2
Harm awoke the next morning to the accompaniment of an indefinable sense of well being. A feeling he hadn't really enjoyed since he'd been arrested for the attempted murder of Loren Singer. Thank God the woman had eventually emerged from her coma and cleared him of the charges. It was so sad though that she'd lost her baby. Always difficult to work with, and so closed off and driven, she had become worse, more acerbic, quieter, more sullen, morose even, and even more ambitious, resolute and sharp in turning away help and sympathy. She had requested a return to sea duty as soon as she had been passed by the Medical Review Board, although what the hell the admiral had been thinking when he cut her orders for the Coral Sea he had no idea.
Mind you, he acknowledged to himself, as he allowed the hot sting from the shower head to complete his awakening, he had no idea what the hell the admiral had been thinking when he had allowed Webb to 'borrow' Mac for that operation in the Chaco Boreal, or why Chegwidden had cut her loose, and abandoned her to torture and probably rape and death. The murder of the two British missionaries had shown that Sadiq had no qualms about the cold-blooded killing of women and defenceless prisoners. OK, he had resigned his commission to go after Mac, and he had no regrets, well he'd had none at the time, and only a few now, and he had done so in the knowledge that the resignation might be accepted. He hadn't expected though, the public humiliation of being addressed the way he had been, and then to be told to go and drive a cab or wrestle alligators. That had hurt. But what had hurt the most was that Mac, apart from that one pathetic protest, had said nothing in his defence and had gone back to work for the man who had abandoned her to her fate. He shook his head as he towelled himself dry. The hell with it, he had woken feeling great. It was a beautiful morning, he had no duties compelling him to be anywhere at any given time, and he wasn't about to talk himself back into a fit of gloominess! He squinted out of the window as he pulled his T-shirt over his head and decided that once he'd made a couple of phone calls he'd head down to Charlottesville and spend the day doing some badly needed maintenance on his Stearman.
His first call was to Mac, and he waited for her to pick up her cell phone.
"MacKenzie."
"Rabb here. Just to let you know that I'm going to be out of town for a day or two and I don't have time to go through those Imes files you brought over. Sorry."
"But... but Harm... I need, I really need those case reviews." Mac sounded stunned.
"Yeah, I s'pose you do. But I don't...It's not my job anymore is it?" The indifference in his voice felt like a punch to her solar plexus and she thought she could hear just the slightest trace of bitterness.
"But Harm, you promised... and you never break a promise..." He could hear the plea, but stiffened himself to resist it.
"No, Commander Rabb never broke a promise, Colonel. But I'm not a Commander anymore, either, am I? Look Mac, I don't have time to review those cases, and I don't have time to argue about it. Now do you want me to drop them by Falls Church, or I shall I just leave them in the box outside my apartment door?"
"Uh, can you drop them by at JAG please?" Now he could hear the sound of defeat in her voice, and a small, unworthy part of him rejoiced.
"Yeah, it's a bit out of my way, but I can do that."
"Thanks!" Her tone was now bitterly sarcastic.
Harm ended the call and picked up the local newspaper to browse the real estate ads while he brewed a pot of coffee and prepared a bowl of oatmeal. Breakfast over, he reached for his 'phone again, "Hi, Graves Realtors? Good morning, this is Harmon Rabb on 821 555 0941, I'm looking for a three or four bed property near Langley. Could you send me your listings of anything you might have that matches that description? Great, the address is..."
Just one more call to make, "Hi Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport? Yeah, this is Harmon Rabb, I have a Stearman N6 hangared with you. It's a great day, so I'm coming up to do some maintenance on her. Could you have somebody get her out on to the apron for me, please? Thank you. I'll be about two hours."
Another look at the sky convinced him to wheel the Indian out of the garage, and after securing the file box in one of the panniers and slinging his leg over the saddle he settled himself and kicked the engine into life. As he wove his way through the traffic on his accustomed route towards Falls Church, he mused about how much time he could have saved over the years if he'd taken the motor-cycle to work instead of the 'vette or the Lexus.
He didn't bother taking the box up to the Ops level; that would have meant unnecessary delay while he signed in and was issued with a visitor's badge. Instead, he opened it for inspection by the Marine Corporal on duty at the reception desk and asked her to call Colonel MacKenzie. He breathed a sigh of relief; he had almost gotten away with it when a familiar voice hailed him, "Commander, sir?"
Wearily he turned, "Hello, Gunny, good to see you back on your feet. But you don't call me 'Commander' or 'sir', any more. I'm not in your navy now." His voice, he was proud to note had stayed firm and he sounded like he was in control, when what he really wanted to do was scream to the heavens at the unfairness of it all.
Gunnery Sergeant Galindez however was not fooled, he had seen the grimace that had crossed Harm's face, and was silently cursing himself for having opened his mouth too far and plunged his whole foot in it. Trying to make amends, he stepped forward and held out his hand, "Maybe not, Mr Rabb, but all the same it is good to see you. Are you visiting? Can I walk you up?"
"No, no thank you Gunny, I've just dropped off a delivery for the Colonel, and I have an urgent appointment out at Charlottesville." He hesitated, "It is good to see you again, Gunny. We should get together for a beer at some stage!" He clapped the other man on the shoulder, and with a quick grin slipped out through the door back into the sunlight, and in a few moments the throaty roar of the Indian's engine could be heard as he peeled out of the parking lot.
Victor Galindez rasped the ball of his thumb over his chin and thought, not in our navy? Like hell, Commander, you are navy! What the hell had the admiral been thinking? His hand went to his breast pocket where this morning he had stowed his signed request for transfer; he would take it upstairs and hand it in directly. He could no longer stomach the thought of working for a man who would leave members of his team behind to face torture and death. He'd had it with these legal-weenies and their shadowy involvement with their half-assed spook games. He was going back to a battalion and the hell with them all!
Lieutenant Colonel Sarah McKenzie put down her phone and stared white-faced across her desk at Lieutenant Roberts.
"Ma'am? Are you alright ma'am?" he asked anxiously struggling to his feet, still not completely comfortable with his prosthetic.
"Oh, God, Bud. What have we done?"
"Ma'am?"
"That... that was the CP downstairs, Comm... Mr Rabb has just delivered a box of the Imes' case files."
"Wow! That was quick work on the Commander's part, ma'am!" Bud was now out of his depth and floundering, but desperately trying to keep a positive outlook. Surely if the Commander had already reviewed those cases then a little bit of the pressure was off.
"No, Bud, you don't understand. He refused to do them. He refused to help us, me..."
Bud could only stare at her in total confusion, "Ma'am?" he repeated helplessly.
"He said he was too busy to do something that wasn't his job any more and that he wasn't going to argue about it..." She stared across her desk at Bud, her eyes full of immeasurable loss.
Bud stared back at her; this was not like the Commander. Sure, he like everybody else at JAG had expected the Admiral to take him back, but to see the Commander walk out of the bull-pen for the last time, without even a backward glance, well that had been shocking enough, but now to hear that he didn't have time to help his oldest and best friend...
But then again, just how much of a friend recently had the Colonel been to the Commander? Nobody at JAG knew what had really happened down there in Paraguay... but there had been scuttlebutt. Of course, everyone knew that the Commander had told the Admiral to stick his regulations where the sun don't shine and had thrown his wings down the Admiral's desk and stormed off down to the Chaco Boreal to rescue the Colonel, and Mr Webb, and Gunny, and then when they'd got back the Admiral kicked the Commander out, so then he'd gone flying for the CIA, but nobody was speaking about that. Not even the Colonel. And that was weird. If somebody had travelled half the world to save him and lost their job over it, he would have gone in to bat for them!
Rabb was now on the open road, relishing the roar of the engine between his legs, the wind of his passage cooling the sun on his face. The Indian wasn't the most nimble of machines, but the I-95 wasn't a particularly demanding route, and neither were the succession of roads from Fredericksburg through to Charlottesville, and the old, heavy motor-cycle was still agile enough to get past the couple of red-light tailbacks he encountered, so it was just about the two hours after he'd left home that he pulled up outside Pop Walchowski's hangar, only to see it adorned with a new sign proclaiming that it was now the home of Grace Aviation and Crop Dusting.
As he removed his aviator's shades and crash helmet a girl in her mid teens, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, her riot of copper curls caught back in a messy pony tail walked to meet him, and gave him a casual but cheery greeting, "Hey."
Dismounting from the saddle he nodded amiably, "Hey yourself; Pop Walchowski still around?"
She answered his question with one of her own, "How long since you been here?"
He shrugged and admitted, "It's been a while; too long, by the looks of things."
"Pop Walchowski sold out; this is Grace Aviation's hangar now. I'm Mathilda Grace," she continued, offering her hand, "friends call me Mattie..."
He took her hand, "Hi."
"We got your message, and pulled her out," she said indicating his airplane, "she's a beauty. Are you going to take her up?"
He shook his head, "No, I'm going to change the plugs."
"Wanna hand?" Her offer surprised him, and he turned to look at her more closely, and although he smiled, his expression held more than just a hint of condescension.
"You know how to change plugs?"
"My dad taught me how to change out plugs when I was six," she replied confidently.
"Now, why would he do that?"
"I wouldn't take no for an answer," she grinned mischievously, and then her face sobered and she added, "and besides, he needed the help." She paused, squinting up at him as he was silhouetted against the dazzling sky, "What do they call you?"
"Well, my friends call me Harm."
She smiled, a frank openly amused smile, "Well Harm," and she added just the slightest emphasis on his name, "we got one thing in common - we both got goofy names!"
What could have been insulting was mitigated by her inclusion of her own name, her open smile and her ingenous air, and Harm felt himself compelled to share in her amusement.
Three-quarters of an hour later having watched her closely as she helped with the plug change, Harm was satisfied that Mattie did know her way around an airplane engine, but was still faintly amused by her assumption of maturity and by her general air of being older than her years, "How old are you, anyway?" he asked her, no longer able to rein in his curiosity.
"Old enough to know not to answer that question," she replied cynically, and indicating the tool box, demanded "three-quarter open-end." Taking the tool from him, she turned her attention back to the engine before asking him, "Want a job crop-dusting?"
His grin was a half-snort of amusement as he replied, "Why? Do I look that desperate to you?"
She finished what she was doing and stepped back from the airplane, wiping her hands clean on a wad of cotton waste. "No, I figure you know how to fly a Stearman, and we're a pilot short. One of our regular guys had a wire-strike two days ago."
Harm's forehead creased in a frown of sympathy for a fellow-pilot's misfortune, "He OK?"
"Well... let's just say it didn't do him any good." But her down cast eyes suggested that she was also down-playing the seriousness of the other pilot's condition.
"Uh-huh. And what's it pay?"
"Three hundred a day." Her eyes fixed on him contained a strange mixture of hope and earnestness.
"Well, I'm gonna need to talk to your dad, then I guess."
"He's... uh... dusting the back forty over on the Pearson ranch, but you can talk to me. I handle all the hiring and the paperwork since my Mom..." Her face became solemn and she stopped what she was saying.
Harm allowed her a few seconds to see if she was going to continue, but her face had become closed, and she stayed silent.
"What happened?" he asked gently but looking at her keenly from under concerned brows.
"Precisely none of your business," she replied sharply with a frown that seemed to reflect distress and spun on her heel to face away from him before she walked over to a mobile tool-chest. "Besides, I don't know you well enough for you to see me cry."
Harm gave her few seconds more to compose herself and watched as she started to clean the oil and grease off the tools she had been using. "I may know exactly how you feel," he told her as he took a couple of steps in her direction.
"You lose someone, too?" Mattie asked in a subdued voice, keeping her eyes averted from him.
"Uh, yeah... I... uh, lost my Dad, when I was five. He was a pilot too."
"Did you ever get over it?"
His blunt, "No", surprised her and Mattie turned her head to look straight at him for the first time since she had turned away from him, before she again looked down at the wrench in her hand.
"That's comforting," she said bitterly and with heavy irony.
Harm continued to watch her closely, "I figured you could handle the truth," he told her after a few more moments of silence.
"Sometimes." She agreed, but then continued in a more subdued voice, "Sometimes, I have a hard time sleeping at night."
It almost sounded as if he was forcing a confession out of her, but his voice was gentle when he asked, "Dreaming about her?"
She looked up at him standing at her side and managed a choked, "Yeah. And then when I wake up in the morning," her voice was now thick with unshed tears, "she dies all over again." She finished her sentence with a defiant sniff, but blotted her eye with the cuff of her sweat shirt sleeve, and gulped, "Now see what you've made me do!"
Harm took a step towards her, and reached out a hand, wanting to let her be a little girl grieving for her mother, but she stopped him with a raised palm and snapped, "No don't! It just makes it worse!"
He raised his own hands in a gesture of surrender and took a half-pace backwards, "I'm sorry," he said, "I guess I'm not much of a hand with kids." Mattie made no reply, but the two of them stood looking at each other for long moments.
To help Mattie regain some measure of composure after her revelations, Harm turned to leave, and Mattie turned with him, walking him out. "Does Grace Aviation have a health plan?" he asked her, not expecting anything other than the snort of amusement she gave in reply, "Most guys don't last long enough to qualify. So You can start tomorrow, show up by eleven, and I'll give you the word. You'll be here, right?"
"Yeah, I'll be here."
"Bring your lunch," Mattie grinned at him and disappeared back into the darkness of the hangar, leaving him to stare after her with a puzzled frown and an amused smile on his face.
Just under two hours later he knocked gently on the doorjamb of Esther Gale's room in the Kresge Long Term Healthcare Facility in Pimmit Hills. He had stopped briefly a half an hour ago to call Catherine's cell 'phone and she had assured him she was leaving the office, but apart from Mrs Gale sat propped up with pillows the room was empty. Until Esther Gale filled it with a beaming smile which she directed at him, as she put down her magazine and exclaimed with what seemed to be real pleasure, "Commander!"
Harm stayed by the door, despite her apparent welcome, not entirely sure of his reception and wishing that Catherine had got here before him, or at least at the same time. He made a vague gesture with one hand and said "Hi, I thought I'd just stop by and see how you were doing."
"Well, still above ground," she quipped, and then continued, "I haven't seen you for five months, and then I see you on television!"
"Yeah, well who didn't?" he replied ruefully.
"So, now you're working for the Company?"
"Uh... well... not any more. I got canned."
"Oh, that's unfortunate. And now?"
"Well, now," he answered, reaching out to draw a chair nearer to the bed, "I'm working for a fourteen-year-old, dusting crops."
"You do lead a varied life," she told him, and he got the feeling that she was teasing him slightly but not unkindly.
"Well, if by that you mean I can't hold down a job..."
She shook her head gently, a smile still on her face, "What I mean is that it's too bad you're not in love with my daughter." She gave him an opportunity to respond, but when he kept silent, she shook her head again, but this time in a mock scold and with her eyes full of mischief, asked him, "You didn't really marry her did you?"
Her good humour was infectious, and her apparent lack of having taken offence was a relief, and he smiled back at her, not making the slightest attempt to deny her accusation, "How long have you known?"
"I suspected it that night, but I wanted to give Catherine the pleasure of pleasing me, and I didn't expect to live long enough to let her know I was on to her..."
Before Harm could formulate a reply, Catherine, well wrapped in a camel coloured winter-weight coat entered the room, and smiled brightly at him, "Darling," she said, "What are you doing here...?"
She was interrupted by an impatient snort from her mother, "Oh put a cork it in it Catherine! And," casting a loaded glance at her daughter's midriff she added, "you can take that coat off - it's not hiding anything!"
Catherine gave Harm a look of long-suffering resignation and untying the belt, she slipped the coat off her shoulders as Harm stood to surrender his chair to her.
"You didn't have anything to do with that, did you?" Esther challenged Harm as Catherine's bump was finally revealed to her mother.
"Uh... I'm told no," he asserted, as he hung the offending coat on a peg on the back of the door.
"I'm sure you'd have remembered if you did!" she told him, and once again the mischief shone in her eyes and she alternated her gaze between Harm and Catherine.
"If I'm going to be a grandmother," she challenged her daughter, "maybe you can tell me the name of the father?"
Catherine blanched and shot a stricken look at Harm, "I... I think I'm going to be sick," she muttered and fled the room.
Harm sighed and sat down again as Esther turned to him, and in response to his sigh, she observed, "It sounds like you have a lot on your mind, Commander?"
"Well... have you ever had your life turned upside down?" he asked her.
"Ever had your heart stop beating?" she riposted.
"Touché!" He acknowledged her trumping his opening bid.
"Tell me," she said, the amusement gone from her voice, but her tone still gently sympathetic, "why did you come by?"
"I enjoyed being a part of your family, I guess," he gave an embarrassed half-shrug and a somewhat shame-faced grin, "even if only for a brief moment." He added his last phrase with self-abnegating downturn of his mouth.
Esther Gale smiled at him sympathetically again, "That's both sad and touching at the same time," she told him. And then drew a deep breath, "I feel so lucky," and to explain her apparent non-sequitur as his eyebrows rose questioningly, she hastened to explain, her irrepressible spirit shining clear again, "I haven't felt this alive in years: Mock weddings, the prospect of bastards in the family, reckless aviators. Is it exciting dusting crops?"
Her good humour again ignited his smile, "I'll let you know after tomorrow!"
Her smile faded as she looked at him with real concern, "You do know what you're doing? She asked.
"I hope so," he replied, as Catherine returned from the bathroom.
Esther transferred her attention to her daughter as Harm settled her in his just vacated chair, and perched on the foot of the bed. "Now, Catherine, are you ready to tell me who the father of my new grandchild is?"
Catherine cast an imploring look at Harm, who smiled at her, and leaning forward took her hand in his, "Uh... that will be me," he said.
Esther Gale looked at them both, frankly puzzled, "But... I thought... I thought you said that the baby... that you weren't involved...?"
"No, I wasn't involved. But I'm going to be in the future." He looked at Catherine, who seemed to have difficulty in meeting either his or her mother's eyes. "Your daughter and I are in the middle of negotiations about that right now. And that's why we both came here to see you this evening. It's alright Catherine," he assured her, giving her hand a gentle squeeze, "We didn't have to 'fess up, your Mom's already figured us out." Turning his attention back to Esther Gale, he explained, "Catherine and I are going to try and raise this baby together."
Esther Gale's eyes shone with delight for a moment until the realities of their situation pushed their way back into the forefront of her mind. "But, the real father...?"
"The real father doesn't know, Mom. He doesn't need to know."
"But the birth certificate...?"
"Will have my name on it as the father, Mrs Gale."
"But..."
Harm took a deep breath. "I know what it's like to have a childhood without a father. My father went MIA over Vietnam when I was five. I'm in a position now where I can provide Catherine's baby with the kind of support that I got from my Mom's second husband. Support that I was way too slow in recognising, partly because I was too old, too stubborn and too pig-headed. Hopefully by my being there for this baby from day one, we can get past that and give her a stable, loving home."
"But you're still not in love with each other?" Esther asked worriedly.
"No... No, we're not, Mom, but... Harm's a good man, and I do care for him... a lot. And when I needed someone to talk to about this mess, well he was the one person I knew I could rely on for help and advice. We don't have that grand passion, Mom, but we're comfortable with each other, and we've talked about this. We think we can make it work."
"Oh, Catherine, I don't want you to settle, I want you to be happy..."
"Mom, I thought I'd found that grand passion," Catherine grinned mirthlessly, "that's how I got into this state in the first place, and now I know I made a mistake. A huge mistake. And, Mom, it hurts, the father hurt me - oh, no, not physically - and I know that Harm will never allow himself to hurt me, or her." And she placed her hand on her baby-bump.
"Her? You know?"
"Yes, Mom, sonogram after sonogram. Over ninety per cent sure now. All the tests are good; the doctors tell me I've got a perfectly healthy little girl in here, who'll be joining us in a little over three months."
"Well!" Esther Gale hitched herself higher up against the pillows behind her, "I guess I'll just have to make sure that I stick around long enough to meet her then, won't I?"
"Mom, you damn' well better had!" Catherine said fiercely as she slipped off the chair and releasing Harm's hand, took her mother into a tight hug.
"And does this mean, now that your secrets are all out in the open, that I get to see my daughter maybe just a little more frequently?" Esther demanded as she folded her arms around Catherine.
"Yes, ma'am," Harm contributed, smiling as mother and daughter held on to each other, "It's all part of the family care package I've got planned."
Both women looked at him with suspiciously moist eyes, and as Catherine made to rise, he held out a helping hand to her and guided her back into the chair. Esther watched him closely, seeking for an ulterior motive perhaps, or maybe some sign that he'd had to think about what he was doing, but was relieved when she realised that his actions had been natural, unplanned and unthinking.
Catherine however challenged him, "What's this family care package, and why don't I know about it?"
Harm settled back on the foot of the bed, crossed his arms on his chest and said, "Well, it's a kind of the whole thing. I look after your physical health: I make sure that you don't try to lift stuff that's too heavy for you - including, he frowned at her, "archive boxes, files more than two inches thick, grocery sacks that weigh more than ten pounds..."
"Do I get to do any lifting?" she demanded, half amused and half exasperated.
"Uh... yes..." Her interruption had disrupted his train of thought, "But we can go into details later... It also means..." he glowered at her, daring her to interrupt, "that I get to pamper you. I get to give you foot rubs when your feet hurt, I get to give you gentle back rubs when your back aches, I get to go to the all-night grocery store when we've run out of the pickles that you just have to have at oh-two-hundred hours..."
"Hey, hey, hold on there just a minute..." Catherine protested, "Where did you get all this stuff, anyhow?"
Harm looked invincibly smug as he grinned at her in what could only be called a patronising manner, "'Need to Know', Catherine, and," he paused for maximum dramatic effect, "You don't!"
Catherine's furious spluttering was totally drowned out by his whoop of laughter, "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you." He mopped the tears of laughter from his eyes, and told her between chuckles, "You have... no idea, just... how long I've... waited, to say that... to a spook!" But internally he was thanking Harriett Sims for all the insights she had given him while she had been coping with her first two pregnancies.
Catherine was caught between a desire to smack him upside the head and laugh along with him, while Esther, her face alive with mingled curiosity and joy alternated her gaze between the two of them. This might not be such a crazy idea after all, there was something between her daughter and Harmon Rabb Junior, and perhaps with a little bit of judicious fanning, that ember might become more than just a glow... But he was speaking again, and although there was still laughter in his eyes, his voice was perfectly serious.
"And I also get to look out for your emotional health. And that includes making sure that we visit your Mom on at least a regular basis, and more frequently than that if we can."
Catherine stopped her fuming and took another long look at the man who in less than twenty four hours had taken her carefully ordered world, picked it up and given it a good shaking, just as if her life had been encapsulated inside a snow-globe. Then it came to her: in some respects, with her concern for privacy and control and the way she had cut herself off from other people, and for no good reason, her life had become a snow-globe, and if she'd had to pick anybody to give it a damn' good shake, then Harmon Rabb would have been right at the top of her list.