“Brother, we’re running out of time.”
CHAPTER 27
Brendan hung up the phone and sat back in his chair. He crossed off the last line on his handwritten checklist.
He was free. Amy was out of his life.
It had taken him months, a lawyer he couldn’t afford, paid with money he didn’t have, to rid himself of that crazy bitch, but he’d done it. He’d gotten his identity back, shut down the false credit cards she’d opened in his name, and had his few remaining personal belongings shipped from San Diego back to Minneapolis, where they sat in his parents’ garage.
He closed his eyes. He was thirty-two years old, broke, and living in his parents’ basement. This was not how it was supposed to work out. He was a decorated Iraq war veteran — a Navy SEAL, for Christ’s sake — and he was living in his parents’ basement.
He could blame Amy, but deep down he knew he was just as much to blame. When he did something, he went all in. He’d been in love with Amy, so why not give her power of attorney over his affairs while he was overseas? Why not put her on the lease to his apartment and give her all the passwords to his financial accounts? Sure, they weren’t actually engaged, but he knew she loved him…
He looked down at the pages of scribbles and crossed out to-do lists on the yellow legal pad in his lap. That’s why, Brendan, you fucking idiot. You just spent the last three months unfucking your life because you didn’t think.
You blamed yourself when the Skype calls from Amy became more infrequent, and then stopped altogether. You ignored the emails from the bank and told yourself Amy would take care of it. You could have asked the CO’s wife to check up on Amy, maybe even stop her, but you didn’t want to cause any trouble. You were so sure you could work it out.
He threw the pad across the room, watching the pages flutter in a buzz of yellow. It slapped against the circa-1970s wood-paneled wall of the basement.
“Everything okay down there, Bren?” his mother called from the kitchen at the top of the stairs.
Brendan took a deep breath. “Fine, Mom.” He hoisted himself out of the chair. “I’m going for a walk.”
“Do you want some company, honey?”
“No, Mom, I’m fine.” He threw an old overcoat over his sweats and pulled a watch cap over his ears. He put some weight on his knee, flexing the joint. All in all, the knee had healed better than he’d expected. He had most of his previous range of motion, and maybe half the pre-injury strength. He could walk with only the slightest limp, and even run on it for a few hundred yards at a time.
He pushed open the sliding door on the walk-out basement and stepped out into the snow. It had been a brutal winter, the snowiest in something like 150 years. The path he’d shoveled from the back patio around to the front of the house was more like a tunnel, with three feet of packed snow on either side.
When he reached the driveway, his mother opened the front door. “Can Champ come with you?”
Brendan smiled. “Sure, send him out.” She opened the door wider to let the dog out. Champ, their ancient black Labrador retriever, huffed his way to Brendan, his leash folded in quarters and dangling from his mouth.
Brendan squatted to pet his friend, breathing through the pain of bending his knee. “Who’s walking who here, boy? Huh?” The leash trick was something Brendan had taught Champ in his younger days. He used to love to run around Lake Harriet with the dog, and the city had a leash law. Brendan thought letting Champ hold his own leash was pretty clever.
Their running days were over — for both man and dog. Today’s pace was a walk with occasional slow jogs, if they both felt up to it.
“Let’s go, boy,” he said, starting off.
It was one of those wonderful Minnesota winter days when the city experienced a midday “thaw.” While the nighttime temps stayed below zero, the days would warm up to high-thirties or so, enough for the running paths to stay clear of snow and ice. For the locals, used to near-zero conditions, the temporary reprieve from freezing — even for a few hours — inspired bursts of outdoor activity. Some brave souls even wore shorts when they ran around the lakes.
“What do you say, Champ, wanna scope some chicks around Lake Harriet?”
In their prime, the running loop around Lake Harriet had been a favorite haunt for both of them. Brendan, a senior in high school and already accepted to the Naval Academy, had become a workout fiend. He ran with his shirt off most of the time, with his faithful sidekick Champ, then just a year-old Lab. That was the year he’d taught Champ the leash trick. Brendan laughed out loud.
“Look at us now, buddy.” He reached down to scratch Champ’s ears. “Couple of broken-down old men, aren’t we?” Champ looked up at him and huffed noisily around the lead crammed in his jaws.
The sun was warm. By the time they reached the Harriet loop, Brendan had zipped open his overcoat. The sweat felt good, always a sure way to lift his spirits. It was lunchtime and the loop was crowded with runners. He watched one girl lope by in running tights that left nothing to the imagination, blond ponytail bouncing behind her. Brendan shook his head. In his younger days, he and Champ would have matched her stride for stride until she noticed his beautiful dog with the lead in his mouth and started a conversation.
Brendan tried to jog a few steps, but stopped when the pain spiked in his knee. His black mood closed in again. Those days were gone — long gone.
They neared the Lake Harriet Bandshell and Brendan got off the path. He guided Champ to the plaza behind the shell and found an open spot on the steps. Champ stretched out on the warm cement beside him. Although they looked out over the snow-covered lake, the sun was warm and the spot sheltered from the wind. Brendan took off his jacket and balled it behind his head as a pillow, letting the warmth of the sun seep into his body.
He needed to make some decisions soon. Rear Admiral Wizniewski had given him a staff job in DC for “as long as he wanted it,” but Brendan knew Wiz was just being kind. He was finished as an operational SEAL, and there was no way he’d be able to handle being a desk jockey in the SEAL community. His pride wouldn’t take it.
He could get out of the Navy, that was one option. There would even be some sort of disability for his knee injury. And do what? The only thing he’d ever wanted to do was be a SEAL, and now that was gone.
And then there was the mysterious Rick Baxter and his intel job. Brendan had to admit it: when Baxter read him into the program a few weeks ago, he was impressed. But was it really for him?
At Baxter’s invitation, he’d taken the DC metro out to Suitland, Maryland. The Office of Naval Intelligence building was part of the National Maritime Intelligence Center complex, just another of the myriad of alphabet-soup agencies that Brendan knew nothing about.
He processed through the security center and waited for Baxter to meet him. It was Brendan’s first time back in uniform since his hospital stay. He was out of shape, and his service dress blues felt tight in all the wrong places. The knee brace he wore allowed him to walk, albeit slowly, but at least he didn’t need crutches.
Baxter arrived in civilian clothes, but he wore the navy blue suit like a uniform, with a white shirt and a muted pattern tie with a perfect double Windsor knot. When he shook Brendan’s hand, Baxter’s brown eyes searched his face. “Good to see you, Brendan. How’s the knee?”
“Fine, sir.”
Baxter laughed, a deep belly laugh with lots of white teeth. “Alright, McHugh, let’s get this straight. Inside this program, I’m Rick and you’re Brendan. No ‘sirs’ allowed. Got it?”