White lies

"Denver?" Steve guessed.

"No. The closest town is forty miles from the cabin by road, about fifteen air miles. It’s a quiet, peaceful place, with no one to put any pressure on you."

"It’s really nice of you folks to do all of this, just for the chance to talk to me when I get my memory back," he drawled, watching Frank with a hard gleam in his eyes.

Frank laughed, thinking that some things never changed. Even without his memory, he was so sharp he’d already put part of the puzzle together. "Why don’t you go to the apartment and start packing?" Frank suggested to Jay, then lifted his brows in question. "If you want to go, that is."

"She’s going," Steve said flatly, crossing his arms as he leaned against the bed. "Or I don’t go."

Because she desperately needed the chance to be alone and think, Jay said yes. She slipped from the room without looking at either man, afraid they would see the terror in her eyes.

Steve regarded Frank in silence for a moment before growling, "You told me there wasn’t any danger. Why the safe house?"

"So far as we know, you aren’t in any danger–"

"Look, you can cut the crap," he interrupted. "I was an agent. I know all of this–" he gestured at the hospital surrounding him "–wasn’t done out of the goodness of the government’s heart. I know those guards aren’t out there for decoration. I also know you wouldn’t go to the expense of hiding me away in a safe house unless there was some threat to me, and unless you very badly need some information I may have."

Frank looked interested. "How did you know the guards were there?"

"I heard them," Steve replied shortly.

Now what? Frank looked at the man who had been his friend for over a decade and wondered how much to tell him. Not all of it, for damned certain. Until the Man nailed Piggot, the masquerade had to continue because it was Steve’s best protection against any more attacks on his life. He knew too much for them to leave anything about his security to chance, and for the masquerade to be complete, it had to include Jay. The Man didn’t take chances with his agents, or his friends, and Steve was both.

"You’re right," Frank said. "You’re an agent. A very highly trained agent, and we think the information you got on your last assignment is critical."

"Why the safe house?" Steve asked again, not letting up.

"Because the guy who tried to blow you to kingdom come went underground and hasn’t surfaced yet. Until we get him, we want to make certain you’re safe." Like a burst of lightning, fury turned his eyes to yellow. "And you dragged Jay into this?"

Frank watched him warily, knowing how fast he could move. "Piggot doesn’t know anyone survived the explosion. We just don’t want to take any chances with you."

The yellow eyes flickered at the mention of Piggot’s name. "Piggot. What’s his first name?"

"Geoffrey."

Again there was that flicker in Steve’s eyes and Frank watched closely, wondering if the mention of Piggot’s name would trigger any real memory. But if it did, Steve kept it to himself. "I want to see the file you have on him," he said.

"I’ll see if I can get clearance."

"But don’t expect it, right? I’m a security risk now."

"That’s the way it’s played."

"Yeah. Now tell me why you had to bring Jay into the game. She doesn’t know I’m an agent, does she?"

"No. We brought her in to identify you. It’s as simple as that. And once she was here… you responded to her voice so strongly that the doctors decided it would help you to have her around. So she stayed." That was the truth, as far as it went. Frank just hoped Steve wouldn’t ask too many more questions. He’d told him about all he could without clearance from the Man.

Steve rubbed his jaw as he mentally cataloged what Frank had told him. If he’d felt his presence was endangering Jay, he would have walked away from her that minute, but he felt Frank’s sincerity. The other man thought they were safe enough. The deciding factor was the thought of living in an isolated house with Jay, just the two of them. He would have another chance. He would learn again what pleased her, and what made her angry. They would have another first time together. After he got all his strength and stamina back, they would lie in bed on cold, snowy mornings and make love until their bodies were damp with sweat even in the chilled air, and she would give him all the fiercely passionate love he could sense inside her. She presented a calm, controlled facade to the world, but perhaps because he hadn’t been able to see her and had been forced to rely on his other faculties, he’d sensed the depth of her emotions behind that cool control. Maybe he’d been fool enough to let her slip away from him before, but not again.

"Okay," he said, exhaling slowly. "So we go to this safe house. What kind of security and communications does it have?"

"Bulletproof windows, reinforced steel doors. The cabin is isolated, built on a high meadow. There aren’t any roads going up there, so a four-wheel-drive vehicle will be made available to you. The cabin has its own generator, so there aren’t any public utility records. You’re connected to a satellite-dish antenna for communication and entertainment, with both computer and radio-sending capabilities."

Steve’s expression was remote as he concentrated, considering the angles. "Are there any active security systems, or just the passive precautions?"

"Just the passive."

"Why not thermal or motion sensors?"

"To begin with, this cabin is so safe it isn’t even on file. And there’s a lot of wildlife in the area, which would constantly trigger the alarms. We could set up a perimeter of thermal sensors and program the system to sound the alarm only at a large heat source, but a deer would still set it off." "How inaccessible is this place?"