Don't Order Dog_ 1(176)

“No… nothing.”

Alex smiled back at him pensively. “Well, isn’t that extraordinarily convenient.”

“Convenient? Hey, fuck you!” Tom said angrily, pointing at his bandaged leg. “In case you didn’t notice, I’ve been shot.”

“Of course I know you were shot. I was the one who ordered it.”

Tom looked at Alex with a blank stare of shock. “What are you talking about?”

Alex leaned back and rubbed irritably at his eyes. “God, I am… I am fucking exhausted,” he said flatly, his mouth curling into a thin smile. “And this day is still a long way from being over.” He looked up at Tom, his smile vanishing behind a tired, somber stare. “You know, your sister Jane and I have barely said two words to each other in the last year or so,” he said in a slow, matter-of-fact tone. “The funny thing is, I couldn’t even tell you why. Maybe it’s because I work all the time. Maybe it’s the stress of raising kids. Who the fuck knows. All I know is that whatever we used to have between us is now gone.” Alex paused and waved his good arm dismissively through the air. “Not that you give a shit. But the point I’m trying to make is this – no one outside of our perfect little home has the slightest clue that anything is wrong. You know why Tom?”

Tom shook his head.

“Because, as the old saying goes, we do a good job of keeping up appearances. You know what I’m talking about. Smiling and waving to the neighbors, holding hands at parties, taking the girls to soccer practice together on the weekends. All the little shit that other people tend to notice, or perhaps notice when suddenly you stop doing them.” Alex leaned forward, the grin returning to his face. “But that’s just the way it goes. You wake up one day and realize the things you believed in have all disappeared. Or maybe they never really existed in the first place. Love… trust… truth... they’re all just fleeting, fictitious characters. They don’t stay around long. And once they’re gone, they rarely if ever come back. The only thing you can do is pretend they’re still around. But whatever. At the end of the day, most of us don’t give a shit just how bad things are on the inside, do we Tom? It’s all about wearing that fucking mask of lies. It’s all about keeping up appearances.”

Tom stared wide-eyed at Alex. What in the hell was his brother-in-law talking about? Was the stress of the case finally causing him to crack? The thought of Alex being anything less than infallible seemed almost unimaginable. And yet here he was, confessing all his sins. His marriage was in shambles, his career on the brink of ruin. Captain fucking America was suddenly self-imploding. The thought gave Tom an instant feeling of satisfaction.

“What’s this all about?” he asked cautiously.

Alex stood up from the chair and limped slowly over to the bed.

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve regretted my decision to put Kaliningrad on my terrorist watch list?” he asked as he rested his wounded arm on top of the bed rail and looked wearily down at Tom. “Imagine if I’d just ignored your email, Tom. Kaliningrad would have been just another random incident. Amsterdam would have never happened. Dongying would have been an isolated diplomatic affair. And that clever old cunt at the State Department wouldn’t be crawling up my ass right now, demanding justice and her pound of flesh. If it weren’t for that one stupid act, I’d be free and clear of this whole fucking mess. But then hindsight is always twenty-twenty, isn’t it?”

“You need some clarity, Alex? How about this… I laid this whole investigation in your lap, and you fucked it up,” Tom replied angrily. “Don’t even try to say otherwise. Christ, I practically put that fucking terrorist in front of you and your men and you still couldn’t catch him.”

Alex leaned forward and stared at Tom coldly. “You want to hear a confession Tom? How about this… you’re right. In fact, you’ve been right all along.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s true,” Alex replied. “I was wrong. All this time I’ve been saying you were in over your head on this one. But I had it all backwards, didn’t I? The letters, the terrorists, the point of all this nonsense. I admit, Tom, I didn’t have a clue what the hell any of it meant. No one did. No one, that is, except you.”

“So,” Tom said, shaking his head. “Why are you saying this now?”

“I’m saying this because any chance of resolving this situation quietly died three hours ago in an explosion that nearly killed me and my men. I’m saying this because there’s a burning crater in downtown Flagstaff that your fire department is still trying to extinguish.” Alex noticed Tom’s blank stare and gave him a sarcastic frown. “What… didn’t anyone tell you? Oh wait… of course not, you’ve been in surgery getting that bullet out of your leg. Well, let me take a second and get you up to speed. Joe’s Last Stand Saloon has been removed from the map. I mean gone. Jeri Halston is dead. Your terrorists have miraculously vanished into the cold thin air. And to top it all off, nearly every shred of usable evidence is now a useless pile of ashes.”