Alex Berenson: The Silent Man

“I almost wrecked a few months ago,” Sanchez said. “On the Beltway. First time on a highway since I got back. I was in the slow lane, taking it easy. It was fine for a while and then I spotted this bag of trash on the side. And I thought. I didn’t think at all. Just went left. Put some space between me and that IED.” Sanchez ducked his head, looked at the space where his leg should have been. “I’m saying I was back there. Not like I was imagining it. I was there. I almost took out this Toyota, chick driving, two kids in the back.”

“You didn’t, though,” Stewart said.

“No. I didn’t. But the worst part was, when I saw what I done, I was so damn mad at that chick in the Toyota. My heart was taking off in my chest. My head, I wanted to—” Sanchez broke off. Sweat glowed on his forehead under the fluorescent lights. The room was silent again as the group waited for him to say what he had to say. These men were used to waiting.

“I’m just glad my gun’s locked up in my closet,” Sanchez said finally. “If I had that thing on my hip, everybody on the road would be in a lot of trouble.”

Every week, they met in a church in downtown Silver Spring. The Central Maryland Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Group, a big name for a simple organization. Between twelve and twenty guys showed up, usually. A half-dozen regulars. The rest floated in and out. They came here to talk about the things they didn’t want to say to their wives or girlfriends, the things that only other soldiers could understand. They had plenty to say, John Wells thought.

Most soldiers came back from Iraq and Afghanistan basically intact. But ten thousand men and women had been hurt badly enough to require serious surgery. Others had memories they couldn’t shake, of buddies blown apart, civilians killed in raids gone wrong. The wounds in their minds didn’t necessarily match the injuries the world could see. The amputees sometimes joked that life was easier for them. No one ever doubted their sacrifice. They never had to apologize for having bad days.

“Thanks, Freddie,” Stewart said. “Hour’s almost up, got to give back the room. But before we do—”

He turned to Wells. “Jim, you been here a bunch of times, but you don’t say much. Anything you’d like to get off your chest?”

Wells shook his head. “I guess not,” he said. To avoid distracting the other men, Wells used a fake name at these sessions. Everyone in America had learned his name two years before, when he stopped a terrorist attack on New York, but his face was still a mystery to most people. The CIA had managed to keep pictures of him out of general circulation, though a few old ones were floating around the Web.

Stewart leaned forward, offering Wells a deceptively soft smile. “Mind if I ask, Jim, where’d you serve? Reserves? Guard? You’re a little gray for active duty.”

“If it’s all the same, I’d rather not say.”

Stewart slid his chair a half-foot closer to Wells. A couple of the other regulars leaned in, too. They’d planned this, Wells thought.

“Can’t let you off that easy, Jim. Can’t have men who aren’t vets in here.” Stewart wasn’t smiling anymore. “Can’t have accountants sneaking in, listening so they got something to say on singles night at the Marriott. Man might get hurt that way.”

“No one ever accused me of being an accountant before,” Wells said. He searched for a way to be honest without saying too much. “I was a Ranger back in the nineties and that’s the truth,” he said.

“No war then.”

“I’ve seen war.”

“You ever been to Iraq?”

“Afghanistan,” Wells said. He didn’t add that he’d fought for both the Taliban and the United States. “Listen, Sergeant, it does me good being here. But I understand. You don’t trust me, I won’t come back.”

“Just tell us something,” Stewart said. “So we know.”

All right, Wells thought. You want me to talk—

“I’ll tell you about a dream I have,” he said. “I’m in an apartment. Over there. Windows taped over. And I’m supposed to be a hostage. Wearing an orange jumpsuit. And my throat’s getting slit when the clock hits midnight. I know this. I know what’s meant to happen.”

Now Wells was the one sweating. He wiped a hand across his forehead.

“Only I’m not the hostage,” he said. “I’ve got the knife. And these guys, these four guys, they’re the ones tied up. They’re begging me. And I hear Johnny Cash singing. ‘I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rollin’ round the bend.’ ‘Folsom Prison Blues.’ And then the clock hits midnight and I start cutting.”

Wells took a breath. “I’m cutting, and it’s slow going. You ever put a knife in someone? And I’m trying to make myself stop, but I can’t. And then I look at the guy I’m cutting. And—”

Wells broke off. A few seconds later, Stewart spoke, very quietly. “You?”

“Yeah. Me. But that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is that when I wake up, I look over at my fiancée and I—”

Again Wells found himself unable to speak.

“You want to hurt her?” Stewart said.

The men in the circle looked at him steadily. Wells knew they would wait as long as he wanted. He felt their patience under him, holding him, and then he could speak.

“I would never. It’s not even a thought. It’s more like a word. Knife. Cut. ”

“Does it keep you up?” Stewart said.

“It’s not like I have it all the time.”

“You ever said anything about it to her?”

Wells shook his head.

“You think she knows?”

The question surprised Wells, but he knew the answer. “She knows. Maybe not exactly, but she knows.”

THE FLORISTS WERE CLOSED, but on his way home Wells found a dozen roses at Whole Foods. When he opened the front door, he heard Exley singing to herself in the kitchen. He padded in, hiding the bouquet behind his back, and found her at the table, surrounded by travel guides for South America. She was wearing a red sweater that matched the roses.

He tipped back her head, kissed her, handed over the bouquet as smoothly as he could. She put a hand to his face, ran it down his neck. He felt his pulse against her fingertips.

“When did you turn into such a romantic?” she said.

“About halfway home.” He still couldn’t get used to the idea that they lived in a house, their house, one they owned together, with an eat-in kitchen and rooms for her kids when they visited. An upstairs and downstairs. A garden.

This was the first house, the first piece of real estate, he’d ever owned. Exley had pushed for it. So had the agency, which said they needed a detached house, someplace a security detail could watch them full-time without bothering the neighbors too much. Wells hadn’t argued, and now they owned a house and were planning romantic get-aways to South America. Yuppies. And still Wells’s restlessness — and his dreams — showed no signs of fading.

Wells was beginning to think they never would. He’d spent the better part of a decade working undercover to infiltrate al-Qaeda for the CIA. He’d come back to the United States to stop a massive al-Qaeda attack with Exley’s help. More recently he and Exley had helped avert war between the United States and China. The missions had saved untold lives.

But Wells didn’t know the men he’d saved, only the ones he’d killed. Some had been villains by anyone’s definition, terrorists targeting civilians. But others had merely been doing their jobs, protecting themselves, following orders they didn’t necessarily agree with or even understand. Chinese policemen. Afghan guerrillas. He couldn’t pretend they were his enemies. He’d killed them all because he’d had no choice. He’d killed them—