by Bentley, Don
In that moment, the tremors began in earnest, rippling from my fingers to my arms. I’d stumbled from our bedroom and down the steps to the living room. My heart felt like it was thundering out of my chest and my eyes burned from the sweat dripping from my forehead. Desperate to escape numbing panic, I noticed the battered Gibson knockoff propped against the wall.
The guitar had been a college whim, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen it, let alone played it. But for some reason, I grabbed the worn neck, settled the cracked wood across my lap, and began to strum. Over the course of a song or two, the tremors, and the accompanying madness, began to fade. For the first time since I’d hobbled off the medevac flight from Syria, I could think about something other than my horrible failure—the mistake that had cost three people their lives and crippled my best friend.
But the unexpected peace hadn’t come without cost. There, in the darkness lit only by the occasional pair of headlights playing across the wall, I saw where this would all lead. Tonight, the tremors had progressed far beyond a simple muscle twitch. Tonight, I’d seen a dead little girl and mistaken my wife for her mother.
What would I see tomorrow?
Or do?
Those were the questions that put things into perspective. Between my military and case officer experience, I’d been on the pointy end of the spear for more than a decade. I’d seen some terrible shit, and the number of friends I’d lost in this never-ending war on terrorism was edging ever closer to double digits.
But this was different.
Before, I’d been able to control my reactions, but tonight was uncharted territory. What if it hadn’t been Abir’s mother? What if, instead, I’d seen the man who’d killed them?
What would have happened then?
I had no idea, and that was unacceptable. The love of my life was no longer safe in her own home.
Because of me.
I’d married Laila nine months after meeting her. Six years later, I loved her in ways I hadn’t known were possible. My wife was amazing, but she wasn’t perfect. She had a stubborn streak that made a pit bull look compliant. She’d never give up on me, no matter what I said or did. Her parents had lived the typical immigrant struggle. They’d come to this country with nothing, and she had inherited their endless determination.
No, Laila would never abandon me, even if it meant the destruction of us both. And that was a scenario I simply couldn’t stomach.
So I’d protected her in the only way I’d known how. Not trusting myself to go back into our bedroom, I’d left a note explaining that I’d been activated for a fictitious operation, grabbed the old guitar, and walked away.
Like Laila, I hadn’t grown up with much. While not immigrants, my parents had eked out a life on a desolate stretch of Utah land they’d optimistically called a ranch. There hadn’t been much money, which meant that visits to the vet were reserved for problems that Dad couldn’t fix with a home remedy. Potential exposure to rabies was a perfect example. If Dad suspected that an animal had been infected, he put it in quarantine and waited. If, after thirty days, it hadn’t developed symptoms, he breathed a sigh of relief and welcomed it back to the fold. But if the animal began to manifest the telltale rabies-induced madness, he put it down.
Period.
This had been my thinking when I’d left. Maybe what I had was curable. Maybe I needed to be put down. The only way to be sure without risking Laila in the process was to institute my own form of quarantine.
I’d gone to school at the University of Texas on an Army ROTC scholarship and fallen in love with Austin. So with nowhere else to go, and a need to remain anonymous, I’d e-mailed James my resignation letter, FedExed him my secure phone and Agency credentials, and headed back to my college home.
To keep busy, I took guitar lessons and tended bar. A month and a half ago, I’d purchased a one-way ticket to D.C., hoping to surprise Laila as she connected through Austin. But instead of seeing my wife’s beautiful face, I’d been confronted with a dead Syrian woman. Shaken but determined, I’d converted the unused ticket and tried again. And again. And again. But the results were always the same. My wife was lost to me.
Now, perhaps, it was time to admit that my quarantine had been a failure. Abir’s manifestations were growing more frequent and the tremors more severe. At this very moment, Laila was only a twenty-minute Uber ride away. Maybe it was time to leave the DIA for good and gamble everything on Laila’s single-minded tenacity.
But the thought had no sooner entered my head than I discarded it. Perhaps I could turn my back on James, Einstein, and my work. If my time in the Army had taught me anything, it was that no one was truly irreplaceable. James might scream and yell, but surely the DIA had another case officer capable of running Einstein. Even so, there still remained one person on whom I could never turn my back.
As if my thoughts had summoned him, the building’s glass doors parted, revealing my best friend’s broken form. As he hobbled toward me, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps Abir had been the lucky one. Though the toddler had died a horrible death, her suffering was over.
Frodo’s had just begun.
SIX
As of late, my life seemed to be divided into two distinct parts—before and after. Before was the man I’d been, and the life I’d lived, prior to Syria. After was everything else. For the most part, only I could see this distinction. To Laila, James, and everyone else, I looked like the same man. I probably even acted like him most of the time.
But I knew that I was different.
When I’d first come home, I’d wished that the distinction had been more evident. That there had been something more prominent than the bullet wound in my leg to alert my friends and family to my unseen changes. Then I’d seen Frodo for the first time in the after and realized what a selfish thing I’d wished for. Frodo’s change was all too evident, even to people who’d never known him in the before. And that was a tragedy, because prior to Syria, Frodo had been one of the most dangerous human beings on the planet.
At first blush, Frodo wasn’t particularly imposing or, for that matter, memorable. He was a soft-spoken black man with the build of a bantamweight boxer. I’d been thoroughly unimpressed five years previous when we’d first been introduced in a dusty FOB on the outskirts of Mosul. I was on my initial tour as a DIA case officer, and Frodo, a sniper on loan from the organization known simply as the Unit to those who were members, and as Delta Force to everyone else, was assigned as my bodyguard.
I’d never actually learned how he’d earned the call sign Frodo. His real name was Frederick Cates. Frodo bore no resemblance whatsoever to a hobbit, but the practice of giving operators call signs was common in the Unit, so I didn’t press. He and I were both veterans of the special operations community. That was all I needed to know.
Even so, we were hardly birds of a feather: a white, six-foot, one-hundred-eighty-pound former ranch hand from Utah and his black shadow who hailed from outside of Philly. That Frodo’s head even reached my shoulders was due more to the impressive height of his hair, courtesy of the relaxed grooming standards for deployed special operators, than to his stature. Physical prowess aside, I’d scoffed at the notion that, as a former member of the vaunted Ranger Regiment, I even needed a bodyguard.
I maintained that line of thinking for exactly twenty-four hours. Then my first meet went bad.
I never saw the sniper until it was much too late. One moment, I’d been sitting at an outdoor café, enjoying a cup of chai with a would-be asset. The next, a body tumbled to the street from an adjacent rooftop. A body with a 7.62mm hole drilled dead center in his forehead, the strap of his Austrian-made Steyr H550 sniper rifle still wrapped around his dead fingers.
After that, Frodo and I had been inseparable.
But I still had more to learn about my friend. Like many Unit members, Frodo eschewed the bodybuilder persona oft
en embraced by Navy SEALs for a slighter physique skewed more toward endurance than strength. Frodo’s ropy muscles and prominent tendons seemed to be crafted from steel cables and iron ingots rather than flesh and blood.
In a different combat zone, in the midst of yet another operation gone south, Frodo had fireman-carried a wounded comrade up two thousand feet of treacherous Afghan mountain to reach the helicopter landing zone. He’d accomplished this feat without so much as passing off his rucksack or body armor.
Frodo’s unique combination of sheer athleticism and unmatched tactical competence, along with his astounding ability to put a round from his trusty Heckler & Koch HK417 rifle into any target his eye could discern, made him hands down the best special operator I’d ever encountered. But now the man who’d watched my back in hot spots the world over could barely cross the flat stretch of concrete separating us.
Without thought, I broke into a run at the sight of his hunched, shuffling form.
Frodo’s once broad shoulders now sloped forward as he struggled to manipulate the cane that wound around his still-muscled right forearm in a lattice of webbing and rubber. After seeing his ruined left foot, the military surgeons had wanted to take his leg. Frodo refused to let them. The jihadis had already reduced one arm to a stump, and he wasn’t about to give the bastards another pound of flesh.
“Frodo,” I yelled, trying to halt his gruesome shuffle. “I’m here.”
My shout brought him to a stop. He leaned back on his good foot and tried to extract his remaining hand from the brace to wave. After fumbling with the cane, he settled for a head nod and then continued his awkward movement.
Heading for the turnstile, I pulled up short, coming to a troubled realization. I didn’t have my badge. The gate guard would need to buzz me through. Turning left, I sprinted for the lone vestibule housing an undoubtedly bored guard. Forgoing the buzzer, I pounded on bulletproof glass.
“Yes?” the startled guard said.
“Matt Drake. I don’t have an ID, but I’m on the roster. Buzz me in.”
“Sorry, sir,” the guard said, his smug tone coming through the two-way speaker. “Can’t admit anyone without ID.”
“Look at the roster. Ask me my date of birth, social, grandmother’s maiden name. Whatever. Just open the gate.”
“Sorry, sir. No can do.”
Frodo’s cane hit an uneven chunk of pavement. He wobbled but regained his control.
I lost mine.
“Listen closely, ’cause I’m only going to say this once,” I said, making my voice low enough that the guard had to lean forward to hear. “You see that man?”
I pointed at Frodo.
The guard looked over his shoulder and then turned back to me.
“What about him?”
“He lost his arm and ruined his leg saving my ass. Nothing I can do about that. But if he slips and falls because you won’t buzz me in, we will have a problem. You picking up what I’m putting down?”
The guard looked at me in silence for a beat. I don’t know what he saw, but it must have been enough. He gave his computer monitor a perfunctory glance and buzzed me through.
The sound of the electronic lock brought Frodo up short, and I didn’t give him a chance to resume his shuffle. Instead, I crossed the distance separating us at a run, and wrapped him in a bear hug.
“How you doing, brother?” I said, trying to keep my voice from breaking.
“Better than you, I think,” Frodo said, his deep baritone ringing with the resonance that made it instantly recognizable on the radio, no matter how scratchy the connection.
“What do you mean?” I said, stalling for time. Had Laila talked to him? If my crippled best friend took this moment to ask about my marriage, I might just lose it completely. Still, that would be classic Frodo. Even now, after everything, he was still more concerned with my well-being than with his own.
“James. He’s been in a mood ever since he talked to you.”
“Pissed?”
“Radioactive.”
“Then I guess we’d better go see what the big man wants.”
“Don’t worry, brother. I got your back.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice. Before, I’d known I was blessed—amazing wife, friends who were brothers, and a job I believed in.
But that was before.
In the after, Abir was dead, Frodo couldn’t tie his own shoes, and Laila might as well have been a widow. In the after, everyone had paid a staggering price for my failure.
Everyone but me.
SEVEN
Matthew! What happened to your pretty face?”
The question came from a woman seated behind the mahogany desk in the small waiting area in front of James’s office. Her name was Ann Beaumont, and as her drawl suggested, she hailed from parts well south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Though I’d known her for more than five years, Ann had yet to age. Her shoulder-length brown hair was still gracefully transitioning to silver, and her forehead’s fine lines had yet to deepen into true wrinkles. Though she was a bit on the plump side, Ann’s elegant wardrobe was a testament to her Southern breeding.
Only a fool would mistake Ann for just another civil servant. Rather than allow herself to be intimidated by her coworkers, Ann had made herself the den mother of all the rough-and-tumble spies who reported to James. At first, I’d found her overfamiliarity irritating, but over the years I’d grown to understand that Ann Beaumont made for a formidable advocate.
“It’s nothing,” I said in my best aw shucks voice. “Just a bit of a misunderstanding.”
“Yeah,” Frodo said, shuffling to a stop beside me, “you should’ve seen the other girl.”
Frodo usually had a knack for making Ann laugh, and the silvery sound was well worth the effort. But today, Frodo’s jibe didn’t do the trick. Instead, Ann’s hazel eyes welled up as she struggled to speak.
“Really,” I said, feeling more than a little embarrassed. “I’m okay. Promise.”
“I know you are, doll,” Ann said, her voice husky. “I’m sorry for getting all weepy, but I’m just happy to see my boys together again. You’ve been gone too long, Matthew.”
Her rebuke, though deftly delivered, stung. I’d cut her, Frodo, and Laila from my life with ruthless efficiency. I’d thought that quarantining myself might right what was wrong, but now I wasn’t so sure. Perhaps all I’d really done was isolate myself from the very people who could have helped me. Fortunately, a commanding voice more at home on a battlefield than in a spymaster’s lair boomed from James’s office, bringing my introspection to an end.
“Matt—get your ass in here. And bring Frodo.”
I stopped to give Ann’s shoulder a squeeze and was caught by surprise when she stood and wrapped her arms around me.
“Go easy on him, Matthew,” Ann said, her whispered words tickling my ear. “He missed you, too.”
And then the unexpected hug was gone, and Ann was shooing me toward the looming door.
Squaring my shoulders, I stepped from one world to another, ready to meet my fate, with Frodo watching my back, just like always.
* * *
—
You look like shit,” James said as I shut the door.
“Good to see you, too, Chief,” I said, taking my usual seat at his oblong conference table. “Laila’s fine. Thanks for asking.”
To say that James Glass was an intimidating figure would be a bit like saying that Bill Clinton liked women. Sometimes words just weren’t enough.
“What the fuck happened to your face?” James said.
“This is your handiwork,” I said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the Feds who rolled me up at the airport were a bit overzealous.”
“The FBI did this to you?” James said, his question echoi
ng across the room. “Give me a fucking name. I will rip off his head and shit down his throat.”
A former Army Special Forces team sergeant before RPG shrapnel robbed him of his right eye and ended his operational career, James refused to acclimate to the DIA’s button-down civilian culture. He spoke with a coarseness that came from spending eighteen years kicking in doors and sending would-be terrorists on one-way trips to paradise.
His attire was no better. Rather than adopt the Brooks Brothers dress code of Senior Executive Service–level civilians, James wore his shirts open at the collar and rolled at the cuffs, exposing tattooed forearms. He didn’t own a tie, and when the occasion mandated a sport coat, the fabric strained to contain his wide back and massive chest. A black eye patch, which contrasted sharply with the gray stubble that remained of his hair, completed his wardrobe.
James Glass, DIA Branch Chief, and night terror to Islamic jihadis everywhere, did not tolerate bullshit of any sort. With his Mafia don’s warped sense of propriety, I had no doubt that James would go to war with the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation if he felt that my honor, and by extension his own, had been besmirched.
And he would probably win.
“Relax, Chief,” I said, pouring a glass of water from the carafe at the center of the table. “You can’t blame them. They were just following orders, right?”
I took a coaster without being told. Ann was very particular about rings on the highly polished oak table. The coaster I’d selected was imprinted with a close-up of bin Laden, after SEAL Team Six had finished with him. James liked to keep mementos from operations he’d had a hand in, and since wearing a necklace of ears was no longer in vogue, he’d settled for specially designed coasters.
“You sent the FBI after Matty?” Frodo said.
“He wouldn’t answer his fucking phone,” James said, taking a white foam cup from the floor and spitting a stream of tobacco juice into it. James also wisely chose a coaster before setting his spit cup on Ann’s table: Saddam Hussein—post-hanging.
