The Spy I Loved (34 page)

***

After
being bundled passively into an ambulance, attended by a sobered
Uncle Dale, Lindsey was taken to Espanola Regional
Hospital.

By the
time a tired, soaking wet and exasperated Liam Kimball turned up to
see how she was doing, she had discharged herself and presumably,
they had gone home to The Pines.

Liam was
becoming pretty familiar to the police and military roaming the
streets and back roads of the area. He drove at seventy miles an
hour, being waved through checkpoints in his borrowed olive green
pickup truck.

There was
plenty to think about besides Lindsey. The plane might have been a
blind—no EMERALD aboard, so they had to continue with the site
search, continue with the foot searches, following up every muddy
track and footprint in the surrounding area. The enemy might have
conceivably used small, four-wheel-drive off-road vehicles in their
escape. The damned tracks were everywhere when they started to
look. EMERALD didn’t weigh that much, and an overland escape might
just be feasible as long as all eyes were busy
elsewhere.

It was
just after full dark when he pulled into the parking lot and drove
past in front of the store.

There
were lights on in his place. A pair of junior agents held down the
fort and kept an eye on the Bernstein’s place across the road. The
likelihood of them returning seemed very remote, but nothing could
ever be ruled out.

He parked
the truck amidst an annoying jumble of vehicles in what was a very
small front drive and yard. There was a cop car parked across the
way, in the boat launch parking lot and one out in front of the
store. Otherwise the resort looked surprisingly natural. The guests
were of course intent on their fishing. There wasn’t much to look
at and hence fuel further curiosity. No one was talking and the
civilians must have just given up.

Someone
inside Cabin Seven opened the door for him which saved a very tired
Liam Kimball from trying to hit the keyhole. After dropping his
laptop and weapon on the end of the kitchen table, Liam got himself
a beer and headed for the shower.

***

Liam
changed into fresh jeans and clean shirt. Stuffing bare feet into
some soft old loafers, he strolled across in the warm evening air
to see if Lindsey was around.

It was
getting onto closing time and there were a few folks, mostly young
people stocking up on snacks and soft drinks. The girl behind the
counter wasn’t busy but it wasn’t Lindsey either. She was fresh,
freckle-faced and with a shock of orange-red hair.

“
Excuse me. Have you seen Lindsey?”

The girl
looked away from the screen of the TV on one end of the store
counter.

“
Not recently. She was around earlier.” The girl gave him a
look. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Liam
shook his head. Leaving the store, he went around the north side of
the building and around to the patio door on the back of the
rambling old building.

He
knocked and watched as Dale took a while to catch on and then
lumber up out of his recliner.

With the
air conditioning on, Dale had to slide the big glass panel
back.

“
Yes?”

Liam
spoke through the screen.

“
Is Lindsey around?”

Dale,
sensitivity personified, turned and bellowed into the depths of the
living quarters.

“
Lindsey.”

Off to
Liam’s left, a small window glowed orange. The light went out. He
caught the faint sound of a toilet flushing and water running
briefly.

“
She’ll be right here.”

Apparently Liam wasn’t being invited in. He felt like the
young gallant picking a girl up at her parent’s place on the first
date. Only worse.

She came
around the corner from the back hall. Turning to look, she saw it
was him. Her face was very calm, very composed, and very
pale.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Lindsey
slid back the screen door and stepped out onto the dimly lit patio.
She closed it and then took his hand.

She led
him off into the darkness. Knowing her way around as she did, Liam
could only follow along.

“
We need to talk. I’m very sorry, Lindsey.” She’d clearly been
in shock when they put her and her uncle in the ambulance. “It was
a terrible thing that they did to you—”

He had been about to say
happened,
it happened to you but
that was wrong. The wrong words might do more harm than
good.

She
stopped. They were behind the store, in an open area under
scattered tall trees. There was a jumble of old packing cases,
pallets, and a couple of sheds big enough for the lawn tractor he’d
seen Dale on during the week.

It was
the wrong thing to do, but when she turned, face pale and ghostly
in the dim starlight, he put his arms around her and pulled her in
close.

Her arms
came up around his neck and then there was nothing else for it but
to gaze into her eyes and wonder.

“
Liam.”

“
Yes.”

“
Please don’t leave.”

She
pulled down on his head and neck so hard, her feet went up on
tiptoes. Her eyes were closed but her mouth clamped down on his and
her tongue was thrusting and wriggling insistently inside of his
mouth.

The smell
of freshly showered sweet young woman was all over him.

Quite
frankly, he was shocked.

What in the hell am I going to say to that.

***

There
were one or two old trailers parked at the very back of the yard.
Taking his hand again, Lindsey dragged Liam Kimball and his
thumping heart to the door of the farthest one, looking impossibly
long as it gleamed pale and close before them. There was the sound
of crickets, spring peepers and stealthy rustles in the long grass
beside the doorway.

It wasn’t
locked, and she went up the two metal steps, turning on a dim
kitchen light as she did.

She
locked the door once they were in.

It wasn’t
much. There were heavy curtains on the windows. There was a couch
on the far wall of the living room, which was on his right. The
kitchen was straight ahead, and Lindsey went to the fridge. Opening
it, she pulled out a bottle of vodka.

Taking
two tall glasses from a cupboard that didn’t seem to have very much
in it, she opened the freezer compartment and found a handful of
ice-cubes. Small as they were, they might have been in there a
while. She poured and the ice snapped in the glass.

She came
to him and handed him a drink.

“
This is where Dale lived when he first came here.”

“
Ah.”

Liam
wondered when she was going to start talking. Really talking. She
had a load to get off of her chest.

“
Then we built the addition on the back of the office. The
store came later. For one thing, it’s got a decent bathroom, a
fireplace, three bedrooms. Stuff like that.” Her eyes bored into
his and she lifted her glass.

She took
a healthy pull and set it down on a cheap, low coffee table. It was
worth about two bucks at any garage sale in the country. Lindsey
went and turned on one of the many old hi-fi systems he’d seen
kicking around the resort. Dale must have collected them over the
years. The Bernstein’s cabin had one and the cabin where some of
their additional people were staying had a real gem, a 1954 RCA (or
at least that’s what it said on the cabinet, being some kind of
conversion).

“
Say, Lindsey…”

“
I’m sorry, Mister Kimball. Please forgive me. If you’ll give
me half a second, there’s a leaky faucet in the bathroom and I need
to check on it once in a while.”

Liam
raised his eyebrows and sipped cold Russian vodka as the girl, who
was wearing scruffy white painter pants and a baggy old blue knit
sweater with long sleeves, brushed past him.

She
snapped a switch and then he saw her go down the narrow little
corridor that led to the back end of the trailer.

***

Liam
hadn’t realized there was a dimmer switch. He was just examining a
velvet painting of some big-eyed children on the living room wall
when the lights dropped and he turned to look.

Wow.

Lindsey
stood in the arch, and his jaw dropped.

She was
wearing high-heeled shoes, sheer black stockings with a line up the
back, a garter belt, also in black, and a thin, sheer teddy with a
high neckline. Her breasts were just a nice B-cup, riding firm and
high, with puffy nipples that would be pink when he got them out
into the light.

Around
her neck was a silk bow and she had dangly black hoop earrings in
some kind of polished stone segments.

With her
lips parted and her eyes locked on his, she sashayed into the room,
turning and striking a pose. She had him cornered. She circled in,
inexorably. There was no place to run and no way to hide. Not once
he’d seen it. There wasn’t much he could do except sit down on the
single upholstered armchair as she bent forward, face inches from
his.

The look
in her eyes was wild, angry, abandoned.

“
Lindsey—”

“
Shut up.”

“
This is a real bad idea—honestly. You’re upset, you’ve been
through a rough time—”

“
This is not how it ends, Liam Kimball.”

She
carefully pushed his knees apart and then got down on all fours.
She held his eyes as she reached for his zipper, and rather than
scream and shout and raise the roof, there really wasn’t much he
could do about it without hurting her. Embarrassing her,
humiliating her, damaging her even further.

It’s not
that he couldn’t overpower her.

“
Lindsey.”

The game
was lost, as she helped his rapidly hardening member out and it
popped into prominence. Those ruby lips plunged down, that hot wet
mouth was on there and now it was Liam who was in shock.

He
stroked her head, her shoulders and let her go as her body shook
and quivered and gasped in some strong emotion.

“
Lindsey, Lindsey, Lindsey…
whatever
are we going to do with
you…”

The TV in
the main house was so loud. Dale had been well on his way by the
look and smell of things.

What in
the hell was he supposed to do?

Lifting
her head, she stared at him with this dark, animal look in her
eyes—like she was waiting for some kind of an answer. Then she was
crawling up into his lap and they were eyeball to
eyeball.

It’s not like he didn’t want to.

Liam’s
reached up under the teddy and took her breasts into his hands. She
kissed him on the tonsils and then pulled back.

“
I’m not a virgin, Liam Kimball.”

“
Oh, Lindsey. This is a really, really bad idea.”

“
Yes, it is. But you have to admit, Liam Kimball. I’ve been
very, very patient.”

Things
became a little fuzzy, and after a while, everything faded to a hot
and sweaty black.

***

“
So. How did it go?”

Liam gave
a noncommittal shrug. It was after two a.m. and his knees were
ready to buckle.

“
We have reports of a dark grey seaplane landing on a small
lake fourteen kilometres from here.”

“
Oh, really.” Liam didn’t brighten up very much.

He badly
needed rest.

“
There’s a boat launch and there were a few people fishing up
there. The plane is still there, tied to its mooring. It’s
basically just an anchor with a buoy. Witnesses say a small boat
came out from shore and took off two men and some luggage.” They
were tracing the plane.

Liam
sighed, deeply. He nodded. Yet there were a lot more than two
individuals involved. Small boats had left the McKerlie Sawmill.
Boats landing at major launch sites had been carefully watched with
the manpower available. No one matching any of their descriptions
had been observed, and no one seemed to be lugging big chunks of
satellite around in their boat.

Like
mice, the quarry had scattered.

“
Okay. So they leave us searching frantically, searching
practically everywhere else. And maybe they have a way of getting
it out from
there
as opposed to
here.”
He sat down heavily on a kitchen chair, putting
his elbows on the table and looking around. “The last thing I need
is coffee…but what if it’s just a blind? They have to get it out of
the country, one way or another.”

Ian stood
on the other side of the table, cup in hand, eyes on their
computers, the phones, the papers and notes and other bits and
pieces of equipment laying around.