Usama nodded as if he understood, but his furrowed brow said that he still was far from comprehension. “And that was your plan? To kill them?”
“Yes,” said Awad. “And to make the Americans aware of us.” As well as aware of me. “Now we must get back to the compound and prepare for the next part of the plan. We have to hurry. They will be coming for us.”
“Who will?” Usama asked.
Awad smirked as he glanced through the windshield at the burning wreckage of the embassy. “Everyone.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Alright,” said Reid. “Ask me whatever you’d like, and I’ll be honest. Take as long as you need.”
He sat across from his daughters in a corner booth of a fondue restaurant in one of Engelberg-Titlis’ higher-end hotels. After Sara had told him in the lodge that she wanted to know the truth, Reid had suggested they go elsewhere, away from the common room of the ski lodge. Their own room felt like too quiet a place for such intense subject matter, so he took them to dinner in the hopes of providing something of a casual atmosphere while they talked. He had chosen this place specifically because each booth was separated by glass partitions, giving them some modicum of privacy.
Even so, he kept his voice low.
Sara stared at the table for a long while, thinking. “I don’t want to talk about what happened,” she said at last.
“We don’t have to,” Reid agreed. “We’ll only talk about what you want, and I promise the truth, just like with your sister.”
Sara glanced over at Maya. “You… know things?”
“Some,” she admitted. “Sorry, Squeak. I didn’t think you were ready to hear it.”
If Sara was angry or upset at all by this news, she didn’t show it. Instead she chewed her bottom lip for a moment, forming a question in her head, and then asked. “You’re not just a teacher, are you?”
“No.” Reid had assumed that clarifying what he was and what he did would be among her top concerns. “I’m not. I am—rather, I was—an agent with the CIA. Do you know what that means?”
“Like… a spy?”
He shrugged. “Sort of. There was some spying involved. But it’s more about stopping bad people from doing worse things.”
“What do you mean, ‘was’?” she asked.
“Well, I’m not doing that anymore. I did for a while, and then when…” He cleared his throat. “When Mom died, I stopped. For two years I wasn’t with them. Then, back in February, I was asked to come back.” That’s a mild way of putting it, he chided himself. “That thing on the news, with the Winter Olympics and the bombing at the economic forum? I was there. I helped stop it.”
“So you’re a good guy?”
Reid blinked in surprise at the question. “Of course I am. Did you think I wasn’t?”
This time Sara shrugged, not meeting his gaze. “Don’t know,” she said quietly. “Hearing all this, it’s like… like…”
“Like getting to know a stranger,” Maya murmured. “A stranger that looks like you.” Sara nodded her agreement.
Reid sighed. “I’m not a stranger,” he insisted. “I’m still your dad. I’m the same person I’ve always been. Everything you know about me, everything we’ve done together, that was all real. This… all of this stuff, it was a job. Now it’s not anymore.”
Was that the truth? he wondered. He wanted to believe it was—that Kent Steele was nothing but an alias and not a personality.
“So,” Sara started, “those two men that chased us on the boardwalk…?”
He hesitated, unsure if this was too much for her to hear. But he had promised honesty. “They were terrorists,” he told her. “They were men that were trying to get to you to hurt me. Just like…” He caught himself before saying anything about Rais or the Slovakian traffickers.
“Look,” he started again, “for a long time I thought that I was the only one who could get hurt by doing this. But now I see how wrong I was. So I’m done. I still work for them, but I do administrative stuff. No more fieldwork.”
“So we’re safe?”
Reid’s heart broke anew at not only the question, but the hope in his youngest daughter’s eyes. The truth, he reminded himself. “No,” he told her. “The truth is that no one ever really is. As wonderful and beautiful as this world can be, there will always be wicked people that want to do harm to others. Now I know firsthand that there are a lot of good people out there that are making sure there are fewer wicked people every day. But no matter what they do, or what I do, I can’t ever guarantee that you’ll be safe from everything.”
He didn’t know where these words were coming from, but it felt like they were just as much for his own benefit as for his girls. It was a lesson that he very much needed to learn. “That doesn’t mean I won’t try,” he added. “I will never stop trying to keep you two safe. Just like you should always try to keep yourselves safe too.”
“How?” Sara asked. The faraway look was back in her eye. Reid knew exactly what she was thinking: how could she, a fourteen-year-old weighing eighty pounds soaking wet, keep something like the incident from happening again?
“Well,” said Reid, “apparently your sister’s been sneaking off to a self-defense class.”
Sara looked sharply over at her sister. “Really?”
Maya rolled her eyes. “Thanks for selling me out, Dad.”
Sara glanced back over at him. “I want to learn to shoot a gun.”
“Whoa.” Reid held up a hand. “Pump the brakes, kiddo. That’s a pretty serious request…”
“Why not?” Maya chimed in. “Don’t you think we’re responsible enough?”
“Of course, I do,” he replied flatly, “I just—”
“You said we should keep ourselves safe too,” Sara added.
“I did say that, but there are other ways to—”
“My friend Brent has been going hunting with his dad since he was twelve,” Maya cut in. “He knows how to shoot a gun. Why shouldn’t we?”
“Because that’s different,” Reid said forcefully. “And no ganging up on me. That’s unfair.” Up until then, he had thought this was going quite well, but now they were using his own words against him. He pointed at Sara. “You want to learn to shoot? You can. But only with me. And first, I want you caught up with school and I want positive reports from Dr. Branson. And you.” He pointed at Maya. “No more secret self-defense classes, okay? I don’t know what that guy is teaching you. You want to learn to fight, to defend yourself, you ask me.”
“Really? You’ll teach me?” Maya seemed buoyant at the prospect.
“Yes, I will.” He picked up his menu and opened it. “If you have more questions, I’ll answer them. But I think that’s about good for one evening, yeah?”
He considered himself lucky that Sara hadn’t asked him anything that he couldn’t answer. He didn’t want to have to explain the memory suppressor—that might complicate matters and reinforce their doubt about who he was—but he also didn’t want to have to answer that he didn’t know something. They would immediately suspect he was keeping it from them.
That clinches it, he thought. He had to get it done, and soon. No more waiting or excuses.
“Hey,”