The Home Front (14 page)

Todd was supervising the aerial component of an assassination mission. An unprecedented three of his squad’s drones had been ordered to surveil the movements of a senior al Qaeda and Taliban military commander. To the best of their knowledge, he routinely returned home to Bangi Dar for religious festivities. It was Eid al-Fitr, and his compound was filled with friends and family. The CIA was hoping to pull off a raid to avoid excessive civilian casualties. If all went well, Navy SEALs would helicopter in and out, conducting what was officially classified as a targeted assassination. But if Plan A failed, Brown and Poindexter were poised and ready to pull the trigger. Plan B, bombing the entire compound, still qualified as a targeted assassination. Critics of the drone program argued that it was overkill. The commander was a large man, six foot four in stocking feet, but not large enough to warrant a Hellfire missile. Or two. Or three. Collateral damage was a drone’s worst enemy, in the media if not in fact. But this particular warlord was too big a fish to avoid frying, one way or the other.

Todd had his hands full and then some, juggling audio information from several command centers, including Joint Special Operations Command, and video feeds on dozens of monitors in his squad. But he never refused to field one of Rose’s phone calls. He knew she would only call in an emergency. It was hard to imagine how a domestic emergency, no matter how dire, could compete with the magnitude of taking out an al Qaeda commander. God forbid one of the kids had been maimed or killed. Checkpoint operators tried to assess the threat level, but Rose kept insisting she needed to speak directly with Todd. They had been trained in a full battery of interrogation techniques, highly effective on terrorists, useless on mothers. At length, without managing to determine whether the crisis warranted an orange or red alert, they finally authorized the call.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” Rose said.

“Same old, same old,” Todd said. “Are you okay?”

“I can’t find Max.”

“Did you check the closet?”

“Of course.”

“The hamper?”

“I looked everywhere, Todd. He’s gone.”

The first of two helicopters landed in a driveway between the main compound and a garden shed, effectively blocking access in and out of the compound. It was a tight fit, given the number of cars parked inside the gate. The second chopper hovered over the garden itself, using propeller wind to flatten vegetation before descending. No one, armed or otherwise, was flushed out of the garden. Brown surveilled the rooftops which were, inexplicably, free of snipers. The attack plan ignored the fact that it was Eid al-Fitr. If anything, religious holidays were considered strategic rather than sacred, a kind of camouflage obscuring the clear and present danger of Taliban forces.

A squad of Navy SEALs leapt out of the first helicopter. Under cover of gunners in the second bird, still hovering at a strategic remove from the ground, they rushed the compound. A white flag poked out of a ground-floor window. Brown and Poindexter’s sensor operators zoomed in, and the flag came into focus from thirteen angles on thirteen separate monitors in the trailer alone. Elsewhere, in command centers around the world, thousands of white flags waved on thousands of computer screens, generating a flurry of assessment but no change in the actual op plan. More often than not, white flags were decoys in Afghanistan. This one was actually a dish towel tied to a broom stick. Or was it a pillowcase? Whoever was inside the compound was probably on the brink of staging a counterattack.

Todd adjusted his headset. In one ear, JSOC was collating real-time intelligence and monitoring the progress of the offensive. The voice never wavered, even when the second helicopter careened and almost crashed. In the other ear, Rose was in a panic. Todd turned down the volume in his left ear so he could still hear both channels loud and clear.

“Todd, are you there?” Rose asked.

“Roger.”

“Who are you talking to?”

“You. I’m right here.”

“What should we do?”

“Call the police.”

“They won’t know where to look.”

“Take it easy, Rose. We’ll find him.”

“We?”

“You. The police.”

“They don’t know him like you do.”

“I can’t be fifty places at once, Rose.”

“Don’t exaggerate.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m so scared, Todd. What if he’s—”

“Don’t go there, Rose.” He could hear her gasping for air while JSOC confirmed that the second chopper had recovered its equilibrium. She hadn’t been this upset since Max attacked the cat they subsequently put up for adoption. Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures.

“If you imagine the worst, you’ll manifest it,” Todd said. “Isn’t that how it works?”

“You’re right, Todd.” Rose took a deep breath. “You’re always so good in a crisis.”

“That’s my job.”

He couldn’t believe he’d sunk so low, using New Age lingo to calm Rose down. Hopefully, she was in shock and wouldn’t remember. Otherwise, the power of positive thinking would come back to bite him big time. He’d have no choice but to admit pandering to her. Manifesting, my ass. It was a testament to how worried she was that she didn’t call his bluff on the spot.

“Should I call 9-1-1?”

“Call the local precinct. I’ll get home as soon as I can.”

Todd had been a Boy Scout. He was an air force officer with three tours of active duty under his belt. If he wasn’t prepared, nobody was. He had tacked a list of emergency numbers to the inside of a kitchen cupboard. Their pediatrician. The police and fire departments. The Pentagon. The last one was a joke, of course, to keep things light in the face of almost constant red alerts. He didn’t want his kids growing up paranoid, like all the weird Westerners who built bomb shelters during the fifties. Like anybody would really want to bomb Idaho, of all places. Or Nevada, which was such a wasteland not even the Mormons wanted it.

Rose was comforted by Todd’s lists. She had been completely self-sufficient until they married. Then a whole new personality emerged, one she had no idea lurked within. She loved thinking of Todd as her protector. At first it was more playacting than anything else, yet another way to spice up their sex life. Then they both grew into their roles until they had all but forgotten how self-sufficient she had been. She dialed the second number on the list.

“I need to report a missing child.”

“Age?”

“Four. Almost five.”

“Height?”

“Never mind his height,” Rose said. “He’s a little boy. My son. And he’s lost.”

Rose started crying. She really let loose, instinctively assuming that nothing cut through red tape more expeditiously than tears. The intake officer was unimpressed. He had been trained in a full battery of interrogation techniques, including how to mollify hysterical mothers. By the time they took down all of Max’s vital statistics, fifteen precious minutes had been wasted. Rose’s tears were no longer primarily theatrical. Completely losing control of her thoughts, she tumbled headlong into negativity. Max could be anywhere. Hiding in a dumpster, seconds away from the crushing maw of a garbage truck. Wandering across the highway, oblivious to traffic. Trapped in autistic silence, unable to call for help.

If you imagine the worst, you’ll manifest it
.

Rose repeated Todd’s admonition, marveling at how crisis can bring couples together. She had visualized Todd’s spiritual enlightenment and, lo and behold, the universe had manifested it. The Source certainly worked in mysterious ways. She focused her attention on Max, imagining him walking across the lawn, up the steps, through the front door. She stationed herself at the living room window—his window—and surveyed the yard. She blamed herself for the fact that he wasn’t there. Fear was compromising the power of positive thinking.

The precinct had posted an all-points bulletin. Every cop on the beat was on the lookout for Max. Rose grabbed her car keys but stopped short of the garage. She decided to join the search on foot instead, to ferret out the nooks and crannies police might miss from patrol cars. Maureen was on a play date and wouldn’t be home until dinner, leaving almost an hour to scour the entire neighborhood, if need be. Something told Rose to leave the front door unlocked in case Max found his way back home on his own. Her higher power was leading the way. She retraced every step she’d ever taken with him, trying to expand the parameters of his comfort zone on walks to the playground, the post office, the grocery store, most of them punctuated by sudden, inexplicable tantrums. Just as suddenly, he recovered his composure as unseen threats subsided. Rose stopped to listen, conjuring up her own spectrum of unseen threats. She vowed never to let Max out of her sight again, not even for the minute it took to transfer clothes from the washer to the dryer. How could a little boy slip out of the house so quickly? He must still be there.

Rose rushed back home. She must have overlooked one of Max’s favorite hiding places. In the armoire, maybe. Or the crawl space behind the couch. When she rounded the corner of their street, she saw Max sitting on the front porch with some vaguely familiar man. The man waved as she approached. She couldn’t place him until he opened his mouth. His barely perceptible Southern drawl jogged her memory. It was the bakery manager, who was always kind enough to offer Max a free cookie, even when he wasn’t on his best behavior. Rose couldn’t tell whether the man noticed Max was different from other kids. He teased them all indiscriminately, holding cookies up to his wire-rimmed glasses, one covering each lens, until they laughed or hollered or in some way acknowledged the joke. Then he handed over the cookies. Needless to say, Max never even cracked a smile. But he seemed more attentive than usual. On several occasions, Rose could have sworn he actually focused on the man’s face rather than just looking at his round glasses before accepting his round cookie.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” the man said.

“Bless you,” Rose said. She tried not to cry again for fear of unsettling Max. He hated to be touched so she tried to keep her distance. But she couldn’t help herself. He either let her hug him or was too oblivious to even notice. He went limp and stared across the street. When she finished he straightened back up and kept staring at the same thing or at nothing.

“I’m Matt.”

“Yes, I know. From the Flour Patch. How did you know where we live?”

“Dumb luck. One of your neighbors dropped by for a baguette and recognized your son. It was almost closing time, so I thought I’d bring him home myself.” Matt patted Max on the head as he stepped off the porch. “I should probably warn you. I had to give him quite a few cookies to coax him along. He might get sick on you.”

“How can I ever thank you enough.”

“For making him sick?”

“For bringing him home.”

“All in the line of duty. This isn’t the first kid I’ve found on my doorstep. Cookies make a powerful impression on little boys.”

“Just little boys?”

“I’ve had a girl or two. But mostly boys. Adventurous little tykes.”

“There must be something they like about you. Boys in particular.”

“Cookies,” Matt said. “I’m just the middleman.”

Rose’s cell rang. First the police and then Todd checked in. Matt slipped away before the squad car pulled up to verify Max’s safety and file their report. He had an adversarial relationship with the police, who expected free coffee with their morning pastries.

Rose sat on the porch with Max until Todd finally came home. Todd looked tired and anxious. His initial expression was tentative, as though he were expecting fallout for not leaving work to join the search. Rose had already forgiven him, the minute he mentioned manifesting the power of positive thinking. If only he knew how easy it was to patch up their differences. They were just a happy thought or two away from happiness.

“Thank God he’s okay,” Todd said.

He leaned over and gave his wife her requisite home-from-work kiss, being careful to steer clear of his son. They were sitting surprisingly close together on the top front step. Todd couldn’t really squeeze by them without disturbing Max. He was bone tired and wanted to collapse on a porch chair. His relief at seeing Max home safe and sound was all but eclipsed by exhaustion and annoyance. The fact that he had to remain standing at the base of the stairs was the last straw. He’d been on his feet all day, supervising the aerial arm of the assassination. On a good day, he routinely mustered up the energy to juggle his family and the war on terror. Today was not a good day.

The white flag had, in fact, been a decoy. The raid had degenerated into a fire fight so fierce the SEALs were forced to blast their way into the compound. As a result, documenting the success of the mission was a particularly grisly procedure. Todd had to listen to every graphic detail in one ear while JSOC processed the information in the other. Both voices were unflinchingly professional. Dispassionate. In the background, his own squad was complaining about how they had wasted the day babysitting SEALs. He finally told them to shut up, pretending he couldn’t hear his headset over the racket. The truth was, he couldn’t handle the discrepancy between what was happening on the ground and in the trailer. He didn’t know which was worse, witnessing the carnage of combat zones or being too far removed to give a damn.

Somebody had started a fire on the ground floor of the compound, presumably to destroy evidence. SEALs eventually managed to put it out, but nowhere near in time. Several charred corpses were huddled in corners of what remained of the kitchen. One of them was conspicuously small. The body of the militant commander himself was retrieved from the roof, where he had been picked off by a chopper gunner. Fortunately, he had escaped the inferno, which simplified the process of identification. SEALs zipped him into a body bag and loaded him onto one of the birds, proof positive that the raid had been justified. One less Taliban warlord terrorizing the region into submission.

Mission accomplished. Todd missed the days when the phrase hadn’t been so fraught with ambivalence. He didn’t question the efficacy of taking out high-value targets. In theory, he didn’t even question the means to that end. It was perfectly possible that targeted assassinations actually saved lives in the long run, just as laser-guided missiles did, minimizing the footprint of collateral damage. But the proliferation of information seemed to suggest otherwise. Documenting every limb of every conspicuously small corpse made it increasingly difficult to bask in the glory of a job well-done. Back in the day, the target had been out of sight, out of mind. Even if pilots botched the mission, they could hash it out over dinner in the officers’ mess, or at the very least sleep it off in a barracks bunk. Instead, Todd punched the clock and drove home to his wife and kids.