“It means you’ve never done a damned thing for this family except suck up mom’s attention and energy from the day you were born until the day she died,” Jake said.
“Fuck you,” Joe said. “I’m out of here.”
The youngest Slate passed through a door on the room’s far end and slammed it shut with a sound-isolated thump.
“We’ll give him a chance to cool off,” Olivia said.
“Shit,” Jake said. “I don’t know what it is about him, but he always sets me off.”
“He’s grateful,” Nick said. “He’s grateful that you’re alive. He just doesn’t know how to show it.”
“Crap, Nick. Come give your little brother a hug.”
Jake walked around the table and embraced the eldest of the three Slate boys. Nick felt lithe but strong.
“You’ve hardly changed,” Jake said.
“Older and wiser,” Nick said. “I didn’t recognize you with the hair and beard. And you’ve beefed up.”
“Being rich leaves a lot of time for working out.”
“I always knew you were alive. I didn’t believe that you scuttled the Colorado. They made you out to be a dead hero, but I never felt your death.”
“Well, okay. Thanks, I guess.”
“The truth is far more impressive,” Nick said. “Olivia explained it to Joe and me an hour ago, and it’s still sinking in. But I think I understand why you stole your submarine. It makes sense with your pain. You thought you had no other choice.”
“I don’t know, Nick.”
“And then to risk your life on another submarine to stop a nuclear attack against an aircraft carrier — you saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives. You are a hero. It’s too bad that so few will ever know.”
“She told you everything?”
“Even the part where you stopped to repay your debt to Taiwan by facing Chinese submarines.”
“Well, I try not to think about it.”
“But you have to. These are life events. Perhaps now that I know the truth I can help you talk through it.”
Jake’s innards curdled.
“No, thanks, Nick.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Jake felt Nick clasp his palms over his hand as he bowed his head.
“He does this weird stuff sometimes.”
Olivia shrugged.
“Quiet, please,” Nick said.
After several moments, Nick raised his gaze.
“You’re still in danger,” he said.
“What?” Jake asked.
“I sense danger. I’m sorry.”
Jake yanked his hand back.
“That’s a shitty way to greet your brother.”
“These feelings are never one hundred percent.”
“I hope not.”
“There is something good I sense, though.”
“Oh?” Jake asked.
“I believe that you and Olivia are going to have a great time on vacation — wherever she’s taking you.”
During an elevator ride to a hotel penthouse, Jake reflected that he had never enjoyed his freedom. He lived as a free man in the south of France with minimal probation oversight, and returning to America exposed a void of identity. Remaining anonymous and officially dead was part of the equation of enjoying America, and he trusted Olivia to teach him.
He had let her select Charlotte as a vacation destination since he had never been there and had little chance of being recognized. The intelligence agency that once hunted him now offered him his best protection of anonymity with an alias, a fake passport, and an escort in the form of an officer-turned-girlfriend.
After receiving a windfall in payment from his role in stealing the Trident missile submarine, USS Colorado, Jake patronized Europe’s finest luxury hotels. But this was the first American five-star room he expected to enjoy. He entered a suite of the Westin Charlotte Hotel and, behind him, Olivia tipped the porter.
He leapt onto the plush king-sized bed’s satin sheets.
“It feels good to be in an American room,” he said.
She joined him on the bed and kissed his neck.
“You seem tense,” she said. “I brought you here to relax. Plenty of people are living in secrecy like this. I’ve studied tons of cases and have even seen a few. It will take getting used to, but everything will be fine.”
“Sure,” Jake said. “Let’s tear this city up.”
“Tear me up first,” she said.
Jake embraced her.
After showering away the scent of sex, Jake realized that the lovemaking seemed mechanical and distant as he followed Olivia to the street. A chill from the sidewalk lifted spring’s early warmth into the night. Olivia strolled ahead, the belt of her thigh-length black leather jacket slapping her jeans. She bowed her head, cinched her strap, and stopped.
“You okay?” Jake asked.
“Just concerned.”
“About what?”
“You. Us,” she said.
“Right.”
“We knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”
“Well, we didn’t exactly find each other as perfect matches on a dating site,” he said. “Can you imagine? HIV-positive fugitive seeks HIV-positive CIA seductress and rape victim for deception, fleeing countries, teargas parties, and combat deployments on submarines.”
She grinned.
“Maybe I’m just being paranoid,” she said.
“That’s your job.”
“I don’t know, Jake. Your disguise is perfect. Nobody on earth who knew you back then would recognize you, and I’m not even a field operative anymore. But ever since your brother said you were heading into danger, I’ve had the chills.”
Jake sighed.
“You mean a feeling like we shouldn’t be together.”
They walked in silence to a pizza parlor. Feeling at home in America, Jake ate a thick, dripping pizza washed down with a midgrade macro-brew while overhearing conversations in slight southern-style English. He wanted to enjoy the surroundings, but trying to drift incognito in the mainstream highlighted the widening rift between himself and any sense of normalcy.
It also opened the distance he felt with Olivia. Unable to talk about their lives in public, their conversation centered on current events, which were like goings on in an alternative reality.
Back at the hotel, Jake tossed in bed. Jetlag released him to sleep at two in the morning, and the sun was tracing a rhomboid across the floor when he awoke. He glanced at the nightstand and scanned a scribbled note from Olivia telling him to take his time prior to joining her at Starbucks.
Jake’s mind buzzed with the excitation of being back in America, and he placed his bare feet on the carpet to orient himself. He debated lifting weights before showering when a feeble knock and inquisitive voice startled him.
“Housekeeping,” a woman said.
“Just one second,” he said.
Wearing boxers and a tee-shirt, Jake slid into his crumpled jeans.
“Okay, come on in.”
A woman wearing a black uniform dress entered, and at first glance Jake thought she was Hispanic. Her curves were voluptuous and pronounced, and he imagined that her hair, tied in a bun, would reach shoulder length if freed. Her dark, swarthy skin suggested a woman in her late twenties, and she caught him staring at her.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“I can come back,” she said.
Jake discerned no accent.
“I’ve visited many places and have met people from different cultures, but there’s something special about you,” he said.
She stood motionless.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been traveling a lot. I just woke up, and I didn’t expect to have a beautiful and exotic-looking woman walk into my room. Well, exotic to me. I’m sure you’re quite used to yourself by now.”