The Bait
So he was back in Australia.
Strong instincts told him that Danny's father knew nothing about their arrival here -- a deep-seated sense of safety, a kernel of peace, settled inside his soul and wouldn't be shaken by his old friends; fear and distrust. Whoever these people were, whatever they wanted from him, they were not in Falcone's pay.
Five years ago he hadn't been outside Kingsford-Smith International Airport. He had only seen parts of Sydney from the air. A change of clothes and hair color, a wig for Danny and using fake passports ready for them, they had flown straight to Wellington in New Zealand. Escape, completely according to plan.
And he and Danny vanished from the world. Anonymity for five lovely years, with no sign of Falcone -- until McCall found them.
"Sandwich, Jacob?"
Jake started and turned to the blond American, who had only introduced himself as Mike. Yeah, right, and his last name was Brady. He was so innocent and wholesome.
Jake refused to identify with McCall's people. Arguing over ethics was a waste of time, sitting with a bunch of flak-jacketed heavily armed people after evidence.
He shuddered. They had changed tactics, that was all. They hadn't found what they were after by intimidating and arresting him, so they were trying some overdue kindness. The protective stance that had gotten McCall almost everywhere with him...
Not again. Control!
"Thank you." He took two plain meat sandwiches, unwrapped one and gave it to Danny, then ate his in silence, looking out over the fading horizon of the sunset.
"Where are we Daddy?" Danny mumbled, half-asleep.
He patted his son's tousled dark mop of hair. "Don't talk with your mouth full. We are in Australia. You'll have to ask that man there if you want to know where." He gave McCall's boss an ironic glance, which he returned with a bland, unconcerned smile. He obviously didn't give a hand what he thought or felt.
Unlike McCall, who should be here any minute. McCall had radioed his ETA to his boss a short while ago.
Wherever they were, it wasn't heavily populated. A vast flat land of red earth, pea-green scrub and stunted, twisted trees standing beside their taller, proud, ghostly cousins -- the famed Australian eucalyptus trees, perhaps -- and this deserted airstrip with the scrub-and-rock carpet beside the red earth landing strip. Ready for as soon as they drove off, or flew away to cover all traces of their presence.
Fight it as he would, Jake felt a horrifying sense of kinship to these people -- a creeping sense of belonging. No names, no permanent identity, change at a moment's notice. Leave no traces behind. Even his house in Renegade River would be empty now -- the faceless removalists who'd never seen him or spoken to him would have his stuff in storage.
And, even though he knew he had no choice, no say in this crazy life he led Danny and himself free from Falcone's putrid corruption, his stomach churned and his heart slammed against his ribs. He'd judged these people for living the same life as he did. He had no idea what they'd given up to live like this, or why they had done it. He had just hated them, despised them without the benefit of fair hearing.
And he had judged McCall most of all.
A small, blinking light appeared above the fading horizon, like the first star of evening, like the reassuring wink of an old, loved friend. He was coming.
"You have to make a choice, Mr. Silver."
The quiet voice made him start. The rugged, handsome American was beside him. He looked as if he saw everything going on through his head and understood his dilemma. Jake gave him the same dignity, refusing to prevaricate. "Give me the options."
The young man smiled a little, refusing to charm him. "Only in whose car you ride, Mr. Silver. The rest are non-negotiable you're going to one of our training facilities, west of the outback town of Bourke. No one can even scout the place from thirty thousand feet without out complete knowledge. You'll be safe there."
"I never understood the premise in books and movies that an isolated place, like a shack in the mountains can be safe."
His bland remark made the man's smile grow; yet still he gave him nothing, and he sensed that was the Nighthawks regular way of life. He seemed invincible yet somehow elusive, insubstantial as a tired phantom walking beside him in the night. "This house had trip wire every five yards for the first mile in, a tracking system so intense that we can trace a mouse after crops in the next property. Everything's hooked up to our satellite system. Nothing for ten miles moves or breathes without our knowledge and the system is unbreakable. There is a runway and four planes in the back hangar ready to go should we need them."
He nodded and his heart thudding again, watched in silence as the small plane landed before them
"Your choice." The man said quietly.
"Does... have he..." Jake clamped his mouth shut, aghast the he had even started to ask. What power was there inside this strange -- McCall -- that inspired confidence against his will?
McCall's boss gave him a single glance, and answered his unasked question in blunt honesty, words with rough edges, telling the unvarnished truth. "He's never compromised a case for love -- not until now. So make your choice, Mr. Silver. But remember, even men who walk in shadows, who don't have names are human. They feel pain and bleed like any other human being. They have heats just like yours."
Jake bit his lip; but by the time he'd turned to face him there was only gentle half darkness, as if he'd melted into the dusk. Another one of the disappearing people.
Just like him.
Then McCall's plane was landing and every other man vanished from his thoughts. With his heart knocking a soft tattoo against his ribs, he watched as McCall brought the Cessna in with a grace. McCall vaulted out from the plane within moments, landing catlike straight from the cockpit.
McCall didn't even look at him. He crossed to where his coworkers were rolling out the carpet of earth and scrub and helped them cover the runway. McCall didn't so much as turn in his direction. He smiled down at Danny as his little boy jumped around McCall like a puppy, but he didn't speak to him.
I don't want you anywhere around near my son.
McCall was obeying him, yet he felt snubbed. McCall had turned his back on him just as he had done, and it hurt. A lot more than he had allowed anything to get to him since...
Since Brendan had been taken from him ten years ago.
Denial was his only life preserver in a storm-tossed ocean. Loving McCall might not be option he had, but whether it brought him to his knees or not, he would maintain control. For Danny's sake. McCall would take Danny's trusting heart and crush it beneath that cloaked heel as he strode away from them, back to his world of shadows and phantoms.
Until Falcone was gone from his life for good; until McCall spoke, until McCall stepped out of his protective darkness and gave him what he needed to know, he dared not risk his son's heart -- or his own -- on a man who had only promised to save them from Falcone, not to stay forever. Danny had been hurt enough, lost enough, without losing the dream of a family as well.
"Nothing sir," Blake - the guy that had been made to look like Jake -- reported quietly to Anson. The entire team had been at this remote outback site for more than twenty-four hours and Jake had given them absolutely nothing to work with. No evidence, no admission to his name -- even when Anson played the tape of his voice talking about Falcone -- and nothing to show his ID as anything but Jacob Silver. "I've been through his things four times and searched his twice." Blake went on. "Not a sign of any identification that he is anyone but Jacob Silver and no sign of the tape."
"The house?" Anson snapped at Panther.
The lean, sleek man, dark and elegant and dangerous shrugged one shoulder. "Empty. I even took his garden apart, broke the few pots left. He had the place cleared out by experts."
"And what the hell are we?" Anson growled, pacing past each of them while they stood in silence like recalcitrant chiloutwit trained professional?" His gaze flicked to the monitor making sure Jake and Danny were still there.
Blake spoke again. "Maybe because he's a trained professional? This man either appeared from thin air, lived as an illegal immigrant all his life or is a current or former pro to the game, with a life and identity we can't crack. Have you sent his prints to all the relevant organizations to be sure?"
"Of course I have." Anson retorted. "He's absolutely clean."
"But it seems to me that this man has played with the big boys and just disappeared. He has evaded Falcone's men - and us -- for years, sir. He's been in the game, in my humble opinion. We just need to know whose chessboard he was -- or is -- playing on." Heidi the only woman on the team said.
"With the utmost respect, sir, I agree." Nightshift, Team Commander Three, intervened. "No single man with a child could have made it this far, evading even detection, let alone capture, by so many professionals without being a pro -- or having expert help. He hasn't had that as far as we can see."
Anson gave a short, return to Nightshifts opinion, but then any other answer was unthinkable for the unbeatable, indestructible Ghost.
As team commander, McCall needed to be privy to the lives and backgrounds of every operative in his region, but he knew only the basics about Anson. Like McCall, Anson had dragged himself up from a neglected childhood on the street, but he'd come from the swampy dirt and muck of New Orleans rather than gang-ridden street of L.A., to make it this far through guts, ability and decades of hard work. No man like Nick Anson would handle the news that a young man alone -- and burdened with a small child at that -- had outwitted his best handpicked team, yet again.
McCall watched Anson's internal battle against disbelief versus unassailable facts in silence, feeling raw and idiotic, and relieved that it wasn't only him that had been so stupid or blind. Did all his operatives believe Jake was a current pro? He looked around at his fellow operatives and saw them all nodding, with complete lack of surprise that meant they had already had the idea in their minds.
And if this had been any other case, with any other man, he would have been the first to toss the idea in the air. It explained the ease with which Jake flew planes and raced speedboats, got an identity and accent so damn flawless that it took the Nighthawk years to crack. They had known of the existence of Jacob Silver for three years, yet Jake hadn't even become a strong probable for Jacob de Souza until a casual cross-referencing with the actual written records in Dunedin proved that no Jacob Silver had been born there within twenty years of Jake's age. It also explained Jake's stoic silence in the face of arrest and search, the perfection of his escape system and his code with Donna Richards.
McCall flicked a glance at the monitor. Yeah, Jake was playing perfect daddy, reading a children's book to Danny. Yet despite the storybook loveliness of the picture that made, too many pegs were fitting right into the holes. If Jake was in the game, it was no wonder he had twisted him in knots. Jake would know how to get an operative on edge, even knowing the way that would make him back off, if Jake had a dossier on him.
Turnabout was fait play. Time to go for the double bluff.
With all the coolness he was far from felling, McCall doused the heat of the argument. "With all due respect sir, we can thrash this out all night, or we can test the theory."
All heads snapped his way, their eyes filled with startled respect, and McCall realized how close he had come to losing point on this operation because of his personal involvement. Anson's eyebrow lifted in the way it did when he didn't want to concede the right to someone else. "Well? Are you going to throw the bomb and leave it there or defuse it for our delectation?"
McCall grinned, feeling sudden adrenaline kick in. Anson was willing to give him point still. "It's obvious that Ghost has told most of about my involvement with Jacob, before his involvement with Falcone. And this man and I have the same kind of attraction, have done from the minute I walked into his studio."
"And?" Anson snapped a pencil between his fingers.
His heart started knocking out of knowing he was right. Yeah, this was going to work. It had to. "This man wants us to believe that he is a single father on the run from an obsessed lover, mistaken for Jacob de Souza. So let's call him on it. He told me he never married Danny's father, which means if he told me the truth; that he's free, so let's give him the one thing he won't be able to resist."
"You're not Shakespeare, Flipper. We don't appreciate the dramatic pauses here," Nightshift interrupted irritably. "If you have a point, I'd appreciate it if you would let us in on it. It's been a long two days with little reward thus far."
"It's obvious, Nightshift." Anson was grinning now, all but laughing with the boyish look he always got when he had the chance to outwit someone who had got ahead of him. "Give this man the full Monty. We offer him a new name, a new country and identity, and a husband. All fully documented and tied in a red ribbon, complete with a wedding ring."
"Make me Danny's legal father, too. Give him the anonymity he craves and see what he does. An active pro with anonymity as his top priority would take the offer and try to take me out within hours, by temporary disablement or death. An innocent man genuinely attracted to me, seeing me as a man tortured with love for him and willing to let him escape and disappear again will be grateful for the help, touched by my pain... and maybe he'll trust me with the truth."
"And you get lucky in the interim." Blake commented languidly from behind him. "Damn lucky with that body and face. He is one superb man."
"Now that's what I call a perk of the job." Nightshift added, his irritability vanishing with the quiet joke. "But of course, I don't play in your team."
"That will do." Anson interrupted, his tone clipped. "We have work to do, so let's get on with it. What do you need, Flipper?"
McCall turned to Braveheart, one of his two most trusted team members. "Get the details into Births, deaths and Marriages stat. I'm a dual American-Australian citizen -- make Jake one too, dated the marriage back by at least two years. Give Jake an American background, living in Australia. Get him onto the U.S. records now -- have him born there, preferably Texas or New Mexico but came out here at least twenty years back, to account for his accent. It's mostly only Aussies and New Zealanders that can tell their accents apart, so Falcone's men will swallow that Danny and Jake are Australians."
Braveheart, US born and Australian raised, a man of action who loved tinkering any kind of gadgetry, computer or otherwise grinned and nodded. "You got it. Sir. This is gonna be fun." He left the room within seconds.
McCall turned to Wildman next, a Texas boy and a fully trained Para Rescue Jumper, the other man on his most trusted list. "Form a team, Wildman. Whoever you want, it's your call, but at least twelve CSAR experts. Your job is to follow us discreetly when we run. You'll need to be ready for anything -- rescue, arrest, whatever happens. Have all equipments ready to go at any time. Full military-rescue ability at all times."
"Hoo-yah, sir." Wildman saluted him and marched out.
Anson lifted that eyebrow again. "What's my job?"
"I need a doctor and nurse here, stat, preferably Irish and Songbird if you can recall them. I need a team ready to attack us -- people the subject has never seen and will see again."
Anson nodded. "Done." He picked up the phone.
"And me sir?" Panther said in dark, sinister growl of his that led to his code name. "What do I do?"
McCall chuckled. "With your expert marksmanship? You work with Nightshift on his op. you get to face us if you have no other recourse. You're the official fall guy."
Nightshift lifted an eyebrow and spoke in his elegant, drawling British accent. At this point in the proceedings, I almost dread asking, but what exactly is my task?"
McCall held in the exuberant laugh. Man, this was taking point in a way he'd never dreamed when joined the Nighthawks under Anson's irascible and unquestioned leadership. He hadn't had the chance to get so inventive since he left the SEALs. "I saved the best for the last... and it's a job right up your alley." McCall told his fellow team commander, a man he liked and respected a former operative in MI5 -- a real life James Bond. "I need you, Heidi and Blake to set up a murder for me."
He was going to bait Jake and see what he caught.
Yeah, he was so going to play this game.