A Father's Sacrifice

Campbell nodded eagerly and headed toward the house.

“Natasha, you can grab another couple of hours, too.”

She didn’t move or comment.

He walked past her. “You want to walk with me?”

She glanced at Alfred, who’d just been handed a camera by one of the security guards, then at her fellow agents. She still held her Glock in both hands and stood perfectly balanced, ready for anything. She obviously took every aspect of her job very seriously.

Dylan realized that made her extremely attractive to him.

Dawn was breaking, and the world had turned that colorless gray that made it hard to distinguish light from shadow. Yet her hair still blazed pale gold.

“You didn’t know the second agent?”

She shook her head. “He just transferred in. Took the place of an agent who recently resigned to work in a detective agency with his wife.”

“But you know Agent Storm?”

She sent him a sidelong glance. “Storm? Best undercover man in the Bureau. You can depend on him.” She glanced over her shoulder. “What’s going to happen to that reporter?”

“Alfred will threaten him with prosecution and he’ll back off. Like I said, this happens occasionally.”

She put her weapon away and looked across the lawn toward the house. “A whole lot of money went into designing this place to be totally hidden. How often is occasionally?”

“Every few months or so. It’s impossible to remain totally hidden. This time of the year it’s worse. Next week is the third anniversary of my wife’s death.” The words still felt raw in his throat.

“And your son’s, as far as the media knows. Right?”

Dylan heard the edge in her voice. She sounded like Alfred. He frowned. “It was the only way I could keep him safe.” Not willing to listen to any recriminations, he headed back toward the house. Natasha fell into step beside him.

“Why not let NSA set you up in a secure facility?”

Dylan rounded on her. “What do you know about the NSA’s idea of a secure facility?”

“A little, but—”

“They were kind enough to give me a tour of one that’s based—well, nearby. Its first level is fifty feet underground.”

Natasha’s eyes widened.

“My lab would have been on the third level down. The day-care center and the living quarters were on the fourth level. NSA offered me two choices. Ben could stay there with me, or he could be placed with strangers under a fake name until I finished their damn project.” The idea still sent nausea clawing up from his gut.

“I can’t bear to let him out of my sight. He wouldn’t understand. He’d think I’d abandoned him.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “And I couldn’t bury him under fifty feet of rock and dirt, either.”

“No—of course not.” Her voice sounded strangled. “So you offered them a third choice.” She cut her eyes at him then back to the ground in front of them.

What was the matter with her? Dylan’s defenses rose immediately. Did she disapprove of his choice? Ben was his son—and he was protecting him in the best way he knew how. “That’s right. If they wanted their precious supersoldier, they’d give me what I wanted.”

“So they set up this fortress for you, and now you believe Ben is safe.” She pressed her lips together in a thin line and wrapped her arms around her middle.

Dylan stared at her. Whatever was hidden under her cool exterior, it was exposed now. She looked haunted. He could understand her being upset about Ben being confined to this place. He hated it, too. But her reaction was out of proportion.

“We wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it was safe. Protecting my child is my first priority.”

She didn’t look at him. Instead she turned her head and looked at the house. An almost unnoticeable shudder rippled through her.

“Ben is happy here,” he said defensively. “He has the run of the entire house. He has his own camouflaged, secure play area with a wading pool and sandboxes and specially built toys.”

He wasn’t sure why he felt he had to justify himself to her. He just knew that when she looked at him, her green eyes dug deep inside him to a place he hadn’t explored in a long time. A place that hurt.

She nodded jerkily.

“Look, Agent Rudolph. I love my son. I’m protecting him. Did you see how quickly and easily that intruder was caught? I’ve got the best security money can buy.”

She turned those green eyes on him. “Then why are you still worried about his safety?”

He felt as though she’d head-butted him.

Anger flared in his chest, and a worm of guilt gnawed at his gut. He jammed his hands into his back pockets to keep from clenching his fists. Careful to speak calmly, he gave her the truth.

“Because despite all this, I know there can never be a place safe enough. There is evil in the world, murderers and fanatics who will do anything, even harm an innocent child, to get what they want.”

She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Then explain something to me. If you’re so concerned about Ben’s safety, why don’t you just stop? Tell the NSA to shove their neural interface.”

Shock cut through him like lightning. “You think I’m doing this for them? For the government?” A harsh laugh scratched his throat. His chest tightened as he tried to wipe away the vision that never left his mind. The sight of that hulking twisted metal at the bottom of the ravine. The sick certainty that it was his fault.

As Natasha watched Dylan’s face in the soft light of dawn, the truth hit her like a bucket of icy water.

Ben’s awkward braces. His nerve damage. The fervor that burned in his father’s eyes.

She’d been so preoccupied with overcoming her own fears and her concern for the child that she’d missed the obvious.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “The interface. You’re doing it for Ben.”

Dylan’s face registered sadness and desperation. “He’s in a growth spurt right now.” His voice was tortured. “His body is sucking energy into growing bone. Even with intense physical therapy, the neurological damage is progressing faster than his body can fight it. He’s losing muscle, and with loss of muscle goes the loss of nerve tissue.” He scrubbed a hand across his face, and started walking again.

“We’re so close to success. Campbell is working on the final debugging. He’s already finished the prototype implant. It’s ninety-nine percent done. But in order for it to work it needs viable nerve and muscle to stimulate. I only have a few weeks before the damage to Ben’s body is too great.”

“A few weeks?”

He nodded. “I need to implant the interface and tie the microfibers into Ben’s nervous system before the nerves that control his legs all die.”

Natasha matched her pace to his. “So it’s Ben who’s running out of time,” she said, sadness gripping her heart in its heavy fist.

He nodded. “There aren’t enough hours in a day. I could complete it tomorrow, or it could take a year. I’ve got to believe it will happen tomorrow. If I could, I’d let NSA move the prototype, but it’s much too fragile.”

“Who’ll be operating on Ben?”