Brooke entered the room, and the energy shifted from the two offspring of mortal enemies brought together by a new, common enemy. “The Intelligence guys will be here in twenty minutes.”
“Where is the bathroom?” Kasogi asked.
“Left, then a left,” Mush said.
Kasogi exited and Brooke looked at Mush. “How have you been, Mush?”
“Better now! I seem to have gotten a clean bill of mental health and I am five feet from you.”
Brooke closed the door. “That’s too far.” She walked toward him as he stood. They embraced and did what could best be described as a Hollywood kiss. Every sleepless night, every longing sigh over the memory of each other’s faces, bodies, and smells was squeezed out from between them, leaving them both enwined in each other’s contours. After the longest kiss of her life, Brooke rested her head on the shoulder-board of his dress khakis and breathed deeply. “How long do we have?”
“Depends if he drank a lot or…”
“No, silly, I mean us.”
“A week.”
“Mmmmm a week! I can work with that.” She nestled in tighter.
She pulled and back touched his jaw, “You shaved! I like it.”
“Yeah, no sense giving the judges something to bitch about.”
They hazarded one more kiss and then reluctantly separated, lest they shock Toshihira upon his return, which happened seconds after they released one another.
After Bill spoke with Joey, he started to consider things he had never dwelled on before. He always thought church was a local thing. Although he was aware of the Pope and Rome, somehow he had never really connected the Pontiff to the local priests, other than as a figurehead. Now a new and somewhat more sinister, if that was the right word, configuration was forming. To that end he asked Marilou to enlighten him on what was becoming the opposing team.
“So Marilou, I want you to take the position of a zealot, a fanatic. I want you to help me understand what I might be dealing with here.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Okay, first question: why would the Knights be operational instead of just ceremonial?”
“The artifacts could be considered the riches of the Church, with their monetary value unfathomable, but their spiritual significance at the heart of Christianity. Rome would go to war to keep them.”
“Actual war?”
“Yes. The Church is very capable of this. Look at the history: the Inquisition, the brutal Holy Wars, death on a grand scale.
“But those conflicts and victories all pre-date the modern era and the current Pope.”
“True, but the power to declare holy war still resides in the Papacy today.”
“The world is much different now,” Bill said.
“Only to you newcomers. We have a long lineage that dwarfs any modern government. The papal realm preceded British royalty by almost nine hundred years. Even the office of president of the US has only been on the world’s stage for some two hundred-plus years. Popes go back almost twenty centuries, to 33 AD.”
“So then, to Rome we are just the upstarts; they never conceded world control. They just let the world be, as long as it didn’t bother them,” Bill said.
“Again, I am speaking in the role of a zealot, but the reason the Roman ruins and remnants of the Caesars have never been touched, left right where they fell, is because the Church wants all who see them never to forget that they won and the pagans, with their mighty edifices, lost.”
“Thanks Marilou, you’ve given me a lot to think about.”
At 7 p.m., Brooke was getting dressed. At 8 p.m., Brooke was still getting dressed. She and Mush were only two floors apart at the Washington Marriot.
The phone rang. “Should I swing by and pick you up?”
Brooke was nowhere near ready, and in fact she was in the middle of her fourth outfit change. She was about to say, “Give me a half-hour more,” when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. She still had the new boots on, but had removed her dress. Looking at herself she said, “Yes, I’m ready. Come get me.”
She ran to the bathroom and checked her makeup. She gave the hair one more brush, checked her teeth for lipstick smear, gave herself one more look over, and headed for the door. On the way she tenuously reached for the hotel robe. As she held it in her hand, she considered it and then placed it back on the bed. At three steps from the door, she turned to retrieve it. There was a knock, she started to put it on, but then carried it to the door. She thought to check the peephole lest she give some poor bellboy a very wrong message. Even distorted by the fisheye lens of the peephole, Mush looked good. She breathed in and went for it.
Mush had his hat in his hand and was fingering the brim. When the door swung open, he was walloped with a thud of invisible energy that literally knocked the air out of him. The hat hit the floor. It took a half a second, but he managed to shut his mouth and put his eyes back in their sockets. Standing before him was the object of many nights of desire. His circuits overloaded as he took her in, in her lacy black bra, panties, and tall boots with giant heels. She was pure sex. The epitome of every male fantasy he had ever dared dabble in. Her physique was cut but not bulky, her curves were perfect and the shape of her legs and tapered thighs just invited him to explore — but instead he stepped into the room, shut the door with his foot, grabbed the robe, and draped it around her. “We need to talk.”
Brooke’s heart immediately stopped. Oh, God, he is married. Shit! Then just as fast and to her amazement, I don’t care I want him, now! Although she had just been embarrassed to the depth of her soul, his eyes were soft and kind, and devoid of any negativity. They actually soothed her, even though in her mind she was melting down. How could I have been so stupid? I blew this.
He grabbed her by her robe covered shoulders and in a slow motion she focused on his lips as he started to speak.
“Brooke, I can’t believe I am about to say this. It could be grounds for kicking me out of this man’s Navy.”
Oh no, he’s pulling rank? Fraternization? “What do you mean?”
“There ain’t a sailor on earth who would stop what we both want to have happen right now. But…”
“But what, Mush?”
“Have you thought this through? You are not just some girl. I can’t and I don’t want to be casual with you. Things that start fast don’t last.”
Brooke started to speak, “I …”
He placed his finger on her lips. “This is hard enough, let me get it out before I give in. Brooke, I am sworn to duty, a job that takes me away half the year. I am stationed seven thousand miles away. The Navy has spent tens of millions training me, nearly half of that on evaluating me before they let me cruise around the ocean with twenty-four ICBMs. My hitch isn’t up for five years, Brooke. I have been able to do it for the last twenty because I didn’t know anyone like you. I still don’t really know you — ”
Brooke had an impulse to jump in, he was distancing himself, committing self-quarantine as if she were a disease infecting his life. She was on the verge of feeling awful, her stomach started churning; she felt the blood warming her ears. She held her tongue. She thought he had finished.
“ — except that I can’t stop seeing you everywhere on the boat. I swear, sometimes when I am in my bunk, I can still smell you. Being a love-bitten, horny teenager isn’t a good career move for a fleet-boat captain with nuclear-release authority, you know what I mean? ”
She melted into his arms. He held her. “Oh, Mush. We are both committed, but how many chances like this are we going to get in this life to have everything we want in one person.”