THREE

That night, Adam Blaine awoke from the recurring nightmare of his own murder.

The bedroom of his youth was pitch black, the thin silver light on his window cast by a crescent moon. He could feel the sweat on his forehead. In this dream, like the other, at the moment of his death he became Benjamin Blaine.

Turning on the light, he looked at the framed photographs that had remained there since he had left the island a decade before. A picture of the man he had thought his father; another of Jenny Leigh, the young woman he had loved until his break with Ben. Opening the drawer of his nightstand, he slid them inside, and closed it.

Enough, he thought. He could not kill these dreams alone, nor did he wish to take them back to Afghanistan. In the morning, he would call Charlie Glazer.

At 10 a.m., as agreed, Adam found Dr. Charlie Glazer sitting on the porch of his home overlooking Menemsha Harbor.

A family friend from Adam’s youth, Glazer was an eminent psychiatrist who for years had taught at Harvard. On Adam’s return to the Vineyard, faced with the complexities of Ben’s death, he had turned to Charlie for advice on how to navigate the labyrinth of his family—a group Charlie himself had given considerable thought over forty summers spent there. A bright-eyed man in his late sixties with white hair and mustache, Charlie did not affect the walled-off gravity often associated with his profession, instead combining a sweet-natured good humor with the tough-mindedness of the skilled psychoanalyst beneath. Adam had always liked him; now, Charlie was the only person he could trust with a semblance of the truth.

“So,” Charlie said without preface. “It sounds like you need to talk a little more. No surprise—even viewed from the outside, your family is an inexhaustible subject.”

Adam sat in the canvas chair across from him. “This isn’t just about them,” he responded, and felt the tug of his own reluctance. “It’s about what’s going on with me.”

For a moment, Charlie appraised him in silence. Dryly, he said, “That sounds dangerously close to actual psychotherapy.”

“I guess it does.”

“Then as a friend, and a professional, I should refer you to someone else. I know far too much about your family to be a neutral therapist, and I formed too many opinions about its members too long ago. One of which is that untangling all of that requires a serious commitment to a rigorous analytic process.”

Adam felt a sliver of despair. “No time, Charlie. I’m going back to Afghanistan in two weeks. Explaining my family to a stranger would take a year.” He hesitated, then finished, “Whatever happens to me over there, I need more peace of mind than I’ve got.”

Charlie frowned. “A tall order in two weeks’ time. Especially—and I hope you’ll forgive me—for someone as locked up tight as I perceive you to be.”

“I know that. But I’m not hacking it alone.”

Charlie’s probing gaze softened. “You really are alone, aren’t you.”

For a moment, the words struck in Adam’s throat. “I can’t tell anyone the truth. You’re the only person on this island I can trust, and who it’s safe to trust. In fact, the only person in my life. By profession, and I guess for deeper reasons, I’m not a very trusting person. And there are other lives at stake than mine.”

Charlie cupped his chin in the palm of his hand, staring fixedly at the water. Finally, he said, “The circumstances are hardly ideal. But I’ll help you to the extent I can. What I need from you is an absolute commitment to honesty. You can’t hide the ball from me—or yourself.”

Adam grimaced. “I understand. The one thing I ask is that we meet here, or maybe on your sailboat. In the last ten years, whenever I’m in an office I feel cooped up.”

“Fair enough. Three meetings then, at least two hours at a whack. No bullshit. Are you prepared for that?”

“Yes.”

Charlie nodded briskly. “All right then. I’ll get us some coffee, and we can start. You take yours black, right?”

Handing Adam a steaming cup of coffee, Charlie sat back across from him. “What brought you back to the island?” he asked. “The last time I saw you, maybe a month ago, you were leaving for Afghanistan.”

“I was. The medical examiner’s inquest got in the way.”

“And I suppose you felt responsible to look out for your mother, brother, and uncle. Or, or should I say, your father.”

The conversation was barely started, Adam reflected, and there was already something he could not say, even to Charlie—that, whatever the justice in it, Adam was covering up his father’s murder of Adam’s father figure. “There’s a lot to worry about,” he answered. “Especially Teddy, whom I know to be innocent of murder. There’s also Carla, and what happens to her and the boy. Nothing good can come from further conflict between her and my mother, whether it concerns the estate or the circumstances of Ben’s death.”

Charlie gave him a shrewd look. “I’ll let that answer pass, Adam—at least in part. As to Carla and your family, I certainly credit your concern—and the reasons for it. But you and I both know that your feelings about Carla, however complicated, transcend merely looking out after everyone’s interests. Though I can’t imagine you’re anywhere close to sorting them out.”

“True enough,” Adam acknowledged. “But then it hardly matters, does it? I’m going back to Afghanistan. That’s what brought me here this morning—my work.”

“Which you admitted to me is dangerous, and nothing like the story you tell your family—and everyone else. But it would help if I knew a little more.” Reading Adam’s expression, Charlie added, “Unless you plan to kill someone before you leave here, anything you tell me is confidential. Including about what you’re really doing in the world.”

Adam smiled without humor. “I may kill someone pretty soon, Charlie. But I don’t yet know whom. And unless it’s a certain tabloid reporter, no one on this island.” He drew a breath, fighting the habits of a decade. “I’m a CIA officer. Ben and Carla guessed as much, and I imagine you have, too.”

Charlie nodded. “That much, yes. But tell me more about what you do.”

Adam sat back, marshaling the answer he forced himself to give. “I’m on the paramilitary side of the agency—the special activities division. I’m fluent in Arabic, Pashto, and Dari, the principal languages of Afghanistan and Pakistan. I’m also schooled in running agents, avoiding surveillance, and using pretty much any weapon you can imagine. Part of that training involves the quarter of a second rule—the time within which human beings can respond to danger. I’m conditioned to kill someone just a little quicker.”

Charlie showed no discernable reaction. “How does that work in Afghanistan?”

“Mostly self-protection. My assignment is to operate against the Taliban and al-Qaeda by recruiting agents, getting information, and targeting their leaders for assassination. If I get caught at it, my best hope is to die quickly.”

“Sounds challenging enough,” Charlie observed phlegmatically.

“Yup. One of the hardest parts is sorting out the people I recruit—who’s a double agent, or when might they become one. My life depends on getting it right.” He paused a moment. “Even harder, at least for me, is that I’m responsible for their lives. So far, I haven’t lost one. I never want to.”

Suddenly it struck Adam that he had deployed Jack like a double agent, placing him at risk to save Teddy. Another thing he could not say. “And so,” Charlie was observing in measured tones, “your survival, and that of others, depends on a very complicated series of calculations and deceptions.”

The statement gave Adam a leaden feeling. “I’ve arranged my life into boxes,” he acknowledged. “Each box contains certain people, situations, experiences, and emotions, carefully arranged so that no box touches any other box, placing me or others in danger. I’ve even got boxes for Martha’s Vineyard: for Carla; for each member of my family; for the DA; for this tarantula of a tabloid reporter. For what I believe are good reasons, I’m deceiving every one of them in different ways—letting them believe things that aren’t true, and withholding things that are. All because I’m trying to protect my brother, mother, father, and Carla from each other, as well as to protect myself. But Afghanistan is worse—betrayal comes in many guises, any one of which can kill you.”

Charlie frowned. “A hard life to lead, Adam. It seems you’ve lost the habit of feeling safe, or even the ability to know who you’re safe with.”

“Also true,” Adam replied with a trace of irony. “Though I seem to be suited for the work. When I went into special ops, they put me through a battery of psychological tests. To everyone’s great pleasure, I came out as able to tolerate a high degree of risk and stress without cracking up, and being unusually unconcerned with my own safety.”

Charlie considered him over the rim of his coffee cup. “In psychological terms, what do you suppose that means?”

“I don’t know. I just know that’s who I became once I left this island.” He paused, disconcerted by the admission he was about to make. “In the last three years, I’d thought I proved to myself I can live with pretty much anything. But since Ben died, and I came back here, I’ve been having these nightmares. That’s why I called you.”

Charlie smiled a little. “I think there are many reasons why you called me, all of which are closing in on you. But tell me about these nightmares.”

For a time, Adam gazed out a Menemsha Pond on a perfect August day, the sky clear blue, a steady breeze propelling trim sailing crafts across spacious waters bounded by woods and meadows. It seemed so alien from the life he led that the scene, once so evocative of his youth on the water, now struck him as surreal. The coffee felt sour in his empty stomach. “Both dreams take place in Afghanistan,” he said at length. “In one, I’m next to a cliff, surrounded by Taliban fighters who are about to execute me. My only escape is to jump off the edge. But when I do that, I realize I’m falling toward the beach behind our house where Ben died on the rocks.”

“And the other?”

“I’m driving my truck when I hit an IED concealed in a dirt road near the Pakistani border. Suddenly I’m outside myself, looking at my own dead body by the side of the road. I know that my life is over, cut short in a way that lacks any meaning. But my head is that of Benjamin Blaine the last time I ever saw him.”

Charlie looked at him keenly. “So in both of them, at the moment of your death you become the man you believed to be your father. What does that raise for you?”

Adam shrugged. “You’re the shrink, Charlie. You tell me.”

Charlie shook his head in demurral. “I don’t know enough to do that. So anything I’d say is a guess. Obviously, Ben Blaine is central to both dreams. For reasons we’ve yet to fully explore, your break with him was traumatic. I could posit that you couldn’t overcome that trauma simply by leaving. If so, I suppose the dream could imply a visceral need to kill him—not only literally, but in your heart and mind.

“But there are other ways to look at this. The dream could symbolize your deep entwinement with your supposed father, and your fear that you’ve become like him. Or even that something about his death makes you feel guilty.” Charlie gave him a searching look. “As I said, I don’t think you’ve told me everything you know, which leaves me more than a little in the dark. But all in its own time.”

By training and habit, Adam avoided the implicit question. “So it’s all about Benjamin Blaine. Like everything else.”

“Not necessarily. Another way of analyzing a dream is to imagine that everyone appearing in it is some element of yourself. So part of you in the first dream may identify with the Taliban who are about to kill you.” Charlie hesitated. “There’s an aspect of our last conversation, a month or so ago, that I recall quite vividly.”

Adam put down his coffee cup, responding in clipped tones. “You mean that just before returning here I’d shot a double agent for the Taliban who was about to kill me, drove fifty miles at night with his corpse in the passenger seat, then dumped his body by the road where I thought no one would know him. It’s funny, Charlie, what sticks in your mind.”

Charlie laughed softly, his eyes still fixed on Adam. “What stuck in my mind is that an hour or so later you learned that Ben was dead. One can be forgiven for thinking that one experience might relate to the other. Was that the first time you’d killed a man?”

“The third,” Adam responded evenly. “The first was shooting a Russian arms dealer in his suite at the nicest hotel in Eilat, Israel, the Queen of Sheba Hilton, terminating his business of selling sophisticated explosives to al-Qaeda in Iraq. The second was cutting the throat of a key al-Qaeda operative in Croatia, who’d been enjoying a small bed-and-breakfast on the shore. For that one, I pretended to be an international tax attorney. No one can say my superiors lack a sense of humor.”

Charlie cocked his head. “What did you feel about killing these two men?”

“Not much. They’d been responsible for too many deaths already, and would’ve facilitated many more. When it’s trading one vicious life for many innocent ones, it’s not that hard to do the moral math.”

“And the last guy?”

“Was a reflex—I’d killed him before I’d even had time to think.”

“So this time, the life you were saving was your own.”

“Yes.”

“As I calculate it, that was about six weeks ago. Then, in swift succession, you learned your father was dead; came home to a place you’d left for unknown but painful reasons; found out that Ben had disinherited your mother and brother, exposing them to financial ruin; learned that the police suspected a member of your family of murdering the father you despised; proceeded to steal or illicitly acquire evidence that enabled you to arrange for Jack to exonerate Teddy; discovered that your mother had lied to you about critical facts of your life, including that your uncle was actually your father; and forced her to agree to a settlement with Ben’s pregnant lover.” Charlie’s tone became rueful. “A rich and full two weeks, Adam, which still leaves you on the hook for obstruction of justice should the police and DA ever figure out what you’ve been up to.” He paused, then inquired gently, “Does that about cover it, or are things even worse for you? Which I somehow suspect they are.”

“Let’s say it’s close enough.”

Charlie shook his head, a gesture of sympathy. “And you wonder why you’re feeling a bit troubled. The average person would get his very own wing in Bellevue.”

“Sounds nice,” Adam replied. “But I have a prior engagement in a war zone.”

“So let’s look at what you’re taking back with you. Have you had nightmares like this before?”

“No.”

“Then let me suggest that your life—not just the CIA, but its entirety—is catching up with you. True, your tenure at the agency has enabled, even required that you avoid confronting your own emotions. You’ve developed all sorts of defenses exacerbated by stress—compartmentalizing, vigilance, extreme caution in relationships, emotional distance, and serious levels of distrust. But you haven’t stopped being human.” Charlie leaned forward, looking at Adam intently. “What those nightmares call up for me is that part of you that is connected to your deeper feelings, many of which precede your work with the agency. Including your fear of death—or, as troubling, your expectation of dying.”

Adam found himself without words. Watching his face, Charlie prodded. “You expect to die young, don’t you?”

Adam stared at the deck, unsure of how to answer. “It’s crossed my mind.”

“Do you think that’s all about your job? Or is there something more to it?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you do know when those feelings started. You didn’t have them when you were young, did you?”

Painfully, Adam tried to remember the boy he had been. “That’s like recalling another life, Charlie. But I don’t remember having those feelings then. At least not consciously.”

“Yet at some point you started feeling disconnected from relationships—a loss of joy, of wanting to be fully in the world.”

Adam shrugged. “Sounds like a pretty good job description.”

“So you say. But you sought out that job. I wonder if, at some earlier point, you began feeling expendable. Or were made to feel that way.”

Adam found that he could say nothing. Looking at him closely, Charlie asked, “If you look at it honestly, Adam, how do you cope with the risk of dying?”

For a moment, Adam closed his eyes. “I’d say I’ve become ‘familiar with the night.’ If I die, I can accept that. I’ve come to believe that I won’t have long relationships, or children of my own. I try to imagine it, and I can’t anymore.”

Charlie bit his lip. “Actually, I’m not sure you do accept that—at least not quite. Beyond that, I’d say you just described a fairly typical response for someone with your profile.”

“Which is?”

“Damaged,” Charlie said bluntly. “In your case, an attractive, smart, and inherently empathic man, with unusual abilities and the capacity to work your will on the world around you. But someone whose experience of family involved increasing levels of uncertainty, ambiguity, and dishonesty. Your ‘father’ lied to you, competed with you, and, I think, betrayed you in some terrible way. Your mother deceived you, and didn’t protect either of her sons when Benjamin Blaine demeaned Teddy for being gay and treated you as a rival. Even your supposed Uncle Jack, who was kind and consistent in that role, didn’t come to your defense. And he, too, was keeping a terrible secret from you. Then something even worse caused you to break off with Ben, leave this island, and change the entire course of your life. Take all that together, and the message I think you got is that your feelings don’t matter—that on some subliminal level, you don’t matter.

“Often such people become hedonists, losing themselves in drugs or sex. Instead, you put yourself in a dangerous situation with a high risk of death. One might suppose that the CIA allowed you to try outrunning your own demons, while pursuing self-annihilation in a way that preserves your self-image as a capable, autonomous person . . .”

“Actually,” Adam cut in sharply, “I’d say my career choice was a pretty natural response to watching madmen from al-Qaeda blow up two high-rises and kill three thousand people. Call me sentimental.”

Charlie watched his face. “I understand that part, Adam. But when you’re back in Afghanistan, ask yourself whether you want to survive, and if you can imagine a life you can embrace on the other side.” He paused for emphasis, then finished slowly and succinctly. “I’d like to think that’s the truest meaning of your dream. That you’re afraid of dying, because the deepest part of you still hopes for something better.”