Hope soared inside her like a rocket taking off. Fran hadn’t given up on her, after all.
She had to be here to rescue Ami.
Her hopes crashed and burned like a doomed airliner. But what about Michal?
Utter fear slammed into her then. Had the CIA been watching, witnessing her full confession to Michal?
That was it, she realized with rising dread.
Fran was here to kill her.
Ami shifted into an upright position, preparing to run like hell if Fran came near the bed.
But she didn’t. She flitted around the rest of the room, dusting, rearranging, tidying anything that looked out of place. Finally, Thomas resumed his seat on the sofa and his captivation with the news. He didn’t have the vaguest clue what hit him when Fran brought the ceramic table lamp down onto his head. She then brushed her hands together and said, “Well, that’s that.”
Ami leaped from the bed, her destination the door.
Before she could make heads or tails of the cleaning cart’s sudden shaking and shifting, Jack Tanner emerged from it. One look at Ami was all it took for him to know total hysteria had hit.
“We’re here to help you,” he said quickly, stepping into her path when his sudden appearance failed to do more than slow her down.
“Get out of my way,” she yelled, shoving him as hard as she could. She wanted to scream at him for what he had allowed to happen. She wanted to demand answers. But there was no time. Michal might need her. She had to get back to him.
“I’ve got your son…” he began.
She barreled into him with the full force of her weight. “You bastard.” She lashed out. “Haven’t you done enough already? What else do you people want?” She stood there, directly in front of him, her whole body shaking with emotions too strong and too numerous to name.
He reached for her, but she stumbled back from his grasp. “It’s not what you think.”
“I know what it is,” she snapped. “You want both Michal and me dead.”
“We’re wasting time,” Fran put in, tapping the watch she wore on her left wrist and looking pointedly from Tanner to Ami. “Nicholas is waiting.”
Ami swiveled toward the woman, ready to tear into her, as well. “How could you taunt me that way? I thought you understood-”
Fran cocked an impatient eyebrow. “I do. Now let’s get out of here before sleeping beauty over there wakes up and we have to do permanent damage.”
For the first time since she’d recognized the CIA operative, Ami realized she was serious about helping. “My son is here?”
The mere idea sent warmth and relief flooding through her, weakening her knees, very nearly overwhelming her.
“That’s what Jack has been trying to tell you,” she said succinctly. “Now, let’s get a move on.”
At the door Ami hesitated, she looked straight into Tanner’s eyes and demanded the truth. “What about Michal?”
For two excruciatingly long beats Tanner didn’t respond, then he made her worst fears a reality.
“He’s dead.”
THE JOURNEY to the basement was made in a kind of shocked silence. Ami didn’t speak, she scarcely breathed. She was capable of nothing. Tanner, with one arm around her shoulder, ushered her forward as necessary, forcing her legs to make the required movements.
Michal was dead.
Nicholas would never know him.
And somehow, even though she didn’t fully understand it, she was partly to blame.
She had been the bait, of that she was certain now.
She didn’t need Tanner or Fran to spell it out for her. In two years they had not been able to bring him down, but once they’d brought her into the picture, the feat had proved painfully simple.
A shudder worked its way through her when she considered that the whole Nathan Olment thing could have been an elaborate setup. Tanner had told her she was one of theirs. Had she simply lain dormant-a sleeper, so to speak-until they needed her back in action?
None of it mattered now.
It was too late.
Michal was dead.
Tears rolled down her cheeks and she attempted to console herself with the realization that she was finally going to see her child again. But even that left a gaping wound in her heart.
Tanner stopped next to a long black SUV and opened the rear passenger door. “We’ll-”
The tip of a gun barrel suddenly pressed against his temple.
Ami gasped.
Tanner froze.
Fran had taken a position, her legs spread wide, her gun held in firing position and aimed directly at the interloper.
Michal Arad.
“Let her go,” Michal said harshly, his weapon cocked and ready to fire.
“I thought you were dead,” Tanner argued, a frown creasing his brow as he attempted to reason the situation.
“Obviously you were wrong,” Michal countered hotly. “Now, let her go.”
“You don’t understand,” Tanner hastened to explain, “we’re taking her to her child.”
“Drop the weapon, Arad,” Fran suggested. “Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret.”
He looked at Fran then. “This has nothing to do with you. It is between him-” he jerked his head toward Tanner “-and me.”
Fran shrugged and lowered her weapon. “You’re right.”
Tanner gaped at her. “What the hell-”
“Let her go,” Michal repeated, halting whatever Tanner intended to rant.
“They used him,” Fran reminded Tanner. “He didn’t deserve a termination order and you know it.” She said the last with more ferocity than Ami had heard her use before.
Tanner had known Michal wasn’t a bad guy? Shock radiated through Ami all over again. That meant the CIA knew…
Clearly recognizing when he was outnumbered, Tanner released her. Ami went immediately to Michal. She thrust her arms around him and held him close, determined to hear for herself the steady beat of his heart.
“Before you die,” Michal said to Tanner, “you will tell Ami all that you and your people did to her.”
Fran leaned against a nearby car. “Might as well get comfortable. This is going to take a while.”
Too thankful for Michal’s safety to care one iota about the rest of the conversation, Ami clung to him, sending up silent prayers of gratitude.
“Tell her,” Michal ordered savagely.
Startled by the savagery in Michal’s tone, Ami shifted her attention to him and then to Tanner. Anticipation spiked. He was finally going to tell her the truth. She could see the defeat in his eyes.
Her disbelief growing with every sentence he strung together, Ami listened as Tanner described her innocuous life as a med school student. The loss of her mother and the long-standing, deep-seated dislike for her father. Then, visibly reluctant, he told her the rest. The way her cover as Jamie Dalton had been initiated. The whole crazy scheme. Down to the fact that he had known she was alive all along, had been the one to rescue her.
When at last he’d finished, Ami did the only thing she could. She slapped him hard. Wanted the sting to go on and on until the quake shook loose some sense of compassion in him.
What he’d done had been wrong.
But it was over now. If what he’d told her was true and he’d brought her baby back to her, she could forgive him most anything.
“Where’s my child?” she demanded, ready to do him bodily harm yet again.
To his credit, he didn’t step back. He took it like a man. “Get in.” He tossed a challenging glare in Michal’s direction. “You, too. I’ll take you both to Nicholas.”
Michal inclined his head toward Fran. “She will take us to my son. The only place you’re going is to hell.” He tightened his grip around his weapon.
“Wait!” Ami pulled back and peered up at Michal. “He only followed orders. Killing him won’t make any of this right.” Her voice grew even more pleading then. “I just want to see my baby.”
“Besides,” Tanner put in, “the two of you need me.”
Michal made a sound of disbelief. “And how have you reached that ridiculous conclusion?”