Casualties (9 page)

“What about these?” Ruth picked up a page marked
Denied: Other
.

Sylvia cleared her throat. When she spoke, Ruth heard a note of defensiveness that hadn't been in her tone until now.

“The remaining claims have been denied because the policies never went into effect. Missing signatures, incomplete forms, things of that nature.”

Disbelief mixed with a rising fury at the woman in front of her. Ruth worked to keep her tone even. “Why weren't those things taken care of before the contractors were deployed?”

“By the time Excel informed us, most of those impacted had already shipped out. We sent them reminder letters with instructions about what to do.”

“And?”

Sylvia shifted in her seat; her eyes lowered for an instant before looking again at Ruth. “And nothing. We sent the notices.”

Ruth tried to maintain an even tone. “How hard did we try to follow up?”

The woman's eyes, a watery blue, blinked behind her glasses. Her jaw seemed locked in place. “We provided the forms, all the information the contractors needed. The rest was their responsibility.”

The image of the picketers with their signs flashed before Ruth's eyes. There was no way to make that message fly with the women carrying pictures of their dead husbands up the company's steps. She wouldn't accept it and neither would they. Ruth wanted to hurl the files at Sylvia.

“Was this in the monthly reports, too? Or was it in another of the hundreds of e-mails I get with my name in the cc box?”

The phone buzzed again. Ruth pounded the speakerphone button.

“What is it, Terri?”

“Ruth, Robbie's here.”

“Robbie?” Ruth looked at her watch. He was early. No, he wasn't. It was noon. On the dot. Lunchtime, as far as he knew. She'd left the house late. She should have thought this out.

“Sylvia, let's take a break and meet back here in a half hour. I want to make sure we've covered everything. No more surprises.”

When the office door swung open to reveal Robbie, Ruth did a double take. Crisp khakis. Olive button-down shirt. None of the tattoos showed. He'd done this for her. A beam of pleasure temporarily eclipsed the problems strewn across her desk.

“Hello, ma'am,” he said. He looked from Ruth to Sylvia and back. Ruth motioned him inside.

“This is my son, Lance Corporal Robert O'Connell,” Ruth said. “And Robbie, this is Sylvia . . .” Damn. What was the woman's last name? “From Human Resources.”

Sylvia pushed herself out of the chair. Robbie shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, ma'am.”

“Thank you for your service,” Sylvia said. “We are praying for all of you every day.”

Ruth noticed that Robbie pulled his arm back quickly; she wondered if he was trying to hide the tremor.

“Is it young Robert?” Robbie jerked his head up at the sound of Don's voice. The older man was taller, broader than Robbie. For reasons she could not understand, Ruth wanted to step between them.

“Yes, sir.”

“After you, Sylvia,” Don said, stepping aside to let her pass. He turned to Robbie. “Been getting the job done over there. Good for
you.” Ruth noticed he didn't reach to shake her son's hand, as if he weren't important enough.

“Yes, sir.” Robbie's face had turned into a mask. His jaw muscle twitched in a way Ruth recognized; he was clenching his teeth the way she did when she was fighting not to say what was on her mind, or just trying to stay calm.

“I tell the folks around here to work hard because you are all depending on us.” Ruth knew Don was irritated by the need to be polite; he'd come to her office for a reason.

“Is there something new?” Ruth said, to draw his attention away from Robbie.

“Only that the hyenas and their damned posters left our front door a while ago,” Don said. “They got what they wanted from the media and now they're gone. But they'll be back. Came by for a briefing, to see what you've got.” He glanced at Robbie and bared his teeth in what was supposed to be a smile. “Need to steal your mother for a little while. Would you like to grab something from the cafeteria?”

Robbie looked at her as though Don were speaking a language he did not understand and did not care to learn.

“Don, excuse us. I need a word with my son.” Don didn't move. He was not, Ruth knew, used to being dismissed. “I'll come find you. I just need a few minutes.”

“Of course.” Don nodded once more at Robbie and shot Ruth a look that told her she was on thin ice. “A few minutes, then.” He disappeared.

“Robbie,” Ruth said as gently as she could. “About lunch.”

He seemed not to hear. He looked around the office. She followed his gaze. Together, they took in the carpet, a Kilim, a present from a customer; the mahogany shelves with a grouping of antique Chinese bowls; and a gold plate on a crystal pedestal engraved with the words
Women Defense Executives Pathfinder Award
. He said nothing about the espresso machine or the photographs of Ruth flanked by a general or congressman on one side and Don on the other, but the
sight of his boot camp graduation photo drew him. He walked over to Ruth's desk and picked it up.

“Guess I outrank the general over there, when it comes to pictures, anyway.”

Ruth nodded. “I look at it every day and show it to everyone who comes in here.” She went to his side and looked over his shoulder at the serious eyes, honed jawline, and white cap that looked almost too big for his head. “I haven't said it anywhere near enough, Robbie. I'm so proud of you.” She touched his arm. His sleeve was damp and Ruth noticed sweat gathering on the back of his neck. “Are you okay, honey?” She lifted her hand as if to check his temperature. He wasn't flushed. He was pale. He stepped out of her reach and then made a show of looking in his shirt pocket.

“Here's another one for your collection.” Robbie pulled out a color snapshot and handed it to Ruth. Ruth glanced at the photo, Robbie at six or seven clutching a string of tiny fish. He was standing in the kitchen of her grandparents' farmhouse. She frowned. Where had this come from?

“Good times, huh?” Robbie said.

Ruth knew he wanted her to say yes, so she nodded. For her, the small farm in northern New Hampshire was home by default, the place where her mother had dumped her nearly forty years earlier and never looked back. Robbie, though, had always loved going there.

“Where did you get it?” She took the photo and pretended to examine it. She could make out a plaid shirt in the background. It belonged to her brother, Kevin, adored by Robbie from the moment he could walk. He'd followed her brother like a puppy through the woods, barns, and garage where Kevin repaired cars for a living.

Robbie didn't answer her. When she looked up to see why, he cleared his throat a couple of times and said in a low voice, almost as if he didn't want her to hear, “Stopped there on my way here. Found it in one of Big Ruth's old photo albums.”

“You went to New Hampshire?” She fought to control her voice. “Before coming here?”

“Yeah. No big deal. I was close, well, on the East Coast. I didn't figure I'd get back . . . anytime soon.”

“And of course Gershom is right on the way to San Diego.”

“Mom, c'mon. It's home.”

“Home?” Hurt bled through her.

His voice surged past her in a frantic rush. “No. That's not what I mean. You're my . . . California's . . . I know that this is home. But Big Ruth, Uncle Kevin, the kids, they're my only family besides you.”

Ruth wasn't listening. She'd waited and waited while he was sitting at her grandmother's oak table, drinking beer with her brother, playing big brother to the children of his father's second marriage. That smell in his clothes made sense now. Wood smoke and pine had seeped into his clothes while he'd been fishing, camping, or just sitting outside her brother's cabin on the mountain.

“How long? How long were you there?”

“Not that long.”

She knew she should let it go. This wasn't the time or the place, but she didn't care.

“I've been waiting for months, wondering every day where you were, how you were, existing on texts, e-mails. You've been back in the country for how long? Two weeks? Three? Four? You couldn't even take the time to call me and explain what the hell you were doing and that you'd come home whenever you got around to it.”

His arms seemed to twitch a little at his sides as if he didn't know what to do with them. He began to stammer. “I didn't mean to . . . I didn't come here to fight. I went because . . . it doesn't matter. I'm here, Mom. I'm here now.”

Something in his voice, in the way he was standing there, caught her. She looked at him and saw the fatigue that his crisp clothes and close shave had concealed for a while. His face above the olive shirt looked drained, but his eyes shined with need.

She took a breath to steady herself. Then another one. He was right, it didn't matter, not right this minute. They could talk about it later.

“Okay.” Ruth opened her arms. “Truce.” She waved him closer for a hug.

Robbie took the snapshot and leaned forward to embrace her, but he startled when Ruth's phone buzzed from her desk. She looked at the phone, willing Terri to keep whoever it was at bay a little longer.

“Honey, I still need to talk to you about lunch.”

“I can wait until you're free,” he said. “We don't even have to eat. Let's just take a walk or something.”

She heard how hard he was trying. A walk. It sounded so simple, but it was unfathomable now. She tried to speak gently. “I'm sorry, Robbie. We're in an emergency situation here. It looks like I'll be tied up the rest of the day.”

“I guess I should have come here before going to the farm.”

“You think I'm trying to punish you? I wouldn't do that, honey. This is punishing me as much as it is you. I have no choice.”

Robbie looked past her again, the way he had that morning, pretending maybe that he didn't hear or trying to wait long enough for her to change her mind.

“Robbie, let's eat dinner together instead. We'll have more time. What do you think?”

Ruth watched the hope recede from Robbie's eyes. She struggled to hang on to her smile.

The phone buzzed again. She heard Terri's muffled voice outside the office as she tried to defend the closed door a little longer. Ruth inhaled. She had to get a grip. She had no choice. Everything would be all right. It had to be.

“The company's in trouble. It's my responsibility. I can't walk out of here just because I want to. You know how it is.” She smiled her most positive smile even though it felt like weights were sewn into the corners of her mouth.

He shrugged but didn't nod or speak.

“Honey, you just got here. We have the rest of your leave and then it's only a little while before you're out altogether. We'll have lots of time. I'll even fly back east and go to the farm with you if you want. Starting tonight, I'll be all yours.”

When he still didn't reply, Ruth talked faster as if that might help. “We can go out, someplace nice.”

Robbie closed his eyes. His chin ducked and Ruth took it as a nod.

“Or we'll meet at home. Tell Terri what you feel like eating and I'll pick it up. Pizza, Chinese, whatever you want. If you don't know right now, call her this afternoon.” Ruth paused but Robbie said nothing.

“Robbie? Honey? Are you okay?”

Robbie looked at her and nodded, but the fatigue in his eyes sapped Ruth's certainty. She gave him her cheek to kiss. His lips were soft, like a little boy's, but his arms pulled her to him in a hug so hard it made her gasp. Again Ruth picked up a whiff of whiskey or something like it. She'd have to find a way to ask him about the drinking.

Ruth placed her palms against his chest. “Robbie? Honey? See you tonight, okay?” Robbie hung on. She smiled, pressed once gently, then again, harder. He squeezed her briefly once more and then released her.

“Okay, Mom,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

Relief found its way into the thicket of emotions tangling inside her. She smiled at him.

“I'll walk with you to the elevator.” Ruth turned to grab the notes she'd taken while she'd been with Sylvia. They were buried under paper.

When she found them and turned back to the door, Robbie was gone.

It was 6:43 when Ruth pushed her chair back from the conference table awash with paper, pens, bottles of water, and empty coffee cups.

“Where are you going?” Don glared at her from the head of the table where two lawyers leaned over his chair, pointing to the lines they had highlighted on the official statement they were honing with him.

“I need to make a phone call.”

“Make it fast.”

Ruth was already at the door. She pulled her BlackBerry out of her pocket as it closed behind her and punched in the number to Robbie's cell.

“Please, answer,” she muttered into the phone. Again the phone went straight to Robbie's voice mail greeting—a barrage of rap music followed by “Yo, leave a message.”
Shit.
Ruth looked at her watch. Maybe he'd left a message with Terri.

“Ruth, Don wants to review our plan one more time.” Andrea poked her head around the door.

Ruth barely looked at her. “I'll be back in a minute.” She strode to her office. Good, Terri was still there. She'd been going through all the personnel files and insurance claims she'd made Sylvia give her. Terri would make sure there were no more surprises.

“Has Robbie called? I told him to let you know what he wants to eat.”

Terri looked up. The halo of light from her desk lamp painted shadows under her eyes. Her lips, normally slicked red, were pale. A half-eaten tuna sandwich lay in a white wrapper near her elbow. Seeing her there made Ruth suddenly feel less alone. Terri was the only ally she had in this place right now.

“No. Do you want me to call him?”

“When I called just now I got his voice mail. Will you please try him again? Keep trying until you get him. Tell him I just need another hour or so.”

“How're you holding up in there?” Terri asked.

Like a target at a shooting range
, Ruth wanted to tell her,
full of holes but still there
. “I have to get back,” was all she said.

“Okay.” Terri reached for the phone. “Go. I've got this. Just hurry so you can see your son.”

Ruth wheeled and threaded her way through the maze of gray cubes outside her office. Most were empty. In a few, she spied slumped shoulders or the silhouette of a head against a computer monitor screen. An analyst jumped as she passed behind him, and she saw photos of what looked like the protesters fade from his screen. Ruth looked away and kept moving.

They'd been on conference calls all afternoon. With lawyers, with their PR firm, with each other. Early on, she'd gotten Don and Gordon alone so she could propose a plan to make Excel speed up its claims process.

“We've paid three or four times the cost of the insurance. They can afford to move a little faster. We're not talking garden-variety injuries.” She gave examples: amputation of both legs below the knee,
burns to lower body, arterial cut from shrapnel, both legs broken, fractured pelvis. Blunt trauma resulting in death. On and on. Relentless and sickening. She didn't expect Don or Gordon to be moved by the injuries. She thought she could convince them to do something if she painted a picture of what would happen when photographs of these people and their individual stories started to circulate.

“No,” was all Don said.

Gordon had explained. “The insurance division is twice the size of the business we're bringing to Transglobal. If it comes to a decision between Excel and RyCom, Transglobal will let us go and find some other company to add to their portfolio.”

“But not paying the life insurance makes them look bad too,” she'd said. “And we'll have to give the families something at the end of the day. Let's figure out what it will cost to make them whole and just give it to them now, take the issue off the table.”

“We'll just take that out of your stock options, shall we? You're scheduled to sell a few millions' worth any day now, aren't you?” Don didn't smile. “After all, this happened on your watch.”

Gordon shot a look in Ruth's direction.
I told you so
, it said. “Think about it, Ruth,” he said. “Paying them anything is admitting we're to blame. Excel knows what it's doing. The worst that will happen is that they will be forced to pay a fine. They plan for that. For now, just put a story together that Don can feed to the media. Make us look good, make sure our current clients don't catch any flak, and we'll work on expediting the deal with Transglobal.”

Don hadn't looked at her while Gordon laid it out. Ruth knew now it was futile to point out how Excel and Sylvia's people had let contractors go to a war zone without completing their policy applications. She understood now that Don had a backup plan. If she failed to keep him clean and the clients happy, she would be offered up as a sacrifice to Transglobal. It wouldn't make the lawsuits go away overnight but she would serve as a scapegoat, enough to demonstrate RyCom's commitment to its shareholders. Then Andrea
Baumann would step in as the new head of the contractor operation that Ruth had built from the ground up. Andrea had already let it slip that she'd met with the head of private security contracting at Transglobal. She wanted to head Ruth's division after the merger went through.

Ruth halted in front of the closed conference room door, her hand on the gleaming stainless steel door handle. Don's baritone rumbled impatiently beyond the frosted glass. Ruth closed her eyes. All she had worked for. All that sacrifice. Gone. With one sentence from Don. After twenty years, he would throw her away as she had watched him eliminate others whose usefulness had expired. The handle moved beneath her fingers. Her hand was shaking. Ruth gripped tighter. She lifted her chin.
Not without a fight.
She opened the door.

—

Terri was still at her desk when Ruth emerged three hours later. The sandwich was gone, the papers and files stacked neatly. She was leaning forward on her elbows, her eyes nearly closed.

“You didn't have to stay this late,” Ruth said.

“I thought you might need something.”

Ruth was half afraid to look Terri in the eye. Working late was one thing; she could find some way to thank her when all this was over. But Terri had always had a soft spot for Robbie; after years of working with Ruth, she'd become Robbie's agent of sorts. She was the one he called after school to “check in” and leave messages for Ruth. Terri helped research schools, ran interference with teachers and car pools, and ensured that Ruth knew when and where to pick him up. Terri would care that she'd kept Robbie waiting even if it was an emergency.

Ruth came to a stop before her assistant's desk. “Did you reach him?”

“No. I kept getting his voice mail, just like you did.”

Some of the ache in Ruth's chest must have shown on her face
because Terri's voice softened as if it might make her words less painful.

“I tried again a little while ago. Texted a bunch of times too. Maybe he's out of range?”

God. Robbie, please forgive me.
“Thanks.” Ruth walked straight into her office and started to stuff her laptop into her bag. Terri came in behind her.

“Here, this is easier to carry.” She held out a flash drive. “I put summaries and copies of all the electronic correspondence here. I scanned several of the hard-copy reports and put them on here too.”

“Thanks.”

But instead of leaving, Terri pulled Ruth's office door closed behind her. She bit her lip as if considering whether to say more. Ruth glanced at her watch. Still enough time to order dinner in.

“What? Spit it out, Ter, I've got to get home.”

“I'm not sure if I should say anything.”

“Then don't.”

“Look at the files I put on there. There are some things that Sylvia didn't show you. You should see them.”

“Like what?”

“Just look.”

“Damn it, Terri, I'm too tired for games.” If she didn't leave now, she'd bark at Terri and have one more regret in a day full of them. “Don't worry. Things will be fine.”

She had to believe her own assurances. They had come up with a public statement and had called all their clients, reassuring them that RyCom was meeting the letter of the law and they would not be pulled into negative publicity. Calls had been made to the insurers. They would handle all communications regarding life and disability claims. Don, Gordon, and she would meet with Transglobal tomorrow. Ruth hated the thought of having to tell Robbie she'd have to come to the office again. After that, though, there'd be nothing to do but sit tight and wait for the whole mess to die down. The
deal would still go through, even if it took a little longer. Ruth shoved the drive into her briefcase and straightened.

Terri stood between her and her office door. “Don't forget, okay?”

“I said I would look at it and I will.” Terri didn't move. She looked as though she had more to say, but Ruth was done. “Ter, we both need to get home.” Terri finally nodded and opened the office door. What was wrong with her? Ruth couldn't think about it right now. She wanted to go home. She needed to see her son.