Page 49 of Dead Ahead (Department of Defense)
Chapter 23
Triton
I ONLY SAW ASHLEY ONCE after we boarded, just before an officer led me to the captain, so I could explain what had happened. The next few hours were a blur.
“Triton, is that you?”
From the quiet of his office, the captain of the ship and I listened as my commander’s voice echoed over the screen as his picture popped into view.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been so happy to hear your voice, sir, or see your face,” I said. And meant it.
“What the hell happened out there? You’ve been missing for days, and suddenly you’re radioing from out of nowhere? And Captain Inoue says they rescued you from an island with a woman?”
I spent the next hour debriefing the Japanese captain and my commander on all that had happened over the past five days, from the attack during our mission to our flight to the island to the terrorists finding us there. Then I outlined what we’d found and what I suspected was happening—and was going to happen.
Sobered, the captain of the frigate dismissed me with thanks so he could talk further with my commander and with his superiors. My commander's last words before he left were, “Rusev, you’re a hero.”
I thanked him, but that was it. I didn’t feel much like one.
A seaman took me to the mess hall, where I ate food that tasted like sand in my mouth, then took me to a spare bunk and gave me clothes to change into. I put them on gratefully, struggling to find the words to ask about the woman I’d come on board with. I was told she was sleeping and decided not to bother her. She’d more than earned the rest.
As bone-weary as I was, it still took me a long time for sleep to come. The past few days felt like a lifetime, and they kept replaying themselves in my head.
But more than that, I felt terrible I hadn’t been able to spare Ashley what she’d seen and been through. I’d recognized the look on her face, seen through her silence after we’d killed the terrorists.
I’d seen that same look on the faces of green kids after their first skirmish or mission or the first time they’d killed someone. It was a shock, and you never forgot the first time you took a life. Hopefully, you never got used to it, but when it was your job, you did what you had to.
But it wasn’t Ashley’s job, and things like that got to people. I’d known nothing I could say—he was dying already, you saved him from a drawn-out, agonizing death, you had to kill him, or he would have killed you—would have made much of a difference. I just hoped whatever guilt she felt didn’t pull her down into despair and self-recrimination like I’d seen it do to some young kids. They never got over it, and it changed them. And I couldn’t bear the thought of Ashley becoming someone else because I’d failed to make sure the terrorist I’d stabbed was down for the count like I should have, as my training had drilled into me.
But I’d been too intent on finding the second terrorist, too determined to find him and make sure he didn’t get anywhere near Ashley. Something about her, how I felt about her, my feelings towards her made my years and years of training and experience fly out the window. She threw my head into disarray in a disconcerting and concerning way.
I turned over, fluffing the pillow, but nothing helped. All I could think of was Ashley.
Walking down the gangplank from the frigate, a welcome sight met me.
“What the hell happened to you? You look like you’ve been to hell and back.”
“I have,” I answered as Herman held out his hand so I could clap mine into his for a shake. But then my brother did something unexpected—from the handshake, he pulled me in for a hug.
Our family was not touchy-feely, not by a long shot. The only cuddles my mom received when we were kids were by force, and she was the only one who received an occasional hug. But something about being on that island with the chance we would never get off had flipped a switch in me, and I was more than grateful to see the brother I’d been afraid I’d never see again. So, I let him pull me into a hug and pound me on the back. The contact was brief but full of feeling. It seemed like he, too, had been unaccountably worried.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as we made our way down the busy pier.
My brother flashed me a boyish grin. “Asked to escort you to Misawa personally.”
The joint American-Japanese Self-Defense Air and Naval Force in Aomori on Hokkaido. The base Herman had nothing to do with because I doubted his Atlantic-based carrier had docked there.
“You were asked personally, or you managed to finagle the job from my commander?”
I got no answer, only another cheeky grin, but I was surprised. Had my brother been that worried about me?
But I knew I would never get any answers, so I let it go, still faintly astonished. Instead, I asked the question that had been weighing on me.
“Do you know where Ashley is?”
My brother glanced over at me. “Ashley? The woman who you were stranded with? The commander said she’s to be debriefed separately, then sent home.”
“Oh.”
