by David Rich
“How long did that last?”
“About a week. But I could never believe anyone’s tears, not even my own. I felt lousy, but it wasn’t about the woman. I felt lousy because I didn’t feel lousy about the woman. I was relieved it was over. Love was a burden I did not like to bear. That was not easy to face. But once I admitted that I disliked being in love, I was elated and left town immediately with all the money.”
“Who did she catch you with?”
“She didn’t catch me with anyone. Her sister confessed. Unsolicited. More of a boast than a confession.”
“Your story does not help me. There’s no correlation with my situation. A woman caught you cheating; a sniper killed two men and wounded another on my watch. Not the same thing.”
Even in death, Dan did not argue or explain, though I would have welcomed either. “Okay,” he said.
I knew what I had to do and did not want any orders getting in my way, so I ignored Major Hensel’s calls, but I left the battery in the phone. When he knew where I was, he would know what I was doing. Dan’s story was like a thorn in my shoe: The irritation lingered. I had to let go of the idea of Dan dispensing wisdom. Dan did not dispense, not anything of value. Dan led you toward the truth and stood there watching you find ways to ignore it, twist it, disguise it. That was his thrill in life. As a shadow he was the same, only more so, though I suspected the thrill was gone.
The humiliating possibilities outlined in Dan’s story slouched in front of me like criminal candidates in a police lineup: relief, excitement, delight, elation. Whichever I chose incriminated me. But even if I put aside the guilt and ache of losing my man, I could not place any one of those snickering partners with me at the scene. I longed for change, longed to be released from the drudgery of interviews and paperwork. But longing for change does not cause change.
The plane felt like a cage. Behind me, a young boy started to cry in a throbbing rhythm that matched the drone of the engines. The woman in the aisle seat woke herself with a snoring snort. She wiped drool from the side of her mouth and looked past me at the dull black outside the window. She closed her eyes again and her head tilted back sharply, as if she had been hit. Below, a cluster of lights looked like the marking of a drop zone. The exit row was just three in front of me.
All I had to do was admit that I was relieved and I would not mind whatever condemnation came along with it. I would be free. That temptation, posing as my shadowed reflection, winked at me in the window, tempted me to open it up. But I did not want to follow Dan’s lead. I never did. Love was a burden he did not want to bear, as was the truth. Dan was a ghost and had been a ghost for many years before he died. I was not ready to become a ghost. I was not ready to open the window and get sucked out.
I was released, not relieved. Released from the routine and administration that my first job with SHADE had devolved into. Released from the lies and paperwork and permits required to retrieve the dead. The bundled emotions were easier to carry than any single one of them would have been.
The list of graves was wrong. I was certain we had followed the right path to obtain it, but the list was wrong, and hoping the next graves would have millions inside them would mark me as an arrogant, ignorant mark. I closed my eyes and rewalked the steps that led to the list, trying to understand where I went wrong.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVID RICH has sold screenplays to most of the major studios and to many production companies in the United States and Europe. He wrote the feature film Renegades, starring Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips. Forsaking Los Angeles for small-town Connecticut, David turned his attention to fiction. Caravan of Thieves is the result.
