“And those two men who came to our house, they were from the CIA?” she asked him, as she pulled the end of the bandage taut and taped it.
“I think so,” he said. “But they’re not the ones I’m worried about. They wouldn’t have had clearance to kill. They would have just brought you in. The one I’m really worried about is the one who attacked me in Afghanistan.”
“You said it was a woman you recognized?” asked Jenny.
“Yes. She’s a Russian spy who turned double agent for the CIA many years ago. I originally helped to turn her to our side.” He didn’t feel compelled to tell her their shared history in any further detail. “Now she’s hunting me because I have information that could hurt her and whoever she’s working for.” He looked into his wife’s eyes. “Jenny, this . . . I never wanted this for us. That’s why I quit. I never wanted to put you and Alex into danger.”
His wife sighed and looked down, frowning. “I know, Dan. But you did. You got back into it all over again. And now here we are.”
There was a long silence. Neika walked over to Morgan, her nails clicking on the wooden floor, and licked his hands. He stroked her along her back, over her sleek black fur.
“So what now?” said Jenny.
He knew she wouldn’t like his answer to that question. “I need to keep digging into this.”
“Dan . . .” she pleaded.
“Whatever’s going on, Jen, it’s big, and it involves some very powerful people.”
“I think I’m missing the part where that means you need to be involved. Isn’t that an excellent reason to stay away?”
“But I already am involved. I’m in deep, Jenny. They want to kill me. How much more involved could I be? The only hope now is to keep digging until I come out the other side. That’s the only way that we can ever go back. If I don’t, we’ll be running for the rest of our lives. I could deal with it, but I wouldn’t do that to you and Alex. They just used you to get to me, and I have no doubt that they would do it again in a heartbeat. I don’t want you and Alex living like fugitives.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t, either. I’m just not always sure it’s really about us.”
“What are you saying?”
“I know you were in love with this job, and I know how much you miss it. Are you telling me that having had to leave it behind isn’t affecting your decision at all here?”
Morgan was surprised by her suggestion, even more so because he was worried that she might be right. He did love the excitement. He couldn’t deny that he felt more alive now than he had since his days in Black Ops. He had a purpose and a drive that had been missing in him for years since he had quit. And he couldn’t deny that that was what had attracted him to the life of espionage and what had first led him to become Cobra. Had the killer within him taken over? Was the excitement more important to him now than his own family?
“No,” he said. “I can’t deny that I always loved it. But I never forgot where my loyalties are. I never lost sight of my responsibility to you, to Alex, and to my country. I never did anything that I didn’t think would make the world a better place.”
Jenny nodded, but it was clear from her expression that she did not entirely believe him. “Just be careful you don’t end up losing your family while you’re off making a better world,” she said, and she turned away to prod at the smoldering fire.
CHAPTER 25
Alex walked down the dirt road, crushing the incipient undergrowth beneath her boots. She wept, and it made the afternoon light and everything around her misty, the whole world quivering through her tears. But she pressed forward without destination, doggedly refusing to look back.
Even though she was sixteen and entitled to some rebellion, she had never spoken to her dad like that before. It hurt her, like she had willfully broken something precious. And at the same time, her rage at his deception, at the details of his secret life, burned inside her.
It was like he was two different people, and she couldn’t join both conceptions of him in her mind. She loved her father. But a killer? Could that really be him? It seemed impossible to square this with the loving, doting, if often absent father she had always known. She couldn’t conceive of him being both.
And even if she did manage to, what was she supposed to do, anyway? On the one hand, he was her father. And he was a good father, a good man. She knew that. What right did she have to doubt him like this? How could she do anything but love him and trust him? But, on the other hand, what good were her political convictions if she didn’t stick by them now, when they mattered most?