Chapter 54

Everything seemed perfect on that day.

Jennifer and Stacy informed that they were spending the federal holiday in bed with me and that I had better get with the program, or they were going to find someone who would. We all three laughed at that.

Things around the White House were quiet, so we decided to spend a few days on Hawk and Polly’s yacht, floating around just off the coast of Florida with a flotilla of coast Guard and Navy, supplementing our combined Secret Service details. Hawk had offered and even urged us to get away. I knew that it would make the girls happy and that was the deciding factor.

The yacht was glorious. They had purchased the one I wanted before I died in Angela’s body and used some of the trust money to make a few improvements. We settled in the second master suite, near the rear of the ship, on the lower deck. The Secret Service agents that were aboard with us were happy to use the two unoccupied crew quarters beneath us. When we looked out the windows, it seemed like the entire Navy was along to chaperone us.

I felt very, very safe...

... right up until the first explosion rocked the yacht.

We were dressed at the time, which was a bit unusual, since we spent considerable time naked and sweating on the great big bed. Stacy had her face down into the sheets, sleeping away the effects of our glorious escapades when an explosion ripped through the yacht.

The force of the concussion threw us all on the floor. Stacy squealed as she flew through the air and landed against the bulk head. Jennifer dropped beside me without making a sound. I should have been paying attention to the lack of noise but the shooting started up and there was no time to think. It was all I could do to just act.

Grabbing Jennifer and hoisting her over my shoulder lake a foreman would carry her. I grabbed Stacy’s hand and headed for the door. As we approached it swung open and four Secret Service agents rushed us. Two took Jennifer and the other two grabbed me and Stacy and herded us towards the rear where a Navy launch, guarded by a Coast Guard cutter, was waiting to get us away.

The shooting seemed to be dying down and one of my detail was screaming into his radio, letting the others know we were boarding the launch. Stacy and I were literally tossed into the arms of waiting sailors, who half carried, half dragged us toward a safer place behind a steel bulkhead.

Jennifer was unconscious and a helicopter was summoned to move her to one of the naval vessels equipped to deal with injured crewmen. The last I saw of her was her arm hanging loose outside of the straps that held her safely on the gurney.

Our launch raced for the larger vessels and once we were outside the cover provided by the yacht, our attackers focused their last ditch attempts on taking us out. That would have been a sound idea except for the fact that Air Force AND Naval fighters showed up and turned them into shark bait so fast that all I really saw was a red mist followed by several massive explosions, as our guys ended their attack and their lives with a devastating finality.

My protectors had me aboard Marine One before I could catch my breath and ask about Jennifer. The noise was deafening as we were escorted by fighters, helicopter gunships and overflying us was a couple bombers and an AWACS. The radios were blaring and the guards were deadly serious about our protection all the way to Patrick Air Force Base where I was met by a convoy of soldiers, who were detailed to clear a path to the hospital where they took Jennifer.

The base hospital was in bedlam as those wounded by our attackers were being flown in and triaged. We were barely noticed by the surgeons and other medical personnel working furiously to save lives and limbs. My escorts took me straight to the emergency ward where a doctor was gently pulling a sheet over Jennifer’s face. His look went from sad to pure fear when he noticed me standing just inside the room.

My heart fell into my shoes as I realized that he had just pronounced her dead. The silence around us was profound as I came to grips with the obvious facts. Jennifer was murdered by the people coming for me.

I killed another loved one by simply existing.

The doctor tried to say something, but I was not hearing. The sound in my head was a drum screaming the words over and over... ‘You killed Jennifer...”

He tried again, but I wasn’t ready to listen, so I said, “I’m not stupid, doctor,” I said as he tried desperately to find words appropriate for the situation. “If you are covering my wife’s face with a sheet, then she is gone...

“Jennifer is gone...”

I stood there for what seemed like a long time and then pushed through the people who had been working on her when I arrived, and lifted the sheet to take a look at my beloved. Her face was sunken and her eyes were dead pools of liquid white. Pain hit me like a bullet train and I almost sagged. Several of my detail started to catch me, but I caught myself and sat the rest of the way down next to her bed.

The hurt was beyond terrible.

I was OK with being the one who got dead.

Being the one responsible for Jennifer and Angela being dead was more than I could accept.

Time ceased to exist, because I went far way in my head and grieved where people couldn’t intrude for a little while. In my far off place I re-experienced some of our most wonderful times. It was in that far-away place that I realized that this was the universe at its most perverse, or death getting revenge on me for living when I was dead.