“There’s one more thing,” said Morgan. He took the memory card out of his pocket and laid it on the table in between himself and Conley. “I believe this is yours.”
Conley picked it up and examined it as if it were a precious jewel. “This has traveled a hell of a long way to make it back into my hands.”
“And now what are you going to do about it?” said Morgan.
“Nothing yet,” said Conley, as he stowed the plastic chip in a jacket pocket. “It’s not enough anymore. Especially now that we know for certain that we can’t trust the Agency. We have to sit on this until we know the whole picture, along with the things you took from Plante.”
Morgan nodded. “Then we know what the mission is.”
“Cougar and Cobra, together again, huh?” Conley was smiling wearily, despite himself.
“Cougar and Cobra,” said Morgan. He grinned, then looked over at Alex, sitting at the counter with her mother. “I need to go over there. I need to explain this to my daughter. About what happened. And about why we have to go.”
“Good luck,” said Conley sincerely.
Morgan walked slowly toward the counter, making sure that his daughter saw him approach. He stood with Jenny in between him and Alex. “Hi, I . . .” he said, trailing off, without knowing what to say.
Alex looked up, her moist, puffy, bloodshot eyes expressing both devastation and defiance.
Jenny tenderly kissed her daughter’s head and got up. “I’ll let you two talk,” she said, excusing herself.
Morgan sat down on the stool beside Alex. She looked down at her plate, pushing a soggy fry around with a toothpick. He didn’t know what to say. Morgan could go into a war zone and face off against the deadliest men on the planet without a second thought. He had undertaken missions that endangered his life again and again. By the odds, he should have died five times over by now. He had come out of all that alive, and on all those assignments, fear had never hampered him. And yet, here she was, a still-impressionable teenage girl, and he was terrified to speak to her.
She sure wasn’t giving him an opening. Well, he thought, taking a deep breath, I just have to go for it. “Look, kiddo,” he started, “there are lots of things I wish I had done differently. One is that I should have trusted you with my secret. I should have told you years ago, and I’m sorry I didn’t.” He paused for breath. Her eyes, still looking the other way, showed the slightest signs of softening.
“Back at the cabin . . . you saw a side of me that I hoped you would never know, and I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat. “But I have never been sorry about anything I did to protect this country and my family. And in the end, it’s really about you, because you’re the most important person in the world to me. You and your mother. Did you know that?”
She didn’t look up, but a tear rolled from her eye and dropped from her cheek to the counter, her aloofness melting. Her shoulders were hunched, and her hands were no longer playing with the plate but were in her lap. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” she said bitterly. “That you did all those horrible things for my sake?” She looked away, sniffling.
Morgan took a deep breath. “I’ve got to go away tomorrow, early in the morning. It will be hard for me, because all I want is to stay with you and watch over you. But I have to go to protect you, and I might not make it back. That’s something I was always aware of, on every mission I went on. After I met your mother, I had to tell her, every time I left on a mission, everything I wanted to say to her, because I knew I might not get another chance. So I’ll say this to you, Alex. If I never talk to you again, if you never forgive me or understand me, just know that I love you, more than anything, and that everything I did, I did it thinking about what was best for you.”
She didn’t respond, didn’t look up, just sat there, choking on her sobs. He sighed, got up, and before he walked away, heard her say, quietly, “I love you, too, Dad. I just don’t like you anymore.”
He sighed. It would have to do.
CHAPTER 30
Lester Hodges checked his watch, but it was more a gesture of irritation than anything else. He had been sitting at his table for two at La Martine for over half an hour, and that was forty-five minutes longer than he was willing to wait for anyone, especially a punk junior senator from Pennsylvania. A waiter silently refilled his water glass. Hodges tapped the empty glass that had contained his gin and tonic. “Another one,” he grunted. “And don’t be stingy with the booze this time.”