The General and the Horse-Lord (26 page)

John sighed, nodded. Gabriel gave Abdullah another hug. Told him to not disappear while they were being grilled by the lawyers. Abdullah pulled out his phone. “I’ll find us someplace to eat. Someplace with green chili.”

“Every restaurant in New Mexico serves green chili.”

“Good. I’ll start there.” He looked up for a moment. “General? How’s Kim? Is he around?” John noted with interest that Abdullah’s cheeks were flushing with beautiful color.

Captain Curtis shook her head. “We can talk later. We’re going to the Officer’s Club. Surf and turf tonight. They grill a decent steak.” She pointed at her brother’s shirt. “Can you tuck that in? Just a little?” Abdullah just grinned at her. The sight of his happy face, all grown up, and John felt something in his chest that reminded him of the way Christmas morning used to feel when he’d been a kid. And he remembered Kuwait, in 1990.

He reached for Gabriel’s sleeve when they were out of the office. “Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

“For always having my back. I was just remembering.”

“Me too. That was a close one, my God. Let’s not do that again, okay? I’m getting too old.” He bent over, gave John a little nudge. “Hey, when did Kim and Abdullah meet? Was it that Christmas Kim was seventeen? You were in Cambridge that year, right?”

John shook his head. “I don’t remember. I have a feeling there’s a story I haven’t heard. Do I want to hear it? We’ll get Abdullah to spill the beans tonight. If we’re, you know… not incarcerated.”

Gabriel bent over and whispered in his ear. “If you ask one more lost boy to move into the house, I’m going to start building a barracks in the back yard.”

John felt the color creep up his neck.

They followed Captain Curtis down the hall to the conference room. Which daughter was she? Omar had three, and if he remembered correctly, one was in London, married. Was this the little one, the baby his wife had carried in her arms out of Kuwait? No, couldn’t be. He tried to do some math in his head, but gave it up, too stressed to carry a linear thought. She must be married, since she had a different last name than her father.

She turned to stop them before they went into the room. “Can I ask you something, General Mitchel? This is just for my own curiosity. Stories become legends, and then over time the facts get blurred. You’re a legend in my family. Abdullah, he was never in the military, so I don’t think he ever understood what he said you did, what my father said you did. But I’m in the army. I want to know the truth, not the legend. You were a general officer. Did you really go into enemy-controlled territory with an Apache helicopter and a couple of rifles and one pilot as backup? In the first days of a war, to rescue a civilian?” She studied their faces. “What were you thinking? What were you planning to do if you’d been captured?” She narrowed her eyes, looking carefully into both of their faces. “Okay, that’s what I thought. That’s exactly what you did.” She grinned at him, then, shaking her head. “Unbelievable. General, they should have court-martialed you!”

She opened the door to the conference room, waited for them to be seated before she pulled out the chair at the head of the table. “Would anyone like more coffee?” John shook his head. Could this day get any stranger? “Gentlemen, are you familiar with the quote ‘revenge is a confession of pain’? I believe that is the case with this deposition. The allegations were presented without foundation in factual evidence, and this deposition appears to constitute nothing more than hearsay and a cry of pain. The office of the inspector general is not able to use scant resources looking for that evidence, nor do we have any desire to do so. We have no evidence of a crime, and the allegations of behavior unbecoming an officer are, in the case of General John Mitchel and CW-5 Gabriel Sanchez, without basis in fact. We will not pursue any legal or administrative action based on the allegations in this deposition, now or in the future.” She looked at Gabriel. “Sir, you have a plan for the care of your family?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Your word will suffice. I am very sorry for the pain your family, and you both, have suffered. But as far as the army is concerned, your honor and your reputations are intact.” She turned to the lawyer, who was studying her with a bemused look on his face. “A pleasure,” she said, holding out a hand. “Thank you for coming.”

When he’d left the room, she held out her hand to John, and he took it, feeling her firm grip. He thought she might work out boxing in the base gym. “I’m Amira,” she said, taking pity on him. Could she tell he was still trying to calculate her age? “The middle daughter. I took my husband’s name last year after we got married. Safer, that way, though the army is probably the safest place in the country for an Arab-American woman.” She looked back at Gabriel, then smiled at him. “The IG looked for an advocate who had reason to admire and respect General John Mitchel to handle this matter. And they found me.”

“They must have had to search long and hard.”

“Not really.” She squeezed his hand and let it go. “The way I heard it, we were lining up for the job. Your fans are legion, General. Sabers were rattling on your behalf all the way up Pennsylvania Avenue.”

She held out an arm for Gabriel, and he escorted her back down the hall. “So, tell me all about that weird-ass law firm you work for. I heard you’re doing 30 percent pro bono, but I know that’s not true.”

“Fifty percent,” he admitted. “Sometimes more. Immigration, hate crimes, housing discrimination, mostly. We’re lucky if we can cover the rent and the electric bill.”

“I interned with the ACLU after law school. But I had those student loans to pay off.”

“How close are you to paying them off?”

“It’s done. I need to start looking around for my post-army career. I only have six months left at my current duty station.”

“Where are you stationed?”

“Germany.” She grinned at John’s stunned look. “I was happy to have a quick trip home, to check on Father. And I haven’t seen Abdullah since he went to San Francisco. Dinner is on me.”

Epilogue

J
OHN
leaned over the side of the basket, saw the ground fall away as swiftly as a bird’s flight. It didn’t feel like they were moving at all; there was just a soft warm breeze against his face and the earth falling beneath them. He looked up. Gabriel was wearing his flight suit, reaching over his head to make an adjustment to the airflow to the balloon. The fire made a soft, whooshing sound, but otherwise it was quiet, the movement of the basket so gentle it didn’t feel like flight at all.

“What do you think?”

John smiled at him, leaned back against the basket. “After all this time you can still surprise me.”

“I’m starting to crave the quiet,” Gabriel said. “Maybe time changes us. I used to love the speed. Now I long for the peace of this kind of flight. The way I’ve always longed for you, from somewhere deep in my soul.”

“Gabriel….”

“Only one thing hasn’t changed, not in all this time.”

John looked up at the balloon over his head. “I can’t see it from here.”

“Kim was supposed to take a picture and send it to my phone when we inflated.” Gabriel pulled the phone out of his pocket, scrolled down with his thumb. “Is he really spending the day with Mike Adams, learning how to trim bonsai? Do you think Mike understands how wildly enthusiastic he gets?”

“Mike’s the same way. He says he has over three hundred bonsai now, plus another hundred babies in plastic pots, ready to start training. He’s talking about growing trees from seeds. I mean, that’s a long-term project for your retirement years.”

“The backyard is going to be overrun. I’m going to have to build something to hold them all. Kim was talking about a bonsai quince. I don’t even know what a quince is. What’s the matter with him, he doesn’t want to fly in a balloon? And Billy claims to be afraid of heights? Couple of pansy-asses. Oh, look. Here it is.” He turned the phone to John, and a golden horse rose from the side of their balloon, fierce, tangled black mane, wild black eyes.

“That looks like Genghis Khan’s horse. I remember when you had that horse on the nose of your chopper.”

John studied him from his side of the basket. Gabriel leaned back, grinned at him. They might tip over if they didn’t keep their weight balanced. It would be a long way down to the ground. But Gabriel in a flight suit was nearly impossible to resist. John took a step forward, and Gabriel reached for his hand.

“Thank you for flying with me.”

“Always. Thank you for watching my back.”

“It has been my pleasure, General. Are you ready? For whatever comes next?”

“You and me? Kids and ex-wife? Our beautiful life. Should be an adventure.”

About the Author

S
ARAH
B
LACK
writes short fiction and romance. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sarah is a retired Naval Officer and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Visit her website at http://www.sarahblackwrites.com or contact her at [email protected]. She blogs at Goodreads.

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ARAH
B
LACK