Her head wound was his first priority. He drew away to unbutton his dress shirt, fingers shaking so badly that it took him longer than usual. Casting his dress shirt aside, he stripped off his T-shirt, folding it into a long bandage. As he wrapped it gently about her head, he considered how she came to be shot. She’d seen the shooter first, launching herself at Luther to keep him from being struck.
“You covered me!” he raged, tying off the ends of the bandage.
Hannah hissed with discomfort.
“Christ, Hannah, you could have been killed!”
She grimaced. “No. You were the one she was aiming at, Luther,” she said rather desperately. “I saw the light from her laser sight designator sitting right on your chest.”
Shaken, he could only stare at her. “That makes no sense.”
“Somebody wants to hurt me,” she interpreted. Her teeth chattered.
Luther looked up. He pointed at a sober-looking sailor. “You, find some clean towels or a blanket if they have one.”
The man disappeared.
“Hannah, listen,” Luther urged, leaning over her, fingertips lightly touching her face. “They’re going to catch the shooter,” he promised. “And when they do, she’s going to explain why the Individual is doing this. And then you’ll be safe.”
She clasped his hands with fingers that felt icy cold. Luther’s chest and eyes were pressured with emotion. He turned Hannah’s palm toward his lips and kissed it. If he weren’t so worried for her, he’d march outside right now, arm himself, and hunt down the Obradovitch bitch himself.
“I’ll be all right,” Hannah whispered, as if sensing his inner torment.
But then her eyes rolled in their sockets and her lids drifted shut.
“Hannah!” he said, terrified that she would slip into a coma and never emerge. He knew enough about head wounds to know that it was best for the injured party to stay awake. “Hannah!” But she failed to rouse at the sound of her name, and he didn’t dare shake her, risking further injury.
He wheeled away, dragging his hands through his hair. “Where is that ambulance?” he shouted.
“It’s on the way,” someone said. “The cops are here.”
“Here are some towels.” The young sailor approached with an armful of drying towels. He helped Luther cover Hannah up. They propped up her feet to counteract her shock.
But nothing could ease Luther’s shock. As he stared down at Hannah’s limp body, goose bumps raced over his naked torso. He’d been in situations where teammates had been shot, injured, even killed. But this was different, because this was Hannah.
It was like his future—this whole new life he’d started to envision with her—hung by a thread.
Chapter Seventeen
Virginia Beach Municipal Hospital
2 October ~ 10:18 EST
Even with her eyes closed, Hannah was cognizant of the sun streaming through the hospital window. She awakened to it by degrees, turning her head slowly so as not to exacerbate the pounding at her temple. The bandage secured so tightly over her brow seemed to make it worse. Over the thudding in her ears, she could hear the hospital workers hustling about, tending their patients. It had to be midmorning or so, which meant that Jaguar’s trial was well into its second day.
That thought brought her eyes fully open. The first thing she noticed was that the chair that Luther had pulled up alongside her bed was back in the corner of the sterile chamber, empty. He’d remained with her from the moment she’d been roused by paramedics to the wee hours of morning when she’d finally been let to sleep. Luther’s steadying presence had made the unpleasant ordeal nearly tolerable. A technician had taken X-rays. Then a doctor stared into her eyes and asked questions, while nurses poured stinging solution into the gash in her scalp. The police had hovered on the other side of the door, impatient to speak with her. Thank God for Luther who’d not only fielded their questions but enlisted their services in keeping watch on her door throughout the night.
When Hannah was finally left to sleep, Luther had remained with her, flouting the rules of visitation. No one seemed inclined to toss him out. He’d pulled the armchair up by the bed and stayed there. Drifting off to sleep, Hannah had reconsidered the words he’d shared so earnestly before the shooting began. He’d said she was amazing; that he wanted to keep her in his life. She’d sensed, as he sat by her bed like a patient guardian angel, that he was waiting for her answer.
Now he was at the trial, presumably defending Jaguar’s innocence. Supporting his teammate was exactly what he ought to be doing, not investing his time in a woman who had bigger plans than settling down and having his babies. The loneliness that rose up in her took her breath away.
On the heels of loneliness came trepidation. Was she even safe with Luther gone? But then she remembered that the police, along with Galworth and Stone, were guarding her door. More than that, Tanya Obradovitch had been apprehended, according to the call Luther’d received on his cell phone while she was still in triage.
Hannah threw back the covers, pressured by her bladder to get out of bed. She found that her head hurt far less when she was sitting up. With relief, she put her feet to the floor. She could hear Newman’s bodyguards in the hallway, chuckling over something the policeman had said.
The police would want to speak with her this morning. Not wanting to greet them in a hospital gown, she hunted for her clothes and found her yellow suit hanging in the narrow locker beside her bed. She took it into the restroom. Following a brisk shower, she put her clothes back on, amazed to find that her suit hadn’t suffered any irreparable damage.
Jittery from her exertions, Hannah emerged from the bathroom and drew up short. There was a man in her room. He turned at her entrance, his face lined with worry. “Hannah, my girl!”
“Uncle Caleb. What are you doing here?”
Taking in her bandage, he shook his head with self-recrimination. “I should never have let those SEALs run off with you, not even with my bodyguards keeping watch. They’re fired,” he added, capturing her face lightly in his hands, his eyes cloudy with concern.
“How did you hear?”
“My men reported in. Oh, Hannah. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Uncle Caleb,” she reassured him, touched that he’d abandoned his busy schedule to visit her. “We let our guard down, thinking it was safer with Bill Westmoreland in custody.”
Newman dropped his hands to his side. “I’m sure you’ve realized this, but it’s definitely not,” he said grimly.
“What do you mean?”
“I need you to come with me, Hannah,” he exhorted, as persuasive as he’d been three years ago when he begged her to leave the CIA. “I’m afraid you’re not safe here.”
His certainty reawakened her uneasiness. “But they caught the woman who was shooting at us.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Mercenaries are a dime a dozen,” Newman argued. “Westmoreland only has to crook his fingers and another will come forward to take that woman’s place.”
Hannah’s scalp tingled. “But what does Westmoreland have against me?” she asked, unable to fathom the man’s antagonism.
Newman seemed to deliberate. “All right, I’ll tell you,” he decided. “I’ve done a little probing, Hannah. The FBI has kept it secret for years, but your father’s plane went down for a reason. Its engine had been tampered with.”
The meaning of his message filtered slowly through her mind. Her father’s plane had been debilitated?
“Westmoreland knew he was second in line to becoming the DCI,” Newman continued gravely. “He had a motive for wanting Alfred’s plane to crash. You are your father’s daughter. It makes sense that he would want you out of the way, if only to keep you from haunting him.”
Every extremity in Hannah’s body turned cold. The accident that had brought her to her knees hadn’t been an accident, after all! Her father had been killed so that Westmoreland’s ambitions could be fulfilled. “Why didn�
�t you tell me this before?” she whispered, reeling with shock.
Uncle Caleb steadied her. “I wanted to protect you,” he replied, his eyes wet with emotion. “Now you see why I never wanted you to join the Agency?”
She nodded numbly. She would have been working for the very man who murdered her parents. She searched her godfather’s handsome face. “How long have you known?”
“I’ve always suspected,” he replied. “The FBI’s suspicions were revealed only recently, after Westmoreland was arrested. Hannah, I need you to come with me,” he urged again. “Come with me now. I’ll fly you to an island in the Yucatán. You can stay there for as long as it takes for this matter to blow over. You won’t need to bring anything with you. I’ll buy you whatever you require.”
She clutched him, indecisive. Leave now? Without knowing the outcome of Jaguar’s trial? Without telling Luther good-bye?
Looking into Uncle Caleb’s gaze, she saw fear—fear that she would join her parents in death if she didn’t act. Some deep-seated part of her also was afraid, not so much of dying but of disappointing Luther by putting herself before his selfless compromise. He was willing to make concessions, but she wasn’t. She’d waited too long for her freedom to turn around and cash it in.
“Okay,” she decided, trembling with mixed relief and dismay at her cowardice. “I’ll go with you.”
Seated on the witness stand, every muscle in Luther’s body from his neck to his toes was taut with frustration. Not only was he torn by the need to leave Hannah at the hospital, especially with the memory of Valentino’s warning echoing in his mind, but the defense counsel’s arguments were getting them nowhere.
Luther had fully expected the photos taken at the warehouse to send the trial in a positive direction. Not five minutes into his testimony, Commander Curew’s questioning was cut short by the prosecutor’s objections.
“Your Honor,” Captain Garret called on a scathing note as he shot to his feet, “kindly remind the defense who is on trial here. This line of questioning in no way pertains to the accused and the charges that he faces.”
“Objection sustained,” Admiral Pease agreed. “Counselor, you have veered off course once again,” he scolded with tedious impatience.
“But, Your Honor, these pictures offer proof that Commander Lovitt’s dealings are less than honorable and that he therefore has a motive for—”
“Enough!” railed the admiral. “Unless and until Commander Lovitt is formally charged, I will not tolerate your insinuations or your slander. Now keep to the matter of your client’s charges and stop wasting the court’s time!”
Commander Curew sent Luther an overwrought and apologetic look. “You are dismissed, Lieutenant,” she addressed him, “thank you.” As she hung her head in defeat, it was alarmingly clear that she had given up.
Luther withdrew from the witness stand on leaden feet. His gaze slid to Commander Lovitt who, in contrast to his confident demeanor yesterday, sat slouching in the third row behind the prosecutor’s table, looking ill at ease. Lovitt was clearly realizing that his crimes were dogging him; that he could not avoid being bitten by them for much longer. Seeing him so discomfited eased Luther’s concerns.
Once the NCIS intervened and Lovitt was arrested, Jaguar could make an appeal that would likely counter the rulings of this trial. But, for the time being, Jaguar would have to endure the stain of guilt. The defense lawyer was losing her case.
“I have concluded my arguments, Your Honor,” she mumbled, casting a regretful look at Jaguar, who returned it with stoic understanding.
Just then, one of the doors of the courtroom burst open. “Excuse me, Admiral!” Luther recognized Commander Curew’s paralegal, a young enlisted female. “I have an urgent parcel for the defense.”
Admiral Pease scowled but waved the woman in.
Commander Curew took the FedEx envelope from her paralegal. Ripping it open, she studied its contents with hands that trembled. Every man and woman in the courtroom held a collective breath.
“Well?” Admiral Pease prompted. “Are you finished or not, Counselor?”
“Your Honor,” Commander Curew replied in a voice pitched with excitement and discovery, “I move that the charges against my client be dismissed!”
Admiral Pease all but rolled his eyes. “On what grounds, Commander?” he demanded to know.
“The Navy has no corpus delicti,” Commander Curew replied, waving the documents in her hand.
Admiral Pease sent her a patronizing glare. “The two missing sailors have been declared dead, Counselor,” he retorted tediously.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Curew agreed, approaching the bench. “The two sailors whom my client supposedly tossed off the USS Nor’easter on August the nineteenth are MIA and presumed dead.” She thrust the documents in her hands out for him to take. “However, Petty Officers Daniels, Smith, and Keyes have been dead for more than ten years! These are their death certificates.”
Admiral Pease snatched up the paperwork that Curew thrust at him triumphantly. He perused the documents with a beetled brow.
“Objection, Admiral!” Captain Garret cried. “The defense had already concluded her arguments before presenting this material. It is inadmissible!”
“Overruled,” Admiral Pease shot back, sending an impatient glare at the prosecutor. “You know as well as I that you can’t try a man for a crime that hasn’t happened.”
“Then I question the authenticity of the documents at hand,” Garret added, storming up to the bench to take them from the judge.
“Each death certificate is marked with an official seal belonging to the county of health from which it was issued,” Commander Curew said, quick to defend her findings.
Captain Garret looked over the certificates with meticulous care. He carried them to the prosecutor’s table to compare them with his notes. Finally, with a flush of humiliation staining his hollowed cheeks, he turned a glare upon Commander Lovitt, who sat with his shoulders hunched to his ears.
Garret stalked to the front of the courtroom, his polished shoes loud on the hardwood floor. He thrust the documents back at the judge. “Your Honor,” he said with distaste, “as these death certificates appear to be authentic, the accused is clearly not guilty of the murders of Daniels, Keyes, and Smith; however there is still the charge concerning the destruction of naval property—”
“Commander Lovitt fired the chain gun, Captain,” Admiral Pease retorted. “Do you honestly believe that with a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree field of fire, he would have hit the Osprey if he didn’t mean to shoot it?” He snatched up his gavel and brought it down with a resounding smack. “The case of United States Navy versus Lieutenant Renault has been dismissed on the basis of insufficient evidence!” he called over the excited murmurs of the spectators. “Guards!” he added, waving forward the security officers who’d brought Jaguar into court. “Take Commander Lovitt into custody.”
“Hoo-yahs!” rose up from the rows of Navy SEALs. In one accord, they spilled from the benches to swarm Commander Curew, who backed away in flustered modesty. Luther threw an arm around Westy’s shoulders, squeezing him in triumph. They’d done it, by God! Jaguar was a free man.
Westy felt tense within his embrace. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, stepping over Luther’s legs. Luther watched as the chief made his way to the rear exit in the wake of the prosecutor’s retreating wife. Oh, lord, he was actually following the woman.
A cheer at the front of the room reclaimed Luther’s attention. A horde of young SEALs had hoisted Commander Curew onto their shoulders and were parading her around, deaf to her threats of an impending lawsuit.
Sebastian appeared out of nowhere to pump Luther’s hand. “We did it, sir. Let’s go talk to Jaguar.”
Jaguar was clinging to his deliriously happy family. As Luther and Sebastian stepped close, he broke away to accept their felicitations, looking a decade younger with the burden of his charges lifted. SEALs lined up behind them to do likewise.
<
br /> Still grappling with the victory that had come upon them so suddenly, Luther turned full circle. Why was he feeling uneasy rather than victorious? Vinny thumped him on the back. Teddy wiped his streaming eyes. “I have to go,” Luther said, heading for the door.
Two men in navy windbreakers blocked his path as he stepped into the hall. Luther noted the FBI logo on the front of their jackets. He assumed they were in the area to collect Tanya Obradovitch and decided to drop by for a statement, but then he recognized the youth standing behind them from the photos in Hannah’s bedroom.
“Lieutenant Lindstrom?” queried the shorter of the agents.
“Yes.”
“Agent Crawford,” he introduced himself. “This is Special Agent Hearn and Kevin Geary.”
Luther shook hands all around, finding Kevin’s hands as big as his own.
“We got word of the incident last night,” Agent Crawford added, peering past him into the courtroom. “We’re here to take Miss Geary off your hands.”
Luther took immediate offense. But why get defensive when Hannah’s safety was the main issue?
“Where is she?” Kevin added, looking worried.
Luther cringed inwardly. “She’s at the municipal hospital,” he admitted. “She was grazed by a bullet yesterday.”
Agent Crawford glared at him. “You didn’t mention that yesterday when you called Valentino’s office.”
“Hannah didn’t want her brother worrying.”
“The boss isn’t going to like this,” Crawford rapped. “Let’s go.” He jerked his head toward the exit, indicating that Luther should lead the way. “How far is the hospital from here?”
“It’s right outside the gate. What’s going on?” Premonition made the hair on Luther’s nape rise. He glanced behind him, but Westy wasn’t back in the courtroom, yet.
“Hurry,” Agent Crawford urged, prodding him toward the door.
Luther headed for the parking lot without Westy, uneasiness roiling in him. “I want to know what’s going on,” he demanded.
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