Akil, in the backseat, was trying his best to lighten the mood, exchanging hazing stories with Mancini-the time they’d bound a teammate’s wrists and ankles with gaffer’s tape and tossed him into the ocean, the times they’d shaved off teammates’ eyebrows and pubic hair before their weddings, and so on-but Crocker wasn’t in the mood. He didn’t find humor in the stories, or the dick wagging, or the fact that the four SEALs and Janice were all unarmed and in a Suburban, driving down a highway in the middle of the night, an hour into a seven-hour drive to Ankara.
Why Ankara? For a personal dressing-down, a spanking, at a time like this? Screw that.
If he thought standing with Oz and his men on the O-52 inspecting trucks seemed senseless and frustrating, this was ten times worse. Eight canisters of sarin were lost somewhere in Turkey, and where were they? Made no fucking sense. Maybe it was time to finally call it quits. Maybe he’d be given no choice. If he got canned, at least Holly would be happy.
Remembering her, he reached for his burner cell, considered calling Virginia, then returned the phone to his pocket. It had only one bar of reception. Besides, this wasn’t the time or the place. Despite the absurdity of their situation, he had standards to maintain as the team leader.
He didn’t feel like one now. He felt himself slipping back into bad times and places. Like the time he’d left the dying mother as she was begging for him to stay, and she died the next day when the cabin she was in was hit by lightning and caught fire, and she burned to death. And the ugly arguments he’d had with his first wife, Jenny’s mother, before their marriage broke up. He remembered one horrible night in Panama City, when he’d returned from a two-week training assignment near the Caribbean coast and she’d intimated that she’d been spending time at the officers’ club, drinking in the company of a young navy commander. He was furious, of course, but didn’t know whether to believe her or not. When she was drunk and angry, she said incredibly nasty personal things that he would never have taken from anyone else.
That night in the entrance to their bungalow, with two-year-old Jenny sleeping in the back bedroom, she’d accused him of being boring and lacking ambition. Said he didn’t measure up to the young commander who was going places and with whom she might or might not have been sleeping. The belittling comparison to the commander had infuriated him more than the possible infidelity. He’d shouldered his duffel and turned back at the door, saying, “I’ll be back when you’re sober.”
She’d countered, “If you leave now, I’ll consider that a sign that you know you’re pathetic and don’t measure up. And I’ll call him. I’ll call him over and let him fuck me.”
He’d stopped and looked back at her leaning in the doorway, her hair crazy, her eyes bloodshot, the smell of Jim Beam on her breath, wondering how the sweet thing he’d loved so much had turned into this.
She leaned toward him and snarled, “If you were a real man, you’d hit me.”
The blood rushed to his head as he cocked his right fist. Then a voice in his head told him to stop. He looked at her one last time, leaning in the doorway, and left.
Separation and divorce followed. Sometimes it seemed that no matter how hard you tried, things went bad. Love affairs ended. Marriages turned bitter. Teammates got injured and died.
Janice and Davis were now debating the existence of ghosts. Davis claimed he could sense their presence and believed in the continuance of spirit after death. It was an interesting theory and one that Crocker had considered. But it gave him no solace now, in this dark night, trapped as he was in his own distress.
No matter how much he loved, worked, and accomplished, it felt as though he always came up short.
He looked out the window as Davis and the others debated the abilities of psychics and whether or not some people could really communicate with the dead.
Whatever anguish, pain, or doubt he faced, he wouldn’t feel sorry for himself. He’d battle, take his bruises, pick himself up, and try again. And in quiet times like this one, ask for answers. Now, as he looked at the crescent moon, one came. A voice in his head that sounded like his grandfather said, “Give more.”
Give more, he thought. I will.
Chapter Eighteen
No fox is foxier than man!
– Mehmet Murat Ildan
Wearing an elegant royal-blue Versace draped cocktail dress with a low V neckline and an asymmetrical deep V back, Mrs. Girard entered the exclusive Palo dining room on Deck 10 looking like a movie star. Because she was a new passenger, and a woman staying in a deluxe oceanview stateroom, she was immediately shown to the captain’s table.
Captain Ian Hutley wasn’t feeling well, and had chosen to eat in his office. In his place sat First Officer Sven Kalberg, a good-looking man of fifty with wavy blond hair and a sparkling white uniform. The flirtation between the two of them began the moment she sat down by his side.
“You’re happy with your accommodations, Mrs. Girard?” he asked, clearly admiring her smooth skin, high cheekbones, and hourglass figure.
She sipped the cold yogurt-and-leek vichyssoise variation that had been set in front of her, dabbed her lips with her napkin, and answered, “Oh, yes. The ship is so massive. It’s very impressive.”
He smiled into her eyes and saw the possibility of an on-sea romance, which excited him further. Even though he was married with a young son, he considered it one of the perks of the job.
“Mrs. Girard, after dinner allow me to take you on a tour of the ship.”
“How sweet of you. I’d be delighted,” she answered, batting her dark lashes and leaving her lips slightly open. “Can we start at the bridge? I’ve always dreamed of what it must be like to stand at the top of a ship like this with your hands on the wheel.”
His smile took on the aspect of a leer. “Yes. We’ll start at the bridge if you like, and go as far as you like.”
She squeezed his wrist and whispered, “I can’t wait.”
Eight decks below, forty-year-old Scott Russert looked at the clock, turned to his wife, Karen, who was lying on the queen-sized bed beside him, and said, “You hear this nonsense?” referring to the loud EDM emanating from the cabin next door. “It’s bloody one o’clock.”
She lifted a finger to her lips and pointed to their twin sons-Randy and Russell, both red-haired like their father-sleeping peacefully on a sofa bed that almost touched theirs. They were in the next-to-last cabin on Deck 2, which sat at the end of a long narrow corridor beyond the images of Dumbo and other assorted Disney characters painted on the light-blue walls.
Scott had won the trip as part of a raffle to benefit Dogs for the Disabled, a British charity. Three and a half months ago he had stopped at a car park near Frimley after doing his sales calls for Medical Value Company, UK. He’d filled the Nissan Qashqai with gas and bought a chocolate bar and a bottle of water from the female clerk. As she rang him up, she tried to sell him a five-pound ticket to a raffle. She asked so sweetly and seemed so nice that he said yes. Then lost the ticket and forgot all about it until the phone rang one Saturday night as they were cleaning up after dinner. The England versus Ecuador World Cup preliminary match was about to begin on the telly.
“Sorry to bother you, sir. But are you Scott Russert of twenty-two Coronation Place in Putney?”
“That’s me, love. Who’s this?”
“Rachel at the Value Store on the M3.”