by Mel Odom
“I also suspect that her new husband—”
“Jesse,” Will said.
“—doesn’t care for the situation either.”
“Probably not.”
“He’s not a kid person,” Maggie said, “so having them around is . . .” She paused, searching for the right, technically inoffensive term.
“Inconvenient,” Will said.
“Having to share them with you is more than inconvenient to him,” Maggie said. “I’ve seen his type. He likes to be top dog. He wants it to all be about him.”
Will looked at Maggie then. “You haven’t mentioned this before,” he said.
“It’s because I mind my own business.”
Will cocked an eyebrow. “But here you are in my office.”
Maggie smiled guilelessly. “Yes.”
Will gestured to a seat across from his desk. Maggie slid into it and sat attentively.
“So now you don’t have any more questions?” Will asked.
“You know what you want to talk about more than I do,” Maggie replied. “A good counselor only leads a conversation when that isn’t the case.”
Will hesitated for a moment and wondered if talking at all was a mistake. But he felt the need to. Today had been harder than he’d expected. Taking Steven and Wren back to be with their new “dad” for part of Father’s Day hadn’t been easy.
“You’re right about Jesse,” he said. “He does want it to be all about him.” Will shook his head. “I honestly don’t know what Barbara sees in him.”
“He’s always home. He’s always around. It’s all about him, and he wants to be there so it can be all about him.” Maggie shrugged. “It’s not rocket science. Barbara wanted a man who was home.”
“And I wasn’t.”
“Not enough for her, no. But the work you were doing with the Navy was important, Will. Never forget that. Military careers are hard on everybody. You went through the same things that she did, and you got to see your children a lot less.”
That had been one of the things Will had sought to redress after taking the NCIS posting.
“Not everybody can do what you and those other men do on a daily basis.”
“She blamed me.”
“She blamed your job. You just got caught up in the fallout. Jesse wants home to be all about him. So he’s there. By default, even though it’s not exactly for the right reasons, his desire meets Barbara’s needs.”
“He didn’t like it that Steven and Wren were with me most of today. And he didn’t like it when they called and asked him if they could stay the night and come back tomorrow.”
“That would have been a big concession.”
Will nodded.
“But he wasn’t big enough to make it,” Maggie said.
“No.”
“Why do you think he felt that way?”
Will folded his hands together and leaned across the desk toward her. “I’m not the professional here.”
Maggie shook her head. “That’s not how we do the work. I don’t just give you the answers. You have to look for them yourself. Besides, you know the answer to this one.”
Will did because the answer was simple. “Jesse didn’t want them to be with me because it was a distinct reminder that it’s not all about him. Not where they’re concerned.”
A pleased look flashed in Maggie’s hazel eyes. “Bingo. But it cuts deeper than that.”
Will’s momentary triumph faded. “I don’t understand.”
“You were one of the youngest lieutenants ever promoted to commander,” Maggie said. “You can figure this one out.” She sipped her coffee.
Will was silent for a full minute as he tried to wrap his brain around what Maggie was saying.
“Do you think Jesse would have usurped Father’s Day from you if he could have?” Maggie asked finally.
“Yes.” Will answered without hesitation.
“But he didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why do you think he didn’t?”
“Because it’s Father’s Day.”
“Is the visitation written out in the divorce papers?”
Will gave that consideration and shook his head. “No. But it only seems fair. Barbara gets them on Mother’s Day.”
“Because you allow it.”
“Yes.” Then Will understood. “And she allowed me to have them today.”
“In spite of the fact that Steven and Wren have a new father figure in the house. This was Jesse’s first Father’s Day with them as their stepdad. It was probably kind of a big thing to him.”
“Because it’s all about him. Only today wasn’t, because Barbara didn’t let that happen.”
Maggie nodded.
“Maybe I shouldn’t feel as angry at Barbara as I have been for not having Steven and Wren all day.”
“You’re going to feel the way you feel, Will,” Maggie said. “I just want you to understand that you had something good today—several hours of almost stress-free time with your kids—that could have been much harder.”
“Barbara wanted me to be with Steven and Wren today.”
“I think so. But that can’t have set well with her new husband.”
“Because it’s not all about him.”
“Exactly. But even if they’d been there, he wouldn’t have appreciated them as much as you did. The emotional ties and investments aren’t there.”
Thinking back over the way Steven and Wren had reluctantly left him when he’d dropped them off, Will realized that what Maggie was saying was true. It helped a little.
“Father’s Day has gotten complicated,” he said.
“But not impossible.”
“No.” And please, God, never let it be impossible. Will relaxed a little more and glanced at the clock on the wall. “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
“Neither have I. I could order Chinese in.”
“Sure.”
Even as Will reached for the phone on his desk, though, it rang. He lifted the handset and identified himself.
“Commander,” a no-nonsense voice on the other end of the connection said, “I’m Special Agent-in-Charge Scott Urlacher of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If I may, I need a moment of your time.”
10
>> NCIS Offices
>> Camp Lejeune, north carolina
>> 1923 Hours
Will covered the mouthpiece and looked at Maggie. “FBI. SAC Urlacher?”
Maggie shook her head, letting him know the name meant nothing to her.
“What can I do for you, Agent Urlacher?” Will hit the speakerphone button, motioning for Maggie to stay quiet.
“Do you know a man named Victor Gant?” Urlacher responded.
Will didn’t hesitate about answering, but he was instantly wary. “I do.”
“You’ve got paper out on his son, Bobby Lee.”
Will agreed to that as well, wondering why the FBI agent had called him.
“I’ve got a situation I was hoping you could help me with,” Urlacher said.
“If I can,” Will replied. He wasn’t in the habit of making blind promises.
“Victor Gant is in a bad bit of business out here in Charlotte,” Special Agent-in-Charge Urlacher said. “He runs with a local biker gang.”
“The Purple Royals,” Will replied as he gazed at the file Maggie had opened up on his computer in front of him. “He doesn’t just run with them. He leads it.”
“Yes, sir. Our intel suggests that the Purple Royals deal meth and weapons.”
The notes in the folder agreed with that assessment. Will didn’t say anything.
“We’ve had an undercover officer on-site in Charlotte for months,” Urlacher said. “He made contact with Victor Gant and was trying to negotiate a sizeable drug buy. Gant has a resource for opium that beats most anything we’ve seen down here.”
“Down here” let Will know immediately that Urlacher wasn’t from the South.
“How can
I help you?” Will asked.
Urlacher hesitated. “I need some leverage to use against Gant.”
“I don’t have anything. We’ve been working the case against Bobby Lee.”
“I understand that. What I was wondering was if you’d gotten any closer to bringing Bobby Lee Gant in.”
Will swapped looks with Maggie, and he knew what the FBI man was about to ask.
“Not yet,” Will said.
“With everything Gant’s done, I can hold him for a few days before we have to charge him,” Urlacher said. “To hold him any longer, I’m going to have to charge him with something. I can make a case for threatening a federal officer, especially in light of how he confronted our undercover, but that’s not going to be enough.” The FBI agent sighed. “We might not even be able make that stick. Gant maneuvered the situation so it’s his word against my undercover’s.”
Will didn’t say anything.
“I’m wondering if you could heat up your search for Bobby Lee Gant,” Urlacher said.
“Trust me,” Will said evenly, “nobody wants him more than we do.” He’d interviewed the young Marine in the hospital and seen firsthand the damage that Bobby Lee Gant had wrought. Even after everything he’d seen while at NCIS, the atrocity had sickened Will.
The young Marine had looked small, helpless, and defeated in that hospital bed. His wife hadn’t looked much better. But she’d asked Will to find the man who had done that to them.
Will had promised he would.
“I need to put pressure on Gant to turn his opium source,” Urlacher said. “But to do that, I need something to offer him in return.”
“You want to offer him Bobby Lee?” Will couldn’t believe it. Anger stirred in him. “There’s no way Bobby Lee is going to walk after what he did.”
“He’s a young man,” Urlacher said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Still has a lot of years ahead of him. Hasn’t been in a whole lot of trouble, judging from the jacket I’m going by. A jury could be persuaded that young man could be rehabilitated.”
Will didn’t think so. Neither did Maggie, judging from her sour expression. Her profile of the man had shown him to be a career criminal. Salvation wasn’t in the cards for Bobby Lee Gant. Not once the jury saw the damage the young Marine and his wife had suffered at Bobby Lee’s hands.
“I’m willing to take my chances in court,” Will replied. In fact, he wanted a jury to handle the case because he felt certain they would punish Bobby Lee Gant more than a deal between the DA’s office and a defense attorney would.
NCIS had processed the evidence, and the case was airtight. The only trick would be in making the civilian DA stick to his promise to prosecute to the fullest extent of his office.
“Maybe you misunderstand what I’m getting at,” Urlacher said.
“I think I understand perfectly,” Will said. “For whatever reason, your undercover operation against Victor Gant was blown. You still want to salvage something. Since you don’t have your guy in the wringer, you want to offer to free the guy I’ve got in the wringer. That pretty much sum it up?”
Urlacher was silent for a moment. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation we’re dealing with here. Victor Gant and his motorcycle gang are responsible for an increase in opium feeding into this county. I want to shut that pipeline down.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Ultimately a lot of those drugs are going to find their way onto military bases. They always do.”
“And when they do,” Will said, “we’ll take them off the board. Bobby Lee Gant is another matter entirely. He’s going to take the fall for what he did.”
“I understand why you feel the way that you do. I heard about what he did to that young soldier—”
“He was a Marine,” Will corrected automatically. “One of the Marines that I’m supposed to help. I couldn’t be there to stop Bobby Lee Gant, but I am going to help see that Bobby Lee goes away for what he did.” He let out a breath. “If you’re a betting man, Agent Urlacher, I advise you to bet on that.”
“I think the DA in Jacksonville can be persuaded to do business with us,” Urlacher said. “All cases involving civilian personnel go through him.”
That was true. Only cases that involved strictly military personnel went through military courts.
“We have a good working relationship with the Jacksonville DA,” Will said.
“He might like to have a new one with the FBI.”
“I don’t see how working with the FBI would be in his best interests.”
“The FBI is a good friend to have.”
“The FBI,” Will said, “can’t fill the DA’s court with civilians violating ordinances in Camp Lejeune. The DA can’t hold military personnel in jail if this camp decides those men are better off working at their jobs. Trust me when I say that we make his life a whole lot better than you ever could.”
“I don’t think you can muscle up that much resistance.”
“It’s not just me,” Will said. “With the military, it’s never just an individual. Civilians make the mistake of seeing an individual, but we’re never alone. And these are the Marines. They’ll want justice done.”
“I think the federal government can pony up more respect than that.”
“I’ve worked with the DA over the years,” Will said. “He’s not a guy who likes getting strong-armed. You take that approach with him, I might not have to do a thing.”
Urlacher cursed.
“Now, if there’s nothing else,” Will said, “I’ve got work to attend to.”
“I’ll be talking to you, Commander.” Urlacher broke the connection before Will could respond.
“Sounds like he has issues,” Maggie said.
“Maybe a few.” Will took out his Pocket PC and scribbled Urlacher’s name onto a Post-it note. He’d write up a file about the conversation later on the off chance that they might bump heads again. “Let’s get hold of Shel and Remy. If Urlacher has Victor Gant, he’s probably holding him in Charlotte.”
“Are you thinking they might cross paths?”
Will nodded. “We got the tip about Bobby Lee Gant from the Charlotte PD. If Urlacher finds that out, he might want to pursue Bobby Lee himself.”
>> Interview Room
>> Federal Bureau of Investigation Field Office
>> Charlotte, North Carolina
>> 1941 Hours
Calm and at ease, Victor Gant sat in the uncomfortable straight-backed chair like he didn’t have a care in the world. He actually sat too far from the table, but he couldn’t move the chair because it was bolted to the floor.
He didn’t know if anyone stood behind the one-way mirror to his left, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to go to jail long—if he went at all. He wasn’t worried about that. What concerned him more was whether or not he’d be able to sell the other part of the plan.
That was questionable, and it was important.
The FBI agents had left Victor his cigarettes even though the building was supposed to be smoke-free. He knew that was an attempt at buying him off, but he didn’t care. If the cigarettes hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have smoked them. Time would have passed just as slowly, but he would have been more aware of it.
He inhaled carefully, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs to absorb the nicotine. When he let the smoke out in a steady stream, he saw the past coiled in the gray mass. He was never far from the past. Maybe it was thirty years and more on a calendar, but it remained only a single thought away.
One thought and he was right back in those green jungles with Charlie all around him.
The interview room door opened.
Victor barely glanced up.
The hard-nosed FBI agent who had arrested him at the Tawny Kitty stepped into the room. He carried a slim folder in one hand.
Victor knew at once that the folder wasn’t his. He’d seen his folder. It was thick with past brushes with the law and the evil that he’d don
e. There was a dark part of him that took pride in that work.
Urlacher dropped the file on the scarred conference table.
Victor grinned at the man. “Catching up on your reading, Hoss?”
“Do you know what genealogy is?” Urlacher countered.
A cold chill spilled through Victor’s stomach. “Family history. I ain’t dumb.”
“I never thought you were.” Urlacher put a big hand on the file. “But I find family histories mighty interesting. Not always good reading, but interesting nevertheless.”
Victor lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old, then crushed out the old one and fanned the smoke. His handcuff chains rattled and pulled at the connection to the belt around his waist.
“Take you, for instance,” Urlacher said. “You’ve got an interesting family tree. Father and grandfather were both hard-core military guys. Noncoms, both of them. Your father served in Korea and World War II. Your grandfather fought in World War I. Both of them were decorated heroes.”
Victor leaned his head back and blew a perfect smoke ring that floated toward the ceiling.
“You,” Urlacher said, “weren’t quite so decorated.”
“Vietnam was a different kind of war,” Victor said.
“I know. I was there.”
Interested in spite of himself, Victor leaned forward. “Where?”
“I was a PJ.”
Now that was interesting. PJs were pararescue jumpers, men who’d parachuted into hostile territory under enemy fire and pulled out survivors. Everyone respected the PJs.
“I knew some PJs,” Victor said. “They had a saying.”
“‘That others may live,’” Urlacher responded.
“They always said you guys went to Superman school.”
“We did.”
Victor smiled at Urlacher. “I know you ain’t here to rescue me.”
“I’m not. If I had my way, I’d drop-kick you into the deepest, dankest cell I can find.”
“Love the way you sugarcoat things. Must make you a real heartthrob with all the guys you bust.”
Urlacher’s face hardened. “Let’s get something straight, melonhead. I’m not your friend. I’m not going to be your friend. If push comes to shove, I’m going to rip your ears off and feed them to you. Are you hearing me all right?”