by Chuck Logan
Morgon shakes his head. “No way. He signed an ironclad nondisclosure agreement. This is just dragging out a bit too long.”
“Absolutely. Jesus, talk about Mission Creep,” John mutters in a thready voice, his chin slumped on his chest. Shaggy hair askew, with the oxygen tubes glistening from his nose, he looks like an old, shrunken, tethered bull.
“So this is all because she saw Morgon on C-SPAN? Where’s that leave us?” Amanda takes a nervous puff on the unaccustomed cigarette.
John’s knotty hands fumble, pulling the shawl tighter around his shoulders. “Calm down, she’s not exactly the most credible witness is she? Still, we can’t have some farm kid from North Dakota with a pair of pilot’s wings drawing attention to us.” He turns and watches Kelly stride from the mansion with a duffel bag over his shoulder. A moment later a vehicle starts behind the house.
Morgon’s lips form a silent laugh. Amor fati. The grunts said it better than Nietzsche ever did. It’s all good, bro . . . His eyes wander out over the lake, where bleak sunlight now pokes holes in the dark and reveals a wreck of broken pumice clouds heaped in the cracked mother-of-pearl sky. “This whole op was upside down from the minute I landed in Baghdad,” he says.
John nods. “It’s been a real stinker. But you have to eat the bad ones because, the way the game works, the next time it could be the real thing.” Then the old man’s eyes wander back toward the taillights of Kelly’s Jeep disappearing down the driveway. “Too bad,” he says.
“What’s that?” Morgon asks.
“Roger insists on talking to you face-to-face as a precondition. He’ll be making a connection in Detroit, with his crew. I thought Kelly could fly you to the air link in Traverse City, but now you’ll have to drive.”
After Amanda gets John settled in the house, she returns and puffs experimentally on another cigarette as she paces back and forth.
“You promised me this stuff would never come back on us—me—here,” she says. “If you want to go off and club terrorists and baby seals to death, fine, but they’re not suppose to dribble in across the fucking lawn,” she says. “You promised.”
Morgon turns his head and stares out over the glittering horizon that’s starting to look like the goddamn desert.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Jesse makes the return trip from John Rivard’s estate in Janet’s Forester with two Michigan National Guard military police sergeants. One of them is a sturdy Chicana female, presumably to be on hand so Jesse doesn’t try to escape through the window in the ladies at a rest stop. They trade off behind the wheel and drive straight through. She sits in the backseat with hula boy for company, staring at her hands.
Funny, she thinks, you stare at your hands long enough, and they disassociate—Janet’s word—and transform into these odd, five-legged white spiders like something creeping back from the hallucinations.
So going back has to be the worst ride of her life, except for getting shot down. What she does know for sure is that stealing Janet’s car is a deal breaker. Conduct unbecoming. So there goes her army career. And for what? To crash some friendly old man’s lawn party? Make that a very smooth old man.
“Let her down easy,” Rivard had said. “She has trouble enough.”
More difficult to bear are the sudden mood swings that drag down the corners of her mouth and well up in her chest as, one after another, her thoughts sicken and step off a sheer drop. They tumble into the dark, where she imagines them piled up like flimsy suicides. And that brings her back to Sam, and she really doesn’t want to go there, because if Rivard’s man could execute Marge, why not Sam?
The MPs are easygoing and solicitous of her welfare and regularly monitor her in the rearview mirror. When she goes into particularly long stares, the one in the passenger seat turns and engages her in polite banter to bring her out of the glide. Is she hungry, does she need a rest stop?
Mainly they engage in what sounds like a graduate seminar on the near-perfect game Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga had going against Cleveland last month. With two outs in the top of the ninth, a first-base umpire ruled a batter safe when the video replay clearly showed he’d been thrown out.
In a quiet way the endlessly debated point of baseball etiquette tosses her a lifeline. The rules say you’re off base, but you know you saw something, dammit. Okay, so you went about it dumb is all.
Doesn’t mean you were wrong.
The only direct comment the MPs make about her tristate adventure is to casually suggest that the next time she pulls a stunt like this, she should swipe a better car. A Lexus, maybe. The message is clear: she is being delivered like a package, and life goes on.
Finally they wheel up to the parking aisle in front of the outpatient entrance to the Minneapolis hospital. She gets out and looks over the sprawling building with the green façade that’s been her home for almost two months, and for the first time in her life Jesse Kraig sees herself as a small cog caught in the hopper of a huge impersonal machine. Make that a squeaky wheel that’s been singled out for special scrutiny.
More to the point, the hospital isn’t just where she rooms for rehab. She’s an active-duty captain in the army, and Ft. Snelling is her “post.” And now she’s gone AWOL in a stolen car. And it was like they were waiting for her, like it’s all connected—the hospital, the cops, the killer with the star on his neck, Iraq.
Congratulations, you just discovered the government.
So who do you trust now? The big familiar building looms impersonal and vaguely threatening. Everybody in it works for Uncle Sam. At the VA police office in the lobby, she is signed for like a piece of equipment.
“You understand,” the VA cop behind the desk says, “even if Ms. George did not sign a stolen-car complaint, we had to report the missing vehicle with the Active Duty Liaison Office. And the VA police have the option to charge you even if the local sheriff’s department is not involved.” He’s brusque and matter-of-fact in his blue uniform. Just doing his job.
After taking possession of her from the MPs, a VA cop escorts her to the second-floor psychology suite and knocks on Dr. Dennis Halme’s door.
Halme dismisses the officer and invites Jesse inside. Janet—strict white blouse, hair in a bun—stands at the office windows that overlook one of the atriums. Her arms are folded across her chest. She is trying, unsuccessfully, to look nonjudgmental.
“I’m just heating some water for tea. Would you like some?” Halme asks. He’s a stooped, bearded man in his early sixties. Jesse isn’t sure if his soft brown eyes are kind or just really weary from staring into the aftermath of the nation’s wars for thirty years. His voice is only a few decibels above a hush.
Jesse shakes her head, and it feels like Halme and Janet are watching her like a magnified bug under glass. Scientific curiosity, maybe. Then she realizes it’s just her appearance—two days unwashed, hair a mess, with grass skid marks still on her knees and a dashboard bobble doll covered with dirty tape clutched in her right hand.
“So,” Halme asks, “what happened? Janet could press charges, you know?”
Jesse lowers her eyes. She realizes she’s been standing at the position of attention. She relaxes slightly and adjusts her posture and clamps her hands behind her back. How much is paranoia? How much is humiliation? Either way, she’s seriously locked up.
“For Christ’s sake, Jesse, sit down,” Janet says.
“I’m fine,” Jesse says. “Now what?”
“Well, I’m going to sit down,” Dr. Halme says, which he does at his desk, dunking a tea bag in a steaming mug of hot water. “Now, we have some wiggle room. Perhaps we can finesse it over with the legal people. But you have to meet us halfway. After this . . . event . . . we have to take some precautions, you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This,” he says, picking up a thick plastic wristband from his desk, “is a Wander Band; it sends an electronic signal if you approach any of the building’s exits. Pick a hand.”
&nb
sp; Jesse extends her left hand, and Halme snaps the monitor in place next to her treasonous ID bracelet.
“Now, there will be a team meeting on your status.” He consults a desk calendar and says, “Early next week, because Dr. Prasad is away, as is the team physiologist. In the meantime you wouldn’t want to discuss what was behind your road trip, would you?”
Jesse picks a spot on the spine of a book in Halme’s bookcase.
“Jesse,” Halme says quietly. “There are worse VA hospitals. This is not a loony bin, and Janet and I aren’t Nurse Ratched.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, then. We’ve decided not to put you back on the meds for now, although the full team could decide differently. If you can drive across three states without incident, you can handle yourself here. But for the next few days, you will be strictly monitored. For instance, you can go to the gym, but you’ll have two aides for company. Pretty much you’re on probation, stuck in 4J. Depending how you settle in, you’ll resume seeing Janet. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Janet walks her to the door then lowers her voice. “Look. I could get in trouble for saying this, but I think you should talk to somebody . . .”
Something in her tone impels Jesse to turn and relax her defensive posture. “Sorry, Janet, I’ve had it with the therapy jive.”
“Where you at with cop jive?” Janet says pointedly.
Jesse drops her eyes to the floor because Janet’s slang sends a signal, intimating she knows something. When she looks up, Janet holds up a folded slip of paper. “Tommorrow, at four, in the cafeteria when I get off. I need the time to follow up on some calls.” She thrusts the slip of paper into Jesse’s hand. “That’s my cell. Now take off.”
In the hall the biggest nurse’s aide on 4J is waiting with old reliable Tony. When the door closes, the larger one, Neville, smiles. “Welcome home, Captain Jailbreak. You have fun? You get laid?”
Jesse unbends from her stiff routine and can’t resist elbowing Tony in his barrel gut.
“Watch it,” Neville says, “hostile patient on deck. Get out the cattle prods.”
“They explain how there’s gonna be some changes?” Tony says more seriously. “Like, we had to confiscate your kettle bell.”
“Says in the Geneva Convention, cannon balls are banned from VA hospitals,” Neville adds in a stern voice.
Jesse squares her shoulders and manages a scruffy grin. “You guys missed me, huh?”
Chapter Fifty-Six
The morning after the party the cleanup crew gets rained out and rubbish litters the lawn. Amanda stands at the kitchen window watching the soggy garbage churn in the wind-driven downpour. Morgon is next door in the carriage house getting ready to drive to the airport. John slouches in his wheelchair. Fluorescent kitchen lights ricochet off the stainless-steel appliances. It’s been a depressing day, inside and out. And now it’s getting dark.
Amanda goes over to her grandfather and turns up the flow on the portable oxygen concentrator that feeds into his nasal cannula. The supplemental oxygen reduces the workload on his heart. He glances up at her concerned expression and waves a dismissive hand.
So she turns and looks back out over the lawn. Now the windows go dark in the carriage house, and she sees Morgon, a purposeful shadow, descend the stairs and walk to his new SUV.
“He never complains,” Amanda says.
John chuckles. “Oh, he has an opinion. Certainly he was against this thing from the start. But in the end, he does his job. Where else could a guy like him pull down this kind of money short of robbing the Federal Reserve? Or meet a girl like you?” John clears his throat. “And everything that goes with it.”
“We’re pretty intimate, and I’ve never seen him get mad. Have you?”
Distracted, John shakes his head.
Amanda persists. “I mean, I don’t really know him, really. Like, is he a possessive guy? Jealous?”
John’s smile is blank, the light in his eyes sinking inward.
“C’mon, John. You can tell me. Just because I’m the sane one doesn’t mean I’ll be the first to break down in the shadow of this nightmare.” She cocks her head and forces a bright smile. “This isn’t a coal mine, and I’m not a canary.”
John studies her for a moment, then answers, “Let’s say Morgon has acclimated to a line of work that puts him way past trivial control games like possessiveness, don’t you think?”
“So what you mean is, there’s no middle ground? I fold his socks wrong, and he puts a gun behind my ear? The point is—does it matter what I think? Or am I a perk that goes with a promotion?”
John grumbles then wheels his chair to the windows and watches the red taillights disappear into the gloom.
“He’s very good, Amanda. We need men like him, especially now . . .”
“Spare me the perils of everything that lurks beneath the everyday. Morg already gave me that speech.”
“Well, he does clean up nicely, don’t you think? A regular Gatsby.”
Amanda sniffs and folds her arms across her chest. “Cold comfort, John. The way I remember it, Jay Gatsby lived alone in his big house and was found facedown in the pool.”
Much later, after Amanda has tucked him in and taken his blood pressure and made sure he’s taken his meds, the dreams come visiting like old buddies and shake him awake. His parents, two wives, siblings, presidents. Fading snapshots flicker; a German Tiger burning in a snowy Ardennes forest. Sunrise in the magical Laotian hills west of Khe Sanh . . .
So he plants his still-powerful hands on the bed rails and pushes himself to his feet and yanks the irritating oxygen tubes away from his nose. The walls of his heart tremble paper-thin with the effort, and he knows he’s operating on the last ferrous vapors of his once-iron reserves.
When he’s hobbled to the stairs, he refuses to use the damn motorized chair. The sound might wake Amanda. So the stairway almost defeats him. But finally, hand over hand, he makes it to the first floor, where he discovers Amanda in the living room curled into an armchair with her legs tucked under her.
Always a pretty girl, he thinks. Almost a beauty. Just a little too strong in the chin. He briefly studies the prescription bottles—Zoloft and Ambien—sitting next to her on the coffee table. Always a little too high-strung. John shuffles to the couch, retrieves an afghan, and drapes it over her shoulders. He stands for a minute listening to the wheeze in his chest, then reaches out and touches the widow’s peak on her forehead. He raises his hand to fumble at his own descending clip of thinning hair. His son, her father, didn’t have one. Skipped a generation, as they say.
But it’s too late for sentimental bullshit so, with difficulty, he moves one leaden foot in front of the other and makes it to the front of the hallway, where he finds one of his walking canes and leans on it.
The storm has passed and it’s so silent in the house that he can hear the soft rise and fall of Amanda’s breath, and he prefers not to entertain the image of one of Roger’s tiranos smothering the young pilot with a pillow.
Once Kelly would have ferried Morgon to the airport in the chopper. But Kelly has departed on a point of personal principle, and the helicopter sits useless on the concrete apron next to the hangar. Kelly would not approve of his sleepless night, would be strapping on a blood-pressure cuff, would be doling out pills.
Fuck it.
Now where do you suppose she hid my pipe?
It takes all of ten minutes for the old spymaster to outwit Amanda’s good intentions, and he finds the pipe in the bottom drawer of her office desk, along with a pouch of tobacco. Ignoring the numbness in his fingers, he lovingly packs the bowl. He savors the stringy aroma of the leaf and finds one of the ubiquitous blue-tip matches in his jacket pocket and flicks it with his thumbnail. His lungs clutch and strain as his lips pull on the stem to ignite the smoldering tobacco.
He opens the front door and pauses, gathering himself on the porch. The sky is overcast. The moon is obscure. No breeze nudges the
fuzz of mist against his face. It’s all opaque, and the murmur of the lake is the only reference point. Well, here’s to dark nights. And good men.
He ignores the first twinge of stiffness that shears the left side of his chest as he stumps down the steps and out along the cobble walk. He focuses past the squirm in his chest and concentrates on the stronger heartbeat of the lake. It’s the first lullaby sound he remembers hearing, even before his mother’s voice. He takes a puff on the pipe and watches the smoke ooze from his mouth and nose, twisting in the dark. The Huron, who walked this shore before his family cleared the land, believed that ceremonial smoke lifted their prayers to heaven. The smoke from his pipe is indifferent, agnostic, seeping out horizontal.
And he recalls how the Vietnamese were funny folks who scribbled prayers on slips of paper and ritually burned them before going into battle. An incense-drenched culture, they thought the dead could only read smoke.
In the wreathes of smoke crowding his face, he strains to summon a last nuance of victory from the New Deal Valhalla of his youth that was lit by the stink of Dresden and Hiroshima burning down.
Then, Oh Jesus God that smarts. An iron oak has sprung full-grown between his shoulders. Rigid branches shoot down his arms and snarl up his neck.
He discovers that he’s fallen and now sits unceremoniously on the damp cobbles. The pipe falls from his clay fingers. The surf laps, soaking his slippers, and metal stacks up in his chest, clamping off air, and he has just enough time to peer into the darkness and compose one last game thought: Now what?
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Morgon is working off a day without sleep, and it feels like pure black coffee is pumping through his heart. He spent most of the night pacing up and down in the Traverse City airport because the damn weather followed him across the state and wind shear delayed his departure. Finally, he arrives in Detroit, wearing his new suit and the same shirt he wore in D.C. Just grabbed it, wrinkled, off the hanger. As he walks off the concourse and is about to enter the Fox Sky Box Sports Bar his cell phone rings. The way Amanda says his name, he knows it’s going to be bad. Holding his breath, he strains to monitor her voice.