Sandra Hill Read Online Free Page B

did call in, but—”
    Commander MacLean raised a halting hand. “The babysitter with the bruised hamstring? You wouldn’t be referring to Ensign Omar Jones, would you?”
    “Roger that. Omar has custody of his little girl, you know, but she’s visiting his parents in Arizona this week. I figured he has experience with kids. Hah! Lotta good that did. Actually, I begged Omar after the first five babysitters quit. My son is not the most pleasant gremlin on the planet. Omar is multilingual, as you know, and a SEAL, both positive attributes when dealing with an Afghan version of Attila the Five-Year-Old Hun.”
    His humor—his whole frickin’ monologue—didn’t go over big with MacLean, who continued to frown at him. “I thought your mother came here from Florida to help with the kid.”
    “She did, but she quit two days ago. Her exact words were, ‘You made your bed, sonny, now sleep in it.’ Besides she had a modeling gig…something for the AARP magazine, I think.”
    Still not a hint of a smile.
    So, he blathered on, “My brother, Danny, is on leave from his Iraq deployment. He’s an Air Force pilot. But he just laughs at me. People do that a lot lately.”
    MacLean frowned. “Who’s the backup babysitter?”
    Zach hesitated before revealing, “Your wife.”
    “Madrene?” MacLean’s eyes about bulged from their sockets.
    “I couldn’t think of anyone else to ask.”
    “And the kids?” The commander and his wife had two children, three-month-old and two-year-old sons, Ranulf and Ivan, the latter better known as Ivan the Terrible. He had been given that name before anyone had met Sammy. Now he was considered a saint by comparison.
    “They are there, too. My son seems to behave better in their company, under your wife’s iron control.”
    The commander gave him “the look,” the one that put him in the same class as dipwad newbie tadpoles. “Your babysitting woes—in fact, your being late—are the least of your worries, boy.”
    Zach knew things were bad when MacLean referred to him as “boy,” seeing as how the commander had only a few years on him.
    “I will not send him back…Commander, sir.” It was telling how often he referred to his son as “him” or “the kid,” he realized with an odd sadness.
    “I understand that. You better have bodyguards around the kid, though, because, believe me, Mullah Arsallah has friends in low as well as high places. He won’t give up.”
    “Two of SEAL Team Thirteen’s inactive members are stationed outside my building, sir, for the time being. Including Scary Larry Wilson.”
    His boss didn’t find that reference as amusing as Zach did. Scary Larry watching over Sammy the Snot. Whooboy! Actually, Wilson was a nice guy…a thirty-something SEAL who was on temporary suspension for breaking some ass-backward Navy rule. He’d hired him in the interim to help guard his son.
    “I promise I’ll get this resolved soon.”
    MacLean rested his elbow on the desk and put his chin in one hand, staring at him as if he were mud under his boondockers. “The Pentagon wants to know why—and how—you had sex during a live op in Afghanistan six years ago.”
    Zach grinned. “Under a tarp in the mess tent.”
    “Pfff! I’ll be sure to tell them that. Not!”
    “I didn’t ask for this situation, sir, but I take responsibility for all of it. And I will resolve all the…issues.”
    “Floyd, you’ve got as much sense as an armadillo crossing a four-lane highway.” MacLean shook his head at him. “What a cluster fuck! I hope you have a good lawyer.”
    “I do, sir. My grandfather retained Jack Delaney for me.” His grandfather, Army General Frank Floyd, retired, was a notorious World War II ace pilot who still served in the Pentagon as a consultant, despite his advanced age. Delaney was a D.C. attorney with a reputation for winning at all costs.
    The bill, which would be monumental, was being footed by his father, an aging lothario who still thought he