"No surveillance cameras," he told Robin. "We"re good."
"Ah." Now he understood. And it seemed a shame to waste the privacy that Sam had conjured up for them, but there were things Robin needed to say. "I know I"m not supposed to tell you to be careful. I"m supposed to say be safe."
"I will be," Jules said as he pulled Robin into his arms. "Both as careful and as safe as I can manage."
Which was great, but in reality, that might not be careful and safe enough to bring him home alive.
Two trips to Afghanistan ago, Jules had come perilously, heart-stoppingly close to coming home in a body bag.
One trip to Afghanistan ago, Robin didn"t eat or sleep the entire time that Jules was gone.
"I love you," he managed to say now.
"I don"t have to do this," Jules started to tell him, but Robin cut him off.
"Yeah, you do. And I"m gonna be okay. Sam and Gina need me to help with the kids. It"s going to be fun."
Jules laughed. "You"re a terrible liar."
Robin corrected himself. "It"s going to be as fun as it possibly can be."
"Hmmm," Jules said as he looked at Robin.
"Call me," Robin said. "Or e-mail. As often as you can."
"I hate doing this to you. Putting myself in danger. It"s not worth-"
"Oh yes it is." Robin cut him off. "It"s worth it. You"re worth it. You"re you. I love you for being you. Why would I want you to be anyone but who you are?"
Jules"s beautiful brown eyes welled with emotion. "G.o.d, I love you," he whispered.
"Then kiss me, babe," Robin said. "And then go get on that plane."
And Jules did.
Chapter Three.
"I"m sorry, what?" Sam turned to look at Gina, who was the closest thing he had to a languages expert in his current six-person team.
It was a team that consisted of an eight-month-old, a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and two twentysomethings who were hopelessly in love with their partners-partners who"d recently left for a war zone.
And that meant that Sam"s team"s major skill sets were eating, p.o.o.ping, crying, and/or trying not to cry or otherwise appear worried so as not to frighten the super-short team members.
Of course, none of the short people were fooled by the badly hidden stress levels. Certainly not Emma, who was looking pale and was watching Sam glumly with those eyes that reminded him a little too much of her father.
Max had tried to hook up with Alyssa back when Sam was married to his first wife, Mary Lou, and ... Or maybe it was Alyssa who"d tried to hook up with Max back when Max was trying desperately to keep his distance from Gina because she was nearly twenty years his junior.
It had all been a screaming charlie-foxtrot, and even though Sam had had no right to be jealous, considering he had been married to another woman at the time, seeing Max reminded him of that time of pain. And the fact that mini-Maxine here was the spitting image of her father was vaguely disturbing.
Yeah. This was going to be one long month-not counting the next apparently-destined-to-be-insanely-grueling twenty-four hours of ongoing travel.
"He said our flight"s been canceled due to ..." Gina, who was possibly even paler than her daughter, repeated the heavily accented words uttered by the heavily accented man behind the World Airlines counter.
But it was Robin who understood the last part. "Weather," he inserted. "The incoming flight from Tunisia"s been canceled-and that"s the plane we were supposed to leave on, so our flight"s been canceled, too. The next flight to Athens isn"t until ... When?"
Gina leaned toward the counterman, her expression echoing Robin"s dismay. "I"m sorry, did you just say Thursday?"
It was Monday. Late Monday-almost Tuesday, but still, sadly, Monday.
"Are you freaking kidding me?" Robin"s voice went up an octave.
In Sam"s arms, Ash started to cry. He may not have understood all of the words, but he clearly got the tone. "Shhh," Sam soothed him, automatically starting to rock. "We"re okay. It"s okay, Little Bit. We"ll figure this out."
Meanwhile, Robin was getting taller, looming over the airline representative. "Oh, no," he said. "No, no. No." He was an actor, and was usually low-key, but in times of stress he was capable of going big with the drama. "Thursday? No. No, no. We"ll take your next flight. Tonight. To anywhere."
"Pakistan," the man said. To give him credit, he was trying to be helpful. But he was mostly clueless.
"Except there."
"Libya?"
Gina made a guttural sound of intense pain.
"Or there," Robin said.
"Tomorrow morning," the man told them in the lilting accent that Sam was starting to be able to understand, "we have a flight to Roma. At ... six-oh-five."
That was only seven hours away. And Rome was marginally closer to Athens. Sam spoke up. "We"ll take it."
"But ... alas, my friends, only two seats are available."
Of course. "Please find the next flight with the number of seats that we need." Sam forced himself to be patient and to not jump over the counter and look at the computer monitor himself.
"Two-seventeen p.m.," the man said but his triumph quickly faded. "But, oh, that takes you back to London."
"London works," Robin said. He looked from Gina to Sam. "I was there just a few months ago. I know a great hotel where they"ll upgrade us to the presidential suite. I mean, if it"s not occupied. We can take a few days to decompress, take showers please G.o.d, get some sleep and some real food, and then, when we"re human again, we can get a direct flight to Athens."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Sam said.
"But we"ll need to get our luggage now," Gina chimed in, "and the name of a safe hotel near this airport, where we can spend the night."
Sam shook his head. "I know it"s not ideal," he told her, "but it"s best if we just hunkered down-"
Gina was already shaking her head.
Sam lowered his voice, leaned toward her. "Gina, I know it"s not going to be easy to-"
"Oh, G.o.d." Gina pivoted and thrust Mikey at Robin. "Take him, take him, take him. Emma, stay with Robin and Sam!"
As they all watched-Counterman was wide-eyed, too-Gina bolted for the ladies" room. Halfway there, she realized she wasn"t going to make it, so she veered toward a trash can and ...
A group of about a half a dozen monks had been walking serenely past, but now they all did a very sharp about-face and stepped up their pace, hustling away.
It was almost funny.
But Emma started to cry.
And Sam turned away. He had to. He was a sympathy vomiter-puking people were his kryptonite-and his last few badly cooked and too-greasy meals were flashing before his eyes. That cheeseburger, those onion rings ... Holy f.u.c.k, this was going to be bad.
But Robin knew Sam pretty d.a.m.n well. "Let"s get the kids more mobile so I can go help Gina," he said, morphing smoothly from outraged drama queen to calm, efficient team leader, as he handed Mikey off to Sam. "You focus on getting the luggage and some hotel recommendations from Mr. Mumbles."
It was a good idea-at least the part in which Robin played nurse and Sam avoided playing nurse. He burped and tasted fish and chips. "We should stay here, in the airport," Sam started to say, refreshing his grip on both babies.
"That"s not an option, Sam," Robin said flatly as he expertly unfolded Gina"s double stroller. "Not anymore."
This was going to be noisy. Ash was still in that cry-at-the-drop-of-a-hat place, and Mikey was in full-on pre-wail, having been pa.s.sed from his mom to Robin to Sam, his mouth in that telltale infinity symbol shape of doom. Putting the boys into the stroller was going to detonate both of them. Guaranteed. But it would free up Sam"s hands, and he was going to need his hands while Robin"s were full of Gina.
"Have you seen those public bathrooms?" Robin continued. "Forget about the fact that there are probably laws forbidding men going into the ladies" room, I am not letting Gina near that toilet. We need two rooms with two private bathrooms, preferably bed bug free but even that is negotiable at this point."
Sam had to ask, "Is Gina ...?" Pregnant again? He didn"t say it, but Robin understood.
He made an I honestly don"t know face as he helped Sam secure both Mikey and Ash with the stroller"s seatbelts.
"Please G.o.d, don"t let it be the flu," Sam muttered, and Robin actually laughed.
"Oh, wouldn"t that be great," he said then raised his voice. "Emma, come here, pumpkin-girl. We"re gonna need you to push the scream-team in a big circle, around and around and around our luggage. Can you do that for me, buddy? So I can help your mommy with her tummy ache?"
Emma nodded, still sniffling. "My tummy hurts, too."
"I know, baby," Robin said soothingly. "We"re all tired and hungry and a little bit cranky. So why don"t you just rock "em instead. Just back and forth, like this. Okay? And maybe you could sing them that song I taught you, remember ...?"
"We"ll need our luggage," Sam told the man behind the counter, raising his voice to be heard over Mike"s and Ash"s indignation, which was-hallelujah-fading a bit with Emma"s help.
The little girl was singing, "All the single ladies, all the single ladies ..." and Sam turned to give Robin a really? look, but Robin was busy tying back Gina"s long, dark hair.
Sam swiftly turned back to the counterman. "And the names and numbers of the nearest hotels."
"May I see your luggage tags, sir?"
Sam found his boarding pa.s.s and held it out so the man could see the sticker with the info about his checked bags.
The World Airlines rep"s fingers clicked on the keyboard, and then he made a sound that Sam didn"t want to hear.
It was an oh, and it was not a happy oh. It was, for sure, a bad news oh.
But the man tried to spin it. "It seems your luggage is still in London, sir. But that"s good, since you"re now going to London ...?"
G.o.d d.a.m.n it. Sam resisted the urge to put his head down on the counter. But there was one last option they hadn"t checked. "Can you look to see if there"s any other airline, with enough seats for all of us, flying out of Tarafashir tonight, preferably to Athens or London, but we"re open to other possiblities ...?"
As the keyboard again clicked, Sam took out his phone and fired off a quick text to Alyssa, updating her as to their snafu.
But then Mikey and Ash"s chorus of woe kicked up a notch, and Sam looked over, just in time to see that Emma had stopped singing and rocking them. She stood there, silently staring at him, doing her mini-Max imitation.
And then she puked. She didn"t lean over, she didn"t otherwise move. She just opened her mouth and out it came, a volcano of nastiness-down her tiny shirt and little jeans, and all over her miniature sneakers.
And Sam knew even as he crushed his instinct to run away and instead leapt toward Emma, to try help the little girl ...
It was the flu.
They were screwed.
Murphy.
The seventh member of Sam"s little team here in Goatf.u.c.klandia was Mr. Murphy, whose written-in-stone law was clearly in play.
Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.
Emma threw up again, this time all over Sam"s jeans and boots.
Hoo-yah.
Chapter Four.
Afghanistan The helo ride to the first FOB had been b.u.mpy.
Apparently there was a late spring snowstorm barreling its way into the mountainous region.
Jules was glad that their luggage had been lost because the jacket he"d packed wasn"t as warm as this replacement he"d been issued.
Alyssa, however, wasn"t as happy as she looked around at the bare bones facilities of the remote camp: the tents, the fort-like walls of the machine gun nests made of concrete and rubble, but mostly rubble.
The desolate, barren surrounding countryside ...
"He"s gotta come here first," Alyssa was telling Max and Commander Lewis Koehl. The CO of SEAL Team Sixteen, Koehl was in on this little recon mission, and three of his men had tagged along as slightly superfluous military might. "Not necessarily here here, but whichever operating base is the one that"s safest on the day that he arrives. He"s gotta land without a fanfare. No Air Force One. In fact, I"d recommend that Air Force One lands very publicly in Germany, to distract and misinform."
"I agree," Max said as Koehl, a man of relatively few words, nodded.