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MEMO

TO: All Personnel

FROM: U.S. Naval Training Program Office

SUBJ: FLEET HOSPITAL Mission Description

1) Is a Department of Defense standardized, modular, deployable, rapidly erectable, relocatable shore-based medical facility.

2) Provides Fleet Commander in Chief with fully mission-capable combat medical treatment facilities in support of combat forces at risk.

3) Deployed in three phases: Air Detachment, Advance Party and Main Body.

4) Assembled rapidly at prepared sites in five to ten days with 100-bed or 500-bed combat zone hospital.

5) Unlike Army MASH units, Navy FLEET HOSPITAL units are essentially self-sustaining.

6) Once FLEET HOSPITAL facilities are erected and provided with 60 days of supplies, FLEET HOSPITAL is on its own.

Naval Fleet Hospital Training, FHOTC (Fleet Hospital Operations and Training Command)

Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base

Day 1

TABLOID WRITER Lori Sepanik, pen name Jo Marche, stepped outside into Southern California’s July sun and the noon heat of the fenced desert compound. It was the day’s second muster. Located directly to the north of the Fleet Hospital Command, the training class within the fenced area offered no frills—or even basic comforts. The assembled students, sweating in heavy green cammies, black boots and starched covers, tried to ignore the humming of Admin’s air-conditioning outside their barbed-wire fences and guarded gates. Judging by the looks on their faces, Jo decided they were failing miserably. She knew she was.

Air conditioning existed for the staff’s administration computers only and the few staff personnel lucky enough to work in the regular buildings. Typewriters were used in the Fleet Hospital’s actual training area, and the frigid air wasn’t needed there. Everyone not in FHOTC’s Admin building, from instructors and students to civilian guests like her, sweated. Their only relief was drinking potable water outside the huge tent “hospital” that served as their classroom. No soda, soft drinks or pop, depending on one’s regional vernacular. In Jo’s case, it was a Midwesterner’s “soda.” She’d kill for one right now. No such luck. She was stuck inside the compound, sweating and waiting for the training exercise’s first “casualties.”

Jo had been admitted onto the marine base as an Associated Press reporter. However, the credentials she had were as phony as her pen name. If she was lucky and able to write a decent story, instead of her usual tabloid trash, she just might get away with what she hoped was the last lie she’d ever have to tell. Face it, tabloid reporters were pretty much professional liars—if you considered the lousy substandard pay she received for her articles “professional.” But so far, she hadn’t found even the hint of a real story at Fleet Hospital.

I’ll never get a decent job with a decent newspaper at this rate. She hadn’t managed to get an interview with the Commanding Officer, a Captain McLowery. Not yet, anyway. AP rarely bought feature stories without a diversity of interviews. In this case, that meant officers and enlisted, high ranks and lower ranks, men and women, and people of varied ethnic backgrounds. Unfortunately, an interview with the high-ranking McLowery wasn’t happening so far, despite a quick conversation with him earlier in the day.

Not needing to worry about the muster, Jo stepped back into the shade and consulted her notes as the roll call droned on in the blinding light. She had to find a story, so she might as well go where it was cooler and start with some of the low-ranking officers.

Luckily for her, the CHC—Chaplain Corps—worked inside the hospital, a huge complex of connected canvas tents, which all the students learned to assemble. The hospital air-conditioning operated only in critical areas— Surgery, Intensive Care and the Expectant area, which was what they called the cordoned-off area for those expected to die. Those three sites, especially the latter two, were chaplain territories, she read. Chaplains would be praying over the dead and dying.

“Nothing like fake blood on bandages to spice up a dull shot,” Jo murmured. She felt for her camera at her side and stayed in the shade as she searched the mustered ranks for the chaplain participating in this exercise. She had a gift for both words and photography—although she rarely needed photos when it came to the tabloids. Celebrity stories used stock shots, and fake stories used computer-generated photos, like those used to show readers supposed alien-human babies born in Roswell basements near Area 51.

She ought to know; she’d written a series of alien-baby stories herself under her Jo Marche byline. They sold almost as well as Elvis sightings and features on the British royals’ latest affairs—whether they’d actually happened or not. Jo had always wanted to be a nonfiction writer, but for some reason only the tabloids bought her stuff, and that sort of writing could hardly be classified as true reporting.

She winced at the thought of some of her past work, although she had more scruples than many of her colleagues. She flatly refused to write tabloid trash about celebrities, royals or any real people. But her aliens, ghosts, vampires, zombies and other weird creatures in the midst of suburbia were pure fiction and so, fair game. Those stories hurt no one—except Lori Sepanik and her professional reputation, even if they did pay the bills.

Hence her pen name, Jo Marche, with the intentionally added “e.” She was an avid reader who’d used books to escape from a poverty-ridden childhood, and Jo March of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women became Lori’s favorite heroine. The fictional Miss March had escaped the world of lurid fiction to become a famous writer. Even as a child, Lori had pretended she was Josephine March, the famous writer. In her version, Jo married the handsome Laurence, even though the pretty younger sister ended up with him in the book, and she vowed to follow Jo March’s example. Sadly, young Lori’s plans for herself hadn’t panned out, and rather than sully the innocent name of the fictional Miss March with trashy tabloid fiction, the adult Lori had added an “e” to her pseudonym, vowing to drop it when she finally became legitimate—as in publishing an AP or UP story. The name change might be slight, but it made her feel…less guilty.

She’d left her old neighborhood in St. Louis four years ago and moved to Las Vegas, hoping to cover the entertainment news. But not once had she ever been in the right place at the right time with the right “connections” to get to the really big stars. With some college education, a little money and a couple of “you’re almost there” rejection letters to spur her on, she’d moved south from Las Vegas to Southern California. Writing about California’s “four seasons”—earthquakes, droughts, fires and mudslides—helped supplement her income, especially since Hollywood stars tended to be even more guarded than those in Vegas. And San Diego, so close to the border, didn’t make a big deal about people who lived out of their cars in trailer parks, river washes or the interstates’ many “rest areas.” As long as there were no sanitary or trash problems, the police left her—and others living the not-so-glamorous California dream—alone. At least she could shower and keep clean until another sale afforded her enough money to stay at a cheap motel. She hadn’t hit San Diego’s definable rock bottom yet—living on the beaches or in the parks year-round and fishing through trash for redeemable bottles and cans.

Luckily Jo had talent, determination and, at age thirty-three, enough of her youth plus enough maturity to keep reaching for her star. A Fleet Hospital story might provide her with enough money to go legitimate for a real newspaper and find an apartment where she could live and date like a normal person. Maybe even get married eventually and have a kid or two. She refused to consider herself homeless—just struggling—but a 1968 Chevy Impala back-seat bedroom wasn’t exactly a good place for children.

Jo had a game plan. No one knew a thing about Fleet Hospitals. No one had written about them, not even the big papers like the Los Angeles Times. Maybe she could get enough material for a features article in Sunday’s nationally syndicated Parade section. With luck, she might be able to get enough info to write a TV sitcom, too. Everyone loved M.A.S.H., the TV show, which was still going strong in reruns.

So what if the odds were stacked against her? Except for her quick brain, the odds had been lousy since the day she was born. Fleet was better than alien stories; something, anything was needed to feed her creative mind—and her nearly empty bank account.

She intended to write a piece establishing herself once and for all as a woman going somewhere. A woman with a future in legitimate journalism. Either that, or she’d be stuck composing her next tabloid story: “Shape-shifters locked in guarded Fort Knox vaults. Military denies all knowledge.”

Right now Jo had everything on the line. Someone had broken into her car and stolen her used but serviceable laptop and the trash bag holding most of her clothes, leaving behind the few dirty clothes she hadn’t washed yet. Another female resident of the trailer park where Jo stayed had almost been raped in the showers; she’d escaped only because her attacker had slipped on the slimy mildew-covered tile. Still, he’d succeeded in getting away before the police arrived.

Jo now had a limited wardrobe, an empty stomach and a backpack that served as her camera case, suitcase and purse. She discovered that she wasn’t bouncing back from life’s little problems the way she used to. The trailer park was getting too scary, even for a lifelong veteran of trashy neighborhoods, and she didn’t know which felt worse, the lousy mattresses in the lousy motels or the back seat of her Chevy, with its broken springs and torn vinyl upholstery. Being at Camp Pendleton meant a cot, and since she was a reporter—an invited civilian guest—her meals were free.

None too soon. She’d paid almost all her money to a Los Angeles forger for two fake IDs, both in her pen name: one a bogus driver’s license, the other an Associated Press card that had gotten her permission from the Marine Base General to report on Fleet Hospital. All she had now was a stash of about a hundred bucks to hit the thrift shop for some new clothes—if there was anything left after renting a computer to type out her story and then fax it in.

But first she had to find that story. She’d better start interviewing as many people as possible—and that meant she could stay in the shade for a while. Anyone who had any sense would join her after mustering.

“Finally!” she murmured as roll call ended. She scanned the crowd again. She needed to locate the handsome CO, Michael James McLowery, and then that boring-looking chaplain. What was the guy’s name and rank? She checked her notes one more time. Oh, yeah, there it was….

HERE HE WAS, Daniel Preston, Lieutenant, CHC, USN, a chaplain straight out of OIS—Officer Indoctrination School in Newport, Rhode Island—and about to undergo an exercise that would teach him about dealing with the dead and dying. His years in the Navy Reserves hadn’t acquainted him with a chaplain’s most solemn duties, which was why he’d finally made the jump to full-time sailor. Like most of the population in a wealthy country usually at peace, he’d never seen an adult die. In fact, he’d never seen anyone die…

Except for a small child. Anna McLowery. That was back when he was Daniel Klemko, Jr., known as “Dennis.” But his father, Daniel Senior, had died in ’Nam, from friendly fire, no less, and his mother had remarried and let his new stepdad adopt him. He became Daniel Preston, minus the Jr.

The memory of that little girl’s death had stayed with him, made his new name welcome and had later driven him to bars, booze, women’s beds and, finally, to the ministry. He doubted he had any genuine calling as a man of God, but he could certainly identify with other tortured sinners. So here he stood, an honest-to-goodness military chaplain, expected to counsel, pray with—or pray for—moulaged military personnel made up with eerie Hollywood expertise to look like dying patients.

Soon “the enemy,” the instructors and support staff, would quit mustering them and start the attack. He’d been waiting for it since early morning. Two hundred personnel from all over North America were also waiting.

“Back to your stations. Disssssss-missed!”

Everyone except the armed on-duty compound guards at the gate fell out and shuffled back to the two hospital entrances, either Triage and Casualty Receiving or the main hospital entrance to the command center.

An African-American female with an M-16 slung across her back and a radio attached to her shoulder fell out beside Daniel. She reached up to adjust the security earpiece/radio she wore, swiped at the sweat on her face, then stared at her hand.

“Damn heat’s melting my mascara—” She broke off at the sight of Daniel’s subdued black lieutenant’s garrison emblem on the left of his uniform collar and the Cross of Christ emblem on the right. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t mean to swear, sir.”

Daniel read her Second Class rank on her collar and her Master-at-Arms rank, rate and name, A. Jackson, by the embroidered badge on her pocket. “I’ve heard worse, MA2.” He reached into his pocket for the ever-present wad of tissues he carried. Prayers and Kleenex, a chaplain’s stock in trade. He gave her a handful and gestured toward another area of mascara on her skin.

“Sorry, sir,” she said again. He noticed—couldn’t help noticing—Jackson’s flawless feminine features and trim but voluptuous body. Her accent was as thick and heavy as her weapon. Thanks to his internship in the South, he’d bet money she was a Bible Belt Baptist.

“People act as ridiculous around chaplains as Friday-night drivers do around MPs,” he said. “I get tired of it—don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. It’s a…pain, sir.”

“You can stop with all the sirs, too.”

She grinned, the smile definitely making her feminine and attractive despite the unflattering uniform and the melted mascara still speckling her cheeks.

“Missed a spot.”

She scrubbed at her face with the wadded tissue. “All gone, Chaplain?”

“It is now, Petty Officer Jackson.”

“Thank you, sir. Duty calls, sir.”

He watched her military-trot toward the guard shack.

From behind Daniel, a pleasant voice commented, “Now that’s an oxymoron—a military chaplain.”

Daniel swiveled around to find another woman. Her face was more pretty than classically beautiful, and there was little delicacy in this sassy lady. A lightly tanned white civilian in scruffy jeans, she didn’t bother with a cap to shade a head of untidy, shoulder-length dark-blond curls. Her gray-eyed gaze met Daniel’s. He noted the two cameras slung over one trim shoulder. A piece of masking tape hand-printed with “Press” was stuck to her shirt below the neck with its two open snaps. He observed she had a very nice bust line, the only part of this woman that didn’t seem to need fattening up.

She caught the quick flick of his eyes. “Judging by that look, I’d say you’re not a Catholic chaplain. Or a married Jewish one.”

She had seen his cross. Jewish chaplains wore the Star of David, not that religious insignias mattered to a dying sailor. As with all military chaplains, Daniel had been trained in the rites and prayers of the three major religions, and was expected to use them.

“Protestant chaplain, right? Single, too.”

“Yep.” Not that he could’ve bypassed that figure even if he had been married. The smiling woman before him was in her early thirties and was as sexy as the MA2 was businesslike. Daniel warmed to this woman’s sensuality as quickly as he’d warmed to Jackson’s honest personality. The cross on his collar didn’t cancel out his masculinity, and as Ms. Reporter had noted, he wasn’t bound by a Catholic priest’s vow of celibacy.

However, as a chaplain, he was bound to marital sex only. He wasn’t married, and his days in strange women’s beds were long over. He was only human, however, and sometimes that human side overcame his spiritual calling. Breasts were breasts, even if he refused to ogle them. But he had no plans for a girlfriend, fiancée or wife.

“Lt. Daniel Preston, CHC.”

She held out a friendly hand, which he shook. “I’m Jo Marche—that’s Marche with an ‘e’—AP. That’s Associated Press.”

Daniel knew what AP meant.

“I’m here to cover the training exercise, starting with you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Everyone does stories on the poor wounded men and the Florence Nightingales who treat them.”

She didn’t sound disparaging in the least, but as a good citizen in uniform he couldn’t help commenting. “That’s what war’s about—death and destruction, wounded men and women.”

“Sadly, yes,” she said with real feeling, apparently not offended by his correction. “However, this is a training exercise, not a real war. I thought I’d get some different angles—a chaplain’s angle, for one, and you’re the only Chaplain Corps personnel assigned. You’re the first person I plan to talk to, since Michael McLowery is unavailable at present. Until I can get near him, I’d appreciate an interview.”

Despite the blow to his pride, Daniel admired her frankness. He still wasn’t eager to volunteer as her subject. His experience as a chaplain wasn’t vast enough for her to report on, and he certainly didn’t consider himself representative of the Navy norm. Ever since he’d graduated from divinity school seven years ago in New York, his experience had been mostly with paperwork, not people. Even his years with Navy Reserves, serving a weekend once a month, plus two weeks in the summer, wasn’t enough to learn his trade…or maybe he just wasn’t very good at it. Best to tread cautiously here.

He also intended to call as little attention to himself as possible. He’d been deeply shocked six weeks earlier, when he’d received his orders for Fleet Hospital. The CO’s name, Michael McLowery, had been printed in big bold letters. So far, McLowery hadn’t recognized him. Daniel had decided not to press his luck. For everyone’s sake, he’d decided not to reveal their childhood connection until the training exercise had concluded—if at all. No sense in rocking the boat.

“My job isn’t that exciting from a media point of view.”

“Oh, but it is. I did my research in the base library right here. I read about those two chaplains who each received our country’s Medal of Honor—Capodanno and O’Callahan, right?”

“They were both Catholics,” he said, impressed at her knowledge. She had brains, as well as looks. “I’m Protestant.”

“So tell me, are you Protestants cowardly? Or just smarter than Catholics? I can’t tell. I’m nondenominational myself.”

Witty, too, it seemed. No way would he touch that remark. “Chaplains don’t earn medals in training exercises.”

“Such an interesting fact. I’d better write it down.”

Was she mocking him or flirting with him? He wasn’t sure. The woman whipped out a notebook and scribbled in it, then slipped it back into her jeans pocket. Maybe forced was a better word. There wasn’t a lot of room between that tightly rounded buttock and the thin denim. Despite her intelligent professional air, he decided it was time to abandon Ms. AP’s ship. Michael McLowery was welcome to her.

“Please accept my apologies, Ms. Marche, but maybe you should find someone else.”

“But it’s so hot out here,” she moaned. “Ordinarily I’m not such a wimp, but I definitely need a break—and an interview. The guard shack and ordnance areas aren’t air-conditioned, so I’m not interested in interviewing their staff until it cools down later on, and I can’t get near the CO. The hospital is air-conditioned, and since you’re assigned there, why don’t you make things easier for me?” She smiled with an easy sensuality.

He had no good answer to that question, either. “I suppose I could walk you through the place this afternoon, if nothing comes up in the line of duty.”

“Great. I’ll stick close for the next few days. I do have the command’s permission to stay for the full two weeks of training.”

“In writing?”

She promptly showed it to him. Damn, she did have it. “How about if I agree to the interview just for today? You won’t need more time with me than that.”

They headed toward the Triage entrance, empty except for stretchers.

“Sounds as if you’re trying to get rid of me.”

He shrugged. “I’m here to work, and you’ll get bored,” he warned her. “I doubt there’ll be much for you to see. Casualties filter through Triage, Surgery and Post-op first. I don’t get them until ICU, Recovery or the Expectant area.” At her look of confusion, he explained, “Expectant—death and dying area.”

“No problem. I can wait.”

Her persistence didn’t bother him as much as his own lack of experience. “I doubt a photo of me reading my Bible is going to win a Pulitzer prize,” he said with undisguised sarcasm.

She leaned his way, her camera brushing his hip. “Tell you a secret, Preacher Man. Heavy casualties will be on the way soon.”

Daniel slowed his pace, unwilling to touch her camera, or anything else. “What makes you say that?”

She winked. “The command gives civilians like me the whole exercise script in advance. This lull is to get everyone off guard before the shit hits the fan. I’ll get you a copy if you want,” she said helpfully.

“No, thanks. It wouldn’t be—”

“Kosher? That’s okay. You’re Christian.” She smiled at her little joke. He didn’t. “Trust me, it’ll be moulage city before you can say ‘hit the deck.’ So, whaddaya say, Preach? Stay and do the interview?”

“Perhaps later, but on two conditions.”

She halted. Her sensuality, healthy or not—he couldn’t tell on so short an acquaintance—continued to flow. “Yes?”

“First, I go by ‘Chaplain’ or ‘Lieutenant.’ Second, snap up that shirt and keep a nice post-Tailhook body space between us. I don’t care if you’re a civilian or not. Professionalism is the order of the day. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Give me a break!” she said, obviously offended. She reached for the open snap at her neck, and her fingers tracked down to the next one just a few inches below. “I could go to church in this! Though it certainly wouldn’t be yours. I’ve never ever seduced anyone on the job, and if I decided to start, it wouldn’t be some self-righteous Arthur Dimmesdale-type, either. That, for your information, was the name of the hypocritical minister in The Scarlet Letter. So you can just take your—”

“I get the point, Ms. Marche. And I do recognize the literary reference. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” He gave Ms. Marche with an “e” his crispest military nod of dismissal. “By the way, the tour is off. You can forget the interview, too.” Even if he’d misjudged her, she seemed a tough nut, obviously a seasoned reporter. Probably a tiger in the sack, as well, but he had no intention of finding out for himself. On a hot Hawaiian day years ago, a pair of pert breasts in a white nurse’s uniform had cost him dearly.

It’d be a cold day in FHOTC—Fleet Hospital Operations and Training Command—Camp Pendleton’s desert hell, if another set of female attributes cost him his Navy uniform, his chaplain’s cross and his immortal, admittedly flawed, excuse for a soul. He fingered the cross on his collar as he watched her saunter off, hips swaying rhythmically.

Sweet Lord, have mercy!

AT TRIAGE AND RECEIVING Jo Marche fiddled with the manual film loader on her old backup camera. Mentally she cursed both the uncooperative tab of plastic and herself.

She hadn’t come on too strong, had she? She wasn’t even trying to be sexy, but watching the CO with the GQ face and trying to catch up to him had its effect. That man and his body had her motor running, and she supposed the chaplain had inadvertently been the recipient of her overspilling hormones. The CO was bedroom-handsome: an officer with a wow body, snapping baby blues, glossy black hair and a higher rank than Lt. Prim Preacher. He could pose for a recruiting poster or TV commercial in a second. He had that look—officer, gentleman, woman’s dream lover, hero—especially hero. Not just the look, either; McLowery seemed like a good man to her because of the way he handled his troops. Nothing like that priggish chaplain.

Jo did a slow burn. She’d never been big on church, but two open snaps over a basic bra did not equal Tailhook, for heaven’s sake! Time to move on.

She pulled out her duty roster. Michael James McLowery. Rank: Capt. Age: 44. Status: Single. And sexy. Not only that, he’s my ticket to the big time. I can’t wait to track this cutie down and speak to him instead of just staring at him from afar. Smile pretty for the camera, McLowery.

No wedding ring on the CO’s hand, she recalled.

When a woman had morals and no money…well, business came first, and dating took money. But after their brief meeting to set up an appointment, this man piqued her interest so much it surprised even her. After she wrote her story and business was concluded, maybe she’d check him out on a more personal level. But first her circumstances had to change. She couldn’t go on a date and then ask the man back to her car for a nightcap. She had to make a life for herself, a normal life. She was thirty-three, a tabloid writer trapped with Elvis and aliens and haunted toilets, and getting older every day. As they said in journalism class, the camera never lies.

Even if the journalist does.