“What year will that be?”
“Honestly, I wish I knew. Are you still okay about tonight?”
“You sure this isn’t a blind date?”
“It’s just dinner. But you’ll like my sister, she’s a firecracker.” Leigh opened the leather briefcase hanging from her shoulder strap. “Shep, I have something that belongs to you. I’m going to show it to you because I think it may help you to remember your wife’s name, only I don’t want you to get upset. Do you think you can handle it?”
“What is it?”
“You tell me.” She removes the leather-bound book from her brief.
Shep jolts upright, staring at the object from his past. “Dante’s Inferno. My wife bought it for me while we were at Rutgers. It was her favorite. Where did you get it?”
“From your apartment in Brooklyn.”
“I have an apartment in Brooklyn?”
“Yes. But you haven’t been there since before your last deployment. Shep, tell me about the book. What can you remember? Why was it so important that you kept it under your pillow?”
Shep’s expression darkened. “It meant something to me because it meant something to her.”
“But you still can’t remember her name?”
He shook his head. “It’s there, it’s so close.”
“She wrote a message to you on the title page. Take a look, see if it helps.”
With a trembling hand, Patrick opened the front cover to read the first page:
For the sacrifice you are making for our family.
From your soul mate, eternal love always.
Patrick closed his eyes, hugging the book to his chest. “Beatrice. My wife’s name is Beatrice.”
President Eric Kogelo looked up from his desk as one of his senior advisors entered the Oval Office for their scheduled meeting. “Have a seat, I’ll be right with you.” Kogelo continued multitasking, listening to his chief of staff on the telephone while he text messaged the first lady.
The older man with the silky white hair and upturned eyes glanced around the Oval Office, concealing his contempt.
The seat of power. Office of the most powerful man on the planet. And the public still believed it. America was like a chessboard, the president its king, a mere figurehead, capable of incremental moves barely greater than a pawn. No, the real power was not the pieces on the chessboard, it was the unseen players moving the pieces. The CIA maintained editorial influence over every major network, radio station, and print medium in the country. The insurance and pharmaceutical companies ran the medical industry while Big Oil monopolized the energy sector. But it was the military-industrial complex that ran the world, a dark queen whose tentacles reached into almost every politician’s pocketbook and across Wall Street, pulling the purse strings that instigated revolutions, terrorist acts, and ultimately started wars.
He glanced across the room at the oil painting of JFK. Eisenhower had warned Kennedy against the unchecked rise of the CIA and its military-industrial complex. JFK was determined to break up the intelligence agency and “scatter its pieces to the wind.” A month later, the president was assassinated, firmly establishing who was really in-charge. Democracy had run its course, freedom merely a convenient illusion, intended only to keep the masses in check.
President Kogelo placed his BlackBerry in his jacket pocket, turning his attention to his guest. “My apologies. Last-minute details before I leave for New York.”
“Any of these details concern me?”
Kogelo leaned back in his chair. “The secretary of defense will be resigning in three hours.”
“That’s official?”
“He left me no choice. The last thing I need now is a member of my administration tossing verbal grenades at the negotiation table.”
“For what it’s worth, his remarks last week were justified. The Russians would not have sold Tehran ICBMs without China’s approval.”
“Maybe so. But this fire needs to be put out, not doused with gasoline.”
“You are offering me the position?”
“You’ve got the experience, plus you have allies on both sides of the aisle. With everything that’s going on in the Persian Gulf, we could use a quick confirmation. What do you say?”
National Security Advisor Bertrand DeBorn offered a Cheshire cat smile. “Mr. President, it would be my honor.”
“So Shepherd, did you know Hoboken was the site of the very first baseball game?”
Patrick focused on the Jackson Pollack-inspired motif of spaghetti on his dinner plate, still too unnerved by his surroundings to make eye contact with Leigh Nelson’s husband or her younger, less refined sister, Bridgett.
“Elysian Field, 1846. The Knickerbockers versus the New York Nine. We’ve always been big baseball fans. Bridgett loves baseball, don’t you, Bridge?”
“Hockey.” Bridgett Deem chased a mouthful of broccoli with what little remained of her third glass of wine. “At least I used to.” She turned to Patrick. “My ex… he used to get season tickets to the Rangers for me and my girlfriend. Later, I found out he only wanted me gone so he could schtup his secretary in our apartment while I was at the game.”
Leigh rolled her eyes. “Bridge, do we really have to go there?”
“That reminds me of a joke,” stampeded Doug, his segue accompanied by a boyish grin. “Shepherd, have you ever heard the one about the wife who was pissed off at her husband for not buying her a gift on her birthday? The husband says, ‘Why should I waste more money on you? Last year I bought you a grave site, and you still haven’t used it.”
Patrick coughed, concealing a smile.
Leigh punched her husband on the shoulder. “Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it?”
“Hey, I’m just trying to lighten things up. Bridgett’s cool with it, aren’t you Bridge?”
“Sure, Doug. I already knew men were insensitive scumbags, thanks for the contribution.” She turned to Shep. “Barry used to tell me I was his soul mate. For a while, I actually believed him. Ten years, you think you know someone, but the moment your back is turned they run off—”
Patrick’s heart convulsed in his chest as if stabbed by a stiletto. His eyes squeezed shut.
The blood drained from Leigh’s face. “Bridgett, help me with the dishes.”
“I haven’t finished eating.”
His left arm announces its return. The limb bathed in lava. Flesh melts down his forearm. His fingers drop off, covered in acid. A rubber mallet pounds the back of his skull. His body spasms. Breathe, asshole!
The back door plowed open, unleashing the Nelson’s seven-year-old son, Parker, the boy’s presence diverting intrusive eyes from his internal struggle.
“Mommy, you’re home! I missed you.”
“I missed you, too. How was the science museum?”
“Good. Autumn got in trouble again.” The boy’s head swiveled to face the stranger. Striking blue eyes focused on Patrick’s empty left sleeve. “Mommy, where’s his arm?”
From the hot darkness behind his squeezed eyes amid the dripping flesh and clenching heart, a voice whispered desperately into Patrick’s brain. Get out!
“Honey, it’s all right. This is Patrick—”
“Bathroom!” He was on his feet so quickly it startled the boy. He hugged his mother.
His father pointed until he could find the words. “Hall. On the left.”
Patrick moved through purple spots of light in gelled air beneath muscles barely his to control. Half-blind, he entered the bathroom and sealed himself within the porcelain sanctuary. Blotches of perspiration had soaked his clothes. The pale man with the long, matted brown hair returned his distant glare in the mirror. Muted rants from the kitchen violated the small voice in his head as manic eyes searched for a taped note that was not there.