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“It wasn’t the divorce so much. Remember, we were dealing with a lot of those. We woke up one day and realized he’d been over there for six straight years.” Kennedy looked as if she was reliving a mistake. “I was in Kabul on business and sat down with him to see how things were going. He never complained. Not once.”
“Never?” Hurley said in a doubtful tone.
“Never. He had completely immersed himself in the job. He was a walking encyclopedia of information about who was fighting for whom. It got to the point where JSOC wouldn’t launch an operation without checking with him first. They’d bring him a name, sometimes a photo and a location, and Rick would say things like, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong Mohammad. The one you’re looking for is in the next village over.’ At any rate, I sat down, did a review, and then offered him a promotion to come back to Langley. He didn’t even consider it. Said his skills would be wasted at Langley.”
Hurley shrugged. “He wouldn’t be the first guy to think that.”
Kennedy took a sip of wine and agreed.
“You could have forced him to come back,” Rapp said.
“I thought about it, but when I checked with JSOC and some other in-country assets they almost had heart attacks. To a person, they said they couldn’t manage without him.”
“So your solution,” Lewis said, “was to bring him back for two weeks of briefings.”
Hurley scoffed, “Let me guess . . . you made him get on the couch with Doc here.”
Kennedy shrugged. “Standard procedure. I make everyone do them. Even you two.”
“A lot of good it did me,” Hurley said sarcastically. Turning to Lewis, he quickly added, “Sorry, Doc. Not your fault. I’m pretty fucked up.”
Lewis smiled. “No offense taken, and you’re not fucked up . . . just complicated.”
“No,” Rapp said, “I’m pretty sure he’s fucked up.”
Hurley roared, “Well, if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.”
“I’m not saying I don’t have issues.” Rapp grinned. “They’re just not as bad as yours.”
“Easy, Junior. Give yourself another thirty years and we’ll see how you’re doing.”
“We all have issues.” Kennedy held up her wineglass and said, “Considering what the two of you have been through I think you’re coping quite well.”
Hurley and Rapp took the words with a silent thanks and then Hurley, ever impatient, looked to Lewis and asked, “So what did you find out when you got Rick on the couch?”
“Not much. We had only had two sessions. Each one about two hours.”
“Did you get a sense that he was holding on too tight?” Rapp asked.
Lewis shook his head. “I didn’t get a sense of anything. You guys,” Lewis said, pointing at Rapp and Hurley, “are two of my more difficult patients. It took me years to earn your trust and you still will only crack that door a fraction. Rickman makes you two look like ideal patients. Have any of you read his jacket?”
Kennedy nodded while Rapp and Hurley shook their heads. “His IQ,” Lewis said, “is 205.”
Hurley scratched his cheek and said, “That doesn’t mean jack shit to me.”
“The highest in the building,” Kennedy said, “by a good margin.”
“The two of you combined,” Lewis said, pointing at Hurley and then Rapp, “might match him.”
“Doc, I’m sure he’s smart as shit, but my experience with guys like that is that they don’t cope real well with life.”
“That’s a fair point. There were a few things I picked up during our session. A potential sense of isolation, difficulty in dealing with people, especially those outside his immediate circle. As you said, coping issues.”
“But,” Kennedy quickly added, “coping issues are not unusual for our people when they’ve been abroad for extended periods of time. The two of you have experienced it many times. You come back after enduring some pretty hard stuff and you have no patience for people who want to complain about the mundane.”
Actually, Hurley had a very low tolerance for people in general. “Any chance he went native?”
“We don’t have even close to enough information to say that, but he definitely began to withdraw over the past year.” Lewis was quick to add that he wasn’t passing judgment on anyone. “Looking back on things, it’s much easier to see a pattern. Sickles lost all control of him. It’s almost as if Rickman had become Darren’s boss, or at least stopped answering to him.”
