“Wake up!”
Cold water hit like knives against her face and she awoke with a gasp. Her head was pounding from either the opiate that had been used to knock her out or the blow to the head one of the masked assailants had given her.
Either way, if her hands weren’t tied she’d be clawing Brighton’s eyes out.
As her eyes adjusted, she realized the sun was setting and San Diego was a thin line in the distance. And she knew exactly what was going to happen to her.
“Why?” she asked, getting to her feet.
“Money of course.” Brighton shrugged. “First your brother came too close to discovering who was backing Chem Agent 1157 and now you know that I’m a double agent. However, I do thank you for sending me the information my mercenaries tried to get that night they attacked.”
Rage boiled inside her, as the reality of what he was saying hit her. “You were responsible for killing my brother?”
“Well, I didn’t actually kill him but I sent his unit on that doomed mission.”
“You killed more than my brother. You killed a lot of innocent men.”
Brighton shrugged again. “It’s the price you have to pay.”
“You disgust me.”
“If you’ll tell me the name of the man who helped you, I’ll make your death painless. I’ll shoot you before I throw you in. If not, you get to drown. Do you know what it’s like to drown? I almost drowned once, it’s painful, lingering.” Brighton pulled out his gun. “Just give me the name of the man and the agency.”
Lisa trembled, but tried not to let him see that. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to die slowly, but her brother had died slowly. She could too, to serve her country. She wasn’t going to betray the Omega team or Jack.
She loved Jack too much to sentence him to death.
“No. And you know you’re going to have to do one hell of a cover up to explain my absence.”
“Not really. Your body is in the process of being found right now, Lieutenant. Badly burnt. That darn sequence code that Bio-Tek gave you blew you up too.”
“And what about DNA?”
“Oh, that’s been taken care of too. The medical examiner that’s dealing with your autopsy is in on this. Don’t worry. And as you have no family, no friends, no one will know you’re gone. No one will care.”
And it hit like a rock. His words. Jack would care, but he wouldn’t ever know what happened to her and she couldn’t help but wonder if he would even care, really.
He’d been out of her life for ten years.
“Tell me the name, Lieutenant and this will be painless.”
“No.”
Brighton sighed. “You’re stubborn, Morgan. So stubborn and foolish. I will find out eventually.”
“But not from me. I hope you rot in Hell, Brighton,” she snarled.
“Toss her overboard.” Brighton turned his back as her legs were bound, then she was picked up and tossed into the water.
I love you, Jack. I’ll always love you.
And her life flashed before her eyes. Snippets of moments with her brother and her parents. Happy moments from her childhood. The ocean was cold as she sank beneath the waves, keeping her eyes on the surface. Then she saw Jack, all their shared moments together and she closed her eyes, focusing on those special moments, before her body struggled to surface. To get air.
Something grabbed her and she opened her mouth to scream. A mouthpiece was put over her face and she could breath. She opened her eyes to see Jack.
Her eyes widened in shock, seeing him in a wetsuit. He pulled out a knife and released the zip ties from her arms and legs. She took a deep breath as he took back the mask and motioned for her to swim.
She nodded and followed him through the murky water. They alternated for a while, passing the oxygen back and forth. Her body was aching and she was freezing, but she didn’t care. She was putting distance between herself and Brighton.
Jack motioned her to surface and she did.
The sky was dark, but she could make out a beach with a few lights.
“Islas Coronado,” Jack said breathlessly. “That’s where I left everything when I got back down south. I didn’t enter the States legally; I didn’t want to be spotted.”
“How fortunate Brighton decided to take me out this far,” she said.
“He wanted to dump you in international waters, but didn’t want to go out too far. I heard him say he has a big meeting tonight with Bio-Tek. No doubt he’s planning to blackmail them. Greed got him in the end. Come on, let’s get out the water.”
She nodded.
And as she was swimming for her life to the small island, which was part of Mexico, there was an explosion behind her. She turned to look back to see a ship in flames. She turned and looked at Jack.
He just nodded and they continued swimming. Her limbs felt like they weighed a ton when she climbed on shore. She just lay there for a few moments, her head against the warm sand, taking deep breaths.
Then she rolled over to see Jack, who was sitting up and peering through binoculars, staring out over the wreckage that was still burning.
“How?” she asked.
He turned and looked at her. “Accelerants.”
She chuckled. “No, I mean how did you know? How did you find me?”
“About three hours after you left I remembered who Commander Brighton was. How Dane always suspected him, but how I brushed off Dane’s concerns. As soon as I did, we were sent on that mission and attacked by the Chem Agent. There was a problem that always niggled at the back of my mind, but I would never let myself go back to that moment.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“The Chem Agent killed the terrorists we were supposed to assassinate too.”
Tears stung her eyes. “Brighton told me he killed Dane. I was ready to kill him with my bare hands. I’m surprised he let you live all those years ago.”
“I didn’t know anything about it,” Jack said. “And at the time I could barely see him, my vision still impaired. I accepted the honorable discharge he offered me and I left. I was out of his hair and no threat. I wanted to live with my shame, it was my penance for surviving and for not finding any answers. I tried to forget it all, but it’s hard to forget something that’s eating away inside of you.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you ended up in the water at the exact moment I went overboard,” she said.
“Oh, well I was questioning where you were and they said you were still on a mission. I walked outside and started wandering down a back alley. I saw the masked men moving you into a van. I incapacitated one and put on his uniform. I’m the one who gave you a nasty knock.”
Lisa rubbed her head. “Yeah that hurt, you son of a bitch!”
“Hey, it saved your life.”
“True.” She sighed. “So you were on the boat this whole time?”
“Yeah, they were busy paying attention to you and so I planted a simple bomb with the accelerants and got into a wet suit. Totally unnoticed. If he had killed you before throwing you into the water I would’ve jumped him, but he did what I thought he would do.”
Lisa shuddered. “He wanted me to give the name of the Agency and the man who helped me.”
“And did you?” Jack asked.
“No. Never.”
Jack sat down next to her and ran his hand over her face. “I thought I lost you.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “And that matters to you?”
Jack nodded. “God, yeah. I was an idiot before. I thought I was doing you a favor. I thought you wouldn’t want to be tied down to me, half a man, scarred and broken. I wasn’t worthy of you, because I let your brother die.”
“That was for me to decide,” she said quietly. “And you didn’t let Dane die.”
“I know that now. I am stubborn.”
“I know.” A tear slipped out of her eye. “I love you, Jack. I always have.”
“And I love you too, Lisa. The thought of losing you was too much for me to bear. That’s why I’m here, and I will always be here from now on.” He kissed her then, pulling her close against him, his lips pressing lightly against hers for a moment, before deepening to something more urgent. Needy. He poured every last bit of emotion he was holding back from her into that moment and the walls they’d both built came tumbling down.
She could sense it.
And when the kiss ended she buried her face in his neck, her body racked with shivers and tears, as emotion she’d been holding back for so long, since Dane died and Jack disappeared, came rushing to the surface like a storm.
They sat there on the beach for several moments, listening to the waves and each other’s heart beats.
“You’re dead now you know,” Jack whispered against her hair.
“What? Brighton is dead, can’t I just reappear?
He shook his head. “See, when you thought you destroyed the USB in the incinerator I actually switched them before you got out of the shower. It was part of my mission.”
“Wait, are you saying that you have the information still? That Brighton hasn’t stolen it?”
“Yep. This Bio-Tek thing goes deeper than you thought so, the thing is, you’d still be in danger if you ever resurfaced.”
“We have to get the information to the proper authorities.”
“Already taken care of. I sent Grey the USB drive. He’s taking care of it, but there will be a target on you if you ever showed up alive again. It’s best to pretend you’re dead. It’s safer that way.”
A shiver ran down her spine, but she was going to have to go into hiding anyway at the end of this mission. How was this different?
It’s different because you have Jack now.
“I’m dead too,” Jack said offhandedly as if reading her thoughts, grinning down at her in the moonlight.
“Oh?”
“I’m afraid I died when my house in Nome caught fire.”
“Destroyed then?”
“Completely.”
“Henry’s doing?” Lisa asked.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Does Grey know this? I mean, he’s losing a good agent for the Omega Team."
“Grey knows what he needs to know, but he did help get me fake identification and citizenship for Brazil. What do you say about Brazil?”
“I don’t know Portuguese,” she held him tight and then kissed him. “Why Brazil?”
“A nice change. It’s certainly warmer there.”
“You love Alaska so much. I don’t want to take you from your life there.”
“I know, but I love you more. You are my life, Lisa. We can disappear in Rio or maybe we’ll find a nice private island and stay there. I have enough money to take care of us. What do you think? You say you love me, do you really want to spend the rest of your new life with a broken down fisherman?”
“Fisherman?”
“It’s what I did in Alaska. I have to do something. So what do you say?”
“Yes.” She reached up and kissed him. “You’ll have to tell me your new name though.”
He grinned. “Let’s get to my boat. It’s moored not far from here and we’ll get cleaned up. We can play a fun game while you try to guess my new name. I mean, we have to pass the time. We’re in this together now, Morgan. Just you and me.”
There was a hint of evil promise in his voice as he stood up and helped her to her feet. They walked hand in hand to his large sailboat. She peeled off the remnants of her navy dress uniform, tossing it in the water, and then removed the dog tags with her name, Jacks and Dane’s.
She held them in her shaking hands.
Jack cocked an eyebrow. “What’re you doing?”
“Getting rid of them. We’re dead remember?”
Jack nodded; he understood. “I’m sorry.”
“I served my country and we succeeded. Let the proper authorities deal with the corruption now.” She tossed the dog tags into the ocean, watching her old life sink into oblivion. The memory of Jack, her, and Dane disappearing under the waves.
She was ready for a new chapter.
“So what were you saying about a fun game?”
Jack grinned. “Let’s get out onto the ocean first and then we’ll talk. We need to put some distance between us and here.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” She wrapped herself up in a blanket as Jack pulled the moorings. The engine started and they slipped out of the marina on Islas Coronado and into the ocean, headed south for South America and adventure.
Wherever it took them. She was free, unburdened and it scared her, but thrilled her too.
This was her new life and as long as Jack was in it they could conquer anything.