| Subject: “Full Engagement -- Broken Engagement” - Part 3 |
Author:
Dancer
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Date Posted: 22:01:08 07/27/02 Sat
In reply to:
Dancer
's message, "“Full Engagement -- Broken Engagement” - Part 2" on 21:57:54 07/27/02 Sat
The one dim candle in the thick, amber glass ball was beginning to flicker. It had burned down far enough for the wick to be nearly drowned in melted wax, but the tiny fire bravely pressed on.
So, too, our intrepid fellow wanderers, Mic Brumby and Renee Peterson had persevered through appetizer, salad and main course to come to the after-dinner portion of the evening’s entertainment.
Their conversation had long since abandoned any semblance of formality. The Wonder from Down Under and the Video Princess were not predisposed to such rituals, anyway. A naturally free-spirited attitude and the judicious application of selected liquors had done wonders for the tone of conversation between the two. Even now, the erstwhile Svengali trapped inside the shapely, blonde dynamo from California was plotting and planning the next stage of Mic Brumby’s life for him.
“I think you’d be great in that,” she offered eagerly.
“What?” he sputtered in amazement. “Dress up in that ruddy hat and spiel on about ‘shrimp on the barbie’? No thanks, luv.” His disgust for such an idea was matched only by the public embarrassment he could see written all over it. He shook his head sorrowfully. “It’d be bloody humiliating.”
“Are you kidding?” the bombshell countered. “You have no idea what those commercials did for tourism down there.”
“What? Those?”
“Absolutely,” she declared flatly. Renee was fond of waving her hands when she talked, and this conversation was no exception. As she leaned in toward Mic to give her pronouncements the air of confidentiality, she spread the fingers of one hand and patted at the air as if she were demonstrating the qualities of some new nail polish preparation. “Listen,” she began with a confident air. “I’ve done my share of advertising and let me tell you, if it sells, it soars. It doesn’t matter what kind of dreck you put out there. It doesn’t matter about the quality or anything. It almost doesn’t have to be in focus,” she added with a shrug before summing up her whole presentation by saying, “As long as it sells the product, they think you’re a gold-plated genius. Kind of explains Pauly Shore.”
“Who?”
“Anyway, I have some friends at the Australian Embassy, and I …”
“So do I, Renee,” he added defensively. “I know plenty of people over there -- military people -- the kind who sit around making sport of Dundee and all the fools who think that’s what Australia is.”
Renee cast a withering glance his way. “Well, they’re not making fun of his bank account.”
“Oh, that,” Mic snorted dismissively.
“Look, the guy’s a millionaire,” she protested. “They can make all the jokes they want.” Renee then waved her hand under Mic’s nose. “If they don’t like him in Sydney, he can move somewhere else. He can live anywhere he wants to.” As she raised her glass to her lips, she leveled her best come hither / close the sale kind of look at her dinner partner. “Just think, Mic, you could be rich.”
He shook his head – unconvinced. “Thanks all the same, luv, but I think I’ll stick to being a lawyer.”
“Talk about no respect,” she muttered sarcastically.
“Just my own.”
“You sound like Harm,” she whined in that flat, almost nasal tone she could slip into when she was trying to emphasize her astonishment.
“Oh, right,” he moaned. “Thanks for the compliment,” though his tone of voice made it clear he didn’t consider it one. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather be Hogan.”
“All right, all right,” she snapped impatiently. “I know what you mean. Harm can be a little too good for words sometimes.”
“A little too good for something,” Mic muttered under his breath. Renee was scanning the room searching for their server, but Mic thought she was still seeking her wayward Commander. “He’s not here, luv,” the Aussie advised firmly. “Been watching the door since we got here and haven’t seen a one of them.”
“A waiter?”
“No. The others.” As Mic surveyed the table before him, he realized their dinner dishes were still uncollected and from the way Renee was dangling her glass, he could only imagine what she wanted. “Would you like something else, then?”
“You bet.”
Mic raised a hand to beckon a bus boy over. “Could you get our waiter, please? I think we’d like another round.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the boy replied. “We’re closing pretty soon, but the Sky Room’s still open.”
When Mic looked to her for an answer to the unspoken question, Renee just shrugged and said, “Why not?”
To which Mic happily replied, “Why not, indeed.”
****************************
As Mac watched Harm squinting at the report folder he held in his hand, it brought to mind the look of bewilderment she’d seen on his face this afternoon when the vehicle they were riding in choked and coughed and sputtered to a stop out in the middle of nowhere.
She wasn’t sure if he was really that interested in the file or was just trying to avoid having to explain anything else to her.
They’d been on their way to the site of a purported incident involving mistakenly discharged ordinance. A Marine F-18 Hornet, participating in an exercise over at Quantico, had supposedly fired a missile into a small, rustic cabin up in the mountains causing a fire that burned the structure to the ground. The pilot said it never happened.
The cabin in question was owned by Senator Alfred E. Newman, a man known for his love of the environment and his distrust of the Pentagon. From his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee, he had been trying for some time to further restrict the Pentagon’s use of federal lands for training exercises. Harm and Mac had been assigned to show the Department of the Navy’s “level of concern” over the incident as reported by his son-in-law.
It was a purely political investigation. Admiral Cheggwidden had as much as said that Rabb and MacKenzie would be there mostly to mollify the cabin’s owner, but when NCIS and the Forest Service investigators came to believe that the cabin had been deliberately torched, a real JAG man investigation had been launched.
Harm continued to struggle with trying to read the briefing papers by firelight, so Mac got up to wander around the campfire a bit. She thought moving might warm her up some. “I’m surprised there hasn’t been anybody looking for us,” she said to no one in particular.
Harm didn’t even look up. “It’s a long way back to the base,” he muttered absently. “They probably thought we wouldn’t make it back before dark.”
“I suppose,” she sighed. Getting up to the cabin was supposed to take a couple of hours. They’d never even made it there. The map they’d been given was fairly clear, she thought, but as Harm made one turn after another onto smaller and smaller roads, she’d found herself unable to place their position any more precisely than “somewhere in Virginia.” As it was, they’d probably have to triangulate on their cell phone signal in the morning just to find out which way to send the recon helicopter. “Find anything interesting?” she asked trying to peek over his shoulder into the file that had absorbed so much of his attention.
“Couple of things,” he answered quietly. “For one thing, NCIS took samples at the site and found ‘a significant pattern of accelerant residue in the general area of the point of ignition.’”
“Don’t missiles use some kind of propellant that would leave a residue?”
“This was just plain kerosene, Mac,” he advised. “Not refined enough for rocket propellant.”
“Maybe it hit a storage tank,” she suggested.
“Well, that’s the other thing,” Harm countered. “According to the report, they pretty much sifted the ashes all around the cabin and there’s one thing they didn’t find.” He paused for effect.
When Mac stepped closer, she stared down at him with an expectant expression in her eyes. “And?”
“Missile parts,” he explained confidently. “Even if it detonated on impact, the fire wasn’t hot enough to destroy those alloys. There’d still be pieces of the casing lying around. They didn’t find anything.”
“Looks like Major Paxton was telling the truth after all,” the Marine Colonel observed wisely.
“And Senator Newman’s son-in-law’s got some explaining to do,” the sailor added.
“I guess the only reason we’re up here is to show the flag,” Mac muttered contemptuously. “And maybe freeze to death,” she added reflexively crossing her arms in front of her.
“Mac, come over here and sit down,” Harm said patting the seat beside him. “Come get warm.”
Mac shook her head. “That’s ok. I’m fine.”
“Well, at least, get yourself one of those blankets in there,” he said gesturing toward the Humvee.
“I’m fine, Harm.” She said it plainly as if it were a known fact, but when he kept looking up at her with those big, blue eyes so wide with obvious concern, she had to admit defeat. She sat down on the fallen log not too far from him, but they eyed each other warily. “You’re right,” she finally conceded. “It’s is a little warmer over here.”
Warmer, perhaps, but she would still keep her distance from him. Harm kept getting the feeling he was being held responsible for something beyond what he could see. He knew she couldn’t be happy about the way her plans for the evening had been disrupted, but he wondered if there might be more to it.
“Mac, I‘m sorry you missed your rehearsal,” he offered sincerely.
She shrugged. “I guess it couldn’t be helped.”
“You suppose they gave up on us?”
“Probably,” she sighed with resignation. “The rehearsal was at seven. It’s almost ten o’clock.”
Harm looked surprised. “God, is it that late?”
“Yeah,” she said with a soft smile.
“Well, Renee’s long gone,” he said with a chuckle. “She’ll think I stood her up again.”
“And I don’t think Mic would wait around this long,” Sarah added regretfully.
Harm couldn’t help it. Every time he thought of the beautiful woman sitting beside him spending the rest of her life with that slimy character from Oz, he just wanted to grab her and shake her. “I still don’t know what you see in that guy,” he muttered contemptuously.
“Harm…,” she cautioned.
“I don’t,” he declared. “He’s arrogant, he’s opinionated, he’s way too sure of himself, he’s ---“
“My fiancé,” she replied flatly.
That thought stopped him cold. He dropped his head down to avoid the look in her eyes. “I know,” he said quietly. “I just think you could do better.”
“Like who?” It was a more or less reflexive response, but now that she’d asked it, she was interested in how Harm would answer.
“I don’t know,” he said shifting uncomfortably. “Just somebody worthy of you.” Their eyes met for a moment over that thought -- the sweet consideration of his gaze meeting the wary anticipation of hers. When the flickering of the firelight reflected in her eyes seemed to soften into a direct question aimed squarely at him, Harm looked away again.
They didn’t say anything more. They fell into silent reflection staring at the fire for what seemed like a long time before Mac finally got up to leave him to his own thoughts.
She had to. She had some thinking of her own to do – about Harm.
*****************************
The “Sky Room” turned out to be a smallish bar arranged on the top floor of this “palatial”, five-story hotel with an up-close and personal overview of Interstate 395. If you liked lights, it was a real place to go. Beyond the side-by-side ribbons of auto lights, there were the wonders of suburban street lighting grids laid out at a low angle in the one of the two directions the windows faced. Some kind of avenue going on for ten or twelve blocks also adorned this vista on the other side of the freeway. It wasn’t quite as stunning as the Mall downtown, but they did have liquor.
Renee, who was enjoying her second Brandy Alexander, was currently expounding on the subject of Mic’s intended bride, and was not entirely complimentary. “Mac’s always so uptight,” she declared grandly. “I mean, she must absolutely drive you nuts with all those rules and things.”
“Mac’s all right,” Brumby replied with a knowing smirk. “And she’s not half as uptight as you think.”
“Oh, really???” Renee purred. “A little spitfire, is she?”
Mic, who was in the middle of his second Irish coffee, nearly blushed at the lecherous gleam he saw in Renee’s eye. “Blimey!”
“Oh, come on,” the buxom blonde exhorted her companion, “Tell!”
Mic laughed a little nervously before clearing his throat to say, “No. I don’t think I will,” with a smile on his face.
“Oh, hey. I’ll tell you anything you want to know about Harm,” Renee added with a wicked laugh. “He can be really…”
“No thanks,” Mic interjected suddenly. “Not what I live for.”
At that, the buxom blonde leaned forward over the table with her chin resting on her hand parting her lips sensuously just wide enough for him to notice. The look in her eyes was misty and she waggled her eyebrows for emphasis as she cooed, “What do you live for, Mic?”
As he took in all the signals he was being offered, Brumby responded with an impishly sly smile and an appreciative stare in Renee’s direction. Her message was rather clear and while he did consider it favorably, he did think twice about the timing. “What I’d really like right now,” he said after due consideration, “is another bit of coffee.”
“Oh, you’re no fun,” Renee huffed at him pretending to pout.
He replied with a satisfied smile and the words, “In due time, my girl. In due time.”
To be continued...
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