Still Alive Pt. 03

"Keep your seat," Mark said to the driver before exiting the vehicle to usher Ashley to her door.

"Wow. Isn't it beautiful?" she asked, pointing skyward to the crescent moon encircled in a ring of light.

"It is," he agreed, stopping a meter from the entrance to her brownstone. "It's called a moon halo."

She chuckled. "I know. You're not the only nerd around here."

"Sorry."

She turned to face him squarely. "Care to come inside?"

"I would, but I really want to get out of this uniform."

"Would you maybe … um … would you like to stay here tonight? I'm willing to bet it's comfier and cleaner."

"Your offer is very kind, but there's no need." He watched as her eyes darted between his, studying him. After several moments of silence, he asked, "What are you thinking about?"

"I'll tell you if you come inside for just a few."

He felt his brows cinch slightly before he nodded. With his fingers extended, he gestured toward the car. The driver flicked his headlights in acknowledgment of the signaled request to give his passenger five minutes. Mark followed Ashley inside her home.

"I know you're still processing this sudden change of course," she whispered. "I get it. We can talk about it, stream something, or whatever."

"God, Ash," he said, groaning softly. "I can't tell you how much I wish I could."

"What's keeping you?"

"Everything seems to be moving so fast all of a sudden, and I've kind of become … I'm afraid of you."

Her brows furrowed. "Me? You're afraid of … of me ? Why?"

"Because I'm feeling things I swore I never wanted to feel again," he answered in a voice she hadn't heard before. She focused on his expressions. When he cast his gaze away, she knew.

"Brianna was a third of your life ago."

"Yeah. You wouldn't understand."

"I can't, unless I know. Please. Talk to me, Mark."

"I don't want you to think I'm insane."

"You're intentionally distancing yourself, so why do you care what I think?"

He palpated his furrowed brows. "I don't know how to explain it. I know it sounds crazy. I bet you're thinking I'm still mourning a woman who was killed on my watch and another who betrayed me."

"Farah might have talked, but only under peril to her life."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does, Mark. Be honest with yourself and with me. When Dozer found you in the room where Behnam Shirezi was about to divest you of another trophy, were you going to tell him you were responsible for downing an airplane I'm damned sure he was supposed to be on?"

She heard his stifled cough, intended to sound like a throat clearing. "I did! I nodded my head!"

"Of course you did. It's how us real humans work. You need to forgive Farah and Jassim. You've experienced so much pain that you can't see past it. I think you feel you'd be risking it all if you allow those feelings for someone else and risk getting burned again. Maybe it's a shit-ton of survivor's guilt with a side-ton of self-flagellation or resentment.

"The way you were holding me as we danced tonight," she continued, "the way you took my hand in yours on the way back here, and now, how you're at least a little willing to explain things to me? Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous again, but I'm going to come right out and say it so you'll know.

"I'm having feelings for you, too. I had to give myself time to make sure I wasn't experiencing some form of delayed Nightingale syndrome or whatever. I feel safe enough now to tell you I like you a lot more than I've been letting on."

"Are you sure, or are you only trying⁠—"

His words were quieted when Ashley's hands rose to his face. Her lips met his in a kiss unlike any they'd shared before. It was gentle, tender, intimate, and affectionate. His body released an uncontrollable tremble.

"I'm very sure," she whispered. She leaned back slightly and smiled serenely.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly into him.

She groaned hoarsely. "Your medals and buttons don't feel so good buried in my chest, Major."

"Sorry," he said, quickly releasing her.

"Even though you're not carrying a sword, other parts of your uniform could probably be weaponized," she said with an easygoing smile.

"Yet you and your dress are as soft and warm as a Persian kitten."

Her right eyebrow rose, and she cocked her head to her left. "Why, Major Wright. I do declare. That might be the loveliest, sweetest thing you have ever said to me, and I thought you'd be more of a dog person."

Mark laughed. "It's funny hearing you talk with a southern accent, Ashuri Mato." He then appeared startled.

"What's wrong?" Ashley asked with some alarm in her voice.

"I told the driver to give me five minutes. It's been eight."

"How do you do that? You're not even wearing a watch."

He stopped short of opening the door. "Practice, I guess."

"My offer still stands. If you want to get out of your uniform, my brother-in-law left some sweats and a t-shirt behind you can wear. I've been meaning to ship them back but haven't gotten around to it. They're probably going to be big on you, but should pass in a pinch."

Mark opened the door, trotted to the car, and spoke to the driver. "Sorry for the delay, but I won't be needing you any longer. Thank you."

"My pleasure, sir."

"I guess that means you're staying?" Ashley asked when he closed the door.

"Yes, ma'am."

She chuckled lightly while shaking her head. She caught his subtle, wry grin and instantly knew he was only being playful.

She turned her back. "Can you help me with my zipper? I don't want to mess with the string trick."

He honored her request, curious of what such a thing entailed. He moved the slider down to where she could reach it herself.

She smiled over her shoulder before ascending the stairs. "I'll only be a minute."

When she returned, Mark had already hung his dress coat over the back of a dining room chair. His cover was on its seat. She placed the casual clothes on the corner of the table as he unbuttoned his shirt.

Ashley admired his physique. Too soon, it was obscured by the tee he pulled over his head and down his torso. He dropped his trousers and stepped into the sweatpants. He drew at least eighteen inches of the corded drawstring at the waist from each of the eyelets. Looking downward, he observed his feet were still fully covered by the excess length of the pant legs.

"Jeez. How big is your brother-in-law?" Mark asked with a chortle. "I've slept in smaller bivvies."

"What's a bivvy?"

"A very tiny tent for one."

"He's about six-seven and maybe two-forty, but I'm sure you could take him."

He doubled up the legs to prevent himself from tripping over their cuffs. "They'll do. Thanks. I assume this brother-in-law is your sister's husband, not your husband's brother?"

Ashley laughed so abruptly and hard it was followed by a brief spate of coughs. Her face turned bright pink. She slowly exhaled in a song-like tone which decreased in pitch. "No, you goof. I've never been married."

Mark smiled at her playful barb. "Is it safe to say your sister is taller than you?"

She shook head slowly and whispered, "Two inches shorter."

"That poor lady," Mark said with an expression of distress.

Ashley nodded in agreement.

She had replaced her dress with a flowing satin robe and let her hair free. It'd fallen to the middle of her back. He allowed his eyes to take in the vision of feminine perfection.

"Something wrong?" Ashley softly asked.

"No," he whispered as he tentatively placed a hand to her slender waist.

She closed her eyes and canted her head invitingly. He gently grasped a handful of her silken hair and brought her lips to his. Unlike the kiss she'd given him minutes earlier, his held an incredible heat. She welcomed it, tasting him.

The subtle moan she heard, or perhaps felt, seemed like a purr as he lowered his palms to hold her bottom. Whichever sense perceived the utterance didn't matter because it resonated deeply within her. Both of his hands rose. He used one to guide her head to his shoulder, then hugged her tightly.

"You're so incredible, Ash. I don't deserve anyone like you."

She chuckled nervously. "I'm not sure how to respond to that."

"What do you mean?"

"If I say, 'yes, you do,' it makes me sound as though I'm putting myself on a pedestal or something. If I say, 'you're right,' I'd seem like I'm agreeing with you, that you don't deserve me.

"No one is too good for you. Especially me. If it's your hands you're worried about, mine are just as dirty."

"Yours still have all their fingernails."

She took his hand to lead him to the living area. She then stepped to the wet bar and asked, "What can I get you?"

"Inebriated," he said as he settled onto a comfortable leather couch.

She laughed. "Sure. Let's go nuts."

She removed two rocks glasses from a cabinet, deposited ice in each, then dispensed healthy pours of Ibiki whisky and sat with him. She reclined against a throw pillow at the arm of the couch and curled her legs under her.

Mark peered through the glass she offered him. If not for the refraction it caused, the two-inch orb of ice was so clear it would otherwise have been invisible. "Where does this ice come from? I've never seen anything like it."

"I have a machine that takes about an hour to make each one, but it holds forty or fifty in a bin. If it gets empty, I have to remember to turn it off unless I'm out because it sounds like a grenade going off when one drops."

Ashley watched the man's eyes wander to pensive. After moments of silence, she asked, "What are you thinking about?"

"You and Major General Gonzales. How are you two so familiar? I mean, you addressed him by a diminution of his first name, and his face told me he didn't like that."

"Well, it pissed me off when he implied I was up to something illicit in the ladies' room. I mean … what business is it of his what I was doing? Gah ."

"You're evading the question."

She watched him silently for several seconds, then sat her glass on a sandstone coaster on the end table. "I've known him for a few years."

"Yeah. I figured."

"Four, to be exact."

"But … how? Socially?"

"No. Only professionally."

"I know you said he was involved in a contract with Wolfram, but supply chain management doesn't seem like anything he would give a flying fig about."

Ashley sighed softly. "Mark, what do you think I do there?"

"You told me you manage assets for people."

"The assets aren't necessarily … materiel."

He was silent for several long moments, his eyes tightly focused on hers, darting between them. Though the sound was soft, she heard him drumming his fingers on his knees. He stood to his feet and began pacing the room.

"What the hell?" he yelped before taking a solid swig of his whisky. "You manage wet teams ?"

"Sometimes."

"So … when you said a few minutes ago that your hands are as dirty as mine, you meant⁠—"

"Indirectly, but … yeah."

"You're shitting me."

"Shitting you would shatter my pelvish."

The alliteration made Mark laugh. "Whoa, potty mouth."

Ashley smiled innocently.

He began pacing again. "Before we first met, how else were you involved?"

"Technically, the first time I saw you, you were unconscious."

He stopped and glared at her. "Wha⁠— what ?"

"I resourced the team⁠—well, it was two teams that recovered you. I was at Camp Serrano in Qatar and was responsible for rolling up the plans for your extraction."

Mark drained his whisky. "Wow. Just … wow ."

Ashley reached for the bottle to refill his glass, but he covered the rim with his palm. "I don't want a hangover in the morning. I've got lots … wait. No, I don't. I have nothing now." He removed his hand and held his glass toward her.

"My day's free, too."

"Can you tell me how it worked? I mean, how'd you and your people manage to get me out?"

"It's a bumpy ride, Mark. You sure you're up to it?"

He nodded.

"Kahn's work truck had two trackers installed in it. Your friends disabled the main one. Some of Korke's trucks have secondaries. In my experience, secondaries are hidden in the intake manifold underneath the air filter. Someone would need to disassemble it all to find it.

"In two days, tracking data revealed a point of interest. We set up shop in a building a few hundred yards from where you were. My guys geared up and went for it as soon as it got dark-dark. Six of the ten men expended a total of fourteen rounds taking down the four in the building with you. From door-bashes to done was less than ninety seconds.

"Dozer, the lead, found you and neutralized Shirezi. Flack, a former Army medic, did his best to tend to you until we got you back to the base. The men needed less than an hour to clear out. No one saw or heard anything."

"Ten goons crashed a warehouse, fired fourteen rounds, and no one knew?"

"Our goons do good work," Martel answered, then sipped. "Most of the time, we don't need to deal with such silent precision. Your extraction was sort of a one-off."

"Tell me what some of your other things were like."

"I can't name names, dates, or specific places. We have confidentiality agreements and NDAs with all of our clients."

He nodded and poured more Ibiki into both of their glasses.

Mark listened in amazement as she described engagement after engagement, in precise, sometimes graphic detail. He was astonished at her ability to recall so many specifics.

"I showed you mine, now show me yours," she coyly stated. "Al Bahbijn. How'd you do it?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny your allegation, Miss Non-Licensed Attorney."

She chuckled and nodded.

"Hypothetically, if … and that's a big if … if I were to attempt to do such a thing myself, I might try to breach the aft pressure bulkhead. It's in a remarkably vulnerable position a few meters behind the aft doors. There's a little microcontroller kit called a Raspberry Pi that came to market a couple of years ago. Cheaper than dirt. I could easily make an add-on with an atmospheric pressure transducer that would signal the Pi to activate an electronic match sitting on the primer of a ․32 caliber cartridge aligned with the bulkhead. All of it set and protected in potting compound. Such a thing could easily be concealed in a 3D-printed fiberglass dome that could be attached to the fuselage using high-strength, fast-setting epoxy. It'd look like all the antenna covers or other protuberances which are scattered all over airplanes' exteriors as long as the color matches.

"A certain altitude is reached, and … pop-whoosh. The plane would depressurize in a matter of ten seconds, and its crew would lose all cognitive ability in ten more. The flight director and autopilot would do the rest of the work."

"Of course," she said, chuckling again. "Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy, because those big planes don't have emergency oxygen."

"The passenger compartment has oxygen generators, but the flight deck's oxygen is bottled and reachable through the nose gear's well. And, before you ask about preflight checklists, there only needs to be enough gas to make a hiss when the test button on a mask is pushed and read correctly on the pressure gauge. Both might be fooled with a paintball cylinder with an adaptive collar. Breathing pure carbon dioxide isn't very pleasant. It burns the sinuses like if a person politely burps with their mouth closed after drinking a carbonated beverage. It could distract the crew from descending the plane to a safe altitude where they could breathe normally. And, as for the folks in the back? Cockpit doors are locked from the inside."

Ashley's doubts had waned. She listened with rapt attention, completely and utterly intrigued.

"As far as deploying such theoretical contraptions? That would best happen when a plane is located in a vulnerable place. Like a maintenance facility at a large international airport where the security guards are bored of the tedium and don't check the faces against the photos on an ID badge lifted from someone's jacket without their notice.

"It may very well be true that, at such places, carrying a tool bag and clipboard while wearing a hardhat and safety vest are convincing enough to fool everyone else. I reckon it would take less than two hours, tops, and a fuck-ton of luck."

"Luck? Frigging luck ? You aren't kidding," she whispered in amazement.

"Theoretically and hypothetically, no. I'm not."

Ashley's stunned expression morphed as the corners of her mouth turned up into an almost imperceptibly wry grin. She tapped the screen of her phone which was sitting on the coffee table. "Jeez. It's almost three o'clock."

Mark noticed a little wobble as she rose to her feet. She held her hand out to him, and he stood to take it.

"I had a great time tonight," he said.

"Me, too," she replied, leaning in closer to him. "I meant what I said, Mark. No one is too good for you. Especially me."

The kiss she gave him was delicious. She held his muscular backside in her hands as she offered the tip of her tongue to his lips. He drew it against his own with a gentle suckle. She felt him begin to harden against her tummy as they held each other close.

"Ready to go upstairs?" she whispered, pointing toward the hardwood flight.

He nodded.

"Twenty-eight steps up. I know because I count them if I don't want to turn the lights on."

She stumbled a little as they reached the first landing, but Mark caught her and helped her regain her balance.

"Oopsie," she said with a soft giggle, then tugged his arm as she started toward the next flight.

A caution light illuminated in his head, and he let go of her hand. "What's on this floor?" he asked.

"Two bedrooms, laundry, and a bathroom."

It took effort for him to speak. "This is where I should stay tonight. We've both been drinking, and I don't want us to do something one of us might regret."

She laughed and brushed her palm over his chest. "I can handle myself," she said, looking up at him with a suggestive smile. "You're such a gentleman, but sometimes I really wish you weren't."

"No, Ashley. You don't."

She stared at him with a mix of frustration and something he hoped might be genuine desire, not just inebriated libido.

"You can't give consent if you're intoxicated. We should get some sleep," he said when they reached the next floor of her brownstone.

"Fine. Be that way," she said with a pout. "Bathroom's at the end of the hall. Take the bedroom next to it. Sheets are in the bottom drawer."

She turned, walked away, and stepped through a door she closed. He returned to the floor below.

Damn it. You know better than this, he thought to himself as he made the bed before climbing atop it.

Washington, DC
Sunday, November 15, 2015, 8:49 AM EST

It was almost nine o'clock when Mark awakened. He yawned, stretching his muscles and loosening his joints. He went to the bathroom to relieve himself. He heard the sound of water running to the upper floor through pipes in the wall and surmised that Ashley was also up and about.

When he finished his business, he checked his state in the mirror. He chuckled at his appearance in the baggy clothes. He removed the oversized t-shirt to avoid getting it wet. As he started the faucet, he noticed a hand towel, a new tube of toothpaste, and a still-packaged toothbrush placed neatly next to the basin. He lathered the bar of soap to wash his face and close-cropped hair. The noise in the wall ceased as he dried.