Chapter
58
USS GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS A floating city carrying thousands of personnel, nearly eighty aircraft, and a massive missile payload. Its bridge rose over seventy meters from the surface of the water. It displaced almost a hundred thousand tons and was longer than three football fields. When the chopper’s skids landed on the carrier’s deck, Robie breathed a final sigh of relief. He climbed out of the chopper under his own power but gripping his injured leg. The young airman on the chopper put an arm under his shoulder, supporting him.
“We’ll get you down to sick bay, sir. They’ll fix you right up.”
“Can a guy get a cup of coffee on this boat?” asked Robie with a weary smile.
“Hell, sir, this tin can is nothing but a big coffee pot.”
The ship’s doctor was nearly done taping up Robie’s wounds when Reel walked in.
He looked up at her. “So you didn’t think I could get my ass out without help?”
She perched on the side of the bed and said, “No, I just figured the chopper guys needed some practice in land grabs on North Korean soil, and I know how accommodating you are.”
The doctor smiled and said, “I’m pretty sure I’m not cleared for this.”
“Then you better leave,” said Reel. “I need to talk to this guy.”
The doctor put one last strip of tape over the gauze on Robie’s thigh. “All done. Have your chat.” He walked off.
Reel held up a thermos she pulled from the pocket of her jumpsuit. “Thought you might need a refill.” She topped off his cup of coffee and then drank directly from the thermos.
“How are the others?” Robie asked.
“Sook is fine. A real trouper. Du-Ho and Eun Sun are still a bit shell-shocked, I think. But pretty damn happy not to be where they were.” She looked down at his bandaged leg. “I take it things got hairy back there.”
“A little. Well, more than a little. The North Koreans regrouped a lot faster than we anticipated. But for the chopper?” He held up his mug of coffee. “Let’s just say this ending was much preferred over what would have been.”
“It’s good to see you, Robie. It really is.” There was a catch in her voice.
He sat back against his pillow and studied her. “So Du-Ho and Eun Sun will be relocated and put into what, Witness Protection of some sort?”
Reel nodded. “That’s the gist of it. I think they’re going to engage Sook to help them with the transition.”
“Pyongyang will know exactly what happened.”
“Yes, they will. If we weren’t on the most powerful warship on earth right now, I’d be expecting incoming fire at us.”
“So we won the tactical battle.”
“But the strategic one is still out there.”
“They’re going to retaliate for sure. Pak was bad enough.”
Reel sipped from her thermos and nodded. “We struck on their home turf. They’ll feel they have to do the same.”
“But where?”
“And what? Or who?” added Reel. She gazed off, her features tired, spent.
He said, “Is the plan still to airlift us to Seoul and a private wing ride home from there?”
She nodded. “That’s the last I heard.”
“And then what?”
She looked at him. “Then we stand down until they call us back up.”
“Really?”
“What else?”
“You tell me.”
“You thinking of hanging it up?”
Robie cracked a smile. “I know a certain DCI who would be just thrilled if we did.”
“Isn’t that reason enough not to retire, then?”
Robie’s smile faded. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know what I want, Robie. I just know what I’m supposed to want.”
He lifted his hand and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Well, you might want to take some time to figure out what it is you do want, Jessica. And leave ‘supposed to’ in the trash can. Because neither one of us is getting any younger.”
“So are you saying fifteen years ago you wouldn’t have needed the chopper ride to get away from the bad guys tonight?”
“Do you want the truth or what I’m supposed to say?”
“The fact is, Robie, we are highly trained and can do lots of amazing things, but we’re still only flesh and bone.” She tapped his chest. “And here we’re as vulnerable as anybody else. I certainly found that out, didn’t I?”
“Part of living. Part of dying.”
“The good with the bad?” she asked. “It’s hard to imagine we still live in a world where people live in concentration camps. Where they’re treated like animals.”
“You don’t have to go to North Korea for that, Jessica. Happens all over the world. Some places just aren’t as obvious. Which makes them even worse in my book.”
“I know.”
He reached out and took her hand, squeezed it, felt the strength there as she gripped him back.
She said, “I didn’t want to leave you back there.”
“But you did it right by the book. You don’t leave the people we’re guarding without coverage.”
“But it’s still going to stick with me, Robie.”
“You need to let it go. I made the call. You did exactly what you were supposed to. And on top of it you had the foresight to save my ass. I owe you my life, Jess. But for you I’m gone. Forever.”
She grazed his cheek with her hand and then leaned over and kissed him there. She settled against him as he wrapped his arm around her.
He didn’t know if she was weeping. It was nearly impossible to tell with Jessica Reel. What was inside of her never seemed to truly make it to the outside.
So he just held her, as the big carrier made its way south where the free part of Korea would welcome them briefly before their journey home.