THE HAND CLOSED on Drew’s shoulder, and he sat forward with a start, then looked up at the man beside him. It was the other father on this trip, a short vacation for the Fourth of July. They would be at the lake through the weekend.
Drew relaxed.
“Sure I can’t get you a scotch or a beer or anything?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Drew said. The kids were in the basement theater room. Their wives were in town. Drew barely knew the other man, Greg Talley, though their wives were close. Drew was restless, had never been very good at sitting around doing nothing.
“Check this out,” the other man said. He took a seat next to Drew and pulled out his phone. It was a shot of him kneeling next to the carcass of a black bear.
“That was up in British Columbia. Top-of-the-line everything. Private chefs. It’s a long day. Up at dawn. Sitting in the blind, waiting. Hard work.” He gave Drew an elbow and a wink. “But they make sure you don’t miss. Baits, you know. You do a lot of hunting?”
“Some,” Drew said.
“When you see an animal like that, that could tear you apart, and you line up the shot and…bang!”
He looked for some reaction from Drew, who remained calm. Greg stroked his own forearm. “It still gives me chills. It’s hard to explain the feeling.”
“Sounds pretty unbelievable,” Drew said. “Excuse me.”
He stood and walked to the top of the stairs, called, “Michael!”
Greg liked to spend money. This place was too expensive, everything a cabin shouldn’t be—huge and full of electronic distractions. But Drew would do anything to have time with his kid, so he’d gladly chipped in his half.
“What sort of work did you say you did again?” the other man asked, standing up from the sofa.
“Personnel systems analyst,” Drew said.
“I looked you up, didn’t really see much on LinkedIn.”
Long-range reconnaissance, undercover time in arms trafficking, close-in lethal jobs. It wasn’t the kind of stuff you put on a résumé.
“It’s all about building a personal brand,” Greg went on. “Putting yourself out there. Promoting yourself isn’t a bad thing. It’s saying, Hey, I’m great, I’m passionate about what I do. I want to tell you about me.”
“I’ll look into that. My brand could use some work.”
Drew had once stood in a hangar at Bragg with the rest of his team and two CIA operators. They had killed the acting commander of al-Shabaab, and the president came down to congratulate them personally on the success of the mission. When he asked who’d fired the shot that killed the chief, Drew and the others remained stone-faced.
The head of JSOC told the president, “The team did, sir.” They didn’t talk like that, didn’t seek out or take individual credit for successes.
He was working in the local fire and rescue now that he had left Cold Harvest, but he still said “personnel systems analyst” when anyone asked him about his job because he didn’t like to talk about what he did—an ingrained habit—and that tended to bring the work conversation to a close.
He was sick of killing and of being away from his family. He liked the straightforwardness of working in public safety. He came from a long line of cops and firemen. But money was tight. His wife had needed thyroid surgery the year before. There were plenty of jobs for a guy like him, security contractor work, but he was tired of telling his kid he would see him in a couple of weeks and not knowing if he was telling the truth.
He was one of the lucky ones, though. He could still walk, still see his son play football.
“I’ve been doing a lot of public speaking, actually—”
Drew ignored Greg, walked downstairs, and saw his son, Michael, sitting on the couch next to Greg’s son, Daniel. Michael barely looked up from the TV. His long hair hung over his eyes. He was playing a video game, a military shooter, running and hip-firing without cover, like a jihadi. Inshallah shots, they called them, which meant God-willing shots, because they prayed they would hit something. It was almost hard for Drew not to say something about the tactics.
“I’m going to get a little exercise before dinner,” Drew said. “Then I’ll get some pizza.”
“Uh, okay,” Michael replied. “But I’m off cheese.”
“Since when?”
“Since forever."
“All right,” Drew said, and he ran his hand through Michael’s hair while his son twisted away.
Drew changed into a pair of board shorts, then walked past his truck and through the trees to the edge of the lake. The sun was setting. He slipped into the cold water and felt his skin contract. It was about sixty degrees, but he would be fine if he kept the pace up. He slid through the water.
That conversation was progress. For a long time, Michael would barely talk to him, and Drew couldn’t blame him. He’d been gone for most of his life, popping in for two or three weeks like an uncle from another coast.
Drew’s wife would tell him about the bad dreams and the angry speeches: Where is he? Why is he always leaving us behind? What if we need him?
Michael pretended not to care about anything, but Drew saw otherwise on the football field, saw Michael’s red face and trembling hands after all-out sprints at practice. He’d seen a picture his son texted to his friends, a photo of the two of them fishing together, with Michael holding up a thirty-inch striper.
It was a start.
He slipped through the black water, going twenty feet under the surface at a time.
On the shore, folded in his towel beside his sweatshirt, Drew’s phone rang and rang. Thirty miles away, Hayes hit redial and pressed the damp glass of his phone to his cheek.