not a politician. Not my place to question.”
“Come off it, Matt!” She pulled back from him, raising up on one elbow
and brushing the hair back from her face. “That’s a cop-out and you know it.”
“It’s true. Sure I question, but I have a job to do, and I do it.” His
fingertips slid lightly over her hip, sending delightful shivers up her back.
“I do believe in what I’m doing, though, or I wouldn’t be here.”
She sighed, her head dropping back to the pillow. “Like Bobby.”
“Your brother.”
Robert Drake had believed in what he was doing too. But he and 240 other
Marines had been killed fourteen years ago by a suicide bomber in Beirut,
sacrifices to a muddled foreign policy composed by politicians who thought in
terms Of long-term strategy and stability and a strong U.S. presence rather
than in terms of lives … or cost.
“Hold me, Matt …”
A long time later, their embrace was shattered by the eerie wail of a
siren. At the first note, Tombstone leaped naked from the bed, scooping
clothing from the floor and tossing it at her. A pulse of light throbbed from
the hotel room’s windows, like the strobing of a camera flash.
“What …”
“Air raid!” he snapped. “Get dressed.”
Seconds after the flash, the windows rattled with the thud of a far-off
concussion. Blearily, Pamela remembered being told at the front desk that the
hotel basement had been designated as a bomb shelter. Movement half-glimpsed
through the window caught her eye as she pulled on her panties. Caught in the
glow of a searchlight, something like a pencil with stubby wings streaked low
over the city, vanishing in the direction of the harbor. Another thud, much
closer this time, set the chandelier in the room swaying as plaster dusted
from the ceiling.
OD trousers, T-shirt … and Tombstone made her put on shoes in case
there was broken glass. Then he was leading her through hallways dimly lit by
emergency lights, down an echoing, concrete block-walled stairway, and into
the basement.
The thud and rumble continued intermittently throughout the rest of the
night as they waited it out with a hundred other people, hotel guests and
employees and people off the streets. Few spoke English, so they passed the
hours on the cement floor in a corner, talking quietly.
Pamela was surprised at how good it was to get to know him again.
CHAPTER 11
Saturday, 21 June
1025 hours Zulu (1125 hours Zone)
Flag Plot, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
Romsdalfjord
Tombstone returned to the Jefferson late the next morning, stepping from
the Sea King and onto the flight deck as a light rain misted from slate-gray
skies. The weather was ideal, providing cover from both satellites and
high-flying recon aircraft.
What, he wondered, had been his chances of running into Pamela at
Lindstrom’s HQ? Perhaps it was not that big a coincidence. Bergen was the
heart of Norway’s resistance, the logical place for a reporter to look for
news. Still, the unexpected reunion had caught him flat-footed. He’d thought
he was over missing her. Loving her.
“Welcome back, CAG,” a lieutenant in charge of the deck detail securing
the helicopter said, saluting. “They said to tell you you’re expected up in
Flag Plot soon as you touch down.”
Tombstone groaned inwardly. He’d never gotten back to bed after he and
Pamela had been unceremoniously rousted in the middle of the night, and most
of that morning he’d been locked in further meetings with Lindstrom’s air
defense people, working out the protocols that would allow Jefferson’s
aircraft to overfly Norwegian positions without getting shot down. He was
definitely running way minus on sleep.
But he returned the salute. “Thanks, Lieutenant. On my way.”
During his absence, Brandt had worked Jefferson around so that she was
now facing the outlet to the fjord, anchored in the relative shallows where
retreating glaciers had deposited a reef of sand and gravel. The only other
vessels with her were a trio of Norwegian Hauk-class guided-missile patrol
boats, tiny craft laying to in the shadow of their huge consort. Their
Penguin missiles and Borors 40-mm cannon would augment Jefferson’s anti-air