“Who are you, Florence Nightingale?” Matt laughed. It was a defensive mechanism for him. An attractive woman was in his hotel room, and he had the distinct impression that she was bothered by something. “By the way, how did I get naked?”
Again she averted her eyes. “Pino undressed you … and I’m not sure what else he did.”
“Not again. C’mon,” Matt said, standing and wincing at the pain. She was flashing a movie-star smile back at him, chuckling a bit.
“Thought that might get you moving. Here’s a bio on Rathburn. You two will be going to Manila, then you’ll be further assigned from there. We talked to your agency.”
“Further assigned?”
“I assumed you would have a better feel than I for what that meant,” she said, smiling.
He looked at his shoulder, which in all honesty felt okay.
“You really don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember what?”
“It’s just as well,” she said. “Ten minutes. Be dressed and downstairs.”
“Okay. One question?”
“One.”
“Are you going to Manila?”
Meredith walked to the window, which provided an expansive view of the Pacific. Closer in were palm trees and beautiful horseshoe beaches that appeared as a series of semicircles beneath the bluffs.
“No. I have to get back to DC. I was the advance team for Mr. Rathburn’s Asia trip. I have briefed him on everything he needs to know, the trip is set, and I’m heading back.”
“Don’t sound too happy about it,” Matt said.
“How would you like to be the expert on the region and get punted by a bunch of women?”
“Women?”
She turned and looked at him.
“You ever hear of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service? DACOWITS?”
“I’m not even going there with that acronym. And no,” Matt said, pulling his washed and pressed cargo pants over his legs.
“They are going with Mr. Rathburn to Manila, Okinawa, South Korea, and Hawaii on the way back in order to assess the status of women in the military.”
“You’re a chick, why can’t you do that?” Matt was pulling his shirt over his bare chest, but needed some help with the shoulder.
Meredith walked over, lifted the shirt, and slid it over his arm so that Matt didn’t have to raise it above shoulder level. He felt her place her soft hand on the small of his back as she used her other hand to manipulate the shirt.
“We talked, didn’t we?” Matt asked.
Meredith moved around to his front once her chore was complete.
“Yes. You were doped up, but we talked,” she said.
“That’s about the only way to get me to talk. Did we watch Oprah, too?”
Meredith laughed. “No, but you told me about your brother Zachary and how much you love him and your sister, Karen.”
Matt shrugged. “As long as I’m not remembering stuff, you’re in my room watching me get dressed. How was I?”
“I’m not smoking a cigarette, am I?”
“Ouch.”
“Actually, I was unaware that you were naked, but time is of the essence here, and you didn’t respond to two phone calls and five minutes of knocking on the door.”
“So a little Givenchy did the trick?”
“Works every time.” She smiled, picked up his rucksack, and said, “C’mon. We’ve got an assistant secretary of defense waiting on us.”
“Who gives a shit?” Matt said. “That’s just some dude who sucked up to the right guy at the right time. Give me a minute to do some personal hygiene here.”
Matt did his business in the bathroom, brushed his teeth with the gratis incidentals that he guessed always came with thousand-dollar-a-night rooms. He studied his four days of growth and decided not to shave. If he was riding shotgun with a defense department assistant something or other, he wanted to look either like security or galley help.
As he exited the bathroom, Meredith turned and began walking at a fast clip along the hallway. They took the elevator down to the lobby and immediately walked out and got into one of two waiting Suburbans.
“He in the other one?”
“Yes. Now I’m warning you that he’s got a bit of a temper.”
“That doesn’t bother me,” Matt said, a confused look on his face.
“Then what does?”
“That you’re not going.”
Matt’s compliment seemed to stagger her for a moment, but she regained her composure, and said, “Thank you. I wish I was going, too. I’ve not been to Manila or Okinawa, though I’ve been to Korea.”
“I just think you’re hot.” Matt smiled. He followed up his awkward comment with, “Do me a favor. When you get to DC, if you have the chance, tell my sister I said ‘Hi’ and that I’m okay. She worries, and sometimes I’m not as good as I should be about keeping up. Mom and Dad are getting up there, you know, and she’s trying to hold everything together.” He pressed a phone number into one of Meredith’s hands.
Meredith looked at him, then at her hand, and said, “I will.”
“But before you do that,” he said, looking at her, “take these and make sure his family knows he died a hero, and I want you to close the loop on where his teammates are and that they’re okay.”
Matt placed Peterson’s dog tags into her other outstretched palm as they bounced along in the back of the Suburban. Her eyes dropped to the two metal strips with Peterson’s name and other identifying information. He closed her hand around them and held it.
“I can joke around with the best of them,” he said. “But I never forget my mission.”
Chapter 26
As the plane taxied along the Palau International Airport runway, Matt’s thoughts reflected back to his foggy day with Meredith. He honestly couldn’t recall much about their conversation, though much of it had occurred poolside, where he remembered falling asleep. How he had gotten the room, or even to the room, was anyone’s guess.
He was facing the rear of the airplane and seated across from Assistant Secretary of Defense Rathburn. The U.S. Air Force Gulfstream 5 jet ambled along the runway and lifted slowly off the ground, then banked hard to the right, turning from south to west to northwest as it climbed to altitude.
Matt had actually been mistaken for security by one of the female officers belonging to the advisory committee that Meredith had mentioned. She had handed him a bag to carry as she ascended the steps to the aircraft. Once he saw she was inside the airplane, Matt walked over to a local, who was toying with the auxiliary power unit for the Gulfstream, and said, “On behalf of the President of the United States, please accept this as a small token of appreciation for all that you do for us.”
The man smiled back at him with what teeth he had left in his mouth, took the shopping bag, and nodded. For all Matt knew he had just given the man a bagful of thongs, which he was sure would be put to good use. He smiled at the image of returning to Palau and all of the ground maintenance crew wearing thongs around their heads like surgical masks.
Secretary Rathburn and Matt sat on opposite sides of a foldout table in the forward cabin. The female delegation was in the aft cabin, which was separated by a pocket door. Rathburn placed a small personal digital assistant into his briefcase, leaned back, and slid the door shut, saying, “Bunch of women,” as if he disagreed with their presence. Matt got the distinct opposite impression as he observed the few minutes of interaction between Rathburn and one woman in particular. His ever-churning mind began to wonder if Meredith’s simmering rage wasn’t jealousy as opposed to professional displeasure.
“Meredith told me your story. Fascinating,” Rath-burn said.
Matt couldn’t see what was so fascinating about a dead American and chaos in Mindanao, so he didn’t take the bait and remained silent.