Chapter 14
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"Thanks for coming, Fi. She hasn't been awake yet today," Jesse said as he rose from the chair he'd occupied all night in Pearce's room at the hospital.
Fiona put her bag down on a small table and asked Jesse how he was feeling.
His bandage was hidden under his shirt, but he touched it tenderly and stretched his shoulders. "I'm okay. I still don't understand . . ."
Fiona put her hand on his arm. "I don't think she could deal with seeing another man die in front of her the way her fiancé did."
"She saved my life."
Fiona smiled. "I'm happy she did. So, you're seeing Raines first, then work, then what?"
"I'll be back later this afternoon or this evening. You know her mother isn't . . . " he exhaled deeply, disgust evident.
"Jesse . . ." Fi started, to have him interrupt.
"Yeah, Mike said I was making this too personal. I hate it when he's right."
"I know what you mean," she said with a small smile, "and thanks for being his friend. He told me what you did."
He started to leave, then turned around. "I'm glad you're out, Fi. You guys are good for each other. You ought to make that permanent. Just saying."
"See you later, Jess. Be careful."
"Speaking of safety, are you . . . ?"
"It's in my purse."
"Good. Can't be too careful."
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Sam's whereabouts had been Michael's priority ever since they discovered him missing at the loft.
All the signs existed that foul play was involved, with the curious aspect that the kind of violence associated with an abduction seemed to be missing from the equation except for the broken beer bottle. Beer bottles, often useful as clubs, weren't known for breaking easily. So what happened?
It almost looked like token resistance. Almost.
All of Sam's usual haunts had been inspected and rechecked. They bore no evidence he was anywhere in Miami. Whoever had him wanted him for a reason, leverage probably, and that process involved waiting until the unknown abductor revealed what they wanted. It worried Michael, and Fiona hadn't been handling it well at all, not since her dream-startled memory when they'd found Sam missing.
Michael was almost relieved when it was time to take her to the hospital to sit with Pearce because Fi demonstrated worry in an extremely agitated manner which she had been fairly successful in transferring to him, and it was fuzzing his thinking. Or maybe that was Fi herself who was fuzzing his thinking.
He was remembering now how long it had taken after his burn notice locked him into Miami before Sam and Fi developed a working tolerance for each other. Their first meeting, he remembered, began with Fi pitching a beer bottle at him. The same incident that had awoken her from her troubling dream this morning was the same incident that impelled her to lob a beer bottle at Sam's head more than five years ago.
Now that was interesting, he'd told her. He was still at the loft when Raines called to ask if it was a secure meeting place.
"Wouldn't count on it today," Michael said. "The whole place needs to be cleaned."
"We need something secure. I need something away . . ."
"Jesse's office," Michael informed him.
"Good. I'll call him and meet you there in an hour."
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For those employed to direct the security office for an elite private enterprise security corporation, on-the-job perks included high tech systems not found in many secure government offices. Jesse's daily work world was exactly the safe environment Raines needed.
Michael could see him looking around, evaluating. "Thinking of leaving government work?" he asked.
Raines shrugged. "Eliminate the red tape, the political back-stabbing . . ."
"Red tape's gone, but the back-stabbing is still in place," Jesse said. "Want to tell me what's going on that you need to meet here, Raines?"
"I have a problem."
"Just one?" Michael asked. "Seems like there's a list, but I'm thinking it starts with you and your FBI buddy and whatever happened 15 years ago with your wife. By the way, how is she? Fi tells me she's not well. I'm not the only CIA employee with personal problems, am I, Raines?"
"No. You're not."
"You can't afford to hide this any longer."
"That's why I wanted to meet elsewhere."
Jesse had seen Mike on offense before, but his new, more aggressive tone came as a surprise. He gauged Raines' discomfort level and waited. Raines looked as if he'd expected Mike's questions.
"Twenty years ago," Raines said, "we were a two-man team for a couple of years, but he wanted a corner office and left field work. A couple of years later, one of my assignments was to relocate a deep cover operative from Vanino to Tokyo and then accompany her to Langley. It got complicated, Westen, like your first IRA assignment got complicated."
Michael crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
Raines walked over to a window and looked out; the Atlantic was crystal blue today instead of murky gray. "She wanted out, but the agency talked her into taking that assignment in Germany, and she was eager to get away from me. From us. Until we got back to Langley, I honestly didn't know she'd been involved with him or that they'd made plans to marry. I hadn't seen him in two or three years, but he didn't take her news that she'd changed her mind well. She walked in while we were . . . disagreeing. After that, she didn't want anything to do with either of us."
"That's why you sent me . . . "
"Yes. I didn't know it then, but she was pregnant with our oldest when you and Glenanne got her out."
"When did he move over to the FBI?"
Employees swapping agencies wasn't that common, but it also wasn't that difficult. The starting place was the employee's security clearance level and the level of inter-agency contact.
"Not then, later. I got out of field ops, and he got back into them and landed in Libya for a couple of years. In '97 he worked with the FBI and ATF on that big gun bust of Libyan arms imported here that were transferred to the UK before ending back in the hands of IRA. He stayed there a couple more years, and when he came back he made the move to the FBI, and got the corner office he wanted. But he's never forgotten what happened between us, and goes out of his way to be difficult whatever opportunity presents itself."
"Grudges held that long aren't healthy, personally or professionally," Jess commented.
Raines acknowledged Jesse's observation before he faced Michael squarely. "My wife has breast cancer. She's recovering from chemo and radiation. She's stronger now and we're hoping it worked, but we're also looking for another opinion. She's seeing an oncologist here in Miami later today."
"Where are your sons?"
"Still in London with the grandparents. We were all there until Pearce called."
"Do they have adequate protection?" Michael wondered.
"Yes."
"Raines, I hope your wife gets better," Michael said.
Jesse agreed. "Yeah, I hope she gets better, too."
"Thanks."
"But we still have a really big problem here." Michael waited a moment. "I think there's a lot more this. A couple of years after that big FBI/ATF bust, one night your friend was on a dock in Tripoli. An asset overheard an argument in English, German and Italian, not coincidentally from countries that were the number 1, 3 and 4 of suppliers of Libyan arms at the time. Then your friend arrived, he was dressed like a native. He came with another Libyan or someone who looked like a Libyan. They got into an argument but something on the dock exploded and they scattered, except he took out the Libyan he was with a silenced weapon, and then he went back and took the rest. He killed at least four people, maybe more.
"Whatever was in the shipment on the dock was destroyed. A second shipment was loaded on a ship later, but a SEAL team destroyed it. That left another shipment clear for transport after the SEALs left. It had been hidden in a different location in the same area. If you remember, at the time we were buying everything we could get our hands on from Libya to destroy it. Shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, nuclear and bio weapon components. I had a couple of ops where that was the objective."
Raines frowned, remembering "We lost an operative in Tripoli about that same time . . ."
"Can you get reports from that incident? Because right now, I wouldn't call your old partner a patriot."
"Careful, Westen. Hinting at something like that is dangerous. And how in the hell can you possibly know any of this?"
"I'm open to hearing a different explanation, Raines, after we see the reports that were filed, if they were filed. Could be the third shipment the SEALS missed is something that might be in that facility where Pearce and Jesse were shot. The T4 Anson linked to the Consulate bombing was stolen in the late 90s. Somewhere there's that IICD list of arms decommissioned seven years ago. What if stuff in that warehouse matches the list?"
Raines was slowly pacing as Michael and Jesse watched him. "Where'd you come up with this harebrained idea? "
"I didn't come up with anything. I was in Nigeria at the time. But Fiona was there. On that dock. She saw it happen. Sam was there too, and when we get him back, he might be able to define that mission. Another one of the people who watched the whole thing happen was on a boat offshore, Fi's brother. That's how we know about the third shipment. Fiona watched it happen. She and Sam had an unfriendly run-in that night."
"You're suggesting . . ."
"I didn't see it. Fi did, so did Sam. Her brother watched it happen from a boat."
"Damned IRA gun runners . . . "
"Yeah. Those gun runners. But I wouldn't damn them. When your old buddy got out of the elevator yesterday just before we came up to see you, Fi said looked familiar to her, but it wasn't until this morning when she realized where and when she had seen him before. So, here's a question: What if those arms were part of what Anson and Management have been stockpiling for years? Or how about this: What if he's working with Anson or he's being blackmailed by him? What if he has Sam?"
Raines shook his head with disgust. "That's a lot of conjecture without a substantial leg to stand on."
"Maybe," Michael said. "Or maybe not."
When Jesse's phone rang, he answered. "Yeah? Yeah! Sam? Sam! Where the hell are you? Orlando?"
Raines interrupted. "Can I talk to him? Axe, where are you in relation to the Naval Air Warfare Center? Let me make a couple of calls; we can get you escorted home from there. Really? Well, that's too bad. What's the plate? No, I don't believe that, either. See you later today."
Jesse used both pointer fingers to direct him to his glassed in conference room. "Secure lines in there."
"Thanks.
Jesse turned to Mike at that point. "What in the hell is going on, Westen?"
"You heard it."
"That's one of the craziest . . ."
"Is it really that incomprehensible? Given everything else we know about Anson?"
Jesse glanced over to him and thought about it for a few moments. "No. It's not. But Raines is right. It's dangerous to make that kind of accusation."
"I'm not accusing anyone; we're following an arms link to terrorists."
Raines rejoined them in Jesse's office. "There's a BOLO on Sam's car, a couple of Navy MPs are bringing him back tonight. By the way, I've made a request for some additional support. Nick Carnahan and Ryan Peterbaugh will be here by the end of the week, Westen. And before you make plans for them, I want to talk to them about Lang."
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Michael followed Jesse to the hospital.
Jesse was going back to spend the evening in Pearce's room. When they got there, Fi was flipping channels on a muted TV set. When she offered to come back later, he declined.
"Raines said he and his wife would be out later. I'll go down to the cafeteria and grab a bite then. But can you come back tomorrow. I want to hear what Sam has . . .unless you do? "
"I'll be fine, Jesse. See you in the morning."
When she and Michael were the only two passengers in the elevator down, Fiona quizzed him about Sam. "So two guys came in, put him in the trunk of his car and drove to Orlando, then left the car parked long enough for Sam to escape. That doesn't sound right."
"No, it doesn't, but until Sam's back . . ."
"I'm glad he's safe though."
Fi's car had been parked in the sun most of the day, and she'd been in an over air conditioned hospital room When she opened the door, it felt like a ball of heat rushed out at her. They climbed in and she started the engine and was waiting for the air conditioning to chill down.
Michael looked over at her from the passenger seat. "It's only 3:30, Fi. We've got time . . . to get married . . . today."
She turned and looked at him, her expression sliding between amused, confused and distrusting. "What are you talking about?"
He sighed. "I knew you were going to be difficult about this."
She raised an eyebrow and smiled. "You got that from my question?"
"No, I mean, yes. We can, you know . . . "
"Of course we can," she said slowly, tamping down the urge to laugh. She wasn't sure what kind of response he was expecting.
"We need to, I mean we should do it today . . . because I signed us up three days ago. We have to use the license today or we have to sign up again and wait three more days or I have to take a class. You do it online."
"You have to take a class? Online? To get married?" she laughed out loud.
"Only if you're the guy, but not if you wait three days."
She laughed again. "What happened to 'we need a priest'?"
"Well, we do, but we could have our marriage blessed later . . . and we could get married today. Now. Just us. What do you say?"
"Michael, what's going on?" she asked as her amusement slipped away. His voice had been slow and halting in places. She was confused.
He turned to face her across the console and reached for her hand. "I don't know, Fi. At first I did it just . . . because I could, you know? I looked it up and . . . I wasn't sure when you were getting out, but I knew it would be soon. Then when I gave you the ring, I knew I should have done that differently, too. I should done that a long, long time ago, probably right after I got it. When Raines told us about his wife this morning, I needed to . . . make us . . . us. I'm sorry, Fi. I'm not very good at this kind of thing. I should have practiced or something. I love you. I want us to be married. I don't want to wait."
She dropped his hand and got out of the car then walked to the passenger side and opened the door and held it. "You'd better get out."
It was Michael's turn to look confused.
"Get out, Michael. You know I can't drive in this condition, you're going to have to."
He stepped out of the car and surrounded her with his arms and pulled her close. He felt her body trembling and understood. "I'm sorry, Fi. I really should have done this a long time ago."
He released her and closed the door behind her before walking back to the drivers side of the car. After he got in he looked over at her and said, "you know for a minute when you said 'this condition,' I thought you might have meant something else. We haven't been . . . "
Her gentle smile slid down. "No, we haven't. Is that a prob-"
He leaned over to kiss her softly and smiled. "No."
"Good. So find us some place to get you a ring, too."
So they did. And then they did. By the time they got back to their house the question of the evening became . . . should they leave their phones on or not.