Jake chuckled and nuzzled her neck, drinking in the smell of her and luxuriating in the sensuous pleasure of her skin against his, the sleek coolness of the sheets, the ripeness of her body under his hand. “That’s me, I guess.”
“I guess. So what am I? Number ten for you this month?” She giggled as Jake ran his tongue down her neck and across her collarbone, heading south.
“Eleven, I think.”
She hugged him fiercely. “Oh, I love you, Jake Grafton, you worthless gadabout fly-boy, you fool that sails away and leaves me.”
When she released him, he propped his head on one elbow and ran his finger along her chin. She nipped at it.
“Have you been to the beach house lately?” he asked. Three years ago they had purchased a house on the beach in Delaware that they visited at every opportunity, anticipating the day when they would live there permanently.
“Just last weekend. You can still hear the gulls from the window, and the surf hitting the sand when the tide is in. But the upstairs commode stopped up. I had to call a plumber….” She went on, detailing the domestic crises and how much it had cost. He rolled out of bed and slipped a robe on.
From an easy chair near the door to the balcony, he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about that house, lately.”
Callie sat up in bed and swept her long dark hair away from her face. “Is twenty-three years enough?” That was how long Jake had been in the navy.
“I can’t fly at night anymore. I’m half grounded.” She left the bed, came over to the chair, and sat on his lap. He wrapped the robe around them both, as far as it would go.
“It’s my eyes. I’m losing my night vision. Something about liquid purple and rods and all that.”
“My God, Jake, won’t you miss the flying?”
“Yeah,” he sighed disgustedly.
“And if you can’t fly, how can you continue to command an air wing?”
“I can’t. They’ll send someone to relieve me pretty soon. I’ll probably be home in a month or so, and they’ll ground me completely. No more flying. Ever.”
“Where will you go from here?”
“I don’t know. Probably some admiral’s staff someplace. We’re short on radar repairmen, but we’ve got a lot of admirals and a lot of staffs.”
“So you’ve been thinking about the beach house?”
“Uh-huh. And about us. About you and your gadabout fly-boy lover and all the time we’ve been apart. And I’ve been thinking, maybe it’s time. Everybody retires sooner or later, unless they get zapped, and so why not? It’s time you had a full-time husband, not some …”
Callie put her face inches from his. Her cascading hair framed her dark eyes. She put her hands on his cheeks. “I’ve been extraordinarily happy married to you. Oh, the separations have been hard to take, but I can endure the days alone because I know that, God willing, you’re coming back to me. You are who you are and what you are, and I love you. So don’t you dare start talking like you’ve given me the dirty end of the stick these last fifteen years. You haven’t.”
He started to speak, but she put her lips on his. In a moment he carried her back to the bed.
They ate a room service breakfast on the balcony, wearing only their robes. From here you could see the sweep of the Bay of Naples and the old Renaissance harbor where the yachts moored. The carrier lay several miles out to sea, foreshortened from this angle. Two surface combatants were anchored near her. The carrier’s flat top looked grotesque, but the cruisers with their superstructures looked ominous, powerful — gray warships on a blue sea. And way, way out there, the sea and the sky were married by the summer haze. It was going to be hot today.
“Are you going out to the ship?” Callie asked as she sipped her orange juice.
“Thought I might, after a while. Then maybe this afternoon you and I could go somewhere together. How about Pompeii?” Jake sat looking at the ship and drumming on the glass table with his fingers.
“I’m glad you gave up smoking.”
“I haven’t made it yet,” Jake said, and self-consciously stuffed his hands with their chewed fingernails into his robe pockets.
Callie hid her smile behind another piece of toast. Yes indeed, she decided, she had been extraordinarily lucky when she landed this one. Not that he had had a chance of getting away, of course. She ran a hand through her hair and stretched. Jake was looking down at the patio around the pool three stories below where breakfast was served al fresco.
“What are you looking at?”
“I thought I recognized that girl. But from this angle I’m not sure.”
Callie rose and stepped over to the railing. She had her toast in her hand. “Which girl?”
“That one with the blue dress.”
Callie leaned on the railing and called, “Oh, Judith. Good morning.” The girl in the blue dress looked up, grinned, and waved.
“It’s Judith Farrell,” Callie announced, and popped the last bite of toast into her mouth.
“Where in the name of God did you meet her?”
“On the plane down here from London. She sat right beside me. She’s a very nice young lady, an American reporter living in Paris. Gave me an excellent chance to practice my French. She’s very fluent. She’s going to be in Naples for two weeks. I asked her to have dinner with us tonight.”
Jake’s startled gaze left Callie and went back to the patio and the top of Judith Farrell’s head.
“Who did you think she was?” Callie asked curiously.
“I thought she might be Ms. Judith Farrell of the
Up in his suite, Colonel Qazi swung his binoculars toward poolside and examined Farrell’s profile. He was seated on a chair atop a table well back from the doors to the balcony so that he was invisible to persons in other rooms. After a moment he took his headphones off and handed them back to Yasim. He lifted the binoculars again. His brows knitted as he watched Judith Farrell eat her continental breakfast.
“Judith Farrell. What room is she in, Noora?”
The girl checked the chart. “Room 822.”
“You and Yasim get it wired as soon as possible. Bugs in her phone, bathroom, and bed.”
“Who is she?” Ali asked.
“Ostensibly a reporter. She was on the ship in Tangiers.”
“Could she recognize you?”
“No. I was fat and sixty-five years old for that appearance.” He handed the binoculars to Ali, who trained them on the girl at poolside.
When Qazi received the glasses back, he swung them to the Graftons’ balcony. So Farrell and Mrs. Grafton had side-by-side seats on the flight from London. Very interesting.
The colonel climbed down from his perch while the ex-CIA agent, Sakol, examined Judith Farrell with the binoculars. He fingered the focus knob. After a glance, he placed the glasses back on the table. “I’ve never seen her before — Mossad, CIA, or GRU.”
“It is also possible she is what she seems to be,” Qazi said with finality.
“Or she could be one of those amateurs that the Americans are using these days instead of the CIA professionals,” Sakol retorted as he resumed his seat. “Perhaps she delivers autographed Bibles and cakes shaped like keys.” He yawned and stretched.
“We’ll check her room,” Qazi said. “It would be an honor to have an opportunity to steal a Bible signed by a president.” He turned to Ali. “What did you learn last night about security and antiterrorist precautions aboard the ship?”
“They have armed marines at the enlisted landing on the fantail, and on the officer’s brow. Four fifty-caliber
