Tall, Dark, and Dangerous Part 2

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “This is Captain Jean-Luc Lague,” a heavily accented voice informed her. “There is a clearing half a kilometer down the road.”

  “Good,” P.J. said as she put her arms around Joe, cradling him against the jostling of the truck. His shoulder had started bleeding again, and she used a scrap of his shirt to lightly apply pressure to the wound. “We’ll stop there. But you’ll have to take us on board without landing, Captain Lague. There are minefields all over this island.”

  “I can hover alongside the road.”

  “Great,” P.J. told him. She glanced over to find Harvard smiling at her. “I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. She turned off her mike. “It’s just…I figured I was the only one of us who had a microphone that worked, and…”

  “You did great,” Harvard said. “And you’re right. My mike’s not working, Joe’s mike is gone. Who else was going to talk to Captain Lague?”

  “But you’re sitting there laughing at me.”

  “I’m just smiling. I’m really liking the fact that we’re all still alive.” His smile broadened. “I’m just sitting here absolutely loving you.”

  “Uh, H.?” Blue’s voice cut in. “Your mike’s working again.”

  Harvard laughed as he pulled up next to the open field. “Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know that I’m crazy about this woman?”

  “Admiral Stonegate probably didn’t know,” Blue drawled.

  The chopper hovered, and Harvard lifted the captain in his arms. Several medics helped Joe into the helicopter, then Harvard gave P.J. a boost before he climbed in himself.

  The door was shut, and the medics immediately started an IV on Joe. The chopper lifted and headed directly for the ocean and the USS Irvin.

  The captain was fighting to stay awake as the medics cut his clothing away from his wounds. “H.!” he rasped.

  Harvard reached out and took his friend’s hand, holding onto it tightly. “I’m here, Joe.”

  “Tell Ronnie I’m sorry…”

  “You’re going to get a chance to do that yourself,” Harvard told him. “You’re going to be okay.” As he looked at P.J., she wasn’t at all surprised to see tears in his eyes. “We’re going home.”

  Epilogue

  The entire rest of the United States was having a wretchedly awful heat wave, but San Diego remained a perfect seventy-five degrees.

  P.J. glanced at Harvard as he slowed his truck to a stop at a traffic light. He turned and smiled at her, and the last of the tension from the plane flight floated away. God, she hated flying. But this trip was definitely going to be worth the anxiety she’d suffered. This was day one of a greatly needed two-week vacation.

  And she was spending every single minute of those two weeks with Daryl Becker.

  It had been close to three weeks since she’d seen him last, since they’d returned to the USS Irvin on board a French medical helicopter. Bobby and Wes had arrived at the ship several hours later, dragging Chuck Schneider along behind them.

  They’d spent the next three days in debriefings—all except Joe Cat, Lucky and Greg Greene, who had been sent to a hospital in California.

  P.J. had slept in Harvard’s arms each of those nights. They’d been discreet, but the truth was, she really didn’t care what people thought. Not anymore. She would have walked naked through the enlisted mess if that was the only way she could have been with him.

  When the debriefings were over, Harvard had flown to Coronado, while she’d been summoned for a series of meetings in Kevin Laughton’s office in Washington, D.C.

  Kevin had been sympathetic about her need to take some time off, but he’d talked her into writing up her reports on the failed Combined SEAL/FInCOM team project first. And that had taken much longer than she’d hoped.

  But now she was free and clear for two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours.

  Harvard had met her at the gate, kissed her senseless and whisked her immediately into his truck.

  “How’s Joe?” she asked.

  “Great,” he told her. “He’s been home from the hospital for about a week. Lucky’s doing really well, too.”

  “I’d like to visit them.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “But definitely not until after we get naked—and stay naked for about three days straight.”

  He laughed. “Damn, I missed you,” he told her, drinking her in with his gaze.

  She knew she was looking at him just as hungrily. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and even dressed in civilian clothes, he was impossibly handsome.

  “I missed you, too.” Her voice was husky with desire. As he gazed into her eyes, she let him see the fire she felt for him.

  “Hmm,” he said. “Maybe we should go straight to my apartment.”

  “I thought you said there was something important you wanted to show me,” she teased.

  “Its importance just dropped a notch or two. But since we’re already here…”

  “We are?” P.J. looked out the window. They were on a quiet street in a residential neighborhood overlooking the ocean.

  “I want you to check this out,” Harvard said. He climbed out of the truck, and P.J. joined him.

  It was only then that she noticed the For Sale sign on the lawn of the sweetest-looking little adobe house she’d ever seen in her entire life. It was completely surrounded by flower gardens. Not just one, but four or five of them.

  “Come on,” Harvard said. “The real-estate agent is waiting for us inside.”

  P.J. went through the house in a daze. It was bigger than she’d thought from the outside, with a fireplace in the living room, a kitchen that rivaled Harvard’s mom’s and three good-size bedrooms.

  There was a deck off the dining room, and as she stepped outside, she realized the house overlooked the ocean.

  Harvard leaned on the rail, gazing at the changing colors of the sea.

  “I’ve already qualified for a mortgage, so if you like it, we should make an offer today,” he told her. “It’s not going to be on the market too much longer.”

  P.J. couldn’t speak. Her heart was in the way, in her throat.

  He misinterpreted her silence.

  “I like it,” he said. “But if you don’t, that’s okay. Or maybe I’m moving too fast—I have the tendency to do that, and—” He broke off, swearing. “I am moving too fast. We haven’t even talked about getting married—not since we were out in the real world. For all I know, you weren’t really serious and…”

  P.J. finally found her voice. “I was dead serious.”

  Harvard smiled. “Yeah?” he said. “Well, that’s good, because I was, too, you know.”

  P.J. looked pointedly around. “Obviously.”

  He pulled her closer. “Look, whether it’s this house we share or some other—or none whatsoever, hell, we could live in hotels for the rest of our lives—that’s not important. What’s important is that we’re together as often as we can be.” He looked around and shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Your office is in D.C. Why would you want a house in San Diego?”

  “I might want one in San Diego if I’m going to work in San Diego. I found out there’s an opening in the San Diego field office.”

  “Really?”

  P.J. laughed at his expression. “Yeah. And don’t worry—I’ll still be able to work as Kevin Laughton’s official SEAL liaison and adviser.” She turned to look at the house. “So you really love this place, huh? You think we could make it into a real home?”

  He wrapped his arms around her. “I really love you, and like I said, it honestly doesn’t matter to me where we live. Whenever I’m with you, I feel as if I’ve come home.”

  P.J. looked at the house, at the ocean, at the flowers growing everywhere in the little yard, at the man who was both warrior and poet who stood before her.

  Her lover.

  Her husband.

  Her life.

  “This’ll do just about perfectly.” She
smiled at him. “Welcome home.”

  It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

  by Suzanne Brockmann

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Prologue

  Crash Hawken shaved in the men’s room.

  He’d been keeping vigil at the hospital in Washington, D.C., for two days running, and his heavy stubble, along with his long hair and the bandage on his arm, made him look even more dangerous than he usually did.

  He’d left only to change the shirt he’d been wearing—the one that had been stained with Admiral Jake Robinson’s blood—and to access a computer file that Jake had sent him electronically, mere hours before he had been gunned down in his own home.

  Gunned down in his own home…Even though Crash had been there, even though he’d taken part in the firefight, even though he’d been wounded himself, it still seemed so unbelievable.

  Crash had thought that last year’s dismal holiday season had been about as bad as it could get.

  He’d been wrong.

  He was going to have to call Nell, tell her Jake had been wounded. She’d want to know. She deserved to know. And Crash could use a reason to hear her voice again. Maybe even see her. With a rush of despair, he realized something he’d been hiding from himself for months—he wanted to see her. God, he wanted so badly to see Nell’s smile.

  The men’s room door opened as Crash rinsed the disposable razor he’d picked up in the hospital commissary. He glanced into the mirror, and directly into Tom Foster’s scowling face.

  What were the odds that the Federal Intelligence Commission commander had only come in to take a leak?

  Slim to none.

  Crash nodded at the man.

  “What I don’t understand,” Foster said, as if the conversation they’d started two nights ago had never been interrupted, “is how you could be the last man standing in a room with five-and-a-half dead men, and not know what happened.”

  Crash put the plastic protective cap on over the razor’s blade. “I didn’t see who fired the first shot,” he said evenly. “All I saw was Jake getting hit. After that, I know exactly what happened.” He turned to face Foster. “I took out the shooters who were trying to finish Jake off.”

  Shooters. Not men. They’d lost their identities and become nothing more than targets when they’d opened fire on Jake Robinson. And like targets in a shooting range, Crash had efficiently and methodically taken them out.

  “Who would want to assassinate the admiral?”

  Crash shook his head and gave the same answer he’d given Tom two days earlier. “I don’t know.”

  It wasn’t a lie. He didn’t know. Not for sure. But he had a file full of information that was going to help him find the man who had orchestrated this assassination attempt. Jake had fought both pain and rapidly fading consciousness to make sure he had understood there was a connection between this attempt on his life and that top-secret, encoded file Crash had received that very same morning.

  “Come on, Lieutenant. Surely you can at least make a guess.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I’ve never found it useful to speculate in situations like this.”

  “Three of the men you brought into Admiral Robinson’s house were operating under false names and identifications. Were you aware of that?”

  Crash met the man’s angry gaze steadily. “I feel sick about that, sir. I made the mistake of trusting my captain.”

  “Oh, so now it’s your captain’s fault.”

  Crash fought a burst of his own anger. Getting mad wouldn’t do anyone any good. He knew that from the countless times he’d been in battle. Emotion not only made his hands shake, but it altered his perceptions as well. In a battle situation, emotion could get him killed. And Foster was clearly here to do battle. Crash had to detach. Separate. Distance himself.

  He made himself feel nothing. “I didn’t say that.” His voice was quiet and calm.

  “Whoever shot Robinson wouldn’t have gotten past his security fence without your help. You brought them in, Hawken. You’re responsible for this.”

  Crash held himself very still. “I’m aware of that.” They—whoever they were—had used him to get inside Jake’s home. Whoever had set this up had known of his personal connection to the admiral.

  He’d barely been three hours stateside, three hours off the Air Force transport he’d taken back to D.C. when Captain Lovett had called him into his office, asking if he’d be interested in taking part in a special team providing backup security at Admiral Robinson’s request.

  Crash had believed this team’s job was to protect the admiral, when in fact there’d been a different, covert goal. Assassination.

  He should have known something was wrong. He should have stopped it before it even started.

  He was responsible.

  “Excuse me, sir.” He had to check on Jake’s condition. He had to sit in the waiting area and hope to hear continuous reports of his longtime mentor’s improvement, starting with news of the admiral finally being moved out of ICU. He had to use the time to mentally sort through all the information Jake had passed to him in that file. And then he had to go out and hunt down the man who had used him to get to Jake.

  But Tom Foster blocked the door. “I have a few more questions, if you don’t mind, Lieutenant. You’ve worked with SEAL Team Twelve for how long?”

  “On and off for close to eight years,” Crash replied.

  “And during those eight years, you occasionally worked closely with Admiral Robinson on assignments that were not standard SEAL missions, did you not?”

  Crash didn’t react, didn’t blink, didn’t move, carefully hiding his surprise. How had Foster gotten that information? Crash could count the number of people who knew he’d been working with Jake Robinson on one hand. “I’m afraid I can’t say.”

  “You don’t have to say. We know you worked with Robinson as part of the so-called Gray Group.”

  Crash chose his words carefully. “I don’t see how that has any real relevance to your investigation, sir.”

  “This is information FInCOM has received from naval intelligence,” Foster told him. “You’re not giving away anything we don’t already know.”

  “FInCOM takes part in its share of covert operations,” Crash said, trying to sound reasonable. “You’ll understand that whether I am or am not a part of the Gray Group is not something I’m able to talk freely about.”

  Reasonable wasn’t on the list of adjectives Tom Foster was working with today. His voice rose and he took a threatening step forward. “An admiral has been shot. This is not the time to conceal any information whatsoever.”

  Crash held his ground. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ve already given you and the other investigators all the information I’m able to provide. The names of the deceased, as I knew them. An account of my conversation with Captain Lovett that afternoon. An account of the events that led to one of the men in the team opening fire upon the admiral—”

  “What exactly is your reason for concealing information, Lieutenant?” Foster’s neck was turning purple.

  “I’m concealing nothing.” Except for the shocking information Jake had sent him in a top-secret, high-level security-clearance file.

  If Crash wanted to get to the bottom of this—and he did—it wouldn’t help to go public with all that Jake had told him. Besides, Crash had to treat the information in that file with exactly the same care and secrecy as he treated every other file Jake had ever sent him. And that meant that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t talk about it with anyone—e
xcept his Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States.

  “We know that Jake Robinson sent you some kind of information file on the morning of the shooting,” Foster informed him tightly. “I will need you to turn that file over to me as soon as possible.”

  Crash met the man’s gaze steadily. “I’m sorry, sir. You know as well as I do that even if I did have access to this alleged file from Admiral Robinson, I wouldn’t be able to reveal its contents to you. The status of all of the work I did for the admiral was ‘need to know.’ My orders were to report back to Jake and to Jake only.”

  “I order you to hand over that file, Lieutenant.”

  “I’m sorry, Commander Foster. Even if I had such a file, I’m afraid you don’t have the clearance rating necessary to make such a demand.” He stepped dangerously close to the shorter man and lowered his voice. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see how Jake’s doing.”

  Foster stepped aside, pushing open the door with one hand. “Your concern for Robinson is heartwarming. At least, it would be if we didn’t have indisputable evidence that proves you were the man who fired those first shots into Admiral Robinson’s chest.”

  Crash heard the words Foster said, but they didn’t make sense. The crowd of men standing outside the bathroom door didn’t make sense, either. There were uniformed cops, both local and state police, as well as dark-suited FInCOM agents, and several officers from the shore patrol.

  They were obviously waiting for someone.

  Him.

  Crash looked at Foster, the meaning of his words becoming clear. “You think I’m—”

  “We don’t think it, we know it.” Foster smiled tightly.