The Ransom of Black Stealth One

THIRTY-SEVEN

The Air Force medical examiner, a light colonel with no appreciable bedside manner, ambled into his office and handed a sheaf of Xeroxed pages to Dar Weston with obvious relief. “We don’t get many requirements of this sort, Mr. Weston; the Texas U. med center is just across San Antonio. It would have been a better venue for a workup like this.”

Dar, after a perfunctory glance at the findings of Brooks Aerospace Medical Center, realized it would take him an hour to puzzle through it all. “But you were closer and Brooks is more secure, Doctor. We’re deeply grateful. Could you summarize her condition for me? Her—father is flying in. What can I tell him?”

“That’s a bizarre question from you people,” said the Colonel. Dar saw the flicker of distaste in the man’s eyes. Not an unusual reaction, even in the military: CIA had very few friends. “But apart from a few minor contusions and abrasions I’d say Miss Leigh has not suffered much physical abuse.”

“And mentally?”

A shrug. “Difficult to predict over the long haul. No profound depression or confusion; she’s a bit suspicious and angry, but that’s to be expected. Perfect strangers have been poking her and asking questions for”—he checked his wrist—“what, ten hours or so? Her chief complaints seem to be mild sunburn and a desire, as she put it, to ‘get the hell out of here.’ Believe me, that would suit us very nicely,” he added.

You’re used to patients who have to salute, Dar reflected, shaking the man’s hand. “I’ll tell her,” he said. “Where is she?”

“Staff lounge,” was the reply. “That’s where the junk food is.”

Dar paused at the lounge entrance, then saw Petra at a corner table with one of the Company debriefing experts, a marvelously benign old tub of lard named Rogers whose gentle manner could have drawn a moray from its lair. Rogers was among the best men with naive civilians. He had flown portal to portal from Langley in four hours flat, after the Huey had spotted Petra atop that storage tank. After their reunion, Dar scrambling from the back seat of a Harrier to the belly of a helicopter so that he could hold tight to the daughter he had feared lost forever, they had flown straight to Brooks, on the southern edge of San Antonio’s urban sprawl. Now, as he viewed those straight little shoulders and heard the barely contained impatience in her voice, Dar began to feel his own body sag. He had stolen very little sleep the past few nights.

“No idea where he was going,” said Petra as Dar, stepping up behind her, patted her shoulder. She jumped. “Please don’t do tha—oh, Uncle Dar,” she ended, rising to embrace him. Into his chest she said, “You can do it as much as you like.”

He kissed the top of her head, feeling the warmth of his daughter like a long-sought benediction. He let his raised brows make a silent query to Rogers, who raised an open palm in response, then made it into a circled thumb and forefinger. Murmuring into her hair, he said, “I love you, Pets. These past days, I’ve realized I never said that to you as often as I should. By the way, we fished your yellow blouse out of the Gulf.”

“Mother will be ecstatic about that blouse,” she replied through a gulp that was half laugh, half sob, still holding him. “When will she and Dad get here?”

“Andrea is at home under sedation, but Phil should be here by now.”

“Then can we please, please wind this up? I’ve got some summer exams coming up and I don’t want to think about that damned skyjacker anymore,” Petra said.

“I think it can be arranged.”

“How about a few quarters for a Hershey? I’ve used all of his,” she said, and indicated the smiling Rogers.

He found three quarters and smaller change for her and, as she moved off toward the line of vending machines, said, “How about it, Rogers? Get as much as you want?”

“Never enough,” Rogers sighed. “She can’t tell us where the man is headed, and she swears he wasn’t in radio contact with anyone. He could have telephoned from that place in Florida. No NSA confirmation on it, though.”

“How did he treat her? She might not tell me the worst.”

“You already know about her escape and recapture,” Rogers said. “He roughed her up, but he also stopped a rape attempt.” He released a Kris Kringle smile. “After two days in that airplane, I think the young lady’s in love.”

Dar only mouthed, What? but could not keep his face from contorting.

“With the airplane,” Rogers went on, unperturbed. “Every time she mentions it, she gives herself away. I suppose there’s no accounting for women engineers.”

Dar let a long breath go, watching Petra tear the wrapper from a candy bar. “But there’s nothing more you have to cover?”

“Nothing we can’t go over some other time,” Rogers said, feeling inside his coat, doubtless to shut off the recorder. “Section head may want a bit of light therapy in a few days.”

That buzzword, “therapy,” usually meant hypnosis or even a polygraph. The sort of thing you do to field operatives who’ve been out of touch so long they might be compromised. And you can claim it’s not all that intrusive but this is my daughter you’re meddling with and, by God, she has been through enough already. “Tell him,” said Dar with blued steel in his glance, “that might not be necessary, nor politically expedient. Her father is Philip Leigh, a man who has already invoked the blessings of two senators and an undersecretary to get here. I don’t think he’d let me do a deep interrogation, much less anyone else. Her family has too many media connections; they’d have a field day, Rogers.”

Rogers cocked his head. “You’re family, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s not I who would sic the media on my own people. It’s Phil Leigh you’d be dealing with.”

Rogers beamed a smile that said he understood perfectly. “Well,” he said, “if we have any follow-up questions, perhaps you could do the honors.”

“Of course,” Dar nodded, holding out his arm, letting Petra walk into a hug. She offered him a bite of Hershey, which he declined with a smile.

Rogers made his departure with handshakes, and Petra watched him go with unfeigned satisfaction. “I hope that’s the last of that,” she said.

“Probably not, but I can smooth it for you,” Dar replied. Intuition made him ask, “Was there more that you didn’t tell him?”

She slid into a chair and he sat too, facing her, holding her small tanned hand in his big, pale one. Her face showed signs of exhaustion, but also of a lively earnestness. “Yes. Corbett wanted me to tell you something.”

“Something you didn’t tell Rogers or the others?”

“I gather it was personal.”

He withdrew his hand, folding his arms, sliding back in his chair as if steadying himself for a blow. “Well?”

“He said to tell you he kept the secrets. All of them,” she said, adding, “whatever that meant.”

“That was Goddamned decent of him,” he said in savage sarcasm. Then she’s not play-acting for me; she still doesn’t know. And why didn’t he tell her?

“He’s not a monster, Uncle Dar,” Petra said softly, quickening her pace as she added, “not that I think he’s Mister Nice Guy; whatever he gets, he has coming to him. But in a way, I think he loves you. At least he did once.”

Who the hell do you think you are, Kyle, to make me feel this guilty, this inferior? “Where’d you get that idea?”

“Because he couldn’t hate you so much otherwise.” Caught by the steadiness of her gaze, Dar Weston dared not look away. “He told me it was a fishing trip that made him do what he’s done.”

“Makes no sense to me,” he said.

“He told so many lies about where we were going, I think I know when he was lying. I don’t think he was lying about the bomb in the fuel tank. Why did you do it, Uncle Dar?”

He made a great effort to avoid swallowing, or changing the pace of his breathing. “Did you ask Rogers that question?” If she did, there will be no way I can protect her in the future.

Her glance held a trace of scorn. “Give me a break! I’d have that guy underfoot for a week if I stepped into such a can of worms. In fact, I withdraw the question. You wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t think it was right.”

“It was a matter of crucial importance to national security, Pets,” he said with soft intensity. “And unless you want to be hounded in ways I couldn’t control, you’re going to have to accept what I’ve said, and try to forget about it.”

Now her look carried more compassion. “Is that what you did?”

“If only it were that easy; but my job is remembering, not forgetting. I have very few outstanding regrets about my life, but Corbett is one of them. I can’t tell you any more than this: it had to be done.”

“For the higher good, no doubt”

“There was no doubt at the time,” he said. “Corbett was—is a man who puts no one’s decisions above his own.”

Petra vented a small “hunh” of wry amusement. “Tell me about it,” she said, with sarcasm that implied “don’t tell me about it.”

“And his decisions aren’t always in the country’s best interest, Pets. Do you need any more proof beyond what he’s done? Including the airplane, the search, and damages, he’s probably cost the taxpayers a billion dollars.”

“Wow.” Petra stared at nothing for a moment. “That ought to make him happy. He said revenge was the last passion of old men.”

“He said that, did he? The son of a bitch.”

“Funny, that’s just how he speaks of you,” said Petra, now with an impudent smile. She must have seen his jaw twitch because she grabbed him again with that exuberant hug that he often drove hundreds of miles to experience. “But you’re my son of a bitch, and I love you.”

He blinked hard, hoping that she would not look up and see the tears welling in his eyes. To keep from breaking down completely, he said into her hair, playfully, “Rogers thinks I’m not the only thing you love.”

He felt her stiffen. She did not look up. “I can’t imagine what he meant,” she said.

“Black Stealth One,” said Dar. “He thinks you’ve fallen for a piece of machinery.”

“He’s very perceptive,” she said, relaxing.