In the Dark

by Marliss Melton

  She threw back the covers, eager to bounce her thought off of Luther. She could hear him in the kitchen now, given the muted sounds coming up the stairs. The men were taking turns keeping watch.

  She glanced down at her oversized T-shirt. Neither she nor Luther had thought of buying her pajamas while purchasing her new wardrobe. Westy’d scrounged up an extra T-shirt with a Harley-Davidson logo on it and a pair of running shorts. Figuring she was decent enough, Hannah headed down the creaking steps.

  She found Luther at the table cleaning his weapon. He lifted an ever-watchful look at her, one that skittered over her and jumped away. Awareness leaped between them like a flare, though the only actual light was the one hanging over the table.

  “Come on down,” he invited in his easy baritone. “I’m just doing a little housekeeping.”

  She approached the table, taking in the components of his disassembled weapon. Parts had been placed on a towel to keep the gun oil from staining the tabletop. “Do you really prefer an MP-5 over a pistol?” she asked, taking the seat across from him.

  He glanced at her sharply. “You know your guns?”

  “Sure. It was part of my training.”

  “With the CIA,” he guessed, glancing at her for corroboration. “Pistols are for cops. SEALs prefer submachine guns. There’s less loading and more power, which is what all of us need.”

  “But Westy shoots with a SIG Sauer.”

  “Not in the field. He’s our master sniper. He uses a Remington 700 with bolt action.”

  Hannah nodded. “And you prefer the MP-5.”

  His eyes gleamed with appreciation. “Ever unloaded one?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Case officers are encouraged to carry pistols. They’re easier to hide.”

  “I bet you’re a sharpshooter, too,” he said, his mouth lifting in a reluctant smile.

  She shrugged one shoulder in acknowledgment.

  “Is there anything you can’t do?”

  She propped her chin on one hand and thought about it. “I can’t sleep,” she admitted.

  His smile faded. As he studied her face, she knew he was seeing all the signs of stress and fatigue that she was too tired to hide. “A lot of SEALs have trouble sleeping,” he confided.

  “Do you?”

  He looked down, hiding the ghosts that drifted briefly across his eyes. “Sometimes. Especially after a messy encounter.”

  In those words, she heard everything he wasn’t saying, and she realized the toll it took on him when things didn’t go as planned. “Like when you killed those men for me.”

  “I said I’m okay with that,” he said, polishing the dust off the gun’s casing. “Are you?” He looked up at her, his gaze steady and concerned.

  She recalled the awful contortions of the general as he struggled for air. The urge to burst into tears rose up with formidable pressure. “I’ll be fine,” she said quickly.

  His patient gaze encouraged her to push a few more words through her tight throat. “What bothers me most is that Ernie was killed. He was such a good guy, you know? He didn’t deserve to be hunted down, no matter how much Lovitt has to hide.”

  “A great deal, apparently,” Luther commented, muscles jumping in his jaw.

  “It occurred to me that we should trace Ernie’s last steps,” Hannah added, sharing her recent insight. “I don’t know if you’ve picked up on this, but Valentino’s not going to help you put Lovitt behind bars, not until the Individual is arrested. That’s why the FBI didn’t investigate Ernie’s death, at least not overtly. Some guys in suits cleaned out his office, but I’m not sure who they were,” she added, frowning.

  Luther dropped the rag in his hand, sat back, and crossed his arms. Biceps bulged beneath the smooth tanned skin of his upper arms. Hannah swallowed, recalling how gently those arms had cradled her.

  “First we’ll look through records at Spec Ops,” Luther decided. “If we can piece together Ernie’s research, then there’s no need to retrace his footsteps. If not, we’ll look into it. What do you know so far?”

  “Not much. Only that he was on a so-called vacation in a place called the Northern Neck, three hours from D.C. His car was discovered just outside of Sabena, Virginia. He’d been run off the road.” She blinked away the vision of Ernie crushed between his seat and the steering wheel.

  “If we have to, then we’ll go to the Northern Neck,” Luther agreed. “I know where it is.”

  Hannah nodded. Their gazes locked. For a long while, no words were spoken. Hannah was the first to look away, her eyes drawn once more to his upper arms. “No tattoos?” she asked, curious to know more about him. “I thought all you Navy guys had tattoos.”

  “I’ve got two,” he admitted. Humor flickered in his eyes like fireflies at dusk.

  Her eyebrows rose. “Two?” she said disbelievingly. “Where are they?”

  He shrugged. “Stick around long enough, maybe you’ll find out.”

  Her heart beat faster at the loaded statement. Awareness crackled between them. “Where are you from?” she asked. “I don’t hear an accent when you talk. You sound like a Harvard graduate.”

  “I was accepted to Harvard,” he admitted without arrogance. “But I went to Texas A&M.”

  “You are not a Texan,” she insisted.

  “Indeed I am. Born and raised.”

  “Indeed I am,” she repeated, mocking his upper-middle-class accent-from-nowhere.

  “My mother’s an English professor at the University of Houston,” he enlightened her. “She brought us up to speak a certain way—no dialect, no slang, no cursing. I’m a slab of white bread, boring as hell,” he mocked himself.

  “You just cursed,” she pointed out. “And you’re not boring.” If anything, he was amazingly complex, a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, apparently, who’d chosen a rigorous, not to mention deadly, occupation in order to keep the world safe.

  “You’ve heard Westy talk,” he added. “That’s what I’m supposed to sound like.”

  Hannah looked around. “I don’t see your mother here.”

  He tapped his forehead. “She’s here. Every time my grammar slips I get a lecture.”

  Hannah laughed, amused by his predicament. “So where was your mother when you were getting your tattoos?” She raised her eyebrows at him.

  “I knew you’d get back to that.”

  “I’m as tenacious as a pit bull,” she admitted. “My brother could tell you that.”

  “Then you’ll just have to learn some patience,” Luther countered. This time there was caution in his eyes, as if he was growing wary of the frisson between them.

  “Were you married to Veronica?”

  Oh, Lord, she couldn’t believe she’d just asked that.

  He looked at her, his eyes like dark blue marbles. “You keep your ears open, don’t you?”

  “I told you, I can’t sleep,” she said, breaking eye contact.

  “She was my fiancée,” he surprised her by admitting.

  “What happened?” she dared to ask.

  “We weren’t compatible,” he said, simply. “Call me old-fashioned, but I expect fidelity in a relationship.”

  “Of course,” she said. She couldn’t imagine any woman wanting to cheat on Luther, but the word “compatible” reminded her that she wasn’t exactly wife material either. She pushed her chair back, determined to get some sleep before dawn cracked. “I’d better sleep while I can,” she said.

  He made a point to catch her eye. “It’s safe here,” he reassured her. “Westy and I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  She smiled at his earnest reassurance. “My heroes,” she sighed, pressing her hands to her heart briefly.

  He chuckled at her as she turned away.

  Slipping between the sheets a moment later and listening to Westy’s soft snores in the room next door, Hannah thought about Luther’s confession. He’d actually been engaged! A breakup that close to marriage, on the grounds of unfaithfulness, would
leave any man wary of commitment. So despite the bubbly feeing she enjoyed in Luther’s company, he wasn’t going to let his guard down, which meant she’d never get to see his two tattoos.

  Now wasn’t that annoying.

  Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, VA

  22 September ~ 06:42 EST

  As the elevator doors closed with mother and daughter inside, Helen Renault reached for Mallory’s hand. Mallory not only held on but sidled closer so that they stood shoulder to shoulder. At fourteen, Mallory had surpassed her mother in height.

  Helen could feel the tremor in her daughter’s hand and the clamminess of her own palm. They weren’t supposed to be here. Since Gabe’s arrest four days ago, they hadn’t been allowed to see him at all. But Doctor Shafer had treated Gabe a month back when he’d been medevaced from the South Korea Peninsula. He’d befriended Helen and Mallory when they’d come to collect the husband and father who’d been declared dead.

  At four A.M. this morning, Dr. Shafer had wakened Helen with a phone call. If she wanted to see her husband, Gabe was currently under his care at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital. He would let her in, providing she managed to get over there before the guards showed up.

  Helen hadn’t wasted more than a minute to brush her teeth and drag a comb through her long, blond hair. She’d gone to wake her daughter and found Mallory in the kitchen grabbing two granola bars from the pantry. “Let’s go,” Mal had said.

  Obviously Helen wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping lately.

  With a warning chime, the elevator doors swooshed open. Helen and Mallory peered warily into the hallway of the psychiatric wing. It appeared deserted. They scurried furtively down the hallway to room 314, where Dr. Shafer had said Gabe was undergoing medical tests.

  The door to the room stood partly open. Helen pushed it wider and they both peered in. The curtains at the window were drawn back, revealing a sky the color of peach sorbet. Dr. Shafer looked up from a machine that was connected by wires to Gabe’s head. Gabe’s eyes were closed. At Helen’s indrawn breath, his lids sprang open. He glanced alertly in her direction, his tense body conditioned to expect the worst, thanks to the cruelty of his captors in his twelve months spent in North Korea.

  He was visibly astonished to see them. “Helen. Mal!” He struggled to sit up. With an impatient mutter, he peeled the suction cups off his forehead and chest and tossed them aside, scrambling out of bed to greet them. He held his arms open.

  Be strong, Helen commanded herself as they both rushed forward. Be like Mallory.

  But Mallory pushed her face into Gabe’s shoulder and couldn’t look up again. Seeing Mal so distraught made it impossible for Helen not to cry. As she leaned against her husband’s familiar body, hot tears gushed from her eyes.

  “Come on, ladies,” Gabe chided, holding them tightly. “It’s not that bad.”

  “We’ve missed you,” Helen confessed in a strangled voice.

  “I’ve missed you, too.”

  “No one will let us see you. I don’t understand!”

  “That’s just the way the Navy operates, sweetheart. No visitors while I’m under medical evaluation. Dr. Shafer knows I’m not dangerous, though, don’t you, Doc?”

  Through tear-blurred eyes, Helen noted Dr. Shafer’s compassionate smile. He crossed the room and busied himself with paperwork, giving Gabe and his family a modicum of privacy.

  “What’s going to happen, Gabe?” Helen whispered. It wasn’t fair that her newfound happiness was being threatened by outside forces. Gabe had been accused of succumbing to paranoia and killing two innocent sailors. But Helen had been there when the incident aboard the Nor’easter came to a frightening and potentially tragic end. There was nothing innocent about the way the third sailor had wrestled an anti-tank round on his shoulder, intending to fire it into the belly of the boat.

  Helen had shot him, using the gun Gabe had left at home. That shot had only slowed him down. If Gabe hadn’t shot him two more times, the result would have been an inferno out at sea with massive casualties.

  He deserved a medal of honor, not this.

  “Listen to me. Both of you,” he urged, cupping their faces to regard them one at a time. “Nothing bad is going to happen to me. This will all be over soon. It’s just a big misunderstanding, and my men are working it. I’ll be home before you know it.”

  There had once been a time when Helen preferred Gabe gone. But that was before his captivity, back when being a platoon leader was more important to him than being a husband, and he’d been more machine than man. Seeing him now, with gentle encouragement beaming in his gold-green eyes, his features taut with determination, she’d give anything to have him safely home again.

  “I have a meeting with my lawyer this morning,” he added. “The guys are all behind me. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  With several more optimistic comments, he managed to summon smiles from both of them. He joked about the food being even worse than Helen’s cooking. He kissed Helen lingeringly, right there with Mallory watching. Helen had just started to feel like it would all work out when two security personnel stormed angrily into the room.

  “This man has not been cleared for visitation,” the younger one barked, pointing an accusing finger at Dr. Shafer.

  “Oh, really? I didn’t know that,” the doctor mildly replied.

  “Out,” barked the guard at Helen and Mallory.

  “Jesus, Leonard, give ’em a second,” the old man growled, as Helen stepped reluctantly from the circle of Gabe’s arms.

  She and Mallory made their way to the door, and Gabe’s reassuring look was the only thing that kept their tears from gushing a second time.

  “Love you, girls,” he called, blowing them both a kiss.

  Helen held fast to hers, clasping it close to her heart. Mallory took her hand, and together they headed back to the lonely house they’d come from.

  Oceana Naval Air Base Trial Services Building

  22 September ~ 08:10 EST

  Jaguar’s defense counsel turned out to be a lieutenant commander in her late twenties with little experience as a Judge Advocate General, or JAG. Lieutenant Commander Curew wore her brown hair in a fraying bun and had a harried look on her face that did nothing to hearten Luther or any of his teammates.

  Afternoon sunshine pierced the lowered blinds in the window of the counsel chamber, making the room as warm as it was stuffy. Six SEALs edged one side of a long table, with Commander Curew sitting in the center, opposite. Hannah occupied a chair at the end, to Luther’s left.

  Jaguar sat immediately across from his lawyer, flanked by platoon members. Wearing his dress-white uniform, he looked nothing like the deranged POW Lovitt had made him out to be. The rows of pins above his left breast pocket indicated the vast number of missions he’d taken part in since enlisting in the Navy, eight years before becoming an officer. The resolve in Jaguar’s gold-green eyes and the strain etched in his sharp-featured face sent Luther’s admiration for the man up another notch.

  Commander Curew worried her lower lip as she gathered her thoughts. “Don’t get me wrong, gentlemen,” she began, her hazel eyes troubled. “There is benefit to the fact that your testimonies are nearly identical. All of you state that the two remaining seamen jumped overboard to keep from being arrested, but without information regarding their motives, it comes down to your word against Commander Lovitt’s, and frankly that’s not going to be enough to win this case.”

  Her troubled gaze touched on Master Chief, who’d offered up photos suggesting that Miller, Lovitt’s executive officer, had been terminated, possibly for knowing too much. “As for the circumstances surrounding Miller’s death”—she drew a sharp breath at the implications suggested by the photos—“if this case goes to court-martial, then of course I’ll do whatever it takes to prove Lieutenant Renault’s innocence, but this is far too inflammatory to be brought up at an Article 32 hearing.”

  Her gaze drifted to the end of the tab
le, where Hannah sat in her wig and spectacles. Her lilac-colored polyester suit with its large mother-of-pearl buttons looked stifling in the warm chamber. To Luther, however, Hannah managed to look calm, intelligent, and oddly appealing, even in her dowdy disguise.

  “Miss Lindstrom’s testimony, on the other hand,” the commander added, “could tip the scales in Lieutenant Renault’s favor, provided you can find the evidence to corroborate it,” she said to Hannah.

  Hannah had been introduced as Rebecca Lindstrom, though it had been made clear that the name was an alias. The defense lawyer knew that Hannah’s colleague had been killed while probing into Lovitt’s affairs. His notes detailing Lovitt’s crimes had apparently been seized by Lovitt’s protector, an international arms dealer called the Individual.

  “Ma’am, if we can petition for a delay,” Luther urged, “we could really use the time. Once the FBI arrests the Individual, Lovitt’s activities are bound to come to light.”

  Commander Curew scribbled herself a note on the pad in front of her. “I’ll ask, Lieutenant, but I can’t guarantee that the request will be met. The powers that be are bringing this hearing before a judge as quickly as possible,” she added, lips thinning with disapproval.

  The men shared dark looks. Lovitt had friends in high places. They were doing their utmost to keep him above the fray, to keep the Navy from taking a blow to its dignity.

  Commander Curew began gathering up her notes. “Unless the delay is granted, gentlemen, we’ll meet again on Monday at eight hundred hours, prior to the Article 32. At that time, each of you will offer the testimony you’ve given me today.” She darted a rather desperate look at Luther and Hannah. “If you find anything remotely damaging to Lovitt’s reputation, please let me know at once. You have my card.”

  With that, she stood up, causing all six men to come respectfully to their feet. They bid her good day, listening to her heels tap the linoleum tiles as she retreated.

  Within seconds, two military guards stalked into the chamber to take Jaguar back into custody. Luther watched with his stomach burning as they slapped cuffs on Jaguar’s wrists. Jaguar kept eye contact with his platoon members up to the moment he was hustled from the chamber.