Day is done
Gone the sun
From the hill, from the dell, from the sea . . .
The sound was low and mournful and it trailed through the trees and across the wet grass, melting over the graves of the American dead. As the bugler played, the two solders reverently folded the American flag into a perfect triangle. The junior NCO clutched it with crossed arms across his chest. The team leader took two steps back and stood at rigid attention, then quickly drew his fist from his thigh and up across his chest, extending his fingers as his hand crossed his heart, then upward until his finger touched the tip of his brow. He held the salute, the last salute, for a very long time, then slowly, respectfully, almost unwillingly, lowered his hand. Stepping forward, he took the flag, turned crisply, and handed it to
Caelyn. “On behalf of a grateful nation,” he said.
Caelyn took it and placed it on her lap. The soldier then passed her the Medal of Honor, and she clutched it in her hand. The two soldiers turned together and moved to the side. The bugle faded away and the silence returned.
And with that it was over. The service was done. At least it should have been over. But none seemed willing to move, for it was almost as if there was something yet left unsaid. Every eye turned to Caelyn and Ellie. Caelyn glanced down at her daughter. Ellie looked up. Caelyn smiled encouragingly, and the little girl stood up. She moved to the casket, which gleamed even in the dim light, then turned hesitantly to her mother, who nodded again. The crowd waited in silence. It seemed even the earth held its breath.
Ellie stood for a moment, and the clouds seemed to part. The wind fell calm and the thunderclouds paused in silence overhead. Ellie took a deep breath, placed her hand on the casket, and lifted her head. “Daddy, I want to tell you something,” she said in a quivering voice. “You are my hero. I want to be just like you. But I don’t know if I’m strong enough, I don’t know if I can. But I will take care of Mommy, just like you asked me to. I will make her cakes for her birthdays, just like I promised I would. I will be her best friend. I will not leave her alone. And I will try to be strong. But I’m a little bit scared.” Her voice trailed off and she looked quickly away. “I love you, Dad. I miss you,” she said again to the skies. “I need you here, Daddy, and I don’t understand. I wish that I could. I want to believe what you said . . .”
She lowered her head in frustration and clasped her arms at her chest, holding herself as if in an embrace. No one spoke. No one moved. Time seemed to stand still, for there was a reverence in the moment that no one was willing to break. How much time passed, it was impossible to say, but the little girl, sweet and peaceful, eventually lifted her head. When she opened her eyes, her face seemed to shine.
If she had seen a vision, it was not shared with anyone.
But the heavens had been opened.
And she did understand.
* * *
That night Caelyn slipped beside Ellie in her bed. Brushing her hair away from her eyes, she held Ellie close. “It was a good day, don’t you think, baby? It was a beautiful service. I think Daddy was very proud.” Her voice was soft and accepting. No more hidden anger. She was going to be all right.
Ellie turned to look at her, her eyes glinting in the dim light.
Caelyn looked across the pillow at her. “God still has a plan for us, baby. I trust Him. I know He loves us. Things are going to be okay.”
Ellie put her arms around her mother’s neck.
“I miss him so much,” Caelyn muttered.
Ellie smiled at her. “Daddy is alive,” she said.
Caelyn pulled back. “I know he is, baby. He’s with Heavenly Father now.”
Ellie didn’t answer. She was already asleep.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Special Operations Command Center
Hurlburt Field, Florida
(Four Days Later)
The photo-reconnaissance technician stared at the imagery from the satellite. Having been in urgent contact with the National Reconnaissance Office for most of the last two days, he knew his time was short.
Now he stared at the results, his head swimming, his heart racing in his chest. Hundreds of e-mails had passed between a dozen offices, and almost as many phone calls, some of them going as high as to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Few of the other Intel officers had agreed with him. But now he had his proof.
He was right. It was a signal. And it had been there for months!
He gathered the series of photographs taken of the mountains along the Afghani border and placed them in order, beginning with the first photograph, which had been taken six months before. There were fourteen photographs in all. Taken individually, they meant nothing. But lay them atop one another and the signal was very clear.
He leaned back in his chair and took a long breath, wishing he had a stick of gum—his mouth was so dry he could hardly swallow. Then he sat forward, lifted the photographs, made sure they were in order, and picked up his telephone.
He had only a few seconds to wait until the secretary picked it up. “I have to see the boss,” he said.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the technician was at the four-
star’s desk. The white-hair commander of Special Operations was lean and grizzled and as serious as a hand grenade without a pin, his caffeine-charged personality never far from
boiling over, his temper always ready to explode. He studied the photographs for the final time. He had seen them all before.
“Okay, go through it one more time,” he demanded quickly. He felt a growing sense of dread, the same nervous urgency that had driven him since he was an ADHD kid.
If the captain was right, they had left one of their guys behind. Not only that, but he was alive and had been trying to signal them. The situation was intolerable.
If they had failed him, they would correct it very quickly. If that meant the general had to commandeer the assets and fly the mission himself, he would do it. He would stick a pair of scissors into his temple before he’d leave one of his men over there.
The captain moved forward. The general’s aides and senior officers were already standing around his desk. The captain laid the photos out and pointed as he started talking. “This is the al Kifha detention center, a prison run by Al-Qaeda—a torture center, really—where they detain heretics, anti-Muslim fanatics, traitors, Christian government leaders, and so on. You know the drill, sir.” The general did. He knew al Kifha very well. “We’ve shut it down a time or two,” the captain went on, “but all they do is move to another village, take over the local jail, and set up operations again. Interestingly, they always give it the same name. Once you’ve built a brand name for torture, I guess it’s worth holding on to.” The captain was tart and sarcastic. The general liked that. He wished all of his warriors were as hard.
“Okay,” the captain spoke quickly now, partly out of excitement, partly from knowing the general’s time was extremely precious, partly out of the building sense of urgency he felt himself. “We get shots of the prison every couple of days. Nothing much to see there. They never let their prisoners into the yard in the daytime, of course.” The captain tapped the photograph showing the wire, mud, and snow that surrounded the prison building. “The poor
saps inside al Kifha will go years without seeing any day-
light, assuming they live that long, which, of course, they don’t. The average life expectancy inside the prison is
something like two months or so. Still,” the captain pointed at the next photo now, “you see this, sir, this thin line in the snow.”
The general leaned toward the grainy black-and-white photograph. As far as he could see, there was nothing there. The prison. The brick walls. Wire and four machine-gun
towers. A no-man’s-land between the prison and the outer walls. Mud. Barren ground. A couple of trails in the dirty snow.
The captain leaned across the desk and pointed. “This line here, sir.”
The
general looked and nodded at the single line in the snow.
“It’s one foot wide and six feet long.”
“Okay,” the general said.
The captain pointed to the next photograph. “This
photograph was taken four days later. Do you see another line there?” he asked.
The general shook his head. He was getting impatient.
The captain traced the outline with his finger. A half circle in the snow.
“Keep going,” the general spouted.
The captain pointed to the next photograph. “Three days later, one of our unmanned reconnaissance drones happened to be flying over the area and snapped a couple of photos just for fun.” The captain tapped the next photograph. The general looked. “I don’t see anything.”
“That’s because there’s nothing there, sir. But look at this. The next day. Four days after the second photograph.” He tapped the second photograph with his left hand while touching the fourth one with his right, indicating another gentle curve in the snow. “The right half of a circle.” The captain looked up and smiled. “He knows the schedule of our reconnaissance satellite in the area,” he said. “Four days on, three days off, four days on. He’s leaving his markings in the prison yard to coincide with satellite passage.”
The general sat back and frowned.
The captain saw the look on his face and knew he had only a few minutes to complete his case. Pushing the photographs aside, he threw a computer-generated image on the desk before the general. “Over a period of several months, he left a series of markings in the snow. Taken by themselves, they meant nothing. But if you take them all together and overlay them on each other, the signal is very clear.”
The general looked down at the computer image.
BONO was all he read.
The general looked up, his face expectant. “Is that one of the classified identifying words?” he demanded.
“Yes, sir, it is. Lieutenant Joseph Calton. The kid who got the king.”
The general pushed his chair back and swore. Standing,
he jabbed a finger at his exec. “Get me the president,” he demanded. “And tell those lazy air force guys to fire up their jets.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Al Kifha Prison
Along the Eastern Afghanistan Border
Bono sat in the corner of the rock and brick cell, too exhausted to stand, too exhausted to even think. They hadn’t fed him in almost a week now, three days since he’d had water, and he knew, somewhere in the still-functioning part of his mind, that he was standing on the edge of life.
The end was coming fast. He was quickly sliding down the hill. His mind was a constant cloud of thoughts and memories and it was getting harder and harder to know what was going on in the present and what had gone on in the past, what was a memory or imagination, what was fake and what was real. The only thing that he was certain about was the constant thirst and hunger. And the fact that he was going to die here. And it wouldn’t take much more time.
He didn’t know what day it was, what week or what month. His cell was in constant and utter darkness. No windows. No vents. The tiny door hadn’t opened in many weeks now; all they did was push occasional scraps of food and small cups of dirty water under the two-inch crack above the floor. Though he’d lost all track of time, he knew that it was
summer from the unbearable heat that had settled on the prison, the cell walls baking until they were almost too hot to touch.
Resting his head against the wall, he figured it was nighttime, for the wall was a few degrees cooler than it was during the day.
He thought back on his capture—it must have been years before—the cutting pain through his chest and ribs, his hand exploding, his grip on the handrail slipping away, the beautiful girl—what was her name, he couldn’t remember—reaching down for his hand, tumbling through the air, falling into unconsciousness, hitting the ground, the pain exploding, his breath gushing from him, then his mind going blank again. He thought of waking sometime later, surrounded by the local Taliban. The king’s men were gone now, leaving the American in their charge. With their master captured and on his way to the United States, the Saudi soldiers wanted nothing to do with the wounded American now.
The Taliban, on the other hand, was more than willing to kill him, given the chance.
They had debated for a couple of days before deciding to move him to al Kifha. With the United States still in turmoil, they knew they had some time to make him suffer. And that was their entire purpose, to make him suffer before he died.
He thought back on the winter. Knowing it would be impossible to keep him from U.S. prying eyes—and they knew the eyes were everywhere—his guards had let him out only at night, giving him a few minutes to walk around the prison yard. Barefoot, he’d stumbled through the snow, anxious to be moving while savoring every breath of fresh air.
Back then, he was always thinking. There had to be a way to escape!
Two months into his capture, he realized his only hope.
Pacing his steps carefully, working from a master plan inside his mind, he walked a slightly different path every fourth night, pounding the new snow into a signal.
If only they saw it. If they could put it all together. If they believed that it was real . . .
Sometime late in the winter, they quit letting him out into the yard. About the same time, they cut his rations back. It was clear that someone up the chain of command had decided it was time for him to die. Tired of playing with him, they wanted him to go.
Another couple of months passed as they slowly starved him to death. For the past few weeks, he had hardly moved. He simply didn’t have the strength. Along with his body, his mind was going. He heard things. Sometimes he saw things. Things that weren’t real. Plates of food. Jugs of fresh water. New clothes. A soft bed.
But mostly he saw Caelyn. When he closed his eyes, he felt her touch. In the mornings he could smell her hair. He heard her voice as he imagined the feel of her slender fingers interlaced with his. He pictured Ellie looking at him, all of it so real. He talked to them, begging their forgiveness. Lately, they had started talking back.
Leaning against the wall, he closed his eyes and used his energy just to breathe.
Opening his eyes again, he saw her. What was Caelyn doing here?
And because his mind was tortured with such visions, he didn’t pay much attention to the sound of the helicopters that had come to set him free.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Andrews Air Force Base
Washington, D.C.
(Three Weeks Later)
They stood outside the same VIP reception building where every POW had been welcomed home since the Vietnam War. The day was hot and dry, but scattered clouds filled the sky and a cooling wind blew. A military band stood at the ready, with the press and a reception delegation sitting under a covered stand just to the right of the red carpet that extended to the exact location where the military transport was going to come to a stop. The president of the United States was among the waiting VIPs, but he was smart enough to know that this first moment was for the family, and he stayed out of their way. “Keep everyone back,” he had instructed the security teams. “I don’t want any intruders or hangers-on and certainly no press. I don’t want anyone badgering these people or getting in the way. I want to give them a few minutes of privacy. You understand?”
His security detail and advance team nodded. It made good sense to them.
Ellie was so excited she could hardly stand still. She skipped up and down the tarmac, then turned back and raced toward her mom, grabbing her by the hand. Sara stood beside Caelyn, always at her side. Over the past few months they had become the best of friends, having shared so much together, the same loss, the same fears. Sam and Azadeh waited with the others on the tarmac, but they hung back, watching Ellie run and skip and laugh.
Azadeh leaned toward Sam and whispered something in his ear, but at that moment the aircraft c
ame into view and the crowd exploded in a joyful roar of applause.
“What did you say?” Sam asked, leaning into her.
She shook her head and looked away. Sam nudged her. She pointed to the aircraft and started clapping with the others.
Sam watched her for a moment. It was so good just to look at her. So good to see her smile. But something told him that what she had said was important, and he leaned toward her again. “What was it?” he repeated.
Her face flushed with embarrassment, but her eyes were clear and bright. She started to speak, fell silent, then looked at him again. “I hope our children will be as beautiful as she is,” she said into his ear.
She turned back to watch the aircraft landing.
He stood there without moving, unable to take his eyes off of her face.
The gray C-17 dropped below a bank of clouds and lined up for the runway. The crowd stood still, a reverent hush falling over them. No one seemed to move or even breathe as the aircraft touched down, puffs of white smoke spouting from its tires. It slowed at the end of the runway, turned, and taxied quickly toward the waiting crowd.
Sara kept her eyes on Caelyn, sharing every moment of her joy. Caelyn shuddered with pure happiness and incalculable relief. Ellie stood beside her, grasping her mother’s hand so tightly her little fingers turned white. Caelyn didn’t speak. She couldn’t. She knew if she tried to talk, if she showed even a hint of her emotions, she would crumble into a pool of uncontrollable tears.
God had given her her husband back.
He was dead, but had returned.
Inside her chest, her heart was racing, thumping loudly in her ears.
“He’s home. He’s home!” It was the only thing that she could think.
It was a miracle. No, it was more than that. It was something she would never understand.
The aircraft came to a stop and immediately shut down its four engines, falling silent in front of the crowd. Nothing happened for a moment; then the crew door opened and a set of short steps extended. Ten seconds more passed in silence. Then Bono stepped into the sunlight and looked out on the crowd.
The Great and Terrible Page 169
