The light lit up the bottle of bourbon lying on the floor, making it glow with its own amber light. The bottle he’d fetched from the kitchen and then never opened because he knew it wouldn’t help. The light glinted dully from the white backs of the pictures he’d grabbed and flipped through and then turned facedown on the floor like cards because he couldn’t stand to look at what they showed. Even a hint of red hair or a corner of a lip or a single eye looking back at him from those pictures would have been too much.
The light showed him where his phone lay, after he’d thrown it at the wall. He reached out and picked it up. The screen had cracked right across, but it still lit up when he entered the passcode.
Her number was there in his contacts. He’d opened up that contact and stared at it a dozen times, come very close to pressing the call button, and then stopped himself. She’d said not to call.
Maybe that had been a trick. Maybe she expected him to call anyway, and if he did, he would pass the test and she would know she’d been wrong, that it could work, that he still loved her enough to chase after her…
Or maybe she’d been completely honest with him, which was much more like the woman he knew. Maybe if he tried calling her that would be it, the last straw. Maybe there was still a possibility of her coming back but only if he played by her rules…
Or maybe she wouldn’t even pick up. Maybe his call would go through to her voice mail, and he would have to listen to her recorded greeting, the one where she was laughing because when she recorded it he was kissing her neck…
By the time he’d finished thinking through those possibilities — for the dozenth time — the screen went black again.
She was gone. She was really gone.
Repeating that to himself didn’t make it real, no matter how many times he thought it in his head.
He tried to sleep. He didn’t bother getting up, he just grabbed a sheet from the floor and pulled it over himself.
It smelled like her.
Like Julia.
He balled up the sheet and threw it across the room. It opened up in the air like a parachute and fell slowly to the floor. It made the whole room smell like her.
He went in the kitchen and curled up on the tiles, which just smelled like floor wax.
He couldn’t sleep there, either.
He entered the passcode on the phone. The screen lit up and told him the phone was down to reserve power. It didn’t matter.
He opened the phone app and his thumb hovered over the button that would bring up all his contacts. He shook his head and pressed the button for the keypad instead. He dialed a number he knew by heart, one that he wasn’t permitted to enter into his contacts. The phone picked up before he’d entered the final digit. She must have been waiting, monitoring his phone in case he called.
“Good news, I hope,” she said.
That struck him so hard it made him want to laugh. Except it wasn’t funny at all.
“Chapel? Baby? Are you all right?”
He ground the ball of his living thumb into his eye socket, trying to push away what he was feeling. This call didn’t require the use of his emotions. “Angel,” he said. “Tell the boss that I’m available. I’ll report for duty first thing in the morning.”
“Honey, do you know what time it is? Maybe you should—”
“Just… please, Angel. Just tell him that. Okay?”
“Chapel, tell me what’s wrong,” she said.
He shook his head, even if she couldn’t see him. Then he pressed the power switch on the phone and made the screen go dark again.
PART II
Even as Chapel made his way through security at the Pentagon, he could tell there would be something unusual about this mission. Rupert Hollingshead was waiting for him just inside the checkpoint. The director looked completely out of place, surrounded as he was by men and women in the uniforms of the various armed forces. No one gave him a second glance, though — he was a fixture here, and even though the vast majority of people working in the aboveground rings of the Pentagon would have no idea what his job was, they knew enough to salute him as he passed by.
“Son,” Hollingshead said, when Chapel approached him. “Son, you look terrible. Are you unwell? Do you need to sit down?”
“I’m just tired, sir,” Chapel lied. “Maybe I’m not fully recovered from Miami.”
“I can imagine,” Hollingshead replied, steering Chapel toward a door that led into one of the inner rings. It was not the way Chapel would have gone to get to the elevator that took one down to H Ring, but he didn’t ask where they were headed. “When Angel told me you were, ah, coming back so soon, I… well. I didn’t know what to think. I can guess a little of it. Your homecoming yesterday didn’t go as we expected, did it?”
“No, sir. Sir, if I can ask for a favor—”
“Anything. Absolutely anything you need,” Hollingshead told him, a grave look on his face.
“I’d like to not talk about my personal life right now. If that’s all right.”
Hollingshead’s face fell, and Chapel felt bad instantly. But the last thing he could handle at that moment was talking about what had happened in Brooklyn. He suppressed a sigh. “It’s just — I’d like to get to work as quickly as possible.”
Hollingshead nodded. “Keep your mind off things, I’d imagine. Well. I suppose that’s fine for now. But, son — I’m going to need you at the very pinnacle of your game today. If you’re going to be distracted or you’re going to be on the phone all day, well, ah—”
“No, sir,” Chapel promised. “I’m ready to focus on something else.”
Hollingshead nodded again. “Then we’ll say no more. Now — as to business. We can’t meet in the usual place for a reason that will soon become apparent. I’ve reserved a briefing room for us and had it swept for listening devices. Sadly, that does not mean we’ll be able to speak with complete candor. Again, for a reason soon to be made manifest. The same reason we’re meeting in a new spot, actually. So before we go in, I need to tell you something.”
“Sir.”
Hollingshead lowered his voice. “What you’re going to hear is all true. I’ve had it verified to the best of our considerable abilities. Everything checks out. It may also be the most vital matter my office has ever concerned itself with. Furthermore, it’s one of the most sensitive. I must say, I’m glad you’re here, even if I’m not pleased with the reason you were able to come in.” The director raised his hands in protest. “Never mind, we’re not talking about that.” He walked briskly up to an unremarkable door and put his hand on the knob. “You think you’re ready for this. I’m not, and I don’t mind telling you.” He turned the knob and opened the door.
Beyond lay a small windowless conference room with a table and a dozen chairs and not much else. The walls were bare concrete — they weren’t even painted. The lighting fixtures were just uncovered fluorescent tubes, and the table was made of glass. That was probably to make it harder to plant a bug underneath it. There was no television screen available, nor any computers — not even a telephone. The back of the door was lined with noise-absorbing egg crate foam and the door itself had a rubber seal around its edges.
Chapel took out his cell phone and turned it on. It got no reception, not even a single bar, and no wireless signals were available either.
Hollingshead went to the end of the table and took a seat. When he spoke, his voice sounded oddly flat in the shielded room. “I imagine this all looks quite primitive,” he said, grinning a little.