It was possible Joe Catalanotto was already dead. McCoy knew that as well as Crash did. But neither of them spoke the words.
“Harvard’s still there.” Crash tried his best to be optimistic, even though experience told him reality more often than not turned out to be more like the worst-case scenario than the best. “You know as well as I do that the only thing pinning H. down is his inability to move during the daylight. He’s planning to go in after the captain come nightfall.”
“But Bob and Wes are really pinned down.” Blue McCoy sat at the table, his exhaustion evident, his Southern drawl pronounced. “Harvard’s only one man.”
Crash sat across from him. “He’s got P.J. I think between the two of them, they can get Joe out.” He took a sip of coffee. “What they may not be able to do is get Joe down the mountain and safely to this ship.”
McCoy opened the tab on the plastic cover of his coffee, staring at it sightlessly for a moment before he looked at Crash. For all his fatigue, his eyes were clear, his gaze sharp.
“We need a helo. We need one standing by and ready to go in and pull them out of there the moment Harvard gives us the word.” McCoy shook his head in disgust. “But I’ve already requested that, and the admiral’s already turned me down.” He swore softly. “They’re not going to let an American helicopter in, not even for a medivac.”
McCoy looked at Crash again, and there was murder in his eyes. “If the captain dies, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
Crash didn’t doubt that one bit.
“You know, now I can add ‘sacrificial virgin’ to the vast list of employment opportunities that will never be open to me,” P.J. mused.
As Harvard laughed, she felt his arms tighten around her. “Are there really that many on the list?”
She turned her head to look at him in the growing twilight, loving the feeling of his powerful, muscular body spooned next to hers, her back to his front. It still astonished her that a man so strong could be so tender. “Sure. Things like professional basketball player. Not only am I too short, but now I’m too old. And sperm donor is on the list for obvious reasons. So is the position of administrative assistant to a white supremacist. And then there’s professional wrestler. That’s never going to happen.”
“Skyscraper window washer?” he suggested, amusement dancing in his eyes.
“Yup. High on the list. Along with rock climber and tightrope walker. Oh, yeah—and teen singing sensation. That went on the list the year I was an angel in a Christmas pageant. The singing part I could handle, but I hated the fact that everyone was looking at me. It’s hard to be a sensation when you won’t come out from behind the curtains.”
His smile made his eyes warmer. “You get stage fright, huh? I never would’ve thought.”
“Yeah, and I bet you don’t get it. I bet come karaoke night at the officers’ club you’re the first one up on stage.”
“I’m not an officer,” he reminded her. “But yeah, you’re right. I’ve definitely inherited my mother’s acting gene.”
“Your mother was an actress?”
“She still is,” he told her. “Although these days, she’s mostly doing community theater. She’s really good. You’ll have to see her some day.”
Except it was all too likely they wouldn’t have tomorrow, let alone some day. All they had was now, but the sun was sinking quickly, and now was nearly gone. Harvard must have realized what he’d said almost as soon as the words had left his lips, because his smile quickly faded. Still, he tried to force a smile, tried to ignore the reality of their nonexistent future, tried to restore the light mood.
He cupped his hand around her bare breast. “You might want to put nun on your list.”
“Nun’s been on the list for a while,” she admitted, shivering at his touch, making an effort, too, to keep her voice light. “I say far too many bad words to ever have a shot at being a nun. And then, of course, there’s all my impure thoughts.”
“Ooh, I’d love to hear some of those impure thoughts. What are you thinking right now?” His smile was genuine, but she could still see the glimmer of a shadow in his eyes.
“Actually, I’m wondering why you’re not an officer,” she told him.
He made a face at her. “That’s an impure thought?”
“No. But it was what I was thinking. You asked.” P.J. turned to face him. “Why didn’t you become an officer, Daryl? Joe told me you were approached often enough.”
“The chiefs run the Navy,” he told her. “Everyone thinks the officers do—including most of the officers—but it’s really the chiefs who get things done.”
“But you could’ve been a captain by now. You could’ve been the man leading Alpha Squad,” she argued.
Harvard smiled as he ran one hand across her bare torso, from her breast to her hip and then back up, over and over, slowly, deliciously, hypnotically.
“I’m one of the men leading Alpha Squad,” he told her. “Cat’s a good captain. But he’s a mustang—an enlisted man who made the switch to officer. He’s had to fight like hell for every promotion. In some ways, that’s good. He knows he’s not randomly going to get bumped any higher into some job he’s not suitable for. What he does best is right here, out in the real world.”
“But you would be a mustang, too.”
“I would be a mustang who’d attended Harvard University,” he countered. “Every time I was approached by folks who wanted me to go to officer’s training, I could see my future in their eyes. It involved spending a lot of time behind a desk. I don’t know if the reason they wanted me so badly was to fill a quota, or what, but…”
“You don’t really think that, do you?” she asked.
Harvard shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. All my life, I watched my father struggle. He was one of the top—if not the top—English lit professors in the Northeast. But he wasn’t known for that. He was ‘that black English lit professor.’ He was constantly being approached to join the staff of other colleges, but it wasn’t because of his knowledge. It was because he would fulfill a quota. It was a constant source of frustration for him. I’m sure, particularly as a woman, you can relate.”
“I can,” she told him. “I don’t know how many times I’ve been called in to join a task force and then told to take a seat at the table and look pretty. No one wanted my input. They wanted any news cameras that might be aimed in their direction to see that they had women on staff. Like, ‘Look, y’all. We’re so politically correct, we’ve got a woman working with us.’”
“That’s why I didn’t want to become an officer. Maybe I was just too leery, but I was afraid I’d lose my identity and become ‘that black officer.’ I was afraid I’d be a figurehead without any real power, safely stashed behind a desk for show.” He shook his head. “I may not make as much money, and every now and then a smart-ass lieutenant who’s nearly half my age comes along and tries to order me around, but other than that, I’m exactly where I want to be.”
P.J. kissed him. His mouth was so sweet, so warm. She kissed him again, lingering this time, touching his lips with the tip of her tongue.
She could feel his mouth move into a smile. “I know you’re thinking something impure now.”
She was, indeed. “I’m thinking that if you only knew what I was thinking, you’d discover my awful secret.”
He caught her lower lip between his teeth, tugging gently before he let go. “And what awful secret might that be?”
“The fact that no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get enough of you.”
His eyes turned an even warmer shade of whiskey brown as he bent to kiss her. “The feeling is definitely mutual.”
She reached between them, searching for him—and found him already aroused. Again. “You want to go four for four, my man?”
“Yes.” He kissed her again, a sweet kiss. “And no. And this time, no wins. You’re going to be sore enough as it is.” His gaze flickered to the drying bloodstains on the blanket.
He’d been so gentle and tender after the first time they’d made love. He’d helped her get cleaned up, and he’d cleaned her blood off himself, as well. P.J. knew he hated the idea that he’d caused her any pain at all, and the blood proved he’d hurt her. Unintentionally. And necessarily, of course. But he had hurt her.
Still, he’d also made her feel impossibly good.
Harvard propped himself on one elbow and looked at her in the dwindling light. “Besides, my sweet Porsche Jane, it’s time to think about heading out.”
The fear P.J. had buried inside her exploded with a sudden rush. Their time was up. It was over. They had a job to do. A man’s life to save. Their own lives to risk.
Harvard gently extracted himself from her arms and stood up. He gathered her clothes and handed them to her, and they both quietly got dressed.
Before they went to John Sherman’s stronghold, Harvard was determined to find them some real weapons. He’d told her earlier he intended to do that alone.
P.J. broke the silence. “I want to go with you.”
Harvard glanced up from tying his bootlaces. He’d propped opened the rickety door to the hut to let in the last of the fading evening light. His face was in the shadows, but P.J. knew that even if he’d been brightly illuminated, she wouldn’t have been able to read his expression. It didn’t seem possible that this was the man who’d spent the afternoon with her, naked and laughing in her arms.
“You know for a fact that I’ll be able to do this faster—cleaner—without you.” His voice was even, matter-of-fact.
Yeah, she did know that. It took him more than twice as long to move quietly through the jungle when she was with him. And quietly was a relative term. Her most painstakingly silent version of quiet was much noisier than his.
Without her, he could approach the fringes of the armed camp where Wes and Bobby were pinned down and he could appropriate real weapons that fired real, live ammunition.
Harvard straightened, pulling the edges of his shirt together.
P.J. watched his fingers fastening the buttons. He had such big hands, such broad fingers. It seemed impossible that he should be able to finesse those tiny buttons through their tiny buttonholes, but he did it nimbly—faster even than she could have.
Of course, she was far more interested in undressing the man than putting his clothes back on him.
“If something happens,” he said, his voice velvety smooth like the rapidly falling darkness as he shrugged into his combat vest, “if I’m not back before sunup, get on the radio and tell Blue where you are.” He took several tubes of camouflage paint from his pocket and began smearing black and green across his face and the top of his head. “Crash will know how to get here.”
P.J. couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “If you’re not back before sunup?”
“Don’t be going into that minefield on your own,” he told her sternly, mutating into Senior Chief Becker. “Just stay right here. I’m leaving you what’s left of my water and my power bars. It’s not much, but it’ll hold you for a few days. I don’t expect it’ll be too much longer before Blue can get a helicopter up here to extract you.”
She pushed herself to her feet, realization making her stomach hurt. “You’re not planning to come back, are you?”
“Don’t be melodramatic. I’m just making provisions for the worst-case scenario.” He didn’t look her in the eye as he fastened his vest.
P.J. took a deep breath, and when she spoke, her voice sounded remarkably calm. “So what time do you really expect to be back? Much earlier than sunrise, I assume.”
He set his canteen and several foil-wrapped energy bars next to her vest, then looked straight at her and lied. She knew him well enough by now to know that he was lying. “I’ll be back by ten if it’s easy, midnight if it’s not.”
P.J. nodded, watching as Harvard checked his rifle. Even though the only ammunition he had was paint balls, it was the only weapon he had, and he was making sure it was in working order.
“You said you loved me,” she said quietly. “Did you really mean it?”
He turned to look at her. “Do you really have to ask?”
“I have trust issues,” she told him bluntly.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I love you.”
“Even though I’m a FInCOM agent? A fink?”
He blinked and then laughed. “Yeah. Even though you’re a fink.”
“Even though you know that I get up and go to work every day, and sometimes that work means that people fire their weapons at me?”
He didn’t try to hide his exasperation. “What does that have to do with whether or not I love you?”
“I have a very dangerous job. I risk my life quite often. Did you know that?”
“Of course I—”
“And yet, you claim you fell in love with me.”
“I’m not just claiming it.”
“Would you describe me as brave?” she asked.
“P.J., I don’t understand what you’re—”
“I know,” she said. “I’m trying to make you understand. Just answer my questions. Would you describe me as someone who’s brave?”
“Yes.”
“Strong?”
“You know you are.”
“I know exactly who and what I am,” P.J. told him. “I’m trying to find out if you know.”
“Yes, you’re strong,” he conceded. “You might not be able to bench press a lot of weight, but you can run damn near forever. And you have strength of character. Stamina. Willpower. Call it whatever you want, you’ve got it.”
“Do you respect me for that?”
“Of course I do.”
“And maybe even admire me a little?”
“P.J.—”
“Do you?” she persisted.
“You know it.”
“As far as finks go, do you think I’m any good?”
He smiled.
“At my job,” she clarified.
“You’re the best,” he said simply.
“I’m the best,” she repeated. “At my dangerous job. I’m strong, and I’m brave, and you respect and admire me for that—maybe you even fell in love with me for those reasons.”
“I fell in love with you because you’re funny and smart and beautiful inside as well as out.”
“But I’m also those other things, don’t you think? If I weren’t strong, if I didn’t have the drive to be the best FInCOM agent I could possibly be, I probably wouldn’t be the person I am right now, and you probably wouldn’t have fallen in love with me. Do you agree?”
He was silent for a moment.
“Yeah,” he finally said. “You’re probably right.”
“Then why,” P.J. asked, “are you trying to change who I am? Why are you trying to turn me into some kind of romantic heroine who needs rescuing and protecting? Why are you trying to wrap me in gauze and keep me safe from harm when you know damn well one of the reasons you fell in love with me is that I don’t need any gauze wrapping?”
Harvard was silent, and P.J. prayed her words were sinking in.
“Go and get the weapons you think we’ll need,” she told him. “And then come back so we can go about bringing Joe home. Together.”
She couldn’t read the look in his eyes.
She pulled him close and kissed him fiercely, hoping her kiss would reinforce her words, hoping he’d understand all she’d left unsaid.
He held her tightly, then he stepped toward the door.
“I’ll be waiting for you,” P.J. told him.
But he was already gone.
Across the room, Blue McCoy shot out of his seat as if someone had fired a rocket under his chair. He swore sharply. “That’s it!”
Crash leaned forward. “What’s it?”
“The solution to getting Joe out. I said it myself. They’re not going to let an American helicopter fly into the island’s airspace.”
Crash laughed softly. “Of course. Let’s go find a r
adio. I know who we can call. This could actually work.”
Blue McCoy wasn’t ready to smile yet. “Provided Harvard can get the job done on his end.”
P.J. paced in the darkness.
She stopped only to flip up the cover of her waterproof watch and glance at the iridescent hands. As she watched, the minute hand jerked a little bit closer to midnight.
Harvard wasn’t coming back.
She sank onto the cool dirt floor of the hut and sat leaning against the rough wooden wall, her rifle across her lap, trying to banish that thought.
It wasn’t midnight yet.
And until it was after midnight, she was going to hang on tight to her foolhardy belief that Daryl Becker was going to return.
Any minute now he was going to walk in that door. He would kiss her and hand her a weapon that fired bullets made of lead rather than paint, and then they would go find Joe.
Any minute now.
The minute hand moved closer to twelve.
Any minute.
From a distance, she heard a sound, an explosion, and she sprang to her feet.
She crossed to the open doorway and looked out. But the hut was in a small valley, and she could see no farther in the otherworldly moonlight than the immediate jungle that surrounded her.
The explosion had been from beyond the minefield—of that much she was certain.
She heard more sounds. Distant gunfire. Single shots, and the unforgettable double bursts of automatic weapons.
P.J. listened hard, trying to gauge which direction the gunfire was coming from. John Sherman’s home base was to the north. This noise was definitely coming from the south.
From the direction Harvard had headed to acquire his supply of weapons.
Cursing, P.J. switched on her radio, realizing she might be able to hear firsthand what the hell was going on. She’d turned the radio on now and then in the hours Harvard had been gone, but there was nothing to hear, and she’d kept turning it off to save batteries.
She could hear Wesley Skelly.
“Some kind of blast on the other side of the camp,” he said sotto voce. “But the guards around this structure have not moved an inch. We are unable to use this diversion to escape. We remain pinned in place. Goddamn it.”
Tall, Dark and Dangerous Vol 1: Tall, Dark and FearlessTall, Dark and Devastating Page 123
