Miguel’s computer expert hadn’t searched it. There was nothing to be done about it now anyway. The thumb drive was theirs. Risking returning it would be worse than keeping it.
The stego program itself made no sense to Bakr, given Miguel’s previous phone call. They had obtained a Bearcat scanner earlier in the day, and both had heard the conversation between Miguel and his friends in the U.S. describing a FedEx package. Why would Miguel be searching for a package if the temple location was on the computer? Bakr told Sayyidd to check the Web for a FedEx office in Flores, the last place the professor had been. Within minutes, Sayyidd answered that the only FedEx was in Guatemala City.
Bakr digested this. The facts didn’t make sense. Let Miguel waste his time and money searching for answers in America. Bakr was sure that the data was hidden somewhere on the professor’s computer, and that maybe they were as close as Sayyidd thought to pleasing Allah as no man had before.
24
The old man had been watching the boat-pretender for close to two months, waiting on him to do something interesting.
He called the man the pretender because he didn’t act like anyone who owned a sailboat. He had seen plenty of people rich enough to own such a luxury in his job at the marina, and this man didn’t fit the profile in any way whatsoever.
For one, the old man had never seen the pretender’s boat leave the dock. Ever. Truthfully, he was unsure if the pretender even knew how to sail.
For another, boaters were a partying, gregarious bunch. When they docked, it was all about margaritas, bragging, and laughter. The old man had never seen the pretender smile. Never seen him talk to a single captain of another boat.
He’d figured out early on that the pretender was living on the boat. Something that wasn’t allowed long- term, but the old man said nothing. Working dawn until dusk pumping gas at the marina, the old man had studied the pretender just to break the monotony. Every other day the man would punish himself with a workout routine on the deck of the boat, working until total exhaustion in the South Carolina heat, seemingly trying to kill himself, the sweat rolling off his body in rivers. He would then leave for a run that lasted about an hour. When he returned, the old man would watch him stagger behind the Dumpsters and vomit, sometimes on his knees. He didn’t understand why until the pretender had passed by him finishing a run. The man stank of liquor, the foul smell wafting out of his pores like a fog.
After that, the old man began to lose interest, not wanting to waste his time on a drunk. Then one day the pretender had surprised him. Buying fuel for his boat, he had recognized the U.S. Army Second Division patch on the old man’s hat and had asked if he had been in the Army.
The old man had grown wary, not wanting to be patronized as he had been by all the other rich folks who treated him like a piece of furniture, fulfilling their duty of patriotism with a pat on the head before demanding gas.
He had said, “Yes.”
“Korea?”
“Yes. During some bad times.”
The pretender had nodded with understanding. “Nobody can take that away from you. Even when you wish they could.”
The old man was shocked.
A long time ago, on another continent, nobody had cared about the color of his skin. Rednecks and racists alike had learned that combat was color-blind. All that mattered was skill, and the old man had found that he inherently possessed something that others did not. Once upon a time he had been regarded as a savior, a man who could keep you alive, if you were lucky enough to be near him. He had been held in awe by better men than those who now demanded his gas. He was reminded of this by the nightmares that still caused him to lose sleep. He both loved and hated that time in his life, and somehow the pretender
He began watching the pretender with renewed interest. The next time they met, he had asked, “Were you in the service?”
“Yes. The Army.”
“Been to Iraq? Afghanistan?”
“Both at one time or another.”
“Seen some bad shit?”
“Not really. The bad shit’s here at home.”
The answer had confused the old man. He continued to watch, waiting on the pretender to do something interesting. Eventually, he began to believe he had been wrong. The pretender held no secret truth. He was simply a drunken loser, dealing with the same demons as the old man. That is until the day the pretender disappeared and the old man had found two dead bodies behind the Dumpster, both killed by hand. That caused him to rethink the pretender’s status for sure.
I woke up in my king-sized bed and rolled over to kiss my wife. My arm hit the pylon holding the foldout twin bed, and I returned to the reality of my existence like I had done every morning for the last nine fucking months. Each day, in the brief moment between being asleep and awake, I had one split second of happiness before remembering what had become of my family. If I could bottle each split second, I’d give the remainder of the day to God, or the Devil, or whoever else was having a party out of my pain. Twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes, fifty- nine seconds, and some change for each split second. It would be a good trade.
I relive the grief process every single day, like clockwork. I’m still waiting for it to be a dull ache at the back of my soul, like all the doctors promised would happen. Instead, each morning the pain is as strong as that night in Tbilisi almost a year ago.
I sat up in bed and looked at the picture of Heather and Angie on my counter. I felt the pain begin to turn to rage. That also happened like clockwork. It’s hard to explain the level of the anger. It’s like trying to explain color to a blind man. I’m afraid to really put into words the dark thoughts that come to me. I want to rip someone apart while they’re still alive, to destroy something so completely that nothing identifiable remains. Sometimes the thoughts scare me.
I hate the rage, but there’s nothing I can do about it. It won’t go away. I’ve tried. I’ve seen doctors and gone to support groups, but nothing quenches it. I’ve talked to guys who say they used to be in the same boat as me, who lost their wife to cancer, or their family in a plane crash, and they say the pain will dull, the rage will dissipate. They mean well, but they’re wrong. It hasn’t dulled one bit. I think it’s because they aren’t in the same boat as me. They had their pain thrown on them without being asked. I earned every sorry bit given to me. They lost their family to fate or God. I killed mine.
If I had listened to Heather and hadn’t done that final tour, they’d be alive. Shit, I could have done the tour and simply come home for Angie’s birthday—
My residence is my latest attempt to get rid of the pain. I took our savings and bought a sailboat. An extreme fixer-upper. I had this idiotic fantasy that I’d spend my days sanding wood, working on the engine, and live like some dumb-ass hermit at a monastery. In my imagination, the blackness would slowly dissipate the further along I got, until I was some sort of mystical sailor who finally understood the meaning of life. Apparently, that shit only works in the movies.
So far, I haven’t done a single thing with the boat. Well, at least nothing positive. I have managed to turn the galley into a giant garbage can. There are enough pizza boxes and beer cans to keep it afloat if it springs a leak. Last night, I had decided that today would be the day I would begin work on the top deck, sealing it and doing other maintenance. Now, in the morning light, I really didn’t give a shit about my crumbling deck. I’d rather go get a beer.
