Moonrise Read Online Free PDF Page A

for?”
    “Ah, now that gets a little tricky. You’re an intelligent woman, why don’t you figure it out?” he suggested affably.
    “CIA,” she said, voicing her worst fear.
    “Got it the first try.”
    “And my father?”
    “He’s the one who recruited me.”
    She just stared at him, sick. “You mean my father lied to me my entire life?”
    “It’s called need to know, Annie. It’s not company policy to inform anyone unnecessary about our work.”
    “Anyone unnecessary?” she repeated as the slow tendrils of fury began to burn deep inside her. “Don’t you think I had a right to know?”
    “No.”
    “So what did the two of you do? Wander around the world like junior James Bonds?”
    “You read too much, Annie. We were bureaucrats, plain and simple. The CIA has just as much paperwork as any other branch of the government—they just keep it more private. Your father was a policy maker, I was an accountant.”
    “An accountant,” she said, looking at himmore clearly now. “Now, why do I have trouble believing that?”
    “Maybe because you’re in such a paranoid state you’re imagining secrets everywhere.”
    “I’m finding secrets everywhere,” she shot back. “I find that my father was a spook for the CIA, and his unremarkable best friend was a spy as well. How old are you? I asked you last night, and you refused to answer.”
    “Thirty-nine.”
    “Jesus,” Annie said, staring at him. “How’d you get into this in the first place?”
    “You mean, what’s a nice guy like me doing in a job like this?” he countered blandly. “You know the details. Grew up in Texas, went to Harvard, got married, had a baby, and then my wife and child were killed in a car accident. I was at loose ends, and I didn’t care much whether I lived or died. Your father brought me back. Gave me something to believe in.”
    “The Cold War,” Annie supplied.
    “For want of a better word. I’m not going to bother to explain it to you, or justify it. Things have changed in the last few years. Your father thought he was doing what was best for the world. Why don’t you leave it at that? Leave him to rest in peace?”
    “Was he murdered?”
    For a moment she didn’t think he was goingto answer. “Maybe,” he said finally. “It’s possible.”
    “And you haven’t done anything about it?”
    “What do you expect me to do?”
    “Something a little better than running away and drinking yourself into a stupor,” she snapped. And then she looked down at the gun, lying between them. “You really do know how to use that thing, don’t you?”
    “Everybody in the CIA gets some weapons training, even the clerical workers.”
    She had no idea whether he was telling the truth or not, but it seemed reasonable. “Why did you finally decide to tell me all this?”
    “Because it’s perfectly clear you’re not going to go away and forget about it. And I’m sick and tired of lying. I suppose you have as much right as anyone to know about your father.”
    “Big of you,” she said. “Does Martin know the truth?” She couldn’t keep the faint hurt note from her voice. She’d trusted Martin wholeheartedly. She’d been married to him for three years, had even considered going back to him. Somehow the thought that he’d been keeping secrets, even when they’d slept together, was a final betrayal.
    “Your father recruited him as well.”
    She took the blow, hiding her reaction from the surprisingly observant eyes across from her. “So what are you going to do about it?”
    “About what?”
    “About my father’s murder?”
    “You don’t even know for sure that he was murdered.”
    “I know,” she said fiercely. She thumped her chest beneath the thin cotton shirt. “I know in my heart, and my brain. And you know it too, no matter how much you’re trying to deny it.”
    “I’m not denying it.”
    “Will you help me find out the truth?”
    He leaned back, and there was resignation and regret in his eyes.