The Protector Read online

  As we boarded, Aston Martin man turned his baseball cap around and looked directly into the camera as we walked through the gate’s photo confirmation system. It was as if he wanted them to know who he was. As we walked on to the plane, he followed me to my assigned seat.

  “Wait here I will be right back.” He didn’t give me a chance to respond and before I realized it he was out of my view heading toward first class. I could have easily left the plane but I didn’t. I stood where he left me, letting the other passengers by to their seats.

  Fear and definite panic were now settling in. Something was wrong, and maybe my gut instinct had been right, I was being followed. Was this guy kidnapping me? And if he was why? I mulled the question over and over in my head. I looked out the window and watched as the sun was slowly disappearing under the horizon. The lights of the airport were now on as it prepared for nightfall. Armed men and women were everywhere on the tarmac, just like they were in the terminal.

  Before I could think any more about it, he stood before me in the aisle. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Fear reverberated through my body, “I am not getting off of this plane. I am going home.”

  “We are going to first class. “ He grabbed his bag and mine and started to walk toward the front of the plane again. I watched him walk away from me. Before he reached the doorway to first class he turned and stared intently at me, “Are you coming?”

  The other passengers just looked at us, watching our interaction. I could hear the people behind me whispering, questioning what was going on. I slowly moved behind him in the aisle. Before I realized it, he had grabbed my hand and was guiding to first class.

  “I don’t have a ticket for first class.” I whispered hoping only he would be able to hear me.

  “I know. I took care of that. Just follow and sit next to me.” He continued to lead me to the stairs that led to the first class part of the plane. An attendant smiled at us as we climbed the stairs. I could do nothing more than follow him. It wasn’t as if I had much of a choice.

  I had been in first class on domestic flights, but never on an international flight. The seats were huge compared to what I was used to. “How did you get me into first class?”

  “Pulled some strings, now buckle up. They are waiting for us to settle so they can pull away from the gate and the sooner that happens, the better.” Again, I did as I was told and took the seat closest to the window. “Under no circumstances are you to get up once we hit Heathrow unless I am with you.” His voice was full of authority.

  “Are you kidnapping me?” I halfheartedly chuckled as the words slipped off my tongue. If I was going to be kidnapped, at least he was handsome. But once again reality snapped me out of my little fantasy and panic crept in.

  “Kidnapping you?” He whispered, a huge grin growing from ear to ear. “You seriously think I am kidnapping you?”

  I looked at him seriously, “Aren’t you?”

  “No,” he laughed. “I am trying to protect you.”

  The plane jolted back from the gate throwing me forward in my seat. His arm reached out and caught me as I jerked forward. “Thank you.” I settled into my seat and turned to look at him. “Why? And what did you tell the airline to get me in first class?”

  Aston Martin man reached forward to push his backpack under the seat. “I showed them my badge and said that I was a US government agent taking a prisoner back to the States. I did not want you sitting with the rest of the passengers, so they sat us here. They’ll send a bill to someone later.”

  My eyes grew wide in bewilderment and I once again lurched forward in my seat. “You told them what?” I couldn’t help the fact that my voice was just short of a yell and full of anger.

  “Shhh,” he said putting his finger to my lips. I pushed his hand away and slapped him on the arm and on the chest and anywhere else I could land a blow. He wrapped his hands around my wrists. He had a smirk on his face as well, and if my hands had been free, I would have slapped it as well.

  I sighed in frustration and sat back in the seat. It was comfortable enough that I knew under normal circumstances I could have easily slept through the entire flight. But these weren’t normal circumstances. I laid my head back and closed my eyes, thoughts racing through my mind. He let go of my wrists and he, too, leaned back in his seat. “I had to tell them something and well frankly it was the best story I could think of in a hurry.”

  Again the urge to slap him came rushing through my body. I took another deep breath and clenched my eyes shut. What the hell was going on? Finally as I could feel the jet taxi down the runway for takeoff, I mustered up the courage to ask the question, “Am I?”

  “Yes and no,” he answered me while looking straight ahead. My eyes shot open and a sob welled up in my chest. How I managed not to let out an exasperated cry of protest I will never know. Tears formed at the corner of my eyes. Nothing was going to stop them from falling. My mind raced in confusion.

  “Alison, relax.” He reached over and touched my arm.

  “Relax?” I managed to get out through clenched teeth. “You’ve just told me I could possibly be under arrest and you want me to relax?”

  “No one but the nation state of Israel wants to arrest you right now. That is why you needed to be on this flight. They guy you were talking too? Joed, he’s an Israeli intelligence officer sent to keep an eye on you. They sent him to the airport to delay you until his superiors could come. And they only reason they didn’t arrest you right there is they didn’t want a huge scene. You would have been interrogated and it would not have been pleasant Alison. I had to do something.”

  Again confusion wracked every synapse in my brain. “Why do they think I’m a criminal? I was invited here because of where I work?” My head began to spin and my body began to ache. The heavy feeling, like someone was sitting on my chest was getting worse. As the plane ascended into the sky, my head began to pound. “Who are you?” I managed to spit out in a barely audible whisper.

  He evaded my question and it annoyed me. “We are getting everything straightened out. The processor you handed off, before the phone call. You gave it to the wrong guy.”

  I looked at him in disbelief as my head continued to pound. “I gave it to Professor Hassan

  “No. I know Professor Hassan and that was not him.”

  “Wait.” I suddenly sat up in my seat. “How do you know Professor Hassan and how do you know I gave it to the wrong guy? And did Tom know about this?” I could hear my heart racing in my chest. The beating was causing the thumping in my head to get worse. They were simultaneous bursts of pain.

  “I don’t know what Tom knew.” He was almost sarcastic in his tone which angered me all the more. I suddenly felt stupid.

  My head was now spinning and thumping and I had the urge to vomit all over the man who sat next to me. I opened my mouth and prayed desperately that words came out of it and not the contents of my stomach. “How? Who? Involved?” I couldn’t finish the question I so desperately wanted to ask him.

  “You look like you could use a drink?” He reached his hand up to the call button but my hand flew up and grabbed his arm.

  “No,” I whispered. “I need answers.”

  “I don’t have all of them Alison. Not yet anyway.” I met his golden eyes and knew I wasn’t going to get any of the answers I so desperately wanted. Something had gone terribly wrong in Tel Aviv and I still wasn’t sure how and why.

  I replayed the many conversations with Tom before I had left for Tel Aviv. It was simple. He couldn’t go so I had to go to the conference in his place. He asked me to deliver a processor to an old friend of his he knew from Intel and that was that. It was perfectly legal technology they were swapping. Then why did everything seem so much like a sick comedy of errors. One thing goes wrong and everything seems to snowball.

  I hadn’t exactly taken the processor Tom wanted me to. He, as always, didn’t package it correctly and I was afraid I wasn’t going to get through customs wi
th his so I had grabbed another one. The one Tom had given me was still in a box in my purse at the bottom of my closet buried underneath all the clothes I had decided not to take.

  Suddenly I felt so stupid. What had I done? What had I given to this guy who wasn’t Professor Hassan. I could feel the blood drain from my face. I refused to let the tears fall and I choked back the sobs that were in my chest.

  Aston Martin man reached for the call button again and rang the attendant. As if we were the only passengers on the plane, she was there. “Could we please have something stiff to drink.”

  The red headed lady looked at me with concern and nodded politely to my-self proclaimed protector. Soon, she came carrying two small bottles of Stoli vodka and two small bottles of some sort of whiskey. She also brought two glasses full of what looked like soda water. The pounding in my head was getting worse and alcohol wasn’t going to make it go away.

  “Tom was handing over military grade processors to the Israeli’s wasn’t he?” I turned to look directly at him. But he said nothing to neither confirm nor deny my suspicions. I tried to read his face to see if I was even close, but it was unreadable. He wouldn’t look me in the eyes, instead staring at the two empty seats on the other side of the aisle. “Something went wrong didn’t it?” I asked knowing full well the answer to my question.

  I took a deep breath and grabbed one of the vodka bottles that the flight attendant had given him. I opened it and downed it in one gulp. The burning temporarily stopped the pounding in my head as it felt like my throat was now on fire. “I didn’t give the guy the processor Tom gave me. I gave him another one I pulled off the line.” I finally admitted through intermitted coughs.

  The man who sat next to me was suddenly closer than I had realized.

  “What?”

  “Tom never packages them right and I didn’t think it would make it through customs, so I pulled one off the line and packaged it the way we are supposed to.” As if a wave had crashed on top of me, it all came flooding through. “Tom’s processor was rad hard wasn’t it? This wasn’t an academic swap?”

  The throbbing intensified as I laid back in my seat and closed my eyes. The realization was there and my protector sat quiet. I wasn’t sure how long we had actually sat in silence before he spoke.

  “Now you see the problem.”

  I turned to face him. His eyes were golden and his glare intent on my face. I nodded I did see the problem. Someone was expecting a very special processor and I, being the brilliant one, gave them a useless piece of electronics. “So now I have a foreign government mad at me because I didn’t give them what they wanted, I gave it to God knows who? My boss is dead and well I’m not far behind him am I?”

  He nodded.

  I realized he wasn’t one for sugar coating. “And you?” How did he fit into the whole picture? I had to know.

  “Tom has been doing this for years with the Israeli’s. We don’t know why, but he sent you in his place this time. We let it slide thinking you would just hand the processor over. You did, we just didn’t anticipate you switching them out. Nor did we anticipate you giving it to someone other than Hassan.” He leaned back in his seat. He suddenly looked relaxed and this irritated the hell out of me. I wondered how he could be so relaxed when I had screwed up so bad and now my life was in danger. Then the realization struck – I was the one in danger, not him.

  “How much trouble am I in? You have to take me into custody don’t you?” The horror of that question had to be written all over my face.

  He shook his head no. “You didn’t know did you?”

  “No.”

  “My job right now is to get you back to the States and then possibly recover the processor. We go from there.”

  “What about the guy I gave the processor to? They have to know by now it isn’t what they were expecting.”

  He looked at me with all the sincerity I am sure he could muster. “I don’t know Alison, I don’t know. I won’t until we get back to the states.”

  I reached for the second bottle of vodka, but his hand stopped me before I could quickly open it. His hands were warm and surprisingly comforting. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but not that.

  “Easy!” He took the bottle and opened it. He poured the contents into one of the two glasses of soda water he had on the tray in front of him. He handed it to me. “I can’t have you sick, so drink the soda water and you ARE going to eat something when they come around with food.”

  I nodded and took a sip of the vodka. Once again the spinning started, but I didn’t care as the throbbing had dulled a little. The flight attendants moved around the cabin tending to the other passengers, ignoring us for the most part.

  My protector sat next to me sipping the plain soda water. I knew nothing of the man, except that earlier in the day, I had thought he was 007. How far off was I? “Do you at least have a name?”

  He sat next to me contemplating his response. I wondered if he would even use his real name. “Jack,” he finally answered.

  I lifted my glass and smiled, which took everything I had. “Well, Jack, Nice to meet you.” And then I downed what was left of my vodka and soda.

  5 Jet Lag

  Her breathing was steady and she was calm. At this point in time that is all that mattered. The alcohol had its intended effect and Alison slept all the way to London. She needed the sleep after downing the vodka and I felt kind of guilty giving it to her, but I figured it was the best way to keep her calm and to get as much information out of her as possible.

  I had hoped the people I worked for could smooth things over with the people in Israel. The Moussad were not a group to be messed with and the operative they were using in conjunction with us was now dead. As was Tom, and I had to believe that his death was not entirely due to natural causes. I sighed and looked out the window at the lights below. I wasn’t thrilled about landing even if it was for a short time. Any little delay in getting her to the States could be detrimental to her.

  I glanced over and watched as she tossed in her sleep. I was sure this was a woman who rarely slept peacefully. Her movements were jerky and she mumbled incoherently. Her brown hair had fallen into her face, and I reached up to push it out of her face. She twitched slightly and then turned away from me. She was adorable. Right at that moment I couldn’t think of any other word for her but adorable. But it didn’t quite fit.

  I knew more about her than she could ever know about me. She held a BS in biology and minor in political science from the University of New Mexico. She had finished her Master’s degree last year at Georgetown and had shot up the ladder at the labs in Albuquerque, working on microprocessors for satellites. She helped design the chips but she also had written several papers on how the technology produced at the labs would affect world politics as we knew it. While we were in Tel Aviv, I had Seth dig up a few of them for me. I had this urge to find out as much as I could about her. What I discovered was the fact she was an extremely intelligent woman; and now as I sat next to her, I was able gauge just how beautiful she was as well.

  Her knowledge of Middle Eastern politics was impressive. To me, she belonged not at the labs but at a desk in Northern Virginia as an analyst with my former employer. I saw immediately why Tom had chosen her for the job she now held. It had nothing to do with her biology degree, but instead with her understanding of international politics and an understanding of what he truly did for his government, even if she didn’t know it.

  She played softball in both high school and college, and had even been offered a scholarship with Arizona State. She had opted to stay in New Mexico and play for UNM. Her file for the most part was simple. She was not a complex woman. She was devoted to her work, and had little time for much else, not even a boyfriend it seemed.

  She had the most incredible emerald eyes I had ever seen. Her brown hair hung in soft waves around her face and for the most part, she moved with the grace of an athlete, but she couldn’t sit still if her life depended on it.
I didn’t know if it was because of nerves or just her natural state of being. I wondered how she had survived on the softball field as she seemed more suited for soccer. But who was I to argue her choices in sports, she was good enough to obtain a scholarship to play college ball.

  I continued to watch her as we circled Heathrow airport. I was grateful we didn’t have to change planes. I really didn’t want to wake her nor did I want to deal with her questions and I needed to use my phone. I wasn’t sure if they were going to make me take her to a safe house somewhere or continue on to Albuquerque. Her boss was dead, killed by someone or some group we hadn’t figured out yet. We also weren’t quite sure how he was connected to the gentlemen she had given the processor to in Tel Aviv.

  As the plane came to a halt at the Heathrow terminal, I waited patiently for the passengers to deplane. I knew it would be about 40 minutes before the next group would begin to board and that would give me enough time to check in. I wanted to have a clear picture of what I needed to do once we touched down in DC.

  Conway was not happy with my phone call but frankly I really didn’t give a damn. “Moussad let on who she gave the processor to?”

  “No, they aren’t the most forthcoming with information. And they are pointing fingers at us and Tom.”

  “Do you think it was someone on the inside,” I had my suspicions but I wasn’t ready to discuss that over a cell phone connection even if it was a secure connection.

  “We are trying to track down everyone he had contact with and frankly, everyone he had contact with has a Q or above clearance. That doesn’t help the situation much. We have had someone tailing him for about a year now in Albuquerque and you when he went overseas. We are combing through your reports now to see if we can catch anything. Right now everyone is under suspicion.”