Deadline (30 page)

CNN and all the major networks had covered the dramatic story that had unfolded in the ramshackle cabin on the edge of the salt marsh. Dawson had successfully eluded reporters. He’d disconnected his hotel-room phone this morning when the switchboard operator ignored his request and continued to put through calls from correspondents asking for just one sound bite.

Harriet had heard the story about the time he was on the ferry going over to Saint Nelda’s. That was when his replacement cell phone—which he’d bought at a supermarket—had begun lighting up with text messages. He regretted having sent her his new number and hadn’t bothered to read her texts until after he got back to Savannah. The first few had been gleeful. Overnight, they’d graduated to giddy.

He looked over at his neglected laptop where it sat on the dresser. Last night, after leaving Amelia and returning to this solitary room, he’d planned to write. His best writing always came from scouring emotional wounds that were already raw, which was why he had a love-hate relationship with his craft.

Never had his emotions been as ulcerated as they were last night. Ideally, his impressions and feelings about Jeremy Wesson should be committed to hard disk while they were still fresh. He’d even booted up and placed his fingers on the keyboard, hoping the familiar preparation would jumpstart him.

But he hadn’t been able to type a single word. He couldn’t think of a turn of phrase that didn’t trivialize the thoughts and feelings that went bone-deep, soul-deep. And he realized he never would.

Now he sat down on the edge of the bed and placed the necessary call to Harriet. Before she got completely carried away, she needed to be told.

She answered on the first ring. “Oh my God,
Dawson
!” She practically squealed his name.

“Hello, Harriet.”

“I’m having multiple orgasms.”

“Congratulations. That has to be a first.”

“Go ahead, be your usual insulting self. You’re forgiven. You’re forgiven every hateful thing you’ve ever said to me. Tell me, how in the hell did you track them when the FBI had failed? Was it Glenda? Did she help put you there in that cabin? She won’t tell me dick, but I suspect it was her. Was it?”

“I’m not writing the story.”

When a star collapsed, it didn’t create that kind of vacuum. For an interminable amount of time, nothing was said. Then, “This isn’t fucking April Fool’s Day, Dawson.”

“This isn’t a joke, either. I can’t write the story.”

“What are you talking about? You
lived
the story. You
are
the story.”

“Which is why I don’t want to write it. Why I can’t.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll play along. Why can’t you?”

“I’m too close to it.”

“You’re close to every story. You drive us all nuts with your close-getting. Ordinarily you won’t write a story unless you’re grafted to it.”

“This is different.”

“How?”

“It just is.”

“Not good enough. How is it different?”

“The man died in my arms, Harriet.”

That subdued her, but not for long. However, her voice turned softer. “I know that must’ve been awful.” He imagined her stroking a cat after yelling at it for coughing up a hair ball. “But you’ve written about soldiers who died of their injuries. Some of them you interviewed hours before they died.”

“I wasn’t looking into their eyes when the lights went out.” He experienced a flashback to working his shirt collar free of Jeremy’s grasping hand, and squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to block it. He propped his elbow on his knee and rested his forehead in his palm. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand how this is different. It just is.”

“So consider it a unique opportunity. A chance to stretch. It was an awful experience, but you came away from it with a new perspective on life. Share what you learned with your reader.” She was going for maternal now.
I know it was a hard knock, but pony up, get on with it. I have every confidence in your ability to overcome this hiccup.

“It’s not an experience I wish to share.”

“Maybe not right now. It’s still too fresh. Give yourself a few days to mellow. Chill. Take all the time you need.” A second or two ticked past. “But if I could have the finished piece by, say, the end of October, I could slip it into—”

“There won’t be a story about this, Harriet. Not in October. Not ever. Not from me anyway. If you want to send someone else—”

“No one else can write it.”

“Well, then you’re shit out of luck.”

He heard her jeweled reading glasses hit her leather desk pad. She was hacked. “Dawson, why are you doing this to me?”

“To
you
?”

“Is this your sick payback for me being promoted over you?”

He laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Harriet. This has nothing whatsoever to do with you.”

“Ohhh, okay. I get it. Duh! You’re holding out for perks. Fair enough. I think I can talk management into giving you a bonus for the piece. I can’t guarantee it, but I’ll try. I can positively guarantee that it’ll be the cover story.”

“No story.”

“From now on, I won’t give you assignments.”

“You mean I don’t have to cover blind balloonists?”

“You can write about whatever your heart desires, and that’s a huge concession for me. In exchange, give me thirty-five hundred to four thousand words.”

“I’ll give you six.”

“Six thousand?”

“Six words. Do. You. Want. The. Champagne. Back?”

She hung up on him, which was just as well, because his room-service sandwich had arrived. But when he opened the door, it wasn’t the expected roast beef on rye that greeted him.

I
’ve already made a fool of myself in front of you,” Amelia said. “But I’d rather not look like one in front of them.” She tipped her head to one side.

Dawson stepped into the hallway. Midway down, two uniformed officers were watching them from the open door of the elevator. He looked back at Amelia. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, if you invite me in.”

He stood aside. She called a thank-you to the deputies, who had insisted on accompanying her when she’d stated her intention of going to Savannah. She pulled the door closed and flipped the bolt, then turned to face Dawson.

He said, “I thought you were room service.”

“Disappointed?”

“Surprised. Where are Hunter and Grant?”

“I left them at the beach house in good hands. They and the deputy have bonded.”

The conversation died there. She went farther into the room and took a look around. When she saw the ice bucket and champagne, she asked, “What’s the occasion?”

Completely baffled, he said, “Amelia, what are you doing here?”

“I suppose it was rude of me not to call first, but—”

“Screw manners,” he said impatiently. “Why would you come at all? I thought I would be the last person on earth you’d want to see after last night.”

As they stood there looking at each other, the aftershocks of that explosive encounter were still being felt. The demand, the frantic groping, her hands, his mouth, the insistent coupling, the ecstasy of the synchronized climax.

Suddenly he frowned with concern. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s good. I didn’t exercise much—”

“Control. No, neither did I.”

“I was going to say finesse.”

“A better word. You’re the writer.”

Again, the conversation died.

He turned his head aside, looking away from her. “If you’re worried about getting pregnant, you won’t. I had a vasectomy when I was twenty-two.”

That came from so far out of left field, she didn’t know how to respond. Eventually she said, “Twenty-two? That was awfully young to make that kind of commitment.”

“I don’t regret it.”

“Then it was the right decision for you.”

He looked at her again and seemed annoyed that she hadn’t taken issue, that she’d denied him the opportunity to defend his decision. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

“I’m not going to let you get away with your exit line last night.”

He gave her a long look, then nodded his head slowly. “Oh, I get what this is about. The morning-after rehash. A must-have for women. I wouldn’t have expected something so banal from you.”

Her temper flared. “And I wouldn’t have expected you to act like a jerk.”

He didn’t argue the point, which was as good as an admission that a jerk was exactly what he was being. Appearing as ill at ease with himself as much as with her, he ran his hand around the back of his neck. When he lowered his hand to his side and looked at her, his expression was resigned.

“You want me to tell you how good it was? Christ, Amelia, couldn’t you tell? Doesn’t it go without saying?”

“Then why did you bolt?”

“I told you why.”

“You gave me an excuse. But you’re withholding the reason.”

“In other words, I’m a liar.”

“Please don’t try to pick a fight to avoid an issue.”

“Now I have issues?”

“You’ve said so yourself!”

“Right,” he returned, matching her tone. “I do. So you should heed the warning and stay away from me.”

“Why, Dawson? Why do you say you want me with every breath, then push me away? I want to know. Tell me now.
Why?
”

“Because Jeremy put you and your kids through hell. I won’t do that to them or to you.”

“I’ve come to think that Jeremy didn’t have post-traumatic stress.”

“Maybe. But I’m not faking
my
nightmares.”

“I’m willing to help you through—”

“Thanks, but
I’m
not willing for you to.”

“Isn’t that my decision to make?”

“No.”

She paused to catch her breath. As she did so, she noticed his determination not to look directly at her. “Your nightmares aren’t the reason, are they? That’s just another excuse. Like the loner thing.”

“Loner thing?”

“Headly said you—”

“Oh, Headly said. You’ve talked about me with Headly?”

“You’ve assumed a loner outlook, when actually it goes against your nature.”

“What the fuck? Headly’s an expert on my
nature
?”

“I think there’s something to what he said.”

“What makes you think so?”

“A vasectomy at twenty-two for one thing.”

“That has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.”

“It has everything to do with it.”

“You’re wrong.”

“No, I’m not. If there weren’t some truth to what Headly said, you wouldn’t be shouting.”

Seething, he turned his back to her and switched from shouting to muttering.

“Where’s your story?”

He jerked himself back around to face her. “What?”

“Another excuse has been your heedless pursuit of a story. Nothing matters like the story. You’ll go to any lengths, take insane, life-threatening risks to get the story. So…” She gestured toward his sleeping laptop. “Where is it?”

“I haven’t written it yet.”

“Have you even started?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It hasn’t gelled. I haven’t decided on the direction I want to take it. Besides, the ending can’t be Jeremy dying alone in that cabin. The story won’t end until Carl is captured or killed.”

“That’s what you’re waiting on.”

“Exactly. That’s the only reason I’m still here.”

“Oh. You’ve hung around this long only to get the story.”

“That’s right.”

“Your involvement with me, the boys, only a means to an end?”

“The truth?”

“A yes-or-no will do.”

“Don’t make me hurt and embarrass you.”

“So that’s a yes.”

He didn’t say anything.

“You were only working an angle. Getting to us to get your story.”

After a beat, he bobbed his head once.

She held his stare for a long moment, then said softly, “You’re lying, Dawson.”

“You’ve repeatedly accused me of doing just that.”

“And you’ve vehemently denied it. You’ll never make me believe otherwise now.”

“Oh, yeah? Bet I can. You want to know how far I’ll go to get a story? I’ll tell you. But you may want to sit down first.”

She backed into a chair and sat.

His motions were angry and abrupt as he began to pace the width of the bed. “I had gotten some good material in Afghanistan. The stories had generated a lot of hype, notice. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. The real nitty-gritty.

“So I talked some army brass into letting me go to a combat outpost near the Pakistani border. A dark base. When the sun goes down, it’s dark until it comes up again. No lights. To move from building to building, personnel walk around with red flashlights. That kind of place. High alert twenty-four/seven.

“Stationed there was this platoon. They were set apart. Not much interaction with other service members. Tough guys. Small, wiry, lean and buff. When they weren’t on a mission, they worked out. Wrestled with each other. Everything they did was very physical, combative, and they did everything together. Like a wolf pack of trained fighters.

“They were great subject matter, what I’d been hoping for. I wanted to live with them, get to know them, learn what they were about. What made them good soldiers? Were they patriots? Or were they ruffians looking for a fight, and this was the best—or worst—to be found?

“They liked me but couldn’t understand why I was there when I could be somewhere else, anywhere else in the world, where there were women and booze, movie theaters, bars, normal life. I impressed upon them that the creature-comfort sacrifices were worth the story I would come away with.

“I slept in their barracks, talked smack with them, played poker. I couldn’t accompany them on their missions, because those involved finding enemy targets and taking them out.

“They’d be gone for days at a time and would return dirty, tired, hungry for hot meals, but always pumped. Mission accomplished. One less terrorist in the world. They’d talk. And talk. Eager to tell me about the most recent firefight. Talking over one another, outdoing one another with the foul language. ‘Get this down, Dawson.’ ‘You can quote me on this.’ ‘Don’t believe his bullshit. You want to know how it went down, talk to me.’ I’d won their confidence. They wanted me to tell their story.”

He stopped pacing and sat down on the end of the bed, facing her. “Then in May, they went out and were gone for longer than usual. The brass wouldn’t tell me anything. I didn’t expect them to. The mission was classified, of course, but this time there was a palpable tension behind the secrecy. With good reason, I found out later.

“An America chopper had crashed. The two pilots were injured, but they’d survived. The area had seen a lot of action, and the fighting was too hot for the pilots to be immediately rescued by air.

“Near the crash site was a village. One of those built into the mountain face. Most of the dwellings are caves. The people are tribal, steeped in their traditions and religion, for the most part shut off from the rest of the world. But the villagers harbored the pilots. My platoon was sent there to provide protection until a rescue could be planned.

“But Afghani rebels with Taliban ties got wind of it and reached the village ahead of the platoon. They killed the two pilots execution-style, then began punishing the villagers for sheltering them.

“For days the platoon, who’d had to take up a position on a lower plateau, hammered them relentlessly, but they were dug in deep. And when they did come out from cover, it was to kill a civilian where our guys could do nothing except watch helplessly. They murdered them singly, sometimes two or three at a time. The lucky ones, they shot. Some weren’t let off that easily. Old men. Kids. Women, who were…” He paused to clear his throat. “What they did to them is unspeakable.

“Our guys finally got air support and stormed the place, but it was literally an uphill and bloody battle. They took out a few of the enemy, but many got away. The carnage they found in the village was unimaginable.”

He spread his knees wide and stared at the serviceable but ugly carpet between his boots. “When they returned to the outpost, they were whipped. Casualties had been heavy. Six men dead. Five seriously wounded. Those were helicoptered to the hospital at Bagram. One of them died en route. The rest of them took these losses hard.

“In the barracks the mood wasn’t boisterous. No one was pumped. They didn’t joke or swap insults or play grab-ass. They didn’t talk except when necessary. They barely made eye contact with each other. They had seen the ugliest face of war, and it had changed them. They’d had an up-close-and-personal experience with it, and it wasn’t glorious.

“That was going to be the hook for my story. What happens to the warrior when war ceases to be noble and deteriorates into savagery? Not especially an original theme, but I figured I could write it with fresh insight.
If
I could get them to talk about the experience.”

He continued to stare at the floor. “Gradually, with some gentle prodding, a few of them began to open up to me. They told me that some of the villagers had been used as human shields. They were having a hard time dealing with the fact that it was actually their bullets that had ripped apart the bodies of grandmothers, boys, girls barely past puberty, a woman heavy with pregnancy.”

He stopped speaking, and for a moment, Amelia believed he was finished. When he resumed, his voice was husky and uneven.

“One of the men I hoped to interview was a corporal named Hawkins. Good-looking ranching kid from North Dakota. Smart. Natural leader. Everybody’s friend. He’d come through the mission without a scratch. He’d consoled those who’d lost a particularly close buddy. He wrote letters to the kin of those who’d died, commending their valor.

“One morning, I was on my way back to the barracks after breakfast. Hawkins was sitting on the crest of this rise, his back to the mountains, which were about two miles away. The sun had just topped them. He was in silhouette, and I had to shade my eyes to see who had called out to me.

“He said if I wanted a story, to come up and join him. I started up. But the ground was loose sand and rock—I mean, this is the most desolate, lifeless, godforsaken place on the planet. The climb was a struggle. I kept losing purchase and slipping back down. He was laughing, deriding me, telling me to hurry my ass along.”

He clasped his hands between his knees and studied the ridge of his knuckles. “I finally made it to the top. The sun was blinding. Sweat was stinging my eyes. I shaded them so I could see Hawkins against the glare. He gave me his homespun smile.

“‘Want a story, Dawson?’ I said, ‘That’s what I’m here for.’ God’s truth, I can feel how idiotic my grin must have looked. I was blinking sweat out of my eyes, wishing he’d given me time to get my laptop, fishing in the pocket of my vest for a pencil and pad.”

He placed his elbows on his knees, bent from the waist, and pressed his thumbs into his eye sockets. “Hawkins put a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

Overwhelmed with sorrow for him, Amelia remained unmoving until he lowered his hands from his face and looked across at her. His lips formed a bitter line. “I got my story.”

Quietly she said, “That’s your nightmare.”

“Last thing I hear before my own scream is the gunshot.”

Mournfully, she whispered his name.

“Don’t feel sorry for me.”

She left the chair and walked toward him. “You’re pushing me away again. Or trying to.” When she got closer, she reached out to stroke his cheek.

He yanked his head away from her touch. “Thanks anyway, but a pity fuck isn’t going to rid me of the nightmare.”

“Another push, that one more like a hard shove.” She moved between his wide-spread legs. “But not hard enough, Dawson. I’m still here.”