Baby Battalion

by Cassie Miles

  “I was stationed in Afghanistan,” he said. “Do you know where that is?”

  “Very far,” Joey said. “And there’s a war.”

  “A long, hard-fought war. My squad was five guys. We were doing recon. That’s short for reconnaissance, and it means we were looking around to see what kind of danger might be waiting for the rest of our platoon.”

  “What’s a platoon?”

  “More guys. Maybe thirty or forty.”

  “Do you have lots of guns and stuff?”

  “A lot,” he said. “A fully-equipped marine with protective gear, weaponry, water and food can be hauling eighty or even a hundred pounds of stuff. But my squad was traveling light and fast. It was night when we entered the village.”

  Far away from any major population center, there were only dirt roads through the desolate landscape. “The villages in Afghanistan aren’t like any town you’ve ever seen. The houses are mud bricks and rough wood frames. There’s no electricity. Just lanterns and battery-powered lights. We moved silently as shadows.”

  Joey climbed up onto the sofa beside him and sat on his heels. This moment was something Nolan had dreamed about—sitting here in the house he and Tess had purchased after they were married, telling a story to his son.

  He glanced over at her. Instead of returning to the kitchen, she’d stayed and perched on the arm of an over-stuffed chair they’d bought together. Was she feeling any of this intensity? Did she know him? Did she suspect?

  “Our mission,” he said, “was to locate a dangerous man who was known to be in the area.”

  “Did you find him?” Joey asked.

  “Yes, we found him.”

  He hadn’t known at the time that locating Greenaway would irreparably change his life. Greenaway was more than an arms dealer who dealt in the opium trade. He was a death merchant who not only provided weapons but strategized to promote his wares, prolong the conflict and kill soldiers and civilians.

  Bart had been on Greenaway’s trail for years and considered him to be his nemesis. If Nolan could have changed the past, he never would have approached that desolate village.

  “What happened next?” Joey asked.

  “We went toward a house where we could see light even though the curtains were closed. The walls were very thick—made of stones plastered over with dirt—but there were spaces around the windows. We stayed hidden and listened.”

  Greenaway had been meeting with two warlords, explaining his plan for an exchange of weapons for opium. Though the American blended in with the others, mimicking their garb and covering half his face with a scarf, he spoke Pashto with an undeniable Texan accent.

  Instead of charging through the door, Nolan listened intently. These details were important. If he could get the info to the right people, he could disrupt a major distribution network.

  “When we’d heard enough, we decided to get out of there. We could stop a bad thing from happening if we told the right people what we’d learned.”

  Joey bobbed his head. “Silent as shadows, you went away.”

  “But we didn’t make it to safety.”

  Chapter Seven

  From the kitchen, Nolan heard the buzz of a timer. In a way, the interruption was perfect timing. The rest of his story got more painful.

  Tess jumped to her feet and said, “The pizzas are done.”

  “Not now, Mommy.” Joey threw both hands in the air. “Mr. Law is telling a story.”

  “But, Joey, I thought you were starving.”

  A bemused grin curved her soft pink lips as she glanced in Nolan’s direction. The more he was with her, the more beautiful she became. He’d gotten over the initial shock of seeing her and was noticing details. Her silky black hair was longer and straighter. She’d lost weight, and her cheekbones were more pronounced. When she smiled, he saw faint crinkles at the outer edges of her blue eyes.

  Five years ago, she’d told him that lines on a woman’s face were crinkles, not wrinkles. Whatever she called them, they were prettier than makeup. The crinkles made her real. For years, he’d been staring at her photograph. Reality was a hell of a lot better.

  She was running the show, giving the orders. “Please continue, Nolan. I can hear you from the kitchen.”

  “Yeah,” Joey said. “Did you get the bad guy?”

  “We made it out of the village. The moon and starlight were enough for us to see where we were going. Then the firefight started and we were pinned down.”

  “They had fire?” Joey asked.

  “A firefight is what you call it when guys are firing at each other,” he explained. “We radioed for help, but our platoon was miles away and we were outnumbered.”

  “Were you scared?”

  “You bet I was.” He looked into his son’s eyes, imparting the kind of wisdom that fathers were supposed to say. “No matter what anybody tells you, it’s okay to be scared when you’re in danger.”

  “Then what?”

  These were details that couldn’t be told. Greenaway had called out to them. Speaking in English, he demanded to know what they’d heard. Nolan still remembered the voice. Harsh and cold as the Afghan night, the words echoed inside his skull. If they told anyone about Greenaway’s plans, he would take his revenge on them and their families. Their wives and children would suffer tortures beyond comprehension. Their loved ones would beg for death.

  Nolan and the four other marines with him remained silent. Though Greenaway couldn’t possibly know their identities, his threats rang true. According to the CIA, his influence extended beyond the war zone.

  “Our backup troops arrived in three units. One of my men was injured, but we escaped and were on our way back to rejoin our platoon.”

  None of the men who were with Nolan spoke Pashto. They had overheard the same conversation, but it sounded like gibberish to them. He was the only one who knew the details of Greenaway’s operation, and he needed to get that information to someone who could use it. At the same time, he needed to be covert. He wouldn’t do anything that would put Tess in danger. He contacted the CIA in Kandahar.

  “The next morning, my squad and a couple of other guys were on our way to a city.”

  “Wait a minute,” Joey interrupted. “Did the bad guys get away?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “That’s not how it’s supposed to turn out. Bad guys get caught. Good guys win.”

  “Who’s telling this story? You or me?”

  Joey wiggled around beside him. “You still didn’t say how you got hurt.”

  “That comes next.” He looked over his shoulder toward the dining area where Tess was pouring Shiraz into glasses with stems that had been a wedding present. “Looks like your mom is just about ready for dinner.”

  She came to the front room. “I’m listening.”

  As his wife and his son looked at him with total acceptance, he almost forgot his scars—an irony. The whole point of his story was to explain what had happened to his face.

  “On our way to a city called Kandahar, our vehicle ran over a bomb.” Explaining the concept of an IED to Joey was too complicated. “That’s how I got injured. If I hadn’t been wearing my helmet and protective armor, I would have been dead for sure. As it was, I had broken bones in my left arm and leg, internal damage and serious burns. My throat was nearly crushed. A lot of the bones in my face were shattered.”

  “Which ones?” Joey asked.

  “Across my brow. My jaw. A cheekbone. My nose.”

  After the IED, his memories had been incoherent. He’d thought he was dead, had never expected to survive. He couldn’t see, but he’d heard a voice, Greenaway’s voice, coming from above him. Greenaway spoke his name. Joe Donovan. He hadn’t been able to move, couldn’t defend himself. Joe Donovan, it’s good that you’re dead. I don’t have to kill you. Or your pregnant wife.

  “The next thing I remember is being in a field hospital. They didn’t think I was going to make it.”

  For a moment, h
e flashed back in time.

  A CIA agent was at his side, asking about Greenaway. Though it was nearly impossible to speak, Nolan forced the words through his bloody lips.

  His throat was raw. Every breath was a struggle. This was his dying declaration. Greenaway already thought he was dead. Tess wouldn’t be in danger. The last agonizing words he uttered were meant for her, his dearest love.

  After that, things got weird. He heard the CIA agent tell the medic that he was gone. They pulled a sheet over his face and declared him dead. Along with two other injured men, he was evacuated in a chopper.

  He wanted to tell somebody that he was still alive, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t feel a damn thing.

  Shaking off the memory, he looked at Joey and shrugged. “That’s about it. At a hospital in Switzerland, I met Bart Bellows for the first time.”

  “I know Bart,” Joey said.

  Tess moved closer, taking more of an interest. “Was that before or after Bart retired?”

  “A guy like Bart never retires. He just changes focus. I became his personal reclamation project, which was lucky for me. Bart arranged for some of the best specialists in the world to put me back together.”

  “How did they fix you?” Joey asked.

  “With a lot of physical therapy. They reinforced the bone in my leg with metal.” He stretched his left leg out in front of him. The doctors hadn’t expected him to walk again, but he’d worked hard to prove them wrong. “This leg is almost bionic. You know, like a robot.”

  “Cool.”

  “They rebuilt the bones in my face and slapped on some new skin. For a while, I looked like Mr. Potato Head with pieces missing.”

  Joey patted his scarred cheek, and the touch of his son’s hand was magic. Nolan felt his jaw stretch into a smile of purest joy. Life was worth living again.

  Maybe, someday, he could even return to his identity as Joe Donovan. But not yet. Not while Greenaway was still a threat.

  As they went to the dinner table, Tess leaned close to him. “Thanks for talking to Joey.”

  “I wish I’d had a better story. You know, something about me going Rambo and wiping out a thousand bad guys.”

  “Your version is better. I don’t want my son to think war is some kind of fun video game.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  She casually touched his arm, and he felt healed. Between her and Joey, he’d experienced more affectionate contact in the past fifteen minutes than he had in the past five years.

  Quietly, she said, “I didn’t know you were so close to Bart. I think of him as my guardian angel, and I guess he was protecting you, too.”

  Bart Bellows protected all of them, more than she knew. To compensate Nolan for giving the CIA enough intelligence to nearly destroy Greenaway’s lethal distribution system, Bart used his contacts to make sure Joe Donovan appeared to be dead. He’d arranged the monthly payments Tess received, supposedly from the Veterans Administration and a life insurance policy. And he’d violated myriad regulations and ordinances by arranging for an empty coffin to be buried at Arlington under Joe Donovan’s headstone.

  The ruse seemed to have worked. Greenaway believed that Joe Donovan died before he could pass on the information he’d overheard. He blamed someone else for the problems the CIA had caused him.

  When Nolan had recovered enough to make decisions for himself, he wanted to go back to Tess. He and Bart had explored all the options from entering a witness protection program to moving into an armed fortress. No matter what he did, Tess and Joey would be in mortal danger—targets for Greenaway’s brutal vengeance.

  This afternoon when Nolan discovered that the Zamirs were still keeping an eye on Tess, his fears had been confirmed. Greenaway hadn’t forgotten about Joe Donovan. Nolan knew he’d done the right thing by staying away.

  But would Tess see it the same way? His fake death had caused her heartache. Would she understand that he’d stayed away because he had no other choice?

  Sitting at the head of the table with Joey on his left and Tess on his right, he wanted to make the announcement. The words crawled up his throat. He wanted to end the separation that had lasted for five long, painful years. Desperately, he wanted his family back. If he couldn’t be with them, he might as well put a bullet in his head and finish the job Greenaway had started in Afghanistan.

  He took a bite of the traditional pizza. The familiar flavor of her homemade tomato sauce sparked old memories. She hadn’t changed the combination of savory spices.

  “This sauce is amazing,” he said.

  “The recipe is an old standby,” she said. “I like to make up a big batch and use it throughout the week on spaghetti and lasagna.”

  He remembered. “I’ll bet it smells great when it’s cooking.”

  “Try the white pizza,” she said. “The sauce is a combination of pesto and parmesan over toppings of shredded chicken and veggies.”

  “It’s cheesy,” Joey said as he swallowed. “My mom is the best cook in the world.”

  “What’s your favorite dish?” Nolan asked.

  Joey looked up at the ceiling as he considered, and then he grinned. “Cupcakes. I can eat a hundred cupcakes.”

  “Yeah?” Nolan grinned back at him. “Do you know how many a hundred is?”

  “Sure.”

  Joey started counting, losing interest somewhere in the fifties. Then he talked about adding and reading and all the things he was learning in day care. Next year, he’d be in kindergarten.

  They settled into what he supposed was a normal conversation—telling anecdotes, exchanging smiles and even occasionally laughing. Nolan tried to settle himself into this pleasant version of life. It was surreal.

  He questioned how he could be sitting at the dining table in the house that he and Tess had shared while, at the same time, being a stranger. Though he had helped her choose the plates and the silverware, he couldn’t help commenting on the blue and yellow pattern so he could hear her say that those were such cheerful colors. He knew Tess and Joey were his family, but they had no idea.

  While Tess put Joey to bed, Nolan checked out the Christmas tree. He remembered the ornaments from her family. There were no heirlooms from him; both his parents were dead.

  He went to the accent wall in the living room. He remembered the day they had painted. She hadn’t changed the color. It was still a light chocolate brown. The arrangement of photographs above the rolltop desk she’d inherited from her grandma was the same as when he’d lived here with Tess, including a casual picture of both of them on vacation in the Bahamas standing next to a palm tree. Damn, they’d been a good-looking couple. When he’d helped her hang these pictures, he’d been careless and had damaged the plaster. Was it still there?

  He took down a sepia photo of Tess’s grandparents on their wedding day. There was the crack. He ran his fingers over the wall.

  “What are you doing, Nolan?”

  Tess had returned from the bedroom. She stood in the hallway, watching him.

  “This picture,” he said, “was off center. If you’d like, I could fix that wall for you.”

  Though she still looked confused, she shook her head. “We have more important things to worry about.”

  He replaced the photo. “Such as?”

  “Bart.”

  She went into the living room, sat on the sofa and picked up her wineglass. Tess had never been much of a drinker; she had one glass with dinner and one after. Even so, he noticed a flush in her cheeks as she continued, “When you were talking about Bart, I remembered what a truly good man he is. It just doesn’t make sense that he’d have such terrible problems with his son.”

  Nolan could damn sure point to himself as an example of a man who was a decent human being and a lousy father. “There must have been circumstances.”

  “I’m supposed to meet with Governor Lockhart tomorrow morning,” she said. “I know she’s old friends with Bart. Is there any chance that she’d know something about
his son?”

  “We’ve talked to her.” He sat on the sofa beside Tess, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her body and to catch a whiff of her unique fragrance. “Lila doesn’t have a clue about Victor’s whereabouts.”

  “I was thinking that there might be a clue in the past,” she said. “Maybe she can tell us about when Victor was a child. Some patterns develop early.”

  And Lila Lockhart might be more inclined to talk about those patterns with another woman. “I’ll be there, too. I can make sure you have time to talk to her.”

  “I know she’s a busy woman, but this is about Bart.”

  Reaching for his wineglass on the coffee table, his shoulder brushed hers. He clinked the rim of his glass against hers. “Thank you for inviting me for dinner.”

  “I’m glad you could come.” Her wistful smile touched him. “You were terrific with Joey.”

  “He’s a good kid.”

  And he was in bed. Now was adult time. His gaze linked with hers. Her blue eyes were soft and misty. She lowered her lids, leaned a bit closer to him.

  Bracing himself for the sensation of her lips joining with his, he anticipated her kiss. The air vibrated with possibility. His heartbeat was a sledgehammer inside his chest.

  She pulled back. “Nolan, there’s something I have to say.”

  “Okay.”

  His guard went up. Expecting a kiss on their first date might be too much to hope for. Even if she didn’t consciously know who he was, he was damn sure that she felt the same pull that he did, the same magnetism. They had been part of each other.

  She looked down into her wineglass. Her sooty lashes formed graceful crescents above her cheeks. “I’ve been a widow for five years, and I haven’t dated much. I need to go slow.”

  “I understand.”

  “And I might never be able to…have a relationship with another man. The truth is…” She looked up at him. “I still love my husband.”

  And I love you, my darling Tess. With all my heart.