Page 74 of Heart of Danger
“Yes.” Catherine nodded to him. “I can.”
“Jesus,” he whispered.
“I don’t like doing it, but I can read you. Not your thoughts so much as your emotions. And I opened to you. You read me too, didn’t you? At least partly. Enough to know I’m telling the truth.”
She let go of Nick’s wrist and he lifted his head. Whatever moisture had been in his eyes had gone, but there was a slight softness there, where there had been none before.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Sorry. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. It was like?—”
“Like I was in you, right, Nick? Inside your head, feeling what you’re feeling, thinking what you’re thinking.”
He nodded, lips clamped shut.
She put a hand on his shoulder. She was touching cloth so it wasn’t any of the woo woo stuff. It was simply a gesture of human connection.
“I know how off center you must be feeling. And believe me when I say I would never read you deliberately. This—this ability I have is incredibly draining. I feel like I could sleep for a week. But I had to do it, you had to know the truth. And you do, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“What?” Jon exploded, bristling with hostility. Mac tensed. “What do you know? Goddamn it, Catherine, did you just drug him? Because this is crap. It’s crap, Nick. You know it. You know the Colonel hung us out to dry and he’s not in some lab, you know that too. Why should he be? I like you Catherine, but I think you were sent to lead us into a trap. Maybe unwittingly, but there’s no way we’re coming off the mountain to?—”
Catherine reached over and grabbed his hand. Jon stopped suddenly, eyes wide open with shock, jaw dropping.
Catherine smiled gently. “You were betrayed once, Jon. Badly. Worse than what you think Lucius Ward did. It blighted your life. You’ve never let yourself trust anyone until you joined…the Teams?” This last as a question, aimed at Mac.
He nodded.
“The Teams. You found trust and acceptance there and then your leader betrayed you. But, Jon, he didn’t. He couldn’t. It isn’t in him, just as betrayal isn’t in you or Nick or Mac. He is just like you and he’s hurting. He’s in trouble and about to die and his last chance is the three of you.” Her slender hand tightened on Jon’s wrist, but Mac didn’t worry that Jon was going to attack her. He looked wiped out, almost frightened, though Mac could have sworn fear wasn’t in Jon’s vocabulary. He’d seen Jon take outrageous risks without a thought to his own safety.
His attention focused tightly on Catherine when she gasped and swayed a little. He was about to leap to her side when the words she spoke froze him in place.
Her voice deepened, became low and rough, as male as her vocal cords allowed.
“Saddle up boys, it’s time to ride. You wanna live forever?”
It was the Colonel’s war cry at the beginning of every mission. Catherine even had a touch of the south in her voice, a faint echo of the Colonel’s deep Georgia accent.
The hairs on Mac’s forearms rose and brushed against the sleeves of his sweatshirt and he felt the blood drain from his face. Nick and Jon looked pale, too. Jon actually looked sick, a drop of sweat dripping off his temple.
Catherine let go of his hand as if it burned her and opened her eyes. Her hand went to her throat and she looked frightened. “Mac…” her voice was a mere thread. She coughed and tried again. “Mac. What just happened? I blacked out for a second.”
It took him a second to find his own voice. He couldn’t stand to see that lost look on her face. He stood and pulled her into his arms. She was trembling as she put her arms around his waist, hiding her head against his shoulder. He held her tightly, looking over her head at Nick and Jon.
They both stood, as determined as he was.
“She was reading me and then I heard—” Jon shook his head sharply, as if he wanted to get rid of even the thought, but it stuck. “I heard the Colonel. He was in her head and in mine. He’s alive in Palo Alto, and he’s in danger. Right now. We have to go get him.”
“No question,” Nick growled.
“Yeah.” Much as he didn’t want to, Mac let go of Catherine. Her trembling had subsided. He wanted to keep her in his arms but he was already switching into mission mode, half of him here with her, half of him planning an on-the-fly hostage rescue mission. They’d been planning it, but at a slow pace. Now they were going to go with what they had.
They could do it. They’d rescued a downed American pilot in the heart of Tehran. All they needed was more intel and Catherine would have that.
“Okay men, we’ve got some mission planning to do. We’ve got about four hours of darkness still. We’ll hit them at 5 am. Go get your gear and suit up and I’ll start debriefing Catherine. I’ll have the beginning of a plan by the time you get back. Double time.”
“I’ll need some gear, too,” Catherine said and they all three froze.
“What?” She looked each one of them in the face. “I’m coming with you, of course.”
