She shrugged. “Not that big. I have two sisters, one older and one younger, and one older brother.”
Thorn smiled crookedly. “As an only child, that sounds like a pretty big family to me.” He took a drink, remembering the long evenings and quiet holidays. “I used to wonder what it would be like to have brothers and sisters. But I guess I wouldn’t trade my relationship with my dad for anything. It seems like he and I did everything together when I was growing up. Hiking… kayaking… skiing… riding, you name it.”
Helen shook her head. “Your dad sounds like quite a guy.” She hesitated. “What about your mom?”
Thorn felt his jaw tighten. “I don’t have a mother. Haven’t had one since I was a kid.”
“Oh, I’m sorry… Did she die?”
He paused, undecided about how much to tell her. They were treading in very private waters. On the other hand, he felt intuitively that he could trust this woman. “No, actually my mother left us when I was eleven after my dad came home from Nam. She said she needed more ‘space,’ that she had ‘grown up’ while he was overseas. I’m not sure either my dad or I ever really understood what she meant by that. We pretty much lost contact with her and learned to manage on our own.”
Thorn stopped almost abruptly, somewhat embarrassed at having revealed so much. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound bitter. It may have been a blessing in disguise. I probably got away with taking all sorts of crazy risks with just my dad looking after me. After she left, my dad wangled a transfer to Fort Carson, Colorado, for a couple of years.”
He pushed the conversation and his memories on to more pleasant ground. “That wasn’t a bad place to grow up, really. I rode horses all year round and skied in the winter. Heck, I even cross-country-skied to school. It was great. And then when I was thirteen we moved to Tehran so my dad could help train the Iranian Army…”
The stories of some of his teenage adventures and misadventures in Iran’s crowded capital lightened the mood considerably. But Thorn suddenly realized he’d been monopolising the conversation for far too long. He made a frantic bid to turn the spotlight back on her before she decided she had been trapped by an egomaniac. “What about you? Where did you grow up?”
“Nowhere quite so glamorous, I’m afraid.” Helen’s smile took the sting out of her words. “We lived in Indianapolis, where my dad was an executive with the phone company. Probably what you’d call a typical suburban existence. I had all the advantages of a close family, good schools with teachers who cared about me, and wonderful friends.”
She grinned broadly. “I’m practically a poster child for solid midwestern values.”
Thorn snorted. “Right. Lots of suburban girls go on to careers as an FBI commando.”
Helen spread her hands. “Well, of course, since I was the third kid I was always jockeying for position in the family And while my sisters fulfilled my mother’s dream by becoming charming, pretty girls who married well, I was always chasing after my brother and building forts in the backyard. I think sending me to cotillion was a last-ditch effort by my parents to make me suitable company for men.” She laughed. “Little did they know that I’d choose a profession where I’m almost exclusively surrounded by men!”
Suddenly, Helen’s watch beeped. Thorn saw her stiffen and then relax.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Eleven o’clock. I’m afraid I have to leave soon.”
“Does your ride turn into a pumpkin at 2400 hours or something?”
She chuckled. “No. But I do have an 0400 wake-up call, courtesy of your Sergeant Major Diaz. He’s challenged my team to a rematch.”
Thorn shook his head moumfully. “Remind me to see if I can get Diaz transferred to an Arctic weather station.” He looked seriously at her.
“I’d really like the chance to see you again.” “I’m based at Quantico,” she said quietly.
“That’s not very far from Washington, is it?” he asked.
“No.” The smile reached her eyes again. “It’s not.” They stood up to go. “I hope you’ll call me.”
Thorn nodded seriously. “You can count on it.”
He watched her go, slipping through the crowd with a dancer’s grace. She turned once, looked back at him, smiled one last time, and then vanished.
He shook his head, completely baffled. How had she got him to talk about his family and his childhood? Those were not things he usually discussed at the drop of a hat. Especially not to someone he’d just met. And just what the hell had he said? Whenever he tried to recall the conversation in detail, he remembered little more than a blur of voices and those warm blue eyes.
“A hell of a woman…” he murmured.
Helen Gray was still remembering the way he’d smiled back at her from across the room. Still holding her wineglass, she moved off to find Louisa Farrell and say her goodbyes.
The general’s wife found her first.
“Well,” she said, nodding back toward the knot of officers standing near the doorway. “What did you think of Peter Thorn?”
“He’s an interesting man.” Helen took a last sip of wine, carefully considering her response. “A very interesting man.”
CHAPTER 6
INFILTRATION
“Senior administration officials that the most interesting development at this U.N. conference on security and international development is something that wasn’t on the official agenda at alclass="underline" a series of private meetings between U.S. Secretary of State Austin Brookes and his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Ahmad Adeli. Sources close to both governments have characterised these meetings the first between high-ranking American and Iranian officials in more than ten years as surprisingly cordial and productive.”
Colonel Peter Thorn turned his head toward the open bathroom door and paused with his hands halfway through the convoluted process of turning a thin strip of colored silk into a perfectly knotted necktie. He’d left the television on both out of habit and from a desire for some noise to break the silence enveloping his rented town house.
“During the talks, Minister Adeli is said to have confirmed his government’s hopes for the eventual restoration of full diplomatic and commercial ties with the United States. Apparently, only the fear of angering Islamic radicals still entrenched in the Iranian Parliament remains a minor stumbling block.
“Appearing before reporters this afternoon, the usually reserved American Secretary of State seemed a different man smiling broadly and even cracking a few jokes with members of the press. If these reports are accurate, it’s not hard to understand his newly expansive mood. Long under fire for his dull personality and haphazard management style, Austin Brookes must be savoring the prospect of achieving the high-profile diplomatic victory denied his predecessors in three previous administrations.
“This is Terrence Nakamura, reporting live from Geneva, Switzerland, for CNN.”
Thorn snorted and finished knotting his tie. Uninterested in world currency fluctuations, he tuned out the rest of the broadcast. He didn’t know whether to be amused or simply disgusted. Like most lawyers and all politicians, the Secretary of State was only too happy to claim credit for the work done by others. If General Amir Taleh hadn’t had the guts to smash the radical hold on his own government, Brookes and the rest of his State Department stuffed shims would still be at receptions passing each other glasses of dry sherry aRt drier position papers.
He shrugged his momentary irritation away. You couldn’t change the ways of politicians any more than you could repeal the laws of physics.