by Josh Lanyon
This imaginary Stephen was occasionally tearful and occasionally angry, but he was always forgiving. Where the hell was that bloke? Why couldn’t he have a word with the real Stephen?
The truth was as the weeks—months—years had passed I’d exchanged the real Stephen for this dream Stephen who would always be patiently waiting for me to pull myself together and come home. The real Stephen was an intelligent, strong, sensitive man who had got tired waiting…and had found someone else. That was the simple truth, and I needed to face it. Accept it. And move on myself.
I knew it. I believed it. And yet I couldn’t make myself do it.
Instead I was hanging around like some mournful ghost of love lost—one of those confused old shades who didn’t yet realize he was dead.
I smothered a yawn, wondering how Stephen’s meeting was going and if he would be home before I fell asleep. I usually healed quickly; even taking jet lag into consideration, my current need for so much sleep felt odd. Granted, it was a long time since I’d felt safe enough to really sleep. Maybe I was making up for lost time.
Sometime after eleven I heard Stephen’s SUV in the drive. Buck came flying across the grass and up the porch steps. He stood at the porch door and whined. He looked back at me beseechingly, and I said, “He’ll come. Give him a minute.”
The dog and I listened to the faint vibration of the front door opening and closing—Stephen being quiet, no doubt thinking that I was tucked up in bed upstairs sleeping the deep sleep of the unjust. He moved quietly through the house, and then walked into the kitchen.
Quivering with eagerness, Buck whined at him through the screen.
You and me both, mate, I thought wryly.
“Hey, boy,” Stephen said, pushing wide the screen. Buck went past him into the kitchen. Stephen stood there, his eyes searching the darkness and finding me on the old swing.
“Mark?”
“Right here.”
He stepped out onto the porch, letting the door swing shut behind him, Buck hurtling back out before the door closed all the way. To my surprise, Stephen crossed to the swing and sat down beside me.
“Everything okay?”
“I just stepped out for a breath of fresh air.”
I could feel him searching my face in the gloom. “Makes a change from Afghanistan, I guess.”
I gave a short laugh.
He had an apple. He bit into it, chewed. The scent of apple mingled with the fragrance of the night flowers.
He handed the apple to me, and I took a bite, the taste sweet and tart on my tongue. I handed the apple back, and his fingers brushed mine, warm and familiar.
For a time we sat there watching the moonlight on the lake, listening to the lap of water. I thought of asking him how his meeting went, but it was peaceful like this and I had the illogical feeling that we were saying more in the silence than we usually managed in words—although that was probably wishful thinking.
He stirred at last, tossed the apple core over the railing into the flowerbed, and said, “You should be in bed.”
“I do agree.”
“Sleeping,” he added.
“I sleep better when you’re with me.”
Nothing.
I said lightly, “I suppose you wouldn’t…?”
“No. I wouldn’t.” Was that regret I heard in his voice?
I sighed. “Oh well. I suppose I can sleep when I’m dead.”
Apparently unmoved by thoughts of my mortality, he said, “The life you lead, that probably won’t be long.”
I wished I could read his expression. He was just a pale blur in the shadows. I said carefully, “What if I told you I don’t want to lead that life anymore.”
After a pause, he said, “You told me that once before, remember? It turned out you were mistaken.”
“Maybe I was just…afraid.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re afraid of much,” he said.
“You’d be surprised.”
“I would. Yes.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, but I wasn’t likely to have more than one shot at this. I needed to take it. I said, “It’s all I know.” It was easier like this, in the darkness with Stephen just a shapeless silence on the gently creaking swing. “I’ve been in this game since the Old Man recruited me right out of university.” I’d grown up in the service. Grown old in some ways.
“Game,” he said without inflexion.
I turned my head to stare at his silhouette. “It was a game at first. I was nineteen. Everything’s a game at nineteen. I thought it would be adventurous. Romantic. I thought it would be better than teaching history or working as a translator. The pay was certainly better.”
“I know,” he said. “We talked about that quite a bit as I recall.” He added coolly, with that southern gentleman’s drawl, “No arguing there’s damn all excitement living with a country doctor.”
“That’s not why I went back, Stephen. It wasn’t because I craved the excitement.”
“No? What was it about? You needed the money?”
“It was my job.” I didn’t quite know what else to say. I knew how pathetic an excuse that was. “I couldn’t just…quit. Not without…” Saying good-bye? Giving notice? I said, “I owed him that much.”
“You owed him? Do you know what’s weird? You never say his name. Never. It’s always “the Old Man” like he’s a character in a Dickens novel. Or you are.”
“His name is John Holohan.” No one ever referred to him as anything but the Old Man except perhaps in the Halls of Power. Granted, we were the agency everyone pretended didn’t exist, so perhaps there too he went unnamed.
Stephen said, “Then you do know it. I used to wonder. I used to wonder what the hell you called him in bed.”
I went very still. “That was years ago,” I said finally.
“How many? Because we were years ago too.”
“It was over long before I met you. Seven years ago.”
He gave a short laugh.
“I’m not lying.”
“I’d have to take your word for it.”
I’m not sure why that hurt so much. We were both aware that I lied for a living. I guess what stung was the implication that I also lied for recreation. I took my lying rather more seriously than that.
When the time for me to answer had come and gone, Stephen said, “Do you remember how we met?”
“Of course.”
I’d accompanied the Old Man to Langley to take part in a weeklong counterterrorism and integrated intelligence strategy training session for the CIA and several other intelligence agencies. I’d met Stephen at a State Department dinner. His father was a retired senator and Stephen, who had worked for a time at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, had accompanied him. I’d first spotted him across a particularly ugly centerpiece—and I thought he was beautiful in a sophisticated Cary Grant kind of way. He wore a tuxedo like it was meant to be worn, handsome and suave as he sat there listening to the speeches with that faint cynical smile. Feeling my gaze, he’d looked my way. After a long moment he smiled at me through the bonfire of candles and the forest of miniature American and British flags.
Stephen said patiently, “No, I mean, do you remember why you were there acting as liaison instead of a more senior officer?”
To some extent because I was one of the Old Man’s favorites and that had been a plum assignment, but what I answered was, “I was recovering from a shooting.”
“Right.”
I started to get angry despite my best intentions. “I don’t know what your point is, Stephen. People get hurt in my business. That wasn’t why I wanted to leave the service—because I was afraid.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“What the hell are you saying, then? Look,” I said, “I don’t run out on my obligations.”
“No?” He had me there. I heard the bitter satisfaction in his voice. “Were you planning on coming home this year? Next year?”
I op
ened my mouth but the words didn’t come in time. “I —”
“That’s what I thought.” He rose and went into the house, letting the screen door whack shut behind him.
Chapter Five
I found him in the study putting the copy of the Rubaiyat back on its shelf.
“Yes,” I said. “I was coming back.”
Stephen looked at me appraisingly. “Well, you think you were, so I guess that’s something.”
“I did come back,” I said. “I’m here. Why doesn’t that count for anything with you?”
He shook his head like it was too tiring to try and explain.
“It was all—it is all—I’m trained to do.” I said again, needing him to understand, “It’s all I know.”
“I realize that,” he said.
Yes. He realized that. We’d talked about all this. Talked about everything. Stephen knew more about me than anyone—up to and including the agency I worked for.
“It’s what you’re trained for, and you’re very good at it. And, assuming you don’t get your head blown off, you’ll probably have a long and illustrious career. The impression I received in the one real conversation I ever had with the man, was that Holohan plans on eventually grooming you for his position. Assuming you survive that long.”
The thought had quite literally never occurred to me. I was struck silent.
He must have seen the surprise on my face, because he said, “Why do you think he pulled out all the stops getting you to come back?’
“I’m valuable to him.”
“Yes, you are. Not only are you one of his top operatives, you’re one of the only people in the world he trusts. He wasn’t about to let you go without a fight.” He shrugged. “And he won.”
“No, he didn’t,” I said. “I’ve left the agency.”
He was closing the glass-fronted bookshelf, but that got his attention. “What are you talking about?”
I hadn’t intended to tell him that, but there was no turning back now. “Except…I didn’t do it the way we—I’d—originally planned. I just…walked away. I’m technically AWOL, I suppose.”
“You’re what?”
“Absent Without Leave.”
“I know what it means!”
“I wanted to see you. I…needed to see you.”
He didn’t look pleased or flattered, he looked stone-faced. “What exactly did you do?”
“After I was debriefed, after this…last time, I was supposed to report to hospital for rest and ob—treatment.”
His eyes flickered.
“Instead I…I…just kept going.” Clutching my Glock and my copy of Little Dorrit. Maybe locking me up wasn’t such a bad idea.
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” Definitely stone-faced. Granite.
“I was waiting for the right moment.”
His brows drew together in a silver line. Finally he said, “What will happen to you?”
”I…Honestly? I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” He was angry again. Nothing used to ruffle him, now he was angry all the time. With me. “Are they going to come after you?”
“You mean like in the films? Or a le Carré novel? Because I know too much?” I was smiling because I thought that just maybe he did care a little. He didn’t want to, he had convinced himself that he didn’t, but on some level he still had feelings for me. Of course being Stephen he’d probably be concerned for a stranger in my position too. “I’m a field agent. I know next to nothing useful. Not in the larger scheme of things.”
He made an impatient gesture. We both knew that wasn’t how it worked.
“I suppose I’ll go on the dole with the other ex-spies.”
“Christ Almighty. I don’t see anything funny about this!”
It occurred to me suddenly what might really be worrying him. I said, “There won’t be any trouble, Stephen. I promise you. I’ll leave if things look like getting awkward.”
“I’m not worried about the social scandal for God’s sake.” He looked like he wanted to say something else but whatever it was, he stopped himself. “I’ve still got political connections. I can make a few phone calls if necessary.”
On my behalf or his own? I wasn’t sure. I said, “I don’t think it’s necessary.”
He didn’t have an answer.
“Anyway,” I said turning to leave the room—because knowing when to walk away is crucial in successful negotiation, “I wanted you to know. I was always coming back. I did come back.”
I hoped he’d call to me, but he didn’t. I left him staring after me and went upstairs.
* * * * *
Someone was in the house.
I opened my eyes staring into the darkness.
The dreams receded to a quiet distance but the conviction remained. Someone was in the house.
Rolling out of bed, I reached for the Glock and eased the magazine into the frame. I was across the floor in two steps, back pressed to the wall next to the door. I listened, took a quick glance around the door frame, and moved into the hall, taking shelter behind the antique steamer trunk along the wall. The door to Stephen’s room was closed.
Good. I wanted him well out of the action. Safe.
I listened. Someone was moving downstairs—someone was going through papers. I could hear the faint scrape and rustle…
Slowly, softly, I pulled the slide back on the Glock, chambering a bullet. I rose from my crouch behind the trunk and moved down the hallway. As I soft-footed toward the head of the stairs, a rug rose up out of the darkness at my feet—a rug that turned out to be twenty-four inches tall, furry, warm and alive. I tripped and went sprawling, my finger instinctively tightened on the Glock’s trigger and I heard the oval mirror on the first landing shatter as a shot blasted through the night.
Buck began to bark. Stephen’s door flew open and the landing light came on as I was pulling myself to my feet with the help of the banister railing.
“Mark? Jesus Christ! What the hell is happening now?” He strode down the hallway toward me—barefoot, navy pajama bottoms, unarmed—shocked eyes taking in the shattered glass, the barking dog, and me.
“I think there’s someone in the house.” I started hobbling down the staircase, and nearly fell over Buck again as he charged ahead of me.
That kind of thing simply didn’t occur in the field. Frankly, nothing like this had occurred to me in a decade worth of field work. I caught myself from tumbling headlong. Stephen grabbed my other arm.
“What are you trying to do? Where do you think you’re going?”
I yanked away and, for an incredible third time, nearly fell over the bloody damned dog galloping back up the stairs. The only thing that saved me from pitching forward that time was Stephen’s hasty grab for my shoulder.
And all at once the adrenaline drained away, leaving me weaving slightly with bewilderment and fatigue. The dog would not be racing up and down the staircase if someone was actually in the house. Despite Buck’s poor taste in liking me, he actually was a pretty good watchdog, and belatedly it dawned on me that he would not have slept through a break-in that was loud enough to wake me.
“I-I…”
Steven was staring at me like he suspected I might detonate. He still had my shoulder in that hard, restraining hold. All at once my various aches and pains—and a few new ones—came rushing back.
“Sit down for a second,” he ordered, and I did, folding up on the stairs, resting my arms on my knees and my head on my arms. Stephen loosened the Glock from my hand, and I didn’t resist.
Was I going insane? What the fuck was the matter with me?
The dog’s breath was hot on my arms. He snuffled my hair.
“Get away, Buck.”
Stephen rested his hand on the back of my neck. I jumped, then relaxed as he gently kneaded my knotted muscles.
“I thought someone was in the house,” I said, muffled.
“Yes, I…er…gathered that.” There was no anger in his
voice now.
“I could hear them going through your papers…”
We were both silent, and into the silence came the scrape of fluttering papers. I raised my head, and Stephen said—a little guiltily—“I probably left the fans on downstairs. I do that sometimes. It’s moving the newspaper around.”
I nodded, pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. He continued to stroke my neck and shoulders.
“Sorry about the mirror.”
He actually sounded amused as he said, “I never liked it anyway. I thought it emphasized the bags under my eyes.”
Neither of us said anything for a time.
“What do you think is the matter with me?” I didn’t dare take my hands down, didn’t dare look at him.
“I think you’re suffering from nervous exhaustion. Maybe traumatic stress,” he replied calmly. “What do you think is wrong with you?”
I thought that over. Could it be something that simple?
“I’m afraid I’m one of those people who can’t adjust to…civilian life.”
“Do you really want to?”
I nodded.
He sounded indulgent, like he was humoring me. “Yeah? What would you like to do with the rest of your life?”
I managed to joke, “Besides spend it with you?” I risked a look at him.
He actually smiled back. “Besides that.”
“I don’t know. Write a big, bestselling roman à clef based on my brilliant career.”
He was quiet for a moment. “You talked about teaching. Before.”
Before. Two years before when we had been planning to build a life together.
“I’d like to teach, yeah.”
“Why don’t you think about how you could make that happen?” His hand stroked down my spine and I shivered.
If I had never met the Old Man, if I hadn’t allowed myself to be lured away from the dull safety of academia by the promise of adventure and romance like a right prat in the Oxford Book of Adventure Stories I’d have followed in my great-uncle’s footsteps with a fellowship at some quiet little university. I wouldn’t have been shot or stabbed. I wouldn’t have watched a woman immolate herself in a market square or seen children blown to pieces by a car bomb.
