Home Goes The Warrior (5 page)

Lunchtime came and went. Lee called the wardroom steward and had sandwiches brought in for himself and the agent. They ate and talked, both thoroughly engrossed in the puzzle of the shipyard’s missing money. The FBI agent was of the opinion that somebody in the shipyard was finding ways to take money out of the yard’s work on the ships’ expensive missile systems. Lee listened, but he really didn’t agree with the agent. He kept his opinions to himself, saying that he wanted to take a look at the actual work before he could comment on specifics. In his mind, he had already realized that Wright was hopelessly naïve regarding shipyards and their processes. Wright was just looking at the big-ticket overhaul items and suspecting them of being problems without having any concept of either their complexity or their accurate overhaul costs.

It was after two o’clock before Commander Johnson returned. When he did, he had Captain Neilsen with him. The commander looked serious as he sat. “Lee, I’ve just been through two hours of argument. Apparently there is some old school bias against having line officers without college degrees. If it wasn’t for Captain Neilsen getting on the line, I wouldn’t have won the argument. But the captain did magic. It helped that he explained that this was his idea, not yours.”

He paused, then continued, “If you take this job, you’ll become a regular Navy line officer on the day that you satisfactorily complete the FBI training course.”

Lee nodded. “Thanks, Commander. I know that this wasn’t easy.” He thought for a moment as the others watched him. Then he relaxed visibly and released a long sigh, “Well, I guess I’m gonna do this. What’s the game plan? What’s the schedule?”

The commander reached behind his chair and pulled a briefcase onto the table. Opening it, he removed a sheaf of papers and returned the briefcase to the floor. “I have here a set of secret orders that won’t be seen by anyone outside this room. These are temporary additional duty orders that take you from here to the FBI Training Center in Quantico for two months. When you finish the course, you return to this ship. You leave here this Sunday and start school there on Monday. I also have plane tickets for you and a check for two months’ expenses. You and I will be the only people signing these orders and the only copies will be in your file back at BUPERS, under my control. Does this make sense so far?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t give me much time to take care of things here.”

“Don’t worry, Lee. You’ll have plenty of time when you get done with Quantico. I also have a set of orders that take effect when you get back to the ship from Quantico. These are standard transfer orders that move you from this ship back to Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for duty. They have normal travel time and leave built into them. By using the two sets of orders, no one will see the training that we’re giving you. Anyone looking at your record will just see a normal personnel transfer package. Just another Navy officer going to the shipyard for duty.”

Lee was listening with half an ear as he studied the paperwork the commander handed him. After a short silence, he looked up. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

After some small talk, the commander took the signed papers and departed, saying that he had some other visits to make before heading back to D.C. Captain Neilsen left to perform his shipboard duties. The conversation between Lee and Tom Wright went on for several more hours, moving to the base Officer’s Club for dinner and a few beers. Before long, Lee found himself learning to like and trust the FBI agent. Finally, they talked themselves out and left the club, agreeing to meet again in Quantico.

Since Maggie was on an evening shift that day, Lee returned to the ship after leaving the club. This day had been overwhelming, and Lee lay awake for a long time, going over it again and again in his head. Finally he slept, a fitful sleep speckled with images of mobsters from old movies that floated through his dreams. None of them seemed to be particularly friendly.

CHAPTER THREE - MEMORIES AWAKENED

he next day Lee woke early as usual. Like most days, he pulled himself out of his bunk and threw on some jogging clothes. After brushing his teeth and splashing his face, he was out of the ship and off for his morning run. Although many of his shipmates gave him a tough time about working out and running, he was dedicated to the routine.

A few years ago, he had been like most of his shipmates, putting off anything that could be considered healthy. Then a few well-placed Viet Cong bullets had brought him face-to-face with death. He’d stopped smoking in the hospital. Then his rehabilitation therapy had mandated stringent physical work-outs. By the time he was discharged from the hospital, he found that he felt better than he had in years. So, after leaving the hospital, he had kept with it. Now his six-foot-two body was twenty pounds lighter than the two hundred twenty pounds it had weighed back on the gunboat. He was in far better shape than he had been even a decade earlier.

Today, as he ran lightly past the Navy piers with their gray ships looking down on him, he was deep in thought. His mind played back all the revelations of yesterday and tried to focus on the strange journey he was about to undertake. But, try as he might, the whole thing seemed surreal. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that he’d been enlisted in a fight that would probably pit him against people he had known in another life, real American mobsters. Whenever he tried to focus on this, his mind shied away as if in disbelief. Finally he gave up and decided to take it one step at a time. The entirety of it all was just too much to grasp in one setting.

Okay, Lee. What’s step one?
He’d been given a plane ticket that would take him east on Sunday. So he had a lot to accomplish before he left. Sunday was only two days away. He would have to arrange safe storage for his car. He was coming back to the ship before leaving for Philadelphia, so he could leave most of his belongings in the stateroom. But he had to do something about his wardrobe. He owned very few civilian clothes, since he only wore them when he was off the ship, and that hadn’t been very often recently. But now he was going to have to wear “civvies” exclusively at Quantico, so he had some shopping to do.

He also had to somehow explain this whole thing to Maggie. That was going to be rough. Another separation wasn’t something that either of them had anticipated or planned on. As he ran, Lee decided to go visit her later today. Maybe he could take her out for lunch and talk to her. He was still trying to decide how to tell her when he arrived back at the ship. Back in his stateroom, he stripped and headed for the shower, still mulling the problem.

After showering and returning to his stateroom, Lee dressed in his work khakis and sat down at his little stateroom desk. He hastily took an inventory of his civilian clothes and then started a list of the clothing he needed, as well as the things that he had to accomplish to prepare for both the school and the subsequent transfer.

By the time the lists were finished, the ship was starting to come alive. He wandered aft to the wardroom and sat down for breakfast, still lost in thought. But his fellow officers around the table weren’t about to leave him in quiet contemplation. They’d all heard about yesterday’s visitors, and they weren’t about to let him get away without an explanation. Luckily, Lee and Agent Wright had discussed this yesterday. Without hesitation, he rolled out the story that they had formulated. He told them that the Navy yard in Philadelphia was having problems with missile system overhauls, and he was going there to give them a hand. But first he was going to a school to teach him about the latest changes to the new missile systems that the shipyard was installing these days. He’d be gone for a couple of months, and then he’d come back and pick up his stuff before heading to Philly. To a man, his friends were unhappy for him. No sailor wanted to go to
Philadelphia for duty. It was just too big and too expensive. Besides, it was cold there.

Lee grinned and shrugged. “That’s Navy life, I guess. We take the bad with the good.” Secretly he was pleased that no one questioned the story.

After breakfast, Lee spent a few hours with the officer who was taking over his job, going over the status of the missile equipment and introducing him to some of the crew members he hadn’t yet met. Then he excused himself, went to his stateroom and changed into civilian clothes. From the phone in his stateroom, he placed a call via the ship’s switchboard to Maggie’s BOQ room. He caught her shortly after she wakened. Knowing that the switchboard operator was probably listening in, they made the conversation short. He was going to pick her up at noon and they would go to lunch. He could tell that she was curious, since they hadn’t planned to see each other this early in the day. But she kept the peace for now.

The little restaurant he chose for lunch was one they had frequented many times in the past. Overlooking San Diego Bay, it was quietly beautiful. It was a place where romance was never far away.

He had been mentally stumbling, trying to figure out how to explain his transfer and school to Maggie without violating the Navy’s secrecy edict. Finally, he’d decided to just tell the truth. If he couldn’t trust her, who could he ever trust? He knew that this decision wouldn’t look good if anyone found out about it. But at this point, he simply didn’t care. He wasn’t going to build a life with Maggie based on lies.

When they were settled in the restaurant, he opened the conversation. “Sweetheart, I’m leaving on Sunday for about two months. Where I’m going and what I’m going to be doing are classified at the Top Secret level. But I want you to know the truth. I know that you can keep a secret, but I have to ask you anyway. Will you promise me that you will keep my whereabouts and my new job secret?”

She gave him a strange, quizzical look before replying. “Of course, you nut. Don’t forget, I’ve got a security clearance also.” She was talking about the Secret clearance that she had been given while she was stationed in Viet Nam. That was good enough for Lee.

Maggie never interrupted while Lee told her of the previous day’s unusual visitors and the new role he was going to take on for the Navy. When he was done, she was quiet for a moment before asking, “Lee, don’t you still own a home there?” She had dragged information out of Lee on previous occasions, and she knew about his sudden departure from the East Coast after his parents’ death. But he’d always been reluctant to go into detail, so she only had a sketchy understanding of his situation.

“Yeah, but it won’t come into play at all here. I don’t plan to be in Philly any longer than absolutely necessary. I’ll do the job they want me to do, but then I’m coming home to San Diego and the woman I love.”

That got a big smile from her, but she was staying serious. “Well, if that doesn’t work out, there’s a Navy hospital in Philadelphia and I’m due for rotation soon anyway.”

She went on, “But let’s think about other things. First, we only have two nights before you have to leave. Let’s get out of the BOQ room and go to a nice hotel. I’ll get someone to take my shifts this weekend and we can at least be together for now. Besides, you can’t go shopping without me, and you have to get some new clothes. You’ll be a laughingstock if you try to go to the FBI Academy in the old crap you’re wearing now.” She laughed at her own sally, her voice tinkling in the air and making his heart jump a little. He nodded in solemn agreement with her comments, but she wasn’t done yet. “When you get back from school, they said that you would have a normal transfer to Philly. Right?”

“Yeah, I plan to drive out so that I’ve got my car with me there.”

“No, my lovely Lee.
You
aren’t driving to Philly.
We
are driving to Philly. We’re going to make it a real vacation. We’ll go to Vegas. We’ll go see the Grand Canyon. We’ll drift down and have drinks on Bourbon Street. We’ll find other touristy things to do, and we’ll have a ball. When we get to Philly, I’ll catch a plane back to my boring San Diego life. But for once, we’ll do a vacation like normal human beings do!”

Lee was speechless. She had taken his terrible news and turned it into something that would be wonderful. He said the only thing he could think of right then. “Dammit woman, I love you with all my heart!”

Again, her smile. “I know. Me too. Now, let’s get some lunch and head for a shopping center. We have work to do.”

They spent the next two nights at the Hotel Del Coronado, in a room that overlooked the bay. Except for taking time to buy clothes and pack his gear, they never left the hotel. It was a weekend they would both remember forever.

Very early that Sunday morning, he found himself on an airplane heading east. He relaxed and stared blankly out the window, his thoughts drifting far from his present time and place.

He was going back to Philadelphia. He had to admit that the thought of returning and facing everything he had left behind so many years ago was frightening. Just thinking about it was causing him to break out in a cold sweat.

He was honestly afraid to return to his old hometown. The explanation he had offered to the FBI agent about his Philadelphia connections had been true, but it was definitely not the entire story.