Pappy fired up another cigarette. He was chain-smoking, but he didn’t care. “In order to do that, Pop, I’d have to tell her my life history. How do you tell a woman the CIA gave me a license to kill. How do I tell her that only five people in the government, including the president, know about me. How do I tell her I was one of the good guys who killed people so people like her and you and all those other recruits can sleep peacefully in their beds at night?”

“You just tell her, son. Sam went through the FBI Academy. She knows how things are done. Anyone who can read a newspaper or the hundreds of spy novels out there in bookstores understands what the world is like. I’m sure she’s pieced together a lot of things.”

Pappy shook his head. “If I had been honest with you back in the beginning when the CIA recruited me, would you have okayed what I was getting into? Assuming you were told the truth.”

Kyros filled his pipe again from a pouch of tobacco in his pocket. He tamped the tobacco down and fired up the pipe with a butane lighter that lit up the darkness. “Probably not, Kollar, probably not,” he said grudgingly.

“Then I rest my case, Pop.”

Chapter Sixteen

Sam waited for news from her team members the following morning. She felt angry and out of sorts at her situation. Any dreams she’d had in regard to Kollar Havapopulas had turned to dust just the way they had with Douglas. Yet there was no comparison because she had fallen in love with Kollar, whereas she’d been enamored and mesmerized by Douglas. She realized that she had not truly loved her ex-husband. She hadn’t felt mortally wounded the way she felt when she thought about Pappy. Now, when she thought back to her brief marriage, she thought of it as an interlude in her life. A bad interlude, but one she’d moved beyond.

Sam wondered what Pappy was doing. Did he regret his decision? Did he miss Alpha? Of course he did. Did he miss her? She’d been happy on the mountain, happy to work at the challenges. She’d looked forward to each new day knowing she’d see Pappy. It had been enough on the mountain. At least it had seemed that way at the time.

Why, she wondered, was life always so difficult? Why did she have to fight extra hard, kick and scratch just to measure up? And when she did finally measure up, to have it all blow up in her face. She wasn’t good enough for Douglas, not good enough for the FBI, not good enough for Pappy. Even back in high school and college she’d never aced anything, always either washing out or coming in after the top contenders. Maybe something was lacking in her gene pool.