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His brain refused to accept an outcome indicating she intentionally used him and didn’t care. Clever that her “death” was staged when he was overseas and not able to do anything about it. Clever that they would use another SEAL Team to do the rescue.
Even if she was alive, was the rescue still botched? Is that why she couldn’t contact him?
The building used to look like his security blanket. His chance at a Happily Ever After. It was his paycheck, his chance to get out of the danger zone, and have the house with the white fence, the one-point-five children, two cars, and Moira. Where he and Moira could live the happiest of his years left. It was what he thought she wanted.
What had she wanted? Had she planned to keep the secret of her family all to herself? And if the reporter knew her well, wouldn’t he realize that revealing her past would destroy Dimitri’s faith in her? It didn’t appear as a vengeful act. He’d been careful.
Dimitri knew he was going to be tasked with something he perhaps should not accept.
The phones ringing in the next office distracted him. He turned and began sorting through the paperwork from his cubby. He sorted through State Department advisories and bulletins, papers on proposed legislation, and introductions of new hires and promotions—opportunities for those who wanted advancement to take tests and apply for higher clearances and task forces needing members who could fill in a temporary vacancy.
He got a wedding invitation from one of his buddies in Coronado, a former Teammate on Team 3. He was an olderguy too, and good for him! He had finally found his way with a widow Dimitri knew, her husband fallen four years previous on Team 3, and Dimitri was there when it happened. So now his buddy was fulfilling his mission. He’d take care of Donny Wabanks’ widow and broken heart and heal his own at the same time. The two kids she had with Donny would have a new SEAL father.
Good for him. God bless him.
Before he could adjust, he discovered he had shed a tear that fell in a splat on the invitation. Yeah, he was a mess.
He opened other envelopes marked “private” about his loan against his paycheck, now nearly paid off, an opportunity to get special financing if he wanted to buy a new car, and his proposed raise and the approval of his increase in rank.
Davis wanted a report from him on an op he’d done six months ago. A congressional staffer wanted information about a trip to Morocco he’d had with a delegation on a fact-finding mission. Had someone gone off the reservation? It was very likely. There were a lot of hookah parties on that trip and reportedly a few nice carpets that adorned offices now in D.C. that were shipped at taxpayer expense. That was probably what they were after. He knew how to answer those things without being a tattletale.
He wasn’t an accountant, for Chrissakes. He was a protector of the innocent. The rest of it didn’t much bother him. Who cared about a few fuckin’ carpets and consensually sleeping with Moroccan or French girls? Not when women and children were being trafficked, abused, thrown away like garbage. Those were the real crimes. The other stuff? They could get a forensic accountant to do the math. He was not in charge of parties or carpets. And he was no snitch to the people he was tasked with protecting. Their own vices would get them in the end. It always caught up to them, eventually.
Just as he knew he’d get in trouble someday for these very thoughts.
If he got wind of them coming for him, he’d quit. Two more years and he’d have his twenty years, his pension, and then the rest could go to Hell.
He pushed the rest of the papers aside as he picked up his trash, walked to the copy hall, and poured them into the shredder. On his way back to the office, he met Shirley in the hallway.
“Hey, there, Dimitri. How you doin’?” she asked him. Her golden bangle earrings, part of her everyday uniform, bobbled like a hula girl.
“Good. Real good. And you?”
“Oh, I can’t complain,” she said, taking a seat in front of his desk. She always liked to dress in hot colors, including the nail polish and lipstick. She was attractive, extremely animated, and very popular in the office arena. And she seemed to know everything about everybody, which is why Dimitri avoided her, unless he had to.
“Davis is gone this afternoon,” he started.
“And that’s why I can’t complain. I like it when he’s gone!”
They both laughed. “I know you don’t mean that. You do a good job for him. I would never say otherwise,” Dimitri said, careful to sidestep the pothole.
“Thank you, Mr. K. Now, what can I do you for?”
“I need to take some days off, some personal days.”
Her face changed immediately. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Is everything okay?”
“Nothing to worry about. A family thing came up, and I need to take care of some relatives. My mother is being treated for cancer and seems like her sister and others are forming different factions, driving my father crazy. He needs my help, and so does my mom.”
“Family can be such a pain sometimes. You’re a good boy for wanting to help them all out. Is she going to be okay?”
“We’re given a good prognosis. But my dad’s actually more frail. He’s having some mental decline and really can’t handle the pressure. Used to being in charge, know what I mean?”
“Oh, yes. We got men in my family like that too. Hard when they can’t think like they used to. Don’t make logical decisions, do they?”
“That’s true.”
Although this was a problem in Dimitri’s family, especially the dynamics with his mother and her sisters, who argued between themselves more than they helped, he’d partially resolved things over the weekend and was overdue for a visit, but it wasn’t as urgent as he made it sound. Still, it was the only way he could get some time off. Depending on what he was told this afternoon, he might need even more.
