Undeceived (10 page)

A nurse came in and fed something into the IV tube.

“Your husband?” she asked Elizabeth in German.

“No.”

“Brother?”

“No.” She chuckled. “He’s my ‘colleague’ for lack of a better word. How is he?”

“Critical but stable. Very lucky man. Two gunshot wounds—the one in the upper arm will give him more trouble in the long run. The one in his side just grazed the skin.”

“It sure bled a lot.”

The nurse came over and patted her shoulder. “He will recover with medical attention and with time.”

“What did you just give him?”

“Antibiotic. We want no infections.”

“No, we don’t.”

The nurse wrote some notes on the chart at the foot of his bed. “I’ll be back to check on him.”

Elizabeth stepped up to stand beside Darcy’s left side and gently touched his uninjured arm. As she looked at him now, so ill and helpless, it was hard to imagine him ever selling government secrets or shooting a woman who was trying to flee to the West.

But earlier that day, with ruthless efficiency, he had likely killed the woman he himself had code-named Stonewall—a woman with whom he had been intimate.

Elizabeth shivered and left the room.

Chapter 15

Darcy’s eyes popped open, the rush of blood pumping through his veins as he gasped himself awake. His eyes darted to and fro, trying to figure out where in the hell he was.
Room, hospital room.
He smelled the antiseptic and heard the beeping of a heart rate monitor. He turned his head and thought the motion would make him sick to his stomach. The staccato sound of the monitor began to accelerate. The young woman sitting in the hospital chair by the window looked up at the change in speed.

She
, he thought with relief.
She had made it out of East Berlin. Wait, surely we’re out of East Berlin, right?
His eyes darted around the room again, processing. The facilities certainly seemed better kept than the local hospitals in the GDR.

His eyes connected with hers, and the monitor betrayed him as his heart sped up even further. Not only had she made it out, she had made it out unscathed and sat before him bathed in glorious sunlight that gave her a halo of reds and golds surrounding unruly auburn hair. He couldn’t drown himself in her fine eyes from across the room, but he remembered them. So many times over the last few months, he’d caught himself staring at her, and then he’d yanked back his self-control—quickly, before she could read the fascination in his expression.

She set her newspaper aside and shot him a brisk, business-like smile. “Welcome back.” She rose from her chair and approached the bed. “Wide awake and raring to go, if your heart rate’s any indication.” She eyed the monitor. “Really raring to go. Maybe that’s just a result of waking up. I’ll call the nurse.”

He protested, or tried to, but his throat was raw and his voice came out in a hoarse moan.

“Don’t try to talk. You were intubated until last night.”

He tried to shift in the bed.

“Be careful moving around too. They just changed those bandages this morning.”

“Where’m I?” he croaked.

“Bethesda. Walter Reed hospital.”

“States?”

“Yes, genius, the States.”

He tried to work up a smirk, but it surfaced as a grimace instead. “You?”

“I’m in the States too.” She grinned at his wobbly attempt at an eye roll. “I’m fine— no thanks to you and your unscheduled trip from East to West.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

“But…why?” he whispered.

“Why am I here?”

He nodded.

“I still work with you, so I go where you do. Apparently. Lucky me.”

No, lucky me.
Or unlucky, depending on how one looked at it. He was in for another battle in this continuous war with himself, fighting his attraction to her. At the moment, however, it seemed like a blissful kind of torture.

She picked up the call bell. “Time to get the nurse. They said to buzz the minute you became conscious.”

He stayed her hand by grasping her wrist. “You got me out.”

“Fitz was mostly responsible.” She stared at his hand.

“You treated my wound.” His voice was getting stronger, so he tried to pull himself upright.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Her tone was patient but firm while she reached over to help ease his struggle. “Maybe you shouldn’t sit up yet.”

He sank back into the bed. With eyes closed against the fluorescent light, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Thank you.”

When he opened them, he saw the surprise and confusion in hers. He saw her blush. She pulled her hand away. “No problem. You’d have done the same for me.”

“I would,” he replied in a solemn voice. Behind the barrier he kept in place to protect himself, he silently admitted the truth.

I would do anything for you.

***

“
Damnation, Bennet! Are you trying to kill me?”

“It’s tempting!” Elizabeth expelled a growl and let go of Darcy’s arm. “The physical therapist says you need range of motion on that shoulder.”

“She’s trying to kill me too.” He mumbled under his breath. “All the pretty women are trying to kill me.”

She fought the urge to smile and ignored his griping. “Three times a day.” She punctuated the order by holding up three fingers in front of his face. “No excuses. Isn’t that what you’d tell me if the situation were reversed?”

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, wincing as he did so. His bottom lip stuck out a fraction, the perfect imitation of a pouting toddler.

“I want to laugh and shake you at the same time.”

“I wish the powers that be would tell me what in the hell they’re doing. I’m sick and tired of this place,” he snarled, gesturing around inside their CIA safe house near Langley.

“I can’t imagine you’re going anywhere, banged up as you are.”

“Anything’s better than this sitting around, doing nothing.”
And staring at your ass all day—that is, when I’m not sneaking looks down your blouse.

“It’s only been two weeks. You’re rehabilitating, not ‘doing nothing’.”

“So why don’t they let me go home? I’ve a nice house in Georgetown. It has an office. I could rehabilitate there.”

Elizabeth sighed in resignation. “I don’t know, Darcy. They won’t let me go home either.”

He stopped. “Where is home for you, anyway? I’m not sure I ever knew.”

“I thought you said good agents don’t talk about their personal lives. That was Spy Rule Number Twenty-two or some such nonsense.”

“I’m just making conversation. You don’t have to tell me exactly, just give me an idea: small Southern town, big noisy city, California suburbs, Midwest farming community.”

She reached for his arm and began the range of motion exercises again. “Illinois. My father was a foreman on one of those big commercial farms.”

“What did they grow?”

“Corn mostly. Soybeans sometimes.”

“Farmer’s daughter? Yeah, you look like one of those.”

“What the hell is
that
supposed to mean?”

“You know, you look—”

“Yes?”

“Oh, what’s the word? Ah, wholesome, I guess.”

The phone interrupted them, and Elizabeth glared at him while she picked it up. “Bennet.” Her face drained of color. “Yes.” More silence on her end, voices on the other. “Tell him we’re on our way. Thank you.”

“What was that all about?” he asked as she put the phone back in its cradle. “You’re white as a ghost.”

“Deputy director’s office. He wants us there in an hour.”

“What for?”

She looked at him and they locked gazes. “The secretary didn’t say, but I think we finally might be getting out of here.”

***

A car was waiting downstairs to take them to Langley. They rode in silence, Darcy brooding as he gazed out the window, and Elizabeth chewing on her thumb and trying to remember not to chew on her thumb.

The Suit-of-the-Day, as Elizabeth had begun calling their security detail, drove through the gate, showing credentials to the guard before he dropped them off outside the front door.

“You need help, Mr. Darcy?” The Suit asked.

“No,” he snapped. He hoisted himself and his bandaged arm out of the car, slamming the door. Elizabeth hurried out the passenger side and up the stairs ahead of him. She turned to see him white-faced and drawn.

“You’re still not a hundred percent.” She laid a hand on his arm. “And you shouldn’t expect to be.”

“You’re not my wife, and you’re not my doctor. No need to dish out the warm, fuzzy sympathy.”

She drew her lips into a thin line, paused as if she were about to say something but thought better of it, and turned back to the door. She yanked it open and walked through, forcing Darcy to let himself in with his good arm.

The deputy director’s seventh-floor office was opulent but messy. Elizabeth had never met the man, but Darcy told her they had been co-workers back in the day, and the two men were still friends. She didn’t know how Darcy’s former colleague could be so completely opposite of him in work habits—Darcy’s surroundings were Spartan—but the space seemed functional for the unknown officer-turned-administrator who was only a year or so into this position.

Elizabeth stopped just inside the door, frozen in shock.

“Darcy!” Deputy Director Charles Bingley came in from another door behind his desk—looking remarkably well, Elizabeth thought. Better than he had the last time she had seen him, his arm around a fragile Johanna Bodnar in Vienna.

“Hello, Charles.”

“I have to say, I’m damn glad to see you in one piece and on the mend.”

“I’m glad to be seen.”

“I was afraid that phone call from East Berlin might be the last time we spoke.” He turned to Elizabeth. “And you’ve brought your go-to-officer in the field.”

“Which you already knew, given that you sent for both of us.”

“True enough. How are you, Liz Hertford? Or should I say, Elizabeth Bennet?”

“Charles?”

He gave her that quick, handsome grin of his.

“I…I can’t believe it. You’re Ambassador Hurst’s idle brother-in-law. Not…”

“It’s a good cover, isn’t it? Even the case officers don’t suspect me. Having Louis so high in the State Department has really helped, in more ways than one. Of course, it’s hard to hide from seasoned guys like this one.” He put a hand on Darcy’s good shoulder.

“What’s happened to our Alsómező friend?” She had been itching for news of Johanna Bodnar, and now she could get an update straight from the horse’s mouth.

“Ah, doing well, as far as I know,” he said hurriedly, glancing at Darcy.

“Is she in the States? Perhaps I could see her.”

“I think we could arrange something.” Bingley deftly changed the subject. “I feel compelled to thank you.” He pressed her hand in both of his. “Your service to your fellow officer here, and to the CIA, does you credit.”

“Thank you. I’m just glad it didn’t result in a star on Memorial Wall.”

He smiled. “Yes, we’re all pleased about that. Let’s sit down, shall we? We have a lot to discuss.” He led them across the office and opened a set of double doors leading to a conference room. A number of officers and security men gathered in groups of two or three, talking in soft tones, and a long table monopolized the space.

“Coffee please, Bridget,” Bingley murmured quietly to his assistant as he gestured Darcy and Elizabeth into the conference room with his arm. “After you.”

Darcy stepped in, and this time it was he who froze in his tracks. Elizabeth felt the resentment rolling off him in waves and the toxic vibe returned in equal measure. At the other end of the table sat George Wickham.

Well, this meeting is full of surprises.
Playing her part as Darcy’s colleague rather than Wickham’s, she took a seat and turned to hold out a chair for Darcy. He plopped in it, glaring furiously at Wickham, at Bingley, and then at the table in front of him.

Bingley joined them, pulling his chair up to the table.

“I appreciate you all being here today. Darcy, you especially—I know you still have some recovery ahead of you.”

Darcy nodded.

“We have had a situation arise—one that needs our immediate attention and, I think, a change in operations, at least for a while. George?”

Wickham cleared his throat. “There’s been some chatter over in the West German intelligence channels. Some rumors about a mole in the CIA. Those kinds of rumors aren’t new, but in light of recent events, they deserved some attention. In the messages from East to West Berlin, they refer to this mole as Wilhelm…”

Darcy interrupted. “That’s the name I was given by my assailant.”

Wickham went on as if Darcy hadn’t spoken. “While it’s possible that name was a plant of some kind to throw us off base, I think we have to consider that this Wilhelm may be a real threat. Not only that he might be real”—Wickham speared Elizabeth with a brief look—“we think he may be here.”

“Here—as in here in the States?” she asked.

“Here—as in here at Langley.”

“Impossible,” a voice piped up from the other side of the room. There was a collective roll of the eyes.

“Nothing’s impossible, Collins,” Wickham declared. “We know your favorite asset has weighed in on this, but other sources—”

“My Soviet contact in East Berlin, Ekaterina, insists that there is no Soviet intelligence officer within the walls of Langley. Due to her contacts within the KGB, she has intimate knowledge of the workings of the highest levels of the Soviet government. She…”

Elizabeth let her attention wander. Collins was always spouting off in one way or another about this “contact” who, in truth, was nothing more than the widow of a mid-level bureaucrat. Her information was rarely even relevant and almost never confirmed by the agency’s other sources.

“Uh, Collins, is it?” Bingley interrupted. “Be a good man, would you, and get a copy of your original report for me? I want to take another look at it.”

Several smirks were exchanged around the table. Elizabeth saw Collins take in the looks and almost thought she saw wheels turning for a second. His expression tightened into a mask of contempt that flickered and then died so quickly she might have imagined it. He beamed at Bingley. “Of course, sir, it’s in my office in the other building. It may take a while.”

“It could be important, so take your time, and bring me the complete report—and your notes.”

“My notes, sir?”

“Yes. I appreciate your effort.”

“Yes, sir!” He left the room.

“Thank God,” Darcy mumbled under his breath.

Bingley waited several seconds then buzzed his assistant. “Bridget, if he comes back before we’re finished, implement Code Eighteen.”

“Code Eighteen?” Elizabeth asked, confused.

“Director is playing a round of golf with some high-ranking official.”

Darcy sat back in his chair, eyeing Charles carefully. He still refused to make eye contact with George.

“This information could have been conveyed by phone or message. Why bring us down here?”

“There’s a new wrinkle in the situation.”

“Spell it out, Charles. I’m growing old waiting for you to give it to me straight.”

Charles sat back and studied his old friend as he spoke. “This attempt on your life, along with what happened in Prague and the close escape in Hungary, as well as other information I’m not at liberty to share with you yet, has led our analyst here”—he indicated Wickham—“to recommend that we put you under protection.”

“What?” He whirled around on Wickham. “Son-of-a-bitch! You’re recommending they take me out of the field?”

“Sit down, Darcy.” Bingley spoke sharply then softened his voice. “Please.” The men standing at the corners of the room tensed, ready to intervene. Darcy observed them and then looked around the room, realization dawning.

“You think I botched those assignments in Prague, in Hungary—on purpose? You think I’m Wilhelm? I’m some kind of…double agent?”

“Relax. No one thinks that.”

Darcy pointed at Wickham. “He does. He has for months, ever since Ramsgate.”

Wickham held up his hands, a show of surrender, but Elizabeth caught the smug little spark in his eyes.

Bingley interceded again. “I don’t think you’re a double agent—not by any stretch of the imagination. We are concerned, however, that you may have been the intended target of the abduction in Prague and a victim of the leak in Budapest. Obviously, you were the target in East Berlin. We need to get you out of the line of fire for a while until we can sort this out—figure out why in hell they want you so much.”

“I know a lot of people working across Europe. If the KGB could get that kind of information out of me…”

Wickham snorted.

“But this is Langley! What makes you think they would come after me here? I understand if I’m out in the field, but they won’t try to get to me in the US.”