Chapter 31
Harm walked into the HALO room and was greeted by a round of hellos. He returned them, making a conscious effort to keep the exuberant bounce out of his step and his voice. Making love to Mac had put everything right with him again and it was very hard not to let it show.
Harm was early, so the lights were still up. He went over to the little buffet that lined the wall, taking a couple of sushi rolls and a pile of fruit to ward off the midnight munchies. This was about the time of night Mac started talking about ordering pizza, which Harm's stomach invariably regretted. Smiling to himself at the thought, he found a seat at one of the many tables.
His humor died as George walked in. He and Mac had agreed they had to bring the other man into their confidence if they wanted a chance at getting Ariel on tape. The prospect made Harm nervous-- he didn't like involving an innocent (not to mention untrained)-- civilian.
"Hey, George!" Harm waved him over.
George immediately changed directions. He flopped into a chair beside Harm. "Hey."
Harm looked at him in concern. George didn't look like he felt well. "You o.k.?" he asked.
George waved away his scrutiny. "Jut some heartburn. Had one of those unpleasant meetings with my boss's boss yesterday."
Harm didn't let his interest show. "With Ariel?"
George nodded. "Yeah. I've been trying to track down a minor problem with the recording system and I was looking at some of the wiring… Ariel freaked, like I was going to break something." George rolled his eyes. "Yeesh. It's my job to keep it all working. You'd think they'd trust me to touch it without all the micromanagement."
Harm made appreciative noises, though he was pretty lucky in that department. The Admiral probably gave him more leeway than was really warranted, and Harm worked hard to make sure he lived up to that trust. George's statement, however, rang a number of bells in Harm's mind. Was it just coincidence the other man was telling him he'd been looking at the recording system wiring? Could he be a plant? One of Webb's? If so, was this his way of letting Harm know he'd been looking into the trouble with the cameras? Or, if not… what did it mean? His information about the secondary cabin recording system had been extremely valuable.
"So did you find the problem?" Harm asked after a moment.
George shook his head. "No. I'm pretty sure I had a lead on it, but Ariel doesn't want me looking into it any more." He shrugged. "Like I said, he's afraid I'll break something."
Or afraid you'll find something, Harm thought, suddenly grateful for their decision to bring George in on the investigation. He had the note in his pocket, telling George who he and Mac really were, what they needed to know about the recording system, and why. All he needed was the opportunity to pass it to the other man. Hopefully he could do so once the gaming session started.
Other players trickled in over time. To Harm's relief, Nikki Upton did not appear. He wasn't exactly sure what he would have done if she had, but it would have made his evening far more difficult.
Since George was high in the standings, he got to play the first round. Harm found himself a seat near George and leaned back to watch, beer in hand. Don found them a bit later, along with a couple of other people who usually used that gaming station.
"So, I hear you told Nikki Upton off," Don commented as he sat down, earning Harm an exaggerated round of congratulations from those nearby.
Harm slewed around in his seat, feeling a flush rising in his cheeks. "Uh, yeah… pretty much." He was embarrassed to admit it, considering how bad a move it was for his investigation.
"At least you finally came to your senses."
Harm cocked his head, eyeing Don in the strobe-like lighting from the projection screens. "Oh?"
Don chuckled and shook his head. "Man, if I had a wife like yours…"
"Donny, you couldn't handle a wife like his." George looked away from his game for a second, grinning. The smile turned into a grimace as he dug the fingers of one hand into his side.
Harm smiled at Don, too, trying to look innocent. "He's got a point."
Don gave them both a mock wounded expression, hands folded over his heart. "Oh, you got me." He sprawled in his chair for a moment, playing dead, then sat up abruptly. "So, what does it take to handle a woman like Mac?"
Harm chuckled. "If I ever figure it out, I'll let you know."
Don gave him a wolfish grin and turned his attention back to the game.
Onscreen, George's character paused in the middle of a firefight, taking massive damage from one of the other players. Harm reached over to slap him lightly on the shoulder.
"Hey, George! You still awake there?"
George's head lolled back like a rag doll's. The game controller tumbled from his hands to clatter on the floor. His eyes rolled back in his head, showing the whites, and Harm saw flecks of foamy saliva decorating his lips.
Don jumped to his feet with a cry of alarm.
"George!" Harm barely managed to get his arms under the other man as he collapsed sideways out of his seat. Harm kicked the chair out of the way, making room to lay him down on the floor. George's body felt boneless. His dark skin was the color of ash, made all the more ghastly by the strange lighting. Harm cradled the other man's head, searching first for a pulse, then for a telltale breath between the pale lips. He was relieved to find both.
"Get the ship's doctor!" Harm looked up at Don, meeting his frightened gaze and holding it until the cameraman nodded. Don pushed his way out of the room, through the gamers that had already begun to gather around George and Harm.
The lights came up, blinding after the earlier darkness. George went into convulsions.
Harm grabbed his shoulders, trying to keep him from slamming his head against the thinly carpeted floor. He fought down the fear that climbed up his throat. He knew very little about seizures. All he could do was hold on.
The convulsions ended after a few minutes that seemed like an eternity. George lay still, seeming lifeless except for the shallow rasp of his breathing.
The doctor arrived at a run with his bag in one hand and a portable stretcher in the other. Harm moved out of his way as he checked George's condition. At the doctor's direction, Harm helped him transfer the unconscious man onto the stretcher, then took up the other end to carry him to the infirmary.
The next few hours passed in a blur. Harm stayed with the doctor, helping him to restrain his patient through several sets of convulsions. George didn't come to, which Harm gathered from what he overheard to be a bad thing. A heart monitor maintained a steady, reassuring beat, but George's open eyes remained empty and unfocused. The doctor could give Harm no explanation for the seizures. All he could say for sure was that George had no medical history of such things.
After the Coast Guard helicopter took George to the mainland for further treatment, Harm forced himself to rejoin the gamers who'd gathered in a frightened knot on deck. It was nearly 3am. His thoughts continued to turn with unanswerable questions. Why George? Why now? His gut screamed foul play, though he couldn't offer a shred of evidence to support it.
"He'll be o.k." Don offered with a half-hearted smile.
Harm glanced over at him. "Maybe." He looked back out over the dark water. "I hope so." The note he'd intended for George remained in his pocket, useless now, and a man he'd grown to consider a friend of sorts was in serious condition. If Ariel had had anything to do with that, he would deeply regret it.
"Man, why does this stuff always happen to us?" Don shook his head. "First Nikki going over that cliff, now this."
Harm could only shrug. Nikki's near-fatal fall had been the result of her own reckless stupidity. He'd been pretty angry when Bud filled him in on the details. But that wasn't something he could tell Don, nor could he tell him his suspicions about Tony Ariel or of his renewed fears for Mac's safety.
Harm sighed. "I'm going to try to get some sleep. We won't hear anything until morning, at the earliest."
Don nodded, and Harm turned to go. He clapped Don on the shoulder as he passed, imparting what little encouragement he could with the contact.
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Harm."
#
As Harm sat on the edge of the tub waiting for someone on JAG's end to pick up the phone, he felt utterly exhausted. It was that bone-deep, numbing weariness of too little sleep coupled with too much stress. The assignment had begun to take a heavy emotional toll. Harm had woken his wife up when he got back to the cabin, needing to see her, talk to her, even if it was just within the boundaries of their charade.
Now, Mac sat beside him on the tub's rim, her fingers laced with his and her dark eyes filled with gentle concern. They'd decided that a little comfort and sympathy would be believable without destroying their set up. But not much. Mac would need to leave before long.
"Lieutenant Roberts." Bud's voice filled the line.
Harm leaned his head next to Mac's so they could both listen in. "Morning, Bud," Harm said. Mac added her own greeting.
"Good morning, Commander, Colonel." Bud's tone held an echo of concern. "How are you doing?"
"We've been better," Harm answered honestly.
"Well, we've got some information for you on this end, sir, which may help." His demeanor became businesslike. "Let me transfer you to the Admiral."
Harm and Mac exchanged looks. The line went quiet for a minute as Bud put them on hold.
"Good morning, Commander, Colonel." This time it was Admiral Chegwidden. The two attorneys returned the greeting.
"I'm putting you on the speaker phone," the Admiral told them. "We have quite the crowd this morning. The SECNAV is here, along with Mr. Webb and Lieutenant Roberts."
Mac raised her eyebrows at that, but didn't comment.
"How is George Laughton?" Harm asked without preamble. He had no interest in exchanging pleasantries today.
"He's in stable condition at Tampa General, Harm." Webb's voice sounded a bit forced, as if he were standing on the far side of the room and projecting to make certain the speaker phone picked him up. "Lab results showed a couple of drugs in his system that account for his collapse. One's an immuno-suppressive used in some cancer treatment regimes, the other lowers blood pressure." Webb's voice grew louder, as if he were approaching the Admiral's desk while he talked. "It's a potentially fatal combination, but your friend wasn't given enough to kill him. He hasn't woken up yet, but the doctors don't think there's much risk of permanent damage."
Much? Harm took firm hold of his anger before he could say something sarcastic to Webb that the other man didn't deserve, and that Harm would later regret.
"Do you have any idea where the drugs came from?" Mac asked. "Could Ariel have cooked up something like this?"
"Probably, ma'am." That was Bud. "We uncovered something interesting about Ariel. His father was a pharmacist for twenty-eight years. There's a good chance Ariel could have learned enough from him to put together a chemical cocktail like the one Mr. Laughton was given."
Harm's anger settled into a cold lump in his stomach. He did his best to ignore it. He needed to be calm and rational.
"That lends credence to Mrs. Antony's claim that she was drugged." Mac's nails drummed lightly against the tub's plastic rim.
"It's not proof, though." Harm met his wife's gaze. The risk had just gone up, if Ariel had access to potentially deadly drugs and had the knowledge to use them. "And we just lost our inside help. Did you know George was investigating the recording system onboard? He claimed he was tracking down a small problem with the system, but I suspect it was more than that. He's not one of yours, is he, Clay?"
"No, he's not mine." Webb sounded a bit aggrieved, as if Harm had been lobbing an accusation rather than asking a simple question.
"I suspect, Commander, that we'll discover he was working on Daniel Steiner's instructions," the Admiral added. "The investigation is public knowledge—at least, as public as the legal requirements will allow. Mr. Steiner is milking the situation for all it's worth, and I wouldn't be surprised if he put George Laughton on that ship for the express purpose of finding the problem with the recording system so he could have footage of Ariel's crimes for his show."
Mac frowned thoughtfully. "Which could mean he knew what Ariel was doing during the first cruise."
"Maybe, but we can't assume that."
"No, sir," Mac agreed.
Harm forced himself to focus on the factual aspects of the case. "Is there any evidence of Ariel possessing the drugs that were used?"
"Not yet," Webb told them. "I called in a favor with the FBI. They're looking into it with LAPD. They've already got a warrant for his residence. The warrant for his office is still in work, but shouldn't take much longer."
Harm nodded. That was the first good news of the day. "Keep us informed."
"Sure thing."
"What else?"
"I have something, sir," Bud injected, sounding a bit hesitant. "I just got the email this morning."
"About what, Lieutenant?" the Admiral asked.
"The hall recording from outside the room where the incident with Mrs. Antony took place."
That got Harm's attention. The hall video was one of many pieces to the puzzle that simply wouldn't fit together.
"Believe it or not, it was Lieutenant Singer who thought of it, sir." Bud was obviously talking to the Admiral now, with the rest listening in. Mac mimed an expression of utter shock at his pronouncement, to which Harm rolled his eyes. They shared a grin, the antics safely hidden from the eyes of their superior.
"All of the recordings have a digital time stamp on them," Bud continued. "You can see it down in the bottom right hand corner of the screen on all of the raw tape. The Lieutenant suggested checking the timestamps to make sure the footage of Mrs. Antony entering the room was legitimate, since the angle of the camera doesn't let us see room numbers or any other distinguishing features in the hallway." Bud's speech quickened, as it always did when he was leading up to something important. "So I had a friend in crypto take a look. It turns out the timestamp had been altered."
"So Mrs. Antony probably didn't meet the reservists of her own free will." Mac jumped on it before Harm could put his thoughts together. "Her account is sounding more and more plausible."
"Nothing ties it to Ariel, though," Harm countered. "Not conclusively, anyway."
Mac nudged him in the ribs, a slow smile appearing on her face. "That's why we're here instead of a private beach on Fiji, dear."
Harm raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. "Fiji, huh?" Sharing the phone the way they were, their faces were only inches apart. Mac nodded, parting her lips in silent invitation. Harm accepted without reservation, catching her mouth in a sweet, promise-filled kiss.
"Stop it, you two." Webb sounded like couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or disgusted.
Harm broke the kiss after a moment and stared into his wife's chocolate eyes. "Stop what, Clay?" He could see Mac biting her lip to keep a laugh from escaping.
"Whatever you're doing, and before you ask, no, I don't want the details."
"Can we get back to the case, people?" The Admiral effectively cut off any comeback they might have made. He seemed amused, though.
"Of course, sir." Harm did his best to sound like nothing out of the ordinary had been going on. It would get Webb's goat, if nothing else.
"Are you still prepared to go forward with your plan to lure Tony Ariel out, Commander, Colonel?" The SECNAV spoke for the first time.
"Yes, Mr. Secretary," Harm answered with a familiar pang. "It's the only way to positively tie Ariel to the crime, at least right now. If we catch him attempting the same thing with Mac, we can use that to tie all of the circumstantial evidence to him."
"And are you aware of the high visibility of this case, along with your own... ah, more personal visibility?" The SECNAV never sounded comfortable talking to the JAG lawyers, but now he sounded especially stiff.
Harm and Mac traded knowing looks. "Yes, sir," they chorused.
"Good. Then I don't need to tell you how important it is for the Navy's public image that this case be brought to an unequivocal conclusion."
Translation:, Harm thought, Everybody's watching, so don't screw it up!
"Yes, sir."
"Just be careful," the Admiral added. "Both of you." He paused. "I can't afford to lose two of my best attorneys. I have cases piled up already, waiting for your return."
Harm and Mac smiled at that. "Yes, sir."
"We'll be careful, sir." Mac tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Now, if you gentlemen will all excuse me, I need to be going. I'm meeting Toby for breakfast."
"Is that--?" Webb began then broke off in consternation.
"The boyfriend," Harm supplied. Mac gave him an odd look. He shrugged. "Well, he is."
Flashing him a seductive grin, Mac slipped off the edge of the tub and down to the floor. She crawled around Harm's knee, coming up between his legs to wrap both arms around his neck. Harm chuckled. "No that I'm worried or anything." His free arm fastened itself around her waist.
"You'd better not be," Mac said before her lips fastened on his.
"Oh for crying out loud." Webb's voice echoed through the phone's earpiece, small and tinny. "We're hanging up now." The line went dead with a click.
Harm and Mac burst into laughter that they hastily muffled in each others' shoulders. Harm set the satellite phone down on the floor, then drew his wife into a tight hug.
"Get some sleep, o.k.?" she said, her lips brushing his ear in a caress.
Harm nodded, drawing back. "I will." He kissed her one last time. "I'll see you later."
Smiling crookedly, she stood and walked to the bathroom door. She paused there to wave, then disappeared into the cabin.
Harm stared for a long time at the place where she'd been. Fiji sounded like a wonderful idea.
