Breaking Away (23 page)

The next four clips were phone conversations taped from a camera partially obscured by a mesh screen of some kind. They were meets being arranged between Gilbert and a man named Caesar. The last one was time-stamped in the corner a month ago. All the videos appeared to have been taped in the same location.

James clicked on the next link and another video loaded. It was Flash. He looked healthy but thinner, his features more chiseled, his hair longer. “I hope you receive this. I tried to contact NCIS when this mission first went to hell, but all they were interested in was arresting me for being AWOL. Knowing my history, sir, you know why I couldn’t come in.” He swallowed and looked away from the camera, then back. “I am not a quitter. I never wanted to leave my team. I am innocent of everything but believing the bullshit I was fed by Special Agent Eric Gilbert. He used me, just as he used the other men whose messages you’ve just read.

“I’ve sent you the same evidence I’ve been feeding NCIS since I’ve been missing. Our unit worked with Special Agent Rick Dobson several times in the past. I don’t believe he was involved in this. I think that’s why they took him out. I also believe that Gilbert has gotten looped in by the drug cartel and is in too deep to get out. I believe the Caesar he’s speaking to is Caesar Vargas, one of the most notorious drug lords in Mexico. Once you get hung up with those guys the only way you get out is in a body bag.”

James watched Flash swallow hard before continuing. “NCIS has the artifacts I smuggled for Dobson and Gilbert. I mailed the carvings to them months ago with a full report. I’ve attached said report to this email. I kept the money as a bargaining chip, just in case everything goes to shit later and I need it. But it’s in a safe place ready to be turned in when this is settled.

“I need your help, sir. I want to get back to my unit—to my team.” He looked away from the screen, his jaw tense as he struggled with the strong emotion that worked across his features. When he looked back his face was tense, his eyes like tempered steel. “That’s all I’ve wanted for the last seven months. I’ve been stuck in limbo waiting for someone to get off their ass and arrest Gilbert.” Color flushed his cheeks and his mouth settled into grim lines. “But as you can tell from the videos, he’s conducting business as usual. There may be a warrant out for me for the break-in at his apartment and the assault he’s accused me of, so I’m lying low. But something has to give, sir.

“I’m reaching out to you, sir. I’m hoping you can light a fire under someone and get them to do something so I can come in. I’ll be in touch soon with instructions for how you can contact me. This address is only a temporary thing. I’m sure you understand why, sir.”

The video closed out.

“Son of a bitch!” James slammed back his desk chair and lunged to his feet. He circled the desk until some of the anger leached away. Had NCIS been sitting on this and leaving Flash hanging in the wind? That’s what it sounded like. Or was Flash shining him on and doing some kind of con to get back in after being AWOL for so long? He paced the floor. No. Not possible. Those videos were legit. He’d bet his left nut on it.

He pushed the button on his phone and asked Crouch to pull Flash’s file. The seaman brought it in and left.

Though he’d reviewed it several times since he’d chosen Lieutenant Junior Grade Carney as a member of one of his teams, he went back over the info. He reviewed Flash’s juvy record. Though it had been sealed, when a man applied to become a SEAL every part of his life was looked at under a microscope. Flash had come up hard. Abandoned by his mother, never knowing his father, settled into the foster system at the age of seven.

He’d spent time in a juvenile detention facility for dealing dope at twelve, but that charge had been expunged when one of his foster brothers came forward and admitted the drugs were his. He’d never been tagged for drug use.

But he’d had a record of cons and scams.
How could a twelve-year-old be a con artist?
Who taught him that shit?
He’d been released from the facility at fourteen and run away from the foster home where he’d been placed that time.

Then somehow he’d ended up in California, where he’d finished high school.
How the hell had he done that?
Though he’d been two years behind for his age, he’d graduated with honors and enrolled in college with a SAT score of twenty-one hundred. He’d excelled in computer skills and had an IQ of one-sixty. The guy was a genius, but he’d chosen to go into the military and become a SEAL.

His military record was exemplary. As a SEAL he’d excelled at everything he’d taken on, had wanted to be a sniper, and became the best.

For the last eleven years, from high school through his SEAL career, he’d toed the line and done everything right. Until he’d hooked up with Gilbert.

Despite the challenges in his early history, the file didn’t read like a man falling off the rails.

But James wanted to speak to Hawk first before making a move. He got back on the computer, looked up the SAT phone number for the Afghani base, and dialed it. After identifying himself he asked, “Can you get a message to Lieutenant Yazzie?” The voice on the other end of the line said, “They’ve just come in off a patrol. Hold a minute and I’ll get him.”

Five long minutes later Hawk’s voice came over the line. “Lieutenant Yazzie.”

“Hawk, Captain Jackson. There’s been some news about Lieutenant Carney.”

After a brief pause, Hawk asked. “Is he dead?”

“No. As of two weeks ago, he was alive and well.”

“I knew it.” His elation came across the line. “What the hell happened to him? Is it something to do with those fucking guys who came to see him at the end of our last deployment?”

“What do you mean?”

“Greenback saw two guys call Flash out for a powwow. They were dressed in fatigues with no insignias on their uniforms. Greenback didn’t recognize either of them, but he got the feeling they were official, maybe FBI. Then when we got home, Flash made himself scarce. He was tied up with something. I assumed he might be spending his R and R in Vegas, then Bowie said he was staying close to home, but had something else going on. Something he wouldn’t talk about. Then I found out about the artifacts Zoe, my girlfriend, found in Brett’s sea bag, and I thought I’d figured it out. That’s when I came to you.”

That conversation had happened months ago and he’d submitted the report. But now that Hawk had jogged his memory he remembered most of it. He’d pull it and go back over it. “For now I need you to keep Flash’s status to yourself. I need an opportunity to dig into this.”

“Roger that, Captain. I’m just glad to know he’s alive. Where the hell has he been?”

“I don’t know. But he’s supposed to contact me again. I’ll keep you updated.”

“Appreciate it. Will you be joining us in the sandbox?”

Jackson hesitated. His men were in Iraq and Afghanistan without him. Every time he dwelled on that, guilt shoved tension into every muscle, despite the fact he’d been on medical leave until recently. “Not at this time. We just learned my son will have to have heart surgery sometime down the road. I want to be certain he’s stable before I leave.”

“Understood, sir. Sorry to hear the little guy is ill. If it was my kid, I’d want to do the same.”

James had heard about Zoe Weaver’s pregnancy through the grapevine. Keeping national secrets came easy to the guys, but any important personal news spread like wildfire. “Thanks, Lieutenant. I’ll keep you posted on Flash’s status.”

He hung up the phone and settled back behind his computer.

If he’d shipped out with his men, he and Marsha might have avoided the trauma of being attacked in their home. If he’d shipped out with his men, he’d have come home to an empty house with no wife and child. With Alex’s issues hanging over their heads, and the stress they’d been under after his last deployment, Marsha would have left him. He didn’t doubt that.

At least being laid up waiting for his bones to knit, he’d had time to get to know Alex and come to terms with his son’s difficulties. Or at least partially come to terms with them.

But would these feelings of grief and anger ever pass?

He’d distanced himself from Marsha and Alex because of guilt for not being there for her during her pregnancy, for possibly being responsible for his son’s condition. If nothing else had come from the attack, he’d been forced to accept things. But the damage to his marriage was already done.

Would his wife ever forgive him for those first few months? Would she forgive him for not being able to protect her from the men who’d forced their way into their home?

Marsha paced the floor as Alex’s cries escalated into a screaming fit. She had checked his diaper, tried giving him a bottle, and taken him outside into the front yard to distract him, but nothing seemed to help. If only he could tell her what the hell was wrong.

Alex bowed his back and threw open his mouth. For the first time she saw his top gum was red and swollen. She could see where the buds of two teeth pressed against the skin waiting to push through.
Poor baby.
Why hadn’t she seen that? And why were these two causing such an issue when the first two hadn’t?

She carried him into the kitchen and got the teething ring out of the freezer. She pressed the cold ring against his swollen gums. He started, and the sound of his distress cut off in mid-cry. He reached for it, but when the cold device came into contact with his hands, he jerked them back.

Marsha smiled. “Too cold, huh? But it feels good where those mean ol’ teeth are coming through.”

After a few minutes, Alex’s lips closed around the teething ring and he began to gnaw at it. With the emergency averted, she returned to her bedroom, settled him in his walker, happily gumming the ring where he could see her. She stared hard at her overstuffed closet.

Why did they keep buying stuff when they’d just have to get rid of it when they moved? And now they had a baby, it would mean more to deal with.

She grabbed a hanger and jerked a pale blue maternity dress out. She’d never wear it again. An ache of grief so deep tears couldn’t alleviate it settled in her chest. She pulled the hanger free of the garment and tossed the dress onto the floor, then hung the empty hanger back up. With each item she pulled out, her anger and pain grew until she wanted to scream. She stomped on the pile of helpless garments. A sob built in her throat and pushed its way free. She crumpled to the carpet and buried her face against her knees.

When she could finally breathe again, she found Alex watching from his walker, his eyes round with fascination.
What would she do if she didn’t have him
? He was her reason for getting up in the morning. For hanging on to her sanity.

She drew a deep breath and forced herself to relax. She focused on the slippers lying at the bottom of the closet. She’d bought them because her feet had swollen badly toward the end of her pregnancy and now they were stretched too big for her to wear. She would never again experience that particular uncomfortable side-effect of having a baby. Or the joy of carrying another child.

What if she packed up what she wanted to keep and walked away? She could leave everything else for James to give away. It would serve him right. How many times had she PCS’d without
him?
She’d been left behind to move their entire house while he was having fun being a SEAL, blowing things up and jumping out of airplanes. He could call it
his job
all he wanted. He loved all of it.

“Permanent change of station my ass,” she mumbled beneath her breath. She crawled forward and tossed the shoes onto the crumpled collection, now scattered into a wide circle on the carpet. She sat back on her heels next to Alex’s walker. Drool ran down his chin. She used a discarded blouse to wipe his slobbery mouth and neck and set it aside to launder before boxing it up with the rest of the things.

James loved his job more than he did her.
She’d always known he did. Accepted it. Now the break-in had driven a wedge between them, the relationship they had wasn’t enough anymore. Life was too short to settle for what had turned out to be precious little.

James was struggling, as badly as she. She’d seen it in the car after Alex’s doctor’s appointment. Everything they’d experienced in the last months had finally chipped away at the smooth, unbreachable façade he showed the world. Showed to her. She wanted to pick away at those chips until the surface fell away and she could finally meet the real man beneath. Had they ever really known one another? Had they lived as husband and wife for the last ten years, yet remained total strangers? Or had it happened gradually because of too many deployments?

Alex banged the teething ring against the walker tray. She ran a hand over his head, smoothing his blond hair. It bounced back up, haloing his head like dandelion fluff. She smiled and earned an answering smile from him. “You’re a good boy.” He was loving and sweet.

And his shirt was saturated with slobber.

She grimaced and rose to go get him a dry shirt and a bib.

After his cleanup, she snapped a bib around his neck and lifted him out of the walker. Resting him on her hip, she wandered down the hall, through the kitchen to the side door leading into the garage. She gripped the doorknob and hesitated. Every room in the house held a memory of the break-in she wanted to leave behind. But the garage was where it began. She hadn’t been in the room since.