Epilogue

OUTSIDE FARMVILLE, VIRGINIA

Careful of her dress, Alia Kassab gazed out the window at the quiet lake.

She had always imagined this day.

She never imagined it would be quite like this.

A lot was still up in the air. As far as the official record was concerned, Blake Kershaw still did not officially exist. His mother believed he was dead and had not been informed otherwise. The sum total of the people in the world who knew Blake was still alive was, as far as Alia could figure, eight.

Would there ever be wedding bells? A church? Pews crowded with family, with friends from around the world? She hoped so. She still dreamed about it. She had dreamt it just the evening before.

But for now she had this, and it was enough. Enough for her. Enough for Blake. And enough for God.

There was a knock at the door.

Alia looked in the mirror and checked the flowers crowning her long, dark hair. Raised in Islam, she would never again consent to wearing a veil, not even on a day such as this. She picked up her bouquet and opened the door.

Amos Phillips was standing there in a charcoal-gray, pinstriped suit.

“You ready?”

Her simple white dress rustled as she took his arm.

“Oh, yes,” she told him. “I’m very much ready.”

IT WAS A TINY group of people. Anatoly Warshowsky—he had officially changed his name back at the Russian embassy just as soon as he arrived in the States—was standing at Blake’s side, ready to catch him if he needed it. Ten weeks after the bunker-buster bomb wiped away the entire top tier of the Iranian government, Blake still ached and was less than 100 percent steady on his feet.

Zari was there as well, and the look she gave Anatoly made Blake wonder if perhaps General Sam shouldn’t have pulled the strings to get two licenses. Olga looked on from one of two chairs on the lawn, smiling and weeping.

They stood at an arbor put up at the foot of General Sam’s dock. There was no music; CIA retains a roster of musicians cleared to perform at state events, but not even they had the clearances required to perform at this event.

The door to the house opened and Amos and Alia stepped out.

Looking at her, Blake held his breath. Max, the German shepherd, freshly washed and wearing a black silk bandana, was sitting on his haunches near Olga, and Alia stopped for a moment to pet him, drawing a patter of laughter from the tiny group.

Then they were standing opposite Blake. Amos patted the back of Alia’s hand, leaned forward, and kissed Alia on the cheek. Then Zari stepped forward to hold Alia’s bouquet for her.

Blake tried to remember when he had ever witnessed such a perfect moment. He could not think of one. He could not think of one that even came close. The day was sunny, yet cool, with just the slightest hint of a breeze, that brought the distant cry of a bald eagle as it wheeled in a thermal, high on the far shore of the lake.

Blake thought of his father, dead so many years ago while he was deployed with the National Guard in Kuwait. He remembered the day he followed him in duty, enlisting in the Army, the day he first reported as a candidate for Special Forces. His missions came back to him one by one, including the mission that nearly ended his military career. He remembered his first day of college at Hampden-Sydney and the first day he met General Sam. Then he thought about all the events leading to this moment: his early graduation and commission, followed by the staging of his death, the weeks with Alia where he learned what he would need to know for his first mission, and when they—although they had not admitted it to one another at the time—first fell in love.

And then there were the months of action he could never talk about, that would stay there forever as gaps in his record. He remembered the times he nearly died and how the thought of Alia remained the spark that could keep him going. He looked at her and his eyes met hers.

“Okay, my friend,” Anatoly whispered behind him. “Time to breathe again.”

Blake smiled, took that breath, and offered Alia his arm. They stood beneath the arbor and faced General Sam.

“It is customary,” General Sam said, “to begin this solemn occasion with the words, ‘Dearly beloved.’ But they seem, to my ears, inadequate. So let us begin, instead, in this way: Dear brothers, dear sisters, and dear friends. We are gathered together at the beginning of a journey, a journey that, like all perfect voyages, shall never end . . .”

And as General Sam spoke, the eagle soared and cried on the far side of the lake.