Edge of the Heat 6 (24 page)

Emma laughed. “OK Bro, what do you want to know first?”

JT thought. What did he want to know first? He wasn’t feeling tired yet, so he probably had time for a few hours of talking. So he wanted to know everything.
But first…
He turned to Sara. “Who are you, really? And how did you manage to get in that camp and get us out of there? And how do you know my sisters?”

Sara started talking. She began with her story. A rough sketch of who she used to be. How she met Jerry. The strange events of the past month that had ended with her being a direct consultant to the President. And she ended with the news story showing JT and Dani taken hostage and Emma calling and asking for her help.”

JT winced at Dani’s name, but didn’t let his thoughts flow to her.

Sara looked at Emma. “I know Emma was just asking for me to maybe be a consultant to the people who were going to rescue you, or maybe for me to intercede with the President so what happened to the other soldiers didn’t happen to you guys, but the more I thought about your situation, the more I decided that me going in, alone, gave the highest chance of getting you two out alive.”

JT looked at Jerry. “And that didn’t scare you?”

Jerry pulled Sara close to him. “It terrified me. But I knew she was right. I love Emma as if she were my own sister. Vivian too. I couldn’t let my own selfishness get in the way of their desire for you to be safe.”

JT shook his head. He understood sacrifice. He understood doing what was right for the people closest to you. But none of these people even knew him when they decided on this gutsy, crazy plan.
Family. Blood. Were there any stronger bonds?
But that made him think of Dani again. Dani and her uncle. He chewed on his lip and pushed the thought away.

JT looked at Emma and Vivian. “My mom died two weeks ago. She wrote me a letter in the hospital saying she had adopted me and that I had two sisters. Up until then I didn’t know you existed.”

Emma smiled softly, tears in her eyes. Vivian laughed and clasped her hands together. “We didn’t know you existed either JT, not until a few weeks ago ourselves. In fact, we only found each other a bit over a year ago. Isn’t that a crazy story though.” Again the look. But this time after they looked at each other, they both looked at JT. He felt a zing down his spine at those two sets of eyes, so like his own, sharing a moment with him.

“Who are our real parents? Do you know them?”

Emma sucked in a breath through her teeth, like it was complicated. “They are both dead,” she said gently. “And it’s not a nice story how it happened. In fact, our father was kind of a monster.” She looked at Vivian again, and so did JT. Vivian’s face had fallen and she was nodding sadly. JT looked past his sisters to the rest of the group. They each wore identical grim expression, even Sara. His heart lurched. A monster? That was an awfully strong word. His own father? A vision of Dani flashed in front of his eyes. Dani pulled almost into a ball in the helicopter seat. Heartache from his rejection stamped on her face. At the time he hadn’t been able to dredge up any compassion for her. But now his heart stuttered and tried to go to her. He leaned his torso back on the pillows and waited for his sisters to go on.

***

JT heard screaming and realized it was him. He tried to get to her even as he screamed. Tried to help the woman who was part Dani and part Tina escape from the mugger. The gun raised big as a cannon and JT knew it was about to flash fire and end the life of the woman he loved. An angry roar erupted from his throat and he pulled at the hands that held him back.

“Sergeant Taylor, stop!” A female voice chastised him and broke through the nightmare. His eyes fluttered open. A young nurse in flowered scrubs held a bandage to his arm. “Sergeant Taylor are you awake?”

He nodded weakly, trying to remember where he was, what was going on.

“You had a nightmare. And you pulled your IV out.” Her voice was offended, accusatory, like he did it on purpose.

His memories flooded back. His father. Definitely a monster. Killed his mother. Killed himself. The story that Vivian and Emma had spilled out over three or so hours, with occasional help from Craig and Hawk. And then exhaustion had settled in his brain. He had taken it all in, but couldn’t process any of it. How could he be related to someone like that? He had said he was going to take a nap. But it was now dark?

“What time is it?”

The nurse looked at her watch. “It’s 4:30.”

“In the morning?”

“Yes in the morning. You’ve been asleep since yesterday afternoon but the doctor said not to wake you. So we didn’t.” The nurse took his right hand and placed it over the bandage. “Hold pressure there.” He did, feeling his right side ache and howl. She pulled out a needle and some packets of antiseptic. “I have to start a new IV.”

JT let his mind go. It crawled over everything he had heard the day before. He felt the prick of the needle and heard the nurse talking lightly to herself, but none of it seemed important. His mind worked and turned and sifted his new knowledge, like a gold digger looking for nuggets.

Finally, the nurse let him be. He closed his eyes so she would think he was sleeping. But inside he was active. His identity re-forming and trying to stay clean.

Time stretched and folded and still his mind worked overtime. It was still laboring when his door opened and Sara came in. He looked around for a clock.

“It’s 5:45, but I asked the nurses to call me when you woke up. The President wants a report today on what really happened. The press is already having a field day with what they think happened and he wants to put things straight. So I need to interview you. I should have done it yesterday, but I agreed with the doctor that you needed your sleep.”

JT nodded and gave her a weak smile. “Let’s do it.”

JT recounted his tale, everything that had happened from the moment Sara left them in the market. She asked a few pointed questions, but mostly just let him talk.

“Are you going to interview Dani, too?” he asked, feeling like he didn’t really deserve to know.

“I interviewed her while you were in surgery. She’s already gone with her mom and her dad and one of her sisters. Since her uncle was found dead by the Marines in the hotel room, speculation is running wild. Social media right now is freaking out, and some people are saying she must have been in on it. The news channels aren’t quite going there yet, they are being more careful, but the President has to say something. I don’t even know where they went. I just know they didn't go home. Their house is probably swarmed with reporters right now.”

JT winced. This was bad news. And he’d been the first. The first to accuse her of being in on it. Guilt shot through him like a spear.

“But she wasn’t in on it, was she?”

Sara’s face was kind. She put a hand lightly on his arm. “No JT, she wasn’t. She was doing the same thing as you were. Investigating him, trying to figure out why he was acting strangely. Her father had just told her that Colonel Clarkson had come into a ton of money and his wife had said some suggestive things about where it came from. Her father was distraught at the thought of his brother being a criminal, possibly betraying his country.”

Sara’s words bit into JT like a small animal with sharp teeth. She had lied. Or omitted the truth. The excruciatingly difficult truth. In a time of duress and hardship. And he’d been a total dick about it. He hadn't even given her a chance to explain before he had convicted her in his mind.

“I have to go, JT. We’ll talk later.” Sara squeezed his hand and left him with his swirling thoughts.

Dani paced the small room she’d been given before her live television interview. Her breathing came in short, shallow gasps and she could hear her heart beat rapidly in her chest.
Calm down Daniela, get a grip. Take a deep breath,
she told herself. Being in front of the cameras and the live audience didn’t scare her. She’d done that hundreds of times. It was always nerve-wracking, but never like this. It was the
subject matter
that made her feel like she was in a blender.

She was finally going to do it. She was finally going to speak out on the subject of her uncle, the traitor. She was going to act as the spokesperson for her family and break their three-month-long silence. Her mother had practically begged her to do it. Her mother wanted her life back. Her mother wanted to be able to go to knitting group and bingo night with the
girls
again. Her mother wanted to be able to walk in the grocery store and meet people’s eyes. Dani had an idea that, if this went well, she was planning on uploading the video to YouTube and playing it for people on her iPhone if they hadn’t seen it yet.

Her dad had only said ‘whatever you think is best,’ and nodded his head in a weary way. It was her father she was doing this for, ultimately. The scandal his brother had perpetrated had hit him the hardest. Rocked him to his core in a way. He looked five years older now, and he never left their house either. Amazon delivered groceries, and Mom and Dad slept and puttered and avoided the news and the neighbors and the occasional reporter.

The reasons
why
her uncle had done what he did were becoming partially clear, even though they thought everything he had masterminded had not been revealed yet. Sara and an intelligence team were working nonstop on the case and every time they had a major update, Sara gave a press conference. Even though it had been three months, public curiosity and demand to know was still high. The President had promised, and so far was delivering, full transparency. Uncle Kevin and his wife had owed money to more than just Dani’s parents. They had owed money to 4 different bookies in Las Vegas and California. And when they were far enough in the hole (1.4 million dollars) that their legs were in danger of being broken again, Uncle Kevin had somehow connected with Musa-Elbenah who had plenty of money to funnel to him, for the right services. First, Uncle Kevin had just placed his units in the wrong place at the wrong time, allowing enemy shipments and soldiers to pass over borders. And then he graduated to selling weapons to the enemy. Dani and her father had taken this admission really hard, both wondering how many U.S. troops and allies had been killed with those weapons. With the money he got from these debacles he had paid off all of his debts and had money to spare, and seemingly tried to stop the treasonous activities. But then something had happened that he hadn’t planned on. Musa-Elbenah, furious at having been cut off, contacted one of the bookies. No one knows how he got the name of the bookie, but maybe Uncle Kevin told him himself, just in normal conversation. Sara had gotten this information from Uncle Kevin’s wife. Musa-Elbenah promised the bookie 5 million U.S. dollars if he could put some pressure on Clarkson and convince him to work with Musa-Elbenah again. They put their heads together and the bookie had some thugs kidnap Uncle Kevin’s son from his new private school. They called Uncle Kevin and had him talk to his sobbing son, and said if he went to the police, Kenny would die. Uncle Kevin hadn’t even told his wife until she had gotten worried and driven out to the school and not found Kenny. All of this was revealed to the public, and they lapped it up like milk, but public opinion towards Dani and her family didn’t seem to change with any of it.

So here she was.

A knock at the door. “Miss Clarkson, you’re on,” a voice called.

No time to get a grip on herself now. Dani grasped the doorknob and headed out through the small hallway to the hot lights of the set.

She heard her name and the murmuring of the audience. She walked out to weak applause, heading for the host, her interviewer, Kirk Kussler. When she agreed to give her own station the scoop, she should have specified who the host would be. She had never liked Kirk. He was handsome in a sort of lopsided, sneaky way, but his looks didn’t do anything for her anyway. She cared about how a person acted, how they
treated you
, and Kirk barely noticed anyone but himself. She shook his hand and gave him a fake smile. Kirk Kussler, that was the fakest name on the planet. She bet his real name was Dick Widebottom or something. The thought make her smile widen and become almost genuine before it slipped off her face for good.

She sat on the couch and looked to the left, where she knew her parents would be in a private audience box. Her mom waved and her dad gave her a thumbs up. She kept her eyes on them, not caring what it looked like to the camera. She could feel the hostility of the audience already. It felt like a heavy hand, clawing at her, trying to crush her and steal her breath.

“Miss Clarkson, thank you so much for joining us to talk about this heavy subject today.”

Dani nodded but Kirk was diving ahead, barely noticing her.

“Please, tell us how your ordeal started. The world has never heard the full and exact story. It must have been horrible for you.”

Dani took a deep breath. The last thing she wanted was to share the intimate details and dredge up that time in her mind, but she knew she must. For the crowd to drop the hostility, they would need to feel sympathy. And she could bet that as long as the live audience acted hostile towards her, the millions watching at home felt the same way.