“I told you before: just wait another four years, and you can apply for a full pardon,” Patrick said. “The president has told me often he’ll do that, as long as you don’t have any other convictions.” He looked at her carefully. “Everything okay in that regard, Gia?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “No other convictions.” But her voice told him that this wasn’t all. After a few moments, she looked up and said, “I met someone.”
Patrick felt his heart explode in his chest, and he had to choke down a surge of anger. “ ‘Met someone’?”
“In rehab,” Gia said. “He’s an alcoholic, like me. He’s a building contractor. He’s been sober for a few years, and he was helping me, making sure I went to the meetings, making sure I was applying for work and benefits, giving me some part-time work here and there.”
There was still something in her voice that said there was much, much more to tell, Patrick thought. “What else?” he demanded, a lot harsher than he intended.
“That’s all,” she insisted. He didn’t believe her, and she could see that in his eyes, and she didn’t try to defend herself. “I told him about you, and he said I had to choose, because he knew I still wasn’t over you, and he said I had to go back and see you, and—”
“What? Choose between us?” Patrick snapped. “Compare notes?”
“Find out if you still loved me, Patrick,” Gia said. “I know I haven’t been here for you, trying to deal with my own problems. I wanted to be with you, but I had to leave so I could figure out if I wanted to be sober or not.”
“You had to decide whether or not to be sober?”
“You don’t understand being an alcoholic, Patrick,” Gia said. “I like drinking. I like being able to suppress the rage and the despair as easily as drinking a little Cabernet Sauvignon. I didn’t care if I couldn’t fully function, as long as I didn’t have to feel the anger, the frustration, the helplessness.” She paused, then said, “But now I understand who I am, Patrick. I’m an alcoholic. I know now that I was wasting my life dealing with my anger with alcohol, and I want to change that… no, I’m
Patrick let go of her hands and stood. “And…
“The rehab program got me to stop drinking and start dealing with my anger in a positive way,” Gia said. “But he was there at the meetings, and he knew I was out of work, and he said he could help, and he did. Now he wants to… to take it to the next level, but he said I had to decide about you. But I didn’t know how you felt about me.”
“How could you ever doubt that I love you, Gia?” Patrick asked, almost pleading. “Brad and I welcomed you back every time you left, without hesitation, without a word. I helped you find treatment programs here. You’d be good for a few weeks, and then you’d be gone again. But when you came back, we always welcomed you.”
“I know, I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. But you and Brad were… were always gone, and I was here alone in this trailer. I tried to make it a home for all of us, but then I didn’t know how to suppress the anger any way else but with alcohol, and then I didn’t want to be around you and especially Bradley when I was drunk, so I’d leave. And then I’d miss you so badly, and I’d get the courage to come back, and then the whole thing would start all over again.”
Patrick sat back down on the ottoman and took her hands again. “It can be different now,” he said. “I’m retired, Gia. Maybe I needed to grow up and finally realize that. I pretended I had a job and a function here, but now I know I don’t. So I can be with you and help you in any way I can, any way you need.”
Gia looked up, touched the collar of his Air Force — style sage-green Civil Air Patrol flight suit, and choked down a sob with a smile. “I find that a little hard to believe,” she said with a wry smile. “Somehow I can’t see you settling down. If it’s not Civil Air Patrol, Angel Flight West charity flying, flight instructing, or meeting up with your space-faring buddies, it would be something else.”
“Well, Gia, I guess I’ll always do a little bit of that stuff,” Patrick said honestly, “but with you and me together, it can be different. We’ll move off base, rent until we save up some money, then when Brad graduates high school and goes off to college, we can pick a place together and move.”
“Move off base?” Gia asked. “What about… you know, the Russians…?”
“It’s been almost a year since we found out about that, and nothing has surfaced,” Patrick said. “I think the CIA shut that threat down completely. They’ve got bigger fish to fry, and I’ve been under their radar for too long.”
“I saw you on TV, on the news, as part of the team that rescued that little boy in the desert,” Gia said. “I think you’re on the radar again.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Patrick said. “You’re much more important to me than some supposed threat that young Agent Dobson came up with.”
CIA agent Timothy Dobson, an adviser to Kenneth Phoenix when he was vice president, had warned Patrick of the threat of Russian assassination squads sent out after him in retaliation for last year’s attacks in the Gulf of Aden and Yemen, and had suggested that Patrick move to Battle Mountain to make it easier for the CIA and FBI to detect their approach.
Gia looked into his eyes, saw that he was sincere, and smiled. “Thank you, Patrick,” she said. “Let’s take a little time to get to know each other again, and find out what Bradley thinks of all this. And my first order of business is to find a meeting place here on base or in town.”
“I can find that out for you in the blink of an eye… literally,” Patrick said. He activated his intraocular monitors, virtual keyboard, and computer network…
… but Gia put a hand on his arm. “Let’s start exploring a new life together… by doing away with the high-tech gadgets a little more,” she said with a smile. “Frankly, that thing you do creeps me out.”
It was becoming an almost daily occurrence now: mornings around eight A. M., the protesters would return to the main gate. Their numbers were growing, but they were becoming more civilized as well. The Nevada Highway Patrol cars were reduced to just two, with no armored vehicles and no riot gear. The Air Force Avenger units were no longer in sight inside the base either, although they were not far away.
The protests were organized, almost routine, and relatively nonthreatening. The marchers — about a hundred of them today, the biggest number yet — would pile up to the front gate, chanting and singing as they approached, waving signs and banners, surrounded by photographers and crews from news outlets all over the world. A Highway Patrol trooper would order them to get off the highway. Someone with a bullhorn would read off a list of demands, usually right into the trooper’s face. The Highway Patrol trooper would repeat the order. The protesters continued to sing and chant, amplified with bullhorns, and a half dozen or so would sit down in front of the gate. The trooper would put one of them in handcuffs, surrounded by the crowd, yelling and screaming while the one person was taken away. Then the one patrol car’s lights and sirens activated, and the crowd would slowly move off to either side of the highway. They would stay for another hour or so, then start to leave. The one arrested protester would be allowed to leave as soon as the cameras were out of sight. By nine-thirty, ten o’clock tops, it was over.
It was Leo Slotnick’s turn at the front gate. The air was already fairly hot and humid for this time of day, but he still wore his long-sleeved blouse with body armor underneath, and he was already damp with sweat. He had been sure to install a pair of foam earplugs to help preserve his hearing from the noisy crowd with their bullhorns, and he was wearing a pair of black Kevlar knife-proof gloves with steel knuckles. His trainee, Bobby Johnson, was back beside the patrol car, ready to take today’s designated volunteer arrestee into custody.
When the protesters approached, Leo let them chant and sing for about fifteen minutes — he thought a few of them were actually looking at their watches, wondering why he was taking so long to confront them. At the next pause between songs, he filled his lungs and shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. I am Sergeant Slotnick of the Nevada Highway Patrol. I am here to inform you that you are illegally blocking a state thoroughfare and interfering with normal traffic, in violation of Nevada Revised Statute four-eighty-four B point nine-twenty dash one. You are hereby ordered to clear the highway and allow traffic to proceed. Failure to obey a traffic officer is also a violation of Nevada Revised Statutes four-eighty-four B point one hundred, and could result in arrest and detainment. Please clear the highway immediately. Thank you.”
Now it was time for the shouting and demands. Leo folded his hands in front of his body — these folks were mostly harmless, but he still had to be ready to protect himself — and he steeled himself to accept the amplified yelling and screaming that was about to occur. Sure enough, the bozo with the bullhorn began shouting just a
