Chapter 32
"How are you holding up?" Toby asked after Mac joined him at the restaurant. Their table sat in a small corner of one of the upper decks, giving them a spectacular view of the ocean. Mac could see the green mound of an island in the distance, but had no idea which one it might be. She was beginning to feel very guilty about dragging Toby into their schemes. She and Harm were, in essence, setting him up to be duped into rape… though she had no intention of letting that happen. Hopefully her would forgive her, once all was said and done.
Mac sighed. "All right." She brushed a few hairs away from her face. "Didn't get much sleep. Harm's really upset-- you heard about George, didn't you?"
Toby nodded. "Yeah. Kinda scary. Has anybody said what happened?"
"No."
Toby reached over to squeeze her hand, and after a moment she squeezed back. "I'll bet Harm's lighting a fire under somebody, then."
Mac couldn't help a smile. "Not yet, but if there's no news by the time he wakes up, I'm sure he will." She looked down at their joined hands. "Why are you asking me about Harm?"
Toby shrugged. "You care about him, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"So why shouldn't I ask? If it's important to you, then it's worth knowing."
Mac carefully extricated her hand and sat back in her chair to study the man seated across the table. She knew without a doubt that she loved Harm with her whole heart. She had no interest in Toby-- in that way, at least. But more and more she was seeing in him a dear and true friend, and she disliked having to add a sexual aspect to their relationship.
She sighed. "Thank you. I appreciate that."
Now it was Toby's turn to study her. "Do you mind if I ask you something personal?" he said as a waitress came by with menus and water. The waitress left again without speaking, obviously sensitive to the serious nature of their conversation.
Mac bit her lip, but nodded. "Go ahead."
"What happened between you two? You seemed so happy there at first."
Mac raised an eyebrow. "That's a pretty personal question." She sipped her water, staring out at the ocean as she formulated a vague answer. "I don't know. Marriage just didn't turn out to be what I expected."
"So what are you going to do now?"
Mac looked at him quickly, wondering if the intent behind the question was really as obvious as it seemed. Toby gave her a sheepish grin. "I mean, there's less than a week left in the cruise. After that, what are your plans?"
He couldn't have played his part any better if she'd written his lines for him.
"I don't know." Mac toyed with her napkin, feeling uncomfortable with the entire conversation.
Toby wouldn't quite meet her eyes. "Well, if you get to a point where you're ready to look for something different… give me a call, o.k.?"
Mac nodded slowly. "O.k." She flashed him a smile, thinking how sad it was that her relationship with Mic had given her so much practice at pretending a love she didn't feel. "I just might do that."
He grinned back.
They sat there for several minutes, just smiling at each other as they perused their menus. The waitress returned to take their orders, and no sooner had she left than another person took her place beside their table.
Mac looked up in surprise at Boothe. A young woman-- one of the singles-- stood with him, her fingers laced with his. Boothe looked between Mac and Toby with a knowing smile, then turned his attention solely to Mac.
"Maybe we should have gotten together last night, Mac-- killed two birds with one stone." He winked at her, as if sharing a private joke. "Not that I'm disparaging your choice, of course." He nodded in Toby's direction.
Mac watched him warily. He seemed far too chipper.
"This isn't what you're thinking," she told him with a gesture in Toby's direction. Then, "So are you and Carmen disqualified?"
Boothe chuckled. "This far into things, I figured it would really tick Carmen off. What do you think?"
Mac resisted the temptation to shake her head. "I think you're right."
He winked again. "Well, we'd better go. I'd like to get some breakfast before they come for me. Bye, Mac."
"Bye, Boothe." Mac watched him walk away, somewhat stunned. After a moment she turned back to Toby, who widened his eyes theatrically. Wow, he mouthed.
Mac found she had nothing to say. Already the day had taken on a bizarre quality, and it was only breakfast.
#
George Laughton had been pronounced able to see visitors for all of about five minutes before a trio of men in business suits let themselves into his room. Two had the unmistakable aura of cops around them. The third was something different. Government, if George had to guess.
The head of the trio looked like he might have played football in college. He was big and beefy, with his thinning hair cropped down to a nub against his skull. He smiled politely at George.
"Mr. Laughton, I'm Agent Peters of the FBI." He gestured to the second man, who George guessed to be his own age or a bit younger. "This is Agent Fellows. We'd like to ask you some questions."
"Who's he?" George looked over at the third member of the trio, a nondescript, sandy-haired man who hung back near the door.
The man stepped forward. "Clayton Webb, CIA." He met George's gaze, piercing him with an intense stare. The ordinariness he projected, George realized, was little more than a shell. The man behind that mask was someone to be reckoned with. "I believe we have a mutual friend."
George could only think of one person who might have friends in the CIA. "Harmon Rabb."
Webb's lips twitched, as if a smile were lurking there, trying to get out. "That would be him."
Sudden concern pushed George's curiosity aside. "Is he all right?" He looked between the three federal agents. "Nothing happened to him and his wife, did it?"
"Not yet," Peters answered at the same time Webb said, "The commander and the colonel are fine."
George breathed a sigh of relief. He'd had a niggling worry for them in the back of his head ever since learning about the drug interaction that had landed him in a Tampa hospital.
Webb's gaze narrowed. "And now I'd like to know why you didn't even bat an eye when I used the Rabbs' ranks. You knew they were military."
"Y- yeah." George stared at Webb, thoroughly intimidated. "I wrote the data upload/download scripts we use to transfer footage from the ship to the studio, so I snuck in my own newsfeed when I did it. Just the top stories off the New York Times website and the sports scores. I wanted to stay connected, y'know?"
The young agent-- Fellows-- turned to his superior. "I knew there was an anomaly in the downloads to the ship!"
"So you've known about the investigation of Tony Ariel and the first Temptation Cruise since the story broke." That was Agent Peters. He had a notebook out and was making some notes.
George nodded. "Yes."
"But you didn't tell the Rabbs."
"No. I warned Harm that there was a secondary audio-only system that ran in the contestant cabins at night, but that's all."
"Why were you checking out the wiring onboard the Radiant Heart?" Webb continued to watch him suspiciously. George was beginning to get the feeling the CIA agent cared pretty deeply about what happened to Harm and Mac.
George gave him the truth. He didn't have enough visibility of the larger picture to know what benefit there might be to guarding his answer, so it could only get him in trouble. "Dan Steiner told me to-- when he hired me."
Agent Peters paused, pen suspended over his pad. "What exactly did Mr. Steiner tell you to do?"
"He said he suspected the recording system had been tampered with and he wanted me to find out-- quietly-- and fix it, if it was. I was pretty sure even then that it had something to do with the rape case, which was all over the news." George paused to get his hospital-issue water bottle and take a sip. His head had finally stopped pounding, but he still felt parched.
"Did you find anything?"
"Oh, yeah." George kept the bottle in hand, resting the base against his thigh. He had the feeling he was going to be doing a lot of talking. "There's an extra system onboard that controls the cameras in a couple of the cabins."
Webb flashed a humorless smile. "Let me guess: A-31 and C-5."
"How did you know?" And more importantly, why couldn't anyone have told me? Then I wouldn't have had to trace the wiring the entire length of the ship to figure that out!
Webb shrugged. "Those are the cameras that had intermittent problems during the first cruise. Mrs. Antony was raped--"
"Allegedly raped," Peters reminded him.
Webb waved the correction away. "Whatever. The incident occurred in C-5."
George looked back and forth between the two men, his thoughts turning. "So was I supposed to figure out how to keep those cameras functioning full-time? Why didn't anybody tell me?"
Peters and Webb traded looks. "Ah… we didn't know about you." Webb gave him a bland stare. "Unfortunately, we didn't have enough information to suspect the camera system had been tampered with until after the second cruise started, and Mr. Steiner didn't see fit to share his plans with us."
"Oh." George decided he didn't dare say more on that subject. It sounded like Steiner might be in some trouble.
"Let's talk about what happened to you," Agent Peters suggested.
George's stomach clenched at the thought. He'd come pretty close to dying, the doctor had said. "Somebody drugged me."
"Somebody?" Webb asked.
"Yeah, somebody. I don't even know when or how."
Peters tapped his pen against the back of his hand thoughtfully. "But it was after Tony Ariel told you not to mess with the recording system wiring."
George nodded. "Yes. The next day."
"Is there anyone else who might have wanted to harm you?"
"My boss, Bob Schliegler, maybe, but he's pretty incompetent. The doctor said the drugs they gave me are hard to get."
Peters made another note, but didn't seem to take the suggestion too seriously. That was all right with George. He thought it was Ariel, himself.
"My understanding," Peters said, "from talking to your doctor, is that you had an unusual reaction to the drug combination. Most likely, it was only intended to make you sick."
"That's hardly reassuring, Agent Peters." A steely note crept into his voice. He'd nearly died.
"About that extra system to control the two cameras…" Webb rocked lightly on his feet.
"What about it?" George wanted to know.
"Could you have fixed it so those cameras would be on full-time?"
George frowned. "I hadn't completely defined the system when this happened, so no. But now that I know what I'm looking for, I could probably do it in a day or two. Do you have any idea how Ariel is controlling the system? That would help a lot."
Webb shook his head. "Sorry." He paused. "What if we got you back on the Radiant Heart?"
Peters gave his colleague a dirty look. "The doctors aren't going to release him for at least another twenty-four hours, Webb. And how could you guarantee his safety? If Ariel did this, he knows Mr. Laughton is a threat to him."
Webb voiced a short, frustrated sigh. "I know."
"The AV crew could do it."
Both agents turned sharply to look at George. He shrugged. "Except for Schliegler they're a pretty good bunch of guys. They'd be happy to help if they knew what was going on."
Somehow, Webb managed to look suspicious and thoughtful at the same time. "How many people are we talking about?"
George took another sip of water. "Eight, total, but they work two shifts-- well, three now. Somebody would've had to take my shift. You could have one crew working on Ariel's network while the other is on for their regular shift. It'd be pretty easy to erase any evidence of what they were doing if you had both crews working it, and they'd get it done a lot faster than I could working alone."
"How do we know we could trust them? What if one of them went to Ariel? Harm and Mac's lives could be at stake."
George tried not to feel too insulted. This man was a strange one, but he obviously looked out for his friends. "I don't think any of them would do that. Except Bob, of course. Avoid him at all costs." He paused. "But the technical crew are just regular guys. They'd love to have a chance to do something really important, especially if it'll discredit a lemming like Ariel."
"A lemming?" Peters asked.
"No original thoughts. Just follows the trends."
The big man cracked a smile. "Oh."
Webb chewed on his lip, oblivious to their exchange. "All right," he finally agreed. "I'll run it by Admiral Chegwidden and see what he thinks." He nodded to George.
The three men took their leave after that, joking as they left that they'd never live it down if anyone saw the FBI and CIA playing so well together. George watched them file out of the room with an odd smile.
Ethan Hunt, eat your heart out, indeed.
