The Trojan Sea (21 page)

“Grateful he wasn’t on death row,” Broad said. He laughed at the crestfallen look on Stuart’s face. It was a high-pitched, giggling laughter that made Stuart think again of a bird.

“I hope I’ll have more than that to be thankful for,” Stuart mumbled.

Broad leaned across his cluttered desk and folded his hands. “These things do take time, so meanwhile, don’t worry.” The lawyer leaned back. “There are many defenses open to you. Besides, I know Ledbetter, he’s a good cop, and Smatter will self-destruct on the witness stand. So you just go home for now and enjoy your vacation. I’ll be in contact.”

“We haven’t talked fee,” Stuart said.

Broad adjusted his half-frame reading glasses and scanned the folder in front of him. “We’ll start with a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer. For a case like this, that should cover most of it. Of course, there could be complications. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“I just paid twenty-five thousand for bail. That wiped me out. I’ll have to sell my boat, but I only have maybe forty thousand dollars’ equity in it.”

“Then you need to find another ten thousand,” Broad said. “Of course, I can carry a loan for you at, say, eighteen-percent interest for the balance.”

“Of course,” Stuart muttered, wondering what he had gotten into. Still, the lawyer did come with the highest recommendations from people who should know. That was one of the side benefits from living in his neighborhood.

Broad tried to be reassuring. “I don’t think this case will ever go to trial.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” Stuart said.

“Not to panic,” Broad said.

Easy for you to say,
Stuart thought.

Outside, Stuart sat in Jenny’s car and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel.
What now?
Without thinking, he started the car and headed for Annapolis. He drove on mental autopilot, and reality only kicked in when he turned off Highway 50 for the short drive into town.
Will Jane understand?
He hoped so. He ran some phrases through his mind, but they all sounded trite when he said them aloud.

Since it was about the time Jane broke for lunch, he was surprised when he found
Temptress
locked. He looked around, half expecting to see Jane working on a nearby boat. But there was no sign of her. He walked the docks to the marina office, where the manager said she was working at O’Brien’s Oyster Bar at the foot of Main Street. “Tell her to get her pretty butt back here. We’ve got a shakedown.” Stuart said he would relay the message. He smiled as he walked. He had never thought of Jane as having a pretty backside. But when he considered it, she did.

He pushed through the door to O’Brien’s and immediately saw her taking an order at a nearby table. He sat at the bar waiting for a chance to talk to her. “’Ey, sailor,” she finally said, putting on her best Cockney accent. “Got a light?”

This was Jane, straightforward and down-to-earth, all that he wanted in a woman. Suddenly everything felt better. “I wish I did. Bad news. I’ve got to sell
Temptress
. Lawyer’s fees.”

The bad news was like water off a duck’s back. “No problem, I’ll buy her. I’ve been saving, and now I’ve got two jobs. That should make any banker happy.”

“I need pretty much top dollar,” he told her.

“She’s worth it.” She studied his face for a moment. “Bad day?” He nodded an answer. “I know the cure. Let me finish here, and I’ll meet you on
Temptress.
”

“You’ve got a shakedown cruise,” he said.

“Perfect. We’ll do it on someone else’s dime. Go get the boat ready.” The way she walked away sent his libido off the Richter scale.

It was one of those perfect afternoons for sailing that happens two or three times a year. Even though it was the end of November, the weather was unseasonably warm, sixty-five degrees. The wind was blowing out of the east at a constant twelve miles an hour, and the water was calm, with only a little wind chop. Puffy clouds chased each other across a blue sky, and the weatherman predicted more of the same and a full moon for that night.

The boat that needed a shakedown was an old forty-five-foot wooden ketch that had just come out of the yard after a complete refit. Her brightwork gleamed with care, and the cabin had been completely redone. Stuart had the sail covers off and the boat ready to sail when Jane arrived. She threw a bag of food on board, along with two blankets and heavy jackets. “Start the engine,” she commanded, and within moments she was aboard and at the wheel as they backed out of the slip. They had barely cleared Spa Creek when she headed up into the wind to raise the sails. Stuart worked the halyards, enjoying the physical exercise. Jane played the helm as the boat fell off the wind and the sails snapped, starting to pull.

She cut the engine, trimmed the sails, and turned the helm over to Stuart as they headed into the Chesapeake. For the next two hours she checked every system on the boat and poked into corners he never knew existed. At one point she threw a pack of condoms out the companionway. “Put ’em in the abandon-ship bag!” she called.

“That’s my kind of emergency!” he yelled back.

She stuck her head out the companionway and gave him a patronizing look. “They’re good for protecting wounds on a finger, storing stuff, or protecting equipment like a handheld radio or GPS. In a pinch they can even be used as a canteen, like a water balloon.” That was Jane, supremely practical. She came on deck and adjusted the standing rigging. Finally she returned to the cockpit and retrimmed the boat. Stuart could feel it respond, sailing in perfect balance and moving faster through the water. She darted back into the cabin and came back with two Dos Equis beers. She sat down beside him, a look of contentment on her face.

“Now I know why people love these old boats,” he said.

“She is lovely,” Jane murmured.

And she was.

Late that evening they anchored ten miles south of Annapolis in a cove near Curtis Point. The ketch rode easily with a gentle rocking motion as Jane cuddled next to Stuart in the cockpit. She listened without saying a word as he recited all that had happened. “Ramjet is such an asshole,” he said. Silence from Jane. “I’ve done nothing wrong, and I’m getting hit with shit from every side.” She got up and disappeared down the companionway. She was back in a moment with a blanket. She dropped it on the seat beside Stuart and straddled him, her knees locked against his hips.

“Talk later,” she murmured, pulling at his shirt.

Jane was lying on top of him, the blanket pulled over them, their clothes in a pile on the cockpit sole. Her cheek was against his neck, and he could feel her heart beat against his chest. “Does it get any better?” he asked.

“It always gets better,” she said, back to four words or less.

Then, “Will you marry me?”

She rose up and stared at him. He held his breath, waiting for her answer. “I love you,” she said. “No.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Why not?”

“Because I love you.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

She had to explain. “Mike, bad things happen to people all the time. It’s not their fault, but they have to cope. That’s what life is all about. You’re the sweetest guy I know. I love the way we fit together when we’re making love, and I feel safe with you. I want to be with you, but I want the Mike Stuart I saw when we were running for safe harbor in Cuba, not what I see now.” It was the longest speech she’d ever made.

“What do you see now?”

“A beat-me boy. Believe it or not, you’ve led a charmed life. Now, for the first time, you’ve hit a real rough spot. Learn to cope.” She got up and dressed. “Time to go back.”

“Jane, I love you.”

“I know.”

“Does this mean we’re finished?”

She gave him a look he couldn’t read. “No. I’m still with you.”

The Old Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C.

General Franklin Bernard Butler, better known as Bernie to his friends, came to his feet when Special Agent Toni Moreno-Mather waddled into his office. He felt a surge of fatherly instinct at the sight of the pregnant woman and smiled. “Thank you for coming over so promptly,” he said, wanting to apologize for her drive from Andrews Air Force Base and the hassle of finding a parking spot. “I hope you didn’t have to walk too far.”

She settled into a chair. “There’s a garage on G Street about a block away. I needed the exercise.”

“Your first?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m due in March.”

“Are you going to stay in?”

Toni shook her head. “My husband wants me to go the mommy track. We don’t need the money, and it’s what I really want to do.” She didn’t mention how difficult her pregnancy had become and how the walk from the parking garage had tired her.

Butler nodded. “Trust me, it’s worth it.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his fingers. “You are the agent heading the investigation into Lieutenant Colonel Michael Stuart?” She nodded in answer and fished a notebook out of her handbag. The bag clunked when she dropped it on the floor from the weight of her semiautomatic nine-millimeter Glock. “As you probably know,” he said, “Colonel Stuart has been a key player on a special committee formed at the direction of the president.” He stared at his hands, wondering how much he should tell her. “I’m worried about possible security implications.”

She flipped the pages of her notebook. “I did wonder about that,” she said. “Isn’t he a bit low-ranking for such an assignment?”

Butler felt like grinding his teeth. “He was selected because he’s our resident expert in the area.”

She glanced at her notes. “I was under the impression that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was managed by the Defense Logistic Agency.”

“It is,” he replied, not willing to say more.

“Further,” she said, “you seem to have taken a special interest in Colonel Stuart. You kept him on the committee when Colonel Priestly wanted to replace him.”

“Colonel Priestly is a fine officer, but we needed a technician.”

“Right. And you canceled Colonel Stuart’s assignment to Germany.” No answer from Butler. She checked her notes. “And you appeared at his arraignment hearing to speak on his behalf.”

Butler stood up and walked to a window overlooking the White House. “You don’t miss much. Tell me, do you think he’s guilty?”

“I just go with the evidence.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Toni took a deep breath. “Possibly.” She tried to gauge his reaction. But there was nothing, not even a slight tensing of his shoulders. She decided it was time to turn up the heat. “General, why’s an old spook like you involved with the procurement, supply, and delivery of POL?”

A hard silence came down between them as he stared out the window. After what seemed like an eternity, she thought he made a little chuckle. “What have you heard about me?”

Again she consulted her notes. “You speak Russian like a native and have drifted in and out of the Air Force for years, always reappearing at a higher rank. You were one of the ‘Boys in the Basement’ during the Reagan years, a mover in the Intelligence Support Agency until it was disbanded, led ‘Bernie’s Boys’ during the Kosovo crisis—”

“That was fun,” he allowed.

“And the founder of Checkmate. What’s going down, General?”

“Like I said, you don’t miss much. We’ve had hints from many sources that our Strategic Oil Reserve is destabilizing. Perhaps it’s due to the globalization of the oil companies, the shift of power to the producers, the way international finance functions independent of national control, a combination of all the above, who knows? But the bottom line is that our government is losing control.” She jotted down a short note. “What we’re discussing is classified,” he said. “May I see what you wrote?”

She blushed brightly. “I’d rather you didn’t, General.” He held out his hand and she reluctantly handed him her notebook.

“‘Lying asshole,’” he read. He scowled at her, putting all the force of his rank into his voice. “Agent Mather, disrespect toward a senior officer is a serious offense.” He stopped when he saw her smile.

“You called me, sir. And I know a cover story when I hear one.”

He handed back the notebook. “You were taught well.”

“My mentor was the best. Harry Waldon.”

“I knew Harry,” Butler said, his face softening. The pieces fell into place. “You worked on the Jefferson court-martial at Whiteman.” She nodded in acknowledgment. “That was a good piece of work.”
*

“Can we cut to the chase, sir?”

“Harry did teach you well. What I told you was true enough, as far as it went. The size of the Strategic Oil Reserve is predicated on certain factors, such as the number of producing oil wells in the continental U.S., the capacity of our refineries, the number of oil tankers available, things like that.”

“So what’s Colonel Stuart’s role in all this?”

“He discovered that we could lose access to ninety percent of the tankers we need to supply our forces in the event of a crisis.”

“So who controls the tankers?”

“Good question. When we took a good look, we couldn’t find an answer.”

“There’s more you can’t tell me, right?”

“Correct. Let’s just say we’re trying to head off a potential problem, and what Colonel Stuart discovered may just be the tip of the iceberg.”

“See one rat and you know there’s more in the woodwork,” she said. “So you’re involved because the president is worried that a foreign power is taking a run at our basic infrastructure.”

“Very good, Agent Mather.”

“So that raises the question of who has the resources to do that?”

“You sound just like Harry,” he said. “If you were me, where would you look?”

Toni never hesitated. “China. Remember that spy fiasco at Los Alamos a few years ago and before that the campaign-contribution scandal? How much coincidence do you believe in?”

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” he told her. He held up a hand before she could protest. “Okay, I know it happens. But I don’t like it when it happens to people around me. Stay on top of this. I want to know if any of Stuart’s problems are linked to his work on the committee.”