Covenant

4

Ethan lunged at the form of a man standing in the center of the apartment, catching a brief glimpse of a dark-blue suit and gray hair as he swung a fist toward the man’s face.

A knife-edged hand shot into Ethan’s view with practiced fluidity to swat his punch aside into empty air, and he felt a hard palm thump into his shoulder and propel him across the apartment. Ethan staggered off balance as the man stepped neatly aside from his charge.

“You’re getting sloppy, Ethan.”

The old man lowered his guard and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the apartment door. “And your security isn’t up to much. Lucky I was here, in case somebody broke in.”

“You could have just called, Doug,” Ethan muttered, regaining his balance and ignoring the old man’s wry smile.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Ethan retraced his steps and grabbed the bouquet from the corridor outside before closing the door.

Doug Jarvis glanced curiously at the decaying flowers in Ethan’s hand.

“The bail?” Ethan asked before the old man could say anything, and was rewarded with a curt nod as Jarvis glanced around at the apartment.

A small couch, a coffee table, and a television that Ethan hadn’t turned on in a month occupied the uncluttered room. The coffee table was stacked with library books.

“How have you been, son?” Jarvis asked.

Ethan had met Doug Jarvis when the old man had been captain of a 9th Marine Corps platoon. Ethan had himself served with pride as a second lieutenant in the United States Marines after finishing college, leading a provisional rifle platoon with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit during Operation Enduring Freedom before taking up employment as a war correspondent. Despite the advice he’d been given not to resign his commission, Ethan had been driven by a desire to document the horror of war and to expose the injustices he had witnessed, to be more than just a foot soldier. He had been embedded with Jarvis’s unit in Fallujah during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and had obtained footage of the war that had helped secure his career as a correspondent. They had gone their separate ways after that, maintaining only occasional contact since. The last he’d heard, Jarvis was working for the Department of Defense or something.

“I’m getting by.”

“Sure you are.”

Ethan decided not to respond and gestured to the couch, acutely aware of his meager surroundings. Jarvis removed his jacket and sat down as Ethan discreetly tossed the bouquet out of sight into the kitchen.

“So, what brings you here, Doug?”

“There are some people from the Defense Intelligence Agency who want to talk to you.”

The DIA, that was it. “Why would they want to talk to me?”

“Because I recommended you. I need you to come with me.”

Ethan felt another wave of anxiety flood his nervous system. “What the hell’s going on?”

“How long have we known each other, Ethan?”

“Twenty years, give or take.”

“Two decades,” Jarvis agreed, and then hesitated, rubbing his temples. “Son, I know what you went through in Palestine, but so does the department, and it’s why they want to talk to you. They’re confident that you’re the man for the job, enough to have fronted your bail on my say-so.”

“I’m not in the business anymore, not after what happened in Gaza.”

“I know,” Jarvis admitted. “But this time it’s different.”

“Surprise me.”

“Two days ago, an American scientist went missing in the field and we need to locate her.”

Ethan knew all too well that thousands of people around the world went missing every year, vanishing from the face of the Earth and leaving their families unable to grieve or abandon the hope to which they clung so desperately. The suffering of those they left behind, people like him, could not be measured simply in terms of grief, of regret, or even of guilt. It was the corrosive anxiety of not knowing, the terrible pangs of helplessness searing and scalding through the veins.

“Where was she when she went missing?” he asked.

“The Negev Desert, Israel, near the border with Jordan.”

“So call the Red Cross, inform Interpol, and hopefully she’ll turn up.”

Jarvis smiled tightly.

“It’s not quite that simple. Israel is in the middle of peace negotiations with the Palestinian authorities, and for once the various factions that make up Palestine’s resistance have all observed a strict cease-fire. If we raise the alarm with Interpol or have the Red Cross scouring the Gaza Strip, and either Palestinian insurgents or Israeli right-wingers are accused of abduction, both sides could walk away from the table before the signing ceremony on August twenty-sixth.”

“So what do they want from me?”

“They want you to go in there, discreetly, and find out where she is.”

Ethan had seen it coming, but hearing it still felt as though someone had clubbed him around the head. On the rare occasions when Ethan could be honest with himself he accepted that his life was dull, shitty, and almost entirely devoid of hope. But if there was anything that the last two years had taught him, it was that he didn’t need the endless traveling and the artillery-shelled hotels, the vacant stares of traumatized children and the undiluted misery that war inflicted upon the innocent masses groveling for mercy beneath its wrath. The memories were a swollen abscess of pain festering deep within his chest that was slowly being drained by the passing of time. A daily diet of cigarettes, nihilism, and little else had taken its toll, but hell, he was getting somewhere, wasn’t he?

“I can’t help you, Doug.”

“Can’t help,” Jarvis echoed. “You working?”

“No.” Ethan didn’t meet his gaze.

“I wouldn’t be asking if this wasn’t important, Ethan.”

“Israel has excellent security forces.”

“Israel has put a cap on this,” Jarvis explained patiently, “to avoid upsetting the peace process. There’s a total media ban in force too.”

“There’s nothing that I can do out there that they can’t.”

“Except look. You’re good at this, Ethan; you always were. You found those people in Bogotá, didn’t you, and Somalia? You’ve got history in Gaza, friends who can help.” As Ethan continued to stare out of the window in silence, Jarvis changed his tone. “But if you’d rather just sit here and let yourself go to hell, then that’s fine by me.”

Ethan kept his tone neutral. “My life’s good as it is.”

“What life?”

A stab of pain pierced Ethan’s chest. “The one that doesn’t involve me risking my life or anyone else’s. I don’t want to go back out there.”

“So what do you want, Ethan?”

Ethan opened his mouth to speak but found no words. His rage withered and he wondered why he had shown it in the first place. Two years with nobody to vent it on.

Jarvis jabbed a finger in his direction.

“You’re sitting here with your thumb up your ass waiting for your life to begin again. I’m giving you some direction, something to move toward before you self-destruct. Christ, it took some effort for the agency to even consider hiring you.”

“I can’t,” Ethan said repentantly. He sought desperately for something to say, and was disappointed with what finally came out. “I still don’t sleep much.”

“You think you’ll sleep better if you just keep running away from what happened?” Ethan shot him a hurt look but Jarvis continued without mercy. “You’re not that kind of man, Ethan, and you know it.”

“So I should spend some time trying to avoid being shot in Gaza instead?”

“Sure, or you can sit here on your ass feeling sorry for yourself. Your call.”

A laugh blurted unbidden from Ethan’s mouth. Jarvis stood, his hands at his sides.

“There’s nobody else I can think of who can help, Ethan. I wouldn’t be coming here asking for this after what happened to you, unless I was out of options.”

Ethan felt as though he was slamming a door in Doug’s face.

“I’m the last person you should be asking.” He looked up, suddenly curious. “What’s your stake in this anyway?”

Jarvis’s features creased as he spoke.

“The missing scientist, Lucy Morgan, is my granddaughter.”