Chapter Six: The Anchoress

Back at base, I retreated to my closet, the place where I could be alone and process my thoughts. My closet isn't really "standard-issue." Covert ops require a lot of props. Sure the wig you wore to impersonate a South Beach socialite can be repurposed to look like a Berkeley hippie, but not if you want to do it right. A Berkeley hippie isn't going to pay to have the seamless highlights that the socialite would. And the socialite would almost rather be dead then step out with split ends. If I am to draw as little attention as possible, it's a necessity that I have everything down to the last detail. Over the years I've learned that it's the one tiny detail you didn't think about that gives you away. If that means two wigs, then I will have two wigs – or ten, or twenty – a girl has to do it right. I just need a place to store them. Hawk, while appreciative of my tradecraft skills, wasn't going to give me my own suite of rooms. It makes the most sense. Scarlett bunks with Cover Girl, and Scarlett's bedroom becomes my base of operations. Hawk is old school military though. While he gets what I do, he doesn't really. To him, the world would be a better place if armies worked it out on a designated battlefield. The thought of a solider under his command using intrigue and subterfuge to gather intelligence would always make him slightly uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, he went with it because it worked. He looked to the SAS when making the pitch for our unit. Still, he couldn't ignore the part of him that preferred the pre-revolutionary war tactics of chessboard armies.

With Hawk not down on my request for bigger quarters, I had to make do. After taking some measurements, I had a plan. I just needed a co-conspirator. Flint and I placed separate orders to IKEA. One massive order would have drawn attention. Several orders spread out over two months between the two of us did not. Ok, I admit, Scarlett and Cover Girl, unbeknownst to them, ordered some shelves. Once we had the materials, Flint and I spent a weekend constructing a closet that isn't there. Messing around with your quarters is a big no-no, even on the Joe team. I'd have to apply for permission and obtain permits and do all sorts of things that give me a headache. It was simpler to do a discrete work around. When you walk into my bedroom you know something is off but you can't quite place your finger on it. It's the dimensions. My room is slightly shorter than all the others. Flint and I constructed a fake wall and built a closet behind it. In addition to holding all of my stuff, it's become the place I can hide. Flint has his sand dune and I have my hidden closet. In my hidden closet I can cry.

I also store those things I don't want anyone to see. In the far-right corner, underneath a stack of cropped sweaters and hot pants – Cobra attempts a lot of transactions in South Beach – sits a cardboard bankers box with the "Iron Mountain Storage" logo. It's a bit beat-up from its travels and is held together by reams of duct tape. It never draws any attention. It looks like any of the other boxes storing my gear. And if someone got curious and opened it, they'd think it was a box filled with make-up and hair products. Underneath that top layer, however, are the things I hold dear. A few pictures of my family – my mom, dad, and Jimmy family, not Grandmother Hart family – some postcards sent by my cousin William, special letters and cards, a poem Flint wrote for me, and my journals. From gawky middle school to awkward high school, my hopes and anxieties are all there. The first few notebooks contain endless pages devoted to my feelings of loneliness. After my family died, I was certain I would never relate to anyone ever again. Living with Grandmother Hart was a nightmare. She observed my every move with a critical eye. There was no love. Not from her. I allowed some people in during high school but, as one boyfriend remarked, I had the innate ability to turn my emotions off with nothing more than a thought. Good training Grandmother Hart would say.

In college, it was the distance I felt the most – I knew I could never connect with someone because I would never give up my soul. There was a piece I guarded. Grandmother Hart always instructed me to keep things close to my chest. I buried them so deep she should never have been concerned that someone could get to the Harts through any weakness on my part. It wasn't until just before graduate school that I stopped writing. I was going to be someone else. These notebooks full of my thoughts weren't me anymore.

Yet they are. No matter how hard I've tried, the anxieties of a little girl can't be ignored. She saw what would happen. She knew what I could become. She didn't want that, still, it happened. I wouldn't cry for Dermot. Not now. I willed my emotions away. I would detach and feel nothing.

And I still felt everything. My eyes burned with tears I had no right to shed. What was Dermot to me after all these years? What did it matter? He was my history, my past, and I left him there. I suppose we mourn the passing of a childhood friend we haven't seen because part of your childhood also dies. You are reminded of your mortality. It wasn't like that. I wasn't crying for the loss of some part of me, I was crying because of the acute loss of him. I was crying because of the things we were, not so much the things we would never be. I had filled that part up. Or I had tried. Aren't they one and the same?

Through the barrier of my clothes, I heard a muffled knock at the door. Flint. He'd be looking for me by now. He probably ran through all our favorite haunts coming up empty-handed. The junk room would be impassable, filled with the remnants of the lives left behind. The TV in the rec room would be dark. No one had time for it these days. Our days and nights were busy with ending this chapter. His knocks on my door would remain unanswered. Scarlett was out on a final mission. And I was a coward. I should talk to Flint. I needed to face him. He deserved as much. Still, I was scared. If I told him everything, all the things I'd never told him before, he'd leave, and I wouldn't blame him. I deserved it. If someone had lied to me for as long as I had to him, I don't know if I could forgive. Would I be too proud?

Besides, I didn't want to think of guilt and innocence. It made me feel more guilty. Dermot was dead. I couldn't change that. It was done. It didn't have to mean anything so personal. I hadn't thought about him in so long. Was that wrong? I think Tomax messed something up. He tripped my memories. Tomax stole but he also replaced. Things got jumbled. How on earth could I explain that to Flint? I couldn't tell Flint about what happened with Tomax in New York. Flint would probably blow a gasket and go after Tomax. He'd soon have time to do it. And Flint didn't know who Dermot was. I knew about Chloe, and Samantha, and Kristen before that. Flint shared his past with me. I didn't reciprocate in kind. I didn't think he could handle it. I thought I was protecting him. But I see now, I was protecting myself. I was afraid of what Flint would think of me, that he would see me in a different light – and not a good one. The joke was on me. Maybe I was crying about that. I couldn't protect myself anymore. The wonderful thing I had was gone. I ruined it.

That being the case I needed to get myself together. There would be plenty of time in my future to mourn the passing of it all. Once they decommissioned the Pit, there was some Hart property somewhere in the world where I could retreat and lick my wounds. People needed me now, especially Hawk. I rubbed damp eyes against my sleeve, pinched my cheeks, and pushed my hair off my face, shoving it under my baseball cap. I was trying to grow it out, which never seemed to work. I preferred it short, Flint was a sucker for it long. I suppose I would get my way soon enough. I didn't relish that thought.

I stepped out into the corridor and immediately had to duck as Gung-Ho almost clocked me on the head with a stack of 4X4s he was toting off to the loading dock. We were doing our own shutdown. See, the Jugglers were a cruel lot. It didn't take a full team of America's elite to scrap the Pit. The Jugglers knew that. In making us perform this task, the Jugglers hoisted their final indignity on us. Sure we were great and mighty when we had the backing of the Pentagon's budget. Take that away and we were like any other unit, expendable. Even more so because of what we had been, proud. Certainly too proud for that elusive cabal. Hawk instilled it in us. Hawk had gone to the mat for us. He had stared that group down more times than I can count. Now he would pay as he watched the soldiers under his command pack up the substance of his dreams. Hawk and General Flagg had dreamt this unit into being. They wanted a team that was beholden to no gender, skin color, or creed. Just the best of the best fighting for the country they loved. If it meant that I wore Army green and Scarlett wore, well, to be honest, I have no idea what she wore. I asked Flint once, figuring that his position in the chain of command might give him some inside knowledge. He didn't know. He admitted he liked it though and wouldn't mind if I went for a uniform change. I hit him with my pillow and that was the end of that. Regardless, Hawk didn't care what you wore. If a football jersey brought on your A-game, well then, wear your jersey.

Now Hawk's dream was at an end. Not that anyone would know it from looking at him. He projected exactly what we needed. He was the stoic and reassuring general. He would guide this ship back into port. He would bring us home. And that was a frightening realization as I walked down the hallway. What home could there be for me?

Hawk found a home for a lot of his soldiers in those first few weeks after the news dropped. He called in every favor he had – and even created a few new ones. As opportunities presented, Hawk grabbed at them with sticky hands. Some came with little warning. We lost Bazooka that way. One minute he was stationed in the motor pool helping to drain fuel from the tanks and then the next he was running down hallways, frantic to find Alpine to say that one rushed good-bye before boarding a transport plane to Georgia with a few of the other men.

Some were taking more time. Cover Girl was a precious commodity. Many wanted her, fewer deserved her. Hawk was being careful. One General Grantham in Kansas talked a good game, but Hawk couldn't ignore the rumors of his roving hands. He'd never do that to Courtney. He would find her a motor pool where her skills would be valued and the gents would maintain a respectful distance. If Clutch hadn't decided to retire, I think Hawk would have demanded that they go as a team. No one would lay a finger on her with Clutch bearing his teeth.

I presented my own problems. What to do with me? Where on earth could I hope to fit in? In those precious minutes between conference calls and deciphering Hawk's cuneiform scribbles, I contemplated on how I could remain behind in the Pit after it was over. The only life I felt was here. Without the Joes, without this place, I fear the dark places my soul could travel. In the Middle Ages there were women known as anchoresses. These were women who decided to retire from secular society to live a life of intense prayer and introspection. They took a vow of stability of place. After their vow, they retired to a cell or a small set of rooms, usually anchored to a church. They would watch as men bricked over the entrance. They would never leave. Not in the usual way. Sometimes death rites were said as the men applied mortar to the final bricks. For that's what they became, dead.

I didn't want to die. Yet I didn't want to live, not outside of here. Duke made an offer. He said it was up to me to tell Flint. He didn't have an offer for Flint. Not this time. Just me. Duke told me he knew of people who would appreciate my special skills as much as the Joes had. He pointed out that there wasn't another unit equipped to let me do my thing. There wasn't anther unit that could give me such flexibility. The offer was mine for the taking. It was tempting. What better way to get over my fears than to tackle them head on? The darkness couldn't get me if I willingly opened my arms to it. That would mean no more light. And no more Flint.

Despite my very overt efforts to ignore him, I yearned for the safety of his arms, to allow him to enfold me into a bear hug and to cry, to cry for everything. To be human, to have flesh touch flesh. But New York Flint was right. As soon as I was able, I built that wall between us. He couldn't see it. He sensed it though. The few moments he stole from me left him confused and wanting. The question was in his eye but never left his lips. He didn't know enough to ask. I wouldn't have told him. I had held so much back from him for so long. The foundation was laid the very first time I deflected a question from him years ago. This was the natural conclusion.

Day passed to night and night to day. Sleep became my obsession. I became obsessed with avoiding it. The moment my mind drifted into REM sleep, the dreams began. I watched as Dermot fell. I saw how a run-in with the wrong sort resulted in a bullet through his brain. I pictured the Dermot I had known, hands on his knees in the middle of a field, breathless. His shirt dirty with grass stains and smudges of dirt. His hair more disheveled than mine. Laughing. My mind couldn't reconcile the then with the image it had of the now, of him lying face down on a sidewalk, hair matted to his head, the pavement stained with his blood. Every time I slept, my dreams were shaded in black and red.

I took to sleeping in four-hour increments. It was all the pills allowed. Lifeline saw my struggle to keep pace with Hawk. The four pounds I had lost in two days were energy I needed. Lifeline didn't think twice when he gave me a script for sleeping pills. Take them! his eyes ordered me as he pressed the bottle into my hand. I didn't fight him. He was right. Somewhere right now Lifeline has just experienced the biggest burst of unexpected happiness he has ever known. It took how long for me to finally admit he was right about something? It's a regular Joe miracle.

When you sleep in shifts, time drags out. You lose track of just how much has passed. Although it felt like weeks to me, only four days had passed from when Beach Head and I arrived back from New York. Those four days aged me more than a firefight with dwindling ammo and no ready evac ever could. I existed merely to be. I moved because I knew my body had to. The color leached from the world. When people think of a military base, I'm sure they picture it in a palette of fatigue green and that desert-beige color that only looks good on Cover Girl. The Pit was more vibrant than that. Sure, the walls were steel and the chairs were painted black, but step beyond the basics and your eyes opened up to the ingenuity and creativity of my teammates. Where there was darkness, they managed to inject a kaleidoscope of color. Scarlett had done an admirable job tidying up the make-shift dojo. You felt as if you had stepped into a Kyoto mountain retreat when you crossed its threshold. The essence of Spirit's Southwest covered the spare locker room he converted into a meditation center. He painted the walls in the muted pastels of the sunset and a rug woven by a Navajo friend covered the concrete slab floor. Lifeline hung pictures of various national parks in the medical wing. You didn't want to know what Shipwreck had pinned up all over his walls. Flint said it was a bit of a forbidden treat when he had to enter the sailor's domain. The suite I shared with Scarlett was awash in the colorful bindings of the books that filled up the shelves on our shared wall. Everywhere you looked, the Joes infused their essence into the base, bringing it to life. It wasn't standard, yet neither were we. As I wandered the halls, it was lost on me. I couldn't admit how far gone I was. The one person who could have helped was the person I couldn't bring myself to seek out.

During a break from shredding some of Hawk's more personal files, I popped down to see Mainframe. He left a message for me to find him. I entered the room and there he was in the middle of the floor sanitizing and shredding hard drives. We couldn't be too careful. Hawk suspected that the Jugglers would send in a recovery crew after the last person turned off the lights. Hawk gave strict orders for nothing to be left behind. Everything was to be decimated. Mainframe wanted to take the extra step of incinerating the drives but Beagle, our resident JAG, said something about having to conduct an environmental impact assessment and soliciting public comments before Beagle could file a finding of no significant impact in the Federal Register. Mainframe wasn't quite sure what it was all about. He just knew that soliciting public comments on his plan to burn plastic from a secret military base wasn't the best idea. He was sticking to shredding, although I kicked at a small pile gathering around Mainframe's feet.

"What's this?"

"Nothing." Mainframe didn't even look up.

"Going ahead with your burning plans?"

That got his attention. "That obvious?" he said.

"No. It's just that I know you."

He shrugged. "Beagle said we had to get a permit because of the amount of stuff I wanted to burn. Apparently anything over so many cubic feet requires a permit. He didn't say anything about having to get a permit for something slightly less."

I lowered myself to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees, staring at the mountain of information Mainframe had kept over the years.

"Don't worry," he nudged me, "your stuff is in the burn pile."

"Thanks."

"Come on, I have something for you." He stood up, reaching a hand down to help me up off the floor. I followed him over to one of the last working computers. Mainframe leaned over the keyboard, fingers flying. Images scrolled by on the monitor. My brain tried to register the individual pictures but it couldn't keep pace. I looked away from the blur.

"Ok, this is it." Mainframe drew my attention back. Up on screen was a report of some sort. I'd seen enough reports in my life to recognize one. This one was police. It had the fill in the blank look to it. It was written out in two languages, one language was English. I didn't recognize the other. It wasn't Spanish so I wasn't looking at an American report. It wasn't French, scratch Canada off the list. My eyes widened as my heart hitched. The other language was Irish. It was a Gardaí investigation report. I stopped there.

"I did some snooping around and was able to grab some of the reports generated by the recent murders." Mainframe would never admit to hacking. Thieves hacked, he "snooped." "Nothing out of the ordinary except for this Dermot fellow." Mainframe's fingers went back to work and the page zoomed in to the written observations of the responding officers. I squinted to make out the illegible handwriting. This was worse than Hawk's chicken scrawl. Bad penmanship aside, the responding guard was meticulous in his observations:

Victim is facing north and blood splatter is located in an east-facing pattern. Inconsistent with body position. No signs of struggle. No burn marks or residue on hands. No knife marks. Fingernails clean. Exit wound consistent with close range shot. No shell casing near body. Forensics called. Perimeter set up. Victim's clothes clean. No marks on knees. Suspect he was familiar with assailant(s). Weather average. Visibility low, early morning fog. Victim's pockets empty. Wallet found a meter away from body. Contents empty XXX XXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX X XXXXX XXXXXX XXX XXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXX XXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX

"Why is the report blacked out?" I said.

"That's what I wanted to know. I did some more snooping and found this." Another report flashed up on the monitor. It was created by the Special Detective Unit, the Irish police unit responsible for counter-terrorism and counter-espionage investigations in Ireland. Mainframe glanced back at me. "Seems this guy raised a few flags."

Mainframe was right. Dermot's death would make it across a few desks.

"But your sources usually do. That's not why I called you in. Look at this." Mainframe pointed toward the bottom of the screen. The report contradicted the initial Gardaí investigation. Dermot's wallet wasn't empty. There was a typed note hidden between the outer leather casing and the inner lining. Written in Irish, the translation was poor at best. "Katie love of my heart I knew they know my honor gone he comes the debt is not paid save her."

Mainframe glanced up at me. "Does that mean anything to you?"

I grabbed Mainframe, steadying myself. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to separate the past from the now. I didn't understand the entire message but bits spoke to me. Dermot knew. How and for how long I would never know. He knew and that was enough. And if he knew, then he was right, he would know. I didn't understand the rest, perhaps that would come in time. I got the gist of it, which is probably all Dermot wanted. I'm sure he would have preferred that I had the Irish version. Things get lost in translation. That didn't seem to be an option considering who was in possession of Dermot's note. I rubbed at my eyes. The time to mourn was gone. My life, this life was gone. The past had come back. I had no choice but to follow.

"Jaye, one more thing. They haven't buried him yet."

"Sorry?"

"Well, with the investigation and the autopsy and whatever other alarms Dermot set off, his body's been in custody with the SDU. They're releasing it tomorrow. Funeral should follow that. You have time."

I grasped Mainframe's upheld hand, squeezing it before letting go. "Thank you."

He squeezed back and dropped his hand while lowering his shoulder, taking care so that I could see every keystroke he took to delete the information he showed me. With a flick of the wrist, he popped the drive out, smashing it between his hands before tossing it on his burn pile. "Go on, get out of here. I didn't see you today if he asks."

Turning away, I swallowed, the tightness growing in my chest. As I hurried back to the barracks the feeling of unease grew until my stomach was a mass of wriggling worms. I wished I could go back and change it. I wished I could just come out and tell Flint from the beginning what happened. I was foolish to think I could hide it from him. My dumb pride.

I sat down in front of my computer and began to type. It didn't feel right. This wasn't fair. He deserved the news from me, from my hand. I pulled a piece of paper from the drawer. Lifting the pen, my tears intermingled with the thoughts I jotted on the page. The sorrow of my mind interjected with the words of my brain. It wasn't enough yet it would have to be. This was the way the world ends, with a sigh.

A huge thanks to mossley and bugsymutt for helping me get past the logjam and beta'ing this chapter. All mistakes are mine, all inspiration theirs.