Their leader’s truck was probably easier to see through the red clay dust billowing behind them because of the brake lights. The road was relatively smooth, and straight, which alleviated one of Andy’s fears of maneuverability. The driver ground the gears frequently and didn’t appear to be very experienced overcorrecting to avoid potholes and occasionally a long-dead animal.
He glanced at Dallas, checking his phone. The screen illuminated his face and beard that was new since the wedding. Andy’s would be matching him in about as much time.
“Get anything?” he asked.
“Nothing I trust.” Dallas flipped off the phone. “Probably shouldn’t have fired it up, but I just wanted to know how isolated we are,” he added.
“Wanna take turns with trying to catch few more Z’s?” Andy asked him.
“No, you go ahead. I’m good. My nerves are fried. Every trip to Africa it gets worse. I hate this place, truth be told,” he whispered.
Andy nodded his complete understanding. When he’d agreed to sign on to Team 4, he had hoped that Africa wasn’t going to be one of the destinations. “Crude and bumpy as it is, way better to come this way than do a drop. The way this place changes almost daily, no telling where it’s safe, even if you embed with locals. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that, Dallas.”
“No, you’re right. That’s how we lost our medic in Venezuela on that evacuation. The whole thing went to shit after that.”
“Was Cory with you guys then?”
“Nope, that was the time before. That one didn’t turn out so well either.” Dallas leaned over the seat and was very careful with his whisper, coming close enough to Andy’s ear he could feel his Teammate’s hot breath. “I’m beginning to think #4 is my unlucky number. At least for this crew it is. Half this group is trying to transfer out.”
Andy’s bowels nearly gave way. This was not what he wanted to hear. He’d heard talk about how some Teams just didn’t gel well. Often times a change in leadership was required before anyone developed the confidence in each other they required to be able to work as one cohesive unit. He wondered if the young LPO was that impediment.
But now wasn’t the time to be second-guessing his new leader, either.
“I think Peterson’s okay, Dallas. Doesn’t help when the team is being shoved all over the globe.”
“He shouldn’t have told the guys it was his first trip.”
“We aren’t stupid. Everyone would have figured it out. I think he’s okay. Besides, you’re scaring me and now I won’t be able to sleep either. So, knock it off.”
“Yeah, I do that sometimes. Apologies. We just need some cohesive muscle memory and then we’ll be fine. But if the leader doesn’t lead, that’s how mistakes happen when other people try to step up to fill the void. I think he’s a nice enough guy, plenty smart and a critical thinker. But he lacks a little confidence and that gets worn like a badge on his shirt for all to see.”
“Better than some of those Jr. officers with all the schooling and no practical tactical training in the field. And if they’re not smart enough to know that even though they’re ranked, they better listen to their Chief first or ask for suggestions, the whole Team loses otherwise.”
“I agree with you there.”
Andy was glad he’d recommended Sven and Kelly to Peterson. Now he was thinking he should have recommended a couple more.
As the pink glow of sunrise began to develop, the green plain ushered in some beautiful scenery, especially when they passed by small lakes that peppered the area. They encountered gazelles and several massive flocks of pelican-like birds that did more of a waterski landing on those bodies of water, wings flapping and causing quite a splash. Large white clouds rose in the pinkish-blue sky of morning.
At last, they approached several villages in a row, as the road became wider and more littered with donkey-driven carts or small lorries. Occasionally a covered troop transport passed them. Every one of the men who were awake studied those very carefully and it appeared all of them were empty—a good sign there weren’t troop movements on the rise.
Traffic increased to a steady stream of two-way passage until they came to a fairly large city. None of the buildings were over three stories tall, mostly patched with layers of corrugated metal and cement material. The ground floors of most the buildings were open-air shops with vendors like one giant flea market. Now they saw scooters passing them, one with a young boy clutching a small goat behind an older man, perhaps his father.
Brightly painted schools with no doors or windows were buzzing with children beginning to congregate on the grounds. Young boys kicked around a rag-covered makeshift soccer ball. Several women and girls appeared in headdress, reminding Andy that half the population was Muslim.
Peterson had said they wouldn’t be stopping along the way so they could get across the border to Benin quickly and to their proposed compound without interference and without attracting too much notice. But Andy knew hundreds of pairs of eyes had seen them—they all knew the Americans were here because they certainly weren’t Chinese, and Russians used their own drivers. But Andy agreed, it was a good idea to get to their base as soon as they could.
He rifled through his pack and dug out a granola bar and a bottle of water, letting the bouncing bus lull him into being a tourist for a bit more. His stomach liked the nourishment. His eyes found the people and the colorful images fascinating.
They arrived at a checkpoint guarding the border. It was well-fortified on both sides so at each gate young men no older than high school age in the US, with semi-automatic rifles walked up and down the length of the bus and the truck ahead of them with Peterson, peering into the windows and grilling the driver with questions. He showed a sheaf of papers, which were carefully checked.
Andy made sure he didn’t make eye contact with any of the border patrol. Random hot spots were common, but the fact that there were twenty of them made for more interesting scrutiny and was less likely to cause a fight. Again, he realized they’d been seen. Eyes observed and tongues would be wagging.
As they made it through the Benin checkpoint, he was struck by the number of uniformed children walking to school. The couple of towns they passed through looked slightly more prosperous. Signs in French were everywhere, unlike Niger. There were more shops, more little open-air eating places where barbeque was made over firepits made of oil barrels to rings of stone. Women and young girls wrapped themselves in colorful fabric. Several taller buildings had been built in the downtown area of one of the towns, the largest with bars on the outside Andy took for a local jail.
Just outside of the town of Kandi they entered a complex of small cottages and one large central building looking like an old school dormitory, just past a rural cemetery on a slight upslope. Outside, the perimeter was fenced in concrete and boulders, the gate made of corrugated metal, which was manually opened when they approached.
“Home sweet home, I guess,” mumbled Dallas.
It had all the elements Andy was hoping for. The windows had glass. The top of the dorm building was littered with several air conditioners, past and present victims of the African heat. Three of them looked like recent installations, so he realized they’d have relief of some sort. The perimeter had a defensible wall. But better still was the fact that the complex was atop a slight swale, and anyone’s approach, if by road anyway, could be easily followed.
As a base camp, Andy had to admit it was one of the best he’d seen. For his fourth deployment to this part of the world, it could have been a lot worse.
The men were housed in the common area, on cots. Private rooms with doors were relegated to their equipment and other things that needed to be guarded twenty-four hours a day on rotation. Andy was happy with this. Afterall, he was more concerned about losing their electronics and ammunition than privacy. As long as they could set up a triage room, quietly, as Peterson had instructed, where some of his medical supplies could be stored in locked storage closets, they had a f
ighting chance of survival even if the worst were to happen.
It was always good to look out for the worst and not to get too complacent or bored when it didn’t show up. Because that’s when it always did. Nothing could shoot a .50 Cal hole in a Team’s confidence than not being prepared for the totally unpreparable.
He slept in their new medical unit while Dallas watched the doorway from their bunks. The last thing Andy thought about before he dozed off was how he now felt like that one big hot dog waiting to be covered in chili, onions and melted cheese. He could feel the bush talking back to him. Somewhere a pod of monkeys howled, and a jungle dog answered without fear.
Chapter 7
Jasper Kornblum knocked on Aimee’s front door right at the strike of nine o’clock, just as he’d promised. He was dressed in a white suit with a bolero tie. With his white hair, moustache and well-trimmed beard, he resembled a slim and well-built Colonel Sanders. His steel blue eyes bored into her and caused a slight involuntary shiver.
“Jasper Kornblum, at your service, Mrs. Carr.” His hand shot out, bridging the gap between them.
“Nice to meet you. Come in. I’m nearly ready. Can I offer you coffee?” Aimee said as she stepped aside and widened the doorway opening.
Kornblum appeared to be in his sixties, with sharp eyes that soaked in every detail of their living room. “No coffee please, but I would take a glass of water, if I can trouble you for it.” He was still scanning the artwork on the walls and the detail on their unconventional stairway railing as he spoke.
Aimee fetched him a juice glass of filtered water from the counter and retreated to the bedroom to finish fixing her hair. She wore it twisted up in a swirled braid, something she hoped would keep her cooler for the hour-long drive to Sarasota.
She grabbed her shoulder bag and joined him in the living room. He pointed to the beach.
“That was the perfect spot for a wedding, and what a beautiful evening for it. Christmas Eve.”
The comment warmed Aimee’s heart. “Thank you. We thought so. Wanted to make it memorable for everyone.”
“I regret not meeting your parents.”
That familiar tug at her heart appeared and just as suddenly obeyed her internal command to disappear. “They’re both gone. Would have been hard to meet them.” She said it with a straight face, and it caused the older attorney to furrow his brow.
“I’m sorry. I thought that was Andy’s parents.”
“No, they were there.” She hoisted her shoulder bag and took the water glass from Kornblum. “Shall we go?”
As they sped down the two-lane boulevard toward the freeway entrance, she felt like softening her earlier frostiness at the mention of her deceased parents.
“I want to thank you for the beautiful bowl, Mr. Kornblum. Really a lovely cut crystal pattern. Sends rainbows all over the room during the day.”
“Good light. That house always had good light.”
“So, you saw it before, when Mrs. Hernandez lived there?”
“Miss Hernandez, dear. She never married.”
“But I thought she lived there with someone who left it for her as a life estate.”
“That’s true. But they never married.”
“Who was he?”
“Hank Borges. Famous science fiction writer. My understanding is that they were both very happy there, eventually. I only met him once.”
“Is he any good?” she asked. “I’ve ordered a couple of his old paperbacks.”
“That’s all you can find now, old, used paperbacks. I understand they are a collector’s item now.”
“Then I must have gotten a good deal. I think I paid thirty cents for one of them.”
Kornblum chuckled. “Well, I’ve been misinformed. I stand corrected, Mrs. Carr.”
“You can call me Aimee, please.”
“And you can call me Jasper.”
That made her wrinkle her nose.
“Or Mr. Kornblum, whatever makes you feel comfortable.”
“It’s just that—” Aimee stopped before could think how to finish her sentence.
“I’m so old? That what you mean? I’m probably older than your father. Or your father was.”
That was it exactly, she mentally confirmed. “I try to be respectful of my elders. Just the way I was raised, Mr. Kornblum.”
“I don’t mind, child.”
Several miles of freeway passed before the attorney began another conversation. “I’ve told you that Carmen is not well at all. They are telling me she may not even be conscious for our meeting. I’m afraid she’s in her final days, so I don’t want you to be shocked, Aimee.”
“I understand.” Thoughts of her mother’s slow, painful passing and the guilt she felt when she finally died, haunted her. She was more familiar with the process than she’d ever wanted to be. “It’s my fault I didn’t think to reach out to her before. It’s what I should have done.”
“She was used to not having anyone around her. Not like there was a big family to be there during this stay. I think Carmen was a very private person, from what others have told me. And Hank wanted to make sure the estate protected her after he was gone. You see, he had a family, while she did not. He was afraid the family would try to claim the house as their inheritance, even though it was set out in his will as going to Miss Hernandez.”
“An ex-wife, then?”
“Daughters. Two still alive. The former Mrs. Borges is gone.”
“And should I be ready for a visit sometime?”
“I’d say not. I think that’s been so long ago, and with their mother gone, the girls don’t have any interest in fighting her old battles.” He squeezed his steering wheel tightly and added, “Or so I’ve been told. But there is the issue of some of Hank’s book titles being left to Carmen and not the family. But the bulk of his estate went to the family.”
“So how long did they live there?”
“You mean the house at Sunset?”
“Yes.”
“About ten. Until Hank’s death.”
Aimee wanted to ask but felt it was bad manners. Kornblum saved her the question.
“He died in a hospital, in case you were curious,” he whispered. “It was very quick, a stroke.” He followed it up with a kind smile, and then went back to focusing on the road.
It felt like he was pausing, trying to elicit questions from her and that made her quiet all of a sudden. Part of the excitement of the trip had left her and now she experienced some foreboding sadness.
“I’m glad you asked to see her. I was going to make an appointment to discuss some things about Carmen’ estate anyway. We can do that now, if you like.”
“What things?” Aimee asked.
“Miss Hernandez is a very wealthy woman. And she’s going to be leaving a large portion of her assets to you, Aimee.”
“And my husband.”
“Yes, because you are married. But you found the house. You fell in love with it. You made the offer and purchased it before your marriage. She’s going to return the money you paid for it to you, and then some.”
“What?”
“You’re going to inherit a significant fortune, Aimee. She has no one else to leave it to. There are some designated charities, of course, but the bulk of it will go to you.”
“I’m flabbergasted.” Aimee felt her hands shake. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She wished Andy was with her to hear all the news. “She doesn’t even know me. We’ve never met, right?”
“I believe you’re right, but I can’t say for sure. She was very private, as I’ve said before. But she read a lot. Followed events. Even when she was moved to the hospital, she stayed current on things. She knew I was going to the wedding and she had wanted to hear all about it.”
Aimee wondered why the woman had developed such an interest in her.
“She also wrote novels, under a pen name. She wrote romance from that beach house and did quite well. Maybe even eclipsed Hank’s work.”
“Really? What under what name?”
“Callie Harmon.”
“Oh my gosh! I have read several of her novels. She wrote some very sexy stuff. I stumbled upon them when I first moved to Florida because it was all about the area. I love her books.”
“Well, that’s a good thing.” When Aimee didn’t answer, he added, “because she’s left her entire literary works rights to you, my dear.”
“No way.”
“I have the paperwork with me for you to review, if you like. I’m not allowed to give you the entire contents of the will, of course, but just wanted you to be prepared. And I thought you should know when you meet her.”
Aimee was lost in thought. What sort of thing would she say to her now that she knew all this information? Did this woman do some sort of study on her? Or, why would she leave her estate to a complete stranger?
“You’re asking yourself why,” he said with a wry smile.
“Exactly. I’ve got to hand it to you. You’re quite a mind reader. Do you have an answer for me?”
“Only a guess.”
“Which is?”
“I think she wanted to leave her money to someone who loved the house as much as she did. Someone who wouldn’t want to tear it down and build a McMansion on it, like so many others do in the area. That’s not a deed restriction when she sold you the property, but it is in the will, I will tell you that. Even if the house gets destroyed in a hurricane or other disaster, it has to be rebuilt to the original floorplan and footprint as a promise and condition of accepting the money.”
Aimee was thinking about the magic that seemed to live in the house. Some of her friends had called her crazy, but now she understood her intuition had put her on the right track.
“She didn’t want to spoil the magic. There is magic there,” she whispered.
The House At Sunset: SEALed At Sunset - The Beach Renovation (Sunset SEALs Book 5) Page 6