Amanda spun around, an angry, wordless exclamation bursting from her. Christine sat on the couch, legs crossed, chin supported by her palm, calmly daring her friend and commanding officer to deny the charge.
After a long second Amanda let her held breath escape in a sigh. Denying it in this company would be an act of futility. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, Chris, or maybe I did. I’m not sure myself.”
Christine shot a beseeching glance at the overhead. “I knew it. Pow! The baby seal bites it!”
“What?”
“Nothing, just something I said when Admiral MacIntyre and I were talking about this situation.”
“What!” Appalled, Amanda stared down at the intel. “You were discussing Makara and me with the admiral?”
“Just the potential, not the reality. Don’t have a cow, Amanda Lee: He wouldn’t have a clue about that Little-Nell-done-wrong haze you’ve been wandering around in since you got back from Palau Piri. In most ways Eddie Mac’s as big an innocent as you are.”
Amanda crossed the room and sank down on the couch. “Damn, damn, damn, Chris. I don’t know what to say other than it happened.”
“Well, you can start by sketching in all the really juicy details. It must have been fantastic!”
Amanda glared. “Chris, I slept with the enemy, dammit! I let him, or rather I let myself…”
The little blonde glared back. “Was it or was it not fantastic?”
Amanda groped for the correct words for explanation or self-condemnation and could find neither. “Yes, it was!”
“Good! You’re a classy lady, Boss Ma’am, and I figured that it would take somebody really, really special to make you feel like an idiot.”
Amanda found that she could not help but smile sheepishly. “Thanks, I think. In one way the whole experience was incredible. I don’t how to describe it beyond saying that after a while I just forgot who Makara was and why I was there. We were just two… lovers on this incredibly beautiful island. Chris, assessment, please: Is there any way conceivable that Harconan might not be our pirate king? Any possibility at all?”
Almost sadly, the intel shook her head. “An assessment of all intelligence collected to date indicates that Makara Harconan is our target subject. No valid alternatives have presented themselves. None, and I’ve been looking-hard.”
“Since when?”
“Since you fell a little bit in love with that swashbuckling pirate you’ve dreamed about since you were a little girl.”
“Oh, damn, Chris.” Amanda looked away.
“Can we quit doing Navy for a little bit, please?” Christine received a tight-throated nod in reply.
She slipped her arm around Amanda and rested her head on her shoulder. “It seems like it’s something we all do, you know?” she said softly. “Sooner or later we all meet that one really incredible guy who it’s really, really dumb to get involved with. And we do it anyway and we get all smashed up over it. Then, if we’re lucky, we get past it and go on. I had my turn in college and I thought I was going to die from it, but I didn’t.”
She rocked her friend slightly. “Because you’re such a total, straight edged square, it took longer for it to happen to you. That just makes it harder because you can’t pass it off as kid-stupid.”
She felt the soft fringe of Amanda’s hair as it brushed the side of her face and she shook her head. “No, I can’t pass it off, Chris. I made love with him and now I have to destroy him.”
“Yep, Boss Ma’am, you sure do.”
The rasp of the interphone startled them apart. Amanda straightened and rose to her feet, and Christine watched as she drew an almost visible shell of discipline and control about herself. Her voice was totally level as she picked up the handset.
“Garrett here…. All right, thank you. We’ll be right down. Captain Barberry, the Carlson is now lead ship and you have the watch. Set all A-class security protocols now. We will maintain until we clear port tomorrow. Guns hot. Lethal force is authorized. Good night, Captain.”
She returned the phone to its cradle. “Come along, Chris. Our coach awaits… and thank you.”
The causeway road was a concrete ribbon across Benoa Harbor, linking the ordered arrays of golden work arcs at the port island with the scattered constellations of the shoreside villages. Half a dozen sets of head lights flowed along it, heading inland, the motorcade carrying the task force officers into the island capital.
Precautions had been taken. Cellular communication was being maintained with the ships, a pistol rode under every jacket and in every shoulder bag, and a Marine security guard sat beside the Balinese driver of each of the rented Toyota sedans, an ominously heavy briefcase in his lap.
However, others had taken precautions as well. As the Navy motorcade cleared the causeway road, a second group of vehicles also in contact with a central headquarters and also carrying a heavily armed party of men began to maintain an expert alternating front and rear tail on the convoy.
Taman Werdi Budaya Art Center
1830 Hours, Zone Time: August 20, 2008
Located in the suburbs of the boisterous island capital of Denpasar, the Taman Werdi Budaya Center lingered as a preserve of the old Bali, a place of lotus ponds, delicate gardens, and fantastically decorated Balinese architecture.
Here gathered the elite of a race of artists, the sculptors, the painters, the actors, the musicians, and the dancers, especially the dancers, to perform for the world at the center’s amphitheaters.
The prerequisite preliminary reception was held outside of the theater area in a garden lit by the flicker of oil lanterns. Elliot MacIntyre found the setting exotic and interesting, even while going through the appropriate political motions. Especially as he was in the company of Amanda Garrett.
In the last minutes before the opening of the night’s performance, they found themselves walking slowly along a path that circled the garden’s perimeter, a cool and darkened place away from the core of the talk and forced official joviality.
The unsecured environment made shop talk unwise, and MacIntyre was willing to take advantage of the fact.
“One of the problems I’ve found with the Navy is that while you do see the world, it’s just in glimpses.”
“I know what you mean,” Amanda replied, trailing her fingertips over a piece of path-side statuary, its features half erased by time and exposure. “You catch a taste of something in passing, but the full flavor doesn’t hit you until you’ve had the chance to think about it for a while. Only by then it’s gone and you’re moving on to the next mission, the next tour.”
“There are other ways to live, I suppose.” Eddie Mac hesitated for a moment. “Amanda, have you ever thought about what you’re going to do after the Navy?”
It was her turn to hesitate, a thoughtful expression crossing her shadowed features. “For a time I was, but I sort of gave up on it when you gave me the Sea Fighters. I could never really come up with a solid idea of what I wanted. There were the superficialities, like maybe picking up a consultant’s job somewhere or buying a real cruising boat, but no true vision ever jelled.”
“What about a family?”
“It would be nice,” she replied softly. “I envy you Judy and your sons. But I’m running out of time there. Pretty soon, having children won’t be such a good idea.”