by Gary Haynes
He’d seen Crane there and they’d agreed to meet up when he came back from his vacation. He’d said that Gabriel had survived in Beirut, and he and the other two CIA paramilitaries were on their way home, after an undisclosed payment had been made, which was classified. The bodies of the fallen would be flown home, too.
Tom had spoken with the Secretary of State, Linda Carlyle, who had embraced him and had said how sorry she was and what a fine man the general had been, a true patriot.
After a respectable time, Tom had walked away from the others, over to a small copse of white birch trees. The sun had been at its highest point and a small bird he hadn’t been able to name had been perched on a low-lying branch and he’d heard it sing its melancholic song, like a dirge for his dead father. He’d felt cheated that he’d not been able to spend the time with him that his father had wanted. With that a great sense of emptiness had engulfed him.
He’d seen Lester walking over to him and had remembered that they’d agreed to go to lunch and drink a bottle of Jack together. He’d be attending the joint funeral of Gerry and Helen in a couple of days’ time and if there had been any other time when he’d needed to drink too much, he hadn’t been able to remember it.
Two hours later, Tom and Lester were ushered to a secluded booth, with a white tablecloth, by a grinning middle-aged Vietnamese woman dressed in an expensive-looking pink dress. She handed them wine-red menus embossed with gold dragons and asked them if they wanted a drink. Lester said a bottle of Jack Daniels and two crystal glasses with heavy bases and she didn’t even blink. Tom figured it was maybe the black suits and neckties they were still wearing and she’d guessed they’d been to a funeral, or maybe thought they were gangsters.
He looked up from the menu at a collection of framed photographs hanging on the gold wallpaper. Ancient sites and seascapes mostly, including, he noticed, the Hue royal tombs and the Halong islands. At the other end of the restaurant what looked like an African delegation in traditional, colour-splashed costumes were laughing loudly, and the woman in the pink dress was marshalling a group of young waitresses in long dresses as they brought over dozens of white plates of food.
“The food’s delicious here, Tom,” Lester said.
Tom placed the menu down. “You order for me, huh?”
“Sure. Hey, you’re okay, yeah?”
Tom nodded. “How’s your brother doin’?” he said, knowing Lester had employed him a couple of months back.
“Useful as a cat flap on a submarine, but he’s family, right?”
Tom smiled then. He had no family now. But if a man could choose his family, Lester would be at the top if his list, no question.
He saw Lester looking at him, his bright eyes full of compassion.
“I love you, Tom. You know that, don’t ya? I ain’t no poet but I grieve for ya, man. I feel your pain as if it was my own.”
For the first time since his mother had been murdered, Tom felt tears behind his eyes. He hit the table with his fist. “Course I do. Where’s that damn bottle of Jack?”
CARINA™
ISBN: 978-1-474-03072-4
State of Attack
Copyright © 2015 Gary Haynes
Published in Great Britain (2015)
by Carina, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
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