Lieutenant

by Lesli Richardson

  Needless to say, this is now the only news story in the cycle, at least for the national networks, as well as the BBC and others.

  Numb functionality has set in only as an ingrained response left over from my days in the Army. I don’t even want to see the video or pictures of the fucking media ambush poor Owen suffered.

  Worse, I can’t stay behind to help him through the aftermath, or bring him with me. He has a state to run, and I have a wife to hopefully find.

  This is one of the sacrifices we make for what we do. I have to believe that my faith and trust in Dray is not misplaced, and hope he can keep my boy going for me.

  I make a mental note to talk to Benchley about what he can find out regarding who led the media charge at the pool spray. I’ll fucking pay for intel on those fuckers, if I have to.

  I want their heads, but I’ll settle for their jobs, or making their lives as miserable as possible. If it was one of those fuckers from FNB…

  For the first time in my professional career, I seriously consider vengefully rescinding press credentials.

  I find out who they are and can positively identify them? You can damn well bet I’ll do it, too. I’ll get their asses banned from the goddamned capitol building.

  First, I need to get…there. Wherever it is they’re taking us to personally observe the SAR ops once we leave LAX.

  I have to go alone. Benchley physically can’t handle overseas travel right now on his own, and I can’t be responsible for him. Fortunately, he’s pragmatic enough to know that.

  Dray can’t go, because I need him to keep Owen vertical and functional and focused on running our goddamned state. He’s going to have his hands full, because my boy is rightfully going to be a fucking mess.

  I’d give anything to be able to snap my fingers, right now, walk away from all we’ve worked for, and be curled up in Owen’s arms and able to fucking cry on the flight, then hold him while he cries.

  I hate flying. No matter how much I have to do it, I still hate it. I’m just better at masking my terror from others now than I used to be.

  More important now than ever.

  The bastard extraordinaire doesn’t sweat under pressure. That’s how we’ve been able to accomplish everything we have over the years.

  Right now, the husband and Master are close to breaking. The only thing keeping me vertical is Sarge being yanked out of retirement and dusted off to help shore up the rapidly weakening chief of staff.

  Hold on.

  I don’t want to contemplate any reality where Susa doesn’t come home to us alive and well. Or, at least alive. Although Sarge grimly whispers to me that even a recovery of her body faces very low odds, especially depending on how they hit the water, and I beg him to shut up for a while.

  Hold on.

  I want to believe that the SAR teams will find her and the others and safely transport them to our waiting arms.

  Or, at least her.

  Hold on, pet. I’m coming.

  I want to hope that modern technology will save her life. That there must be modern GPS technology on board to help them find them. My thumbs simultaneously rub my wedding band on my left ring finger, and the blue Doctor Who band on my right that Owen gave me, a near-match to the one he wears on his right hand, the ring I gave him the day he was sworn in as governor.

  Susa also wears a similar band that Owen gave her, on her right ring finger.

  I imagine she’s alive and can feel my presence, my love, my strength flowing to her through that gesture. I pray that she can sense me sending her strength and determination.

  I do not want to imagine any world in which Susa is not in our lives.

  Hold on, Suse. Please, hold on. Stay safe.

  During the flight to Atlanta, I compose a statement on my personal laptop, proof it, and transfer a copy to my work phone to e-mail to Dray as soon as we’re on the ground in Atlanta. There is already an airport cop waiting at the charter hangar to drive me over to the other charter hangar.

  Once I check in, I scroll through my phone again while I sit next to a wall outlet to help charge my phone. I have two battery packs with me but don’t want to use them yet in case I don’t have time to charge my phone in LA.

  The story has blown up even more now, and my work phone shows I have ninety-seven missed calls, most of them not showing up in my contacts, meaning they’re likely press.

  Some of the shell-shocked family members sharing the flight with me don’t have passports, so the State Department is already scrambling, coordinating with the US Embassy in the Philippines to get emergency passports issued.

  I finally think to call my parents, who show up as a missed call on my personal phone. I have nothing to update them with, but I ask them to please not give any statements, and I give Mom Dray’s work number and ask her to refer all calls for statements to him.

  Which reminds me.

  I call Owen’s dad, and that’s when I choke up and nearly break down, as I ask him to do the same, not give any statements.

  I’m sure Owen’s mother will use this opportunity to pop her head out of a hole like a zombie gopher to boo-hoo and make a fuss, so I text Dray’s personal cell from my personal cell.

  If Elandra shows up or tries to insinuate herself, shut her down with extreme prejudice. Ask Benchley for help.

  I receive a thumbs-up emoji in reply seconds later.

  He knows the history there, and why I ask that of him.

  They give us another update before we board. No news. It’s nighttime over there, and several countries are sending military ships to the area, plus fishing and commercial vessels have been diverted to look, but it’s stormy. They can’t put planes in the air yet. Even the US military is diverting a couple of ships that have helicopters on board to assist.

  Thankfully, this flight doesn’t have Wi-Fi, meaning I’m forced to go radio silent and can’t torture myself or drain my devices by endlessly scrolling through news stories that don’t have any more information than what officials have already given us.

  I don’t speak to anyone once we’re in the air and heading to LAX. I…can’t. I’m too close to the edge, everything frayed, and the last thing Owen needs is his chief of staff coming unglued on shaky cell phone footage sold to TMZ or some other vultures.

  Like FNB.

  Fuckers.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Susa

  I quickly recognize rescue isn’t coming soon, maybe not even tomorrow. It’s too stormy, and we are literally half a globe outside the range of the Coasties. I’m sure whatever regional search and rescue personnel they have in this part of the world are probably highly trained and good at their jobs, but this is a damn big ocean, and we’re literally a tiny speck in the middle of it.

  As light wanes and darkness falls, the storm rages around us and we hold on for our lives and huddle together for warmth under the emergency blankets from the kits. We’re all silent, reality dawning on us. We can’t afford the luxury of grief right now, or expend energy on something as trivial as idle chatter.

  Or tears.

  Not when we’re still not out of the woods. We’re alive—for now. Make no mistake, we’re all well aware how quickly that status can change to our detriment.

  What’s not helping is I now remember why I hate boats. I’m seasick, and quickly puke up my stomach’s contents. This is not good for a number of reasons, the most important one being dehydration.

  If I can’t keep water down, I’m dead in a couple of days.

  If this fucking storm doesn’t kill me first.

  At least I’m not the only one who’s sick. Two of the men also puke, although not as much as I do.

  No one seems to be related to anyone else, or even know anyone else very well beyond having met them on the trip, besides me and Connie. I find that…disconcerting. Okay, Tennessee guy, I get that maybe his wife died with Mike.

  But what happened to everyone else? I got Connie out of the aircraft with me. Did no one stick together?r />
  It’s something I silently note and store away without even realizing it until later. I am a political creature and used to noting odds, trends, weaknesses and strengths. It’s what I was born and raised and trained to do, and it’s what makes me a damn good attorney and even better politician.

  Meanwhile, we endure.

  Fear is still there, in my gut, but exhaustion and stress have temporarily shoved that to the side in the wake of the adrenaline crash that hits me. Before now? I thought I knew fear. The day I received the call from Momma that Daddy had collapsed, I felt afraid.

  That knowledge of fear was pushed to the side the day I received the call about Carter and Owen being at the school during the active shooter incident. That was pure terror pulsing through me then, even after I’d talked to them on the phone, terror that wouldn’t abate until I’d raced through our front door that night and found my two bozos drunk and well-fucked and splashing around in our tub full of my bubble bath.

  To be fair, after what they’d survived, they’d earned the right to fuck, and to drain the bottle of Jack Daniel’s I nearly broke my neck on when I ran into the bathroom and tripped over where they’d left their clothes strewn all over the floor.

  I wish they hadn’t used a full bottle of my damn bubble bath, though, although I’ll never gripe about that.

  Then there were all the times I willingly, even happily, let the sadist make me afraid during our games, games we haven’t been able to play except on the rarest of occasions when at home in Brandon for fear of accidentally triggering a SWAT response if the wrong person overhears a scream.

  That fear now feels stale and bland in comparison, where before I used to savor it like the finest wine rolling over my tongue.

  This new, numb dread trying to take over my soul is a thousand times worse than the day of the school shooting. Now that we’re in the water and not in danger of falling out of the sky, it gently slips into my mind and wants to tell me I should have left our oxygen masks off. It warmly smiles with foul, rotting teeth as it reminds me about dehydration and drowning and hypothermia. It chuckles as it helpfully replays Quint’s speech to me from Jaws, where he explains why he’ll never again put on a life vest.

  In counterpoint to that, I can hear Carter’s voice sharp and clear in my mind.

  Stay safe.

  My thumbs rub the bands I wear on my left and right ring fingers, one from Carter, one from Owen. I force myself not to cry, because I know damn well shedding tears is a luxury my puking body cannot afford right now.

  * * * *

  The rain abates in the early morning hours. My watch is set to Florida time, and my phone is most likely wet, even in my purse. If it’s not, I don’t dare pull it out and risk ruining it, just in case I can figure out how to maybe use it later. Regardless, I have no clue what the hell time it really is. Once the sky begins to lighten a little, although it’s still thickly cloudy and windy, I know it’s probably at least six in the morning.

  I glance at my watch, which says it’s 7:01 p.m. in Florida, so I leave it set there and mentally swap the p.m. to a.m. for us. I don’t know if that’s accurate, but it’s something. Close enough, I guess.

  None of us have slept, but now two of the men are debating the use of the flare gun again—flare gun guy, and someone not the man from Tennessee. Flare Shooter Wannabe’s opinion is he wants to use it before it gets too light. The other, more rational man argues to wait.

  “Shut up!” They both look at me and I realize I said it out loud.

  More correctly, I snapped it.

  Okay, then. “We can’t use the flare gun now,” I say. “Either of you guys from Florida?”

  They both shake their heads.

  “Either of you have a working knowledge of water rescues?”

  They shake their heads.

  “Do you see any fucking boats, or hear any fucking aircraft?”

  They shake their heads.

  “Then why the hell do you want to waste our flares?” My shrill voice echoes off the inside of the raft. “Wait until you hear aircraft. Hell, wait until aircraft can see us.” I point up. “We have a low ceiling right now. No damn vis.”

  Everyone looks up and finally seems to note the cloud cover. I might not be much of a boater, but I’ve observed marine SAR ops, both practice and for real, in the course of my official duties.

  We’re a state mostly surrounded by water, duh. We have Coast Guard stations. They have photo ops, and we usually have idiots who go out ahead of storms in boats that can’t handle the seas and need to be plucked to safety.

  I’d kill to see one of those mechanical orange and white birds in the sky right now.

  “Can’t they track us by satellite?” Flare Shooter Wannabe asks.

  “Unless you smuggled an EPIRB up your ass, buddy, that’d be a hard no.”

  Tennessee guy laughs. His sad, blue-eyed smirk reminds me a little of Carter’s amused expression.

  Well, shoot. Guess I’m probably going to get labeled the Florida Bitch. I belatedly realize I’m channeling Carter.

  Sure, a near-panicked, much snarkier Carter, but if I make it through this, I’m sure he’d be proud of me for telling him that later. “Because I don’t see a rescue beacon anywhere, unless one’s hidden in one of those packs,” I add.

  Motherfucking charter company better prepare for one fucking hell of a nasty one-star Yelp review from my ass.

  The others finally seem to note the packs and start to search them for anything that might be helpful.

  Tennessee guy tries to get up on his knees and look over the side of the raft, but we’re still bouncing around in pretty rough swells.

  “It’s ten-to-twelve foot seas out there, easy,” I wearily say, another round of nausea trying to make me dry-heave. “Or more. You won’t see anything until it’s lighter. Stay down and don’t risk falling out or swamping us.”

  He slumps down again. “You’re from Florida?”

  I nod. “Susa.”

  “George. Tennessee.”

  I look at the other guy who challenged FSW and took the flare kit away from him. “Allen. North Carolina.” Sounds like it, too, that nasally, round kind of soft twang.

  FSW looks even more disgruntled than the rest of us. “Pat. Georgia.” But he doesn’t “sound Georgia,” so I bet he’s a transplant from somewhere else.

  Collin from Arkansas rounds out the male contingent. Sarah was, in fact, from South Carolina.

  Yay, me.

  I’ll take Regional Southern Accents for two hundred, Alex.

  Lisa is from Alabama, although I can tell that as soon as she opens her mouth. And Ivy is from Virginia. At thirty-nine, I am by far the youngest person in the raft. George is probably the second-youngest, maybe his mid to late forties.

  We’re intermittently pelted by spats of rain, but it’s not the hard, driving rain of yesterday. It’s still windy, gusty, the water choppy, but I think the seas are starting to calm a little. We definitely aren’t getting thrown around as much as we were before.

  It’s enough the taller men can take turns trying to spot any signs of land, or a boat. We can hear the wind and the water against the sides of the raft, but no man-made sounds that don’t originate from one of us.

  There’s no signs of the other life rafts, or the slides. They don’t spot any debris from the wreck, either.

  It’s nearly nine o’clock in the morning, according to my watch, when George suggests we inventory our water and other supplies.

  During the night, under the cover of darkness, I slipped two bottles of water out of my purse, and I now hand them over. One I’ve taken a few sips from, and had Connie take a couple of sips. She looks practically catatonic now and I hope I can keep her alive.

  Fuck, I hope I can keep me alive.

  “We need to be careful with our water,” George says. “We could be out here a couple of days.”

  If we’re lucky, but I don’t say that.

  I’m sure there are some who will t
hink I’m a shitty human being for hiding the water I have, but here’s the thing—I don’t fucking care what they think.

  My last order was to stay safe.

  I’m going to have a difficult enough problem with that as it is, under the current circumstances.

  If there were kids in our life raft, totally different situation.

  But these are adults, and my orders were to stay safe.

  It might be the last thing I ever do, but I’m damn sure going to try.

  Chapter Twenty

  It rains off and on for the next two days. We use the mylar emergency blankets to help hold and catch rainwater to replenish the empty water bottles, and we alternate drinking that with drinking fresh water, because there’s a little salt spray in what we capture. We hope there’s less chance of it making us sick if we do that.

  At least it leaves us hopeful we might not die, if we can keep this up. We’re all hungry, but it’s not the biggest worry, for most of us.

  Seasickness is mine. I’m trying to limit my sipping water to the evening and overnight hours, when my nausea abates a little and I can keep it down.

  God, I fucking haaaaate boats. Daddy learned early on that I didn’t do well in them, after my first canoeing experience, delayed due to that guy killing himself during what was supposed to be my first canoe trip, ended up with me puking all over him an hour into our trip.

  That was the last time Daddy ever took me canoeing.

  Future attempts I made to go on boats, even large ones, never end well. I am apparently allergic to anything but pool rafts. I usually have to dose myself with a crap-ton of seasick meds to function on a boat, but they practically knock me out, so it defeats the purpose.

  Ironic, because I love shows like Deadliest Catch.

  Pat, however, admits to us at sundown after our first full day adrift that he’s a severe insulin-dependent diabetic. His condition rapidly deteriorates over the next twelve hours, until he falls into a coma around sundown on the third day.