly.”

“You can’t, damn it.” A hot rush of agony pierced her chest. “I slept with him, Mark. I—I thought he was you—but—oh, hell, Mark. I slept with him.”

Mark looked deeply into her eyes and then calmly stroked her face with such tenderness that tears welled. She blinked hard to keep them from falling, not willing to suffer yet another humiliation in this. “I know, honey.”

He kissed her soundly, proving he did know and that he did understand. But how could he? Guilt settled over her, streamed through her, weighing her down. “How can you accept something so awful so easily? I don’t get it. If it were you, I don’t know if I’d be able to get past it. I hope I would, but I can’t stand here and say with authority that I know I would—not without lying to you. I—”

“Amanda, hush.” He caressed her face, cupping it in both his hands and rubbed gently with the pads of his thumbs. “You thought you were with me. I know that. Don’t you see, Amanda? In your mind, you were with me, not him. You wanted me. You let me into your life and your heart.”

He pulled her close, rubbed her shoulders. “Listen, at first I admit I was jealous as hell when I thought of him being with you. I was hurt and angry. But then I realized I was being crazy. Even he thought he was me. Being jealous was like
being jealous of myself.” He buried his chin in her neck and pecked a kiss to her hair. “You really care about me. How can I not understand that, Amanda? After everything you’ve been through, you took the risks and let me in. You care about me.”

Her heart swelled, too big for her chest. She sniffed, hugged him hard. “Peanut puns aside, I really am nuts about you, Cross.”

“I know.” He gave her a squeeze and then stole her canteen again and swallowed down a long tug. “It has me questioning your judgment.”

She chuckled. “Glad to hear it. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.” She wrapped her arm around his waist, and they walked onto the plane.

Mark had slight tremors from dehydration, so Amanda took the pilot’s seat. When they were airborne, she radioed Colonel Drake and advised the colonel to have their drop-zone friends retrieve Reese’s body from the cemetery.

“I have reliable intel on Kunz’s location,” she finished.

“Amanda, I now have three separate confirmations that Kunz is dead,” the colonel replied. “One is for the old Kunz, the two are for the new Kunz.”

“He’s alive, ma’am.”

Colonel Drake said softly, “So if the real Kunz isn’t dead then where the hell is he?”

“Kunz is in Texas,” Amanda told her. “There’s a network of tunnels and bunkers under the compound.”

“Stand by.”

The radio went silent. Colonel Drake was no doubt seeking intel on what they’d found at the explosion site to back up Amanda’s claim. Soon, she returned to the radio.

“Field reports deny any findings to substantiate your intel, Captain.”

“Ma’am. I was in there. I know the bunker exists.” When she’d been blindfolded on Hangar Row and taken to Kunz’s
office, it must have been down in the bunkers or there would have been no reason to blindfold her to take her there. Kunz hadn’t wanted her to know about the bunkers.

“Then get your ass down there and point them out to SAIC Mac McDonald.”

The Special Agent in Charge obviously hadn’t welcomed Colonel Drake’s inquiry or responded well to her claim that the corpse wasn’t that of Thomas Kunz. “In the appropriated aircraft, ma’am?” Amanda asked.

“Affirmative, Captain.” A man’s voice sounded through the radio. “I’m elevating this to a Code Two Special Project.” The order was clear and succinct: do what you need to do to get the job done quickly. “How’s your fuel?”

Amanda looked at Mark. “Who the hell is this guy?”

“Secretary Reynolds.”

“Oh.” She reeled in her tone, chastising herself for not recognizing his voice right away. Just proved how distracted she was by Mark. Being distracted at the wrong time could get her killed. Her heart rebelled against that thought. It’d wear off. Short-term, being with him would up her risks, but it wouldn’t last. “Fuel’s getting low, sir.”

“Drake, arrange refueling and get them whatever else they need,” Reynolds said. “I want this bastard Kunz, and I want him now. I want Reese, too.”

“Reese is dead, sir,” Amanda informed the secretary.

“Have you verified that firsthand, Captain? There’s a lot of verified corpses turning up alive around here right now.”

“I killed him myself, sir,” she said.

“That’s the kind of verification I like best, Captain.” Reynolds turned his attention to the colonel. “Drake, give the order to move on Kunz.”

“Yes, sir.” Colonel Drake then spoke to Amanda and Mark. “We’ll arrange refueling. What else do you need?”

About two weeks of sleep. A hot bath and a warm meal.
To make love with Mark. She looked over at him, raised an eyebrow in question. He pointed at her. Her heart gave a little quiver and she smiled. “Nothing at this time, ma’am. Except for some food and water for Captain Cross.”
But later, watch out.

Shortly after four o’clock in the afternoon, Amanda landed the plane on the Texas compound’s airstrip. Running on adrenaline that was fizzling out and a few precious catnaps, she looked around, stunned by the amount of damage Kunz had caused to his own assets.

The compound looked as if it had been pulverized by a hurricane. Debris from the explosion littered the ground and trash and remnants of everything from equipment to clothes clung to bushes and trees. The scent of explosives clung to the humid air.

“Wow. He really fired it up, didn’t he?” Mark stepped off the plane and set foot on the ground. “Kate couldn’t have done better.”

A lieutenant drove over in a golf cart. “Captains West and Cross?” he asked, his hair tousled from the wind, his face red from the heat.

“Yes,” they said in unison.

“Hop in. SAIC MacDonald is expecting you.”

Amanda got strange flutters in her stomach on getting into the cart. The whole experience was too reminiscent of the time she’d spent captive here. From Mark’s somber expression, he was sharing the same feelings.

When they had circled the golf course and neared what had been the main building and was now a heap of burnt-out rubbish, the lieutenant stopped the cart.

A man pushing forty with graying temples and a sallow complexion on a face shaped like a pit bull’s walked over to them. “West? Cross?”

“SAIC MacDonald?” Mark extended his hand.

Amanda didn’t. He looked cranky enough to bite it off.

“Mac,” he said. “Listen, I’ve had everyone on-site looking for some kind of entrance to this bunker system since Drake contacted us. We’ve found nothing.” Skepticism filled his face and voice. “You sure your intel is solid?”

“As a rock,” Amanda said. “I was in the bunker.”

“Then how the hell did you get there?” He looked relieved that she knew where the ingress was located and irritated that his people hadn’t been able to locate it on their own.

“I don’t know exactly,” she admitted through clenched teeth. This wouldn’t go over well, but facts were facts. “I was blindfolded.”

“Then how do you know you were in a bunker?”

“The lack of outside noises, the smell of recycled air, the absence of windows, any moving wind or natural scents. We were definitely underground, Mac.”

Her answer must have satisfied him because he didn’t dispute her. “Take the cart,” he suggested, motioning for the lieutenant to evacuate it. “Look around and see if you can find the entrance. So far, we’ve tapped out.”

“Sure.” Amanda got into the passenger’s side.

“We need a radio—to keep in touch,” Mark said, getting in behind the wheel.

“Lieutenant, handle it.” Mac turned from the young man back to Mark. “Anything else?”

“Water. Water would be nice.”

Amanda’s chest clutched. He’d emptied her canteen, and the refill from the emergency run she’d made to the artesian well near the cemetery to get him hydrated enough to make the hike back to the plane. He’d also emptied the water supply on the plane, and an additional gallon of water they had picked up during refueling.

Still, she knew that camel-like thirst. It would take days to quench it, and a lifetime to forget it.

The lieutenant returned with a radio and six bottles of water. “Sorry it’s not cold, sir. We’re primitive.”

“Not a problem. Thanks.” Mark took the items, cranked a top off one bottle, swallowed long and deep, and then took off. “Where do we go first?” he asked Amanda.

“Hangar Row,” she said, weary to the bone. “I know we weren’t far from there when they blindfolded me. Were you taken to Kunz’s office?”

“No, I wasn’t,” he said, swerving to the opposite side of the road to bypass the twisted remains of something metal and no longer identifiable. “I was in a cabin some but they had me in a holding tank mostly. All-white padded cell. Empty, except for the cameras at the ceilings in the corners.” He grunted. “A lot like the tomb except it was never dark.”

Sensory deprivation and constant light induced a type of dementia. People lost track of day and night and time, and the disorientation played with their minds, weakened their ability to resist interrogation or input. She reached over and clasped his hand, grounding him in the now so he could let go of the then.

It was a small gesture, but it made all the difference in this situation. Appreciation and warmth shone in Mark’s eyes. He lifted her hand and kissed her swollen knuckles. “Reese?”

She nodded, knowing the bruises on her face said far more than any words. “You should see the other guy.” Her record remained intact.

“I did.” He let out a low whistle. “Remind me to never piss you off when you have a weapon in your hand.”

Cruising down the road between the hangars, she grunted. “Baby, don’t you remember survival school?
Anything
can be a weapon.”

“Yeah, I remember, and I won’t forget it again when dealing with you.” He smiled. “See anything?”

“Not yet.” They rode from the hangers in all four directions, and then repeated the process a second time. And then a third, but still she saw nothing that she could pinpoint.

“You look so tired,” Mark said.

“It’s been a long—” she went blank “—hell, however long it’s been. I’ve lost track.”

“Too damn long,” Mark said, glancing out over the debris. “Don’t worry. I’ll be your calendar.”

“You’re so good to me.” The charred smells of burnt plastic and wood hung heavy in the air.

“That’s the plan. Integrate and make myself indispensable.” He sent her a speculative look. “Unless you have any objections?”

She worked at not melting into a humiliating puddle at his feet. He already had become indispensable to her. “Not if you meet one condition.”

“What’s that?” He didn’t look worried, only curious.

She loved him for that. “Remember those little computer games you invented that all the college kids play? The ones that made you rich enough to own a view of the water that a house and deck came with, a boat and a Hummer?”