A leathery hand pulled apart two of the dining room window blinds, allowing Nina Hastings’ hawkish eye to watch Jake Devereaux drive away.
CHAPTER 6
Amanda Garrett rolled in her bed, the bright morning sun cutting like a knife through the razor-thin slits in the miniblinds. She looked at the clock and moaned. Why am I awake at eight a.m.? Her head pounded from the vestiges of last night’s beer, and she pressed her hands into her temples.
There was a noise from downstairs. She thought she heard two people arguing. One of the voices was her mother’s, she knew that much. Even in her groggy condition she recognized the smooth Southern drawl. When had she come home? Had Nina spent the night? She couldn’t remember. And Jake?
Oh, Jake. The Citadel. No way, she thought to herself. Her stomach got weak at the thought.
“Amanda.” It was her mother’s voice.
“Not now, Mom. I’m sleeping.” She half screamed through her closed door.
She could hear feet coming up the oak hardwood steps.
“Now, Amanda, this is important.”
“Nothing important happens Sunday morning at eight, Mom.”
The door cracked open, and her mother peered in. She was still mildly attractive as she neared forty. A face-lift and continuous dye job on the hair seemed to keep her looking somewhat younger.
“No, this is important, Amanda. Now put on some decent clothes and come down.”
Amanda took about ten minutes, tolerated another visit from her mother, and then came downstairs wearing jeans and a USC sweatshirt with the silk-screened image of a rooster on the front. As she bounced down the steps, she slowed her pace as she saw two uniformed men standing in the foyer.
She looked at her mother. “Is this about the party?” With arms crossed, her mother shook her head. Amanda noticed Nina in the dining room watching the drama unfold.
“Then what?” Amanda looked at the two men, both in green uniforms that she vaguely recognized as something she had seen her father wear at one point in time. She shrugged her shoulders and looked at them as if to say, “Okay, get on with it.”
One of the men was a tall, handsome soldier holding a green beret in one hand and some papers in the other. The other man was shorter and stout. He was clearly older, balding some, and Amanda noticed he had a silver cross on his lapel.
The tall, handsome Green Beret looked her in the eyes and began to speak. “Are you Miss Amanda Rose Garrett?”
“That’s me, all day long. You know ARG, like a pirate,” she said impatiently, making a play on her initials.
“Ma’am, I am Major Ross Blair, and I regret to inform you that your father has been killed in action in Afghanistan.”
Amanda stared at the man, without really seeing him. She was searching for some kind of response inside. There was nothing coming to her mind, no connection between thought and emotion. Simply, there was no emotion.
She turned to her mother for guidance and saw that she was exchanging a look with Nina. She then looked across the foyer into the dining room at Nina, who remained silent, her thin lips curled upward just a bit. What is that look? Amanda wondered to herself.
“Miss Garrett, we are notifying you because your parents are divorced, and you are listed as the next of kin. I am the casualty assistance officer and will be able to help guide you through the process as we honor Colonel Garrett and lay his remains to rest. I hope you understand why we had to notify you personally and could not simply tell your mother.”
Amanda noticed the man spoke without prepared remarks; however, the words seemed well rehearsed. Perhaps he had done this before, she thought.
“While I know you are understandably upset, Chaplain Jones and I will be outside after you have had a chance to discuss the matter with your mother. Do you have any questions for either of us right now?”
Amanda looked at Major Blair and then at Chaplain Jones.
“No,” she responded to the major. She tapped her foot and looked at her fingernails, then turned to her mother. “Can I go back to sleep now?” She spoke with an irritated edge, as if she had been needlessly awakened.
The major and chaplain exchanged glances, and then Blair looked at Amanda’s mother. “Ma’am, we’ll be outside if she needs us.”
“I won’t need you,” Amanda said. “I’m fine.” She turned around and ran up the steps, stopping at the midlevel landing. “Just one question.”
By now Nina and Amanda’s mother were ushering the two soldiers to the door. They stopped and looked up at her.
“What was he doing? I mean how was he killed?”
Blair had one foot in the house and one foot on the porch. Nina stepped in front of him and continued their momentum outside, but he was a large man and didn’t budge. He looked up at Amanda. “Miss Garrett, your father died rescuing another soldier.”
“That’s enough, major. Can’t you see she’s upset? Let’s just get going here.” Nina’s voice was loud and shrill. Finally, Blair’s good manners overcame his stubborn desire to make sure that Colonel Garrett’s daughter knew he died a hero, and he stepped outside.
Amanda turned and continued to climb the stairs. She heard the door close and glanced over her shoulder. She saw her mother and Nina leaning against the door as if to keep an intruder at bay. They turned and looked at each other, both smiling just a bit, as Amanda rounded the corner into her room.
She shut the door and stood motionless in the center of her room, staring at the full-length mirror against the far wall. She saw her image, that of a nearly grown woman, and she continued to wonder why she felt nothing at all. Surely she should be sad, upset, mad, or overcome by some other raging emotion. She didn’t even feel happy, which she had actually thought about before. Did that mean she wanted him dead?
Regardless, that day had come. Colonel Zachary Garrett would no longer fight with her mother, miss a swim meet or birthday, skip a child support payment, or inconvenience her life with unplanned visits. Well, good, she thought.
She walked over to her window and looked out at the street where the two soldiers’ car was parked. She saw the chaplain hugging the major, who had his face buried in his shoulder.
Amanda Garrett sat on her bed and looked at her clock. The entire episode had taken nine minutes, which was more time than she had thought about her father in a long while. She kicked off her sandals, slid under her sheets, and rested her head on her pillow.
Matt Garrett stood at the door of his Loudoun County home and stared at the man standing before him. The soldier was dressed in Army blue uniform, creased perfectly along the front seams of the pants. His face was stern, stoic, and unrelenting in its gaze.
“So either my brother’s dead or you’re lost,” Matt said.
“Sir, I regret to inform you that your brother, Colonel Zachary Garrett, is reported as killed in action in Kunar Province, Afghanistan.”
The rest of the visit was a blur. Matt had been down this dark trail previously in the Philippines. And now again? True, both he and Zach operated in the thin margins of life where danger continuously lurked, waiting like a rabid puma, eyes glistening, mouth foaming, ready to kill at random. His role with the CIA had put Matt in a series of difficult situations while Zach’s eagerness to get back into the fight after 9-11 had led to fights in the Philippines, Canada and now Afghanistan. Men like Matt and Zach operated in the netherworld of spies and operatives that few Americans understood but from which all benefited, whether they knew it or not.