Lost and Found 5

Lost and Found
(Part 5 of 6)

0243 Zulu (2243 Local)
Somewhere in Appalachia
North Carolina

Harm and A.J. stared at the struggling flame while thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. Rain poured down in a steady torrent, forming a translucent curtain between the tiny cave and the outside world. The fire crackled and hissed, fighting a battle for life against the constant spray of moisture from the falling rain. Behind them, the colonel moaned, causing both men to turn. When she subsided back into a restless sleep, Harm glanced back out at the falling rain.

"I hope this passes quickly," he said quietly. "She needs a hospital."

The admiral's voice rumbled softly in the shadowed cave. "I know."

They were quiet then. Each man occupied with his own thoughts. Harm felt a little awkward as he listened to the rain splashing against rocks and foliage. He selected and discarded various possible conversational gambits until he finally gave up and sat quietly, allowing his mind to wander. This tragic accident had caused an interesting role reversal, and he pondered that as he stared into the flames. For nine years, he and Mac and the admiral had worked and related within clearly defined boundaries.

For a brief moment, he compared this experience to Paraguay, shaking his head at the odd twist of roles that seemed to have overtaken the three of them. Suddenly, he was the one needing rescue, the admiral was the one doing the rescuing, and Mac was the one holding things together back home.

His eyes flickered over to where the admiral sat, stoic and silent as ever, staring off into the night. What he wouldn't give to somehow mend the rift that had opened between them during this past year. For the life of him, he couldn't understand what had happened to drive such a wedge between them.

He thought back to better times, times when the admiral had treated him with an air of patient good humor. Harm knew he wasn't exactly a traditional naval officer. He seemed to have a knack for finding trouble and burying himself in the thick of it. But the admiral had tolerated it, even encouraged it at times, until Singer and Paraguay. Those two events had set off a chain reaction that had all but destroyed their relationship until they sat here now as near strangers, neither one able to find a safe topic of conversation.

Harm put another stick on the fire, sending a shower of sparks rising into the air. The way he saw it, he had a choice. He could let this opportunity pass, thereby allowing a friendship to fall by the wayside, or he could take a chance and speak up. One of two things would happen if he spoke up. Either he and the admiral would be able to lay some ghosts to rest, or they wouldn't. Either way, one thing was certain. He wasn't going to pass the next however many hours until the SAR team arrived staring silently at nothing.

"Admiral?"

A.J. looked over at him. "Yes?"

"What happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"Ever since Singer's murder you've been . . . " He hesitated for a moment, searching for the right word. "Different."

The admiral didn't say anything for a long time, and Harm waited patiently, knowing better than to push.

"You were always a cowboy, Harm," he said finally, repeating something he'd said before. "But I tolerated it because you were a good man and a damn fine attorney."

Harm started to say something, but the admiral lifted a hand to stop him and he quieted.

"You didn't trust me."

The words sliced into Harm with all the knife edged sharpness of a battle ready bayonet, and Harm cringed.

"I'm sorry, Sir. I . . . "

The admiral interrupted him, "I know. You were protecting your brother."

He stared at Harm, his expression almost sad. "And later, when it was Paraguay, and Mac – you were protecting somebody you love then, too."

He took a drink from his water bottle, and then went on. "What I didn't understand then – what I still don't understand – is what made you think you couldn't trust me."

He moved over to check on the colonel then, leaving Harm alone with his thoughts.

The admiral was right. He hadn't trusted him. Hadn't trusted anybody, for that matter. Instead, he'd done just like he'd always done, charged headlong into battle, and damn the torpedoes.

Well, there'd been a heavy price to pay for his knee jerk behavior. He'd spent time in the brig, sent Mac spinning away from him at high speeds, and caused the admiral to re-evaluate their long-standing friendship. Still, while he acknowledged his own part in the morass of their relationship, the admiral wasn't exactly guilt free, and here, tonight, they were on equal footing. No need to worry about protocol when you were hidden so deeply in the wilderness that you needed a psychic to dig you out.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" he asked, when the admiral was once again seated across from him.

"What would you have me say, Harm?" The admiral rearranged his legs, looking without success for a comfortable position on the rock ledge. "That I knew you didn't kill Singer? That Mac needed you? That your actions were right and proper and well within the boundaries of protocol?"

Harm smiled slightly. "I'd have settled for any one of those."

"Not possible."

"Because?"

"Because my saying I knew you weren't guilty would have raised questions when you were eventually acquitted, for one. There always would have been somebody out there who would've wondered if you'd been let off because you really weren't guilty, or because I stood up for you."

"Maybe, but . . . "

"No maybes about it, Harm. And I wasn't going to take that chance."

Harm let it go, recognizing the validity of what A.J. was saying.

"And Paraguay?"

The admiral looked at him in disbelief.

"Think about it, Harm. You were going into hostile territory, against CIA and military orders, to rescue a renegade agent and a Marine who has, on more than one occasion, proven herself perfectly capable of taking care of herself."

"Right . . . "

"Look, I won't deny that you did what needed to be done. Mac and Webb got themselves into more trouble than they could handle. But there was no way I could officially condone your going in there."

"So you pushed me until I resigned my commission."

"It was the only way."

Harm thought about that, and then nodded.

"But what about after? You'd let Mac back in after she'd resigned her commission all those years ago, but when I came back from Paraguay, you wouldn't even consider taking me back." He looked at the admiral, a note of accusation creeping into his voice. "As I recall, you were a little . . . harsh about turning me loose for good."

"I didn't have much choice. If I'd taken you back, it would've looked like the whole thing had been a setup."

"Since when have appearances bothered you?"

"Since they would've affected your future career with the Navy," A.J. shot back, not missing a beat.

"What do you mean?"

"It was Singer's case all over again, Harm. If I'd taken you back, there would always have been the perception that you'd gotten away with your behavior, that there'd been no consequences for your actions."

"But there were consequences. Mac . . . "

"I'm talking about professional consequences. By the time the Paraguay incident was put to bed, I'd already determined that it was time for me to retire. No way was I turning you over to a new JAG with any more gray areas on your service record than absolutely necessary."

Harm smiled a little at that. "I don't know, Admiral. There are so many twists and turns in my record already . . . I'm not sure one more would matter all that much."

"It mattered to me." He observed Harm carefully for a few moments, then went on, his voice quiet. "And there were personal reasons, too."

"Personal reasons?"

A.J. quirked an eyebrow at him. "How long have we known each other?"

"Going on nine years, I guess."

"And for most of that time, I watched you get away with things that would've cost any other officer his stripes." He went on before Harm could respond. "I realized that a lot of that was my doing, and that because you'd never been held accountable, you'd never really had to grow up and take responsibility for your actions." He shrugged. "I guess I decided it was time to stop letting you off the hook."

"Wow," said Harm, with a trace of a smile. "When you decide to keep somebody on a hook, you use a pretty big one."

A.J. smiled too. "It's a basic rule of fishing, Commander. Always match your tackle to the size of your quarry."

They shared a chuckle that was drowned out by a flash of lightning and an ear splitting crack of thunder that caused both men to jump slightly, and then grin. Below them, a tree crashed to the ground, one more victim of nature's fury.

"I'm going to go ahead and set up the transmitter," said A.J. "Then we should probably try to get some sleep."

Harm looked out at the storm, then over at the admiral, raising his eyebrows.

A.J. shrugged. "I said we should try. You didn't hear me say anything about actually succeeding at it."

The men moved about companionably for a few minutes, setting up the emergency equipment and banking the fire for the night. Then they each wrapped up in an emergency blanket and settled down to wait for the dawn.

************

Mac's phone rang, waking her out of a restless sleep and into the dim shadows of predawn.

"Hello?" she said, shaking her head slightly to clear the cobwebs.

"Colonel Mackenzie?"

"Yes."

"Colonel, this is Major Sotheby."

Mac was instantly wide awake, and she sat up against the headboard.

"Major. Any news?"

She crossed her fingers in a childish prayer for luck.

"Maybe. We picked up a faint emergency signal about an hour ago. I've sent the SAR team to check it out."

"Where?"

"Ma'am?"

"Where is the signal coming from?"

She already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it, so she drummed her fingers on her knee while she waited through the silence.

"It's . . . just about where you said it would be," he finally answered after clearing his throat.

"Aha," she said, trying and failing to keep the note of accusation out of her voice.

"I'm . . . sorry, Colonel, but you have to understand. We can't ignore regulations based on one person's intuition."

"Major, I've lost count of the number of times I've bent the rules when the situation warranted. Now, I can't speak for your CO, but I can tell you that if a Marine under my command failed to pursue every available means of rescue in favor of sticking to the regs, and if, because of that Marine's inflexible attention to the rules, a fellow soldier was made to suffer longer than absolutely necessary . . . Let's just say that the Marine in question would hear about my displeasure in no uncertain terms."

Mac waited a moment for that to sink in, and then went on. "Do I make myself clear?"

Her tone was icy, her anger snaking down the line and into the unfortunate major's ear with enough venom to make him pull the handset away from his head and glance at it nervously.

"Yes, Ma'am. I understand, Ma'am." His voice was subdued, and Mac decided she'd made her point.

"When does the rescue team expect to make contact?"

"Within thirty minutes, Ma'am."

"I want to know as soon as they do."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Mac dropped the phone back onto its base without bothering to say goodbye. Then she stood up and headed for the bathroom. Time for a quick shower and then coffee.

************

Harm heard it first. The steady and familiar thwap thwap thwap of helicopter rotors. He threw off the blanket and stood up, staring into the predawn fog toward the source of the sound. He cursed the clouds and mist, and then turned to the fire. It wasn't likely to be very noticeable in this murk, but he was going to try anyway. He felt a light touch on his shoulder and turned to the admiral.

"Pulled this out of my pack," A.J. said, indicating the wide muzzled gun in his hand. "Do you have any flares left?"

"Two. They're over there." Harm nodded to the jumble of supplies against the wall and turned back to the fire, nudging it to life and then feeding it until it burned brightly, pushing back the wall of mist that cocooned the small cave.

The helicopter sounded like it was moving closer, and Harm put the last of the wood on the fire then moved back to the edge of the shelter, straining his eyes for some sign of the aircraft.

He finally spied the dim glow of searchlights approaching from the south.

"There," he said, pointing. "They must've picked up the emergency signal."

He looked around, and then began gathering things together while A.J. shot a second flare into the sky.

"They won't be able to land," he observed. "They're going to have to lift us out."

"Yep," answered A.J., and then, with a small smile. "You know, happy as I am to see them, I almost wish it'd taken a few days longer."

Harm looked over at him in obvious surprise, and A.J. chuckled. "If they hadn't found us until Monday, we'd have had a great excuse to miss the Change of Command Ceremony."

He ignored Harm's snort of amusement and picked up his pack, his hands moving to settle it on his shoulders and then buckle the straps. By the time that was done, the helicopter had located them and Harm scrambled to put out the fire before the breeze from the rotors could spread dangerous sparks into the underbrush. For the first time, he was glad for the recent rainfall.

Colonel Palmiro stirred for the first time since the previous afternoon, awakened by the noise of the chopper. Harm moved over to her and sat with her while he watched the helicopter crew lower two members of the rescue crew and a basket. In a few short minutes, the colonel, along with Harm and A.J., had been lifted into the helicopter.

The two members of the rescue crew were to remain behind until a second chopper could arrive for the bodies of the pilots. Meanwhile, a ground crew was being dispatched to the site to secure the area and retrieve the remains of the downed chopper. As they left the scene, Harm breathed a sigh of relief, and then settled into his seat, buckling his shoulder harness securely and enduring the corpsman's medical evaluation without complaint.

************

Harm opened his apartment door, smiling when he saw Mac.

"Hi."

"How are you feeling?" she said, as she stepped inside and turned to face him.

"I'll live. Ankle's still a little sore, but the head's mostly back to normal."

"As normal as it gets, anyway," she said.

"Hey!"

She grinned unrepentantly, and he couldn't resist pulling her into his arms for a quick hug.

"I understand I owe you a thank you," he said, releasing her and moving to the kitchen for a couple of bottles of water.

"You're welcome," she said, coming to stand at the island. "Is Mattie okay?"

"Yeah. She was frantic at first, but she calmed down a bit when she realized I was okay. She's a little annoyed with you, though."

"With me?"

"Yeah. When I told her we had you to thank for my safe return I had to explain the circumstances. She was a little annoyed when she found out you knew I was safe and didn't tell her."

Mac sighed and took a sip of her water. "I wanted to tell her. I just couldn't figure out how to say it that wouldn't make it sound like I belonged in a loony bin somewhere."

"I wouldn't worry about it, Mac. She's a teenager. Her mood changes with the wind."

Just then, there was a knock on the door and Mattie breezed in, only to come to an abrupt stop when she saw Mac.

"Oh," she said. "Hi."

The lack of enthusiasm in her voice made Mac glance over at Harm, but he just shrugged in a 'see what I mean?' type of gesture, and she turned back to Mattie.

"Mattie. I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I knew."

"It's okay. Harm explained it to me. I just . . . wish you would've trusted me."

"It wasn't about trust, Mattie – or at least, not about trusting you. It was more about trusting myself."

"I don't understand."

Mac shrugged self-consciously. "This . . . thing. It doesn't happen very often, and I'm never sure how accurate it is. I didn't want you to get your hopes up only to have it turn out that I was wrong."

Mattie considered that for a few seconds. "I see your point. That would've been pretty awful."

"Yes. It would."

Behind her, Mac heard a sigh of relief, and turned to see Harm smiling at them both.

"Since we're all friends again," he said. "Who's buying lunch?"

"You are," Mac and Mattie answered together, and then laughed. Harm just shook his head and picked up the single crutch he'd been using to help him get around until his ankle healed.

"Let's go, then. I'm starving."

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