In the Dead of the Night (35 page)

“You’ll have to talk to her.
Marriage is made of compromise. For now, though, we have to make some plans about returning Jenny home and watching her back until Wilson shows up.”

“But you’re to see your families and
—”

“We haven’t finished this missi
on yet. Why don’t we return to the house, and you can have a nice long talk alone with your wife? You don’t really want to give her up.”

Allan’s jaw clenched.
No matter how he tried to view the situation differently, he couldn’t see being married to Jenny while she served as an A.T.A. agent. It wasn’t that he was a chauvinist or anything. He didn’t want her getting injured, or worse, killed.

“Okay, Allan, maybe you’re too close to the sit
uation to think clearly. The bottom line is we need to get Wilson. The guys all agree they want to be there when it happens.”

Yet Allan
didn’t want to use Jenny as bait. The situation could go amuck too easily.

Dale shook his head.
“I know what you’re thinking. You don’t want her hurt. But he’s going to keep coming after her, and we need to make a stand.”

Allan whipped around and headed back to the cottage.

“Allan? What are you planning to do?” Dale asked, jogging to catch up.

“We’re returning to Waco.
No word to the boss. He’d expect I’d go home with Jenny anyway. Then I’d have to leave her in two days’ time. Only I’ll have my partners there, too, and we’re not leaving until Wilson shows up. If Jenny’s agreeable, as I assume she is, she’ll be the lure again. Then we’ll take Wilson out. He’ll undoubtedly be watching the house. We’ll have to arrive separately. Jenny and me first. Once we’re settled, the rest of you scour the area, looking for those who’ll most likely be there waiting for us. We’ll have to wait though, until he’s arrived before any of us make a move.”

“But if he thinks we’re l
ying in wait?” Dale asked.

“We’ll let him believe I’m leaving her alone.
I don’t like the idea, but I’ll make a big issue of leaving the house, then return when I can.”

“But we’ll be l
ying in wait still.”

“Yeah, Dale.
As soon as he makes his appearance, we’ll take him out.”

“And if he doesn’t?
If he has his henchmen take Jenny somewhere else?”

Allan paused at the bottom of the steps to the deck of the cottage.
“We’ll follow them. But we can’t lose them.”

Dale nodded.
“Sounds like a plan. When do we leave?”

“Tonight.”

Allan shoved the door open to the cottage. The men all looked at him as he saw Jenny wasn’t with them.

He glanced at the bedroom door.
Shut.

“She’s taking a shower,” Cameron said.

“Shit! And no one’s watching her?” Allan stormed across the living area as his heart nearly gave out.

He grabbed the doorknob, but when he found i
t locked, he kicked the hollow door in. After reaching the bathroom door, he found it was locked and the shower wasn’t running.

Dale said behind
him, “What do you want me to…”

Allan raised his foot to kick in the door, then the knob twisted and the lock clicked open.

Wrapped in only a towel, Jenny frowned at him. Her wet curls dripped down her bare shoulders, and she glanced at Dale, who smiled and made a hasty retreat.

“Everything’s all right,” Dale said to the other agents, “except we’ll need a new door for the bedroom.”

Chuckles ensued.

“Let’s get packed,” Dale said to the men.
“We’re returning to Waco.”

Cameron said, “Yep, full circle.”

Allan took a deep breath as Jenny didn’t say a word to him. “We’re doing this my way, not Garcia’s.”

Jenny’s eyes filled with tears.
She nodded.

He took her hand and pulled her against his chest.
“I can’t lose you ever, Jenny. Don’t you understand?”

“I understand
. But I’m an agent. I enjoy the work. I don’t want to quit. Not right now.”

“We’ll discuss it later, honey.
For now, we need to get rid of Wilson. You and I will stay at your house for the two days before I was to report to my next assignment. When I pretend to leave, you’ll go with me, hidden in the vehicle. I have no intention of leaving you for Wilson. When he arrives to get you, we’ll have him then.”

“And i
f he sends someone else?” She touched Allan’s cheek. “I’ll need to be at the house. You’ll have to just follow me. But I’ll be armed this time.”

“They’ll make sure you don’t have a weapon.
Even though they won’t know you’re an agent, they’ll assume you’ll get another weapon to protect yourself, like you had before. Especially with all that’s happened.”

“Yeah, and a wire won’t help either.
They’ll know to look for that, too.”

He wrapped his arms around her, and when she turned her face up to him, he kissed her mouth with feeling.
“I don’t want to lose you.”

She kissed him back with as much feeling, warmth and desire.
“Together, we’ll get him. But afterward?”

“We’ll discuss it later.”

She sighed. “All right. But you knowI can b
e
pretty stubborn.”

He chuckled.
“Yeah, I know. But so can I.”

She pointed at the
bedroom’s bashed door. “Want to get my clothes so I can get dressed?”

He shook his head.
“Guess I should have knocked on the door first.”

“You think?”
She shook her head at him.

***

The sun disappeared beneath the earth as the taxi dropped Jenny and Allan at her home. She shivered as she entered the house with him. She hadn’t realized she would feel so unnerved when she reached home. She and Allan both readied guns as they hurried to turn on the lights, and check for anyone who might have been hiding in the house.

Allan’s partners had left New Hampshire on different schedules, all geared to arrive in Waco at separate intervals to ensure if the airport was being watched, Wilson wouldn’t be alerted.
The agents were to arrive at Jenny’s home shortly after Jenny and Allan. Still, it would be another twenty minutes or so before the men were in place on the outside of her house.

Jenny couldn’t quash
the feeling that Wilson’s dastardly men waited in the dark, watching the place and had already reported back to Wilson when Allan and she had arrived.

Allan rubbed her arms as goose bumps trailed them.
“More than likely, they won’t try anything until I leave you alone.” He’d barely spoken a word before the back door swung open.

Allan and Jenny both pointed their guns at the man who shook his head.
Agent Friston, black haired, black eyed, and wearing the A.T.A. black field uniform, Roxie’s pretend bodyguard, stood before them.

He said, “The boss didn’t say anything about the two of you coming here tonight.
I was supposed to watch the place, and I thought I was catching two of Wilson’s cohorts.”

“Since when does Jenny look like one of Wilson
’s thugs?” Allan holstered his gun.

“Got all your memories back, miss?” Friston asked.

“Missus,” Allan corrected him. “Anything going on outside?”

“Not a sign of anyone.
Guess I’ll just park myself back out there and keep a look out. Buzz me if you have any trouble.”

“You’ll be having some company shortly.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, my partners.
So don’t shoot them.”

“The boss know about this?”

“No, and we’re going to leave it that way. Okay?”

Friston glanced at Jenny.
“The boss won’t like it.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like it that he was using Jenny as bait either.
So we’re even.”

Friston didn’t say
a word and slipped outside into the dark.

Jenny took a deep, calming breath.
“Will he call Garcia, do you think?”

“By the book, honey.”

“Great.” Jenny shoved her hair behind her ears. “Now what do we do?”

“We’re going to have to take turns sleeping.”

“No fun.”

He sighed
. “When this is all over with…”

“We’ll have to do some talking.”

“Hmm, well I had something else in mind.”

A
flicker of light caught her eye in the dark near where Friston had disappeared and another shudder ran through her system. “Does Friston smoke?”

“Better not.
Easy way to have someone notice you on a stakeout.”

Her skin chilled.
“I saw a flicker of light in the direction he strolled.”

“Close the door.”
Allan’s voice was harsh, on alert.

Jenny shut and locked it as her stomach tumbled like the spin cycle in the dryer.

Allan tried to reach Friston on his cell phone. “No answer. It’s beginning now.”

“Y
our men aren’t here yet.”

“No, and Friston’s either injured or dead.”

She wasn’t sure if it was because she’d come so close to death before or what, but her raw nerves stood on edge. Suddenly, she wasn’t certain she could deal with Wilson or the deadly business of being an agent, despite all of her training. Had she totally lost her nerve? Like a soldier with shell shock on the battlefield?

The glass to her bedroom window suddenly shattered.
Tear gas poured into the room, then another window exploded, this one in the kitchen. Again, the smoke from gas issued forth.

Allan grabbed Jenny’s hand and ran with her to the garage.
Both coughed as the fumes burned their eyes, nostrils, and throats. He slammed the door shut leading from the kitchen, then hurried her into her Ford Taurus.

“I don’t have the key!” she yelled.

Allan hotwired the car, then hit the garage’s automatic door opener. As soon as the door rose far enough, he put the car in reverse and squealed out of the garage.

Immediately
, a pickup truck slammed into the side of her vehicle, turning it toward the house, then pinned it against the brick wall. Both yanked off their seatbelts and readied their guns, their doors blocked. They said nothing to each other, each listening for any movement, readying themselves for the men who would come after them.

The back windshield shattered.
Jenny turned to look back, twisting around to get a better shot. No sign of a living soul. She assumed Allan would continue to watch their front. For a split second, she wished they were still cozy in the cottage bed in New Hampshire, making love to each other.

T
hen a gas grenade was tossed into the car through what was left of the back windshield. With a sinking heart, she feared the worst as the fumes spread toward the front seat.

Allan shoved his seat back, reclining it as low as it could go, then said with
a coughing voice, “I’m going…to knock…out…the front…window. Keep…your eyes…shielded.”

She couldn’t open her eyes at all, tears poured out of them, the gas blinding them.
She heard the front windshield shatter.

A strong hand grabbed her arm and she cried out in fright before struggling against the hold.
Allan hacked and choked as he spoke, trying to help her through the front window. “Just me. We’ve got to…get out of here. They’re…waiting, but…we’ve got…to get…fresh…air.”

She’d barely reached the hood of the ve
hicle when hands grabbed at her and pulled her from the car. She screamed.

“Jenny!”
Allan’s panicked voice sent an ice shard into her heart. She struggled with the men to keep her gun, blind as she was. She kicked at them with her tennis shoes, wishing she’d worn combat boots instead.

“Boss wants a word with you, Mr. Thompson,” a man said.

Jenny stopped breathing. Where had she heard that voice before?
Caruso
. On the phone. She’d listened briefly to a phone conversation between Caruso and Wilson, but hadn’t heard anything of significance. Just his dark voice with a slight Bostonian accent she would know anywhere.

She squirmed and wriggled, trying to get free of the two men who hurried her away, half-carryin
g and half-dragging her. Then they tossed her into a vehicle. Allan landed on top of her. She grabbed him, and he wrapped his arms around her, embracing her warmly, comforting her like an electric blanket on an ice cold day.

“Can you see?” she whispered.

“Yeah. Some. But they removed my guns.”

“Where’s the gang?”

“Arriving too late.”

Suddenly a man yanked the vehicle’s door open.
Before she could react, a needle was jabbed into her arm. Allan soon met the same fate. “A sedative,” Jenny said against his mouth as they reclined in the backseat.