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door. The Audi’s brake lights lit up. The emergency brake
clicked when she disengaged it. She raced toward the gate we had entered
through.
    I worried
about her. She’d gotten too close. Her feelings went too far. I could tell
that.
    And I knew
that left her vulnerable in too many ways.
    She wasn’t
the only one though.
    “We’re ready
to depart, sir.”
    I looked up
at the man at the top of the stairs. He had short, dark hair and wore blue
pants and a white polo shirt. He motioned for me to board. I climbed the steps
and brushed past him. He didn’t smell as good as Sasha.
    “Sit anywhere
you’d like,” he said.
    A leather
couch stretched along the opposite wall. It was dark and deep and wide and
broken in.
    “Can I lay
there?” I asked.
    “After we
take off, you can,” he said. “Grab a seat and strap in and I’ll let you know
when you can move.”
    I grabbed a
spot near the couch. It felt as soft as the couch looked. I strapped my seat
belt over my lap and settled in for takeoff. Ten minutes later we were in the
air. Twenty minutes after that I was on the phone with Sean.
    “They’re
taking me to Dobbins.”
    “How long
until you arrive?” Sean said.
    “Four hours.
Maybe five. Not exactly sure.”
    “So around
seven or eight my time?”
    “I guess.
They said there will be a car waiting for me if I want to use it, but I’m leery
of that. No telling if they want to try to track where I’m going.”
    “They don’t
know where you’re from?”
    “I hope not.
Last thing I want to do is bring a bunch of my kind of people into town.”
    Sean exhaled
into the phone. It sounded like a powerful gust of wind.
    “I just
messaged Deb. She’s cool with me coming to get you. I’ll probably be there
around nine-thirty, though. Think you can find your way off base, maybe head
over to a Waffle House or something?”
    “It’s
Atlanta. I shouldn’t have trouble finding a Waffle House.”
    “You know
what I mean, Jack.”
    “Yeah, I’ll
get somewhere and meet you there.”
    “All right,
baby brother.”
    “All right,
old man winter.”
    “I’ll see you
in a few hours.”
    I kept the
line open for a few seconds longer.
    “You there?”
Sean asked.
    “Yeah,” I
said.
    “What’s up?”
he said.
    I paused a
beat. I hadn’t had anyone to talk to for a while now, and there was a lot I
needed to work through. Sean had always been a good ear for me. He had things
to do, though. I knew that. Perhaps on the ride home.
    “Forget it.
I’ll see you soon.”
     

Chapter 7
    I hung up, lay
down on the couch and closed my eyes. My mind drifted and settled on Sasha for
a few minutes. The woman had become a big part of my life over the past month
or so. But the tension grew between us. It seemed to culminate tonight. If
there’s one thing that life had taught me, it was that two people in my line of
business should never get involved. It always ended messy. What if one of us
was captured? Tortured? I’d heard of spies giving up every ounce of
intelligence they had to save a spouse or child. That’s why I never let
anything get far enough to be a detriment.
    And that’s why
Mia threw such a wrench into my life. I was still trying to come to grips that
I had a daughter. Only a few people knew. One of those people was Sasha, and
that posed a problem.
    This all
factored into my decision to decline the offer from Marcia Stanton. The money she
dangled in front of me almost got me to accept. Perhaps Jessie was still trying
to save me, even from the grave.
    With the vision
of Mia in my mind’s eye, I dozed off. The nap extended into a deep sleep. I
never saw the Atlantic Ocean even though we flew into the sunset.
    I felt a hand
on my shoulder and opened my eyes. It wasn’t the man who welcomed me on board.
My right arm reached across my body and grabbed a hold of their wrist. The
woman gasped. She dropped the water bottle she’d held in her other hand.
    A second later
I realized where I was and let go of her arm.