WAITING FOR MOSES
By Deb Drake
Marella looked over the six o'clock situation report one last time, wishing she could find something other than Airwolf's presence in the Urals to account for the increase in KGB radio traffic. From the outset, she had questioned whether the Firm's Russian mole might have turned. Privately, she nursed a nagging suspicion that Michael's past history with Moses might have blinded him to the possibility. For once, she wanted to be wrong. It was no secret that the Deputy Director felt a special attachment to Hawke and Santini, and if this rescue mission brought their deaths, he might never forgive himself.
Restless, she dropped the report onto the desk, rising from her chair. Perhaps a cup of coffee and a bite to eat would help settle her mind. She started to head for the canteen, then paused outside the open door to Michael's inner office. Unnoticed, she stood there for a long moment, silently watching the man who had become so important to her. He sat with his back to her, motionless before the wall of windows. Legs propped up on a corner of his desk, e stared out at the fading sunset. Someone else might have suspected that he was dozing, but she knew that pose well. Michael's thoughts were undoubtedly thousands of miles away, hovering aboard Airwolf, but he was far from sleep.
Marella knew he was hurting, both physically and emotionally, and she knew with just as much certainty that he would never admit it. His battered body deserved a far more comfortable resting place than that overstuffed leather chair, but she had long ago given up any hope of convincing him to go home. He would be here until it was over, one way or another. All she could do was try and make him comfortable.
Quietly, she came up behind him. "Do you want something to eat?"
Michael glanced up, startled by the unexpected intrusion. "What?" He turned from the window to face her.
Something in the way the dim crimson light reflected off the stark white of his suit triggered a flood of memories. She fought to ignore them. "Can I get you a sandwich or some hot soup? I could send someone . . ." Abruptly, images from the past flooded their way unbidden into the present. Snapshots, fragments she thought were long buried.
Waking, disoriented, alone in the darkness. Darkness broken by a flickering, crackling light. Choking, gagging on thick smoke, eyes burning. A feeling of fear, of mindless terror.
He interrupted her thoughts, shaking his head distractedly. "Oh. No, thank you. No."
A ghostly figure calling out to her through the smoke, an angel that solidified as he moved closer. Strong hands dragging her from her bed and out into the crisp night air. Relief that gave way to panic as her mind started to clear, and she looked around frantically. A hoarse, strangled cry she barely recognized as her own. "Mama . . . ? Mama, where are you?"
She reached over to switch the light on, hoping to banish the demons back to the dim closet where she kept them locked away. Intent on his own musings, Michael stopped her, unaware of her inner turmoil. "Oh. Not yet, please, Marella. I want to enjoy the sunset."
The surrealistic image of the handsome young gentleman of southern heritage desperately trying to breathe life into this colored woman, this stranger. Behind him, the inky night lit only by the blood-red flames of the trailer and the burning cross before it.
Marella flipped the light back off, sighing deeply. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry." The same words he had spoken that night, kneeling in the grass beside her, exhausted and spent. She could feel his arms tighten protectively around her as she wailed helplessly, sobbing against his shoulder.
"For what?" Michael asked, uncertainly.
Another image. The boarding school in New England. A refuge, a haven of safety where the simple fact that her father had been a white man wasn't enough to get her killed.
She wanted to say that she was sorry for everything. For all of the horrible things that had been done to him. For the way this mission was turning out. For all the layers of guilt he already carried from over twenty years in the Firm. "For being right."
Michael shook his head. "Don't write this mission off yet."
Just as he hadn't written her off.
She wished she could offer him some encouragement. "It's sunrise over the Urals. Hawke was suppose to rendezvous with the tanker . . . " She paused to check her watch. " . . . fifteen minutes ago."
He turned to face her, a bare thread of annoyance in his voice. "That doesn't mean he's failed, only that he's late."
Afraid that he was clinging to false hopes, she tried one last time. "Sir, if I was to put this mission through my computer right now, the odds would be a thousand to one against it."
As the odds had been against her. As they had certainly been almost astronomically rigged against her personal saint getting off the highway at just the right time and place that night and accidentally making the wrong turn. As they had been against him spotting the flames licking at the trailer.
"Probably higher," Michael agreed, "but we've got one thing going for us."
"What?"
A trace of a smile formed beneath his moustache, the first she'd seen since Airwolf had departed for Russia. "Hawke doesn't know the odds."
Then again, neither had she.
Marella nodded, and when she didn't reply, Michael turned back toward the window, his thoughts quickly elsewhere. She paused, her own mind still caught somewhere between the past and the present.
With the passing of almost two decades, she had become a far different person from the naïve teenager who had watched her mother die that night. Her savior had made certain of that. He had paid for the boarding school and college courses that compromised her academic education, he had even arranged for flying lessons, but he, himself, had taught her the things that were most important. It was his lessons that had the greatest impact on her life; a sense of style and grace, independence, and ultimately, self-respect. He had found her a job and a place to live. In the end, despite his own wishes to the contrary, he had even relented and brought her into the Firm.
Michael had changed little in the long years since, beyond the damage Moffett had done at Red Star. Silver streaked the blond hair, and if anything, he had become even more reclusive, quietly keeping people at a distance. Sometimes, like tonight, that even included her.
One last glance assured her that he had resumed his vigil of the sunset, even as the final rays of light slipped behind the trees. Sighing, she said one last silent prayer for Hawke, and went off in search of her coffee.
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FINIS
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