Morgan's Son (17 page)

Switching off his light, he dropped the damp towel on the coffee table. The other towel rode low across his hips as he padded over to the sofa. He'd found a blanket in the closet and a spare pillow. Now he threw them on the couch in a makeshift bed, then went to the door and made sure the dead bolt was engaged. His eyes stung from lack of sleep, and his head ached as if hammers were pounding his temples. Sleep. Precious sleep. That was all he needed—and the last thing he was likely to get.

Ambling back to the couch, he loosened the towel and allowed it to drop to the carpeted floor, then tugged on light cotton pajama bottoms. Sitting down, he shook out the blanket. His pistol lay on the coffee table. Leaning over, he took it out of the holster, fed a bullet into the chamber and put the safety back on. Placing it gently on the carpet near his head, he lay down.

Everything was quiet. Sabra had opened the window in her bedroom earlier, and he could hear the waves crashing on the beach outside the hotel. The sound was lulling, and he closed his eyes. If only he could sleep. If only…Now was not the time to take any more sleeping pills. Sabra was right: Garcia could already have staked them out—could be watching and waiting for the right moment to nail them. His eyes drooped closed, as if weighted. Without the pills, he knew he'd spend hours tossing, turning, moving between raw wakefulness and the terror of the nightmare. God, if only he could get up, slide into the bed and draw Sabra to him, he was sure he could sleep for the first time in two years. She could give him the solace to surrender to the darkness.

Craig's mouth tightened, and he turned onto his side, burying his head in the soft pillow. Maybe if he pretended Sabra was in his arms….

By concentrating on the image of Sabra's face and recalling her soothing voice, Craig found an element of comfort in his usually chaotic night. Soon his fear of the nightmare returning had dissolved, and he plummeted into a deep sleep. He'd always been a vivid dreamer, but this time his dream visions were of something beautiful: Sabra. Her expressions fascinated him—the quirk at the corner of her mouth when she was irritated or didn't quite agree with him, the lowering of her thick, black lashes when she was shy, and, more than anything, the changing of her gray eyes from light to stormy and dark.

He was lost in her small gestures and the way she used her hands when talking. Moment by moment, he reexperienced her touching him, massaging the tension from his shoulders and back. She'd been strong yet gentle, monitoring the pressure as she coaxed the rigidity out of his muscles….

On some far boundary of his peripheral senses, Craig heard the blades of a helicopter. No. It couldn't be. In his sleep, he struggled to shut out the approaching sound, which sent an icy shaft of fear through his gut. Sabra's touch, her face, began to dissolve, to be replaced by the
whap, whap, whap
that grew louder, closer with every passing moment.

Groaning, Craig turned over.
Not again. No…
The sound intensified, and he began feel the tiny tremblings a helicopter pilot experiences when his bird starts up. The vibration began in his booted feet and, like small currents of electricity, moved up his legs, into his thighs. As the blades whirled faster and faster, he could feel his whole body swinging in time with them, until he became a part of the machine and it a part of him. Where did flesh and blood leave off and cold steel begin?

Craig felt sweat running down his temples from beneath his helmet. He was gripping the controls through wet Nomex gloves. He always sweated on a dangerous mission—everyone did. Lieutenant Brent Summers, his copilot and one of his best friends for three years, called off their altitude.

It was dark, so dark out. The reddish glow of the control panel glared up at him, while before him stretched endless desert.

"We're in Iraqi territory," Summers warned.

"Indian Country."

Summers laughed, but the sound was strained. "Yeah. Got to watch for those arrows, buddy."

Wasn't that the truth? Only this time the arrows were rocket grenade launchers. Craig compressed his lips, feeling moisture form on his upper lip. He had a wild urge to scratch at his temple, where the sweat tickled unmercifully. He couldn't, of course. Both hands were fully involved on keeping his aircraft straight and level.

The machine vibrated around him, vibrated with him, and he felt the heart of it beating in time with his own pounding heart, which was throbbing with unleashed adrenaline and fear. Behind him was their precious cargo: two marine reconnaissance teams they were to drop close to the enemy line. Their mission: to destroy their defenses and put such a scare into them that they'd hightail it and run. What Craig had heard about the elite Republican Guard was that they weren't cowards; they'd stand and fight.

They flew lower, and Craig strained his eyes, trying to focus on the screen located at the front of his helmet, revealing through a series of radar images the rolling desert dunes, now dangerously close. He could hear Summers's altitude information, the twenty-five-year-old's voice tighter than usual. This wasn't a practice run. No, this was for real. They'd already made one run—and had a harrowing close call—but had managed to drop their human cargo at precisely the right place and time.

This was the second run, different and more dangerous, as far as Craig was concerned. He knew the men of these recon units. They had come from
Camp
Reed
, where he was based, and he'd trained nearly a year with them—dropping them off, picking them up. Always before they'd been training runs, with no real danger beyond him screwing up at the controls and crashing them into a hill. It was his greatest apprehension—his only one. Still, he was known as the pilot in his squadron who took the most chances.

He'd been the only pilot willing to dangle his chopper dangerously close to some high electric power lines in order to rescue a Recon who had busted his leg in the middle of nowhere. He'd hung in midair as the man was hoisted to safety, then had flown him to medical help at the nearby base hospital.

Craig concentrated so hard on the all-terrain monitor in front of him that he felt as if his head might explode with pain. The hills of
Camp
Reed
were far different from the shifting sand dunes of
Iraq
. The winds here were haphazard, constantly changing the dunes' height and size. There was no such thing as stable terrain in this war, he thought as he felt the harness bite deeply into his shoulders, his hands cramp as he gripped the controls. Desert Storm was a crap shoot, in his opinion.

His mind shifted back to the cabin and his precious cargo. He'd gone drinking and carousing with these Recons. The man who had broken his leg last year was Captain Cal Talbot—not related, but since they shared a last name, Craig had volunteered for the rescue. It had been a windy day, and a gust could easily have thrown his chopper into the high-tension lines. After the delicate rescue, his friendship with
Cal
had begun. Now they were closer than brothers, and
Cal
was back there with his men, greasepaint concealing their white skin, wearing the most technically advanced equipment in the world, ready to be dropped behind enemy lines.

Cal
was married. Craig had visited him at the
Camp
Reed
hospital when
Cal
's wife, Linda, had delivered their second beautiful red-haired daughter. Craig had stood outside the window of the maternity ward with
Cal
while his friend cried and laughed, pointing to the tiny girl wrapped in a pink blanket. He'd stood, big hands pressed against the glass, smiling with pride and telling Craig they were going to name her Claire, after Craig's mother, with the middle name
Lynn
, after Linda's mother.

Craig had been dumbstruck that Cal and Linda would name their new baby in his honor. But
Cal
had laughed, brushed the tears out of his eyes, and put his hands on Craig's shoulders and told him they'd wanted to do something to thank him for rescuing his miserable neck that day he'd broken his leg and nicked an artery out in the bush.

"But," Craig rasped, shaken, "I didn't do anything anyone else wouldn't have done."

"Hey,"
Cal
chided, sliding his arm around his friend's shoulder and pointing to the baby in her crib, "if it hadn't been for you, Talbot, I wouldn't have been here to make that kid, much less see her born. No, Linda and I wanted to surprise you. We can't name her Craig, but when I found out your mom's name was Claire, we thought it was the next best thing."
Cal
turned, tears in his eyes. "To remind us of the man who risked his life to save mine."

Craig stared openmouthed at
Cal
, not knowing what to say or do. "Well…no one has ever done something like this for me…"

Patting him on the shoulder,
Cal
released him. "That's okay, pardner. In my book, you're the best damn leatherneck pilot there is. There are three things I love more than life in this world, and that's my wife and my two daughters." He poked a finger at the window, becoming very serious. "Craig, you don't get it, do you? You're standing there with that funny look on your face again. There are pilots and there are
pilots.
I've flown with you nearly two years now at Reed, and you're the best. Why shouldn't I honor you in some way? That little girl will know why she's named Claire when she can understand it all. She'll be proud, too, the way Linda and I are of you."

Craig felt embarrassment mixed with a deep satisfaction as he stared down at the tiny baby with the thick thatch of red hair.
Cal
stood by him, sharing a profound, awed silence as they watched his daughter sleep.

"You know,"
Cal
said in a low, off-key voice, "I was never much one for kids. At least, not until I met Linda and married her. I came out of a pretty rugged family—my folks got divorced, and I was a pawn between two war camps after that. I told Linda I was afraid to have children, but she convinced me otherwise. She came out of a real stable family, just the opposite of mine. She was one of six kids. Can you imagine? Six kids?"

"No, I can't," Craig answered.

"Big family," Cal said with a laugh, "and a happy one. When Linda got pregnant with Samantha, I freaked. I was afraid I couldn't be a good father. I was afraid I'd end up like my old man, a kind of absent shadow, you know? Linda just laughed at me. I remember the first time she took my hand and pressed it against her belly to feel Sammy moving. I was kneeling next to the couch, and I just busted into tears, of all things. I mean, to feel that little thing inside her moving around…Man, it was a miracle or something."

Craig stole a look at his friend's somber profile. "What do you mean?"

Chuckling,
Cal
said, "From the moment I felt Sammy kicking, I began to lose my fear. Linda had a lot of long, serious talks with me. Yes, I'd be absent from time to time because of my Recon work. But at least I'd be home after my watch. By the time Sammy was born, I wasn't panicking anymore."

Propping his hands on his narrow hips,
Cal
grinned proudly. "Linda helped make the transition from wild bachelor to father easy for me."

"That's saying a lot," Craig teased. He knew
Cal
had been known by the nickname Wild Man, earned in his earlier years in the Corps.

Sighing,
Cal
pressed his hands against the glass again. "Look at her, Craig. Isn't she tiny? So perfectly formed? Isn't she a miracle? Claire lived nine months in Linda and look at her. She's so pretty."

It had been hell on Craig to watch Linda and Cal kiss one last time at the
Camp
Reed
airport before he and his team had boarded the transport plane that would eventually take them halfway around the world to a staging area in
Saudi Arabia
. Craig had been part of that deployment, and he'd hugged Linda goodbye, too, feeling very much a part of her and
Cal
's extended family.

"Bring him back home safe to me, Craig," Linda had whispered as she released him, tears in her eyes. "Please take care of him—for all of us."

Choking back tears that lodged in his throat, Craig rasped, "Don't worry, Linda, I will."