A/N: For all readers with a file-sharing program. As you'll notice with our longer stories, the chapter instalments tend to read like TV episodes. All of us here are big fans of using music in TV episodes at appropriate times. In order to provide you with the optimal experience, we're going write in stage directions for music in later chapters (these chapters are well in the future, don't worry, we're just giving you advanced notice.) There will be four song inserts, if you want to see the scene as we intended it to be seen/felt (of course if you don't, this is totally cool as well) you're going to need the following songs. We think they convey the mood appropriately.
Patience by Guns'n'Roses
Bobcaygeon by The Tragically Hip
Let Her Cry by Hootie and the Blowfish
Take it Outside by Barenaked Ladies
Yes, two of the four artists are Canadian; if you're offended, sue us for promoting Canadian content. We thought this was a cool idea. We hope you agree. Thank you all for the support you've given us with your reviews.
When you work for the government, cloak and dagger tends to be the order of the day. Of course, if there's only minimal reason for you to hide behind the big red 'confidential' stamp, you can look like JFK while acting like J. Edgar Hoover. By the time Harmon Rabb arrived at the West Wing of the White House, his staff from the Pentagon was already there with the briefings that he needed to read as they concerned the matter at hand. Sentences that would have seemed like absolute gibberish four months ago now were as natural for him to read as plain, ordinary English.
Harm's Marine escort led him through the corridors of the White House to the familiar hallway that led to the Situation Room. As Harm neared the room, Mike Bradley came walking down a perpendicular hallway. "They called me in off my honeymoon, do you believe that? This is the most clothes I've had on since the reception." Mike joked.
"You know, Mike, there are some things that I just don't need to know." Harm chuckled as he opened the door and came upon the President and the crucial members of his cabinet as well as the Joint Chiefs and the Director of the CIA.
"Mr. Rabb, Mr. Bradley nice of you to join us and……where the hell is Ross?" The President questioned, as he quit pacing at the head of the room.
"He should be here any second, Mr. President." Secretary Anderson replied.
"He should be here now." The President responded.
"He was the last person notified, sir, if I know Nate Ross; he dropped everything and probably ran here." The Marine Corps Commandant supplied. There was a few seconds of silence, that was immediately followed by the door opening and Nate Ross entering in a pair of khakis and a black Led Zeppelin t-shirt. He was out of breath.
"Traffic…..Pennsylvania Avenue……sprinted nine blocks…" Nate gasped out.
"Jesus, Nate, where the hell were you?" Secretary Anderson questioned.
"Georgetown." Nate replied and a cold fear gripped at Harm's heart. Of course Nate was with Mac. He remembered those days vividly. The days when Sarah MacKenzie's presence was like a wonderful drug and you wanted to indulge in it as much and as often as possible, oh yeah those were hard to forget and it was too painful to try.
"Alright, now that our other Washington Life cover model is here, can we please get on with the business at hand, people?" The President lectured.
"Yes, sir. Do we know how this platoon of Marines contracted the symptoms that they're experiencing?" Harm questioned, looking at the Director of Central Intelligence.
"No, they just went out on a patrol in the desert one night and they must have been hit by something airborne because a few days after they came back, they were experiencing these symptoms. Our base hospitals in Manila and Tokyo are working vigorously around the clock with the blood work they have to find out what's going on." The Director of Central Intelligence answered.
"Did none of the three of you see this coming?" The President looked at Harm, Mike and Nate.
"The problem with biological weapons, sir is that they're not as easily tracked as their chemical or nuclear counterparts. Diseases and strains can be developed in rogue states around the world or disappear into the black market for decades before resurfacing and as long as they're stored properly, the bacteria can survive. The other problem is that it doesn't take a noticeable amount of money in order to procure one either. A few thousand dollars can get you a vial of just about any disease on the market and all it takes is one or two vials to mount an attack this size." Mike informed the President.
"It may only be five Marines but damn it! We should have seen this coming! The three of you were put together to prevent this kind of thing from happening!" The President was now engulfed in a fury that could match an AJ Chegwidden tirade. "It's five Marines, so at least it was contained, you three can be thankful for that. Now what's this other thing?"
"Provo advisors working with Al Qaeda? To be honest, sir, it makes little ideological sense. The Provos are Irish, Catholic and in many cases, Marxist, it makes very little sense for them to work with Islamic fundamentalists. On a logistical level, though, it makes perfect sense." Nate started to explain. "The Irish invented modern urban terrorism and perfected the practice of it against well-trained forces in urban areas. If you want to do something right, you enlist the help of the guys who did it right first, sort of like the Corps did when we got Canadian help setting up the Sniper Corps."
"Is there anything that we can do about this, legally?" The President turned his questioning to Harm.
"Well, the Provos would count as citizens of the UK, being from Northern Ireland. Legally, the British would be entitled to know any operations carried out by US Forces against them. If they consented, then legally we would be in the clear to do with them what we're doing with the other Al Qaeda prisoners." Harm supplied.
"But that move wouldn't be particularly popular with those Americans who have sympathies with the IRA or Sinn Fein. I'd just like to find a way of getting the Irish the hell out of there without pissing anyone off around here." The President returned to his pacing.
"I have a solution, sir, but it's going to have to wait until tomorrow night and I'm going to need Captain Rabb's help." Nate stepped forward and Harm turned into a postural imitation of the stones on Easter Island.
"Alright, all's going as well as can be expected considering the circumstances. Mr. Ross, I want to be informed of the outcome of this little plan of yours as soon as something happens. Rabb, you'll have those toxicology reports from Tokyo and Manila on your desk Monday morning. I'd like to ask Mr. Rabb to hang back for a few minutes, the rest of you are dismissed." The President let everyone go with a flippant wave.
After a few minutes, the room was empty and Harm was standing there with the President. "Mr. Rabb, come take a walk with me on the White House lawn." The President motioned for Harm as he walked out of the room.
The two men walked silently through the White House out to the lawn that was now bathed in artificial light as night had fallen on Washington. "You're a good officer, Captain; I had the chance to look over your service record when we came up with this idea. I knew you were the right candidate." The President started talking.
"Thank you, sir." Harm replied as the two men walked over the well-groomed lawn. After a few minutes, one of the President's aides came running over with two cans, he promptly handed them to the President before dashing back up to the house.
"You know what this is, Captain?" The President asked, handing Harm a can.
"The can says 'Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale', sir." Harm replied.
"You are a swift boy." The President chuckled lightly. "I was in the Army, in Korea. One night, I got lost from my platoon a few miles south of the thirty-eighth parallel and I stumbled upon a group of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. They took me in for the night and they gave me a can of this stuff and I haven't been able to drink anything else ever since." The President chortled lightly. "Have a drink with your President?"
"I'd be honoured, sir." Harm replied and the two men cracked open their beer can.
"Captain, I may be the Commander in Chief but so help me God, if you call me 'sir', I'll pop you. My friends call me 'Andy'." The President watched as Harm looked perplexed.
"I'll try." Harm replied with a weak smile.
"Now, as to the reason I called you out here. What seems to be troubling you, Mr. Rabb? You tensed right up every time Nathan Ross spoke tonight. Do you have some kind of problem with him?" The President inquired as he took another sip of his beer and the two men sat on the grass.
"Nate and I just have a difference of opinion over a matter that is currently affecting both of us personally." Harm replied almost rhythmically.
"Mr. Rabb, I'm old not stupid. That was a very cute way of telling me that you and Mr. Ross are bickering over a woman. Now, I was led to believe that you might have already had a girlfriend and Nathan Ross hardly seems the kind of man to steal a woman or even try to." The President's wisdom was showing its reaches.
"It's a little more complicated then that." Harm answered as he took a long drink from the can.
"Isn't it always? Listen, my boy, friends like Nathan Ross are hard to come by in this world. In a few years, the Democrats are grooming him so that he'll take a run at my job. Just like you're being groomed to sit in AJ Chegwidden's chair, it would be wise for both of you to resolve your issues." The President advised as he crushed the empty beer can in his hand.
"Are you ordering us to get along, sir?" Harm inquired, looking over at the wise older man.
"Consider it advice from an old man who let life teach him lessons." The President chortled as he raised himself up off the ground. "Now, if I may inquire, would this woman be the one in the picture with Mr. Ross that appeared in this week's Washington Life magazine?"
"Yes, sir. Did you read the magazine, sir?" Harm asked with a furrowed brow.
"My wife writes the 'Sugar and Spice' cooking column. She decided that I needed to see the men that my wife would like to set up with our youngest daughter when she gets done her semester at Columbia in a few weeks." The President sounded more than slightly annoyed. "The picture was rather racy, I'll grant, there was no mistaking the role-playing that was going on there."
"If you don't mind, sir. I'd rather not think about it." Harm replied, giving his head a shake.
"Of course, that was rather careless of me, wasn't it? My apologies. I don't know what to tell you, my boy. Sometimes romance just happens and sometimes it doesn't. I remember when I met my wife, I was a young aide on Eisenhower's staff and she was a junior photographer for the New York Times. I used to go to press conferences just to get the chance to talk to her. It was months before I asked her out on a date. She turned me down the first seventeen times." The two men shared a good laugh at this. "The last time I asked her, I pulled out all the stops; did every romantic cliché in the book and you know what she told me?"
"What?" Harm was eager to here the end of the story.
"I just wanted you to try harder the first seventeen times." The President concluded. "My point is, that if you're sure it's worth it, and I mean really sure, don't half-ass it. Go all the way, leave no doubt. Whittier said 'of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: it might have been.' Keep that in mind, my boy." The President gave Harm a pat on the back before strolling back up the knoll toward the White House.
"Thank you, sir!" Harm called before heading back out on to Pennsylvania Avenue to hail a taxi.
0119 ZULU
MAC'S APARTMENT
GEORGETOWN, DC
Mac and Chloe had gone back to the apartment after Nate left them at Pizza Hut. Actually, they rented a few movies, and then they went back to the apartment. "Does he get called away like that a lot?" Chloe asked as they got ready to watch the second movie of the night.
"His job's very important to him. For the longest time, I think it was the only thing he had in his life." Mac brought a large bowl of popcorn into the living room.
"Now he has you, right?" Chloe goaded with a delightful smile.
"Chloe, it's hard to explain." Mac admonished as she sat on the couch.
"You used to say the same thing about Harm." Chloe pointed out. "Come on, Mac, talk to me like a girlfriend, you know, dish."
"Dish? Young lady, you're too young for me to 'dish' with you." Mac responded.
"Mac, I'm almost fourteen and I've had sex-ed, there's nothing you could possibly tell me that would shock me more then that picture today already did." Chloe rebutted.
"Chloe, it's not like you think. That was just a dance." Mac protested but images of that evening, sensations of how womanly she felt in his arms tore at the very core of her soul.
"You never looked that way when Mic held you. Face it Mac, that picture had romance novel cover or James Bond movie poster written all over it. He's a nice guy too; think he'd teach me how to shoot?" Chloe perked up on the couch. Mac hesitated for a second when Chloe brought up the shooting thing.
"I don't think your dad would be too happy to hear that you were learning how to shoot long range at only thirteen. Besides, he's already got a student, I think." It was a sly answer. She was technically his student. The Saturdays that they spent out at Quantico were interesting experiences that wreaked hell with her self control.
Nate in cammies, complete silence, him so near that she could feel him breathe and him coaching her to 'keep her breathing steady', 'listen to her heart' and 'fire between the heartbeats.' He always made it look so easy. Damn that bilge-switch of his. He would have his hands firmly on her hips to show her how to position herself for a shot but yet he was able to act as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
"You're thinking about him again." Chloe taunted.
"I am not!" Mac replied sounding offended.
"Yes you were, your eyes were doing that thing were they go all dark and stuff. You know, just like the actresses in the movies do before they tear the hero's shirt off." Chloe giggled and Mac was taken aback.
"Chloe Madison! Since when do you talk like that?" Mac questioned incredulously.
"Come on, Mac. Even the guys we played paintball with picked up on these little vibes between you two. I mean they thought you two were married for gosh sakes." Chloe added with raised eyebrows. "So, tell me the truth. Are you falling for him?"
"No!" Mac protested vehemently but that little nagging voice in her conscience crept into her mind. "I don't know, I don't think so." She practically whispered.
"So, you might be falling for him?" Chloe questioned timidly.
"I don't know, Chloe. I feel so horrible for it, I really do. For the longest time, when he'd make me laugh, I felt like I was cheating on Harm. But I know I've already fallen for Nate's sense of humour. I don't know if I'm falling for him or just falling for parts of him. Oh God, does that make me a bad person?" Mac asked, making a futile effort to blink away tears.
"No, I don't think so. I think you just want your fairy-tale ending. Every little girl does. You thought you had it once and you kissed your prince three times, hoping that he'd take you off to his castle. It just never happened. Now, maybe you've got another shot." Chloe offered and Mac sniffled lightly.
"You know, when I was a little girl. I never thought about it. I couldn't it was just too painful to think of Princes being out there because it meant that I didn't have to go through what I did in my life. I never thought I'd meet anybody like Harm and when I did, I went for it and it just never panned out but he helped show me that even the people who had it good growing up didn't always have it easy. Nate's showing me that too, now."
"They're both good guys, I just don't want to see you get hurt any more, Mac. And I worry that if you keep opening yourself up to Harm, that's going to keep happening." Chloe admitted as she cuddled against Mac's shoulder. "Be fair to them, Mac. I mean, it kind of sucked what happened with Mic but he was really manipulative so it's hard for me to feel bad for the guy. Neither Harm nor Nate are like that. Just be fair."
"I promise I will, Chloe." Mac lightly kissed Chloe's hair. In Mac's mind, it was hard to believe. The little girl who used to hide upstairs when her father came home drunk now had a life that had come full circle. On the one hand there was a relationship that she had built up in her mind for years. One where she had imagined children. It was also one where she had visions of Harm going down in a Tomcat, something which scared the life out of her.
On the other hand there was Prince number two. Mr. distinguished career. Mac didn't like to admit it but she had memorized pieces of Nate's profile from the magazine. What they were saying about his intelligence, about his skills, about his prospects. The magazine writers had even hinted at a future for the two of them. Children that would be seventh generation Ross Marines. Nate being the Secretary of State, which meant a well-paying, non-life threatening job. A secure and stable life. Something that she had almost made the mistake of settling for once before. Would she really be settling this time?
What made her think Nate even wanted her anyway? It wasn't like there was a string of events where he openly pursued her. Hell, she practically had to drag him out to meet his own parents, he begged her to go back home. The only thing that could even moderately be described as a romantic gesture were the few times a week that he brought her lunch at work……and that dance. In the end, that's what this all came down to. A four minute taste of passion, of romance and of a raw primal heat, the sampling of which gave her an insatiable hunger for more. To feel empowered in her sexuality but still feel like an object of lust, it all came together in an addicting contrast.
"You were thinking about him again." Chloe broke Mac's reverie. Before Mac could retort, a saving knock came at the door. Mac broke away to go answer the door. She was going to check the peephole but when the next knock came in the form of 'shave and a haircut' she knew who it was and she leaned back against the door and closed her eyes. "Let him in, you look fine." Chloe joked openly and Mac opened her eyes.
"Probably more then fine, but you know how Mac is!" Nate shouted through the door and Mac bit her lip. Even after the tension this afternoon, he could still joke. Why not? He told her that sometimes he just needed to find the humour in everything in order to make life work. She turned and opened the door. "About time, I was thinking of laying down a sleeping bag outside the door and camping out until morning. I didn't think your neighbours would appreciate that too much."
"Can he stay, Mac? We were going to have a slumber party tonight anyway. I bet he makes awesome s'mores!" Chloe piped up.
"It's up to him." Mac choked out. The thought of Nate in pyjamas, of any sort was not something she was sure she was ready for.
"I need to know what movie you guys are watching first." Nate replied, trying to maintain a stoic expression.
"Grease!" Chloe informed him.
"I'll stay, just let me go and get my sea-bag from the car." Nate turned back out of the doorway. The door closed behind him and Mac turned to face Chloe.
"Chloe, you're not supposed to use things I tell you against me." Mac lectured.
"Come on, Mac, that's my MO. Remember the first time I came to JAG?" Chloe questioned with an innocent look.
"All too well. But you just had to invite temptation to stay the night?" Mac glared.
"Admit it; you wanted it, you were just too afraid to ask." Chloe taunted before scampering off to the living room.
About two hours later, and few random times where everyone in the room broke out into song during the movie, the three of them were just sitting on the couch. "I'm willing to bet that you were just like Danny in high school." Mac taunted, turning her head to look Nate in the eye.
"Oh, and why's that?" He questioned with an obvious curiosity.
"Do you want me to go get the Washington Life profile? You've probably been trouble for women since you were fifteen." Mac playfully pushed his shoulder.
"Yeah, well I'm willing to bet you were all Sandy on the inside and all Rizzo on the outside." Nate joked right back. "You know, the perfect tease." Mac was shocked, that almost sounded vaguely like a come on. Chloe yawned openly. "Come on, you, time for bed." Nate motioned turned to face Chloe.
"Awww, Nate, do I have to?" Chloe whined.
"When you yawned loud enough to wake the dead, that's normally a sign." Nate got up and slung Chloe over his shoulder. "The time has come, the walrus said. To talk of many things."
"Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax; of cabbages and Kings." Chloe finished as Nate dropped her in the doorway of Mac's guest room. "Night, Nate."
"Night, Chlo." Nate mussed her hair before turning back to the living room. The combat vet was sweating. After what happened at Pizza Hut earlier today, he wasn't sure what was going to happen the first time that he and Mac had to be alone after that. He clenched his fists tightly to force down the nervousness in the pit of his stomach before walking out into the room. "Long day." He yawned a little.
"Of course you can't talk about it." Mac commented as if in passing.
"Trust me, I would if I could, it really sucks keeping secrets from you." Nate admitted as he threw himself down on the couch next to her. For a few minutes they just sat there in silence, both of them stealing glances at the other.
"Are you thinking about it too?" Mac asked after a few minutes.
"Kind of hard not to." Nate admitted, reaching for the remote.
"Are we going to talk about it?" Mac asked, looking up into Nate's eyes.
"Do you want to?" He asked as he felt her cuddle into his chest. Mac paused for a moment. Was he really leaving all this up to her?
"I'm not sure." She admitted, suddenly overcome by a hated feeling of weakness. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"What I want, Sarah, is for you to be true to yourself. No matter what that decision is." Nate admitted with a reverent tone. Mac reached up and pulled his arm protectively around her shoulders.
"Thank you." She whispered into his chest as the two of them sat there watching the evening news.
2314 ZULU
DOYLE'S THIRD STREET PUB
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Nate and Harm entered the pub and immediately they stood out. Red hair, or white hair that used to be red and green eyes seemed to be the order o'the day in this place. For two, tall dark-haired men, dressed in a manner not befitting the working class aura of the place, they were certainly conspicuous.
"Patrick O'Malley here?" Harm asked the bartender who pointed him over to an elderly gent sitting in the corner of the bar, having a stout with a few guys and listening intently to a fiddle player. The two of them walked over toward where O'Malley was sitting when they were stopped by two big behemoths with thick Tipperary accents.
"And just where do you two think you're going?" The one asked.
"To talk with O'Malley. Do you have a problem with that, boyo?" Nate responded, inflating his chest so he appeared more intimidating. The one man, went to swing at Nate who caught his arm and in a flash wrenched it up behind his back, causing the big Irishman to fall to the floor. The second one was about to step in when Harm got between him and Nate.
"What's all this commotion hereabouts?" O'Malley came walking over. He noticed that Nate had one of his thugs on his knees with a shoulder that was millimetres away from dislocation. "Come on, boys, play nicely now."
"Call off your goons, first." Harm responded, setting his resolve firm. O'Malley tapped both his goons on the shoulder.
"Alright boys, toddle off now." He ordered. The two of them buggered off to the other side of the bar and O'Malley looked from Harm to Nate. "Now what can I be doing for you boys?"
"Get your men out of Afghanistan, Paddy." Harm leapt in. At his words, all action in the pub went silent.
"I think we best be stepping outside now, wouldn't want anyone to misunderstand something and these walls do have ears you know." O'Malley walked with Harm and Nate out of the pub. Once they had stepped out into an alley behind the bar, O'Malley turned to face them. "Now just where do you two gobshites get off telling me what to do?"
"Nathan Ross Assistant Secretary of State, this is Captain Harmon Rabb, United States Navy." Nate made the introductions. "You're in our country now Paddy, it doesn't mean a damn thing around here whether you lead Sinn Fein or not."
"What power do you think you really have Mr. Ross, Mr. Rabb? Or are you forgetting that half of your country is sympathetic to my cause." O'Malley fired back with snarling tone.
"That's where you're wrong Mr. O'Malley, the American people have a very intense hatred to terrorism of any kind." Harm retorted, his ire building quickly.
"And the Irish of Boston and New York, are they so opposed to my brand of terrorism? Do you think that their sympathies toward Ireland can be turned so quickly?" O'Malley charged head on.
"What you seem to be forgetting, is that the Irish of New York had to watch planes dive into the World Trade Center!" Harm's voice rose to a dangerous and certainly intimidating level.
"It weren't my boys flying them." O'Malley came back.
"That doesn't matter! Because the second that I get my intelligence brief to the American people and tell them what you and your boys are up to in Afghanistan, watch the fundraising efforts of Sinn Fein in America plummet. I'll drown your political cause in the Potomac before you can breathe." Nate gritted his teeth and got right in O'Malley's face.
"And what makes you think that my friends in America would let you get away with that Mr. Ross?" O'Malley replied smugly.
"Are you threatening me, Mr. O'Malley? Because I think it's only fair to remind you that I'm among the best damn sharpshooters in the United States. So, if your boys decide to take their shot they better be sure that they don't miss because if they do. I'm coming after them for revenge and then, I'm coming after you for fun. That's not a threat, that's a Marine's word." Nate jabbed his index finger into O'Malley's sternum.
"It appears we have to agree to disagree, lads. You're welcomed to come in and join me and the boys for a stout. But I'd suggest you be on your way." O'Malley turned back into the bar.
"You sure it was wise to threaten him like that?" Harm asked as they walked back out to the car. "We didn't exactly accomplish what we set out to do either, those Provos are still on the ground in Afghanistan."
"I'm quite honestly sick of dealing with scum like him. I should have just shot him, I shouldn't have threatened." Nate remarked as the car drove down the street back toward Washington.
"You just shoot somebody and I'm not defending you at your court-martial." Harm tried to lighten the mood. He realized after a few seconds that Nate wasn't laughing. "What are we going to do about this, Nate? You're a diplomat, there has to be something in that playbook of yours."
"Maybe somewhere in the index." Nate stated as they pulled on to the interstate.