Gratitude
Part Twenty-One
He didn�t know what to do next. He didn�t actually believe that a terrorist had snuck out of Paraguay and into the United States just to say hi to Mac at a hole in the wall jazz club in D.C. Mac had obviously lost control. He thought about calling his father and asking him for advice, but by the time he explained the situation to him, who knew how far Mac would have gone with this. Not that he didn�t understand how she could have come to this conclusion; Bud had explained his theory to Sturgis while Mac and Harm had been away from the table. It made perfect sense to him. Her emotions had been all over the place in Paraguay; Bud and the Admiral didn�t know the half of it. When Harm had said Saddiq would want to kill them, her mind must have latched onto that. And now it didn�t know how to let go. It certainly made more sense than believing she had premonitions of a terrorist coming after her. But then, anything made more sense than visions.
She saved my life with those visions, Sturgis.
Sturgis remembered Harm�s words from two years ago. The Commander Aiken case. God, he had been so frustrated with her then. Going on about visions and trying to use them to solve their case. But in the end, she had been right. Her visions had been right. It had been a hard thing for him to accept. He was not a man who believed in things like visions and premonitions and ESP. But during that case, he had been forced to open his mind a little. Mac�s visions led them to Commander Aiken�s body, and in the end they had led them to her killer.
After that case, he had done some quiet research into the other two cases Mac mentioned involving her gift. He didn�t find much about her sister, no one from JAG had been there when she�d been found. But plenty of people had been there for Harm�s rescue. And they�d all been willing to talk about it, even Lt. Singer. Of course, she used it mostly as an excuse to make Mac look mentally unstable. Bud had been his best source of information. The fan of paranormal phenomenon had even saved the map she had used to point out the coordinates. Looking at that, Sturgis had been forced to admit that logical or not, Mac had a gift. There was no other way to explain how she picked out that particular location, it wasn�t anywhere near where Search and Rescue had been looking. If she and the Admiral hadn�t convinced them to move the search, they never would have found Harm in time.
Okay, so Mac had visions. That didn�t mean she was actually having one now. �It didn�t mean she wasn�t� part of his mind reminded him. And he was forced to admit that part was right; he didn�t know that it wasn�t true. He quickly ran through everything he remembered Mac telling him the past few weeks and tried to see if he could see what she had.
The actual recurring nightmare didn�t help him one way or another. She�d told him very little about the actual dream, just that she�d been enveloped in a cloud of smoke that led her to a man that didn�t have a face. He supposed that could mean the smoke of the club, and the faceless man was Saddiq, but it wasn�t enough for him. And he didn�t think it would be enough for Mac.
That led him to the flashbacks. Except they weren�t flashbacks, they weren�t memories of anything that happened. Could they be images of things to come? He ran through each one. The first one was of her hands covered in blood.
That didn�t help, that could be anything. The second one, from the conference room, was of Bud, the Admiral and himself with blood on their hands and their uniforms. Their summer uniforms, he realized, which they were all wearing tonight. A feeling of dread tried to push its way to the surface and he shoved it back down. He had to remain calm and analyze everything before jumping to conclusions. The third one was just of him with blood-covered hands. There was no reason for her to come up with that one on her own. They had never been in any kind of dangerous situation together. The fourth one, of Harm in pain, made a lot more sense. They had been in EVERY kind of dangerous situation together. So that left him with four separate images that didn�t mean anything when looked at individually. But they might if you put them together. If Mac was right and they were visions of things to come, then it actually made quite a bit of sense. If there was a terrorist here looking for revenge, bloodshed was inevitable.
And if he really was here, that meant he had to have been stalking her. This wasn�t a frequent, well-established hangout of theirs. They had picked it for exactly that reason. Someone would have to have followed them here. And been pretty discreet about it, too. Both he and Mac had gotten in the habit of watching for signs that she was being followed. But it was definitely possible that someone had trailed them, counter surveillance wasn�t his specialty. It would explain why she had panicked, and why she wanted so desperately to get out of the club.
A pattern was starting to form here, and Sturgis was afraid of what it was telling him. If she was right and Saddiq was here, that explained why certain places made her panic more than others. Places like JAG and outside her apartment and the local grocery store where she always shopped. They were part of her everyday routine, places someone could expect to see her on a regular basis and watch her with ease. Places like the cemetery, he thought. She always had one at the cemetery, could he have been there watching her? But if he was, why had Sturgis never seen him?
You have seen him. The last piece of the puzzle fell into place. You saw him every time, standing over a grave in the distance. The two of you talked about him, about how devoted he was to come all the time. Every time you were there, he came. But you didn�t think anything of it. Why should you? You�ve never seen Saddiq Faad before, and you couldn�t know he would be there. That�s why you didn�t notice him in the cemetery.
Sturgis remembered the man standing outside of JAG with his camera. He really had been watching, posing as a tourist so he could find the patterns in Mac�s schedule. And he had been there at the park, too. That�s why Mac had gotten upset. And you saw him; you even thought to yourself that he looked familiar. But you didn�t say anything, did you?he berated himself. You didn�t want anyone to think you were crazy like Mac.
And now he was here, somewhere in this club. He had been the one Mac had run into, Sturgis realized, the man with the broken glass. And unless someone stopped him in time, he was going to kill both Harm and Mac. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911. He started to move in the same direction Mac had headed, but his phone immediately began to cut out. He stepped back, but continued to scan the crowd.
Just as the 911 operator picked up the phone, the crowd parted enough for him to see their table. Bud and the Admiral were still sitting, although they were both searching the crowd, probably for Mac. Harm was standing to the side, trying to use his height advantage to locate her. And without knowing it, he was also making himself a very visible target. He heard the man on the line ask what his emergency was. Sturgis quickly rattled off name and rank and then gave his location, saying that he needed the police here as soon as possible. He explained the situation as best he could, leaving out the more fantastic elements, like visions and premonitions. Although the operator had seemed confused and more than a little wary, he did agree to send officers to their location.
Deciding that was the best he could ask for, he hung up and began to scan the crowd, looking for either Mac or Saddiq.
The only explanation she could find for him not killing her sooner was that he wanted them both together. He was still in danger of being exposed and captured, so he couldn�t afford to take any unnecessary chances. This would be the perfect setting to get his revenge. The din of the crowd to muffle the noise, the dim lights and smoky air to hide him in shadows, it would be easy to carry out his plan and make his escape. If only she could be sure of what the plan was.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harm moving purposefully through the crowd. Straight for her, she realized. If she stayed where she was, he would reach her side in a minute. Then she could warn him about Saddiq, and they could cover the club from opposite directions. It was a good plan, Harm needed to know he was in danger. And if they were both looking for Saddiq, maybe they could stop him before he did anything. There was only one problem; if Saddiq already knew where they were then he was just waiting to get them both in the same spot. Chances were, he did already know. She might have lost him when she ran for the door, but that didn�t mean he lost her. Mac made a split-second decision; she had to keep Harm away. She couldn�t take the chance that he would get hurt.
He was getting dangerously close to where she was standing so she raised her hand and motioned for him to stop. When he didn�t, she waved him away more violently. He hesitated and then came to a stop underneath one of the clubs lights. Even as dim as it was, she could make out the concern and anxiety on his face. She nodded for him to stay where he was, and resumed her search for Saddiq.
A group of people that had been standing behind Harm moved away to head to the bar. As they shifted, she could see a man rapidly moving in their direction. Mac strained to make out his face in the shadows. He took another step closer and her suspicions were confirmed. It was Saddiq, and he was reaching into his pocket. A small part of her mind registered Harm turning to follow her gaze, but the rest of it was focused on Saddiq�s hand. The hand that held a gun, complete with silencer. And that gun was pointing straight at Harm. She had just run out of time.
Sturgis Turner stood near the entrance to the club and watched as Mac dove back into the crowd. He tried to process everything that had happened in the last twenty minutes. Although he had been worried about Mac when she rushed off to the restroom, he had still been hopeful. After all, at least now they had an idea how to begin working the problem. And she had been so calm, so determined. Sitting in the car on the way over, she had told him everything she and his father had talked about. He had been stunned when she had mentioned resignation, had in fact reacted much the same as Bud and the Admiral did. But after he had listened to her reasoning, it made sense. More than anything else, more even her relationship than Harm, Sarah Mackenzie needed to regain control of her life. And he thought she had made a pretty good start until about five minutes ago.
Mac�s POV
Mac was staying on the edges of the crowd, doing her best to find Saddiq before he found her. Just in case he was still tracking her, though, she avoided going near the table where Bud and the Admiral were sitting. She didn�t think he�d go after either of the men; it was too big a risk. Mac figured he was banking on the crowd to cover whatever it was he had planned, but the crowd wasn�t big enough to risk killing anyone besides his target. Which brought Mac to her main concern. Who was his target, really? If it she was, why hadn�t he made his move already? He�d had plenty of opportunities. If he�d been watching her as long as she thought he had, there were at least a dozen times he could have killed her and run before anyone was the wiser. And if it was Harm, why hadn�t Saddiq followed him as well? She was almost certain that she was the only one he had stalked since his arrival in D.C. It made sense; he�d only gotten a glimpse or two of Harm in Paraguay. He would know who Harm was, of course. Especially now that he�d seen them together. But she was the one who�d been his prisoner. She was the one who�d argued and fought with him over those long days of her confinement. She was the one who�d freed Gunny, who�d given Harm the information to find the Stingers and destroy them. No, Mac was sure she was Saddiq�s number one target. In fact, she was counting on it.