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  The sound of approaching heels down the hallway to the right of the quarterdeck stopped the banter.

  Lieutenant Commander Samantha Bradley appeared, a smile breaking across her face. She stopped at the end of the hallway and stared at Tucker. He was surprised to see she wasn’t in uniform. Sam was wearing the revealing white blouse he had complimented with a risqué comment after a tryst in a park near the Pentagon. The fear of someone catching them had added to the moment. A pair of dark pants ended a few inches above black pumps. The overcast of the storm had forced the quarterdeck to turn on its fluorescent lights, inadvertently creating a makeshift stage for her appearance from the darker doorway. The light gave her dark hair a reddish sheen that Tucker had never noticed. It also played through the see-through blouse, revealing a low-cut bra, pushing pert breasts together, creating a small but eye-catching cleavage that enticingly appeared and disappeared between the two opened buttons on her blouse as she walked.

  “Are you going to speak, Commander?” Sam asked, coming to a stop at the edge of the quarterdeck. A huge grin spread across her lips, along with a slight shade of red creeping up her neck.

  He had lost himself in watching her approach. Tucker stuttered a few times before taking a couple of steps forward to embrace the woman he had left abruptly a few days before in Washington. “What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing here?” she said, leaning back in his arms to look him in the eye. “Why, Commander Raleigh, I am your physical therapist, aren’t I?” she asked, teasingly.

  “I give up. We have nurses in the French military, but we would never give our junior officers a physical therapist,” St. Cyr said.

  Tucker reluctantly released his embrace of Sam, his left hand trailing down her left arm as he turned to face the two men. When his hand reached her hand, she took it.

  St. Cyr and Tibbles-Seagraves stood side-by-side, broad smiles across their faces. Remnants of rain continuing to trail down their cheeks, dropping onto their cammies. Tibbles-Seagraves cleared his throat.

  “Sorry,” Tucker apologized. “Sam, this is Wing Commander Tibbles-Seagraves of the Royal Air Force, and this fine gentleman with the bushy mustache is Captain Marc St. Cyr of the French Navy.”

  Sam shook hands and smiled at St. Cyr. “I would say, Captain, that someone has removed most of the bush from your mustache.”

  The Frenchman smiled and nodded slightly. “I think your boyfriend makes fun of it.” He reached up and ran his finger along his thin mustache. “I prefer to think it is the right statement without being too gaudy. I would hate for someone to think I was British.” He nodded toward Tibbles-Seagraves, who reached up and twisted the end of his long handlebar mustache.

  “I say,” Tibbles-Seagraves retorted. “We, too, would hate for someone to make that mistake.” He reached forward and shook Sam’s hand.

  Tucker smiled. Sam covered her mouth; a mischievous twinkle in her eyes met his. It was good to see her, but it would have been better if she had at least let him know she was coming down. Even though the focus of the search for the terrorist ship had shifted to the European theater, they were still on alert. Granted, sitting in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters, drinking beer, arguing whether to watch American or European football, and periodically commenting on the wind and rain slamming against the windows wasn’t really what the general public would think of as military men on alert. These past three days had been boring. Today, they had been ordered to move their gear to the alert headquarters of Commodore West’s near the Special Boat Unit Twenty piers. He hadn’t decided whether to argue about moving here or not. He failed to see any reason for them to rough it here when they could stay in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters, where there was at least television.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  “I was wondering why you are here,” he lied.

  She released his hand. “Hope you’re not disappointed.”

  “I am looking forward to seeing how you manage to disengage your foot from your mouth with this one, my American friend,” Tibbles-Seagraves offered.

  The telephone on the quarterdeck rang, saving him.

  “They’re here, sir. I’ll tell them.” The Chief hung up.

  “Commander, the Commodore is in the control tower topside. He says y’all should come on up and join him.”

  “Sam, I have to go.”

  “Not to worry, I’m going with you,” she said. She took his arm and pulled him aside. “Sorry, gentlemen, I need to give some professional instruction to my patient.”

  The other two men started up the stairs.

  She kissed him on the cheek. He reached forward to take her in his arms, but she gently pushed them away. “You know, you’re cute when you’re lost for words. Bethesda needed a volunteer to augment the ready-response cell here on the waterfront, and the DiLorenzo Clinic at the Pentagon let me take it. I didn’t know you were down here until I arrived at Portsmouth Medical Center and saw that Navy medicine had transferred your digital records to SpecWarGru Two. It was that little tidbit of information that told me why you hadn’t returned my telephone calls.”

  “I wanted to—”

  She laughed. “Sure, you did.”

  “No, honestly, I wanted to, but was ordered to board a helicopter with Admiral Holman—”

  She laughed.

  “No, it’s true,” he protested.

  “Of course, it is,” she said with amusement in her voice. “I have to admit, it’s the best line I’ve heard so far.” She waited a moment, and when he didn’t say anything, she added, “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “Well, when I got down here, Admiral Holman hustled us aboard his flagship, the USS Boxer, and we set sail. We only returned to port three days ago.”

  “Telephones don’t work?”

  “Wait a minute. I tried to call. I even left messages.”

  She reached forward and touched him on the arm. He eased her into an embrace. “I did call, you know,” he said.

  “I know. I got your messages when I checked my answering machine yesterday. I tracked you down to the BOQ late last night and they told me you had moved out. It didn’t take long to track you down. After all, you did say you missed me.”

  He lifted her chin and kissed her — a kiss that lingered, warmed, and drew his body closer to hers.

  A series of loud coughs caused them to break apart. The Chief Petty Officer at the quarterdeck stared at them. Near the door, the young seaman was scrubbing the deck, back and forth the swab went, as fast as the young man could move it.

  “Sir, ma’am; if you don’t mind,” the Chief said, jerking his thumb at the seaman. “Young Thompson isn’t used to how officers greet each other, and I think the Commodore is waiting for you. He’s not the patient type.”

  They broke apart, neither speaking to the Chief as they headed down the hallway toward the stairs.

  “It’s not as if this is a top-secret Special Forces mission, is it?” She stuck her arm through the crook of Tucker’s elbows.

  Tucker let out a deep breath. The building vibrated to a long roll of thunder. Behind them, a torrent of rain rattled the windows. He squeezed her hand. Everything was right with the world. He had worried his disappearance had sealed the fate of their budding relationship. Then again, others would say this relationship was moving too fast — doomed to failure and all that bullshit. Deep inside of him was the professional bachelor’s mixed fear about rushing head-on into something where he may wake up one day to discover himself walking glassy-eyed down an aisle in the church with all the exits locked. Tucker ran his free hand along the mahogany railing of the stairs as they climbed toward the control room of the old 1950s tower.

  The tower had been used to control seaplanes during World War II. It lay at the edge of a sea ramp where decades ago amphibian aircraft had rolled into and out of the manmade canal that lead to the sea. What had once been a tarmac for the vintage aircraft was now a parking lot for the sailors. He glanced at Sam, watching h
ow her hair bounced softly off her shoulder. How like a curtain it hid her eyes and with each movement revealed a glimpse of her nose; a flash of smooth cheek; and always the dampness of full lips, leading the assault on his senses. He hated to admit he was glad the rogue freighter was somewhere in the East Atlantic. He was going enjoy this deployment.

  * * *

  Tucker, St. Cyr, and Tibbles-Seagraves stood slightly behind the Commodore, who had quickly dismissed any concerns with having a Navy nurse accompanying the men. He was a surface warfare officer assigned as the Commodore Special Boat Unit Twenty. Commodore Tony West stood about five-foot-five and had come up through the ranks as a mustang. A former Chief Petty Officer, he was fond of telling people that he had been a horrible Chief. When they had decided to clean up the ranks back in the nineties, they’d commissioned him as an ensign, figuring it didn’t take much technical know-how to be an officer. He had had a good career. Not one that was going to catapult him into flag ranks. When you reached your fifties and you were a mustang to boot, the establishment still sat there like an anchor on top of the ladder. The ever-present “they” wanted those who wore the stars to have sufficient time left in their careers to make full Admiral—four stars. Fifty-plus-old captains just don’t meet this unwritten age criteria.

  But no one ever heard West complain about it. Most envied him. In the last three tours of duty, a small cadre of loyal officers and enlisted had followed him from his command in Rota to his duty in the Pentagon, and now to his twilight tour at Special Boat Unit Twenty in Little Creek, Virginia. You could say what you wanted about the old man, but you couldn’t say it in front of this group.

  “Commander,” Commodore West said, the slight tremor in voice revealing his age. “Hope all of you are having a great vacation here in the land of love, as Virginia likes to be called.”

  St. Cyr nodded graciously at Tucker and mouthed the words “land of love,” drawing a smile from him.

  As much as Tucker hated to admit it, he was beginning to like the Frenchman, though as a whole Americans would just as soon see them stay in France. The old European country had taken a mantle upon its shoulders to be the balancing power of America’s superpower, believing active diplomacy was an effective weapon to fight an overwhelming military strength. Even Evian water had suffered an economic setback since the debacle of 2003 when France led a coalition opposing American hegemony to dismantle rogue regimes. A few years later, when radical terrorists had hit Paris with a combined biological and chemical attack in the subway, the source had been traced to the former Iraq — the “Arsenal of Terrorism.”

  Commodore West had a deep voice, but he spoke fast, running his words together, and unless you listened closely, Tucker was discovering, you missed most of what the seasoned veteran said. His attention wandered in and out, as the Commodore addressed the weather and the Special Boats tied up at the base of the tower.

  Tucker wondered briefly whether if he stayed for thirty-plus years in the Navy he would become prematurely gray and going bald on top like old-timers such as West. He patted his stomach. Would he get the leadership paunch that came with it? Must be stress. Of course, could be the liberty. Liberty before the notorious Tailhook Convention in the early 1990s was something that could shorten your life. The same sort of liberty after that Tailhook Convention would shorten your career.

  “This has been some storm, Commodore,” Tucker replied.

  Commodore West laid his binoculars on the table in the center of the small control tower. “That’s what I just said, Commander. Weren’t you listening?” He took a step away, the binoculars falling off the ledge to dangle from the strap still wrapped around his wrist. West calmly unwrapped them and put them back in their storage area. “Don’t know why I even bother with these things. Especially with weather like it is today. Can’t even see the channel out there, and it’s only two miles away.”

  West reached over and pulled a chart over. “I know this is boring for you three, being snake-eaters and everything. If I was as young as you and in your line of work, I’d want to be somewhere painful rather than twiddling one finger in your mouth and the other up your—” He looked at Sam and stopped. “Well, you know. Different subject, gentlemen and lady. First, let me say, the Admiral briefed me on the rationale for combining operations with our British and French allies.” He nodded sharply, and then looked up at St. Cyr and Tibbles-Seagraves. “Can’t say we have seen much cooperative spirit with our French allies this century, so this makes what I hope is a pleasant change, especially after the confrontation off Liberia last year.”

  St. Cyr raised his finger. “Ah, Commodore, with all due respect, sir,” he said. The Commodore and he were the same rank, even if West was older than his father. He wagged his finger at the Navy Captain. “There was no confrontation. We had an unfortunate misunderstanding during a combined exercise. I am sure Admiral Holman would agree with that statement.”

  West’s lower lip arched upward, covering his upper lip. His eyes narrowed. “Of course, Captain,” he said sharply. “One thing we understand thoroughly in my United States Navy is that our government is never wrong regardless of which administration is in office. Luckily for us, the misunderstanding failed to stop our evacuation of American citizens. But, then, with allies such as France, we were doomed to success in the first place.”

  Tucker saw a faint red color his French counterpart’s neck. One thing about the French — they were a nationalistic bunch that demanded respect.

  “Of course, Commodore. I am sure it is as you say,” St. Cyr responded tartly. “I meant no offense.”

  “Offense!” Commodore West guffawed. Then, in barely a whisper, he added, “That’s a word I doubt you know.”

  This was headed downhill fast, a direction Tucker would prefer to avoid. If this continued, the Commodore would probably start working his way back in history to other instances of French and American differences, such as the Iraqi War.

  “Sir, when can we expect the weather to clear, and have you heard anything from the operations around Europe?”

  The old Captain sighed, rubbing the slight stubble from his early-morning shave. “Touché, Commander. You’ll go far in this Navy.” He turned to a slim Commander who had the countenance of a long-distance jogger, thought Tucker, until he noticed the half-opened pack of cigarettes half-hidden under the newspaper near the Commander. The officer pushed himself off the forward bulkhead.

  “Yes, sir, Commodore.”

  “John, tell them what you told me earlier.”

  The man moved out of the gray shadows caused by the morning overcast to the lighted area near the table. “First,” he said, in a high, tenor-like voice, “the tropical storm is wavering between remaining a tropical storm and being reclassified as a hurricane.” He pulled the chart away from in front of Commodore West, flipped it around so it was right side up for Tucker and the others. He placed his finger on an area north of Bermuda and about five hundred nautical miles off the east coast of North Carolina. “The storm has slowed here. It’s being hit by a high front to the north and an equally low front from the south and east. It’s created a weather anomaly that has slowed the storm’s movement while keeping its energy from growing. Moreover, it’s keeping it from losing any of its energy, as these fronts have one giving the storm more moisture and the other maintaining the wind momentum for it. Within the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours, one of those fronts is going to give way to the other. Until that happens, the storm is going to keep its slow movement on the same heading. Which front gives way and how it moves will determine the course, speed, and whether we inherit a hurricane or not.”

  “Could it blow itself out?” Sam asked from the rear.

  “No, ma’am,” the Commander replied.

  “I’m a ma’am, but I’m also an active-duty Navy nurse — Lieutenant Commander,” she said, making sure the meteorologist knew she was junior to him in rank.

  The meteorologist nodded. “No, it won’t blow itself out i
mmediately. What’ll happen is it will react like a blast of water trapped in a garden hose when you first open the nozzle. It’ll shoot out of the entrapment, taking everything in its path with it. I talked with the National Weather Service earlier this morning, and while it’s still classified as a tropical storm, they’re preparing to call it a hurricane if the wind picks up speed, when it catapults out of this frontal vise.”

  “I guess I don’t have to ask which direction it’s headed?” Tucker asked.

  “Right now it’s moving at five knots on a northwesterly course.”

  “Northwest. Means it’s headed this direction?”

  “Yeap,” the Commodore acknowledged. “Means it is headed this direction. Also means that we’re going to batten down everything we can in the event it should decide to come ashore here in the Tidewater area.”

  “The Commodore is correct,” the Commander agreed. “If the storm heads directly for us, it’ll most likely be the most powerful hurricane to hit Virginia since Isabel. It’s only five hundred miles away and traveling at five knots. Every ten hours it chops the distance by fifty miles.” The officer paused for a moment, shaking his head. “Lots of unknowns here. How much is the slow movement of the storm influencing the balancing act of the high and low fronts? How much speed will it pick up when the balancing act ends? And will the balancing between the high and low fronts dissipate slowly or”—he clapped his hands together—“disappear all at once? If it’s slow, then it may not reach hurricane force, but if those two fronts move apart suddenly, then I agree with the National Weather Service’s worse-case analysis that the winds could quickly go from eighty miles an hour to one hundred sixty miles an hour. And with only five hundred miles between it and the East Coast, there’s insufficient distance to give the winds time to lose strength before they slam ashore somewhere along our middle Atlantic coast.”

  Tibbles-Seagraves leaned forward. “So, the storm may hit here?”

  The Commander shook his head. “Could,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “But not necessarily. We won’t have a good idea where it’s heading until those fronts move. If the high-pressure front to the north shifts west and the low front to the south moves northward, then the storm could close our coast as it curves out to sea toward the North Atlantic. As I’ve said, when it comes out of the high-low pressure vise, the final direction will be determined by which pressure system shifts east first.” He pointed toward the open sea, visible about a quarter mile away, whitecaps whipping across the high waves being blown into the Hampton Roads complex of harbors, piers, and shipyards. “If it does, it will come directly across this body of water, hitting land here, blowing this building to hell and gone.”