Chapter 15: The Aftermath

March, 1994

The drive back to the warehouse was a long, slow one thanks to the still falling snow. When we got back to the van and saw it was barely 2:30 a.m., I insisted they take the wounded for help rather than take time to go all the way out to Foggy Bottom before going to the warehouse. I learned there were a couple of Jesuit doctors and a handful of Carmelite nuns attached to the Order infrastructure in the DC area. Five minutes after we arrived, Tascha was ushering them into the barracks-like infirmary in the basement of the warehouse. Two nuns took Grayson in hand, cleaning and stitching up his back and arms (which we did not realize had a few serious cuts on them until they cut his clothes off). The rest of the medical team swarmed around Hephestus and Katya.

One of the nuns gave me a once over at Andre’s insistence before he asked Mack to take me home. The dour, business-like woman snorted as she passed her light over my eyes and then had me follow her finger. “Very mild concussion, at most, with maybe a little shockiness. She is fine,” the old woman said before going to help the doctor working on Hephestus.

For most of the drive back to the Watergate, Mack left me to stew in my own circular thoughts. When the complex came into view, he sighed loudly, mournfully. “Jaime had no family. He was an orphan. First the military and then the Order were his family. He joined both of them because he believed in what they stood for. He got mixed up with a Djinn on the rampage in Kuwait, which is how the Order found him The Order gave him purpose in a life filled with tragedy,” Mack said suddenly, shattering the silence and my broken record thoughts. His voice was soft, gentle. His eyes never left the road. “He both admired you and pitied you. I guess we all do. You cannot know how young you are to be this accomplished a Warrior of God. And we all know what sacrifices that has required. And Jaime was not alone in being honored to be a member of your team, even if it was only temporary and even if it meant his eventual death. Everyone in the Order knows what it means to be a member of a Warrior of God’s support team. Jaime was no different in that.

“You will probably have nightmares. You have never taken people into battle and lost someone and it is a hard thing to deal with the first few times,” he told me, glancing at me briefly. “If you need to talk, and you probably will, we are here for you. I am sure your uncle or Ambrose Devlin can help, as well. Don’t try to handle this alone; it can eat you up inside.”

It was at that point that he pulled up behind the Watergate South. We saw the rope slither down the side of the building. I noticed it was conveniently knotted now. I guess Tyrone got bored while waiting. Tascha probably called him after we left to let him know I was on the way.

I sat there staring at the Watergate South wreathed in snow, the storm finally petering out. I knew Tyrone was up there, but I also knew he would want a recap of the night’s events and then he would want to sleep. Being alone with my thoughts right now did not seem to be a good thing.

“Tyrone is staying the night,” Mack told me, unnecessarily given the hour. “Tascha has warned him to just keep you company. I am sure she has already given him a brief summary of the night, so he already knows about Jaime. Climb up, eat something, take a nice hot bath or shower, and try to get some sleep. I am sure Jerome and Andre will be by tomorrow to talk.”

My hand paused on the door handle. I turned back to him and gave him a wan, grateful smile. “Thanks, Mack,” I said wearily before opening the door on the frigid tale end of the night. I grabbed the bundle I made of the weapons and armor as I hopped out, adding, “For everything,” before closing the door on his surprised face.

Dashing to the knotted rope, I tied my bundle to it and quickly climbed up the side of the building. A shivering, red-eyed Tyrone met me and helped haul in the rope. The sofa was already made up for sleeping and there was a pillow print on his face, indicating Tascha’s call woke him. Once the bundle was up and the window closed, we kind of stood staring at each other for a long minute. Then he shook himself like a dog emerging from a cold pond.

A weak smile that never reached his eyes struggled to curve his lips. “I made some spaghetti and meatballs. All you have to do is heat it up,” he told me, beginning to coil the rope around his arm.

“Thanks,” I replied, my smile just as weak as his. “I am under orders to eat, bathe, and then sleep; forgive me if I eat and disappear into my room.”

He waved off the thanks and the apology. “I am going back to sleep, unless you need me for something?” He had a look on his face that was part understanding and part dread that I might need to talk about the night’s events.

Shaking my head in response, I headed to the kitchen. A large bowl of pasta and three large meatballs covered in sauce sat in the fridge. I wolfed them down in record time after heating them up. The rinsed bowl went in the sink. The shower beckoned. It wasn’t until I was in the bathroom facing the mirror that I realized exactly how blood-soaked I was, my face and hands being the cleanest with only streaks of blood on my forehead and cheeks and my fingernails rimmed with it. It was a good thing nobody saw me between the stadium and home because I looked like I just got done rolling around on a slaughterhouse floor. How the carpet was not covered in bloody footprints I will never know. I wondered if there were footprints done in red up the side of the Watergate South leading straight to my apartment. I was shocked to realize I didn’t care. Now that I saw it, I could smell the coppery scent starting to turn rancid.

Turning the shower on hot, I spread a towel on the floor and stripped, putting the slightly stiff, blood-saturated clothes on the towel to keep the blood off the floor and rug. They would have to go in a trash bag. The convenience of Eoin’s townhouse incinerator was not lost on me as I climbed into the shower. The water ran almost black for a minute or two before gradually fading to red and then pink. It took me three tries with the shampoo to get my hair clean. I was wishing for the pixie cut I contemplated last summer before I finally came away without blood-tinged water.

When the water was running completely clear down the drain, I simply allowed the heat to loosen still-tense muscles and soothe my aching head. Eventually, I got out, dried off, and dressed in shorts and a tank top, my pajamas for the night. I quietly padded to the kitchen for a glass of water. Tyrone was either asleep or determined to make me think he was.

Sleep did not come easily. I tossed and turned for a hour or two before finally dropping off sometime shortly before dawn began staining the night sky

I was rudely shaken from a dream involving being tied to a stake and watching Anachta Moctezinna torture and kill everyone I cared about, including my father. I awoke with a stifled scream, clutching the arms shaking me, trying not to cry. Looking up, I was kind of shocked to see Eoin sitting on my bed in a suit, ready for the day, with a worried Ambrose and Tyrone standing in the doorway. All three of them were already dead in my dream, so it was a little surreal for a minute. Trying to sit up wound up being impossible given the way the bed linen was wrapped around my body. No wonder I dreamt of being bound.

“Um, help,” I squeaked, looking up into Eoin’s concerned face. “Um, how’d you get here?”

Eoin started unwrapping me gently. “Tyrone heard you having a nightmare but couldn’t wake you,” he explained, helping me sit up. “He came and got us. And told us a little about last night’s adventure. I assume you left Edgar and John in the dark.”

It wasn’t a question so my guilty conscience did not feel obliged to answer. I chivied them from the room, gathered supplies for another shower to wash the terror sweat from my body, and quickly joined them for breakfast. It felt strange for Edgar and John not to be the first people I saw in the morning. The four of us ate a quiet breakfast before Tyrone said his good-byes and left with a large duffle bag in which was the coil of rope and my bundled towel of bloody clothes that he promised to take care of. It would be years before I realized “take care of” did not mean burn to ashes. And it would weird me out a little.

When I saw the kitchen clock had just hit noon I got worried that Eoin was missing an appointment or other engagement. He shook his head and smiled. “Things are going so well, both the Americans and the Russians asked for a day to consult with their governments,” he happily informed me, his smile lighting his face like it hadn’t since this diplomatic kerfuffle landed in his lap. It was the first real smile I had seen in a while from him. I realized he was in one of his less formal suits, the equivalent of jeans and a t-shirt for him. “That is diplomatic speak for making sure their bosses are still on board with what they have agreed to. I think we will be hearing that Yeltsin will be making a trip to Washington in the next day or two.”

His smile faded and he cleared his throat, shooting me a look full of meaning. “But I think I am still here for something other than to update you on the squabbles of former enemies,” he said with grave seriousness. “You never have nightmares, let alone ones from which you cannot be awakened. Do you want to talk about it?”

A sigh escaped my lips. “I got people hurt and killed last night,” I said bluntly and as emotionlessly as possible. I am sure I was wildly unsuccessful.

A bleak, knowledgeable look filled his eyes, telling me he knew exactly what I was feeling about it. “I am sorry, Alice. Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, his tone telling me it was entirely my choice to talk or not. He would not force it.

That wan smile from last night curved my lips again. “I think Mack’s suggestion, when he dropped me off this morning, was to find someone to talk to,” I told him reluctantly.

“Discussing something like this cannot be forced, Alice,” Ambrose said understandingly. His eyes were also bleak. It reminded me he was a retired colonel in the Australian Special Forces. I can only imagine how many times he took men out, or ordered them out, on missions and not everyone came back in one piece. “Talking about it can help, but only if you are ready.”

A bitter laugh leapt from my lips before I could prevent it. “I really don’t need more dreams like last night’s and if talking will help that not recur, I think I can manage to talk about last night.”

And so I did. They quietly listened as I ran down what happened the night before, from the moment I slithered down the rope until I hauled up my gear. Eoin asked a couple of short, clarifying questions and Ambrose asked one about Anachta, but otherwise they were silent. An hour (and two apple juice refills) later, they were both a little wide-eyed. I had to describe the Jokaos and the Djiein for them and I am still not sure they believed that or Hazael.

“I think the thing I keep coming back to is I watched Katya and Hephestus get hurt and just kept on fighting. I never even checked on them until it was all over,” I said miserably before barking another harsh laugh. “I didn’t even see Jaime or Grayson fall.”

Eoin patted my clenched hands lying on the table in front of me. “It will just take time. You-”

“Captain,” Ambrose interrupted him in a quiet but firm voice, shaking his head when Eoin looked over at him in mild surprise. “That isn’t going to help her. She needs the truth.”

My foster father looked at me assessingly before turning uncertain eyes to Ambrose. “Are you sure she is ready for that, Colonel?” he asked with unusual deference. It was an odd reversal of their usual roles. “She is still pretty raw.”

Ambrose nodded before turning grave eyes on me. “What you need to understand before anything else is that you are not omnipotent nor are you omniscient. No matter how good you get at this, you are not a god. These men and women volunteered, yes?” He was not really asking and quickly returned my affirmative nod. “And they knew, probably better than you, what you were walking into. They chose to follow you. You were not responsible for getting them all out alive. You were responsible for making sure the cause was just, the plan feasible, and your effort on everyone’s behalf was at maximum.”

He sighed bitterly, his head bowing. “There will never come a day that you keep your soul and yet manage to forget someone who died for you,” he told me darkly, head rising and eyes boring into me. “Forty-one men died under my orders and I remember each of them as if I saw them yesterday. Jaime, as your first, will remain the most vivid. All you can do is make sure you do your damnedest to fight hard and fight smart and that everyone with you does the same. It should bother you to lose people. Do not, however, let it eat you up inside. Know that those who stand with you in battle did so because they thought you were worth following and that you would never sacrifice them for nothing.”

The next day there was a news story about a group of terrorists who got in a shootout with Fairfax County deputies and the FBI. They found RPGs like the one fired at me and guns they were sure would lead back to the assassination attempt. None of the three survivors of the gun battle were in any condition to talk and lawyers magically appeared to make sure that when/if they woke up from emergency surgery that they would keep their mouths shut.

When the FBI contacted me to brief me, they were sure enough that they either arrested or killed everyone involved with the attempt on my life. They would leave the undercover agents in place a little longer, but the overt security (and the restrictions on my movements) would be lifted. Their theory was that some splinter group from a known radical communist group in Russia wanted to stop the negotiations Eoin was conducting. Eoin was too heavily guarded to get to, but I was more accessible. With me dead, so the theory went, the talks would collapse and the possibility that Russia would fall back into the hands of the communists would be greater. The theory had the benefit of being structurally consistent with what little facts Anachta Moctezinna had Valera y Guerra de Sangrecito’s people leave the FBI.

Being paroled meant, to Mariko at least, that I was now able to properly socialize. She, with Janet, lured me out to a few parties in the following weeks. By the end of March, the assassination attempt became just a story people asked me to tell at said parties for entertainment and shock value. Janet worked hard to pick up our friendship where I left it at Ft. Belvoir, with fair success.

Neither Edgar nor John was amused when they discovered that I left them at home to go fight. They saw it as me not trusting them and (more importantly) their skills enough for them to hold their own. And describing who and what I was fighting did little to soften their reproachful sullenness. Ambrose suggested two options for dealing with them. First, I could simply let them stew. They would eventually get over it. Or second, I could go visit the wounded with them in tow and let them see and hear what happened from the point of view of those who survived, barely.

After two days of sulking and stiffly formal replies to whatever I said, I had enough. The Monday after the challenge, I decided to visit the warehouse after leaving CSIS. I called ahead to make sure it was all right with Andre and the others and could hear a little bit of relief in Andre’s voice.

“Of course! I meant to come see you yesterday, but things sort of piled up on me,” he told me when I called at lunchtime. “Not the least of which was the three hour conference call with the Exarch.”

A paranoid tingling went up my spine and a frown formed on my face in time for one of the research assistants to see it, assume it was for her, and make her scurry away with her head down. “I hope I didn’t get you in trouble,” I said a bit sarcastically. Cursing myself silently, I hurried on to explain my reason for visiting and ending with, “And I want to see how Grayson, Katya, and Hephestus are myself.”

I couldn’t keep my tone as neutral as I would have liked. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone before he asked softly, “Have you talked to anyone about that night yet?”

I sighed and it sounded bitterly guilty to me. “Ambrose talked to me,” I replied, my voice both soft with fondness and warm with a cocktail of less positive emotions. “Actually, they both talked to me, Ambrose and Eoin, that morning when I finally woke up.”

“I will leave you in Ambrose Devlin’s capable hands, then,” he said approvingly, his respect for Ambrose evident in his voice. “He is a man that knows how to deal with this sort of thing in newbies.” There was another voice on the other end and Andre sighed. “I have to go put out another fire. Come on over. I am sure Katya especially would appreciate it.”

Edgar reluctantly and understandingly drove to the warehouse when I finished at CSIS at 5:30 that evening. I could see the sympathy in his eyes when he nodded curtly at my request. Tascha led us to the infirmary they had set up in the basement. Hephestus was still unconscious, though the doctors were positive he would eventually make a full recovery. Grayson was still a little groggy and had no memories of the day of the fight. His concussion was severe and he would need time to heal his brain.