Christen
Monday, Davidson Realm
The good thing, she told the others was that they weren’t the enemy in her dad’s eyes. The bad thing was she didn’t know if security was on her dad’s side or the security, like Daniel, was on the bad guy’s side. Bad guy here meant her half-brother Karl. She knew that comms didn’t work on the island, so there would have been no heads up from Karl to those on the island about where things stood in his coup attempt. If, somehow, they did get a message through, according to Karl, she was dead.
They had landed just beside the tree line. The blades slowly circled, losing power with each rotation. They popped off their seat harnesses and checked their weapons.
As Christen pushed open the door, she glanced at the clock. Karl and whoever came with him would be getting off the boat now. They’d be in the little golf karts that they would use to drive up to the house. They’d be getting out and taking the stairs to the front door, she thought as they lowered their bodies and squat-ran forward.
Clear of the blades, they sprinted, well that wasn’t quite what she was doing. Her body was still angry and pained from her fight for life. She moved forward. She didn’t give up. Okay, that much she could agree with. The other thing she agreed with herself about was that she had to get the mission wrapped. Now.
As the break in the trees showed through the foliage, she slowed to a walk. She slowed her breath. She calmed her heartrate. She was about to confront her brother over his attempt at killing both her and their dad. No amount of fly-time and crazy missions anesthetized her system against this level of adrenaline and anger. But at least not pelting out of the tree line like a bat out of hell, would mean fewer guns trained her way.
“Smile,” she said as the moved through the trees. A guard had his rifle at the ready. She raised her hand. “Hey there!”
He approached.
“I’m Christen Davidson, William’s daughter. We had some trouble with the weather and the yacht,” she walked progressively forward. “Whew, am I glad to finally get my feet solidly on the ground. We had to fly over in the heli. Is Dad in the house?” she asked reaching out to point.
The guard turned his head in the direction of her finger and in the blink of an eye, she had not only gotten control of the rifle, but the guy lay on the ground at her feet looking up the barrel.
Gator trained his Glock on the guard’s center mass. He was in warrior mode. Remote. Hard. Stoic.
Christen blinked at him; his behavior was… confusing. They were going to have to have a serious conversation before this was said and done. But now? Eyes on the gauges, steady hand on the stick.
While Christen covered, Gator flipped the guy over and dragged him into the tree line where he used the cuffs on guard’s belt to secure him to a tree. Christen could hear the guard hollering, but honestly the wind was whipping over the island and if you didn’t know what that sound was, it would be lost on you. She wasn’t concerned. About that. She still wanted to get to her dad before anyone else did.
“I think we need to take the direct approach, head right into the house. Maybe we can get hold of a few more rifles along the way, in case we need them.” They were all geared with tactical knives and small arms, but for precision at a distance, a rifle was what she wanted.
Christen knew Gator was itching to have the rifle in his own hands, but he said nothing to her about it as they moved forward at an angle that would make seeing them from a window all but impossible.
They followed Christen on silent feet as she made her way to the second floor, where they began a room to room search. The third room found Lula lying on her back, feet on the wall reading a book. “Get up,” Christen hissed into the room, then sent a glance up and down the hall, moved over and glanced over the railing. All was quiet.
“Get dressed,” Johnna said and Christen could hear Lula shuffling around the room.
“Christen’s locked and loaded.” There was a question mark in Lula’s tone.
“Amen to that,” Gator said.
“Where’s my dad?” Christen asked as Lula rounded the door into the hallway.
“I have no idea. I was waiting for word that the boat had come in. My god, you guys look awful.”
“I take it you didn’t get a typhoon here?”
“What? No. Some rain,” her voice trailed off.
There was a bang of the door and yelling.
“They all speak Slovak…I think,” Lula said. “I don’t understand a word.”
Gator was at the opposite window. “They found our boy in the trees. One is in the woods getting him loose the other is running. Not the best tactics, but hey.”
“How many security guards are there?” Johnna asked.
“I’ve counted eight,” Lula said, “including the ones that came in with us. There’s a chef, a sous chef, a couple of maids and a grounds keeper. Fourteen total staff that I’ve actually seen.”
“And how are the guards armed?” Christen asked.
“Side arms on the interior, rifles on the exterior. Unlike the Daniel guy that was playing Davidson’s shadow, these guys are all military trained.”
“No killing,” Christen said. “Seriously, these guys are here doing a job. All we need to do is grab my dad and get him in the copter and get out of Dodge.”
“They’re here,” William Davison called, his voice echoing up the cathedral ceiling and carrying throughout the house. “The boat has arrived.”
Christen flew down the stairs, and grabbed his hand. “Move it, Dad, run.”
Her father didn’t move, he planted himself. “What are you doing? How did you get here? Why is that boat not my yacht?”
Christen looked up the stairs as Gator hustled toward them. “Throw him over your shoulder and run. I’ll cover you,” she ordered.
As Gator hot footed it down the stairs, she could see him calculating, working on a different strategy but when there was a rattle at the door behind them, he scooped her dad over his shoulder and started down the hall. She stayed on his heels sighting right then left as they moved. Her dad was yelling, asking for an explanation. Christen wondered if being upside down like that would make things worse on his tumor. She was sorry. But she also knew her dad could be a mule. And he looked like he was in that kind of mood.
A guard popped around the corner and Christen brought the butt of her rifle squarely up under his chin making him fly backward. She aimed her rifle at him while Lula ran in, cuffed him, and took his sidearm.
Christen lifted her chin to Lula. “Take point,” she whispered, and Lula complied.
“What in Sam Hill are you doing?” William Davidson yelled.
“Saving your life,” Christen hissed back. “Shut up for once, Dad.” She couldn’t believe she’d just said that, but then again, maybe it would be such a shock that she spoke to him that way that he might just comply.
“Let me the hell down from here, I can run on my own two feet.”
Gator looked at Christen for affirmation before he set her father down. Then Gator grabbed the back of his shirt in his fist, exactly like she’d seen Nitro maneuver John Grey. Gator propelled her dad forward faster than she’d ever seen her dad move before.
A bullet whizzed by her dad’s ear, and she watched her dad try to swat it away like he would a mosquito. Gator bent in two and ran toward the tree line, hauling his precious cargo along. Lula still had point. Johnna sprinted after. Christen turned to see where the shot had come from. The crack had been close. Three more bullets followed.
There he was. Karl. Rifle in handed, sighting on the group as they moved into the safety of the trees, he racked the gun and fired. Missed.
Then he turned the scope on her. Christen took off running tripped, rolled, watched the ground lift in a puff beside her hand as the bullet dug its way into the soil. The night she was drugged and wrapped in her sheet Karl had come and untied her from the bed. Had pulled off her life vest. She remembered that now.
She flipped to her back and sighted between her knees.
How did the life vest get back on, was she hallucinating?
Bang, another bullet flew toward her, another miss.
Christen was so confused. This was all so surreal, she was so exhausted. For all she knew she was dreaming. Get off the X. Get into the trees.
Gator was there by her side, hefting her to her feet. With his hand jammed under her arm, she stood, frozen, staring at Karl.
Karl, waved his arms, screaming at the guards to “Get them! Don’t let them leave.”
“Don’t let them leave,” those were the words that worked their way into the cotton folds of her brain and without any thought at all to the outcome, Christen dragged the rifle to her shoulder and pulled the trigger. She saw a spray of blood. There was a momentary howl that cut off in the middle, leaving only the wind’s whistle in its wake.
“Christen!” her name echoed out past the wind. It was Gator. He’d never said her name before. It was magic. It gave her wings and with his hand on her arm, she flew to the safety of the trees where the others huddled and waited for her.
“I shot someone,” Christen moaned, he hands on her knees, unable to breathe.
“That was Karl,” Johnna said. “You shot him in the leg.”
Christen realized how disappointing that was. The leg. He’d probably survive that.
“You shot Karl in the leg?” her father’s voice boomed out, angry, volatile.
Gator had a grip on his shirt. “She saved your life. Karl came to kill you.”
“The hell you say. My son? Kill me? Never.”
Johnna stepped in. “When we get you back to Singapore, we’ll show you the tape of his collusion. For now, we need to go.” She pointed in the direction of the heli.
“Hell no. Not without Karl. He needs to get to the hospital asap, my daughter lost her cotton-pickin’ mind and shot him. For Christ sake. You,” he pointed at Gator. “Get back there and get my son. He needs medical attention. I’m not taking step one until he’s here with me.”
“Yes, sir,” Gator said, reaching down and dragging the man over his shoulder. He took off at a jog.
The women followed.
Christen’s father was apoplectic as they took him to Singapore. The CIA provided a doctor to medicate him. Singapore’s hospital wasn’t safe. Nowhere would be safe until her dad changed his will and made that fact publicly known. For now, Christen had seen him boarded and woozy on the private CIA jet headed for the US. What would happen to the others?
Good question.
Part of need to know.
Christen didn’t need to know. She was curious, but that didn’t count. She was used to that being in the military. The CIA was an intelligence gathering entity not an enforcement branch. Johnna and Lula didn’t need to know and probably never would know the outcome. But someone was following through. Someone was shutting this helium crap down. Maybe. Hopefully.
As far as she was concerned, it was over. She was heading home to her cot behind the striped sheet at the FOB in Iraq. Back to Smitty, and Prominator, and Nick of Time. She’d get to hear their story. And she’d be in her element. In control. Hands on the stick, eyes on the gauges.
First though, she needed a heart to heart with one Jean-Marie Rochambeau.
***
Christen emerged from the hot shower in her Singapore hotel room, feeling about a thousand times more human. The mission was over. Lula and Johnna wanted her gone before Karl had a chance to find her. She’d “done well.” She could be “proud of her service to the country.”
Christen thought the whole darn thing was a great big nightmare. The only bright side was she and Gator had met. Now, she could get on with her life. She hadn’t realized that she’d been in a holding pattern waiting for him to emerge from her imagination into her reality. This was the guy she’d been waiting for.
She’d never thought about sharing her life with someone else. She thought she might be too much of a control freak to allow room for a marriage. A family.
That thought put a little smile on her lips. A bunch of little Aids creating havoc, the apples not falling too far from the trees. Lula had laid an outfit for her across the bed. She must have bought it in the hotel dress shop. When a knock sounded, Christen went to the door thinking it was Lula coming back with some shoes.
She wrapped a towel around herself and peeked through the security lens.
There stood Gator.
When she opened the door to him, his gaze traveled down to her feet then back up to her eyes. And they brightened like he was feverish. He stepped in and shut the door softly behind him.
“I just wanted to tell you good-bye. I have a taxi waiting to take me to the hospital to pick up Blaze, then we’re headed back stateside.” He swallowed. He looked miserable. “I wanted to wish you the very best of luck back at your FOB and safe return home.” He kept his hands at his side, fingers curled in. His body was rigid. There was nothing warm or merry about him as there had been before they’d trekked back to the headhunter’s village. Again, Christen thought something significant had happened, and she’d missed it.
He looked like a man who had been beaten down.
She wanted him to look at her, really look at her. To connect. “Good-bye? Not…” Tears pressed against her eyelids.
His good-bye felt permanent.
They would never see each other again.
She knew it. She knew it in her bones.
“You’re telling me good-bye?” she stammered still not quite able to adjust to the reality of this moment.
“Yes, ma’am.” His voice was husky with emotion.
Why is he doing this?
“It was an honor to work with you.”
That wasn’t Gator. That was… a Marine. Christen had no power in her body. She crumpled into the chair. She was too stunned to have a coherent thought other than – I thought we were in love. I thought this was the love of my lifetime. He’s saying good-bye.
“Why are you doing this Gator?” She shook herself to get her mind in lock step. She felt her system swell with anger. “You’re lying to me.”
“Ma’am?”
“Stop with the god damned ma’ams. The assignment is over. Tell me what the hell it is you think you’re doing right now.” Anger felt better. More powerful. Right.
He opened his mouth and tried a word and shut his mouth again.
“Please,” Christen shifted tone. Softened her gaze. Tried to be welcoming of what he would tell her. I don’t know him, she reminded herself. There could be someone else in his life. My feelings might not be his. But still, she’d say what she thought and what she thought was, “This is a lie what’s happening now. Just tell me the truth.”
And he did.
He moved forward into the room and knelt on one knee. He reached for her hand and played with her fingers. He told her a story of desperation in Tanzania, of recognition in Singapore, of the vision quest in Sumatra, and all along how Lynx had affirmed his experiences. She’d seen the same things. Had gone through it, too. Lynx had always fought by his side, and this lifetime was no different. There had always been the two women. His dearly held friend, Lynx, and the love of his life Christen.
He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them softly.
“I’ve loved you through the millennia just like I love you now. And every time we’ve loved, you’ve died in my arms. I need to go. I need to get distance between us.” He held tight to her hands as he swallowed. It took a long minute until he could say, “I won’t see you harmed.” He pulled his gaze up to hers, and she read the anguish there.
Christen believed all of it. She’d experienced from the outside what Gator was saying. She could line up what she’d seen and heard and it all made better sense to her, now.
“Do you think that that was literal, Gator? What you saw in the dream quest? Do you believe in many lives?”
“My beliefs don’t really matter. If we live again and again or we don’t. I’m not willing to chance your life on my weakness.”
“You haven’t a weak cell in your body.” she scoffed.
“Christen, please, don’t fight me on this. I do, for sure, have a weak spot.” He cleared his throat and nodded. “I sure enough do. I’m sorry, I’m hurting you.”
“Stop,” Christen couldn’t handle the pain in his voice. “You said there was a phrase.”
His eyes snapped up. Caution. The intensity was shocking.
“I swear I won’t say it.” The electricity that she’d sparked, calmed. She let this all tumble around. It really all seemed tied to the phrase. “What if I were to promise you to never say, ‘I will love you and the F-bomb.’ Isn’t that the spell? Didn’t you say it was the thing you heard each time? Would you change your mind about saying goodbye if I swore never to use those words?”
Gator sat on the carpeting, so they were eye to eye. Torment in his gaze. She could tell that he was fighting his emotions and his conviction. He wanted to do the noble thing. The right thing. But he also wanted her in his life. She hoped that was what she was reading.
“Gator, Jean-Marie, please, listen to me.” She turned her hands, so she could lace their fingers together. “We live dangerous lives you and me. There is no tomorrow in our world. There’s today. Can’t I love you for today? Wouldn’t you please love me today?”
Gator’s eyes flashed, and she thought she saw a spark of hope in them.
“Just today?”
“Yes, today,” Christen said. “We’ll decide tomorrow if we’ll love tomorrow. We can wake up and decide each day. ‘I will love you for today.’ Or not. I may not love you tomorrow. I can’t promise who I’ll be or what I’ll feel tomorrow. But I can tell you for sure how I feel today. In this moment. I love you, today.”
Their gazes held. His eyes were turbulent.
“There are no guarantees, Jean-Marie.” She reached out with her free hand and slid the pads of her fingers lightly over the worry lines that ranged across his handsome face. “There are no charms or spells. There’s no safety. Why not love each other and be happy – even if it’s just for this moment?”
She held her breath. She watched as Gator processed the thought. Broke down his walls. Let go of his fierce protection of her. Unraveled from his coil.
Finally, he pulled her from her chair, and she tumbled onto his lap and into his arms. Right where she belonged. He kissed her, soft and sweet. Then deeper. “Christen, would you do me the honor of loving me for the whole day?” He held her hand to his lips. As he spoke the words whispered over her skin.
“I will make that vow to you. I will, for today, have and hold you.”
“For better, for worse?”
“Absolutely.”
“For richer for poorer?”
“Why yes, Jean-Marie Rochambeau, I would do that.”
“In sickness or in health?”
“I will, indeed, love and honor you for the whole of today. And what’s more? Just so you know, I plan on making that vow to you every single day for the rest of my life.”
Peace settled in the room. Gator cradled her head against his heart. He sighed, releasing the last of his stress and kissed her hair.
He tipped her face up to kiss her nose.
He kissed her lips.
He lifted her and moved to the bed where they crushed her new dress under their weight. Her towel slipped to the floor. And for the first time in this life time, Gator and Christen found the bliss of being one, once again.
This is not
THE END
Please follow Gator Aid Rochambeau and the Iniquus family
as they continue their fight for the greater good.