Blue Skies

by Ali Vali

  Drew’s image was briefly replaced with the sheet he’d confiscated from Adam. “We’ve taken Jerry Teague and Adam Morris into custody for questioning, because my gut along with this cryptic message tells me there’s a big problem and you’ve got a mole on board.”

  “Since the message was written when Adam Morris first got it, I’ll check with my crew to see if one of them sent it by other means.”

  “I’ll give you a day to investigate, then we’ll compare notes again and I’ll let you know what Teague and Morris cough up.”

  “Before you sign off, sir, could you tell me if Adam Morris is related to Lieutenant Morris?” Aidan asked.

  “He’s his father, and one of the reasons I think we’ve got trouble.”

  “Permission to share what you told us with Blazer when we question him?” Aidan asked.

  “Use any means you have available to rattle his cage, Captain.” Drew pushed the papers aside and leaned back in his chair. “Gentlemen, please step out. I need to speak to Captain Sullivan a moment.”

  When the door closed, Aidan mirrored his relaxed position. “What are we really looking at here, sir?”

  “Please, Aidan, no need to be so formal. We’ve known each other too long for that. So tell me how you’re holding up?” He’d been one of the leading people pushing for her commission, but not because of his long friendship with Triton. Through his relationship with her father, he’d watched Aidan grow up and become one of the finest officers serving in the Navy and knew she deserved the chance.

  Aidan exhaled and rested her hands on the edge of the table. “I lost two of my people and because of the secrecy involved, I don’t know why, and the two smart-asses who could tell me aren’t talking.”

  “How many times did Jerry Teague ask to meet with you?”

  “After a week of briefings I had with you and Naval Command, he called and asked to speak to me and Berkley. Because of his title, I never thought to question why he wanted the meeting.” She closed her eyes briefly.

  “Did he ask you to contact him?”

  “All he said was to listen to the orders, and confirm when it was done, which you know I didn’t do right away. And when I did, I contacted Command. Had he asked to talk specifically to him, I would’ve demanded a meeting with you for clarification knowing that the new deputy secretary had been confirmed.”

  Drew nodded. “There’s something going on, and the story is divided between here and the Jefferson. We need to work together so we can defuse this situation.”

  “I still have one pilot to question, and I’ll get Devin to track where the message came from.”

  “Let’s give it a couple of days then before I contact you again.”

  “Thanks, Drew.” Aidan’s lips turned up in a smile, but it was halfhearted. The monitor went dark and she sat in the silence to think of their next move. The part of her heart that knew for sure that Berkley was alive was starting to dim since she thought she would’ve heard from her by now.

  “Captain.” Devin’s voice came through the intercom.

  “Come back in, Devin.” She motioned for him to close the door. “I need you to assign your most trusted person to Blazer.”

  “Sure, but why?”

  “A small fishing trip.” Aidan went on to tell him her plan and made him repeat it before he left to carry out her orders.

  “You sure know how to bait a hook, ma’am.”

  “My real talent comes in gutting and filleting my catch,” she said so seriously that it made Devin salute before he left the room.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  North Korean Countryside

  Dawn came and showed the first signs of a stormy day with sheets of heavy rain falling on the open land, but it only penetrated the trees as a drizzle. Berkley had kept Harvey awake by talking to him softly about all the hunting trips she’d gone on with her father. They’d kept moving through the night but at such a slow pace that the horse hadn’t made a sound and kept moving.

  Even at that rate they’d covered a lot of miles, and by morning the long stretch of forest barely visible that had seemed to go on for miles in the little moonlight was starting to thin. Berkley told Junior to stop and when he did the horse pawed the ground and shook his head hard enough to douse an already soaked Junior.

  “Let’s stop here,” Berkley said softly. From what she could see through the trees and rain, their cover wasn’t just thinning, they were coming to a town. So far the only thing that had gone right was that the rain had completely obliterated their tracks.

  Berkley slid off the horse and helped Junior down. The grimace on his face was a good gauge as to how much pain he was in from the hours of riding. “Hang in, and I promise a nice bunk in the ship’s hospital ward with a good-looking nurse just for you,” she said as she sat him against a tree.

  She took another energy bar and handed it all to him, and Junior shook his head and broke it in half. “You can’t carry my ass and go without food too.”

  They chewed slowly and sat together as the rain splattered on their flight suits softly but enough that they were soaked and chilled. Even though the trees were thick, there was no game except for some songbirds in the high branches. That was lucky for them as well since it would make it unlikely that they’d run into a hunting party searching for anything but them.

  “Try and get some sleep,” Berkley said and stood.

  “Where are you going?”

  She pointed toward the town. “This is the last of this kind of cover, so I need to see what our best move is once the sun sets.”

  From the edge of the trees she scanned the area using the binoculars since there was no sun to reflect off the glass. The town didn’t appear large, more of a center for the surrounding farmers to bring their crops and farm animals in exchange for supplies.

  There were trucks parked next to the largest building, which appeared to be a warehouse of some kind with grain silos along the back. The only cars she spotted looked to belong to police or government officials, and for such a small place it had more of those than seemed normal.

  Berkley stayed flat on her belly and watched. If the extra force was out of the ordinary, the lousy weather wasn’t going to stop them from their objective if they’d somehow tracked them to the area. After hours of watching, the only brick building she could see from her vantage point, a door opened and a group of men stepped out. Everyone stood in the rain except for one man. The cigarette hanging from his mouth bobbed as he spoke, but stayed dry under the large umbrella the man standing next to him was holding. Whoever he was, the rest of the group leaned in listening to every word, or at least that’s what it looked like to Berkley.

  After talking briefly with the group, one of the police opened the back door of the large black sedan parked on the street, and the umbrella holder walked the guy to the car. Another three cars quickly pulled up and most of the uniformed men who’d stood silently in the rain left as well, obviously part of the civilian’s entourage.

  The situation seemed out of the ordinary judging by the way the people huddled around the obvious VIP, but the strangest thing was the one person who’d stood back from the group but had gotten into the car first. It was a woman, and while she was traveling with the man everyone was treating like a god, her body language was that of someone who didn’t want to be there.

  “From this far away I can’t be sure, but that’s what it looks like,” Berkley said to herself as she adjusted the glasses for the best look possible. After the caravan left, the town went back to normal and the streets had only a few stragglers. The weather kept her from seeing too far into the countryside, but from her spot she could see it was bleak. She could see no clumps of trees and no noticeable hills or rock formations to hide the both of them and a horse.

  “The only thing missing is a big red neon sign suspended over us with a blinking arrow that reads here we are.” Berkley studied the terrain and opened the compass to find the least worse course that wouldn’t take them to
o far out of the way. “Shit.”

  *

  “You don’t look pleased, Comrade Umeko,” Lowe said between puffs of his ever-present cigarette. The back of the car was filled with gray smoke, and with the rain the relief of rolling down the window would be impossible.

  “I don’t understand why you need me with you,” Jin said, not caring she wasn’t acknowledging his comment.

  “Do you feel I’m keeping you from something?” He blew a stream of smoke in her direction before turning his head toward the window.

  “I’d think you’d want me to carry out the duty for which I was trained.” Jin tried to breath through her nose, her throat raw from the hours of being in Lowe’s haze.

  They’d left her father and Yong back at the base, and from that moment Lowe had made a slow pace back toward the capital. The only time he’d left Jin alone was when she stepped into the bathroom or when she was locked in a room to rest. He seemed content to ask her bizarre questions about her daily activities and didn’t show the least care about finding the two Americans who might’ve survived the crash. That subject he didn’t want to talk about, at least not with her.

  “If your memory isn’t good, we’ve done that already and you failed miserably. For now, we’ll put someone else in charge of outside aggressors, and you’ll pretend you give a damn about what happens to our country,” Lowe said in such a casual manner that he could’ve been talking about the rain. “Tell me how well you get along with your partner, Yong.”

  The last Jin saw of Yong was when they pulled away from the base. She was standing next to Pak, who appeared made of stone. Her father had never been an emotional man, but Jin expected something from him as she was ordered to leave with Lowe. That she would be blamed for what happened and made to pay for it was a foregone conclusion, so she expected some acknowledgment from Pak that her immediate future was to be fertilizer after Lowe cut her into little pieces and spread her along the fields for the good of the people.

  She hoped Yong had taken her advice and run at the first opportunity. She had a feeling Pak would take advantage and rid himself of the one person he felt had held Jin back. Only if she lived and succeeded would Pak regain some standing within the regime, but she also knew Pak would do his best to carry on even if Lowe killed her.

  “We work well together,” Jin said with conviction.

  “Is that all?”

  “I’ve known Yong from the first day I reported for duty. She serves well and works hard. What else is there to say?”

  Lowe lowered the window and flicked the small stub of his cigarette out, but raised it again before the fresh air made an impact on the interior. He opened his case and retrieved another one of the many he’d taken the time to roll the night before. They had spent the night in a police station sleeping on uncomfortable bunks in the tiny jail cells. Jin had sat and watched as he meticulously measured out tobacco and rolled each smoke as if it were part of his religion.

  “I’m sure there might be plenty, but we’ll come back to that. Instead you can tell me about the pride you have for your father, Pak,” Lowe said with the smile that made Jin want to slit his throat. “He is a true patriot, don’t you think?”

  “If there’s one thing you can say for General Lee, it’s that he has always put country before anything or anyone.”

  Lowe laughed in a way that sounded like he was truly pleased. “Isn’t that the goal of everyone who serves the Great Leader?”

  “Some achieve more glory than others.”

  “Are you deficient in that arena, then?”

  Jin closed her eyes and prepared herself for what she was sure would come next. “I’m sure you know all my deficiencies as well as wrongdoings when it comes to my service, Mr. Nam Chil, or is it that you want to hear it from me personally?”

  “I have a feeling you won’t give me that without a little persuasion,” he said and laughed again.

  Death beckoned to her in the next few days, and it wouldn’t come quietly or gently. The slow drive through the countryside was to allow Lowe to compare her answers with those that would come as he cut away her dignity one little piece at a time.

  It wasn’t something she looked forward to, and she would endure it only because she knew Pak would as well. Her father deserved to suffer if only to repay the wrongs he’d committed against her mother. While she still had the strength, her plan was to implicate Pak as much as she could so that Lowe would have no choice but to take him to the pit of hell choking on his own blood.

  “You’ve got nothing more to add?” Lowe asked.

  Jin didn’t answer and didn’t open her eyes. In her mind she was in her grandfather’s garden with her mother. The sun was shining and it felt like a warm shield on her skin and her mother was telling her how it’d protect her from everything that would try to harm her.

  This was the place she would go when Lowe pulled out his tools, and Jin was sure that no matter the pain, her mother would sit and hold her hand until Jin joined her in death. With that reality there was nothing more to say.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  USS Jefferson

  “Come on,” Devin said to Blazer when he unlocked the door. “You want to tell your story, now’s your chance.” He hit the metal door with the flat of his hand hard enough to bring Alan Lewis to his door to look out the small pane of glass.

  “It’s about goddamn time,” Blazer said. He left his shirt on the bed and followed Devin in his T-shirt and pants.

  Aidan had the route Blazer had flown cued on the computer again, but she knew no matter what she said or showed him, he wasn’t going to crack. For now his behavior didn’t bother her. “At ease, Lieutenant.”

  “Is there some reason you’ve kept me locked in that room for this long?” He stared at her for a long moment before adding, “Ma’am.”

  “You do indignant well, but you’re not here to ask questions,” Aidan said. “So don’t give me any encouragement to stick you where I originally wanted. If you ask where that is, we’ll cut this short so Devin can accommodate you.”

  Blazer glared at her briefly before he fixed his eyes like Alan had on the wall. “Do you want to tell us what happened?”

  It was as if Alan and Blazer had studied a script. He repeated Alan’s story almost verbatim. He relaxed his shoulders when she didn’t interrupt, and only when he got to the end did he add anything new.

  “Cletus was good, but she was no match for the Korean who came after us.” As he said it he glanced down at her and Aidan saw the glee in his eyes. “Because Cletus was shot down over enemy lines, I’d prepare for some sort of reprisal from the North Korean government. Let’s hope it isn’t on American soil.”

  “So it was Cletus who turned toward enemy lines?”

  “My job, which she kept reminding me at every opportunity, was to follow her lead. I did that and Lewis and I almost got killed.”

  Aidan shook her head in Devin’s direction when he went to say something. “With Cletus’s experience I find it surprising that she would’ve gone looking for a fight. That’s not her style.”

  “I guess she had something to prove and it didn’t matter what your orders were. She obviously had other plans.”

  “Since I don’t have any proof otherwise, I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.” Aidan glanced at Devin again. “You’re free to go, and I’ll let you know if I have any other questions.”

  Blazer appeared stunned.

  “You’re dismissed as soon as Lieutenant Clark escorts you back to gather your things. Step out a moment and I’ll have him escort you back.”

  “Remember, see who our flyboy is chummy with, and it might make your investigation as to who sent Teague a message easier,” Aidan said to Devin.

  “What about Alan?” Devin asked.

  “I want you to deliver the message that Blazer threw him overboard. Make sure you remind him that we gave him every opportunity to tell us what happened and he refused to protect the asshole who gave him up on the
first sweep.” She stood and stretched her back out. “When you’re loyal to a snake, you give him the chance to throw you into the prop.”

  “And if he wants to talk to you?”

  “Make him wait.” Aidan stopped at the door that headed toward the bridge. “I’ve found that desperation and the drive of self-preservation has always been a good motivator, especially when you whip it with fear.”

  “Is there some reason you didn’t tell Blazer what Secretary Orr shared with you?” Devin stood a few feet from her at the head of corridor that would lead him to where he was holding Alan. “That would’ve gotten a response for sure.”

  “Patience, Devin, the game isn’t over.”

  “I have a feeling it is, only Blazer is the last person who hasn’t figured it out yet.”

  “That’s because he thinks his safety net is still in place, but if I know Drew Orr, Blazer’s safe landing spot is somewhere that has one door and no windows.” A few sailors passed them and Devin moved closer to her to keep their conversation private. “To loosen things on our end, have that talk with Alan and try to get his attention when you bring Blazer back down to cut him loose.”

  “You got it, Captain.” Devin radioed the guard he’d assigned to Alan and told him to wait five minutes and then ask him something that would bring him to the door. “Let’s go,” he told Blazer right after.

  “Have we started our flight exercises?”

  Devin glanced back at Blazer amazed at his audacity mixed with a good dose of stupidity. “The team started yesterday.”

  “Who’s in charge now that the flight god is gone?”

  “Commander Levine is missing in action and still your superior, asshole, so check the wisecracks.”

  “Sorry.” Blazer raised his hands and laughed. He laughed harder when Devin clenched his fists.

  Devin couldn’t have planned it better. In Blazer’s lame attempt to taunt him for his loyalty to Aidan, he never looked toward Alan’s door. After he picked up the book he’d been reading and his discarded uniform, Blazer threw Devin a casual salute and laughed as he walked away.