Tom Clancy's HAWX

Chapter 32

Troy sat in the lobby tearing open a padded envelope.

Inside were his cell phone and his gun, the magazine having been removed and emptied. When he and the CIA men parted company, they said that they'd leave his things at the front desk, and they had. That they'd emptied the magazine told him that they didn't completely trust him. That they did not take his cell phone battery told him that they didn't care who he called. They'd be listening.

The meeting that morning had not happened.

No routine camera surveillance of any part of the hotel showed the three men together. No routine camera surveillance of the lobby recorded a padded envelope being handed to a bellman, who wrote the name and room number on it in his own handwriting and handed it in to reception to hold for Mr. Loensch.

In a meeting that had not happened, Troy learned that he had killed the man with whom the story of his life had been tightly intertwined since they were both in OTS. That seemed like a very long time ago.

Had Harris known that Hal Coughlin was flying for the Sandies?

How could he?

The meeting that morning had not happened — the CIA men had said so. But they had also given him instructions for contacting them when — not if — he wished to not have a second meeting.

Jenna Munrough.

He realized that she had not crossed his mind since he had crossed paths with the CIA.

Yesterday, though, Troy had had little else on his mind, knowing he would soon be seeing her. Months ago in Las Vegas, he had taken the high road, refused her advances, and had often regretted this decision. On his last visit to the Firehawk home office, he had allowed himself to be seduced by this Ozark tigress. It was hot, wild ecstasy, but he had often regretted this decision. He regretted the dishonesty of what his delicious encounter meant to an unknowing Hal Coughlin, the man whose ring Jenna wore.

Then, he'd killed this man.

In less than an hour, he'd walk into the Firehawk headquarters, and he would come face-to-face with Jenna. Did she know it was him?

What would she say?

What should he say?

How could he look into those blue eyes of hers knowing that he had killed her fiance?

The man who was scheduled to receive a corporate commendation that was to be the equivalent of the Distinguished Flying Cross, the first in Firehawk history, entered the building not the same conquering hero as on his last visit, but a wary, conflicted man. This afternoon, he would play the role of conquering hero in front of Firehawk's adoring home office staff, but the man inside the shell inhabited a murky world of guilt.

There were layers upon layers of guilt that began with leaving Hal Coughlin for dead and ended with actually killing him. Amid the layers was the fact that he had decided to tell no one at Firehawk that he had been approached by the CIA. Of course, that meeting had never happened. Indeed, it felt like a bad dream.

Fortunately for him, it was in a crowd of people that Troy next looked into Jenna's eyes. There was an informal buffet luncheon ahead of the presentation, and Jenna was there.

She smiled broadly, but there was no hug.

"How are things?" Troy asked.

"Oh, y'know… so-so," Jenna replied, setting down her paper plate of potato salad. "Did you know that Hal died?"

"Oh," Troy said.

Jenna took his look of surprise that this was the first thing she said as surprise at hearing that Hal was deceased.

"Yeah, it was over in Malaysia where you were," Jenna continued. "He was working on a hush-hush project for Escurecer. They had just gotten a contract to supply an air combat component for Sandringham Partners. He went over with the first batch of F-16s. They had just arrived in country when Firehawk went to war with Sandringham."

"That must have been awkward. for you, working at Firehawk and having him… on the other side….."

"Yeah, it was." Jenna nodded sadly. "Even though we broke up before he went."

"I didn't know that."

"That's because you never read my damned e-mails," Jenna said, shaking her head. She wasn't smiling. This was not playful banter, but the despondency of an emotionally exhausted woman. The fiery Jenna he had known before had been superseded by one far more circumspect.

"Yeah… Hal and I broke up. It was not long after you and me… and no, I never told him about us. It was just one of those things. I could tell that he was losing interest… that the fire was gone. Now it's Hal who's gone."

Troy could see a tear forming in the eye of a woman he had never seen cry.

"Can I ask you a question?" Jenna asked, quickly dabbing at the offending eye with a paper napkin.

"Yeah…"

"You were flying a lot in the war, and you shot down one of the Escurecer F-16s, right?"

"Yeah… but we didn't know they were Escurecer. They were flying out of a Sandy base. I sure as hell didn't know that one of them was Hal… I feel like shit."

"You should," she said. "I know it's war, I know it's your job and all, and I know that he may have been shooting at you… but you still should feel like shit."

"I do," Troy said sadly.

"So did I," Jenna admitted. "I cheated on him…. with you. Didn't think I'd feel like I did because of that… but I did. Then I broke up with him because I couldn't… emotionally… and then I heard he was dead… I'm not a crybaby… never been a crybaby, but y'know… I felt… and then I found out you had been. I'm just totally, y'know… wasted."

"I know what you mean," Troy said sympathetically.

"How?" Jenna said bitterly, as if to say that there was no way that he could possibly comprehend her regret and her guilt.

They just stared at each other.

"Congratulations on your award," she said at last, turning to walk away.

SOMEHOW, TROY MADE IT THROUGH HIS PRESENTATION, receiving a commendation for his part in what was simply Raymond Harris's personal war against a rival on behalf of a smuggler.

Harris spoke at length on the Firehawk program in Malaysia. Troy didn't hear the words. His mind wandered, first back to Jenna and to Hal, finally coming to rest on the words of the CIA men.

Harris really was emerging as a demagogue, his appetite only whetted by the raw-meat taste of the power that came from the omnipotent ability to declare your own wars and to fight them with the most high-tech of weapons.

Troy looked at Jenna in the audience as he accepted his award. She had been looking at him, but she glanced away when their eyes met.

Afterward, there were handshakes and pats on the back, and several people wanted their picture taken with Troy. When this tapered off, he looked around for Jenna, hoping to resume their conversation and guide it toward a more positive resolution. She was nowhere to be seen.

When he had arrived, he had parked his rental car one row back from her Porsche. When he left the building, it was gone.

Back at the hotel, he ordered a hamburger at the bar and had a couple of beers. A news-talk show came on the television, and Troy was surprised to see Raymond Harris on with a congressman from Missouri. Harris was on his familiar jag about PMCs being the future of warfare, and the congressman was gushing about how much money the government was saving.

"PMCs have proven to be excellent partners in respect to efficiency, skills, low prices, and reliability," the congressman said in his soft Midwestern drawl, looking at the talking-head moderator. "They've been able to fulfill most of the missions normally handled by regular armies, without risking political fallout."

"Initially they were just consultants," the talking head said to his guests. "But each year, they come closer to serving as fully operational armies. For many client countries, it seems that PMCs have become essential."

"Any time you have customers that come to rely on you as an essential part of the program, that's when you know that you're doing your job." Harris smiled confidently.

Troy still thought the CIA guys were wrong about Harris, but he could certainly see how they'd jumped to that conclusion.