Weapons of Mass Deception

CHAPTER 10

The hatch of the 1996 Subaru Outback wheezed open, the sound loud in the stillness of his parents’ driveway. Brendan had driven this car in high school, and he remembered to push the hatch fully open so he didn’t hit his head.

He set down the box of groceries, then wedged it in place with his duffel bag. Not much gear for a week at the cabin. He could remember the summers when he and his brother went to the cabin with his grandparents: the back would be packed to bursting, along with gear lashed to the top and a trailer or bike rack to boot.

A long time ago.

The visit to the cabin had been a spur-of-the-moment idea. Brendan was home on leave following his six-month deployment in Iraq. He’d made no plans in advance of coming stateside. He figured he’d connect with an old girlfriend or catch up with some Academy classmates.

The girlfriends had all moved on — a few were even married — and all the calls to people he knew went to voice mail. He knew he could go to work and just hang out, but that seemed lame.

After a week in his apartment in San Diego, Brendan McHugh faced facts: he was lonely. He bought a plane ticket home to Minneapolis to see his parents.

After two days at home, Brendan was no better off in the loneliness department. His folks knew better than to ask him about specific operations, so their desultory conversation about the war was limited to inane comments like, “Looks like the surge is working, huh?” His father had turned into an MSNBC junkie, and the endless parade of talking heads seemed like backup singers to every conversation.

Brendan decided he needed a vacation from his vacation. The idea came to him suddenly. His mother had made chicken divan for dinner, his favorite hotdish, and he was ignoring Brendan Sr.’s latest MSNBC-induced sermon on the state of global politics. Brendan looked up and saw the family reunion picture on the wall.

The picture was taken at his grandparents’ cabin in Glen, Minnesota. He’d been nine, maybe ten, his brother a year younger. He could pick out their faces amid the gaggle of kids jumbled on either side of his seated grandparents. The adults were all standing in pairs, bunched into the field of view of the camera. Most were holding beers and sunburn painted their fair skin. In the background, next to the lake, he could make out a row of tents. His grandparents’ cabin was tiny, barely able to sleep six if they rolled sleeping bags out on the floor.

“I’m going up to the cabin tomorrow morning,” Brendan said, interrupting something his father was saying about Rachel Maddow.

His mother’s brow wrinkled. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Brennie? No one’s up there this time of year.”

Brendan smiled at her. “I’ll be fine, Mom.” He didn’t say anything about her calling him Brennie. No one called him that anymore, except her. He knew she was worried about him. “I just want to get away for a few days.”

“Well, if it’s okay with your father, I guess it’s okay with me.”

Brendan suppressed a smile. He had his own key to the cabin and the property had been passed down to the family, not just his father, but he played along anyway.

“What d’you say, Dad? Okay with you if I head up the cabin for a few days?”

Brendan Sr. pursed his lips. “I don’t see why not. Not sure what you’re gonna do all by yourself… the lake might even be frozen over by now.”

Brendan raised his plate toward his mother. “May I have some more, Mom?”

His mother beamed at him. “Of course.” She heaped his plate with another helping of the chicken and broccoli mixture. “And you have a good time up there, Brennie.”

Dawn wasn’t even a smear on the horizon when he backed out of the driveway. Traffic this early was light and he made good time to I-35, the main corridor north out of Minneapolis. He set the cruise control and watched the sky lighten around him.

He loved winter skies. The lack of moisture in the air made the colors seem so delicate, almost pure. A pale pink preceded the sun this morning, and he breathed in a sigh. So different from the heavy reds of Iraq and the desert sun. All that was so very far away.

He’d expected to have dreams, nightmares, but nothing like that happened to him. He still felt normal, maybe a little disconnected from life as an American, but that was to be expected.

Rosen had talked to all of them before he sent them on leave. Use the time to decompress, he said, but don’t spend too much time alone. Spend the time with your families. Reconnect.

Brendan laughed. Okay, maybe he wasn’t quite normal.

The exit for Hinckley came up just as the sun was fully over the horizon. He disengaged the cruise control and eased off the highway. The sign for Tobie’s loomed in front of him, and he pulled into the parking lot by habit as much as by choice.

He took a seat by the window, ordering a caramel roll and a coffee. The glazed roll was as big as his fist and covered with glistening nuts. The crowd in Tobie’s was the breakfast-and-coffee set, with a few scattered business meetings. He watched them roll through: high school kids, businessmen in suits, soccer moms with kids in tow, a guy in hospital scrubs. Not a one of them gave a thought to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of them probably didn’t even know anyone who had served in either place.

When he first went to Iraq, he’d had a good feeling, like he was an anonymous superhero saving the world while the population slept. But now… now, it didn’t feel so good anymore. His badge of service in Iraq was more like a membership to a special club. People clapped when uniformed servicemen walked through airports, and he’d even gotten upgraded on his flight back to Minneapolis, but no one took the time to understand. His SEALs and all the rest of the troops were out there changing the world.

Brendan just hoped they were making it better.

This is the kind of mental bullshit Rosie warned us about, he thought as he paid his check.

Brendan had made this drive so many times he’d forgotten the road numbers. He drove west out of Hinckley, then turned north for a time. Another west — north cycle, then Glen, Minnesota, appeared in his windshield.

The new Glen Store & Grill was a far cry from the old shed he used to bike to every afternoon with his brother. They rode over three miles of dirt road, much of it shaded by tall trees that met overhead, making it seem like they were riding through a tunnel. At the end of the ride were a cold Dr. Pepper and a handful of Swedish fish. The two were terrible if you ate them together, so he and his brother always drank their pops sitting on the front step of the store and saved the Swedish fish for the bike ride home. By the time they made it back to the cabin, the remaining fish would be a sticky mass of red jelly in his pocket. Brendan smiled at the memory.

“Can I help you, son?” The old man behind the counter didn’t recognize Brendan. Mr. Anderson was his name.

Brendan shook his head and headed for the very modern drink cooler in the back of the store. He carried a carton of milk to the gleaming cash register. Mr. Anderson waited with a small paper bag of Swedish fish.

“Thought I didn’t recognize you, Brendan McHugh?” the old man said with a smile.

Brendan felt himself choking up. He took a deep breath. “I–I didn’t. Thank you. How much do I owe you for the milk?”

“Your money’s no good here, son.”

Brendan remembered that Mr. Anderson was a veteran. Vietnam? Korea? He studied the man. Vietnam, he decided.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t you sir me, Brendan. I was an enlisted man. I worked for a living, you know.”

Brendan laughed at the old joke.

The old man narrowed his eyes. “How are you doing, son? I mean, really. It’s tough coming home after you’ve seen action… no one to talk to. I’ve been there.”

Brendan experienced the same choking feeling again. “It’s okay, Mr. Anderson. I just felt like I needed a few days away, you know?”

The lines on the old man’s face stretched into a grin. “I know what you mean, son. I spent a lot of time in the woods up here when I first got back from ’Nam. It was the best medicine — for me, anyway. I hope you find the same peace I did.” He grew suddenly shy. “Now how about a Dr. Pepper to go along with those Swedish fish? On the house, of course.”

Brendan shook his head, but he ended up leaving the store with a can of Dr. Pepper anyway.

He took his time on the drive to his grandparent’s cabin, letting the old Subaru coast along the dirt roads. The leaves were gone from the trees, and the bare branches overhead let patches of weak winter sunlight filter onto the road. Brendan turned at the crooked sign that read Sugar Lake. He smiled to himself. The sign was repainted every few years, but it had always been crooked for as long as Brendan could remember.

The driveway to their cabin was long, with wide turns that wound through the trees. He rolled down the window to hear the crunch of leaves under his tires. He stopped the car next to the porch he and his grandfather had built one summer and let the silence of the place settle over him. The mechanical chunk of the car door opening seemed foreign to such a natural setting.

Brendan walked to the lake edge and onto the dock. The shoreline was thick with ice, but the center of the lake was clear. His breath frosted the air in front of him, a tiny flicker of movement in an otherwise perfectly still setting.

He shook himself and started back to the car. The cabin was tiny: two small bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. The original structure had been a one-room log cabin, and he braced a knee against the horizontal logs that made up the face of the building as he unlocked the front door.

He spent the next hour getting settled: stowing groceries, splitting firewood and starting a fire, making up a bed. When he was finished, he sat on the porch and drank his Dr. Pepper. He checked his mobile phone. No signal. Not surprising. The phone companies had promised better service out here for years, but nothing ever came of it.

Brendan grabbed his bag of Swedish fish and set off into the woods, heading for a rocky bluff that overlooked the lake. He walked slowly, chewing the candy and allowing the quiet to take him.

The trip to the cabin was just what he needed. It was time to do some thinking about his life, decide what he wanted. His service commitment would be up in another year and he hadn’t given one thought to what was next. Stay in? Get out and get a job? One thing was sure: the loneliness of San Diego was not for him. He needed something more.

Like Don Riley. He’d known Don would eventually find his niche, and it looked like the CIA was the right place for him. A kid that smart would do well with the spooks. Don knew what he wanted out of life.

“What about me? What do I want out of life?” A startled squirrel chattered at him from a high branch.

Brendan finished the last of the Swedish fish and crushed the bag in his hand. He stepped out onto the bare rock bluff and threw out his arms. “Brendan McHugh!” he yelled, laughing as the sound echoed back to him from across the lake. He and his brother used to scream out their names before they jumped off the ledge into the lake below. He peered over the edge to the ice-crusted water.

He found his jumbled thoughts turning to Liz. He hadn’t spoken to her since graduation. She’d left Marjorie’s early the next morning without even saying goodbye, off to Quantico to become a Marine.

He hadn’t called her. Call it pride, call it stubbornness. Whatever the reason, it seemed easier to just not try, and he’d let Liz slip out of his life.

Brendan pulled his phone from his pocket. Up this high, he had one bar of mobile signal. Just enough to make a call.

Maybe she was lonely, too. Maybe she was wondering what to do with her life. Maybe they could figure it out together…

He texted Don Riley. Do u have Liz mobile?

The squirrel he had disturbed earlier decided that Brendan’s presence near his tree was an invasion of his privacy. It settled on a nearby branch and heaped chattering abuse down on his head.

The phone beeped. Sure. 202-789-6578. Call her, Brendan.

Brendan’s fingers shook as he dialed the phone. It rang once… twice.

“Hello?” The male voice was a warm baritone, and it sounded like he had just been laughing.

Brendan’s heart sank when he heard Liz’s voice in the background saying, “Who is it?”

“Hello?” the male voice said again.

“Sorry. Wrong number.”