It’s not like I was asking; honestly, I’d give anything to leave this whole mess in my rearview. I shake my head. “I had no idea. Why would they do that?”
Jake and DB look at each other, and I know that I’m not going to like the answer.
“His widower submitted a request for a Mandatory Declassification Review. They didn’t give him everything he asked for, of course, but they declassified Asadi’s report of the incidents that led to his capture and what happened while he was being held.”
“Why would they dothat?” I ask, horrified.
“For one, giving something usually allows us to hold on to the more critical information without having to fight for it. For another—”
“Did they release my name?”
“No, but it’d be pretty easy to put the dates together since your kidnapping made national news.”
“Okay, but when you’ve still got an active asset in the field, you’ve gotta be really caref—” I stop midsentence, the truth spreading that black, gluey tar down to my guts and up my throat. “Widower? Asadi is… dead?”Fuck.“Please don’t tell me they got to him.”
DB shakes his head. “Cancer. Brain tumors growing so fast that the doctors couldn’t keep up. And they tried.”
“Where was he treated? Or did we just leave him there to rot?” I’m horrified by the thought of it.
DB puts his hand on my shoulder. “MD Anderson. We brought him and his husband in, but this was aggressive stuff. He went quick.”
I’d always had the thought in the back of my mind that one day I’d have a chance to truly apologize. And now, I never would. As this realization guts me all over again, the rest of the information is starting to seep through. “Wait,widower… he was married.” The words are clunky and slow in my mouth.
DB nods. “Funny, his husband looks a lot like you.”
I know that he means it as a comfort, or weird fact, but, honestly, that makes it so much worse. I don a neutral face consisting of half-truths and omissions, a familiar mask from the days of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and swallow the bile that threatens to rise. “Does this mean that I can discuss it freely with Nick?”
“I’m shocked that you haven’t already.”
I shake my head firmly. “You were pretty serious with your warnings about the classified nature of the incident, and frankly, I’m so ashamed about my part in it that I have honestly been grateful that the report was not available.”
DB and Jake silently check with each other, then look at me, confused. Jake, who’s been mostly quiet, asks in a low voice, “Ashamed? Of what? You got out of there alive, and you’re responsible for the single most useful asset we’ve ever had.”
I notice this whole time that Jake and DB have not said out loud the name of their organization, and I dare not ask them. “Let’s just say that all of the fanfare I received as a returning war hero would have been retracted had the full record of events been known from the beginning.”
“You know, Asadi never blamed you for what those men did to him,” Jake says kindly.
“Well, he’d be the only one.” I lower my head. “I guess the person I’m most ashamed to know is, of course, Nick. He feels responsible for my abduction, not knowing that it was my mouth that was responsible for so much of what we went through.”
Jake pins me with a look. “Roly, you do get that the ambush was in place weeks ahead of time, right? That Asadi’s father set it up? That he’d requested for your team to guard the party that night so that the assholes who took you knew who to look for?”
“But Asadi… the things I’d said about him.”
“Roly.There is not a person on this planet, save for you, who blames you for what they did to that man. Were you a dick to him before you knew who he was? Yeah, you were. But did you tell those assholes to kidnap him? No. That wastheirfuckup. They didn’t know who they’d taken. You do get that, right?”
“But the things they did to him…”
“Did you tell them to torture him instead of you?”
“No.”
“Exactly. Honestly, now that it’s declassified, I want you to go to your trauma therapist, and I want you to talk to them about what happened specifically.”
I snort. “Yeah, right. When, exactly, do any of us have time for therapy?”
Jake pulls back, alarmed. “Roly,dude. Please tell me you’ve been to some kind of therapy.”
I lift a shoulder, not really getting what the big deal is. “Sure, I did the Navy’s therapy thing, but… I mean, I’m fine. Not sure why you’re acting like I just told you that I drive slow in the left lane.”
