Every Secret Thing

by Rebecca Hartt

  Charlotte frowned. “That’s what I was told at NCIS. I don’t want to take a vacation. I want to hear Jaguar’s verdict and find out whether he’s being sentenced or released.”

  Uncle Larry considered her with his head cocked. “That’s happening right now?”

  Charlotte checked the clock on her wall. “In like fifteen minutes.”

  “All right then.” His jaw muscles jumped as he thought for several more seconds. “Let’s go there. I’ll take you,” he offered.

  “Really? But I haven’t been released yet.”

  He waved a hand. “I’ll take responsibility for that. You look fit as a fiddle. Come on, let’s go. You don’t want to miss the excitement.”

  The prospect of joining Lucas at the reading of the verdict followed by the sentencing filled Charlotte with nervous energy. She knew she would have to answer Lucas’s proposition with words that would hurt him. But a clean break was the most painless one. She would bid him good-bye, the sooner the better, before they became even more emotionally entangled than they already were.

  Sitting in what was obviously a rental car, Charlotte had to close her eyes against the blinding sunlight. Her head hurt, but not too badly. As long as she held nice and still, she felt almost normal. Her godfather drove with care, braking slowly and taking leisurely turns. Out of consideration, he didn’t force her to converse with him.

  Even with her eyes closed, Charlotte knew precisely when they approached Oceana’s main gate. She’d gone this way to work every day for the past year. Fishing her driver’s license from her purse, she ascertained with a peek that it wasn’t the one for Justice Strong, then gave it to her godfather to show the guard.

  “Oh, I won’t need that.” He waved it off.

  Sure enough, the MP took one look at her godfather’s ID and waved them through.

  With a smile, she closed her eyes again and put her license away. After several more turns, she opened them again to assess where they were.

  “Wait, the courtroom is in my old building,” she protested, seeing they’d passed it.

  Uncle Larry slanted her a pitying look. “I’m sorry, but you can’t make it to the sentencing.”

  She blinked at him. “What? I thought that was where we were going.”

  He shook his head and grimaced. “I can’t take the chance something might happen to you. I lost your mother, I can’t lose you, too.”

  “Uncle Larry,” she protested. Immediately, her head started to pound. “I told you, I’m not the one who was targeted. The Entity has no reason to come for me.”

  “All the same, we can’t take chances.”

  She protested again, only to have her argument fall on deaf ears. Her godfather was speeding now at well over the limit. With a sense of shock, she realized they were headed toward the airfield.

  “You’re not flying me out of here,” she stated. Every muscle in her body went rigid.

  “Just relax,” he retorted. “You’ve had a concussion, and you’re not thinking clearly.”

  “The hell I’m not!” She regretted her outburst immediately. Compounding her headache by shouting wasn’t going to help her cause any. She needed to keep calm and find a way to avoid leaving. If her godfather steamrolled her decision, she would bolt when he wasn’t looking.

  Her godfather drove right onto Oceana’s tarmac for private planes and pulled alongside the King Air 350, which she recognized as his private jet. He must have flown it down to Virginia Beach that morning. His pilot sat under the wing, reading a book in its shade. Noting their arrival, he jumped up and put the book away as her godfather slowed to a stop nearby.

  “Change of plans,” Uncle Larry called to the man as he pushed out of the driver’s seat. “We’re going to the Bahamas.”

  “Sir, some FBI agents were just here looking for you,” the pilot informed his boss on an anxious note. “They told me if I fly you out of here, I’ll be arrested.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Gibbs. Go start the plane or I’ll find someone to replace you.”

  With a grim nod, Gibbs tugged the chocks from behind the plane’s wheels, preparing them for takeoff.

  Charlotte didn’t have time to process the implications of the words she’d overheard. All she knew was she had to escape at once. Reaching for her door handle, she ignored the certainty that she couldn’t outrun both men in her current condition, but she gave it a shot, anyway, thrusting the door open and taking off. She hadn’t taken ten steps when her godfather halted her flight abruptly as he grabbed her arm. He then dragged her, fighting him feebly, toward the entrance to his plane.

  “You’ll thank me later,” he promised, his gentle voice at odds with the painful pressure on her arm. “I know how to look after my own.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” Charlotte insisted, bracing herself on the plane’s exterior as her godfather tried to pull her in after him. “I’m afraid of flying.” Appealing to his compassionate nature, she fully expected him to back down.

  Instead, he snapped at her, “Get in the plane, Charlotte. You don’t know what you want.”

  His powerful tug spilled her onto her knees just inside the rear entrance and resulted in such a splitting headache, she could do nothing but crouch on the floor with her head in her hands, certain she was going to vomit.

  Sliding her foot out of the way, her godfather pulled the door shut and sealed the cabin by securing the airlock.

  “Let’s go!” he shouted down the length of the eight-seater to the pilot up front.

  With the feeling she had to be hallucinating, Charlotte prayed for her headache to subside while performing a reality check. The rough rug under her knees and the whine of the plane’s engine both assured her she wasn’t imagining things. Her godfather had prevented her from attending Jaguar’s sentencing and forced her onto his aircraft. Why? Because he thought her life in danger?

  But was that really the reason? His erratic behavior suggested there was more going on here.

  One glaring clue gave her somewhere to start. He’d said they were going to the Bahamas.

  “Come on, Charlotte. I’m sorry if I hurt you. You have to get up now and take a seat.”

  Compliant for the moment, Charlotte let herself be helped into one of the seats at the back of the plane. Her godfather secured the seatbelt around her waist for her.

  “There you go. Close your eyes and rest,” he urged.

  “You’re friends with Roger Holden, aren’t you?” she accused, watching his reaction through half-closed eyes.

  He froze a moment, then dropped heavily into the seat facing hers and buckled himself in. Charlotte realized with dismay that the plane was moving. She couldn’t believe she’d allowed her godfather to abduct her—again.

  “The time has come to be honest with you, Charlotte.” His regretful tone did little to mitigate the anger starting to simmer inside of her. “You got yourself in way over your head taking over Agent Elwood’s investigation. Dwyer is difficult to manage when he’s backed into a corner. He killed your supervisor against my wishes, and he would have killed you, too.”

  Charlotte reeled. She could scarcely process her godfather’s betrayal. What on earth did he mean by against my wishes? Uncle Larry didn’t even know Commander Dwyer.

  “But why not just protect me? Why send people to grab me and drug me? They took the iPad…,” she trailed off as it occurred to her the iPad she’d been delivering to her godfather must have ended up in his hands anyway, yet he’d done nothing about it.

  “You promised you would have Dwyer arrested.” Yet, he hadn’t. Instead, he’d pretended to search for her while holding her captive until her memories of Elwood’s files faded. There could only be one reason for him to want her to forget.

  She gasped at her epiphany. “You’re with The Entity, too?” Ignoring her aching head, she searched his pained expression for the truth. His words about managing Dwyer suddenly made more sense.

  His sad smile was all the acknowledgment she needed.
But his next words said otherwise.

  “Not anymore,” he assured her. “I promised you I would put an end to the organization, and that’s what’s happening right now. We’ll put the past behind us and start over.”

  A frisson of fear swept through her. “Start over? You mean, you’re not ever going back?” Shifting her gaze toward the window, she was horrified to see them turning to line up with the runway.

  “No, I can’t ever go back,” Martin admitted with regret. “Ironic, isn’t it? I gave everything I had to keeping my country safe and, in the end, this is how she thanks me.”

  Too stunned to argue with his thinking, Charlotte watched in disbelief as the plane gained speed. Faster and faster it went, turning the grassy field into a blur. The nose of the small plane lifted, then the rest of it.

  “We’re going to the Bahamas?” she asked, thinking that would be the first place Lucas would look for her. She wouldn’t be missing for weeks this time.

  “Well, to start with,” her godfather qualified. “Roger will make arrangements for us. We’ll get what we need from him and then go farther afield. Switzerland, maybe.”

  She remembered making a joke about that once.

  No way on earth was she going to Switzerland. Her godfather had to be crazy to think he could get away with skipping the country. Then again, with Fitz dead, by the time the FBI realized the head of the DIA was a member of The Entity—if not its leader—Larry Martin would have long since disappeared. And his goddaughter with him.

  “What about Calvin?” she asked, desperate to retard their delay. “We have to go back for Calvin. He can’t take care of himself.”

  “Of course he can. The boy is smart, so much like your father.”

  For the first time in her life, Charlotte heard an underlying hatred in Martin’s voice when speaking of her father, Alan Patterson. That made no sense. He and her father had been lifelong friends, right up to her father’s death.

  “But I’m smart, too,” Charlotte insisted. “I can look after myself. I don’t need to go with you.”

  Martin’s jaw tightened. “You’re all that’s left of your mother,” he stated on an odd note. “If she hadn’t gotten on that plane with Alan, she would still be alive. Stupid woman,” he muttered to himself, looking out the window.

  An awful suspicion pegged Charlotte to her seat. Her mother wasn’t supposed to be on the fated flight that had killed her parents. At the last minute, wanting to be included in the fun, Vickie Patterson had found a way to join her husband. And she had subsequently perished with him.

  What if their deaths hadn’t been an accident? What if Uncle Larry had tampered with her father’s aircraft, hoping he would die? Only, his plan had backfired when her mother, unsuspecting, hitched a ride.

  Tell me you didn’t kill them, Charlotte thought, regarding her godfather in a whole new light. How much of a leap was it between kidnapping and murder, if all he’d had to do was to compromise some component on an aircraft?

  “All rise.”

  Lucas, anxious to hear Jaguar’s verdict—almost as anxious as he was to return to Charlotte’s bedside at the hospital—rose in the same company that had occupied the pews the day before, minus Monica and Charlotte.

  Surely, after all the discrepancies the panel had heard the day before, they hadn’t met the two-thirds majority vote necessary to convict Jaguar. But Captain Englert’s scowling face as he entered the courtroom from his recess chamber filled Lucas with sudden dread. The panel did not join him. It was the judge alone who would announce the verdict, then determine Jaguar’s sentence if he was found guilty.

  “The spectators may be seated,” Englert instructed.

  Lucas sank onto the hard bench with his stomach churning.

  Clearing his throat, Englert looked at the page in his hand and began to spout legalese that was a mere formality and prelude to Jaguar’s verdict.

  Lucas held his breath waiting for the words that would either free Jaguar or wreck his life. Suddenly, Englert was saying them.

  “… finds Lt. Jonah Michael Mills guilty of violating Article 128 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

  A murmur of dissent rose from Jaguar’s supporters, including Lucas, who couldn’t believe that between Englert and the five panel members, two-thirds of them honestly believed Jaguar had attacked his CO. Cutting a horrified look at Jaguar, Lucas saw him widen his stance as if absorbing a blow. A second glance at Eden’s bowed head made Lucas suspect Carew had shared the bad news with them of Fitz’s demise.

  “We will proceed with the extenuation and mitigation,” Englert continued. “Counselor O’Rourke?”

  As O’Rourke’s dramatic baritone filled the chamber, Lucas tuned it out by thinking of Charlotte, whose presence he sorely missed. He couldn’t wait to get back to her so he could hear her decision in regards to their future.

  Sadly, he would now have to inform her that their efforts to help Jaguar had failed.

  At last, it was the defense’s turn to argue for a lenient sentence. Carew reminded Englert of the discrepancies that existed between the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses and the defense’s. She then pointed out Dwyer’s dishonesty regarding the journal of which he had no recollection, stolen by the secretary with whom he was having an affair.

  “In circumstances where the truth is told, there is never doubt,” she pointed out, her gaze imploring. “But where doubt exists, someone had to be lying, and that person, Your Honor, is not the man whom you have declared guilty.”

  The young attorney regarded her client for a moment and said, “My client was held prisoner by an enemy nation for twelve months and eleven days. He has been subjected to electrical torture. He has had his fingernails ripped from his fingers. He was apart from his family and believed dead. With all that he has endured, I request the court abstain from sentencing him to any more time than that already spent incarcerated. He has been punished more than any man deserves.”

  Bravo, Lucas thought when Carew was finished. Shooting Saul a raised eyebrow, he received Saul’s nod of approval. Carew’s passion had made up for her inexperience.

  Come on, Lord, let Englert’s eyes be opened to the truth!

  The judge, clearly unsettled by Carew’s moving words, regarded Jaguar with a troubled gaze. To Lucas’s surprise, he addressed Jaguar directly.

  “Lieutenant Mills, while it is unorthodox for a sailor who is found guilty to speak during mitigation, I’m willing to make an exception. Is there something you wish to say that might impact your sentencing?”

  Jaguar visibly swallowed. “Yes, Your Honor,” he replied, locking eyes with the man who was free to throw the gravest of punishments at him—dishonorable discharge. “I respectfully request that you consider my family.” Jaguar gestured toward Eden and his stepdaughter, Miriam, present for the first time, who sat hugging each other in the first row. “They were without me for a year while I was held captive. My family needs me, and my country needs me, Your Honor.” Jaguar nodded to signify that was it. “Thank you.”

  A solemn quiet followed Jaguar’s plea. As he lowered himself back into his chair, the door at the back of the courtroom flew open, startling everyone present. Englert beetled his brow at the intruder.

  “What now?” he demanded on a peevish note.

  Looking over the heads of those behind him, Lucas did a double take. Special Agent Fitzpatrick was almost unrecognizable in a black suit and black tie with a bright white bandage on his neck, but he was obviously very much alive. He strode into the room followed by four burly men wearing the iconic blue FBI windbreakers. Rather than answer Englert’s question, Fitz marched up to him and handed him a piece of paper.

  Baffled, Englert skimmed it, his expression shifting from one of disbelief, to outrage as he glanced up at Dwyer, and then, finally, to chagrin.

  “Go ahead, take him,” he said, handing the paper back. The courtroom seemed to collectively hold its breath as the FBI agents walked toward Commander Dwyer who sat
on the side of the prosecution, looking as tense as a rabbit, eyes wide and fixed on the agent who was supposed to be dead.

  In the astonished silence that followed, Lucas heard a rasping voice say, “Daniel Dwyer, you are under arrest for defrauding the Department of Defense and for hoarding stolen weapons.”

  Fitz’s voice, Lucas realized, must have been ravaged in his attack, but his death had proved to be a false rumor, likely meant to mislead The Entity into letting down its guard.

  Watching the four FBI heavies humiliate Dwyer by slapping cuffs on him and dragging him out of the courtroom, blustering in protest, was one of the sweetest moments of Lucas’s life. He and Saul exchanged grins and slapped each other on the back. As the door thudded shut, the SEALs in Lucas’s troop clapped and cheered.

  “Order!” Englert shouted, then lost control of the courtroom as Fitz approached him a second time. “Right, right,” Lucas heard Englert utter as they shared a brief conversation. The judge frowned fiercely, his face turning red.

  Snatching up his gavel, he struck it once, twice, thrice, and, finally, the ecstatic SEALs simmered down, eager to hear what Englert had to say with Dwyer now arrested.

  With a stony expression, Englert proclaimed, “The United States Navy finds Lieutenant Jonah Michael Mills not guilty. His conviction has been overturned!”

  Red in the face, Englert stood up, prompting everyone in the courtroom to do likewise, and stormed off the bench, disappearing through the door by which he’d entered.

  As it slammed shut after him, the SEALs erupted once more into noisy excitement. Lucas found himself the focus of Fitz’s intent regard. The man was heading toward him, peering to the right and the left of him as he approached, obviously looking for Charlotte.

  Lucas slipped out of his seat and into the aisle to meet him halfway. Forgiving the man for his heavy-handedness back at Pax hospital, he stuck his hand out, pleased by the agent’s reincarnation and especially by his impeccable timing.

  “You’re alive! I thought you were dead.”

  “Where is she?” Fitz demanded, ignoring his comment and clasping his hand only briefly.