Closer Encounters

Merline Lovelace

Closer Encounters

This is for Vernon, my handsome,

curly-haired brother-in-law, who trained

at the Merchant Marine base on Catalina Island.

Like his brother—my own handsome hero—

he served his country with great distinction.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Coming Next Month

Prologue

November, 1941

The liquid notes soared through the balmy California night. They sprang from the golden slide of two trombones in perfect unison. The reedy seduction of an alto sax. The swish of a steel brush against cymbals. More than fifteen hundred couples lost to the dreamy ballad swayed cheek-to-cheek on the parquet floor of the world famous Avalon Ballroom on Catalina Island.

The singer waited for the clarinet to weep out the final bars of the bridge before stepping up to the mike. Her golden snood glittering in the light from five Tiffany chandeliers, Trixie Halston cradled the mike and poured out a throaty promise to walk alone, saving her laughter and her smiles until she could share them with her love.

She put her heart into each note, her earthy, provocative signature on each phrase. She was good at making every male in the audience think she was singing to him alone. Very good. All the while she scanned the crowd.

Johnny was here. She’d seen him come in a few moments ago, tall and curly-haired and achingly handsome in his merchant marine uniform. He’d come in response to the urgent message she’d left this afternoon. Now she’d lost him in the throng of dancers jamming the ballroom.

Her impatience mounting, she rushed the refrain and earned a quick frown from the bandleader. Smiling an apology, Trixie slowed for the last stanza. When the music faded, she signed off with her signature farewell to the men serving aboard the ships that sailed from Southern California’s busy ports.

“Good night to all you mariners. Stay safe.”

She didn’t need to glance at the note the band’s PR director had passed her to add a heartfelt postscript.

“And to the men of the USS Kallister, keep a song in your heart.”

She often singled out ships for a personal message, but this was Johnny’s ship. A munitions ship. Packed with high explosives for British and Australian forces fighting a brutal holding action in the Pacific. The United States had yet to enter the war that was engulfing the rest of the world, but even the most rabid isolationists and antiwar activists acknowledged it was just a matter of months, if not weeks. In the meantime, American ships ran a gauntlet of U-boats lurking off the coasts to supply the Allies with desperately needed supplies purchased under the lend-lease program.

Johnny hadn’t said anything about leaving L.A. last night. He couldn’t, of course. Yet Trixie guessed he must be shipping out soon. His kisses had been more urgent, his embrace more passionate, as if he wanted to imprint the feel of her, the taste of her, on his memory.

Anxious to get to him, she accepted the thunderous applause and slipped behind the stage curtains. A door led directly outdoors and onto the balcony that ringed the upper story ballroom.

Waves slapped against the rocks five stories below. The breeze carried the gay tinkle of rigging from the boats rocking at anchor in Avalon Harbor. Eager, impatient, Trixie called her lover’s name.

“Johnny?”

She heard a movement in one of the alcoves framed by the balcony’s ornate Moorish arches. With joy in her heart, she spun toward the sound.

That’s all she had. One instant of eager anticipation. Then an arm thrust out of the darkness and slammed into her shoulder. Off balance in her thick-soled platform wedgies, Trixie fell against the railing.

“Johnny!”

Another shove sent her over the rail. A scream ripping from her throat, she plummeted to the rocks below.

Chapter 1

November, present day

An early frost glittered on the naked limbs of the chestnut trees lining the quiet side street just off Massachusetts Avenue, in the heart of Washington, D.C.’s, embassy district. Commuters pouring out of the Metro stop at the corner kept their heads down against the biting wind as they hurried to work.

If any had happened to glance at the elegant three-story town house halfway down the block, they might have noticed the discreet bronze plaque beside the door. The plaque indicated the structure housed the offices of the President’s Special Envoy.

The title was held by Nick Jensen, a jet-setting restaurateur who owned a string of exclusive watering holes that catered to the rich and famous around the world. Only a handful of Washington insiders knew that title masked Jensen’s real job—director of OMEGA. The small, ultrasecret organization sent its operatives into the field only at the request of the president himself.

One of those agents had just been activated.

Andrew McDowell—code name Riever—sat at the briefing table in the high-tech control center on the top floor of the town house. Shielded from penetration by every electronic eavesdropping device known to man, the control center hummed with the pulse of OMEGA’s heartbeat.

Frowning, Drew skimmed the data projected onto the screen taking up almost the whole north wall. There wasn’t much to skim. Just a list of Internet queries seeking information on the USS Kallister. Several of the queries cited a sailing date of 15 November and requested information on the ship’s course and cargo. The problem was, that course was classified. So was the cargo in the hold of the refurbished WWII-era ship.

The rust bucket that had hauled explosives across the Pacific during the war had been torpedoed and almost sunk. Mothballed after the war, it had been refitted and recommissioned in the late ’60s to meet the escalating demands of the Vietnam conflict. Now it carried a secret cargo—so secret, every circuit at the White House situation room had popped when the vigilant watchdogs at NSA plucked this string of queries out of the billions their computers screened every day.

“What do you think, Riever?”

Drew had derived his code name from the fierce raiders who wreaked such havoc on the Anglo-Scottish border in past centuries. Like his long-ago ancestors, he was hawk-eyed and broad-shouldered enough to swing a claymore. He felt the urge to swing one now.

He’d served a hitch in the navy before being recruited by OMEGA. That was almost eight years ago, but there was enough of the sailor left in him to generate a cold, deadly fury at the possibility someone might deliberately put a U.S. vessel at risk.

“I think,” he said to his boss, “I’d better haul my ass out to the west coast and check out the female who generated these queries. What have we got on her so far?”

“Not much,” Nick Jensen replied. Tall, tanned and tawny-haired, the one-time agent with the code name Lightning nodded to the console operator. A click of a mouse brought up the digitized image of a Washington state driver’s license.

According to the DMV, Tracy Brandt was twenty-eight years old, stood five-six and weighed a respectable one hundred and thirty-two pounds. No anorexic toothpick there.

The camera must have caught Brandt by surprise. Her picture showed a brunette with startled green eyes and a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

“Ms. Brandt worked as a budget analyst at the Puget Sound shipyards until two weeks ago,” Lightning advised Drew. “Her supervisor says he fired her because of repeated absences from work. He also says she told him he’d be sorry for letting her go.”

Uh-oh. A defensive employee fired for cause. Talk about your basic formula for disaster.

“What about her security clearances?”

“She crunched payroll numbers. Nothing that required a top-secret clearance. Certainly nothing that would give her access to the cargo packed in the hold of the Kallister.”

Lightning drummed his fingers on the table. He knew what the Kallister was hauling. He was one of a very small, very select circle who did.

“Brandt’s address checks to an apartment complex in Puget Sound, but the electronic queries emanated from Southern California. An Internet café on Catalina Island, to be specific.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“That’s what you’re going to find out. She used her Visa to check into the Bella Vista Inn. We got the manager to move out the folks in the room next to hers. He’s holding it for you.”

A thin smile stretched Drew’s lips. With the array of electronic gadgetry available to OMEGA agents, Ms. Brandt had better watch what she said or did, even in the privacy of her bedroom.

“We’re sending a team to Puget Sound to talk to her former coworkers,” Lightning advised. “We’ll let you know what, if anything, they turn up.”

“Roger that.”

Lightning’s nod encompassed the blonde on the other side of the table. “Denise will act as your controller here at headquarters.”

A former Secret Service agent, Denise Kowalski had pumped a bullet into the man she believed was attacking the vice president. The veep had actually been another OMEGA agent in disguise, but Denise’s cool head had so impressed everyone involved that the director at the time had requested she be transferred to OMEGA. Drew couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather have as his controller.

“Let us know when you make contact with the target,” Lightning instructed. “I need to advise the president.”

“Will do.”

Shoving back his chair, Drew took the stairs to the field dress unit. The wizards in FDU fitted him with an array of sophisticated communications devices and a .45-caliber Glock they’d regripped especially for his hand. After a final session with Denise to work out a reporting schedule, he departed the town house via a hidden back exit. A half hour later he was on his way to sun-drenched Southern California.

Given the time change, it was barely noon when he landed at LAX, rented a car and drove south to Dana Point. From there it was a forty-minute hydrofoil trip to Catalina, some twenty-six miles off the coast.

The hydrofoil docked in the town of Avalon. Surrounded by steep mountains, the tiny resort snuggled up to a crescent-shaped harbor crowded with fishing boats, cabin cruisers and sleek sailboats. A tall round building with a red roof stood on a spit of rock at the north end of the harbor. Drew’s tourist map identified it as the Avalon Casino, the ’30s-era movie theater and ballroom that constituted the island’s premier tourist attraction.

He’d already been warned that vehicle traffic was restricted on Catalina. Residents depended mainly on golf carts as the primary mode of transportation. Several carts were waiting at the dock to perform taxi service, but Drew opted to heft his carryall and follow a paved walkway to the center of town. A zigzagging side street led up a steep hill to the Bella Vista Inn.

It was a Victorian whimsy set high above the bay. The wraparound porch gave a sweeping view of the hills, the harbor and the casino. Riever accepted an old-fashioned iron key and climbed a winding staircase to the second floor room labeled “Seagull Suite.”

The reason for the label became apparent the moment he stepped out onto the suite’s minuscule balcony. Gulls squawked and circled overhead. One particularly intrepid creature swooped onto the wooden railing and hopped to within a foot of Drew.

“Sorry, pal. I don’t have anything for you.”

The gull ruffled his feathers and danced another inch or two, head cocked expectantly. Like most sailors, Drew wasn’t particularly fond of gulls and the messes they deposited on gleaming steel decks. This one was nothing if not persistent, however.

“Okay, okay. Let me check out the minibar.”

He was tossing honey-roasted cashews to the gull when he spotted his target. She came out the front door of the inn and paused on the porch to zip up a pea-green windbreaker before starting down toward town. Riever smothered an oath, chucked the last of the cashews to the gull and went after her.

Tracy had no idea why she felt so compelled to take another tour of the Avalon Casino. She’d visited it yesterday, shortly after arriving on Catalina, and really didn’t have time for a repeat visit. She’d traveled to the island on very private, very wrenching business.

She should get on with it, she thought with a little ache just under her ribs. Once it was done, she’d take the ferry back to the mainland, fly home to Washington and start looking for another job.

God knew she needed one. Her savings account was empty and she had less than two hundred dollars in her checking account. Thank goodness for credit cards, although she’d already maxed out two and was nudging close to the limit on her third. The finance company had repossessed her car last month, which had made getting back and forth to work a challenge. When she still had a job to get to, that is.

Her boss should have understood, she thought indignantly. Or at least been more sympathetic to her situation. She’d worked her butt off for the guy for almost six years. And covered his butt on more than one occasion! Yet when her vacation time had run out and she’d been forced to ask for leave without pay, the bastard had told her to choose between her job and Jack.

The ache just under her ribs intensified and seeped into her heart, drop by painful drop. She couldn’t believe Jack had really left her. He’d been the only man in her life for so long. Her only friend. Her only family.

Racked by a loneliness that went bone deep, Tracy shoved her hands in the pockets of her pistachio-colored windbreaker and followed the cobbled walk that circled the harbor. November was a little too late in the year for swimmers, but a few determined sun-worshippers had spread towels on the beach and were soaking up rays. Other tourists strolled the pedestrians-only main boulevard. A blend of old Mexico and California chic, the street was lined with shops, restaurants and tall, swaying palms.

Head down, shoulders hunched, Tracy barely glanced at the shop windows. Her destination was the stucco arch at the far end of Crescent Avenue. The arch formed the entrance to another paved walk. This path led to the casino, which stood in majestic splendor at the north end of the harbor.

As Tracy had learned during her tour yesterday, the fabled Avalon Casino had nothing to do with gambling. The label derived from the Italian word for gathering place or festive area, and that’s certainly what this structure had been designed for. The spectacular first-floor theater could seat twelve hundred avid movie buffs. Twice as many couples could dance the night away in the magnificent upper-story ballroom. So brilliantly illuminated at night that it could be seen from the mainland, the Avalon Casino had lured visitors since it first opened in 1929.

Just as it lured Tracy now.

It was weird, this urge that pulled her back to the place. Almost as weird as the tune that kept drifting through her head. She’d first heard the slow, plaintive melody during the tour yesterday. So faint, she’d caught only a few bars. So sad, it had seemed to echo her personal misery.

She’d thought at first the music had drifted up to the ballroom from one of the boats moored in the harbor below. Then she decided it was probably piped in as background for the tour, designed to evoke a feeling for the poignant ballads of the big band era.

The odd thing was that no else seemed to have heard it. The rest of her group had trailed after the guide, oohing and aahing over the ballroom’s massive Tiffany chandeliers, art deco wall sconces and vast parquet floor cushioned by a resilient cork mat to ease the aching feet of four thousand jitterbuggers.

Deciding it was just her overactive imagination at work, Tracy had finished the tour and walked back toward town. To her consternation, the melody accompanied her, wandering in and out of her head as if it were lost. Only this time, snatches of lyrics came with them. Something about waiting, about gathering dreams, about walking alone until…

Until what?

Haunted by the tune, she’d stopped at an Internet café and spent dollars she couldn’t afford to Google the phrases. One query led to another, then another.

She now knew “I’ll Walk Alone” was both the title and the theme of a big band hit sung by all the great female singers of the late ’30s and early ’40s, including Billie Holiday, Dinah Shore and Trixie Halston—who’d died in a tragic accident right here at the Avalon Casino.

What she didn’t know was why she couldn’t get the song out of her head!

It was there now, calling to her, beckoning to her, luring her like the sirens of old had lured unwary sailors to their death. She could hear it as she stood in line at the box office to purchase a tour ticket.

“You just made it.”

Tracy blinked, sure the woman in the old-fashioned glass booth had spoken to her. Her lips had moved. Her smile invited a reply. But the music had drowned her out.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I said you just made it. The last tour of the day starts in two minutes.”

Tracy slid her charge card through the opening in the glass and held her breath until it went through. She hadn’t maxed this one out yet, thank goodness. She signed the slip, took her ticket and turned—only to collide with the man in line behind her.

“Sorry!”

“No problem.”

Too absorbed by the haunting melody to note more than an easy smile and gold-flecked hazel eyes, she nodded absently and joined the tourists now streaming into the casino.

Yesterday, the lobby’s solid black-walnut wall panels and glorious red-arched ceiling had taken her breath away. Today she could barely contain her impatience as the tour guide explained the casino’s history and unique engineering. Once inside the theater, not even the immense proscenium arch and murals glittering with silver and gold foil could hold her attention. Nor could the booming notes of the Page pipe organ that had added drama to the silent movies shown in the theater drown out the song inside Tracy’s head.

The music was louder now, the lyrics more distinct. She’d printed out a copy after Googling them up yesterday, and knew them almost by heart. Each note was a sigh, each word a promise. They called to her, urging her upstairs to the ballroom.

Her heart pounded as the tour guide led the group to the set of spiral ramps so many eager couples had ascended during the swing era. The guide took the ramps slowly, in deference to the older members in the group, and paused at the lounge halfway up to let them rest and view the black-and-white photos of the bands that had played the Avalon Ballroom.

Tracy’s pulse kicked up another notch as she skimmed over photos of bands led by Artie Shaw, Harry James and Russ Morgan. Suddenly, her breath stopped in her throat.

There! That was Kenny Jones swinging a baton in front of his orchestra. And the woman at the microphone. Trixie Halston. Tracy recognized the singer from the photos she’d pulled up yesterday. As she stared at the slender chanteuse with her dark hair styled in a peekaboo sweep, the music inside her head grew louder, the notes more urgent.

Determined to get the damned song out of her head, Tracy slipped away from the group and hit the next incline. Her breath came faster with each step. Her blood thundered in her ears.

She took the last ramp at a near run and burst into the cavernous ballroom. The music swelled to an angry crescendo, pulling her across the parquet floor, past the empty stage and through one of the Moorish arches onto the balcony.

Eyes wild, heart hammering, Tracy leaned over the stucco wall ringing the balcony. Waves foamed against the rocks below. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, leaving the sea looking cold and gray. Like death, she thought, gripped by a sudden, icy panic.

Panic turned to terror as an unseen force thumped her hard between the shoulder blades.

Chapter 2

“I’ve got you!”

Fisting his hand in the folds of his target’s pea-green windbreaker, Drew yanked her backward. She fell against him. Hard. Her butt slammed his thigh. Her hipbone gouged into his groin.

Grunting, he held on to her until she righted herself. But he wasn’t too happy with Ms. Brandt when she whirled around and stared at him with wild eyes. Still feeling the imprint of that hip, he released her.

“What the hell were you doing, leaning over the rail like that?”

His snarl drained what little color she had left in her face. She shrank away and bumped up against the rail again. Cursing, Drew got another grip on her windbreaker.

“Hey! Careful! It’s a long way down.”

That penetrated, thank God. Locking both hands on his wrist, she threw a frantic glance over her shoulder. A cold breeze set the ends of her mink-brown hair to dancing. Drew felt its bite as a series of shudders wracked the woman.

When the shivers subsided, she blinked several times and eased upright. Drew maintained his grip, just in case. It was a long way down and Tracy Brandt’s face was still pretty much the color of her jacket.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I…I think so.”

Drew didn’t release her until she put a good three feet between her and the ledge.

“What happened?”

“I got a little dizzy.” She rubbed her temple with a shaking hand. “The music…It was so loud.”

“Music?”

“You didn’t hear it?” The wild look came back into her eyes. “The melody? The lyrics?”

He hadn’t heard anything but the drum of his blood after he’d watched her slip away from the group. She’d acted so furtive his hunting instincts had kicked in big-time and the thrill of the chase had thrummed in his ears. He could hardly admit that to his prey, however.

“No, I didn’t hear any music.” Wondering if he were dealing with a nutcase here, Drew asked warily, “Do you still hear it?”

A crease appeared between her eyebrows as she cocked her head and listened. Her intense concentration gave him ample time to compare Ms. Brandt in the flesh to the Ms. Brandt captured by the cameras of the Washington driver’s license division.

The eyes were the same misty green. The freckles were still there, a faint spackling across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. Her hair was longer than in the photo. A tumble of dark brown, the silky mass just brushed her shoulders. Although the features were essentially the same, their setting had changed. There were dark smudges under her eyes and her face appeared thinner. Much thinner.

So did the rest of her. Her license had tagged her at one thirty-two. She didn’t look anywhere close to that. The loose windbreaker concealed most of her upper torso, but he’d had plenty of opportunity to observe the lower portion as he’d trudged up the ramps behind her. Her jeans hugged a tight, trim rear. Her slender thighs looked as though they’d wrap perfectly around a man.

Too bad he wouldn’t get the chance to test that supposition. For one thing, Tracy Brandt was his target. For another, the woman heard voices in her head.

Or had. Apparently she wasn’t hearing them any longer. Looking uncomfortable, she admitted as much and fumbled for an explanation of her erratic behavior.

“I guess I’m just a little stressed.”

Losing a job would stress anyone, Drew thought. So would messing with highly classified information you weren’t supposed to have access to.