The Admiral's Mark

ONE

TOM SAGAN GRIPPED THE GUN. HE’D THOUGHT about this moment for the past year, debating the pros and cons, finally deciding that one pro out-weighed all cons.

He simply did not want to live any longer.

He’d once been an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, knocking down a high six-figure salary, his byline generating one front-page, above-the-fold story after another. He’d worked all over the world—Sarajevo, Beirut, Jerusalem, Beijing, Belgrade, Moscow. His confidential files had been filled with sources who’d willingly fed him leads, knowing that he’d protect them at all costs. He’d once proved that when he spent eleven days in a D.C. jail for refusing to reveal his source on a story about a corrupt Pennsylvania congressman.

The congressman went to prison.

Sagan received his third Pulitzer nomination.

There were twenty-one awarded categories. One was for distinguished investigative reporting by an individual or team, reported as a single newspaper article or a series. Winners received a certificate, $10,000, and the ability to add three precious words—Pulitzer Prize winner—to their name.

He won his.

But they took it back.

Which seemed the story of his life.

Everything had been taken back.

His career, his reputation, his credibility, even his self-respect. In the end he came to see himself as a failure in each of his roles—reporter, husband, father, son. A few weeks ago he’d charted that spiral on a pad, identifying that it all started when he was twenty-five, fresh out of the University of Florida, top third in his class, with a journalism degree.

And his father disowned him.

Abiram Sagan had been unrelenting. “We all make choices. Good. Bad. Indifferent. You’re a grown man and made yours. Now I have to make mine.”

And that he had.

On that same pad he’d jotted down the highs and lows that came after. His rise from a news assistant to staff reporter to senior international correspondent. The awards. Accolades. The respect from his peers. How had one observer described his style? Wideranging and prescient reporting conducted at great personal risk.

Then, his divorce.

The estrangement from his only child. Poor investment decisions. Even poorer life decisions.

Finally, his firing.

Eight years ago.

And since then—nothing.

Most of his friends had abandoned him, but that was as much his fault as theirs. As his depression deepened, he’d withdrawn into himself. Amazingly, he hadn’t turned to alcohol or drugs, but neither had ever appealed to him. Self-pity was his intoxicant.

He stared around at the house’s interior. He’d decided to die here, in his parents’ home. Fitting, in some morbid way. Thick layers of dust and a musty smell evidenced the three years the rooms had sat empty. He’d kept the utilities on, paid the meager taxes, and had the lawn tended just enough so the neighbors wouldn’t complain. Earlier, he’d noticed that the sprawling mulberry tree out front needed trimming and the picket fence painting. But he’d long ignored both chores, as he had the entire interior of the house, keeping it exactly as he’d found it, visiting only a few times.

He hated it here.

Too many ghosts.

He walked the rooms, conjuring a few childhood memories. In the kitchen he could still see jars of his mother’s fruit and jam that once lined the windowsill. He should write a note, explain himself, blame somebody or something. But to whom? And for what? Nobody would believe him if he told them the truth.

And would anyone care when he was gone?

Certainly not his daughter. He’d not spoken to her in two years. His literary agent? Maybe. She’d made a lot of money off him. Ghostwriting novels paid bigtime. What had one critic said at the time of his downfall? Sagan seems to have a promising career ahead of him writing fiction.

Asshole.

But he’d actually taken the advice.

He wondered—how does one explain taking his own life? It’s, by definition, an irrational act, which, by definition, defies rational explanation. Hopefully, somebody would bury him. He had plenty of money in the bank, more than enough for a respectable funeral.

What would it be like to be dead?

Are you aware? Can you hear? See? Smell? Or is it simply an eternal blackness? No thoughts. No feeling. Nothing at all.

He walked back toward the front of the house.

Outside was a glorious March day, the noontime sun bright. He stopped in the open archway and stared at the parlor. That was what his mother had always called the room. Here was where his parents had gathered on Shabbat. Where Abiram read from the Torah. The place where Yom Kippur and Holy Days had been celebrated. He stared at the pewter menorah on the far table and recalled it burning many times. His parents had been devout Jews. After his bar mitzvah he, too, had first read from the Torah, standing before the room’s twelve-paned windows, framed by damask curtains his mother had taken months to sew. She’d been talented with her hands. What a lovely woman. He missed her. She died six years before Abiram, who’d now been gone for three.

Time to end the Sagan clan.

There were no more.

He’d been an only child.

He studied the gun, a pistol bought a few months before at an Orlando gun show. He sat on the sofa. Clouds of dust rose then settled. He recalled Abiram’s lecture about the birds and the bees as he’d sat in the same spot. He’d been what—twelve? Thirty-three years ago, though somehow it seemed like last week. As usual, the explanations about sex had been short, brutish, and efficient.

“Do you understand?” Abiram asked him. “It’s important that you do.”

“I don’t like girls.”

“You will. So don’t forget what I said.”

Women. Another failure. He’d had precious few relationships as a young man, marrying the first girl who’d shown serious interest in him. There’d been a few since the divorce, and none past the downfall. Michele had taken a toll on him, in more ways than just financially.

“Maybe I’ll get to see her soon, too,” he muttered.

His ex-wife had died two years ago in a car crash.

Her funeral marked the last time he and his daughter had spoken, her rebuke still loud and clear.

Get out. She would not want you here.

And he’d left.

He stared again at the gun, his finger on the trigger. He steeled himself, grabbed a breath, and then nestled the barrel to his temple. He was left-handed, like nearly every Sagan. His uncle, a former professional baseball player, told him as a child that if he could learn to hurl a curveball he’d make a fortune in the major leagues. Left-handers were rare. But he’d failed at sports, too.

He felt the metal on his skin. Hard. Unbending.

Like Abiram.

And life.

He closed his eyes and tightened his finger on the trigger, imagining how his obituary would start. Tuesday, March 5th, former investigative journalist Tom Sagan took his own life at his parents’ home in Mount Dora, Florida.

A little more pressure on the trigger and—

Rap. Rap. Rap.

He opened his eyes.

A man stood outside the front window, close enough to the panes for Tom to see the face—older than himself, clean-cut, distinguished—and the right hand.

Which held a photograph pressed to the glass.

He focused on the image of a young woman, bound and gagged, lying down, arms and feet extended as if tied.

He knew the face.

His daughter.

Alle.