"She's still in the detox part of the treatment," Joan told him. "I think it's harder than she thought. But she's hanging in." She sighed again. "Look, Michael. I think we probably do need to talka"face-to-face, I mean. How about tomorrow evening, after this thing is over?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "We can plan for it, but don't forget there's a chance I'll have to leave right away. And I may not be able to call you to tell you, so ... Just remember that it's not intentional if I suddenly don't show up."

She was silent for several long moments, but then she asked, "Why do you do it? What's the appeal of going out there and risking your life? I just... I don't get it. Why do you have to do it?"

"Someone's got to," he said. "We've talked about this beforea"you know how I feel."

"And you've wanted to do thisa"be a SEALa"since seventh grade," she said. "I don't get that, either. Was it surviving that sailing accident that made you want to be a SEAL? Or was it... ? I don't know, I've been thinking all day about that story you told me, and I just keep wondering, when you were in the water and you were swimming with those two other boys, pulling them along, trying to make it to sh.o.r.e ... how on earth did you do it?"

"First of all," Muldoon said, "I didn't try. There was no trying going on. I had to do it, so I did it. I wasn't ready to die, and I refused to accept that option as a real possibility. Wayne kept screaming, 'We're going to die, oh, my G.o.d, we're going to die,' and maybe that's what kept me going, because every tune he said that, I thought, Not me. I'd read about h.e.l.l Weeka"you know, the part of BUD/S training where you get no sleep, and they run you around like lunaticsa"it's a physical and mental endurance test. I'd read some accounts of guys who'd been through it, who'd succeeded, and they all seemed to break that week down into much smaller moments. Heartbeats, if you will. Boom. You take one step forward. Boom. You take another. Boom. Breathe in. Boom. Exhale. You don't set your eyes on the end of the week because that's too far away. That's an impossible goal to achieve. You keep it doable. You don't look beyond that very next step that you're going to take.

"That's what I did when I was in the water," he told her. "I swam for one heartbeat and then one heartbeat more. And then another, and another. I think luck had a lot to do with us. .h.i.tting sh.o.r.e when we did. We were in a harbor, there was land on three sides, so our chances of reaching solid ground at some point were pretty good. As it was, we didn't take the shortest route. As it was, we swam for a quarter of a mile." He laughed. "That doesn't seem like a lot to me anymore, but believe me, at the time it was a major deal."

"Was that what it was?" she asked. "You tasted what it was like to be a hero, so... ?"

He had to laugh. "Hero, huh?" Yeah, that's righta"she'd made up a nifty end to his story, complete with a virtual ticker tape parade through the center of town. "I was grounded for three weeks after that. And Wayne told everyone that I'd capsized the boat on purpose."

"No way!" Joan said. "The little piece of s.h.i.t! No wonder you didn't want to be friends with him."

"Yeah, it didn't happen quite the way you imagined," he said. "Wayne didn't even thank me for saving his life."

"You've got to be kidding."

Muldoon loved the fact that she could get so indignant about injustices that had happened to him so long ago.

"So what did he say to you?" she asked. "You said you both sat in the hospital, waiting for your parents. He must've said something."

"He said ..." Muldoon laughed softly. "You're going to hate this."

"I know," she said. "I can feel it. I'm going to want to track this little b.a.s.t.a.r.d down and kick him in the b.a.l.l.s for you. Just like, wham. 'That's for Mike Muldoon, you little jerk,' and then I'd vanish."

"With the police hot on your heels shouting your Miranda rights and charging you with a.s.sault and battery."

"Okay," she said. "I'm feeling more in control. What'd that f.u.c.kera"excuse me, I know you don't like that language, but I have only so much control over being in control. What did he say to you?"

"At this point, it feels a little anticlimactic," Muldoon admitted. "And I love the fact that you called him what you called him because, well, part of me is still that fat kid that n.o.body cared about and everyone made fun of, and here you are standing up for hima"mea"him. You know what I mean, don't you? I'm still him, but I'm not. And it's like, because you're so upset about this now, there's some kind of weird warp in time. And the fat kid who's grounded for three weeks for doing something incredible knows that fifteen years later there's going to be someone who cares enough to get p.i.s.sed about the injustice of it all, and he actually feels better." He laughed. "Yeah, and now you think I'm totally schizoid."

"I don't," Joan said. The meeting was over, and everyone was filing out of the room, malting it harder for him to see her. "G.o.d, Michael, you are one dangerous man."

"What?" he said. "Why?" He started toward her, moving slowly along with the crowd of people.

"Just tell me what the you-know-what said. I've got five minutes before my next meeting starts. As it is, I'm going to have to run to get there."

"He said the reason we didn't drown was because I was so fat. He said, 'Blubber floats.' "

He saw her againa"she was pacing in a part of the hall that wasn't so crowded.

"I'm going to do it," Joan said. "I'm going to find him and I'm going to... No, you know what I'm going to do? What's his last name, because I know a woman who works for the IRS. I'm going to have the little p.r.i.c.k audited."

Muldoon laughed as he broke free from the throng and walked those last few steps to her. "You can't do that. You wouldn't. That's an abuse of power."

"Oh, my G.o.d," she said, snapping her cell phone shut and finally talking directly to him. "How did you survive, Mike? How could you have lived through that and grown up to be so freaking nice?"

"Well, thanks," he said. "I'm glad you think thata""

"I'm late," she said, and bolted.

Mary Lou had surprised him.

Husaam Abdul-Fataah sat in his car and watched the lights go on in her house as she moved from room to room, putting the baby to bed.

The husband was already home. He could only guess what kind of excuse she gave him when she went inside, obviously overdressed for an AA meeting.

If the husband hadn't been home, Husaam would have been tempted to go inside and convince Mary Loua"at gunpointa"to write a farewell note. Dear Sam, Things aren't working out. Take care of the baby. Love, Mary Lou.

Not that he had any problem in taking and disposing of the kid, too. But it was his experience that while unwanted wives could disappear without anyone hardly noticing they were gone, people tended to get a little upset when their children went missing, too. Even if they didn't particularly pay much attention to those children when they were around.

But forcing Mary Lou to go with him, with or without the baby, was a moot point, since the husband was home. There was no way he was breaking into the house of a Navy SEAL the night before a job was set to go down.

Husaam had no doubt of his own ability to get inside and pump Starrett full of bullets before he even got out of his TV chair. He would, in fact, enjoy ita"it had been a while since he'd taken a hands-on a.s.signment. But the minute Starrett failed to show up at the base tomorrow morning, an alarm would be raised. And with the discovery of his body in his TV room, well, President Bryant wouldn't even disembark from Air Force One.

And wouldn't that be a shame, after five brave al-Qaeda fighters did their version of a suicide squeezea"setting up evidence of a "plot" to bomb the airport so that the FBI could find them and kill them and make San Diego seem secure. The terrorist plot's been handled, the Western world is safe, everyone relax. Of course, the real plana"all alonga"was to gun down the American President during his visit to the U.S. Naval Base.

Husaam had hoped to get out of town in the morning, before the action started. He'd hoped Mary Lou would have agreed to go with him willingly. Baby or not, her disappearance was critical.

He'd woken up in the night with the realization that her fingerprints were on one of the weapons that were going to be used tomorrow. The FBI would find those prints, and if Mary Lou had a police record, they would ID her.

And wouldn't that be sweet? The wife of a Navy SEAL involved in terrorist activity. The fallout from that was going to immobilize Team Sixteen for months, possibly even years.

Husaam was going to get a neat little bonus for that.

But Mary Lou had to disappear. She couldn't be around to defend herself, or to cast any doubt on her obvious guilt.

Ihbraham would have to disappear, too. While Sam Starrett probably wouldn't care if Mary Lou vanished without a trace, Ihbraham Rahman might actually try to find her.

As the lights went off in the Starrett house, Husaam settled back in his seat.

The night was still young, and filled with possibilities. Sam Starrett got called down to the base in the middle of the night pretty frequentlya"leaving Mary Lou and Haley home all alone.

Chapter 25.

"Joan, it's Mike."

"Are you insane?" Joan rolled over to look at the clock on the hotel bedside table. It was 1:44. "I was finally asleep, you jerk!"

She hung up the phone with a crash.

It rang again, almost immediately.

"What?"

"Don't hang up," Muldoon said.

"Don't you sleep?" she asked. "Normal people don't call at 1:44 unless it's an emergency!"

"It is an emergency," he said. "It's your brother."

Joan sat up. "Oh, my G.o.d. Donny? What's wrong?"

"I don't know, exactly," Muldoon said as she fumbled for the light. "I got a call from Sam Starrett about two minutes ago. He said it might be Don's appendix, but Sam's not a corpsmana"a medica"so he's just guessing. He and his wife are over there with your brother right now. An ambulance is on its way."

Joan was already out of bed and throwing on her clothes. "Donny's not going to go for that. He's not going to want to leave the house."

"Yeah, Sam's a little worried about that. He thinks Don definitely needs to go to the hospital. He thought maybe if you camea""

"I'm already dressed." She gathered up her handbag and her room and rental car keys. "What's the fastest way over there?"

"With me," he said. "I'm already on my waya"I'm about four minutes from you."

Mike was already on his way. He was going to drive her over there. "I'm sorry I called you a jerk."

"Do you often have trouble falling asleep?" he asked. "I could help you with that, you know."

"Hey," she said.

"I figured I'd earned enough points tonight to toss in a mildly suggestive comment. But that's it. I'm done. I won't mention it again. I'll meet you out front in a few."

Crazy Donny the Nutjob was in some serious pain.

Mary Lou was kneeling beside him, on the closet floor, trying to teach him the Lamaze breathing techniques she'd learned when she was pregnant with Haley.

It would have been almost funny if Don hadn't been so upset. He was convinced aliens were inside of him and that it was only a matter of time before they came bursting out, like they did in that movie with Sigourney Weaver.

Sam had been on the phone pretty much nonstop since Mary Lou got that first call from Donny. He'd called 911 shortly after coming over here and seeing the Nutjob writhing on the floor. That got an ambulance on its way. He'd called Muldoon, who had Joan's number. And then he'd called Jay Lopez, the team's corpsman, who recommended Sam check Don's abdomen for rigiditya"something that would suggest a ruptured appendix.

In theory it was a good idea. In practice it was something else entirely.

"I'm just going to touch you very gently, Don," Sam said.

"No," Donny sobbed. "No! Don't touch me!"

Sam did it anyway, but since he didn't really know what appendicitis felt like, all it served to do was get the Nutjob more upset. He sat back on his heels. "We should probably get him out of here," he said to Mary Lou. "It's going to be real close quarters when the EMTs come in."

"Let them worry about that," she said. "You don't need to save the world, Sam. We just need to keep Donny as quiet and comfortable as possible until they get here. And I happen to know he's most comfortable right here in this closet. There's no point in freaking him out." She leaned closer to Don, who was trying to speak. "Hush, hon. Just breathe the way I showed you. Through your teeth now. Little short exhales. That's right." She looked up at Sam again. "If it's too close in here for you, you could wait outside the housea"guard against attack from, you know."

Aliens. He knew.

"Donny says he's seen 'em around latelya"in our driveway, no less."

Way to go, Don. "I'll go stand guard," Sam said loudly enough for the Nutjob to hear, but he rolled his eyes when his back was turned.

"First could you run back home, check on Haley, and grab the baby monitor? And while you're there, there's a phone number pinned to the bulletin board in the kitchen. It's for Vincent and Charlotte DaCostaa"Donny's grandparents. I think they'd probably appreciate a call."

And wasn't this a change of pace? Sam following Mary Lou's orders instead of the other way around. He went out the front, the screen door banging closed behind him.

The neighborhood was silent, lights off, shades down, sidewalks all but rolled up for the night. Everyone was sleeping.

Well, maybe not everyone. A car was parked out in front of the Bentons' house again. Sam had seen it there a few other times lately, when he'd come home late at night.

Kyle Benton traveled a lota"he was out of town right now, in Hong Kong, on business. And here was that car again. Shame on you, Mrs. Benton.

Sam stood there a moment, wondering almost idly if there was a car parked out in front of his house when he was away.

He doubted it, although he wished it were true. It would make life a whole h.e.l.l of a lot easier if Mary Lou was unfaithful.

He went inside his house, went into Haley's room.

She was doing what he'd heard Mary Lou call her angel imitation. She was fast asleep, her eyes tightly shut with those golden curls around her face, a picture of innocent serenity.

Sam stood there for a long time, his heart in his throat, thinking about sitting down with Mary Lou tomorrow night and telling her that he'd tried his best, but he couldn't do this anymore.

Telling her that their marriage was overa"that it had been before it even started.

Things would be radically different when he moved out. Or maybe Mary Lou would move out. He hoped not. If Mary Lou left San Diego, he didn't have a prayer of seeing Haley more than a few times a year.

And he wouldn't put it past Mary Lou to do that, to leave town out of spite. And to make Sam out as the villain of the piece for the rest of their lives. Haley'd probably grow up hating him. Or at least disdainful of that loser who'd quit on her mom.

Maybe someday she'd understand that he had been tough enough to stick it out, but smart enough to realize that that wouldn't be best for any of them.

Especially Haley, who deserved to grow up surrounded by love, not obligation.

"I suck at being a father," he told her as she slept. "You'll be better off without me."

Well, h.e.l.l, that sounded like something a pathetic loser would say.

Sam tiptoed out of the room, feeling like s.h.i.t and knowing there were no easy outs, no easy answers.

Tomorrow night was going to be the pits.

The DaCostas' phone number was right on the board in the kitchen, in Mary Lou's loopy handwriting, just where she'd said it would be.

He dialed his cell phone as he headed back across their two yards, letting it ring and ring and ring.