hear from them sooner or later. A major concern for all of us is how our security might have been breached. The Shop had a hit list of Splinter Cells — how did they get it? I’m sure this will be a priority for me in the near future.
The Shadows is a crippled organization. Nothing was left of the shopping mall complex — or the Babylon Phoenix — and over a hundred of the men working there were killed. It’s unclear if the terrorists have the capacity to regroup and elect a new leader, but one thing is for sure — they’ll have a much harder time obtaining funding. The Turkish came out of the situation with egg on their faces, but in the end they owned up to the mistakes made with regard to Namik Basaran, aka Nasir Tarighian. The Iranian government sent the Turks a congratulatory note, thanking them for uprooting Tarighian and doing the job of getting rid of him. It saved Iran the trouble. Ironically, though, they didn’t send the U.S. a thank-you card.
Later in the morning Sarah and I board a military jet to take us to Washington. A couple of young U.S. Marines push her in a wheelchair and lavish her with a lot of attention, which she loves. She’s beginning to eat and, more important, starting to smile and laugh again. She’s tough, like her old man, so I expect her to bounce back relatively quickly.
We settle into our seats and wait the obligatory twenty minutes before the plane is ready to lift off. Sarah takes my hand and rests her head against my shoulder. She yawns and then sighs heavily.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I say. “If anything had happened to you…”
“Shhh,” she whispers.
I chuckle and say, “All right, I won’t make a big deal out of it. At least not until we get home.”
As the plane lifts off, she says, quietly, “I love you, Dad.”
I answer, “I love you, too, kid,” but she’s already asleep.
