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  “It was Paul’s little surprise for me. But I knew what he was doing all along. I could have stopped him.” Her eyes looked up to the ceiling as if seeing an epiphany and her voice rose in excitement. “But I wanted to walk again. I wanted to go out and dance again—to enjoy evening strolls and hold my husband in my arms again. I could have stopped him. I’m just as guilty as he is. Hell, I’m even guiltier—he was doing it for me.” Now, she looked wide-eyed at Spurs. “The government health insurance wouldn’t pay to fuse my spinal cord back together. ‘The operation is experimental,’ they said. There were certainly no guarantees that it would work, anyway. Only a twenty-five percent chance.”

  “What happened to Paul, Mrs. Royse?” Hunter asked.

  She stared out into the flowers and vines.

  “Last fall, I guess about nine months ago, the NCIS had been working with the FBI to uncover a terrorist plot to recruit US Navy personnel for some sort of drug thing. Well, they’d caught a guy but had to let him go for lack of evidence. His name was Tijani-Hewidi—something like that. Anyway, they’d found out the terrorists were willing to pay ten million dollars for whatever they were up to. Half was more than enough for my operation. Paul agonized over it for a long time. You see, he felt responsible for my accident.”

  “Responsible?” Spurs asked.

  “Yes, I’d driven off furious when I saw him with her. You know—the affair.”

  Spurs flinched. It was as if someone had just slapped her on the back of the head. Affair? Uncle Paul? Somehow being unfaithful to Aunt Katherine was even more shocking than him being unfaithful to his country.

  Katherine continued, “He never forgave himself. He promised me that, no matter what, he would make it up to me and somehow find a way to make me walk again. He meant it, too. We tried them all— the experts, the surgeons and scientists, all the big hospitals. None of them offered any hope. Then, we heard about this experimental surgery they were doing in Germany on people with severed spinal cords. They were having some success, but the price tag was so high. Coincidentally, this Chameleon thing came up and the money was right. Paul contacted this Hewidi guy through a third party and made the deal with him. With Paul’s connections in the intelligence community, he didn’t have to reveal his name or even show his face. He told him to call him the Chameleon—because that was what Paul felt like— he’d changed his red, white and blue colors to black, Paul told me later—a black field with a skull and crossbones in the middle.”

  “But how did he figure to get away with it?” Spurs asked.

  “He didn’t. Not really. Oh, we made plans. A man in his position has ways of changing identities. We talked about a small ranch in Brazil or a cabin in the Alps. It was just a dream, it all hinged on my surgery—and this terrorist operation. I think he just hoped he could get me through the surgery before the FBI found out he was spending millions of dollars that he couldn’t have possibly obtained legally. I’m sure he was going to try to leave me out of any wrongdoing and take the blame himself. He finally told me about it on our trip to the Middle East. He insisted we go—I couldn’t understand why it was so important.” She frowned. “I’ve never been much for faith healing. It didn’t matter to Paul what happened to him, just that I could walk again. He’s always been such a sweet man.”

  Sweet, Spurs thought. He was responsible for so many deaths—it could have been thousands. And, he’d cheated on Aunt Katherine.

  “You said affair, Aunt Katherine,” Spurs said. “Do you mind me asking, what affair?”

  “Janelle, you really don’t remember, do you? We’ve wondered all along about that. You never did say anything. It was as if you’d blocked it out.”

  “Aunt Katherine, what are you talking about?”

  “Janelle, you were the one who told me about it. You were twelve. You and your mother were staying with us on the ranch in Oklahoma while your father was away with the Pacific Fleet. Paul had his FBI job in Oklahoma City at the time. I’d just pulled in our long driveway and saw you racing up on Rocket. You stopped me halfway to the house, crying like your best friend had died. Said something about some rabbit you’d killed and that your mama and Paul were acting funny and making noises like they were sick. That’s when I looked up to the house and saw Paul at the window of the guest room—your mother’s room.”

  “My God,” Spurs said.

  * * *

  It all flashed back. Crying. Riding Rocket. Wanting to tell her mother. Have her comfort her for the terrible thing she’d just done—killing the poor bunny. Running into the house. Looking for her. Hearing the groans—agonizing, pain-filled moans, she’d thought. Without pausing, she burst into her mother’s bedroom. “Mama,” she’d said, breathless, her eyes still blinded from the rest of the world by the horrible image of the dead rabbit at her feet. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t want to hurt him—the poor little bunny. . . .”

  But her sight returned, and big eyes stared back at her—her mother’s. Uncle Paul on top of her mother—naked, squirming, kissing. Then, Uncle Paul had twisted around to see her. She couldn’t help but stand and stare, dumbfounded at their entwined arms and legs, their glistening naked bodies. She’d pulled the door shut hard, as if that would make it stop.

  She ran down the hall, the steps, out the front door and leapt on Rocket. She wanted to get away.

  She wanted to sort it all out. Make it go away. She saw Aunt Katherine turn in the driveway and rode wildly to her. All the while, it soaked in deeper, deeper. What had she seen? She knew a little about the birds and the bees. She’d seen the farm animals mate—horses, cattle, sheep, even dogs. That’s what they were doing—her Uncle Paul and her mother were mating. Not her father and her mother—that would have been shocking enough for her twelve-year-old eyes. Not her Uncle Paul and Aunt Katherine. No, it was her uncle and her mother.

  When Uncle Paul appeared in that window, it was the last blow. She turned Rocket toward the hills and rode and rode and rode. It was the look that did it. His face when he gaped down at them, broken, scared, guiltily. She loved the man so much. She’d wished he was her father. He was so kind and gentle, not like his stepbrother the Admiral—her real father. Uncle Paul was always so understanding and protective. And she’d broken that. She’d broken that thin glass case that encapsulated everything so neatly. She’d broken everything inside that neat little glass box. She’d broken the man who she’d trusted— loved like a father. She had done that, and she wanted to take it all back. For, after that day, she knew her life, Uncle Paul’s life, Aunt Katherine’s life and her mother’s life would never be the same.

  * * *

  It was because of her. Her mother’s death, Aunt Katherine’s paralysis, Uncle Paul turning traitor, the Dead Reckoning tragedy.

  Katherine was still talking when Spurs thoughts slammed back to the present. “ . . . Paul tried to stop me, but I was mad as hell. I drove off, tears in my eyes, damned near choking, I was crying so hard. I was driving way too fast for those old hilly dirt roads. Lost control. Went in the ditch. Hit a tree. Never walked again.

  “When I woke up three days later in the hospital, Paul was right there by my bedside. The room was full of flowers. His eyes were red as peeled tomatoes when he told me your mother had drowned. She’d packed up and took you to Hawaii to be closer to Oliver the day after the accident. She hadn’t even told your father the two of you had come out. She’d rented a car and the two of you went straight from the airport to a beach. No one saw her alive again.

  * * *

  In front of the Royses’ house, Spurs grabbed her uncle Paul by the shoulder and spun him to face her.

  “I asked you a question; why?” Spurs said. “Or better, how—how could you?”

  Chapter 77

  SINS OF THE FATHER

  “How?”

  The question covered more than just the terrorist plot. The affair. This was the man who had not only betrayed his country but also his own stepbrother and his wife. It was because of him that her moth
er had died and her father was so distant to her.

  “I never intended for you to get hurt, Spurs.”

  “What about the other six thousand Americans?”

  “They were just names on paper. You were different. Spurs, you can’t begin to imagine how much I care for you,” he said looking pleadingly into her eyes. “I tried to stop it once I found out you were on the Atchison. It was too late. The wheels had already been set into motion. They wouldn’t listen to me.”

  Spurs had to turn away.

  “Just names on paper,” Hunter repeated.

  Royse said, “I’m sorry Darren.”

  Hunter shook his head.

  “You betrayed your country—everybody,” Spurs said, the anger and pain swelling up in her chest. “Over a hundred people died because of you!”

  Royse laid his briefcase on the hood and opened it.

  “It’s all here. Documented times, places, notes. Names of the terrorists, contacts, their leader. The countries and world leaders who contributed money and weapons. It’s all here. I knew you’d be coming to see me sometime soon.” He glanced back at Spurs. “I didn’t think you’d be able to kill Darren.”

  “You can’t undo what you’ve done,” Spurs said. “There’s no kind of surgery that will undo what you’ve done to Katherine. And you really had me fooled. I thought you were the most honest, wonderful man I knew. Up until today, if I’d had my choice, I would rather have had you for a father.”

  Royse seemed unable to do anything but stare back at her.

  Spurs thought of Royse’s code name, Chameleon, and said, “But life’s not about what you’ve done— what you are on the outside. It’s what’s in your heart. And, Uncle Paul, it’s there, deep down inside you that scares me. That’s the ugliest part of this whole thing.”

  “Always so bright, Spurs,” Royse said. “You deserved a better hand than you were dealt.”

  “Me? How’s that?” Ironic, she thought. Before, she’d wished he was her real father, now she was glad they weren’t blood relatives.

  “I guess it’s time—for the truth. I owe you that much—the truth.” He smiled at her, but that smile that used to exude warmth gave her a prickly chill. “You look so much like your mother—except for that beautiful strawberry blonde hair, of course. That’s why Oliver could never tell you. He saw your mother in those beautiful eyes of yours. Poor man, at the same time, he saw your mother’s unfaithfulness, my deceit, adultery.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The afternoon your mother committed suicide was the worst day of all of our lives.”

  Spurs lost her breath. Her head swam and she felt dizzy. She leaned against Royse’s car to steady herself. Committed suicide? “She drowned!”

  “Yes, she drowned. She couldn’t live with it anymore. The guilt was driving her insane.”

  “The guilt for the affair?”

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “Still, you were the brightest spot in her life— don’t forget that, Spurs. Not only did we have an affair, your mother and I, it went on for nearly thirteen years.”

  Spurs felt her eyes bugging. She took short gasping breaths.

  “You’re my daughter, Spurs.” Royce reached out and touched her hair. “You have your grandmother’s hair.”

  She took a step back so that he couldn’t touch her.

  He said to Hunter, “You knew Oliver Sperling— the Admiral—was my stepbrother.”

  Hunter nodded.

  “His mother died when he was born. Spurs’ Grandpa Sperling—my step dad—married my mother seven years later when I was six. Oliver and I were close, though, me just a year his junior.”

  Royse turned back to Spurs. “You knew all that. But, did you know my hair was just like my mother's? And your hair just like mine—except mine’s mighty gray, now. The Admiral knew. That’s why he stayed out to sea so much. He couldn’t bear it. But he also couldn’t shirk what he considered his responsibility. And he loved your mother so much. He got to the point he didn’t care what went on, just as long as your mother was happy. He just buried his heart in the Navy. I know it sounds incredible—but love is different things for different people.

  “And Katherine—she’s a saint. She turned her head and chose not to see what was going on underneath her very nose. But when she and you saw me in your mother’s window—well, that iced it. She drove off, sure that she was through with me. Then, after the accident—and your mother died—well, we became dependent on each other to cope with the whole mess—and to raise you. I know that sounds strange, and you probably can’t understand it, but we still loved each other. And we loved you.”

  Royse gazed off dreamily and continued. “But your mother and I—God, Spurs—we were so much in love, like nothing else either had ever felt. We couldn’t help it, Spurs.”

  The pressure built in Spurs’ head, her eyes widened. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I can’t blame you. Everyone knew it but you. Somehow, we thought the truth would be wrong. It was better to live a lie. Seems like that lie turned everyone’s world upside down. Be patient with the Admiral. He’s a good man. He’s done his best. He gave you everything he could because of the love he had for your mother.”

  “Except, his love—to me.” Spurs looked to her feet and shook her head. “Now it makes sense. Poor Aunt Katherine.”

  “Of course, she’s known it since she saw your pretty hair too, on the day you were born. Most kids are born with dark hair—but not you. It was like you were going to show the world who you really were that first day. Katherine hated me for a long time, but she never said anything. I think she tried to fool herself—tell herself that it was some sort of coincidence. And, your mother—it gnawed on your mother whenever she looked at me—hell, whenever she looked at you. Your mother was a good woman, though. It was just too much for her—your father being away all that time.”

  Nothing was said for a long moment. It seemed there was nothing more for any of them to say.

  Spurs didn’t look forward to the next step, taking her uncle Paul—her biological father—to jail, but, as they stood there, a car with three suits parked at the curb. Hunter pulled out a pair of handcuffs and began to place them on Royse’s wrists.

  “Please, Darren,” Royse said. “Please let me see Katherine one more time—without the cuffs—once more—just me and her.”

  Spurs thought for a moment, then nodded to Hunter. “What could it hurt?”

  They led him into the house and into the large atrium where Katherine waited in her bed.

  Katherine smiled at them all, nearly glowing.

  Hunter searched Royse for any kind of weapon and found none. He and Spurs glanced around the large windows and walls of the room. There was only one door that a person could escape through.

  They left the Royses to have privacy, closed the door and turned to confront the officers who had just stepped onto the front steps.

  As Spurs and Hunter walked down the hall toward them, it occurred to her that they should have checked under Katherine’s mattress.

  Two shots rang out.

  Epilogue

  DAYS OF SAND AND HORSES

  AFTER THE ATCHISON sank, Spurs had been unwilling to check on her little hero Saber—thinking he’d most likely been run over by Chardoff and his thugs. She couldn’t bear to find out that he’d been killed, preferred instead to imagine that, somehow, the wily little guy had evaded death’s grip, again.

  He had—and Ma’hami had been very fortunate as a result. Struck down by the terrorists’ car, Saber had fallen into a cluster of trash barrels in the alley. He was able to conceal the pain from his severely twisted right leg, and, seeing that he wasn’t moving and his leg was broken in two places, the thugs left him for dead. After they’d driven away, Saber was able to drag himself a mile and a half to Ma’hami’s café—just in time to save the critically injured restaurateur’s life. Unconscious from a blow to the head and his throat slit, Ma�
��hami was slowly bleeding to death. Luckily, Chardoff’s knife had only nicked Ma’hami’s carotid artery. Ma’hami’s wife nursed him and Saber back to health after their short stay in the hospital. The doctor was sure Saber would be walking normal again in a few months, and the six inch scar on the right side of Ma’hami’s throat was his only remnant of Chardoff’s attack.

  Three months later, a single cruise missile wiped out the terrorist leader Ma’amoun Al-Tayib and his followers at their hideout in Libya. On that day, Janelle Sperling and Darren Hunter heard the news and rejoiced while making wedding preparations for the following month. They would exchange vows in an Annapolis chapel and Oliver Sperling would give away the bride. Spurs had hopes that, even though she and the Admiral weren’t blood bound, they could start a relationship in which a healing process could begin for the both of them—a relationship neither had found, but each had always longed for.

  Harley Burgess was to be Hunter’s best man. For the past three months, he hadn’t been able to apologize enough for putting Spurs so deep into harm's way. She had assured him that he’d done the right thing. He’d risked one life to save thousands. He’d had no other option.

  Three days after the wedding in the states, the newlyweds would fly to Tunisia and restate their vows. In their second ceremony, Saber, most likely with a cast on his right leg, would give Spurs away, and Ma’hami would stand up for the groom.

  For the next three weeks they’d honeymoon on the white sandy beaches of North Africa, riding Ma’hami’s Arabian horses and making love under the moonlight.

  ###

  If you enjoyed Dead Reckoning and have any comments

  or questions, please share them with the author:

  Gordon A. Kessler:

  mailto:[email protected]

  http://gordonkessler.com

  Jezebel

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