Chapter 3

"And then, Emily says to me; 'why didn't you stop me?'", Cal said to the seemingly empty room, "Can you believe that? She runs off without me watching, covers herself in sudocrem, comes running crying to me about how gross it is, and blames me on it all? Ridiculous. She was only about a year older than you. Cheeky little brat."

Cal paused to see if his droning stories were making any headway with little Max. There wasn't a sound from inside the spacious wardrobe and all at once he was worried that instead of coaxing the boy out, he had sent him to sleep. He moved towards the door to check and the frantic scurrying assured him that the small child had been hanging on every word. It sounded as though he had parked himself right up against the thin wooden slatted door and was now burrowing back in retreat. Cal halted his movements and sat back down on the edge of the undressed bed.

He checked his watch and realised it was getting late into the afternoon. "You must be starving, mate," he declared. "I'll be back in few, alright?"

Cal walked from the room and heard a shuffling behind him as he did. He guessed that Max had shuffled his way forwards to peek through the door.

Cal made his way down the stairs and set about finding something to eat that might entice his little friend from his hiding place.

"OK. Loker, play the recording of the native speaker, then play the clip from the non-native speaker," instructed Foster.

Loker did as requested, playing each snippet of sound one after the other.

"You hear the difference?" she asked the room. Everyone shrugged in uncertain agreement. "Loker, play it again but show us the frequency and pitch analysis."

Doing as instructed, he highlighted the discrepancies in waves in the visual display of their audio clips.

"Couldn't that be just because it's a different person speaking?" asked Andrews.

"Some of it could, sure, but there's a clear difference in dialect and certain phonemes aren't present in the non-native speaker," Foster explained.

"Phonemes?"

"Sounds that are unique to each language and dialect. Think of them as the building blocks of verbal language."

Seeing his blank stare Gillian decided to just move on. "Right. Loker, play the isolated sounds from the submarine with the visual analysis, and match it to those clips," she continued.

"See the similarities between the non-native clips and the differences in the native speaking?" Loker pointed out once he had played the final clip.

"I guess," Andrews reluctantly began, "but even so, I don't see what that proves here."

"You're seeing what you want to see. It doesn't add up. You're in enemy waters, with a presumed hijacked boat, but your hijackers aren't native to the enemy territory. Someone is trying to make you think your submarine has been commandeered by the enemy, but whoever it is talking in the background isn't native. You need to get in touch with them again, or better yet you need to extract them without causing an international scene. You're getting manipulated into a war here."

"Stick to vocal analysis Dr Foster, and let us work on counter terrorism and military strategy."

Foster rolled her eyes at him and began to turn away when a thought struck her.

"At least wait until Dr Lightman gets back."

"I thought you were the expert here? Isn't that what you people have been insisting all along?"

"As far as this analysis goes, yes. But Dr Lightman not only knows the science, he's used it in this type of application before. He worked counter terrorism for the Pentagon for years. He founded methods and ways of working still in use today. Let's get Lightman back here, once he's finished with his White House meeting."

"Fine. I'll agree to that, but we need to hurry this up."

"Torres," Gillian turned to the other woman in the room, "Would you mind heading out to give Lightman a call real quick?"

"Sure," Torres nodded amicably and headed for the door.

"Here we go," Cal announced in his most friendly and softest tone as he walked back into the spare bedroom carrying two plates full of random toddler friendly foods, "Lunch!"

Cal placed the plates on the floor in front of the wardrobe doors, leaving space for them to open and for Max to sit, and then settled himself back down on the floor.

He waited. Nothing. "Are you sulking because I'm not Gillian?"

Nothing.

"Please come out Max? I promise I'll bring her to visit soon if I can."

Nothing.

"I need you to come out of there and eat something, darling. If you don't come out then I won't be able to tell her how I helped and make her all proud and impressed by the both of us. Please?"

He waited again, wondering how much of his pleading the boy understood. He likely didn't care a bit about Cal and his endless plight to impress his partner.

"She'll be so proud of you if she hears you managed to calm yourself down enough to eat."

Cal was giving up, certain that nothing he did would encourage Max to reappear while he was in the room. He figured that if he left, at least then Max might come out to eat and then settle himself back in the tiny alcove he had found for himself for a nap. He almost certainly needed a diaper change by now though. Just as he was about to move, he heard the shuffling again. Then a scuffle at the thin doors that hid him away. And then, the sight of the tiny little figure emerging made Cal want to cry in relief. He couldn't help the smile that broke out onto his face, even in the face of the fully unconfident look he was granted in return.

Max eyed up the food on the plate, then Cal, and then his eyes darted towards the open door to the room. He was like a trapped animal. Cal's heart broke for the fear he clearly felt, but he still couldn't erase the underlying feeling of victory he had for having achieved something that only Gillian had previously managed. Even if his win was far more hard fought for and the battle not fully over.

Cal reached for his plate, taking a bite of food and then reaching for another. Max watched him closely and finally settled himself in front of his own plate, beginning to munch away and eventually offering Cal a much coveted smile.

Cal held two small plates in his right hand as he approached the stairs of the Doucet's house. In his other, he held the hand of the most stubborn toddler he had met since Emily Lightman, aged three. He felt like he had just won an Olympic medal. He helped Max Kabuso down the stairs and into the living room of his foster family's home. By the time they were in view of Terry Doucet, Max was clinging with a vice grip to Cal's leg.

Cal held out the plates for Terry to take and handed them over with thanks. Knowing better than to make a big deal out of the child's re-emergence, Terry simply took them and returned them to the kitchen.

"I think someone could do with his nappy changed, Terry."

"I thought so," she replied. "Max? You want Cal to do it or you ok with me?"

Max looked with huge wide eyes up to Cal from his place attached to his leg.

"Go on son, let Terry do it. You'll feel better," he said as he gave the boy a little nudge on his back, moving him forward.

Josh had been upstairs in the bedroom he shared with his wife. While Max walked away with Terry, he returned to the living room, having made a stop off on the way to collect Max's pictures.

"Thank you, Dr Lightman. You have no idea how helpful it is to have you and Gill around."

"Don't mention it. We're happy to have the chance. Can't imagine finding him like we did and then not knowing how he's doing."

"Have you two given any thought to the adoption?"

Cal was completely caught off guard by the question. "Excuse me?" was all he could manage.

"Gillian said she'd talk to you and give it some thought, after we said we'd like to put your names on our recommendation list. The other day? After she stopped by to visit?"

"Right. Yes, of course," Cal lied. "Well, it's just that… I mean, you know that we're not married or anything. She said all that, right?"

"Oh yeah, she was full of excuses," Josh laughed. "If you have the right recommendations and you can show that you can provide a stable environment, none of that matters. They've really modernized the thinking on placements in recent times. The real question is if you want to? Don't get me wrong, it's not a simple as that. There's a lot of interviews and home visits and it's a pain in the butt sometimes, but if it's right then it's worth it. And Terry and I, we definitely think you guys are a match."

"It's all a bit sudden," Cal said. He was functioning on autopilot now while his mind conjured a million thoughts. Cal had day dreamed about it, but he never gave it serious consideration. And Gillian hadn't breathed a word. He assumed she had similar innocent fantasies of playing happy families. She had tried to adopt even after her divorce. He had tried to talk to her a few times about it before they eventually sorted everything out with their relationship, but hadn't found the key to unlocking that conversation since they'd been a couple. They'd only been together for six months. To realistically think they had a chance at adoption was crazy, wasn't it?

But at the same time, hadn't they ensured their relationship was solid by how they had built up to it? They had been committed to one another for a lot longer than these last few months. Their history before living together had to count for something.

And Cal had always factored Gillian's desire to raise a family into every consideration he had ever given to a relationship with her. He had even broached the topic with Emily, in her persistence at the idea that he tell Gillian how he felt about her. 'You do know that Gill wants to have kids, don't you?', 'yeah?', 'That means baby siblings, Em.', 'So? I'll be in college before they can even talk.' She had apparently factored in the idea herself too. The only person who wasn't clued in to the presumption of that being a factor of the relationship was Gillian herself. She hadn't ever broached the topic with Cal. Even though he knew that her last application had been submitted not much more than a month before they had gotten together. The closest they had gotten to any such discussion was when they made the decision to stop using condoms. 'I don't have any STI's, and you don't have any STI's, so why not?', 'What if I get you pregnant?', 'You won't. You know that', 'Miracles happen', 'Not to me', 'Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Little miracles'. She had just laughed at him, assuming he was joking, and he mostly was. But they had never really talked about it.

"It's a big decision, Josh. We haven't really gotten our heads around it," Cal went on.

"You two are perfect for them. They already love you. You already love them. And Gillian said when we met that she had always wanted to do what we do, or to adopt. You'd have our full backing, if you do decide to go for it."

Cal was trying his best not to show how caught off guard he was. Normally it was no problem for him to conceal and deceive, but right at that moment he felt like he wasn't in control of his own body. Why the hell would Gillian not even mention it in passing? Was she afraid of him saying no? Or afraid of him saying yes?

Terry's timing couldn't have been better. She walked back into the room holding his jacket, which was ringing. She handed it over and without thinking he took it.

"Sorry, Dr Lightman, that's the second time it's rung," she explained.

"Thanks," he said as he fished out his phone. Then as an afterthought, "And it's Cal," he reminded them both.

Lt Rivers met Cal Lightman at the security checkpoint and gave him a quick recap on the progress the team had made in his absence, while Lightman checked in his belongings and underwent the standard scrutineering to be allowed entry.

Rivers explained that Andrews and Foster were in a standoff on how to proceed, and so Foster had recommended his expertise, not as an expert in micro expressions, but as a leading expert in counter terrorism.

"If Foster is recommending something, you lot should be listening, but I'll have a look at what you've got anyway and see what I think."

"Thank you, sir," Andrews said as they approached the lab.

Walking into the room, Cal took in the sight before him. All of his team sat listening and re-listening to the available material. Foster and Andrews were sat together with her evidently trying to explain where the key details hid within their recordings to lead them to the correct course of action.

Cal felt an irrational swell of anger as he looked at Gillian. She had hidden information from him. He knew she believed she had good reason, he had rationalised as much to himself on his drive to the Pentagon, but nonetheless he felt betrayed. Whether she was trying to build up the courage to bring it up or not, he felt they should have discussed it immediately. In his mind, with the recommendation from the Doucet's, it was no longer a fanciful dream of having children. It was a decision to be made, and she had locked him out of it.

Gillian, either having heard the door of felt the shift in the room, turned her head to look at him and instinctively smiled. He wiped clear the trace of resentment that he presumed he must have been showing to return the smile, but she wasn't fooled. He knew immediately that she could see something was off.

"How was your meeting?" she asked.

"Productive and informative," he replied simply. "But I'll probably have to go back soon."

She smiled again, satisfied with his answer, unaware that he was referencing both of his meetings that day. Cal shook away his concerns over the Kabuso children and reminded himself why he was there. He moved towards Gillian and Andrews, standing behind his partner with a hand resting lightly on the back of her chair, barely brushing her back. He asked for them to bring him up to speed and as she spoke he found himself automatically brushing his fingers lightly against her, rubbing against her bra strap through her blouse. He knew a fight was coming, but it would wait. Until then, they had work to do, and she still had a presence that he couldn't stay angry with. Even with the uncertainty of the future looming in the back of his mind.

"Foster's right. This isn't a military take over. We need to speak to Jacobs, or anyone on that sub," Cal spoke with authority.

"I told your team already-"

"I don't care what you told us, Andrews. You have a very volatile situation going on there. You make the wrong move, and all hell breaks loose. World War Three. You've got a foreign element wading into a covert military operation in enemy waters. That's not us on that boat, and it's not them."

"Who is it then?"

"My guess would be a pirate operation. Likely trying to capture an American vessel to sell to the highest bidder."

"That's ridiculous, there's no way-"

"I've seen it before. Not on this scale, but it has happened. Particularly at the end of the Soviet Union days. We got offered an awful lot of pirated contraband back then, you have no idea."

That seemed to shut Andrews up for once. He left the room at once to report to his superiors. Cal was expecting that the next time that door opened, someone directly involved at a higher rank would be with the man.

Cal turned to face his colleagues then, leaning against the desk where Gillian sat. She placed her hand on his knee where it lay directly in her reach, and she squeezed it in silent thanks for his support in her assessments. All at once his residual upset with her disappeared for a while.

Cal took in the faces of his mentally exhausted and worried friends. "You lot have had a busy day then?"

"Pirates? Really?" asked Loker.

"I doubt they have peg legs and eye patches Loker, but yeah. There are still pirates out and about, doing pirate things."