Walker took off his jacket and hung it over a chair, then his shirt. He lay on his bed, still in his T-shirt and jeans. He caught Monica looking at him. At the scars on his arms from being battered and blown every which way in two wars. At his forearm near the elbow where a bullet had passed clear through.
Monica said, “You’ve lived.”
“We both have.”
“But you’ve been to war.”
“A couple of them. That’s the official number.”
“And unofficially?”
Walker was silent.
She was still watching him as she made her way to the mini-bar and opened a tiny bottle of whisky. Walker shook his head as she held it up to him in question, and she took the bottle and a glass with her to sit again on her bed. Her voice softened now a little in the quiet of the room. “Why did you leave the CIA?”
“We parted ways,” he said simply.
“For your wife?”
“In a sense.”
“Do you still love her?”
“Yeah.”
“No pause. Just like that.”
“Just like that,” he repeated.
“But you’re separated.”
Walker looked up at the ceiling, said, “It’s complicated.”
Monica sipped her whisky. “Does she know what you did for the Agency?”
“No one knows what I did for my country.”
“Not even her?”
“Not even her.”
“Why don’t you have a whisky?” Monica said. “Or are you one of those who doesn’t drink anymore?”
“I want to stay sober.”
“So, you’re one of those.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Twelve steps.”
“AA? No. Why?”
“America’s great gift to the world of religion.”
“I’m just trying to stay clear, so I’m ready for anything.”
“You’re not a cop. And I seem to remember us drinking a lot back in the day.”
“That was a holiday weekend.”
“Oh, that’s all it was?”
Walker looked over to Monica after a few seconds of silence between them.
Monica said, “Have you thought about me, over the years?”
“I have.”
Monica let her eyes flick toward the television, but then she looked back at him. “You’re . . . different.”
“Near-on twenty years will do that,” he said.
“Is it really that long?”
“We were kids.”
“You were, what, a year younger than me?”
“I was twenty.”
“Twenty. Gosh.”
“Yep. A couple of kids.” He paused, said, “Tell me about Jasper’s friend.”
“They fell out years ago. It won’t help.”
Monica fell silent. She stared at the television but he could tell that she didn’t see it. Her gaze could have reflected anything: was she thinking about her brother, recalling being young, wondering about what could have been had she and Walker kept in touch after that long weekend?
Walker stood up, went to the table and passed her a wrapped sandwich, but she declined. Instead he ate it and then microwaved a hot pocket. The packet said it was a mixture of ham and cheese wrapped in pastry but it tasted like it could have been made out of old Chinese newspapers.
He said, “This thing makes MREs taste good.”
“MREs—ration packs?”
Walker nodded. He tossed the balled, empty cardboard packaging across the room into the bin.
“Meals, Ready to Eat. Fuel, really.”
“But you ate them.”
“The military teaches you a couple of things that you never really forget,” Walker said. “Top of the list is that you eat and sleep what and when you can.”
“They can’t have been that bad, those MREs.”
“They had tiny bottles of Tabasco in them, so that helped.”
“Tabasco makes everything better.”
“I know, right?”
“Right.”
Monica smiled. “So, you’ve eaten, now you’re going to sleep?”
“That’s the plan. The kettle’s boiled, if you want a coffee.”
They each sat on the end of their respective beds, and watched the news. It was MSNBC.
The Assistant Director for the FBI’s cyber division was doing a live cross from their situation control center in DC. “It’s the biggest US security breach ever and we’re doing all that we can to protect those who have had their privacy compromised at this time . . .”
Monica poured another whisky. She sipped it neat and watched and listened. Walker lay back on his bed. Tomorrow would be a long day, and he knew he needed rest, however short. Monica did too, but he knew better than to tell her so. He closed his eyes, still listening to the news.
“You sleeping?” Monica asked.
“For a bit.”
“Seriously?”
“Hopefully.”
“Like, right now?”
“Sometime between now and a few hours’ time.”
“Because we’re better off waiting here than being out there, trying to get to Jasper’s?”
Walker exhaled, hearing her tone. “Those guys are out there, looking for us.”
“Those guys in what, two or three cars?” she countered.
“They have reach.”
“Those cops didn’t bat an eyelid.”
“That might have changed,” Walker said. “And those guys back at your house were Feds, and they have all kinds of surveillance capabilities. They’ll have dropped a net.”
“So what—we’re not fugitives.”
He opened his eyes and looked across at her. “You’re complaining about being here and resting a few hours while they do their thing? Believe me, if they get you, you’ll be babysat in a government building someplace—no more home detention.”
“They can’t force me to do that.”
“They can do what they want to. For your safety or whatever they want to call it.”
“The Patriot Act.”
“Something like that.”
“You sound paranoid delusional.”
Walker closed his eyes again and pinched the bridge of his nose, staving off a headache that had been threatening to knife him in the skull for hours.
“I wondered how long it’d take you to diagnose me.”
A minute of silence passed. Monica’s attention turned to the newscasters, and then she spoke. “I mean, really? The way these guys are talking about it—if this is all that they’re going to do with my brother, stuff like this, then who cares, right? I mean, come on . . . we’re the United States of Amnesia—this will be forgotten in days, if not hours. We all know that privacy is dead.”
Walker sighed and sat up. He went to the counter by the television and started the little one-cup coffee filter machine. He waited while it hissed and steamed and filled the Styrofoam cup that he took and then sat on the end of his bed to watch the news.