'I remember in Star Wars, when Qui-Gon Jinn was killed by Darth Maul, they put him in a fire and prayed for him. Is that what we did with Mommy?'
The tears burst forth, despite every effort Patrick made to be strong. Through tear-streaked eyes, he looked at his son. 'Is… is that okay, son?'
'I… guess so.' He started to cry, and it tore into Patrick's heart like a sword.
'Mommy… Mommy was just like Qui-Gon Jinn,' Patrick said. 'She was a warrior. She was gentle and she loved us very much, and she was so smart and built wonderful things, but when the bad guys attacked, she fought like a Jedi Knight.'
'She sure did,' Chris Wohl said. 'She was as brave as a Jedi Knight. Even as brave as a U.S. Marine.'
Bradley smiled, then looked at the urn. 'So we can keep this?'
Patrick tapped Bradley's chest, then his head. 'Mommy's here, in your heart; and she's here, in your memory. And she'll always be there. Forever. She's not in there.'
'Then why do we have Mommy's ashes in there?'
Patrick had thought about this moment since he left Libya: how to explain death to his young son. The only thing he could decide is to try to not explain too much at once. He was young; he would eventually understand.
'Brad, I told you about the soul, remember?'
'Yes,' Bradley said proudly. 'The soul is the tiny bit of magic that makes a person.'
'Right. And what did I tell you about the soul?' Bradley looked a little confused. 'Can the soul ever die?'
'You said 'no.''
'Right. The soul can never die. Everything that we loved about Mommy was in her soul, and that can never die. Right?' The little boy nodded. 'But our bodies can die. They wear out, get old, and get hurt. Doctors can fix our bodies, but our bodies will eventually die anyway. Like trees and flowers and all living things, they die.'
'Like Mufasa in The Lion King?' Patrick smiled and nodded-thank God for kids' movies. 'Are you going to die too, Dad?'
Patrick hugged his son, then looked him straight in the eyes. 'Someday I will, son-but right now, I'm here with you, and so are Uncle David and Uncle Hal and Uncle Chris. We'll always be here for you.
'But do you know what happens when y'6u die, Bradley? Your soul is ready for a journey. Mommy's soul gets to go into another body. We don't know who, or where, or when, but it does.'
'Cool,' Bradley said. 'She's dead, but she's not really dead.' He looked up into the blue-gray sky and squinted, searching until his eyes hurt. 'Is that what heaven is?'
'A soul can go to heaven too. There are lots of worlds and things to see and do for the soul. But you know what we have to do before the soul can go on its journey?'
'What?'
'We have to tell Mommy's soul that it's okay for her to go,' Patrick said. 'You see, Mommy doesn't want to leave you and me. She'd rather stay here. She knows how sad you are, and that makes her feel bad.'
'Then she can stay here with me?'
'If you really want her to, yes, she can,' Patrick said carefully. 'But remember: Mommy's soul can also go into another body. Once it's inside someone else, the things that made us love Mommy, the magic that was inside her soul, will be alive again.'
'So… so someone else is waiting to love Mommy?'
'Exactly, son.' Damn, Patrick thought, thank God his son was smart and open-minded enough to think on his own-he was making this whole ordeal much easier.
'But I still don't want Mommy to go.'
'You know that Mommy will never be far away from us-we just have to think about her, and her soul will return,' Patrick said. 'Sometimes when you're sleeping, Mommy will visit you in your dreams-other times, you'll be doing something else, or maybe be having a problem, and then poof! All of a sudden, Mommy will be there. But we can share the magic in Mommy's soul with the rest of the world. That way, maybe other little boys and girls can enjoy some of Mommy's soul too and love her just like we do.'
'But how do we do that, if she's.. dead?'
'We have to tell her that it's okay to go on her journey to find those other people that need her,' Patrick said. 'Remember, her soul will never die-but we have to say goodbye. So what do you say? Is it okay?'
'I… I guess so.' He looked fearfully at the urn. 'What do we do?'
Patrick nodded to David Luger, and he cut the engine. Patrick led his son back to the built-in swim platform on the stem, and they knelt at the very edge. He unscrewed the cap on the urn. Bradley at first couldn't look, but eventually his curiosity took over. He peered into the urn, and his eyes grew wide with fear. The tears started to flow again, and his lower lip quivered.
'Bradley, listen to me,' Patrick said, holding his son tightly. 'This is a pretty grown-up thing we have to do. Most little boys can't do it. I'm a grown man, and it's hard for me to do.' Bradley looked at his father, now curious to see what his father looked like when he was afraid-and he was comforted to see that he looked pretty much the same, just very sad. 'You have to help me do this, son. I can't do it by myself. You have to say it's okay first, and you have to help me. Please.'
To Patrick's amazement, Bradley took the urn in his hands. He looked as if he was going to simply pour the contents into the water-but instead, he stopped, then turned toward David Luger. 'Uncle David?'
'Yeah, Brad?'
'Go fast,' he said. 'Go real fast.' He turned to his father. 'Mommy liked going fast, didn't she? She liked flying.'
'She sure did, big guy,' Patrick said with a tearful smile. How in hell did I get so lucky to have a son like this? he thought. 'She sure did.' He reached out, kissed the urn, and said, 'Good-bye, sweetheart. I love you. Have a nice journey.' He then stepped back into the cockpit and held tightly on to Bradley's life jacket as Luger gradually eased in the throttle. The big MerCruiser stern drive leapt to life. The speedometer topped sixty miles an hour, close to sixtyfive-the Cobalt was fast, but it had never gone this fast ever before. Suddenly the ocean was as smooth as glassthere wasn't a ripple as far as they could see, when moments before there was a light chop.
Bradley held the urn tightly, tears flowing dewn his cheeks. He kissed the urn, whispered, 'Good-bye,
Mommy. I love you. Come see me anytime,' over the loud hum of the engine, then held the urn up over his head and tipped it slightly. In the blink of an eye, the urn was empty, and he let it fly out of his hands.
The silvery ash never seemed to fall to the surface of the ocean, but gently floated upward into the sky until, several long moments later, it disappeared inside a sunbeam that had appeared through the clouds.
It seemed as if Patrick never let his son leave his arms for the next eighteen hours as they traveled from San Diego to Washington, D.C. They arrived and checked into the Hay-Adams Hotel, across the street from the White House, in a suite of rooms reserved for them by former president Kevin Martindale.
Patrick's sisters Nancy and Margaret came in a short time later; they were going to be Bradley's baby-sitters during the Night Stalkers' post-action debriefing on the Libyan conflict and their role in it. The first of several meetings was scheduled for eight A.M. the next morning in the Old Executive Office Building with the senior White House staff, followed by more briefings at the Pentagon and the State Department-and then the congressional committees and subcommittees were going to hold hearings, both classified and unclassified. There was no telling how long the debriefings were going to last-and there was no indication yet on what the final outcome might be. They were all betting on confinement-Patrick had already had custody documents drawn up so his sisters could legally take Bradley with them, just in case.
Bradley was still on West Coast time and so wasn't tired, so he, his father, and Hal Briggs walked around the White House and the Capitol Mall until after ten P.M. On their return, it was Hal who noticed the first one: a plainclothed agent standing inside the lobby across from the hotel entrance. Several members of the hotel staff looked apprehensively at them as they went past, then smiled and nodded nervously. As Patrick walked by, the first agent spoke into his sleeve. Another agent was at the top of the stairs; another was standing at the door to Patrick's suite of rooms. The Secret Service agent nodded to Patrick and opened the door for him; he stopped Hal long enough to take his.45-caliber automatic from him before he stepped into the room.
'I should have known you weren't going to be tired,' President Thomas Thorn said, rising from the chair as Patrick entered. 'How are you, General McLanahan?'
'Fine, sir,' Patrick replied stonily. He looked at his son. 'Bradley, this is the President of the United States,
