Understanding dawned on Baker’s face. He held his hands up to the sky, letting the rain strike his palms. “We’re being given some time to heal. Praise God.”
“Pray that it keeps raining,” Goose advised. “I’ve got to find Captain Remington.” If the rain held, it was going to change a lot of their strategy. He prayed that it would and took comfort in the raindrops drumming the street around him as he flagged down a jeep. Whatever the reason, the Rangers were being given a chance. And Goose intended to make the most of that chance.
5
United States of America
Fort Benning, Georgia
Local Time 0013 Hours
“Can’t sleep?”
Sitting in a patio chair in her backyard, looking out over the fort and play set that her son would never enjoy again, Megan glanced back toward the voice.
Jenny, one of the young girls living at Camp Gander, stood in the doorway. She looked tired and disheveled in a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt she had borrowed from Megan.
“No,” Megan admitted.
“You know,” Jenny said, “I’ll bet the doctor’s office might have something you can take to help you relax.”
“I’ve thought about it,” Megan admitted. “A couple of the other counselors suggested the same thing. But I need to keep a clear head.”
“They’ve got stuff that can do that too.”
“I’ll wait. I can’t keep up this pace forever. I’ll drop soon enough.”
“True,” Jenny said. “But it would be nice if you dropped somewhere short of the emergency room.”
Megan offered a smile. “I’ll try.”
Nodding toward the phone, Jenny asked, “Did you call Goose?”
“I tried. There’s some kind of storm that’s blown into southern Turkey unexpectedly and is interfering with the phone lines.” God, please let that be it. Don’t let Sanliurfa have fallen. Megan glanced at the small television that had been brought out to the patio area. With all the teens in the house, it was hard to hear the reporters at times. Bringing the set outside had been a compromise she could live with. “I’ve been watching the news but there’s not much coming out of Sanliurfa right now.”
“I know. All the news on every channel seems to be centered on Nicolae Carpathia. He’s kind of shaking things up. Mind if I join you?”
“The last I saw you, you were asleep on the couch.”
“Well, that didn’t last as long as I’d hoped.” Jenny crossed the patio and sat in the chair beside Megan. “Lieutenant Benbow called earlier.”
“Oh?”
Jenny nodded. “While you were at the commissary.”
The trips to the commissary were on a daily basis. At present, the commissary was staying open twenty-four hours a day to meet the needs of the base population and because they’d finally been able to get enough employees to cover all the shifts.
“I would have told you earlier,” Jenny apologized, “except I fell asleep on the couch before you got back.”
“Did he want me to return his call?”
“No. He asked how you were doing. Whether you were resting or taking time to work on the notes he’d asked you to make.”
Megan gestured to the legal pad on the patio table. The top page was still blank. She couldn’t seem to marshal her thoughts regarding Gerry Fletcher. “I’m trying.”
“I asked him what was going on, but he wouldn’t tell me. He just asked me to help you out if I could. So I’m going to ask you what’s going on.”
Megan hesitated.
“Don’t shut me out, Megan,” Jenny said. “I know you could use a friend right now. God knows I’ve been there plenty of times myself.”
Taking a deep breath, Megan said, “All right, but we’re going to need coffee for this.”
“Not coffee. Hot chocolate. Coffee will keep you wired but hot chocolate may get you to unwind. I’ve got some in a thermos.” Jenny vanished into the house and returned in a moment with the thermos, two cups, and two pieces of pumpkin roll. The orange bread wrapped around a creamy white filling.
“So this is what I smelled earlier.”
“Yeah. It smells and tastes like it’s hard to make, but it’s really simple. Just have to do it in stages. The hardest part is keeping the pumpkin bread from tearing when you unroll it and reroll it.”
Megan cut a piece off and ate it. “Cream-cheese filling?”
Jenny nodded. “You know what makes it even better?”
“What?”
“I’m going to lie to you and tell you it’s all calorie-free.” Jenny grinned, her smile white in the night’s shadow.
Despite the somber mood, the fatigue and the anxiety, Megan laughed. They ate in silence for a while, then slowly, Megan told Jenny about the civil lawyer Boyd Fletcher had gotten and all the pressure that was coming down on Fort Benning, which in turn was coming down on her.
“That’s ridiculous,” Jenny said after they’d finished the dessert and Megan had completed the sketch of the day’s events. “Can’t Lieutenant Benbow get this case tossed out? I mean, it’s not like you took Gerry away from his parents. God did that.”
“Lieutenant Benbow says that General Braddock doesn’t want the post vulnerable to a civil suit.”
“So they sacrifice you.”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Fight,” Megan answered.
“But you’re risking the charges the army could bring against you.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You could lose.”
“Yes.”
Jenny peered at her with concern. “You could go to jail.”
“Possibly.”
“Then why risk it?”
Megan placed her fork on the empty plate. “Because I can’t get any more scared than I already am, Jenny. That’s what Braddock was trying to do to me today. Scare me into accepting the deal they’ve offered. I can’t do that. If I did, I would be turning away from everything Goose
