The Towers (19 page)

Tomorrow.

*   *   *

LIEUTENANT
Dollhard told them to make it an early night. He wanted them all available on sixty minutes' notice. Dollhard was a mustang, an ex-enlisted, older and much harder than you expected of lieutenants, few of whom had tattooed biceps, either. He took no shit from anyone, including Vann, and nobody made any cracks about his name. Teddy had looked reluctantly over at Swager when they were toweling off after the showers. “Want to, uh, go out in town? We pump on out to boogerville, not gonna be any Jameson's there.”

“Sure, Obie. But we're not drinking hard, are we? Like they say, you can't soar with the eagles if you hunt with the owls.”

“Absolutely,” Teddy said, heart sinking.
Not drinking hard, are we?
But maybe the kid was right. If he was going to take over the platoon tomorrow, he'd better be sharp. Not screw up first shot out of the mag.

*   *   *

MULVANEY'S
Gingernut was a fake-looking Irish pub across from the Del Coronado. A sign out front said
WHY DO THEY CALL IT TOURIST SEASON IF WE CAN'T SHOOT THEM?
Nothing to show it was a Team hangout, unless you counted the Harleys and sports cars and jacked Jeeps and even a full-size Hummer.

The interior smelled like beer and hot grease. The bar was full, guys Teddy recognized from training over the past week, plus old farts that must be the local retirees, Viet vets, and gawkers who just came in to tour the zoo. Teddy ordered the Reuben. A lot of women, sitting in twos. Frog hogs showed up around every base that had a SEAL team. In a way it was annoying. On the other, wasn't it what every man wanted? He got another Harp and drifted out onto the back patio. Make this the last, then he'd get back. The late-afternoon sun fell through the trees, warmed his face as he lifted it, eyes closed, seeing only red, red, bloodred.

“Fresh meat,” a woman said.

Teddy opened his eyes. He took in chunky thighs, slim waist, the obvious core muscle of her torso. Dark hair. Jeans-clad legs wrapped around the stool. A bulge under her left armpit that wasn't her tit. “A cop?”

“Busted.” She stuck out her hand. “Salena Frank. Sheriff's Department, up in Vista. You?”

“Teddy Oberg. What brings you to Mulvaney's, uh, Detective?”

“Came with my girlfriend.” She looked into the bar, where an overweight blonde was slamming down schnapps, then beer. At that rate, Teddy thought, they'd have to pour her into bed.

“So what're you? Designated driver?”

“Got it in one.”

“You're shitting me,” he said, then noted the Pepsi. “You're
not
shitting me.”

“She wanted to come, and I admit, I was curious. This place has a rep. Like a cop bar, only you're not cops.” She looked at his hands. Then at the scars on his face. “You're a SEAL, right?”

He shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Ooh. ‘Something like that.'” She grinned like a little girl in braids. “What, you can't tell me? It's all secrety-secret?”

“It's not a secret. Just, it's safer for the ones who have families. Like undercover cops, okay?”

“It sounds so macho.”

“That gets blown out of proportion. We just have jobs, that's all. ‘I stand on the wall providing that blanket of freedom you sleep under.'”

“A Few Good Men,”
she said.

“Yeah.” Then he remembered Sumo and scowled. Tossed back the drink. “And, yeah, there's some danger.”

“I lost a partner last year,” Frank said. “Domestic dispute. Woman came out of the basement with a hammer. He never saw her coming.”

“Is that right.” Teddy looked her over again.

“That rogue SEAL guy, what's his name—do you know him?”

“That was Team Six. I never met him.”

“But what are you doing here, anyway? In the States, I mean? Aren't we supposed to be at war? Do you believe this stuff? About the CIA and the Israelis being behind it?”

“Why would the Israelis bomb the World Trade Center? It was full of Jews, wasn't it?”

“Then why are you still here? Why aren't you out kicking ass?”

“Maybe next week.”

“Next week. A lot could happen by then.”

He gave her the eye back. “Yeah. I guess it could.”

“Want to arm wrestle?”

What the fuck? “Uh, sure.”

She got him in a wrist lock and stared into his eyes. He was looking into them when her free hand slid between his legs.

Then she nailed him. All the way over, a clean takedown that knocked the beer right off the table onto the floor. She guffawed and jumped up as he rubbed his wrist. “Come on. I'm over at the Del Coronado.”

“What about your friend?”

“She's got a key too.”

*   *   *

IT
was different, he had to admit. Usually they didn't like it rough. Halfway through, her friend came in, staggering drunk, and spread out on the bed next to them and starting bringing herself off as she watched.

When they were done, he looked down at a little plastic toy rabbit Frank handed him. “What's this?”

“Congratulations. You're now an official San Diego Sheriff's Department badge bunny.”

He was resting up, getting ready for a rematch and wondering which it should be—Salena again, or Bridget this time—when his cell went off. He rolled to his pants and rooted through the pockets while Salena coughed and lit up and Bridget started rubbing herself again.

It was the head shed. The recall.

He hadn't intended to spend a lot of time saying good-bye. But somehow Salena got her cuffs on him, and both women took turns doing nearly professional things they'd obviously done together before, until he absolutely couldn't even pretend to get it up anymore.

“See if you get anything that good where you're going,” the blonde said as Salena tucked her San Diego County Sheriff's Department card into his undershorts.

*   *   *

AND
everything just kept going faster and faster. The usual deployment routine, only speeded up about sixteen times, like rocketing down a greased chute with nobody knew what at the bottom. By 0300 they were at the Military Air Command terminal, the floodlights out so no one could see them, kicking their duffels onto Praetorian Airways 106. Destination: unclear, but anywhere in the Mideast; you went either the northern route, Bahrain, or the southern, Oman. He figured this for a southerly.

The chief he was relieving, the one whose blood pressure was too high to deploy, handed him a drab computer case jammed not just with the computer but with a thick mass of folders. “Real sorry about this, Oberg. I wanted to do a complete turnover, but you're just going to have to ask the master chief to help you out.”

Great, Teddy thought. He wasn't feeling so hot. The whiskey. The girls, sucking what felt like life itself out of him. The Zippo-stink of jet exhaust blew over them, hot and smoky.

One man's evil had created a whirlpool, a hurricane, a black hole, and the world was gradually starting to circle it, everything and everybody getting drained down. Like with Hitler. Or Lenin. Now, bin Laden. Thousands of people, then millions, spinning faster and faster.

Knobby Swager stood motionless, pale, shaking. Teddy was about to look away, then remembered: He was in charge now. He grabbed the kid by the back of the neck. Talked for a couple of seconds, got him squared away. Word came to board. “Let's move, troopers,” he shouted. Like some sergeant from a John Wayne. Yeah, well, life was like the movies sometimes. Yo, Oberg, he told himself, slapping each man as he went by. This is where you wanted to be.

You wanted it real?

This was the real thing.

III

The Gates of the Citadel

 

8

Prince Georges County, Maryland

THE
house had been in her mother's family since before the Civil War. Its hand-baked primrose brick looked soft enough to eat. It dominated thousands of acres of rolling fields and woodland. The Blairs had been landowners, slaveholders, politicians, statesmen. One had sat in Lincoln's cabinet. The Tituses were more recent, but Checkie's father had done well in banking, a career his son had followed too. Her parents' match had not been seen as unequal.

Dan didn't feel as confident that he belonged here. Who the hell was he, anyway? A working-class family. An alcoholic ex-cop for a dad. How lucky he'd been to find her. And how astonished when she'd accepted him. Welcomed him into a bigger, wealthier, more influential world than he'd ever before moved in.

A tobacco-brown Crown Vic was parked kitty-corner across the stone gates. As Dan eased to a halt, uniformed men glanced into his car. “Why the guards?” he said, automatically getting his ID out. There'd never before been security here.

“Mr. Titus hired us,” one said. “You the son-in-law? Lenson? Go on up, sir.”

Her mother opened the front door. Queekie Titus was still beautiful, and even more imperious than her daughter. Her hand was kitten-soft, and the cheek she pressed ever so briefly to his smelled of lavender. “Dan. We were so glad to hear you were coming.”

“I can't stay long, Queekie.”

“The Navy. I know. My father was in during the war, did I tell you that? I believe I did. But I can make up a room for you, shall I?”

“I can stay for one night.”

“How wonderful. Blair's in the sunroom. We had to bring her home. You can't actually rest in those hospitals. Always waking you up to take a sleeping pill.” She led him through, held the door for him. “Blair, sweetie. Dan's here.”

*   *   *

SHE'D
been drowsing, drifting in and out in front of the television, a book on her lap and the polished platinum croon of the drugs lulling her. She didn't like what they did to her thought processes. But without them her bones ached, and her face hurt as if locked in an iron mask. When she managed to make sense of the news, it was frightening. Death counts from the attacks had reached three thousand. Something called the High Office of Homeland Defense was being created. It sounded like one of Orwell's ministries from
1984
. Someone had mailed anthrax spores to ABC, NBC, CBS, and Tom Daschle's office in Washington. The whole postal system was shut down. It had to be Al Qaeda. Who else would attack the mail system, Congress, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, and Microsoft? No American would do such a thing.

Or would he? Americans turned guns on their presidents. They shook their children to death. Tempted young men into their apartments, killed and dismembered them, and boiled their heads. But what was the answer? A police state, like some of the commentators seemed to want? Tyrannies were more murderous than individuals. She stared unblinking at the unblinking screen. Every few minutes the bewildered, simian visage of the nation's chief executive returned, feigning resolution, feigning understanding, swaggering, blustering. She couldn't believe he'd actually used the word “crusade.” Bin Laden himself could not have chosen a better rallying cry, to roil the Muslims they'd have to depend on to prosecute any punitive action.

When her mother called, she groped for the mute button, then struggled to sit up. To hold her arms, or one, at least, up to the weary-looking man in khakis. He smelled of sweat and the outdoors when she hugged his neck. Suddenly, desperately, she wanted him close. She made a muffled noise into his shirtfront she herself couldn't interpret.

When he gently untangled himself and pulled up a chair, she lay back and tried to catch her breath. His hair was even shorter than usual. Was it grayer too? It seemed like months since they'd seen each other. Just a quick trip to the city for an interview. “You're here.”

“Got lucky. Talked them out of a long weekend.”

“You drove?”

“Straight through. Except for a stop at the house, to pick up some things.”

She searched his face. “How long can you stay?”

“Not very long. Overnight.”

“Where to this time?”

“Points east.”

She squeezed his hand. “You look like you need some rest. But your voice—it sounds better.”

“Still raw. But it's getting better, yeah.” His fingers traced her cast. Was his gaze sliding away, off her face? The damage was still concealed, still covered, but it flamed steadily beneath the dressings:
Remember me.

Dan had been studying her since he came in. The light had haloed her at first, too bright in this glass-walled, quarry-tiled room looking out over a paddock, miles of hills, woods a riotous mosaic of fall color. Then out of it she'd emerged: strangely foreshortened, irregular beneath the flat facets of taut blanket. The air seemed too cold for a sickroom. No. She wasn't sick. Only gravely hurt.

“All right, tell me,” he said.

“They say I was in surgery for seven hours. Three ribs. Two breaks in the right arm. One in the upper thigh. Those are all knitting.

“They saved my eye, but it—I lost the eyelid, and a lot of skin. That's a big deal for reconstruction, apparently. I'll have scars—they say that's how healing occurs—but later on a plastic surgeon can cut them out. The ear—well, there's going to be trouble with that. Cartilage, apparently, doesn't heal the same way bones do.”

He squeezed her hand. Wanting to kiss her again, but afraid of hurting her. When she'd sat up to hug him, he'd caught the tug of pain on what was visible of her face. What he could see was wan and haggard; what he could not, he tried not to imagine. “Don't take this the wrong way. But I want you to know, no matter what, you're still beautiful. To me.”

“I know, Dan. That's not one of my worries.”

“Good. Long as you know. How's the pain?”

“Stiff-upper-lippable. Except at night, sometimes—then I can't always play the martyr.”