White lies

"There’s just one track leading to it, and I’m being kind by calling it a track. It winds from the cabin across the meadow and down a mountain before it hits a dirt road, then it’s twenty more miles before the dirt road runs into a paved secondary road."

"Then a laser across the track would alert us to most visitors, while almost eliminating alarms triggered by wildlife, by covering only a thin strip of the track."

Frank grinned. "You know, don’t you, that a bunny is going to hop through that light beam and set off the alarm? All right, I’ll have a laser alarm system set up. Do you want an audible or visual alarm?"

"Audible, but a quiet one. And I want a portable beeper to carry with me when we have to leave the house."

"For someone with amnesia, you sure remember a lot," Frank murmured as he took a small pad from his inside coat pocket and began making notes.

"I remember the names of the heads of state of just about every country in the world, too," Steve replied. "I’ve had a lot of time to play mind games with my- self, putting together pieces of the puzzle by cataloging a lot of the things related to my job."

"Your job meant a lot to you. It does that, sometimes, takes over so much that the personal side of life kind of fades away."

"Has it done that for you? "

"It did once, a long time ago. Not now."

"How did you get involved in this? You’re FBI, and this sure as hell isn’t a Bureau operation."

"You’re right about that. A lot of strings were pulled, but there are a few people with the power to manage it."

"Very few. So I’m CIA?"

Frank smiled. "No," he said calmly. "Not exactly."

"What the hell does that mean, ‘not exactly’? I’m either CIA or I’m not. There’s a shortage of alternatives."

"You’re affiliated. That’s all I can say, other than to assure you that you’re perfectly legal. When you recover your memory you’ll know why I can’t say more."

"All right." Steve shrugged his acceptance. It didn’t really matter. Until he regained his memory, the knowledge wouldn’t do him any good.

Frank indicated the bag he had brought in with him. "I brought street clothes for you to change into, but first let me get the surgeon in here to finish your exam. After that, I guess you’ll be released."

"I’ll need more clothes before we go to Colorado. By the way, where did I live?"

"You have an apartment in Maryland. I’ve arranged for your clothes to be packed and carried to the plane, but they won’t fit until you’ve gained back the weight you’ve lost. You’ll need new clothes until then."

Steve grinned, feeling suddenly light-spirited. "Jay and I will both need new clothes. The snow in Colorado is probably ass-deep to a giraffe."

Frank threw back his head and laughed.

Jay sat on the bed in the cramped apartment she’d been using for the past two months. Her heart was pounding and chills kept racing up and down her spine.

The implications, and complications, of the situation terrified her.

Now she knew what it was that had been bothering her off and on for two months; what she had never been able to put her finger on before. When she had been brought here and asked to identify the man in the bed, she hadn’t been able to positively say he was Steve Crossfield. Then Frank had said that the man had brown eyes, and she had based her identification on that, because Steve had had dark, velvety eyes, "Chrissy eyes." Probably to a man, or on a vital statistics sheet, brown eyes were simply brown eyes. They didn’t allow for chocolate brown, hazel brown or fierce yellow-brown. But Frank had known that the man had brown eyes!

She pressed her hands to her temples and closed her eyes. Frank must have known the color of his own agent’s eyes, and he had known that Steve’s eyes were brown, so it followed that Frank had also realized she couldn’t base her identification simply on eye color, yet he had led her to do exactly that. She realized now that he had gently maneuvered her into declaring the man to be Steve Crossfield. He must have known there was at least a fifty-percent chance that the man wasn’t Steve, so why had he done it?

The only answer she could come up with, and the one that terrified her, was that Frank had known all along that the man was the American agent and not Steve. He had taken Steve’s identity and given it to the man, and given the tale substance by having Steve Crossfield’s ex-wife confirm the identity, then maneuvered her into a bedside vigil that would have convinced anyone.

So Steve, the real Steve, was dead, and the agent had been given his identity for… protection?

It all fit. The plastic surgery on his face to alter his appearance; the bandaged hands to prevent fingerprints being taken. Had they done surgery to alter his fingerprints, too? Horrible thought: had they also deliberately damaged his larynx to change his voice? No, surely not. She couldn’t believe that. All the doctors had fought so hard for his life, and Frank had been so anxious. No wonder. The man was probably Frank’s friend!

But was the amnesia real? Or was the man faking it so he wouldn’t have to "remember" any of the details of their supposed life together? Amnesia would be a convenient excuse.

She had to believe the amnesia was real, or she would go mad. She had to believe that "Steve" was as much in the dark as she was, maybe even more so. And Frank had been sincerely distressed when Major Lunning had told them about the amnesia.

So that left her back at the beginning. If she told Frank she knew Steve wasn’t really Steve, the game would be up and they would have no more use for her. She was a screen, useful only to provide incontrovertible proof that the man who had survived the explosion was Steve Crossfield.