It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

by Suzanne Brockmann

  As Crash got out his roll of wire and laid out his tools to rig the last of the explosives that would guarantee Garvin's death-and his own death as well—he stopped for a moment.

  Because when he closed his eyes, if he concentrated really hard, he could see a glimmer—just a tiny flicker—of his future.

  If he didn't die here this dawn, he could have a future. It might not have been the future he'd always imagined, working for the Grey Group as a SEAL until he hit his peak, then moving into more standard career as a SEAL instructor until he was too old to do the job right.

  He'd always figured he'd be with the Teams, or he'd be dead.

  But now when he closed his eyes, he could see a shadowy picture of himself, a few years from now, with Nell standing at his side.

  Loving him unconditionally, whether he was a SEAL or working nights at the counter of a Seven-Eleven. What he did didn't matter to her. And Crash realized that it wouldn't matter to him, either. Not as long as she was there when he came home.

  He looked down at the C-4, at his own private cup of hemlock, and he knew in that instant, without a single doubt, that he did not want to die today.

  He had been wrong. He wasn't expendable, after all.

  He should have asked Blue McCoy and the rest of Alpha Squad for help.

  It would've have been a whole lot easier.

  Crash stood up. It was too late to contact Blue, but it wasn't too late to do a little rewiring.

  He smiled for the first time in hours.

  Maybe his luck was finally about to change.

  Nell couldn't stand it another second.

  She put down her fork, done pushing the pasta around her plate, done pretending that she had any kind of appetite at all. "He's going to die if we don't do something."

  Blue McCoy glanced across the table at his wife before putting his own fork down. He knew Nell was talking about Crash. "I'm not sure exactly what it is we can do at this point."

  In a low voice, Nell told the SEAL about all the C-4 that Crash had rigged, about the cabin, about the message to Senator Garvin, about everything. She didn't need to speak of the low odds of Crash's survival. Blue had already figured that out.

  "There's got to be a way for Billy to beat Garvin," she said. "To implicate him in Jake's death, and to stay alive as well. But he's going to need help. Lots of help."

  As she watched, Blue glanced again at his wife.

  "This sounds more like your department than mine, Superman," Lucy said softly.

  "You told Billy how your squad—Alpha Squad—all thought he was being set up," Nell persisted. "Who do I have to call to ask them to help?"

  Blue lifted one hand. "Whoa. Do we even know where Crash is?"

  Nell's heart was pounding. Was he actually considering her outrageous request? "Yes. I could find my way back there, I'm sure of it. I could lead you there."

  Blue was silent for a moment. "It's one thing for me to offer to help a man I personally trust," he finally said. "It's a whole other story to bring Alpha Squad in. If this goes wrong..."

  "Billy spoke so highly of the Alpha Squad," Nell said. Her heart was beating so hard she could hardly speak. Please, God, let them agree to help. "If the men of Alpha Squad have even one-tenth the respect for him that he has for them, how can they refuse to help?"

  "You're asking a lot." Lucy leaned forward, her brown eyes sober. "They'd be putting their careers—not to mention their lives—on the line."

  Blue pushed back his chair and stood up. "I'll call Joe Cat—Captain Catalanotto," he told Nell. "I can't promise anything, but..."

  He reached for the phone.

  Nell held onto the edge of the table, allowing herself to dare to hope.

  Garvin appeared, right on schedule.

  Dawn was breaking, but the west side of the mountain was still in heavy shadow. As Crash watched, Garvin drove right up to the cabin, the headlights of his car still on, still necessary.

  He'd brought a half a dozen shooters with him, but they'd come in a different vehicle and parked down the road—as if they didn't think Crash would notice them, creeping through the woods, not quite as noisy as a pack of Boy Scouts on a camping trip, but pretty ridiculously close.

  Garvin was a tall, handsome man with a full head of dark hair. He didn't look capable of starting a war or conspiring to kill a U.S. Navy admiral, but Crash knew that looks could often be deceiving. As he watched, Garvin climbed out of his car, hands held out to show that they were empty, that he was unarmed.

  Crash, too, had left his weapon inside the cabin. But he was far from unarmed. "Call your shooters off."

  Garvin pretended not to understand. "I came alone, just as you said."

  Crash stepped forward, opening his jacket, letting Senator Garvin, a former commander in the U.S. Navy, get a good look at all of the C-4 plastic explosive he'd rewired and attached directly to his combat vest. He also showed the man the trigger mechanism that he'd rigged. He'd turned himself into a walking bomb.

  "Call your shooters off," he said again. "If one of them makes a mistake and shoots me, my thumb will come off this button, and this entire hillside will be one big fireball."

  Garvin raised his voice. "He's got a bomb. Don't shoot. Don't anyone shoot. Do you understand?"

  "There now," Crash said. "Isn't the truth so much more refreshing?"

  "You are one crazy son of a bitch."

  "Hey, I'm not the one who wants to be Vice President."

  Garvin was backing away, slowly but surely, inch by inch.

  Crash laughed at him. "Are you trying to sneak away from me? Turn around and look down the trail," he ordered the older man. "See that tree with the white marker tied around it? I tied it there, just for you. Can you see the one I'm talking about, way over there?"

  Garvin nodded jerkily.

  "That's the edge of my kill zone," Crash told him. "Start there and draw a circle with me in the middle. Anyone and anything inside that circle is going straight to hell when I lift my thumb from this trigger."

  Garvin's face was chalky as he realized that edging away wasn't going to do him much good. "You'd never do it."

  Crash lowered his voice, leaning forward until he was mere inches from Garvin's face. "Is that a dare?" He raised the trigger so the man could see his thumb, started to move his thumb-

  "No!"

  Crash nodded, backing down. "Well, then. It seems like I've got something you want—your life. And since you've got something I want—the truth—I think we can probably—"

  "I do have something you want," Garvin interrupted. Sweat was rolling down his face. "I have something you want bad. I have that girl. Nell Burns."

  Crash didn't move, but something, something must have flickered in his eyes. Some uncertainty. Some doubt.

  "Am I bluffing? That's what you're thinking right now, isn't it?" Garvin somehow managed to smile. "That's a very good question."

  "You don't have her."

  "Don't I? Maybe you're right. Maybe I didn't send Mr. Sarkowski into your SEAL friend's house. Maybe he didn't put a bullet into your friend's brain. Maybe he doesn't have the girl with him right now. And maybe he's not waiting for 7:00 a.m. to come—knowing that if I don't show up by then, he'll get to do whatever he wants with your girlfriend. Poor thing."

  Crash didn't move. Garvin was bluffing. He had to be bluffing. There was no way Sarkowski could have gotten past Blue. No way.

  "The real beauty of it is that the ballistics reports will show that the bullet that killed her came from your gun," Garvin continued. "So unless you disarm that bomb you're wearing—"

  "No." Crash turned to look at him. "You don't know it, but by telling me you've got Nell you lost the game. I just won. Check and mate, scumbag." He kept his voice low, his face expressionless, his eyes empty, soulless. "Because if you have Nell, I truly have nothing left to lose. If you have Nell, I'd just as soon die as long as it means that I'd kill you, too."

  Everything he was saying had been true. Just hours
ago, it had been true. He could say it with a chilling believability because he knew exactly what it felt like to be ready to die.

  "Here's what I'm thinking," he told Garvin. "If I disarm this bomb, you'll kill me, and then you'll kill Nell, too, anyway. Hell, if Sarkowski really does have her, she's probably already dead. So you see, Senator, you've just severed the last of my ties to this world. I have no reason at all not to start my search for inner peace in the afterlife right now." He smiled tightly. "And I know I'll go to heaven, because my last act on this earth will be ridding the world of you."

  Garvin bought it. He swallowed it whole. Every last word. "All right. Jesus. I was bluffing. I don't have the girl. Christ, you're a crazy bastard."

  Crash shook his head. "I don't believe you," he said in the same quiet voice. "In fact, I think you already told Sarkowski to kill her." He moved his thumb on the trigger.

  "I didn't—I swear!" Garvin was nearly wetting himself with panic.

  Crash reached into his jacket and took out his cell phone. "If you want to live, here's what you've got to do." With his spare thumb he dialed Admiral Stonegate's direct number. It would be after 9:00 a.m. in D.C. right now. The admiral would be in.

  "Stonegate," the admiral rasped.

  "Sir, this is Lt. William Hawken. Please record this conversation." Crash held the phone out to Garvin. "Tell him everything. Start with the money you got illegally in 'Nam, and the house you bought with it. Tell him about your meeting with Kim and how you killed Jake Robinson to keep it covered up. Tell him everything, or I'll be more than happy to escort you straight to hell."

  Garvin took the phone and began to talk, his voice so low that Crash had to step closer to hear him.

  He'd made over one hundred thousand dollars selling confiscated weapons back to the Viet Cong. It was a onetime thing, a temporary, momentary lapse in judgment. John Sherman had orchestrated the deal. He'd merely had to look the other way to earn more money than he'd ever dreamed of having.

  But then just last year, after he'd won the senate seat, he'd been contacted by John Sherman and blackmailed. Over the next few months, he'd paid nearly five times the money he'd made illegally, with no end in sight. He'd finally gone to Hong Kong in an attempt to rid himself of Sherman once and for all. He'd worn his old naval uniform when he'd met with Kim and led the man to believe he was acting on behalf of the United States. He'd had no idea that the battle between the two rival gangs would get so out of control. He'd only wanted Sherman dead. He'd had no idea thousands of innocent people would die as well.

  He knew when word came down that Jake Robinson was looking into the matter that he had to stop the investigation at the source. He was in over his head, but it was too late to stop. He set Crash Hawken up for the fall, had the ballistics report falsified—and it would have worked, too, if Hawken hadn't been so damned hard to kill.

  On and on he talked, giving details—times, dates, names. The three men who'd been part of the alleged SEAL Team assigned to protect Jake had been compatriots of Sheldon Sarkowski's. Captain Lovett and the Possum hadn't been part of the conspiracy to kill the admiral. They'd been told that Admiral Robinson had been acting oddly since the death of his wife. They were told they were being sent in to make certain he didn't harm himself or become a threat to national security. They'd been told that the three strangers on the team were psyche experts—men in white coats—who were going to restrain the admiral and bring him to a special hospital. Lovett had been ordered not to tell Crash the "real" reason they were going out to the farm. The entire affair had been a serpent's nest of lies.

  Finally, Garvin handed the phone back to Crash. "The admiral wants to speak with you," he said. But then he dropped the phone, and the batteries came out. By the time he got them back in, the line had been disconnected.

  It didn't matter. Crash pocketed the phone. "Tell your shooters to come forward and surrender their weapons."

  Garvin turned toward the woods and repeated Crash's order.

  Nothing moved.

  The silence was eerie and the hair on the back of Crash's neck suddenly stood on end. There had been at least six men out there, he knew there had been. But now they were all gone. The rising sun was starting to thin out the shadows, but the early morning was misty, making it even harder to see.

  The strangest thing was, Crash hadn't heard anyone leave. Yet he'd heard them all approach. It didn't seem possible, or likely, that they'd been able to leave without his being aware of it.

  "Tell them again," Crash ordered.

  "Come forward and surrender your weapons!"

  Still no movement.

  But then a man stood up, stepping from the cover of the bushes. It was as if he'd been conjured out of thin air. One moment he wasn't there, and the next he was.

  It was Blue McCoy, his face streaked with black-and-green greasepaint. "We've taken care of the opposition and already confiscated their weapons," he told Crash.

  We?

  Crash turned, and not one or two but five men appeared silently from the woods. SEALs. He recognized them first as SEALs by the way they moved. But then he realized they were the men of Alpha Squad. He recognized Harvard beneath his camouflage paint. And the captain—Joe Cat. Lucky, Bobby and Wes—they were all there. All except Cowboy, who no doubt was still being trailed by FInCOM and NIS.

  They moved to stand behind him in a silent show of force. And with the streaks of black and green and brown on their faces, they put on one hell of a show.

  And then, damned if Nell didn't step out of the bushes, too. She was actually carrying an M-16 that was nearly as big as she was. She had greasepaint on her face as well, but as she moved closer, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

  "Don't be mad at me." Nell wanted to touch him. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but she was holding this huge piece of hardware, and he was still covered in C-4. "Please, will you disarm that bomb now?"

  Crash looked at Garvin. "Looks like you were bluffing about Nell." He held up the trigger and released his thumb. Nothing exploded. Nothing happened at all. "I was bluffing, too."

  He looked at Nell. "I was only bluffing," he repeated, as if he wanted to make absolutely certain that she knew that.

  He took off his jacket, and peeled off his combat vest and the heavy weight of all that C-4.

  Garvin stared at Crash. And then he started to laugh. "You son of a bitch."

  Captain Catalanotto stepped forward, motioning to Garvin. "Let's get this piece of garbage into custody."

  But Garvin stepped back, away from him. "You still don't win," he told Crash. "I disconnected that call to Stonegate before I started to talk. It's your word against mine. You have no proof of any wrongdoing on my part." He looked at the captain and the rest of Alpha Squad. "You'll go to jail—all of you. He's the one you should be arresting. He's the one wanted for murder and treason."

  Crash reached down into one of the pockets of his combat vest and pulled out a hand-sized tape recorder—one of those little things people used to record letters and take dictation. "Sorry to disappoint you, Senator, but I've got every word you said on tape. This game is over. You lose."

  The game was over. And Nell had won. She knew she'd won from the look in Crash's eyes as he turned to smile at her.

  But then, as if in slow motion, Garvin drew a gun from the pocket of his jacket.

  And, in slow motion, Nell saw the early-morning sun glinting off the metal barrel as he aimed the weapon directly at Crash.

  She heard herself shout as, in the space of one single heartbeat, Garvin fired the gun.

  The force of the bullet hit Crash square in the chest and he was flung back, his head flopping like a rag doll's as he was pushed down and back, into the dirt.

  Crash was dead. He had to be dead. Even if he was still alive, there was no way they could get him to a hospital in time. The nearest medical centre was miles away. It would take them hours to get there and he'd surely bleed to death on the way.

 
; She ran toward him and was the first at his side as the SEALs disarmed Garvin and wrestled him to the ground.

  Crash was struggling to breathe, fighting to suck in air, but she didn't find the massive outpouring of blood that she'd expected. She took his hand, holding it tightly. "Please don't die," she told him. "Please, Billy, don't you die...."

  Harvard—the big African-American SEAL—knelt in the dirt, on the other side of Crash's body. He tore open Crash's shirt and she closed her eyes, afraid of what she would see.

  "Status?" another man asked. It was the squad's captain.

  "He got the wind knocked out of him," Harvard's rich voice said. "Could be he's got a broken rib, but other than that, as soon as he catches his breath, he should be fine."

  He should be...?

  Nell opened her eyes. "Fine? He's got a bullet in his chest!"

  "What he's got is a bullet in his body armour—his bulletproof vest." Harvard smiled at her. "Just be careful not to hug little Billy too hard, all right?"

  Crash was wearing a bulletproof vest. She could see the bullet embedded in it, flattened. He had been bluffing with the C-4. She hadn't quite believed it—until now. He'd had no real intention of blowing himself up along with Garvin. If he had, he wouldn't have bothered wearing a bulletproof vest.

  He was alive—and he wanted to be.

  Nell couldn't stop herself. She burst into tears.

  Crash struggled to sit up. "Hey." His voice was whispery and weak. He reached for her, and she slipped into his arms. "Aren't you always telling me that you never cry—that you're not the type to always cry?"

  She lifted her head to look at him. "This must be just another fluke."

  He laughed, then winced. "Ouch."

  "Will it hurt if I kiss you?"

  "Yeah," Crash said quietly, aware that Alpha Squad had taken Garvin away, that he and Nell were alone in the clearing. He touched her cheek, marvelling at the picture she made with that war paint on her face. Nell, his unadventurous Nell, who'd rather stay home and sit by the fire with a book than risk getting her feet cold, was cammied up and ready for battle. She'd done that for him, he realized. "It's always going to hurt a little bit when you kiss me. I'm always going to be scared to death of losing you."