Blue Skies

by Ali Vali

  “It’s nothing, sir.” The obvious shock of seeing Drew made it came out as a whisper.

  “No one gets that excited over nothing.” Drew punched in a brief message. “Read it,” he ordered without looking up. “And before you lie to me, I recognized the tear sheet that makes it Pentagon property, so I’ll be leaving with it.” Drew pressed the send button and gave Adam his full attention. “Get to it.”

  “Mission accomplished—minor glitch on back end—Captain being difficult,” Adam read in an even tone, but Drew noticed how his eyes darted to different spots on the page.

  “Do you want to explain, or do we play the game you and your former boss perfected?” Drew asked Jerry as he held his hand out wiggled his fingers so Adam would hand him the page.

  “We’ve been monitoring the situation on the Jefferson,” Jerry said, then swallowed loud enough that Drew almost laughed when the MPs he ordered came in and stood at attention next to him.

  “I doubt this’ll be easy, but what the hell,” Drew said with a smile that was hard to tamp down. This was his opportunity to deal with some of the people who’d been quick to send troops into harm’s way even though it was the last thing they’d chosen even when there was a government enforced draft. “Who’s your contact who gave you all this pertinent information?”

  “Like Adam said, Secretary, this isn’t anything important. I’m sure you’re busy. No need to waste your time.”

  Drew read the note for the third time. The answer of the Jefferson was at least honest since it was the only situation that fit. The outcome of that was the main issue on the agenda of the meeting Khalid had scheduled that morning, and if it weren’t for the last three words Drew might have taken Jerry’s advice to ignore it. An hour before, Captain Aidan Sullivan had told him what happened and how she had Lieutenant Morris and his partner separated and confined to the brig.

  The incomplete story told by the young pilot and the fact that his father now held this information left Drew’s scalp still tingling. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, Drew thought, the quote one of Peter’s favorites.

  “Jerry, I want you to listen carefully. I want the name of the person who sent this to you—now.”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Jerry responded just as seriously.

  “Take these two into custody and have someone in here to lock all this down,” Drew said to the MPs. “Don’t forget Mr. Morris’s office as well, and no phone calls or outside contact for either of them starting now.”

  “You can’t do that,” Jerry said.

  “Sure I can. Remember how hard you and your friends worked to pass the Patriot Act? All I can say is thanks.” Drew laughed at how red Jerry’s face got. “I consider you both a national security threat, so I’m going to drop you in a hole until we sort this out.”

  “How dare you,” Adam said and stopped after one step when one of the MPs mirrored his movements. “I served my country and don’t appreciate you questioning my patriotism.”

  “I’m going to question a lot more before we’re done. We’re going to see how well you hold up when I do, because I was in all those meetings when you argued for tougher interrogations.”

  Jerry leaned closer to Drew. “Think about what you’re doing, Drew. All this is revenge for policies you didn’t totally agree with, and that Adam and I weren’t responsible for putting into place.”

  “Of course you did, Jerry, but you’re wrong on that. I didn’t agree with the methods, but the results are what you pushed for in all those meetings: stronger and better interrogation methods. When someone doesn’t want to talk we’ve become good at changing their mind, and that’s hard to argue with.”

  “I want to talk to the president,” Adam blurted out.

  Drew shook his head in disgust at the visibly nervous man. “Take them in and tell Walby I’ll call him in a couple of hours,” he told the two MPs.

  “Walby Edwards?” Jerry said the name and his voice rose comically at the end. The CIA operative had a reputation people like Jerry loved to brag about when they talked about his special ability to produce confessions. What Lowe Nam Chil was to North Korea, Walby was to the CIA, only it was people’s heads Walby like to screw with, leaving all his bruising there.

  “You’re one of his greatest admirers, so it’s only fair that you get to see him work in a way very few citizens get to experience.”

  “This is totally unnecessary and premature, don’t you think? It’s just a note, for the love of God.” Jerry said and pulled his arm out of the MP’s grasp.

  “It might be, and if it is you’ll have my sincerest apologies. But for now we have a situation brewing and I need to make sure it doesn’t escalate to something we all don’t want.” Drew stood aside when the MPs escorted them out, then stopped in Jerry’s assistant’s office to talk to him. Nelson was locked in a staring contest with the MP standing in front of his desk.

  “Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Secretary?” Nelson asked.

  “Has our young friend called anyone?” Drew asked the guard, who shook his head. “I need the list of appointments your former boss had in the last six months, official and unofficial. Then I need you to be patient with me and agree to stay in the quarters here with an escort until I’m done going through the list. If you choose to side with Mr. Teague on this, I’ll be happy to make arrangements for you to join him. That means if you make any attempt to contact anyone for him as a part of some pact you may have formed, you’ll find yourself on the first plane to Gitmo, and it won’t be to work on your tan.”

  “I’ll get that for you.” Nelson got on the computer and started printing. When it finished, he handed over twenty sheets.

  “Anyone missing?” Drew asked casually.

  “No, sir.”

  “No friendly visit that Jerry didn’t see the need to record in his official log?” Drew kept scanning the names, many of whom worked in the building. The list would be compared to the visitor’s log outside to see if Jerry’s help came from outside, but if it was someone else like Adam it would be harder to track them down. “You’re young and just starting out, so I want you to think before you answer.”

  “None that I can think of, sir,” Nelson answered after a few moments of silence.

  Drew nodded, then glanced up at the MP. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he told Nelson. “Take him downstairs and put him in protective custody until further notice. Once I’m finished with the visitor logs and video surveillance we can let this young patriot get back to work.”

  “Video surveillance, sir?”

  “Every space aside from private offices in here is monitored, son, but you’ve been truthful, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’m sure we’ll have you reassigned before too long.” The look of concern seemed to suck the vigor out of Nelson’s appearance, but his lips stayed glued together. “Like you said, everyone I need to talk to is on this list. If someone’s missing I’m sure you weren’t here at your post, so how could you know everyone Teague met with?”

  “Is that all, Mr. Secretary?” the MP asked.

  Drew stared at Nelson for a long minute before he responded. “I guess so.” When he was alone in the office, Drew picked up Nelson’s phone and dialed the head of security for the Pentagon, Commander Mark “Rooster” Palmer’. “Rooster, get a small team together and get up to Jerry Teague’s old office as soon as you can.”

  “Anything in particular you want to concentrate on?”

  “I have a feeling we have a mole on the Jefferson giving the wrong people information, and Jerry has conspired with an undetermined number of people for something I’m not quite sure of yet.”

  Rooster laughed. “I see you have all the answers then, so our jobs should be easy.”

  “I’m having the office locked down, so start here and move to Adam Morris’s office after and see what you find. Whatever it is, I think our friends are up to no good.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  North Korean C
ountryside

  Berkley’s parachute was now in strips that she was using to fit a splint to Junior’s leg. He’d insisted on walking part of the way, so while the sun went down Berkley fashioned some crutches for him. Their deal was that he could walk until he started to lag, then she would carry him.

  “Ready?” Berkley asked once she had the last strip tied off.

  “Lead the way.” Junior stood on his good foot. He swayed a little but Berkley could see that he was trying to hide how much pain he was in.

  “Remember,” Berkley said as she folded the rest of the chute in case they needed it, “you tell me when the pain gets to be too much. I don’t need you to hobble yourself any more than you are already.” Before they started out she took an energy bar, split it in half, and offered him a piece.

  “What do you think our odds are of making it out of here?”

  Night had set in and Berkley was amazed at how dark and still the countryside had gotten. She’d seen in night satellite surveillance shots how a large section of land looked like it was swallowed by a black hole. Her world history teacher at the Academy had said it was the choice between progress and idiocy when you compared it to South Korea.

  The silence and the darkness weren’t anything to fear, though. It was the best-case scenario for them as they moved toward their goal, since any squad sent to hunt for them would stick out like a lit Christmas tree in a closet.

  “A good chance if we work together, and with any luck it’ll take them a couple of days to figure out we’re still kicking.” She started walking and glanced over her shoulder to see how well he kept up. “We’ll stick to the trees and see how far we get tonight, and then tomorrow I’ll give you a better answer.”

  At two in the morning Berkley stopped them, figuring they had gone about four miles, but Junior’s breathing was more ragged and he was starting to grunt with every step. They were still in the tree line, which was thicker than their starting point so the ground was more uneven.

  “Let’s take a break,” Berkley said softly and held up her hand. The half-moon provided enough illumination to spot a small structure with pens around it. This appeared to be a rural farm where the land was worked by either the animals in the pens or by hand; she didn’t spot any equipment. “Stay put and I’ll be right back.”

  She left the safety of the trees and walked halfway before dropping to her belly and crawling. It was no time to let a farmer raise any type of alarm, but she didn’t want to kill anyone she had no fight with either.

  The pens held only a few chickens, a cow, and small pigs, but she passed by those and headed for the well. A missing bucket and ladle would immediately be missed, so she took an empty bottle from the three near the back door. When she sniffed it all she found was the faint odor of milk, so she filled it with water and drank down the entire liter.

  She returned to Junior the same way, but with a bottle of water for him. “We’ve made good time so far considering, but you’ve got to let me carry you for a while.”

  “All that’s going to happen if you do that is that your back is going to get messed up,” he said and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

  “You can go voluntarily or I can cold-cock you. Your choice. Let me know before we have to start moving.”

  He put his arm around her neck and pressed his crutches and their supplies between their bodies as Berkley shifted him to a more comfortable spot.

  An hour later the trees started to thin, so she stopped and put Junior down carefully. The next patch of cover was at least two miles away and all downhill, which would be a bitch with a passenger on her back.

  “It turns light in a few hours. Maybe we should stop,” Junior said.

  “The only way we can stay here is to turn back for more cover, and that’s a time killer.”

  “You’re already getting tired, so why chance it?”

  Berkley helped him back up and made sure to distribute his weight as best she could with his leg sticking straight out. “We have to chance it because you have to understand the kind of people we’re up against. They’re starving and poor, but they’d gladly rip your heart out with a spoon to prove themselves to the killer who runs this place.”

  “You sound like a preacher when you talk like that.”

  “Ha,” Berkley laughed. “I’m more of a sinner. All I’m saying is these folks are looking for a break no matter who they have to turn in.” She stopped talking as the incline got steeper and she felt the sweat start to roll down her neck.

  Close to them a dog started barking, and Berkley stopped to make sure it was only one. Even if it was, they needed to move so there was no hint of their passing. If possible she wanted to leave as little a footprint as they could to make it harder for their trackers to find them. She planned to keep moving even after the sun went up. The more distance she put behind them, the more she threw off the formula the trackers would use to pinpoint their search area.

  The dog’s barking got louder and Berkley had no choice but to put Junior down and investigate. “We’re only halfway, Cletus. We can’t stop here,” Junior said.

  “Let me see, because if this dog barks and ends up waking the neighborhood, it’s not good for us.” She helped him sit and took off before any more time was lost.

  In the middle of the next hill there was another, more prosperous farm, with a tractor parked close to the living quarters. When she was close enough she saw the dog wasn’t barking at their presence, but at the two horses moving slowly around a small enclosure. That attention shifted quickly when the dog caught Berkley’s scent as he stopped and lifted his muzzle in her direction.

  “Great, the owner isn’t going to wake up because this mutt’s barking but because he’s not,” Berkley thought. The longer he stayed quiet, the better the chance that someone would come out to investigate, so she thought quickly as she removed her shoes. “I’ve gone from pilot to horse thief.”

  She removed the boots that would have left a distinctive tread mark and ran in on bare feet. The dog went back to his excited barking when he saw her, but he backed up slowly instead of trying to attack her. His fear was to her advantage, so Berkley headed right for him and picked him up with the hope he wasn’t going to bite. Before the dog could think about it, she deposited him in the pigpen, then stuck her hands into the muck at the bottom of the enclosure and pressed them briefly to the dog’s nose.

  The horses were next, and like the dog, they shied away from her, so she moved slowly with her hands up. Berkley had no experience with horses, but a horse provided a way to cover a lot more miles, especially with Junior’s injury. She finally got a grip on the solid brown one and led him back toward her partner.

  “Let’s hope I don’t end up with a broken leg,” she said when she was far enough away.

  “Why do you smell like pig shit?” Junior asked.

  “I gave the dog a new scent to follow to right here,” Berkley said as she wiped her hands on the grass so she could put her shoes on. “You know anything about horses?”

  “You’re talking to a summer camp alumnus,” he said and accepted her hand up.

  “Good, you can drive.” She climbed up so she could pull him up in front of her.

  “He’ll do better in the open.”

  “I’m sure he would, but there’s no time like now for him to learn to dodge trees.” She gripped the sides of the horse with her legs when Junior got them going. “That way, Lone Ranger.” She pointed in the right direction after glancing at the compass again.

  “Does that make you Tonto, kemosabi?” Junior asked and laughed.

  “Not unless you want me to break your other leg, so get your mosey on.”

  *

  USS Jefferson

  “If that kid doesn’t shut up soon you may not have to worry about trying to find out what he did,” Devin said to Aiden.

  They had anchored and started their military exercises as if nothing had happened. With every passing hour, the
crew became more convinced that Berkley and Harvey weren’t coming back. The night before, Aidan had closed her eyes, but the hum of the engines, which for so long had brought a sense of comfort, instead kept her awake and filled her head with thoughts of Berkley.

  Hearing from Secretary Orr before the night watch had gone on duty was a surprise. He’d asked for Aiden to gather her most trusted crew for a briefing. With that order Aidan had called in Devin, her deck leader Mike Dyer, and her communications man Luther Oliver.

  “We’ll give him the chance to tell his version of the pack of lies his backseat was trying to feed us,” Aidan said, referring to Blazer.

  “We’re ready to go, ma’am,” Luther said before he punched the button that would bring in the live feed from the Pentagon.

  Drew sat at his desk, and Aidan could make out a little of the view behind him, and that too made her think of Berkley and their brief visit to the Pentagon, adding to her heavy burden of guilt that she’d talked her lover into this mission. “Good morning, Secretary Orr,” she said, looking into the camera on their end.

  “And good evening to you all. I’ll be as brief as I can, Captain, because I’ve got a feeling you’ve got plenty of work ahead of you.”

  Aidan introduced everyone in the room with her before asking, “What can we do for you, sir?”

  “I need to review your communication logs, Mr. Oliver, and see if you can pinpoint who contacted Washington approximately two hours after the completion of our exercises. Once you figure out who that is, I need you to confine them to a cell as you did Lieutenants Morris and Lewis.” Drew glanced at his notes and moved to the next page.

  “Sir, I’ve got the log book here, and I can tell you no one on the ship made radio contact stateside until Captain Sullivan reported in,” Luther said.

  “Then we have a problem, folks.”

  “Could you elaborate, sir?” Aidan asked.