She dove in harder, but Morgan was damned if he would let her win. He made the decision within himself that he would not pull away. Too late, he realized that they were both too stubborn and neither was going to swerve. Rather than hit her head-on, Morgan twisted sideways. Her glider clipped his wing with a loud ugly scrape, and a large chunk of carbon fiber flew down into the gloom. Morgan began to spin out of control, everything turning into a blur, falling, falling straight down. He felt like he was going to puke.
There was a whoosh, and a hard yank on Morgan’s armpits, and he was suddenly right side up. He had reached the minimum altitude, and his parachute had self-deployed. He got his bearings and was trying to keep the nausea down when he saw a glider fly past at a safe distance in front of him from left to right.
“See you at the base, Cobra!” Spartan taunted through the comm. He couldn’t help chuckling even as he slowly drifted toward the ground, watching the four remaining gliders, which quickly moved far enough away to become no more than dots against the lightening sky.
CHAPTER 14
Andover, January 3
Morgan got home in the late morning, physically fatigued but mentally energized. The flight had been deliriously exhilarating, and while he had mostly come down from the high, it had put him in a state of relaxed alertness. He walked from the garage into the kitchen feeling ravenous, not having eaten for many hours. As he tossed strawberries and papaya into the blender cup, he spotted Alex reclining on the sofa, reading a book.
He still hadn’t gotten a chance to speak with her since he’d come back from Hungary, and since he had told Jenny that he was back in the game. He had kept everything from Alex before. But before, she had been too young and perhaps too innocent to hear. She had still been his little girl. Now, he felt compelled to let her know what was going on. And he figured he might as well tell her now. He ran the blender and poured the result into a cup. He then moved into the living room and sat across from his daughter.
“Hey, Dad,” she said, without looking up from her books.
“Hey, honey. What are you up to?”
“Just unwinding,” she said with a light yawn. She put her book down on the coffee table and sat up. “You look a bit tired”
“I guess I am.” There was a moment of tranquil silence between them, and then Morgan said, “Alex, I need to tell you something.”
She stiffened, looking concerned. “What’s up, Dad?”
“Well, the truth is,” he said, shifting in his seat, “I haven’t been honest with you about what I’ve been doing.”
“Is this about the spy thing?” she broke in. “Because I already know about that. Mom told me.”
“Oh,” he said. He wasn’t expecting that. He’d thought she would have far more of a reaction.
“I’m kind of relieved, actually. You’ve been kind of AWOL lately, coming home in the middle of the night and all that. You could be doing a lot worse than going out and fighting bad guys.”
“I guess that’s true,” he chuckled, relaxing against the sofa and taking a sip from his glass. “Well, I was prepared to have to explain myself to you. I had all this stuff I was going to say to justify myself. . . .”
“You can still say it if you’d like,” she said with a gentle grin.
He laughed. “No, that’s fine. But I guess . . . is there anything else you want to know? I’ll tell you if I can.”
“Well,” she said, leaning forward, “is it the CIA?”
He shook his head.
“Who is it?”
“I can’t say.”
“I guess you can’t tell me many details, huh? Like who it is and what you’re involved in? Are you working on the . . . stuff that’s going on right now? The attacks?”
“I can’t really tell you that either.”
“I hope so,” she said, with a suddenly steely-cold glint in her eye. “I hope you get them and make them pay. They deserve it.” Morgan was taken aback by her reaction. She had always been a gentle soul, opposed to all violence, aggression, and revenge, always ready to believe the best of everyone. “I guess I shouldn’t have offered, huh?” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “Turns out there isn’t much I can tell you after all.”
“Well . . .” she began.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe there’s something you can tell me,” she said, like she’d had something in mind.
“Maybe there is,” he said.
“I’ve been wondering . . . how do you manage to do it?” she said.
“Do what?”