Vortex by Catherine Coulter

Olivia

32 Willard Avenue

McLean, Virginia

Monday evening

Olivia was bone-tired. She’d been released from Walter Reed a week before and still, she felt drained so quickly. She wouldn’t be cleared to go back to work until the headaches from her concussion stopped. At least she wasn’t still in the hospital. Tonight, she and Andi Creamer had shared pizza at Benny’s Pies, close enough to Olivia’s house to be an easy drive for her. Andi, with her spiked black hair and hazel eyes, was as tough as her field boots. She was also one of the smartest operatives Olivia had ever worked with, decisive and hard to beat hand to hand. You wanted her to have your back. They’d been good friends since they’d trained at the CIA Farm together five years before. They spoke of Tim Higgs, who’d been wounded in the leg during the Iran mission and was in Maine visiting his parents. They spoke of Hashem Jahandar, the Iranian undercover operative who’d died, and toasted him. His name would soon grace the Wall of Stars at Langley. And they wondered how it was possible Iranian military knew where they’d be. They didn’t have to say it out loud; they knew they were lucky they wouldn’t have their own stars on the wall next to his.

Of course they spoke of Mike, where he might be, why he hadn’t reported in to Langley to debrief with Mr. Grace, and what had happened to him. Olivia knew something had happened and it scared her to her toes. She wished she could have flown back to the States with him—as least she’d have been close by—but they had wanted to keep her in Balad for another couple of days before flying her back to Walter Reed Hospital. And he’d simply disappeared. Langley’s greatest concern, it seemed to Olivia, wasn’t for Mike’s safety, but for the missing flash drive Hashem had pressed into his hand before he died. Oh yes, Langley was trying to find him, as were all his friends, but they wanted the flash drive first and foremost. Olivia herself had called his cell dozens of times, pestered Mr. Grace with questions, but he told her she was on leave for a reason, to rest and not to worry. They would find Mike Kingman. But she was scared for him, and angry because she’d heard there were suspicions about Mike at Langley. Were they idiots? Mike would never do anything to hurt the agency or the United States. She was frustrated and hated her body for holding her back, and all she could do was worry and be afraid for him. It all hovered over her like a black cloud.

Olivia drove slowly back toward home, cursing the constant fatigue pulling at her. She turned on loud rock to keep herself alert. She couldn’t help it, she turned and drove to Mike’s condo in Western Heights, not far from her own house. She’d been told to drive only when absolutely necessary. She was to rest, let her body heal, but she had to knock on Mike’s front door, peer in the windows. No sign of him.

She remembered Mike being there when she was half conscious in the hospital in Balad, the soft cadence of his voice, the warmth of his hand when he’d held hers, the feel of his mouth when he’d kissed her forehead, her lips, but she couldn’t remember his words, or if he’d even spoken to her. Before she was flown back to Walter Reed, one of her nurses told her she really liked her visitor and gave a little shudder. “Tall, dark, and delicious,” she’d said. Without a doubt that was Mike.

Olivia rested her forehead against the steering wheel at a red light. Over and over, she thought, Where are you, Mike? Why won’t you call me? If you’re not all right, I’ll kick your butt.

She remembered another firefight two years ago in a small ISIS-held town three hundred miles north of Damascus; she and Mike, on another mission, had ended up in the middle of the fighting, when again, they’d nearly died. They’d briefly become lovers then, to reaffirm being alive, she supposed. He’d been part of her life for three years, sometimes sharing her missions, sometimes her bed. But he’d slowly become more, she realized now. He’d become important, vital. Olivia hated being afraid, hated being helpless, hated not knowing.

She turned toward home. Her head began to throb, thankfully not as bad as the day before. She hated taking the pills the doctors had given her; they made her brain feel too fuzzy. As she left her MINI Cooper in her driveway, she heard Helmut barking madly behind the front door as she walked up the flagstone steps she’d laid herself six months before. He recognized her car, her footsteps.

She forgot her headache when she unlocked the door and eighty-five pounds of golden retriever jumped in her arms, licking her everywhere he could reach. She was glad he hadn’t knocked her on her butt with his love because she was still weak and it was close. She hugged him, whispered against his soft coat, “Yes, yes, Mama’s home. I was only gone for an hour, not back from Iraq again. You’re my beautiful boy, and I swear, tomorrow morning you and I will go to the dog park and I’ll throw your mangy ball until one of us collapses, and that would be me. Yes, okay, and I’ll get you a new chew rope.” She’d worried Helmut wouldn’t want to leave her friend Julia, who’d kept him while she’d been away. But when he’d seen Olivia, his joy was boundless.

Olivia slowly stood up and looked around her small entry hall into the living room through a graceful arch to her right. She’d fallen in love with the arches that framed every room, and several of the windows as well. The clincher was the big fenced backyard for Helmut. She signed her life away for this perfect little house tucked into a mess of oak trees next to Clifford Park. Three years ago now. Both she and Helmut were very happy with her purchase.

She wanted nothing more than to collapse into her bed. Still, she made her rounds out of longtime habit, checking the window locks in each of the rooms as she pulled down the shades, closed the draperies.

With Helmut at her heels, she walked back to her second mortgage—her marvel of a kitchen—opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of mineral water. She drank deeply to the sound of Helmut’s tail thumping like a metronome on the kitchen pavers.

She smiled. He loved sparkling water too. She poured the rest of the water into his bowl and watched him lap it up. “There you go, my man.”

Thirty minutes later, Olivia was in bed with Helmut sprawled on his back at the foot of it. She knew by morning, he’d be sleeping beside her, his head on the pillow next to hers, sometimes with the covers pulled to his neck. How he managed that, she didn’t know. She’d emailed photos of him snoring on his back to her family and friends. She remembered Mike laughing his head off. He’d met Helmut, thrown a football for him, roughhoused with him. Olivia sighed, forced herself to turn it off. She had to get well, and that meant long stretches of rest.

Olivia was sleeping deeply when she was jerked awake by a low growl from Helmut against her cheek. She laid her palm on his neck, whispered, “What is it? What did you hear?” She’d seen several foxes racing through the trees by the park at night. But Helmut was trained and he was smart. It didn’t matter that she lived in a quiet neighborhood, she wasn’t going to ignore his warning. It had been drilled into her at the Farm, when she’d first joined the CIA, to be cautious, to always double-check. Olivia slipped out of bed, pulled on her wool robe and sneakers, picked up her Glock from beside her cell phone on the bedside table, and walked slowly to the living room, Helmut as silent as a ghost at her heels, as he’d been trained. She went down on her knees and gently lifted the bottom edge of the drapery with the muzzle of her Glock, looked outside. It was dark, no moon or stars to give her any light. She scanned the trees out toward the park. Helmut’s tail thumped on the floor. Time passed. She was turning to pet him when she saw a quick flash of light, gone in an instant, as if a palm had quickly covered a flashlight. Her brain went to red alert. She was immediately operational. Someone was out there, and that was all she needed to know. She eased down the drapery, moved away from the window, Helmut beside her.

She dressed quickly in sweats and boots, shrugged on a thick dark overcoat, pulled a black watch cap out of her coat pocket and covered her hair. She realized she was shaking from the damnable weakness and cursed her body. Didn’t matter, she’d gut it out, find out who was out there. Olivia went down on her knees and looked into Helmut’s eyes. “You’ve done your job. This isn’t practice. Stay, sit quietly until I tell you to come.” He immediately sat on his haunches, but he didn’t look happy. She gave him a quick squeeze and moved as quickly as her body allowed through the kitchen, threw the dead bolt, and eased out the back door.

Olivia walked quietly around the side of the house, her Glock at the ready. There was only a slight wind, barely stirring the stark branches of the red oak trees, but it was icy cold, hovering toward freezing.

She stopped at the front corner of her house, eased down on her knees, looked toward where she’d spotted the flash of light.

She quieted her breathing and eased herself into the night sounds around her, listening for anything that didn’t belong. And she heard it, a man’s voice speaking a few words of English in a near whisper before he switched to Farsi. She strained to make out his words, but couldn’t.

Another man whispered back in English, but again his words were muffled, indistinct. Then she heard them moving toward the house.

Olivia’s blood pumped hot and wild but her brain was calm, focused. She went down flat on her belly so there was no chance they’d see her. She smiled. Come to Mama, boys.

When the two dark shadows reached the front door, they tried to avoid the porch light but she saw both were dressed in black, their faces covered, and both carried guns with suppressors. Olivia slowly rose and shouted, “Drop your weapons. You know who I am, and you know I will shoot you.”

The taller man dropped to his knees and fired until his magazine was empty, but she was already belly-flat against the ground again and the shots went well above her. She fired twice, watched him fall beside the front steps. The other man was backing up fast, firing, then he turned and ran back into the trees. She fired after him, but she didn’t hit him.