Secret Agent Sam

a silver ribbon into the mountains. Cory moved up to walk beside her, and she felt his presence there with every nerve ending in her body. The familiar shape and smell of him overwhelmed her senses.

Memories inundated her…

Lying naked in a patch of sunshine on rumpled sheets, propped on one elbow while my fingers lightly trace the long, elegant lines of his back… I watch him sleep…the fine, sensitive mouth relaxed, silky dark hair falling across his forehead, and his face stark with the loneliness I can only see when those beautiful eyes are closed and their compassion and curiosity hidden behind shadowed lids and lashes.

I watch him sleep and wonder what lonely place he’s gone to that he never lets me share, and I ache with wanting something that always seems to be just beyond my reach.

In an effort to shake herself loose from the memories, she leaned closer to Cory, bumped him in the ribs with her elbow and said in a gravelly whisper, “What were you trying to do back there, Pearse, get us all killed?”

He grunted but didn’t reply. The urge to needle him passed as quickly as it had come, and after a moment she added a gruff, “Well…anyway, thanks.” And found herself, without meaning to, reaching for his hand. It, too, felt familiar…big and long-boned…so warm and good… She squeezed it once, then quickly let it go.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

She tensed when she felt that same big warm hand lift to the back of her neck. She held her breath when he began to rub it, the way he’d done so many times before, finding, as he always knew how to do, the trouble spots at the base of her skull.

Coming too close to the tender place behind her ear.

“Cut it out, Pearse,” she croaked as she shook herself free.

“Sorry,” he murmured, not sounding sorry at all. “Force of habit.”

Tears sprang behind her eyes. She swallowed hard-twice-and stared at the dark shape of mountains against the silver sky. After a long moment, feeling an obscure need to make amends, she said gruffly, “Sorry about your computer.”

He was so close she felt him shrug. Too close. All her nerve endings were twanging, but she didn’t move away.

“I’ll get along. I’m surprised they didn’t search us, though.”

“Oh, they will,” she said with a careless shake of her head. “They’ll probably take our clothes away somewhere and go over everything with a fine-tooth comb.”

His head swiveled toward her, and even in the dim light she felt the probing weight of his curious, ever- searching eyes.

“Is that the voice of experience?”

She jerked a glance at him and gave a short huff of laughter. “God, no. I fly airplanes for a living, Pearse. You’re the one with that kind of experience, not me.” He didn’t comment, and after a moment she said in an undertone, “I just know he’s careful, this Fahad…al-Ramin?”

“Rami,” said Cory. “Fahad al-Rami. And he is careful. He’s had to be, to have managed to keep from getting captured or killed for so many years. He’s got to know he’s taking a big chance in allowing himself to be interviewed now.”

“So are you. Aren’t you? Taking a big chance?” It was his turn for that soft snort of laughter. She threw him a look and said dryly, “Bet you never gave that a thought, did you?” She looked away again, quickly, and laughed a little herself. “You probably said, ‘To hell with the danger. Tell me when and where, and I’m there.’ Like you always do.”

“This-” he paused, caught a breath “-it’s a news correspondent’s dream, Sam.” His words were quiet, barely audible, but she could tell by the shape of them that he was looking at her. “It’d be like, ten years ago, going into the mountains of Afghanistan to interview Bin Laden. Who could say no to that?”

She felt a heaviness in her chest, and shook her head, not in disagreement, but in the manner of one shaking off an unwelcome touch. “Okay, if al-Rami’s in the same class as Bin Laden? That makes him a terrorist, Pearse. Terrorists kill people. It’s what they do.”

“Fahad al-Rami calls himself a rebel-which I imagine is one of the things he’d like to clear up in this interview.” Cory’s voice was sardonic.

Sam replied the same way. “He blows up hotels full of people. That makes him a terrorist in my book.”

He didn’t deny it. They walked for a while without talking, listening to the scuff of footsteps, the creak of ammunition belts, the rustle of fabric against flesh. The weight in her chest seemed to grow heavier with every step.

Taking a breath that did nothing to make her feel better, Sam muttered, “It’s never going to be enough for you, is it?” She’d said it to herself more than Cory, but he answered her anyway.

“It’s what I do, Sam.”

“Dammit!” And how could she be angry when she’d sworn she didn’t care enough to be? “Why do you need this? You’ve already got your Pulitzer.”

His head snapped toward her like a spring letting go, the tension in him so palpable the quietness of his voice seemed a surprise. “Is that what you think this is about? My God, Sam. It’s not about prizes-or money, either, for that matter. Or fame or prestige-none of those things matter to me, you should know that. There’s a story here that needs to be told, and I’m the one that gets to tell it. To me, that’s the only reward that matters.”

Sam didn’t say anything for a moment. Didn’t trust herself to. Thoughts, words, the beginnings of a quarrel simmered in her brain, and the choked-back arguments burned the back of her throat like acid. You told me to grow up, Pearse. Why? Because I wanted a career…adventure…excitement? What’s different about what you do? If growing up means I’m supposed to give up something I’ve prepared my whole life for…if it means that for me, why not for you?

The words she couldn’t say tasted bitter on her tongue, and her lips felt numb as she murmured instead, “Well, so? Do you think you’re ever gonna be ready to come in from the field? To give up the danger?”

There was a long pause, and then his voice came softly. “I thought I was ready, once. It didn’t work out.”

She waited, thinking he meant to say more, to explain. Then, with a little jolt it hit her. He’s talking about his marriage again.

He’d been ready to come in from the cold, to give up the danger-not for her, but for…Kathy, Katie…Carly-whatever the hell her name was. For his wife.

It didn’t work out.

It all came rushing back-first the shock, icy-cold, numbing. Then the pain. Just the way it had happened then…

She’d finished, finally. Finished her training. She was home after being incommunicado for a whole month of grueling survival training in the Louisiana swamps, exhilarated, keyed-up, dying to talk to somebody, even if she couldn’t talk about where she’d been or what she’d gone through. So, naturally, the first thing she’d done was call her best friend…right? Cory had been so much more than that, of course, but first, last and always, he was the closest, dearest friend she had in the world.

The phone at his Washington apartment rings…a recording answers, saying the number is no longer in service. I call Mom and Dad’s house in Georgia. Cory and Dad were close, they’ll know how to reach him…

Even now, three years later, she felt herself go clammy and sick remembering the terrible little silence on the other end of the line, and the awful fear that had gripped her then.

I think, Oh, God. Something’s happened to him. He goes to such awful places, he’s almost been killed before…

Then I hear Mom’s voice, so sad, so gentle, so…embarrassed. “Oh, Sammi June, honey, I can’t believe you don’t know…”

Anger. That was the third thing that had come over her that awful day, and it was anger that came back now to save her. Hot, raging anger. It swept through her like a firestorm, carrying all the heaviness and sadness away with it, leaving her feeling barren and brittle inside, but so much lighter. As if a good stiff breeze would blow her to dust.

“Too bad,” she said to Cory.

And quickening her steps, she left him and moved up to walk beside Tony instead.