"But here I am, in spite of what anyone may think of me. One of the most trusted therapists when it comes to handling cases involving FBI agents. Why do you think that is?"
He is looking at me again, waiting. I know this is leading up to something. Dr. Hillstead never rambles. So I think about it.
"If I had to guess, I'd guess that it's because you're good. Good always counts more than looks good, in my line of work."
That slight smile again.
"That's right. I get results. That's not something I parade around, and I don't pat myself on the back about it before I go to bed every night. But it's true."
Said in the simple, nonarrogant tones of any accomplished professional. I understand this. It isn't about modesty. In a tactical situation, when you ask someone if they are good with a gun, you want them to be honest. If they suck, you want to know, and they want you to know, because a bullet will kill a liar as quick as an honest man. You have to know the truth about strengths and weaknesses when the rubber meets the road. I nod, and he continues.
"That's what matters in any military organization. Can you get results. Do you think it's odd that I think of the FBI as a military organization?"
"No. It's a war."
"Do you know what the primary problem of any military organization is, always?"
I'm getting bored, restless. "Nope."
He gives me a disapproving look. "Think about it before you answer, Smoky. Please don't blow me off."
Chastised, I comply. I speak slowly when I reply. "My guess would be . . . personnel."
He points a finger at me. "Bingo. Now--why?"
The answer leaps into my mind, the way answers sometimes did when I was on a case, when I was really thinking. "Because of what we see."
"Uh-huh. That's part of it. I call it 'see, do, lose.' What you see, what you do, and what you lose. It's a triumvirate." He counts them off on his fingers. "In law enforcement you see the worst things a human being is capable of. You do things no human should have to do, from handling rotting corpses to, in some cases, killing another person. You lose things, whether it's something intangible, like innocence and optimism, or something real, such as a partner or . . . family."
He gives me a look I can't read. "That's where I come in. I'm here because of this problem. And it's also this problem that prevents me from being able to do my job the way it should be done."
Now I am puzzled as well as interested. I look at him, a signal to continue, and he sighs. It's a sigh that seems to contain its own "see, do, lose," and I wonder about the other people who sit across from this desk, in this chair. The other miseries he listens to, takes home with him when he leaves.
I try to picture this, looking at him. Dr. Hillstead, sitting at home. I know the basics; I had checked him out in a cursory fashion. Never married, lives in a two-story, five-bedroom house in Pasadena. Drives an Audi sports sedan--the doc likes a little speed under him, a hint at some part of his personality. But these are all flat facts. Nothing to really tell you what happens when he walks in the front door of his home and closes it behind him. Is he a microwave dinner kind of bachelor? Or does he cook steak, sipping red wine alone at an immaculate dining table while Vivaldi plays in the background? Hey, maybe he comes home, slips on a pair of high heels and nothing else, and does the housework, hairy legs and all.
I warm to this thought, a little secret humor. I'll take my laughs where I can get them these days. I make myself focus again on what he's saying to me.
"In a normal world, someone who's gone through what you've gone through would never go back, Smoky. If you were the average person in the average profession, you'd stay away from guns, and killers, and dead people, forever. Instead, my job is to see if I can help you be ready to return to that. This is what is expected of me. To take wounded psyches and send them back into the war. Melodramatic, maybe, but true."
Now he leans forward, and I feel that we are getting to the end of it, to whatever point he's leading toward.
"Do you know why I'm willing to work toward that? When I know I may be sending someone back into the thing that harmed them in the first place?" He pauses. "Because that is what ninety-nine percent of my patients want."
He pinches the bridge of his nose again, shaking his head.
"The men and women I see, all mentally shot up, want to be fixed so they can go back to the battle. And the truth is, whatever it is that makes you people tick--most of the time, going back is exactly what you need. Do you know what happens to most of those who don't?
Sometimes they turn out okay. A lot of the time they turn into drunks. And every now and then, they kill themselves."
He looks at me as he says this last part, and I'm momentarily paranoid, wondering if he can read my mind. I have no idea where this is going. It's making me feel off balance, a little bit wobbly, and a whole lot uncomfortable. All of which annoys me. My response to being uncomfortable is all Irish, from my mother's side--I get pissed off and blame the other person for it.
He reaches over to the left side of his desk, picks up a thick file folder I hadn't noticed before, puts it in front of him, and flips it open. I squint and am surprised to see that it is my name on the tab. "This is your personnel file, Smoky. I've had it for some time, and I've read it through more than once." He flips over the pages, summarizing out loud. "Smoky Barrett, born 1968. Female. Degree in criminology. Accepted into the Bureau 1990. Graduated top of her class at Quantico. Assigned to assist in the Black Angel case in Virginia in 1991, administrative capacity." He looks up at me. "But you didn't remain on the sidelines of that one, did you?"
I shake my head, remembering. I sure hadn't. I was twenty-two years old, greener than green. Excited about being an agent, even more excited about being a part of a major case, even if it was pretty much just desk work. During one of the briefings, something about the case had stuck in my mind, something in a witness statement that didn't seem right. It was still turning in my head when I went to sleep, and I awoke with a 4:00 A.M. epiphany, something that was going to become familiar to me in later years. The thing was, it ended up being an insight that broke the case wide open. It had to do with what direction a window opened. A tiny, forgettable detail that became the pea under my mattress and ended up closing the door on a killer. I called it luck at the time and downplayed myself. True luck was that the agent in charge of the task force, Special Agent Jones, was one of those rare bosses. One who doesn't hog the glory and instead gives credit where credit is due. Even to a green female agent. I was still new, so I got more desk work, but I was on the fast track from that point on. I was groomed for NCAVC--the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, the part of the FBI that deals with the worst of the worst--under the watchful eye of SAC Jones.
"Assigned to NCAVC three years later. That's a pretty quick jump, isn't it?"
"The average agent assigned to NCAVC has ten years of prior Bureau experience." I'm not bragging. It's true. He continues reading.
"A few more cases solved, glowing performance reviews. And then you were made the NCAVC coordinator in Los Angeles in '96. Charged with creating an efficient local unit, and repairing relations with local law enforcement that your predecessor had damaged. Some might have thought this was a demotion, but the truth is, you were handpicked for a difficult task. It's where you really began to shine."
My mind wanders back to that time. Shine is the perfect word. 1996 was a year when nothing seemed to go wrong. I'd had my daughter in late 1995. I was appointed to the LA office, a huge feather in my professional cap. And Matt and I were going strong, strong as ever. It was one of those years when I woke up every morning excited, fresh. Back when I could reach over and find him next to me, where he should be.
It was everything that the here and now is not, and I feel myself getting angry at Dr. Hillstead for reminding me of this. For making the present all the more bleak and empty by comparison.
"Is there a point here?"
He raises a hand.
"Just a little bit more. The office in LA hadn't been doing well. You were given carte blanche in restaffing it, and you picked three agents from offices around the United States. They were thought, at the time, to be unusual choices. But they proved out in the end, didn't they?"
That, I think to myself, is an understatement. I just nod, still angry.
"In fact, your team is one of the best in Bureau history, isn't it?"
"The best." I can't help it. I'm proud of my team, and I'm incapable of being modest when it comes to them. Besides, it's the truth. NCAVC
Los Angeles, known as "NCAVC Coord" or internally as "Death Central," did its job. Period and always.
"Right." He flips through a few more pages. "Lots of solved cases. More glowing reviews. Some notes that you were being considered to become the first female acting Director ever. Historic."
All of this is true. All of it also continues to anger me, for reasons I can't quite understand. I just know that I am getting pissed off, coming to a boil, and if this continues, I am going to have an explosive meltdown.
"Something else in your file caught my eye. Notations about your marksmanship."
He looks up at me, and I feel blindsided, though I don't know why. Something stirs in me, and I recognize it as fear. I grip the arms of the chair as he continues.
"Your file states that you possibly rank within the top twentieth percentile, worldwide, with a handgun. Is that true, Smoky?"
I stare at my therapist, and I feel myself going numb. The anger is disappearing.
Me and guns. Everything he's saying is true. I can pick up a gun and shoot it like other people grab a glass of water, or ride a bike. It's instinctive, and always has been. There's no genius to it that you can put a finger on. I didn't have a father who wanted a son and so taught me how to use a gun. In fact, my dad disliked them. It was just something I could do. I was eight years old, and my dad had a friend who had been in Vietnam as a Green Beret. Now he was a gun nut. He lived in a rundown condo in a run-down area of the San Fernando Valley--which fit him. He was a run-down man. Even so, to this day I remember his eyes: sharp and youthful. Sparkling.
His name was Dave, and he managed to drag my father out to a shooting range in a somewhat disreputable area of San Bernardino County, and my dad had brought me along, maybe in hopes of keeping the trip short. Dave got my dad to shoot a few clips, as I stood, watching, wearing protective earmuffs that were too big for my little-girl head. I watched them both as they held the weapons, and I was fascinated by it. Drawn to it.
"Can I try?" I piped up.
"I don't think that's a good idea, honey," Dad said.
"Aww, come on, Rick. I'll get her a little twenty-two pistol. Let her squeeze off a couple of shots."
"Please, Daddy?" I looked up at my father with my best pleading look, the one I knew, even at eight, could bend his will to mine. He looked down at me, the struggle apparent in his face, and then sighed.
"Okay. But just a few shots."
Dave went and got the twenty-two, a tiny little thing that fit my hand, and they dug up a stool for me to stand on. Dave loaded the weapon and placed it in my hands, standing behind me as my dad watched, apprehensive.
"See the target down there?" he asked. I nodded. "Decide where you want your shot to land. Take your time. When you pull the trigger, you want to do it slow. Don't jerk it, or that will throw off your aim. You ready?"
I believe I replied, but the truth was, I barely heard him. I had the gun in my hand, and something was clicking inside me. Something right. Something that fit. I looked down the range at the human-shaped target, and it didn't seem far away at all. It seemed close, reachable. I pointed the gun toward it, took a breath, and pulled. I was startled and thrilled by the jerk of the little pistol in my small hands.
"Damn!" I heard Dave crow.
I squinted down toward the target again and saw that a little hole had appeared in the center of the head, right where I had wanted it to go.
"You just might be a natural, young lady," he said to me. "Try a few more."
The "couple of shots" turned into an hour and a half of shooting. I hit what I aimed for over ninety percent of the time, and by the end of it, I knew I'd be shooting guns for the rest of my life. And that I'd be good at it.
My dad supported this habit in the years to come, in spite of his distaste for guns. I guess he recognized that this was a part of me, something he wouldn't be able to keep me away from. The truth? I'm scary-good. I keep this to myself, and I don't show off in public. But alone? I'm an Annie Oakley. I can shoot out candle flames and put holes in quarters that you toss in the air. One time, at an outdoor shooting range, I put a Ping-Pong ball on the back of my gun hand, the same one I use to draw my weapon. It sat on the back of my hand, and then that hand flew down to grab my gun. I came back up and blew the Ping-Pong ball away before it could fall to the ground. A silly trick, but I found it very satisfying.
All of this goes through my head while Dr. Hillstead watches me.
"It's true," I say.
He closes the file. Clasps his hands and looks at me. "You are an exceptional agent. Certainly one of the best female agents in the Bureau's history. You hunt the worst of the worst. Six months ago a man you were hunting, Joseph Sands, came after you and your family, killed your husband in front of you, raped and tortured you, and killed your daughter. Through an effort that could only be called superhuman, you turned the tables on him, taking his life."
I am fully clothed in the numbness now. I don't know what all of this is leading to, and I don't care.
"So here I am, in a profession where two plus two doesn't always equal four, and things don't always fall when you drop them, trying to help you go back to all of that."
The look he gives me is so filled with honest compassion that I have to look away from it; it burns me with its feeling.
"I've been doing this for a long time, Smoky. And you've been seeing me for quite a while. I develop feelings about things--you'd probably call them hunches in your line of work. Here's what my hunches have to say about where we're at. I think you're trying to choose between whether or not to go back to work or kill yourself."
My gaze snaps back up to his, an involuntary admission that's been shocked out of me. As the numbness rushes away from me in a scream, I realize that I've been played, played with great finesse. He's talked around, rambled, prodded, keeping me unaware and off balance, and then moved in for the kill. Right for the jugular, without hesitation. And it's worked.
"I can't help you unless you really lay it all on the table, Smoky."
That compassionate look again, too truthful and honest and good for me right now; his eyes are like two hands reaching out to grab my spiritual shoulders, shaking me hard. I feel tears prickling. But my look back is filled with anger. He wants to break me, the way I've broken plenty of criminals in plenty of interrogation offices. Well, fuck that. Dr. Hillstead seems to sense this, and smiles a soft smile.
"Okay, Smoky, that's fine. Just one last thing."
He pulls open a desk drawer and lifts a plastic evidence bag out. At first I can't tell what it holds, but then I can, and it causes me to shiver and sweat at the same time.
It's my gun. The one I carried for years, and the one I shot Joseph Sands with.
I can't tear my eyes away from it. I know it like I know my own face. Glock, deadly, black. I know how much it weighs, what it feels like--I can even remember how it smells. It sits there in that bag, and the sight of it fills me with an overwhelming terror.
Dr. Hillstead opens the bag, removing the gun. He lays it down on the desk in front of us. Now he looks at me again, except this time, it's a hard look, not a compassionate one. He's done fucking around. I realize that what I thought was his best shot wasn't even close. For reasons I don't understand, and apparently he does, it is this that is going to break me wide open. My own weapon.
"How many times have you picked up that gun, Smoky? A thousand? Ten thousand?"
> I lick my lips, which are as dry as dust. I don't reply. I can't stop looking at the Glock.
"Pick it up, right now, and I'll recommend you fit for active duty, if that's what you want."
I can't respond, and I can't tear my eyes away from it. Part of me knows I'm in Dr. Hillstead's office, and that he is sitting across from me, but things seem to have narrowed to one world: me and the gun. Sounds have filtered out, so that there is a strange, still silence in my head, except for the thudding of my heart. I can hear it, beating hard and fast.
I lick my dry lips again. Just reach over and take it, I tell myself. Like he said, you've done it ten thousand times. That gun is an extension of your hand; picking it up is an afterthought, like breathing, or blinking. It just sits there, and my hands have stayed on the arms of the chair, stiff and clenching.
"Go ahead. Pick it up." His voice has gone hard. Not brutal, but unyielding. I've managed to get one of my hands to come off the arm of the chair, and I move it forward with all the force of will I can muster. It doesn't want to respond, and part of me, the very small part that remains analytical and calm, cannot believe that this is happening. When did an action that, for me, is close to a reflex become the hardest thing I've ever done?
I'm aware that sweat is streaming down my forehead. My entire body is shaking, and my vision has started to get dark around the edges. I'm having trouble breathing, and I can feel panic building in me, a claustrophobic, hemmed-in, suffocating feeling. My arm is shaking like a tree in a hurricane. Muscles spasm up and down it like a bagful of snakes. My hand gets closer and closer to the gun, until it's hovering just above it, and now the shaking is huge, has moved to my entire body, and the sweat is everywhere.
I leap up from the chair, toppling it over backward, and scream. I scream, and I beat my head with my hands, and I feel myself starting to sob, and I know he's done it. He's cracked me, split me open, torn my guts out. The fact that he's done it to help me isn't any comfort, none at all, because right now everything is pain, pain, pain. I back away from his desk, to the left wall, sliding down it. I register that I am moaning as I do this, a kind of keening wail. It is a terrible sound. It hurts me to hear it, like it always has. It is a sound I've heard too many times before. The sound of a survivor who has realized that they're still alive, while everything they love is gone. I've heard it from mothers and husbands and friends, heard it as they identified bodies in the morgue or got the news of death from my own lips. I wonder that I can't feel ashamed right now, but there's no room for shame here. Pain has filled me up.
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