Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three (44 page)

Sam held her breath, wondering how Grant would react since she’d broken the news, but he surprised her by striding across the room and clasping Morrissey warmly, thumping his back like he was greeting an old friend.

“When I heard you were coming, I was just about as happy as a hog in mud,” Grant told him, his smile wide.

“Damn good to see you too, Nelson.” Morrissey shook Grant’s hand hard.

“How the hell have you been, Rolly?” Grant asked.

“Rolly?” Sam asked, turning toward them. She leaned a little heavier on her cane than she needed to, making her gait seem slower and more painful than it really was. She wanted them to see her as helpless and weak. She’d take any advantage she could at the moment, no matter the deception.

Morrissey turned toward her, his dark eyes gentle with sympathy as he looked her over. “An unfortunate nickname,” he said softly as he clasped her hand in his. “It’s good to see you making a recovery, Lieutenant Commander Wyatt.”

“Thanks in part to you, sir,” she answered, careful to keep her face neutral.

“Grant, I’d like to introduce you to my father, Senator Sandro Roman,” Jack introduced as his father stepped forward, looking handsome and polished in a hand-tailored three-piece suit. “Dad, Grant Nelson owns and operates Wyatt Ranch.”

“Beautiful piece of land, Mr. Nelson. I was in awe as we flew over it on our way into the air field,” Sandro complimented.

“Oh, call me Grant. We’re all friends here,” her uncle replied casually.

Sandro’s eyes fell on Sam, and she was once again taken with how similar Jack looked to his father. Same eyes, same barrel-chested build earned over years of boxing. Sandro hugged her gently, his handsome face creased with worry.

“I’d like that.” She nodded.
If I don’t pistol-whip you first.
She left that last bit unsaid even as she met Jack’s eyes.

“She’s fine, Dad,” Jack said as he came to stand beside her, slipping an arm around her waist.

“She needs to eat more,” Sandro tsked. “
Uno non può pensare bene, amare bene, dormire bene, se non ha mangiato bene
.”

“What does that mean?” Grant asked curiously.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one hasn’t eaten well,” Sandro translated.

“I’m doing alright,” Sam assured him. “Jack’s been taking care of me since he arrived.” To her surprise, she actually meant it.

Sandro watched hawk-eyed as Jack pressed a soft kiss to her temple.

“I’m glad you’re on the mend, Samantha,” Morrissey said as Grant gestured for them to take a seat in the comfortable sitting area in front of the fire.

“I have you to thank for that,” she told him. “Without Davis Wright and his ST6 boys helping my team out that day, there’s no way we would have gotten out of there alive.”

Morrissey shrugged lightly. “It was the least I could do.”

“So Rolly—you’re an Admiral now,” Grant marveled, crossing his long legs casually. “Hell, I should have known you’d be a career Navy man.”

“Looks like you haven’t done so bad yourself,” Morrissey answered with a smile, sipping the bourbon Grant handed him.

“Rob would have sure loved to see you sitting here in his library,” Grant replied amiably.

“He was a good man. I was so very sorry when he passed,” Morrissey responded dutifully.

“The good Lord called his soul home too soon,” Grant agreed. “But then, I reckon you helped to facilitate that, didn’t you, Rolly?”

The air in the room altered immediately. Morrissey’s gaze narrowed just as Sandro sat forward. The atmosphere felt absolutely kinetic with tension as Grant continued to stare his old friend down, his expression impassive.

“Grant—I assure you we had nothing to do with Rob’s death—” Sandro began, ever the politician.

Grant silenced him with a slash of his hand. “Let’s dispense with the niceties, shall we? We all know what’s what,” Grant continued, his blue gaze growing steely. “Rolly, it’s come to my attention that Rob and his son weren’t the victims of a horrific, senseless drunk-driving accident. That tears me up anew, because I understand you knew all along that there was more to it. Hell—you, me, and Rob served together. We were brothers in arms. Saw shit in war no one should have to see. But there’s nothing quite as horrifying as seeing your best friend and his only son charred like a roast, is there?”

Samantha blanched, and Jack tightened his arm around her, squeezing her into the soothing shelter of his body.

“Worst night of my life,” Grant continued, his face darkening like a storm cloud. “Worst night of Sammy’s too. Come to find, the U.S. Government—the same government we swore an oath to serve, knew what happened all along. Now imagine how that makes me feel, Rolly? Imagine what that does to Sammy—the girl you took under your wing as it turns out. Now give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just kill you right now,” he finished, his blue eyes glinting. Sam had never seen her uncle like this—hot as a brand and just as angry—fierce and protective. He even scared her a little.

Sandro held up his hands in a supplicating gesture. “Gentlemen, please let’s just discuss this like civilized men—”

“You—butt out,” Grant snapped, pointing his finger at him. “We’ll deal with you next,” he added calmly, not breaking eye contact with Morrissey.

“Look, tensions are high and tempers are flared—but let’s all just take a step back for a moment,” Sandro began again.

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” she replied, though she was surprised by his offer. She would have thought he’d try to foist himself right into the middle of the picture. Sure, she’d been hot as hell that he’d eavesdropped and used that information to bring Sandro to the table, but now she realized he really was trying to do right by her, even if he’d had to be a little devious and wily to get the job done.

“
Tesoro
, my father and I owe you and your family our profound apologies. I opened Pandora’s box.
Mea culpa.
” Jack held her hands in his as he looked into her eyes. “This history goes back far deeper than we need to know. We’ll go and give you some privacy.” He leaned in to kiss her, whispering in her ear. “I’ll speak with my father about what we discussed.”

Sam squeezed his hand, unaccustomed to this version of Jack. “Thank you. We’ll be out in a bit.”

Sandro looked like he wanted to put up a fight, but Jack just shook his head in silent rebuttal. Within a moment, she, Morrissey, and her Uncle Grant were alone, sitting across from each other in a silent trifecta, the space between them filled with latent hostility.

“I didn’t kill him, Grant.” Morrissey’s gaze was direct and unflinching. “I was Rob’s friend.”

“Some friend,” Grant snorted, shaking his head. “With friends like you, Rolly, who needs enemies?”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me you knew my father? Or Uncle Grant for that matter?” Samantha asked. “I did two tours under you—Iraq and Afghanistan. Hundreds of hours of interrogations. Dozens of ops. I ate dinner at your house with your family for chrissakes! You had a hundred opportunities to tell me. So
why?
” Sam asked, anger making her voice low. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her former CO gazed at her with profound regret, looking his age for the first time, his tanned face lined with the life he’d led. “Because I promised your father I wouldn’t, Sam. He asked me to watch over you when you joined the Navy. That’s why I recruited you so early into naval intelligence. That’s why I supported you with active personnel in Afghanistan even though it was officially unsanctioned.”

“Horse shit, Rolly. You did it out of guilt,” Grant countered. “You’ve got too many nooses in your tree to act like you were doing her any favors.”

“They aren’t
my
nooses, Grant.” Morrissey shook his head. “You were never supposed to find out about the work Rob was really doing.” He looked at her, sadness in his gaze. “And he knew you didn’t want him involved in your career in the Navy. But you and I had an instant rapport—and you had an affinity for the work we were doing at the Kennedy. It made sense to bring you into the fold. It started out as a favor to him, but you and I became close. And after he died, yes—I did feel badly. That’s also why I did what I could to protect you when you took on Nazar.”

“Was my father CIA?” she asked slowly, not entirely certain she was ready to hear the truth after she’d pursued it so baldly.

“No,” Morrissey shook his head. “Rob did gather and share intelligence, but it wasn’t as an agent.”

“Why in hell would Rob gather intel for anybody? He was in oil and gas, for chrissakes,” Grant huffed, shifting in his chair. “You’ve never met a more crooked bunch of assholes than those guys. He’d have to be crazier than a shithouse rat to want to hunt in his own hole.”

“I think he was,” Morrissey agreed. “For a while, anyway.”

Grant huffed. “Explain.”

“When his wife died—your mother,” Morrissey corrected softly, meeting her eyes. “Rob went through a bad patch.”

“If we’re calling a ‘patch’ over a dozen years, then yeah, you’d be correct,” she muttered, recalling her father’s long absences, the drunken spells when he was home, the hot bursts of anger followed by long bouts of cold silence that had confused the hell out of her as a young girl.

“We were there, Rolly,” Grant replied heavily.

“No, you weren’t,” Morrissey shook his head. “Rob was reckless as hell back then. He got into bed with the Al-Saadi family in Saudi Arabia, took meetings with Ayatollah Khomeni in Iran, started brokering deals with nations the U.S. embargoed. It was like he wanted to piss everyone off. Like he wanted to set the world on fire.”

“You were sent to put him in check,” Grant guessed.

“He came to me, actually,” Morrissey told him. “I was just taking over a new position at the Kennedy in Houston at the time—a freshly-promoted captain. This was back in the eighties. We were working with the Department of Defense, monitoring and countering transnational threats and providing intelligence on asymmetric warfare.”

“You provided intelligence on counterterrorism and insurgencies,” Samantha translated.

“Back then, the U.S. was still focused on winning the Cold War. Saddam was just an annoying fly on our ass. We were arming the
Mujahideen
against the Soviets for God’s sake. The Middle East was a hot bed, sure—but it wasn’t our problem. Not back then.”

“But Rob saw it, didn’t he? He saw what was coming,” Grant surmised, running a hand down his face.

“He did,” Morrissey nodded. “He was spending so much time over there, developing contacts, brokering deals, expanding Wyatt Petroleum’s reach. Rob was being invited to dinner with all the heads of state, drinking anise with sheiks, being blessed by imams. The CIA couldn’t buy the kind of access Rob was getting. He was getting into the inside, slowly but steadily on a road paved with black gold.”

Wes was right.
Sam forced herself to let go of the arm rest she’d been gripping. She’d ignored the insights of a man who made a damn good living from exposing truths and opening people’s eyes, because she was still raw about being left. That was the very definition of willful blindness.
Fuck, what had she been thinking?

“Rob saw what was happening. Saw the rising radicalism of jihadists and fundamentalists. After the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, he came to me,” Morrissey continued. “He was willing to feed me information. Said he trusted me to get it to the right folks.”

“Why not work directly with the CIA?” Sam asked, her mind swirling.

Her uncle scoffed at that. “Your daddy wouldn’t be handled by anyone, much less be a rat for The Company,” Grant explained. “Rob was the most subversive, anti-establishment man I ever met. Ninety percent of the time we spent in the Navy he was looking for ways around the rules.”

“And the other ten percent of the time he was chasing after your mother,” Morrissey added, exchanging a look with Grant. “He knew the work we were doing at the Kennedy was nascent, but he liked that we were providing warfare-centric intelligence and support on potential threats posed by asymmetrical warfare. He liked that we worked for the DOD, Naval Special Warfare, and Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.”

“Once a squid, always a squid,” Grant murmured.

“Yes,” Morrissey agreed. “There were no set meets, no standard time frames. Rob only came to me when he had actionable information. It was up to me to do something with it.”

“How many people knew about this arrangement?” Sam asked.

“My commander at the Office of Naval Intelligence. Who after that, I can’t say. It was just one level up the chain of command for me. My team would analyze the data, and I’d provide Rob’s intelligence along with any supporting evidence and recommendations. What happened after that was up to the rear admiral running the Office of Naval Intelligence at the time.”

“How long did this go on?”

“Started tapering off after the Persian Gulf War in the mid-nineties. By then, all eyes were on that theater, so we had more personnel there than you could shake a stick at. Rob was focused on raising Ryland, too. He told me he wanted to be the dad to him that he wasn’t to you,” Morrissey added, looking at Sam, his expression sad.

Samantha recalled that time in her mind’s eye. She’d been finishing high school and getting ready to head off to college. She and her father were already estranged by then. In fact, having him come back into her life right when she was at the cusp of becoming an adult had been jarring. She’d resented the shit out of him showing up out of nowhere, chock full of opinions about where she should go to school and which military branch she should serve in. Their fights back then had been epic, their stand-offs lasting for weeks at a time.