Troubleshooters 04 Out of Control

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Not really. I’d love to have sex with you without a condom.” He paused. “Want to get married?”

  Savannah’s heart skipped a beat, but she laughed because he was obviously joking. “That would go over really well with my parents. ‘Hey, Mom and Dad. Meet my new husband—Wildcard Karmody . . .’ Do you have a tattoo?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Really?”

  “No, I’m lying to you, Savannah. Jesus.”

  “It’s kind of dark in here.”

  “I’m deeply hurt that you don’t remember.” He kissed her, clearly not hurt at all.

  “Where is it?” she asked. “What is it?”

  “A two of hearts,” he told her. “You know, like a playing card. A wild card. Upper arm. Right. And—”

  “You have two?”

  “Yes, Miss Highly Observant. Miss Capable of Four Orgasms in One Hour But Can’t Seem to Notice Her Extremely Virile and Competent Lover’s Physical Characteristics, I also have a frog. On my ass. Don’t ask.”

  She giggled. “Excellent. ‘Mom, Dad, this is Wildcard Karmody and—’ Do people really call you that? Wildcard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  He laughed. “Yes.”

  “Is that weird?”

  “No, I like it. I don’t really think of myself as WildCard, you know, I’m still twelve-year-old Kenny-the-dork in my head, but if they want to call me that . . . It’s a compliment that I’ll gladly accept.”

  “ ‘He’s got two tattoos,’ “ Savannah continued. “ ‘One’s a frog on his ass—and we got married because he wanted to have sex without a condom.’ It’s almost as good as the reason Priscilla wants me to get married—because dear Vlad has a title. He’s actually a count.”

  “Being a count is almost as good as having a frog on your ass,” Kenny told her. “But not quite.”

  Savannah laughed. “Kenny, I—” She stopped herself, uncertain about what she’d been intending to say. I love you? She had no clue how he would react to that news. And what they had right now was so good, she didn’t want to screw it up.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Can I see you when we get back home?” she said instead.

  “Well, yeah, it’s going to be kind of hard for you not to see me if we’re getting married, right?”

  She lifted herself slightly off him. “No, seriously.”

  “Seriously, I have to clean up, Van, because I will be goddamned if I get you pregnant without the complete whistles-and-bells, no-condom fun.”

  Savannah scrambled off him, searching in the darkness for her clothes. “Why is there a frog tattooed onto your posterior?”

  He laughed. “Because I went out drinking with some of my classmates right after we officially became SEALs, and we all got a frog tattooed onto our posteriors.”

  She slipped into her shorts and shirt. “Not a SEAL?”

  “You can come back now,” he said, so she settled against him. “Clothes?” He sounded disappointed.

  “Bugs,” she explained.

  “Frog because the granddaddy of the SEAL was the Navy Frogman. Our posteriors because believe it or not the Navy frowns upon tattoos and we figured the COs wouldn’t notice ’em there. And seriously there’s nothing I’d love more than to keep seeing you when we get back home. But this is probably where I should give my warning about how completely I suck at long-distance relationships and how I swore I’d never get involved long distance again.”

  “Well,” Savannah said slowly. “There are probably lots of options in between ‘we have a long distance relationship’ and ‘we have no relationship at all.’ “

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. But . . . I’m a SEAL, so I’m gone a lot.”

  Well, that was none too encouraging.

  “It’s not easy on girlfriends and wives. And it’s not going to change. I mean, I’m not leaving the team. Not in the near future, anyway. You know, I’ve had job offers—good ones, too—but I love what I do and I’m going to do it for as long as I can.”

  “I would never even consider asking you to do something like leave the SEALs,” Savannah said quietly. “That’s not one of the options I was thinking of.” She kissed him. “What did your father think when you became a SEAL?”

  “And she changes the subject,” Ken said. He sighed. “Maybe you should consider a career change—from lawyer to therapist. Because you get me to tell you things I never tell anyone. And, like, I’m eager to tell you. What’s up with that?”

  “You like telling me things because you think that’ll make me want to have sex with you,” she reminded him. “And it works, remember?”

  Ken laughed. “Right. My father came to BUD/S graduation,” he said. “All the way out to Coronado. And afterwards he comes up to me and he says, ‘How come you’re not an officer?’ “

  “Oh!” Savannah said. “Let me at him! Good thing he’s dead, or I’d kill him!”

  “It was okay.” Kenny kissed her. “I’d realized a long time before that, that this was my life. I didn’t join the SEALs so that my father would be proud of me. I joined so that I would be proud of me. I did it for me.”

  Savannah kissed him back, and the spark that was always right beneath the surface in everything they did leapt into flame. But all he did was kiss her and kiss her. Slowly, lazily, deeply. God, he was a good kisser. And just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, he took off her clothes and put on a condom and . . .

  And then it wasn’t much longer before they were right back where they’d been when they’d first started talking.

  She heard him smile in the darkness.

  “Five,” he whispered.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Seventeen

  Ken awoke to find Savannah gazing down at him. “Hey,” he said, smiling as a series of extremely vivid memories from the night before flashed through his head. He was instantly alert, instantly happy, instantly wanting more. Except he could see her face. He sat up. “Shit, how long has it been light?”

  “For a while, I think.”

  They had to get moving. It was kind of weird, being able to see her, to finally be able to look into her eyes after everything they’d done last night. He knew he was grinning like a fool, and she was smiling back at him.

  “Last night was amazing,” he said.

  She nodded. She’d gotten dressed—in an attempt to keep the bugs at bay that was more psychologically effective than anything else. “For me, too.”

  He kissed her, looking into her eyes right until the very last split second before their mouths met. Oh, yeah. She wanted him again, nearly as much as he wanted her. And, God, the idea of making love in the daylight, while he could see her, while he could hold her gaze, was pretty damn compelling.

  “I can’t get enough of you,” she breathed.

  Oh, yeah. “We don’t have to leave right away,” he decided. “I mean, what’s another thirty minutes, right?” He reached for the buttons on her shirt.

  But she pulled away from him. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  He gestured to the corner of the blind. “I’ll dig you a hole.”

  He could see from her face that that was not the response she’d hoped to hear.

  “I won’t watch,” he told her.

  “Oh, God, that’s just too weird.”

  “What’s weird? Big deal. I did it—must’ve been right before dawn—while you were still asleep.”

  “Kenny, it’s a miracle I can go to the bathroom in the woods at all.” She started moving a few branches. “I’ll just slip out and find a nice big fern to hide behind and slip back in here. And then . . .”

  She smiled and unspoken promises hung in the very air around him.

  “Go,” he said. “But be fast and stay close.”

  Molly woke up alone and feeling blue.

  It was stupid. She’d been sleeping by herself for most of her life.
It didn’t make sense that one night spent with Jones’s arms around her should rattle her routine so completely.

  She dressed quickly, humming while she did so, trying to lift her dragging spirits.

  It was Angie’s turn to cook, and Molly greeted her with a smile as she helped herself to a bowl of fruit. “Where is everyone today?”

  “Father Bob took the boat down river to the falls to perform a funeral service. One of the Montemarano children died. We think it was blood poisoning.”

  Molly closed her eyes. “I should have gone with him.”

  “He left early this morning.” She opened her eyes to see Billy pouring himself a cup of coffee. “He didn’t want to wake you.”

  “He should have,” she said.

  “Guess he thought you needed the sleep after staying out all night, huh?”

  Molly put down her bowl with a thump. “If you have some problem either with me or with something I’ve done, Billy, talk to me. Don’t passive-aggressive me to death.”

  Billy put down his coffee. “You slept with Jones.”

  “Yes. Thanks for your concern, but I’m well aware of any potential complications.”

  Angie pretended to be fascinated by the vegetables she was cutting for the lunchtime salad.

  Billy took a step toward her. “I am concerned, Molly. None of us know this guy—”

  “I know him,” she said.

  Billy wasn’t concerned, he was jealous, but Molly let him pretend he was on the high road. It was just as well.

  “He’s a smuggler and a thief and God knows what else.”

  “Yes,” she said. “God does know what else. He’s a good man, and I’m completely in love with him.” Well, that was much more than she’d intended to reveal to anyone, and Billy, bless him, somehow knew it. Maybe it was from the way her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

  “Oh, Molly,” he said, and there was real sympathy, genuine kindness in his eyes. He held out his arms to her, and she went into his embrace.

  “What am I going to do?” she asked. “I’m supposed to leave in just a few weeks and I don’t want to go.”

  “So maybe you don’t leave,” he suggested. “Maybe you stay.” He kissed the top of head. “I wish it was me. I’m sorry for being such a jealous shithead.”

  She laughed. “You’re never going to make it through the seminary if you don’t clean up your language.”

  “I’m working on it.” He pulled back to look down at her. “Have you told him? Jones, I mean.”

  “That I . . .” Love him. Molly shook her head. “No.”

  “You should. He should know. Even if he thinks he doesn’t want anyone to love him—he wants it. Believe me. There’s not a man alive who doesn’t. And love is such a precious and enduring thing. Don’t forget that. Even if you tell him and he runs away, he’ll still carry it with him, always. He deserves that gift, don’t you think?”

  “Thank you,” Molly said.

  Billy smiled ruefully, picking up his coffee cup. “Lucky son of a bitch. I hate his fucking guts,” he said as he walked away.

  “Language!” both Molly and Angie said in a near perfect unison.

  Savannah heard them before she saw them. A snapped branch, the rustle of thick jungle foliage.

  At first she thought it might be Ken, coming to check on her, and she quickly finished up and fastened her shorts.

  But then she realized there was more than one person making that noise.

  It was some kind of patrol, and they weren’t making much of an effort to be silent.

  For a half a second, she stood there, frozen.

  This was why Ken hadn’t wanted her to leave the blind. If she hadn’t left, she’d be in there right now. Safely hidden. Instead . . .

  If they found her here, it wouldn’t take much for them to look around more carefully and find Ken. And if they found Ken and realized he was a Navy SEAL, they would kill him. Immediately.

  Sheer terror flooded her and she ducked down, close to the ground.

  She had to be far enough away from the blind when they found her. And then she had to make them believe that Ken had ditched her in the night.

  Savannah didn’t want to move. She wanted to curl up right there, in the shadows beneath the fern and simply pray that she wouldn’t be spotted in the dense brush.

  Instead, she began creeping, on her hands and knees on the jungle floor, as silently as possible, away from the blind and Kenny.

  One more minute and he was going out there after her.

  Jesus God, how could anyone take so long?

  Ken looked at his watch again. And then he heard it.

  Holy fuck.

  Sounds of movement. Someone, no, lots of someones were out there in the jungle.

  With Savannah.

  Ken grabbed the Uzi and the pack with the extra ammunition and silently left the blind.

  Alyssa sat with Jules in an outside café in Port Parwati, in heavy wait mode. They were here, they were visible, they were ready to evacuate Ken and Savannah immediately to Jakarta should they appear.

  On the surface Parwati was far from the dangerous Wild West-type town that Max had described. It was a charming little mix of ecclectic architecture, with bright-colored signs and consistently terrific views of an ocean that was beyond gorgeous.

  Clean and inviting, it sparkled enticingly in the sunlight, and as Alyssa gazed at it, she couldn’t help but think of Sam Starrett. He’d joined the Navy, choosing to join the SEALs over elite groups like Delta Force and the Rangers because of his love for the ocean.

  “Shit,” she said and Jules glanced up from his crossword puzzle.

  “If we’re frustrated,” he said, “think how Mrs. von Hopf must feel.”

  “No,” she said. “I was . . .” Thinking about Sam. Again. Would she ever stop thinking about Sam? “You’re right, of course.”

  She picked up Rose’s book. She was getting close to the end, and had slowed down—dreading finding out how it all turned out. When she’d last stopped reading, Rose was in London, heavily pregnant with twins, with no word as to whether Hank was dead or alive.

  Victory in Europe! May 8, 1945. It was a day for celebrating, and I was as joyful as anyone in London at the news. More so, for it meant that finally Hank might be able to come home.

  One week passed. Then two. Still no word, but I was undaunted. Reports told of the chaos in Berlin and the surrounding German countryside.

  May became June became July and, seven months pregnant, I began making arrangements to go to Berlin, despite the trouble with the Soviets.

  But health conditions in Germany were terrible. Disease was rampant. High blood pressure had already put me in the hospital once, and my doctors threatened to lock me up.

  Then the news came. Ivan Schneider, another OSS operative, had seen Hank in Berlin just before the German surrender. Hank had been wounded, and Ivan believed mortally so. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it.

  But several days later, I received a telegram from the War Office, notifying me that Hank had been officially presumed dead.

  I spoke directly to Ivan, of course. I grilled the poor man, but he was unable to give me any hope at all that Hank might still be alive.

  No, the hope was entirely mine.

  Two weeks later, I was sent back to the United States—I think in the hopes that my mother and father would be able to prevent me from going to Berlin as soon as the babies were born, as I’d been stating I would do. I was given a seat in a military transport carrying General Eisenhower, but I remember little of the flight, even less of my first introduction to that great man.

  The twins were born early, in late August, in my little farmhouse in New Jersey. My mother wanted me to name one of the boys after Heinrich, but I refused. It would be too confusing, I told her, to have two Hanks in the house. I named them Alexander and Karl—royal-sounding names for my little princes.

  Months passed. Karl suffered a bout of pneumonia that kept him in th
e hospital for weeks and terrified me. It was nearly a year before he was declared well enough to travel and I began thinking, once again, of making my way to Berlin.

  And then it happened. October 17, 1946. Over seventeen months after Germany’s surrender. I received a visit from Anson Faulkner, my former boss at the FBI. Heinrich von Hopf had been found in a prison hospital in the Soviet Union.