By
R. L. Keller
(As a lot of you know I’m not overly fond of crossover stories. The scenes portrayed in my short story “Sweet” just sort of ‘happened’, stemming from conversations with friends. I knew that I’d probably be pestered for ‘the rest of the story’, so here it is. I get out of calling it a crossover because the main part of the action takes place before Lee comes to Voyage and Ziva comes to NCIS. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it J RLK)
Author’s note : There is only one tiny gem of truth in the following story – the shipment of missiles actually happened as reported. Beyond that, any resemblance to an actual Mossad or ONI mission is pure coincidence!
His
legs working smoothly and fluidly like well-oiled pistons, he gave himself over
to the climb, putting prevailing issues behind him as surely as he was the
valley floor. Not that life was bad at
the moment. Actually, he was feeling
pretty good. He’d recently landed a new
position, one that he was sure he as really going to
love. Just...he needed to unwind. And for him, unwinding meant hard physical
exercise. He’d all too quickly let his
brain take second place to his body, reveling in the exhilaration of muscles
doing what they were intended for as he all but launched himself up the
backwoods trail he’d been told about, into a seldom-traveled area of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. He barely felt the
heavily loaded backpack he carried, so much was he enjoying the feelings of
fresh air and hard labor.
Apparently not so his hiking companion. From behind him there came a breathless,
muttered, “You...trying...kill me?” Cdr. Lee Crane chuckled softly but stopped
walking. Grinning, he turned back toward
his old Annapolis roommate, Lt. Cdr. Charles Morton. Chip was now XO aboard Lee’s new command, the
mostly research submarine Seaview, pride and joy of her designer-builder-owner,
Admiral Harriman Nelson (Ret.). The
blond struggled the last feet of trail separating them and flopped down,
panting heavily as he reached for his canteen.
“Sorry,
Chip,” Lee still smiled as he settled next to his friend and grabbed his own
canteen. “I keep forgetting that you’re
more used to corridors of metal instead of trees, breathing revitalized air
instead of the good stuff.” Chip nearly
threw his canteen at his friend, blew him a raspberry instead, and took another
swallow of water. “You need to get out
more,” Lee needled him with a bright smile.
“You’ve
been cooped up in subs nearly as much as me,” Chip defended himself. While the pair had never served together
after graduating, they’d both gravitated toward the ‘silent service’. Admiral Nelson, having met both young men at
Annapolis where he was an occasional instructor during their years there, had
snagged Chip away from the regular Navy and into the Reserves almost before
Seaview’s keel was laid. Once he’d
‘retired’ and founded NIMR – The Nelson Institute of Marine Research in Santa
Barbara, California, he knew that he wanted Chip’s keen organizational skills
coupled with his knack for computers on board as soon as possible. He’d also have liked Lee as Seaview’s skipper
but that wasn’t to be. At least at the time.
Recent circumstances had brought Lee back into Nelson's sphere of
influence and he’d snagged him before he could once more get away. Chip had been ecstatic at the time. Right this instant he was having second thoughts.
Lee
ducked his head and turned away, looking out over the
untouched forests they were hiking through.
There was an almost growl from Chip and Lee turned back with a short
quick nod. “Have to keep myself in top
shape,” he admitted softly.
“ONI,”
Chip did growl with a hard glare. Lee
nodded again, and both were momentarily silent.
It
was a touchy subject between the pair.
Lee had been contacted by the Navy’s Intelligence-gathering division
almost as soon as he’d graduated Annapolis and had quickly earned a reputation
for quick thinking, and successfully accomplishing complicated missions. Unfortunately, those same successful missions
all too frequently left Lee hurting in some way. While no klutz he would do whatever it took
to finish an assignment, never backing down from whatever challenges he
faced. Chip didn’t understand why Lee
couldn’t settle down and concentrate on a regular Navy position – the few times
the pair had been able to get together over the last few years Lee was almost
always recuperating from some kind of ONI-instigated injury. Now that Lee had taken over command of
Seaview, Chip hoped that he’d tell ONI to take its own hike! But, his practical side wasn't holding its
breath. Nelson also had ties to ONI and,
while he preferred to stick to scientific cruises, was still tied to the Navy
enough that Seaview did occasionally get called into active duty.
With
a small grin at his friend that was a bit more grimace than he cared to admit,
Chip let Lee off the hook he’d put him on and stood up. “Lead on, Genghis,” he nonetheless
groused. “No place to camp here for the
night.” Lee’s grin was somewhat subdued,
acknowledging Chip’s concerns, but he stood easily and headed up the
trail. He did slow his pace ever so
slightly, accommodating Chip’s slightly less active lifestyle. While the blond did keep himself in good
muscle tone, Lee accepted that he spent more time than Lee did parked in front
of a computer screen.
Another
hour brought them to a point where decisions had to be made. In front of them the trail followed a rocky
spine to another section of forest.
There was a small meadow on this side where they could camp for the
night and continue on the next morning.
They were in no hurry – Seaview had returned from a simple run three
days ago and wasn’t scheduled out again for just over two weeks. Nelson, noticing Lee’s need for activity, had
suggested the hike, and he’d urged Chip to go along as well – he, too, thought
that Chip needed the diversion. But
there was still several hours of daylight and, while
Lee did give Chip the option after their long uphill hike of crashing here for
the night, Chip’s map said that there was an even better place on the other
side that was close to a stream flowing down from the higher peaks. That settled, the
pair once more took off.
The
trail, while fairly narrow, wasn’t all that difficult and Chip soon had his
breathing, and his good humor, back under control. The pair had kibitzed off and on about the
scenery, Lee needling Chip about not handling fresh air well because he was so
used to the canned variety, and Chip needling right back that ‘mountain goat’
wasn’t an overly useful talent aboard a submarine. The nattering continued nonstop, and
deteriorated into the kind of full-fledged harassment that only two such old
friends could get away with without one eventually killing the other. Both were trying to act outraged while
working hard not to burst out laughing.
Chip broke first, after a particularly evil taunt from Lee concerning a
secretary at the Naval Academy they’d both had a bit of a crush on. Lee had run into her a few months before
taking over command of Seaview – she was now working at the Pentagon, had put
on seventy pounds or so, and had five children.
As Chip finally cracked up at that mental image, Lee stopped walking and
turned back to grin broadly at the blond.
Chip was laughing so hard he didn’t watch carefully enough where he put
one foot down and the loose rocks underneath gave way, causing him to stumble
slightly. Lee quickly reached out a hand
to steady his friend but Chip at the same time was working to balance himself,
and in the process upset Lee. The
blond’s laughter turned to horror as the brunet fell backward, overbalanced
because of the heavily loaded backpack, and went headfirst, backwards, down the
steep bank, quickly disappearing into the trees and brush some twenty feet
below the top of the ridge. Several
yells merely echoing back at him, Chip headed with only slightly more control
after his friend.
He
found Lee lying on his side, face up the hill, the
back of his head against the base of a tree.
A string of oaths, very unusual for the normally so under control man,
escaped as he realized that if Lee had hit the tree only inches differently,
the pack would have hit first instead of Lee’s head. A quick check confirmed that the brunet was
out cold. Chip shrugged out of his own
backpack and started running hands more used to computer keys than body parts
carefully over his friend, starting with making sure that Lee was breathing, then checking extremities.
Chip talked to himself as he went, trying to remember everything
Seaview’s new CMO, Dr. William Jamison, had tried to teach him and the sub’s
other officers, as well as selected crewmen, during the mandatory first-aid
training sessions he’d established as one of his first acts after taking over
the position. A grim grin ever so
briefly touched Chip’s mouth, although it never made it to his eyes. Lee had been less than thrilled when it was
made known that Jamison expected Seaview’s CO and XO to participate along with
the JO’s – Lee considered himself exempt from such superfluous (to him)
training. Seaview carried not only the
fully accredited doctor but also two highly skilled corpsmen. Lee had simply ignored the new CMO until
Nelson had intervened. Chip wasn't privy
to that conversation. But while Lee had
shown up at the next training session, he’d spent the entire hour working on a
new design for one of Seaview’s rear storage areas that he decided wasn’t
working as well as it could. Chip knew
that Jamison was aware of Lee’s total disinterest in the training, but couldn’t
very well call out his new CO in front of the JO’s. Chip had a feeling that the battle was far
from over, but Nelson had suggested this hike before the CMO could get up a
head of steam.
“Nothing
appears to be broken – except maybe your hard head,” Chip muttered as his
fingers could find no broken bones. There was an ominous smear of red on the
tree trunk as Chip very carefully separated Lee from his backpack so that he
could lay Lee on his back to more carefully check his chest for rib damage.
Both
men had packed their own packs so Chip had no idea what if any first-aid
supplies Lee carried. Chip had only
packed a few simple things – stuff for bee stings, a couple band-aids, a small
tube of antibiotic ointment, and an ace bandage – figuring that would be all
he’d need. And hopefully not even that
small bit of supplies. He quickly went
through Lee's pack and was surprised to find a fairly extensive first-aid
bundle. He decided that Lee’s ONI
experiences must have led him to always travel well equipped. For that, at least, Chip was grateful.
Once
Chip got his own breathing back under control, so much had he been concerned
for his friend’s immediate condition, he concentrated on Lee’s head
injury. There was a fairly large knot
forming where the back of Lee’s head had been lying against the tree
trunk. Chip rolled Lee back onto his
side so that he could clean the scraped skin, apply a square bandage liberally
slathered with antibiotic cream, and held in place by several layers of gauze
wrapped all the way around Lee’s head.
“Come
on, Lee,” Chip started chiding his friend.
“Wake up, man. You're starting to
scare me.” In Chip’s pack he carried a
small penlight and he tried to remember what he could about how eyes were
supposed to react. While he couldn’t be
sure, both of Lee’s eyes seemed to respond the same – that at least was
hopeful. “Well,” Chip admitted his own
lack of knowledge, “unless you smacked so hard that both eyes are messed
up.” But from what Chip could tell they
were fairly quick to react to the light so Chip tried to think positive as he
finally reached for his cell phone.
He
was immediately ticked – no cell service.
Lee had harassed him gently for even bringing the thing, but Chip was so
used to carrying it when ashore that he’d not given it another thought. “Yeah, Lee, I can hear you chuckling,” Chip
muttered. “Now, if you’d just do it so
the birds could hear as well,” and he gave Lee’s shoulder a gentle shake.
He
sighed heavily when there was an almost response. The dark-haired head made an effort to move
and Lee’s tightly closed eyes opened fractionally. “Huh?”
“Wake
up, buddy,” Chip urged. When Lee’s eyes
would have closed, Chip gave his shoulder another gentle shake. “Hey, no sleeping on the job,” he ordered,
and was rewarded with a little more firmly uttered mutter.
“Who's
sleeping?” Once more Lee’s eyes opened,
this time a little further. Chip made
sure that he blocked any direct sun from hitting Lee’s face with his own torso.
“You, buddy,” Chip tried to tease him, although he knew that
his voice still wasn’t under total control.
“Laying down on the job. Making your XO do all the
work, as usual.” He smiled as Lee
frowned but laid a hand on Lee’s shoulder, keeping Lee from trying to get
up. “Easy, Lee,” he warned. “You took a pretty good whack to the back of
your head.”
“Huh?” Lee slowly reached a hand up and touched
first the bandage, then winced as fingers hit the bump. Confusion written plainly on his face, he
looked at Chip.
“Slipped
on the trail and fell backwards into this tree.” Chip reached out and patted the offensive
evergreen with a small grin on his face.
But his mind was working furiously, trying to remember what he’d been
told about concussion symptoms. He was
vaguely remembering that it wasn’t unusual for a victim to not remember the
actual accident that caused the injury.
He just hoped that he was right!
For now he needed to convince Lee that he was actually hurt, not blow
Chip off and act like nothing was wrong.
Chip was only too aware that that was Lee’s usual reaction to injury or
illness. He’d learned early in their
friendship, their plebe year at Annapolis, that Lee didn’t like being slowed
down – by anyone or anything! “We need
to get you someplace a little more comfortable than where you are. Think you can walk back down the trail a
ways?”
“I'm
fine,” came out as Lee struggled to sit up.
Chip
helped, but frowned at his friend. “Sure
you are,” he growled. “You can barely
keep your head from falling off your shoulders.”
“...not
that bad...” Lee tried. But he
acknowledged reluctantly, with a small look at Chip, that the only reason he
was sitting as steady as he was, was Chip still had hold of him.
Chip
grunted. He kept a hand on Lee as he
stood up and stepped almost behind Lee. Putting a hand on each side of Lee just below his armpits, his
voice as firm. “Let’s see if you
can even stand up,” he ordered. He did
most of the work to heft Lee to his feet, then kept a
firm hold as Lee struggled to get and keep his balance.
Once
Lee was relatively steady Chip quickly put his pack back on, slipped one strap
of Lee’s pack over his own shoulder, and then moved around to Lee’s side. “Let’s get you back down the trail, off this
ridge.”
“Wait,”
Lee hesitated as Chip would have pointed his friend back the way they’d
come. “Weren’t we headed that way?” Lee pointed the other direction.
“No
way are we continuing this hike,” Chip ordered.
“But...” Lee hesitated, and tried to reason with his
friend. Well, as much as his aching head
would allow. “Weren’t we headed for a
stream?”
“We
were,” Chip agreed. “But it’s further
away from the trail head, where my rig is parked.”
Lee
sighed. “But I seriously doubt that I
can make it that far. At least right
now,” he said, very reluctantly. “We’re
better off camping for the night where we have a fresh water supply.”
As
much as Chip wanted to argue, he had to acknowledge Lee’s logic – especially as
Lee was actually admitting his inability to walk back to Chip’s SUV. “Okay,” it was Chip's turn to sigh. “I'll give you that one. Although I don’t want to,” he still sniped. But he was pleased that the complaint dragged
half a smile out of Lee.
Chip
was not pleased with how long, and how much effort, it took both men to
reach a suitable spot to spend the night.
He sat Lee down and propped him against a tree trunk while he set up
camp. But when he returned from a quick trip
to fill the canteens at the stream, about twenty feet away from where he intended
to build a small fire pit, Lee had fallen over and appeared to be once more
unconscious. A yell from Chip and Lee
opened his eyes, but Chip wasn’t happy when all Lee did was complain that Chip
didn’t have the sleeping bags unrolled; that Lee wanted to sleep.
“No way!” Chip was
adamant as he sat Lee back up against the tree.
“No sleeping on my watch. Not
with a concussion. I know that much!”
“You
don’t know squadoosh,” Lee argued right back.
Chip
took a deep breath. He knew that he
shouldn’t be arguing with Lee. But... “Look,
Lee. I remember being told that you
shouldn’t let a person that you think has a concussion fall asleep. You need to stay awake or you might fall so
far unconscious that you won’t wake up.”
Partway
through Chip’s lecture Lee started slowly shaking his head. “That’s not actually true,” he now told
Chip. “Oh, medical personnel will wake a
concussed patient up every little bit, to make sure that the symptoms aren’t
getting worse. But rest is actually the
best medicine.”
Chip
sat back and glared at Lee. “And just
what makes you such an expert? You
couldn’t even sit through one of Doc Jamison’s training sessions,
you were too busy working on something else and didn’t even pretend to listen
to him.”
Chip
totally didn’t understand the half smile that Lee sent him. “I did, actually, listen. But it was all pretty basic first aid. He didn’t say anything that I didn’t already
know. I explained that to him
later. I’ve had regular classes and
refresher courses through ONI.”
Chip
sighed again. “Which explains why
Jamison didn’t take your head off, as mad as he looked when you seemingly
ignored him.”
Lee
nodded – carefully, as his head was pounding.
He’d not enjoyed the effort it had taken to reach this spot but he knew
that they couldn’t stay where the accident had happened. “He went straight to Admiral Nelson. The Admiral, of course, has had some of the
same training so he explained some of it.
I talked to Jamison later that day.”
“Harrumph,”
Chip muttered. It caused Lee to grin at
his old friend. He and Chip had both
learned early, after meeting Nelson at Annapolis, that the snort was Nelson’s
often-used term to express discontent with a comment, or disbelief. Apparently, now that Chip had been working
with the Admiral for a while, he’d picked it up as well.
“Well,
at least let me get you something to help the headache,” Chip finally relaxed,
and then got ticked again when Lee refused.
Lee
held up a hand to stop whatever Chip was about to yell. “No, Chip.
With this kind of injury you shouldn’t really be taking anything that
thins the blood – it can just cause more bleeding.”
“Lee,
I know that I’ve been given stuff,” Chip tried to talk Lee into cooperating.
“Yeah,
there are painkillers you can take. I
don’t know what you have in your pack but all I brought were aspirin and
ibuprofen – both of which aren’t a particularly good idea right at the
moment.” When Chip nodded, he
continued. “Sorry, Chip,” he decided to
change the subject. “Didn’t
bring you along so you could do all the work.” He frowned when the comment caused Chip to
get a decidedly evil expression on his face.
“You
can make it up to me,” Chip told him with an all too brilliant smile.
It
made Lee nervous. “How?” he asked
carefully, almost afraid of what Chip was going to ask for.
“You
can tell me how you met Ms. David.” It
had come to light recently that Lee was friends with an Israeli Mossad officer
now assigned to the NCIS office in Washington, DC.* Chip had bided his time and waited for just
the right moment to pester Lee about the woman with the exotic beauty. Now seemed absolutely
perfect. Lee couldn’t just blow
him off and walk away.
Lee
hesitated. He didn’t like to talk about
himself. “You don’t like when I mention
ONI missions,” he tried.
Chip
sent him a quick glare but the brilliant smile made an easy return. “In this case I’ll make an exception.”
“I’d
rather sleep,” Lee tried again.
“Unhuh,”
Chip shook his head with another glare.
“You talk while I get camp set up and fix dinner.”
Lee’s
heavy sigh had less to do with his aching head than it did admitting
defeat. He knew the instant Chip laid
eyes on Ziva David that he’d have to eventually come clean about how they’d met
– Chip wouldn’t forget the look of delight that had hit Lee’s face when they’d
run into each other at the Norfolk docks the previous month. He closed his eyes, thinking back on the ONI
mission that he’d finished shortly before being sent to Seaview to complete
what he thought at the time was just another TAD, but had turned into him
becoming Seaview’s permanent captain.
“Hey,”
Chip yelled. Lee opened his eyes. “I said no sleeping,” the blond ordered. Lee frowned again, but started the story.
~
Cdr.
Lee Crane, in command of the fast attack submarine, Sea Horse, had barely laid
his body down in his small bunk when the intercom went off. The calm voice of his XO, Lt. Cdr. James
Roche, held a note of apology. “XO to Cdr. Crane.
Call for you, Skipper.”
Lee
shook his head softly and sat up. The
cabin was small enough that he could reach the intercom without getting
up. “Be right there, XO,” he answered
amiably, and headed back to the Conn.
It
had been a somewhat boring, but nonetheless stressful, last twenty-four
hours. Sea Horse had been tasked with
getting a SEAL team safely onto Syrian soil where they would attempt a rescue
of three American tourists. The trio had
been sightseeing on their own along the border in Turkey
and had accidentally crossed into Syrian territory. At least, that was the claim Syria was making
and had immediately charged them with spying.
Lee had no idea who was right – that wasn’t his job. Patrolling in the Mediterranean Sea, they’d
picked up the team in Roda, Spain, and landed them safely on the Syrian coast
near Latukia, where the Americans were being held. Sea Horse wasn’t the designated retrieval
vehicle for the team – and hopefully the rescued Americans – but they were
assigned to hang around quietly as a back-up.
An hour ago they’d heard that the SEALs, along with the rescued trio,
had commandeered a small aircraft and made their way safely to Nicosia, on
Cyprus, and were now on their way back to Roda.
With Bravo Zulu’s all around for their small part in the operation, Lee
had finally headed to his cabin for some much-needed rest. Since the operation started, even though his
part had gone off without a hitch, he’d been too on edge to close his
eyes. XO Roche had finally managed to
head him toward his cabin, hence the reluctant smile he sent Lee now as Lee
entered the Conn and headed to the radio unit.
Lee returned it as he slipped on the headset, and listened to the
officious voice of ONI Director Robert Jones start giving him his next
assignment.
~
Chip
looked up from unrolling sleeping bags as Lee’s voice trailed off. Lee’s eyes had closed and he was starting to
list slowly to port. “Lee,” Chip yelled
sharply, and was rewarded as hazel eyes reappeared.
“What?”
“You’re
spacing out,” Chip told him matter-of-factly.
“I'm
fine,” came back, but Lee’s eyes started to close again.
Chip
growled softly, mostly to himself, and walked the few feet to his friend. “Sure you are,” he muttered, and once more
straightened Lee’s back against the tree.
“Now, stay awake and go back to your story. As soon as I finish this I’ll start dinner.”
“Not
hungry.”
“Which
you will eat,” Chip spoke slowly and succinctly.
Lee
sent him one of his shy, through-the-lashes looks. “Probably wouldn’t stay down,” he admitted.
Chip
instantly relented. “A few bites,” he
coaxed. “I won’t fix you much.”
“I’ll
try,” Lee told him softly.
“Story?”
Chip got back to business.
Lee
frowned. “Where was I?”
“Tourists
rescued, you’d just gotten a call from ONI,” Chip reminded him.
Lee
nodded. He closed his eyes but a growl
from Chip opened them again. He sent the
blond an ever so slight grin and got back to his story.
~
Lee
finished his call and glanced around the Conn.
“XO, set a course due South, slow and silent, and join me in my cabin.”
“Aye,
aye, sir,” XO Roche answered instantly, and Lee headed back to his cabin. He sighed at first sight of his bunk. He’d get a chance at a few hours of sleep but
he had maps to check, supplies to pack, and plans to make before that could
happen.
He
had a map of the Middle East spread out on his small desk when a light tap
announced XO Roche’s arrival. Lee had
let a small grin form as he felt Sea Horse’s smooth turn and stealthy
pace. It was one of the things that made
his occasional ‘errands’ for ONI acceptable – that Jim Roche had no problems
stepping into the Command position. Lee
wasn’t sure why he didn’t already have his own boat. He was just extremely grateful to have him
aboard Sea Horse. “Come,” he called
out. Roche came in, shut the door behind
him, and glanced at where Lee had his finger settled on Lebanon before sending
Lee a grimace. “Yeah,” Lee agreed. “Not where I would have chosen for a
vacation.”
“What
vacation,” Roche muttered softly, then quickly glanced
at his CO. Lee merely shrugged and sent
his XO a very small grin, totally understanding Roche’s unhappiness that Lee
had to take this next assignment. “How long?” Roche asked quietly. Lee would tell him only what Roche needed to
know.
“Not
sure,” Lee admitted. “You’ll put me
ashore here,” he indicated about fourteen kilometers south of Beirut, at a
quiet stretch of shoreline two clicks south of the town of Khalde. “Once you back off into neutral waters, try
to make yourself invisible.” He sent his
XO a quick grin that was easily returned.
It was an old joke among sub crews; so old that it was almost a bad
joke, but still part of the banter between men stuck for months at a time in
tight quarters. “Sea Horse is still on
patrol duty so if you’re caught wandering around, you’re still within our
orders.”
“Understood,
sir,” Roche acknowledged.
“Give
me forty-eight hours,” Lee continued, while handing his XO a small slip of
paper, “then have the radio shack start monitoring this channel, five minutes
at a time, quarter past each hour. My
guess is, it will take me at least twice that
long.” He sent Roche another quick
grin. “But you never know – I could get
lucky.” Roche sent a brief glance upward
and, while Lee frowned slightly, nonetheless sent his XO a quick nod. It seemed like nothing ever went as planned
when ONI was involved. “Your turn to pick call signs,” Lee now told him.
There
was a pause before a decidedly mischievous grin hit Roche’s face. “We’ll be ‘Jack’, you’re ‘beanstalk’,” he
snickered. While Roche was by no means
hefty, next to him Lee was downright skinny.
Perfectly aware that his CO was all hard-packed muscle, and could work
any three crewmen into the deck if circumstances warranted, it was still
something Roche could chide his commanding officer about – and get away with
because of the easy friendship that had formed between the two, the very brief
months they’d worked together.
Lee
still sent him a very quick glare, but it morphed quickly into an easy
grin. “Then ‘Jacque’ and ‘tige
d’haricot’ it is,” he easily translated into French.** “Go plot the course,” he ordered with a
growl. But he still had half a grin on
his face, and Roche returned it. “Give
me an hour’s lead on ETA. Once I get my
gear ready I’m going to try to get some rest.”
“Aye,
aye, sir,” Roche returned, although it was accompanied by another quick look
upward before he headed back to the Conn.
~
“It’s
nice to know that I’m not the only one who calls you skinny,” Chip told Lee
dryly. “Why French?”
“Several
reasons actually. Better than English or
Hebrew if it was overheard. Jim speaks
fluent French. His wife’s from Quebec
and her parents don’t speak much English.
And French is one of the languages often heard in Lebanon. Can I lay down now?” The last sentence came out as a slight whine.
“Water’s
almost hot,” Chip told him. Lee smiled
softly as Chip’s voice had slipped into XO mode. But his head hurt too much so it didn’t last
long. “Half a sandwich
and a cup of soup. Okay?”
“Do
my best,” Lee told him. He knew that
Chip was extremely worried. Lee didn’t
think that he was all that bad. He did
acknowledge the possibility that he could be wrong. Briefly. But he didn’t want to do anything that would
cause his friend further stress if he could help it. He did have to ask Chip to repeat himself
when he realized that Chip was looking at him, obviously expecting an answer to
whatever question he’d apparently just asked.
Chip
raised an eyebrow but repeated the query.
“I asked, how many hours ahead of ETA did you go back to the Conn?”
Lee
sent him a shy smile – Chip knew him only too well. “About four,” he admitted. “But I did rest,” he insisted. “Just took us a little bit to work our way
close enough to drop me off safely.”
“Yeah,
right,” Chip muttered.
“We
also had to wait until it was dark,” Lee added.
Chip nodded agreement to that bit of logic and he sent
Lee a quick grin. It was
accompanied by another raised eyebrow, and Lee took the hint.
~
0215
hours on an almost moonless night found Lee deposited on a barren strip of
Lebanon’s coast just south of Khalde. A
quick radio check let XO Roche know that he’d melted into the landscape without
attracting attention. He was dressed in
regional garb, put together from a collection he kept in two special bags that
accompanied him to each new posting.
He’d learned early on not to depend on ONI to supply him with much of
anything – especially for short-notice assignments like this one. Some of his more specialized equipment they
had supplied early on – like radios and weapons that couldn’t be traced back to
the United States. And he’d quickly
learned the art of improvisation – using what was at hand to accomplish a goal.
He
immediately headed inland toward Bchamoun.
Intel was sketchy at best – ONI seemed to make a habit of giving him
little actual fact. On the other hand,
Lee supposed that they did the best they could.
The missions he was usually sent on were by definition covert – the
people involved didn’t exactly make their plans public knowledge.
In
this case, intel had been intercepted that Hezbollah
had recently come into possession of over 200 surface-to-air missiles. Not much was known about the delivery except
that it had taken place close to the Syrian border, and involved a high
Hezbollah leader known only by the code name ‘Serpent’. There was some speculation that he was a
respected Muslim cleric named Salah Gharib, but nothing had ever been
proved. Gharib made regular trips around
the country from Beirut and spent a fair amount of time in Bchamoun. That town wasn’t far from the Bakaa Valley,
an extremely fertile valley where a lot of the country’s food was grown. Unfortunately, at least for some, one of the
other crops grown there was opium poppies.
The terrorist group Hezbollah – the so-called Party of God – was
believed to have started in the valley.
While Gharib so far had never actually been connected to the militant
Hezbollah, enough circumstantial evidence was piling up to make the
intelligence communities suspicious of him.
The
shipment of missiles, once delivered, had then mysteriously disappeared, making
a lot of people extremely nervous. There
was speculation that it was being stored in the mountains somewhere near
Bchamoun. Someone had intercepted a transmission
– and Lee wasn’t even going to speculate on how ONI had heard about it – that
referenced something called ‘The Temple of the Serpent’. Apparently nothing in the region’s varied
religious factions related to anything with that exact title – assuming the
reference had even been translated correctly.
Because of the location, some bright person decided that it meant ‘The
Serpent’ was hiding the weapons. If that
were so and Gharib was in fact ‘The Serpent’, they were near Bchamoun where
Gharib was believed to own several buildings.
Lee
had quickly stopped trying to make sense of the intel
he received. At first he’d wanted to
understand the orders he was given – he was used to his world making sense
around him in an orderly fashion. A few
missions for ONI had gone a long way to curing him of that misguided logic, and
now he just tried his best to ‘roll with the flow’ as it were. His orders this time were to head for
Bchamoun and see if he could catch any hint of what might be going on. His darker, Mediterranean complexion allowed
him to blend into the region a lot better than some of ONI’s other operatives,
and one man would raise fewer eyebrows than sending in, say, a SEAL team for
reconnaissance. Lee wasn’t given
specific orders of what to do if he did, indeed, find the missiles. He had his own suspicions – it wouldn’t be
the first time a sudden Israeli air strike had blown something up in
Lebanon. But that wasn’t any of Lee’s
business.
Among
the collection of things ONI had given him were almost a dozen very
correct-looking – but fake – passports; he carried with him now one that
proclaimed him to be Michel Gemayel, and other papers that listed him as a dock
worker. He’d prefer to travel
unhindered, but if he was stopped for any reason he should be safe by saying
that he was on a small vacation hiking into the mountains. He’d brought enough local currency, also
something he kept hidden in his bags, to make a quick stop that morning in a
small town to pick up some food supplies.
He didn’t want to attract attention so he acted surly enough that no one
tried to talk much to him. He was,
however, fortunate enough to overhear a conversation between the shopkeeper and
another customer about that person’s destination. The customer never knew that while he made
the drive to Bchamoun, the back of his truck held more than the furniture
pieces he was delivering to a store there.
Fortunately,
the alley the man drove into that afternoon was empty of other traffic and Lee
slipped away without being noticed. He
found a relatively quiet corner a couple blocks away to get his bearings and
then wandered into a small shop for coffee and a falafel, keeping his head down
but his ears open to the conversations going on around him.
He
wasn’t expecting anything so blatant as, “Hey, did you
know there’s a whole bunch of missiles being stored at....,” and therefore
wasn’t disappointed when he heard nothing of major interest. What he was able to do, however, was get a
better idea of where he was in the town.
One of the small bits of information he had been given was the address
of the place Gharib stayed when he was here, and now Lee had a better idea of
how to find it. While Bchamoun wasn’t
that big, it still saved Lee a lot of wasted time wandering around on his own.
Unfortunately
that turned out to be a dead end. Or so
he at first thought. The house on the
northern edge of town was unlit and silent, and appeared uninhabited, when he
scoped it out just after dark. He hung
around for almost three hours, until shortly after midnight, hoping that
someone might show up, and was just about to leave when he became aware that he
wasn’t the only one apparently keeping tabs on the house. Lee had found a nice little lookout amongst
some bushes on the opposite side of the street and had stayed as quiet as possible
as he kept watch. He was just about to
admit defeat when a shadow down the street a ways suddenly moved.
Lee
barely breathed. He had absolutely no
idea that he wasn’t the only person there, other than the occasional people
walking by in one direction or the other or the small number of cars out this
late at night. He’d kept tabs on
everyone he’d seen until they moved out of sight, and hadn’t noticed anyone
suddenly disappear into what was another section of shrubs. Did the person see Lee disappear into his
section? Was it even a person? The quick flit of movement in the minimal
light of a new moon wasn’t enough to tell.
Whatever it was, it headed in the other direction and Lee decided to
follow it. If there was someone else
keeping tabs on Gharib, that was as good a place to
start as any other. He, like the shadow,
kept to as much cover as possible until they hit the next street. Lee was able to see at that point that it was
actually a person as the shadow carefully stood up, looked around, and tried to
act as normally as possible as it headed right, back toward the more populated
part of the town. Lee assumed man as
opposed to woman from the way the person walked. It wasn’t an exact science but he allowed a
small smile to appear as he decided that the shadow was most likely a man. At any rate Lee followed his lead and did the
same, casually walking into the new area.
At
this hour there wasn’t a lot going on.
Streets were rarely totally barren of people, but Lee was very careful
to keep his head down and act like he had every right to be where he was. There were several people in sight as he also
turned right. Not wanting to seem to be
following anyone he, however, crossed to the other
side of the street before turning. There was a small group of men standing,
smoking and talking quietly, in front of one building on the first side, and a
couple of others walking by themselves.
Lee couldn’t be sure but he assumed that the shadow was the nearer of
the two; the further one would have had to jog to get that far ahead and Lee
didn’t think that he’d have wanted to draw that much attention to himself.
Lee
paid special attention – although he seemed outwardly to not pay any attention
at all – as ‘shadow’, as Lee had now dubbed him, passed the small group. He saw the briefest of head shakes pass
between ‘shadow’ and one of the men. Or thought that he did.
It was just as possible that, living in the same town, they knew each
other and had exchanged a word or two.
His
superiors at ONI had often criticized Lee for his impulsive actions – seeming
to make snap decisions and following his instincts instead of protocol. Yet, those same superiors didn’t criticize
too loud or too strong because Lee’s instincts, for the most part, turned into
satisfactory conclusions to otherwise totally screwed
up missions. While protocol told him
that he should continue to follow ‘shadow’, instinct for some reason was
telling him to stick with whom he now designated ‘friend’. Lee continued walking until he found a quiet
corner he could duck around and still watch the small group of men. ‘Shadow’ continued on down the street,
finally moving beyond Lee’s sight.
Lee
didn’t have a long wait. About ten
minutes later the men broke up, each headed in a slightly different
direction. ‘Friend’ crossed the street
and walked right past Lee. Although not
giving any indication that he knew Lee was there, Lee was suddenly extremely
nervous. Had ‘friend’ noticed him coming
from the same corner as ‘shadow’, followed his casual movements, and seen him
duck into the corner? Lee allowed
himself a mental shrug, but was twice as cautious as he allowed ‘friend’ to get
nearly a block away before starting his own seemingly casual walk in the same
direction.
They
didn’t go all that far. Another block, a
left turn, two more blocks along a bending street, and ‘friend’ entered what
looked like a small warehouse of some sort.
As soon as Lee saw where ‘friend’ was headed he crossed the street and
turned down the next street, headed in the opposite direction. He kept to a casual pace but also carefully
kept watch on his back trail, as he’d been doing since starting to follow
‘friend’. He wasn’t so cocky not to
think that he could follow someone without being detected, and not be aware of
someone doing the same to him. He went half
a dozen blocks before melting into another handy bunch of shrubs. Waiting nearly half an hour, no one passed
him in this more deserted part of town and he allowed himself to relax ever so
slightly. Finally, with another glance
around, he slid out of the shrubs and made a circuitous journey back to the
warehouse.
There
were a few lights on in the building, barely visible through what appeared to
be very dirty windows. But all was quiet
and Lee pondered his next move. He
frowned as a sudden yawn caught him off guard and he chose to ignore it, as
well as his growing tiredness. He
couldn’t exactly go knock on the door of the building and see who answered –
especially at this hour of the night.
There were no signs to indicate what the building was. Another yawn hit him and he finally admitted
that he needed to get some sleep. He
hated to leave the building unwatched but there really wasn’t a place anywhere
nearby that offered a good enough hiding place to get any peaceful rest. Regretfully he acknowledged his need for
sleep and went in search of a suitable hidey-hole for what was left of the
night.
~
“I
need to sleep,” Lee told Chip as he handed back the empty plate.
“No,”
Chip told him firmly. He was at least
happy that Lee had eaten everything he’d been given – with some coaxing. But Chip had carefully given Lee only small
portions – it was better for both of their psyche’s that Lee eat fairly
harassment free. But sleep was an
entirely different matter. “I told you,
no sleeping,” he insisted. “I don’t
think that it’s safe.”
“And
I told you, you’re full of hot air,” Lee growled with as good a glare as he
could come up with.
Chip
took a deep breath. He really didn’t
want to tick Lee off; even without a headache Lee was a formidable opponent. “Lee, I’m perfectly willing to admit that I
could be wrong.” He hesitated, and tried
to put into his voice as much honesty as he could. “But I’m not willing to risk your health on
you being totally right.” He sent a bit
of his own glare. “Especially
with your track record in that department.” From the first days of their friendship that
began at Annapolis Chip would only shake his head at Lee’s seeming disregard
for his own health.
Lee
closed his eyes. He didn’t try to lay down – at this point he was sitting on his opened
sleeping bag, back against his pack which was propped up against the tree he’d
been leaning against earlier. Chip had
no problems fixing Lee’s bedroll but he was being a bulldog about Lee not
falling asleep. Lee was actually feeling
a bit better now that he’d eaten. He was
grateful that Chip had insisted on that.
He even had to almost smile as Chip admitted that he could be wrong. There was a growl from the blond; Lee didn’t
open his eyes but he did wave a hand gently at his friend. Lee could admit as well that he could be
wrong about his current condition. He
was almost positive that with a good night’s sleep he’d feel much better. Almost. Not enough to try to argue any further with
Chip. Part of his knowledge concerning concussions
had to do with occasional side effects.
When monitoring a person with a head injury you needed to be on the
alert for mood swings – if the injured person became increasingly belligerent
it was usually a sign that the injury was worsening. He was sure that Jamison had covered that
topic during his lecture and he could be pretty sure that Chip was all too
aware of it. He didn’t want to cause
Chip any more stress by seeming to become overly argumentative.
“Lee,”
came softly from the blond.
Lee
opened his eyes, sending Chip a small smile.
“You just want the rest of the story while I can’t get away,” he still
muttered.
“Too
true,” Chip agreed. “You’re sure taking
your time getting to the good part, namely Ms. David.”
Lee
shrugged. “Took awhile getting that
far,” he told Chip. “And you’ll whine if
I don’t tell you all of it.”
Chip
sent him a very brief glare before the smile came back. “Also true,” he agreed.
Lee
sighed heavily, wiggled to make himself a little more
comfortable, and reluctantly went back to his narrative.
~
Lee
awoke slightly disoriented, needing a few extra seconds to remember where he
was, and why. Once he got that sorted
out he mollified a growling stomach with some bread and cheese from his pack,
and a few swallows from his canteen. He
remembered passing a couple places where he could either get a hot meal or buy
a few more supplies, but his first objective was a casual walk past the
warehouse ‘friend’ had disappeared into last night. Or rather, earlier this morning, he
amended to himself as he glanced at the ancient-looking timepiece he carried in
his pocket. The device had a few uses
that weren’t obvious at first glance and he handled it carefully.
His
jacket also served a dual purpose – by turning it inside out it went from dusty
tan to dark brown. It wouldn’t fool a
pro but was a simple bit of camouflage to confuse the casual observer. Lee just had to hope that he’d seemed
harmless enough the night before so that he’d been forgotten by everyone else
on the street the instant he passed out of their sight.
As
badly as Lee wanted to check out the warehouse, he chose instead to go back to
the area where he’d seen the group of men the night before. That’s where he’d seen one of the places that
he should be able to get a hot breakfast.
And if he was really lucky maybe one or more of the men would be there
as well. Locals often frequented the
areas of a town that they were most familiar with, even in a town this
relatively small.
Unfortunately
he was disappointed. The small cafe was
definitely a local favorite, from the stares he received when he walked
in. He kept his head down, quietly
ordered and ate a simple meal of Fattee, toasted triangles of pita bread soaked
with garlicky yogurt and topped with hummus, and just as quietly left.
His
first objective thwarted, Lee meandered around and once more walked past
Gharib’s supposed residence. It still
looked to be uninhabited so he changed direction and came at the warehouse from
a totally different street. This morning
there was activity, although Lee still wasn’t sure what kind of business it was
– assuming that it was a business.
Half a dozen men were wandering in and out, but the door they used was
instantly closed. What few windows Lee
could see were either covered or so coated with dirt and grime that they were
basically useless. And there were still
no signs to indicate what the building was.
Lee meandered past, on the other side of the street, but didn’t see
‘friend’ among the men. A couple of the
men stared openly at Lee and, while not hurrying his pace, he still turned down
the next available street to get out of their sight as quickly as he could
manage.
Now what, Lee asked himself. The thought had no sooner passed through his
brain when he realized that he was being followed. With daylight there were a good many more
people in evidence and Lee had purposely headed into a busier part of
town. But one reason Lee was so successful
was, he just ‘sensed’ when there was a change in or near his sphere. He didn’t try to analyze what caused it. Perhaps a resident glancing at him followed
by a nervous glance behind Lee, or looking at Lee and then disappearing back
into a doorway. It was, however, rarely
that obvious. Lee just ‘knew.’
Outwardly
he gave no sign – he continued his casual walk toward the main part of town,
showing interest in everything and nothing at the same time. Just a typical passerby. Finding a street market, he used the
opportunity to pick up more bread, cheese, and fruit. He’d eaten in enough of these kinds of places
not to be too afraid of getting tainted food.
He also casually took in his surroundings – specifically anyone who
followed him into the area. No one
seemed to be paying him any special attention but all that meant was, whoever
they were, they were also good at blending into their surroundings. It made Lee even more nervous.
While
not hungry after his quick breakfast Lee decided that he’d hang around the
market a bit longer, casually checking out all the offerings and even more
casually – at least outwardly – trying to catalog all the faces in hopes that
he’d remember them if he saw them again.
It was always wise to be as careful as possible.
Meandering
among the booths, Lee thought that he recognized a familiar way of walking –
‘shadow’ from the night before. Lee
couldn’t be sure – the man’s entire wardrobe had changed color. That wasn’t unusual, assuming the man lived
here. But Lee had trained himself to use
other signs to identify targets: body carriage, head and arm movements, cadence
of walking. It wasn’t an exact science,
of course. But Lee had learned to use
what he had at hand. In this case there
was a general body type coupled with a certain tilt of the head that triggered
Lee’s interest. The man didn’t seem to
give Lee any notice but all that meant to Lee was, the man might be extremely
good at tailing a target.
Lee
smiled softly to himself. He’d been
warned during more than one ONI training session that while observation was
necessary, becoming so focused on those around you could, if not tempered with
reason and logic, lead to paranoia. Lee
could understand and was glad that ONI was only an occasional TAD assignment,
not his permanent duty. Depending on the
mission, it sometimes took him a few days to return to ‘normal once he gone
home.’ But attention to details – of all
kinds – defined all aspects of Lee’s work ethics. A steady level of alertness was never a bad
thing.
Belatedly,
Lee realized that the older woman whose booth he was at the moment standing in
front of apparently thought that Lee was smiling at her and she held out a
portion of baklava on a small sheet of paper.
Lee ducked his head but accepted the sweet, sticky treat with another
shy smile. It turned even more sheepish
when the woman refused his offer to pay her.
She shooed away his hand with a wide motherly grin and Lee walked on,
embarrassed but enjoying the intricate layers of flavor.
Using
the act of taking bites of the treat as an excuse to look around, Lee
re-acquired his ‘target.’ But in doing
so he nearly bumped into a young woman also wandering through the market
area. She was casually dressed in a
light blouse and a flowing knee-length flowered skirt – Lebanon was much more
‘western’ than a lot of the more conservative middle-eastern countries, and
women were quite stylish with their wardrobes.
Lee ducked his head in apology for the almost-clash, she sent him a
bright smile, and the two continued on their separate ways. Almost. Lee glanced behind him after a few steps; the
woman was definitely a ‘looker.’ As he
glanced at her, she turned and sent him another look, and both smiled
again. Lee gave himself a shake – the
timing was lousy, no matter how good-looking the woman was. He stuffed the last bite of baklava in his
mouth and got back to business.
The momentary distraction had made him lose track of the target. Without being obvious, Lee scanned the whole market area but couldn’t see the man. A soft swear slipped out, although under his breath, and silently he chastised himself. See, stupid? Lose your focus, screw up your mission
Lee
gave his head a shake, wondering what his next move should be, and decided that
keeping an eye on Gharib’s house was probably his best bet. He’d apparently walked past the warehouse one
too many times so he was going to have to be more careful. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if Gharib still
hadn’t shown up in the next 24-48 hours; he’d just have to cross that stretch
of sand when he came to it.
He
was almost out of the marketplace before it dawned on him that the woman he’d
nearly bumped into might have crossed his path for the express purpose of
distracting him from ‘shadow,’ and he took the opportunity of stopping and
readjusting his pack to once more scan the area. As he suspected, there was now no sign of
her, either. More disgusted with himself
than ever he headed in a totally opposite direction – more toward the
mountains, to plot an obscure route back to Gharib’s house.
He
was so mad that he was almost two blocks away before he caught the fact that he
was once more being tailed. Okay,
he told himself, now I’m getting irritated.
They want to play that game?
We’ll see just how good these guys are.
Outwardly he gave no indication that he was aware of being
followed. In fact he slowed down just a
bit, giving every appearance of doing nothing more than enjoying wandering
through a different area of the town.
But his brain was on overdrive as he looked for a spot where he could
turn the tables.
So
far he’d been keeping to the north edge of Bchamoun, in an older part, because
that’s where Gharib's residence was. And
also, because his older clothing and backpack didn’t stand out so much as it
was closer to a more heavily wooded area leading into the mountains. The direction he took this time was into the
much more modern part of town. He
allowed himself to walk almost into the central court, where the main road
switched back on itself around a bunch of office buildings and shops, leaving a
central shopping area. But he kept an
eye out for a handy spot he could disappear into, and allowed himself a small
smile when he saw it – an alleyway leading off a side street into a small
park-like area. The town had left a lot
of such little places as it was being built – a refreshing change in this less
arid region of the more barren Middle East.
Outwardly seeming to do nothing more than glance down that street, as he
did every other one he came to, he nearly entered the central court area before
abruptly changing his mind and reversing his steps. Not seeming to pay any attention to the
people around him, he still caught two people unaware. The first one, a man Lee didn’t think that
he’d seen before, startled slightly when Lee changed direction but quickly
regained his composure and continued on, passing Lee with nothing more than a
casual glance. Lee would remember the
face and keep watch for him in the future.
He
didn’t have any problems remembering the second person – the woman he’d
‘bumped’ into at the outdoor market. Now
she carried a string bag with half a dozen or so items in it. Lee wondered where she’d gotten them so fast
but did nothing more than return her quick smile as he passed her as well. He didn’t look behind him but turned down the
street he’d marked earlier, sprinted to the alleyway, and quickly entered the
small wooded area. It had the appearance
of a play area for children but happily was empty at the moment. Lee found a brushy patch and squatted down,
shedding his backpack long enough to once more turn his jacket around to the
paler color. He did wonder briefly if
that might be a bad idea – the darker color blended into the bushes
better. But he’d been lucky enough to
find a fairly heavy thicket and, laying flat on his stomach, his once more
donned backpack lent him a fair amount of camouflage.
He
didn’t have a long wait; the man appeared at the entrance to the alley just a
few seconds after Lee had flattened himself.
He stopped and glanced every direction, an
angry expression on his face. Lee saw him mumble something to himself before
also walking down the alley and stopping once more at the edge of the small
park to glance around. Lee was close
enough to barely hear a couple of what he took to be expletives, from the way
they were spoken, before the man headed around the park and back toward the
north end of town. Lee didn’t want him
to get too far ahead, out of sight. But
he also wanted to see if the woman was still in the area so he stayed where he
was for as long as he dared.
Giving
another careful look in all directions, Lee slithered out of hiding and headed
after the man, especially watchful behind him as well. But there was no indication of a tail this
time, thankfully. It only took him a few
minutes to re-acquire his chosen target; once around the next corner Lee saw
him ahead, headed back toward the open market.
They
were almost there, Lee hanging back as far as he could and still keep the man
in sight, when the man stopped beside a small truck parked on the side of the
street. He spoke a few words to someone
inside, apparently got a response of some sort, and got in and the truck pulled
away. Lee muttered a few expletives of
his own and hurried forward as fast as he could without drawing attention to
himself, trying to figure out where the truck was going. He got lucky and was able to catch a glimpse
of it, at the next corner, heading up a road that led out of town into the
hills north of Bchamoun. The truck went
quickly out of sight but as Lee was pretending to be headed hiking in the mountains
he figured that he’d do just that. Not
up the road, for sure, but following the road through the woods. From the map, Lee remembered another town to
the northeast, higher into the hills.
But if the truck had been headed there he should have taken a slightly
different route. From what Lee
remembered there wasn’t much except hills directly north of town.
Lee
was somewhat encouraged when the road the truck had taken started turning into
more of a backcountry lane. By this time
it was starting to get dark and Lee decided that he’d better find a place to
make camp for the night; close enough to the road to keep track of any traffic
– of which there had been none while Lee had followed it, but far enough into
the woods so that he wasn’t likely to be spotted. He wouldn’t risk a fire – while he’d have
appreciated the extra warmth, and protection from the native wildlife, he
didn’t dare take the risk of it being spotted or smelled. He’d climbed progressively all afternoon,
into more rugged terrain. He was
thankful that bears and wolves were so over-hunted as to be fairly rare. But jackals and wild boar could still be an
issue, as well as snakes; several varieties in this region were poisonous. Lee would just have to remain vigilant.
~
“What
was it like?” Chip asked.
The
question took Lee by surprise. “What was
what like?” He sent the blond a
quizzical look.
“The
mountains you were climbing into,” Chip clarified. “Was it like this?” He waved a hand to indicate where they were.
“Oh. Different altitude. Not nearly so high above
sea level. Different
vegetation types.” Lee looked
around. “Where I was,
not so many open meadows; more solid trees and brush.”
“Better
for hiding in?”
Lee
sent his friend a curious look. “That’s
the first time I can ever remember when you’ve actually shown interest in one
of my ONI missions.” Chip sent him a
glare. “That’s better,” Lee teased him,
and then cringed as his head sent him a reminder of this day’s misadventure.
“Lee?”
“Can
I sleep now?”
“You
haven’t gotten to Ms. David yet.”
“Actually,
I have,” Lee told him with a small smile.
“The
lady in the market,” Chip guessed. Lee
nodded – carefully. “That, however, does
not explain the hug you gave her.
In public,” Chip reminded him with a broad grin, “on the dock at
Norfolk.”
Lee’s
cringe this time wasn’t totally caused by his headache. He knew that he was going to be in trouble
for that momentary lapse in his usual self-control. He’d just been so surprised to see the
woman. And she hadn’t helped by
practically jumping into his arms. “Got
to know her better over the next couple of days,” Lee admitted with a sheepish
grin. It changed to a frown as Chip
grinned broadly. “Not like that,” Lee
growled at him.
Chip
chuckled softly. “An officer and a gentleman,”
he said the familiar phrase with an ever so slight leer. Lee’s frown went even deeper before both men
grinned. “Obviously you figured out that
she wasn’t in cahoots with the bad guys.”
Chip’s expression turned to one of total confusion when Lee nearly
giggled. “Lee?” There was concern very evident in his voice
because of Lee’s unusual reaction.
The
brunet waved a hand casually – if a bit unsteadily – at the blond. “I’ll explain that one later,” he said. He sent Chip a small smile, which morphed
into a slightly evil one. “Ziva’s – ah,
Ms. David’s – command of the English language…
Well, let’s just say that there were times we had a small snafu or
three.” But once more he closed his
eyes.
“Lee,”
Chip spoke sharply.
Lee’s
eyes popped open and his frown reappeared.
“You’re a bigger pain in the six than even you used to be,” he
complained. “Turning XO has made you an
even worse tyrant.”
“Thank
you very much,” Chip turned the grouse into a compliment. Lee muttered something too low for Chip to
hear but he grinned anyway.
“Compliments, however, do not get you out of finishing the story.”
But
inwardly he smiled. Lee was obviously
going to tell the story in his own way, at his own pace. Chip was just glad that he was talking at all
– for several reasons. When he’d first
seen Lee lying in a pile against the tree he’d had an instant of near panic,
fearing an even more serious injury. But
mostly, Lee had always been reticent to talk about himself so getting him to
relate this story at all was a bit of a feather in Chip’s cap, as it were. While his patience was running a bit thin he
knew that he could only push so hard or Lee would clam up totally, and no
amount of harassment on his part would get Lee talking again. “Did you get any sleep that night?” he now
asked, getting back to his original purpose.
Lee
sent him a look that said only too plainly he knew exactly what Chip’s intent
was, but it quickly turned sheepish.
“Not much,” he admitted, and went back to his narrative.
~
Curled
up under some sort of heavy shrubbery about ten yards from the road, with just
enough trees between to block anyone’s clear view, Lee managed a series of
short cat naps over the next handful of hours.
He’d always been a light sleeper, but ONI training had developed the
trait even more. He was almost positive
that the small truck headed back down the road toward town, just before dawn,
was the only vehicle to have traveled the road during the night. He couldn’t be totally sure that it was the
same one he’d followed up but it was for sure similar. Nor could he tell if there was more than just
the driver in the cab. Time to find out where the road went.
He
did spend a couple minutes pondering his options – should he simply use the
road as if he were the casual hiker he claimed to be, or continue to keep
himself hidden as much as possible in the woods? Both had their advantages. If found sneaking around
there was little chance of claiming innocence. But casual innocence made him more vulnerable
to being seen and deflected from what he really needed to see. Besides, he figured that the casual innocent
act was pretty much out the window anyway since he’d already been
followed. At least twice! So, he stayed in the woods as he made his way
further up the road and into the surrounding hills.
The
morning wasn’t without incident. His
first detour was for a small farm. The
house looked well kept, with flowers planted around it in several places and
what looked to be a vegetable garden in back.
An equally neat barn with several fenced areas around it held a couple
pigs, several cows, and a flock of chickens – what else might be inside, Lee
had no idea. He kept an eye out as he
worked his way around the small farm but nothing about the place disturbed his
original assessment and he continued on.
His
next detour didn’t take nearly as long or force him so far from the road, but
it could have been more serious. Some
sense of danger warned him just in time and he barely avoided stepping on a
snake. Taking a deep breath nonetheless,
Lee quickly recognized it as being non-poisonous. But he was just as happy to give it a wide
berth. He did send it a bit of a
lopsided grin as he walked around it, hoping that it might prove to be an omen
that he was at least on the right track.
Another
half hour and it appeared that he might be right. He came up to another small farm – this one
not nearly as well kept. In fact, it
looked totally rundown and nearly abandoned as far as actual farming went. There were no signs of any livestock around
the nearly falling down shed – Lee couldn’t even call it an actual barn
anymore, it was in such ruin. The house
looked almost as decrepit but a bit of smoke from the chimney showed that it
was still being used by someone. There
was a not so decrepit-looking car tucked into the trees behind the house, as if
whoever was there didn’t want it seen by casual passersby – assuming there was
such traffic. The only vehicle Lee had
seen on the road was the small truck.
Lee
squatted down behind a large bush and watched the house as he pondered his next
move. He definitely needed more
information on who was in the house. The
question was, should he watch from here or risk getting caught by moving closer
for a better chance of learning something useful. He’d missed Fajr – the first of a
Muslim’s five-a-day prayers was observed just before dawn. The second, Dhuhr, wouldn’t occur
until just after noon. Lee wasn’t sure
he could be patient that long to see how many came outside, as was frequently
the custom unless they were inside a mosque.
So far Lee had been careful to make himself
scarce during those times, along with the other three: late afternoon, sunset,
and just before retiring.
He
still hadn’t made up his mind about what his next move would be when the
decision was taken out of his hands. An
arm around his throat was followed immediately by a severe pain in his left
side. Before he could do more than
register a feeling of helpless surprise, his vision went dark and he knew no
more.
~
“Lee. LEE…” slowly penetrated the darkness. It was a struggle but he finally managed to
get an eye open. Not comfortable with
the view, he immediately closed it again.
“LEE,” was followed by hands on his shoulders giving them a firm but not
overly rough shake, and this time both eyes cooperated.
“I
gather that I spaced out again?” he guessed.
The expression on Chip’s face as his friend knelt next to him
momentarily spooked even Lee.
Chip
took a deep breath before answering, taking one hand off Lee’s shoulder and
running it through his own hair, front to back.
“Yeah,” was, however, all that he said.
“Sorry,”
Lee told him, and meant it. “Told you that I needed to sleep.”
Chip
sent him a glare. “And I told you…” he
started. Lee cut him off with a soft
smile and a small flutter of one hand.
“Yeah,”
it was his turn to mumble. “I really
need you to take a few more lessons from Jamison.” The glare that Chip sent him for that crack
would have sent any of Seaview’s crew looking for a place to hide from their
forceful XO. It only made Lee send the
blond a quick grin, so used to it was he.
Before Chip could slug him hard enough to return him to an unconscious
state, as Chip’s momentarily fisted hand threatened, Lee asked softly, “How
long?”
Chip
took another deep breath and sat back on his heels. “Only a couple minutes,” he admitted.
“If
the concussion was getting worse it would have been longer,” Lee told him. Softly and respectfully, as
Chip was still trying to control his breathing.
The
blond’s hard look stayed in place for several more seconds, but finally it
softened a bit. “You
sure about that?”
Lee
nodded carefully. “Head
hurts,” he admitted, “but not any worse than it has been. If there was major damage the periods of
unconsciousness would be getting longer by now.
That’s why medics keep waking you up.”
Chip
sent him another long look. “Personal experience?”
Lee’s expression turned positively sheepish and he sent his friend a
short nod. “I still don’t like it,” Chip
told him honestly, but his voice and expression were both softer.
“I
understand,” Lee told him sincerely.
Chip
momentarily got thoughtful. “Any chance
you spaced for a bit because that’s what happened?”
It
took Lee a couple seconds to catch up.
“Because that’s where I was with the story,” he finally figured it out,
and Chip nodded. “Possibly,” he
admitted. He lowered his head and looked
at the blond through his lashes.
“Haven’t been caught that far off guard ever.”
Chip
almost smiled. “A blow to your ego, for
sure,” he sniped.
Lee
tried to glare at him but Chip was way too close to the truth for Lee’s
comfort. “Not good,” he admitted.
“They
obviously didn’t finish the job.” The
comment was casual enough but Lee could hear the slight quiver in his friend’s
voice, and did his best to change it.
“Actually,”
he admitted, “it was one of the good guys.”
Chip sent him a look of total disbelief.
“Didn’t know it at the time,” Lee told him. “And he of course didn’t know me. Took a bit of sorting out.” He grinned ever so slightly. “That’s where Ziva, ah Ms. David, came in.”
Chip
accepted Lee’s attempt at directing him away from his concern. Chip had almost totally freaked when Lee’s
voice trailed off and his body went completely slack. Despite his earlier whining, he’d jumped at
the chance to get away from NIMR for a few days and hike with Lee. He was so enjoying having his best friend
once more in his daily sphere of influence – and where he could keep an eye on
the occasionally impetuous man. Frankly,
despite the fact that Lee periodically drove Chip up the wall with his
seemingly spur of the moment crazy stunts, Chip had really missed Lee’s
constant presence once they’d graduated Annapolis. They’d managed a few leaves together in the
years since. And Chip had made other
friends, wherever he was stationed. He
was gregarious and fun loving, especially away from work, and enjoyed the
company of other like-minded people. But
no one had ever taken the place of his ‘brother’, for that’s what Lee had
become.
Chip
was aware that Lee was one of the few people who could easily ‘read’ him – Chip
had learned that he was a much more effective officer when he kept his
emotions, and himself, under tight control.
He knew that Lee was aware of how the accident was affecting him, and
how this latest blackout had totally unnerved the usually so under control
blond. Chip had a feeling that even Lee
wasn’t all that comfortable with spacing out so badly – even if it hadn’t been
for all that long. Lee never had liked
admitting that he was even slightly under the weather – just ignored pain or
illness as if it didn’t exist. Chip knew
that some of his own attitude along those lines came from trying to emulate
Lee. Not that he’d ever admit that! But still…
Now
he decided that he needed to back off, try to keep a clear head, and not worry
Lee any more than he had to. “So…?” he
queried. He reached over, put a couple
more small branches on the well-banked fire that he’d constructed, and returned
to where he’d been sitting on his own sleeping bag, across the fire from Lee.
“So?”
Lee asked, rolling onto his side to face the fire – and Chip. He had, once Chip had let him actually lay
down, laid on his back with his pack for a pillow,
still semi-propped up. Now the end of
the pack kept his head in a good position to watch Chip. He knew that he’d scared his friend
badly. He hadn’t done himself a whole
lot of good either, if he was honest.
But there wasn’t the ‘feel’ to this headache that he’d had other times
he’d been concussed – instances that he was trying very hard not to have to
tell Chip about. There was also not the
nausea that he’d suffered on at least one of those occasions. He’d whacked himself good and proper, he
knew. But…
“So,
who got you out of the mess you created that time?” Chip finished the question.
“Ziva,”
Lee admitted shyly.
~
The
first sense to return to Lee was hearing.
Somewhere close by there were two people
arguing. They kept their voices low –
either that or Lee’s hearing was still being clouded. But Lee could detect strength and assertion
in both voices, one male and one female. He wasn’t sure what language they were
speaking – some words sounded familiar, some didn’t. And they were speaking very rapidly so that
wasn’t helping, either.
The
second sense to return was feeling. He
tried not to move; to not alert the two arguers that he was awake. He had no idea if they were the only two
people in his vicinity. And, to be
honest, he had no idea where ‘his vicinity’ actually was. It felt, and smelled, like he was still in
the woods, and he risked opening one eye a crack. Still daylight. Still woods, although he couldn’t be sure
that it was still the same place that he’d been. He was laying on his right side and the
voices were behind him. He saw no one in
his line of sight and risked opening both eyes a little wider. He couldn’t be sure but he thought that he
was now deeper into the forest than he’d been – further away from the road. And the dilapidated farm.
He
thought that he was being totally unmoving and quiet but suddenly the voices
stopped. He quickly closed his eyes but
his right shoulder was grabbed and he was roughly turned onto his back. The movement caused a sharp pain in his left
side. He couldn’t stop the groan that
escaped but he didn’t open his eyes.
“Who
are you?” the male voice demanded in Lebanese.
Lee knew enough of the language to translate that much but chose to
remain passive and didn’t respond.
Something hard jabbing the sore spot on his left side rather abruptly
changed his mind. His first sight was of
a rifle butt poised to make another strike and he involuntarily cringed. “Michel Gemayel,” he answered softly, using
the name on his forged documents. Rather
belatedly he realized that he was no longer wearing his backpack and assumed
that it – and he – had already been searched.
The
man holding the rifle frowned at Lee’s answer but said nothing. The female voice, out of his line of sight,
continued the inquisition, switching to French.
“Votre vrai nom. Vous ne parlez pas comme un
natif.” (Your real name. You do not speak like a native.) **
That was always a danger, going into a foreign country and trying to blend in. While one could learn a different language it was never quite the same as if you’d grown up speaking it. Lee chose not to answer, figuring that he’d be in just as much trouble either way.
He
was gearing up for another smack from the rifle butt when a whistle was heard
off to his left and the man froze. The
woman said something to him, very low, that Lee didn’t hear clearly enough to
even try to understand. The man yelled
something in the direction of the whistle in Lebanese and quickly headed in
that direction. Lee didn’t have time to
enjoy the reprieve as the woman took the man’s place. There was no rifle in her hands but the 9-mm
she was holding, pointed at Lee’s head, had the same effect and Lee froze. As he was half-expecting, the woman was the
same one he’d seen twice before. This
time, however, there was no smile on her face.
She was also dressed totally differently then the last time he’d seen
her in loose shirt, man’s jacket, and cargo pants.
“Votre
nom ou je vous fusille,” (Your name or I shoot you,) she said, once more in French. Lee couldn’t stop himself from thinking, this broad changes languages so fast I wonder how
she keeps them straight. The thought
had barely gone through his brain when there was a flash of movement and the
woman was kneeling next to him, the gun having been magically replaced by a
nasty-looking knife pressed menacingly against his throat. Lee wasn’t sure that he could even swallow
without cutting himself, so close was the knife blade. He closed his eyes, flipped a mental coin –
quickly, because he was pretty sure that he didn’t have a whole lot of time,
and answered, opening his eyes and staring straight into hers. “Crane,” came out, not strong but clear. It was another of those decisions that Lee
was so often criticized for making, but so often ended up turning out to have
been the right thing to do at the time.
Somewhere in the back of Lee’s mind was the thought that by rights he
should be dead already. The fact that he
wasn’t led him to believe that the truth just might be the right way to go.
He
was beginning to think that he’d screwed up major league this time since it
took the woman so long to react to the one word. But finally the knife moved a fraction of an
inch away from his throat. Lee didn’t
move a muscle as the woman still had the 9-mil pointed at him – just in her
other hand.
The
gun never lost its focal point but the woman sat back on her heels, obviously
contemplating her next move. Lee did
nothing to interfere. The standoff
seemed to last forever, but later Lee figured that it must have only been about
twenty seconds. “American?” finally came
out of the woman’s mouth in accented English, almost hesitantly. By that time Lee’s mouth was so dry that he
didn’t trust himself to answer so he merely gave her a short nod.
“CIA,”
she practically spat out, frowning. The
frown changed to puzzlement when Lee snorted, but the movement caused a return
of the sharp pain in Lee’s left side and the snort ended in a groan as he
clutched at the area, just above his waist.
“Let
me check that.” Lee stiffened, sending
her a glare. It was her turn to snort
softly. “If we had wanted you dead you
would be dead,” she told him bluntly, laid down both weapons – out of Lee’s
reach – and grabbed Lee’s pack, laying close by, taking from it the first-aid
kit Lee carried in a familiar enough way that Lee was sure now that he and it
had been thoroughly searched prior to his regaining consciousness.
Lee
still hesitated ever so slightly but, as the woman’s expression turned from
frown to frustrated, Lee moved his hand and let her open his jacket and
shirt. Lee noticed that someone had
already pressed some kind of material against whatever was causing the
pain. When the woman removed it, Lee saw
a nasty-looking knife would.
The
woman sent him a slightly sheepish look.
“Ari is not a very patient man,” she said softly, before her frown
returned. “But your snooping was not
wise.”
“Just
following orders,” Lee defended himself.
“Who’s?”
she demanded, stopping what she was doing and sending him a glare.
Lee
hesitated, but finally answered. “ONI.”
At her puzzled look, he expanded the title. “Office of Naval
Intelligence.”
She
shrugged. “You have no business here,”
she told him, and went back to looking at Lee’s side. “This needs stitches. I will do what I can but you need to go home
and have it tended to correctly.”
“Says
who?” it was Lee’s turn to demand. “Just
who the hell do you think you are, giving me orders?”
That
sat the woman once more back on her heels and there was a momentary standoff as
each glared at the other. Lee wasn’t
sure how long that it would have lasted – he sure wasn’t about to back
off. But as he tried to raise himself
more into a sitting position his side once more exploded in pain. The hand he reached to the area this time
encountered something sticky and wet, and he looked down to see a fair amount
of blood.
“Down,”
the woman ordered. Lee hesitated but as
she once more reached for his first-aid kit he complied, although his glare
remained firm.
“Ziva
David,” the woman finally told him, the accent on the second syllable of the
last name. At Lee’s reaction to that
very un-Lebanese name she added, “Mossad.”
Lee
had begun to wonder. He thought when
he’d first heard she and the man speak that some of the words sounded like
Hebrew. Also, she’d referred to him as
Ari – not a Lebanese
name. “Explains a few things,” he
admitted, and then gasped as she poured water on the wound.
“Sorry,”
she muttered. “Ari aimed to cause pain,
not permanent injury.”
“He
did a good job,” came out around clenched teeth. “What are you doing here?”
“Also
following orders,” Ms. David told him.
“Trying
to get a lead on the SAMs,” Lee guessed, not making it a question.
“Who
is Sam?” she asked, starting to put a bandage in place.
Lee
sent her a look of disbelief, now that some of the puzzle pieces were seemingly
falling into place. “Not
who, what. Surface-to-air
missiles. Perhaps you’ve heard of
them,” he added with a sneer.
“You
do not have to be rude,” it was her turn to sneer.
“And
I should be all lightness and smiles after what you did.”
Once
more there was a momentary standoff. And
once more it was broken as Lee groaned softly.
“I know nothing about any missing SAMs,” Ms. David told him as she went
back to bandaging the wound. “Ari has
been able to infiltrate a group of Hezbollah rebels,” she continued. “We are fairly sure that something big is
going down but so far he has not been able to determine what. The group he is with is being very cautious.”
Lee
nodded. “There was very recently word of
something like two hundred SAMs having come into Lebanon by way of Syria, and
then disappearing.”
She
looked momentarily fierce. “Not good,”
she growled.
“Agreed,”
Lee told her. “I was tasked with trying
to track down the one lead we had.” She
sent him an expectant look but Lee wasn’t quite ready to let that one go just
yet. While David
seemed legit… Lee was just a bit
leery of putting all his cards on the table.
“One thing led to another,” he continued, “and…” He shrugged.
“You
are fortunate that it was Ari who was on guard duty this morning,” Ms. David
almost scolded. “He had seen you in
town…”
“And
the two of you followed me,” Lee interrupted.
“One
of the group followed you,” Ms. David corrected him, “and I kept watch on you
both. I lost you – Ari found you.” She sent him a smug look. “If it had been one of the others you would
be dead. You are not very good.” Lee decided that he’d not accept that
challenge.
~
“I’m
liking her more and more,” Chip told Lee, but there was no humor in his voice
or on his face.
Lee
chose to ignore that challenge as well.
“Ari got lucky,” he muttered darkly.
“This the same guy you two mentioned on the dock?” Chip accepted the sidestep.
Lee
nodded. “He’s Ziva’s half-brother.” He got thoughtful. “I gather there was something not quite right
between Ziva and Special Agent Gibbs about him,” he said, thinking back to the
meeting at the Norfolk Shipyard.
“Definitely
something hinky there,” Chip agreed.
“Gibbs was ticked, for sure,”
“There
was something about him losing an agent not long before?”
“Yeah
– that could have something to do with it.”
Chip sent him a frown. “You’re
changing the subject.”
“Trying
to,” Lee admitted with a shy smile.
“Harrumph,”
Chip snorted, and Lee continued.
~
Ziva
proved to be quite proficient at taping up wounds – nothing much could be done
about the pain but the bleeding was controlled without the bandages being
bulky, or bothering Lee’s movements too unnecessarily. Also, nothing could be done about Lee’s
jacket except clean it up as well as they could, but Lee did have a fresh shirt
in his pack.
They
were indeed further back into the woods, well back from the small farm. Lee became slightly more forthcoming with
what little information he’d been given as David also relaxed ever so slightly. She didn’t say how Ari had been able to
insinuate himself into the local Hezbollah group – Lee didn’t particularly
care. Apparently they thought that Ziva
had recently moved to the area – had family somewhere close by which explained
her recent presence in town. She didn’t
explain how Mossad had gotten word of ‘something big going down,’ and Lee
didn’t ask. Nor did he explain how ONI
had heard about the SAMs. She had raised
an eyebrow, but seemed to accept that Lee was doling out intel
just as carefully as she was. He watched
her carefully when he asked, almost casually, if she’d heard mention of someone
called ‘Serpent.”
“Salah
Gharib,” she confirmed instantly. “You
were watching the house he stays at when he is in Bchamoun.”
Lee
nodded. “Not there at
the moment, apparently.”
“Has
not been there for over a week,” she told him.
“But Ari thinks that he is due shortly – the group he is with has
mentioned his name in a familiar way and they are also getting impatient, as if
they are expecting action soon.”
“Any
mention of a temple of any kind?” Again
he asked casually, but this time thought that David stiffened ever so slightly
before shaking her head. “You’re sure?”
Lee gently pushed. “The group that Ari
is in cahoots with hasn’t made mention of a temple of any sort?”
She
sent him a puzzled look. “This group is
in Bchamoun, not caw-hoots,” she drawled out the unfamiliar word.
Lee
snickered. “Sorry. An American slang word – means ‘in
conjunction with’ – sort of.”
“Oh,”
she said. “My English is not always
correct.”
“Better
than either my French or Hebrew,” Lee admitted.
Her
head popped up. “You speak Hebrew?” She involuntarily glanced in the direction
Ari had disappeared.
“Relax,”
he told her with a smile. “I thought
that I recognized a word or two, but you and he were speaking much too rapidly
and low for me to understand any of it.”
“Oh,”
she repeated, but still didn’t look happy.
Lee wondered why. “Temple is not
a word heard here,” she continued, as if to change the topic.
Lee
nodded. “Which is
another reason that when it came up, it was the sort of incongruity that raised
eyebrows.”
“I
think that you are growling at the wrong bush,” she told him bluntly.
“What?”
“Did
I say it wrong again?”
It
took Lee a second to translate her corrupted term. “I think you mean ‘barking up the wrong
tree’,” he finally guessed.
“Yes,
that,” she nodded. “If
there were that kind of armament close by, Ari would have heard by now. What are your orders, should you find the
SAMs?” she asked. Well, demanded, but
Lee let it pass. He’d run into Mossad
personnel before – they tended to react first and not ask questions ever. Not that he could totally blame them, given
Israel’s history – or Jewish history, period, for that matter.
“Report,”
he told her simply.
“And…” She sent him a bit of a glare.
He
sent her a small grin back. “Not my
responsibility.”
“You
would just walk away and leave two hundred SAMs laying
around?” Her voice expressed her disgust
with that thought.
Lee
shrugged. As he’d admitted, it wasn’t
part of his assignment. There was no
telling what might actually happen, although he had no intention of telling her
that.
“You
need to go home,” she next ordered, repeating her earlier command. “You have no business here.”
Lee
figured that arguing with her was probably a waste of time so he shrugged
again. “We’re both following orders,” he
said factually. “I have as much right to
my investigation as you do yours.” He
got a little worried when her hand reached down for the 9-mil she’d tucked back
in its holster, but that’s as far as the hand went.
“Stay
out of our way,” she threatened.
“Hadn’t
planned on getting in your way,” he countered.
“What
are you going to do now?” was asked with a sneer.
Lee
hesitated. He wasn’t actually sure. His one lead had put him in direct conflict
with Mossad – not a pleasant circumstance even though technically they
were allies. “I appear to have added to
your intel, and all I’ve gotten out of it is followed,
attacked, and harassed,” he did a little sneering of his own.
David
took a deep breath, seeming to get control of herself. “That way,” she pointed in the exact opposite
direction that the man Ari had disappeared, “there is a trail that will take
you toward Ain Anoub. Go there. I will see Ari in Bchamoun tomorrow…”
“You’re
not afraid to be seen with him?” Lee interrupted.
She
grinned but there was no humor in her eyes.
“The group thinks that he and I are lovers.”
“And
you’re not?” Lee asked innocently.
Her
glare returned. “He is my half-brother,”
she told him. Lee shrugged. Her glare increased and Lee finally sent her
a small smile. It took a few seconds but
she got herself back under control. “I
will tell him to listen specifically for any reference to this ‘temple.’ I will get word to you if he knows anything.”
“And
why should I believe you?”
“Because
I am letting you go instead of killing you myself.”
Lee
had no intention of following her orders.
He also decided that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to tell her
that right this instant. He’d just have
to be more careful and stay out of her way, as well as the group of men he’d
encountered.
Lee
had to bury a groan as he now stood up – more slowly than he had to. There was definitely pain from the wound but
he wanted to give the woman the impression that he was more
sore than he really was, with the hope that he would then appear to be
less of a threat. She sent him a
speculative look as she helped him on with his backpack. “How far to this Ain Anoub?” he asked. He was fairly sure, thinking back on the map
he’d tried to memorize, that it wasn’t that far. But asking helped him express an even more
helpless, or at least less competent, attitude which hopefully would make him
even less of a threat to get in her way.
He
wasn’t sure if it worked. Ms. David’s
face was a blank mask. A gorgeous mask,
to be sure, and Lee had to carefully control his own expression. She stared at him only a moment before
answering. “Only a
couple of kilometers. Surely you
can travel that far. It is a small
village but you should have no trouble.
They occasionally get travelers hiking through from Bchamoun to the
Bakaa Valley. You can get a good meal
there, and re-supply your pack.”
Lee
knew that she totally did not understand Lee’s instant look of chagrin as he
closed his eyes and shook his head – now total strangers were telling him he
was too skinny.
~
“HAH!”
Chip sniped triumphantly when Lee related that crack. “Maybe one of these days it will finally sink
in. I caught Doc Jamison comparing notes
with Cookie just before we left for this hike.”
“Geesh,”
Lee muttered, which merely caused Chip to grin broadly. “I am not skinny,” Lee insisted. “It’s all muscle and sinew.”
“Yeah,
yeah, yeah,” Chip waved off the complaint.
“So, what did you do?”
~
Lee
did, actually, walk to Ain Anoub. Once
he found the trail it took him all of about twenty minutes to reach the small
village. But he paid very close
attention so that, well fed and re-supplied, he returned to the small farm –
carefully – just after 0100 hours. He
came at it from the other side, avoiding the guard on duty now that he was
aware of just how paranoid these men were.
He was still angry with himself for being so easily outmaneuvered and
attacked. The fact that the man who
nailed him was a highly trained Mossad agent made it a little easier to
swallow. But not much. Lee considered himself to be highly trained
as well. Not nearly so…he hesitated to
use the term ruthless. But he could
acknowledge that Mossad did their jobs with an entirely different attitude than
he did.
Even
at this hour there were lights on in the house, and Lee saw movement through
the windows. The newish-looking car had
been joined by a newish-looking pick-up, as well as the older pick-up that he’d
followed into the hills the previous day.
That thought reminded him that Jim Roche would be checking for his
signal by now. Although,
as Lee had told him, it would be unexpected if Lee were actually ready to
return that quickly so Jim wouldn’t start getting worried for at least another
couple of days.
Lee
decided that the little guardian angel that seemed to sit on his shoulder was
still watching over him. Where she’d
been when Ari attacked, he wasn’t sure and refused to speculate. But Lee had only been watching for about
twenty minutes when lights started going out in the house. The front door opened and one man came out –
Lee couldn’t be sure but from the man’s way of walking thought that it might
have been ‘friend.’ He got into the
newer pick-up and was just pulling out of the drive as the last of the lights
inside the house went out. Lee watched
the truck head back toward town and was contemplating his options when the
truck came back, this time very slowly, it’s headlights off and making as
little noise as possible as it went past the house and continued on up the
road.
Conscious
of Ms. David’s possible presence in the area, Lee stayed hunkered down in the
brushy area he’d concealed himself in.
He knew for sure that his guardian angel was back when subtle movement
behind him indicated someone moving through the woods, following after the
pick-up. Lee had no idea if the slight
movement he caught was David or not – from Lee’s experience, Mossad tended to
run operations in groups of three or four people, although sometimes they
worked so independently of each other that outsiders – and in particular their
‘targets’ – didn’t realize there was, actually, a group and not just an
individual. It was entirely possible
that there were more Mossad in the area than just Ms. David and her
half-brother.
Lee
didn’t think that it would be any major problem waiting for a bit to follow the
pick-up. The road past the farm became
even smaller and looked less used.
Wherever the man was headed, Lee didn’t think that it could be very
far. After nearly ten minutes from the
time that he’d noticed the first movement, he was about ready to follow when
movement in the shadows once more caught his attention. He never heard a thing this time. There hadn’t been much the few minutes previous
– maybe a softly snapped twig or two.
This time there was nothing; not a whisper of sound. Lee wasn’t sure how he’d even spotted the
subtle movement in the shadows except that there wasn’t enough breeze to even
stir the smallest limbs of the trees or bushes.
So, a shadow that moved slowly from bush to tree to bush, as subtle as
it was, caught Lee’s eye.
He
gave the shadow a good five minutes’ head start before moving, and was ever so
glad that he did. He’d lain quietly long
enough that his first wiggle sent a sharp pain through his side. He didn’t think that he’d made a sound but
had to admit that the pain had been sufficient to flood his brain just a split
second, during which time he could have uttered a sound and not now be aware of
it. So, he waited an additional five
minutes just to see what, if anything, happened.
He
saw or heard nothing and was just telling himself that either he was, actually,
totally alone – or whoever might be close by was even more patient than he was
– when a very soft engine noise caught his attention. Once again not using his lights, the pick-up
came back from wherever he’d gone, passed the farm, and headed toward town,
this time not coming back. Lee took a
long, quiet, breath and stayed where he was.
It wasn’t long before the small sounds of someone moving quietly through
the trees went past him and disappeared in the direction of the other side of
the farm. Lee still waited, and very
shortly the silent shadow also once more moved past his location. That one worried Lee much more than the
first. While the first one was obviously
good, the shadow was spooky-good. Navy
SEALs called them ‘ghosts’ – so highly trained as to be able to move about in
almost any environment without being seen, heard, or leave any trace of a
trail. Lee had taken several training
sessions with SEALs – they gave him a whole new perspective on stealth! He hadn’t even gotten enough of a glimpse of
this one to know if it was the man Ari, the woman David, or someone totally
different. Whoever it was, Lee was
concerned enough to send himself to a whole new level of caution.
But
as the farm – and his surroundings – stayed silent, Lee’s curiosity got the
better of him and once more, this time very carefully, he prepared to
move. He did it in stages, one small
movement at a time, and listened and watched his surroundings for several
minutes in between, until he was a good ten yards from where he’d been
hiding. Not having seen or heard a
thing, and while still cautious, he moved a little more freely toward what he
finally realized was a dead end. The
road stopped at two huge boulders. There
appeared to be enough room between the two to walk through easily but Lee could
see nothing but brush behind them. The
boulders, however, intrigued Lee - they did sort of look like the entrance to a
few temples Lee had visited over the years.
But it also looked like one gigantic trap and Lee became extremely
nervous, having absolutely no idea what – or who – might be beyond the
brush. However, if it was where the SAMs
were being held, how the blazes did they get two hundred of them in there
without being noticed? This whole
mission was getting weirder and weirder by the minute!
A
tiny light caught Lee’s attention, then was just as
quickly gone. Lee watched the spot,
behind and above the two large rocks, closely.
After another several seconds he again saw an ever so brief flash,
almost like someone was smoking and the end of the cigarette flared as the
smoker inhaled. As Lee watched, the
light continued to climb and eventually disappeared over the top of the
hill. Now what? he muttered to himself.
But the fact that the man had moved out of sight gave Lee the courage to
investigate the small path between the boulders.
He
did give a brief thought to there being more than one person around. But he dismissed the thought almost as fast
as it came. There was obviously
something worth guarding close by but no way could it be the SAMs Lee was
after. Perhaps a small
stash of weapons and/or explosives, those being the items most used by
terrorists. Whatever it was,
whoever had stashed it was going to extremes to keep its location a secret –
even, apparently, from their own group.
That in itself made it worthwhile checking out.
Once
more Lee made himself stay hunkered down for a good ten minutes. In one respect there was the chance that the
smoker would re-appear at the top of the hill, meaning Lee should move quickly
before that happened. On the other hand,
perhaps the smoker kept to a semi-timed route which would give Lee more
options. On the third hand, he
grumbled silently, perhaps he’s now hunkered down at the top of the hill, no
longer smoking and watching both sides.
Lee flipped a mental coin, took one more look both around where he was
and up the hill, and slowly, cautiously, and soundlessly, headed toward the
boulders.
His
first surprise was the brush. While it
gave the appearance at first glance of being extremely dense, perhaps having
piled up between the rocks and the hill right behind it by years of wind
blowing dead or uprooted bits into the void, it was in actual fact a single
layer right behind the boulders that gave way to a small open spot behind. And behind that there was an opening in the
hillside, not so much cave as almost a large crawlspace. Once more the word ‘trap’ went through Lee’s
mind. While his eyes had become
accustomed to the ambient nighttime light what he could – or rather couldn’t –
see beyond the opening was completely dark.
But
his mind was rather abruptly made up for him when a small rock rolled down the
hill, practically hitting him, and he ducked inside the opening to get out of
sight of who he assumed was the returning smoker. He never had that thought confirmed as whoever
had dislodged the rock never came into sight or made any further noise. Lee waited what he felt to be at least five
minutes before moving cautiously further into the hole, navigating pretty much
by touching hands to the sides of the tunnel.
He
was surprised, after only moving a few feet, to find that the tunnel widened
out slightly, turned a corner, and opened out into a large cavern with enough
ultra-soft light that he could just make out a very large number of long
rectangular-shaped crates. Bingo,
he allowed himself a smile. Each crate was
the perfect size to hold two smallish SAMs, side by side. How the devil they’d gotten into this cavern
was not immediately evident – they certainly hadn’t come in the way Lee
had. Has to be another entrance,
Lee told himself, which also explained why the smoker had disappeared over the
hill.
There
was no way Lee could confirm what was in the crates – they’d make a horrific
racket if he tried to pry the lid off of one unless he could find one already
opened. But he wasn’t about to go
hunting, especially as he heard a noise from the other end of the cavern and he
quickly looked around for a place to hide.
There wasn’t anything conveniently at hand so he retreated a few feet
back into the opening he’d come through.
But no one appeared, the noise stopped, and Lee once more crept into his
end of the cavern pondering his options.
He
would like to confirm the contents of the crates but that could easily lead to
him being discovered. Not a good
idea. He could do what he’d been told to
do – find the cache and report. But that
could take a couple days to get back to the boat and call in. A lot could happen in those couple of days,
either involving the cache being moved or, even more troublesome, used. Another not good
idea. He could leave and report
the location to Ms. David. Somehow he
didn’t think that he’d have any trouble finding her – more likely she’d find him. But he wasn’t sure letting the Israeli’s deal
with the weapons would be a whole lot better – they could still be used, only
against different targets. Admiral Jones
hadn’t actually ordered him to merely report the location should he find the
SAMs. He hadn’t actually given Lee many
direct orders beyond laying out the basic premise – only intimations. Lee assumed that it was because Lee so often
did what he felt best at the time and worried about explaining his actions
later, and Jones had given up on trying to get him to do only what he
was told. Lee shrugged softly – Jones
kept giving him assignments so the ONI Director couldn’t be too upset at Lee’s
occasionally eclectic and unpredictable ways of dealing with any given
assignment.
A
glance at his ancient-looking pocket watch told Lee that whatever he decided,
he’d better figure it out fast. He only
had another hour of total darkness outside before the skies would start
brightening. With another shrug, and a
slightly evil grin, he made a few adjustments to the pocket watch and tucked it
under the nearest pallet of crates. He’d
have a pretty good idea in about forty-five minutes what was in them.
Now
the problem became getting out – and a good distance away – before the watch
did what he’d told it to do. He also
took a second to bemoan the fact that he’d have to get himself a new
old-looking pocket watch. He’d actually
been rather fond of that one, he’d had it so
long. He made his way quickly back to
where he’d entered the tunnel, but then had to stop and ponder his next
move. If the smoker was once more on
this side of the hill Lee would be a sitting duck. Hoping to flush the man out if he were close
by Lee found a small pebble and, still standing inside the tunnel, gave it a
toss so that it landed with a small ‘chink’ against the top of one of the
boulders. It was a tiny sound but in the
stillness of pre-dawn it was still quite audible, at least to Lee. He waited what he considered to be a
sufficient amount of time, tossed another pebble at the other boulder, still
didn’t get any reaction whatsoever, and slowly crept out of the tunnel.
Unfortunately
for Lee that got a reaction. The
sound of a shot almost perfectly coincided with the side of Lee’s face being
hit with a splatter of rock chips. He
barely had time to react when the next shot was accompanied by a sharp pain in
his left thigh. He pretty much only had
two options, and neither one was appealing.
He could try to get through the boulders and back into the woods. Considering the shooter’s aim so far Lee had
a feeling that he’d never make even that short a distance. His closest protection was back into the
tunnel but in there he was also a sitting duck – the shooter only had to wait
for reinforcements. Of course, Lee knew
what the shooter didn’t – depending on when reinforcements got there, there was
every possibility that the whole cavern, plus the hill itself, would no longer
be there!
But
as another shot rang out, this one just nicking Lee’s right calf, Lee knew that
he couldn’t stay where he was. At least
headed for the woods he stood more of a chance of escaping than he did in the
tunnel so he prepared a short, zigzag sprint forward. He hadn’t gone two feet when something very
heavy and very solid landed on his back, knocking him flat. The concussion pushed every bit of air out of
his lungs and it was all he could do for the next seconds to try and suck some
air back in. He couldn’t even raise an
arm to defend himself and just knew that the short
breath he did manage to get in was probably going to be pretty much his last!
~
“And
do I even have to ask who saved your skinny butt that time?” Chip asked with a
slight sneer.
Lee
looked at his friend, sitting across from him, the light from their small fire
and a fairly bright moon the only illumination now that night had fallen. “Ziva,” he admitted shyly.
“She’d
followed you without you having a clue.”
There was just a bit of growl in his voice.
“She’s
good.”
“Harrumph,”
Chip sputtered which, instead of ticking Lee off as often happened when the
blond was haranguing Lee about a slight booboo the brunet might have made, this
time merely caused Lee to grin. Mostly
because he knew that the smile would bug his friend even more – he so enjoyed
having his ‘brother’ around him again on a more permanent basis. And like true brothers, the pair would yank
each other’s chain at pretty much every opportunity they got.
“I
need to sleep,” Lee whined, just to egg things along even further. There was absolutely no way Chip was going to
let him stop his story at this point.
“You need your rest, too,” Lee told him honestly. “You’ve had to do most of the work, and
probably will be doing a lot of it tomorrow as well.” His only answer being as nasty a look on
Chip’s face as he’d ever seen, made even more evil-looking because of the
flickering light from the flames of the fire, Lee wisely continued the story.
~
At
some point Lee realized that he’d lost track of what was happening. The weight was no longer on his back,
pressing his chest and face into the hard ground. In fact he was no longer lying face down, he
belatedly realized, and opened his eyes.
“You
do not follow orders very well,” Ms. David growled at him.
“Depends
on who’s giving them,” Lee growled back, and tried to rise into a sitting
position. She shoved him back with a
slap to his shoulder and went back to what his returning senses now realized
was trying to bandage Lee’s two new injuries.
But Lee suddenly realized where they were as he looked around and
spotted a body lying close by – they were still between the boulders and the
tunnel. “How much time?” he demanded and
again tried to sit up, this time knocking away her hand as she once more
started to push him back. She merely
glared at him so he repeated his demand, slowly and succinctly.
She
continued to glare but finally answered.
“Only about five minutes.”
Lee
quickly calculated, realizing that he probably still had nearly half an
hour. Perhaps a bit less since he wasn’t
totally sure how much he’d used up in his wasted effort to draw out the
guard. “We need gone,” he told her firmly.
“You
are still bleeding,” was her muttered response.
“And I want to see what is in there.”
She waved a hand at the tunnel entrance.
“The
bleeding can wait until we’re further away.
A lot further,” he added softly.
“And we don’t have time for you to go exploring. We need to leave. NOW,” he added forcefully.
“Why?”
she challenged.
“Before
reinforcements show up,” he came up with a logical answer without really
answering. “Unless
you’d rather continue to shoot your way through the bad guys.”
“I
did not shoot him,” David answered, and patted the very dangerous-looking knife
she was carrying on her belt at her left hip.
“Oh.” Lee glanced once more at the body laying half
on its side, half on its face, and turned away from Lee. He had a feeling that he was just as glad
that he couldn’t see the man’s throat.
“We need gone,” he repeated.
The
Mossad agent took a deep breath and seemed to ponder her options, but finally
stood up and offered Lee a hand. He
didn’t accept it, choosing to come to his feet on his own despite the two new
pains now screeching in harmony with the knife wound, and headed between the
boulders and back into the woods. David
hesitated, glancing once more toward the tunnel, but finally followed.
Having
no way to judge time, Lee moved as rapidly as he could in what he thought was
the best direction – deeper into the woods and between the old farm and Ain
Anoub. But slowed by his injuries, when
the blast came both he and Ms. David were thrown face down on the ground by the
concussive force of two hundred SAMs plus whatever else had been stored in the
cavern exploding in close succession with each other. Trees were blown down just behind them,
branches falling on both Lee and David but thankfully only causing bruising,
not serious damage.
As
they both crawled out from under the rubble David gave Lee a speculative
look. “Am I to assume that you have now
completed your assignment and will leave?”
It came out waspishly.
Lee
grinned softly. “Perhaps not totally how
my superiors would have preferred,” he admitted. “But it seemed appropriate at the time.”
David
looked in the direction of where the cavern had been. Lee was surprised that the blast hadn’t set
off a massive forest fire – he hadn’t considered that outcome at all until now,
and shook his head at his own stupidity.
“I do not think that my fa…” she cut herself off and glanced at
Lee. “Superiors,” she substituted the
word Lee had used for whatever she had been about to say, “will
be all that pleased, either. However,”
she dusted herself off, “one cannot cry over a dead cow,” she said philosophically.
Lee
thought for a second before his eyes brightened. “Cry over spilled milk, I think you mean.”
“Why
would one cry over spilled milk?” she asked him. “Is not a dead cow much more serious than
just a little milk?”
“Good
point,” Lee agreed, but he still smiled.
( )
“What is done, is done,” she said in Hebrew. They both at the same time heard engines
racing up the small road and instinctively headed in the opposite direction as
fast as Lee could travel. David seemed
to know where she was going so Lee let her take the lead. She started rapidly but slowed her pace as
she realized Lee wasn’t keeping up.
While Lee was doing the best that he could, he still marveled at how
easily the woman could travel without making a single sound. It was a bit disconcerting. And humbling to a man like Lee, who prided
himself on his competence.
Lee
wasn’t quite sure where he was when she finally stopped walking and indicated
that Lee should sit down. He hesitated
but at her glare complied, and stayed silent as she finished wrapping his two
new wounds. The one on his calf required
little more than a simple wrap around the leg – it had barely grazed him and
had already stopped what little bleeding it had actually done. The one in his thigh, just above the knee,
thankfully hadn’t hit anything vital. He
did cringe slightly when the knife somewhat magically appeared in David’s
hand. But she merely put a slit in his
pants big enough that she could cover both the entrance and exit wounds with
medicated gauze pads and wrap several layers of tape all the way around Lee’s
leg. Then it was her turn to watch as
Lee closed the slit with a piece of duct tape from a small roll he carried in
his backpack. “Never leave home without
it,” he told her with a grin as he returned the roll to the pack.
She
shrugged and then pointed off to the right.
“Another kilometer and you will find the road to Ain Anoub. Turn left down the hill and you will soon be
in Bchamoun. Do not stay there long; I
do not believe that it will be safe for you there any longer.”
“Understatement
of the century,” Lee said mostly to himself, but nodded. “I think that it might be a wise move to
avoid as many actual roads as I can, and stay to the woods as much as
possible.”
“Where
do you need to get to?” It was a simple
question but Lee hesitated giving her a straight answer, just on general
principles.
“Near
Khalde,” he finally told her, figuring that was a safe enough answer. She might think that he was headed for the
Beirut airport located between the capital and the town of Khalde when in fact
he was headed further south, to the quiet section of coast where his exit from
Lebanon would hopefully go as quietly as his entrance.
She
nodded. “There is enough cover between
here and there that you should have little trouble. But,” she warned, “those
wounds will need attending to shortly.”
Lee
nodded. He knew that she was warning him
to leave quickly, before they might run afoul of each other again, but he only
smiled. “I’ll be fine,” he assured her.
~
“You
and your ‘fine’,” Chip growled. “One of
these days, when you use that line, I’m going to shove it…”
“Uh,
uh, uh,” Lee grinned at him. “Rank still
has its privileges.”
“Depends
on the circumstances,” Chip muttered back.
But he also sent Lee a small smile.
“That was the last you saw of Ms. David until Norfolk?”
Lee
nodded. “Saw or heard anything
about. Definitely not
where I expected to run into her again.”
“So
I gathered.” Chip’s grin spread. “Obviously a surprise for
her as well.”
“Yeah,”
Lee agreed, remembering the small scene the pair’s greetings had caused,
embarrassing Lee no end. He hadn’t
realized it at the time but the exchange of hugs had been seen not only by Chip
and Admiral Nelson, but also by several members of Seaview’s crew who had been
working on the dock at the time. The
story had made the rounds among the rest of the crew very quickly. “Guess I need to find a reason to head for
DC. If we can ditch that obnoxious
DiNozzo maybe I can find out what really happened.” He sent Chip a leer. “Among other things,” he added softly.
Chip
leered back before they both grinned.
“It will have to wait until you get out of Doc Jamison’s clutches for
this latest oops.” He laughed when Lee
groaned theatrically. “No trouble
getting back to Sea Horse?” he got back to the story.
Lee
shook his head. “The only trouble was
trying to explain to Admiral Jones why I blew up half a mountain – the Lebanese
were not overly thrilled with what they found in the rubble.”
“It
seemed like a good idea at the time?” Chip offered.
“Sorta
like this hiking trip,” Lee nodded. “Didn’t exactly go quite as planned.”
“No
biggy,” Chip told him with a smirk. “Now
you’ll have all sorts of time with the new CMO to get everything sorted out so
there won’t be anymore misunderstandings between the two of you.”
“Swell,”
Lee muttered, to Chip’s chuckles.
* *
* *
*see “Sweet,” by R. L. Keller
**Translations by Google Translator – I don’t speak French J