Page 33 of Acting on Instinct
“Yes.”
“That makes sense,” Lula said. “Of course you would be. A band of armed men. You were stunningly brave when you spoke to the terrorists. Ty was not thrilled that you focused attention on yourself. You didn’t need to answer their questions.”
“But I did because they wouldn’t have stopped asking the question had I not. And what would they have done to the hostages? Shot at us like they did London until we told them what they wanted to know? They wanted Lynx. Lynx wasn’t there. Tell them. It’s a ridiculously simple solution, just like at the jewelry shop.”
“You are a smart cookie.” Lula sent her a conspiratorial smile. “Are you sure you don’t have intelligence training under your belt, and you’ve been playing me all this time?
“You were scared, weren’t you?” Kira whispered. “The night of the terror attack, your training didn’t protect you from being scared, did it?”
“Terrified. Of course I was.” Lula reached down to her water glass, lifted it, took a sip, then cradled it on her lap. “Itwas terrible from start to finish. And then, London … when her husband William passed out, I thought he might be having a heart attack, and I thought he deserved it. I hoped he’d rot in hell because I was sure everything that happened was because he burned the wrong person along the way.”
“The papers said that the men weren’t terrorists at all. Terrorists are people who do violence to affect some kind of societal change or to make a political point. It said that the men in the ballroom were thugs for hire just wanting to empty the guests’ bank accounts into an offshore bank.”
“They were terrorists,” Lula said with conviction. “If they were paid by terrorists to commit a crime that created terror, then they, too, are terrorists. Listen to me, not the paper. I hunt terrorists for a living.”
“You think it was a target on William? But he’d just flown in from Tanzania. Does he have people attacking him all the time, and London didn’t tell me?”
“No, and I don’t know who hired them or why. We’ll know better when they finally end up in the courtroom. Listen, my point is that I understand your anger in a frightening situation like the one you faced today. I was so angry at the Davidson attack that I wanted William to die.”
Kira scowled at her. “That’s pretty angry.”
“I still wake up with those images in my head.” Lula reached over to put her glass back on the ground. “We need trees. Old trees with deep roots. When I’ve been through something terrible, if I sit on the roots and ask the tree for help, I imagine that the bad energy flows down through me and the tree takes that energy and drives it deep into the ground where it gets buried.” She stood.
“Imagine if a storm blows so hard it uproots that tree, then those terrible feelings are in the air.”
“Exactly. That’s why I never sit on the same old tree in the same woods. It would be like building a nuclear bomb.” Lula reached out her hand. “Come on, stand up. Here we go. There’s the park right up the street.”
“The rottweiler park with the fence to be leaped?” Kira asked, standing and walking toward the door, snagging her keys from the key bowl and dropping them into her hobo bag.
“It worked out pretty well for you, and a girl can dream.” Lula trailed behind Kira out the door. “Listen, if you see a hero leaping, I need you to promise me you’ll fade into the background, so I get my shot at love, too.”
Kira thought there was something a bit wistful running as the undercurrent to Lula’s teasing.
As they walked down the sidewalk of Kira’s peaceful suburban neighborhood, Lula said, “I get that you’re upset with Ty today. Anyone would be. You definitely should be. But in general,” Lula asked, “you and Ty are doing well?”
“We’re in therapy.” Kira pointed to the right, then turned the corner, taking the shortcut to the park. “Look, I think we can both agree that, as a whole and throughout time, men think of their wealth and contentment first and are willing to use the women in their lives to get where they want to go, no matter the pain it would place on the women. Those themes are very much part of the literature that I’ve studied in my academic career and have been translating of late. Uncle Nadir did it to me. And so did Ty just in a slightly different way, and the goal in Ty’s case wasn’t personal, it was national security.”
“These are interesting times,” Lula said on a sigh. “Everything is moving very quickly. Norms might shift as it pertains to the relationship men have with women. I have hope.”
“Sure. Well, it’s a big world. There are lots of norms.”
“Not to get too much in your business.” Lula reached into her bag and pulled out a chocolate bar, unwrapping it. “But is thecouple's therapy helping?” She handed half to Kira, then took a bite out of her own piece.
Kira thought this chocolate was just another tactic from Lula’s impressive bag of CIA tricks that she used when she was calling herself Johnna White. Sure, she did it for the greater good. But Kira was starting to get the impression that Lula was doing whatever she was doing now, not out of friendship but for a specific goal.
Something work-related?
Kira walked a few paces, biting into the chocolate and finding it tasteless even though it was her favorite kind.
Maybe it wasn’t work-related.
Maybe she had a pang of regret for manipulating Kira and calling her a friend when, in reality, Kira was a mission. Maybe Lula wanted to assure herself that things were turning out all right and her karma wasn’t tainted. Kira’s therapist had brought it up during their sessions that perhaps Kira was hurt by Lula’s manipulation as much as she was angry with the others who used her.
Kira felt pressure to say something, so she tried, “It’s not easy to find a psychiatrist with security clearance so I can speak in front of them about an operation. Those few are overworked and probably underpaid. I would like to go to my own person. But we can’t go out and rattle on about special forces missions, can we?”
Lula put the back of her hand over her mouth to speak before swallowing. “You cannot, no.”
“Ty is fine. I’m the one with issues. I love him very much. I’m full of gratitude.”
