H
e could smell…something. Like bleach, but with a soapy, cinnamon-type hint. The odd combination of smells left him confused—like someone had baked pumpkin pies but put bleach in them. Who would do that?
Serial killers, that’s who. Jules loved to watch late-night documentaries on America’s most prolific serial killers. She was a moderator on one of those internet forums that talked about them and had told him once that she’d found evidence that H. H. Holmes was actually Jack the Ripper. It made sense that Britain’s most famous serial killer was an American, he remembered thinking.
He really needed to call her when he got back stateside. Abigail would want to see him too. He could take her to get tacos and…ice cream? No, she was seven. She didn’t like ice cream anymore. She’d told him that the last time.
Johnson opened his eyes and looked cautiously around him. The lights were dimmed, which made it harder to wake up, but sleep wasn’t an option anymore. He needed to find the man who ran this base and persuade him to push his visit home to a couple of months early.
“Fuck,” he muttered, shook his head, and tried to focus. An IV was plugged into his arm—saline solution and probably morphine too. He looked at his body in a sudden panic. Had
he lost his leg? No, that was Lee. Weird. Why…oh, right, surgeries. So many—too many. They should simply release him and send him home.
Well, that explained the smell of bleach, anyway, but it didn’t explain the cinnamon. Was it something they used to make the place smell less like death and cleaning products?
The door to his room opened and a young woman stepped inside. She wore pristine white, her black hair cut short to just above her shoulders. A pair of glasses rested low on her nose.
“Good morning, sergeant,” she said, and a small, professional smile touched her lips as she moved to the foot of his hospital bed and tapped the tablet there. “I thought I heard some movement in here. It’s good to see that you’re with us again. We thought we’d lost you back there.”
He blinked a few times as he tried to pull his memories into something remotely cohesive. He didn’t remember being wheeled in there. Then again, much of his recent memory was too fuzzy to remember clearly.
“Let’s start with something simple,” she said and drew his attention back to her. “Do you remember your name?”
He nodded and licked his lips. “Sergeant Jeremiah Johnson, 75th Special Forces Group.”
“Excellent. Cognitive functions appear to work normally,” she said with a smile. He studied her white coat. Weren’t doctors supposed to wear their names on their lapels? He craned his neck to see the file that she looked at on the tablet.
Patient 90911. No name. That was less than encouraging. It was one of those
hospitals. He knew about them, of course—black sites that were created to treat patients who didn’t need much in the way of names or identities until they were released.
“How long have I been in this facility?” he asked as he returned his focus to the doctor.
“You’ve been in my care for the past three days after you
were released from surgery,” she replied. The smile never left her face. She seemed nervous, he thought, as if she thought she was in the presence of a dangerous animal that could attack her at any moment.
His suspicions about the hospital were confirmed by the way she smoothly sidestepped the question. He leaned back in his bed.
She pulled the blanket down and inspected the bandages that covered his torso. “Tell me if you feel any discomfort, all right?”
Johnson tilted his head to study his wound-riddled torso. There were more holes than he’d expected, including some higher up on his chest. For a moment, he simply stared in amazement when he realized that he had survived despite being turned into a chunk of swiss cheese.
The doctor worked methodically to inspect the bandages and make sure that the stitches all held. She also ran a handful of reflex tests on his knee, a tapping test over his sternum, and a couple more that he was unfamiliar with.
“Do you have any discomfort?” she asked, her expression and tone all efficiency.
“Not really,” he replied. “How many surgeries did I have to undergo?”
“From your file, you were subjected to three in total,” she replied. “Could you raise your arm for me, please? Right, then left.”
He did as he was told. This doctor was apparently comfortable dealing with men and women who had come out of the field from dubious operations around the globe. She was also accustomed to answering questions in ways that didn’t provide any unnecessary information, all while being as pleasant and as professional as a doctor could be.
“I have all I need,” she said after a few more checks obviously brought no negative results.
“That’s nice to know,” Johnson replied.
“She wasn’t talking to you.” Another unfamiliar voice brought his attention to the door of his room as a tall, lean man in his late thirties stepped in. He had light-brown hair and deep-set brown eyes which didn’t seem to miss much. Smiling politely, he watched the doctor beat a hasty retreat. “It’s good to see you in the land of the living, sergeant.”
He nodded. “Is this a debriefing?”
“I’m afraid so,” the man said and placed a hard copy of a file that Johnson was sure would be submitted with a horde of redactions on the movable bedside table. “I work with the intelligence unit that ultimately caused your team to be sent into that village, so I thought that it would be appropriate if I did this myself.” The man stared into his eyes as if judging how bad his reaction would be.
Johnson felt something cold and angry drop to the bottom of his stomach. It had been bad intel that got his squad killed, for the most part, but it was hard to feel angry when he realized that the man he now spoke to wore a lieutenant colonel’s oak leaf. Light birds didn’t conduct debriefs. Ever.
He gripped the sheets under him as tightly as he could as his body began to shake with frustration and residual sorrow. But he needed to control himself, he knew that, so he took a deep breath and willed himself to calm.
“Forgive me for saying so, sir, but that was some shitty intel your unit gave us,” he said finally and tried to keep his tone as respectful as possible. He wanted to shout and throw things around and lay all the blame on the man standing in front of him. The need was instinctual, even though, as squad leader, he knew the life and death of his comrades lay heavily on his shoulders.
“Agreed, Sergeant,” the LC said with a firm nod. “The insurgents expected our attack. They moved your target out and brought in a battalion’s worth of men a few hours before
you boys set foot in that village. They knew you were coming and waited until it was too late to give you a heads up before you entered. You’d gone dark before we found out about it.”
Johnson gritted his teeth and dragged in another deep breath before he nodded. His stomach jolted and for a moment, he felt dizzy and nauseated.
“All your men will be given full military honors,” the LC continued. “Although, since the operation was off the books, of course, there won’t be any mention of it. A complete blackout was approved. We sent another team to intercept the target while he was in transit to another location and they pulled it off. We believe that they didn’t anticipate that we would be willing to bring another team in that quickly.”
“That sure showed them,” he responded and struggled to keep himself still on his bed. “What happened to Evan Lee? Corporal Evan Lee, the one whom I managed to get out? Is he still in surgery? Will he be all right?”
The LC looked away for a moment. “I’m sorry, Sergeant, I wish I had better news for you. The systemic shock included a nasty infection that made him septic. The surgeons tried their best, but he didn’t make it. I’m sorry.”
Hot tears welled up and he fought them back savagely. “I don’t need your fucking apology.”
That was no way to address a superior, but he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t feel particularly charitable toward the man, despite knowing that he was there because he felt equally as guilty as Johnson did.
“I understand,” LC said with a small nod. “I hope you understand that you were declared dead to the world as well.”
“What?” he demanded and shoved himself up from the bed. He regretted the precipitous action almost immediately.
“I’m sorry, but it was necessary to keep complete control of the narrative in the Pentagon,” LC replied. “That mission was the last that you will run with the US Army, as well as the last
time that you will be referred to as Sergeant Jeremiah Johnson, do you understand?”
Johnson breathed deep and tried to harness his thoughts. Of course, this was standard procedure for operations of this kind. They usually didn’t have survivors when things went this poorly, but when there were, complete control was necessary. If news of these kinds of casualties reached the wrong Senate committees, it would result in heavy investigations into black operations. That, in turn, meant a shitload of media coverage that could cost operatives still in the field their lives. At least, that was what he was told when he signed up for the covert operations.
“I hope they made my funeral nice, anyway,” Johnson said finally.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” the other man replied with a small smile. “Your ex-wife was in attendance, her fiancé, and your daughter. I can’t imagine what that must feel like.”
“Andy’s a good guy.” He smiled because that was the truth. “Did you think I would let someone spend so much time with the two people I care the most for in the world without vetting him personally?”
“Right,” the man replied and lowered his head. “That said, I think it goes without saying that you can’t go back to your old life. None of your friends or family can know that you’re alive. You are dead to the world, for all intents and purposes.”
“If it goes without saying, why did you say it?” Johnson asked. Rage and respect for rank fought a pitched battle in his heart, and only extreme discipline—and his weakness and discomfort, of course—kept him from rearing up in his bed and placing his hands around the man’s throat.
“It needed to be stated,” the LC replied. “My superiors would prefer that all details of what’s about to happen be laid out without any room for error, as it were.”
“Right.” Johnson leaned back in his bed.
The LC closed the file he’d brought in with him and tucked it under his arm. “Arrangements are already being made for transfer into your new life. They should be ready for you to assume your new identity once you’ve finished your physical therapy. Until then, you should focus on recovery. It’s the only way to get through this.”
He smirked. “You would know, right?”
“You have no idea,” the LC replied with a serious glint in his eye that informed Johnson he had also suffered loss—maybe even extreme loss. The man cleared his throat and said, “Rest well, Sergeant.”
He exited the room and closed the door behind him and abruptly, the smell of cinnamon receded to leave only the tang of bleach and rubbing alcohol in its wake. Johnson let his body sag on the bed with a ragged sigh. There wasn’t anything that he could look at, so he simply stared at the sheets that covered his battered and broken body. He felt the world close in and the grief in his heart threaten his sanity.
They were gone. His teammates were dead and now, his ex-wife and daughter might as well be too. In addition, his life was in the hands of the same men who had issued false information and gotten every member of his team wiped off the face of the earth.
“Fuck,” Johnson griped and dragged in a deep, shaky breath. He closed his eyes as he brushed his hand over his cheeks. Hot, fresh tears trickled down his face. He pulled the sheet up to dab them away.