Father Night by Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online

stage an ambush or an interception.
    He had been following the progress of one of the ZiLs, which, to his mind, had been acting suspiciously. It was now directly behind, and pulling closer. When he turned briefly from his observation post to update Annika, he saw her mouth, We’re going in the wrong direction. He was about to say something, but her eyes cut to the attendant and she placed her forefinger across her lips.
    Boris must have become aware of the wrong route. He drew his handgun.
    But the attendant already had his own gun out—a Desert Eagle .357 Magnum. He shook his head, said, “Easy, now,” as Boris’s gun hand twitched. His teeth showed, sharp as needles. “You’re ours now.”

 
    T HREE
     
    “I F THEY can’t find the dirtbag,” Vera said when Alli had told her about the scene in the commander’s office, “then they’re incompetents.”
    “So what do we do?” Alli said.
    They were sitting on their beds, facing each other. It was just after midnight, the time they usually spent talking privately.
    “Just forget it.”
    “What?” Alli felt her cheeks flush. How could she forget about December twentieth?
    “The site’s down, you’ve already spoken to half the people here and they’re all on your side. You came back from Albania a hero. Everyone’s calmed down now that the commander’s addressed them. There’s nothing else to do.”
    “The hell there isn’t,” Alli said hotly.
    “Alli, it’s being dealt with by the authorities. Let them handle it.”
    Alli jumped up. “You yourself said they’re not going to find him.”
    “I did, but—”
    “Then I have to find him!”
    She stood up to take Alli’s arm, but Alli shook her off. “What’s gotten into you?”
    “I am going to find him.” Her eyes were fierce.
    “I know that look. Alli, no. This is crazy.”
    “Don’t tell me what’s crazy!” Alli shouted.
    Vera, taking the measure of her roommate’s rapidly escalating agitation, kept her voice calm and even. “Okay, what the hell is going on?”
    Alli seemed to collapse, plopping down on the edge of Vera’s bed. Vera sat next to her. She had to fight not to call Jack, but he and Annika were in Moscow. Besides, she told herself sternly, she had to handle this on her own. If she went to Jack every time something bad happened she would never become her own person, she would never grow up. She didn’t want that.
    “Alli,” Vera said softly, “talk to me.”
    When Alli turned her head away, Vera leaned toward her. “Remember when you came back from Albania, when we admitted to each other that we couldn’t feel strong emotion toward anyone else?” She bumped her shoulder playfully into Alli’s. “Remember what you said?”
    Alli took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah, I said there’s only one thing to do—talk about it.”
    “So.” Vera put her hand on Alli’s. “How about taking your own advice?”
    Their talk back then had been extremely difficult. Vera had confessed that Henry Holt Carson had placed her as Alli’s roommate to discover if Alli knew the whereabouts of Caroline, his daughter from his second, failed, marriage. Alli didn’t. Caro had vanished years ago, when she was thirteen. No one had seen or heard of her since. When Alli asked why her uncle hadn’t come to her himself, Vera shrugged and said, “He didn’t think you’d tell him the truth.”
    Vera, it was clear, despised everyone. There was ice in her veins; she had forgotten how to like, never mind love, someone. Alli had opened up about her abduction, the week-long terror at the hands of Morgan Herr, from which Jack had saved her. She had also spoken of Emma McClure, Jack’s daughter, who had died four years ago in a car wreck. Alli and Emma had been more than roommates at Langley Fields College, they had been lovers. Alli had never gotten over that love. It was Alli’s most closely guarded secret, because she felt partly responsible for Emma’s death. There were only a few