“What would you do?”
“You know what I’d do.”
“Just answer me.”
“Francesca’s dead. Lautner knows it’s over. He’s not stupid. He knows. Show him that you know, too. Order him home. Now. The next flight out. Make the call yourself, so he can’t dodge it. But don’t give him a reason. Don’t even let him pack. Push him, make him react.”
“And what do I tell my congressmen when they ask what happened to the station’s deputy chief?”
“Have you heard anything John just said?” This from Shafer. Wells heard the exasperation in his voice. “He’s telling you there’s a real chance Pete Lautner’s going to make himself a one-man welcoming committee and strap on a bomb when you get there. Do I have to spell it out for you? Blow himself up. Like Marburg did to his wife and his brother.
Duto grunted, low and pained. Then he spoke two words, so quietly Wells hardly heard him. “All right.”
WELLS STAYED on the roof for a while and then went for a walk. The gate guards tried to convince him to stay inside but he shook them off. The Afghans looked curiously at him. Now that he’d shaved his beard, he had a harder time passing. But he had a pistol on his hip and the sun was high in the sky and Western soldiers were all over downtown Kabul and nobody said a word. He felt like a tourist who’d gotten lost.
He had nearly looped back to the embassy when his phone rang. Shafer.
Lautner had locked the door to his office and put his 9-millimeter in his mouth and vented his brains on the wall. No note. But in his lap, a copy of the official after-action report on Marburg.
There wasn’t anything to say, so Wells didn’t say anything.
“Duto’s postponing his trip,” Shafer said eventually. “You can head out whenever.”
“I assume I’ll be getting a medal for my honorable service. Maybe a small private ceremony at the White House.”
“It’s best for everyone this way. You know.”
Wells hung up. Lautner, dead. Wells felt no surprise, but when he tried to walk, his legs weighed a thousand pounds. Afghanistan was just lines on a map, as fictional and fleeting as any human creation. Land couldn’t be cursed. The idea belonged to a different century. Yet at this moment, the taint felt as real and sharp as the mountains around him.
TWENTY MILES SOUTH, Amadullah Thuwani gobbled down the last remnants of his lunch, roast lamb and rice. He hadn’t heard anything from the Americans since he’d handed over the Dragunov. He wondered whether the CIA man had forgotten him. No matter. He still had his twin treasures, the surface-to-air missiles the man had given him.
And one day he’d use them.
BY THE TIME he reached North Conway, Wells was exhausted through his bones. Two days of flights and layovers. He’d traveled commercial the whole way. For the moment, he couldn’t bear the steel embrace of the American military. So he’d flown through Dubai and Frankfurt and Dulles, gleaming airports all, filled with purposeful men and women and the baubles of the twenty-first century. Duto had tried to make him stop at Langley for a debrief, and Shafer had offered to put him up. Wells had ignored them both and caught the first flight to Boston and found a cab at Logan willing to take him to New Hampshire, a dented Crown Vic. “Cost you five hundred dollars and I’m gonna need that up-front,” the driver said, aggressively, like he was waiting for an argument, but Wells just nodded and reached for his wallet. As they rolled northwest on 93, Wells stared out the window at the office parks and bent roads and gray New England hills and wondered again whether a land could be cursed. Or a people.
Outside Manchester, the snow began, a sudden squall, big soft flakes that poured from the lead-white sky and melted instantly on the highway.
“Has there been much?” Wells said, his first words since Logan.
“First real storm all year.”
Wells decided the storm was good luck and then decided that exhaustion had made him fanciful. Soon enough he’d be seeing omens in jet contrails. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the driver was rolling up outside the old farmhouse Wells shared with Anne and Tonka. The snow was still falling hard, sticking now, coating the earth, hiding its scars. Gray smoke rose from the chimney into the gray sky.
“Here you are,” the driver said.
Wells left him behind, walked into the yard. Tonka looked out from the living room window and started to wag his long bushy tail with absurd speed. All the welcome any man could want. The door was unlocked. Wells pushed it open.
“I’m home.” The word low and solid in his throat. The only word he needed. “Home.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Neil, Ivan, Leslie, Tom, Marilyn, Matthew, and everyone else at Putnam who makes John Wells come to life. Thanks to Heather, who battles tirelessly for the best deal, and Dev, who watches the watchers. Thanks to my family for all your support and thoughtful comments. And, of course, thanks to Jackie, wife, friend, and partner.
I also want to extend a special thanks to Lt. Paszterko, Capt. Field, and the rest of the “Hard Rocks” for putting me up, and putting up with me, in Kandahar last year. Seeing the United States military in action is a privilege and honor. Stay safe.
As always, thanks to anyone who got this far, and please do write me at alexberensonauthor@gmail.com with comments and suggestions. I promise to do my best to write back. (And if you’re not sick of me yet, you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.)
