Chapter 15
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There was no champagne, no cake, no flowers, no dress, no something old or something blue or borrowed or new or a formal announcement. There was no informal sharing good news between friends, no invitations. Unlike other couples around them, Fiona's wedding garment was a simple khaki sleeveless dress. Michael wore jeans and a blue Polo shirt.
Theirs were quietly spoken vows in the Miami-Dade County Clerk's marriage license office. A deputy clerk read the words for them to follow; another clerk witnessed. They looked into each other's eyes and spoke quietly. There was a moment when Fi slid the simple gold band over Michael's finger, and another when he removed the Claddah ring to slide it over her finger again.
There was a single, unbearably sweet kiss. They left the office holding hands, ignoring those around them who were celebrating loudly amid friends and relatives.
From the outside looking in, their official legal beginning as partners was imperfect, flawed perhaps by the lack of things usually associated with wedding. And yet, from the inside looking out, it was serenely satisfying, very much like their first meeting had been, very much like the first time they had made love: joyful. Their wedding was a celebration of spirits bound for the length of their lives, the last bit of glue securing halves as a whole.
They had gone home and were wrapped in one another when Fiona paused to place her hands on either side of his face. "I still want that priest, Michael. Do you?"
"I do," he whispered back. "But I am happy we did this. Very happy."
"So am I."
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The young knew their place, Sam thought, as he returned their smart salutes.
They were both all of maybe 25 years old, but they were good men and they'd taken their jobs to escort him safely back to CIA headquarters in Miami very seriously. It'd been years since that kind of respect had been returned to him, he realized. But then, he'd had no one to blame for his circumstances but himself.
Still, there was a part of himself he hid from others, that part that wanted the respect returned. It was one of the things he valued in his friendships with Mike and Fi and Jesse, where his imperfections didn't matter as much as they did in the spit and polish world.
He was proud of his service record; not every part of his personal history was something he regretted, just that at the end, and he'd never get a do-over for that.
Yes, he could tell the Navy MPs were impressed by his CIA connection as they waited for the agents who would escort him into the building.
He wasn't surprised to find Raines waiting. However, he was surprised to see his wife. It only took Sam took one look to understand her presence as well as the significance of hollow cheekbones accentuated by the turban scarf tied around and fully covering her head. He went straight to her with a warm greeting.
"It's so good to see you, but I'm a little funky," he explained, gently holding her shoulders while staying at arm's length.
She ignored that and gave him a generous hug, her soft cheek against his whiskered face, allowing him to feel how thin she'd grown fighting for life. "What's a little funk between friends, Sam? I think I was covered in mud the last time you fished me out of a problem."
"That you were. Who's fishing you out of this one?" he asked seriously.
"God and hopefully, the oncologist I've just seen here. If all of this business hadn't come up . . . well, let's say Michael and Fiona's problem has become my blessing."
"Prognosis is good?" Sam asked.
"It's a lot better today than it was yesterday," she said with a cocky smile and a wink he remembered.
"Speaking of yesterday," Raines interrupted. "What the hell happened, Axe?"
It only took her soft hand on his to change his focus. "Let the man get a shower and get something to eat if he needs it. You can wait that long, and Michael and Fiona will be here by then."
Raines smiled crookedly. "My better half to the rescue again. Westen brought a bag of your stuff by last night, so why don't you do that and we'll be waiting here?"
Sam gave Raines' wife a two-fingered salute and spotted a familiar duffle. "Thanks."
"I'll see you later, Sam," she said. "I'm going to go sit with Dani at the hospital so Jesse can join you."
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"Come on, Mikey."
Fi pulled the sheet off him, and would have been tempted to join him in the bed again, but they had things to do at o'dawn thirty.
After she left to take a shower, he'd sprawled on his stomach and managed to occupy the entire bed. He opened one eye and looked up.
"Mikey, Fi?" he grumped. She knew the name annoyed him; the only person allowed to use it was Sam.
"How else am I going to get you out of bed? You're too big to move, so I have to irritate you."
His smile was sleepy, but not that sleepy. He rolled to his side and raised up on an elbow. "We have time."
"No, we don't. Come on. Raines and Sam are waiting."
"They can wait." He tugged her hand and pulled her back into the bed. "I can't."
"Michael . . . mmm no . . . you're . . . scratchy . . . oh . . . I just . . . took a . . . a shower . . ."
"You can . . . take . . . another . . . with . . . me . . . later . . . "
"We'll never . . . get . . . there . . . then."
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It was barely light outside when she arrived at the hospital to relieve Jesse so he could go home and get ready for his meeting.
"They tell me she's just sleeping, but she hasn't been awake while I've been here."
She studied his face for a moment. "Did you sleep?"
"Sorta."
"That chair doesn't look very comfortable."
"I'm fine. Thanks for coming. Are you going to be okay?"
She was aware of the question behind his question.
"This looks worse than it is," she explained, drawing her hand down in a circular motion in front of her. She hadn't put the damned wig on this morning, just the scarf. She was looking forward to more of her hair growing out because their sons had given her the perfect earrings for the crew cut style she hoped would appear.
She also noticed he'd been watching the monitors for Dani's heart and respiration rates while he'd been talking to her.
When a nurse entered the room and retrieved the clipboard at the end of her bed, she scowled at him. "I can't tell you anything more than I have already told you, Mr. Porter."
"Yeah, yeah."
She pushed his arm gently. "Go. She'll be fine."
Opening her bag, she removed a fleecy jacket and slipped into it before curling up in the chair next to Dani's hospital bed. She'd been there at Janssen's funeral, and had witnessed her intense grief over losing him. The intervening years had passed without Dani once indicating an interest in another man, any man.
Which was why her act to save this man's life was so very interesting.
Apparently theirs was only a working relationship, so did Dani's brief, unselfish act to save his life have a deeper meaning than what Fiona and Michael told her they assumed?
As for men, Janssen Tunberg and Jesse Porter could not have been more different in personality, temperament or demeanor. They only thing they had in common was that they were both tall, muscular, physically fit men.
Janssen, with that shock of white blond hair and sapphire blue eyes had been a lively flirt, a man who complimented women for just being women. She assumed he had been smitten with Dani because she'd rejected him for so long. And she had wondered if their marriage would have held together for the long term. A man who loved women as much as Janssen had, who flirted as much as he did, who always had an eye for the newest woman who appeared in the room . . . didn't fit the solid role the husband of a CIA case officer needed to be.
When Dani began slowly moving her arms and legs in the bed, she rose to stand next to her. She reached for her hand which seemed very cold to the touch, and mentally tried to infuse her warmth into her hand.
Dani opened her eyes and blinked and focused. She realized who was holding her hand and the faintest of smiles flittered across her face. Her voice was scratchy and weak. "Is Jesse okay?"
"Yes, he's fine. How are you feeling? She reached for the call button to alert a nurse that Dani was awake.
"Alive, I think." Her faint smile reappeared.
Oh, yes, Jesse's reaction to an awake and alert Kimberly Danielle Pearce would be as interesting as her reaction to him. She hoped she'd be there to see that.
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"Damnedest thing. Went to the loft to see Mike and Fi but they were loading stuff in her car getting ready to leave for their new place. Asked Mike if I could stay and he said 'go for it.' I get up there, open a beer and before I can lock the door, in walk these two guys. Short guys, big guns, speaking Spanish, one of them might have been on drugs. Am I going to argue? Not right then. Had my phone on the counter, ready to punch in Mike's speed dial and littlest one of them sees that, waves his gun, breaks my beer and I drop the phone.
"I can follow the Spanish but not when they're talking that fast. They search me, get my keys and they're all excited. I think they were after Mike because I kept hearing 'Wesen, Wesen'. And the next thing, I'm in the trunk and looking for the glow in the dark trunk release."
"Why didn't you get out sooner? They didn't stop until Orlando. That's a long ride."
"Curious, that's all. Miserable ride, too, but I wondered where they were supposed to take me or you. And who was waiting at the other end? When they stopped, they abandoned the car. I got out of the trunk, tried to hot wire it but it wouldn't start. Someone had to be, waiting for 'em, but I didn't hear another vehicle."
"Sam," Michael said shaking his head. "You could've been . . ."
"You would have done the same thing, Mikey. These guys were petty criminals, nothing more. I probably could have taken them both in the loft, but with all the dead ends we've hit, I thought we'd get a lead to something."
"Something's off," Jesse muttered.
"Yeah," Sam agreed.
"You ought to hear Westen's theory," Raines said.
Michael looked at Sam. "Not a theory. Just things that don't make sense and make me wonder how or if they're linked. It starts with wondering how Anson found me in D.C. and found Fi here. Indicates a leak. Ours or the FBI's. Raines' buddy over there, was on the same dock in Tripoli where you and Fi were 13 years ago. Makes me curious why."
Sam's attention snapped over to Fiona, then Raines. "I think that's still classified."
Fiona crossed her arms and looked at Sam. "That's for you, that's not me. I was there and I know what I saw, Sam. You saw the same thing."
"Well, I can't talk about it," Sam muttered.
"But I can," Fi added.
"Two things, then," Michael said as he turned to Raines. "Did you find out if that SEAL mission is still classified, or find the name of the agent who killed there?"
"Not yet," Raines said, "but maybe later today."
Michael stood. "We've got a lot of work to do."
"Did you get an ID yet on the who shot Pearce?" Jesse wanted to know.
"Nothing back yet," Raines confirmed.
"We still have the rest of Pearce's OMB reports to comb through," Michael said.
"Yeah, and we need the inventory on the facility by Homestead so we can see if they match anything from what that compromised MI5 operative was selling and what was left in the rubble after Fi and I visited his other site," Sam said.
Raines shook his head. "We're scattered. I want to start with what Nick Carnahan and Ryan Peterbaugh know about Lang when they get here."
"What we really need is to see the big picture," Jesse said. "Raines, what did Homeland say about us getting at least getting reports on the weapons facility by Homestead?"
"Nothing, but we're meeting again today," he filled in. "For some reason the DEA thinks they need to be involved, too, but I haven't gotten to why yet. I will."
"And I'm really curious as to why the FBI had 4 agents camping out in the loft," Sam said. Mike and I found out who they were looking for, but it's still not making sense."
"I say," Jesse volunteered, "we go back to working out of the loft, and start by spring cleaning."
"Excellent idea," Michael agreed. He turned and looked at Raines. "But I think I have better one."
Raines smirked. "Give you a higher clearance level and it goes to your head."
"This isn't my ego talking. We need to invite someone else into this." Michael stared at Raines before he shifted uncomfortably. Sam leaned back in his chair and let out a low whistle.
Raines shook his head no. "It won't happen. He can't tolerate . . . me."
"What if Anson is blackmailing him? If he's being pressured, I can help him. I'll talk to him. Not you. We all have a shared background into this. We need to hang together . . ."
Michael waited to see if Raines would understand what he was reaching for.
". . . so we don't hang separately," Raines filled in.
Sam, Jesse and Fiona sat quietly watching their exchange. Jesse was skeptical.
"The point in time that this went south . . ." Michael started.
Raines held up his hand. "No. That wasn't it."
"Wasn't it? Anson plays on weakness, emotions. He predicts how we react based on observation and psych profiles, then uses it against us. It's suffocating. I can breathe again, thanks to Fiona. Don't you want to?"
"Anson isn't dealing with me, and you can't tell me . . . "
"That your former partner is being played by Anson? Throwing up roadblocks? All the signs are there, Raines. Anson knew he couldn't turn you, so he went after him. Your former disgruntled, hurting partner."
"Raines," Sam interjected, "Think about it."
"Oh, hell, Westen."
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He didn't call ahead, but he did change into a business suit, standard armor among intelligence workers. His CIA clearance got him up and in his waiting room without a hiccup. When his door opened and he stepped out, Michael stopped explaining his situation to his secretary and smiled, then reached to shake his hand. "Can we talk?"
"Talk?"
Michael just smiled.
As a response, he turned, told his secretary he would be out of reach for 30 minutes. Michael followed him out and into an elevator.
"After I saw you and your girlfriend the other day, I wondered if you'd contact me," he said after the doors closed and depressed the B floor.
"Wife."
"All right. After I saw you and your wife. What do you want, Westen?"
Michael smiled politely.
The elevator stopped, the doors opened. On the opposite side of the door was a large, glassed in room. He opened the door with a key, flipped on the lights, hit a switch that provided a white noise ventilation hum and pulled out a chair next to a table.
Michael ignored that. "I want to know what Anson Fullerton wants from you."
He didn't respond immediately. Michael could see him weighing the ramifications. He hoped he wanted help.
"How long have you known?"
"Just figured it out. It was the only thing that made sense. It puts everything together."
He shook his head and looked down at the floor. Michael recognized the defeated posture. "I wasn't worried about you. I figured you'd handle yourself; I was worried about her. But, I heard she sent him away in an ambulance." He smiled at that.
"Yeah, you shouldn't mess with Fiona."
"Wife since when?"
"Not important."
"I'm guessing this goes back to a dock in Tripoli," Michael offered.
His eyes narrowed. "How in the hell do you know that?"
"I wasn't there. But Fiona and Sam Axe were."
"No way in hell."