“HAHO,” Boomer said. “Night time.”
“Yeah, just what I was thinkin’, Boomer,” Stokely said. “HAHO.”
Seeing Hawke’s puzzled expression, Fitz said, “A jump. High Altitude–High Opening. The plane is flying at thirty thousand feet, fifteen miles from the target. It’s night. Nobody hears us, nobody sees us.”
“We use flat chutes as parasails,” Boomer said. “We use minibottles of oxygen to keep from blacking out. We’ve got lights on our helmets, compasses and altimeters on our wrists. We do a long, controlled glide into the LZ. Done much jumping, Commander?”
“The logic of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane has always escaped me,” Hawke said. “But I did a tour with SBS. Jumping was a big part of our training.”
Stoke looked at the two ex-SEALs, grinning. “What’d I tell y’all? Ain’t nobody got bigger stones than my man Hawke here, huh? Balls to the wall!”
“SBS? No shit,” Boomer said. “Tough outfit.”
SBS was the British Special Boat Squadron, whose rigorous training was known throughout the special warfare world as even tougher than the SEALs’. In Boomer’s eyes, Hawke had just become an official member of the brotherhood.
“Right, one more thing and then we’re done talking,” Fitz said. He got up and handed Hawke the transcript of Vicky’s message. He’d used a red pencil to circle four words in the second paragraph.
Hawke stared at it, trying to make some sense of the thing.
“I’ve listened to countless hours of these kinds of tapes,” Fitz said. Depending on the hostage’s state of mind, they tend to use words only a loved one would understand. Or send clues that would be helpful in a rescue situation.”
“Yes?” Hawke said.
“I’m wondering,” Fitz said, lighting another cigarette. “Would Vicky ever use a word like ‘uppermost’ or ‘herein’ in her general conversation?”
“Never,” Hawke said, looking at the paper. “I think I see where you’re going.”
He studied the section in question, reading it aloud:
“—so herein you’ll find me, alive and well but uppermost in my mind is that in whatever time is so far left to me is getting my backside nestled next to yours again—”
“Herein, uppermost, backside,” Hawke said. “She’d never talk like that. Rather cute, however, the backside reference.”
“So ‘herein’ is her location,” Fitz said, spreading out the plan of the hostage building they’d identified. “ ‘Uppermost’ has got to be this top floor. Far left side of the building is here, obviously, and this is the very backside or rear of the structure.”
He put his finger on the floor plan. “That’s her room, gents, right there.”
“We got it!” Stoke exclaimed. “Vicky, you something else, gal.”
“Right, then,” Fitz said. “Why don’t you two guys go get some hot java or chow or take a walk? Visit the Fort Whupass Museum gift shop. Boomer and I have some serious bone-crunching brainstorming to do and no time to do it. Be back here in one hour. That suit you lads?”
Stoke could see Alex about to protest and said, “One hour.” He pushed back his chair and stood up.
When they were outside the door he turned to Hawke and said, “Sorry, boss. I know you want to be in there. But this here one hour is why Thunder and Lightning get the big bucks. Trust me.”
“I’ve got a good feeling about these guys, Stoke,” Hawke said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet, boss.”
“Least I can do is buy you a little souvenir from the gift shop,” Hawke said, disappearing down the stairway and into the tunnel leading to the Emerald City.
51
Rita Gomez was sitting in her kitchen crying when the front door bell rang.
The small pewter urn containing her late husband was sitting on top of the refrigerator where the kids couldn’t see it. Gomer’s will had stated he wished to be cremated, and the CO’s wife, Ginny, had made sure he got his wish. Twelve hours after his death in “No Man’s Land.”
When Rita had climbed up on the footstool to place it there, she’d seen about two years’ worth of dust coating the fridge top. Dust to dust. That’s what she thought, stepping down from the stool.
On the walk home from the small service at St. Mary’s, Amber and Tiffany kept demanding to know what she was carrying. Except for her two noisy daughters, the whole neighborhood seemed eerily quiet.
“What’s in there, Mommy, what’s in there?” they said over and over, skipping along the sidewalk beside her.
She couldn’t bring herself to say, “Daddy.”
The service had been small but painfully long. A few members of Gomer’s platoon sat in the first few pews just behind Rita and the two little girls. Angel, Rita’s hairdresser and best friend, was there. There was an organist. Some desultory flowers on either side of the urn. A few sputtering candles that expired halfway through the service.
Gomer’s best friend, Chief Petty Officer Sparky Rollins, made a brave attempt to eulogize Gomer, saying that he had been a man who had “died the way he lived, on the edge, living life to the fullest.”
It was about as kind a description of her husband’s death as anyone was going to come up with, Rita thought, shifting uncomfortably on the wooden seat. She was fanning herself with a church bulletin. Gomer would have leaned over and whispered that it was hot as Hades in here.
Father Menendez, who’d been counseling Gomer without any obvious success these last few months, gave a lengthy benediction and sermon, none of which Rita could remember. Something about a troubled soul now at peace. Not all warriors die a hero’s death, he said, some are lost in a battle for the soul.
Anyway it was over, but somehow she couldn’t stop crying. The handsome young sailor was gone. There’d been so much hope in her heart that rainy day inside the little chapel in Miami. He seemed like such a fine young man, standing so straight beside her in his brand-new uniform.
And then when they’d had their kids, she’d felt like all of her dreams were coming true. But something went wrong. It wasn’t just the drinking, although that was certainly part of it. It started back when Gomer’s mom first got sick in Havana. When he couldn’t get any medicine for her, and heard her screams on the phone. Finally watching her die in such pain. That’s when it started going seriously downhill. That’s when he started to—the front doorbell rang again.
“Sorry,” Rita called out, hurrying through the tiny living room. “I’m coming.”
She wiped away her tears on her apron and pulled the door open.
It was the commanding officer’s wife, Ginny Nettles, standing there with a big casserole dish in her hands.
“I’m so sorry about your husband, Rita,” Ginny said. “It’s just awful. May I come in?”
“Oh. Of course,” Rita said, standing aside for her and then following her inside. She was slightly stunned at having the base commander’s wife appear at her door. She had been to the Nettleses’ house for a birthday party and to play bridge a few times, of course, and said hello to Ginny at the Exchange or the beauty parlor, but still.
“I made this for you last night,” Ginny said, placing the casserole on the kitchen counter. “Shepherd’s pie. Now, of course, it looks like you won’t be needing it.”
“What do you mean?” Rita said, thoroughly confused now.
“You mean you don’t know?” Ginny said. “Oh—that’s right. You’ve been at St. Mary’s all morning. Well, it’s the most amazing thing. We’re all being evacuated.”
“What?” Rita said. “I don’t understand. We’re being—”
Ginny had walked into the living room and was bending over the TV, looking for a button. The kids had been
