by Glen Carter
Braxton had looked skyward with cold hard eyes at the AWACS orbiting in the blackness eight miles up. That aircraft was shooting infrared video to the Pentagon, where the generals and politicos were keeping tabs on his mission. Braxton wondered if they could see the heat signature from Murphy’s and Jackson’s cooling bodies. Washington Idiots. For a moment Braxton considered disobeying the command. He wanted to stuff the cocksucker into the chopper and say, “To hell with it. Let’s go home.”
The others would have cheered. They would have shot Hussein where he stood. Two of their friends were dead. In the end it was a tough call. Braxton refused to sacrifice himself and his men by disobeying a direct order. They would leave Hussein – alive. He would stay.
“You live for now, motherfucker,” he’d screamed, shoving the bastard into the dirt. “But we’ll be back.”
“Fuck you, Yankee,” Hussein had screeched, smiling back at him as the Black Hawk lifted off into the damp Iraqi night – carrying eight bitter Delta soldiers – and the bodies of two more.
In the end there were no prizes in that first Gulf war – not Hussein, not Baghdad – and certainly not the honour of Braxton’s men, living or dead.
Braxton tore his eyes from the blackened smiling faces in the photograph and thought again about Orilio. A dead man whose wife would receive no sympathetic letter from a commanding officer. The last time Orilio had earned his pay, a Blackhawk helicopter intercepted one of Montello’s DC-3s on a run to Panama. Somewhere near the border there was a plane wreck with corpses and a lot of ruined cocaine inside.
Braxton smiled because he knew he’d ruined Montello’s day. Likely Raspov’s too. He reached over and keyed in another computer password, this one to burrow deeper inside the embassy mainframe. A list appeared on the screen. He ran a finger down the smooth glass, stopping here and there to consider the code names and profiles of his confidential informants. That day several would be contacted and given a task – a simple order. Watch for a man – three men really – and keep your ears close to the ground. There was talk the Russian would be “in country” any day now. Something was up. Montello was running scared and desperate and that meant things would begin to happen – bad things. Braxton felt both excitement and dread as he fixed glacial blue eyes on his computer screen and wondered what Cuba’s intelligence chief and Colombia’s most vicious drug lord were up to.
NINETEEN
Jack Doyle hadn’t cried since the day Whopsie O’Brien pushed him down, cracking Jack’s head open. Whopsie laughed hard, so Jack got right back up and punched him in the stomach, glanced his hand off his big silver belt buckle which hurt almost as much as his head. Later, his dad and Whopsie’s old man got into it. Jack and Whopsie both got grounded.
He was just a kid then. Not anymore. And there was no way he was going to let her see him cry.
They were in the big room at McTavish’s Funeral Home, standing in front of his mother’s coffin. Jack was trying to hide red puffy eyes.
Their fathers were on the other side of the crowded room. To Jack it looked like they were mad at each other. Jack’s father kept rubbing his face, while Argus, Kaitlin’s dad, leaned against a wall with his arms folded. Jack wondered whether it had anything to do with Kaitlin’s uncle, the one who’d died on his father’s boat.
“Do you think she looks like herself?” Kaitlin stood next to him in front of the shiny wood coffin, covering her nose because, “It smells funny.”
Jack looked at her like she was the stupidest person in the room. “Who else would she look like, dummy?” Stoic, brave Jack holding back a dam that threatened to burst under the weight of more tears. Alone and frightened, he rubbed at his stomach where an ache settled in like hot lead.
“Just asking, Mr. Clowny Pants.” Kaitlin’s lyrical taunt wedged itself between grief and anxiety. Jack’s face was a mask of both. He was being watched. Familiar faces full of pity. Poor lad. Mother gone. Just his father now, and what good can you say about him, even at his wife’s funeral?
Kaitlin was dark as a summer berry, wearing a dress that made her look like a doll. She had her father. Like Jack had his.
“My dad says in Ireland dead people like to drink,” she proclaimed, smoothing the front of her dress. She looked down at a smudge on her left shoe, and rubbed it against the back of her leg.
“That’s called a wake,” Jack corrected.
“Awake?” Kaitlin’s brow furrowed in confusion, and she tugged at her hair.
“A wake…a wake. Two words. And it’s the family that likes to drink, not the dead person. Besides,” he said, “my mother never drank, cause Dad did all the drinking there was.” Jack looked off, seemed to be calculating something. “Cancer killed my mother four days and thirteen hours ago,” he said, “and I miss her a lot. What’s that on your shoe, dummy?”
Kaitlin pretended not to hear, pushed her chin up over the edge of the coffin, and was surprised by her courage. The late afternoon sunlight shone through a cracked picture window over the casket and cast a golden hue across her face.
Jack thought she was pretty, but would never, ever have told her so.
“My mother was a princess. My dad says so. Do you know where Colombia is?” Kaitlin thought he was very handsome in his new suit and marveled at the sharp crease in his pants, though she wished he would stop tugging at himself.
“South America…it’s in my atlas.” Jack tugged. “It’s where they grow coffee.”
“I’m going to go there some day to find my mom,” Kaitlin trumpeted. Daring Jack to challenge her.
“You’ll have to get your dad to take you…cause it’s really far.” Jack paused, looked down again. “It’s dog poop.”
“Excuse me.” Kaitlin’s eyes widened.
“On your shoe,” he said. “It’s dog shit.” Jack wrinkled his nose and looked away.
“That’s not a nice thing to say at your mother’s funeral,” Kaitlin intoned. “She didn’t teach you that.”
Jack swiveled his head towards her. “My mom showed me where South America is, and down there I’ll bet people don’t step in dog shit.”
Kaitlin glared at him. “Sorry about your mother,” she said, as she lifted her chin and stomped away.
Kaitlin saw Jack again years later when neither of them would have remembered exactly the conversation beside his mother’s coffin or the dog shit on Kaitlin’s shoe.
It was during dinner, and Kaitlin had a date. Henry Slumberger was a veteran of the crime beat who smelled of musk oil and looked uncomfortable in a rented tux, but to Kaitlin, who was a junior reporter, he seemed like a god. Kaitlin also knew Slumberger’s reputation for liquor and ladies. He’d spotted her at a news conference where she was badly over her head and told her simply: “Don’t be crushed by the facts. Melt them down. Crystallize them until you have the essence of the story.”
It was good advice. Kaitlin made page three – with a byline. She was ecstatic.
“Congrats,” Henry had said to her when he phoned her the day after. “Let’s have dinner.”
Dinner was the New York Journalists’ Gala, an annual hoedown full of egos and resentment between print reporters and the glamorous TV types with their perfect smiles that seemed to light up the room. The politicians who were invited had a field day watching the fireworks.
Slumberger ignored the filet but went big time for the scotch. He was red-eyed and slurring his words and generally being an asshole when they ran into Jack.
Kaitlin could tell Henry was itching for a dust-up.
“Lookie here, Kaitlin. The meat puppet.” Slumberger could barely stand and was leaning heavily on her as Jack approached.
Kaitlin immediately recognized the woman on Jack’s arm.
Jack acknowledged Kaitlin with a warm smile and a friendly hug.
“Hey, Henry, the police chief and the mayor are getting into it over the budget. That’s your beat, isn’t it?” Jack glanced at Kaitlin with a look that said “better duck.”
“Yo
u know the rules,” Slumberger responded thickly. “Everything here’s off the record.”
“Never bothered you before,” Jack responded, and without waiting for a reply made introductions. “Mona Lasing… Kaitlin O’Rourke. Henry, you know.”
The women exchanged curt nods with barely concealed curiosity. Kaitlin knew Mona Lasing was Jack’s competitor at the other network and Kaitlin guessed the competition ended at the bedroom door.
Slumberger ignored the pleasantries, pulled himself straight, but was still a good six inches shorter than Jack. “Saw your piece from Somalia last month. Not bad.”
“That’s high praise coming from you, Henry,” Jack replied, turning to Kaitlin. “Saw your dad last week,” he said quietly. “Said you’re going home for Easter.”
“I’ll bet that’s not all he said,” Kaitlin replied, smiling.
Jack chuckled.
Kaitlin loved Bark Island. Loved her father. But Argus O’Rourke wanted his daughter home – for good. That wasn’t going to happen. She’d worked hard to earn her way. Honours in journalism at the country’s best J-school had led to a coveted position with The Telegraph – a junior position for now.
“The islanders are a stubborn bunch,” Jack replied with a look of empathy. “Argus will come around…eventually.”
Kaitlin had never told Jack that he was the reason she’d gone into journalism in the first place. The hard-nosed reporter who dropped in from time to time to check on the house, and his boat. A big shot telling big stories and winning Emmys no less. Her father had a business to run. Wanted her to take over when the time came. Kaitlin would never forget the look on his face when she told him about the scholarship, about her decision to become a newspaper reporter. “Look at Doyle,” he had said, his voice thick with resentment and worry. “Always off somewhere knee-deep in blood and guts.”
“It’ll be different for me,” Kaitlin pleaded, gently. “Covering city hall is a long way from Jack’s wars.”
Argus eventually relented. What choice did he have?
Kaitlin showed talent early. It was only a matter of time before her editors noticed. Others saw it too, including Jack Doyle. “The network is looking for hot young producers,” he had told her on the telephone a week after the gala. “I’m putting Scoundrel in the water at Easter. Let’s talk about it then. Shanks and Francis can’t wait to see us.”
A week later at Finnegan’s on the island they had beers and fish ’n chips – strictly business. Tommy and Mulligan were due to arrive any minute so Jack laid it out for her. “The pay starts at fifty grand and there’ll be travel. You’d run interference, set up the interviews, keep your ear to the ground.” Jack finished off the last of his chips and caught the attention of Mert Finnegan, who was cleaning tables nearby. “A couple more beers, Mert,” he said, smiling at Kaitlin. “Big ears that one.”
Kaitlin smiled at the older woman and nodded in agreement. “Make a good reporter.”
Jack chuckled. “It’s hard work but you’ll love it. And there’s nothing to say you won’t end up in front of the camera someday. No disrespect intended but you definitely got the look.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Jack.” Kaitlin laughed.
“Hey, I tell it like it is.”
It took Jack weeks more to break down her reluctance. Then Kaitlin said yes.
They kept her close to home at first – Washington and New York, where she shuttled between the state department and the United Nations, quickly earning a reputation as a producer who didn’t quit. The reporters she worked with had affectionately called her the pit bull.
Kaitlin had once dogged a UN whistle-blower for three days straight before he agreed to be interviewed. Heads rolled when that yarn went to air, and although it was the reporter who was credited with the scoop, anyone who counted knew Kaitlin O’Rourke had broken the story. Even Frank Simmons was impressed. Left Kaitlin a voicemail message telling her “Great job. Go get ’em.”
Seven months after Finnegan’s fish ’n chips with Jack Doyle, Kaitlin heard from him again. She was searching for a long-lost notepad on a desk piled two feet high with old newspapers and files when her extension rang. It was a Monday. “Having fun yet?” was all Jack said when she picked up the phone.
“Where are you?” Kaitlin had asked him. “It’s been months.” She’d regretted it as soon as she’d said it. Cringed at the plaintive tone in her voice. “I mean…”
Jack laughed. “Jordan.”
“Jordan who?” Kaitlin asked.
“Jordan…the country.”
Flushed with embarrassment, Kaitlin wanted to gently replace the phone at exactly that moment and to pound her head on the desk. To pretend she had never picked it up in the first place. Instead she forced a laugh. “That’s nice.”
Jack must have sensed her discomfort. “Doing a piece on the royal family,” he said from half-way around the world. “Was falcon hunting with the King today.”
Kaitlin placed a hand over her mouth. “Jack, that’s terrible. Falcons are beautiful birds.”
Jack chuckled softly. “Weren’t hunting falcons, Kaitlin. Falcons were doing the hunting. It’s a custom here.”
They both had laughed at that, making Kaitlin feel better. Her embarrassment disappeared. Replaced by something she couldn’t or wouldn’t identify. It tugged at her with the familiarity of an old friend. She’d known Jack all her life, but what did that matter? She’d worked hard to get where she was. Any feelings she had for Jack Doyle would remain irrelevant in the timeline she’d drawn up for her career – her life.
Kaitlin twisted a length of silky dark hair around her finger as she considered this. Then after a moment she said, “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call, Doyle?”
Jack sensed the change in her, sounded his disappointment with a sigh that faded into the distance between them. “Has Walter talked to you yet?”
“About what?”
Jack whispered a curse. “Then he hasn’t.”
“Jack. What’s going on?” Walter Carmichael hadn’t talked to her about anything. In fact she hadn’t seen the Vice President for News Operations in over a week.
“Let’s just say there’s going to be an offer made, and I hope an offer accepted.”
“You’re teasing me, Doyle,” Kaitlin said. Her mind raced with possibilities. “What kind of offer?”
Jack paused a moment as if considering what to say next. “Kaitlin, I’ve got to follow protocol here,” he said, waiting for it to sink in. “Sorry I brought it up. You’ll know soon enough…anyway take care. Gotta run. The Queen is sending a car over. We’re shooting the interview over lunch. Catch ya later.”
“Jack!”
“Gotta go.”
The phone went dead.
Damn Doyle, she thought. Damn him. What made him think he could play with her like that, especially when she hadn’t heard from him in so long? He was the reason she’d taken this job. His persuasion. The least he could have done was stay in touch, offer her advice now and then. Carmichael was a ball-breaker. What had he meant about an offer? Kaitlin sorted the possibilities. The Los Angeles bureau needed a producer. Rosie was on maternity leave and Carrerra wasn’t the kind of reporter who was capable of going it alone. He’d be whining about now for a fill in. Kaitlin considered it for a moment further, and then shook her head. That guy in Houston. He was next in line for the L.A gig. Kaitlin knew Carmichael was a big believer in the pecking order and it was unlikely he’d deviate for her.
It was exciting. Kaitlin spent half the morning thinking about what Jack had said when her telephone rang again. This time it was the vice president for news and Walter Carmichael had an offer.
Two weeks later, Kaitlin was riding the right seat in a Cessna skimming tree tops on final approach for a jungle landing strip. No one knew she was afraid to fly.
The pilot was stone-faced as he kicked in forty-five degrees of flap, pitching Kaitlin forward in her seat and driving the
air from her lungs.
We’re going to crash!
He adjusted the throttle to bring the tiny aircraft’s nose back up and looked across at her. “You not like my flying, senorita?”
Kaitlin replied with a yelp when tree tops brushed against the aircraft’s underbelly.
The guy laughed, then reached behind the seat and retrieved a half empty bottle of something. He thrust it at Kaitlin. She stared at the bottle for a second then swiveled her head in disbelief.
The pilot flung the bottle backwards and then shouted in Spanish to tighten her seat belt.
They bounced twice on touch down and Kaitlin could swear she heard something snap in the landing gear. The pilot shrugged, stomped on the brakes and the little plane slid to a stop with its nose wheel buried in five inches of Mexican dirt. Kaitlin exhaled her relief, brought a shaking hand to wipe the perspiration from her eyes, and inwardly prayed her thanks. A second later a dusty face appeared at her window, grinning. The door jerked open and the face smiled. “How was your flight?” Jack shouted.
An hour after that, Kaitlin O’Rourke had forgotten the flight from hell. She had entered it.
The earthquake had leveled an entire town and six hundred people were dead. The assignment was a blur of corpses. Grey, dusty bodies and weeping relatives. In a home for unwed mothers dead women cradling breathless infants were pulled from mountains of rubble.
Jack was stoic and businesslike. Seth Pollard, the cameraman, was efficient. Inside, Kaitlin was a mess. But the job got done. Shoot, edit – feed. New York was happy.
They took off from the same airstrip where Kaitlin had landed three days before – same Cessna – same pilot. No one spoke, but this time it was Kaitlin who reached for the bottle. They circled the devastated town twice while Seth shot aerials, and by then Jack and Kaitlin had finished it off.
TWENTY
The day after the New Orleans Cheerleader Massacre, Jack and Kaitlin boarded the CNS corporate jet. They had been scheduled to return to LaGuardia when the story was done in New Orleans. But Jack knew the elements needed to advance the cheerleaders’ story were found in Colombia, not the Big Easy. The Diego brothers had Colombian connections and the White House had been making a lot of noise lately about stepping up CIA and DEA resources in Central and South America. Jack wanted to see what the face of the enemy looked like, and to show that face to the American people.
