Never Say Never
Chapter 14
Monday, October 1, 2001
0845 Local Time
JAG Headquarters
Falls Church, VA
After the admiral introduced Turner, he turned and offered his hand, which Mac took in a firm handshake.
"Call me Sturgis."
"Call me Mac."
After that they and the other officers sat to get their assignments.
Now Mac and Cmdr. Turner were speaking as they walked back to the Ops Bullpen. Eventually they reached her office.
Sturgis sat at a guest chair to ask, "So, Mac how long have you and Hammer been married?"
"Since November of last year. We have a daughter, Tricia. She was born last August. I go at lunchtime to see her at the daycare center on the next block."
"Congratulations on both occasions."
"Thank you."
"Where are you living now?"
"Potomac Heights, right on the palisades."
"Where's Harm working?"
"For the President. He's the coordinator of intelligence in the Situation Room."
Sturges whistled in amazement saying, "Good to know. Would it be alright if I give him a call tonight?"
"Of course you can call him. On second thought, why don't you come over tonight? I'm sure he'd love to see you. You both can catch up. I'll call him and let him know you're coming."
"What time is good?"
"Well, we get out of here about 1700. Come over about 1830. That'll give us time to settle Tricia and make some dinner. Here, I'll write our address and cellphone number."
Mac took one of her business cards from the holder on her desk and wrote her information on the back and passed it over. She added, "Dress for basketball. We have a half-court and hoop in the backyard. Harm told me that you two had some intense games at the academy."
Sturgis placed the card in his inside coat pocket, adding, "I remember. I'm looking forward to continuing them." To conclude the amenities, he asked, "So how do we settle this case?"
"Oh, I'm not settling. My client is pleading not guilty."
"Mac, Peter Tyree is a real doofus, he flipped a T-34 Trainer he wasn't qualified to fly."
"We'll see after I speak with him. Also, Sturgis, knock off the name-calling."
Sturgis sighed as he got up, "Okay Mac, sorry about that. I'll see you in court."
Mac smiled sweetly as she replied, "Can't wait Sturgis. Close the door on your way out."
After Sturgis closed her office door, Mac picked up the phone to make a call. She waited until she heard someone answer, "Good morning again Azizam. I need your help with my latest case. Do you want to have lunch with Tricia and me? ~ Okay I'll see you at lunch about 1215. ~ Okay, love you Azizam."
She hung up the phone, got her briefcase together and went to see her client in the Navy Yard Brig.
1210 Local Time
Falls Church Childcare & Preschool
As per the procedure during his workday, Harm's Secret Service agent Bob Campbell drove him to the daycare center. Bob waited at the car while Harm walked into the center. After the receptionist directed him which room Mac and Tricia were in, he walked down the hallway where the lactation rooms were lined up knocked on their door, and softly called, "Imzadi?"
"Come in Azizam."
Harm walked in to see his wife stripped from the waist up, with Tricia latched onto one breast, sucking energetically. He would always be in awe at the beauty that he beheld. He bent to kiss Mac's offered lips and a kiss to Tricia's downy head.
"How's our girl?"
"She's good. She didn't fuss at all today. I love that this is my favorite part of my day."
"Yeah, mine too. So, what's the case you're working on?"
"My client flipped a T-38 he wasn't qualified to fly. He seems like a good kid and deserves a break."
"So, use your own pilot experience. Show them what it was like for your first flight. As I remember your first takeoff, you were so nervous that you almost ran it off the runway before you finally got it up in the air."
'Yeah, I do remember that. The thing is, he took it out without permission. How do I mitigate that?"
"Well, try the case. Show that he was an anxious beginner and wanted to see his dream. The only thing he broke was the plane."
"I'll try that. Let's move on to other things. Are you ready to see your old academy classmate Sturgis? I told him to dress for basketball."
"Yeah, it should be fun."
They sat and enjoyed their time together until it was time for them to return to work.
Later that evening
Rabb home
Potomac Heights
As she was giving Tricia her dinner of mashed carrots and bananas Mac looked out the kitchen window between each spoonful to see her husband and Sturgis playing basketball. He smiled as she heard the incessant trash-talking. After a while, the two finished and came into the kitchen. Harm got two bottles of water from the fridge and gave Sturgis one. They sat on either side of the table and watched as Mac gave Tricia a bottle.
After Sturgis took a sip, he said, "She's a beautiful baby Mac."
"Thank you, Sturgis. Her birth was very easy. After eleven hours of labor, it was two pushes, and she was out. She's been a dream to care for ever since."
"I never thought Hammer would ever get married. He never set his eye on any girl. He never expressed any interest in your sister Diane. I had no idea when I saw you at Diane's funeral that you and he would ever get together. "
Harm shrugged as he said, "I kind of knew my special one was out there and she would come along eventually."
"Harm told me that you were always trying to fix up Diane and Harm."
"Well, Diane and Harm shut that down quite vociferously," Sturgis replied.
"How'd they do that?"
Harm answered Mac with, "Diane and I jacked him up one day and told him to knock it off. He was going to get us in trouble for fraternization. After graduation Diane and I agreed to go our separate ways."
"So, if you weren't interested in Diane, how did you two get together?"
"Sarah and I first met when we comforted each other in our shared grief at Diane's funeral."
"Well, Diane told me all about Harm in her letters. About four months after Diane's funeral, we met again in Arizona. I told him that I was attracted to him. We talked and he told me that he was also attracted to me; as a matter of fact, he told me I was very pretty. After we acquitted Uncle Matt, we started going out. The rest is history."
"Or her story," Harm added.
The three chuckled at that.
Harm suggested, "Come on we have some stew in the slow cooker. Let's eat."
While Mac took Tricia upstairs to change her and put her to bed, Harm and Sturgis set the table for dinner. Harm put out bottles of flavored seltzer for each of them. Then he brought the cooker to the table and set it in the middle.
During this, Mac came down to announce, "Tricia seems to know we have company. Right after I changed her, put her down in her crib, and set the mobile music, she fell right to sleep."
Sturgis replied, "Good to hear. Maybe she's Marine enough to know her curfew."
Mac and Harm chuckled at that, with Harm saying. "Then she inherited that from Mac's sense of timing."
As the trio ate, Mac listened with amusement to the exchange of Harm and Sturgis's stories from their time at the academy.
"There was the winter in our third year, and we used cafeteria trays to sled on a snowy hill. Well, Sturgis went a little too far and ended his slide in the parking lot. He stopped at his father's feet as he got out of his car."
"What did your father say?" Mac asked.
"He said if you wanted to zoom around like that, you should have gone to the Air Force Academy," Sturgis replied.
They all shared a chuckle. As they ate, Harm and Sturgis shared some more stories. Eventually, the evening ended as they shared some dessert and Sturgis left.
After they checked in on their daughter, Mac and Harm collapsed into bed.
Friday, October 26, 2001
1400 Hours Local Time
Rabb Home
Potomac Heights
Mac came into her back door with Tricia in her arms. She had her briefcase strap on one shoulder and Tricia's baby bag on the other. She let the case and baby bag drop on the floor and walked upstairs with Tricia. She was so glad to be home after her week from hell at JAG and CIA headquarters. She had prosecuted a particularly messy and classified case.
Flashback to the previous week
In a remote office building housing a high-security cryptography unit, Cmdr. Rick Stoechler was assassinated in along with another worker, Sr. Chief Trujillo. A colleague, Cmdr. Pagano, who was there also, was only wounded.
The unit's commanding officer, Admiral Danico requested Chegwidden to assign Mac and Turner work a parallel investigation to NCIS Agent Mary Holland's investigation. Holland was receiving obstruction from Naval Intelligence. Webb got involved as he brought Mac a dossier, from his alleged "source" in Beijing. The dossier alleged that Stoechler had been a "mole", feeding information to the Chinese. There was also a videotape showing the gunman and the fact that the last security code entered was Stoechler's. If that weren't enough, he showed that Stoechler had $150,000 in a secret bank account. Mac was very suspicious because when did Webb ever do anything without an agenda? She was always suspicious of anything Webb brought to JAG. She remembered his animosity toward her as Uncle Matt had been involved with disgracing Clayton's father Neville in Vietnam.
In Mac's dealing with Stoechler's boss, Capt. Reeves, she found him a real jerk. He went around pulling rank and hiding something from her. She found that Reeves had summoned Stoechler to a needless offsite meeting. The killer had entered the secured area after he returned. Trujillo was shot once but Stoechler was shot 3 times The tape showed the killer get point blank drop on Pagano and shoot.
In the course of her investigation, Mac interviewed Stoechler's wife. She set Mac on track of a memo she heard her husband say he had sent to Capt. Reeves about the new experimental Submarine Jimmy Carter. Turner informed Mac that he had heard of espionage 2 or 3 times while he was JAG for COMSUBPAC.
The Jimmy Carter's Capt. told Mac of the sub's recent tonal signature tests (noise signature which allows tracking). She and Gunny Galindez went over the videotape of the shooting frame by frame and found alterations. Reeves blocked access to the original tape so Mac got Chegwidden to have Adm Danico hold an article 32-hearing in a classified, bug-swept, electronically jammed courtroom. She called Reeves to the stand.
In the course of the case, Bud Roberts was assigned to defend Pagano. Bud found that soot or powder burns in his wounds proved that he lied, that he had been shot from across the room. They went to visit Pagano in his hospital room to confront him about his lie. When they arrived at Pagano's room they were surprised to find Reeves, Pagano & Webb speaking in his hospital room.
Mac brought that back to court and filed a subpoena. As a result, Judge Harrison made Webb testify. Webb finally admitted that they knew Pagano was the mole and had fed him false information about the submarine Jimmy Carter's tonal tests. Pagano then gave the faulty information to the Chinese. Pagano told the Chinese that the "US knew that THEY knew!" Pagano testified that the assassin was then sent, hoping that the info would die with the people killed. The assassin deliberately left Pagano wounded, but still working as their agent. Webb & Reeves had ordered the videotape altered, then framed Stoechler to preserve their deception.
During the hearing, Mac called the Jimmy Carter's Captain to the stand. He testified in front of Pagano that the decrypted message of their tonal tests were not the "real" results, thus "spilling the beans" of the CIA counterintelligence. Webb & Reeves decided to "turn" Pagano into a double agent.
During the hearing, Mac asked Webb, "How does the court know you are telling the truth?"
Webb responded, "I'm under oath."
Danico told Chegwidden not to let Mac pursue Pagano's murder & espionage charges further. Webb said that Stoechler's wife could keep the $150K. Mac was able to tell her to tell her kids their dad was a hero.
End of Flashback
Mac had just finished changing Tricia's diaper and putting a onesie on her when she heard a car pull into their driveway. She thought it was her husband. She was surprised to hear the front doorbell ring. She picked up Tricia and went down to answer the door. On the way to the door, she was speaking to Tricia, "I wonder who that is. Maybe it's Uncle Matt."
She stepped to the door and looked through the window beside the door. She was surprised to see Clayton Webb on the other side of the door. She opened the inside door but she did not unlock the steel security screen door.
She asked, "What do you want Webb?"
"Mac, open the door and let me in."
"No. I don't want you in my house. Just tell me what you want."
"It's about Stoechler's case. We have to talk."
"We settled everything in court earlier today. It's over."
"No, it's not. It was revealed that Stoechler was a shipmate of Harm's. Your husband is suspected of being complicit in Pagano's espionage."
"No fuckin' way!"
"Stoechler reported some suspicions to Harm. Harm turned them over to Pagano; who turned them over to the Chinese."
"Again, no fucking way. Harm doesn't even know Pagano. Also, he hasn't spoken to Stoechler since they were shipmates."
"How do you know who he knows?"
"I'm his wife. We are in constant communication throughout the day. He's also working at the White House. His time is stringently accounted for. Also, he has Secret Service protection and I have a panic alert pager here."
She showed Webb the device clipped to her skirt waistband. Webb's eyes widened when he saw her push the button.
Mac stepped away from the door to close it. After about two minutes she was satisfied to hear sirens in the distance. Before she closed the door she told Webb, "I suggest you leave now or get arrested. Your mother won't help you out of this mess."
She closed the door but stayed to watch out the window. She saw two black Chevy Suburbans with flashing grill and front window lights. Four agents spilled out of the cars with their weapons drawn and advanced toward the front door. Webb turned around and held his hands up. One held his State Department identification. After they searched and cuffed Webb, three agents stayed with Webb, and one of the agents went past them and knocked on the front door. Mac opened the inner door and outer door to greet the agent.
"Are you okay Colonel Rabb?" Agent James Tyler asked.
"Yes, Jimmy I am. Mr. Webb wanted to enter the house. I wouldn't let him. He was casting aspersions against my husband. I had no idea what he would have done if he came into the house."
'Well, it's a good thing that you didn't. He had a weapon. It could be government-issued, but you were right not to let him in."
Outside, Webb was thinking, 'Chegwidden's plan to smear Rabb with the same espionage brush as Pagano just backfired. I didn't think Mackenzie would be smart enough to not let me in. Now I can't plant the thumb drive with the evidence. It's a good thing it's in the compartment in my shoe heel. After I get out of jail. We'll have to think of something else.'