by Gabby Grant
“It’s a risky business, the job your uncle was involved in. Over time, things just took their toll.” Things like Tom’s long-seated jealously over her father’s successes, Ana didn’t say. Didn’t say, but she knew. Even as a child, she had sensed some sort of inherent competition. Just never on her father’s side.
Joe raised his free hand and ran his fingers through his hair. “God help America if we’re all in that shape some day.”
“It’s not going to happen to you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Ana tried to reassure him. But how much could any of them really be assured they wouldn’t follow in their family’s footsteps? Just look at Ana and her father.
“What did I do to deserve you?” Joe asked, giving her a weak smile.
“Probably nothing,” she answered, raising his hand to her lips, realizing how much she loved him, really loved him, in a way she couldn’t explain. “But that doesn’t matter, Joe. I hope you know that-”
“Ana,” Joe said, stopping her. “Don’t you have a husband somewhere who needs you?”
Ana paused and looked at him. Never, in million years, had she expected that question from Joe McFadden. But now the man who’d once threatened to pull her away from her husband, was forcing her back into reality with his eyes. Eyes that challenged her to search her own soul. And, when she looked there, one man and one man only stood waiting. Ana loved Joe, it was true. Loved him fiercely in a way that could never be erased. But, as she lost herself in his honey brown eyes one final time, Ana saw clearly she was not, and never had been, the woman for him. There would always be a bond between them, but nothing as all-consuming, as lasting, as true- as what she felt with Mark.
“Mark has me,” she said, knowing as she said it the words resonated with uncanny accuracy.
“Yes, I know,” Joe said, moist eyes crinkling. “That one, beautiful, I figured out ages ago.”
Ana soundly patted his captured hand, feeling a new ease settle between them. “When you finally going to find yourself a good woman and settle down?”
Joe laughed and widened his eyes. “I’m grateful you don’t see it, sweetheart, but- in case you haven’t noticed- this old man’s no longer the catch of the day.”
“Says who?” Ana demanded.
“Says me,” Joe countered with a twisted grin. “And, believe me, I know.”
“Oh, Joe,” Ana said, swatting him on the arm then laying her heavy head on his comfortable shoulder. “Bet there’s someone out there casting for you right now.”
***
Carolyn whistled brightly as she packed baby Isabel’s belongings. Mark had just called to say everything was finally under control. Crisis averted. Amen, Carolyn thought, folding up the last small baby blanket and tucking it in the bag.
A secure car would be there to get them within the hour. Then maybe, just maybe, Carolyn could salvage what was left of New Year’s Eve. Or not, she thought, eyeing the clock on the stove. Practically twenty-one-hundred. She’d only put the baby to bed half an hour ago.
Carolyn lamented having to rouse her, but was overjoyed at the prospect of going home. Home, such as it was. Ah well, there’d be her two cats to greet her- assuming her little sister hadn’t starved the poor felines into submission by now.
Mark hadn’t been able to give too many details over the phone, but he did mention that McFadden was alright. Carolyn thought she’d acted sufficiently naive when she’d asked if someone needed to notify “the Mrs.”
Mark had bellowed a laugh into the receiver and assured her McFadden wasn’t married. Another bright spot in Carolyn’s evening.
Not that she was certain why the notion of McFadden’s bachelorhood delighted her so. But it did, nonetheless. Made Carolyn as giddy as a schoolgirl about to embark on her first date.
Ha! Carolyn wondered just who she thought she was fooling. Just because she was entertaining notions of her and that ex-Marine somehow getting back together, didn’t meant that he’d, in a million years, consider it.
But then again, Carolyn thought with a smile, maybe he would...
***
Albert set down the phone with a heavy breath. “That’s the last of it.” he said, turning to Au Yang. “Looks like Mark did a damn good job of mopping everything up. Thank God we caught this one in time. Even traces of the Sarin derivative GB-2 Al Fahd and his men had concocted could have been harmful.”
The Oriental nodded. “I think the recall of all balloons distributed by that same supplier out East was a good idea.”
Although the tainted balloons sent to the Presidential gala were manufactured by Al Fahd, they’d been slipped into containers stamped with the name of a legitimate East Coast supplier who had, quite conveniently for Al Fahd, already delivered the lot to The Old Post Office before Mark’s ATF men had located the cartons and disposed of them.
Albert dropped into the chair behind his desk. “That extra precaution was Mark’s directive. He speculated, and rightly so, that the public would be less suspicious of a general balloon recall rather than one focusing solely on those balloons supplied for The Old Post Office gathering.”
Au Yang laughed. “The public and your Commander in Chief.”
“He’ll never know what almost hit him,” Albert grinned. “Thanks, in part, to your contribution, Au Yang.”
“And the work of one Mark Neal,” Au Yang said with an indulgent smile. “The man you let marry your daughter.”
Albert roared. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t let my daughter do anything. She makes up her own mind. And she, by the way, played a very big part in solving this puzzle. If Ana hadn’t pieced together the balloon angle, Mark still might have been able to abort Al Fahd’s disastrous plan, but he wouldn’t have had near enough time or ample opportunity to cover the DOS’ tail the way he has.”
Au Yang took a seat on the small beige sofa opposite Albert’s desk. “Very western, your daughter.”
“Takes after her old man,” Albert said with pride.
Au Yang softened his coal black gaze, as the air hung heavy between them. “I’m sorry about the Gray Wolf, Albert. I know you were like brothers.”
Albert’s jowls sagged. “The two of you, as well.”
Au Yang shook his head. “Not in the same way, my friend. I’m sorry.”
And Albert was sorry, too. More sorry than he could ever say. Because he understood it was part of the price Tom had paid- all of them had paid- for Mooney’s prolonged involvement in this intelligence game.
Learning of Tom’s involvement in the scheme gone awry had taken twenty years off of Albert’s life. And Albert hadn’t had twenty years to give. In keeping with the Volcano blueprint, Tom in his more commie-hating moments had planned to toss all the babies out with their bath water. Rid the American system of Communist infiltrators by performing a clean sweep of all those too yellow-bellied to stay under pressure.
From Al Fahd’s perspective, this would deplete the intelligence ranks to a level where wreaking further havoc would be simple. Without the proper infrastructure in place to track and prevent that sort of action, a Middle Eastern terrorist group like Al Fahd’s could easily maneuver its way onto American soil and plot something deadly.
Democracy would be shaking in its boots and doubting the efficacy of its own system. The public would question the adequacy of the status quo in ensuring safety for all. Look to a new, more stable order that could provide more steadfast protection. Al Fahd’s plan was to pin the bulk of the scare on the demented Tom Mooney and, Au Yang also suspected on the Chinese and step in as a last-minute savior for the disgruntled American public. He fancied himself a new-age dictator. The twenty-first century premier of the most powerful nation on earth. Albert concurred with Au Yang that Al Fahd had been just as demented in his thinking as Mooney had.
The Chinese part in the plan had involved information warfare. It had been Hay Long with the help of his American-Chinese mafia associates and the already-mentally-slipping Tom Mooney, who had gained ac
cess to the DOS mainframe computer during the ten second Y2K system switch-over. The top-secret operating system had indeed been taken and cloned. It had then simply been a matter of lying in wait until the time was right for a strike. 2001 was too soon. And because some actually believed that to be the start of the new millennium, too damn obvious. But 2002, now that was perfect. Just enough time had elapsed for the American public to let down its guard. But not so much time that the technological information the Chinese had stolen would be completely outdated. With the mainframe information secured, it had been matter of pure logistics in infiltrating the DOS security system and breaking through the information system firewall, most notably in the interface attacks lobbed against analysts through their civilian computers at home. It was positively terrifying what could become of a highly sensitive Defense Intelligence plan when it fell into the wrong hands.
Hay Long had fancied himself the new world supremist and had his own dastardly plans for doing away with Al Fahd once the Arab’s usefulness had expired. Hay Long had no way of knowing he would expire first or that Albert Kane’s daughter, Ana would do him in- a secret which Albert planned to keep from Ana and take to his grave. She already had enough to cope with without any additional guilt on her hands. No matter how vile Hay Long had been to her, Albert was certain the remorse of knowing she’d actually killed a man would unnecessarily play on her conscience.
It was an odd yet fitting irony that Hay Long’s disguise as the “foot soldier,” or second-in-command to Sun-tzu, had not guaranteed his safety as Hay Long had anticipated. It was an old Chinese strategy, as old as The Art of War, for the general to pose as the warrior and thereby protect himself from easy detection and elimination. But Kanes, Albert reminded himself, were pretty good at elimination when the need arose. And it appeared that gene had been inherited by his daughter.
“You would have killed him, wouldn’t you?” Au Yang asked, speaking of Tom Mooney.
“It was a part of the deal, part of our original pact,” Albert said.
“Yes,” Au Yang answered, “but pacts are meant to be broken even in this game, as you used to call it.”
Albert looked at Au Yang, one of the few people who’d ever been able to read him completely. “You’ve nailed me yet again.”
And it was true, Albert now recognized. He’d never really had the power to kill his old friend. No matter how unfeeling he sometimes pretended to be, Albert was no more the rote, uncaring operative than the man sitting across from him. Catching out-and-out vermin on the receiving end of your bullet was one thing, but permanently silencing a man on whom your life once depended was another thing altogether.
“I wanted him to tell me,” Albert said, “anything, any cock and bull story just so I’d know it wasn’t true...”
But, when Albert had looked in Tom’s eyes, they’d been vacant. There’d been no one at home to grant Albert the reassurance he so desperately sought. No Tom Mooney to tell him it had all been a mistake, explain the mix-up, reveal the hidden truths of his involvement. Partially, because there were no hidden truths. But, more significantly, because, even if there had been, there was no longer any Tom Mooney around to share them.
Au Yang studied his old friend. “Now that the crisis is over, don’t you have somewhere to be?”
Albert removed his glasses and set them down on his desk. “Nowhere to go but here, old friend.”
Au Yang raised his brow. “How about the hospital?”
***
Joe stood at the pane glass window paralyzed by the blip of machines and human tubing that surrounded his uncle.
“Bad night to be alone, soldier.”
Joe turned to find Carolyn Walker standing beside him.
“Carolyn,” he said, pulling her into his arms, “thanks for coming.”
“What are friends for?” she asked, giving him a reassuring squeeze.
Joe leaned back and took her by the elbows. “It doesn’t look good,” he said, feeling the fire in his throat.
“I’ve heard,” Carolyn said, a mist in her sea green eyes.
Joe pursed his lips and wished to God he wasn’t a Marine. Wished to God, for once in his life, he could admit to another human being just how dead afraid he was.
“It’s alright to be scared,” Carolyn said, strengthening her hold around his upper arms. “Even the best of the best get frightened sometime.”
Joe smirked. “Not to hear Mark Neal tell it.”
“Mark Neal,” Carolyn said, looking into Joe’s eyes, “was out of his mind with worry about Ana and Isabel.”
Joe surveyed this sage woman’s face, realizing for the first time just how pretty it was. Carolyn possessed the sort of beauty that age had not deflated. Though her hair was shorter and her eyes looked a little more tired, she was truthfully a better looking woman than she’d been nineteen years earlier. And, nineteen years ago, first Lieutenant Carolyn Walker had been quite something to look at.
“Thank you, Carolyn. You didn’t need to say that.”
“Oh yes, I did,” she countered. “Because, in spite of the way your world seems to be coming down around you, you need to see you’re not alone.”
“Aren’t I?” Joe asked, the ache in his chest twisting with bruising force. “Uncle Tom is all I’ve got left.”
“You have friends,” Carolyn assured him. “You’ve got Mark-”
Joe huffed.
“You’ve got Ana.”
“Ana,” Joe said, tightening his lips against their slight quiver, “has Neal.”
“She’s still your friend, Joe. The two of you go back a long way.”
They weren’t the only ones, Joe thought, considering the woman in front of him. Wondering why he hadn’t seen all those years ago what was so blatantly staring him in the face now.
Carolyn dropped her arms, apparently misreading his look.
“I guess I need all the friends I can get,” Joe told her. “You game?”
Carolyn lowered her face but not quickly enough to conceal the rapid blush that streaked across the bridge of her nose, a blush that Joe had once found quite endearing, he now recalled with a sweetness.
Joe righted her chin with his good hand. “Lieutenant?”
“It’s Major now,” she told him, her face still holding its sun-kissed glow.
Joe grinned. “So, you outrank me, then?”
“You’re retired.”
“This could be very interesting,” he told her, undiverted.
“Want to go for coffee?” she asked, backing out of his hold on her chin.
Joe wanted to go for more than coffee, but he wouldn’t tell her that- just yet. “Let me just tell the floor nurse where I’ll be,” Joe said, sending a concerned look back through the ICU glass.
“Of course,” Carolyn answered, nervously backing up and smashing into a wall.
Joe grinned, feeling like his old self again. His old self but someone new altogether. Someone who no longer took for granted the God-given gifts that landed right at his feet.
“Just be a second,” he told her, checking his watch. A watch that he just might be tempted to give her later, and ask her to hang onto for a while. Even after all these years, the beautiful Carolyn Walker looked like the sort of gal a man needed to keep constant track of. “Don’t you go anywhere.”
Carolyn nodded and surprised him by blushing again.
“Not until you ask me to,” she said under her breath, once he had turned.
But Joe heard it just the same.
***
Tom Mooney’s eyelids fluttered open as Albert Kane stood over his bed.
“Hanging in there, partner?” Albert asked, holding back the sting in his eyes.
Tom struggled to form words around the contraption that bulged from his mouth. “We get them?” he asked with a heavy breath.
Albert took Tom’s flaccid hand. “We got them, alright. All of them.”
“Commies...?” Tom asked, valiantly fighting for control over his loss of consci
ousness.
“Every last bastard,” Albert said, with a squeeze.
“What did...”
Tom’s words were drowned in a choking spew that Albert was certain would be his last. But then the spasm passed and Tom’s silvery head relaxed against the pillow.
“Kennedy...?” Tom asked, with great effort.
Albert leaned forward. “Who?”
“Ken--” Another coughing spasm, this time producing a blood-speckled phlegm that spewed Albert’s shirt.
Albert mashed the call button on the bar guarding Tom’s bed and frantically searched beyond the silencing glass for a doctor.
“Hang on,” Albert said, bending forward and scooping the hacking Tom into his trembling arms. “Hang on there, buddy...”
But as Tom coughed and wheezed, Albert knew there’d be no hanging on for Tom Mooney. That, by the time a nurse responded to Albert’s call, it would be too late.
“I was a good...” Tom’s words fell off as his head fell in a dead weight against Albert’s chest. “...soldier, wasn’t I, Al?”
Albert sucked in his breath, but the blistering tears cascading down his cheeks kept on pouring. “You were the best,” he said, steadying Tom’s head. “The best of the best.”
Tom reached up his IV-tethered hand to grip Albert’s arm, “We were like brothers, weren’t we Al?”
Albert tried his damnedest to answer but his throat was jammed with swollen fire.
“Always loved you...” A million shell shots splintered Albert’s chest as he pulled Tom’s head in close, still unable to speak. “...like a brother,” Tom finished hoarsely, as his grasp fell away.
The sudden heaviness was unmistakable.
“Tom?” Albert said, lightly shaking his friend. “My God, Tom?!”
Albert shook him again until Tom’s other arm fell limply against the mattress.
No, it couldn’t be! Not now, not Tom... A hot javelin pierced through him, its sharp spear rivetting his soul.
Albert prayed to God for Tom’s forgiveness, knowing that any part Tom had played in this whole sordid affair had been completely out of his control. Mooney’s mind had betrayed him just as surely as Mooney had betrayed his country. But no betrayal could bite half as much as the hollow-tipped bullet that had just rammed straight into Albert’s heart.
