by Mel Odom
Hoarse screams shattered the steady undercurrent of whispering voices as a straitjacketed man was wheeled through the room on a gurney. Three orderlies and a nurse accompanied the screaming man. All of them looked worn-out.
General Amos Braddock, the base commander, had encouraged the staff to sleep in the hospital and have their families come visit them. The hospital staff shored up their diminished personnel with men and women on base, including the teens who were holding their own emotionally.
People sat in the waiting room to find out about friends and loved ones who had gotten injured when cars and trucks had gone out of control and airplanes had dropped from the sky. A number of casualties and losses had occurred at the post’s airfield. Thankfully the disappearances had happened late at night or more aircraft would have fallen.
The gurney slammed through the double doors on the other side of the room. The man’s screams faded as the doors closed and the orderlies wheeled him farther away.
“Man,” one of the MPs whispered to the other one, “wouldn’t want to be that guy.”
“Wouldn’t want to be one of the guys Kerby had with him tonight, either,” the other whispered back. “With that girl getting shot, they’re going to catch some serious—” He stopped speaking.
Megan felt their gazes on her as they realized they’d spoken without thinking. She didn’t look at them, didn’t give any indication she had heard the comments. There was no sense in all of them being uncomfortable.
Televisions hung from swivel mounts in two corners of the room. The blue-white ghostly reflections of FOX News on one set and CNN on the other hung in the windows in front of Megan. She didn’t want to watch because the stories that broke in the media seemed never to end.
Mostly the coverage consisted of canned footage of horrible crashes in huge metropolitan areas, passenger jets lying in flames in fields or across highways or buried in cities. The wreckage continued along major harbor areas in San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, Seattle, and other ports as suddenly unmanned ships crashed into bridges, docks, and other ships. The chaos and destruction never relented. Riots added fuel to the fire in several areas. Even Columbus, the city nearest the post, knew unrest and violence. Local television stations covered that, though few news teams ventured out into the hardest-hit areas.
The reporters sought out interviews with witnesses now. A steady parade of frightened people flashed across the screens, each with his or her own story of personal tragedy and loss. Even veteran politicians had trouble keeping their emotions together when they backed the president’s stance that everything was under control.
That was a lie, Megan knew, but it was a lie that a lot of people would want to believe. “No, it’s not going to hurt,” was the biggest lie of all, followed by “Everything’s going to be all right.” She wanted to scream. Lie to me. Make me feel better. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. She felt that. Everyone could. Not many were ready to deal with it, though. She’d thought she was prepared, even after losing Chris, until Leslie had shot herself.
On one of the television screens, CNN covered the press releases given by President Fitzhugh regarding the no-holds-barred investigation into the worldwide disappearances as well as Nicolae Carpathia’s junket to New York City to address the United Nations in a few days. No one, it seemed, yet knew why the Romanian president would make the trip now.
Despite the cold terror that she held locked up inside herself with iron control, Megan couldn’t help but pay attention to Carpathia. Over the past few days, the man had gained increased presence in the media, becoming linked more and more to the effort to recover from the disappearances. Nothing was said about what shape that recovery was going to take.
Carpathia was a youthful-looking man, appearing slightly younger than his early thirties. Cameras were generous to him. His blond hair looked like spun gold when it caught the light. No one knew exactly why Carpathia was coming to the U.S. to speak to the U.N., or why President Fitzhugh worked so hard to make the man feel invited.
Still, the few times that Megan had caught prerecorded interviews with the Romanian president, she had noticed the calm presence Carpathia seemed to exude. He seemed like a man who could get things done, a man who’d never known defeat, but she had no idea what his plans were. But whatever they were, they would have no impact on her life at the moment.
Somewhere in the hospital, Leslie Hollister fought for her life. The image of the young girl lying so slack and bloody on her bedroom floor never left Megan’s mind. After making certain that Megan wasn’t hurt, one of the hospital orderlies had given her a set of green scrubs and asked her to change clothes, telling her she couldn’t sit in the waiting room as bloody as she was. No one wanted the other occupants more upset than they already were.
Leslie’s blood had soaked into Megan’s underwear, her skin, and her hair. Clotted and dry now, the blood felt raspy against her skin. Even repeated washings in the bathroom hadn’t removed the stains. More blood etched her nails, dug in deep now where she wouldn’t be able to reach it without a cuticle brush. The smell of blood lingered on every breath she drew.
Megan blinked tears from her eyes and let out a long, low breath that attracted the attention of the MPs assigned to her. She ignored them and concentrated on the televisions.
On the other set, FOX News recapped the Syrian attack on Sanliurfa, using footage from OneWorld NewsNet. The icon of the soldier’s silhouette carrying another soldier caught her eye and made her think of Goose.
On the screen a photojournalist’s camera captured the image of a Syrian tank rolling through the wreckage of a street. The cameraman was evidently on a rooftop because the camera looked down onto the street. A group of soldiers stepped around the side of a building and fired a shoulder-mounted weapon at the tank. When the projectile hit the tank, red flames leapt up. A moment later, a heavily armed attack helicopter swung into view and opened up with its rocket pods, reducing the tank to a rolling pile of flaming wreckage. No one inside the vehicle could have survived those blasts.
Those watching the television set in the waiting room viewed in mute horror.
Casualties among the military groups, Megan understood from the earlier story on the radio on the way here from the Hollister home, ran high in Sanliurfa. Communications within the beleaguered city had suffered again as a result.
Megan prayed for Goose’s safety. But even as she did so, she felt even more uncertain whether the effort was worth the time it took. God, she felt, hadn’t shown up in Leslie Hollister’s room tonight. Guilt ripped through her for thinking like that, but she thought it anyway. If God had taken an interest there, she hadn’t seen it.
Still, the image of Gerry Fletcher plummeting from the rooftop only to disappear a heartbeat before he hit the ground bounced crazily through her mind. She had seen the boy disappear. Spotter lights manned by MPs had held the boy in their glare as he fell. Gerry was there one instant, and gone the next. Jenny had pointed out that God had taken Gerry then to prevent him from experiencing real death.
But Gerry experienced the horror of the fall, didn’t he, God? You let him feel that, didn’t You? Megan didn’t mean to be so angry, but the longer she sat in the waiting room—not knowing if Leslie was alive or dead—the more frustrated and hurt she became.
What surprised her was the aching feel of loneliness that pummeled her. She’d never felt particularly close to God, not the way Bill Townsend talked about, but she hadn’t known she was so far away either. She missed Bill. If he hadn’t disappeared in Turkey, he’d still be with Goose. Having Bill watching Goose’s back would have provided Megan with an ease of mind. Now everything she cared about was scattered. Goose, Joey, Chris—all of them gone from her so she couldn’t immediately make sure they were all right. She felt broken and shattered and barely held back the tears.
What did I do, God? What did I do that was so bad?
“Mrs. Gander.”
Startled, Megan looked up at the youn
g MP on her left, realizing that it wasn’t the first time he’d called for her attention.
“Yes, Private,” she responded in a voice tight with emotion.
“I was asking if you’d like some more coffee, ma’am.” He pointed to the empty paper cup she held in her hands, then held up his own.
“I was about to go get some myself. Thought if you could use some more, I could get it for you.”
Megan handed the private the cup. Getting her coffee would give him something to do. There was no reason for both of them to sit here while the anxiety built up.
“Yes. Please.”
The MP took the cup from her. “I’ll be right back.”
Megan nodded.
The private glanced at the other MP, who nodded only slightly to indicate that he was awake and knew he was flying solo for a time.
Coffee wasn’t going to make Megan feel any better and she knew it, but holding the cup at least gave her something to do with her hands, and the warmth would steep some of the chill out of her fingers. She wished she could hold Chris. Even though he was five and big enough to run through the house with a cape from an old Halloween costume as fast as any other superhero in the neighborhood, he still consented to being held by Mom sometimes. Occasionally, though only when he least expected it because he still fought against it, he fell asleep in her arms while they watched cartoons.
The thought of never having an evening like that again cut through Megan. She couldn’t remember how much time had passed since Chris had last fallen asleep in her arms. Her caseload as a counselor on base had taken up so much of her family time that sometimes days had seemed to blend into each other, becoming seamless. Family evenings often got hectic all by themselves, but the addition of the work she brought home cut into those precious hours. Before being deployed to Turkey, Goose had made the most of those times, playing with Chris in the backyard when it wasn’t raining or too cold.
Joey had, as usual, stayed in a funk, going to his room and separating himself with a wall and loud music. Even if Megan hadn’t spent years as an experienced counselor, she would have seen the jealousy that Joey had for his younger brother. A little jealousy was normal, but Joey had let his eat at him. He hadn’t shown those feelings to Chris, though, except for times when he built a little more distance between himself and his little brother. Becoming a teenager was hard enough, and the added strain of a little brother coming along so late in life had taken a toll as well.
If his father had stayed in his life after the divorce, Megan thought, maybe Joey could have better handled Chris’ birth. Then she stopped, bringing herself up short. Her next leap of guilt would be to question her judgment about the divorce, whether everything was her fault.
Her first husband hadn’t involved himself in Joey’s life or hers for years, and he had always claimed he’d divorced her because she had never made space or time for him. What if that was true? What if the divorce was all my fault?
Marrying Goose had trapped him in trying to raise another man’s son. At first, Goose had acted uncertain about that responsibility, and Megan’s own inability to simply let go and trust Goose with Joey hadn’t helped. When things were good, Goose was Joey’s best bud.
But when things had turned for the worse and Joey was a problem in school or around home, Megan had insisted on handling the discipline herself. Discipline was her responsibility as Joey’s mother. She hadn’t wanted to push that chore off on her husband as she’d seen so many other wives do with their children. And Goose didn’t handle things the way she did. Goose was sometimes too direct, too honest. He let people know how he felt about something instead of hinting at it.
After living with Goose these past eight years, she knew her husband to be fair and just, but she’d made excuses, telling herself that Joey wasn’t used to having a man around the house. For a while, she hadn’t let Goose have a free hand with Joey, and that choice had limited the relationship they could have had now.
I made a mistake there, too, she told herself.
By the time she realized what she was doing and that Goose had followed her lead, all of their relationships were pretty much in place. But it was—for the most part—quiet, and they’d made the best of it. Actually, judging from so many cases she saw in her office, they’d gotten through the blended-family issues better than most.
The family dynamic had worked well enough until Chris was born. Then Goose stepped into the role of father with a natural ease that had proven surprising. Megan had noticed the change, the closeness between Chris and Goose, at once. There was no distance between Chris and his father. Megan hadn’t stood between them in any way. Goose wouldn’t have let her, and she’d never felt the need to protect Chris the way she had Joey. She knew that Joey had seen the difference, too.
Blended families, Megan knew from studies as well as from experience, were the hardest things to make work. Roles and rules seemed to operate on a sliding scale, shifting constantly on a day-to-day basis as everyone concerned tried to find commonalities, a set of rules they could all live by, and goals to make it worthwhile. The stress increased when the natural triangles that occurred worked two-on-one against each other.
Joey had lost a step in the family. Nothing Megan or Goose could do could have prevented that from happening, and she knew that now as she took herself apart with every piece of psychological ammunition she could lay hands to. Watching Leslie injure herself brought Megan’s insecurities to the forefront until it was almost too much to deal with. All her own shortcomings, all her failures, seemed strung together in Megan’s eyes. She’d pieced them together with quiet and thorough skill as she awaited word on Leslie Hollister and remembered the events in the room again and again.
When it came down to it, Joey wasn’t an only child anymore. After eleven years with his mother and three years with Goose, Joey had been forced to make room for his brother since Chris’s birth.
Goose had tried to stay close to his stepson, but being raised in the country outside Waycross, Georgia, then spending his next years as a career soldier, he lacked experiences he could share with Joey. Joey had grown up in the city, in malls and arcades, in a high school that had more students than the whole populace of the small town Goose had grown up in. If they weren’t involved in sports events, they hadn’t had much in common.
It’s all your fault, Megan told herself. You let Joey slip through your fingers. Now he’s out there somewhere, all alone and hurting.
Arms aching for Chris, wishing she could listen to his soft breathing and know that he was all right, Megan looked out the hospital window and wondered where Joey was. Her family was missing in action, and she’d never before needed the comfort and support they could offer so very much.
The private returned with two cups of coffee. Megan took one and thanked him politely. She held the cup in both hands, feeling the warmth and knowing the liquid was too hot to drink for the moment. Wearily, she closed her eyes, breathing out to clear her lungs and working on a relaxation technique she taught in classes. The effort didn’t work. Leslie Hollister, bleeding and still, lay waiting in her mind’s eye.
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0537 Hours
Goose stood in the center of the security office and watched the security cameras the Ranger team used to manage surveillance all over the hotel. Litters of wounded continued to flow into the building, get marked for surgical attention by the triage teams, and get carried away to the appropriate waiting areas.
As he watched, Goose silently prayed that numbness would kick in and take away the horror and frustration that filled him. A soldier best served on a battlefield when somewhat detached from his immediate emotions. He’d experienced the battlefield calm several times before, but those times were generally during the heat of an engagement, not in the aftermath. Once a battle was over, the true cost of the action showed up on the bottom line in spent lives and wounded.
Later, he knew, other squads would bring in their dead. Detail leaders would assemble lists of Killed In Action and Missing In Action. Then the process of sorting the KIAs and MIAs out from the new wreckage of the city would begin.
Artillery continued to boom and fill the hotel with noise, but the frequency had dropped. Captain Mkchian and the Turkish artillery units obviously wanted to make a definitive statement to the retreating Syrian troops. But the ammunition they used was precious and possibly irreplaceable before the Syrians gathered for their next attack. All communications over the channels open to him indicated that the Syrians were in full retreat.
The CIA agent, Winters, sat in his chair. He continued to hold the chemical ice pack to his jaw. Beads of condensation ran down his neck.
Since Cody had appeared in the hallway, Winters hadn’t said a word to Goose. Maybe he was confident that Cody could get him released. Or he’s afraid, Goose thought. He didn’t know which.
Barnett stood behind Winters and leaned against the wall. His presence next to the smaller man remained a constant threat, but Winters didn’t acknowledge that either.
The CIA team was hiding something, Goose knew, and his mind kept prying at what it might be. Icarus’s abduction, the satellite phone call that might have precipitated the Syrian strike into Turkey, and the game of cat and mouse playing out through Sanliurfa’s war-torn streets danced through Goose’s mind.
Icarus was a key player. Keeping the rogue agent out of CIA hands was important for the moment.
“First Sergeant.”
Goose looked at the Ranger private manning the security station. “Yeah.”
“Captain Remington is here.” The private pointed at one of the screens.
Crossing the distance to the security desk, Goose looked at the screen. Electronics teams had moved some of the security cameras outside the building when they’d converted the hotel into a makeshift hospital. The fields of view overlapped so no blind spots existed.
