Alison looked down and straightened the blanket across his chest. “I’ll take you any way I can get you.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”
“I know. It was probably better you didn’t. Besides, I had my own problems.”
His eyes narrowed. “What happened?”
She was still looking down at the blanket and pursed her lips tight, but it didn’t prevent what was coming. Alison began to tremble and she fell forward, softly into him. “We lost Juan.”
Clay was stunned. “What?!”
“We lost Juan,” she repeated, sobbing.
“Oh no.” He brought her in closer. “I’m so sorry.”
Clay didn’t need to ask. He knew what Caesare and his team were up against, and he knew how often things went awry, no matter how well-planned. He put his bandaged arm around her, trying to ignore the pain.
After a minute, she looked up and tried to wipe the tears away. “And Chris!”
“Chris?!”
Alison nodded. “He’s in the hospital. There was an accident aboard the ship. The doctors think he’s going to be okay, but we almost lost him too.”
He nodded and squeezed her. “What about Steve?”
“He’s okay, and DeeAnn and Dulce. But he lost two of his men.”
Clay closed his eyes, shaking his head. Nearly everything had gone wrong. Juan, Chris, and now two of Caesare’s team.
He reached up and brushed some hair away from Alison’s face. “Not our finest moment, was it?”
She stared at him and wiped her eyes. With a sniff she said, “Well, I’m not sure if I’d go that far.”
She forced a small smile at Clay’s inquisitive look. “We did manage to find something. Something big.”
Ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Alison got up and walked across the room to open it, finding Caesare there, quiet and somber. He stepped in, wearing an arm sling and a grave face.
Clay had seen that look before. “How you doin’?”
Caesare shook his head. “Not all that great. How are you?”
“Better than I was.”
“I bet.” He stopped at the foot of the bed. “You hear about Juan, and Corso, and Anderson?”
“I did. I’m really sorry.”
Caesare nodded. “Not much went our way. Doesn’t look like too much went your way either.”
Clay forced a grin. “I guess it depends on how you look at it.”
“Well, it looks like you got beat up.”
“Yeah, but I think I intimidated the hell out of the other guys.”
A small smile spread across Caesare’s face. “Based on how bad you look, they must have been shaking in their boots.”
“I wish you could have been there.”
This time, Caesare laughed. “Gee, thanks.” He rounded the bed and dropped his large frame into the chair. “So what did happen?”
“I found Wei’s daughter, Li Na.”
“She was alive then?”
“Yes. Wei saved her life by injecting her with the bacterium from the plants.”
“Where is she now?”
Clay stared at him, still trying to piece his memory back together. No doubt made worse by the medication he was on. “I think she escaped.”
“Great.” Caesare leaned back. The room became silent before he took a breath and spoke again. “It’s gone, John. The whole thing is gone.”
“The vault?”
Caesare nodded. “They dropped a bomb and melted the whole damn top of that mountain. We survived by luck. And nothing more.”
“The Brazilians?”
“No.” Caesare shook his head. “The Chinese.”
“The Chinese?”
Caesare nodded with his eyes transfixed. “I guess if they couldn’t have it, they decided no one would.”
Clay was shocked. He gazed back out through the window, shaking his head. “How are the others?”
“Alive,” Caesare said. “Chris and Tiewater are both in the hospital. DeeAnn’s fine, but I’m sure she’s out — this time, for good. If she was on the fence before, that fence doesn’t even exist anymore.”
Clay looked at Alison, now standing at the foot of his bed. “I guess we can’t blame her.”
“No,” Caesare said absently. “No, we can’t.”
Clay noticed Alison glance back at the door. It was the second time she had done it. “What’s wrong?”
“Me? Nothing.”
He watched Alison glance subtly at Caesare. They knew something he didn’t.
“What?”
The Queen’s Medical Center, still commonly referred to as Queen’s Hospital, was the largest in the state of Hawaii. Long since expanded beyond the hospital’s original footprint, the facility had grown to over 500 beds, 3,600 employees, and now served as the largest trauma center in the Pacific Basin.
On the bottom floor, beneath the light-green roof of the hospital’s main entrance, two automatic double doors promptly slid open as Admiral Langford and Secretary of Defense Miller strode in out of the warm, humid Hawaiian air. Both were dressed in casual clothes and walked purposefully toward the elevators. Behind them, three more individuals followed.
Langford slowed as he passed the large waiting room, noticing the feed on the giant television. It was an aerial shot of Transocean’s rig “Valant” in the mid-Atlantic. Onscreen, words overlaid the live video feed and read “Transocean loses millions to prevent disaster.”
With a bemused grin, Langford continued. He had to admit, between their two public relations teams, the story being fed to the public sounded downright heroic. The “disaster” portion was a stretch. The company hadn’t actually replaced the rig sooner than planned, nor was there a malfunction forcing the old rig to be stopped where it was. In truth, the incident was little more than a detour on the way to the scrapyard. The important thing was that it allowed the public to praise Transocean Ltd. on being proactive… before promptly forgetting the incident. Even more importantly, it provided the perfect excuse to now position an unused oil rig directly over Alison Shaw’s discovery for the next twelve months, accompanied, of course, by the U.S.S. Pathfinder.
It was the same story that had been circulated throughout each of the U.S. military’s five service branches.
When the door to Clay’s room opened next, he was surprised to see both Langford and Miller walk in, followed by Neely Lawton, Wil Borger, and to Caesare’s complete shock, a serious-looking DeeAnn Draper.
Together they looked down at Clay with concern, after which Neely exchanged a quick smile with Caesare as Langford began to speak.
“How are you, John?”
“Uh… surprised, sir.”
Langford grinned and glanced to his left. “How about you, Steve?”
Next to Clay, Caesare watched Langford with a cautious expression. “I’m fine.”
The admiral motioned to the others around him. “I know this is a little unexpected.”
“Just a tad.”
Langford frowned at Caesare. “I wanted to have you all in the same room. And since Clay isn’t going anywhere soon, I decided we could all do with a bit of warm air and sunshine.”
Clay gave a playful but questioning look at Alison, who only shrugged and smiled. Both he and Caesare watched Langford with curiosity.
“Let me start by commending you all. You did a hell of a job under the circumstances.” Langford glanced at the others. “I’m not sure if I’ve ever been more impressed with a group of individuals. It’s people like you who remind me what this country is supposed to be about. What it used to be about. And perhaps what it might someday be again. But until then, what has happened in the last few weeks, or in the last year, has been nothing short of earth-shaking. I’m sure you would all agree.” Langford straightened and put his hands behind himself. “Which is also why it must be protected. At all costs. By all of you.”