White Lies by Linda Howard Page B

would happen to her this time if she let herself care too
much? She felt scared, not only because she was teetering on the edge of
heartbreak, but because she was even daring to think of getting too close to
him. It was like watching a panther in a cage, standing outside the bars and
knowing you were safe, but feeling the danger that was barely restrained.
                  Making love with him before had been... fun,
passionate in a playful way. What would it be like now? Was the playfulness
gone? She thought it must be. His lovemaking would be intense and elemental
now, as he was, like getting caught up in a storm.
                  She became aware that she could barely
breathe, and she forced herself to walk away from his bed. She didn't want him
to mean that much to her. And she was very much afraid that he already did.
                  "What do we do?" Frank asked
quietly, his clear eyes meeting shuttered black ones.
                  "We play out the hand," the Man
answered just as quietly. "We have to. If we do anything out of the
ordinary now, it could tip someone off, and he isn't able to recognize his
enemies."
                  "Any luck in tracing Piggot?"
                  "We lost him in Beirut , but we know he hooked up with his old
pals. He'll surface again, and we'll be waiting."
                  "We just have to keep our guy alive until
we can neutralize Piggot," Frank said, his tone turning glum.
                  "We'll do it. One way or the other, we
have to keep Piggot's cutthroats from getting their hands on him."
                  "When he gets his memory back, he isn't
going to like what we've done." A brief smile touched the Man's hard
mouth. "He'll raise mortal hell, won't he? But I'm not taking any chance
with the protected-witness program until he's able to look out for himself, and
maybe not even then. It's been penetrated before, and could be again.
Everything hinges on getting Piggot."
                  "You ever wish you were back in the
field, so you could hunt him yourself?"
                  The Man leaned back, hooking his hands behind
his head. "No. I've gotten domesticated. I like going home at night to
Rachel and the kids. I like not having to watch my back."
                  Frank nodded, thinking of the time when the
Man's back had been a target for every hit man and terrorist in the business.
He was safe now, out of the mainstream ... as far as was generally known. A
very small group of people knew otherwise. The Man officially didn't exist;
even the people who followed his orders didn't know the orders came from him.
He was buried so deeply in the bowels of bureaucracy, protected by so many twists
and turns, that there was no way to connect him to the job he actually did. The
President knew about him, but Frank doubted the vice president did, or any
department secretary, the Chiefs of Staff or the head of the agency that
employed him. Whoever was President next might not know about him. The Man
decided for himself whom he could trust; Frank was one of those people. And so
was the man in Bethesda Naval Hospital. Two days later, they took the tube out
of Steve's chest because his collapsed lung had healed and reinflated. When
they let Jay into his room again she hung over the side of his bed, stroking
his arm and shoulder until his breathing settled down and the fine mist of
perspiration on his body began to dry.
                  "It's over, it's over," she murmured.
                  He moved his arm, a signal that he wanted to
spell, and she began reciting the alphabet.
                  Not fun.
                  "No," she agreed.
                  More
tubes?
                  "There's one in your stomach, for feeding
you." She felt his muscles tense as if in anticipation of the pain he knew
would come, and he spelled