Yeager's Getaway Read online

  “Just my luck,” Charlie said without looking up from her reader. “I finally ditch the kids and go on a much-delayed honeymoon cruise with my husband, who used to be a Marine. And guess what? The ship is packed with Marines.”

  “Three is hardly packed. And those guys were salty.”

  All three of them were Vietnam vets, telling tales of the Rockpile, Ca Lu, and Hill 881. Hue City... Khe Sanh. Who wouldn’t want to hear those war stories?

  “And while you’re out swapping lies with the Leatherneck Legends, your wife is waiting up for you in her brand-new nightie. See-through, like you like it.” Charlie stabbed her reader with a finger and flipped an electronic page.

  Yeager could almost hear the page snap. He lifted his pounding head with ponderous effort. “I’m sorry I missed that.” And he meant it. She could make his heart race when she was wearing a spacesuit and face cream. Charlie in sexy lingerie made him lose his mind. He groaned again and flopped back. “I really, really am.”

  She must have taken pity on him, because she got up and brought him a bottle of water from the minifridge. “Here. Rehydrate, caveman. You’re going to need it today.”

  “Why’s that—” A memory clawed its way up through the corpses of dead brain cells. “Wait. Oh, hell no.”

  “Oh, hell yes, Staff Sergeant Yeager.” Charlie stood by the bed with her hands on her hips and a smug expression. “We hike the nature reserve today. Three hours of exercise should sweat all the beer right out of you.”

  “God hates me,” Yeager groaned.

  “God will forgive you. I, on the other hand...”

  PUERTO ARISTA, CHIAPAS, Mexico

  Friday, 7 May

  2210 Local

  Approximately Eighteen Hours before Honolulu Bombing

  Dr. Alexandra Lopez stalked into the bedroom, muttering curses. One towel wrapped her figure, while another rode her head like a downy-white turban. Blood trickled a thin line along her thigh. She breezed by the bed, where Victor was nursing a full tummy and savoring the comfort of clean sheets and foam-filled pillows.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, though truth be told, his attention was arrested by the sight of Alex’s butt as she bent over and rooted around in the boxes of medical supplies lining one wall of the condo’s bedroom. The towel rode up the back of her thighs the way a super-short miniskirt would. Just a little more...

  “I cut myself shaving my legs. You Americans and your damned fetish for shaving.” Alex opened a second box. “Where’s the box with the bandages?”

  “Hmm? Oh. Next one over, I think. Deep in the box... no, really deep.”

  “Aie! What’s this?” Alex popped upright with the old Smith & Wesson dangling from a finger by the trigger guard.

  “Una pistola.”

  His flippancy earned him a cocked eyebrow and a pursed lip. Alex crossed her free arm and propped the elbow of the one holding the firearm.

  “It was Surrender Your Gun Day in Armlick, Mexico,” Victor said in English. “How lucky for us.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Alex said, which Victor translated as Bullshit.

  “Some kids trying to be tough,” he said with a shrug. “Set it by the door so I don’t forget to throw it in the ocean.” Victor let his eyes drift closed as he listened to Alex bustle around, getting herself ready for bed. Her soft sounds had a domesticated feel that left him... content. Was this how Yeager felt with Charlie? It was really nice.

  Not for the first time, the word marriage crept into his unguarded mind.

  Shit, dude. Get a grip.

  Alexandra was a doctor, with more degrees than a thermometer, brilliant and beautiful and accomplished. As for Victor, ever since his antique Huey had blown its engine, he was a helicopter pilot with no helicopter and a former United States Marine—Bronze Star, Purple Heart. He was also a part-time smuggler—of contraband only, not drugs or people—and occasional soldier of fortune.

  And of course, don’t forget: galactic-class heartbreaker and lovemaker.

  But hell, Yeager was a big, dumb jarhead without enough nickels in his pocket to buy a pack of gum, and he’d hooked a woman almost—almost—as pretty as Alex.

  The bed sagged as she slipped under the covers. Her warm, very naked body cuddled up next to him, sending wakey-wakey signals to his sleepy pecker. Alex hooked a leg over his, and the heat from her sex warmed his thigh.

  “Who were the kids?” she murmured.

  “Huh? What?”

  “You said some kids were trying to be tough. Who were they?”

  Victor blinked and tried to focus. Punks with guns were about the last thing he wanted to talk about with two firm boobs pressed against his side. “Ahh. Just some misguided youths. I spanked them and sent them to bed without supper.”

  Alex lifted up to look him in the eye. “You could have been shot. Again.”

  “Not me. I’m bulletproof.”

  “Bool shit.” She traced a ragged scar on his ribcage. “You almost didn’t make it last time, mi hermoso.”

  “I had motivation.” Victor grinned and twisted around, pulling Alex tight to his chest.

  “Mmm,” Alex hummed. “I feel your motivation poking me in the belly.”

  “What can I say? You are extremely motivational.”

  Much later, Victor sank into the fog of sleep, cocooned in cottony bliss. The only sound in the darkened room came from the ocean breeze buffeting the windowpanes, and the very faint shush of breakers rolling in from the west. His consciousness floated on a lazy stream, thoughts dissipating before forming, and his awareness ebbing on the outgoing tide of the ocean of sleep. In that state of near-unconsciousness, he thought he heard Alex whisper so softly that the puffs of air from her words tickled his shoulder, and her tiny voice came from a distance, so he wasn’t sure whether he actually heard her or only dreamed of her speaking: “Te amo.”

  I love you.

  MOLOKAI FOREST RESERVE, Molokai

  Saturday, 8 May

  1355 Local

  Ten Minutes after the Honolulu Bombing

  The combination of steamy heat and brilliant spears of sunlight stabbing his eyes treated Yeager’s head to a drum line of painful throbbing. He counted himself lucky to have managed a quiet morning of upchucking his toenails before Charlie dragged him from the cabin to join the platoon of tourists for the boat ride to the shore of Molokai. The brochure had represented Molokai as “emerald mountains lofting over blue diamond seas,” and Yeager could find no fault with the description. They landed at a boat ramp next to a white-sand beach. A bus idled in a nearby parking lot.

  Soon after a drive in air-conditioned comfort, the hardier and more adventurous passengers of the Fair Breezes had piled out into the tropical heat and transferred to a trio of four-wheel-drive vehicles. After the gut-crunching drive, they reached an overlook to a deep gorge, where everyone supplied their oohs and aahs. Venturing past that point required permission, which the tour company had obtained, so the passengers shouldered their packs and followed their petite guide up a steep trail, heading eastward into the Molokai Forest Reserve. To their right, the mile-high tip of Kamakou and the East Molokai shield volcano dominated the skyline. To their left were trees and trees and more trees.

  Wayward Ventures, the tour company that operated the Fair Breezes, billed their Hawaiian cruise as an “off the beaten path” experience. As a small ship that carried about forty passengers, the Breezes catered to a demographic that spanned middle-aged people to hardy seniors. The passengers tended to be younger and in better shape than the average cruise ship tourist. The three Vietnam vets and their wives were the oldest by far, whereas Yeager and Charlie fit near the other end of the age bracket. A vegan couple from Mountain View, California—who checked all the appropriate boxes on the social-awareness questionnaire—won the youth prize, clocking in somewhere under thirty.

  Only nine passengers, including the Leatherneck Legends—as Charlie called them—had opted in for this hike. As hikes went, it could make a Boy Scout cry.
“Vigorous” was how the pamphlet described it.

  Fucking miserable was how Yeager labeled it.

  By the middle of the six-mile hike, even the California vegans were starting to flag. The tour leader called a halt, and everyone milled to a stop on a shaded section of narrow trail. Yeager parked his butt on a boulder bordering the path and mopped sweat with the back of his sleeve. He flexed his left hand, which had started tingling again. After taking a partial blow from a machete to the forearm, the hand had never really been right again. Of course, whenever Charlie asked about it, he claimed there was no numbness at all.

  He drained his sixth bottle of water. Winston Pettigrew appeared at Yeager’s elbow. At an age when most men wanted a rocking chair and a nap, Winston—one of the three Leatherneck Legends—had the energy of a hyperactive four-year-old. He reminded Yeager of a brisket left on the grill too long: lean, black, hard, and gnarly. He wore a too-big cap with “Vietnam Vet” stitched in yellow on the forehead, and he huddled inside an ancient Members Only windbreaker despite the heat.

  “That’s your wife, right?” Pettigrew hitched his chin to where Charlie stood next to the couple from California. All three heads were together, looking at Charlie’s phone. By the couple’s rapt expressions, Yeager gathered his wife was showing baby pictures of John Riley Yeager, seven pounds, four ounces. Charlie couldn’t get enough of showing off the kid to anyone who would hold still long enough. To Yeager, the boy resembled a miniature Edgar G. Robinson—pissed off and scowling.

  “Yes, it is,” Yeager said.

  “Shee-it, boy. I had her back in my cabin, I’d never come out.”

  Yeager snorted. “I wish I’d thought of that before this here Bataan Death March.”

  “Whaddya think’s going on?” Pettigrew had a gravel-mixer voice from a fifty-year Marlboro habit.

  “With what?”

  “Lu Kim. She took a call on her sat phone, and now look at her.”

  The activity director from the cruise line, Lu Kim was as chipper a person as he’d had ever met. He suspected the tiny Korean woman’s blood could be used to cure hatred in the Middle East. Yeager leaned out and craned his neck to find Lu at the front of the pack, distancing herself from the rest by hunching over her phone with a finger in the other ear. Her posture resembled that of someone sucker punched in the gut.

  His scalp prickled. “I don’t know. Bad news, looks like.”

  Danny Osterchuk wandered within range, waving a hand in front of his nose. “Hoowee. That heat don’t halfway leave a man drooping, don’t she?” A Minnesota-bred farm boy, Osterchuk was Winston Pettigrew’s genetic opposite. Six-two with the girth of a polar bear, Osterchuk hadn’t missed a buffet since mustering out in 1971. Sweat slicked his ruddy face and soaked the collar of his XXXL Hawaiian shirt. Early on, Yeager had voted him most likely to collapse of a heart attack. “I can’t believe we’re paying good money for this. Uncle Sam used to pay me to hike in the damned jungle. I should have stayed on the ship with my wife.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Winston said. “Ain’t nobody shooting at you. No malaria, no booby traps, no crotch rot. No two-dollar hoes with the ten-dollar clap.”

  “But enough sweat to drown an alligator.” Yeager squeegeed his forehead with a finger and flicked the droplets away. “Fair warning, Osterchuk: you fall out, ain’t nobody doing CPR.”

  “If I fall in a combat zone,” Osterchuk chanted, “box me up and ship me home.”

  Pettigrew broke into a greasy cough, bending double and holding his knees. “Need a butt,” he wheezed after the spasm passed.

  “No smoking here in God’s garden, ol’ buddy.” Osterchuk thumped a meaty palm on Pettigrew’s back. “We can’t fuck up that volcanic tang with yucky cigarette smoke.”

  “Uh-oh. Check this out,” Pettigrew said.

  Lu Kim was waving her arms for everybody to gather around. In cuffed shorts and a tan work shirt over a tank top, Kim stood at a whopping five foot one.

  “There’s been a terrorist attack in Honolulu,” Kim announced. Though pale and shaky, she spoke with a firm voice and appeared to have her wits gathered. A stir passed through the passengers as she continued. “Several bombs exploded at Waikiki locations. An unknown number of dead or injured.” She held up a hand to halt the first sputtering questions. “If you have friends or family in the Honolulu area, transportation will be made available to you immediately. And of course, we should have cellular phone coverage and Wi-Fi once we return to the ship.”

  “Who did it?” asked a passenger Yeager didn’t know.

  “I don’t have that information at this time.”

  “Fucking ragheads,” muttered Pettigrew.

  “What if we want to go home?” That question came from a Rhode Island insurance salesman named Tom or John or something. “Do we get a refund?”

  Yeager tuned out the answer and found Charlie then put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned in, resting her head on his chest. Yeager sighed and held his wife close. “Honolulu’s two, three hundred miles away. We’re safe here. And should be even safer on the ship.”

  “I know.” Charlie hugged him. “More random violence. And for what?”

  “No good reason, I’m sure.”

  “How can we keep going? Can we have our honeymoon and enjoy ourselves when America’s been attacked? I don’t feel like having fun, knowing what those people are going through.”

  “We don’t let the terrorists win, for one thing,” Yeager said. “We’ve planned this trip for months. I’ll be damned if I’ll cut it short because some fanatic is killing people to make his sick point.”

  Charlie searched his face with her clear blue eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.” Yeager grinned and planted a wet kiss on her forehead. “No terrorist is going to spoil our honeymoon. Besides, Por Que and Alex are coming. I’d hate to miss seeing them.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lu Kim asked for a show of hands, and the hikers unanimously agreed to continue their trek. Charlie noticed Abel’s hand didn’t exactly leap up with enthusiasm, which she chalked up to his hangover. The man was a hurting puppy. Sweat saturated his short-sleeved button-down work shirt—the same shirt she was positive she’d thrown out at least once. And good God, the jeans. The man refused to wear shorts, so his legs had to be sweltering in a pair of Wranglers that were worn to a frazzle around the back hem and bleached out to a blue so light it was almost white. A striation of chalky sweat lines marked his inevitable gimme cap in a historical record of previous sweaty days.

  Charlie studied her husband as he unlimbered his backpack and retrieved yet another bottle of water. His eyes had a natural cant that made him appear a little sad and world-weary and as dangerous as a fuzzy stuffed otter.

  But she’d seen the other Abel—the one who came out when bad things happened. It was spooky, the way Abel transformed from an amiable, warm, sincere human male into a... war beast. His skin tightened, and his eyes turned hard, glittering, and soulless. The predator surfaced, dominating his features and attitude in a way she found both disturbing and exhilarating. And she was even more disturbed to find it so exhilarating.

  A primal force lurked behind her husband’s thin mask of civilization. Charlie sensed it when they made love. She teased it, the way one would court mortality by walking along the parapet of a skyscraper or toying with the lock on a tiger’s cage, testing her control of a dangerous power that could snuff out her life in the blink of an eye—though knowing he never would. Feeling that potency, that barely contained violence held in check by his utter commitment to her, humbled and exalted her in equal measure.

  It’s like making love with a werewolf.

  People stirred, gathering their packs and retying hiking boots. Ted Pyle, the third of the Leatherneck Legends, joined the group around Yeager. Pyle’s wife, Betty, hovered at his shoulder. Of the trio, unmarried Pettigrew was the fifth wheel. Betty had volunteered to hike the wilderness trail, while Jan Osterchuk had remained ab
oard the ship for a “mai-tais-and-trashy-romance-novel afternoon.”

  “We ready to do this thing?” Pyle asked in the overloud voice of the nearly deaf. Ted had earned the inevitable nickname Gomer while serving in ’Nam during the same era as the television show with Jim Nabors. Gomer had a bald, liver-spotted head surrounded by a fringe of white hair that tufted over both ears. He hunched a little, carried a bowling-ball belly, and regarded the world through watery blue eyes. Two dumbbell-sized hearing aids weighed down his ears and did little to improve his colossal deafness. Betty, a sparrow of a woman with infinite patience, mother-henned him around the ship—a helicopter wife. Charlie had been surprised Gomer had slipped her leash long enough to get drunk with Abel and the other Marines.

  Betty patted her husband’s arm. “No need to shout.”

  “I’m not shouting!”

  Osterchuk, looking like a red-faced polar bear, had parked his considerable butt on the boulder in the spot recently vacated by Abel. He didn’t look well either. “I think I need to sit a bit longer.”

  That prompted a visit from Lu Kim, and Charlie tuned out the discussion. She’d known at the outset that the big Minnesotan wasn’t in shape for a hard wilderness hike. Betty Pyle must have had the same opinion. Charlie met the older woman’s eyes and shared a knowing look.

  “You guys go on,” Osterchuk said to the activity director. “I’ll catch up. Or if not, I can find my way back to the overlook.”

  “I can’t leave you alone, Mr. Osterchuk.” Lu Kim reached for her sat phone. “Let me call the rangers.”

  “No, no. It’s okay, really.”

  Charlie caught Yeager looking at her. They’d been married less than a year, and they could already read each other’s minds as reliably as two telepaths. She nodded. He winked. Communication sent, received, acknowledged.