All Due Respect

by Vicki Hinze

  “Where are you going?” Julia called out to him.

  “To install the sensor on the Home Base prototype.” He glanced at Matthew. “The sensor only activates on an air-to-air launch. We need an F-16. Voluntary mission. High risk.”

  Julia’s heart shot up to her throat. A pilot to volunteer for what could well be a suicide mission.

  “I’m on it.” Matthew stepped to the nearest phone.

  Her emotions threatened to riot. She ordered them back to that secret place, and then headed for Lieutenant Swede. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.

  Dear God, it couldn’t, but it was. And for a moment, she resented knowing and understanding the potential impact when others remained blissfully ignorant. She imagined Jeff and Seth and the life they could have, all of the people who could be hurt by this. And in her mind, she saw them, face by face, each of the victims who one minute would be here and the next minute would be gone. Standing, hands linked, in a line that stretched back and forth across the country, they reached from coast to coast. And then she saw the people whose lives had been touched by those victims. Those who loved them, and those who had been loved by them. And then she saw those who would never be because the victims were no longer here to parent them.

  The mass of people linking hands grew larger and larger and, inside, she wept.

  Seth returned to the command center, winded and worn.

  Julia met him at the door. “We’ve got forty minutes—and a projected flight time of thirty-four minutes.”

  “Where’s Cracker?” Seth headed into the pulse of the center.

  “He’s here. They’re all here.” Julia grasped his arm. “Seth, Linda’s husband is piloting the F-16.”

  “Mac?” Seth felt his energy deflate. “I thought he was in the desert.”

  “He was. It wasn’t a regular remote tour. He was filling in for a critical staff member. He got back two days ago.”

  “He volunteered for this mission?” Seth wanted to spit nails. Guilt swarmed his stomach. “If this fails, Linda will never forgive me.”

  “Seth.” Julia cupped his face. “Honey, they’re all somebody’s husband or wife.”

  “I know.” Seth walked on. “I just—”

  “I understand.” Julia and Seth stopped beside Matthew and Colonel Kane, who held their gazes fixed on the screen, on that damn red line that had come to represent hell.

  Sparing Seth a glance, Colonel Kane asked, “What do we do now?”

  “We wait.”

  And, we worry. Julia looked up at Seth. “I want to call Jeff.”

  He nodded.

  “Dr. Warner.” Colonel Kane lifted a staying finger and dropped his voice to a whisper. “You do that, and everyone in this room is going to shut down. They’re looking to you two to see how much to worry about this. Make that call, and they’re going to interpret it to mean we’re already mourning our dead.”

  Julia stared at him, torn between doing the right thing and what her heart wanted her to do. The battle ran its course, and finally, she nodded. “Of course.”

  “Agent Twelve,” Lieutenant Swede called out. “Line two, sir.”

  Matthew grabbed a phone, talked quickly and intensely, then cradled the receiver and returned to the group. “Karl Hyde is in custody. He’s looking at life in prison for this.”

  Julia corrected Matthew. “He’s looking at the death penalty. I witnessed him shoot and kill Camden.”

  “You actually saw him do it?” Seth asked, stunned that she hadn’t told him.

  She nodded. “But even if he gets life, I think his days of threatening me are over.”

  “You can bet on that,” Seth said.

  Matthew agreed. “Even if he skips the chair or the needle, any contact with you will be prohibited, Julia.”

  Finally Karl was the prisoner, and she was free. “What. about Dempsey Morse?” Her anger at him ran as deeply as her anger at Benedetto. No, deeper. With Benedetto, you got what you saw. He didn’t hide his treasonous, murderous acts beneath the respectable façade of a civil servant.

  “Our operatives plucked him out of the Chesapeake before the tug went down. He’s not talking yet, but he will.” Matthew glanced back at the screen. “Last report, they were closing in on Benedetto. The loyalists are in an uproar. Things at Two West are pretty chaotic right now.”

  Seth stepped away, went over to Linda. “I understand Mac volunteered for the mission.”

  “He did.” Worry etched her face, and she was breathing hard.

  “I’m sorry he’s at risk, Linda.”

  “I am, too. But it goes with the turf.” She mustered a hint of a smile. “I married Mac because I admired his courage.” Her gaze turned wistful. “Sometimes it gets in the way of our lives, and sometimes it makes my damn hair gray, but this is who Mac is, and I love him for it.”

  Seth clasped her shoulder, gave it a gentle squeeze. “He’s lucky to have you.” The woman had every bit as much courage as Mac. If this went badly, she was the one who would be left behind to pick up the pieces for the family.

  “Damn right, he’s lucky,” she said. “And, I assure you, I remind him of it—frequently.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  The bluster went out of her voice. “Seth, is this going to work?”

  A shiver ran through his body. God, but he wished he could be certain. “I can’t say for fact, Linda. Studies have been too limited. But I think it will.”

  “Then it will,” she said emphatically.

  Feeling the weight of her faith bear down on him, Seth looked past her shoulder and saw Cracker pounding away at the computer keyboard. “What’s he doing?”

  “Familiarizing himself with the system.”

  Seth nodded, then walked over. “Anything strange?”

  “No, just getting oriented.” Cracker didn’t look up, and his fingers never slowed down, rapping consistently against the keys.

  Seth stared around the command center. Work went on, but every eye with a second to spare watched that red blip on the screen.

  He looked at Julia. Like everyone else, she was clearly tense and wary, weary of watching and waiting and silently praying the projected flight time was longer than the actual. Six minutes wasn’t much operational time. But it was enough, provided his sensor worked against the metal alloy and adjusted for the magnetic alterations of Mac’s physical proximity and it didn’t detonate the Rogue.

  Kane was on the red-line phone again. He motioned to Seth. “Holt, come here.”

  Seth went over. Kane held the phone out to him. “The chief.”

  Not the Chief of Staff, the Commander in Chief. The President. Seth positioned the receiver at his ear. “Mr. President.”

  “Dr. Holt. I just wanted to thank you for your efforts. Regardless of how this turns out, you went to a lot of trouble on your own, developing that system.”

  “Yes, sir, I did.” Seth frowned, and his irritation with the President got the better of him. “Sir, with all due respect, why aren’t you on Air Force One?”

  “I sent the veep.” His voice dropped a notch. “If this fails, I’m taking personal responsibility. I’ll be with my people.”

  “But sir, the Vice President—”

  “The truth is, Dr. Holt, I couldn’t live with this.” He paused, then added, “Is your sensor going to work?”

  “I wish I could say for certain, but the truth is I don’t know. I never had the funds to field-test the system.”

  “I understand. At the moment, I can’t tell you how much I regret slicing the DoD budget to the bone.”

  Didn’t they all regret it? “Yes, sir.”

  “How is it supposed to work?”

  “It’s supposed to determine what type of warhead we’re dealing with and let us alter the in-flight trajectory.”

  “I must be confused.”

  “Sir?”

  “It was my understanding that even with Home Base, any trajectory alteration would detonate the Rogue.”
>
  “The sensor tricks the Rogue into thinking its magnetic energy field hasn’t been altered. It’s the alteration that detonates the Rogue. As long as the Rogue thinks its field is stable, we can change the trajectory.”

  “And you can do this without a major power source?”

  “I had to, sir. The power source exists, but current arms treaties prohibit us from using it.”

  “I see.” The President cleared his throat. “Either way, Dr. Holt, thank you for your personal efforts.”

  “You’re welcome, sir.”

  The dial tone buzzed in Seth’s ear. He passed the phone back to Colonel Kane.

  Cracker yelled out. “We’ve got the sensor tap!”

  Seth scrambled to a computer, went through the paces, trying to determine the type of warhead. “Julia,” he shouted.

  “Right here.” She appeared at his side.

  “Run down the target codes.”

  She sat down at the nearest computer and got busy.

  Lieutenant Swede began the countdown. “Five minutes until impact.”

  Seth needed more time. Not much, just a little more time.

  “Four minutes until impact.”

  Damn it, where was the data? Where—the firewall. “Cracker, give me the double-firewall-bypass code!”

  “You’ll leave the system wide open to hackers.”

  “If I don’t get around the son of a bitch, we won’t have any living hackers.”

  “Two-one-four-three-eight-three-nine Bravo Zulu two-seven-three.”

  Seth keyed in the code.

  “Two minutes until impact.”

  Seth scanned the screen, then double-checked. “No evidence that it’s biological, chemical, or nuclear.”

  A collective sigh filled the room.

  Julia worked frantically, reprogramming the Rogue’s trajectory, sending it into the cleared shipping lane in the Atlantic. “I got it!”

  “The Rogue is eastbound,” Lieutenant Swede announced. “It’s made the turn and is now over the Atlantic.”

  War whoops echoed through the command center.

  “Mac? Is he all right?” Linda asked Lieutenant Swede.

  Swede held up a finger, paused a long second, and then grinned ear to ear. “He’s returning to base, ma’am.”

  Linda let out a shuddery sigh and swiped at a tear no one was meant to see.

  Everyone looked relieved. Everyone except Julia and Seth. Their gazes met and held.

  “Swede?” Seth didn’t look away. “Give me a distance.”

  “Sir, eighty-seven kilometers offshore—and less than two minutes until impact.”

  Colonel Kane picked up on the tension, stared at Seth. “Is that enough time?”

  “It’s going to be close. The Rogue travels at roughly eight point three-three kilometers a minute. The coast could take a direct hit within the damage zone.”

  The command center went silent. Intensity returned. Tension thickened the air and settled wall to wall like heavy fog.

  Lieutenant Swede spoke up. “Thirty seconds until impact.”

  Seth swallowed hard, clasped Julia’s hand.

  “Twenty seconds.”

  His breath catching in his throat, he stared at the screen.

  “I love you, Seth,” Julia whispered.

  She didn’t look at him, and he didn’t look at her. “I love you, too.” Five years, he’d waited to hear those words from her. Wasn’t Fate wicked to withhold them until now?

  “Four seconds.” Swede’s voice wavered. “Three. Two. One. Impact.”

  The blip on the screen flashed.

  In silence, everyone watched, knowing they were witnessing massive destruction.

  Seth cleared his throat. “Swede, distance?”

  He looked at Seth, his eyes shiny, and smiled. “One hundred seven kilometers, sir.”

  Julia tugged at her right earlobe. Seth tugged back, and she let out a little squeal, then swept him into a hug. “You’re brilliant.”

  “I’m relieved.” Seth smiled. “And brilliant.”

  “Damn modest, too.” Julia laughed hard and deep. “But I’ll forgive you, this once.”

  Seth looped his arms around her waist, smiled down at her. “In that case, I have some news for you.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve got temporary custody of Jeff.”

  Her heart leapt. “We do? How—”

  “Matthew arranged it through the staff judge advocate’s office and the same civilian attorneys who issued your restraining order.”

  “That’s wonderful news.” She smiled from the heart out, knowing he hadn’t told her earlier in case things didn’t go well.

  “We’ll file the petition for adoption as soon as things settle down.”

  “After you marry me, right?”

  “Right.”

  Kane held the red-line phone to his chest and answered a second one. “Benedetto’s out of the picture.”

  More giddy laughter and victory shouts flooded the center. But something spiked a warning in Julia. It was their code of honor and ethics, nagging at her again. She softened her voice, so it didn’t carry. “Colonel Kane?” When he looked at her, she went on. “Benedetto’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Kane nodded. “Drug overdose.”

  “But loyalists don’t do those kinds of drugs.”

  “His prescription,” the colonel clarified. “He wiped out a bottleful.”

  “The guy’s got everything in the world, and he opts to O. D.” Matthew shook his head. “Well, Julia, I’d say that proves my point. Are you ready to admit it?”

  “Admit what?”

  His eyes twinkled. “That our side’s got the right stuff.”

  Julia looked at Linda, talking via headset to Mac, who was about to land the F-sixteen. “Two West loyalists don’t have a thing on us.”

  “Damn right.” Matthew smiled.

  “Damn right.” Seth looped an arm around her shoulder. “Come, on. Let’s go see our boy.”

  Julia felt into step beside him. “About this marriage thing.”

  He stopped in the center of the hall and stared at her. “What about it?”

  “There’s a condition.”

  Seth frowned. “I’ll never hurt you, Julia.”

  “That’s a given.” She squeezed his side. “But it’s not my condition.”

  “What?”

  “I want locks on the windows and doors.” Before he could protest, she added, “It’s not safe, Seth. Anyone could just walk in off the street.”

  “Okay. For you and Jeff, I’ll do it. But no locks that require keys from inside the house. I just can’t do that.”

  The scars of abuse ran deep for both of them. They would for Jeff, too. But as hard as those challenges had been, Julia conceded, they deserved respect. They had given her, Seth, and Jeff insights into each other that those who had never experienced abuse could never understand. Together, they could heal.

  She slid into the Lexus beside Seth. Together, they had healed, enough to take the ultimate risk. To love again. Without healing, there could be no self-love much less love for another, and there was a lot of love between them. Which proved that living without love had been an insult to life.

  She sat back on the seat, watched Seth get in behind the wheel and crank the engine. In searching for Jeff, in watching that screen and envisioning Benedetto and Morse’s penchants for death and destruction—and in daring to risk loving again after the abuse—they had both come to fully appreciate the value of life.

  And they chose to live, giving life and love all due respect.

  (Please continue reading for more information about Vicki Hinze)

  About Vicki Hinze

  Vicki Hinze is the award-winning author of 30 novels, 4 nonfiction books and hundreds of articles, published in as many as sixty-three countries. She is recognized by Who’s Who in the World as an author and as an educator. For more information, please visit her website at www.vickihinze.com.

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  Vicki Hinze, All Due Respect