by Geri Krotow
Did the two lines on the letterhead really warrant this phone call? Better to ask her attorney to reach out to him through the security office, except that wasn’t her primary concern.
Keeping her hands busy with the last of the baked cookies and then the dishes, she forced herself to think before calling anyone. First and foremost were Caleb’s rights and feelings. The people in charge of her clearance status already knew what the author of the note threatened to expose. Although the extra money might appear questionable to an outsider at first glance, an inquiry would quickly prove that everything was above board.
As a single mom with a daily routine leaning dangerously close to boring, she was hardly scandalous headline material. Good grief, her last promising date had been at least six months ago. None of the contracts currently on her desk were particularly sensitive. No one with any authority would care about her financial life or the private support agreement.
Why would anyone put in the effort to try to frighten her this way?
She dried the mixing bowl and measuring cups, stacked the cooling cookie sheets for Caleb to finish when they were done with dinner, the question stewing. Personally, her concerns revolved around how the news would impact Caleb and their extended family. Temper was a given, she’d known that deep in her heart for years. Her son would likely hate her for keeping the truth from him this long. Once he had the facts, she would be facing the very real possibility that Caleb would think the grass looked greener on his father’s side of the fence. And he was old enough now to speak for himself if his father—or his father’s family—pushed for custody rights.
Bethany scrubbed at her cheeks, wiping away a tear as it slid down her cheek. She would not let her mind run so far ahead and tumble off that particular cliff. She would think, assess and be logical about the next steps.
Officially, she supposed it was possible that this threat posed a real problem for Caleb’s father, putting a dent in that stellar career he had going. Yes, she would have to make the call.
Hearing the water shut off upstairs, she sighed.
It was time to tell Caleb everything about his dad and that side of his family. She couldn’t let him hear it from anyone else. Better if she and his father could do that together.
As she heard him moving around upstairs, she thought maybe the phone call to Caleb’s father would be a cakewalk compared to the challenge of hanging on to her son’s trust in the aftermath.
* * *
It was just past eleven when Major Matthew Riley and his boss, Major General James Knudson, walked out of the sports bar to meet the general’s driver waiting in the parking area. Shortly after setting up shop in the Pentagon, the general decided that the Monday-night football game would be a good weekly morale builder for his staff.
Arranging the event was Matt’s first official task as the general’s adjutant. It fell to him to locate a bar willing to accommodate their group and convince the staff members they’d enjoy it. Several weeks into the season, the effort seemed to be working. No one grumbled about the outing and a few spouses had started showing up as well, with the general’s encouragement, since no professional talk was allowed.
From all walks of life, everyone in the office had a different home team and creative methods of disparaging that team’s rivals. The inevitable jokes and teasing had given them common ground and sparked lively conversation and debate. It was the first of many excellent lessons in management and leadership Matt was filing away for the days when he assumed command of an Army battalion.
“I always feel a little guilty when I root against the local team,” the general said. Barrel-chested, with a long, confident stride, he stood a couple inches taller than Matt, who was six-one. His gaze continuously scanned his surroundings, proof that lessons learned in combat didn’t fade easily.
“Isn’t the phrase ‘When in Rome’?” The night had turned crisp while they’d been inside the bar, and Matt turned up his collar against the chilly breeze, and then tucked his hands into his pockets.
“It is,” Knudson replied. “You know, the Army has sent me all over the world, and I’m still the little kid from the West Coast who wants to stand up and do a wacky touchdown dance when my team comes through.”
“Wouldn’t mind seeing that,” Matt joked.
Knudson gave him an assessing glance. “You’d plaster that all over the internet.”
“No, sir,” Matt said, earnestly. “I’d only send it out as an internal memo.”
The general’s booming laughter carried through the clear night as they approached his car. “Need a lift home?” His driver hopped out of the front seat and opened the door for him.
“No, thank you, sir.” Matt pulled out his cell phone. “The app says my ride is only a few minutes out.” His one complaint with his Washington, DC, assignment was leaving his treasured, newly restored 1967 Camaro in a parking garage six days out of seven and letting someone else do most of the driving.
“Tired of my company already?”
Squealing tires interrupted Matt’s reply and headlights momentarily blinded him as a car barreled toward them, narrowly missing parked cars. Matt and the general came to alert and the driver moved into a protective position.
Matt shoved the general into his car through the open rear door, cutting off Knudson’s bellowed protest. “Stay low!” He barked the order at his superior officer and closed the door.
Huddled behind the protection of the car with the driver, Matt told him to call the police.
“On it,” the driver replied.
“Good.” Matt reached for his sidearm before he remembered they weren’t armed and this wasn’t a war zone. He didn’t have enough information to decide if that was good or bad news. The car had screamed past them, but was turning up the next closest aisle. Matt popped up long enough to confirm an escape route and hopefully get a license plate number.
An object hurtled through the air, forcing him to duck. He swore. The police would need more than the make and model of the dark sedan to track down this idiot. Black or dark blue cars with four doors were far too prevalent in this area. The erratic driver might as well be invisible.
A loud crack sounded when the object the driver had thrown hit the windshield of the general’s car before bouncing to the pavement near Matt. “What the hell?”
Tires screeched again and Matt peeked over the top of the trunk just enough to glimpse the sedan speeding away, taking the most direct route to the main street that looped around the hub of restaurants and stores. Thankfully sirens were close.
“Should I stay or go?” the driver asked.
“I’d feel better if you waited for an escort back to the general’s house.”
With a nod, the driver scrambled into the car and started the engine. He must have told the general the threat was over, because the back door flew open, nearly clipping Matt’s knees. Knudson lunged from the car. “What was that, Riley?”
“I’m not sure, sir.” He held out the object that had been thrown.
It was a baseball with a note scrawled on the side.
You will pay.
The ball wasn’t new. Grubby and battered, with several stitches popped, it looked as if it had been through as many campaigns as the general. Matt wasn’t an investigator, but he didn’t think this would give the authorities much to go on.
Emergency lights spilled over the pavement, glaring off the nearby cars while Matt, General Knudson and the general’s driver relayed every detail they could recall about the incident to the responding officers from both the Alexandria, Virginia Police Department and the Metropolitan Police from Washington, DC, who turned out after hearing who had been attacked.
The team from Alexandria sealed the baseball into an evidence bag and labeled it. Based on their grim expressions, it seemed they weren’t confident an old baseball thrown by an unseen assailant in a nondescript car
was much to work with either.
“Drunk driver maybe?” One officer wondered aloud.
“Doubtful,” Matt said. “He didn’t clip a single car as he raced up and down the lanes. His reaction time on the corners was spot-on.”
The officer took detailed notes and gathered both work and personal contact information for each of them before letting them go. Matt exchanged business cards with the officers as well. Watching the general’s car drive off, he was pleased to see two metro police cars providing an escort.
Checking the app on his cell phone, he saw the ride he’d called for had waited five minutes at the pick-up point and left. On a sigh, Matt paid the nominal fee for missing his ride and walked back to the bar to call a cab, his mind recycling the incident and reviewing it from every angle.
The attack in the parking lot seemed like an over-the-top effort to break a windshield when such a bland, three-word message could have been sent anonymously by mail, phone, email or even as a text message. The ball could have been thrown with more accuracy and equal impact by someone standing a few yards away. The baseball had to be significant. He’d mention it to Knudson tomorrow.
When the cab dropped him at his building, he was weary and more than a little grateful the Tuesday briefings were always scheduled an hour later in deference to their Monday-night schedule. Accommodating Knudson’s request, he sent a text message that he’d arrived safely.
He took the elevator up to his floor and walked into his dark condo, facing another wave of what might have been. The sensation struck him whenever he took on a new stateside assignment. Though he’d been here almost three months, the persistent melancholy lingered. Working a more nine-to-five role in a vibrant city full of parks, museums and monuments only emphasized what he was missing most: family to unwind with at the end of the day.
It was easier to forget what he didn’t have—what he’d chosen not to pursue—when he lived and worked on Army bases or when he was deployed. Not that he didn’t encounter plenty of families on Military installations; it was just more obvious in civilian surroundings.
A Military brat and proud of it, Matt felt more at ease within the necessary structure of an Army post. He flipped through the mail he’d dropped on his counter when he’d come home after work to change for the game, and then he tore open the envelope with the formal letter about the recent cyber-security attack on Military personnel records and swore. He’d known it was coming, but in his mind the successful breach remained a black mark against the world’s finest Military.
After opening the envelope, he read the precise statement on the first page. The dispassionate phrases were laced with legalese carefully worded to avoid any true claim of responsibility or liability, while promising to track down the culprits.
“Good luck with that,” Matt murmured.
The second page offered instructions on how to register with the selected identity-protection monitoring service.
He laughed. Were people really supposed to trust a recently hacked department to make the right choice on protective measures? The idea seemed counterintuitive to him. Matt wasn’t sure it made much difference these days. Personal information, from social security numbers to credit cards, seemed to be at risk every day, and clearly this incident proved no system was foolproof.
That didn’t make it any easier for Matt to accept. The men and women in uniform should be able to expect that their service records and their personal details, as well as the details of their dependents, were protected.
The only personal risk he could foresee with the breach was that someone other than his attorney and the security-clearance investigators might learn there was a woman out there raising his child. A child he’d never seen. He sent her money each month, had done so from the very beginning, not that she’d shown much enthusiasm for even that minimal involvement from him.
For some ridiculous reason, Bethany’s mile-wide streak of independence put a bright spot in his weary mood. He’d always admired her independence until she used it as both a reason and an excuse to keep him from his son.
He couldn’t see the son he’d never met or publicly acknowledged as being of much interest to whoever breached the personnel information office. Anyone bidding on the data would be eager to cash in on the fast, easy targets of credit cards and social security numbers to recycle and resell.
Matt tucked the letter into the folder with the other bills and business he would deal with tomorrow. Pushing a hand over his short hair, he walked back to the bedroom, too tired to appreciate his sparkling nighttime view of the marina nestled along the Washington Channel.
He made mental notes along the way. He’d call his lawyer first thing in the morning, just in case someone followed the money he sent to Bethany each month. Broadcasting the information wouldn’t be much risk for blackmail or any other unsavory action, but it was better to be prepared. His arrangement with Bethany was legal and only the people who needed to know, knew. If the news got out, it might be uncomfortable for both of them for a time, but it wouldn’t be devastating.
Unless the information wound up on one of those notorious leaks pages and his mother heard about it there before he had a chance to tell her. Matt swore.
His first call should be to his mom. She didn’t deserve to hear she had a grandchild from a hacker leak. That was the kind of error that could get him benched for the next few Riley-family flag football scrimmages. Again, not the end of the world, but not something his siblings would let him live down.
He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it into the laundry hamper, and then toed off his shoes. He flopped back on the bed and just stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. It was too late to call his mom tonight and he should probably give Bethany a warning call first, in case his mother insisted on learning more about the grandson Matt had kept hidden from her.
Briefly, he entertained the idea of riding it out. Wait and hope to maintain the status quo or come clean and hurt the people he loved most? The odds were in his favor that news of their son wouldn’t come out at all.
Too bad he couldn’t be sure if that was denial, logic or wishful thinking.
Troubled and restless, Matt went back to the kitchen and poured a glass of cold water. As he leaned back on the counter, he drank it down and set the glass aside. He should call his dad and tell him about Bethany and Caleb. His dad’s wisdom and calm insight had been the underpinning throughout his life. Maybe his dad would dredge up a little pity for his oldest son and help him break the news to Matt’s mom and help him find the words to explain that she couldn’t contact the kid.
Now that was wishful thinking.
General Benjamin Riley, US Army, retired, believed choices and actions had consequences, good and bad. When Ben found the love of his life, Patricia, he’d married her, and together they’d raised their five children into adulthood with that core principle as a cornerstone of character. Life as the family of a career officer had been more than strict rules and high expectations. There had been plenty of love, laughter, bickering and tears to round things out.
Despite that vast, wonderful, messy experience to draw from, he’d never been able to convince Bethany to give them a chance to grow as a family. That was the piece of this puzzle that would disappoint his father.
When he stopped to think about it, the security breach was less daunting than the Riley family consequences of keeping such a big secret for the better part of fifteen years. Recently his mother had been dropping hints as subtle as carpet bombs about the potential delights of becoming a grandmother. She would be furious when she discovered he’d been holding out on her.
After loading his empty glass into the dishwasher, he headed back to bed. He supposed it was too much to hope that one of his four siblings was ready to confess a character flaw as significant as a child floating around in the periphery of their lives.
He was being an idiot, he decided, waff
ling and overthinking the ramifications. The situation—the secret—would have to change in light of the security breach. Since Bethany had sent the first picture and their son’s birth stats to the JAG office almost fifteen years ago, he’d known this day would come. It was really a miracle it had taken this long.
This had to come out, and better if they got ahead of it. First they needed to give Caleb the full, big picture of his family tree. He pressed his hands to his eyes as the first step kept shifting on him. Figuring this out was like walking across loose sand. One footprint changed both the previous and subsequent steps. Regardless, Caleb came first. After that, he and Bethany could figure out how he and his parents could be woven into Caleb’s life.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to sort out what was relief and what was more stress. Countless times through the years, Matt had been tempted to unload this burden on one of his siblings or a good friend. Somehow he’d always managed to keep his mouth shut. According to Bethany’s updates, Caleb was pretty awesome and growing more so every year. The way things stood, Matt couldn’t share school pictures or sports heroics with anyone other than the JAG office.
No, his family and friends wouldn’t be happy he’d lied by omission, but they would come around. “They will come around.” Matt stated the affirmation to the empty condo.
He had his phone in hand and had started to dial before he remembered what time it was and dropped it back on the nightstand. Bethany had been a night owl once. Most likely a career and a kid had revised those habits. He missed that quirk and so much more. The bone-deep longing for her and his son seemed to be the one wound time couldn’t heal.
He stripped off his jeans and socks and tossed them into the hamper and crawled into bed. As he set his alarm for the morning, his cell phone vibrated and rang with an incoming call. Matt gawked at Bethany’s smiling face filling the display. He’d pulled the picture from a post on social media. Maybe she was still a night owl after all. “Hello?”