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  “Right. But what if she has trouble chronologically sequencing events. If she has no memory of the crash that killed her crew, maybe she only remembers they’re in danger.”

  “Okay, let’s talk to Durga. Maybe he’ll ease up on the Seroquel, and we’ll see what develops. They dispense that stuff like aspirin at Landstuhl and Reed just to keep patients quiet. And most people on a max dose of Seroquel couldn’t muster the resolve to hold a pencil, much less scribble nonstop notes to themselves,” Halme says.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Located twelve miles northeast of Washington, D.C. on Interstate 270, the Best Western Hotel & Suites in Rockville, Maryland, is hosting a workshop titled, The Challenge of Regulating Private Military Security Companies. As the audience adjourns for the noon break, Roger Torres sorts through the crowd of think-tank wonks and observers from DOD and State as they leave the auditorium and spots his contact. As a procurement analyst at DOD, Cate Lenon has a secret clearance and every reason to be seen chatting with men like Roger, who run global private security companies. The part of her job where she siphons off mercenaries into covert operations is less well known.

  Privately Roger finds the term “handler” distasteful. Publically, he puts on a disarming smile.

  “So you think these guys will put us out of business, Roger?” she asks, tilting her gaze down to meet his brown eyes. Roger finds her attractive in a competent, ambitious, top-heavy way. Elegantly below medium height, he is drawn to tall North American women. This one styles her hair cropped short like a Roman general and wears perfume that smells like refrigerated currency. Tilda Swinton, he reflects, playing at Amazon ice maiden.

  “Eggheads,” Roger eyes the foot traffic in the hall and lets his fingers trickle in a languid gesture. Then he treats Cate to a feline smile. “Someone should make an omelet.”

  “Concur.” She hefts the manila portfolio under her arm and disengages the tie clasp. “I got more on your guy. My investigator says he’s hard to get a line on . . .”

  Roger smiles. “Which is why I need him in my organization.”

  “You want it here?”

  “A crowded hall is okay for flirtations. Maybe not so good for passing papers. Downstairs.” Roger’s eyes drift toward the nearest stairway. “My man will direct you.”

  Two minutes later, on the lower level, Cate is ushered into an empty meeting room by an impeccably dressed, prematurely balding man with a heavy four o’clock shadow on his dour cheeks and a thick-veined neck that matches the circumference of his head.

  “Not one of your amigos,” she says, wrinkling her nose as she admires the bodyguard’s light-footed retreat. “That man looks like an erection wearing a tie . . .”

  “Close. Cawker is Australian,” Roger says.

  After closing the door Cate cocks her head as she hands over the slim portfolio. “I love doing business with you, Roger. Hand-deliveries instead of email. Sneaking around like this feels like I’m hooking up with a trick.”

  “I’m flattered.” Roger’s smile reveals dazzling but slightly diminutive teeth. Inside he curdles at the relative roles implied in her crude comment. Then more soberly he says, “You were discreet?”

  She straightens up, all business. “I put a friend at the Pentagon on it. There’s a sidebar. Someone in CID was looking for him, sort of out of channels. You want me to run that down too?”

  Roger weighs the portfolio in his hand. “I’ll get back to you on that. And I owe you,” he says.

  “We’re always interested in trading material on your old buddies down south. Like the Sinaloa cartel’s infiltration of the Mexican government and military. More names, safe houses, and links to gangs in the States would be nice.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Possibly we could discuss it over dinner,” Roger says, fluttering his somewhat dainty hand in a light movement as if he’s just caught a passing butterfly.

  “Call me.” She smiles tightly. “Once you have the report.”

  He returns the smile, wondering if she knows the shade of coffee lipstick she chose this morning is the exact color of dried blood.

  “Now there’s an American cow of a thing,” Cawker says, watching the analyst stalk down the hall on two-inch heels.

  “North American cow,” Roger corrects him as he opens the portfolio and removes a thin sheaf of printouts.

  “So?” Cawker prompts.

  “It’s thin. Mostly the bio stuff we already forwarded to Rivard.”

  “No phone, email, address?”

  “The guy’s an ex–Special Activities asset; he won’t leave fingerprints.”

  Cawker points to paragraph. “What’s this about CID?”

  “Old stuff, small beer.” Roger is dismissive. Then he brightens. “Okay, here’s something new. His last known contact with anybody we can reach out and touch is a special agent Robert Appert. Davis left a message on Appert’s cell eight days ago. No return number; he called from a pay phone. They worked together in Iraq on an antifraud task force. Currently Appert’s assigned to the counterterror section at Quantico.” Roger looks up. “We have friends in the Bureau . . .”

  “Absolutely, and we can put our electronic boys on this Appert . . .”

  Roger nods. “We track his movements, his phone, his emails. If we get lucky, he and Davis will cross paths.” He slaps the printouts against his palm. “That’s our play.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “Okay, Jesse, here’s the thing,” Tony explains. “The last five days we’ve reduced your meds. So now you’re going to a preliminary psych examination. You ready?”

  Jesse nods. After the reduction, the lead body suit has lightened from a hundred pounds of extra effort to around fifty.

  Tony escorts her to the elevator and down two floors to an office suite. Shuffling in baggy blue hospital trousers and a matching gown and slippers, she makes out the ward sign: Psychology. Right. Now I’m nuts.

  A panel of photographs hangs on the reception-area wall, listing the psychology staff. Right off she spots the clotheshorse brunette: Janet George. An intern. Then Tony leads her into an office with a window that looks out over the hospital parking lot. She sees leaves on trees. People walking in shorts. Tony tells her to sit down and exits the office as the brunette walks in and takes a seat behind the desk.

  ”Captain Kraig, my name’s Janet George, I’m a psychologist, and I’ll be doing your evaluation . . .”

  Don’t need one. Even with the less oppressive narcotic riptide in her head, Jesse’s face contorts with the effort to construct words that come out in a slur: “Doekneeun.”

  Janet watches Jesse cross her knees and fold her arms tightly across her chest. Nothing delusional there; it’s typical defiant behavior for a war fighter with diminished capacity, resentful of being probed by a mental-health professional who’s never had desert sand in her shorts. Plus, one look at the set of her jaw tells Janet that this one comes with all the type-hA Hang-ups—an officer and a pilot, to boot.

  “First we need to gauge how much of what I’m saying you comprehend.”

  Jesse nods.

  “So hold up a finger, one through five, to signal how well you understand . . .”

  Instant five fingers.

  “Now use the fingers to tell me how well you think you can express yourself.”

  Jesse holds up one finger.

  “We’ve cut back on your medication. Have you noticed a difference?”

  Another nod.

  Janet leans back and smiles. “You don’t particularly like being here with me, do you, Captain?” she asks. “You don’t have to answer. It’s a rhetorical question.”

  With difficulty, Jesse pronounces: “Donlikheer.” Don’t like it here. Frustrated, she taps the desk, then twirls her finger to take in the office walls.

  “Sure, okay,” Janet says. “It’s a new place, new person. Is this the first time you’ve talked to a psychologist?”

  Jesse studies her for a moment, then points at the pen on th
e desk next to a sheaf of forms. Janet nods assent. Jesse picks up the pen and slowly prints on the edge of the form in reasonably legible uppercase letters: NOT PSYCHOLOGIST. INTERN.

  “Ouch. Touché,” Janet grins. “So you’ve been practicing writing?”

  Jesse nods.

  Janet pushes a sheet of paper and a pen across the desk. “This is an informed-consent form. Can you sign it?”

  Slowly, laboriously, Jesse writes her name in scrawled penmanship on the checked blank.

  “Okay. Now do you feel up to taking this test?” Janet opens a folder that contains a pamphlet thick with numbered questions and a scoring sheet.

  Jesse scans the title: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory—2.

  “There’s 572 true/false questions. You handle that?” Janet asks.

  Again, Jesse nods.

  A few minutes later she’s seated at a cubicle in the testing room down the hall. She peruses the list of questions. I would enjoy doing the work of a florist. True or False.

  Oh, boy. She picks up the pencil.

  After Jesse leaves the office, Janet reviews her observations. Jesse’s visual orientation is excellent—she checks the time on the wall clock, she looks out the window and notes the weather. Physical therapy gives her high marks; her motor skills are improving. But when she tries to speak, Janet gets the impression she’s watching someone trying to untie a complex knot.

  This behavior plunks the suspicious chord. TBIs can go on tangents—everything from Tourette’s-like piss-offs to repetitive gibberish to delusional stories. Janet keeps thinking, This kid is trying to communicate, and something’s holding her back.

  ***

  Janet watches Jesse enter her office ten days into the taper program and take a seat. She notes that her gait has improved and is almost normal. Gross and fine motor functions appear to be improving. She is neatly attired in jeans and a blouse, but in the course of exchanging greetings, it’s clear that verbal presentation is still moderately inhibited. So Janet starts slowly to assess Jesse’s alertness and orientation in person, place, time, and location.

  “Jesse, do you know where you are?” Janet asks.

  “Minn-ee-a-plus, VA hospital. Was before Walter Reed. Germiny frum ther. Went down, May 12th Eyerak.” Jesse breaks sweat from the effort. She looks around, then asks, “Wait to see my crew?”

  Softly but firmly Janet explains, “Your crew’s dead; they didn’t make it out of the crash.”

  “Know that!” Jesse’s voice accelerates, agitated, barely in control. “Have to explain . . .”

  “Who’s Marge, Jesse?”

  “Cruz-hief.” Jesse gnaws her lower lip and struggles out a complete sentence “Don’ know much, do you?”

  “Only what you tell me.”

  “Marge knee me . . .” Jesse grimaces and presses her fingers to her temples, then she drops her hands, pitches forward with her fists balled, combative.

  Janet waits for Jesse to compose herself then moves the conversation to what she thinks might be quieter ground. “So why do you draw stars on everything, like on the cover of your notebook?”

  “Stars . . .” Jesse shakes her head violently and searches for a way to say it. “. . . make me get stuck. Can’t butin blou.”

  “Possibly what you call getting ‘stuck’ is a momentary paralysis, related to what we call ‘dissociative amnesia.’ It can occur when you get too close to the original stressor. Hopefully it passes quickly.”

  Jesse’s forehead clamps in concentration. Then she shakes her head. “Makit wurse.”

  Seeing the level of Jesse’s agitation, Janet decides to end the session.

  After Tony takes Jesse back up to four, Janet sits for several minutes with her fingers steepled to her lips. Then she picks up her desk phone and dials Dr. Durga Prasad.

  “Durga, Janet. Would you be willing to convene a meeting with all the attending docs to review Captain Kraig’s recent progress?”

  “She has brightened up considerably. What are you angling for here, Janet?”

  “I want to float the idea we take her completely off the Seroquel.”

  “Hmmmm . . .”

  “Think about it; I’ll be down later to talk.” A light on Janet’s phone blinks. “I have to take a call, see you in a while.”

  The call is from the nurse’s desk on 4J.

  “You know she can’t receive non-family visitors,” Janet says. Then she pauses, listening. “Who?” Then, after she mulls it for a few seconds, she says, “You know what . . .”

  ***

  After Tony brings her back to the ward, he allows her to walk, alone, to her room. A moment later Jesse steps into a hole in the day where she levitates in limbo as folks move past her at normal speed.

  Close to the original stressor, Janet said.

  Marge needs me.

  Your crew is dead.

  Because of me.

  With great effort she forces her eyes down to the notebook she carries in her hand and stares at the stars scribbled on the cover.

  Stars. Marge. Stuck.

  When she gets stuck she can’t move.

  Stuck is the opposite of frozen. It’s this hot, buried sensation—near suffocation. Her breathing becomes shallow and rapid. Her chest constricts. She can’t move her hands or feet. There’s this ugly taste—gritty, coppery liquid dripping in her throat. Like her mouth is stuffed with warm, slippery dirt.

  Getting stuck can happen any time—laying in bed, raising a forkful of scrambled eggs. It’s the thing she fears most that lurks in the clean, brightly lighted rooms and corridors.

  “Hey, Jess, how’s it going?” A soft voice. Tony’s flat, homely, smiling face appears close to hers.

  Her lips work soundlessly; no words come, not even sounds.

  “I’m going to take your arm now,” he says gently, “and just walk you back to your room so you can sit down.”

  So she winds up sitting on her bed while Tony and the charge nurse converse quietly just outside the doorway. Then Tony walks in, sits down next to her, and says, “Something just came up. So we’re going to bend the rules a bit. Usually we only admit immediate family, but Janet is going to make an exception for this guy. You feel strong enough to see a visitor?”

  “Who?” she manages, uncertain. Then Tony inclines his head toward the door where the charge nurse has been replaced by—sonofabitch—that’s Sam Dillon standing next to Janet George. Talk about clamping freakin’ jumper cables on her heart.

  “We good?” Tony asks.

  “Good.” Jesse almost gasps because, seeing Sam, she holds her breath and now expels it in a long burst. With more energy than she’s felt in months, she pitches up off the bed. Ignoring the measured eye contact between Tony and Janet, Jesse takes two quick steps and wraps her arms around the old sergeant.

  Goddamned Sam. Whalebone, tobacco, piano wire, and mud in your eye. His weathered face is creased in a smile. He wears jeans, a loud Hawaiian shirt, Western boots and a ridiculous yellow cap with a plastic fish on the peak and Devil’s Lake Bass Tourney printed across the bill.

  She steps back, pokes his chest, and struggles, “You, ah . . .”

  “Yeah. Out of uniform. They didn’t go for the waiver. I’m all the way civilian now.”

  Janet says, “We’ll leave you two to catch up. The visitors lounge is probably empty.” Quietly, Tony and Janet withdraw down the hall.

  “How?” Jesse blurts.

  “Got a standby hop into the Cities and thought I’d just give it a try over the transom. I know you been on lockdown when it comes to calls and email except family. The liason office here briefed the unit,” Sam says easily, showing no reaction to the fresh scars and fading bruising on her face or to her speech difficulty.

  Jesse lowers her eyes, fighting off a wave of humiliation at being seen like this. Recovering, she darts into the room and retrieves her notebook, takes out her pen, and scrawls, controlled access. Then she points at her head and makes a circular motion. Game grin. />
  “Right, well, they cut me some slack, I guess. The nurse routed my call to your shrink, who told me to come on up, so here I am.” He looks up and down the ward. “So where’s this visitors room? They got coffee?”

  Very un-officer-like, Jesse hugs Sam’s ropey arm with both of hers and walks him to the visitors room, which, like Janet said, is unoccupied. After Sam pours two cups from the coffee maker on the side counter, they sit at a table.

  “Let’s skip the flowers and get-well cards. So, no bullshit, Skipper; tell me where you’re at.” Sam says.

  Jesse takes a breath, exhales, then points to her mouth and holds up one finger and shakes her head. Then she raises the finger to her ear and opens her hand. Five fingers.

  “Got trouble with the talking part but you comprehend just fine, huh?” Sam asks.

  Jesse gives him a thumbs-up sign. Then she opens her notebook to a blank page and writes, Aphasia. Amnesia. Could be residual concussion or a problem with the meds. Not psychotic! Underlined.

  Sam nods. “The shrink gave me the short course; she thinks you’re misdiagnosed and overmedicated. She’s working on that.”

  Jesse nods in agreement.

  “Something you should know, main reason I’m here.” Sam turns serious.

  Jesse raises her hands, palms up.

  “The shrink says you might be worried you contributed to the crash that killed your crew . . .”

  Jesse winces and bites her lip. Likewow, that’s in my face.

  “So here’s the thing. Keith Colbert saw you ride the stick in. You brought that airframe down in a controlled crash. Got that? You did your job. Clear?”

  Jesse nods slowly.

  “Other thing you gotta know is that Marge and Toby weren’t killed in the crash.”

  Jesse blinks several times as a pressure ridge expands behind her forehead that feels like mushrooming thunderheads charged with electricity. Clear. What a strange sound, what a strange word. Clear.

  Then Sam puts her on alert. First his eyes scan the empty room, as if reassuring himself they are in fact alone; then he leans in and lowers his voice. “Something stinks about the shootdown, Skipper.”