“Not that they’re willing to admit. Although if there wasn’t, they wouldn’t be starting to chatter.”
“And when Orlov’s dead body turns up?”
“My guess is that word will go out that they believe Malin was killed too.”
“And thus…burned.”
“I don’t think so.”
If Dutch could work with anyone on the face of the earth, he was thankful it was Doc Butler. He loved the way the guy’s mind worked. He was smart as all get-out, and when someone was in the trenches, there was no better man to have fighting alongside them.
“They want her,” Doc added.
“My thoughts too, but why?”
“I don’t know yet, but if you can get her to talk, even a little, I want a full report.”
“Roger that.”
Dutch disconnected the call and shook off the feeling of foreboding that had settled over him during his phone call. Just because the CIA was sending out feelers about Orlov, didn’t mean they were looking for Malin. Even when they did, he hoped he’d covered their tracks well enough that it would take them a damn long time to find her.
* * *
His feeling of foreboding only worsened when he got back to the house and couldn’t find Malin in it anywhere. Rather than panic, as he felt himself about to do, he went outside to look.
Ten minutes later, he spotted her off in the distance, running the island’s trails. While he hadn’t yet changed out of the clothes he’d been wearing for two-going-on-three days, she must’ve found both workout wear and running shoes.
He understood her need to burn off energy. They’d both trained all their lives, staying in the best shape they could, so when days or weeks went by when missions prevented them from getting the exercise their bodies needed, it could be both physically and mentally painful.
His heavy boots made for shitty running shoes, so Dutch went back to the house to see if he could find what Onyx had delivered for him.
Within twenty minutes, he was back on the crest, looking for Malin. This time he spotted her down on the beach. Instead of running, she was sitting on the sand.
Dutch took the most direct route he could find, which wasn’t saying much. The overgrown vegetation on the island was lush with wild olive, red cedar, laurel cherry, and Sabal palm trees beneath which grew beautyberry, yaupon, wax-myrtle, and curlyleaf yucca plants. His favorite, though, was the purple sea lavender that grew alongside and contrasted so well with the goldenrod and yellow jessamine. While the trees, shrubs, and plants were beautiful, the density of it all made navigating the already rocky terrain that much more difficult.
After what felt like a hundred switchbacks, he walked out onto the beach, holding his side and trying to catch his breath.
Malin stood and walked toward him. “I was just about to head back,” she said, standing in front of him with her hands on her hips.
“Have mercy,” he said between deep breaths.
“How long has it been, Dutch?”
“Shit. I don’t know. Feels like a year, but probably more like a month.” Truth be told, he had no idea when he last ran as far as he did today. It would’ve been one thing if the trail had kept going down, but nope, more than half the time, he felt like he was gaining elevation rather than losing it.
While it couldn’t be much more than fifty degrees out, he pulled his sweat-drenched shirt over his head, tossed it on the sand, and sat on it.
“Ew,” Malin groaned and sat next to him.
“What?”
“That shirt is going to be mighty gritty when you put it back on.”
“Whatever,” he muttered, lying back on the sand that would now be in his hair too. He really couldn’t have cared less when he saw Malin lie down next to him.
“It felt good to run in less than a hundred degrees.”
“I hear you, girl.” He’d hated every minute he’d spent in the Middle East, and it had been far too many. If there was ever anything that might make him consider retiring it would be being assigned another mission in a place like Syria, Somalia, Iraq, or Kuwait. He’d already spent far too many of the seventeen million minutes of his life in hell holes where the temperature rarely dropped below ninety.