SEALs of Honor: Axel

by Dale Mayer

  “So, could you go by my place? I have a spare laptop there as well.”

  “And where would I find that?”

  “In the coffee table,” she said.

  “How about keys?”

  “Crap,” she said. “In my purse on the sub.” She groaned.

  “I can get the manager to let me in,” he said, “if I can’t get in on my own. I was coming to see you this morning anyway, so I’ll bring your laptop with me.”

  “Woohoo! Thank you,” she said. And, with that resolved, they ended the call. As she lay here, waiting for breakfast, the doctor popped in, a concerned look on his face.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Much better than yesterday. That chat with the colonel really did a number on me. I got some good sleep though.”

  “That’s great,” he said.

  “Somebody’s bringing me my laptop too,” she said. “I hope you don’t have a problem with that.”

  “Nope,” he said. “Anything that keeps you occupied and not worrying will help.”

  “Oh, and that also means you’ll have to let me have a visitor.” At his overdone expression of outrage, she laughed. “And, no, I didn’t do that on purpose.”

  “Not on purpose, no,” he said, “but it is a good excuse. And you look like you’ve gotten some good rest. Enough to be a little ornery anyway.”

  “I slept a lot last night,” she said. “I actually slept through dinner.”

  “Yeah, you need to eat as well though,” he said, frowning and looking at his tablet.

  “But I slept,” she said, “so surely that’s worth something.”

  “Something, yes,” he said, “but we have to maintain the balance. You need food and sleep.”

  “Well, I’m waiting on breakfast now,” she said with a smile.

  He nodded, checked her file, and said, “And you’ve been up and on crutches already, correct?”

  She nodded. “And it was fine,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said. “Spend the rest of the day with that leg up, and we’ll see how it is this time tomorrow.”

  She smiled and nodded and didn’t push him. But, if she could possibly see her way to getting home, she’d be one happy camper. As it was, her breakfast arrived at the same time that Axel did.

  He took one look at the food and sniffed the air. “What’s the food like?”

  “It’s food,” she said. “I’ve had worse. We’re both used to institutional food, right?”

  He chuckled. “Got it.” He helped her sit up by shifting the angle of the bed and moving the table over. When he pulled the tops off the little bit of food, he frowned and said, “That’s not enough to keep anybody alive.”

  She looked at it, surprised. “I even asked for extra because I slept through dinner last night,” she said.

  He looked at it, frowned, and headed back outside. When he returned with another tray, she looked at him, scandalized, and said, “Tell me that you didn’t hijack my neighbor’s breakfast.”

  “Nope,” he said, “but everything comes portion controlled, it seems,” he said. “So I grabbed you a second one. I think it might be different food.” She looked under the lid and smiled. “This one’s at least pancakes,” she said.

  “Do you like them?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “So this is good. Thank you.”

  “If you say so,” he said.

  “It’s great,” she said, and immediately she dug in. He sat down beside her, and she realized he was holding a bag. “Is that my laptop?”

  *

  “It is,” Axel said. “I don’t know how the recovery is going on the sub, but I presume, when it gets back up, you can get your purse and work laptop back again.”

  “I would hope so,” she said. “I just don’t know how that process is going.”

  “That is something I can probably get an update on,” he said, and he quickly texted Mason.

  “Who are you getting updates from anyway?”

  He looked over and said, “Do you know Mason and Tesla?”

  “I know Tesla,” she said. “I’ve worked on several military contracts with her.”

  “Her husband is Mason,” he said.

  She nodded. “I remember hearing something about him.”

  “All good things, I hope,” Axel said.

  She smiled. “I haven’t heard anything bad about you SEALs yet,” she said with a smile.

  He looked at her plate and saw that it only had a little bit of food left. “You going finish that?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m done.”

  He quickly removed the trays and carried them outside. An empty trolley was down a couple doors. He put the dishes on there and walked back in, smiling at the two guards who’d let him in.

  He said, “Now maybe we can set up your laptop.” Pulling it out of the bag, he put it on the table and said, “I found your charger too.” He hunted around for an outlet, then shifted the bed over just enough to reach it. With the bed positioned a little bit higher and the table lowered, she could actually work on the laptop. “Another question for you,” he said. “Are you going to work, or are you just browsing and keeping yourself busy?”

  “I can’t really work,” she said, “because my work was all about the sub. And now I have something else on my mind,” she added with a wry smile.

  “I don’t want you worried about that,” he said. “The doctor was very specific about you being stressed out. He was concerned about how sick you got.”

  “That’s nice of him,” she said, “but not very helpful, considering what I’m going through.”

  “Agreed,” he said. “My thoughts were that maybe you could do a little bit of research into your brother and his friend.”

  “Maybe,” she said with a smile. “I just wish there was something more substantial to go on. Just the fact that Thomas supposedly died didn’t mean that he did. But what would be behind any of this? I don’t even know what I can do,” she said. “I don’t know very much about them at all,” she said.

  “But,” he said, “you’re an IT specialist, and it’s your brother and his friend. So why don’t you do what you do and see if you can come up with anything at all?” He stood just then and said, “I’m under strict orders from the doctor to not keep you very long,” he said. Then his phone beeped. “Mason needs me.”

  She shrugged but nodded. “Thanks for checking.”

  “So I’ll take my leave. If you find anything on Rory or Thomas, let me know.”

  “Will do,” she said with a smile. “And thank you very much for the delivery.”

  He nodded. “And if you see that guy again …” he said. Immediately her face closed up. He nodded. “I know. I get it. You believe it was him. But the thing is, we need proof.”

  “What kind of proof can I give you?” she said. “I saw him, and then he was gone.”

  “What kind of trolley was he pushing?”

  She looked at him and frowned. “One of those lunch trolleys.”

  “So it was laden with food?”

  She stared at him. “Nothing was on it,” she said, frowning.

  “So an empty trolley.”

  “Maybe,” she said, staring at him. “But why would he have a trolley in here?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” he said.

  Chapter 9

  Ally watched as Axel left, wondering if he was right, if she could find something on her half brother and his friend. It didn’t make any sense that she thought her shooter was Thomas. But, with a laptop, she somehow felt so much more freedom. Now she could start to ask the nurses about the trolleys. Because that really bothered her. There was absolutely no reason for the shooter from the sub to have been in her room with a trolley. Had she suddenly woken up or rolled over? Or maybe he’d left because she’d been awake, or maybe because a nurse was coming in? She didn’t know. But was he still here? And could she get into the security cameras to see him?

  The hospital staff said that troll
eys are to remain in the hallways and that there hadn’t been any sign of her visitor, not by any of the nurses on the floor or per the sign-in sheet at the front desk. She remembered something about a hat. But had he been wearing a hat through the entire hospital?

  She quickly sent Axel a text, asking if she could get access to the hospital security videos.

  Hold on, he texted. In a matter of moments, she had a link. And, with that, she could see the entire day. She watched everybody coming in through the front door that day, but she didn’t find Thomas. Then she went to the other exits, and systematically she checked them all. At the one at the back, by the storage loading area, she finally thought she saw him, already dressed in orderly scrubs, as least the same color worn by the other orderlies in this hospital. She slowed it up and went back again ever-so-slightly, checking to see. And, sure enough, it was that same build and that same hair. She sent that section of the video feed to Axel and said, “This is him.”

  Now, with a place to start, she kept following him as he went throughout the building. She lost him on several other hallways and then picked him up again, only to lose him when her hallway camera feeds went out. But then she picked him up again as he left. Presumably after coming to her room. Still a group of nurses were standing outside her room in the same time frame. Maybe he left, thinking there would be a better time to attack her. Like when a group of women weren’t standing around, talking. He didn’t appear to talk to anybody and didn’t do anything other than throw a lab coat over his standard orderly scrubs. Like a surgeon, just out of an operating room.

  That gave him an elevated status as far as passing through the hallways, making it very easy to come in and out. She checked the parking lot feed, looking for him. He walked around the corner of the building and out of sight. Following that, she asked for access to the city cameras, after sending Axel a feed of the suspect leaving the building.

  Axel called her then. “I’ll pick it up,” he said. “I can’t give you access to that.”

  She frowned and struggled with that the limitation. “I’m better off to do this right now,” she said. “I have the time.”

  “And I also have somebody helping me now,” he said. “It’s all good.”

  “Says you.” Hanging up, she waited anxiously, thinking what to do now. But she went back, trying to take any view that showed any feature she could get—his face, his profile. Then she sent it to her father. Do you know who this is?

  Ally, you know you’re supposed to be leaving this alone.

  I can’t, Dad. So answer the question. Do you recognize this person?

  Sure. It’s Thomas.

  Yet Thomas is dead, right?

  Yes, honey. And you know that as well as I do. Two years ago.

  Dad, those pictures were taken since I’ve been in the hospital.

  When her phone rang, she knew it would be her father.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Very,” she said. “They say everybody has a double,” she suggested cautiously.

  He was quiet on that. “I know that friend of yours was looking into this. Did he find out anything?”

  “Nothing definitive on this yet,” she said. “And I got my laptop from home, so I decided to start digging myself.”

  “If Thomas is involved in this,” he said, “you don’t know what you’re up against.”

  “I don’t remember him being bad news though, do you?” she cried out.

  “No, maybe he wasn’t, but he loved your brother.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t think he loved you.”

  “I didn’t do anything to Rory,” she said in confusion. “Why would Thomas have anything against me?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “You’re not making any sense. Or you’re not telling me something,” she said. “But I didn’t do anything to them, so I don’t know. It has to be somebody else in his family,” she said.

  “Actually that is possible,” he said. “He had a younger brother. Maybe they blame you for Thomas being killed or something.”

  “Again, not something I had anything to do with,” she said angrily. “Why would anybody blame me for that?”

  “Well, I don’t know if you remember, but the boys weren’t supposed to go to New York,” he said. “They were to come here and have some family time with us, but that didn’t work out because you were graduating.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What was I graduating from?” she asked. “It seems like I’d have been done graduating by then.”

  He chuckled. “We had delayed the celebration because your mom had been so sick.”

  “So, they could have come for that.”

  “Yes, but your mother didn’t want them there,” he said, his voice heavy.

  “Oh, don’t tell me that she actually blamed me for wanting Rory and Thomas there? Did she?”

  “Yeah, she did,” he said. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Great,” she said. “I was quite happy to spend time with my half brother, yet apparently I’m the one who got blamed for this? That’s not fair.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he said, “but I don’t think anybody really thought about it at the time.”

  “So, instead of coming for the family event, they headed to New York City. Or I think that’s where they were, weren’t they?”

  “Yes. And they ended up in a city hotel and got shot in the midst of some gang turf war.”

  “So, maybe the younger brother is blaming me because I was more important than having them come visit? Isn’t that a little thin?”

  “It is, yes. Definitely,” he said. “But what I don’t know is how important it was to them.”

  “Right,” she said. “So who knows?” She hung up from her father, not exactly sure what to think. Could she have been in trouble for something she had nothing directly to do with? And yet, why now, with everything else? That didn’t make any sense to her. Just then she got another phone call. This one from a coworker.

  Megan said, “Hey, I hear you had a pretty shitty week.”

  “That’s one way to put it. What did you hear about it?”

  “Only that something went wrong, and you are potentially involved.”

  “Great. Don’t suppose they mentioned that I got shot up, three different times,” she said. “Anyway, thanks for calling. And, hey, don’t believe everything you hear, okay?”

  Putting the phone calls out of her mind, Ally tried enlarging the hospital video feed, isolating the face. Now that she had a profile shot, a little bit better than the one she’d sent her father, she studied it for a long moment. She didn’t have access to facial recognition programs, but she knew somebody who did.

  She quickly contacted Tesla. I’m in a spot and could use a hand.

  Tesla immediately came back. What do you need, Ally?

  I’m trying to identify this man. Check out these pics. She sent Tesla various snips from the video. Then she sent her the best close-ups she had. Any chance you have facial recognition?

  I can access some. Who do you think this is?

  This man was in my hospital room, pushing an empty trolley.

  Tesla replied right away. He looks very familiar. I enhanced the video of the trespasser who entered the sub, so I’m wondering if it’s him.

  Me too, Ally texted. Just when she was getting frustrated, thinking nobody would get back to her, Tesla called.

  “Hi, Ally. I would definitely say it’s the same person in the hospital as the one who was on the sub,” she said with muted excitement. “No luck yet on tracking down who it is, but I’m still working on it. However, I need you to tell me if you have any idea who it is.”

  She told her the story about her half brother and his friend. “I don’t know for sure that it’s Thomas, but that’s who I automatically thought it was,” she said. “Even though I knew it was stupid. I knew it was wrong because how does someone who is dead come back and kill all the crew in a s
ub like that?” she asked. “And, Jesus, you’ll never convince me it’s all because they couldn’t come for a family supper.”

  “Yeah, that one is pretty far-fetched,” she said. “But listen. If they were looking for a fall guy to put this on, you might have been an easy one to choose.”

  She winced at that. “Maybe so, but why?”

  “Lots of reasons to close something like this quickly. Gives confidence and make others feel more secure to know the navy has already found their terrorist. Unfortunately there could be any number of other reasons too. So hold tight. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” And, with that, Tesla hung up.

  Ally sat back in her bed, frustrated that everybody else was out and about, doing stuff, yet she couldn’t seem to get anywhere herself. She really wanted to just go sit in the hallway and watch the world pass by. She was so isolated in here, and it just seemed wrong. Still, she was sitting up at least and looking to find something else to do. Then the lights when out in her room. She glanced around, surprised. A power outage?

  Well, power problems do happen. But wasn’t a generator backing up the hospital power? And, sure enough, after a few minutes, the generator must have kicked in. The lights came back on but at a lesser power. Even so, she was surprised she had any power in her room, thinking they would save it for the surgeries and intensive care units. Still, she unplugged her laptop and put it off to the side in the bag that Axel had left. She thought about him and then realized she should probably update him. She quickly sent him an email with what she had found and what she had done with it.

  Instead of getting an email back, he phoned her. “Are you okay?”

  “Well, I was,” she said. “Until this power outage. Now it just feels weird.”

  “Are you in darkness?”

  “No, it’s kind of like running lights,” she said. “So, not full lights, giving a weird ambience to the place.”

  “Do you still think this guy in the hospital could be a family member of your brother’s friend?”

  “I don’t know who he is,” she said, “but he sure looks like Thomas, and even Tesla agreed it’s likely the same guy who got on the sub.”