by Radclyffe
“She’s pretty interested in your colonel too.”
Dara might’ve snarled because Penny laughed. “That’s just my point about the games people play. Catherine has been hitting on Sawyer since the minute they met, apparently. Sawyer said no and that was it as far as she was concerned. Now she doesn’t even notice Catherine’s innuendos. Sawyer doesn’t play games. I’m not even sure she knows how. It’s just not in her makeup. She’s all about the job.”
“Sounds like someone else I know.”
“No—the difference is I know how to play the games, I just don’t want to.” The familiar bitterness and faint self-recrimination that usually followed thoughts of all the many ways she’d been taught to use her money and position and power to her advantage were oddly absent. Being around Sawyer, being free to be herself, had purged a wound she hadn’t realized was still festering.
Penny squeezed her hand and said softly, “Where’d you just go?”
Dara shook her head. “You’re my best friend, right?”
“Have been for—okay, let’s not go there, it makes me feel old and tired. A lot of years.”
Dara laughed. “There’s something about Sawyer. I’ve never met anyone like her before.”
“So it’s not just she’s hot?”
“That’s just it.” Dara sighed. Sawyer was charming without realizing it, sexy with absolutely no clue about the impact she had on women, and so charismatic when she focused all that intensity on you, she was spellbinding. And the very fact she had absolutely no idea just made the whole package a million times more exciting. “Damn it. Everything about her is hot.”
“Ooh,” Penny said with a teasing lilt. “Somebody’s finally got your attention.”
“Okay, maybe. Yes. And could it be any worse timing? I might not even get to see her again.”
“Honey,” Penny said, “these things don’t follow a timetable or punch a clock or tick off days on a calendar. It’s not about time, it’s about…connection. God, the first time I saw Sampson, other than thinking he was sex on a stick, I noticed his laugh. And his energy, and the way he looked at me like he’d just discovered a big ole shiny present under the tree. I was hooked, and it took all of about twenty seconds. After that, time didn’t mean anything.”
“I’m not like that—I’m not emotional that way.” Penny just smiled, and Dara insisted, “I’m not! I like to know what I’m getting into with a woman. I’m a head person, not a…a heart person, I guess.”
“Okay. You know best.” Penny’s expression said she didn’t agree, but she sighed and her face grew serious. “I think you’ll be seeing the colonel again, all the same. We’re in for a rough ride, aren’t we.”
“I’m afraid so,” Dara said, still thinking of Sawyer. Where was she now—was she out in the storm, in danger, or warm and dry finally, and grabbing a few hours’ sleep? Was she thinking of her? Dara blinked and pointed a finger at Penny. “There’s no we in this. I want you out of here at the end of this shift, and I don’t want to see you again until Leo is history.”
“That would be a no. I’m not going home until this is all over.” Penny handed her tablet to Dara with a spreadsheet open. “I’ve worked through the call schedule, and we’ve got all the shifts covered with staff who aren’t absolutely needed at home—the single parents or ones with special-care dependents. Everyone has an on-call room assigned so we can sleep when we need to—”
“Absolutely not. You’re pregnant, if you recall?”
“Oh, believe me, I haven’t forgotten it.” She patted her stomach and made a face. “I might be queasy now and then, but that doesn’t make me infirm. Women have managed all kinds of chores over the millennia while pregnant. At least I’m not pushing a plow.”
“Sampson will kill me.”
“He knows already. The hospital is one of the safest places to be, right? We’re flood-proof, we’ve got generators, we’re a goddamn fortress.”
“Pen,” Dara said, trying to sound reasonable rather than dictatorial, “we’ve got other people who can pick up the extra shifts. You and Sampson should head to your place in South Carolina or his mother’s place or somewhere. There’s an evacuation order, remember?”
“Honey, Sampson’s a firefighter. He’s not going anywhere. All the first responders are on emergency status now.”
“Of course he is.” Dara rubbed her eyes. “I must be more tired than I thought. I just want you to be safe.”
“Well, I’ll be right here where you can keep an eye on me.” Penny scooted her chair closer and hugged her. “You need to get out of here for a little while. We’re all going to need you sharp.”
“I know. I will.”
Penny hesitated. “What about your mother?”
Dara sighed. “I’m just about to call her.”
Chapter Nineteen
Landfall minus 22 hours
National Hurricane Center Atlantic Ops
Storm Advisory
Tropical storm winds are likely to arrive in the Florida Keys and south Florida in less than twenty-four hours. Some locations may be uninhabitable for weeks or months due to damage from extreme winds, structural impairment, and coastal flooding. Preparations for evacuation, relief, and rescue should be rushed to completion.
Stan read the advisory as it went out with a sense of helpless futility. The closer Leo approached, the more rapidly he was being delegated to the role of observer, shouting out warnings and helpless to act on them. He couldn’t even get his own wife to heed his urgings to evacuate.
“You okay, boss?” Bette asked quietly as she swiveled in her chair and regarded him with a weary sigh.
“Yep.” Stan forced an upbeat note into his voice. He needed to bolster his people’s spirits, to keep them sharp and committed despite lack of sleep and decent food, and a pervasive sense of doom that was hard to shed looking at the weather maps. Tracking Leo was a bit like watching a train coming full-on while tied to the tracks. Landfall was just the beginning of another battle for them. Their job wouldn’t be done until Leo thrashed himself out and passed on by, and not for quite a while after that. “All good here.”
Channel 10 News Report, 7 p.m.
Miami Beach, Florida
“This is Catherine Winchell reporting live from Miami Beach, Florida. Hurricane Leo is now only four hundred miles offshore. Earlier today a National Hurricane Center bulletin reported Leo swept through the Turks and Caicos Islands as a Category 5 hurricane with winds in excess of one hundred eighty-five miles per hour on its path toward the southeastern Bahamas and Cuba. Early photos depict widespread devastation, with over eighty percent of homes, businesses, and municipal structures destroyed. Power outages throughout the islands have left communities without communication networks, fresh water, or sanitary facilities. At least twelve people have died, and the death toll is expected to rise.
“Behind me you can see the first ominous signs of the impending waves predicted to threaten coastal regions, including downtown Miami. Storm surge is expected to reach fifteen feet or more in height. The governor has now ordered mandatory evacuations throughout south Florida, including coastal communities in Miami, Palm Beach, and cities south of Lake Okeechobee. Residents are advised to seek shelter locally to avoid the projected gas shortages and highway congestion. Six thousand Florida Air and Army National Guard under the command of Colonel Sawyer Kincaid, supported by troops from adjoining states, are on hand to assist local emergency response teams in transporting citizens to area shelters. If you are in an evacuation zone and do not know how to locate the nearest shelter, call Channel 10 News at 555-LEO-HELP.
“Follow me on Twitter, Channel 10 Facebook, and here on Channel 10 News for live updates and interviews with those in charge of our emergency crisis response.”
National Guard Command Center
Miami, Florida
A sharp rap on the door roused Sawyer from her uneasy doze. She hadn’t really been sleeping. Her mind was still working, running through the lists
of things she needed to do, a part of her body and brain alert to the slightest change in the sound of the hundreds of Humvees and high-water vehicles pulling into the huge lot behind the warehouse the Guard had commandeered as its staging arena. The blare of horns and the muted thunder of voices reverberated through the metal walls separating her quarters from the general billet area.
She’d spent an hour, before grabbing a little rack time, getting passed from one bureaucrat to another at Florida National Grid, trying to get a recovery projected for the anticipated power failures, before she finally connected with someone willing to give her a straight answer. The answer wasn’t pretty. Despite the intense development of their network in the Miami metropolitan area, the power company projected massive outages if the storm struck as currently predicted, with repairs and rebuilding of the grid likely to take weeks. Any facility without generator capability or the fuel to run it was likely to be without lights, air-conditioning, refrigeration, clean water, sanitation, and basic communications.
She sat up on the side of her cot, ran both hands through her hair, and felt her energy level rise. She didn’t sleep much and she didn’t need to. Her body was acclimated to a constant state of readiness, and she only heeded the normal urge to rest when absolutely necessary.
“Enter.”
The flimsy, windowless metal door grated open and Rambo’s big frame filled the doorway, the light behind him silhouetting his features, but she’d recognize him anywhere.
“Hey.” Seeing who it was, she rose, unbuttoned her uniform shirt, pulled it off, and tossed it onto the bottom of her bunk. Rambo had seen her in her tank top a few hundred times. “Give me a minute.”
Rambo let the door close behind him, leaned against it, and waited.
As the commanding officer, she rated private quarters in what had once been a small office that had probably been used to process the manifests for the goods coming into the warehouse. She was happy to have a bunk of her own, a tiny sink, and a private toilet. Downright luxury accommodations. The rest of the battalion shared the common space out on the vast warehouse floor, sleeping on cots fifty to a row and showering in container units behind the building. The mission support company had already taken care of the essentials—sectioning off a coffee and food section and even designating a quiet corner where men and women could connect to the internet and communicate with their families.
Running cold water in the sink, she splashed her face, dried off, and pulled a clean pressed shirt from the footlocker at the bottom of her bunk. She buttoned her shirt and tucked it in. Two high windows let in enough light for her to read his expression. “Problems?”
“We’ve brought in twelve thousand pallets of bottled water and MREs. We’ve got the trucks loaded up and ready to roll. I’m worried about the fuel situation. We’re commandeering as much of the local supplies as we can, but the evacuation has pretty much tapped out the sources. Gas stations all up and down the corridor are out of fuel already. Depending on how long we’ll have to distribute supplies, and how far, we could run into a supply chain problem.”
“What about tankers?” Sawyer asked.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Can we get the Navy to get us some fuel offshore?”
“I’ll make some calls. They’ve got five warships on maneuvers in the Caribbean in support of the areas already hit, but they’re shutting down the bases at Jacksonville and Miami. Homestead is moving out their aircraft too.”
“We could ferry fuel in from a distance by barge, maybe,” Rambo said.
“Maybe.” Sawyer doubted smaller vessels would be able to handle the high seas once Leo got closer, but they might be able to off-load fuel ahead of the storm if they acted quickly. “I’ll push them. Have your storage depots ready to receive.”
“Roger that. Thanks. How’s the evacuation going?”
“The city public transit system is overloaded already—huge wait times—so we’re kicking in transport vehicles.” Sawyer shrugged. “We’ve got three thousand troops on the streets on around-the-clock shifts conveying homeless, seniors, and those with no means of travel to shelters. We’ve got another five hundred filling sandbags along the seawall. Hell, we’re even moving pets.”
“Well, yeah.” Rambo laughed. “Mika would have my ass if we left her cat behind.”
“How’s Mika holding up?”
He smiled, that smile he always got when his wife was mentioned, one of self-satisfaction and incredulity, like he couldn’t believe his luck. Sawyer’d never quite understood what was behind that expression before, but she thought she might be starting to. Sometimes a person walked into your life, someone you never expected or were even looking for, and changed everything. That was crazy, she knew. She wasn’t that kind of person. She didn’t have those hidden needs, those well-concealed vulnerabilities. When her family had fractured, her mother broken and chronically depressed, her siblings too young to console her and more in need of consoling themselves, she’d had to grow up fast. She’d gone to half a dozen schools by the time she was twelve. Friendships never had the chance to cement. She’d learned not to count on relationships, fragile things that splintered and blew away like the trees had surrendered to Andrew.
Then she’d found the home she’d always been missing in the military, with a family that would not desert her, that she could count on. And that had been enough. More than she’d ever had, more than she’d ever thought she needed, until lately. She rubbed her chest, conscious of the ache that persisted deep inside.
“You okay?” Rambo said.
“What? Yeah, fine.”
“You look like something’s bothering you.”
Sawyer shook her head. They all had one mission, one focus, but a significant percentage of her troops also had families in danger. Her scattered siblings should be safe somewhere inland or out of state altogether, but for the first time, she experienced the kind of gnawing worry many of her troops had dealt with during deployments when they couldn’t be present for a loved one who needed help or support. She kept thinking about Dara. The newest storm projections put Miami Memorial, and Dara, directly in its path. She hadn’t yet figured out how to handle that.
“No, I’m good.” And the weird thing was, she was good. The ache wasn’t actually painful. If she had to put a word to it, she’d call it more anticipation, a sense of excitement that was wholly new for her. “I’ll get on those calls.”
Sawyer glanced at the time. 1900 hours. And wondered where Dara was.
7:40 p.m.
Dara tried her mother again while watching Catherine on the news loop that had been running every three or four minutes for the last forty. Catherine managed to look fashionably attractive in a navy-blue windbreaker and tailored tan pants. To give her credit, she didn’t shirk from getting soaked. Her blond hair was definitely waterlogged and tangled, the disheveled effect adding to the seriousness of her message while making her seem professionally undauntable. Annoying, how hard it was to dislike Catherine when she was so obviously doing a necessary and difficult job.
“Hello, darling,” her mother said.
Caught by surprise after failing to connect the last dozen times she’d called and still mildly irritated over Catherine, Dara didn’t bother hiding her annoyance. “You’re not answering your phone.”
“I just did.”
Dara heard the familiar distracted note in her mother’s voice that usually indicated she was doing three things at once, all of which were more important than talking to her daughter. “I thought we agreed when I called, you’d answer. You know when I do, it’s not to chat.”
“Believe me, darling, I know that. You’ve never been one for maintaining social niceties.” Her mother still sounded unperturbed, but the message was an old and pointed one. Dara had failed to be the daughter her mother had expected.
Dara’s molars were starting to hurt, a sure sign she was grinding them. She consciously relaxed her jaw. “Mother, have you been watching the news?”
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“You know I rarely do. There’s so much false reporting these days.”
“You are aware we are in the direct path of Hurricane Leo.”
“Oh, heavens, I’ve lived in Florida all my life. Hurricanes hardly excite me.”
“Well, this one should. It’s a massive storm, and we’re in its direct path. You should have already left by now.”
Her mother laughed. “You can’t be serious. I wouldn’t have evacuated for Andrew if your father hadn’t been worried about invalidating any insurance claims we might have needed to make. Really, that was a ridiculous and wholly unnecessary trip. The house was fine except for a few loose tiles on the roof.”
Dara closed her eyes, trying not to think about what had happened just a few miles away to Sawyer’s family. She was assailed by guilt over something she couldn’t have changed—she’d been five years old, after all. Still, the image of Sawyer struggling in the floodwaters only to lose her father and her home hurt. She concentrated on convincing her mother to deal with reality, a not inconsequential challenge. “This one is likely to be every bit as big as Andrew, if not even more powerful, and playing Russian roulette with nature is ridiculous. You’re not going to be able to drive out of the area at this late date, but I’ve checked the shelters in your—”
“Oh my goodness.” Her mother laughed. “Why on earth would I leave my home to spend days sleeping with strangers in some un-air-conditioned building with no toilets, no decent coffee, and no privacy.”
“Maybe because you might end up wading through water up to your chin if you don’t?”
“You’re an alarmist. I have no idea who you got that from.”
Dara had expected that response, but she’d had to try. “Domestic flights out of Miami International are all full, but you can get a charter out of Miami-OPA if you hurry.”