Orion grinned. “It’s not personal.”
Ham laughed. But he stopped when Orion poured iodine onto a cotton swab and then bathed the wound.
He blew out a breath in a long stream.
“I’ll give you a lollipop when I’m finished.”
“Just hurry up.”
Orion broke off the tape to close the wound.
“Let me help,” Ham said and grabbed the tape.
Orion held the edges of the wound closed. Ham made a sound deep in his chest, but his hands were steady enough to put the tape over the wound.
“It felt like the same gut response as in Afghanistan, after she found out you were hurt,” Ham said. “She blamed herself and ended up having a nervous breakdown.”
Orion held the next section closed. “She was upset, not suffering from a psychotic break.”
“Right. Maybe it’s something she did that put her on the run. Is there anything she did that would make her believe you wouldn’t want her?”
“Like what?”
Ham shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe, like, she’s married to someone else?”
Orion’s eyes widened. “No, dude. I don’t think . . . she’s not . . . are we still talking about Jenny?”
Ham’s mouth tightened.
“You okay, boss?”
“Yep. Let’s get this over with.”
Ho-kay.
“Nothing she’s done would keep me from loving her,” Orion said. “Or wanting to marry her.”
“Does she know that?” Ham said quietly, now looking up at him.
“I thought so. But . . . maybe she doesn’t. It feels like she doesn’t trust me.” He held together the edges of the wound for the next strip of tape. “Go.”
Ham grunted but placed the tape over it. “What if it’s not about trust, but shame?”
“You’re saying it’s something so terrible that she’s afraid to tell me? That she would run from me rather than talk to me?”
Ham ripped off more tape. “Some wounds run so deep, you think they’re healed until . . .” He glanced again down the hall. “Until something reopens them. And you discover that they’re not healed at all.” He put the last strip on the wound.
So, they were talking about Ham and Signe. Orion gave a slow nod.
“Maybe it’s just too fast, you know? You only found each other a few months ago. Maybe she needs more time.”
Orion frowned. “What do you mean?”
“In lieu of finding Roy, you decide to get married?”
Orion reached for the gauze. “I can admit that finding Roy is a burr inside me, but no. Maybe. I don’t know.”
Ham leaned back as Orion wrapped the gauze around the wound. “I just know how you hate loose ends.”
“I hate regret. I hate failure. And I hate being angry all the time. But that’s over. It’s time to move on, right? I learned that on Denali.” He looked up at Ham.
But Ham was watching Signe. She was walking down the hallway, into the darkness, on a mission to find more wounded.
“What if Roy doesn’t want to be found,” Ham said softly. “What if he isn’t the same person we knew?”
Orion ripped the gauze at the end, then tied it around Ham’s leg. “Do you think Signe has been brainwashed?”
Ham looked at him.
“You said she was in a terrorist camp for the past ten years—”
“No.”
Orion held up a hand in defense and Ham closed his eyes. Reopened his eyes. “Okay, fine. Signe is still hiding something. She’s convinced there’s a traitor in the CIA, and she knows who, but she’s not saying.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. White said the same thing.”
“Do you think this traitor is behind the assassination attempt in Alaska?”
“Maybe. And maybe also the one in Seattle a month ago. On Senator Jackson.”
“I saw that on the news. A shooter, at the pier?”
“Yeah. I don’t think they caught him.”
“So, someone, maybe even inside our government, is trying to derail the election? That’s a Vince Flynn novel.”
“And Signe knows about it.”
Orion closed up the kit. “And you’re not sure if you trust her.”
Ham’s mouth made a tight line.
Bingo, but Ham wouldn’t admit it.
“Who do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. And although my heart wants to believe that Signe is going home with us, my gut says . . .”
“That she’s going to run.”
Orion’s gaze tracked to Jenny. She sat against the wall now, her knees drawn up, her arms propped on them, her eyes closed.
“I know Signe. She’s smart. Always thinking, always looking at everything from all the angles. She agreed to come home with me, but it feels . . . I don’t know. Maybe she’s telling the truth, but I can’t pry it out of my head that there’s something else going on.”
“You need to get that list from her. That’s the mission.”
“I know.”
“Before she runs.”
“I know.”
Orion considered him. “It’s Afghanistan all over again. We were betrayed by someone we knew, someone we trusted, and guys we cared about didn’t come home. I know you love her, Ham, but what if she’s—”
“She’s not a terrorist, Ry.” But Ham’s voice was soft, almost a declaration to himself.
Orion said nothing.
Ham shook his head. “Would you do it? Choose your country over Jenny?”
Orion looked away.
“Listen. She’s afraid, and I need to figure out why. Then maybe I don’t have to choose.”
“Yeah,” Orion said quietly. “Maybe. Try to get some rest. No one is going anywhere tonight.”
And, to confirm his words, Signe came back toward them. Exhaustion lined her grimy face, her clothing soiled and torn. “We need to get medical help to these people,” she said as she sat down next to Ham. “Some of them are significantly wounded.”
“I know,” Orion said, and noticed how Ham wove his fingers through Signe’s. “I was thinking about the Sigonella Naval Air Station. There’s a clinic and a hospital there. But I’m not sure how we get there.”
“I have an idea,” Signe said and looked at Ham, something soft in her eyes. “And I think you’re going to like it.”
Maybe Signe didn’t notice the hunger on Ham’s face, the desperate hope that he could trust this woman he loved, but it made Orion’s gut tighten and he had to look away. “I’m going to get some winks. Let’s regroup in a couple hours.”
He walked over to Jenny.
Sat down next to her.
“I’m exhausted,” she said and put her head on his shoulder.
He put his arm around her.
“You okay?” she asked.
At the moment? If he ignored the hole inside him, the buzz under his skin, the frustration of knowing that something still lingered between them. Maybe now—
“Jenny?”
But her deep breaths said she was already asleep.
“Nothing she’s done would keep me from loving her. Or wanting to marry her.”
Please, God, let his words be true.
Of course Signe was going back to Minnesota with him. She’d practically said as much.
Ham was simply letting the past taint his future.
Because, in his mind, he was standing in front of her tiny apartment in Berkeley, flowers in hand, his life slowly shredding as Signe’s roommate told him she’d left.
Him.
And he was hearing her voice in the elevator . . . “I’m just trying to keep ahead of my bad decisions. And just trying to make the next right one.”
Please, let the next right one be to return home, with him.
Because he also couldn’t forget, “You’re the love of my life. Don’t you think I want to be with you?”
That sat in his chest like a hot ember, spreading through him.
; The love of her life.
If only she hadn’t left him already—twice.
His conversation with Orion hadn’t helped either, one he kept turning over in his head.
“Do you think Signe has been brainwashed? You said she was in a terrorist camp for the past ten years—”
Shoot, it too closely mirrored his own thoughts, and . . . “Would you do it? Choose your country over Jenny?”
He couldn’t go there.
Please, God, don’t make him choose.
Better to just keep holding on to Signe, to try to sleep despite the throb in his arm, his leg.
His heart.
So really, so much for sleeping. He lay down beside Signe and apparently finally dozed off, because when he woke, Signe was up and nudging him. “I found some coffee.”
Sunlight drizzled in through the windows. The hallways had filled up—people moving in from the courtyard, or perhaps just finding the school as a place of refuge. Families, dirty and injured, huddled under blankets, their faces betraying the stripping of their lives.
A woman nursed her infant under a jacket, her husband standing over her, his arms crossed, as if a sentry. An elderly man lay with what looked like his school-aged grandson next to him.
“Can you sit up?” Signe crouched next to him.
She had washed her face, put her hair back in a messy bun, and now she held the coffee out to him. “The stoves are working, so the gas hasn’t been shut off.”
“We need to get out of here and get some medical help to these people,” Ham said as he sat up, trying to bite back a groan. He took the coffee.
“I told you I had an idea.”
“I’m all ears.” The coffee fed his bones, strong and bracing.
“Is the ability to hot-wire a scooter still in your bag of tricks?”
He glanced at her. “You remember that?”
“Mmmhmm. Did you ever find the keys to your bike?”
“Nope.” He took another sip. Yes, they just might survive this.
Jenny came down the hallway, carrying a glass of water. She stopped next to the elderly man and helped him take a drink. He grabbed her hand and said something to her. The boy translated, and Jenny nodded.
“Jenny,” Ham said quietly, but his voice echoed down the hallway.
She came over to him. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” He nodded to the kid. “Who is that?”
“His name’s Gio. I rescued him off the pier. I promised his grandfather we’d take him to his mother. Apparently, she lives near the base.”
“Where’s Orion?”
“A group of survivors came in. He’s out in the yard checking on them.”
“Did he get any sleep?”
“I don’t know. When I woke up, he was gone.”
Always a PJ. “Okay,” Ham said. “Tell him we need to get going.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the base. We’ll drop Gio on the way. And then . . . we’re going home.”
Jenny flashed a look at Signe, then back to Ham. “Roger.”
Signe had said nothing.
He looked at her. “Right?”
“Of course.”
Of course.
Huh.
Signe got up and held out her hand. “Ready, tough guy?”
He let her help him off the floor. “Signe, give me the jump drive.”
She stilled. Swallowed.
He expected a fight. Not for her to lean down and unzip a pocket in her pants leg. She pulled out a jump drive and put it in his palm.
Smiled. “Let’s go home.”
He had no idea why he felt punched in the stomach as he followed her out of the building.
Signe had hidden a couple Vespas under a piece of plywood in an alleyway.
“When did you find these?” He knelt beside the bike.
“Last night, when you and Orion were catching up.”
He didn’t want to ask her why she’d been on the street.
If she’d been thinking about leaving him.
Because she hadn’t, had she? She was still here. Going home with him.
“Of course.”
See, he could stop panicking.
He made to move the scooter away from the wall but winced, so she helped wheel it free.
Orion arrived with Jenny and Gio. “Vespas? Cool.”
“You’ll have to hot-wire it. Take off the front panel, find the steering lock, and break it off. Then cut the starter wires. You’ll need to turn on the kill switch, but then you can kick-start it,” Ham said.
“As long as the battery isn’t dead,” Orion said, but he was already maneuvering his Vespa away from its hiding place. “Just like a snowmobile.”
Ham pulled off the front panel, but Signe reached in and broke off the steering lock. Then she produced a folding knife from her pocket—really?—and cut all the wires attached to the starter.
“I suppose you want to drive too.”
She grinned at him. “Always.”
Orion’s scooter revved as he kick-started it, and he got on, Jenny behind him. Gio sat in front of him. “Okay, kid, get us out of here.”
Signe jumped on the starter once, twice. The third time their scooter started. “Hop on, number three.”
Three. His jersey number.
His conversation with Isaac White in the restaurant returned to him. The mysterious contact, known only by a number.
His.
She was grinning at him.
He threw his leg over the back and wrapped his good arm around her waist. “Try not to kill us.”
“Payback.” She eased them away from the church and up the road.
The cobblestones had broken, the path jagged as they drove away from the shoreline, between buildings. Smoke still blurred the sky, but the morning sun simmered an eerie blood red through the clouds, and in the distance, just barely, he could make out the volcano, still exhaling flame and smoke, streams of lava cutting down its side.
“Wait until Aggie hears about this,” Ham said into Signe’s ear. “We should call her when we get to base. She’s really missed you.”
She might have tensed, but maybe it was her navigating around a cluster of cars stopped on the street. “Yeah, good idea.”
Good idea.
Orion’s navigator led them out to an abandoned highway, with cars in the ditches or on the side of the road. They wove in and out of the stopped traffic as they traveled southwest.
“What are you going to do with it?” Signe asked the question over her shoulder.
“With what?” He liked the feel of her close to him, her body stronger, although leaner than it had been a decade ago.
It also stirred up memories that probably he shouldn’t revisit. Not quite yet.
But yes, someday.
“The NOC list.”
“I’m giving it to Isaac White.” Funny, she’d asked him that before.
She continued driving. Said nothing more about it as they hit the highway.
This part of the city hadn’t suffered as much damage, although he spied collapsed stone walls, houses with broken roofs, torn pavement and debris clogging the streets. Signe kept pace with Orion, who slowed often to avoid cracks in the road.
They were skirting the city of Catania. He could barely make it out in the distance but knew from the map that it sat about forty miles from the base.
“How are we on gas?”
“We’ll make it.”
The wind seemed to have blown the smoke north, and over the next two hours, he made out fields of olive trees and vineyards to the west, probably cultivated in old lava fields.
In front of them, Gio pointed to a small suburban area, and Orion turned off the highway, east toward a tiny community with red-roofed homes, small apartment buildings, and gated gardens. Signe followed, and they drove through the relatively undamaged streets until they came to a two-story white building.
A dog barked at them through the railing on the second floor. Orio
n stopped and Gio got off and shouted at the dog. He whined. A woman came out onto the porch. “Gio!”
Ham didn’t catch the rest.
Gio opened the gate and ran into the yard. Jenny got off the bike and followed him.
“I guess we’re going in,” Ham said as Signe stopped.
Orion parked the bike but left it running as he went in.
Signe did the same. Ham took her hand as they walked inside, he wasn’t sure why. Maybe just because . . .
Well, because they were almost home. And seeing a family reunited stirred the image of Aggie’s smile when Signe walked off the airplane.
He squeezed her hand and smiled down at her as Gio introduced them to his mother. “I speak English,” she said. “My name is Luna.”
She appeared to be in her midthirties, pretty, with dark olive skin, dark hair that hung down her back, and dark eyes that swept over the team with such gratitude Ham nearly agreed to let her make them tea.
“We gotta go,” he said.
Signe had let go of his hand and asked to use the bathroom. Luna motioned to a room down the hall.
“You’re headed to the base?”
“Yes,” Ham said, not sure what else to tell her.
“I used to live there,” Orion said, filling in a gap.
“I’m dating a corpsman,” she said as she went to the kitchen. “Please sit.”
Ham glanced at Orion and shook his head, but Orion frowned. And Jenny sat.
“I can call him and tell him that you’re here. He can get you in the front gate,” Luna said. She returned with a couple sandwiches in plastic wrap. “These were for our dinner, but Gio didn’t return last night.” She handed one to Ham, whose stomach suddenly roared to life. He took a look—salami, ham, tomato, lettuce, and mozzarella cheese. He might weep.
“I’ll make you one,” Luna said to Jenny.
Orion looked at his sandwich, then at Ham, waggled his eyebrows.
Fine. Ham sank down onto a straight-back chair, about to open his sandwich when . . .
Wait.
“Where’s Signe?” Orion said, voicing Ham’s thought.
Jenny went down the hall. “The bathroom is empty,” she said, coming out. “And the window is open.”
Orion went to the balcony. “Ham!”
No, oh—
He limped over to the window.
Orion’s bike lay on its side, the engine off.
Signe’s bike was gone.
The Price of Valor Page 17