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“Well, some of us weren’t lucky enough to escape the draft.” I gave him a pointed look to show I knew he’d got an exemption because of a bum knee. “Some of us saw things that will forever warp our minds. It’s just a shame we didn’t have any support from you all when we returned home.”
“He’s better behind bars,” he grunted and ignored what I said.
“Let’s hope.” I gave him a polite smile, tucked the box under my arm, and headed back to my truck.
When I got back to the house that afternoon, the delicious smell of chicken pot pie drew me toward the kitchen. I dropped the package on the counter and breathed deeply. My stomach was going to have a real treat tonight.
“I’ll look after these.” Mom picked up the box, and I grinned and rubbed my belly as I looked toward the oven. She laughed and let me know it would be ready soon.
As I neared my father’s office, I could hear his disappointed voice, and I slowed as I got close to his door. I heard him say goodbye, then he pushed back his squeaky chair.
“Dad?” I eased the door open and took in his perplexed expression. “Is everything all right?”
“Hey, son, I didn’t realize you were home. How’s our Sue?”
“She’s good. She’s glad I’m back.” I couldn’t help but feel warmed by that. I never thought about finding love before I met her, and now it had become wonderfully consuming. “She’s a lovely distraction with everything else going on.”
“I get that.” The corners of his mouth rose, and I knew he was thinking of Mom. “I’m happy you have that.”
“Me too.” I waited a beat to allow him a moment, but now that we’d gotten the small talk out of the way, it was time to get down to business. “What’s going on, Dad?”
“Did you pick up that package?”
I stared at him for a second and noticed he avoided eye contact. “Yeah, the fatigues are being washed as we speak.”
“Good, good.” He ran a hand over his mouth, and I was more than curious to know who was on the phone.
“Dad,” this time he looked over at me, “you said this house was mine to run. If there’s something going on, I can handle it.”
“I know you can.” He rubbed his face. “I just wish it had turned out differently for us the first time out.”
“Oh.” I realized what happened. “Why don’t you fill me in, and then I’ll call a meeting to let the guys know.” He smiled at me, and I leaned my head slightly to stretch the cords in my neck. “What are you thinking?”
“You just never cease to amaze me.” He handed me the file and took me through what he knew.
Thirty minutes later, Blackstone and Tracker were gathered in the conference room, and I started the meeting. “Okay, men, I’m not going to sugar coat this. It isn’t how the Army operates, and it isn’t how we’re going to run things here either.” I took a moment to let it sink in. They already knew the news wasn’t going to be good.
“The results came back from Washington. Thankfully, his prints were already in the system, which made everything much easier. Unfortunately, the man with the severed hand was indeed Tod Thomas, South Carolina’s politician, a.k.a. our mark.” The room stayed silent as we took a moment for Mr. Thomas; at the very least, he deserved that. “If we can take anything away from this, it would be that we gave his family closure.”
Frank cleared his throat. “What now?”
“Now we wait for our next call, and we go in even better prepared than before. Every mission we come back from, we’ll analyze. We’ll learn from our mistakes and grow from the things we did right.” I took a breath and looked around at their faces. I made eye contact with each one. “I wish our first mission had gone better, but it’s the reality that they won’t always go the way we planned. We need to put this one behind us and move on.”
They all nodded, and I pushed aside the file. We were all in this together, and I knew each man would spend time mentally going through everything again and again.
Zack spoke up. “Something we could work on is our response time from when we get the call to when we actually ship out.”
“Yeah, I think we should always be on call.” Ray joined in. “Maybe have a bag packed that stays in our closet and have gear stored closer to the chopper pad so we aren’t having to haul it up the hill?”
“That would improve our time by about thirty percent. Maybe we could put up a small building near the pad. With hooks and lockers for each man.” Frank started to scribble on some paper, and I saw his brilliant mind start to take off.
“We need to find out how they made our informant,” Frank added. “That should be priority number one.”
“Our contact in Washington is on that.”
A few of Tracker’s men had some good insight as well, and as the guys collaborated, I felt the pride build inside me. I glanced at Dad, and he gave me a nod then he slipped out of the room. This was what we needed, to talk things out, to give every man a chance to give his input no matter how small, to learn and to let go so we could move on. That was what would give us the mental strength to continue to do our job well. We spent the next few hours tweaking the mission and came up with more productive ways to cut down on time.
I was mentally and physically exhausted but happy with everything by the time we all headed to the kitchen for that pot pie. It was all I’d hoped it would be. I enjoyed the talk around the table as the guys made sure they kept things on a positive note and fired off lots of compliments for the cook. Mom took a bow, as it was a family recipe and she loved nothing more than to share it with all of us. She laughed with everyone as she took the credit, and her smile beamed brightly as each plate was mopped clean with her homemade rolls. After managing a big slice of mom’s chocolate cake, a few buttons were loosened and groans of appreciation could be heard around the table as the plates were pushed back.
