Acts of Honor, page 24
Anger flashed through Mrs. Brandt’s eyes. “Miranda didn’t just have an affair. She chose Jarrod’s best friend since grade school as her partner. Right or wrong, that was a calculated move on her part. She’d become disillusioned with being a military wife by then. She turned bitter, and then vindictive. She wanted to hurt my son. And she did.”
Double betrayal. Wife and best friend. Unfortunately, also typical. But because Sara cared so much for Joe, her emotional reaction wasn’t distant or typical. She felt his pain. And his rage. “I imagine that hurt him deeply.” God, don’t let my voice falter. Not now.
“Enough to get him killed.”
Sara set down her cup. “I don’t understand.”
Mrs. Brandt touched the petals of a sunflower in the squatty vase. “Jarrod caught them together, Dr. West. He left. Miranda had second thoughts. Within a week, she was begging Jarrod to forgive her. She realized what he had known all along. She needed him. Jarrod was her rock. Her security and safe harbor during storms. He always had been.”
“But Jarrod refused to forgive her?”
“He refused to take her back. It was . . . difficult. He loved her, but he understood that refusing her was what she needed to grow as a person.” Sadness tinged her tone. “Unfortunately, Jarrod didn’t factor in his own growth. He volunteered for every high-risk mission that came along. Colonel Foster told us that.” Mrs. Brandt sighed, and her voice trembled, turned watery. “Jarrod never talked to me or my husband about any of this. After he . . . died”—she paused and pulled in a deep breath—“Colonel Foster shared it with me. Jarrod was a very private person. I guess he didn’t want to cause more tension between us and Miranda and Royce, so he talked to the colonel.” Pain flooded Mrs. Brandt’s eyes. “Those two sat at our table for Christmas dinner for three years, knowing they were betraying our son. I can’t forgive them for that. I just . . . can’t.”
Sara’s heart went out to the mother. “I’m so sorry.”
Sara waited for her to get through the hurt and anger so she could go on.
“That’s why Jarrod volunteered for all those suicide missions. Because he felt he had nothing to come home to anymore.”
Sara shouldn’t do it. Couldn’t not do it. “No, Mrs. Brandt,” Sara softly disagreed. “Jarrod might have felt he had nothing left to lose, but that isn’t the real reason he put his life on the line in those missions.” On this, Sara knew she was on firm ground. “The reason he did that was because he believed in what he was doing. And because the others who would have taken on the missions he refused to take did have something left to lose.”
“That’s what Colonel Foster said.” A soft smile of pride and remembrance touched her lips. “He said all Jarrod did was acts of honor.”
Sara’s throat went thick. “They were.” This, Foster had done right. The way he had treated Mrs. Brandt and had handled this situation, giving Jarrod’s mother some comforting words, had been exactly right.
“The colonel really respected Jarrod. It was mutual. Jarrod thought the world of him.” Mrs. Brandt scooted back on the sofa cushion and crossed her legs. “He helped us a great deal after Jarrod died—still checks on us every month. On the fifteenth, we get a phone call. You can set your watch by Jack Foster.”
Mrs. Brandt clearly didn’t consider Foster corrupt. In her book, he wasn’t just a good guy but a great one. And judging from his dedication and devotion to Jarrod’s family, Sara waffled on her own opinion. Maybe Foster was a good guy. These certainly weren’t the actions of a man seeking only a star for his shoulder.
“Colonel Foster tried to help Miranda, too. She had a hard time with Jarrod’s death. Even with Royce there to help her, she struggled.” Mrs. Brandt sobered. “That there is no security is a hard lesson to learn, Dr. West.”
“Yes, it is. Harder for some than others.” In her practice, Sara had seen refusing to accept that truth destroy many lives.
Mrs. Brandt digressed, talking wistfully about Jarrod as a child, a teen. Sara listened, thinking that remembering was good for the mother in the woman, and feeling guilty as hell about that mother mourning a son who was not dead.
Solemn, her thoughts riveted back to Foster. He was held in high regard here, but Sara’s signals on him and his character remained mixed. She couldn’t slot him with any degree of certainty. Foster habitually did whatever he deemed necessary to accomplish his job, and yet his treatment of the Brandts and even Miranda proved he also had a compassionate side. At least, he did when being compassionate didn’t interfere with his job.
Had he kept in touch with the other families, too?
Probably not. Unless the patients were all Shadow Watchers, and that was extremely unlikely. Yet, he had kept tabs on Sara, Lisa, and Brenda—and even on their brother, Steve.
Could all of her patients have been Shadow Watchers?
Sara drove back toward Braxton, passing the store with the broken phone and the old-fashioned Coke machine. Her tires kicked up a trail of dust behind her.
She had left Mrs. Brandt’s house and had gone to a motel, where she had phoned each of the other PTSD patients’ families, with the exception of Brenda. All of them lived too far away to visit personally.
Then she had spread out all the information gathered on the bed and had compared each file to all of the others. Some damaged men had not been in Intel jobs. Lou was an arms expert. Ray, a medic. Michael, a contract negotiator. David and Jarrod were Shadow Watchers. ADR-40 was a scientist whose primary duty dealt with a project developing laser technology.
Aside from all of them being transferred to Braxton from IWPT, the only common bond noted was that most of the patients, including Jarrod, had been in relationships with faithless spouses or significant others. From her research, Sara knew that bond was significant. Time after time in the research documents, infidelity had been cited as the number one vulnerability of soldiers in the application of psychological warfare.
Sara also felt certain that Jarrod no longer had as many memory blanks as he claimed. His survival instincts had kicked in, and he had incorporated a protective device to insulate himself from betrayal. She couldn’t be angry with Jarrod about that. Not knowing how he felt about her and about his relationship with Miranda. But knowing that he was insulating himself and that he wasn’t as diminished as he had led her to believe, did alleviate some guilt about Sara taking advantage of him.
She braked at a stop sign, waited for a blue Jeep to pass, and then drove on down the pothole-filled road leading to the gate. Maybe falling in love with a patient was wrong. But it was easier to bear than falling in love with a patient who was mentally diminished.
A flash from the ditch snagged Sara’s gaze. Someone jumped out onto the dirt road. She slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop. Reaston?
He walked around the hood of the car. Shaking hard, having no idea what this meant but damn certain it couldn’t be good, Sara rolled down the window. “Reaston, what are you doing out here?”
The sergeant stepped up to the window. “Saving your ass, ma’am.” He opened the driver’s door. “Scoot over.”
Sara slid over the gearshift and into the passenger seat, dumbfounded.
Reaston got behind the wheel, shut the door, and then slapped the gearshift into Drive. “This car is a rental. You phoned U.S.A. Rentals to pick it up outside the gate yesterday afternoon. An agent for the company did so. You have not been outside the facility at any time since yesterday morning. Understand?”
Sara nodded, afraid to say anything for fear of saying the wrong thing.
Reaston stomped the gas, drove down the dirt road toward the gate. About two hundred yards out, he slowed down and aimed right for the ditch.
Sara grabbed the dash, bracing herself. “What the hell are you doing?”
The car rolled though the ditch and into the woods beyond it. Reaston cut the engine. “The car will be here. You’ll need it shortly. Keep the keys in a safe, accessible place.” He passed them to her. “Go in through the gate. Koloski will let you in. I have the flu. When you get inside the facility, skip the security points. People have been briefed. Just avoid Mick Bush or your ass is grass. Once you’re inside, get lost. Somewhere obscure, where you don’t usually go. Whatever you do, stay the hell away from the lab. William’s there.”
“Okay.” Sara couldn’t get over this. The Braxton underground had galvanized to help her. But why? “I don’t get it, Reaston. People won’t even talk to me. Why are they doing this? Why are you?”
“Look, Major. You didn’t get it. You still don’t. We didn’t know you, and you didn’t have a clue we were all lifers—hell, you didn’t know you were a lifer. The gate at Braxton swings one way. In. To get out—unless they want you out temporarily—you leave one way. Toes up. Who wants to pass on news like that?”
They hadn’t been afraid of being tagged security risks by associating with her. They hadn’t wanted to be the ones to shatter her illusions with the truth about her leaving Braxton.
She let that sink in. It felt right. Especially in light of all those helping her now. “Does anyone know I’ve been gone?”
“Not for fact.” Reaston fingered the door handle, clearly eager to get out of here before they got caught. “Fontaine is suspicious, and Mick Bush is certain, but he can’t prove you left the facility. I don’t know what the hell you did to tick him off, but he’s out for blood.”
“I don’t know, either. But if Fontaine’s had him looking for me, and he’s riding Bush as hard as he’s ridden me, that’s more than reason enough right there.”
“Fontaine is on his back. He’s on everyone’s back. Pulling personal inspections throughout the facility.”
Great. Just great. A raging bull. Exactly what she needed.
Jarrod heard the buzzer.
He looked toward the door, hoping to see Sara. Instead, he saw Fontaine, wearing a brown suit, a bright purple tie—obviously Mrs. Fontaine hadn’t returned yet—and a frown too big for his face.
“Where is Dr. West?” he asked. “I was told she was in with you.” Fontaine let his gaze slide down Jarrod, shoulders to toes. “And where did you get street clothes?”
“They’re part of my therapy.” Jarrod slid a hand into his pocket. “You didn’t pass Dr. West in the hallway?”
“No, I did not.”
“Hmm. Well, I can’t imagine why not. She just left here.”
Fontaine pursed his lips. “Did she say where she was going?”
“To check on her other patients.”
“I see.” Fontaine stepped closer. “I understand you’re making significant progress.”
“So she says.” Jarrod shrugged. “Personally, I don’t see it.”
Fontaine stepped close to Jarrod, turned his back to the camera, and dropped his voice to a faint drone. “Joe, what is Operation Red Haze?”
A memory rammed through Jarrod with the force of a lightning bolt. He struggled to suppress any outward reaction and lied. “I don’t know.” Affecting a vacant look, he reached for his crayons. “Am I supposed to know?”
Fontaine studied Joe hard, looking for any crack in his demeanor, any sign of deception or deceit. “No. No, you aren’t.”
Joe fingered the flap of the crayon box. “I like color. Blue and green and orange and . . .”
Fontaine left the Isolation room, his black loafers squeaking on the floor pads.
From under his lashes, Jarrod covertly watched Fontaine go, futility and frustration making mincemeat of his stomach. Sara was in danger. He loved her, wanted to help, and to protect her. Stuck in here, he could do so little, and every instinct in his body warned him that she needed so much.
Warned him that she was in lethal danger.
That she was a part of Operation Red Haze.
eighteen
Beth was in the med room, but the call couldn’t wait. Shank spoke softly into the phone. “Sara’s on her way back in, sir.”
“Good. Thank you, Captain.” Foster cleared his throat “Has she fallen in love with him yet?”
Foster, talking about emotions? To her? Despite his lecture on trusting leaders, Shank didn’t trust this behavior, or him. Would a yes or a no get Sara killed? “I’m not sure,” Shank said. “Maybe.”
“Unacceptable, Captain. Yes, or no.”
“I’d say no, but I think yes.” Why did he always push for definitive answers when typically there weren’t ones? Did he suspect Shank hadn’t been honest? “Joe’s definitely got it bad for her.”
“She’s fighting her conscience,” Foster speculated.
“In a huge way,” Shank agreed. “Trying to keep things ethical.”
“Excellent.” Foster let out a satisfied sigh. “Excellent.”
So Sara had acted exactly as he’d expected her to—again. “Have you gotten clearance to get her into IWPT, sir? That’s going to be the first thing she asks me.”
“No, but don’t worry. The plan is unfolding exactly as anticipated.”
Skepticism rippled through Shank. How could things be unfolding as anticipated? There were more uncertainties in this operation than holes in a chunk of Swiss cheese. Foster had to be blowing smoke. “I suggest you somehow let Dr. Fontaine know that. He’s been nipping at her heels like a rabid dog.”
“He has been handled, Captain.”
“May I ask how, sir?”
Foster’s voice chilled. “This afternoon, the director received a memo, reminding him that all military personnel must receive psychological-warfare training. The situation is under control.”
An icy shiver crept up Shank’s spine. Now why would Foster expose himself to remind Fontaine about psych-warfare training?
Only one reason came to mind, and it terrified Shank. Foster was working with Fontaine. But he couldn’t be, could he?
All he wants is that star. That’s all he wants. And if Braxton and IWPT go down—without him being associated—he’ll get it.
Oh, God. Foster had double-crossed them all.
Sara ran into Shank in the hallway outside ADR-40’s room.
“Thank God you’re back.” Shank stuffed the keys to the med room into her pocket. “Fontaine has been personally searching the facility for you, and Mick Bush has been hanging on to friendlies as tight as a damn leech.”
“Does Fontaine or Bush know I’ve been gone?’
“They’re suspicious, but I don’t think they can prove it. If they could, they’d have assembled a Security team to find you and bring you back. The friendlies have been stonewalling. William hasn’t helped.” Shank twisted her lips in a respectable frown. “He’s been spouting off how pissed he is at Fontaine about the demotion and fine, but I’m not buying it. He might be ticked enough not to report you AWOL with Fontaine, but I wouldn’t bank on it. William can’t be trusted. Flat out.”
AWOL—absent without leave. Another acronym. “What about Bush?” Sara asked, licking at her dry lips. “Reaston said he was out for blood.”
“He is.” Shank stepped into an alcove near the end of the hall. “Bush is a fanatic. That’s what makes him so good at what he does in Security. It also makes duping him darned difficult because he takes any irregularity personally. He noticed that your car was missing from the parking lot.”
“I gathered that when I got back.”
Shank paled. “You didn’t drive it back in then.”
“No, Reaston hid it.”
“Good. Joe arranged that.” Shank swiped at her thighs. “We covered it, but you can bet your ass Bush reported it to Fontaine.”
“So do I go to Fontaine and tell him I know he’s been looking for me, or do I wait for him to find me?”
“Go to him,” Shank said. “That should throw him for a loop. But see Joe first. He’s been worried sick about you, and really feeling the pinch because he’s stuck in here while you’re out there alone.”
He’d definitely recovered. Definitely. And he wanted to protect her. Warmed by that, Sara nodded. “Did you get Foster?”
“Yeah. He says you getting to IWPT is handled.” Shank’s expression darkened from gloomy to glum. “I don’t trust him anymore, Sara. All of this, and he says everything’s going according to plan.”
“Sounds impossible. But with Foster, who knows? Could be possible, feasible, and logical.”
“Could be,” Shank agreed. “But if it is, then why do I have this gaping hole in my gut that’s burning acid?”
“I don’t know. If it helps, I’ve got the same symptoms.” Unsure if that was reason to rejoice or mourn, Sara headed toward Isolation.
Koloski buzzed her through, and Sara entered Joe’s room.
Relief flooded his face, and Joe rushed to the door. He clasped her hands in his. “Sara, are you okay?”
She nodded. “I’m safe.”
“We need to talk.” He blinked deliberately. “I remember. I think, all of it.”
Sara whispered back, knowing the equipment wouldn’t be able to pick it up. “All of what?”
“Operation Red Haze.”
“We’ll have to wait.” She darted a glance at the Plexiglas window. Empty. “Fontaine’s on a witch hunt for me.”
“I know. He was here.” Joe avoided the camera. “You should be covered.”
“I’ve got to go placate him, and then I’ll come back, and we’ll go outside. You can tell me about Red Haze there.”
“Okay.” Joe blinked, and his voice went soft. “I’m glad you came back.”
A rush of pure warmth spread through her chest. For Joe, those were difficult words to speak. She blinked back and smiled. “I’ll always come back to you, Joe.”
“Careful, Doc.” He didn’t smile, but his eyes lit up from the bottoms. “I might hold you to that.”
“I’m counting on it.” Sara squeezed his hands, then stepped to the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
The door closed behind her, and Sara walked past the Isolation nurses’ station. The Plexiglas distorted Koloski’s reflection. William stood beside him.
