Marcia Talley - The Last Refuge

‘It was pitch dark the night he visited me in your room. I never saw him, Amy.’

‘His hair is long now, tied back in a ponytail. It was always kind of dirty blond, but it’s been bleached almost white by the sun. And he’s no longer Drew, by the way. His name is Donald. I hate the name Donald.’

I had to agree. ‘I had an evil boss once named Donald. We amused ourselves by inventing devious ways to kill him. And there’s always Donald Duck.’

Amy laughed mirthlessly.

‘Drew knew how much staying on the show meant to you because I told him. Why did he risk getting you kicked off the show by taking you away?’

‘In a way, it’s the show that saved me, Hannah. He was going on about living in luxury for the rest of our lives. I let him think I was on board with it, too, but dammit, I don’t want to live life on the run. I’m not particularly close to my mother, but I have a sister, and a niece and a nephew, and I don’t want never to see them again. Besides, it’s been ten months. I have new friends now.’

‘New friends,’ I repeated. ‘Like Alex.’

Amy fell back against the chair. ‘You noticed?’

‘I stumbled across the two of you in the service staircase one day.’

‘Shit.’

‘He’s been worried sick about you, Amy.’

‘Oh, Hannah, what am I going to do about Alex? I’m sweet on him, sure, but now that Drew’s back in the picture…’ She leaned forward, grabbed my hand. ‘Alex doesn’t know about Drew, and if Drew finds out about Alex, I hate to think what might happen!’

‘Maybe you need to let Alex down gently,’ I suggested.

‘Alex is such a sweet, gentle spirit,’ Amy said, ‘while Drew…’

‘Doesn’t Drew have family?’ I asked. ‘Other than you, I mean.’

‘His father was killed in Vietnam, in the final days during the fall of Saigon. His mother died of cancer when Drew was only twelve. Drew’s grandmother raised him, but when she died…’ Amy shrugged. ‘I’m the only family he has. Everything Drew loves goes away.’

‘If he wanted you to stay with him so badly, Amy, how on earth did you escape?’

Amy shrugged. ‘I gave him some of the best sex he’s ever had, and in the afterglow, I put him off. I pointed out something that should have occurred to him in the first place if he hadn’t been thinking with his… you know. It would only attract attention if I disappeared from the show in midstream. 60 Minutes and 48 Hours would be all over it.’ Amy held an imaginary microphone to her mouth, stared at me intently and said, ‘Why would the young widow of a Navy SEAL run away from the set of a major television show? Where is she hiding? And why? Stay tuned. We’ll be right back.

‘If I wait until the show is over, I pointed out to him, then I could leave without comment, not have to worry about a million-dollar lawsuit, collect his insurance money, shave my eyebrows, dye my hair black or whatever, join him in Argentina, and I’d even be $15,000 to the better.’

‘But, if you don’t intend to run away with Drew, what are you planning to do?’

Amy’s face clouded up. ‘I don’t know, Hannah. I’m just trying to buy a little time while I work it all out.’

‘I hate to sound like an old mother hen, but I’d give it some careful thought because it doesn’t sound like Drew is willing to leave without you.’

‘Oh, Hannah, I used to be so in love with that guy! But, now? I can’t go away with him, Hannah. Drew is not the same man I married. He’s changed. He’s hard, cynical. I don’t know whether it’s PTSD or what, but if I met him today, we’d never get past the first date.’

Drew had told me a little bit about the incident in Swosa, but I wanted to get details from Amy. ‘Did he ever fully explain to you why he’s on the run? I figure it has to be more than wanting the insurance money.’

‘If the Navy found out he was alive after all this time, he’d be subject to courts martial. In Swosa? Drew was the triggerman. The Swosians had closed-circuit TV in the bedroom at the palace, so they got it all on tape. If the Swosa loyalists knew Drew had escaped, they would be all over him, too. Alive, everyone would be out to get him. Dead.’ She shrugged. ‘Dead is better.’

‘There were tapes?’ Drew hadn’t mentioned that. Possibly he didn’t know.

‘You bet. When the Navy were shown the tapes, they were embarrassed, but at least they don’t have to parade Drew out before a congressional subcommittee to explain why he murdered a foreign national when he wasn’t authorized to do so. And the Swosians believe that the triggerman died with all the others when one of their brave boys shot down the helicopter after being fatally wounded himself. With Drew dead, no loose ends. On either side.’

‘As long as he stays dead.’ I set my empty broth cup back down on the tray.

‘Right.’ Amy took the tray from where it rested on my knees and set it on the floor outside the service entrance to my room. ‘Dex!’ she yelled down the service stairway. ‘Come fetch the tray!’

While she waited for Dex to appear, Amy said, ‘I don’t need the money, not desperately, but Drew does, and since he’s dead, he needs me to get it for him.’ She held the door open, occasionally checking for Dex over her shoulder. ‘ He can move to Argentina as far as I’m concerned. Once the money comes to me, I’ll send it all to some bank account in Buenos Aires.’ She flashed a smile. ‘But don’t tell Drew that. He still thinks I’m coming with him.’

‘Amy, if the authorities find out you’ve done that, you could go to jail for fraud.’

‘Nobody will find Drew unless he wants them to. I’m convinced of that. Losing his parents at an early age made him tough.’

‘He’s AWOL, big time. Isn’t he worried that he’ll be caught?’

‘Not Drew. Remember that line in The Right Stuff where Dennis Quaid is driving a convertible and asks his wife who’s the best pilot she’s ever seen, and that she’s looking at him? Well, that’s Drew. He pumps up his abs and says, “I’m a U.S. Navy SEAL. I’m trained not to be caught.”’

‘I can believe that,’ I said. ‘He made it out of Swosa alive, and not many men would be able to accomplish that. Did he tell you the story? It’s been more than ten months. Why did it take him so long?’

‘Naturally, he had no money, no passport. He was on foot. It took him weeks to make his way out of Swosa and over the border into Tanzania. Eventually, he ended up in Dar es Salaam, where he hung out on the beach with all the other ex-pats until he hooked up with an American sailboat captain looking for crew. The guy was circumnavigating, and in no hurry, so Drew simply signed on. I gather the lack of a passport wasn’t a problem.’ She grinned. ‘Drew can be pretty convincing. When the boat finally made it to the U.S., Drew jumped ship and disappeared into a crowd of tourists in Charleston. That was a month ago. He’s been hiding out in that hotel by the airport ever since, keeping an eye on me, making plans.’

There’ll be a New York Times bestseller out of this, I thought, by Drew Cornell as told to whom? Tom Clancy? Or maybe it’d be the other way around: BY TOM CLANCY and drew cornell. A movie later, I’ll bet, produced by, directed by and starring Tom Cruise. An EA computer game. The possibilities were endless.

Watching Amy bustle about my bedroom, tending to my wrinkled gowns, straightening up, rather than being holed up in a hotel room with a sex-starved fugitive made me enormously happy. ‘I’m so glad you’re back,’ I said, as she helped me change into a clean, white shift that smelled like fresh soap and sunshine.