Pursuit of Honor

“I really don’t want to talk about it, Jack. I’m not famous, all right?”

Maggie walked up just in time. She slid her arms around his waist and gave him a big hug. “You’re quite the topic around here.”

“Oh . . . God . . .” he moaned.

“Why can’t you just relax and enjoy it?”

“Because it’s not who I am. I haven’t changed. I’m the same guy who’s been going to these games for I don’t even know how many years. The only thing that’s changed is everyone’s perception of me.”

“A perception that’s based on the truth. These people now know who you work for and what you’ve been doing, and I have to tell you,” Maggie said as she lowered her voice, “some of these ladies, like Stacy and Claudia, it’s a huge turn-on for them. Very sexy that I’m married to a spy.”

“I heard that,” Jack said without taking his eyes off the field. “Gross.”

Maggie grabbed him and pulled him in for a group hug. A second later the whistle blew and the game was over. As the two teams lined up to shake hands, Nash began looking around the park for his daughter.

“Where’s Sha

“Not sure.” Maggie looked toward the playground. “There she is- pushing Charlie in the swing.”

Nash watched her push the green bucket that her baby brother was in. He felt a pang of anxiety and asked, “Do I have to let her drive home?”

“Yes,” Maggie said.

“She’s not very good. I mean, don’t get me wrong . . . she’s a great kid, but she can’t drive.”

“Michael, she just got her permit this morning. Do you expect her to be a great driver on her first day?”

“I don’t expect her to be perfect, but . . .”

“But what?”

“She sucks, Mom,” Jack said.

Maggie grabbed his cheeks. “Oh . . . Jack, sometimes, I swear.”

“Mom,” Jack said while shaking free of her grip, “I’m not saying she’s stupid or a bad person. I’m just telling you the truth. She’s a bad driver.”

“Well, maybe you and your father can walk home.”

Jack took a step back to get out of his mom’s range and said, “Can we, Dad? Do you know how fu

“Jack Nash.” Maggie reached for him, but he was too quick. He scampered onto the field in search of his brother. “He takes after you,” she said to her husband.

“I think he has more than a little of his mother in him.”

“The smartass part comes from you.”

“And the psycho stubborn part . . . who do you suppose he gets that from, you?”

Maggie was on the verge of upping the ante when an elderly couple approached them. “Excuse me,” the man said, “Mike and Maggie Nash?”

The Nashes nodded.

“I’m Charlie Kelly. This is my wife, Mary.”

“Nice to meet you,” Nash said as he shook the man’s hand.

“My grandson plays for Langley.”

“Ohh . . . great,” Maggie said.

“Not today. Your boy pounded us. Pretty damn good player,” he added gruffly.

“Thank you,” Nash said.

Kelly looked across the field, his cloudy blue eyes unfocused, his bottom lip trembling ever so slightly. “I just wanted to say hello.” He couldn’t look at Nash. His wife hung close to his side. “And thank you. I was in the Navy and then I put in forty years at Langley. Clandestine service . . . operations . . . spent most of my time in Europe. What you did,” he finally looked at Nash, “it made a lot of us proud . . . and there’s not many of us left.” He shook his head and then said, “I just thought you should know that.”

Nash was caught off guard. He stammered for a second and then said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Charlie,” the old man said, “please call me Charlie.”

“I will. Thank you, Charlie.”

“Well . . .” he said as he looked toward the cars. “We’ll see you around.”

“Sure,” Nash said.

“Very nice to meet you,” Maggie said. As the older couple moved toward the parking lot, Maggie said, “That was nice.”

“Yeah. We don’t do enough to celebrate those guys.”

Jack returned from the middle of the field with Rory and a couple of his teammates. “Mom,” Jack said as he came speeding up, “are you really going to let Sha

“I don’t think it’s any of your business, young man.”

“Well, if she is,” Jack suddenly produced Rory’s lacrosse helmet, “I’m wearing this.”

“Okay, that’s it . . .” Maggie took a step and reached out to grab the sleeve of his sweatshirt but again he was too quick. He darted off across the field. Maggie composed herself as she came face to face with Rory and his two friends. “Nice game, honey.”

“Thanks,” Rory said. “Can Will and Ben sleep over?”

“Well,” Maggie said, caught a little off guard, “your father and I are going to di

“Nice game, boys,” Nash said.

“Thanks, Mr. Nash,” the two boys said in unison.

“I’m fine with you guys staying over. Have you asked your parents?”

Both boys said they would and ran off to find their parents.

“We’re going to di

“Yes,” she said with a big smile. “I haven’t spent five minutes alone with you in the past week. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Not at all.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “We’ll eat someplace close by.”

“Wherever you want, honey.”

“Italian?” They started walking toward the cars. Rory ran ahead to see what Charlie and Sha

“Sure.”

“And then when we get home?” Nash asked with a hopeful tone.

“We can play spy and you can show me your gun.”

Nash laughed. He looked at Sha

CHAPTER 67

NASSAU, BAHAMAS

HAKIM decided to walk to the bank. It wasn’t far and he needed the time to think. Just as he feared, the barn had not burned down. Karim was an idiot, all the more so because he actually thought himself smart. He was an intolerable ass. Hakim kept asking himself if there had been anything else in the barn that could put the FBI on his trail. He had been lucky that he had packed his bag in the RV’s storage compartment months earlier. Karim’s and Ahmed’s packs were hidden under a tarp in the barn just as Karim had ordered. Something about wanting to personally inspect them. It served the fool right that his need to control every detail had led to his own downfall.

As he exited the hotel into the su

A block before the bank he stopped and checked his watch. He had ten minutes before he was to meet Christian. The wise thing to do would be to spend that time checking for any surveillance, so he crossed the street and casually strolled down the block. Every so often he would stop and pretend to look in a window. He was actually looking in the reflection to see if anyone was watching him. No one was, and he was getting a little giddy at the new life that awaited him. He would go to Brazil. Over 200 million people and a landscape as diverse as that of any country on the planet. The population spoke Portuguese, English, and a little Spanish, and most important, accents were very hard to detect. Bloodlines from all over the Mediterranean, Spain, and Portugal had been mixing together with the natives for several hundred years. His naturally dark skin would be no more out of place than it would be in his native Saudi Arabia.