True Devotion

by Dee Henderson

  She closed the cabinet on the flag, the medallion, and her ring.

  She looked again at the medallion. Somehow she was going to have to tell Charles she suspected Ryan was stealing. It was going to shatter her friend. He spoke about his past as something he was proud to have overcome, but she knew it was his soft spot, the place that would hurt him most.

  There had only been four people in her house who could have taken the medallion—Joe, Lynnette, Ryan, and Charles. Joe had told her it wasn’t Charles who gave him the medallion to return. No way was it Joe. Lynnette had a cop for a father and one of the strongest moral senses of right and wrong Kelly had seen in a teen. That left Ryan.

  Charles had probably told Ryan the same story he had told her about his past—he was the type of father who would want his son to learn from his mistakes. Instead, Ryan must have decided stealing was something cool to do. And if it was Ryan, he wasn’t new to stealing—not when he could steal from her and act perfectly normal around her when he saw her next.

  Joe worried that he had almost broken her heart.

  Ryan had.

  She would have to talk to Charles today.

  Thirty-One

  * * *

  F-16s were breaking overhead in the missing man formation, part of the Memorial Day ceremonies at the Naval Air Base North Island, when the call came in. Charles answered the phone after taking a deep breath.

  “Retrieve today’s permutation of the codes; we’ll be ready for it later today. It is quiet there?”

  “No one is moving. They heard only about the diversion,” Charles replied, relieved to have this deal almost concluded. “Transfer my money in twelve hours and I’ll send the codes.” He worked hard to keep the tension out of his voice. This was a deal and he was going to treat it as one. It was the one thing the general expected from him. “Then I expect you to call off your shadows. I’m leaving here with my son before you state your intentions to the world.”

  “You will enjoy Egypt.”

  “Or Paris,” he replied coolly. “I won’t pass along the authorization codes until the money is received.”

  “And I won’t call off my shadows until I have them,” the general countered. “We understand each other, you and I. Besides, it is not profitable to harm someone you anticipate doing future business with.” The general laughed. “Twelve hours, my friend, and our deal is done.”

  Charles hung up the phone. Twelve hours. It was an eternity. He hoped his plans to get out of this safely worked.

  He slid the envelope out of his pocket and tapped it against his palm.

  There had been no sleep last night. He thought about the medallion in the drawer and the completed note in the safe. His original plan was ready to go. He’d pass on the activation codes and then leave town. He would take Ryan by boat to a private airfield north of here, and they would fly to Houston to catch their flight to the Caribbean. The medallion and letter he’d leave with a courier to deliver to Joe about the time he and Ryan boarded the plane.

  It was all set. It was all thought through. And instead he was ready to throw it to the wind and act before then. Kelly was in too much danger. It ate at him as a nagging fear, the realization there was a hole in the time line where he would be gone and Joe wouldn’t know about the problem.

  Charles couldn’t approach Joe directly. But maybe he could directly approach Kelly. She understood security. She’d been married to a SEAL. She would accept information without asking that he give her all the facts behind his statements. He’d finessed harder problems.

  He had to get her away from here as close to when he and Ryan left as he could. And he may have already made that necessity not optional just by requesting the contents of this envelope.

  * * *

  Kelly was surprised at the message from Charles, not that he had called—she had expected that on this Memorial Day holiday—but at his request. He had moved his boat to the dock near Joe’s.

  The ceremonies were over and the rest of Memorial Day stretched out ahead of her. She had turned down Joe’s offer to join him, thinking she would rather get in a nap and forget the day, only to lie down and not be able to sleep. Charles’s request had been a good excuse to get out.

  “Kelly—over here,” Charles called. “I’m so glad you could come down on such short notice.”

  “I wanted to talk to you for a moment too, so I’m glad you phoned.” She walked down the pier to the guest slip he was using. “Your boat is beautiful.” It was a large vessel, beautifully crafted, chrome gleaming with a hull painted a deep blue with white trim.

  “Isn’t she? There is a cabin, small office, and a galley below.”

  “Is Ryan here?”

  “Down at the far end of the pier talking with friends. Listen, the reason I wanted to see you—some time ago I remember you telling me that you had never been outside of California.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Have you ever thought about it?”

  She was puzzled at the question. “Sure, occasionally.”

  “Come aboard and sit down for a minute. I need to talk with you.”

  Something in his expression made her step down onto the boat and do as he asked. “What is it?”

  He looked over at her and sighed. “I’ve got something for you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope, then handed it to her.

  She opened the envelope and was stunned to find there were plane tickets inside. To Paris. “What’s this?”

  “A vacation. No strings attached. If I thought you would accept, I would invite you to go with Ryan and me, but I already know that answer. So I’m asking you to go on your own vacation, or better yet convince Joe to go along. There are two tickets there. It’s time for you to take that vacation.”

  “I don’t understand. Why?”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “You’re not safe here.”

  She felt cold suddenly. “What do you mean?”

  “I hear things. You know, that’s my job. Please, I can’t explain, but it’s important. You need to take a vacation for a couple weeks.”

  “You’re going to have to tell me what you heard.” She understood restricted information, but his request made no sense.

  He finally nodded. “The men who killed Iris may try to kill you.”

  “What?”

  “Trust me on this, Kelly. If Joe had the information I do, he would be telling you the same thing. You need to get out of the area for a couple weeks.”

  “Have you talked to the police?”

  “The wrong thing to say, lady.” She barely had time to turn before one of the men she had passed on the pier, one of the crewman she assumed, stepped down on the boat and grasped her arm, too tightly for comfort. “He really was trying to do you a favor.”

  “Let her go.” Charles tried to step between them, then stopped when a second man came to his side, a gun in his hand.

  “Who are they?” Kelly asked Charles, instinct telling her he knew.

  “My shadows,” Charles replied bitterly. He looked at the first man. “This is a mistake. Let me talk to your boss.”

  “You can call him from the open waters with the item you owe him. Go below with your friend and just be glad it’s not your son we decided to grab. We’re going for a boat ride.”

  * * *

  Joe was trying to work on his boat and not making much headway. He was determined to take Kelly sailing in the near future, maybe out to Catalina Island. It was a chance to share not only his passion for sailing but also some uninterrupted time with her. They needed that time together. They were back together, but it was still uncertain ground.

  Joe smiled as he remembered her giggle. He had missed that lighthearted Kelly, the one who had been swallowed up by three years of recovering from grief. She was back and he wasn’t going to let anything mess it up.

  She had passed on joining him today, but he understood. Her sleep the last few days had been very broken, and it made sense that she would t
ry to get a nap. She said she would call around five o’clock and they’d look at going to dinner.

  “Joe!”

  He looked up and saw Ryan on the pier looking like he had run a fair distance. Joe’s feelings were mixed at seeing him. Ryan was one of the reasons Kelly liked Charles so much. Ryan had also hurt her by taking that medallion, betrayed that trust she showed in him. But the boy had been trying to make amends.

  “Hello, Ryan.”

  “Dad and Kelly—”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “Slow down. Put your hands on your knees; get your breath back.”

  “They took the boat out.”

  “Okay . . . ,” Joe said slowly, not sure what the problem was other than his feeling jealous of their friendship and the fact Kelly had said yes to Charles when she had said no to him.

  “Dad was waiting for the guy who normally does our boat maintenance, to let him know a seal had cracked on the diesel engine. There’s no way he would risk taking that boat out on the open sea today. And he just left me at the pier.” Ryan shook his head, as if realizing he wasn’t making sense. “There were two men on the boat.”

  “Ever seen them before?”

  Ryan shook his head.

  “The men you saw are probably the mechanics taking the boat out after they fixed the problem,” Joe said calmly. “Are you sure your dad and Kelly were aboard?”

  “I saw them going down into the cabin. I hollered but Dad didn’t hear me.”

  “Would he be carrying his cell phone?”

  “He never goes anywhere without it.”

  Joe handed the boy his. When Ryan got no answer, Joe was not entirely surprised. Shutting off the phone when you were with Kelly was what he would do.

  He pointed to the ship radio. “Try to raise him on that.”

  Ryan tried repeatedly but got no answer.

  That was odd. The Coast Guard frowned on boats not having their radios powered on. “Come on, we’ll take a sail, confirm everything is okay. I need to check out the latest repairs I’ve made anyway.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant.”

  “Get a life jacket on, and you can help me get her ready to go.”

  Joe was about to cast off the mooring lines when his pager went off.

  “What is it?”

  “The base.” Joe reached for his cell phone. The message waiting for him was short. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I have to leave you and go in to the base.”

  “But something’s wrong. I know it.”

  Joe could tell the boy really believed it. “You can come with me, and as soon as I’m done if they’re not back, we’ll go out. Or I can call the man who runs the pier and ask him to watch and help you try to get in touch with your dad’s boat. They may have been testing the radio and running channels and simply didn’t hear you. Your choice.”

  “Go with you.”

  “Then we need to move.”

  * * *

  They were locked in the small cabin. The bunk was narrow and beside it was a small dresser. The only other door was a small one into the head. Kelly shivered as she sat on the edge of the bunk, her attention focused on that door and the lock she had heard turn. Under her feet she could feel the engines increase in power and the rocking of the boat pick up. The man had had a gun and it had looked lethal in his hand. “Charles, who are they?”

  The man she thought she knew was pacing in the small open area of the cabin. “I think one of them killed Iris.” He sat on the bunk beside her, staring at the door, thinking. “We’ll be okay. They need something I know. At least I hope they still do. It’s not that much money that he would risk the delay.”

  “Ryan was left at the pier.”

  “He’s safe for now, but he won’t realize what happened to know he should try and get help. I gave him money to buy his friends lunch. He may not even have realized we’re gone.” He rubbed his hands across his face. “I knew the man would try something like this; I knew a double cross was coming. I thought I had more time.”

  “What man?”

  He sighed heavily as he glanced at her. “I stole something, Kelly. I’m not making excuses, but the buyer threatened my son. He didn’t leave me much choice in the matter and the deal concludes tonight. The buyer is rather paranoid about something happening to his purchase. I guess you could say grabbing us is insurance.”

  “But he’ll get charged with kidnapping.”

  Charles gave a rusty laugh. “He’s acquiring a weapon, Kelly. I know for a fact he’s done worse than kidnapping through the years. The last time we did a deal was three years ago, and Joe and Nick swiped his purchase before he could pick it up.”

  Three years ago . . . “You stole something and got Nick killed trying to retrieve it?” She recoiled at the realization. This was the man Joe set out to stop. She tried to move away from him, and his hand gripped her arm, stopping her movement.

  “Kelly, I never intended for Nick to get hurt. He shouldn’t have been, for I fed the SEALs precise information on where the shipment would be, all the way down to the railcar numbers. And the smugglers—they thought they were moving guidance system parts. Joe and Nick should never have been hurt; they had done dozens of missions much more dangerous.”

  “You got Nick killed!” She surged at him, coming at him with fists clenched.

  He grabbed her hands to stop her. “Don’t, Kelly.”

  She finally sank down on the bunk, fighting the fury. “I don’t understand how you can justify this to yourself. What about God? What about ‘thou shalt not steal’? What about ‘thou shalt not kill’?”

  “I didn’t intend it to happen!”

  “That doesn’t help much.”

  He looked at her, desperation in his gaze that she would understand and forgive him. “Kelly, God stole my wife from me. He doesn’t care about me. At first after her death, I would steal, and then I would go to church the next Sunday to remind God that I had done it just because I could. When the anger faded, I continued to steal because I wanted God to care enough to catch me. Only He never did. He just let me go on stealing because He didn’t care what I did. He’s the Father you don’t want to have, the one who doesn’t care to stop His son from being a thief—just like my old man here on earth.”

  “Charles, that’s not true.”

  “Then why did He steal Amy from me? The one good thing in my life, the one reason I reformed, and He took her. He left me without a wife and my son without a mother.”

  “You’re angry at God because He let your wife die?” She saw herself in Charles. The rebellion, the hypocrisy. She had lashed out at God and denied Him being Lord in her life because He had allowed Nick to die. She’d felt equally angry with Him because He once let Joe walk away. Charles was doing the same thing, but on a harsher scale—he was deliberately stealing, shaking his fist at God by breaking the commandment not to steal. Though his rebellion was external, hers internal, both were paying the price of their actions. “Who are you?” she asked incredulously.

  “If I could give you back Nick, I would, but I can’t. So I’ve been trying to make it up to you in the only way I know how. I let you into my son’s life. I trusted you with the most important person to me.”

  “Making it up to me? Charles, you got my husband killed!”

  Thirty-Two

  * * *

  The security guard at the base cleared him in. Joe thought for a moment and turned toward the administration building, positive that was where he would also find Boomer. He needed to make sure Ryan was supervised while he followed up on the page and got a sense of how long he would be here. If it was going to be a while, he would ask the community relations officer to take Ryan back to the pier and watch for Kelly and Charles to return. He parked and reached for his sunglasses case from the dashboard.

  “I saw Dad with the lady who drowned,” Ryan remarked.

  “You what?”

  “I just realized it when you pulled into the base. Dad met her here one evening. It was night. I didn’t remember her ha
ir being blonde; that’s why I didn’t recognize her picture. Dad had two tickets to a concert for her. We got here, parked in visitor parking, and she met Dad by that bench. They talked maybe two minutes, and then we went on to a ball game.”

  Joe looked at the bench Ryan indicated as they walked toward the doors of the administration building. “Why the tickets?”

  “Dad gets free ones all the time at work. He gives away most of them.”

  Joe didn’t have time to figure out the implication of Charles and Iris being friends. It was potentially huge, but it was another problem. Inside the building he pointed Ryan to the visitor lounge just off the reception desk. “Sit here and stay put until I come back or send someone to get you. This isn’t a place you can wander around.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Joe dug out change for the vending machine in the lobby and handed it to Ryan. “Get a soda. There are several sports magazines in the spin rack.”

  Joe headed toward the wing of the building his boss called home. The briefing was already underway in the conference room. Joe found he was one of several who were arriving in response to callbacks. The casual dress was a clear giveaway.

  “That device we missed a week ago got through by another route,” Lincoln said grimly, pacing at the north end of the room beside a large map. “Taiwan has a weapon, and they will get it operational in a matter of days if they’ve also acquired the codes. We’ve deployed platoons Echo and Foxtrot in the region to deal with the situation. We don’t know how large this faction is in their military. The leader is a General Kerhi, and he’s already confident he can take control of the government. We intercepted two transmissions from him with the man he is planning to put forward as the new president. We’ve got a slim window of time before China learns what’s happening, or for that matter, the present government of Taiwan. If Taiwan knew they could get their hands on a nuclear device, they would take it, hide it, and pretend they never saw it. We’ve got to get it back.