More Than Gold (Capitol Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  She looked at him. "Still in the line of fire."

  CHAPTER 2

  Jack followed her line of sight. The headlights of two cars darted in and out of the trees. They drove slowly and sprayed a searchlight into the woods. They were obviously looking for someone and Jack knew he and Morgan were the prime suspects.

  "Climb the tree," he commanded. She didn't question his authority, but started up the trunk. Jack did the same. They'd just made it into the leaves when the light swept the trunk. Jack put his hand on her waist to stop her. They settled in the arms of two branches, her body pressed into his, and waited, peering through the leaves, neither saying a word.

  The cars rolled by slowly, continuing to search as they moved down the road. Jack and Morgan remained hidden in the branches, rigidly alert. When the car went around the curve in the road, Morgan relaxed against Jack. He felt the tension in her body leave it. He slipped his arms around her, securing her to his chest. He told himself it was to keep her from falling, but Jack knew he wanted to hold her. It had been twelve years since he'd had his arms around her. He thought he could forget her, but throughout his career she'd made several appearances in faraway places during long nights and in his dreams. She hadn't known it and she never would. He could keep her safe, but that's all he could do.

  Jack looked through the branches, after the car. It was no longer visible. He waited, turning to look in the other direction, wondering if there were more vehicles. From the gunfire that slammed into the house, there had to be more than two cars. Jack had counted more than seven handguns, an equal number of rifles, more assault weapons than should be on the streets of a major city, let alone a small community like St. Charles, Missouri. The noise from the rapidly firing guns muffled the other machinery. He couldn't make out how many other types there were. Who were they? What did they want?

  Morgan moved suddenly. She inched away from him to begin her descent to the ground.

  "Not yet," he said, restraining her. Moments later a pickup truck sped past them. In its wake, it bent the branches of nearby bushes to the ground. Before they could snap back, another car came behind it, barreling forward with the same intense speed. Morgan shrank back against Jack. Her arms tightened around his waist. She lay in his arms, her head pressed against his shoulder.

  Ten minutes later they were still holding each other. Jack felt it was safe to move.

  "We should get going," he said.

  They climbed down without a word. Morgan struck out immediately in the direction the trucks had gone.

  "Where are you going?" he asked.

  "I have a car," she told him. "I'm going to get it."

  Jack's car was back at her house. He hadn't parked in front of the house. The car was several hundred feet from the entrance to her driveway. He'd walked the remaining distance. It was a cautionary action. Jack had been part of the CIA too long to get caught with his pants down, but today seemed a blunder he hadn't been prepared for. Thankfully, Morgan had an escape plan. Jack admitted he was impressed with Morgan. Few women he'd known would even have an escape plan, or the presence of mind to keep their heads in the wake of certain death. Jack had thought of Morgan as the vulnerable nineteen-year-old who needed looking after, but she proved him wrong and he admired her for it.

  "How far is this car?''

  "About a mile from here." She walked with purpose, the backpack not slowing her gait one bit. Jack matched her stride. She left the road where the cars had been and continued her trek through the woods.

  It was totally dark and only his keen night vision and training made it easy for him to see where he was going.

  "Why don't you tell me what's going on?" Jack asked.

  "Didn't Jacob fill you in?"

  "He had no time."

  "Why not? I sent the message two days ago."

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her to a halt. "I only found out today."

  Her eyes changed. They were barely visible in the darkness, but he saw the difference before she moved her gaze to his hand. He let her go. He had the feeling she knew he'd rushed to her side, but then he dropped the idea. She couldn't know. They hadn't seen each other for twelve years. She remembered him from the Olympics, but she had no knowledge that he'd come here as soon as he discovered she could be in danger.

  "Twelve years ago I didn't just go to the Olympics." She started walking again. "I helped the government get a man out of a South Korean prison."

  Jack knew this. He'd been part of the mission. In fact, her actions had been the direct result of his own idea, one he no longer regretted, but had from the very first thought should have been used only as a final solution.

  "Now someone is trying to kill me."

  "Twelve years is a long time. Why did they wait until now?''

  "I don't know. Olympic fever. Maybe they didn't know where I was. Maybe something has happened to trigger this action." She glanced at him, never breaking her stride. "I only know they started playing that tape and Austin Fisk showed up."

  "Fisk."

  "You know him?"

  Jack's instinct was to deny it. He denied everything. It was ingrained in him. If he were ever captured in a foreign country, he was to deny knowledge of anything except his cover. The problem here was he had no cover and he felt more and more vulnerable the longer he stayed in Morgan Kirkwoods' presence.

  "I know of him. We've never met."

  "But. . ." she prompted.

  "But he's tenacious, not likely to let a fish go once he's got it on the hook."

  "And he's trying to hook me."

  The ground they were covering flattened out and Morgan increased her pace. He checked her breathing, but she looked as if this was a country stroll on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. Finally they came to a fence. Without hesitation she scaled the twelve feet to the top and used her backpack to cover the circular barbed wire. Jack noticed the small black and white sign stating U.S. government property. do not enter. Morgan didn't appear to see the sign, but somehow Jack knew she knew it was there. He followed her over in the same manner and they continued through the nearly complete blackness.

  "We're not going to be suddenly surrounded by men in green fatigues with rifles at the ready, are we?"

  Morgan actually smiled. It was the first time he'd seen her do that. She shook her head.

  "What is this place?"

  "It's an abandoned research base. No one's been here since the Vietnam War ended back in the seventies."

  "No one but you?"

  She didn't answer. She didn't have to. She'd come straight here without a path or a road. She'd made her way to this place as if from memory. Finally they stopped at a wreck of a building. It was an old barracks and looked as if it were set at the edge of the woods. Any paint that had been on the outside of the wash-worn wooden structure had long since been beaten off by wind and rain. Weeds had grown into vines and trees, snaking in and out of broken windows and doors as if they were giant reptiles taking back from the world what it had stolen from them. The entry door lay close to the ground, hooked onto a rusty hinge by nothing but the grace of God.

  Morgan marched straight for the place. She pushed her wiry frame under and over branches, easily going toward her purpose.

  "This is where you have a car?" Jack asked, ducking so the swinging branch missed him.

  She didn't answer, only continued toward a more dilapidated structure behind the barracks. This one was a corrugated metal building that looked like a huge tube of which half was above the ground. They were usually used as temporary structures, but with the military anything temporary took decades to replace.

  Inside there was little light, but this fact did not deter Morgan Kirkwood. Her actions made Jack think she possessed some kind of internal radar that guided her in this dark space. Her feet never faltered as she went from task to task. The cavernous room looked to have once held bunks. Jack remembered his own time in the service, the bed he occupied with a chest at the foot. It held all his worldly possessi
ons and they could acquire nothing that would not fit in that three-square-foot space.

  "Brace yourself, Mr. Temple. There's going to be an explosion."

  Jack checked the window. He crossed the room, skirting the dirt and dust that had taken up residence in the abandoned metal container, to where she stood. Morgan opened a concealed panel in the wall and pulled something out.

  "What is that?"

  "A remote control." It was a black rectangle, the size of a cellular phone. She pushed the only button on it, a white disk the size of a dime. Jack heard nothing. "It'll take ten minutes," she said. Then she replaced the control in its hiding place and concealed the panel. Nothing looked disturbed when she finished.

  Without another word, she started walking again.

  "Just a minute." He stopped her. "Isn't it time we developed a game plan?"

  "I have a plan," she informed him in a voice that said don't push me.

  She went through the doorway back into the night. Stepping as sure-footed as if she were walking on smooth concrete, she traversed the yard in front of them. Jack ran to catch up with her.

  He grabbed her arm and brought her around to look at him. "You want to clue me in? It seems we're in this together, whether that pleases you or not."

  "It does not."

  Jack took a deep breath. Why had he come here? At least he knew how she felt about him. Despite the way she'd relaxed against him in the tree not half an hour ago, she didn't want him around. Jack admitted he wasn't used to this type of reception. Women were usually glad to see him. But not this one.

  "Morgan, I know you're scared. I know these things have never happened to you before, but we're going to have to work together if we're to survive this. It's not over."

  "I know that." Her teeth were set and she spoke through them. "It's why I'm getting this car and getting out of here."

  She turned to walk away, but again he stopped her.

  "Where are you going then?"

  "I have a place."

  "Where?"

  She clamped her mouth closed. She wasn't going to tell him. It made sense. He even admired her for her caution. Anyone who could set up an escape plan as intricately executed as she had would be smart enough to only tell someone she trusted implicitly where she was going. And she didn't trust him. He had the idea that she trusted no one. Good, he thought.

  He followed her when she started walking again. They went to another abandoned building. Just as she reached the door, the explosion happened. Jack instinctively grabbed her and pushed her to the ground. He rolled over, coming to his knees, all the while keeping her with him. The sky behind them was bright orange. Jack expected the people trying to kill them to come through one of the buildings.

  "It's the house," Morgan explained.

  "What?"

  "The explosion."

  "You blew up your house?" Jack stated.

  "To smithereens," she said dryly. "Now, there's no trace of me. Nothing to be found. I'm completely invisible."

  ***

  Invisible. That was the perfect word to describe her. Since she was born, practically no one had thought twice about her. A waif on the streets, unwanted, unseen by finely dressed strangers who'd deny she even existed, to be swatted away like some insect. She loved her house, the friends she'd made in the last twelve years. She'd been cautious, disguising herself with the skillful use of makeup to keep people from recognizing her as the skinny teenager crushing roses to her chest as she sang The Star Spangled Banner in front of a stadium of spectators and millions of television viewers.

  Morgan walked fast enough for it to be an exercise program. She often rushed when she thought of her life on the streets, as if she could outrun the memory of that time. No matter how fast she walked or ran the memories stayed with her.

  And not only those of being on the streets. There was Jack. And that kiss. She thought she was over him, but how could she be over something that never had a beginning? And without a beginning, there could be no middle, no end. That's where she and Jack stood, strung up in some nether region where life didn't exist, where love didn't exist, but where Jack had kissed her, where there was the promise of something, but before she could define it, it ended. Yet Morgan would take its memory to her grave. When Jack threatened to kiss her at the house, every nerve ending in her body reacted to the memory of that one, long ago time when the two of them shared a small piece of heaven that would be forever trapped in some untouchable cavern where unrealized dreams are stored.

  She arrived at the building where the car was hidden. Pushing aside her thoughts, she suddenly wanted to get away fast. Time seemed important. She didn't have the feeling that anyone would discover them if they stayed here, but she wanted to be away. She knew it was her thoughts egging her on, her memories she wanted to distance herself from, even though logic told her she could never get away from them.

  The entire place looked abandoned. The army left nearly thirty years ago, closing the base and leaving it like an obnoxious relative. The sense of decayed life hung over the place, giving it the look and feel of a graveyard at midnight. Light and air seemed to enter a building and hang there, trapped and stale, as lost as the past.

  Morgan shivered as she wedged herself through the door of the hangar. The cavernous building was dark inside. She coughed at the dry air.

  "Wait here,'' she told Jack. He caught her arm as she started to walk away.

  "We should stick together."

  "There is only room for one of us where I'm going." She looked him up and down. He had broad shoulders and a body devoid of extra bulk, but he would fit. She was smaller and thinner.

  Pulling her arm free, she left him, disappearing through a door at the far end of the room. In minutes the wall that had been in place for the past twelve years slid away as if it were highly oiled and maintained. The car rose on the elevated platform and she started the engine.

  Jack faced her in the headlights. He squinted, covering his eyes, and started toward the car.

  "Let me drive." He opened the driver's side door.

  "No," she said.

  "You're in no condition."

  "I'm driving," she stated, and she reached for the door. Jack held it, stepping between her and the door.

  "I'm not moving," she said slowly. "If you don't get out of the way I'll leave you here."

  For a long moment they stared at each other. Two lions ready to spring, growling, snarling animals with equal strength and equal stubbornness, vying for domination.

  "Jack, you showed up today out of the blue. I don't know if you're on my side or here to kill me. You saved my life tonight and for that I am grateful, but I set this plan up years ago and I'm going to carry it out. Now get in the car or get out of the way."

  He hesitated only a moment before going around to the passenger side. Morgan took off as soon as he pulled his lean body into the seat. She didn't wait for him to put on a seat belt or even close the passenger door. The dust cloud behind the car couldn't be helped. As she went through the electronic gate, she hoped the dust would settle enough to cover the tracks, but if it didn't there was nothing she could do about it, and she vowed to worry about only the things over which she had control.

  And that brought her to the man sitting next to her. He intrigued her, even aroused her, but she had no idea why he was here, and that scared her. Twelve years ago, she'd met Jack in the airport just before they boarded the plane to Seoul. They were both going to the Olympics, she to compete with the gymnastics team and he as one of the swim team coaches. She remembered seeing him at Dulles International just outside Washington, D.C. His eyes seemed to seek her out. She shivered the moment they made contact. He held her gaze for only a moment before dropping it to return to his own team. Afterward he appeared to go out of his way to ignore her. At least until that last night. The night of the final competition. The night she'd stolen into a foreign prison, nearly lost her life, raced like fire to return to the arena and take her place on the balan
ce beam and then to end the night with tears in her eyes and Jack Temple's arms around her.

  ***

  Jack stared at the road ahead. Frequently he glanced at the speedometer, expecting Morgan to use the car to relieve her tension. She held it to the posted limit, going not a single mile over the legal speed. Jack took a moment to review the car. He'd been disappointed when he saw the monster vehicle she'd appeared with. They needed something low and sleek, something that could hold the road and become one with it. If they needed its power, he wanted to make sure it was there.

  He could hear the purr of the engine. It told him that this car was as finely tuned and carefully maintained as the escape route the two of them had taken to get out of the house. It was unpretentious, but not the one he would have chosen for an escape.

  He just wondered where they were escaping to. They were heading east on Route 70. It told him nothing since this route could take them anyplace between St. Charles, Missouri, and the Atlantic Ocean.

  "Morgan," he spoke her name softly. He felt she was concentrating so intently that any sudden noise would shatter her ability to control the car. "Where are we going?"

  She didn't answer right away. Jack began to feel she hadn't heard him when she spoke. "Don't worry. I know the way."

  She switched on the radio to a country music station and went back to her driving in silence.

  Jack wondered about her. What had happened to her in the past twelve years? How had she lived? The house they'd left in the quiet wooded area was beautiful, with furnishings and paintings, although he'd seen none of her trophies or ribbons, cups or medallions he knew she owned. On her way to the Olympics, she'd picked up a double score of awards. She dressed well and had many friends. She hadn't married or even been engaged, but she was a beautiful, desirable woman.

  Morgan continued to drive. The night disappeared hour by hour. They hadn't stopped for gas or food or to use a bathroom. Jack kept tabs on her reactions, making sure she was alert. He had no complaints about how she handled the car. She drove the way she'd done everything since he'd met her, efficiently, competently, as if she knew what she wanted and how to get it. She and the car merged into one. The road made up the third part of the strange trio. She drove as if this was part of her daily commute, that she had been over this surface day in and day out, that she and the bumps, holes, smooth edges, ragged surfaces knew each other intimately and swayed and moved to avoid any inconvenience.