The Outside Man

by Don Bentley

  I’m sure my wife’s a good accountant, but that’s not really my field. What I do know is that she has an unparalleled ability to sift truth from bullshit. So instead of answering, I raised both hands shoulder level high, palms facing her. An act of surrender.

  Laila was having none of it.

  “Matthew Drake,” Laila said, slowly shaking her head. “I love you like I’ve never loved anyone else, but you are not an easy man. For the past six months, I’ve been terrified that a chemical weapon was eating away my husband’s brain. Terrified that I’d have to watch as you slowly became a vegetable. Do you know how many nights I lay awake, just to listen to you breathe? How many times I sobbed in the shower so you wouldn’t hear? And then today we get the best news we could hope for. Except now you’re the one who’s scared. Why? Because for you, dying a slow, horrible death is preferable to admitting that your problems might be psychological rather than physical.”

  “Baby, I’m sorry,” I said, reaching for Laila, but she leaned away and folded her arms.

  “Don’t baby me,” Laila said. “If you don’t want to talk about it tonight, fine. That’s my anniversary gift to you. So let’s talk about something that does interest you. Tell me about the man who tried to kill you.”

  Needless to say, this was not how I’d envisioned our anniversary dinner. I thought about trying to change the subject, but one look at Laila told me that would be a fool’s errand. My wife was one of the most tenacious people I knew. Once she made up her mind, God himself couldn’t change it. If she wanted to hear about the assassin, there was no talking her out of it.

  “The shooter resembled a target I pursued in Syria,” I said. “Like maybe his son.”

  “And you killed his father,” Laila said, the statement matter-of-fact rather than accusatory. As I said, Laila knew who I was and what I did. For that much at least, I was grateful.

  “Yes, but it was close. The target led the ambush that crippled Frodo, and he was tied into the splinter cell holding the CIA paramilitary officer. In the end, I punched his ticket, but there were still a lot of unanswered questions. Questions I didn’t think were worth pursuing since you and I had both decided it was time for me to get out of the game.”

  “Except that you’re not out of the game anymore, right? Not with the target’s son hunting you.”

  “He isn’t still hunting me,” I said.

  Laila stared at me for a second before slowly nodding. “What else?”

  “He wasn’t alone. He had a team of shooters as backup. Until I figure out who sent them, this isn’t over.”

  “It’s never been over, has it?”

  I started to reply, but Laila shook her head. “No, let me finish. I knew something was different tonight the moment you sat down. Know how?”

  “I can guess,” I said, fingering my rumpled shirt.

  “Not just that. When you sat across from me, you looked . . . alive. Do you understand? For the first time since you left DIA, you looked like the man I fell in love with. And now I know why—someone tried to kill you.”

  This time it wasn’t anger that caused Laila’s eyes to glitter. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “Our goddamn anniversary and I finally get my husband back. But you aren’t back. Not really.”

  “Laila,” I said, but she scooted her chair away from the table and got to her feet.

  “Matt, I love you,” Laila said as another tear followed the black mascara trail. “I really do. But this isn’t us. It isn’t you. I need the man who’s sitting across from me right now, not the stranger who’s been sleeping in my bed. If that means I have to share you with the DIA, so be it.”

  “Laila, wait.”

  “I mean it. Go. Figure out what you need to do. I hope to God it doesn’t take someone shooting at you to feel alive, but if so, I’ll manage. I just want my husband back. When you find him, please let me know.”

  She looked at me for another beat and then turned to leave. I didn’t stop her. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I was terrified. Terrified that Laila would understand that she was only half right. In that moment, I did feel alive. Vibrantly so. Winston Churchill once said that nothing in life was so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

  But what if my newfound vitality wasn’t because someone had tried to kill me and failed? What if the world suddenly seemed a brighter place because it had been me who’d done the killing?

  That was a thought I wasn’t quite ready to face. So rather than stop the woman I loved more than life itself from walking away, I pulled out my phone and booked a flight. I didn’t know why the son of a terrorist had just tried to kill me or who had whisked his dead body away.

  But I knew someone who might.

  EIGHT

  WASHINGTON, DC

  You look like shit.”

  The thing about good friends is that they tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not. A best friend does so without the obligatory sugarcoating that passes for conversation in polite society. Frodo is my best friend, and for that I am eternally grateful. Still, sometimes just a little sugarcoating goes a long way.

  “You look . . . fabulous,” I said, stammering over the word.

  Though Frodo and I had been an operational team since I’d reported to DIA as a baby case officer straight from the Farm, things between us since Syria had been different. This was because the onetime Delta operator had been reduced to a shell of himself, and it was my fault. This was why my witty comeback about his appearance died in a pregnant pause. I prayed Frodo would miss it. I might as well have been praying for the heavy gray clouds to shed gold instead of snow. Frodo was a former special operations sniper.

  He didn’t miss. Not ever.

  “I do not look fabulous,” Frodo said, holding open his town house door with his good hand. “I look like a former door kicker who’s had his arm blown off by an IED. Now, get your ass in here and tell Uncle Frodo who kicked the shit out of you this time.”

  Frodo was right; he didn’t look fabulous. Not anymore anyway. But even before an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, had amputated his left arm and nearly done the same to his left foot, he’d never been physically imposing. At least not at first blush. He was a soft-spoken black man with a physique skewed more toward endurance than strength. Even so, his ropy muscles and prominent tendons seemed to be crafted from steel cables and iron ingots rather than flesh and blood. He’d once fireman-carried a wounded comrade up two thousand feet of treacherous Afghan mountain to reach a helicopter landing zone.

  Now those days were over.

  I passed through the front door and into the living room, heading to my old spot on his overstuffed leather couch. Like most single DIA employees, Frodo preferred the convenience of a short commute to the more expansive real estate offered by a home in the suburbs of northern Virginia or southern Maryland.

  But that wasn’t to say that life in the District was all lattes and upwardly mobile single women. Though Frodo lived in a respectable section, crime across the failed city-state was both rampant and unpredictable. In other words, gangbangers and petty criminals didn’t respect the socioeconomic boundaries that separated Frodo’s neighborhood from the public housing located a scant four miles to the south.

  Accordingly, Frodo was prepared.

  Reaching under the couch, I found a SIG Sauer secured to the metal frame in a custom-made holster. Sliding the pistol out, I press-checked it and found a round in the chamber. I’d expected nothing less.

  “What the hell?” Frodo said, easing himself into the recliner situated catty-corner to the couch. “Didn’t your momma teach you that touching another man’s piece is like grabbing his junk? I’d thought by now that at least some of my culture would have rubbed off on your ignorant redneck ass.”

  My supposed lack of culture was a common theme in our r
elationship. I’d grown up dirt-poor outside Salt Lake City on a stretch of rock-strewn ground my parents had optimistically termed a ranch. Frodo, on the other hand, was a product of Philly’s streets. He’d managed to steer clear of the gangs infesting his neighborhood, mainly due to an Army recruiter brave enough to look for raw talent among the city’s forgotten inhabitants. He’d found Frodo on a community center basketball court, to the Army’s everlasting benefit.

  Not to mention mine.

  “Just wanted to make sure you were still taking precautions,” I said, sliding the pistol back into its holster. “This neighborhood isn’t getting any safer.”

  “Shiiiiit,” Frodo said, popping the recliner’s footrest. “I may only have one hand, but that’s more than enough to take care of the wannabes around here. Want a beer?”

  “Love one.”

  “Seamus—get this man a beer.”

  Frodo’s command was directed toward the pile of fur lying midway between the living room and small kitchen. Seamus was a dog of questionable heritage. His shoulders and body bore traces of husky or German shepherd, while his square jaw spoke to some form of mastiff or pit bull. What the mutt was indisputably was large. Very large.

  When he cared to stand, Seamus’s shoulders brushed my waist. Frodo was convinced he was part Irish wolfhound—hence his name—but what he most definitely was not was a service dog. At Frodo’s command, Seamus huffed and closed his eyes.

  “I see the training sessions are going well,” I said.

  “He understands me. I know it. He just does things in his own time.” Which was Frodo’s way of saying if I wanted a beer, I needed to grab it myself.

  “Don’t worry, Seamus,” I said, getting to my feet. “I need the exercise.”

  “Since you’re going . . .”

  “Sure,” I said, pausing as I drew even with the sleeping dog.

  On cue, Seamus’s eyes opened. He rumbled something that sounded more like an old man’s grumble than a growl. Accordingly, I reached down, and he rolled over, exposing a belly the length of an end table. I rubbed, he gave a doggy sigh of pleasure, and just like that, the path to the kitchen was clear.

  I stepped over the service dog who wasn’t, retrieved two beers, and passed one to Frodo as I returned. We each took a long pull from our respective bottle, and then Frodo gave me the look.

  “Okay, Matty,” he said, fixing me with the same stare that had caused terrorists the world over to wet their man jammies, “let’s hear it.”

  “A team of shooters tried to take me down this afternoon,” I said, beginning my tale of woe for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  I spoke nonstop for the better part of ten minutes, leaving nothing out. Frodo and I had been teammates for almost as long as I’d been married to Laila. Over the course of our professional association and then friendship, he’d served as my bodyguard, driver, and point man. His skill with a long gun was unparalleled, and he was one of the best CQB, or close-quarters battle, assaulters I’d ever worked with.

  But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Recruiting and running agents was more a mental than physical game. Convincing someone to become a spy took a level of mental acumen that was rare, and I’d practiced many a recruiting pitch on Frodo before trying it on my target.

  Frodo was a confidant, but more than that, he was my consigliere. He understood everything about me, and for him, no question was out-of-bounds. Even so, what he asked when my narration was complete still felt like a curveball.

  “How are things with Laila?” Frodo said, his stare unrelenting.

  “Fine,” I said, and took a swallow of beer. “Great.”

  “Matty.”

  “Shitty. The worst they’ve ever been, and I don’t even know why.”

  “You must have some idea.”

  I opened my mouth but closed it again without speaking. Did I know why? Maybe. But not in a way I could explain.

  “I thought it was the job that was tearing us apart,” I said, trying to put my feelings into words. “Especially after . . .”

  “Syria.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I thought going back would bring me closure. Maybe it did. After my last op, I had no regrets when I turned in my creds. Zero. But the last six months . . .” I shrugged.

  “What have you been doing?” Frodo asked.

  “This and that. Okay, the truth? Not a lot. The first month and a half were understandable. Laila took a leave of absence from work, and I spent a ton of time in physical therapy. But after the scars healed and the bruises faded, we didn’t know what to do next. Laila worked from home, and I spent my time playing guitar and filling out grad school applications.”

  “But?”

  I took another long pull from my beer, emptying half the bottle over the course of a single swallow. Frodo was a beer connoisseur, and he was particularly proud of this batch. It had been imported from Austria and probably brewed by left-handed monks who lived in a secluded monastery and spoke only Latin. Or something like that. Anyway, it was good beer, but I knew that wasn’t the reason I was sucking it down.

  So did Frodo.

  “There’s plenty more where that came from. Finish your story. Otherwise, Seamus gets involved.”

  The hairball gave another grumble that made my feet vibrate. Irish wolfhound, my ass. The monstrosity was probably one of George R. R. Martin’s direwolves.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I said, picking at the bottle’s label. “But it’s like I went from knowing exactly who I was to seeing a stranger in the mirror. One of the things I bitched about when we were operational was time—as in I never had enough. For seven years, we were either prepping for an op, executing one, or recovering from one and planning the next. I can’t tell you how many anniversaries, birthdays, and holidays that never-ending schedule consumed. And then suddenly I went from the gas pedal slammed to the floor to sitting in park.”

  “And you couldn’t figure out how to adjust?”

  “I guess. I mean, Laila’s great. She was super supportive, and the first couple of weeks were fantastic, but then . . .”

  “What?”

  “Time started to feel like a curse. A prison sentence. I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. When I did, I surfed the Internet all day, reading stories about what was going on downrange. I started obsessing about the teams that had taken our place. I couldn’t sleep, eat, or concentrate. Other than working out and playing guitar, I didn’t have energy for anything.”

  “What’d Laila say?”

  “She was afraid I was having some kind of flare-up. That my brain damage was getting worse. She begged me to get another MRI. I did. Results came back today. Everything’s normal.”

  “Except it’s not,” Frodo said.

  I nodded. “I don’t know where I fit anymore. If I’m not carrying a rifle or recruiting assets in the back alley of another third-world country, then who am I?”

  “I can dig that,” Frodo said, lifting up his prosthesis. Light glittered across the metallic surface.

  “Jesus, I’m sorry,” I said, setting my beer on the floor.

  “For what? Truth is truth, Matty. And the truth is, I dealt with a lot of the same feelings. You know what helped?”

  I shook my head.

  “Staying plugged into the game. My days as your shadow are over. Nothing I can do about that. But that doesn’t mean that the sum of my existence has to be sitting in this chair and drinking craft beer while trying to train a dumbass dog to do tricks.”

  Seamus gave an exasperated canine sigh, but Frodo plowed ahead. “My body might be broken, but my mind is fine. James still needs my help, and he could use yours. Go see him with me. Tomorrow.”

  “What?” I said, leaning forward. In my surprise, I kicked over the beer bottle. The contents bubbled across the imitation Persian rug Frodo and I had picked up at a bazaar
outside of Bagram. With an agility that belied his bulk, Seamus clambered to his feet, trotted over to the spill, and lapped it up.

  “Shit,” I said, “sorry about that. Let me get a towel.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Frodo said. “That rug’s seen worse. Besides, my service dog is taking care of things. Now, about the job offer.”

  “Look, brother,” I said as Seamus’s massive red tongue moved from the rapidly drying puddle to the bottle itself, “I didn’t come here to get my job back. I just wanted to pick your brain about the shooters.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you want to know about ’em?”

  “So I can make sure they don’t come at me again.”

  “How? Look, Matty, those men are long gone. They’re professionals. When a job goes sideways, a professional doesn’t stick around. Your shooters are ghosts. Fortunately, I know someone who used to be pretty damn good at finding ghosts. In fact, he just spilled half his beer on my priceless Persian rug.”

  “Look, Frodo, I appreciate it—”

  “Where’s Laila?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Goddamn it, boy. That wasn’t a hard question. Where is your wife at this exact moment?”

  “Home, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “We had dinner tonight. It didn’t go well. She told me to . . .”

  “What?”

  I reached for the beer bottle before remembering it was empty. No help there. “She told me to go find her husband and bring him back.”

  “Hmm,” Frodo said, burying his fingers in Seamus’s thick coat. “Well, farm boy, her husband ain’t here. But I’ve got a good idea where we might find him. And so do you. But before we go looking, you need a good night’s sleep. You look like shit.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “The bedroom in the back’s already made up. You know where everything is. I’ve got to get my ass to bed. We have an early start.”