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  Two Steps Forward

  A Titus Ray Thriller

  by Luana Ehrlich

  Copyright © 2019 Luana Ehrlich

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  The author invites you to visit her website here LuanaEhrlich.com

  All Titus Ray Thrillers are available on Amazon here

  Sign up here for the Titus Ray Newsletter and receive updates about the series, along with news about special promotions, plus you can download a FREE copy of Titus Ray Recipes with Short Stories.

  To Ray Allan Pollock,

  for giving an eleven-year-old girl

  permission to read adult spy novels.

  Complete List of Books

  by Luana Ehrlich

  Titus Ray Thrillers:

  Each Titus Ray Thriller can be read as a standalone novel, but for readers who prefer the series experience, I would suggest reading the novels in the following order:

  One Step Back, the prequel to One Night in Tehran

  One Night in Tehran, Book I

  Two Days in Caracas, Book II

  Three Weeks in Washington, Book III

  Four Months in Cuba, Book IV

  Five Years in Yemen, Book V

  Two Steps Forward, Book VI

  Three Steps Away, Book VII (coming 2020)

  All Titus Ray Thrillers are available on Amazon here.

  * * * *

  Other books by Luana Ehrlich:

  Titus Ray Thriller Recipes with Short Stories, Kindle edition only

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  PART TWO

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  PART THREE

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  PART FIVE

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  PART SIX

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A NOTE TO MY READERS

  BONUS EXCERPT

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Friday, May 10

  I had no idea what was going on. No, that wasn’t true. I knew exactly what was going on.

  I just didn’t want to admit it.

  I didn’t want to admit I was having a panic attack.

  I had all the classic symptoms.

  My heart was racing; I was having trouble breathing.

  Worst of all, I was losing control.

  In reality, my situation merited a full-blown panic attack.

  Tomorrow, I was getting married.

  My friend Danny Jarrar had warned me I might feel this way.

  According to Danny, the night before his wedding, he’d been so anxious, he’d gone out to Lake Thunderbird and stared up at the stars for two hours without uttering a word.

  Danny seldom went ten minutes without uttering several paragraphs, so I knew he had to have been seriously freaked out.

  I wouldn’t say I was freaked out.

  However, I was definitely feeling antsy, a bit agitated, and a little anxious.

  Thirst sometimes affected me the same way, so I walked over to the refrigerator and looked inside.

  Except for some lemonade and soft drinks, the shelves were empty. No surprises there. I’d cleaned them out yesterday.

  Two days ago, Nikki Saxon—the woman I was about to marry—had looked inside my refrigerator and suggested I might want to get rid of all my leftovers.

  She’d reminded me we were leaving on our honeymoon to Marrakesh, Morocco, immediately after the wedding reception—as if I needed reminding.

  “You know, Titus,” she said, “before we leave, you might want to clean out your refrigerator. Otherwise, by the time we get back here, these leftovers will be coated in gray furry stuff.”

  I hadn’t appreciated her comment.

  Here I was, a forty-nine-year-old covert intelligence officer, employed by the CIA for the past twenty years, and she was acting like I wasn’t capable of knowing when I should throw out a half-eaten pork chop, a bowl of leftover potato salad, a spoonful of yogurt, and a questionable carton of milk.

  Although I was a little miffed she was telling me what I should be doing with my own leftovers, I hadn’t told her that.

  Instead, I’d nodded and said, “You’re right. I should get rid of this stuff before Saturday. Otherwise, the whole time we’re in Marrakesh, the only thing I’ll be thinking about is the food going bad in my refrigerator back in Oklahoma.”

  She’d grinned at me and closed the refrigerator door. “Even if you don’t take my suggestion and clean out your refrigerator, I don’t believe you’ll be thinking about leftovers when we’re lounging around our hotel room in Marrakesh.”

  I’d walked over and put my arm around her. “Lounging around our hotel room in Marrakesh has a nice ring to it.”

  Nikki had quickly glanced over at eight-year-old Eleanor Taylor, who was curled up in a leather recliner reading a book.

  Eleanor hadn’t appeared the least bit interested in us, so Nikki had leaned over and kissed me. “It does sound wonderful, doesn’t it?”

  Eleanor had put her book down and said, “It would be silly for you to stay in your hotel room the whole time you’re in Marrakesh when there are so many interesting things to do there.”

  I’d managed to keep from laughing and asked, “And what do you know about Marrakesh?”

  “A whole bunch of stuff. I looked it up on the internet. Personally, I’d go see the ruins of the El Badi Palace as soon as I got there. The place looks awesome.”

  I wasn’t surprised Eleanor had done some research on where Nikki and I would be spending our honeymoon. When I’d been on a mission with Eleanor’s father last year, he’d described her as a precocious child, highly intelligent, an avid reader, and extremely curious.

  In the past five months, I’d seen nothing to dispute that.

  Eleanor’s second-grade teacher, Ms. Davis, had agreed with me when I’d spoken with her a few days after Nikki had enrolled Eleanor at Washington Elementary School.

  I’d specifically gone over to the school to meet with Ms. Davis in order to discuss Eleanor’s situation with her. Although Ms. Davis told me Eleanor appeared to be a gifted student, she also said she felt Eleanor had some anxiety issues.

  Eleanor’s anxiety issues were understandable.

  Her mother, Kaylynn, had been killed in a car accident when Eleanor was seven, and last year, her father, Jeremy, had been murdered by the commander of a Houthi rebel force in Yemen during
our mission together, Operation Rebel Merchant.

  Within hours of Jeremy’s death, Eleanor’s grandfather—who’d been taking care of Eleanor while Jeremy was in Yemen—had also passed away.

  I’d been the primary intelligence officer for Operation Rebel Merchant, and when I’d heard Eleanor was about to be handed over to the Commonwealth of Virginia’s foster care system following Jeremy’s death, I’d pulled some strings to get temporary custody of her until her maternal grandmother could be located.

  I hadn’t made that decision lightly, nor had I made it alone.

  Nikki and I had made it together.

  Nikki knew what it was like to be raised by foster parents, so she’d been heartbroken when I’d told her about Eleanor’s circumstances. She’d said no child should be subjected to a foster care environment after suffering such a loss, and I’d agreed with her.

  After we’d gotten temporary custody of Eleanor, we’d brought her back to Norman, Oklahoma, and for the past five months, Eleanor had been living with Nikki, while also spending time at my place.

  Meanwhile, the social workers in the Casualty Assistance office at the Department of Defense were still trying to locate Eleanor’s grandmother, Lisa Redding.

  Jeremy had been a member of a CIA operation, but he’d actually been employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which was why the Defense Department was the lead agency in finding Ms. Redding.

  However, their inability to locate Lisa after five months had become a source of frustration for me.

  If Lisa had disappeared in the U.S., I might have given them a little more leeway, but she’d been living in Israel for several years, and a vital component of Israel’s security was tracking individuals living in their country.

  Israel’s legislative body, the Knesset, had given Shin Bet, their internal security service, an unprecedented amount of freedom to delve into a person’s life without having to get a warrant, thus Shin Bet could usually locate a missing person very quickly.

  I knew the investigators in our Defense Department were working closely with Shin Bet, because Tanya Brooks, the social worker in the Casualty Assistance office, had mentioned it every time she’d called to give me an update on their search for Ms. Redding.

  Lately, those calls had become less frequent.

  Yesterday, after talking it over with Nikki, I’d decided it was time to bring my operations officer, Douglas Carlton, into the picture.

  When I’d phoned him to ask if he’d mind using his connections with Shin Bet to make inquiries about Lisa Redding, I’d told him Nikki and I would be willing to cut our honeymoon short and make a side trip over to Israel to meet Ms. Redding, if he could get an address for her.

  He hadn’t seemed surprised at my request, and he’d even promised to get back to me within twenty-four hours.

  Twenty-three hours had gone by, and I hadn’t heard from him yet.

  Even so, I knew Carlton had a thing about meeting deadlines—even self-imposed ones—and I fully expected him to call me within the hour.

  In the meantime, I poured myself a glass of lemonade and stepped out on my patio.

  The moment I sat down, Stormy, my one-year-old yellow Lab, came charging across the yard to see what exciting activity I had in store for him. When he realized I didn’t have his tennis ball in my hand, he let out a huge sigh of disappointment, lay down beside me, and rested his head on his front paws.

  His paws were covered in mud, so I figured he’d been down at the small lake on my property. Ordinarily, I might have questioned him about what he’d been doing down there, but he didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood tonight, and neither was I.

  After scratching Stormy’s ears, I reached around and removed a red pillow from behind my back, tossing it in the chair next to me.

  The throw pillows were a recent addition to my patio furniture.

  To be honest, I found them completely useless.

  However, my bride-to-be had insisted they were the perfect decorating accessory to complete the “look” of the patio, so I was determined to live with them.

  I was compromising.

  Carlton had once told me marriage was all about compromise.

  Although Nikki and I weren’t married yet, I’d learned about making compromises a few months ago during a discussion with Nikki.

  It had been a real eye-opener.

  * * * *

  My lesson on compromise had taken place when Nikki had asked me where I wanted to live once we got back from our honeymoon.

  “Since I have to be gone most of the time, why don’t you make that decision?” I said.

  “No, I think this is something we should decide as a couple.”

  “Should we look for a house to buy?” I asked.

  “House-hunting is such a hassle.”

  “I agree.”

  “Both of us already own a house. We could live in one of them.”

  “That sounds good. The question is, your house or mine?”

  “Your house is a lot bigger than mine, but mine’s been painted recently. Of course, that would make a good selling point for it.”

  Nikki lived in a three-bedroom house on a half-acre plot in a subdivision called Summit Lake, whereas my four-bedroom farmhouse was nestled on thirty acres of wooded property just outside the city limits of Norman on Tecumseh Road.

  I hadn’t planned on becoming a homeowner.

  Originally, the Agency had leased the property as a safe house for me when they’d learned the Iranian regime had hired Ahmed Al-Amin, a Hezbollah assassin, to come after me after I’d escaped from Iran following the rollup of my network in Tehran.

  I’d been put on Ahmed’s hit list because I’d shot two VEVAK agents in Tehran when my deep-cover assignment had been blown wide open, and most of my assets had been brutally murdered.

  After my debriefing at Langley, I’d been sent to Norman to recuperate from a broken leg I’d received while escaping from said VEVAK agents, and also to give the Deputy Director of Operations time to recover from the accusations I’d made against him when I’d learned he’d been responsible for my botched mission in Iran.

  Buying a house hadn’t been on my radar, but after meeting Nikki—a detective in the Norman Police Department—and acquiring Stormy—a stray who’d suddenly shown up on my doorstep during a thunderstorm—I’d found myself wanting to put down some roots.

  Norman seemed to be the perfect place to do that.

  It was a mid-size city, twenty miles from Oklahoma City, with a population of over 100,000 and the home of the University of Oklahoma.

  More importantly, it was the home of Nikki Saxon.

  Nikki had arrived at my house to interrogate me as a possible suspect in a murder investigation a few months after the Agency had sent me to Norman.

  As soon as she’d walked in the front door, she’d expressed how much she loved the modernized farmhouse. When I’d shown her around, she’d admired the house’s floorplan, the view of the lake from the dining room window, and the sunroom at the back of the house. She’d even shown enthusiasm for my double oven in the kitchen.

  Now, however, as we were discussing where we should live, I had the feeling she wasn’t that enthusiastic about moving into my place.

  “Since my house is bigger than yours, does that mean you want to sell your place and move in here?” I asked.

  “Sure, if that’s what you want.”

  “Is it what you want?”

  “I guess it makes sense.”

  Her half-hearted attitude was a mystery to me, so I decided to test out some possible reasons for her reluctance.

  “This is a big place,” I said, “and my nearest neighbor is at least a mile away. You might get lonely here while I’m away.”

  “The isolation doesn’t bother me.”

  I checked off one possible reason for her reluctance to live here.

  Since she’d recently attended a sixteen-week course at the FBI’s training facility at Quantico, Virginia, and rece
ived an award for excellence in marksmanship, it was hard for me to believe she had any concerns for her safety, but I threw it out there anyway.

  “I could always install a few more cameras around the perimeter; beef up the security a little.”

  “Do you really think that’s necessary?” she asked. “Making this place look like a fortress would only draw attention to it, and I know that’s not your objective.”

  “No, Detective, my objective is to make you happy,” I said, reaching over and touching her cheek, “and correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t sound very happy about the prospect of living here.”

  Instead of responding to my observation, she got up from the sofa and walked over to the picture window at the front of the house.

  I decided she was either trying to come up with an answer, or she was checking on Eleanor, whose favorite reading spot was an antique wooden swing on the front porch.

  After briefly glancing outside, she walked back over to the sofa and sat down beside me, leaning her head against my shoulder. “To be perfectly honest, Titus, the first time I sat here on this sofa and interviewed you about the murder of Farah Karimi, I thought about how nice it would be to live in this house.”

  “If I recall, that interview was more like an interrogation.”

  She laughed. “You’re right, but eventually I got the truth out of you. That was the night you told me you were with the CIA.”

  “Which you refused to believe.”

  “Yes, but you managed to convince me eventually and look at us now. We’re about to get married in a few months.” She looked up at me. “I never thought I’d fall in love with a spy.”

  I leaned over and gave her a kiss. “And I never thought I’d fall in love with a cop, but you’re not answering my question. If you love this place so much, why aren’t you more excited about living here?”

  “Uh . . . don’t get me wrong. I love your house, and I’m really looking forward to living here, but uh . . . if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to make a few changes.”