'Don't look at my wounds, dammit,' she said. 'Don't take pity on me.' She pulled her gown down off her shoulders-purposely a bit farther down her chest than necessary to show the majority of her wounds. 'You want to take a look? Take a good look.' He did-including the parts of her naked body that were not damaged, she noticed. Maybe this guy didn't have quite the stone heart she once thought. Now was the time to drive the message home….
'Don't you dare pity me, McLanahan,' Susan went on. 'I don't wear a suit of armor like you-I'm fighting this battle with all the weapons I have, which is just about what you see here. I don't need your pity.' She took his armored hands into hers, squeezed them, then placed her right hand on his chest. 'I need these fighting hands, Patrick, and I need this heart. Be my champion, Patrick. Help me. If you've had enough of fighting for money, then try fighting for justice. Fight for me instead.'
He didn't say anything-but his eyes replied for him. The pity had turned to something else-not quite trust, not quite friendship. But he would be back.
'You're going to leave me, aren't you?' she asked sullenly.
'I have to.'
'To bury your brother. I know.' She lowered her eyes. 'And to mourn your wife. I know all about mourning-I've done a lot of that lately.' She pulled up her robe over her shoulders, but did it in such a way that covering up was even more seductive than exposing herself. Patrick picked up his helmet, fastened it in place, and then stepped to the bedroom patio. 'Patrick.' He turned, the helmet's bug-eyes looking sinister and comical at the same time. 'You will always have an ally here in Egypt. I will always be here for you.'
He nodded, once, slowly, and then turned. In a blink of an eye and a loud hiss of compressed air, he was gone. Susan thought she heard a clunk of boots on the rooftop across the street, but she couldn't see anything.
McLanahan was an emotional wreck right now-his brother dead, his wife blown to atoms, his men decimated, his mission failed and shattered. Did she actually expect him to be able to fight?
The quicker he was out of the country, she decided, the better.
CHAPTER 8
The answering machine picked up for the sixth or seventh time that evening; again, Patrick ignored it.
It was an exceptionally warm evening, so Patrick was out on the big bayview balcony, sipping a Grand Marnier and watching the activity in San Diego Bay. He could see all the way from the Thirty-second Street Naval Base to the south to North Island Naval Air Station and Point Loma Naval Base to the north. North Island, the home of the Navy's Anti-Submarine Warfare Center, was a buzz of activity-it usually was, with aircraft of all sizes buzzing down the Pacific beaches of Coronado, right behind the Del Coronado Hotel, coming in for a landing. To the south on Coronado was the Navy Basic Underwater Demolition Service Training Center, the home of the Navy SEALs; one could usually see inflatable boats going up and down the coast all year long, day and night.
It was hard to tell from the level of activity in the harbor what was happening in the world. North Island had two carriers in port right now-that was unusual. Thirtysecond Street Naval Base was busier than Patrick had ever seen it before-every pier looked occupied. Would it be busier if war was imminent as ships prepared for deployment, or would it be quieter because all available warships were heading into battle? Patrick didn't know. A trained spy might be able to deduce the answer to that, but Patrick wasn't a spy.
He wasn't anything right now-not a military man, not a Night Stalker. Just a man with a young son, a missing wife, a dead brother, and not much else-not even a future.
After the last strikes against Libya by the Night Stalkers and the Sky Masters Inc.'s EB-52 Megafortress, Patrick finally got his men out of Egypt. They first flew by CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft to an isolated base in southern Israel, where they sanitized their gear and received civilian travel documents. They drove to Tel Aviv, flew via commercial airlines to London, then to Los Angeles, and finally to San Diego.
Coming home was without question the happiest-and the saddest-day in Patrick's life. Little Bradley was brought to San Diego-Lindbergh International Airport by Patrick's mother and sisters; they hugged Patrick warmly, but they wore stony, stern expressions on their faces-they were silently accusing him of killing both Paul and Wendy and nearly orphaning his son. Patrick ignored their anger. He hugged his son long and hard right at the Jetway door, ignoring the aggravated comments of the others who had to maneuver around them. One look at Hal Briggs, Chris Wohl, and David Luger, however, and the complainers fell silent and went about their business.
But no sooner did they turn away from the Jetway than five-year-old Bradley asked, 'Dad, where's Mom?'
Patrick was dreading this moment. He took his son aside to an isolated set of seats near a big picture window, motioned the others to go on ahead, and sat his son beside him. Despite his request, his mother and sisters stayed, respectfully apart from them but close enough to atch and listen.
'Brad,' Patrick said, 'Mommy's not coming home with us.'
Bradley's blue eyes instantly filled with tears. 'Why?'
'Mommy was hurt,' Patrick replied. 'She was helping me, and Uncle Paul, and Uncle Hal, and Uncle Dave, and Uncle Chris, and a bunch of our other friends, and she got hurt real bad.'
'Is she dead?'
Patrick took immense comfort and drew a lot of strength from little Bradley's maturity. He wasn't sure if Bradley completely understood what death was, but the very fact that he asked if she was dead made Patrick think that he understood a little of what death meant. Bradley watched a lot of movies that should probably not be watched by young children, and then he liked to act out the fight scenes with his father and baby-sitters. But in the movies, the dead guys all came back to life when he replayed the movie; in their playacting, Daddy always got up moments after Bradley delivered the coup de grace with his plastic laser-sword. Was that his only concept of death?
'She's missing,' Patrick told him. When Bradley furrowed his eyebrows, Patrick went on, 'The bad guys got her, and they took her to a place where a lot of people were killed. We haven't found her yet.'
'Mommy was killed?'
'I don't know, buddy….'
'Mommy's deadT Bradley asked, louder this time. Patrick's mother rushed over and grabbed Bradley in her arms. The suddenness of her movements startled him, and he started to cry. Patrick's sisters looked at their brother with a strange, painful mixture of pity and contempt as they followed their mother out to the parking garage.
That was a few days ago. They had gone back up to Sacramento for Paul McLanahan's memorial service and interment beside their father in City Cemetery in downtown Sacramento. His sisters offered to take Bradley, but Patrick insisted on bringing his son home with him to their high-rise condominium on Coronado Island. That did not please them at all.
Patrick also did not offer any explanations to his family on what happened to Paul or to Wendy. That made them even angrier. His mother and sisters hugged Bradley tightly as they got on the plane to San Diego, but Patrick could have hugged pieces of plywood that had more warmth or tenderness than he felt from them.
He had an entire day by himself with Bradley. They made their usual stops: out to North Island Naval Air Station to watch the Navy planes come and go and to see if they could spot any submarines over at Point Loma; a visit to the Star of India, the old sailing barque on the San Diego waterfront, standing on deck pretending to be pirates; out to the Windsock Grill at San Diego-Lindbergh Airport to have lunch and watch the airliners as they seemingly threaded between the high-rises of the downtown district and skimmed the top of the parking garage on their way to the runway; then out to the lawns on Shelter Island where they tossed a Frisbee around and watched the Navy warships, yachts, and tour boats head out to sea. By then Bradley was ready for a nap; Patrick carried him to his room, as he usually had to do after all-day outings like this.
While Bradley napped, Patrick checked his e-mail-no messages. That meant they had been dumped or erased by Sky Masters Inc., or intercepted by the feds. He checked his cell phone-no service, which meant either that service had been cut off or the secure system was detecting eavesdropping and deactivated itself. He tossed the phone onto his desk-frankly, he was glad to be rid of it.
