Volcano (25 page)

It was an odd yet fitting irony that Hay Long’s disguise as
the “foot soldier,” or second-in-command to Sun-tzu, had not guaranteed his
safety as Hay Long had anticipated. It was an old Chinese strategy, as old as
The
Art of War,
for the general to pose as the warrior and thereby protect
himself from easy detection and elimination. But Kanes, Albert reminded
himself, were pretty good at elimination when the need arose. And it appeared
that gene had been inherited by his daughter
.

“You would have killed him, wouldn’t you?” Au Yang asked,
speaking of Tom Mooney.

“It was a part of the deal, part of our original pact,”
Albert said.

“Yes,” Au Yang answered, “but pacts are meant to be broken
even in this
game,
as you used to call it.”

Albert looked at Au Yang, one of the few people who’d ever
been able to read him completely. “You’ve nailed me yet again.”

And it was true, Albert now recognized. He’d never really
had the power to kill his old friend. No matter how unfeeling he sometimes
pretended to be, Albert was no more the rote, uncaring operative than the man
sitting across from him. Catching out-and-out vermin on the receiving end of
your bullet was one thing, but permanently silencing a man on whom your life
once depended was another thing altogether.

“I wanted him to tell me,” Albert said, “
anything,
any
cock and bull story just so I’d know it wasn’t true...”

But, when Albert had looked in Tom’s eyes, they’d been vacant.
There’d been no one at home to grant Albert the reassurance he so desperately
sought. No Tom Mooney to tell him it had all been a mistake, explain the
mix-up, reveal the hidden truths of his involvement.
Partially,
because there were no hidden truths.
But, more
significantly, because, even if there had been, there was no longer any Tom
Mooney around to share them.

Au Yang studied his old friend. “Now that the crisis is
over, don’t you have somewhere to be?”

Albert removed his glasses and set them down on his desk.
“Nowhere to go but here, old friend.”

Au Yang raised his brow. “How about the hospital?”

***

Joe stood at the pane glass window paralyzed by the blip of
machines and human tubing that surrounded his uncle.

“Bad night to be alone, soldier.”

Joe turned to find Carolyn Walker standing beside him.

“Carolyn,” he said, pulling her into his arms, “thanks for
coming.”

“What are friends for?” she asked, giving him a reassuring
squeeze.

Joe leaned back and took her by the elbows. “It doesn’t look
good,” he said, feeling the fire in his throat.

“I’ve heard,”
Carolyn
said, a mist
in her sea green eyes.

Joe pursed his lips and wished to God he wasn’t a Marine.
Wished to God, for once in his life, he could admit to another human being just
how dead afraid he was.

“It’s alright to be scared,” Carolyn said, strengthening her
hold around his upper arms. “Even the
best of the best
get frightened
sometime.”

Joe smirked. “Not to hear Mark Neal
tell
it.”

“Mark Neal,” Carolyn said, looking into Joe’s eyes, “was out
of his mind with worry about Ana and Isabel.”

Joe surveyed this sage woman’s face, realizing for the first
time just how pretty it was. Carolyn possessed the sort of beauty that age had
not deflated. Though her hair was shorter and her eyes looked a little more
tired, she was truthfully a
better looking
woman than
she’d been nineteen years earlier. And, nineteen years ago, first Lieutenant
Carolyn Walker had been quite something to look at.

“Thank you, Carolyn. You didn’t need to say that.”

“Oh yes, I did,” she countered. “Because, in spite of the
way your world seems to be coming down around you, you need to see you’re not
alone.”

“Aren’t I?” Joe asked, the ache in his chest twisting with
bruising force. “Uncle Tom is all I’ve got left.”

“You have friends,” Carolyn assured him. “You’ve got Mark-”

Joe huffed.

“You’ve got
Ana
.”

“Ana,” Joe said, tightening his lips against their slight
quiver, “has Neal.”

“She’s still your friend, Joe. The two of you go back a long
way.”

They weren’t the only ones, Joe thought, considering the
woman in front of him. Wondering why he hadn’t seen all those years ago what
was so blatantly staring him in the face now.

Carolyn dropped her arms, apparently misreading his look.

“I guess I need all the friends I can get,” Joe told her.
“You game?”

Carolyn lowered her face but not quickly enough to conceal
the rapid blush that streaked across the bridge of her nose, a blush that Joe
had once found quite endearing, he now recalled with
a
sweetness
.

Joe righted her chin with his good hand. “Lieutenant?”

“It’s Major now,” she told him, her face still holding its
sun-kissed glow.

Joe grinned. “So, you outrank me, then?”

“You’re retired.”

“This could be
very
interesting,” he told her,
undiverted.

“Want to go for coffee?” she asked, backing out of his hold
on her chin.

Joe wanted to go for more than coffee, but he wouldn’t tell
her that- just yet. “Let me just tell the floor nurse where I’ll be,” Joe said,
sending a concerned look back through the ICU glass.

“Of course,” Carolyn answered, nervously backing up and
smashing into a wall.

Joe grinned, feeling like his old self again.
His old self but someone new altogether.
Someone who no
longer took for granted the God-given gifts that landed right at his feet.

 
“Just be a
second,” he told her, checking his watch. A watch that he just might be tempted
to give her later, and ask her to hang onto for a while. Even after all these
years, the beautiful Carolyn Walker looked like the sort of gal a man needed to
keep constant track of. “Don’t you go anywhere.
”

Carolyn nodded and surprised him by blushing again.

“Not until you ask me to,” she said under her breath, once
he had turned.

But Joe heard it just the same.

***

Tom Mooney’s eyelids fluttered open as Albert Kane stood
over his bed.

“Hanging in there, partner?” Albert asked, holding back the
sting in his eyes.

Tom struggled to form words around the contraption that
bulged from his mouth. “We get them?” he asked with a heavy breath.

Albert took Tom’s flaccid hand. “We got them, alright. All
of them.”

“Commies...?” Tom asked, valiantly fighting for control over
his loss of consciousness.

“Every last bastard,” Albert said, with a squeeze.

“What did...
”

Tom’s words were drowned in a choking spew that Albert was
certain would be his last. But then the spasm passed and Tom’s silvery head
relaxed against the pillow.

“Kennedy...?” Tom asked, with great effort.

Albert leaned forward. “Who?”

“Ken--” Another coughing spasm, this time producing a
blood-speckled phlegm that spewed Albert’s shirt.

Albert mashed the call button on the bar guarding Tom’s bed
and frantically searched beyond the silencing glass for a doctor.

“Hang on,” Albert said, bending forward and scooping the
hacking Tom into his trembling arms. “Hang on there, buddy...”

But as Tom coughed and wheezed, Albert knew there’d be no
hanging on for Tom Mooney. That, by the time a nurse responded to Albert’s
call, it would be too late.

“I was a good...” Tom’s words fell off as his head fell in a
dead weight against Albert’s chest. “...
soldier
,
wasn’t I, Al?”

Albert sucked in his breath, but the blistering tears
cascading down his cheeks kept on pouring. “You were the best,” he said,
steadying Tom’s head. “The
best of the best.”

Tom reached up his IV-tethered hand to grip Albert’s arm,
“We were like brothers, weren’t we Al?”

Albert tried his damnedest to answer but his throat was
jammed with swollen fire.

“Always loved you...” A million shell shots splintered
Albert’s chest as he pulled Tom’s head in close, still unable to speak. “...
like
a brother,” Tom finished hoarsely, as his grasp fell
away.

The sudden heaviness was unmistakable.

“Tom?” Albert said, lightly shaking his friend. “My God, Tom
?!
”

Albert shook him again until Tom’s other arm fell limply
against the mattress.

No, it couldn’t be!
 
Not now, not Tom...
A hot javelin pierced
through him, its sharp spear rivetting his soul.

Albert prayed to God for Tom’s forgiveness, knowing that any
part Tom had played in this whole sordid affair had been completely out of his
control. Mooney’s mind had betrayed him just as surely as Mooney had betrayed
his country. But no betrayal could bite half as much as the hollow-tipped
bullet that had just rammed straight into Albert’s heart.

Albert gripped his buddy’s cold, dead hand, facing the
unbearable truth. Tom had been the brother Albert had never known. One of the
few friends he’d had left in an
often friendless
world. And Albert hadn’t even had the goddamned words to say goodbye.

Albert hung his head and wept like a baby, as memories
called and careened through the enveloping darkness.
 
“Always loved you like a brother, too,”
he choked out, as a nurse barreled in and monitors blared.

***

Mark sat in the DOS media room watching the large screen
television that took up almost an entire wall.

Alone again on New Year’s Eve, he thought, running his
fingers through his stubbly hair.
The story of his life.
A story he’d thought he’d amended about three years ago when he’d first fallen
for Ana Kane. The woman he’d not so incidentally recently found in another
man’s arms. A man who’d earned Mark’s grudging respect for having helped save
Ana, not once- but two times, in the course of recent history, Mark reminded
himself.

Mark sank back against the sofa, thinking he’d been too hard
on McFadden. The man had eyes in his head, after all, as well as the analytical
intelligence to see Ana’s attractive qualities ran more than skin deep. And Ana
was a big girl, besides. Any indiscretions between her and Joe- had they
existed at all- were sure to be mutual. Ana was simply not the type to be
coerced into situations against her
will
.

So, what was keeping her now? When she’d gone to keep Joe
company
at the hospital, she’d promised to be back before
midnight.
 
Mark checked the clock on
the wall, seeing she still had ten minutes. Ten minutes to fall farther into
Joe McFadden’s sticky web, Mark thought bitterly, surfing through the channels
looking for news. But on December 31, 2001, all seemed to be carrying on as
normal. All except for the one disillusioned husband in this room.
   

Mark had thought they’d been doing so well. That he and Ana
were moving past whatever had or hadn’t happened in that cabin in Virginia.
Mark knew he wanted to give it another go, and he’d been certain Ana’d been
sending out signals she wanted to give their marriage another try, as well. But
there was always proof in the pudding and Mark felt like he’d just been served
up an awfully big helping of dessert.

When times of crisis abounded, just where did Ana go? Whom
did she choose to be with? Where was she now, at eleven fifty-five on a night
she’d sworn to be present?

“Excuse me, is that seat taken?”

Mark looked over in surprise to see
Ana
standing at the far end of the sofa, a bottle of sparkling wine and two
champagne flutes in hand.

“Ana?”

“What?” she said, “Did you forget our date?”

Mark raised his brow.

“Our standing date, silly. For New Year’s Eve.”

“No, I’d never forget that one,” Mark said, thinking he
couldn’t remember a night in his life he hadn’t hoped to spend with Ana Kane.

“Well, good,” she said, plopping down beside him.

Mark started to slide over to make room.

“Stay right where you are,” she insisted. “I’m going to need
your help.”

“Ana,” Mark said, as she handed over the bottle. “We need to
talk.”

“Wait!” she said, casting an eye to the big-screen TV. “Turn
it up, they’re making some sort of special announcement!
 
Look, it’s The Old Post Office!”

“Yes, Joan,” the anchor said, turning to his co-host, “I
suppose that’s all we have. No balloons at this year’s Presidential gala.”

“Oh Walter,” Joan pouted through over-done lips, “what a
pity!
 
I just love that balloon
drop!
 
It’s practically my favorite
part.”

“Wouldn’t have been this time, sister,” Mark directed at the
screen, as he twisted the corkscrew of his Swiss Army knife into the champagne
cork.

Ana shushed him with a nudge of her elbow.

“And, what’s that they’re saying?” Joan asked Walter. “What
was given as the official reason for the cancellation?”

Walter gave the camera a credit card smile and glanced down
at a sheet of paper. “Latex recall,” Walter said,
baring
capped pearly whites. “Something about the oils of the rubber.”

“Very slick,” Ana said through the corner of her mouth.

Mark howled as the champagne cork popped and Ana nudged him
again. “Will you hush!” she warned, narrowing her eyes. “I swear when I want
you to talk, you’re a clam shell, and now-”

“...
positively
scary,” Joan
finished, with a frozen tilt to her lips that didn’t look the least bit afraid.