Chapter 52

"It's up to you," I told Lee. "What do we do? Should I ask Spook to start fixing us up some new identities somewhere else?"

It was something we needed to decide, and soon. Richard's people had just announced to the media that Estrada had been killed. They'd given the location as someplace in Mexico, where any confidants or accomplices or whatever he might have had could well have known he'd traveled. But had they known more, especially his intended final destination? Had they, particularly, known that I was his target?

More than a week had passed since the events in the old barn and Richard's subsequent visit. The trauma had receded a little in my mind with the passage of time, and in Lee's as well. But the terror of that awful day and night remained fresh enough to me, and to her; it was a feeling we'd never forget.

That evening, after Johnnie was in bed—he'd recovered faster than either of us, children have enormous recuperative powers and he'd thankfully been sedated for much of the time—I'd sat Lee down in the living room to talk about the situation. It was right after we'd heard the evening news with the phony story of Estrada's "ambush."

This time Spook's assessment of probabilities was even more favorable than he'd told me when Richard was there. After the announcement, he said, there'd been a flurry of telephone and e-mail communication among some of Estrada's associates. They'd known, as Richard seemed to have predicted, that he'd gone to Mexico. But it appeared that was all anyone knew about him.

In particular, none of them seemed to have a clue that his goal was even in the U.S., much less Charleston. And Spook said my own name never once came up in their communications.

Still, the possibility of some kind of repeat continued to nag at me. Risking myself to that possibility was one thing, and that much I could live with. But extending the risk to Lee, to little Johnnie, was, as I'd told Richard, something else entirely; it was a decision I couldn't make alone.

In the end I figured the only thing to do was lay it out plainly to Lee and let her decide, and that's what I did. I told her it was her call.

She shook her head. "No, Jackie," she said. "When did you stop being part of this family? When did you quit being my husband, and Johnnie's father? You can't throw it off to me, we need to make that decision."

"Honey, I can't do that," I responded miserably. "I've been making the decisions, more or less, and look what I did to us this last time. What I did to you and John. What I got you into. I damn close to got you both killed! How can I trust myself? How can you trust me?"

"So you dump it on me?" she demanded. "Now it's all on my shoulders? Jack, I'm Johnnie's mom, not yours. I don't need two little boys, one's enough. For right now, at least, and anyhow I don't ever want you to be one of them. So we'll talk about it, you and I, and then we'll make the decision together, the way we always have."

"But—"

"Shut up," she said. We were sitting on the sofa, she leaned over and kissed me firmly. "Now. To start, it was both of us who made the choices with Estrada. You said let him take you, and I wouldn't even listen, so if what happened was anybody's fault it was mine. And you bailed me out, and you did it by killing three men which I know has been eating you away, so now let's start talking sensibly."

I shook my head in awe at this wonderful woman I'd married.

"Go back to basics, for openers," she continued. "You say Spook tells you nobody seems to know—that you're actually Jack Heyward, that is. Richard told you, based on his knowledge of Estrada, that it seemed likely to him, too. Right?"

"Well ... right, I guess," I said.

"You guess? Or it's what they said?"

"It's what they said," I admitted.

"OK, then. Now, they could be wrong. Spook was, about Estrada last time, wasn't he?"

"Yeah," I told her. "And that's exactly what's 'eating me away, ' as you put it. Suppose he is? Suppose somebody else out there knows about Carstairs being Heyward, and knows what Heyward can do—is supposed to be able to do, hacking the whole world? And suppose that one just picks up where Estrada left off?"

"Makes you a target?"

"That's it."

"Then you're in the bull's-eye, not Johnnie and me, right?" she asked bluntly.

"Well ... yes, but look how it worked out last time," I protested.

"Only because he couldn't get to you directly," she pointed out. "Because somebody tipped him off that you were setting a trap for him, right?"

I nodded slowly.

"Does Richard know who did the tip-off?" she persisted.

"No." I shook my head. "He has an idea, and he's checking, but he still isn't sure. They spread it around to a few people, a few agencies including local, and he isn't a hundred percent certain it didn't get passed around some more."

"Huh," she said pensively. "He won't do the same again? He knows better now?"

"Yeah, he does, and no, he won't," I said. Over the phone he'd told me as much. "He's going to keep future tips real quiet until the actual time arrives."

She nodded vigorously. "Good. And Spook's going to keep monitoring about anybody else coming for you?"

"Sure."

"Good," she said again. "OK, Jackie, what's the risk? There's a little, a very little, to you, I agree. But that much isn't for me to say. Where is it for me and Johnnie, though? Are you going to tell me somebody you don't even know exists will go 'round Robin Hood's barn to get at us to make you go along with them, instead of just going after you directly? Why would they do it like that?"

I felt confused. I'd meant this discussion to go one way and she'd turned it completely around on me.