Drew’s face, lit from beneath by the flashlight, stared back at me ghoulishly, like a creature out of Friday the Thirteenth. ‘Look, I’m sorry about what just happened here,’ he said contritely. ‘I didn’t know…’ He paused, as if considering how much to tell me. ‘I’ve been watching the house for days. I thought this was Amy’s room. Obviously I made a mistake.’
While he talked, I scooted into the corner at the head of the bed and drew my knees up to my chin, the coverlet along with them. If Drew was begging for forgiveness, he was standing on the wrong street corner.
‘Fuck. Why am I telling you this? I need to see Amy. Your room, then?’
The light flicked off.
I heard the door creak. ‘Drew! You can’t! Not if you don’t want to be seen by a couple of million people when Patriot House goes on the air.’
Another creak. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘You picked a hell of a night to break in, Drew. George Washington is sleeping in Jack’s bedroom and they’ve got extra cameras set up everywhere. How did you get in, anyway?’ I asked, knowing as the words left my mouth how dumb it was to warn Drew about the cameras and to ask him such a question. SEALs knew one hundred ways to get in and a hundred-and-one ways to get out of any dangerous situation, without being seen.
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Don’t answer that. But, you should understand that Amy is here because she really wants to be. She’s signed a contract. If she breaks the rules, she’ll forfeit fifteen thousand dollars as well as opening herself up to the possibility of a million-dollar lawsuit.’
‘She doesn’t need fifteen thousand dollars.’
‘I didn’t get that impression.’
‘Well, that’s crap. Amy’s getting my pay and benefits now, but soon she’ll receive a tax-free death gratuity of one hundred thousand, and there’s a four-hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy, too. I’m married to a wealthy woman.’
A light bulb flicked on in my brain. ‘As long as you stay dead.’
Drew was quiet for so long that I was afraid he’d used his super stealth skills to slip silently out of the room. ‘Drew?’
‘I’m here.’ The straight-back chair next to Amy’s dresser groaned in protest as Drew sat down in it. ‘It’s better to be dead. Better for me, less embarrassing for the Navy.’
‘Why on earth would you say that?’
‘I screwed the pooch.’
Screwed the pooch. A term from the Mercury days of the U.S. space program. Like Gus Grissom, Drew must have screwed up, big time. ‘I understand, honestly. If it’s important that the Navy doesn’t find out Drew Cornell’s not a pile of ashes in Swosa, then I’m sure we can figure out a way for you to talk to your wife about it, if she wants to.’
‘What do you mean, “if she wants to?”’
I thought about Amy and Alex, but wisely kept my mouth shut. ‘Ten months is a long time, Drew. If you didn’t die on that helicopter in Swosa, where the hell have you been?’
‘Getting myself out of a sticky situation.’
‘Can you tell me about it?’
‘Why should I trust you?’
‘Because my Dad is retired Navy? Because my husband teaches at the Naval Academy? I know what it means to be a SEAL, Drew. Just to be selected for SEAL training is a major accomplishment, but to successfully complete the training, be sent on dangerous missions…’ I paused, choosing my words carefully. I needed Drew to trust me. ‘You’re DEVGRU,’ I said. ‘Elite among the elite, but the stress has to be enormous.’
Drew caught his breath. ‘DEVGRU,’ he repeated, then he laughed.
‘DEVGRU’s less of a mouthful than the Naval Special Warfare Development Group,’ I said, ‘but you gotta admit that the old name, Seal Team Six, sounds a hell of a lot sexier.’ I thought about Drew’s key role in the mission to extract a high-value target like Nazari from Swosa, and it hit me like a thunderbolt. ‘You’re Gold Squadron, right? It doesn’t get any more select than that.’
When Drew didn’t respond, I said, ‘Amy and I have become close over the past several weeks. She’s very proud of you, you know.’
Drew snorted. ‘In the early days, maybe. When I was everyone’s hero, quietly picking off Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea. Now? I’m shit under their shoes.’
‘Just a moment ago you said that it would be less embarrassing for the Navy if you stayed dead. I’m trying to work that one out. The mission to capture Nazari was fully-sanctioned by the U.S. government, right? That’s what they kept saying on CNN.’
‘Capture, not kill. They wanted Nazari trussed up and delivered to the ICC for crimes against humanity.’
‘ICC?’
‘The International Criminal Court in the Hague. In March of 2009 Nazari was indicted by the ICC on eighteen counts of genocide, torture and rape. He’d been a fugitive ever since.’
‘A monster,’ I said. ‘Not fit to breathe the same air as the rest of us.’
‘Yeah, but the brass thinks that I stepped over the line. We broke into the compound, cornered Nazari in an upstairs bedroom. The bastard was unarmed. We could’a taken him alive, easy. Just one sorry excuse for a human being hiding behind a curtain with his wife and children. He massacred millions of his own people, sure, I could deal with that, but when he grabbed one of his daughters and tried to use her as a human shield I looked the son of a bitch straight in the eye and said to myself, screw it, you’re a waste of space. You’ve forfeited your right to live. I double tapped him. End of story.’
‘But it wasn’t, was it? The end of the story, I mean.’
‘Fuck, no. All hell broke loose. Women crying, children screaming, guards popping up out of nowhere. We killed a bunch of guards on our way out, and I covered for my team as they ran to the chopper, but I missed the guy with the rocket launcher.’
‘We saw the explosion on CNN. Everyone assumed you were aboard, too.’
‘Sometimes I wish I had been.’
‘But it’s better to be alive, Drew, surely. What’s the worst thing that can happen to you if the Navy finds out you’re not dead?’
‘After being AWOL for almost a year? Let’s just say that I’m not planning on doing any time in Leavenworth.’
‘So, what happened next?’
‘After the explosion, I took out the guard, borrowed his clothing and got the hell out. It took me a while, but I’m here.’
‘How did you get out of Swosa with no passport, no money?’
‘It helps to be fluent in the language, and…’ He paused and we both heard the door across the hall creak open. There was a light tap on the door.
‘Amy? I heard voices. You OK in there?’
Alex.
I wasn’t sure I could imitate Amy’s Yankee twang, so I mumbled sleepily, ‘Fine. Just a nightmare. Sorry I woke you. G’night.’ I held my breath, fearful that Alex might decide to comfort Amy in person, but after a few seconds, the light pad of stocking feet confirmed that he’d returned to the room he shared with Michael.
As much as I wanted to hear the rest of Drew’s story, I knew it could be dangerous for everyone if he stuck around much longer. ‘We’re going to church at nine o’clock tomorrow,’ I whispered. ‘Amy and I will figure out a way for the two of you to talk.’
‘St Anne’s, you mean? On Church Circle?’
‘Yes,’ I said, thinking fast. ‘The restrooms are through the door to the right as you enter the narthex. Nobody should be using them during the service, so you can wait for Amy there.’
A slight creak of the chair, a whispered, ‘Thanks.’
For several minutes I remained huddled in my corner, arms wrapped around my knees, imagining I could still hear him breathing. ‘Drew?’
But Amy’s husband was gone. And I’d never even seen his face.
THIRTEEN