“No, I don’t, Director, but I think you answered my question.”
Her gaze swept over them. “So another mission successfully accomplished. After completing arduous missions before that.” She tapped her fingertips together.
Robie glanced at Reel, but by her look she was as puzzled by the director’s words as was Robie.
“I think you two need a little time off, but I have a suggestion as to where you should go.”
“Where?” said Reel warily.
“I’d like you to accompany an old friend to eastern Colorado.”
“Blue Man wants to go back?” said Robie incredulously. “There?”
“Well, it is his hometown. And there is someone there he needs to talk to. About something important. Will you go with him?”
Robie and Reel didn’t need to look at each other.
They both said “Yes” at the same time.
“It was so good of you both to come.”
Blue Man was thin and drawn. It was the result of being in a hospital for nearly a month recovering from his various wounds. He was sitting across a table from Robie and Reel.
As the Agency jet descended into the airspace over Colorado, Blue Man’s hand flicked to his necktie. He was dressed as he always had been at the Agency: conservative dark suit, striped tie, and crisp white shirt, along with black wingtips. He next moved a strand of hair back into place.
“You look very handsome,” said Reel as she observed his movements.
He seemed embarrassed by her comment, turning slightly red. “Being shot does not do much for one’s appearance.”
“What are you going to say to her?” asked Reel.
“I’ve been thinking about it every day. And I’m still not sure. I’ve never been this indecisive in my life. If I did my work with this much uncertainty, I wouldn’t last a minute in the job.”
“This is different,” Robie pointed out. “This isn’t a job.”
Reel said, “We went by your old home. We know what happened there and were puzzled that you decided to keep it.”
Blue Man nodded. “I was perhaps puzzled myself. But in the end it came down to this: I had many happy memories there, and one single awful memory can’t be allowed to erase that from my life. Keeping the house and some of my old memorabilia there was a way for me to remember it.”
The plane landed, and an SUV was waiting for them.
As soon as they stepped into the vehicle and buckled up, the driver set off. He apparently knew the address, because he asked for no instructions.
When they arrived at the house, Blue Man said, “It might be better if you wait out here.”
“Are you sure?” asked Reel.
“No, but I still think I need to do this alone.”
“Are you going to tell her… about what happened to Patti?” asked Robie.
“I think now is the time to tell the absolute truth,” replied Blue Man.
He closed the door behind him and walked slowly up the drive to Claire Bender’s home.
They watched as he knocked. A few moments later the door opened and there was Claire.
Even from this distance Robie and Reel could see that the woman looked like she had aged ten years.
She stepped back for Blue Man to enter and shut the door behind them.
She had glanced once in the direction of the SUV, but the tinted windows prevented her from seeing inside.
Robie said, “You want to take a stroll?”
They crossed the road and walked across a field. The air was nippy and Reel stuck her hands in her jacket pockets.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“I met with Malloy.”
Reel looked taken aback for a moment. “Where?”
“Brooklyn. She moved back there after she got out of the hospital.”
“I can understand that. No reason for her to come back here.”
“None,” said Robie. “I did tell her that I got Fitzsimmons. I sent her a picture of him all duct-taped.”
“I’m sure she appreciated what you did, Robie, but I wish they could have found her sister’s body.”
“They did.”
Reel gave him a sharp glance. “What?”
“It was in the same place they found Derrick Bender’s. The quarry. They drained it two weeks ago. It was a graveyard. They’re still counting corpses.”
Reel stopped walking. “Jesus.”
She looked at the dirt.
He drew closer to her but kept a bit of space between them.
“It can end any minute. We know that better than most.”
She glanced up at him, her brow furrowed. “I think I know that better than you.”
“Come again?”
“It will end for us, Robie. Maybe not tomorrow, or the next day. But it will. With a bullet to the head. Or a knife to the gut.”
“So that’s that, then?”
“What else? We have occupations where the survival rate is pretty damn low. Do you really want to commit to a person doing that? I’m not sure I do. Do you understand how badly it will hurt?”
“I understand how badly it hurts now,” replied Robie.
“We’re not cut out for each other, Robie. We’re just not. We’ve made our beds. We have to sleep in them. Separately,” she added with firmness. “I almost died in Iraq. I should have died there. I didn’t care about the men I lost over there nearly as much as I care about you, and that loss is still eating me up inside.”
“And anybody can get hit by a bus or die in a terrorist attack or get cancer. And people all over the world still choose to be together.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Because you say it isn’t.”
“Because it’s true.”
“So you’re saying that you won’t feel bad if I die, because we’re no longer together?”
She looked confused by this. “No, of course not. I would feel bad.”
“So what’s the issue here? If you’re going to feel bad anyway, why not be together while we can?”
She snapped, “I’m not going to your funeral, and I don’t want you coming to mine.”
“You’re way overthinking this, Jess.”
“I’m not going to debate this with you.” She paused. “And you have Malloy. She would obviously say yes to whatever you asked her.”
“She probably would. But it does take two, Jess.”
“I know that.”
“We could leave the service.”
She said, “And do what? What else do we know how to do other than this?”
“So where does that leave us, Jess?”
Without another word, Reel turned and walked back to the SUV.
They sat silently in the truck until Blue Man came out.
He opened and closed the door to the house himself. They didn’t see Claire at all this time.
When he climbed back into the truck he told the driver, “Back to the plane, please.”
As they pulled off Robie said, “How did it go, sir?”
Blue Man kept his gaze directly out the window. “Much as I expected it would.”
“Is that a good or bad thing?” asked Reel.
“Much as I expected it would and yet hoped that it wouldn’t. She just lost both her children. One by my hand.”
“So you really told her about that?” said Reel.
“When I said the truth, I meant it,” replied Blue Man. “She deserved to know, no matter how much I didn’t want to tell her.”
“That must have been hard,” said Robie.
“The truth is hard, Will. Far harder than a lie.”
“How did you leave it with her?” asked Robie, his choice of words drawing a quick stare from Reel.
“I have no clue, Robie. And for someone in the intelligence field, that is never a good thing.”
Don’t I know it, thought Robie as he looked out the window at the gathering dusk.