America persevered. America fought back. The FBI had cracked the plot and prevented a significant attack that might have crippled the vital drone program. An FBI special agent named Paul Grale, whose sister and family had died in the Bar Alagara attack, was a hero. Former drone pilot Jeremy Beatty also played a role, but his involvement was under investigation. A longtime TV terrorism expert termed Beatty’s action a suicidal attempt at redemption, but the media sensed something was off and pushed to interview me. They’d gotten my home number, and Jo screened those calls when I got home.
Then I took a call from Venuti, who told me the FBI director was flying out, and a press conference was scheduled for early afternoon tomorrow.
“You need to be there. We may let the media talk with you. Are you ready for that?”
“I’m fine with it. Are you?”
“Dress for it. It’s national TV. It’ll probably go global. The SAC and ASAC will stand behind you with the director. It may not be appropriate, but they’re asking if your niece can be there.”
“It’s not appropriate.”
“Your call.”
“I just made it.”
“It might be healing for her.”
“It’ll be a circus.”
“Okay,” he said, but he was disappointed and the Bureau wanted the photo op of us standing together, two survivors, the young niece and the career-agent uncle. A storybook ending that I was fucking up. He huffed and stalled a little, then finished with “Paul, from all of us here, thank you. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
55
Toward midnight Jo and I ate a pizza and drank beer, sitting at the iron table by the lap pool. The night was warm. Not long after eating, Jo waded into the pool, but I just wanted to sit and be. Her hair was cut shorter than six months ago, and as she left the water it dried straight and flat against her head. Her face looked beautiful in the soft yellow light. She wrapped a towel loosely around her body, sat down close to me and gently removed the bandage on my arm. She inspected the wound and added some unneeded ointment. She didn’t need to do that, but it calmed me to feel her touch.
“Promise me you’ll keep being lucky,” she said as she rewrapped it. “How’s your head?”
“I’m okay but sorry we didn’t put it together before the drone attack.”
“You fault yourself?”
“Sure.” I paused, then said, “I’m sad about Jeremy. I was talking to him. I tried to stop him.”
“Maybe he saw it as the only way.”
I tried another slice of anchovy pizza. The taste was sharp and salty and the beer cool and sweet behind it. Death wasn’t Jeremy’s only way out. In ten years, who knows where he would have been? He was getting there before all this. He would have made it. I laid the pizza slice down.
“All of the drones would have launched if not for Jeremy. In the last seconds I was yelling at him to pull over. I heard him say, ‘Clear my name.’”
“The FBI will do that, won’t they?”
“Months from now after the investigation is complete, and it’ll be muddy. He was a person of interest and he won’t be around to defend himself.”
Jo reached over and placed her hand on mine.
“Are you going to say something tomorrow? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I’m thinking about it. Even after his hard ending with the air force and the drone strike that killed Hakim Salter, Jeremy still believed the truth would take care of itself. I think that’s why he got stuck on Salter’s death and couldn’t get past it. He was very down about being questioned by us and assaulted by the media. He didn’t see a future.” My mind tripped forward. “He didn’t sound afraid. His voice was clear.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“You’re talking about Jeremy, but you’re thinking about Julia too.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know you.”
“Crossing the Bureau tomorrow could get me transferred to North Dakota.”
“That wouldn’t be good for her.”
“It would be different.”
“No kidding.”
I sat on that a minute, then said, “I’ve got to say something. I’ve got to speak for Jeremy.”
She was quiet. She saw problems with that and asked, “Is tomorrow the right time to do that?”
“If I don’t, his story will get written the wrong way.”
“You don’t know that.”
“The media doesn’t like to admit mistakes any more than the Bureau does.”
We left it there. The next morning Julia wanted to walk out of the hospital, but for legal reasons related to prior lawsuits, they wouldn’t let her. They brought her out in a wheelchair and, in defiance, she stepped out of it before it reached the curb. She didn’t want anyone’s help getting into my car, yet she was trembling as she fumbled with her seat belt.
“Are you sure, Julia?”
“I’m sure.”
“If we don’t do this, you’ll remember them the way they were when they were alive.”
“I know, but I have to.”
She couldn’t know but was still adamant about seeing them. I had called ahead, and they were waiting at the morgue. The smell was as it always was in the morgue, but it was new to her, and I saw her react and shiver in the cold air and cringe at smells she’d never forget.