Morning Colors

by Sharon Timm

  Sam winked at Anna who reached over and squeezed her hand. Sam felt so at home with this woman. She grudgingly admitted that she had just had a civil conversation with the woman's son too.

  Anna stood up and motioned for Luca and Sam to go outside. "We might as well take that tour of the Danieli Vineyard and Winery," Luca said.

  "I've already seen that part," Sam said pointing to the place where Luca had crushed her in his arms. Her skin tingled and she tried and failed to push away the memory of his touch, his strength and the way his lips had brushed across her brow.

  Luca mercifully didn't pick up on the point and Sam followed him through the guided tour.

  She met many of the guests from the night before as they wandered the property. They smiled and greeted her and she felt welcome, like she was a part of the extended vineyard family. Italy was like that, she was beginning to understand. Lifelong friendships were forged in an instant. It was a camaraderie made up of laughter and music and friends talking loudly in a lyrical language. It was a language Anna said she already spoke. It was a language and a people she longed to know better.

  Luca was the perfect tour guide. He told her all about the wine making process. When he spoke, his voice brimmed with interest and fascination and his hands gestured and pointed. To him this was an exciting place. It had been his father's whole life. It was his life too. His narrative was detailed with personal anecdotes of his childhood. He had grown up here, and he made Sam feel almost cheated for growing up somewhere else.

  The tour was over too soon. Sam could not help but feel there was more that needed to be said. They stood for a moment by the steps to the house, neither finding the words to say. They both started talking at once.

  "You first, Luca," she said.

  Luca nodded. "Let's go for a walk."

  They strolled down the gravel driveway, their shoes made quiet crunching sounds. Luca began to recite an obviously planned speech. "Samantha," he began, "I have been giving this a lot of thought..." his rehearsed lines failed him at that point. He reached out and enveloped her hand in his. She tugged at her hand in half-hearted protest then relaxed and felt the warmth of his skin on hers. "Mamma has been pestering me for a long time about settling down, finding a good woman, getting married. She says she wants me to be happy." They made their way along the driveway down the main road and turned.

  "Until a few days ago, I thought I would always be alone." he paused, searching for the right words. "I was in love once, a long time ago... but things didn't work out.

  "I went away to the Carabinieri academy. When I came home, I found out my girl had married a friend of mine. It hurt for a while, but I got over it. The only problem was, afterwards, when I met other women I found myself comparing them to the woman I had loved.

  "I think part of the problem was my job. I took some career enhancing assignments which meant I was travelling a lot. There were a couple of women who were very special, but they didn't want to travel around the country while I pursued my career. Before I realized what was happening, I was thirty seven, alone, and spending more and more time on the telephone with my mother, being yelled at for not having a wife."

  "I like your mother," Sam said.

  "She is a great woman," Luca acknowledged, "But she was getting on my nerves. When I called home the other day, she got the wrong impression about us." Luca paused and stared down at the road. He continued to talk. "I didn't think she would ever meet you so I let her believe that we were involved....ah... romantically. I'm sorry."

  He still held her hand in his as they walked. She squeezed his strong fingers.

  "You told me this before. It's okay. I understand"

  They walked in silence for a moment, hand in hand. The ship could have been on another planet. The Navy belonged to another world. Even the threats on her life and the tumultuous events of the last three days could not penetrate the peace and quiet in her soul. Sam walked with this captivating man. He had hinted to his mother that they had been romantically involved. She wondered about that. She had to know.

  "So she thought we were romantically involved?" she queried.

  "She was mistaken, Sam, we aren't romantically involved."

  "You're right." Sam agreed, "We're not involved romantically. We're just walking along a road in your home town holding hands and talking."

  Luca smiled and raised her hand to his lips, "What exactly are we doing, Samantha?"

  "I don't know, Luca. Most of the time I feel pretty strongly about you, but it's rarely a positive feeling."

  "You have called me some pretty bad things when you were angry." He paused. "I'm not sure what to think."

  "Luca, I don't know what to think or how I should feel. Sometimes you make me so angry I want to scratch your eyes out, but then there are times," she raised their interlocked hands, "like now, when I kind of like being with you. It is so strange. I can't even stand you most of the time."

  Luca switched abruptly to another subject. "So, you want to learn Italian. What else do you want to do?"

  "Until a few days ago I had my head buried in my work. It amazes me that I have barely thought about the Navy in the last few days."

  "You haven't had much time to think."

  Sam nodded. "It has been crazy. I really do have to make a decision about staying in or getting out. Until I came here I hadn't given it a lot of deep thought. I wasn't sure what I felt or what I wanted to do, but now..."

  Sam's answer drowned in the throbbing thunder of a helicopter that screamed over the hilltop, at treetop height, and flashed away in the direction of the vineyard. It hovered beyond the trees and began to descend on top of the hill overlooking Luca's home.

  "S-H-SIXTY," Sam yelled the helicopter's designation to Luca over the noise of the retreating aircraft. She read the aircraft number. "It's from my ship."

  CHAPTER NINE

  They sprinted back across the road toward the hill to meet the helicopter.

  The S-H-SIXTY, SEAHAWK helicopter landed on a wide knoll above the vineyard, settling to the ground in a whirlwind of dust and leaves. Sam and Luca emerged from the trees as the air crewman hopped down and turned to help a short man in civilian clothes, disembark.

  The passenger wore a sound deadening cranial helmet, with hearing protectors that bulged from each side, goggles and a self- inflating flotation coat. His safety equipment completely hid his identity. He carried a thin attaché case in one hand.

  Crouching under the spinning rotors, the two men stepped clear of the helicopter and approached Sam and Luca. The air crewman nodded at Sam and took the safety equipment from the man who turned and strode purposefully over to Luca with his hand outstretched. Luca snapped to attention then shook the man's hand.

  "Colonel, this is Chief Logan," he said, then turned to Sam. "Samantha, Colonel Garelli is from our Military Intelligence."

  Sam nodded, shook the Colonel's hand and glanced questioningly over his shoulder at the helicopter. One of the pilots, still seated in the cockpit, held both palms out and shook his head. They didn't know what this was about any more than she did.

  The Colonel moved between Sam and Luca and, locking arms with them he led them quickly, urgently, away from the landing area to have a private conversation. He stopped at a quiet place and spoke rapidly in heavily accented English. He spoke fluently but had clearly learned the language late in life. He reached into his attaché case and pulled out an envelope which he handed to Sam.

  "I have discussed some of the details of this case with Maresciallo Danieli. I trust he briefed you, Chief Logan?"

  Sam nodded.

  "There have been developments in the case. USS FORT DONELSON will return to sea tomorrow to participate in a special operation generated by these recent events."

  Sam noticed that he was an incredibly smooth intelligence officer. He could say entire mouthfuls of words which revealed nothing.

  "I should get ready to return to the ship, then," Sam asked.

  "On the contra
ry, Chief Logan. The envelope I gave you contains your orders, issued by the NATO Commander and endorsed by your Commanding Officer. Until this operation is completed, you are assigned, under my command and supervision, to the office of the Venice Carabinieri. Maresciallo Danieli will work with you during the remainder of this operation."

  What operation? Sam wondered. What had this insane situation developed into? Now she was officially assigned to the Italian Intelligence Command and attached to the Venice police. What had she gotten herself into this time?

  The Colonel rapidly outlined the operation. "We have identified and verified the loyalty of the man who was stabbed. He is one of our operatives and," he looked at Luca, "we have been able to verify he is loyal."

  Luca nodded.

  "The agent was carrying documents which proved that weapons are being smuggled into Bosnia utilizing a remora pod attached to the keel of a ferry boat which crosses the Adriatic from Venice. Upon arrival to the other port, the pod is manually released from the engine room, and picked up by divers at night.

  "Before the information was turned over to us, the agent made a sudden trip to Venice. We were concerned about the trip initially, but we now understand that he was trying to relocate an undercover agent who would have been exposed by the information.

  "As you know, he was followed and stabbed by this man." The Colonel reached into the attaché case and removed the composite sketch that Sam and Luca had created. "Unfortunately, as detailed as this composite is, we have been unable to locate this man or photograph him."

  "Who is he?" Sam asked.

  "He was apparently hired by the one of the factions in the Bosnian conflict to intercept the agent and recover the information. Knowing the information about the deliveries, they could then retrieve the weapons for their side.”

  "He successfully intercepted our agent, but he was not supposed to leave him alive. In fact, had you not saved his life, Chief Logan, we would not know any of this."

  "So you have found him, then?" Luca asked.

  The Colonel nodded. "We have him back, but without the information he carried, we cannot proceed. There was a coded time table built into the ferry schedule. Our agent was unable to decipher it before it was taken."

  "Do we know who has the information now?" Luca asked.

  "The assailant was supposed to turn the information over to the people who hired him. Fortunately for us, however, he got greedy and raised the price." The Colonel paused. "Do you follow me so far?" he asked.

  Sam and Luca both nodded.

  "Now this is where it gets a bit interesting." he continued. "Agents from the first group were led to believe by the witnesses to the stabbing, that it had been Chief Logan who had either stabbed the agent or had at least gone through his pockets afterwards. They have decided that she is an intelligence agent, are unsure which side she is on and has some information that they need."

  "I went through his pockets," Sam admitted, "I was looking for something to seal his wound, so he could breathe."

  "We know. Your statement and that of the doctors agree. That was good work, by the way, Chief, thank you."

  Sam nodded.

  "The hostile agents," he continued, "are still looking for you." He leveled a finger at Sam and a chill raced up her spine. "They searched your room at the hotel, and apparently tried to lure you to the fleet landing to capture you and recover the information.

  "Our friend in the sketch knew enough about the information to deduce that it would be valuable to parties on either side of the conflict. When he raised the price, he, as you say in America, `burned a bridge' with the people who hired him. He knows they are looking for him. It will not be pleasant for him if they find him.

  "His only hope was to contact the other side and make a deal. While trying to make contact with the people who are after you, Chief Logan, he telephoned a man who works for us.

  "He offered to hand over the information to us for a considerable sum of money, believing, of course, that we are the other Bosnian faction."

  "Great!" Sam said cheerfully. "So he gives you the stuff and everything is perfect and it's all over."

  "Not so perfect, Chief." the Colonel continued. "He wants to turn it over to us in the train station, in Venice, tomorrow night. He chose the train station because it is a busy place. We only have one chance to do this and only two people have ever seen this guy face to face: his boss who wants him dead, and you, Chief Logan."

  "You want me to go to the train station?" Sam asked.

  The Colonel nodded. "You and Maresciallo Danieli will be in the security observation area. You will be out of sight. I need you to positively identify this man and radio his position to the operatives. When you have done that, we can recover the information, decipher the time table and pass the specific information to your ship. The ship can then intercept the ferry and recover the smuggled weapons. Only after it is all public, will you be safe again."

  Luca looked at Sam. She nodded. She understood.

  "No questions?" the Colonel asked.

  "None, Sir," Sam replied.

  The Colonel turned and hurried back to the air crewman who was waiting near the idling helicopter. He slipped back into his float-coat and cranial and positioned his goggles. The Colonel waved, crouched beneath the whirling rotor blades and boarded the aircraft.

  The air crewman reached into the helicopter and pulled an object from a rack and jogged back toward Sam. "I almost forgot your bag, Chief," he said.

  Sam picked up her bag and opened it. All of her things from the hotel were inside, and there was something else. Sam unfolded a handwritten piece of paper.

  "Chief," it said, "Good Luck. Make us proud!" It was signed in green ink, "XO".

  The sleek, gray Sikorsky helicopter lifted gracefully off the ground and thundered away toward the Adriatic. Sam and Luca watched it in silence.

  Sam looked down at the envelope in her hand. She tore the end and removed the orders. They were official, temporary orders signed by her CO. This was real. Somehow the nightmare kept getting worse.

  "What are you thinking, Sam?" Luca asked.

  "I'm not sure yet."

  "I guess we can't go back to holding hands and talking like we were before the helicopter arrived." Luca sounded hopeful.

  Sam studied Luca's face. "I don't remember what I was going to say."

  Luca pulled her into his arms and held her tightly. Sam was trembling. She wasn't sure why. She didn't think it was fear. Maybe it was just anticipation. Maybe it was because she was wrapped in Luca's arms. She remembered the last time she stepped too close and was drawn into his embrace. She didn't push away this time.

  She raised her arms and circled his neck, running her fingers through his hair.

  Luca pressed her fiercely to his chest and kissed her lips. Sam felt short of breath like she'd felt at the end of his song. She dropped the papers from her hand and kissed him hungrily. It had been so long since she had kissed a man, so long since she had let herself feel. She held tightly to the man, closed her eyes and felt the warmth of his embrace.

  "Stay with me, Sam," he whispered hoarsely. "When this is over, I want you to stay."

  Sam didn't answer, she just held on to Luca in silence while thoughts raced through her head. Was that where this misadventure was leading her?

  Luca's words raced through her mind, "I've done what I wanted to do," he had said. "I'm ready to go home." She realized, feeling his arms around her that, she too, had done what she had wanted to do. She was also ready to go home. She clung to Luca, her eyes pressed tightly shut.

  Luca was what had been missing from her life. This vineyard was the place she had longed for. She had missed this home and these people, even though she had never been here before. Anna was a dear friend she had known forever but only met a couple of days before. Things were falling into place for Sam, but they were falling into place too quickly. Doubts about herself, her career, her life, began to invade the peaceful moment. She stepped back
abruptly and moved away from Luca.

  Several workers from the vineyard arrived to see why the helicopter had come. Luca assured them everything was fine. The helo had just come to drop off Sam's bag. He held it up for them to see. The workers returned to the vineyard and Sam and Luca were alone once more.

  "Will you stay?" Luca asked.

  "I don't know if I can," Sam said. "I, uh, I'm not sure." Sam felt herself retreating from her own feelings. At times like this, when thoughts and feelings emerged unbidden, Sam had always plunged herself into her work until the thoughts and feelings disappeared. Now, standing on a hill in northern Italy, Sam's work was far away. There was nothing to occupy her time and no place to run to.

  Luca touched her arm. Sam pulled away. Luca, visibly frustrated, dropped her bag, turned and strode away toward the house without saying a word. Sam watched him go.

  She wrestled with her difficult choices throughout the long afternoon. She entered the house late for lunch and took her bag upstairs. Anna made her a sandwich, and brought it up to her room. Her thoughts were focused on what was happening to her. She concentrated on analyzing her own feelings. She thanked Anna absently and stared into the distance. Anna, did what her own mother would have done, gave her space and didn't intrude on her thoughts.

  After eating, Samantha went back outside and walked alone up the road. She passed the spot where she and Luca had crossed the road to follow the helicopter, and continued into unknown territory. She ambled up the road, Luca's words racing through her head. "Stay with me," he had said. What did he mean? Did he mean marriage?

  She had already boldly, and maybe foolishly, kissed him. She wondered if she was falling in love with him. She hadn't given those words a lot of thought before. They just popped into her mind, like so many words she had said to him just popped out.

  Even when she'd said the words they were more of a detached clinical analysis than expressions of a heartfelt emotion. Could she marry this man, learn Italian and live on this beautiful vineyard with him. She had to admit that the odds were very much against her making such an irrational and impulsive decision.