Travis Hughes was out pillaging and terrorizing the countryside on his Suzuki Hayabusa GSX1300R. The speed limit was 65 mph, but Hughes had not pimped out his bright red rice-burner to go 65. The Marine staff sergeant, a sniper team leader, wore a blue bandanna around his head, dark sunglasses, creased black leathers with an Outlaws patch, and biker boots. Long red hair flew behind him as he stormed back toward the base. The blonde at the bar had been with Marines before, and when the beeper stuttered on his belt, she knew he was gone. She walked with him outside and gave him a long wet kiss when he powered up his machine. She nibbled his ear and said, “Stay out of trouble this time, Travis.” Hughes revved up the bike. “Don’t think I can do that, darlin’,” he said and launched the motorcycle out onto the road, laughing into the sharp wind that whipped around him. He bent low over the handlebars and cranked it up to a comfortable 110, hauling butt back to the base.
LONDON
Television reporter Kimberly Drake was only two years out of journalism school and still a little fish, even within her Arkansas station. She wanted to be considered a serious journalist, not just a talking head, and sometimes felt that her good looks were no advantage whatsoever. Every station had a beautiful anchor or weathergirl, and she could no longer even imagine an unattractive woman hosting a television newscast. To break out of Little Rock, Kim needed some big stories, and once she had earned her spurs and boosted her reputation, she could jump to a bigger station or at least a cable network.
Then, out of nowhere, the station management decided to send its own correspondent to the royal wedding, just like its big competitors, as part of the continuing battle for advertising dollars. Kimberly would have happily either screwed or killed her news director to get the assignment but did not have to do either. Since the rest of the reporting staff was male and the female anchor was too pregnant to travel, nobody else even wanted the assignment! To the guys, it was just a wedding. Fluff, not like a Super Bowl or a war.
The station gave Kim the job but put very little money behind the trip. Tom Lester, a veteran cameraman, accompanied her, along with a young engineer who would work as a soundman for the stand-ups. The shoestring budget meant they operated out of a small purple and white production van that the station had hired at bargain basement rates.
Kimberly did not care. As she left the Royal Wedding Command Center Press Office in London with her new laminated credentials on a chain around her neck and walked toward the media production area in Kensington Park, she felt like a real reporter for the first time in her life.
It was not until late that night that reality sank in. Because of her low status, Kim’s truck had been assigned a space far away from the parade route, on the very back row. From the camera position atop the van, she could overlook the vast media lot that had been cordoned off, and she was jealous that another purple and white van from the same company, rented by an Italian cable operator, had been given a slightly better spot about fifty yards away.
She had never seen so many media types. British journalists were as aggressive as pit bulls, and reporters and television people from dozens of other countries were arriving, also wearing press credentials for the big event. There were hundreds of them around, many of whom she recognized, although they did not know her. The network people were right at the front! Media money was everywhere. Private residents had fled the city and rented out their apartments and homes at exorbitant rates. Restaurant prices doubled around the heart of the press operations because the reporters were on expense accounts.
Kim Drake stood atop her van and sipped a cup of coffee and stared out over the media throng. She had to admit she was a little fish over here, too. A guppy swimming with sharks. I’ll show them. I’ll show them all.
5
THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA
MASTER GUNNERY SERGEANT DAWKINS set foot on the spotless deck of the Vagabond with supreme confidence, for he, too, was a creature of the sea, having spent much of his life on boats and ships, beneath the water in submarines or flying over it in planes and helicopters. It was good to be back in his element and out of Washington on this sunny Monday morning, ready to take his best bud, Kyle Swanson, on another hunting trip. He left his luggage aboard the bird, since they would be leaving again soon.
Swanson, Lady Pat, and Sir Jeff were waiting at the edge of the helo deck, and they took him to the stern, where a table beside the swimming pool had been set with china and silver utensils and white napkins. The chef had started the eggs when the helicopter was five minutes out, and now an enormous selection of delicious food was rolled out by a female crew member dressed in whites.
Double-Oh plunged into the meal, hardly aware that the others were only nibbling at the feast since they had already had breakfast. The conversation was mild chatter, waiting for him to finish eating before getting down to business. The four of them were family in many ways, except by blood. The brotherhood of spec ops warriors was tight, and the men had known each other for years. Lady Pat was their den mother.
Swanson had joined the Marines while still a teenager, and it was Dawkins, then a staff sergeant, who first discovered that the awkward boy had a remarkable ability in the unique craft of long-distance precision firing and was also a natural in combat. Over the years, as they both rose in rank, Dawkins remained Kyle’s mentor and eventually spun him off for use in special operations work by nonmilitary government agencies.
One of Kyle’s more interesting assignments had not involved combat at all but was serving as a special Pentagon adviser to Sir Jeff Cornwell in the development of a new-generation sniper rifle that they called the Excalibur. It took several years of off-and-on work by Swanson, and although he always kept people at an emotional distance, he was drawn in by the magnetic friendship Jeff and Pat offered. When he had introduced them to Shari Towne as the girl he planned to marry, she also was taken under the protective wings of the Cornwells. Family. Kyle had thought for a while there that he really had one. Then Shari was murdered, and Kyle almost came apart. Pat, Jeff, and Double-Oh had been helping piece him back together slowly over time. Keeping him busy was important.
Dawkins finally finished eating and filled his coffee cup again. Lady Pat motioned for the crew member to clear the table, and the four of them were soon left alone on the deck as a soft Mediterranean breeze blew across the stern of the Vagabond. Pat pulled a soft shawl of Scottish wool around her shoulders to stay warm.
“I am leaving for London tonight to attend a reception for the royal wedding and then spend a lot of Jeff’s money on new clothes,” she declared, looking at Swanson. “But before I leave you boys to talk about whatever the new mission may be, I have something serious to say to you, Kyle.”
He smiled. “What’s on your mind?”
“You are still grieving for our dear girl Shari. Her death left a hole in your heart, a deep hole that you think can never heal, and you think that withdrawing into all of this black ops work will protect you,” she said. “I did not like how you got so stupefied drunk that you didn’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain. You’re acting like some dumb ostrich sticking its head into the sand and thinking it cannot be seen. It isn’t working, is it?”
“Instant psychobabble from Dr. Pat? You know everything?” He was instantly defensive.
She stood, and he saw tears in her eyes just before she slapped him so hard that his ears rang. “Don’t you dare speak like that to me, Kyle Swanson! Do you believe that you are the only one who loved Shari? That your heart was the only one broken when she died? I still cry when I think of her. I am thankful that she was in our lives at all.”