Walker pulled up to the police cruiser. He could see another at the end of the street. A pair of San Diego’s finest on station in each. He was glad to see them there, because it meant that the government was taking this seriously, and that the Brokaws would be safe should anyone or anything threaten them. For the first time Walker realized that they may be being protected from the general populace. Jasper’s name was out there, and surely by now some news outlets were reporting that his father was a high-ranking general in the US Air Force, and pundits would be saying, How did this happen? and Maybe the father knows something, and Why don’t we go talk to the old guy and see what’s what. Walker had been around long enough to know that crazy people did crazy things, and there was no shortage of crazy when things started to fall apart.
It was like what he saw so many times in Afghanistan, in the big villages. Where the locals, initially a mix of the jubilant and those skeptical of the soldiers who had booted out the Taliban, soon lashed out at anything in a uniform when things went wrong. The United States, NATO, the coalition forces, the Afghan Army—it didn’t matter. It’s not that the Afghanis wanted the Taliban back, it’s that they were frustrated and desperate and angry, and anyone in a uniform became a symbol of their problems. The small villages were a different story, as the power vacuum invited local warlords, many of them ex-Taliban, to fill the security role. And around and around it went.
Walker showed the local police his Homeland Security letter and his ID, and was directed to park his car halfway down the street—in case it contained explosives, Walker figured. One SDPD officer followed him on foot, then patted him down and checked the vehicle over in a cursory search. He motioned onward and ghosted Walker shoulder to shoulder to the house, the whole time keeping a hand on his side-arm and the other on his radio, into which he spoke quietly and listened intently.
The General’s house was storybook Spanish Colonial. The American flag was on one post, the clasp holding it at sixty degrees; the blue Air Force flag on the other, with its coat of arms, thirteen white stars representing the original thirteen colonies, and the Air Force Seal.
The door opened as Walker’s foot touched the first hardwood step leading up to the porch.
An FBI agent in a suit, jacket open, badge ID on his belt to the side, service automatic next to that, nodded to the cop, who took his leave.
“You here to talk to the General?” the agent asked.
“Yep,” Walker said.
The agent looked him up and down.
“ID?”
“I already showed the cop.”
“I’m not that cop or any other cop.”
“That makes two of us.”
The FBI man smiled and put his hands on his hips, signaling that their little dalliance was over as it began. “And where’d they say you were from, exactly?”
“The General knows me,” Walker said. “We go way back.” He gave the agent a stare that he used to use for junior soldiers and recruits who needed to learn a lesson in obeying the chain of command, and flashed the piece of Homeland Security paper. He’d learned through a life in the military and intelligence worlds that being direct to those subordinate usually expedited things. He was slowly adapting to a life on the outer where his status was not immediately apparent.
“Right,” the FBI guy said, handing the paper back, having thoroughly read it over. “This way.”
The agent paced down a wide, open hallway. There was a cloakroom and a hat stand and a wall of family photos: the General, his wife, Monica and Jasper, all on holidays, the General never in uniform. Walker figured that there would be a study, perhaps upstairs in a spare bedroom, that contained all of the General’s uniform photos. His “Me Wall,” they called it. Pictures of the General at various stages of his career, mostly those when he held command posts or was posing with heads of state and Capitol leadership.
The hallway opened up to a bright kitchen at the back of the house, where another FBI agent stood by an island bench, a stool showing where he’d been seated before Walker’s arrival. But Walker and his guide didn’t enter the kitchen, instead they had stopped seven paces down the hall at an open doorway to the right, where Walker saw two overstuffed couches, a couple of armchairs and a large television next to a gas fireplace. News was on the television; Jasper’s picture was in the bottom corner.
Walker saw the General, but no Monica.
“Sir,” the FBI agent said to General Brokaw. “This man, a Mr. Walker, to see you.”
“Can you leave us a moment?” Walker asked the agent.
The agent looked to General Brokaw, who didn’t respond.
“Integrity First, sir,” Walker said to General Brokaw. “Service Before Self, and Excellence in All We Do.”
The General’s eyes softened a little, then he looked to the agent and motioned him away.
Walker headed over. General Brokaw stayed put. Walker could see why when he got there—a set of crutches lay on the floor to the side of the sofa.
“Walker, right?” General Brokaw said.
“Yes, sir,” Walker said. “Class of ninety-nine.”
“What rank did you leave the Air Force?”
“Lieutenant Colonel, sir.”
“You got the Air Force Cross.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And multiple Purple Hearts.”
“Three, sir.”
“Yes, I remember.” He looked to the television. “I had to check in on you, occasionally, for my daughter.”
Walker was silent. He didn’t know what to say. Monica had kept tabs on him all this time? Just to be sure he was okay? How that may have sat with the General seemed moot in light of current circumstances.
General Brokaw said, “You know where those Purple Hearts came from?”
“Sir?”
“They were made during World War Two,” said the General. “We made about a million of them, figuring that we’d be invading Japan and that we’d need them. The bomb fixed that. And they’re still giving out those medals; have been in every war and conflict since.”
Walker was silent.
“What are you doing here?” General Brokaw asked.
“I want to help.”
The General looked to Walker, who was standing to attention in the middle of the lounge room.
“At ease, Walker, and sit down,” the General said. His voice was low and gravelly, the result of years of cigars and whisky, Walker could see from the bar in the corner and the glass on the side table by the sofa and the stubs of cigars in the crystal ashtray and the smell in the air.
Walker sat on the closest armchair.
“Where you at now?” General Brokaw asked.
“Freelancing, sir.”
“Ditch the sir crap. Last I heard you were at the CIA.”
“I was.”
“Didn’t suit?”
“For a spell. Near on a decade.”
“I read that you saved the Vice President last year.”
“I was there.”
“I didn’t vote for the guy, let alone his boss.”
“Unbiased duty, and all that.”
“I’m too old and cranky for that shit now. But sure, good job.” The General stared at Walker. Almost a minute passed. There was no volume on the television, only subtitles. The General’s eyes were red and wet, not with sadness but with anger and despair. “What can you do to help?”
“I can talk to Monica.”
“That’ll help?”
“I believe so.”
“How?”
“I won’t know until I talk to her.” Walker looked from General Brokaw to the empty space next to him, a blanket curled in the corner of the sofa as though a person had been seated there in the cold hours of the morning and since departed. “Where is she?”
The General looked back to the television as he said, “She’s gone.”