Chapter 13 (1 May 2005)
SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC.
Sam had already called a cab for Reagan National Sunday morning by the time Harm called from London.
"It's about time, Captain Rabb," he said, the cell phone tucked against his cheek as he zipped the last of Mac's bags.
"We had to circle Heathrow for over two hours due to rain, Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie."
Sam supposed if he really were a woman, Harm's tone would have sent shivers down her spine. His spine. Whatever. He could get something back, though. "I'm sorry. That person exists only in the past, Captain. You will address me by my proper rank and title, thank you, and you'll salute me when appropriate."
Harm laughed. "I knew it was too good to last. They backdated the promotion board, didn't they?"
"Yes."
"God, I miss you, Colonel." He stressed the title with a smile in his tone Sam recognized from yesterday.
"I know. I miss you, too. It was lonely in this bed last night." Sam remembered Donna saying that to him once while he was on a funding trip to DC. It had made his heart ache for her.
"I guess I was lucky to be sleeping in an uncomfortable seat on a plane, then."
"Yeah. Do you want a call from the airport or one from your mom's house?"
"Mom's house is fine. She'll want to talk to me anyway. Besides, I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight. My chief of staff met me here at baggage claim with a stack of cases my predecessor wants me to be ready to discuss first thing in the morning."
Sam smiled into the phone, even though he knew Harm couldn't see it. "I'd rather have your reading than mine. Cresswell is sending a messenger to meet me at the ticket counter with copies of all the active case files in the Southwest and Sierra Judicial circuits." He didn't say he'd be speed reading the UCMJ and relevant sections of the US Code, too. "Listen, my cab should be here any minute. I love you, Harm."
"I love you, Sarah. I'll talk to you later."
Something in the way he said "Sarah" sent another shot of warmth up his spine. He decided that Mac's body was just programmed to respond that way to that word from that man.
"Later, Harm."
The rest of the day passed in a blur of cabs, luggage, planes, and page upon page of boring legal documents as he traversed the United States. He stumbled off the plan with numb legs and made his way to baggage claim, where Frank Burnett and Trish Rabb Burnett met him with open arms and a key to the guest house on their property.
"How many bags do you have, Mac?" Frank pointed to the carousel.
"Two. I bet they'll be the only Marine Corps green bags with rainbow luggage straps." That had struck Sam as delightfully funny when he saw the suitcases sitting in the trunk of the Corvette Friday night.
A few minutes later, Frank flashed a smile as he set two bags down beside Trish. "You win, Mac. You only do that when you travel in civvies, though, right?"
"Most of the time, I travel with just carry-on bags if I can manage. I am so grateful to you both for all of this." Sam spoke for Mac and for himself.
"Oh, honey, it's the very least we can do," Trish said, draping her arm around his shoulders, "and you know we would do it whether Harm finally got his act together or not."
Sam smiled at Mac's future mother-in-law. "Even if I had turned him down?"
Frank answered that one as he led them out the double doors. "Especially then. We'd be able to plead his case."
The Burnetts doted on their future daughter-in-law like Sam wished his own parents had been capable of doting on Donna. As both a disinterested observer and an intimate participant in the bonding process, Sam could see that the main difference came down to how Trish and his mother dealt with losses suffered just a little more than 3 months apart in late 1969 and early 1970. And, perhaps, he thought on Sunday evening as he spoke to Harm's grandmother, Sarah Rabb, by phone, in the difference between losing a husband and losing a child.
Sarah, who had lost each in combat, said as much when she admitted to being glad that Harm was finally surrendering his flight status permanently. "Sarah, sweetheart, I don't want you to ever lose your husband for any reason. But if you do, know that we all would want you to find happiness again, like Trish has."
"What about you, Sarah?" How weird would Mac feel addressing and being addressed by someone with the same first name?
The elder Sarah laughed, a low, rich sound that reminded Sam of Harm's gentle chuckles. "Oh, honey, I've had my chances over the years, but I'd have had to give up too much. All my gentleman suitors required me to give up the farm to marry them, and it just wasn't worth it. Not that I didn't do my unfair portion of stringing a few of them along for the other . . . benefits." A sudden, unwelcome image of octogenarians having sex flitted through Sam's mind at Sarah's stress on the word "benefits" and he swallowed to settle the burst of nausea in his gut. He was pretty sure the nausea was all in his head, too, and not really in the stomach of Mac's body – a disturbing sensation that thankfully happened very rarely.
"I'll bet you've never told Harm any of this," he said when he could talk.
"Oh, heavens no, girl. Can you just imagine the scandal if Harm ever realized that his beloved grandmother enjoyed sex as much as he does?"
Sam laughed, knowing that Harm's reaction would be ten times or more as bad as his a moment ago. "Yes."
"But as much as you can move on from losing a husband, you never really get over it. Losing a child is even worse, no matter what the age." She sighed on her farm in Pennsylvania and Sam heard something more than the loss of Harm, Sr., in her tone. "I don't know if Harm even knows that his grandfather and I had another child before his father was born. We buried our daughter before she even drew a breath."
Sam's heart twisted, even though the death happened over 60 years ago. "I'm so sorry."
"Thank you, dear. Pamela's death still hurts as much as Harm, Sr.'s death, just in different ways. The wounds never really heal, they just scab over, and sometimes it's years between new bleeding and sometimes it's days. I bring this up because Harm told me a little bit about your endometriosis, Sarah. I hope you know that not one of us – not Harm, not Trish, not me – is at all worried about the bloodline. If you and Harm decide that it's safer for your health or easier on your relationship to adopt when the time comes, we'll be right here for you just like we will be here if the 4 percent chance works out."
Hoping that Mac heard that somehow, Sam swallowed hard and said the only thing that came to mind. "Thank you, Sarah. That means a lot."
The woman on the other end chuckled. "It's meant to. And please, dear, call me Gram. It's very strange to be calling each other by the same name, don't you think?"
"Yes, Gram, I do." Sam hoped the older woman lived long enough to dote on several great grandchildren, be they Harm's, Sergei's, or both.
In the guesthouse that night, Mac instructed Sam on the proper way to press and dress Marine Class A uniforms as they talked about the very strong lead she had pulled for him to follow in the next few days.
"It didn't come out until last week – I mean, literally, 9 February 2015 – but nearly 50 kilos of VX nerve agent went missing from the Deseret Chemical Depot in May 2005. Or will go missing, whatever. That's just before the VX destruction phase ends on 2 June, by the way, and the initial reports will indicate that the missing containers were actually listed on the original manifest twice."
"Deseret is an Army facility, Mac. What jurisdiction would you have?"
Mac was apparently pacing the confines of the control room, as Al's holographic head and cigar kept sweeping from one side of the room to the other with a wolfish grin plastered across his face. Neither the broken fingers nor the sprained ankle had taught Al the lesson Mac had been trying to instill, obviously – it seemed to Sam that the fight had only made Al's lust worse. "The missing containers are Naval ordinance under the nominal control of the Bureau of Naval Weaponry until certified as destroyed, even if the Army has physical custody of them."
Sam sighed and sat down on the bed with Mac's plethora of ribbons and her uniform jacket in hand. "Well, that certainly sounds like a great lead and there's definitely jurisdiction, but how do I follow it legitimately?"
Mac sighed in response. "Legitimacy isn't an issue. The letter I will write declining to sign off on the investigation and listing my concerns is what got leaked first last week. The problem is breaking through the levels of classification fast enough to help me – uh, you – back then."
"Can't you talk to the JAG directly? Wait, or have Al do it? We're talking about a major world changing event here, Mac."
Al spoke, startling Sam, who had thought the old admiral had been more intent on ogling Mac than paying attention to the conversation. "That might be a good thought in other circumstances, Sam. Certainly, the JAG has clearance enough to know about the existence of Quantum Leap. However . . ."
"What?"
After a moment of silence, Mac finished Al's thought. "Sam, I've been the JAG since 2010."