The Faithful Spy

Then Wells remembered the glee that spread through the camps on September 11, the singing and boasting, the prayers to Allah. He had known something big was coming, but not the details. He should have tried to find out more, but he’d assumed Qaeda was aiming for an embassy somewhere, a Saudi oil pumping station. He hadn’t wanted to raise suspicions by asking too many questions. Not the World Trade Center. It was so grand, so destructive. His imagination had failed, like everyone else’s. And thousands of people had died. Wells had made a promise to himself that day: This will never happen again, not as long as I’m alive to stop it. Nothing else mattered. Not that he had much else. Heather had remarried, and Evan probably had no idea who he was. Would he even know Evan? He hadn’t seen a picture of his son in years. His real life, whatever that was, had vanished. What he’d done tonight proved that. Killing the men he commanded in cold blood.

How would his family recognize him when he couldn’t recognize himself?

“No exfil,” Wells said. “Can I have a pen and paper, Major?”

Holmes handed him a pad and a pen. Wells scribbled: “Will pursue UBL”—the agency’s initials for Osama, which it called Usama.

“No prior knowledge of 9/11. Still friendly. John.”

He bit his lip and added one more line. “P.S.: Tell Heather and Evan and my mom I miss them.”

He tore off the page, folded it, wrote “Exley” across the front.

“Will you get this to Jennifer Exley at CIA? My case officer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’d rather you didn’t read it.” He handed the page to Holmes.

“Roger that.” Holmes pulled out an envelope from another pocket and sealed the paper inside.

“Major, can I ask you something? What was it like?”

“What?”

“Two months ago. September eleventh.”

“Nine-eleven?” Holmes shook his head, seemingly replaying the day in his head. “Like the whole country got smacked in the gut. People just sat home watching TV. Watching those towers fall, again and again. The jumpers, the second plane hitting. It was unbelievable. I mean, I really couldn’t believe it. If Tom Brokaw had come on and said, ‘Hey, America, we were just fucking with you, ha ha,’ I would have said, ‘Well, okay.’ That would have made more sense than what actually happened.”

“These guys, they’ll do anything.” Wells knew it was a less than profound insight, but he was suddenly bone tired. “My mother died two years ago,” Holmes said. “Cancer. Awful. That was the worst day of my life. This was second. And it was like that for everybody. Some of the Delta guys started driving up to New York, to dig people out, but I didn’t bother. I knew they’d want us at the base.”

Holmes looked at Wells. “You okay, John? Maybe Freddy should check you out.”

“Beat, that’s all,” Wells said. “I should go.” He stood and looked down at the plain. “That front line isn’t gonna hold much longer.”

“Your guys won’t last a week,” Holmes said.

“My guys.” Again Wells felt a strange vertigo.

“No offense.”

“No,” Wells said.

“Look,” Holmes said. “When you make it home, call me. I’m under my wife’s name — Debbie Turner. Siler City, North Carolina. I’ll take you fishing. Beautiful country.”

“Almost as nice as Montana.”

“When you get home, John.”

“Might be a while,” Wells said. He stood. Holmes gave him back his weapons. Wells strapped on the knife and pistol and slung the rifle over his shoulder. Holmes put out his hand and Wells clasped it in both of his.

“Major,” he said. “One more thing.”

“Yessir?”

“I need you to shoot me.”

Holmes took a step back, suddenly wary.

“In the arm. It won’t look right otherwise. I can’t come back in perfect shape and all my guys gone.”

“No chance,” Holmes said.

“Major. Then I’ll have to do it myself.”

“Christ.”

“A flesh wound. A through and through. No bone.”

Holmes hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. Turn around and start walking.”

“Start walking?”

“I’m Delta, Agent Wells.” Holmes used his best Carolina drawl: “I can shoot the dick off a possum at one hundred paces. Which arm?”

“Better make it the left,” Wells said. He turned and walked away, slowly, holding his arm out. A few seconds later the shot came, burning through the skin and muscle of his left bicep as if a hot knitting needle had been jabbed into him. “Cosumaq,” Wells said, a nasty Arabic curse, as the blood sputtered out. Your mother’s cunt. He sat down and looked at Holmes, who was still cradling his pistol. Just in case.

“Nice shot, Major.” It was true. The wound was clean and neat.

“Want another?”

Wells laughed, at first slowly, then harder, the breath coming out of him in short gasps as his blood pulsed down his arm. Holmes surely thought him crazy. But Wells couldn’t help himself. The Taliban didn’t make jokes like that.

“One’s fine,” he said, his laughter slowly subsiding.

“Want a bandage?”