Patrick shook his head. “You know I’m not allowed to talk with contractors about Air Force matters outside of their contracts, or accept any gifts or favors,” he said. “Staying in the Sky Masters condo, even if you accompanied me there, would look pretty suspicious. Our relationship with Jon and Sky Masters is too cozy already, without him sending in his legal sharks to help me work over the Air Force.”
“That is not what would happen, and that’s not what Jon’s offering.”
“I know, I know. But still … I don’t know, Wendy. Something’s happening here. Things are changing.”
“What do you mean, Patrick?”
He searched his feelings for several long moments, then took another sip of wine and shrugged. “Wendy, I did what I always do — I’m faced with a problem, a crisis, and I did something about it the best way I knew how with the resources I had. Ten years ago, that was okay. Today, I’m being court-martialed for it. Things have changed. I have a feeling that either I need to change with it, or I’ll … cease to exist.” He put on his faraway look, his “thousand-yard stare,” as if silently querying the faces of his dead friends for help in finding answers. “I’m not sure if I want to fight the court-martial and retire, or fight it and win, or fight it and go to prison.”
Wendy looked truly surprised. “Why in hell not?”
“Because it feels to me like there’s an alternative life out there, a path opening up for me, and I’ll miss it if I do what everyone expects and fight it. If I allow whatever happens to happen, I think I’ll be happier.”
“This doesn’t sound like the Patrick McLanahan I know.”
“It doesn’t sound like him to me either,” Patrick said honestly. “I know I have friends, and I think I have friends I don’t know, enough to take on even the Pentagon. But if I can’t see the path I’m meant to take, I don’t think starting a brushfire will help me find it.” He held Wendy tighter. “I know I’m supposed to be talking to you about what I’ll say once I get to Washington, that we should discuss and decide this as a family. I also know that I’m supposed to have a plan, an idea of what I want out of my own career and my own life. But truthfully, I have no idea what I’ll do. All I’m sure about is that I don’t want to march into the Pentagon with a bunch of civilian lawyers and try to engage the brass in combat. I’m not afraid of losing — I’m afraid of creating so much smoke and confusion that I won’t see the path I want.” Wendy’s body appeared tense, and the fingers stroking his thighs seemed stiff and aimless. “What is it, sweetie?”
“I have a feeling you’re … tired, that’s all,” Wendy said. “You’re tired of the bureaucracy, tired of the fighting, tired of jeopardizing your life over and over again in secret. I wish you could rest, but I know you’re not ready to rest. All I see is the good you’ve done and the contribution to national security you could make, a contribution that doesn’t include having your friends turn on you.” She turned to face him. “Terrill offered you a chance to retire, an honorable discharge with your current rank and time in service, and have your record expunged. I know he gave you a deadline, but I think with your record of achievements and service to the country, that the offer will stand a while longer. I think you should take it.”
“And come to work for you, Jon, and Helen?”
“You’d be a vice president of a major high-tech firm again, getting paid twice what you earn as a one-star general, with better benefits, and with stock options that would double in value every two years,” Wendy said. “Jon tells me six times a day he wants you back — he’s got an office, a car, a plane, your e-mail mailbox, and a locker in the gym ready for you. He’s even given you a staff and projects to get started on, in anticipation. Yes, I’d say he wants you back in the worst way.” Wendy lowered her eyes, as if considering her words carefully, then looked at her husband again. “I know you’re not a prideful man, Patrick, but I can’t help feeling that part of this has to do with you feeling you were right to turn around and fly back to Russia to protect Annie and Dev, that you shouldn’t be getting punished for doing what you did. I think you’re fighting this to protect your principles.”
“Do you think I was wrong?”
“Don’t you see, Patrick?” Wendy asked, almost pleading. “It doesn’t matter. You did it and saved your friends. That’s all that matters. You tell me a dozen times a year that Congress or the Air Force could close down Dreamland at any time and give all of you involuntary retirements. You tell me one slip-up, one crash, one more security breach, and you’d all be gone. Half of our salary goes into mutual funds and money market accounts every month because you anticipate everything ending suddenly. When Thomas Thorn got into the White House, you thought your dismissal was imminent.”
“So?”
“So all that time, you were emotionally and mentally prepared for a sudden, perhaps unhappy end. Now, all of a sudden, you’re not ready. You’re fighting it. Why? It’s not your family — you’ve prepared us well for the day you’d leave the service, or the day you would never come home from a mission. Now, you’re not ready. What changed?” Patrick took another sip of wine, then angrily drained the glass and got to his feet. Wendy saw the stem look in his face, and knew she had hit on the source of his anger. “Terrill Samson, right? You feel betrayed by him. He was a student of Brad Elliott, just like you, and he’s in charge of HAWC, and you thought you’d be more ideologically in sync. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Maybe a little,” Patrick said. “I knew from the beginning Terrill didn’t have the fire in his gut that Brad did — hell, who does?”
“You do.”
“But they didn’t make me commander of HAWC — they made him commander,” Patrick said bitterly. “But that’s not who betrayed me.”
“Who is it, then?”
“Thorn — Thomas Nathaniel Thorn, the damned President of the United States,” Patrick replied angrily. “TNT, the Young Turk, the New Age president, the assassin from Desert Storm turned peacenik isolationist. He doesn’t bother to show himself to the American people. Doesn’t show up for his inauguration, doesn’t show for the State of the Union speech. All this crap about doing away with the Army, with not having any troops stationed overseas, with not guaranteeing the security of any foreign nation — it’s driving me crazy. I feel like my country’s going down the toilet and I can’t do a thing about it. Thorn is the one who encourages commanders like Terrill Samson to turn their backs on their friends and get rid of their warriors, just like he’s turning his back on our allies and kicking our soldiers out onto the street.”
“So you think you’re going to Washington to fight the President of the United States?” Wendy asked incredulously. “Patrick, you have got to think a little clearer right now. You can’t go to Washington with a chip on your shoulder. There are too many folks there, wearing too many stars, ready — some eager — to knock that chip off for you, long before you ever reach Sixteen Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. Even Brad Elliott never had the nerve to take on the White House.”
She stood with him, took his hands, and looked deeply into his eyes. “I’m being selfish now, Patrick, but I think I’ve earned the right to say this: think about your family before you say one word there tomorrow. Whatever the reasons you feel right now, I’m telling you, forget your feelings and your anger and think about your son and me. If you lose, you’ll go to prison. Your son will visit you in Leavenworth, along with all the other wrecked military lives, and he’ll see you like he’ll see them. How will you explain that what you were fighting for was right? How long will it take even our intelligent son to understand? You may be justified and you may even truly be right, but you’ll be in prison as surely as if you were wrong. Julius Caesar is a fine heroic play, but it’s still a tragedy, because the hero is destroyed at the end.”