to think of those days spent crawling through the jungle more dead than alive.
He’d been offered a slot as a SEAL instructor but turned it down. Too many memories. Too many friends dead. Too many sleepless nights because of nightmares. He looked at those young, fatigued warriors who were trying to survive the almost unsurvivable SEAL training and he saw the faces of his dead teammates. He didn’t have the heart to drive the candidates to be what you had to be to win the coveted trident, the SEAL symbol.
Problem was he didn’t have the heart for anything. He looked down at the glass of whiskey. The Jameson was a reminder of other days when he and his team members had splurged after a successful mission. A last salute to a life he was leaving. If there had been ice, it would have made a merry noise from the shaking of his hand.
He looked back at the letter from Clint Morgan, a helicopter pilot who had once rescued his team from one hell of a bad situation. They had gotten very drunk together that night with Jameson, and although they rarely saw each other after that, they’d stayed in touch. When they did manage to meet, it was usually a boisterous celebration with a lot of drinking. Their last meeting was three months before his last mission...
He picked up Clint’s letter again.
Hey, cannot tell you how happy I am to hear you’re still among the living. I’d heard you were missing, presumed dead, then a few weeks ago heard you’d turned up. I toasted you in absentia with our favorite whiskey. I should have known no mere terrorist could keep you down. David Turner told me you were leaving the navy but he wasn’t sure what you planned to do.
Don’t know if you heard, probably not, but I left the army because of a head injury. I was in limbo until I ended up in a small Colorado town called Covenant Falls, and believe it or not, I’m now its police chief. I’m also a married man as of a month ago. I can hear you laughing now.
In case you’re at loose ends as I was, there’s a cabin available here that is handed down from vet to vet who’s leaving the service and trying to figure out what’s next. It’s on a lake and backs up to the mountains. Fishing and hiking are great. The town is full of veterans and there’s a weekly poker game along with a fine watering hole that caters to us. What more could you want? The cabin, by the way, would be all yours. I lived there for several months and can vouch for its comfort.
The town itself is small, rather quirky, but it has good people. The last three vets who used the cabin decided to stay here, including the former Ranger I mentioned, a battlefield military nurse and yours truly. Anyway, come for a few days at least so we can tell lies, toast friends and drink a bottle of Jameson.
Jubal put the letter down. He’d changed a lot since the last time he’d seen Clint. He hadn’t gained back all his weight and he often woke in a cold sweat. After all the isolation, he was uncomfortable in crowds and had difficulty carrying a conversation. He was mentally adrift.
And then there were the nightmares. He relived the ambush over and over again. He wondered why he lived and those who’d been with him didn’t. One of the things he needed to do was visit the families of his teammates who’d died in Nigeria. He hadn’t been mentally able to do that yet. Maybe visiting Clint could be the beginning of that journey.
No one had loved flying more than Clint, and he’d planned, like Jubal, to be a lifer in the service. If he could make a successful transition, maybe Jubal could, as well. He heard Clint’s humor in his letter. There would be no pity. No sympathy. No expectations. No questions.
No reliving hell.
He picked up his cell and punched in the number Clint had provided...
* * *
EIGHTEEN DAYS LATER, Jubal stuffed some clothes in his duffel along with several books. He drove straight through from San Diego to Covenant Falls, Colorado, stopping only long enough for coffee, hamburgers and gas. He had no trouble staying awake. Sleep never came without nightmares, so he tended to avoid it, anyway.
A little more than a thousand miles and twenty hours later, he reached his destination midmorning.
He followed Clint’s instructions through a small town to a road that ran beside a lake. Clint hadn’t been kidding when he said the town was small. He couldn’t imagine Clint, who was always the life of the party, being happy here. Even less could he imagine his friend as its police chief. That must have been one of Clint’s jokes. He’d been a full-blown hell-raiser back in the day, made even Jubal look like a saint.
It was just after ten in the morning when he found the place, the last one on Lake Road. He drove down a gravel lane to a cedar-sided cabin with a large screen porch stretching across the entire front of the structure. He stepped out of his car, a dark blue Mazda, and took a deep breath. The air was scented by the giant pines that surrounded the cabin. The clear blue lake was visible through the trees.
Clint had told him the cabin would be unlocked, the keys inside on the kitchen counter. Jubal grabbed his duffel from the backseat of the car and took the three steps up to the porch. He opened the screen door, then the door to the interior of the cabin, and looked inside.
As Clint promised, it was cozy. A stone fireplace filled one side of the main room and a wall of windows another. He looked outside. There was a rock grill surrounded by several comfortable-looking lounge chairs. Then the yard ended in what appeared to be forest stretching upward.
He checked out each room, then retreated to the kitchen where there was a thermos of coffee and a plate of cinnamon rolls waiting for him, along with a note.
Tradition dictates the cabin comes with fridge full of food. I added some beer and, knowing you, some damn good whiskey. Help yourself. Call me when you’re settled.
Jubal didn’t call. Instead, he took the thermos of coffee and rolls and headed toward the front porch. He sipped the coffee, which was still hot, and ate two rolls, then decided to explore further. He walked out to the road, glanced at a dock, which looked new. To his right, he noticed a path winding up a mountain. He took the path and climbed up to a spot where he had a good visual of the land around him.
Habits die hard. It was still part of him, this reconnaissance of his immediate environment, a suspicion of strangers, a springboard reaction to the slightest noise.
He was tired. It had been an exhausting drive from San Diego, and he hadn’t slept in more than forty-eight hours. There had been a time when he would still be going strong, but he hadn’t regained the stamina he once had. It had been one reason he’d rejected the job of trainer. He couldn’t imagine driving candidates to do something he could no longer do himself.
He was working on that stamina. His weight had gone from two hundred and ten pounds on a six-foot-three frame to little more than half that during his long months of captivity. It was up to a hundred and seventy-five now, all of it hard muscle after a strict exercise regime, but there had been enough permanent nerve and joint damage to end his career as an operating SEAL.
After returning to the cabin, he relaxed in one of the lounge chairs outside and watched as the sun reached its zenith and started back down again. He appreciated the fact trees shielded the cabin from the dwelling next to his. He was used to isolation.
At least this isolation was of his choosing.
His mind flipped back to Africa as it did too often. He’d been left alone for long periods of time, unless one of his guards came into whatever cave or hut they kept him in. And then it was only to beat, taunt, threaten or sometimes do all three. A gun was held against his head or a knife across his throat. He had scars all over his body from repeated torture.
The only thing that kept his captors from killing him was their belief he was a doctor and could be of use to them. He advised them on what medical supplies to take from the clinic before they burned it, to reinforce his lie.
Jubal took a deep breath. He was in the States again, the master of his own fate once more. Problem was, he had no idea what he wanted that fate to be. That was a first for him and he didn’t like it.
He knew he should call Clint, but he kept putting it off. He