Chapter One

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Gregory Newell was a trim, dark-haired man of thirty-two years. He was one of those people who are so tidy and well-groomed that it is hard to imagine them any other way. He stood about a quarter of an inch over six feet tall, but most people of his acquaintance would be surprised to learn this because no one had ever thought of him as a big man.

The woman applying Newell’s makeup worked quickly and exactly, undistracted and unself-conscious, facing him with her nose barely an inch away from his. She was personal but distant, intimate and yet remote. She did this every day. She had scant minutes to finish her job but she was relaxed and confident nevertheless.

Newell, by contrast, was so nervous that he was afraid he was going to be ill. For him this was all a first just like so many others from the recent weeks of his life. It occurred to him that he had experienced so many of these “firsts” that he should have become accustomed, by now, to finding himself in unfamiliar surroundings. He smiled at the circular absurdity of this idea, becoming so accustomed to novelty that novelty itself becomes mundane.

Maybe, he said to himself, I’ll be able to handle all this attention calmly one day. I’m not there yet, though. Not even close.

Greg Newell had always been quiet, cerebral and self-possessed. The outgoing and incisive nature he had begun to display in recent weeks was a conspicuous new development, and anyone who had known him for a period of years would be certain to make note of it. He looked the same outwardly, but he had undergone, nevertheless, a transformation of striking proportions. It was such a dramatic metamorphosis that he was only marginally conscious of it himself.

The Green Room, Newell reflected, was a rather cramped and shabby little chamber. It smelled of stale cosmetics and perspiration. The floor was uneven and the paint, faded. At this moment, with five people in it, the room was crowded.

Newell thought briefly of the people who had sat here over the decades: Nobel Prize winners. Heads of state. Cultural icons. And now, he reflected, me. My twenty minutes of fame.

The unnamed Navy Commander in the second chair, two grades senior to Newell and likewise in dress blue uniform, was conspicuously relaxed, as if he appeared on network television every day. It’s possible, Newell said to himself, that he’s sitting over there at this instant thinking how relaxed I look. He’s considering the question, How can I undermine this fellow’s composure?

For a moment he made eye contact with the nameless Commander and Newell considered that, of the two naval officers, Newell was the one who would soon be called upon to explain nothing beyond his own personal experiences and actions. No one could know these as well as he himself did. The home field advantage was his. He was as certain of himself as he could possible be.

Commander Something-or-another, though, is here to be my adversary and, despite the fact that he’s got infinite resources behind him, he’s on uncertain footing. His mission is to make me look like a coward or an idiot, neither of which I am. So he has to make something from nothing. He’s the one who is under the pressure. I am much more comfortable with my role than I would be with his. I would not swap places with him.

The woman briefing both men, having introduced herself only as “Tina,” was deliberate and focused. She wore a t-shirt and jeans, and she was vigilant of both her energy and her time, mindful of the fact that they were less than five minutes from air time.

“You gentlemen will be introduced as Commander George Nordgren and Lieutenant Greg Newell, and Mr. Russert will address you both by your rank when he first speaks to you. After that he will call you George and Greg. Please, address him as Tim. Act as if you’ve known him for years. Don’t touch your face.”

Greg had felt an itch in his nose, wanted instinctively to rub it. He returned his hand to his lap and merely wrinkled his nose. “Sorry,” he said. “Nose itches.”

“Better let it itch,” said Tina. “We don’t have time to make you up again. You, Greg, are going to be the star of this show. You’ve been all over the news for two weeks now. We’re all familiar with your claims and revelations. Those are old news. What Mr. Russert wants to explore with you this morning is, how did you reach this point in your life? How did, by all accounts, a model attack pilot and young naval officer come to be such a controversial figure? Are you ready for that?”

“Well,” said Newell, “if I don’t have those answers, who does?”

“Good. All right. You both look good. Try to relax. You’ll be fine.”

And with that Tina was gone from the Green Room, followed quickly by the makeup women, leaving the two naval officers alone together.

It was the Commander who broke the silence after a spell: “Graduate mathematician, I understand.” He was a man of about forty. He was fit, handsome and poised. His manner was not aggressive, but at the same time it was clear that he was comfortable in his adversarial role. Maybe, Newell said to himself, he does this all the time. A hit man.

Newell was not sure he had heard correctly. “Beg pardon, Commander?”

“You’re a graduate mathematician. As well as the current darling of the left-wing media.”

“Yes, Sir,” Newell replied. “I do have a degree in mathematics. I guess, the left-wing media can answer for themselves.” Newell spoke to him and then looked away in silence. If there’s something to be gained from small talk with the hit man, he thought, I fail to see what it might be. We might as well save it for the cameras.

But Commander Nordgren did not want to let up. “This is a little unfair. I have a considerable advantage over you, Lieutenant. I’ve been briefed on you.”

Newell nodded as if to say, Yes, I’m sure you have. What he said after a pause was, “Well, no one has briefed me on you, Commander.”

“And there’s no reason why they should, Lieutenant Gregory Newell. Unlike you, I’ve minded my business and stayed out of the news.”

Newell nodded and looked away. It was entirely possible, he reflected, that distracting Newell was part of this man’s charge. If he could find a way to rattle a junior officer, divert his attention or disrupt his concentration, then there was potential for him to lose his poise in front of the lights and cameras.

Newell determined himself to ignore the Commander.

But the older man spoke yet again. “I don’t mind, you see, that you’ve become something of a symbol, a hood ornament for the far left. It’s a free country and you’re entitled to your opinions. I don’t even mind that you’ve disgraced yourself as a naval officer and dishonored your oath of office.”

“But I take it, Commander,” Newell said, “there is something that you do mind.”

“Lies,” was the reply. “Lies bother me. People who tell dangerous and incendiary lies, in public, for self-gain, bother me. I do whatever I can to stop them or, failing that, to expose and disgrace them.”

Newell, frustrated in his wish to ignore this man and compose himself in silence, now took a few moments to look him over. He wore three rows of ribbons under the gold emblem of a surface line officer. His cotton shirt was paste-white, his shoes as glossy as glass. The clean blue trousers had creases that were as straight and sharp as blades. That uniform, Newell thought, has never, ever, been to a ship’s laundry. He didn’t get that haircut from a Navy barber, either.

And then Newell turned inward. He said to himself: Here it is. This is the direct, public confrontation. I knew it was going to happen, sooner or later. I just didn’t know it was going to happen here, in the Green Room. This is the moment for me to stop thinking about myself and get my wits together.

What would Zeke say right now?

“I’d be interested to know,” Newell said. “how you came to be aware that I’m lying. What’s your source of the truth, Commander?”

“That’s a fair question. As I say, I’ve been briefed. I’ll be honest with you, though. I have a more immediate source: Your commanding officer.”

This took Newell aback. “Commander Rasko? You know him?”

“Yes I do,” he said, “he happens to be a friend of mine.”

“What a coincidence,” Newell said. “It’s a small Navy, isn’t it?”

“Surprisingly so,” came the answer. “Rasko and I were classmates at the Naval Academy.”

Tina stuck her head inside the door. “Three minutes!” she announced with a tight smile.

Newell nodded to her and she vanished again.

After a few seconds Commander Nordgren continued: “I didn’t go into aviation as he did, so of course we don’t see each other very often any longer,” he said. “But I did have the opportunity to speak with him about you. As a matter of fact we spoke about you in some detail.”

This last, Newell thought, was spoken a little ominously.

“So he told you,” Newell asked, “all about me and the skeletons in my particular closet?”

“He did,” said Nordgren ponderously, “and some of them are things you might be embarrassed to hear on national TV.”

We’ve arrived at the point of this conversation rather early, Newell said to himself; we’re not even on the air yet. But then it occurred to him, They don’t want this show to air at all. They don’t want anyone to hear what I’m going to say. If they can stall me, frustrate me or make some kind of deal with me before we go on camera, then they will do just that.

“Unless I do – what?”

“I think you know perfectly well what, Lieutenant. Stop telling all these outrageous lies.”

“I see,” said Newell. “Or you’ll go public about, what – my epileptic seizures? My forged college transcripts?”

Commander Nordgren only frowned back at him in response. If he was surprised, he hid it well. He’s wondering, Newell said to himself, how seriously to take this. Might I be telling the truth? Well, Newell decided, there’s no need to keep the old boy in suspense.

Newell went on as the older man listened keenly: “Did your Naval Academy classmate, John Rasko, tell you that I bark like a dog when I’m sexually aroused?”

Newell paused a moment for effect before, quite abruptly, he bellowed: “Woof!”

Commander Nordgren, having been plainly startled, was at first embarrassed and now visibly angered, quite suddenly. Jesus, Newell thought, he must really be under pressure. I think I actually feel a little sorry for him.

Nordgren spoke in rapid-fire bursts: “I think you’d better wake up and look around, Lieutenant. You’re about to get yourself into more trouble than you know how to….”

Newell waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. He interrupted the older man in mid-sentence: “I don’t have anything to hide, Commander Nordgren, or whatever your real name is. No lies, no subterfuge. My life is an open book. What do you say we stop making things up?”

“You’re the one making things up, Lieutenant. Not me. I have absolutely no need to make up anything.”

Newell looked the older man dead in the eye as he spoke: “Commander John Rasko,” he said bluntly, “graduated from the University of Dayton. I don’t think he’s ever been within ten miles of the Naval Academy.”

Nordgren looked away in silence. Newell continued:

“I can find ten witnesses to every single thing I’m going to say in front of those cameras. I’m going to be as truthful as I know how to be.”

The Commander appeared to be gathering his wits for another assault and Newell hesitated for a second. Maybe, he thought, I should save my energy for the cameras.

But then he thought, maybe this advantage is one I should press, here and now. He went on:

“Unlike you, Commander whoever-you-are, because you are a liar and a fraud. Your mission here is to discredit me by any means possible. You hope to dissemble, to confuse, and to obscure the truth. Isn’t that true?”

Nordgren, stunned into silence, opened his mouth to speak but Newell interrupted him again:

“We’re almost out of time. One more thing: If you slander me on the air, I’m going to do everything I can to expose and humiliate you and the people who sent you. That’s a promise. Sir.”

A technician appeared in the window, pointed at his watch, and raised two fingers. The door opened and Newell arose to leave. Before he stepped out, he turned back for one last word with the Commander.

“If I take your pants down out there in front of those cameras, Commander, do you think the people who sent you are going to back you up? I don’t. I think they’re going to cut you loose and let you drift. Between the two of us, I think you’re the one in trouble at this moment. If I were you, I would not even go out there.”

He left the room and did not look back at Commander Nordgren.

As he entered the open studio Newell reflected, at light speed, upon the sequence of events that had brought him to this astonishing point in his life. There were more twists and turns and key moments than he could possibly hope to relate in such a brief period of time, and such a variety of vivid, fleeting memories that it would be hopelessly beyond him to describe them all. He hoped – he hoped desperately – that he could somehow come close. He cared very little, any longer, for his own dignity and his personal reputation. The stakes were far higher than that.

He was nervous, but he was ready.

As he seated himself in the interview chair, under the blinding lights, the episodes from his past weeks played through his head at a dizzying quickness.

The flashbacks began.



Chapter Two

Newell came suddenly and violently awake under brilliant, cold fluorescent light. He was flat on his back, bewildered and disoriented, like a child who does not know what he is being punished for.

He squinted and peered in one direction and then the other but his eyes would not focus. He tried to blink away the burning in them but it remained and even intensified.

His chest and throat burned. He tried to swallow but found this acutely painful. He gagged and choked and then found himself inhaling the effluent, gagging and choking yet again. He felt the panic welling up inside him, threatening to assert control over him and banish all rational thought.

He made an extreme effort to compose himself. He lay back, eyes closed, and concentrated all his energies upon his breathing, controlling and regulating it. In a few moments he felt the throbbing in his ears begin to subside.

Then a thought returned to him, so fresh and vibrant that it clearly had occupied the entirety of his attention, quite recently. Perhaps hours, perhaps only moments earlier. He felt the panic begin to advance over him again as the thought took shape again like a spirit. It was this: This is the last moment of my life.

But life remained in him. Newell began to inch his way back to self-control and found himself oddly comforted by a remarkable and even humorous new insight: He had the hiccups.

Hic.

Jesus Christ, he said to himself, but that hurts. That must mean I’m alive, though. I’ll bet you don’t get the hiccups when you’re dead.

He ached and throbbed heavily in every extremity. He was aware, now, of a sense of motion, of rolling and tumbling. It remained with him for a few moments but it gently diminished until he sensed, finally and gratefully, that he was perfectly still.

He opened his eyes again, rolled them about and drank in the brilliant artificial light. He was as little able to focus, just yet, as a newborn.

Hic.

I’m going to get tired of that. I don’t know what to do about it, though.

Then he became aware that someone was speaking nearby: “Doctor, I think he’s awake!”

“I think so too,” Newell tried to say, but this attempt at speech sounded like a toad, croaking. He cleared his throat and found this demanding and intensely painful as well. He tried again: “Who’s asking?”

“Piccolo, Sir. Corpsman Second Class.” The speaker, though yet indistinct, seemed to be focused firmly upon Newell, earnest and expectant. “You’re going to be fine, Lieutenant. Try to relax. You’re safe.”

Newell slowly squinted the speaker into focus, and with him part of his surroundings, as well.

Hic.

He began to realize where he was. He had seen the sign across the entrance a dozen times: USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Medical Department. No finer care anywhere.

The next voice he heard was a reassuring one, measured and familiar, speaking his first name. It was a voice he had heard dozens of times before. It belonged to Tom Wiggin, the squadron flight surgeon.

“Greg? Do you hear me?”

Newell resolved to himself that this, second attempt at speech would progress more smoothly and successfully than his first one. He took his time, assembled the words in his brain and began speaking when he was certain that he had his entire question composed and ready.

“Hello, Doc.” Although speaking was still acutely painful, Newell did his best to sound casual. “What am I doing here?”

Doc Wiggin turned his face toward him with interest. “Do you remember your accident?”

“No,” Newell replied. “I don’t remember anything. How – Hic – how long have I been here?”

“You’ve missed chow, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Doc Wiggin said, looking at his watch. “It was seagull, anyway.”

Newell was vaguely irritated. He was not concerned in the least, of course, that dinner had been served in the wardroom, and that it had been chicken. He thought perhaps he would retch at the sight of food.

Corpsman Piccolo leaned forward, closer, as if betraying a secret that only the two of them would ever share. “The rescue swimmers brought you down here. Don’t you remember?”

“Rescue swimmers?” Newell asked. This struck him as a thing of surpassing wonder. He could not envisage being carried like a sack by a team of dripping, wetsuit-clad swimmers and then having absolutely no recollection of such a thing. “No,” Newell replied truthfully, “I don’t remember that at all.”

“You were shouting and convulsing. We thought about restraining you.”

“Not necessary,” said Newell, “I promise to be dignified.”

Newell’s awareness began to gather momentum with every passing second. He took inventory, as well as he was able. Fingers and toes – he moved each of them in turn, one at a time – seemed intact. He took in a deep breath, ignoring the ache in his ribs, and felt his chest expand and fill with air.

Then he coughed again. Jesus, he thought, but that hurts. Hic.

He lifted his head and found that his sense of equilibrium, although a bit uncertain and unsettled, was nevertheless with him. Then he tried to sit up and he immediately found this to be much more of a struggle than he had anticipated. This, it became apparent in a mere instant, was one step too far.

A muscle in his abdomen cramped painfully.

Hic. Hic.

He flopped backward, onto his back again, angry and frustrated.

Christ. I’m floundering like a beached carp.

He coughed suddenly, convulsively, painfully. It sounded like a smoker’s hack, but it left the taste of salt water in his mouth.

“You’d better not try to sit up,” said Wiggin. “You’re not strong enough yet. Soon, though.”

Newell, abruptly nauseated, now felt the room swimming around and then he spat something up: more salt water. Piccolo presented him with a stainless steel bowl, shaped like a crescent moon, to spit into. Newell made an effort to spit, but most of the fluid ran down his chin. He grunted, disgusted with himself.

Wiggin, as he often did, seemed to read his patient’s mind. “Don’t worry about it. It’s only seawater. How are you feeling?”

“Like living – hic – crap!”

“Lie back,” instructed Wiggin. “You, my friend, are an absolute mess. You’ve got salt water coming out of every hole in your body.”

Wiggin seemed concerned, Newell noted with relief, but not intently so, as if treating a case of chicken pox. He continued: “Your vitals are strong, though. You’re just beat-up, all to Hell and back. You look as if you got caught up with a bunch of Boatswain’s Mates, breaking-up a bar in Naples.”

Newell tried to smile at this — both men knew, the Pope was probably more likely to get involved with a drunken brawl in a Naples bar than Greg Newell was.

“Nothing seems to be broken or punctured or traumatized, as long as we’re not talking about your frame of mind. I’d say, you’ll be stiff and sore for at least a week, probably two. And your lungs will take a day or two to clear. You’re not a smoker, are you?”

Newell tried to shake his head and mouthed the word, no.

“Right answer,” said Wiggin. “I want you to just lie there until you feel like getting up. After all the scrapes and bruises heal, I think you’ll be as cantankerous as ever.”

Newell nodded his head. “We’ve all got that to look forward to.”

Once again Newell sensed an irresistible and consuming fear, looming very near, like an apparition just inches out of sight in the darkness. It was so near, it would be able to engulf him in an instant and absorb him like a blotter. It threatened, at this moment, to do just that. It will always be there, from now on, Newell said to himself without formulating the slightest idea why. I will never, ever, be free of it.

Newell could feel his pulse rising as he lost ground to the panic, slowly creeping over him.

Then he heard Wiggin speak again: “I’m taking you off flight status, of course.”

Newell croaked, “For – hic – how long?”

Doc Wiggin shrugged. “A month. You in a hurry?”

Newell found an element of comfort in this, an issue to ponder; a return to the hear-and-now, the province of rational thought. Maybe, he reflected, I’ll be able to fight this thing off and get control of myself again. Particularly after I get a little stronger.

“Well,” Newell replied, “it’s my job, I’ve been trained to do it and sent halfway around the – hic – world for no other purpose. Something leads me to think that I should get back to it. Don’t you – hic – think so?”

But Wiggin cut him off with his next question: “You want to go home?”

Newell found this as startling a suggestion as a journey into a parallel universe: Home.

Memories flooded back to him, for a moment displacing all else: Norfolk traffic. The trees along the streets of Virginia Beach. My beautiful house and the pittusporra I planted along the drive. And Tricia. He was afraid for instant, even to conjure up her face in his imagination, as if he would then have to watch the image dissipate before him. To see Tricia again, months before I was expecting to…

But Wiggin did not so much as slow down to give him grapple with it. “I can send you on convalescent leave.”

Newell, still struggling to comprehend it, quickly discovered his participation to be unnecessary.

“As a matter of fact,” Wiggin continued, “I think that’s an excellent idea. I’m going to do just that, send you home for a couple of weeks. Relax. Get reacquainted with the wife. Have a beer for me, will you?” And Doc Wiggin folded his arms across his chest and nodded. The matter was decided.

“I’ll give you something to put you back to sleep, which is what you need right now.”

Sleep, Newell thought, would be good.

Piccolo stood back, erect again, before delivering a final observation: “That must have been one Hell of a wild ride.”

Newell’s brain seized upon this opportunity to conduct something resembling a factual, remote analysis and ignore the emotional impact of his experience. He even entertained the hope, without so much as forming the words, that he could somehow diminish the fear and dread by trivializing it. “I guess so,” Newell replied, “not that I remember any of it. It must have been an aborted – hic – mission.”

Piccolo seemed interested: “What was you mission?”

“Ferrying death into the dessert,” was Newell’s reply. There, he reflected. He had actually spoken the word, death, and it had not leapt into the room to claim him. I’m beginning to get control over it. I’ll be back on top in no time.

“You need both engines for that?” the Corpsman asked. “I always heard that one of those F/A-18s could fly on one engine.”

“They can. They can’t always take – hic – take off on one engine, though. I remember, I was carrying a heavy load today.”

“I guess,” the Corpsman said, “death is heavy.”

Newell, despite his aches and the preoccupation with his inner fears, found this amusing. I’m getting it back, he said to himself. I’m going to be in control of myself again very soon. I can feel it.

Newell smiled. “I like that.” He closed his eyes, feeling the sleep closing in on him. “Death is heavy. That’s good. I wish I’d thought of that.”

And he drifted off to sleep again.



Chapter Three

Newell awakened in stages, the sleep parting like a series of lace curtains before his eyes. The room, full of brilliant cool light, and the air, full of the noises a busy ship makes in the early morning, coaxed him slowly into alertness. He thought he heard his name spoken, softly.

He blinked away the chaos, his eyes adjusting from darkness. He focused on the figure before him to behold a gorilla.

That’s right: a gorilla.

He closed his eyes again, having absorbed in an instant more sensory data than his brain could process easily. He entertained the notion that he was still asleep, dreaming.

The next time he opened his eyes, seconds later, the image that confronted Newell was, again, that of a gorilla. It sat placidly, unmoving, observing him from the chair next to his bed.

He stared fixedly at it now, suddenly alive with wonder, doubting for a moment his own sanity. Yes, it was a gorilla, in the khaki uniform of a Navy Lieutenant.

Newell blinked again and speculated for an instant: Is this another one of my dreams?

But then, in another few seconds, he recovered his balance and his logical faculties, and after a deep breath he found his voice: “What are you doing here, Zeke?”

Two hands reached to the back of the gorilla’s neck and pulled a rubber mask up and away, revealing the familiarly handsome, boyish face of Rob Zaludek. Newell hoped that he betrayed none of the fear that had nearly overtaken him mere moments earlier.

Zaludek seemed genuinely disappointed. “How did you know it was me?”

Newell, fresh from so much speechless dread, was now nearly overcome with relief. He determined himself not to laugh. But the urge became nearly too powerful to resist. How many people, he mused to himself, would come down here disguised as a gorilla? “Well, Jim Carey is not in the Navy, and I hear Harpo Marx is dead,” he said, “so it pretty well had to be you!”

Newell reflected that it was a greater comfort to see his friend at this moment than he could ever have imagined. He had always felt privileged to be friends with this memorable, popular man, so unlike Newell in so many ways. His friendship with Zeke was the source of infinite wonder for Newell.

“How are you feeling, Greg?”

“Everybody’s asking me that,” Newell replied. “I’ve felt better.”

“I’ll tell you the truth: You look like shit. When I first came in here I thought you were dead! I almost bolted and ran at the sight of you.”

“Is this your best shot at the bedside healer thing, Zeke? Because if it is, it needs work. It needs a lot of work.”

Zeke shrugged and nodded in agreement.

Newell went on: “And the gorilla mask? What were you hoping for there – to give me a heart attack?”

“I didn’t really scare you, did I?”

“You know what you are, Zeke? You’re a fucking idiot!”

“I just thought you might like a gag. Everybody in a hospital is so serious all the time…”

Newell finally broke into laughter in spite of himself. He looked his friend in the eye. “It’s good to see you, Bud.”

Zeke, himself, seemed serious for a change. “You, too, Greg.”

Other people had remarked for years that the two of them seemed an odd pair of buddies, the droll and remote Newell and the outgoing practical jokester, Zaludek. Newell had concluded years earlier that each of them brought something the other admired and lacked. For his own part, Newell had always marveled at the way his friend’s outlandish, often impertinent behavior had a way of disarming perfect strangers, turning them into comrades in a span of moments.

“Well, I’m not dead,” Newell told him, “but I think I did look the old guy right in the eye.”

“Do you remember what happened to you?”

“You know,” Newell said in wonderment, “I don’t. I remember the brief, and I remember walking across the flight deck. I think I remember strapping-in and turning-up, but after that, I don’t remember what happened. I can remember being scared — terrified, actually – but beyond that, nothing!”

Zeke nodded. He seemed to focus deliberately upon his friend’s eyes as he spoke: “Doc says, you must be tough as an old pair of boots. I told him, we don’t call you “The Mule” Newell for nothing.”

“I always thought,” Newell said, “it was because I’m slow-witted!”

“That, too!” came the immediate reply, and the pair of them laughed again.

God, thought Newell, but it was good to laugh. But this particular laugh started a series of painful, racking coughs. It was all right, he mused. It was worth it.

Newell noticed, now, that his friend had fallen silent while he, himself, had gone on laughing and coughing for several seconds. This was unusual, for Zeke was a man who loved to laugh.

Something else must be on his mind, Newell mused. Something serious. I wonder, did he come down here to talk about it?

“What have you been up to, Zeke?”

“The usual,” came the reply. “Pounding houses and villages into rubble, coming back later to make the rubble bounce. You know how it is.”

Newell did not respond, puzzled by the sudden note of gravity in his friend. This, too, was out of character.

Zeke seemed to contemplate, whether to speak at more length or not. When he did, the words came out of him in little fits and starts: “Do you ever think about the people on the ground, Greg? You know, the ones in the target zones as we’re flying over, dropping shit on them?”

Newell blinked at this, mulling it over. “For me,” he replied, “that falls under the same category as my wife’s mother. I don’t particularly like her, but there’s nothing I can do about her. So I choose not to think about her.”

This seemed an unsatisfactory answer, a premature closing. But something was clearly bothering Zeke. “I was just down at the intel center. They called me in this afternoon. I was talking to the geeks in PDA.”

“The who?”

“Jesus, Greg, where you been? The Post-Damage-Assessment spooks. You know, high-level, IR photography, all that crap?”

Newell nodded. Post-damage-assessment was one of the things they were in the habit of leaving to others. It wasn’t their concern.

Zeke went on. “Remember that house I hit about three weeks ago? The one by the crossroads where the spooks thought they might be building bombs or something?”

“I remember,” Newell told him “I wasn’t there, but I saw the photos. You put a Mark 84 through the kitchen window. The walls blew out and the roof disintegrated. Pieces of jihadi were scattered over an area half the size of…”

“Jesus Christ, Greg!” Zeke cut him off with a startling urgency, his voice just above a whisper. He was sternly, ponderously, intently serious. This was a startling turn, and a facet Newell had rarely seen of his friend’s personality.

Then he relented. “I’m sorry,” Zeke said. “You ride one into the drink, nearly cash it all in, and I come down here to unload a bunch of negative crap on you.”

“It’s okay. Negative crap is my natural habitat, remember?”

But Zeke seemed to want to change the subject now. “You need anything, Greg? Can I help you get up to go take a whiz or something?”

“How are you going to help me take a whiz, Zeke? Something’s bugging you. What is it?”

Zaludek took a gulp, composing himself before he began again: “They brought me down there and briefed me because they think it might get into the media. Some network goon seems to have got wind of it and it’s liable to get into the news. I should be aware of it. I might even get asked about it.”

“Wait. Did the subject just beetle through the room when I wasn’t watching? Got wind of what? Get asked about what?”

Zeke seemed to look directly at Newell and past him at the same time. “It was a wedding party, Greg.”

They both let the silence absorb them for a long moment. Finally Newell spoke: “How the Hell do they know that?”

“Somebody found a video,” Zeke said. “A bride and a groom. Musicians. Old folks, dancing. Little kids running around…”

Newell reflected that he’d never before seen Zeke quite so troubled and angry about anything. He wanted to find a way to lighten things up, but he couldn’t; that sort of thing was Zeke’s skill and not Newell’s.

“Look,” Newell said, “Okay, supposing it’s true. You can’t blame yourself because the intel people have mush for brains. Remember that clown who told us to avoid slate quarries, but granite quarries are good targets, as if we could tell the difference from an altitude of…”

Zeke bellowed: “IT WAS A FUCKING WEDDING PARTY, GREG!”

The two of them looked about hurriedly to see whether they had attracted anyone’s attention. There was nothing.

“Jesus,” said Greg, “throttle back a little, Cowboy!”

Zeke took a moment to recover his composure before he went on: “That’s who was in that house at the crossroads.”

Again they let the silence overtake them for another moment, before Zeke pronounced his final judgment: “Kind of like mine, last year. You remember that, don’t you?”

“Let’s see,” Newell replied. “You, Cheryl, me, a dude in a dress with a bible — of course I remember! I was standing there with you, remember?”

Zeke went on, undisrupted. “Little kids, old folks. Relatives. Old neighbors, people somebody went to school with. I vaporized ‘em all.” He snapped his fingers. “That fast.”

Newell propped himself upright for the first time since his accident. “Hey look, Zeke – you pretty much gave up all hope for a Nobel Peace Prize when you decided to go for attack jets. I presumed, you’d thought of this.”

“And that,” Zeke said heavily, “is all you have to say about it?”

“Well, no, there’s ‘shit happens’ and ‘we’re just the hired guns, we don’t make policy’ and all that stuff we hear all the time.”

“We’re supposed to be the good guys, Greg.”

“You are not responsible,” Newell said with emphasis. “It could have been any of us.”

Zeke, after a pause, seemed to regain his balance.

“Hell,” Newell went on, “we’ve probably all done it.”

And the two of them broke into broad, conspiratorial grins together. They were members of a grim brotherhood.

“I never understood,” said Zeke, “how you got interested in all that weird mathematical stuff you like. When did you start with that?”

“I don’t even remember when I started with it. I do remember the day – I was still in high school – when I proved that any compact subset of a Hausdorff space is closed. That was a big day for me.”

“I can just imagine,” Zeke said with half a grin. “You know, you don’t talk about that weird math very much.”

“Because,” said Newell, “nobody else wants to talk about it. Do you want to talk about Hausdorff space right now?”

“I most certainly do not. My point is, I guess the morality of what we’re doing out here is something that I need to keep to myself. Just like you and your bizarre mathematics.”

Zeke departed soon after, leaving Newell to wonder in solitude at this odd show of concern from Zeke. The two of them had always taken it upon themselves to be model attack pilots, to provide an example for the younger aviators; kill them all and let God sort it out. They considered it part of the job, and they were glad to do it as well as they were able.

What’s come over Zeke? Maybe – Newell speculated silently – it’s getting married that does it to you. It changed me. Maybe it’s had some sort of effect on him, too. And Newell smiled at recollections of his friend’s wedding, just over a year in the past. Newell had beamed with pride, relishing his role as Zeke’s best man. Newell had made a determined effort to live up to it, too, making well-rehearsed, off-color jokes with the new bride, Cheryl.

Was this a permanent change in Zeke’s temperament, or just a temporary funk? He hoped and trusted that it was only the latter.



Chapter Four

One night, with the ship quiet and rolling softly in calm seas, Newell found himself tumbling in darkness, confused and disoriented. He seemed not to be earthbound but instead in the perfect vacuum of space, weightless in a universe of numbing cold. His stomach ached for the familiar comfort of up and down, but found none. His arms and legs extended themselves on their own, without control or sensation, as inert as rubber. He rolled slowly and stared, wide-eyed, into the chaos that surrounded him.

His senses were at once sharpened to a razor-fine keenness and yet deprived of all stimuli. He felt, somehow, a vast and shapeless body of bottomless darkness, quite near but just out of perception, perhaps just above him or behind him. He feared it but he ached to see it. He sensed it as one senses a sentient being, aware of a nearby intelligence.

With excruciating slowness, his rolling motion brought him around to face it. It crept into his field of vision inert and motionless, like a dark star, a body of total darkness, just visible against a background of similarly total darkness. It kept a distance from him and Newell sensed that it was not inert and lifeless, but instead alive and conscious. It regarded Newell with vague interest, perhaps contempt. It seemed to know him, to recognize his fear. It seemed to have a form of authority over him, as if it owned him.

Newell awoke with his eyes and mouth wide open and his heart pounding. He was alone in the room, on his back in his bed. He looked about, reassuring himself that he was in the midst of still, open air. Although it was dark, there was enough light so that he could see walls, a chair near his bed and tiles in the overhead.

For a few moments he considered calling out but stopped himself — what would he say, Give me something, I had a nightmare?





Chapter Six

Newell was thrilled to be back ashore. He knew that several of his fellows saw no reason to spend any longer that a few weeks a year on dry land. He himself, though, was a landlubber and saw no reason to apologize for it. Even the stifling midsummer heat of the Norfolk air terminal could not diminish his joy at coming home.

He carried his parachute bag in both arms, slung over one shoulder. He was still painfully sore in all the large muscles in his body, but most of the stiffness had left his joints. He seemed to be getting himself around well enough, he said to himself, as long as he did not get into any kind of hurry.

He was dressed in his khaki uniform, a bit rumpled from the long flight. He was debating with himself, whether to put the bag down and try to neaten himself up when he saw Tricia, waiting for him at the terminal.

He had usually found Tricia something of an enigma, her emotions well-concealed and her moods impenetrable. It was something that had always fascinated him about her, and something that he imagined he rather had in common with her. But the instant he saw her on this day he sensed a remote uneasiness that he had never experienced before. He approached her without speaking as she turned toward him and stood motionless, waiting.

He dropped his bag and hugged her eagerly, pressing her close to him and feeling every inch of her body against his. But he sensed that her response was merely dutiful and nothing beyond the minimum expected of the wife of a Navy man who is returning from the sea. He leaned back to look her in the face, puzzled at the distance between them but thrilling, nevertheless, at the look, the feel, and the smell of her.

“Hello, Trish,” was all he could say.

“Welcome home, Greg,” she said. “You look absolutely exhausted. Do you need help with that bag?”

“No,” Newell replied. “I’m tired, but I can handle it.”

He picked up the bag again and she walked beside him through the terminal. Newell would reflect later that he had never seen her so tense and so remote. Conversation, it seemed, was like stretching for something just at the edge of reach, touching it without quite grasping it.

He sensed from her that the two of them were going to speak in polite sentence fragments that betrayed no intimacy: Feeling OK? Long flight? Good weather? It would be conversation on autopilot; an exchange of data with no meaningful content. He would be able to tolerate this for a short period, but not for very long.

As the moments passed, Newell became first dissatisfied, then alarmed, at the mood that was between them. For the better part of a week he had been expecting a joyous reunion. But there was no joy in this shadow-boxing.

Soon he could stand the emptiness no longer. “All right,” he said finally as they reached the car, “are you going to tell me what’s the matter, or do I have to guess?”

He regretted instantly the contentious tone he heard from his own lips. If he had been stronger or better-rested, he might have spoken more thoughtfully. He did not want a confrontation. He considered bringing this particular turn of discussion to a close with an apology and asking, May I start over with a more delicately-phrased overture?

But Tricia did not alter her pace or her posture as the two of them reached the car, and she reached into her purse for the keys as if nothing had been spoken between them at all. It occurred to Newell now, abruptly, that she must have been expecting this.

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. Newell recognized this as one of her outward signs of tension. At least, he thought, I’m not the only one who’s worried.

She spoke deliberately, as if reading from a script for the first time: “I didn’t really want to have this conversation here, Greg.”

It took him a few seconds just to absorb the ominous tone of this. He knew, now, that he needed to recalculate his position, for he was not within the safety of his inner harbor. He was in uncharted waters.

She unlocked the car.

“Well then,” he said after a pause, “where would you like to have it?”

Newell opened the trunk and dropped his bag into it. She moved to the driver’s door.

“You’re exhausted,” she said simply. “I’ll drive.”

He opened the car and sat in the rider’s seat.

She sat behind the wheel with the keys in her hands and hands in her lap, looking vacantly into the distance ahead of them. When they closed their doors, at almost the same precise moment, he had the odd sensation that they were shutting out the rest of the world, so they could concentrate their energies upon each other.

She seemed to be fortifying herself so she could go on. “I guess there’s no good way to say this. I think I’m going to move out of the house.”

Newell was stunned. “You think?”

“All right, I know. I’m going to move out.”

Suddenly his head was swimming. Of all the past week’s developments, he would reflect later, this might be the one that surprised him most.

All he could think of was a numb question: “To where?”

“I’m not sure yet. Maybe Atlanta.”

Newell needed a moment to gather his wits. Maybe, he thought to himself, he had been better off, not knowing anything. The empty ache had been better than this. “I don’t know what to say, Trish. Atlanta. Is there another man involved?”

Here she sighed. Newell thought, she must have been ready for this, too. “Well,” she replied, “yes and no.”

This sent Newell reeling. “Yes and no? Every answer I get seems to generate more questions. At what point, I wonder, am I going to start making some sort of sense out of this?”

She became more animated now, rising to the task before her. “Yes,” she said simply, “there’s a man involved. And No, I haven’t slept with him. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

“That’s one of them, yes,” Newell replied. “Who is he? Do I know him?”

“You’ve met him. He’s my boss. Jack.”

Newell nodded although, in fact, he only dimly recalled meeting Tricia’s boss. A civilian in a suit.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” she continued. “Jack’s opening a new branch in Atlanta, and he’s asked me come with to him help set it up and then head up the…”

Newell interrupted, paraphrasing her: “He’s asked if you’d like to move to Atlanta with him.”

She took a deep sigh. “All right, maybe it is what you’re thinking. The truth is, I don’t really know, myself. But either way, it’s a nice opportunity for me, to get out of…”

She looked about the Navy base, exasperated but unwilling to put any more of it into words.

“To get out of,” he asked her, pausing to look about the base. It was the familiar, government buildings in every direction. “Norfolk? The Navy?”

And in his mind there were the unasked questions: Marriage? Life with me?

“There’s nothing for me here, Greg. There was never anything here for me except you. And now you’re gone for ten months out of the year.”

Newell sat in shocked silence, smarting as if from a sharp slap. He stared, wide–eyed, at the glass before him. He was bone weary, and yet he knew that, even if he were able to stretch out comfortably at this moment, he would not be able to sleep.

“I’m sorry to spring this on you, Greg. I’ve been trying to think of the right time to do it, but…”

“But there’s no good way,” he finished her sentence for her, “to say, Welcome back and goodbye, I’m shoving off.”

“Now you’re getting angry,” she said, and she seemed genuinely apprehensive. Newell acknowledged an atom of relief in the fact that she felt, at least, some trace of emotion. Regret, guilt, fear, something. “This is what I was afraid of.”

“No, I’m not angry. At least, I don’t think so. I’m not sure, at this moment, exactly what I am feeling. I’m not sure there’s a name for it, although shocked and confused spring to mind.”

They sat in silence for a few more moments before she picked up the keys out of her lap and started the car.

It seemed to Newell, as she drove out the base’s main gate and across town, that she drove slowly, as if she didn’t really want to arrive at the house at all, or at any rate not a moment earlier than necessary. So they took a slow tour.

“You seem to be moving a little slowly,” she told him. “Are you still in pain?”

“A little,” he said. “It takes me a minute to get out of bed in the morning, but once I get moving around I limber up. Late in the day I start getting tired and irritable. At least, that’s what the guys in the squadron say.”

“They would know,” she said, “they know you better than anyone. Including me.”

Newell wondered whether there might be a mild rebuke in this; his squadron buddies knew him better than his wife did. She spoke simply, without the trace of an accusation or regret.

And even if that’s true, he contemplated asking her, what do you think I could do about it?

She did not seem to be in a communicative frame of mind, he reflected. If he were to pick up this thread, it would almost certainly lead to an argument.

She doesn’t even seem to be thinking about it, he said to himself. Maybe she’s just put it all behind her, moved past it and now she’s looking forward to a new future, on her own.

The streets of Norfolk seemed wider, busier and dirtier than he remembered after a few months at sea. He recognized a few landmarks as they went past and thought absently that he might have expected to find some pleasure in the sight of them. But he found none.

He looked across at her behind the wheel, at her feet and ankles as she worked the petals. He had always been fascinated, watching her move. He could not recall a time when he had not found it a joy and a pleasure, watching her. He found himself staring at her thighs, just able to make out the shape of them under her thin, summer skirt.

She’s an attractive woman, he thought. If anything, she’s more attractive now than she was at the university, when we met. If I were moving to Atlanta, I’d like to have her with me, too…

She glanced in his direction and observed him, observing her. She looked away again, down the road. It seemed to Newell that she stepped on the accelerator a little bit, not particularly comfortable under his gaze and perhaps slightly irritated.

He looked away again. He was reeling, but he did not enjoy making her uncomfortable, nevertheless.

“Do you remember,” he finally asked, “how we used to talk?”

“Talk?” she repeated after him.

Of course she knew perfectly well what he meant. Admitting it, though, would communicate more intimacy at this moment than she was comfortable with.

“Yes,” he repeated, “we used to talk. We stayed awake for hours, just talking.”

What he did not say – but he was sure she did not need him to say it – was, As often as not, we were lying down, close together, and we had no clothes on and we let the fresh mingled perspiration of our lovemaking dry as we talked. “You don’t mean to tell me, you don’t remember our talks.”

“Yes,” she surrendered at last, “Of course I remember.”

“Well,” he asked her, “can’t we talk about this?”

“Yes,” she answered, he thought a bit hurriedly. “Of course we can talk about it.”

They rode in silence the rest of the way.