Читать книгу Man of Passion - Lindsay McKenna - Страница 8

“Morgan, I’m glad you could make it,” Ben Worthington said, standing up from behind his large cherry desk and thrusting his square hand out toward him.

“Ben, it’s been awhile since we saw one another,” Morgan replied. Grasping the secretary of the Navy’s hand firmly, he saw Ben’s blue eyes narrow with concern, and wondered once again what had prompted his old friend’s sudden invitation.

“Have a seat,” Ben invited. “Becky,” he called to his assistant, who sat in the outer office, “is the coffee on the way?”

Morgan took a seat in the leather wing chair at the corner of Worthington’s desk and looked around the spacious Pentagon office. All kinds of Navy memorabilia—paintings, photos, diplomas—were affixed to the walls. Ben had been a Navy pilot on the carrier Enterprise during the Vietnam War. Ben’s desk looked just as cluttered and busy as his own, Morgan thought. Through the venetian blinds Morgan could see a patch of blue sky and fluffy white clouds. It was spring in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of cherry trees with white perfumed blossoms surrounded the Capitol and nearby monuments.

As Worthington’s prim and brisk secretary entered the office, silver tray in hand, Morgan gave her a nod. She smiled and handed him a white china cup decorated in gold trim.

“If I remember right, Mr. Trayhern, you like your coffee straight?”

Grinning, Morgan took the proffered cup and saucer. “Indeed I do, Becky. You’ve got a long memory.”

She smiled broadly and gave her boss his coffee. “Details are important around here, as you know, sir.” She set the tray on a cherry coffee table that sat off to one side, near the cream-colored, buttery-soft leather sofa. “And in case either of you wants a midmorning snack, there’s a delicious coffee cake drizzled with caramel just begging to be eaten.”

Groaning, Morgan thanked the tall, graceful secretary, whose red hair had become peppered with silver since he’d last seen her. In her mid-fifties, Becky had been working for Ben Worthington for a long time, and she was more than just an assistant, she was his right hand.

“I need that coffee cake like I need a hole in my head,” Morgan confided to Ben as Becky quietly closed the door to the office to leave them in complete privacy.

Ben raised his thick, sandy-colored brows as he sipped his coffee. “Makes two of us. I don’t get out and exercise like I used to.” He looked around the office. “Maybe it’s this place.”

“Or the pressures and crises that keep popping up to throw you off your scheduled maintenance,” Morgan said, his mouth twisted wryly.

“I see you know that one, too.”

“My middle name is crisis,” Morgan agreed with a chuckle. He eyed the coffee cake. “I shouldn’t, but I’m going to….” Rising to his full height, he unbuttoned his dark blue pinstripe jacket and moved over to the coffee table. Twisting to look over his shoulder at Ben, he asked, “Want to join me in collusion?”

Laughing, Ben patted his girth. “I’m twenty pounds over right now, Morgan. I don’t dare.”

“I just thought I’d have some company so I wouldn’t feel so guilty about cutting such a huge piece for myself,” he murmured as he sliced off a healthy portion and placed it on a china plate. Picking up the plate along with one of the forks and white linen napkins Becky had thoughtfully left behind, Morgan moved back to the wing chair and sat down.

“What’s on your mind, Ben?”

Scowling, Ben put his coffee aside and picked up one of several gold-framed photographs on one side of his massive desk. “How long have we known one another?”

Morgan sat back and chewed on the sweet, mouth-melting coffee cake. “Almost as long as Perseus has been in existence,” he replied, referring to the covert government organization he headed.

Moving his hands over one small photo, Ben studied it. “That was ten years ago. Arianna was only fourteen years old when you formed Perseus.” He looked up. “She’s my youngest of three children.” Turning the photo around, he placed it so that Morgan could get a good look at her.

“Pretty young lady,” Morgan commented. The photograph showed a woman of perhaps twenty-four or -five sitting among a number of potted plants in a greenhouse. She was delicate looking, with short, blond hair and her father’s sky blue eyes in an oval face. She was dressed in a pair of jeans, a pink tank top and tennis shoes. The expression on her face was one of pure joy.

Ben leaned back in his chair, his hands folded across his belly. “Arianna was only eight when her mother died of leukemia. She was the youngest and it was very hard on her. She was too young to understand…and her mother’s death changed her forever…. I tried to help, but I was hurting so much myself that I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job of being a parent at that time….”

Morgan lost some of his joviality as Ben turned another framed photograph around for him to look at. It showed Ben and his wife, Ellen. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he murmured sincerely. In some respects, Ellen reminded him of his own wife, Laura, who also had blond hair. “Arianna really takes after your wife, doesn’t she?”

“In every respect,” Ben muttered. “Which is why I asked you to drop by and see me.” Ben waved his hand. “I know you have other appointments today, equally important, and I’m grateful you could squeeze this impromptu visit into your schedule.”

Morgan finished the tasty coffee cake. He blotted his lips with the napkin and picked up the cup of coffee. “I’m glad I could do it. I gather this involves something personal instead of professional?”

Ben sat for a moment, his square face stern, his jowls set, his gaze pinned on his daughter’s photograph. Rousing himself, he nodded. “Yes…it concerns Arianna. And what she thinks she’s about to do.”

Morgan heard the pain in the man’s somber voice and sympathized, though he had a feeling he knew what was bothering him. Ben was a hard-hitting Type A personality—a born leader, who liked to control every nuance of his life. As secretary of the Navy, his commanding leadership was a good thing. But Morgan wondered how Ben’s controlling personality might have impacted his family. He’d seen too many military men who were far too rigid with their wife and children.

“Fill me in on how I can help you,” Morgan said.

Ben sighed and picked up the picture of his daughter, holding it as he spoke. “Arianna is so much like her mother that since she’s grown up, I sometimes forget and think Ellen’s in the town house whenever Arianna comes over. Arianna’s twenty-five now, and has just graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in business and a minor in Spanish.”

“Impressive,” Morgan murmured. He thought of his own children, who were growing up quickly. Jason was ten now, and little Katy wasn’t far behind. And the fraternal twins, Peter and Kelly, were a year old. “I’ve got a college fund already established for my four kids. I’m hoping they’ll see the benefits of a college education like your daughter, Arianna, has.”

Worthington’s mouth tightened slightly. “I forced her into getting a degree in business. Maybe it was wrong of me, but I wanted Ari to have a solid foundation, so she could earn money and control her own life instead of having it controlled by others. She’s a very intelligent girl, if she’d just settle down.”

Touching the frame, Ben continued unhappily, “She’s a dreamer, not a hard-core business type, Morgan. My wife was a dreamer, too. Lord, she had so many dreams. Ellen loved to travel. She wanted to go around the world. She loved orchids, and I had a small greenhouse built for her. Ellen and Arianna spent hours out in that little steamy box where she grew all those orchids. In fact, the year before Ellen died, she made a concerted effort to be with Arianna. They spent a couple hours every day, up until the last two weeks before her death, out in that greenhouse.”

Touched, Morgan murmured, “It was a parting gift of love that Ellen gave to her then.”

Ben’s normally hard face softened somewhat. “Yes…Ari was all she had left. Our son, Kirk, was at the Naval Academy at the time.” He gave Morgan a pained look. “I think you already know our middle daughter, Janis, died at age thirteen. She took a stupid dare from a boy at a riding stable. He bet that the horse she was riding couldn’t jump a four-foot fence. It didn’t, and she fell off and broke her neck, dying instantly. It was a blow to all of us, but especially Ellen.” Rubbing his neck, Ben muttered, “I sometimes think that the shock of her death—the trauma of our loss—triggered Ellen’s leukemia. She contracted the disease six months after Janis died. It’s too coincidental, in my book.”

“And Ari got shunted aside during that time?”

“Yes, but she was the kind of little girl who would go off to her room and play for hours in a make-believe world.” Ben roused himself and gave Morgan a half smile. “She still does. And that’s the problem.”

“How?”

“One of the things my wife wanted to do more than anything else was take a trip down to the Amazon in Brazil to find orchids and draw them. My wife had a master’s degree in art. She was an incredible artist. She talked to Ari endlessly about all her dreams, and urged her to fill her life with exploration, with adventure, with going places.”

“All the places Ellen hadn’t gotten to go, right?”

“Yes.” Grimly, Ben sat up and said, “Ari has it in her head to go down to Brazil, to that damned jungle, and do exactly as her mother said—find orchids, draw them and have a book published on them. The only problem is that Ari is a delicate child. She hasn’t got any backbone. She’s painfully shy and has low self-esteem. Yet,” Ben growled in frustration, “she wants to traipse off to Brazil and do this crazy, stupid thing.”

“She’s twenty-five,” Morgan said. “Old enough to make up her mind on what she wants to do.”

“That’s the point!” Ben shot out of the chair and began to pace, his hands resting on his hips. “Ari has been a good girl. She’s been responsible. She’s done everything I’ve ever asked of her. Then, all of a sudden, she comes for a visit and tells me—tells me—that she wants to fulfill this crazy dream for her mother.”

“Why not let her?” Morgan asked. He could easily understand what was fueling the daughter’s rebellion. In making her mother’s dying wish come true, she would help to heal herself from the loss of her beloved parent.

“Because,” Ben said, turning and glaring at Morgan, “she’s not an artist! She has no degree in art. Oh, she dabbles with her colored pencils, and her mother did teach her some art techniques…but to think that she’s got the kind of artistic professionalism that a book demands? No. No way. I just don’t want to see her set herself up for disappointment. And risk her neck by running around a foreign country alone.”

Ben sighed. “Ellen used to read Arianna books on Brazil. They would sit for hours with five or six orchid books spread all across her bed, and they’d make plans about which species should be drawn for the book. Ari has it in her head that she can go gallivanting off to the jungle and draw those orchids.”

Shrugging, Morgan finished the coffee and said, “I haven’t met a twenty-something yet who didn’t rebel, didn’t want to go out and knock heads with life, Ben. If this is her rebellion, I’d say it’s a pretty healthy one, from my perspective.”

“Don’t side with her on this,” Ben warned. “There’re drug runners down in Manaus. There’s as much cocaine being funneled up through that country as there is rainwater pouring down on the Amazon jungle. I’m worried about her. She’s been a homebody. She’s not an explorer. She’s not worldly or even practical, Morgan.”

“In other words, Ari needs a babysitter and a guard dog? Is that why you asked to see me? You want me to assign a merc to her while she’s down there, to keep her out of trouble?”

“Out of harm’s way,” Ben added fiercely. He raked his fingers through his short, neatly cut hair. Sitting down, he sighed. “Ari is a mouse, Morgan. She’s a shadow. She clung to Ellen. She was afraid to do anything unless Ellen cajoled her into it. Ari was happy to stay at home, work with my wife on the orchids, be in the greenhouse with her. She doesn’t have the drive my son or I have. She doesn’t have a game plan for her life. Ari goes around in this idealistic, spacy kind of state, believing good of everyone and everything. She’s too damned trusting. Too forgiving.”

Sighing, Morgan said, “Life has a way of giving us more backbone, more reality-based perspectives, Ben. But to get that, you have to go out of the home and through life’s revolving doors into the fray we call the real world. You know that. It sounds like Ari is ready to do it. I don’t see that as bad, do you?”

“Why the hell couldn’t she just take the job I got her on Wall Street? I have a major stock brokerage firm that wants her right this minute. But she said no. She wants to take a year off, go to the Amazon and draw orchids and create this book. Hell, it’ll fail. She’ll fail.”

“Failing is a part of living,” Morgan said. “Failing gives us strength, endurance and backbone.” When Ben’s face flushed with anger, he held up his hand. “I think I’ve got just the man for this personal mission to protect Arianna from herself.”

“Who is he?” Ben demanded, getting up again. He poured himself more coffee and filled Morgan’s cup while he was at it.

“Name’s Rafe Antonio. He’s what they call a mateiro or a backwoodsman, in Brazil. In our country, he’d be known as a forest ranger. He has a territory about three hours east of Manaus, down the Amazon River, that he protects from poachers, miners and drug runners. His main care is for the Indians in that region. He’s a good man, Ben. Someone you can trust.”

“And you’ve worked with him before?”

“Many times. Antonio is a mole in the Brazilian government for Perseus. He’s aided us on a number of missions over the years. He’s also our eyes and ears down there regarding the drug trade.”

“And how do you think he’ll react to having to babysit my daughter?”

“I don’t know,” Morgan said. “I’ll contact him and find out. Rafe is someone you want around if trouble stirs. He comes from a very rich, old, aristocratic family in Manaus. His father’s family comes from direct Castilian Spain aristocracy. His mother was a socialite from São Paulo. Señor Antonio is a very rich and powerful man in Brazil.”

“Sounds like Rafe went his own way,” Ben muttered. “If he comes from rich and successful parents, not to mention aristocratic bloodlines, to be nothing more than a damned forest ranger—”

“Hold on,” Morgan warned. “Rafe has a Ph.D. in biology from Stanford Medical University in California. He’s written several books on herbs used by the medicine men and women down in the Amazon Basin. He’s widely regarded as an expert on them by scientific and pharmaceutical industries around the world.”

“Oh,” Ben muttered, “I thought he was just a junkyard dog.”

“With no breeding and papers?” Morgan controlled his mounting anger. Sometimes Ben Worthington was a snob. He was born of money, power and position, and had not come up through the ranks of the little people, as Morgan had.

“All right, all right. I was out of line. I apologize. So you think he can handle my daughter?”

“Rafe won’t ‘handle’ your daughter,” Morgan said softly. “I’ll give him orders to protect her, though, to help her fulfill her mother’s dream. He lives on a houseboat three hours from Manaus. I’m sure he can provide shelter for Ari.”

“Frankly, I’d like him to talk my bullheaded daughter into coming straight home.”

“You aren’t going to be able to tell a twenty-five-year-old much,” Morgan said with a chuckle.

Ben scowled heavily and drummed his fingers on the desk. “Tell this Antonio that if he talks my daughter into doing an about-face at Manaus International Airport, there’s a hundred thousand dollar bonus in it for him.”

Morgan hesitated. “I’m afraid that kind of carrot dangling in front of Rafe won’t work. He’s got pretty strong moral and ethical boundaries. He can’t be bought off, Ben.”

“You mean he wouldn’t try and talk my daughter into turning around and getting back on a plane headed for the States?”

Morgan shook his head. “He’s a man of honor. The type of honor the old Castilian aristocracy still has. Actually, he should be living in Victorian, or maybe Napoleonic, times. He’s fighting for the underdogs, the weak, and those who need the kind of help he can supply. The miners, drug runners and drug lords hate him and have a heavy price out on his head. Rafe is a modern-day knight in many respects. I don’t think he would take money to do something he saw as underhanded to someone like Arianna.”

Snorting, Ben rolled his eyes skyward. “Just my luck.”

“I choose people with strong morals and values, Ben. You know that. If they aren’t in that category, Perseus won’t hire them.”

“I know, I know….” he said in exasperation. “On one hand, I feel good he’ll protect Ari. On the other…well, dammit, everyone can be bought for a price. It just depends upon what’s important to them. Does he have a foundation or something set up for his Indians?”

“Yes, he does.” Morgan eyed him warily. “If you think a hefty donation to his foundation will make him talk Ari out of staying in the Amazon to complete her dream, you’re barking up the wrong tree, Ben. In this case, Ari is the underdog and Rafe won’t take your side against her at any price.”

“Just a thought…” Ben leaned back in his chair, pondering the situation. “Well, I’ve got one last chance to talk Ari out of this fiasco adventure of hers. I swear, she’s like Joan of Arc on a mission. I’ve never seen her like this. Before…well, she did what I wanted or asked of her. Now she’s digging in her heels like some kind of fanatical zealot and refusing to budge from her position. This is a girl who always knew the meaning of the word compromise and would bend over backwards for me.” Drumming his fingers again, he added in a frustrated tone, “But not this time.”

Sitting up, Morgan said gently, “Ben, maybe your daughter needs to spread her wings. She’s at that age. I watch our kids growing up, and every day I see them becoming more and more independent from us.”

Arching one brow, Ben said, “And you encourage it?”

“Of course. The last thing Laura and I want are kids who can’t struggle and survive in life. They have to learn how to do that. It hurts us to see Jason and Katy exploring, knowing that they’re going to make a mistake, or learn a hard lesson. No denying it’s painful to watch. But they’ve got to make mistakes, Ben. You can’t keep protecting Ari because you lost your other daughter. And reading between the lines, it looks like you did just that and she’s become very dependent upon you as a result.” Opening his hands, his voice becoming softer, Morgan added, “Loving our kids is hell on our hearts, Ben. And with you losing Ellen, as well as Janis…well, I can’t blame you for wanting to protect Ari like you have. Someday I’m sure she’ll appreciate what you’ve done and are trying to do for her.”

“But not now?”

“She’s only twenty-five,” Morgan said, smiling faintly. “Remember when you were in your twenties, Ben?”

“Yeah, I had a jet strapped to my butt and I was shooting Migs out of the skies over North Vietnam.”

“Not exactly a safe job, was it? Did you ever think what your parents must have felt or thought?”

“Not at the time, no. I felt it was my right to do what I wanted to do.”

“Okay…then transfer that feeling, that driving need to be yourself, to Ari. That’s where she’s at.”

“Humph.”

Morgan drank his coffee and allowed his words to sink in. He saw Ben’s large, fleshy features set into a bulldog look of denial. Placing his cup on its saucer, Morgan said, “At least she hasn’t got a jet strapped to her, out in combat. Look at the bright side of this. Hunting down orchids and sketching them isn’t exactly dangerous. Let her off that protective leash you’ve got her on. Rafe Antonio is a man of honor. A modern-day knight. I know he’ll care for Ari like you or I would, if we were in his shoes.”

“But…she’s just a girl!”

“Maybe you need to shift how you see Ari,” Morgan warned. “At twenty-five, Ari is no ‘girl.’ She’s a young woman.”

Rubbing his brow fiercely, Ben glowered across the desk. “Dammit, Morgan, did Ari pay you to come in here and be on her side of this thing?”

Grinning sourly, Morgan sipped his coffee. “Not a chance, Ben. This is a parent talking to a parent. Jason’s ten. In three years he’ll hit his teens, and from what I’m seeing, he’s going to be a rebel without a cause. A handful. At least Ari is rebelling for the right reasons. She wants closure with her mother’s death and maybe she hopes to find herself—her real self—without any of her family being around. All kids need that adventure in life to give them a sense of who they really are. Ari needs to find out who she is. Not the daughter. Not the sister. But herself.”

“I should pay you a hundred bucks an hour to be my shrink,” Ben griped good-naturedly.

Chuckling, Morgan stood up. “I’m going to be late for my appointment with the Joint Chiefs of Staff if I don’t hightail it out of here, Ben.” He thrust his hand out to his old friend. “I’ll have my office fax a dossier on Rafe Antonio, and his photo, to you. You’ll have them by this afternoon. That way, you can talk intelligently with your daughter about him being her guide.”

“Bodyguard.”

Morgan released Ben’s hand. “That, too. My office will get in touch with Rafe by Iridium phone satellite transmission. Down there in the jungle, only direct satellite transmissions can get info in and out. Standard cell phones are useless. I’ll make sure my people give you the confirmation that he knows Ari is coming to Manaus. Just call and give them the airline and flight information.”

Ben sighed and looked dejectedly down at his desk. “I don’t know, Morgan. Being a parent is hell. I worry for Ari. I’ll probably have insomnia while she’s down there….”

“When you read up on Antonio, I don’t think you’ll lose sleep,” Morgan reassured him as he opened the door. “Just tell Ari she’s in good hands.”