Code Word

by Traci Hunter Abramson

  For the past five days, the media had probed and prodded, eagerly trying to reveal the details of the assault as well as the identity of the men who had conducted it. The mission was being hailed a success, but Jay didn’t feel successful.

  After three sessions with the unit psychologist, he’d been cleared for duty again, but talking about what had happened in that upstairs bedroom in Abbottabad hadn’t changed the reality. Bullets from his weapon had killed a woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  The memory of those blank eyes staring up at him still haunted his thoughts, but the images were becoming less frequent. Unfortunately, his memories of those moments before the helicopter crashed were both constant and vibrant.

  Jay had told the shrink what he had wanted to hear, confessing some uneasiness about the events that had taken place on the mission, showing a willingness to try to work through the tangle of emotions that wouldn’t let him go.

  But the nightmares weren’t going away, and Jay wasn’t sure if they ever would. Of course, he hadn’t told the good doctor that or about the fact that he found himself struggling to face each new day. The one thing Jay did know was that lying on a couch talking about the past wasn’t going to do him any good. Somehow, he had to figure out a way to care about his future again.

  His squad had returned to Virginia Beach the afternoon before with the contingent from the SEAL team that had been on the mission with them, the team the press had dubbed “SEAL Team Six.” Their arrival had appeared routine to everyone at the airfield. But it wasn’t routine. They were the men the media were looking for, the men whose identities, if revealed, could not only end their careers but could also endanger both them and their families.

  A retaliation attack by al Qaeda was a very real possibility, and none of the SEALs wanted to see their loved ones become targets.

  Jay glanced at the clock on the wall and then out the window at the early morning light. He wasn’t due on base for another two hours. Maybe a long run on the beach would give him the chance to clear his head and help him remember what he was fighting for.

  3

  Carina pulled her sleek little Mercedes into her typical parking space between a battered old pickup truck and an ancient minivan. She knew it wasn’t practical to keep such an expensive car, but it had been her mother’s, and she couldn’t bear to sell it.

  A local judge in Denver had administered her mother’s will shortly after her murder, leaving Carina in charge of her possessions as well as custody of her sisters. The economic downturn had erased any profit she might have previously made out of the house, and the real estate agent had told her she was lucky to break even. She had kept the car, however, as well as some of their old furniture.

  She stepped out of the car, satisfied that the two larger vehicles would help hide it from view of anyone driving by on the main road. This area of town wasn’t exactly known for a low crime rate. The fact that her car had yet to be stolen out of this run-down neighborhood was a miracle in itself, although she had a feeling Lou was the main reason she continued to find her car untouched every morning.

  As if on cue, Lou edged out of his apartment, his expression serious. Her grandfather had assigned him to be her mother’s bodyguard shortly after Bianca was born. Although Carina knew he had been paid to watch over them, in her mind, he had been the uncle she wished she had. He had always been there to bandage a scraped knee or teach them to ride a bike. More often than not, family outings had included Lou rather than her father. Right after her mother’s death, Lou had arrived again, insisting that he stay nearby to keep them safe.

  Carina looked closely at him now that he was facing her. His once dark hair was completely gray, his heavy brow furrowed in concentration. Three fingers were missing off of his right hand, a souvenir from his last days working with the family. She remembered too well the day he had shown up after her mother’s death, his fingers still wrapped in bandages.

  Despite the injury, he had taken care of a number of details during that trying time, ultimately helping her and her sisters sell their old home and move to Phoenix. He was still somewhat secretive about his source of income, and Carina could only assume he was living off of the money he had saved while working for her family. Even though he hadn’t held any kind of traditional employment since her mother’s death, Carina knew he was still every bit their bodyguard.

  He took a step toward her with a pronounced limp and addressed her in Italian. “Everything okay?”

  Carina nodded, automatically slipping into the language of her father. “Everything’s fine. I just dropped Bianca off at practice, and I want to get a little work done before I go back to get her.”

  His eyes softened. “You work too hard.”

  “So you keep telling me.” Carina granted him a small smile, noting that his dusky skin looked a bit paler than usual. “You should go get some rest. I’ll see you later.”

  He gave her a curt nod, but he waited until she unlocked the apartment next to his and went inside before he closed his own door.

  Carina flipped on the light in the living room and tried not to wince. Even after five months of living in this hole-in-a-wall, she still couldn’t quite believe this was now her home. She let out a sigh and reminded herself that this was what she wanted. She wanted to be free of her family and the evil that surrounded them. She wanted Bianca and Gianna to have normal lives and be sheltered from their family’s business.

  Her sisters still didn’t know much about their father or his side of the family. Bianca had been six years old, Gianna only eight, when their mother had taken them to the mall for back-to-school shopping and hadn’t stopped driving until Chicago was only a distant memory in their rearview mirror.

  Her mother had made their escape seem like an adventure, one filled with promise. For eight years it had been exactly that. They had made a new life in a high-end suburb in Denver, making new friends and ultimately finding a new way of life. As the new kid in school, Carina had felt lost for the first few days, but then she had met Beth Jorgensen.

  Beth and her five siblings had lived right around the corner from Carina’s new house. Her father was a pediatrician and, at the time, had also been the bishop at their church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Jorgensens had invited them over for dinner within a week and then to various Church activities over the following few months. When they’d suggested that Carina and her family meet with the missionaries, Carina’s mother had been surprisingly willing to listen.

  Carina had listened too, eager to find the unwavering sense of peace the Jorgensens had. Bianca and Gianna might have been too young to know about their father’s involvement in the Chicago mafia, but at fourteen, Carina had known far too much. And she didn’t want to ever be like her father or her uncle. She supposed it was a bit ironic to think that the family of a mobster was LDS, but their conversion had been surprisingly simple.

  Shaking her head, Carina pushed aside the images of the past, avoiding the memory of what had brought her here. She was an adult now, and she was determined to stay in control of her own life. She set her laptop bag down on the desk by the window, the smooth leather of the case contrasting against the cheap particle board. A French-style bulletin board hung on the wall beside the desk, sketches and photos tucked into the ribbon that crisscrossed it.

  Even though her fingers itched to pick up her sketchpad and work on her designs, Carina dutifully pulled out her laptop and powered it on. She logged into her work’s website and started going over the current inventory levels. She knew that scoring a job as a district buyer for a local department store had been a stroke of luck. At only twenty-four, she was the youngest buyer for Classy Deals, a high-end discount store, but the fact remained that she was buying other people’s designs instead of creating her own.

  Still, the income was decent—enough for her to continue creating her own designs in her free time while also covering Gianna’s tuition at BYU and Bianca’s swimming expen
ses. She also had the added bonus of her job being flexible enough to allow her to work from home most of the time. The trade-off had been the apartment, but she and Bianca had agreed. Now that Gianna was away at college, they were willing to live in a dive if it meant all three of the Channing sisters could follow their dreams.

  * * *

  Jay was on his fourth mile before the dream from the previous night finally faded. He hadn’t bothered with shoes this morning, and his toes sank slightly in the wet sand as he jogged along the surf. He passed a woman walking her dog, the little terrier pulling at his leash to try to get closer to Jay. Farther down the beach, a man relaxed on a lounge chair with a newspaper in his hands.

  The rumble of a helicopter sounded in the distance, and Jay instinctively looked out over the water, where he could see it coming into view. He slowed his pace long enough to watch the training exercise underway and saw a squad of Navy SEALs jump out of the helicopter into the surf.

  Jay could imagine the jolt of adrenaline they were feeling right then, the shock of the cold water as they sank below the surf wearing nearly one hundred pounds of gear, the sense of satisfaction when they surfaced to see that everyone was where they were supposed to be. He watched as the group of seven started swimming toward the beach together. Jay wasn’t sure what to think about the fact that he was relieved to be standing on the shore today instead of being one of the SEALs in the water.

  A wave washed up over his feet, and he continued to splash through it. What was wrong with him? Why wasn’t he looking forward to the next adventure with his squad instead of dreading it? And why couldn’t he get the image of that woman out of his mind?

  She had chosen to live with bin Laden, to live with men determined to take innocent lives. So why was her death hitting him so hard?

  He had killed before, more than once over the course of the past year with the Saint Squad. The reality that he had taken a life was unsettling, but knowing that he had been defending himself each time had helped him justify the outcome. He wanted to believe what Seth had told him right after he’d shot the woman, that bin Laden and his men had been responsible for her death, that she had chosen her fate. Unfortunately, he still hadn’t been able to come to terms with that.

  He continued down the beach for another quarter mile before circling back toward his apartment. The breeze coming off the water stopped once he cleared the buildings along the oceanfront, the air becoming thick and muggy. His face dripped with sweat by the time he turned onto his street.

  He was nearly to his building when he noticed the two men standing beside their bicycles, both of them wearing white shirts and ties. The fair-skinned, red-haired man was leaning heavily against the side of a building as the other shoved a water bottle into his hands. Even from half a block away, Jay recognized the signs of heat exhaustion.

  Though he considered heading straight to his apartment, somehow he found himself walking toward the two men.

  “Are you okay?” Jay asked, now realizing the struggling man couldn’t be more than about nineteen or twenty years old.

  “I think he’s a bit overheated,” the older one answered. He wasn’t much older, Jay noted, reminded of one of the preppy baseball team jocks from his high school days—the kind of guy all of the girls followed but who was too busy concentrating on his sport to take the time for a girlfriend.

  Jay read the little black name tag on his shirt. Elder Smith. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

  “You’re missionaries,” Jay stated simply. He caught the earnest looks on their faces and found himself wondering if any of his SEAL teammates had ever looked this eager. With a resigned sigh, he motioned toward his building. “Come on. I live right over there. You can come inside for a while so he can get out of the heat.”

  “That would be great. Thanks.” Elder Smith gave him a goofy smile. Then he locked their bikes to a lamppost and put a steadying arm on his companion, Elder Thompson. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Jay Wellman.” Jay led them inside his apartment and headed straight for the kitchen. “Go ahead and sit down. I’ll be right back.”

  He dampened a washcloth with cool water and then returned to the living room, where both missionaries were now sitting on the couch. He handed the washcloth to Elder Thompson. “Here, put this on your forehead. It will help you cool off.”

  “Thanks,” Elder Thompson muttered.

  “No problem.” Jay went back into the kitchen to get both missionaries some water.

  “We really appreciate your help,” Elder Smith told him when he returned with their drinks.

  Jay sat in the chair across from them, suddenly aware of the thick layer of dust everywhere. “Sorry for the mess in here. I just got back last night after being gone for a few months.”

  “Are you military?”

  “Yeah, navy.”

  Elder Smith nodded politely, his eyes sweeping over the room until they landed on the bookshelf. He pointed at the stack of Book of Mormon copies. “Are you LDS?”

  “Me? No.” Jay glanced at where the missionary was pointing and shook his head. “I work with a bunch of Mormons. They keep giving me those.”

  Elder Thompson lowered the cool cloth from his face, his color much improved from when Jay had first seen him. His voice was a bit shaky when he asked, “Have you ever read the Book of Mormon?”

  Again Jay shook his head.

  The two elders looked at each other. Then Elder Smith spoke again. “You really should. There are a lot of answers in there, everything from how Jesus Christ died for us to our Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness.”

  Jay’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked at them skeptically. “Plan of happiness?”

  “Yeah.” Elder Smith nodded. “God wants us to be happy. The Book of Mormon helps show us the way. We’d love to tell you about it.”

  Something in their earnest faces made him teeter between wanting to hurry them along and hearing if this happiness they talked about might explain that intangible calmness he had sensed in his teammates when their helicopter was about to crash. He glanced at his watch and realized time had decided for him. “I’m afraid I don’t have time right now. I have to be on base in less than an hour.”

  Elder Thompson straightened slightly. “Is there a time we can come back?”

  Jay shrugged. He could only imagine what his teammates would think if they found out he was talking to the missionaries. “I don’t know.”

  “Can we get your phone number?” Elder Smith pulled a little notebook from his pocket. “We can call you later, after you’ve had some time to think about it.”

  “I guess that would be okay.” Jay recited his number and watched Elder Smith scribble it down in his little book.

  Both elders stood up.

  “We’d better let you get ready for work. Thanks again for your help,” Elder Thompson said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Elder Thompson pulled a business card from his wallet. “Here’s our number in case you have any questions or if you want to set up a time for us to come back.”

  Jay took the card and then accepted Elder Thompson’s outstretched hand.

  “It was good to meet you, Jay,” Elder Smith offered as he shook hands with him as well. “I hope we can talk again soon.”

  Jay nodded politely. As soon as the elders left, he glanced at his watch again. Realizing he was running late, he quickly headed for the shower, all thoughts of the missionaries quickly forgotten.

  4

  Carina couldn’t stop a smile when she walked into the pool area and saw CJ Whitmore standing on the deck beside Pete Wellman. CJ held a towel in one hand and was rubbing at her damp hair. She looked tiny besides Pete, standing almost a foot shorter than him. Not for the first time, Carina wondered how someone with her petite build could be so fast in the water.

  Watching CJ chat with Pete, it was hard to believe she had once been in the Witness Protection Program or that she had a collection of
Olympic medals in her home. Her unique circumstances had actually been the impetus of how they had met. CJ had been asked to speak at a fireside in Phoenix, the city where she had grown up.

  Carina and Bianca had been in the audience that night, and they had been able to chat with CJ at a reception afterward. When Bianca started quizzing CJ about swimming, the ensuing conversation had resulted in Bianca’s insistence that she wanted to train with CJ’s old coach, Pete.

  Carina’s smile widened when she got close enough to hear the banter between the former coach and trainee.

  “Pete, you can hardly expect me to get the same times now as I did when I was in the Olympics.”

  “Yeah, but couldn’t you have at least embarrassed these guys a little more? I mean, really. Amber only lost to you by two seconds.”

  “Tell you what. After Amber has had three kids and takes a few years off, we’ll have a rematch. Then it will be a bit more even.”

  Pete shook his head and grumbled. “You and your excuses.”

  “Good morning.” Carina greeted them as she stepped up beside CJ. “I didn’t expect to see you here this morning.”

  “Pete wanted to torment me so he convinced me to come swim against these guys this morning.” CJ gave Pete a wry look. “I remember now why I retired from competitive swimming.”

  Carina chuckled. “I gather he’s always been a slave driver.”

  “Oh yeah.” CJ nodded. “And when he coached me, I was the only swimmer in the pool. Talk about intimidating.”

  Pete pulled his eyes away from the pool and looked down at them. “You know I’m standing right here?”

  “Yeah.” CJ waved toward the pool. “Why don’t you go yell at them for a while? We’re going to sit down and talk.”

  “You’re getting lazy in your old age.”

  CJ rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m practically ancient.”

  Carina pulled out a chair and watched Pete move closer to the pool as his swimmers came to a stop on the edge. “So how are you doing? I haven’t seen you at church for a couple of weeks. Relief Society has been so boring without you.”