around Simon Holder.
NURSE Josephine Mutaba strode purposefully into Kate’s room carrying a tray with medications. A large African-American with a short Afro peppered with grey, she had a round, dark face, and brown eyes. She looked stern—until she smiled, as she did often. Setting the tray on the bedside table, she introduced herself with that smile, then put the pain meds into Kate’s drip and told her to lie back. After a few minutes, the nurse asked: “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Kate’s eyelids were getting heavy as the meds kicked in and the pain began to recede. “No. Thanks.”
“What I’m here for. Buzz if you need anything.”
She turned and walked across the room, but before she could touch the door, it swung inward, held by a silver-haired, fifty-something man of middle height. Dressed in an expertly-tailored, navy blue pinstriped suit and restrained red tie, he had a natural grace and a posture which made these clothes look even more expensive than they probably were. Smiling with twinkling, startlingly blue eyes, he swept his arm forward, inviting Mutaba to proceed through.
“Well, thank you very much,” the nurse responded, her own eyes sparkling as she flirted right back at him.
From her bed across the room, Kate couldn’t see the man clearly, but she picked out the bulge under his arm, and her alarm response was immediate. She tried to sit up and was rewarded with a stab of pain. She lay back with an “ooof.”
“Dr. Taylor,” the man said reassuringly as he walked toward her. “It’s Matthew Connolly.”
Kate relaxed. She couldn’t remember if she knew why this man was here, but she was certain that she had no reason to fear him. Even though they’d never met, she knew a lot about Matthew Connolly, for she’d stalked him back in ’82 when she and Macey Sullivan were planning the hit Holder had ordered. The sanction against him was astonishing. Not only was he Holder’s oldest friend; he was by consensus one of the very best agents ever to serve the Company. These strange circumstances had robbed her of the enjoyment she usually felt during a mission, and the order to step down had been a huge relief. Then three years ago Connolly had suddenly resigned from the Company. Unlike her, Holder had let him go.
Now this same Connolly was standing next to the bed, and Kate looked up into his brilliantly blue eyes. Without warning two other sets of vividly blue eyes flashed through her mind, one pair belonging to the man she’d fought with last night, and the other to the guard who’d carved his initial “H” into the skin under her breasts. Sucking in a breath and shivering, she turned her head away.
Connolly reached out and laid his hand on her arm, ever so gently. “It’s all right, Dr. Taylor. Simon Holder asked me to come.”
Jumping at his touch, she turned back toward him and looked into his eyes again. Strangely, a different sensation replaced fear: calm. Those other men’s eyes were malevolent. This man’s were…good. She could find no other more precise word in her fuzzy brain. But there was something else she struggled to put her finger on. It seemed as if their icy blue could cut to a person’s core, which was frightening and exciting at the same time.
“Holder sent me to keep you safe. You can sleep securely, I promise.” He took her hand in his. “Now, close your eyes, but concentrate on my hand.”
“But….”
“No buts. Think of nothing but my hand.”
His look convinced her to try. She shut her eyes and focused on the connection between his hand and hers. Little by little her body started to release its tension as the pain dissipated and finally flowed away. Her breathing slowed and became regular. After a few minutes she slept.
THREE hours into Kate’s restless sleep, Connolly was sitting a few feet from the bed, trying to read a book by the dim light. When he heard footsteps stop in front of the door, he was instantly alert. Moving his hand to the weapon under his arm, he crossed the room and was ready when Holder appeared in the doorway. Connolly put his finger on his lips and shouldered the bigger man back into the hall.
“How’s she doing?” Holder asked.
“Sleeping,” Connolly replied curtly. “Let’s leave her that way.”
“Nope. Got to talk to her. She called, after all.”
“Simon, you can wait a little longer. She needs to sleep.”
“I should think so!” Nurse Mutaba exclaimed coming up behind them, disapproval written across her face. “You leave her alone.”
Holder faced Mutaba down…and the nurse won. He waved his hand and said sourly: “Okay. Let her sleep. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
Mutaba bobbed her head in satisfaction and marched away. Holder turned to leave, but Connolly stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Simon, I want to know what really happened to her.”
“Why?”
Connolly laughed. “You called me to watch over her, remember?” He pointed at his own chest. “Apparently you trust me over your Company men. Well, trust is not a one-way street. Give!”
Holder turned half away before shrugging his shoulders. “Come on.” They went to the empty waiting area at the end of the corridor, where Holder filled his friend in on Kate’s imprisonment and the attack last night, leaving out details he felt were too sensitive even for him. Simon Holder trusted Matthew Connolly as much as he trusted any person on earth; but Simon Holder trusted nobody completely.
Connolly sat for a few minutes in silence, gazing into the distance with a troubled look on his face. “Does she know who dropped the dime on her in Leipzig?”
“No.”
Connolly scrutinized his old friend’s face. When he didn’t add anything, Connolly went on: “What about this attack? What the hell were they looking for? And why didn’t they just kill her?”
Holder held up his hand to squelch further questions. “I don’t know!” He stopped. Now he searched his friend’s face. “But….”
“What?” Connolly asked suspiciously.
“They had a key.”
“Oh, my God!” Connolly shouted, almost leaping out of his seat.
Grabbing his friend’s arm, he hissed: “Keep your voice down!”
Connolly raised his eyes to the ceiling, let out a breath, and groaned. “Don’t tell me. It’s a Company apartment?”
“Right you are,” Holder replied bleakly.
Connolly clasped his hands between his knees and spoke as if to the floor. “Do you know who it was?”
Holder got up and paced the hallway, hands working at his sides. On his last pass he stopped in front of his friend and said: “Did you hear about Adam Jackson?”
Connolly inhaled sharply. “Jackson? I thought he was long gone.”
“Gone but not forgotten. They sent him to Colombia six months ago. A kind of exile.”
“They didn’t
