Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  Chapter Eighteen

  July, two weeks later, Pacific Ocean, twelve nautical miles off the coast of South America, flying over international waters

  “Sir,” Bomber’s voice came through Eric’s earpiece. “I’ve got activation on buoy seventeen, up Doppler,32 good contact.”

  “Roger that.” Eric flew the helicopter in a circle above their grid of underwater anti-submarine sonobuoys,33 sending half a dozen dolphins leaping over foamy chop. He glanced at Mikey in the copilot’s seat. “Looks like the drug sub is traveling exactly where the DEA predicted.”

  Word had come in yesterday from the Drug Enforcement Administration that the signal from Eric and Nicole’s tracking device had moved from Carrera’s hacienda, indicating the drug-smuggling submarine had put to sea. The signal had been lost as soon as the submarine fully submerged—the device couldn’t transmit underwater—but a diesel-powered sub needed to surface periodically to recharge its batteries. Conveniently, the sub had popped up again earlier today, and with that solid signal plus the first, the DEA had plotted a course trajectory.

  The bad guys were on a direct path for the California coast.

  Eric’s Anti-Submarine Warfare team had been deployed off the USS Lake Champlain to pursue the drug runners along the suspected route, using sonar listening devices along with the ship’s tactical array to track them. Now thirty minutes into the chase, Eric and his men were about to nab the suckers.

  “Commencing containment pattern A-3,” Mikey said, studying the cockpit’s tactical mission display screen, where an electronic representation of the sonobuoys in the ocean was shown. “Dropping buoy twenty-three at 0-2-0, five hundred yards from seventeen.”

  Mikey was now completely med up—hell, he’d even started joining Eric in the ship’s gym. One week ago, all of Mikey’s stitches had been removed, although it wasn’t until relatively recently that he’d stopped looking so Frankensteinian. Once the last of the swelling in his face had finally gone down, the scar on his jaw had tucked under his chin. Face front, Mikey didn’t look so bad. Chin lifted…was a lot of nasty. How the wound on Mikey’s leg was faring, Eric didn’t know. His friend wore sweatpants to the gym rather than shorts. Guess the mystery would have to be solved when they hit the San Diego beaches together again.

  Bomber’s voice crackled through Eric’s earpiece. “I’ve got activation on buoy twenty-three, up Doppler—hot contact!”

  Eric smiled. “Gotcha.” He felt a clench of excitement down low in his belly. Anti-Submarine Warfare was the best of chess meets cat-and-mouse, a total boner-inducing matchup of wits. It was the ultimate hunt, and he loved it. Unfortunately, ASW tacticians like him and Mikey were becoming a dying breed, ever since the end of the Cold War when Russian submarines ceased to be an immediate threat to national security. But the world had proved to be a bad place time and again—wasn’t China pooping out subs like rabbit pellets?—so he and Mikey maintained their skills. Whenever they went out on other hops, they nearly always ran an ASW simulation.

  “Light ’em up,” Eric said, his excitement juicing higher. Boo-yah, it was time to go “active.” So far, they’d only been dropping LOFAR34 sonobuoys, devices that listened passively, which was the ultimate, sneaky way to hunt a submarine undetected. Once Eric’s team unloaded an active sonobuoy, known as a Cadillac, sonar would “ping” off the submerged submarine, alerting the bad guys that their fly was open.

  “Standby to drop Cadillac 4-2,” Mikey said. “On my mark. Now, now, now.”

  Eric peered out his side window, watching the sonobuoy splash into the ocean, then dive under the surface. He kept flying a slow circular pattern while Mikey and Bomber monitored screens and gauges.

  How the bad guys would respond to getting caught was the big unknown.

  “Sir,” Bomber said. “Sounds like the submarine is reducing speed and blowing ballasts.”

  Mikey whooped. “They’re surfacing. Oh, Doctor Death, this is so fucking Sierra Hotel.”35

  “Radio it in.” Eric gained a little more altitude. “And, Bomber, get on the M50. These assholes are no doubt going to pop the hatch pissed off.”

  “I’ve got a visual on a periscope,” Mikey said, adding, “God, I love this shit.”

  The ocean gradually birthed the enormous sea cow, water rushing rapidly over the hull.

  Eric frowned out his side window. Too much water. What the—?

  “Whoa, that’s mondo water displacement,” Mikey observed, as well. “How big is Carrera’s sub, anyway?”

  “Not that big.” An uneasy feeling twisted through Eric. “Not that color, either.”

  The hatch opened and out climbed…a man wearing the uniform of a Colombian naval officer.

  “Crap,” Mikey bit off.

  The Colombian submarine officer stood on the forecastle and glared up at them.

  Even from this far away, Eric could tell how hacked off the man was. “Dammit,” Eric growled, his blood going glacial in his veins. Carrera had outsmarted them again. “Not only did that bastard Carrera find our tracking devices, but he was able to switch them to a naval submarine.” Eric gritted his teeth through another spike of rage. Excuse me, Lieutenant O’Dwyer, the public wants to know: how does it feel to be outwitted by a total wanksta drug lord?

  “Uh, LZ,” Mikey said. “We’ve got another oh, bummer on our nine o’clock.”

  Eric bolted his gaze over to the other side of the aircraft.

  Two speedboats were hauling ass toward the sub, each throwing up rooster tails of foamy wash, hulls leaping through small waves. Four people were in each—two Coast Guard guys plus two others wearing lightweight windbreakers with yellow D-E-A letters marching across their fronts, P-O-L-I-C-E across their backs. The agents were weighted down with weapons, mostly Glocks. An agent in the lead boat had a semiautomatic machine gun…

  Eric’s heart decided to stop working. That agent had a root beer ponytail streaming out behind her. Nicole. Two long weeks had passed since he’d seen or talked to her. Felt like an eternity, and also…just like yesterday.

  Bomber cursed. “Damn, boss, wish we’d waited to radio this in.”

  Mikey’s long sigh whistled into Eric’s earpiece. “Can you say international incident, anyone?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Early September, six weeks later, Rancho Santa Fe, San Diego

  Eric stood erect at the sideboard and poured a hefty dose of scotch into a tumbler. The gentle glugging of the expensive liquor hitting the cut crystal should’ve been a calming sound, but truth was, if he hadn’t wanted this drink so badly, he would’ve thrown the glass against the wall two glugs in. Shot nerves? Probably.

  He was in the parlor of the O’Dwyer manse, the only room his father allowed to be feminine…his mother’s old hangout. Eric used to be able to pick up his mom’s scent in here—simple, floral, natural—until his stepmother came along and stank up the place with her perfume, which smelled like jasmine flowers crushed under a Jimmy Choo pump—musky and dirty, but still somehow elegant.

  The place was a perfect hideout for Eric, since none of the other O’Dwyer men came in here, decorated as it was in shades of cream and rose: a couch plus chair done in cream striped in darker shades of cream stood on a soft rose carpet. Another chair was chintz. The lamp set next to the couch had glass teardrops dangling from the shade, and Swarovski crystal figurines were scattered artfully here and there, along with porcelain Lladrós…and Eric knowing what chintz, Swarovski, Lladró, and Jimmy Choo were meant he’d spent way too much of his youth around rich people.

  He gulped a mouthful of scotch, then topped off his glass. Every room in the house, except for the bedrooms, offered a selection of liquor: whiskey, scotch, rye, bourbon. Nothing that would require a man to lift his pinkie to drink. This was the only room that provided sherry as well.

  “It’s good to have you home.”

  Eric set down the crystal decanter with a thump. So much for hiding. He turned around, glass in hand.

 
; His younger brother, Brett, was just inside the parlor.

  “Is it?” Eric inquired blandly. He would’ve been willing to bet big money his family couldn’t tell the difference between Deployed Eric and Home Guard Eric. This was the first he’d heard from any of them, and not to drop by the house for a welcome home party, either. God, no, lightning hadn’t struck an ant directly in the bunghole, yet. But to celebrate Brett’s graduation from college.

  Brett, Lance, Brock—all of his brothers had one syllable names that punched out of the mouth so that no one would ever doubt Sean O’Dwyer’s sons were anything but men. Brock and Lance, the two eldest, were near replicas of their father in appearance, with reddish-blond hair and sky-blue eyes…although none of the boys had acquired Sean’s very subtle Irish brogue. Brett had the same blue eyes, but was a straight blond.

  Then there was Eric.

  “Congratulations on graduating, by the way.” Eric downed another large belt of his drink. “I never got a chance to tell you.” Dinner at his father’s house consisted of a perfect synchronization of flawlessly clothed staff serving beautifully displayed food, and appropriate, tinkling conversation. Deviation from the script was rarely allowed.

  “Thanks.” Brett came all the way in and plopped down on the chintz chair. “How’d your deployment go?” Brett took a sip from the wine glass he’d snagged off the dinner table.

  “Why do you ask?” You’ve never asked before.

  Brett shrugged. “You seem different. I’m just wondering if something happened out there.”

  You mean like the Colombian government politely asking Eric to leave the country after he’d committed an unauthorized act of aggression against one of their submarines? The Embassy had immediately complied, of course, and Eric’s team had been sent back post haste to the USS Lake Champlain, where they’d spent the final month of their cruise searching for Carrera’s rival, Raúl Villanueva, off the coast of Venezuela. Which had been a real nose-dripper, because nothing had happened with that smalltime, wannabe drug lord, and nah…it wasn’t that which was torquing up his head and his attitude.

  Brett set down his goblet on a side table next to a crystal vase with three red roses in it. “You’ve always been good at letting Dad ignore you.”

  The scent of scotch seemed to rise up and burn through the soft tissues of Eric’s nasal passages. His father had been enjoying this very same libation when Eric strode into Sean’s study and announced—two years from Eric’s own college graduation—that he wasn’t going into his father’s million-dollar software business, but joining the Navy. From the moment of that first-ever rebellion, Eric had ceased to be someone Sean O’Dwyer particularly liked, which the tycoon showed his son by engaging in only the barest, civilly polite conversation.

  “Tonight,” Brett went on, “it’s almost like you’re purposely aggravating him.”

  Eric took a hard draw on his drink. “I’m in a bad mood.” Going on two months now… “Anyway, you’re the one who’s different, Brett. Since when do you talk to me about anything besides the weather?”

  All three of his brothers toed the company line, following their father’s lead and setting Eric on the fringes of their lives. A black sheep in every way.

  Brett rubbed a hand over his face, rasping stubble. “I need to…I don’t know…” He sighed. “Dad brought me into work today and showed me my new office. I’m only twenty-one, and it feels like my whole life as an executive has already been mapped out for me.”

  It has. Eric glanced at his brother’s scarred knuckles. But you’re messed up about more than that, little brother…

  Brett leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees, and gave Eric an earnest look. “How did you do it?” he asked in a deep tone. “How did you defy Dad? I can’t imagine it.”

  Eric’s intestines gnarled. I want to be a naval aviator, Dad. What had he lost with that single statement? Just about everything. “But you want to?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Brett sat back again, a long breath sliding out of him. “Whenever I even think about it, I puss out. I mean I know I wouldn’t have to give up the money, same as you, seeing as our trust funds were secured through Grandma. It’s more about Dad…” He smiled dimly. “I don’t know if I have the guts to withstand his freeze-out.”

  It hasn’t exactly been a fun-filled nine years. Eric sat down on the couch across from his brother. He knew his reasons, but…voicing them was something he’d never done before. Certainly not to his siblings. He studied Brett for a long moment. His brother seemed to be genuinely reaching out. “It was because of Mom.” The words left Eric’s mouth like rocks through a meat grinder. It was harder than he’d thought even to mention her. Slouching back, he reached toward the lamp and lightly rolled a glass teardrop between his thumb and three fingers, watching light flick off the surface. “I didn’t want to turn into her.”

  “Oh.” Brett exhaled. “Yeah, I suppose that’s right. You made your decision to join up soon after…what happened to her.”

  Eric let go of the teardrop. What “happened” to her was that she understandably hadn’t been able to handle the requirements Sean O’Dwyer placed on his wife and four sons. Absolute perfection was the must, and anything less was met by… Nothing that would make it into a textbook under “horrid abuse,” but unconditional love was not a concept that took up space in Sean’s thinking brain. Don’t follow Sean’s rules and the man would remove his affection from you. It was as simple as that. Eric swished his scotch around so hard all the liquid rode up the sides of the glass. Although it hadn’t proved simple for Mom, had it?

  Him, either, as it turned out.

  Hand taut around his glass, Eric tossed back the last of his drink. The memories teeming in his brain made him want to pour another, but he’d already had a glass of wine at dinner, and now this scotch, and any more than two alcoholic beverages necessitated taking a taxi home. Not that he minded the cab, it was the part about returning here tomorrow to pick up his car—while his priss of a stepmother peered down her nose at him from behind the upstairs organza curtains—that didn’t float his boat.

  Shit…chintz, Swarovski, Lladró, Jimmy Choo, and organza?

  Hello, sir, welcome to our clinic for metrosexuals. Would you like us to attach your new vagina directly to your balls or maybe a little off-center. The side would be pretty.

  Eric set down his tumbler. “Do you know the part that really sucks?” he asked his brother. “After everything I sacrificed, all the ways I screwed myself over in this family to get out from under Dad, I’m still Sean O’Dwyer’s son. I catch myself trying to do things with cold precision all the time. You’d think that would be great, wouldn’t you? I’m a talented pilot, but when I fail to measure up—which, of course, I do, since perfection is humanly impossible—I shut myself off from the failure and just plug along with blinders on like some sort of automation. It’s starting to creep me out.” He drew his thumb along his jawline. “Except for…with this one woman.”

  His hands were shaking. Beautiful. He’d reached max weight on his feelings.

  Eric hoisted himself out of the armchair and returned his tumbler to the sideboard. Not that there weren’t too many servants around to do that, but he couldn’t sit still with the direction his thoughts were headed now. “I felt different around her…hell, I felt period.”

  “Who?” Brett asked.

  “A DEA agent. I met her on cruise.”

  “A port call?”

  “No. We did an assignment together.”

  “What kind of assignment?”

  Eric snorted. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Brett ha’d. “Now you have to tell me.”

  Eric studied his younger brother again, then just opened his mouth and laid it all out for Brett, the entire Nicole Deal from beginning to end. He wasn’t sure why he did. Maybe because Brett had pulled such an un-O’Dwyer move and braved the Girl Parlor.

  When Eric finished, Brett just sat there, gap
ing at him, his arms flopped down at his sides.

  Eric laughed at his brother’s expression. “I know. The whole experience sits somewhere between amazing and harsh, doesn’t it? And then there’s this thing, um… Something happened that’s got me turned around. In the middle of the sex show, Nicole did this thing”—he flicked his fingers at the side of his head—“to my ear.”

  Brett’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s what you’re focusing on in this story.” Brett looked at Eric like he’d just offered up his dick as a cigar. “Your ear?”

  Eric exhaled heavily. “I’m telling you there was something about it that didn’t fit. I haven’t been able to put my finger on it, but it’s…something.”

  Laughing voices passed by the door, and Eric glanced over. “Everyone’s shifting over to the library now.”

  Brett stood. “You should join us.”

  “For cribbage and backgammon? No, thanks. That’s for you executive types. Us primitives prefer alligator wrestling and…razor blade origami.”

  Brett tried to chuckle, but the sound came out discordant. The look in his eyes changed to something verging on desperation.

  Eric picked up a Swarovski mouse, ran his thumb over the chunk of cheese the critter held, then set the crystal figure back down. “Look, Brett, if you decide not to work for O’Dwyer Systems, I’ll back you, okay? You won’t be alone.”

  A blush flooded slowly up Brett’s face. Yeah, that was a concession none of the O’Dwyer men had offered Eric.

  Eric started for the door.

  “Eric?”

  He stopped and turned back around. “Yeah?”

  Brett nodded firmly. “Go get that girl.”

  Eric’s heart slipped around in his chest like it’d come off its moorings. “I wish I could, Brett, but…” He pulled his car keys out of his pants pocket and cupped the weight in his palm. “She’s out of my life.”

  Chapter Twenty