by Stephen Frey
“Call the ball,” the lone landing safety officer shouted into Pierce’s ear through the radio.
Pierce checked the datum lights—three green lights to the left, three to the right, and a yellow meatball in the middle. These lights indicated to the pilot whether his angle of approach was acceptable for landing.
“Ball!” the LSO shouted again.
Pierce smiled. The LSO was feeling the same stress as the CATC. Usually he wasn’t so anxious. “Tiger six two three, A-100 ball, six point five,” he intoned calmly, his last phrase a reference to the plane’s fuel weight.
“Roger ball, Tiger.” The LSO was relieved. “Looking good.”
A quarter of a mile. An eighth of a mile. In the glow of the lights Pierce could barely make out the four arresting cables stretched tightly across the runway. A sixteenth. It was always strange when you landed, when you came close to earth, to realize how fast you were traveling. There was no way to truly appreciate the speed at thirty thousand feet, even during the day when you flew through clouds.
Wheels slammed against pavement, and instantly Pierce went to full throttle. If for some reason he missed the arresting cables, he would take off and try to land again. The mission could still be deemed a success for the contractor if he made it the second time—as long as wheels left runway before passing over the white lights at the north end of the box on this attempt.
But there was no reason to worry. Instantly Pierce was thrown forward against his harness. From his run-out he could tell it was the third arresting cable that had caught the plane’s landing hook. Quickly he powered down.
Jack Finnerty, president of General Engineering & Aerospace, finally exhaled as he watched the A-100 jerk to a stop on the simulated carrier deck. For several moments he simply stared forward as the full impact of the successful flight washed away the gut-wrenching stress of the past two and a half years. It was almost over. There was just one more test for the plane to pass—a catapult takeoff—and then they could start full production. As soon as the A-100 had lifted off again, he would call the others to relay the good news.
Commander Pierce gave the thumbs-up sign to the deck monkey as the man trotted toward the A-100. Just one more task to complete and the master would be pleased.
It was almost midnight when the woman slipped into the passenger seat of Phil Rhodes’s car. She was jittery, constantly glancing out the window to check the darkened side street for anything suspicious.
“Relax,” he said gently, trying to reassure her.
She hated his Brooklyn accent. “I can’t relax. I don’t ever want to be seen with you, and this is too public a place.” She opened and closed the glove compartment several times, trying to work off nervous energy. “Why are we meeting?”
“I need the name of Senator Walker’s informant at Area 51.” Rhodes got to the point immediately.
The woman laughed aloud at the request. “Are you crazy?” She shook her head. “Forget it. I told you. No specific information. Nothing that can incriminate me.”
“I gave you money, ten thousand dollars.”
“All in cash that can’t be traced,” she retorted. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated that money, because I had a need, but it won’t get you the name of Walker’s Nevada informant.”
“I’ll ask you one more time.”
“And I’ll tell you one more time,” she replied quickly, her voice shaking in anger. “You aren’t getting anything from me.” She reached for the door handle. “I think it’s time for me to leave. Maybe we ought to forget about this whole thing.”
Before the woman could step out of the car, Rhodes reached across her body, slammed the door shut, and dropped a brown envelope on her lap.
Startled, she glanced down. “What’s this?”
“Pictures.” Carter Webb had been right, Rhodes thought to himself. Everyone was tempted at some point. Everyone had at least one skeleton in the closet. It had taken just forty-eight hours to find this woman’s.
“Pictures?” Her fingers trembled as she touched the envelope. She had lived in fear of this moment for a long time, but over the last few years had convinced herself that the pictures were gone, never to resurface.
“Yes. You and another young woman engaged in several acts of perversion Senator Walker and the rest of the world may find interesting. There’s bondage, bestiality, and a few sexual aids I’d never seen before. Something for everyone.” Rhodes had never done anything like this before, and he felt a pang of guilt, but he kept going. “I’ve never seen pictures like that, and I thought I’d seen everything. You must have needed money then too.”
“I did.” She sobbed. “I had nothing. How did you find these?”
“I can find anything.”
She wept softly, clutching the envelope of influence.
As rain began to fall gently on the windshield, Rhodes’s guilt suddenly evaporated. His goal was to take his relationship with Webb to the next level, and he was absolutely committed to that now. He wanted to be a real player. And if that involved blackmail, so be it. “I’ll never show them to anyone,” he lied. He no longer cared about her feelings. She was nothing, just a pawn.
“Sure you won’t,” she said sarcastically, biting her fingernails. How could she have given in to the sleazy man’s request for photographs? How could money have been that important?
“I promise I won’t show them to anyone. As long as you give me a name.”
“Is that all I have to do?”
“Yes,” he lied again. It was becoming easier each time.
“Captain Paul Nichols.”
Rhodes quickly committed the name to memory.
“Can I go now?” The woman wiped her nose and mouth with a tissue.
“I want anything of importance from Senator Walker’s office. Anything that has to do with the A-100 project.”
“This isn’t going to end, is it?” she asked dejectedly.
“No.” Rhodes looked away, then back at her. She was suddenly his disciple, and the power was intoxicating. It had been so easy, as Webb had said it would be. He had simply needed to find her moment of weakness and be willing to exploit it. “You can go now. I’ll be in touch.”
She opened the door and disappeared into the night.
Chapter 11
“Hello,” Jesse called out loudly as she turned the key and pushed open the front door. It was midmorning and the modest home lay in the heart of a quiet neighborhood, but her mother kept the door locked at all times now that she lived alone. “Where are you, Mom?”
“In the kitchen, sweetheart.”
Jesse placed her pocketbook on the hall table and walked toward the kitchen. She had taken her birthday off from work even though she didn’t feel much like celebrating. Neil Robinson’s death had deeply saddened her. “Oh, excuse me.” Jesse stopped short at the kitchen doorway. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting.” Father Francis McCord, the priest of Glyndon’s Sacred Heart Church, sat at the kitchen table with Jesse’s mother, Connie.
“Don’t be silly, Jesse,” Father McCord said as he rose from the chair. “Your mother and I were just chatting about her fine work at the church.” He smiled down at Connie. “She’s a tireless volunteer at Sacred Heart, and we all adore her. She’s an inspiration to everyone.”
Connie blushed at the priest’s kind words.
“I really have to go,” Father McCord said. “Thanks for tea, Connie, and I’ll see you tomorrow at the charity fair.”
“Good-bye, Father.” Connie kissed the back of his wrinkled hand, then crossed herself twice.
“May God be with you,” he murmured.
“And also with thee,” she answered.
Father McCord walked across the tiled kitchen floor to Jesse. “It seems like forever since I’ve seen you. How have you been?”
“Fine, Father.” She gazed at the stiff white collar standing out sharply against his black shirt and jacket. She had almost opened her soul to this man so many times over the years abo
ut that terrible night long ago. But each time, she had decided against confiding in him. Because of his close relationship with her mother, it would have put him in a terribly difficult position—priest or not. It was better for him not to know, so she had sought counsel elsewhere.
“Come by and see me sometime.”
“I will, Father.” But she knew she wouldn’t.
“Well, good-bye. I’ll see myself out.” Father McCord nodded to Jesse and once more at Connie, then moved into the hallway.
Jesse watched him go, then walked to where her mother sat and wrapped her arms around Connie’s thin frame. “How are you, Mom?”
“Fine, dear. Happy birthday, by the way. My youngest is twenty-nine years old. I can’t believe it.”
Jesse heard the front door close as Father McCord left. “You can’t believe it? How about me? One more year and I’ll be thirty,” she moaned.
“Oh, you look wonderful. I don’t want to hear any complaints. What I wouldn’t give to be twenty-nine again.”
Jesse pulled back from the embrace. Connie was small, with a friendly face and an independent personality. Even at sixty-eight she remained vibrant, working several days a week at the church. Still, Jesse worried about her being alone in the house. “So how is everything at Sacred Heart, Mom?” The church was her life now.
“Fine, fine. You know, you really should stop by and visit Father McCord. He asks about you all the time. He has always been there for our family. He was there for me when you were sixteen and your father died. And again when your stepfather passed away last spring. Father McCord visited and called me almost as much as you did.” Connie smiled lovingly at Jesse. “I don’t know what I would have done without either of you. Father McCord was my Rock of Gibraltar and you were my angel. You’ve always been around for me when I’ve needed you. Unlike your siblings,” Connie muttered under her breath as she stood up and moved to the sink.
“They’ve been there for you too, Mom.”
Connie picked up a dish and began rinsing it. “I know your brothers and sisters have lives of their own, but it would be nice to hear from them more often than just that obligatory once-a-month call.”
“They have kids. You know how hard that is. You raised nine of us.”
Connie put the dish down on the counter and picked up another from the sink. “You have a full-time job and you go to school at night. You find the time to come and see me,” she sniffed.
Jesse sat down at the kitchen table and shook her head as she remembered the family crowded around it for dinner, remembered the wonderful times they had all enjoyed—even without much money. Wonderful times—until her father had died.
“How’s Todd Colton these days?” Connie asked.
Todd Colton was an old high school friend of Jesse’s. “Fine, I guess. I had lunch with him a few months ago. Why do you ask?”
“I always thought you two would make a nice couple. He’s a good-looking boy, you’re a nice-looking girl. You always seemed to get along so well together. You’re both still single. I never understood why it didn’t turn into more.”
“We tried a long time ago, Mom.” Jesse hesitated. “It just didn’t work out. But we’re still good friends even though we don’t see each other much.”
“I remember the way you used to look at Todd. You could find romance with him.”
“Mom, please.”
“He’s even better-looking now than he was in high school,” Connie teased.
“When did you see him?” Jesse couldn’t avoid her curiosity.
“He stopped by the house the other day, just to say hello. He’s such a nice person.”
“Yes, he is.” Jesse noticed paint peeling from the ceiling. “How is your money holding out, Mom?”
“Fine.” Connie’s tone went flat.
“Don’t brush me off so fast,” Jesse admonished gently. “Tell me the truth.”
Connie rinsed the last dish in the sink, then trudged wearily to the table and sat down. “I have a little bit of money in the bank, and I have my monthly Social Security check and your father’s pension.”
Jesse looked up, a look of mild surprise on her face. She had asked her mother so many times about her money situation but had always gotten nowhere. Now she was finally getting answers. “How much is a little bit in the bank?”
“A couple of thousand dollars.”
“That’s all? Didn’t Dad have any life insurance policies?”
“Yes, but that money went to pay for your stepfather Joe’s hospital bills. For his heart attacks. It turned out Joe didn’t have the retiree medical benefits we thought he did.”
Jesse felt the anger rise instantly at the mention of her stepfather’s name. Joe Schuman had been good for nothing—except spending her father’s money. “Mom, how could you use Dad’s money on Joe?”
“Let’s not get into that.” Connie sighed.
Jesse fought the anger as it rose several more degrees. “What about the house? You’ve lived here for twenty-five years, so it must be paid for. Surely you could get some equity out of it if you needed to.”
Connie put a hand on Jesse’s arm. “It’s funny how things like clothes and braces cost so much. It just seemed like your father and I were never able to get ahead. We were always taking out another mortgage. I can’t tell you how many of those papers I signed.”
“Didn’t Joe leave anything?”
“No.” Connie had always wanted Jesse and Joe to get along, but it hadn’t happened. Now Joe was dead and the opportunity for reconciliation was gone forever. “I never understood why you wouldn’t give Joe a chance. He was a good man, not the monster you made him out to be. I needed someone. It wasn’t his fault your father died.”
Jesse felt the knot in her stomach tighten, but forced herself to say nothing, to hold back the story she so wanted to relate. “How much is the Social Security check and Dad’s pension?”
“Together they come to eight hundred dollars a month.”
“Have you fixed the roof yet?”
“Not yet. That takes a backseat to food and utility bills. I’m trying not to touch what I have in the bank just in case there’s an emergency.” Connie’s expression became grim. “I’ve always told you not to ask about this. It’s kind of depressing when you stop to analyze it. But it isn’t your problem.”
The fall wardrobe would have to wait. Jesse rose from the chair, retrieved her purse from the hall, then sat back down at the kitchen table.
“What are you doing?” Connie asked suspiciously.
Without answering, Jesse withdrew two hundred-dollar bills from the purse and laid them on the table. “Here, Mom. It won’t fix the roof, but it’ll help.”
“I can’t take that, Jesse. You gave me money last month and I swore I wouldn’t take any more.”
“Just take it.”
“But . . .”
“Take it, Mom,” Jesse said firmly.
Slowly Connie’s fingers crept across the wooden tabletop to the money. “You really are an angel.”
The man blew thick smoke into the dimly lighted office. “Do you smoke, Commander Pierce?”
“No, sir.”
“Would you care for something to drink?” He motioned toward a wet bar in one corner of the room. “I know you don’t allow yourself alcohol, but there are soft drinks as well.”
“Thank you, no sir.”
The man watched the naval aviator for a few moments as he puffed on the Monte Cristo again. Commander Pierce wore civilian clothes, but his crew cut, steely eyes, and ramrod-straight posture still exuded a no-nonsense military veneer. “I appreciate your flying in so quickly from Nevada. I know it’s a long way to come just for a discussion, but this wasn’t something I felt we could talk about over the phone.”
“Absolutely no problem. It’s a short flight in the jets I pilot. And I had other business here in Washington, so it worked out well.”
“Good.” The man rubbed his lips for a moment before continuing. “We ha
ve a situation at Area 51.”
“What kind of situation, sir?”
“A situation that requires the skill you and the other men of your unit possess. I have ascertained that someone at Area 51 is passing along highly sensitive information to Senator Malcolm Walker regarding the A-100 project. Information Walker plans to use in an attempt to derail the project.”
The commander’s top lip curled into a sneer.
“The Navy needs the A-100, Commander Pierce. We all need the A-100,” the man emphasized.
“Yes, sir.”
“We organized your unit for this exact situation. You know what to do.”
“Of course.”
The man smiled. “You are protecting your country, Commander Pierce. You are doing the right thing. Sometimes we can’t always play by the rules in our effort to do the right thing.”
“I understand, sir,” Pierce answered resolutely. “What is the traitor’s name?”
“Captain Paul Nichols. Do you know who he is?”
“Yes. We’ll take care of him.”
“Good.” The man puffed on his cigar once more. The situation had been addressed and resolved that quickly.
Jesse nodded politely at the receptionist, then moved quickly out of the professional offices and into the hallway. There she leaned back against the wall, shut her eyes, and exhaled heavily. The unexpected encounter with Father McCord and the conversation with her mother had rekindled the memories. Thank God Becky had been able to meet on such short notice.
Chapter 12
Middleburg, Virginia, located thirty miles west of downtown Washington, lay claim to some of the most beautiful and expensive real estate in the East. Handsome stone mansions were set behind miles of six-foot-high white post fences dotting the rolling hills and lush fields of the picturesque countryside.
Middleburg also lay claim to some of the most expensive Thoroughbred horses in the world. For many who lived in this moneyed enclave, breeding horses was a livelihood highlighted by the Triple Crown, the Grand National, or the sale of a particularly fine stallion to a wealthy Arab emir for an exorbitant amount of cash. These people resided on thousand-acre farms, owned many horses, drove old-model Volvo station wagons to town on errands and Rolls-Royces to the fall steeplechases, and waited breathlessly for the spring crop of foals. They never discussed money, never flaunted it, and were never without it. They were the old money.
