Gant left her alone that day as he searched Berlin for her old associates. The business house was empty and wiped clean. The small group had completely disappeared, leaving no tracks of itself behind. Gant did as much as he could without arousing suspicion but he said little to Neeley about how his days were spent. She had enough awareness to realize that his place here was a cover; that he was beyond the Army, even beyond the classified Special Forces unit he was apparently assigned to in Berlin. A cover within a cover. There had been whispers among Jean-Philippe’s friends of a special American unit hidden in Berlin, but nothing specific.
After a few days, Neeley questioned Gant about his work. They were watching the news and there was more coverage of the crisis in Mogadishu, the failed raid and the attempts to get back the pilot.
"I had instructions to get the hell away for a while," he told her.
Neeley looked over from the television and President Clinton’s haggard face as he discussed what had gone wrong in Africa. "What does that mean?"
Gant pointed to the television. "That. That cluster-fuck. They just want me to disappear for a while. I think I might make it longer than just a while. I’ve got a strong suspicion they may not want me back at all."
As if sensing her surprise, Gant continued, "Look, Neeley, we've been thrown together and it's going to take us some time to figure out what we're doing. I've been thinking about some things and I want to talk to you about them. In the meantime, just understand that I did some work for the US government that those who gave the orders want to hide. I left what you would call the normal military a long time ago and I've been in the dark for so long it's hard to get used to talking at all. Another reason this house is empty.
"I've got only one real talent and it's the one my bosses needed the most. It's patience. I can sit in the same spot and wait. For days, weeks, even months if I have to. Then I can do what I'm told to do in an efficient manner. You're going to have to develop some patience. We have to sit quietly and come up with a plan. A good plan because we both have enemies out there in the world and we need to keep them off our backs. I’m not sure what exactly is going on and I don’t know if I ever will figure it all out, but my priority right now is our safety so I’m going to see what kind of deal I can get for us."
That night, she slipped out of the little bunk bed and tiptoed to the other bedroom. She put her hand on the knob and slowly turned. The door silently opened onto more darkness. She felt in the dark for the furniture and, finding the bed, moved around to climb under the covers. Gant was a still form lying on his back. She started to slide her hand down his stomach but he stopped her with a firm grasp of her wrist. Holding her hand in his, he pulled her until his warm body was spooned behind her. "Why are you here?" he whispered in her ear.
"Because you've been so good to me. Taken care of me."
"I don't take barter, Neeley."
She started to answer and he hushed her. "We'll call this rule number two. Never use your body when you can use your brain. And Neeley, next time you sneak up on someone in the dark, remember it's more than likely they have a gun pointed at your face. I'll let it slide tonight because that's how you learn. Now, get some sleep. Big day tomorrow."
Neeley heard the soft click of the pistol hammer being lowered, then Gant's other hand was wrapped around her, holding her tight.
The day after she had snuck into Gant's room, her life changed forever. Gant told her that both hers and his old lives were over. To try and go back would mean death.
A new identity would just be a way for her enemies to find her one day. Gant offered her a different life. A life in the shadows with him with no identity. She wouldn't need all the names and numbers that held the normal people to their place on the planet.
They disappeared together and started as teacher and pupil. They each had so much the other needed. Neeley remembered those years as physically exhausting yet intensely fulfilling. She traveled the world with Gant, learning the backdoors of most of the world's cities.
Gant's business he kept to himself and she didn't pry but she knew he received money each month. He told her he was retired, but she wondered at that. She knew the less he told her, the more he was protecting her in the perverse way of the covert world where black was white and white was black and things only made sense to those who could think very differently from the average person in the street. He didn’t tell her much about the Cellar, the organization he had worked for, just enough to let her know it existed.
The only constant was that Neeley learned and worked and sweated and every time she thought she couldn't possibly run another mile, do another pull up or strip down another weapon, Gant would be there, whispering encouragement sometimes, but always reminding her that she had to do it, she had no other choice. She had to be ready. It was strange, but Neeley had never pinned him down on what it was exactly she was supposed to be ready for. It just seemed a natural part of their strange life together to do all these things. It made the here and now important and deflected reflection on the past or concern about the future.
Now, driving through southern Connecticut, she still had no choice. She and Gant had been one. His legacy was all she had left. And it wasn't a legacy he could have just handed her. She would have to earn it as she had in the Bronx. She knew that as instinctively as she had known it was a bomb on her lap on that plane so many years ago.
Gant may have died, but she would go on. She would have to pick up all that he had once held and make it her own in order to protect herself. The money was the first part. John Masterson was the second.
Hannah wandered the house. Only the main floor. Not the upstairs. That reminded her too much of her earlier major failure. The room she had spent months on readying for the baby. And then the miscarriage that had stopped those plans and that work abruptly.
That brought another choked sob to her lips. If they’d had a child would John have stayed?
She stopped in front of the large mirror in the foyer, staring at herself. She didn’t have a clue why he had left; how could she know what would have made him stay? Her eyes shifted over her own shoulder to the wall behind her, the only one not coved in books. The photographs in the large frame. All of her and John. No one else. Not only no children, but no family for either of them.
She’d had no one blood relations and neither had he. Another lock to chain them together. Two orphans against the world. John had never talked about his past before he met her and she had had no desire to talk about hers either. It was as if by being together they could start with a fresh slate.
Hannah reached forward and placed her hands against the mirror, staring at the reflected palms that met her own. Another sob forced its way out her throat and she slid down to the floor, until she sitting in the foyer, her head against the glass, her palms still meeting the one of the crying woman the mirror showed.
After a few moments, she pushed herself away from the glass. She went into John’s home office, where he had spent many nights working late. She’d never gone through his stuff, an implicit agreement between them that his space was totally his own. What she had learned in Howard Brumley’s office removed that agreement. If John wasn’t coming back, then he had no rights in this house.
Hannah worked methodically, going drawer by drawer, file by file.
Nothing. No sign of a mistress, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, trouble at work, blackmail. Nothing that would explain his sudden departure.
There were a couple of odd things, though, that Hannah couldn’t figure out. One was a folder labeled H that held a thick sheaf of papers stapled together. On each page books were listed by title, author and publisher. Hannah recognized every title — they were the books that John had brought home to her over the years. Each one had a little check mark in pencil next to it. Where had he gotten such a list, she wondered. There was nothing else in the file other than the book list.