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“Her mother was Alethea. She never mentioned her grandmother’s name.”
Miriam smirked, a subtle gesture. She scribbled in her notebook, then withdrew a second photo and passed it on down. “And this individual?”
A standard military headshot, wearing a Navy kerchief, an American flag as the backdrop, it was Donta and I said so.
“For whom did she say she was working?”
“What’s this about?”
“It’s important,” Miriam replied. “Please.”
“She was Pearl. Though she helped me and told me to leave the valley.”
“Nothing else?”
“She said she was a schoolteacher. Was a mother, had a boy named Durant. I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
“She was Black Ops,” a woman harshly blurted.
All eyes shifted mid-table to Admiral Kamwelu in her dark Navy suit, thick gold stripes on the cuffs of her jacket.
“Black Ops?” I said, looking to the admiral, then down to Miriam, then back to Kamwelu.
The admiral stared at her hands as they closed into fists. “SEAL Team Zeta,” she said. “Trained her myself. She wasn’t a teacher. Her child was killed by a Pearl drone. She was Black Ops, risking her life to guard Private Goodwin from a fascist psychopath, and deserves better than being expunged in the name of politics.”
Miriam peered with disgust at the admiral. “And now she’s with her son, God willing,” she said. “She was a fine soldier, who knew the dangers of her mission. She died honorably, not unlike countless others.”
Admiral Kamwelu ground her chin into her shoulder, her face turned away from Miriam.
Miriam asked me to return the photos. I took one last glance at Donta, who was much younger in the photo, but with the same inscrutable expression. Black Ops? How had I not seen it? If only I’d known, I would’ve protected her as much as she had me.
I passed down the photos. Once in hand, Miriam slid them into her notebook. “If we can now focus on the matter at hand,” she said. “Private Goodwin has confirmed Jo Sam’s intent to cull the adult population. Isn’t that what Jo Sam told you, Private?”
My thoughts jumbled, I could barely speak. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Psychopath. Isn’t that what you called him, Admiral?”
Kamwelu’s pained eyes lifted to the ceiling.
“As discussed, President Martinez deems it imperative that Jo Sam own the deaths of his people,” Miriam said. “Private Goodwin was on a solo mission, top secret, to terminate Jo Sam’s command. The dams were rigged to explode upon his death, a genocide contrived by a psychopath. It’s simple and clean. No loose ends.”
I saw the scheme behind the lies. They were covering their asses. No one in the room moved or uttered a word. I felt deeply uneasy, but hadn’t the nerve to speak.
Miriam turned to a man in the seat nearest her. “She’s Army, General Phillips. How shall we claim her?”
The general eyed me, tugged the loose skin of his throat. “We can say she’s Special Forces. Captain, Airborne Seventh.”
Miriam cast her gaze to Admiral Kamwelu and asked if there was any dissent. The admiral shrugged her acquiescence.
Then the president’s adviser picked up her pen and smiled down at me. “Congratulations, Captain Goodwin,” she said. “You’ve just made the history books.”
* * *
TWO SETS OF CLOTHES lay neatly folded on my bed. One pile held the pants and woolen shawl Aleshka had given me, with her gray stone arrowhead tucked like evidence into a little plastic slip. The second pile was a new uniform, with an ironed white shirt, green pants, and a green jacket with Airborne 7th stitched on the breast, captain stripes and silver bars, and a patch bearing my name.
The meeting in Spear Room A had left me unmoored, forcing me to recast everything I’d survived. I was clearing the clothes from the bed, needing to lie down and still the limbic waters, when Ava Lynn burst into the room with a green beret on her head.
My sister jumped onto the bed and squealed that there was going to be a big dinner and they said she could have anything she wanted, even lobster, and even ice cream.
Then Dewey filled the cabin’s doorway. He wore a Dixie cup hat, neckerchief tidily knotted, patent-leather shoes, and crimson chevrons down his blue sleeves.
“What do you think?” he asked, shyly tugging at the front of his uniform. “I’m a Navy man now.”
* * *
A SENTRY LED US down a long corridor. Dewey in his dress blues, Ava Lynn bouncing ahead in a yellow dress, I couldn’t bring myself to wear the green beret and carried it in my hand. I thought we were going to the dining hall, that I’d endure the celebratory meal and be done with it all. But we entered a hangar, and a military band struck, and a storm of applause rained down.
The bay stretched the length of the carrier, now filled with soldiers in their serried ranks and blocks of colors by branch. I unconsciously slowed, and Ava Lynn pushed me forward. The hangar roared and I realized this was all for me.
We were ushered onto a stage, filled with the same brass I’d met with that morning, except for Admiral Kamwelu, who was conspicuously absent. I pulled on my beret and saluted as President Maeva Bon Martinez, a tall woman with a wide fierce mouth, strode up to greet me.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Captain Goodwin,” the president said, and crisply returned my salute.
* * *
THE PRESENTATION of the colors was followed by the invocation by the Army chaplain, who suggested with patriotic zeal that America was a land blessed by God. When President Martinez motioned for me to stand, the attention registered within me not as a celebration, but as an indictment of the brutality once hidden inside my heart that would forevermore be my namesake. I was ashamed, and lowered my head in a fashion they all surely mistook as humility.
The president summarized the intricacies of Jo Sam’s secret plot to provoke the Great Famine, the White Sleeve War, and the lure of the Novae to New Los Angeles. She described Jo Sam as one of history’s great cowards, an evil man whose core motivation was the eradication of the poor, the innocent, and the vulnerable.
She told my story in a way that felt scrubbed and hyperbolic, that I’d infiltrated the enemy by methods of espionage, and with cunning and bravery penetrated Jo Sam’s inner circle, gaining the leader’s trust, then single-handedly terminated his command.
“This patriot’s tale will be told for generations,” President Martinez said. “Historians will call Operation Seraphine, and the reckoning at New Los Angeles, the beginning of the end of the White Sleeve War. Americans will celebrate Captain Goodwin with gratitude for rescuing our country from existential peril, and extending the great democratic experiment that is America.”
Then the president turned to me holding a golden star hung from a light blue ribbon. “The President of the United States, in the name of the Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Captain Mazzy Goodwin for manifest gallantry, at the risk of life, beyond the call of duty.”
* * *
I WANTED NOTHING but to hide from the world, but there was a party afterward in the dining room. Lobster and steak, beer and bourbon and chocolate ice cream for Ava Lynn. All the higher-ups were there, the generals, Miriam the adviser, even President Martinez, though still no sign of Admiral Kamwelu.
Dewey laughed with the sailors, even had a beer or two. In the back corner of the room rose a pole like one might find in a firehouse, leading from the upper deck down into this room.
The sailors cheered as Ava Lynn climbed the pole. Her face so determined, yellow dress waving, bare feet clamping, she shimmied higher until she vanished into a chute in the ceiling. We heard her ring the bell at the top. There rose a great whoop as she slid smiling back down the pole and into the crew’s waiting arms.
President Martinez called to all within earshot, “Mark my words, folks. That girl will someday be the leader of the free world.”
* * *
STILL IN MY DRESS GREENS, I sat on the commode in my cabin’s bathroom, staring at the golden star wrapped in blue ribbon. My tale would be told for generations, the president had boasted. You’ve just made the history books, Miriam had said in Spear Room A.
People died in war and left the living as the framers of history. Maybe that was how it’d always been, history nothing more than a dream penned by the powerful. I’d been Seraphine, and now wore the mask of war hero, both fictive figures in a selfsame saga to keep intact the grand delusion that our side was the side of good.
The world was made of stories, I knew, and history was its own kind of mythology. My corruption was untenable. I took off my uniform and put on my tans and sweatshirt, and carried the medal in its mahogany box down the quiet ship corridors.
Sentries blocked passage into the president’s hallway. I showed them my medal, and though it was late, one of the soldiers told me to wait while he checked if the president was awake and willing to see me.
* * *
PRESIDENT MARTINEZ wore a navy robe with the presidential seal on the breast. She poured herself a glass of water, then sat on her bed and waved at a nearby chair for me to sit. I sat with the mahogany box in my lap, and apologized for calling on her at such a late hour.
“Can’t sleep on these damn boats anyway,” she said. “They give me pills, but I refuse to take them.” She rubbed the knob of her knee. “Did you know I’m a great-grandmother?”
“No, ma’am.”
“My oldest child just turned fifty-four. Eleven grandchildren and a great-grandbaby who’ll be one just before the holidays.” She looked off toward a dark porthole window. “For their own safety, they’re all kept very far away from me.” Her eyes shifted to me, and she chewed her lip. “What can I do for you, soldier?”
I tried to hand her the box with the medal inside, but she refused to take it.
“No, no, you earned that,” she said.
“Not for what I did.”
The president rose from the bed and walked to the kitchenette. She set down her water, opened a drawer, and pulled out a bottle. She poured brown liquor into two short glasses, then returned to the bed and handed me one.
I held the glass atop the box in my lap. The president raised her glass and said salut. I didn’t drink, but she did. Then she asked, “Do you know how many of those medals I’ve given out?”
I shook my head.
“Seven. And do you know how many of those seven thought they deserved it?” She made her thumb and forefinger into the shape of a zero. “It’s a tough thing, war. I could wax poetic about the necessity of the military and the moral obligation to protect our freedoms, but I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.”
She sipped her drink and stared again out the porthole. “Storms and extremism, they’ve destroyed this country.” She ran a hand back through her dark hair, turned her eyes to me. “I’ll say this plainly, Captain. If I can’t sleep it’s because the ship’s beds are like plywood, not because of the deaths of radical fundamentalists who kidnapped children and terrorized our country and called for my head and the heads of my babies.”
I glanced at the drink in my hand. “They weren’t all like what you say. Some were good people who just got caught up in it.” Then I felt hesitant, and took a sip of my drink for courage. “Can I ask you something, ma’am?”
“Ask away, soldier.”
“You knew I was in that valley?”
The president held her glass up under her nose. “There was great interest in your movements.”
“My movements, ma’am?”
“You were about all we had in there. We saw the potential of your value, and played the hand that was dealt to us.”
“And the dams? What about the dams?”
President Martinez made a thoughtful noise in her mouth. “I authorized the mission,” she said, with clinical detachment. “Once Jo Sam was neutralized, I ordered the strike.”
“To blow the dams?”
“Our window was narrow. With Jo Sam terminated, we knew they’d retaliate with maximum force. It was the right call.”
“But so many died,” I said. “There had to have been some other way.”
“Other way? These Novae were not civilians. This was a cult that was also an army, and there’s nothing more dangerous on God’s green earth. We’d lost tens of thousands in months of battle. D.C. was in ruins. In that valley, we lost nineteen. Nineteen brave patriots to end a war. There’s not a commander alive or dead who wouldn’t call that a victory.”
She didn’t see people. No different than Jo Sam, no different than General Özdemir. I braced my chin against my chest, and said, “It’ll never end.”
President Martinez sucked liquor from her teeth, then leaned to lift my chin with a finger. My eyes raised to hers, she stared at me cold. “I see your pain, so don’t get me wrong. And forgive my bluntness, but if you’re looking for someone to commiserate over this particular sorrow, then you’ve come to the wrong place. Jo Sam is dead, the White Sleeve threat all but eliminated. I don’t feel the least bit conflicted about that. My conscience is clear on every action we took, and now we’re going to finish this goddamn war and take back our country. Thanks to you, it most definitely will end. We’ll win this thing.”
I knew when she said win she only meant survive. President Martinez sipped her drink, just a scared and bitter old woman. Why did we ever expect anyone to be more than just a person?
There were questions left unposed, things I could’ve asked about Donta, about Meera, but I knew her responses would be obfuscations wrapped in platitudes, my concerns dismissed, my indictments turned against me.
I’d given myself body and name, and felt no guilt in leveraging the capital I’d accrued for what I wanted. I asked to have my tracking chip removed and be released from active duty. I told the president I wanted Ava Lynn, Dewey, and me to live on the mountain where I grew up. I asked if she could provide transport, and tools and materials and a crew to build a house of my design.
She asked if that was all I needed, as if I’d asked for nothing. Then it was clear to me. Now that I had no wings, my only value to them was as a story told. With me gone, we were both getting what we wanted.
We stood and shook hands. “You’re the very best of us, Captain Goodwin,” she told me, in parting. “Thank you for your service. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”
I LAY ON THE BED beside Ava Lynn, and told her the news. I’d imagined she’d be excited about going home, but she said she’d rather stay on the ship. I explained this was a carrier, a battleship. That it felt safe, but wasn’t. Ava Lynn remained unmoved, so I became like a politician and lied, saying that as soon as the schools opened back up she’d be right there to see her friends.
“Don’t you want to see your friends?” I asked.
“You think they’ll find them?” she said. “I told them where they were, but they didn’t believe me.”
“Told who?”
“The government lady. I told her we were on a big ship in space. They had pizza and cake, and you could go in a room and there’d be a river or a beach or whatever you wanted. They had the biggest playground I ever saw. Me and Freda and Kay would play all the time. They were my friends.”
Ava Lynn picked fuzz from the covers between us. “When they took me to see you, they gave me a shot,” she said, quieter now. “They thought I was asleep, but I saw I was in space and saw Earth. Then I fell asleep, and when I woke up I saw you and you were screaming. The government lady said it was a dream, but it wasn’t.”
I lied once again, saying I thought they’d find the children and bring them home. “You’ll see,” I said. “In no time, you’ll be back at school with your friends.”
“And we’ll see Mama?”
Even my smile was a lie. “And we’ll see Mama.”
* * *
I BROKE THE NEWS to Dewey at breakfast in the dining room. He stared at his omelet, and told me he could help us get set up on the mountain, but he couldn’t stay because he was heading to basic training at month’s end. They were training him to be a helmsman. I was desperate and urged him to back out. I said I’d talk to Miriam, or even the president, if that was what it took.
Dewey set his fork beside his plate. “I was praying the other night,” he said. “Praying you’d come out of surgery fine, and all that’d happened to Ava Lynn would make her stronger and not broken. I was praying for the crew and people I used to know. I prayed for everyone I could think of, then it dawned on me I never prayed for myself, like if I prayed for myself God would hold it against me and not let me have what I wanted. That got me thinking that if God would hold prayers against people, then why should I pray at all? Then I felt awful, and prayed for forgiveness, and suddenly this image came to mind, like God showed me a glimpse of the future. Clear as I see you now, I saw myself at the helm of a battleship.” Dewey’s warm eyes held me. “I also saw me and you, smiling and fishing together in a little boat. I want both things, Mazzy, not just one. That’s what I prayed for, so that’s how it’s going to be.”
* * *
THE BOATSWAIN MATES taught Ava Lynn hand signals they used to direct the planes, and they turned on music and danced in their yellow jackets. The muscular copter pilot brought Ava Lynn a pale green bike they had in storage. At night it glowed in the dark and we all cheered the girl as she raced like a ghost around the deck.
I met at length with Einar Fejedelem, a project manager from the Army Corps of Engineers, a jolly man with tufts of white hair in his ears. He helped me re-create the house I’d drawn on the square of window shade. Plans for the mountain were set in motion, a crew mobilized to gather materials and prepare for the transport and build.
The doctor used a laser scalpel to dissolve the tracking chip under my clavicle. She examined my back and found no signs of infection, everything structurally sound. She shook my hand and said she’d miss me and wished me well.
