I sat quietly in my chair and watched the congratulatory hugs and handshakes around the room. Soon afterwards, Esther was called away to take a phone call, and then I really felt like the odd man out. After a while, an MP came looking for me. “Sir, the NSA Director is going to be here for awhile. He’s instructed me to offer you the services of the helicopter to take you and Ms. Freeman wherever you need to go.”
Esther returned just then, and the two of us followed our escort through the corridors and out to the helipad. I thought she’d be dancing with happiness, but she seemed somewhat subdued. When we climbed up into the helicopter, she leaned over to the pilot and asked, “Would it be possible for you to take me to Dulles International Airport?”
“What’s going on?” I asked in surprise.
“You know we say ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,'” she said with a grim look. “The missile counterstrike you saw back there was the ‘eye for an eye.’ Now I’ve been called back to be part of ‘a tooth for a tooth.’ I’m catching the first plane to Tel Aviv tonight.”
“Oh,” I said glumly. “I thought maybe. . .”
She smiled and squeezed my hand. “I would have liked to celebrate as well, but we don’t always get to decide such things.”
The helicopter covered the twenty-five miles to Dulles in very little time at all, and then Esther was leaving. She turned to me and took my hands in hers. “You have surprised me in many ways, Thomas Selfridge. I will never forget you.” Then she kissed me quickly and was gone before I could think of anything to say.
I was in a strange mood on my way back to College Park. Now that everything was over, the events of the last week seemed unreal, like scenes from a movie that flickered through my memory. The places I’d been, the people I’d met, the things that I’d done – none of it felt quite real. Part of the problem, I knew, was the way my emotions had gone back and forth through the spectrum. It was like I’d been dreaming under anesthesia and was having a hard time shaking off the effects.
But when I got home, I had to enter through the side door because there was a sheet of plywood nailed over my shattered front door. And the living room was just as disheveled as when I’d been there last. “I guess it wasn’t a dream,” I told myself wryly.
I managed to find something to eat in the refrigerator and then returned to the living room, where I righted an overturned chair and flopped down. Maybe it was just the adrenaline wearing off, but I began to feel depressed. I glanced at the clock and realized that it was almost midnight. Damn, the Christmas break was over and I had to be at work tomorrow.
I wandered back to the bedroom and turned on the light. Everywhere around me were signs of Ginny: photographs, her clothes, furniture that she’d picked out. I looked at the bed and couldn’t help but wonder if she and Ameer had ever . . .
It was too much. I grabbed a blanket and went back to the living room to try to sleep on the couch.
January 2
The couch wasn’t very comfortable to sleep on and I woke up early. But I really didn’t mind because I was eager to see what the Washington Post had to say about the ISIS attack. I didn’t expect see name would make the coverage, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there would be any mention of the team that had developed the “antivirus.”
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