Beaufort, South Carolina
A park bench in shade, one of many that line the water's edge. A red brick walkway, uneven, worn down by time and shaded by overhanging live oaks -- some draped with lingering strands of Spanish moss. A woman, a uniformed woman, dressed as a chef -- perhaps -- or perhaps a waitress. She looks carewarn, almost depressed as her mind processes the words on the sheet of crisp, white paper in her hand.
She sits on one of the benches by the water's edge, lost inside a rose garden of meandering implications, not quite sure how to proceed amongst the traceries of thorns, not at all sure what even her next step might look like. She turns away from the paper and shakes her head -- a brief, imperceptible shake to the casual passersby -- as she watches the incessant parade of boats and barges moving along this stretch of the Intracoastal waterway, and she wonders where all the people out there are headed. A small marina just to her right is not even half full of boats -- but rarely do people head down to their toys this time of year.
She looks down at her phone and checks the time -- it is one-fifty in the afternoon and she realizes she must go up to the restaurant now -- one last time. The notice in her hand has advised that after almost 150 years both the restaurant and the inn will be closing tonight...for good. This will be her last day of work, and despite all the swirling uncertainty ahead she doesn't know quite what to feel. She has worked in the kitchen for a few years, yet she has few friends.
A freshening breeze fills in from the north and little arcing williwaws race across the water. She watches a passing boat for a moment longer then shrugs before she turns and walks through the little park to the inn.
Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort (Merritt Field)
The civilian yacht had been tied off at the fueling docks at the end of Quilali Road, adjacent to a row of patrol boats lined up like sharks' teeth, their bows pointing into the Intracoastal waterway in a passive display of military precision. All of the patrol boats are on high alert, their gun stations reporting manned and ready; two Block Three F-35Bs circle ten thousand feet overhead, their sensors trained on the seaward approaches to Beaufort and Hilton Head Island, while an Air Force RC-135S 'Cobra Ball' MASINT aircraft orbits the area at flight level three-four-zero, her medium wave infrared array turned skyward as her operators watch, and listen to, Russian and Chinese satellite operations half a world away.
A half-hour window is about to open, and during this brief pause in satellite surveillance a civilian Gulfstream business jet will touch down at Merritt Field; its three passengers will be rushed to the waiting yacht and the business jet will takeoff and return to her original routing to Jacksonville, Florida. Once everyone is aboard, the yacht's crew will cast off her lines and head to the seawall off Chambers Park, in central Beaufort, and tie up for the night. And this would mark the beginning of the most dangerous, not to mention consequential, phase of the hastily planned operation.
Admiral James 'Spudz' MacKenzie sat in the radio room just aft of the yacht's bridge, talking with the colonel in command of the old Boeing circling miles overhead. "Anything new?" MacKenzie asked. "No changes in orbits? Anywhere?"
"Nothing," came the crystal clear reply from Colonel Jim Parker. "No changes in orbital trajectory; no launch detections. Congrats, Spuds. Looks like you've spoofed 'em."
MacKenzie nodded while he looked at the countdown timer on an adjacent display, then picked up the mic to VHF COMMs 3: "Merritt, Nord 1. Stop repeat go."
"Go repeat stop," came the garbled, static-filled reply.
MacKenzie switched over to Merritt's main tower frequency and listened in as the Gulfstream made its quick approach; as soon as the jet was on the ground MacKenzie turned to Command Master Chief Jim Turner and nodded. "Secure all fuel lines, standby to cast off."
"Aye, Admiral."
"Tanks full?" MacKenzie added.
"Seventeen thousand, five hundred gallons onboard, Sir. Fuel pre-heated and polished."
"Okay, Jim. You better go see to the deck." Turner saluted and started to turn -- but MacKenzie stopped him short, then hastily added for the umpteenth time: "And Jim, in case you've forgotten...please recall that I am in fact retired. Okay? No salutes? Understood?"
"Yes, Admiral."
Turner had been with MacKenzie since the late 90s, during his two years as CO of the Constellation, and he'd been with MacKenzie ever since. First following him to the Joint Analysis Centre at RAF Molesworth and then on to the Pentagon, when the freshly minted admiral began working in the Joint Intelligence Center, he tagged along when MacKenzie was sent to the White House as the president's naval attaché. With some presidential arm twisting, MacKenzie spent his last year in uniform working with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research before, once both had officially retired, Turner joined his admiral when the Old Man took a position at Northrop-Grumman -- until the very same president twisted MacKenzie's arm -- once again -- and sent him back to the Pentagon -- again -- this time as Secretary of Defense.
And that, Turner had wittily observed more than once, was when things got really weird, and after which things soon turned very, very dark.
Beaufort, South Carolina
The mood in the inn was very, very dark, way beyond palpably depressed. People who had worked at the inn's restaurant, and for quite literally decades, had no frame of reference to deal with their sudden unmooring. Cast adrift as if miles from shore and with no idea which way to swim, the older waitstaff and kitchen crew had devoted their professional lives to carrying on the restaurant's fully justified 144-year-old reputation.
She watched these people going about their routines as if they were functioning on some kind of emotional autopilot, their forced smiles and easy shrugs worn like masks to hide the cascades of emotion she assumed each felt. Yet she hid behind her work, carefully shaved a handful of fresh shards from a new block of parmesan and placed them ever-so-delicately atop a perfectly prepared bowl of shrimp & grits, then sprinkled thinly sliced rondels of crisp green scallion on the cheese. She looked over her plates, as always her own worst critic, and hit the pickup light to summon the waitress who would serve her latest creation.
She turned and looked at the clock over the door that led to the dining room and saw they were down to their final hour, and just then one of the waitresses she had almost grown friendly with walked into the kitchen and right up to her.
"Well, well, well...lucky you," the old waitress asked. "Guess who's coming to dinner?"
Sara Caldwell simply shrugged off the question, because in a way -- none of that mattered anymore.
"It's your favorite customer, if you know what I mean?" the waitress added a little too salaciously.
"Spudz? Is he here?" she asked. "Really?"
"He just got off a boat and is walking through the park right now."
"That's not a boat," Lucien Rousseau sighed, "that's a yacht...with a capital Y." Lucien was the youngest member of the dining room crew and he usually waited on Spuds whenever he happened by -- which wasn't all that frequently. But the old man had appeared to take a real interest in Caldwell almost two months ago, and whenever he was in town he made it a point to visit the inn and always made it a point to speak to Sara, complimenting her obvious skills in the kitchen and usually asking her to take a walk with him after the restaurant closed for the evening. He was always very polite, almost gentile; everyone referred to him as 'old school,' a real old-fashioned gentleman, and she'd begun to look forward to his visits.
And now she suspected she'd lose even that modest sense of connection, too, and it hit her just then. This was what it felt like to miss someone, even though she and Spudz had never done anything more than take a few brief walks in the park together. He was polite, almost solicitously so, and she often had felt that he really cared about her. Then again, she'd had no idea that he had a boat, or a yacht, or whatever Lucien thought it was, so in the end he was realistically little more than a stranger passing through her life.
She went back to work and wasn't at all surprised when his order for filet mignon Marchand de Vin came in; he always ordered the same thing, daring to change only what he had as an appetizer. And he always dressed for dinner, never came dressed casually. And, as had always been the case, he finished his meal a few minutes after the restaurant closed and then asked to speak with her.
But tonight she really didn't know how to proceed. Tell him about the inn closing, the restaurant too? How would he take it?
He was in the main dining room with his back to the kitchen, his close-cropped steel-gray hair instantly recognizable to her. She threw aside the caution she normally felt as easily as she had her apron and did her best to smile as she walked through the remaining dinner guests, stopping to ask each table if their evenings had been satisfactory, and then she was there, standing by his side.
"Was your filet as good as you remembered?" she asked as she walked up to his side of the table.
He stood quickly, attentively and walked around the table to the empty chair opposite his own. "Sara. Please, would you join me for a modest libation?"
This was something new; he was breaking their script, taking a new way forward.
She saw two untouched drinks on the table as he pulled out the chair; with his eyes he was asking, no -- pleading with her to join him, and she couldn't resist the sincerity she felt on his face. She nodded and sat, and he went back to his chair and joined her.
"Drambuie," he said, picking up his glass. "I hope that's alright."
