Cooper could hear a voice but he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. He didn’t bother trying to open his eyes to find out. Hell, he’d already attempted that one. And the way he saw it, no man was born to suffer a pain like that. And as for any attempt to move, from the position he was lying in, it wasn’t even an option. And so if that meant staying here forever, wherever here was, well, Cooper reckoned, all things considered, that was fine by him.

‘You listening to me…? Give me that water, Officer.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

Cooper scrabbled up as the water hit him. The sudden movement caused jolts of pain to tear through parts of his body he’d forgotten he owned. His limbs cried out in agony, along with his swollen, dried tongue which shrieked in searing, primal pain.

‘Okay, now we have blast off. That’s more like it… You look like shit, by the way.’

Cooper stared at Earl through paint-peeled bars whilst cold water trickled, dripping off from split ends to channel down the side of his nose and balance on his philtrum like a circus act.

Cooper cleared his throat, imagining his hands round his long term buddy’s neck. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Earl?’

‘Too damn right I am. At least in jail, you can’t go and run off on me.’

‘Where am I anyway?’

‘Where they brought you after your cannonball run, over a week ago. You were lucky they didn’t throw you in the county jail. Someone must’ve called in a favor.’

Cooper wiped his lips. Big mistake. Felt like he’d just been kicked in the mouth. ‘Don’t play games, Earl, tell me where I am. I haven’t got time for this.’

‘Oh, I think you’ve got plenty of time, Coop. In fact, with the list of things they want to charge you with, time seems to be all you’ll have. So off the top of my head, it goes something like this. Grand theft auto, aggravated motor vehicle theft in the first degree, reckless driving, exhibition of speed, vagrancy…’

‘Vagrancy?’

Earl nodded, his over-gelled, jet-black hair staying perfectly in place. ‘Take that one on the chin, Coop; something tells me that charge is going to be the least of your worries. Oh, and just in case you didn’t realize, this is before you add on skipping Judge Saunders’ afternoon court session, and everything he wanted to throw at you. Want me to carry on?’

‘Nope. I get it… How did you know I was here?’

‘Officer Monroe called me. He recognized your sorry butt. He was the officer who picked you up the last few times. Anyway, once the Feds realized you weren’t a significant threat to the president, and once you’d been checked out by the doc, they placed you in the custody of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department… Jeez, Coop, you got a big problem if you can’t remember any of this.’

And he was right. Not remembering was a problem because right then it led on to him remembering. The dam of amnesia crumbled, the flood of memory came crashing in, bringing an anxious tide of tight, strangling breath. ‘Is he… is he okay?’

Earl looked puzzled. ‘Who?’

Cooper gripped onto the cell bars as if a drowning man. He spilled his words as quietly as he could. ‘The President. Is he okay? Was he hurt…? Just answer me, Earl.’

‘Coop?’

Banging on the steel bars blasted an agony through Cooper’s shoulder. ‘Just answer me! Please!’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Earl, Goddamn it!’

Puzzlement drilled into Earl’s words and if Cooper hadn’t known him so well, it might’ve sounded like scorn. ‘Yeah… yeah, of course. He’s fine. Coop, what’s this about? What’s the President got to do with anything? I…’

Cooper didn’t hear the rest of Earl’s words. He just vomited. Right there. Retching up his relief. His fear from the pit of his stomach.

‘Christ, Coop. You okay? I’ll go and get someone.’

Cooper slumped hard on the iron contraption they called a bed. ‘No, it’s okay. Wait, look. I just need you to get me out of here. How much bail are they asking for?’

Earl’s feet shuffled. ‘Here’s the thing Coop, I can’t.’

‘Can’t what?’

‘Can’t get you out. Rather, I’m not going to do that.’

‘I love you, Earl, and I’m sorry about everything. Truly. But let’s put it right on the table; your jokes have never been funny, and right now, they’re even worse than usual.’

Earl’s expression became pitiful. ‘I’m sorry, Coop, this isn’t a joke. I promised I wouldn’t help to get you out, not this time. But I still wanted to come down to see if you were alright.’

Cooper stood up. Too fast. Pain ripped through. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I promised I wouldn’t. Look, I’d better go, I’ll get one of the officers to come and clean that up for you. And I am sorry… I’ll see you soon. Okay?’

‘Earl…! Earl! Don’t you leave me here…! Promised who…? I’m talking to you, Earl. Come back here—’

‘Hello, Cooper.’

That voice which sang the backdrop of his childhood. Screamed the setting of his youth. Cried the resentment of his military days and the chant of sorrow. That voice, it explained everything.

Cooper stared at his Uncle. Captain Beau Neill. Commandant and kin. One-time martinet, these days a monk.

With as much hostility as he could muster, Cooper said, ‘I take it this is your idea, Beau, not to get me out of here.’

Beau chewed on his unlit cigar. Dug his fingers into the top of his throbbing sciatic nerve, something he often told Cooper was his test of suffering. With disappointment dripping from his voice, Beau pulled a disappointed face. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing, Cooper? You never change do you? But no, for your information, keeping you here wasn’t my idea.’

Cooper gritted his teeth. Regretted it straight away. ‘Just get me the hell out.’

‘Sorry, no can do. There’s a person who thinks keeping you here just for a little while longer might help you think about what you’ve done, and I have to agree.’

‘I’m not a kid, Beau.’

‘No you’re not, Coop, but you sure as hell act like one.’

‘Is this what they teach you in the monastery, Beau? How to be compassionate?’

‘Oh don’t worry about me, Coop. I’ve got a lot to learn and a hell of a lot of sins to repent, so I’ll just go on and add this one to the list. And hey, I can live with that.’

‘Is this funny to you?’ Cooper said.

‘Not one Goddamn bit…Tell me something, Coop, because I need to know if you’ve lost your mind completely… Enlighten me as to what made you think it was a good idea to follow the President’s motorcade? Because I’m guessing that’s what you were doing. But here’s the really big question… Why?’

‘I dunno… maybe it wasn’t the smartest of things to do.’

The shaking of the head in cold disapproval was the epitome of disdain. Something Cooper knew Beau was well versed at. ‘You got that damn right.’

Cooper took a deep breath. Tried to hold onto his temper. Gave up trying. ‘What the hell was I supposed to do? Come on, tell me, seeing as you’ve got all the answers.’

‘What the rest of us did. Keep our damn heads and find out the facts first. If I’d had a knee jerk reaction and acted like that when I was a Captain in the US Navy, just because I’d heard something, what kind of Captain would that have made me? Or when I was serving in…’

Cooper cut Beau down. ‘You don’t have to give me a history of your military career, Beau. I served under you and I know exactly the kind of Captain you were.’

Beau stepped closer to the bars. Hissed his words. ‘Are we going to go through this again? Cooper, I was not responsible for the accident, and you know that.’

Hurt bobbed off Cooper’s words. ‘I never said you were, Beau. Problem is, when I’m stuck on one side of the bars – the wrong side – and you’re on the other and you won’t help me out, well, I can’t help but feel resentful… Reminds me of that day.’

Beau came back with hostility. ‘You can’t help yourself, can you?’

‘You were not only my Captain, you were my Uncle, and when I asked you… begged you to help, you turned your back and you walked away…’

‘Now you listen here, Coop, I don’t know how many times over the years I’ve had to say it, but it was too damn late. Now let it go.’

Quietly Cooper said, ‘You make it out like it’s a bad thing to love someone.’

‘You puzzle me, Coop. I don’t understand you, because the only relationship you seem to have or want is with a dead woman. What about with all the other people who care about you? You push them away. You don’t give a damn about them or how they feel. That’s why I don’t get this crazy car chase you did. The majority of the time you don’t want to know. But yet, you do a mad dash. Was it the drugs? Turn your mind?’

Cooper wanted to smash something. Anything. Anything which would give him some breathing space from his Uncle Beau. ‘No, it wasn’t the Goddamn drugs. I just… I just…’

‘Don’t say you care, Coop, because we both know you don’t.’

‘That’s bullshit. It’s just…’

It was Beau’s laugh which cut in this time. Harsh. Bitter. And Cooper wanted to grab right hold of him until he shut his mouth.

‘You were going to say, It’s complicated, weren’t you, Coop?’

Flatlined by Beau, Cooper appealed. ‘Just let me out of here. Please.’

‘Oh no, like I say, there’s someone here who thinks a few more hours locked up might do you good. Put some sense back into that head of yours.’

‘I don’t know what you’re playing at Beau, but I…’

‘Hello, Tom..’

Mid-sentence Cooper stopped. Left his mouth wide open.

‘You look like shit by the way.’

He stared at his wife. Rather, his estranged wife. Rather, his almost ex-wife and mother of his only child. He said, ‘So people like to keep telling me, but hey, it’s good to see you too, Maddie.’

WASHINGTON, D.C.

USA

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‘I don’t get it. What the hell have you guys been doing?’

President John Woods sat chewing the top of his pen. He watched the grainy CCTV recording of the latest bombing attack on home soil as he sat in the over-air conditioned situation room whilst ignoring the tight cramps in his stomach – a direct and unwelcome result of last night’s state dinner held for the Prime Minister of Canada, where he’d consumed in enthusiastic abundance the Appalachian cheese. Today, however, he was sure as hell paying for it. He said, ‘You’re telling me there was no warning?’

Charles ‘Chuck’ Harrison, acting chief of the CIA Counter Terrorism Center took a sip of the iced water in front of him.

Slowly.

Shuffled his papers.

Slowly.

Sniffed and then inhaled.

Slowly.

Making damn sure the dozen or so gathered in the ‘sit’ room knew he was going to make the President wait. Because he didn’t appreciate it. Woods’ tone. Not one Goddamn tiny bit.

He could have understood, if he was some nappy-ass kid fresh out of college, or even one of Woods’ sycophants – who to his mind filled every inch of the White house. But then he guessed that was Democrats for you. Brownnosers talking about tolerance.

Heck, George W. Bush had had his faults, but at least he hadn’t held back when it came to getting the job done with air strikes and boots on the ground, or when enhanced interrogation was needed – as it so often was – for some fundamentalist full of warped ideology, who was less than forthcoming with vital intel. And contrary to what the 2014 Senate report had said about EI, it did make a difference. A hell of a difference. A few days of walling, waterboarding, electrodes to the genitalia, along with sleep deprivation music made the most brainwashed of men begin to talk.

To his mind, the FBI had sold their souls, reporting to the Senate that it’d been them, not the CIA, who’d gotten most of the information from the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – or KSH, as he was usually referred to. And as a consequence of their perfidy there’d been a public outcry with emotions running high and liberalists bandying about the word torture. Hell, he just called it getting answers.

Then Obama had come into his administration with so much fanfare. The black man had crawled out and celebrated in the streets as if they’d just been emancipated. It was a Goddamn joke, with the irony being that Obama had become a puppet to the white man anyway, worried about not learning from Afghanistan or Iraq, and not wanting another war. But they were at war. Had been for a long time now. The war on terror. And the sooner everyone realized they were in the midst of world war three, the better. Though Chuck wasn’t certain realization was going to help matters, because now of all times America needed a Republican as Commander-in-Chief, and what they’d been landed with was Goddamn John Woods.

John Woods stared at Chuck, knowing exactly what he was doing. He’d never like the guy, and he wasn’t sure why but instinct told him the man was a sadist and a racist one at that. And hell, it wasn’t just because he’d read the classified CIA reports on the enhanced interrogation in the black sites where Chuck had been in charge – though those had certainly added to his theory. Savage, and in excess of what was already excessive. No, there was just something about the guy. The same something he’d had about the guys in the college football team who strutted around fanning their tails. Peacocks. And the same something he’d had when he’d first met his ex-wife, but had pushed aside. Shoot, he should’ve listened to his gut on that one.

But then, Chuck wasn’t about personal and liking him was beside the point. Maybe it was better that way so lines never blurred. He was real good at what he did. Damn good. Experienced. He’d been a military man first, before changing direction to join the CIA, Counter Terrorism Centre. Worked hard. Eventually became Chief of Station in Khartoum, Sudan in the nineties, moving to Tehran, before getting the top agency post in Baghdad at the height of the Iraq war.

And now he was acting Chief of CTC, since Brent Miller’s debilitating stroke last month. The stroke hadn’t come as a surprise, only that Brent hadn’t had one earlier.

Brent had lived at the job. Sustaining himself on sixty cigarettes a day and very little else. He’d even had an aluminum fold-up bed in the office, as if on summer camp. And folklore had it that when his wife had picked up her stuff and left him, Brent hadn’t even noticed, even when he’d returned home on a few occasions for a change of clothes. It’d taken an email from his wife’s attorney a couple of months later for him to realise she’d gone and had filed for divorce.

Chief of CTC was one of the most pressurized jobs there was. No doubt about it. Even more so than his, Woods figured.

So for now Chuck was acting Chief. The only man at the moment who was really up to it. Whether or not relations between them would withstand the position becoming permanent, only time would tell.

Clenching tight and refusing to excuse himself for the call of the bathroom, Woods said, ‘Chuck?’

‘Mr President?’

‘You need me to repeat the question?’

‘With due respect, Mr President, it didn’t feel much like a question. More of an accusation with the finger of blame pointing directly towards the CTC. Something I take exception to.’

Shifting his weight onto his other elbow, to try to ease the build-up of gas and excess cheese, and trying to curb his temper, Woods shook his head. ‘For Christ’s sake, accountability goes hand in hand with the job.’

‘I agree, and I’d be happy to hold my hands up, but as the bomb was on Homeland, I’d say it was the FBI who needed to answer your question.’

‘I’m asking you.’

‘I know you are. But may I remind you, Mr President, the CIA doesn’t work on home soil. It’s not our jurisdiction.’

‘Oh come on, Chuck, cut the crap, who do you think you’re talking to? Officially that’s what you like to put out there, but both you and I know that’s far from the truth.’

‘All I know is without procedure there’s chaos, and I run my department by the book.’

‘Like I say, Chuck. Cut the crap. This is the CIA we’re talking about, not the New York public library. Don’t ever try to bullshit me. People are dying and getting hurt out there. America is on red alert.’

‘I repeat, Homeland is not our jurisdiction.’

‘If that were the case, why do you have this guy, David Thorpe, in your custody?’

Drily, Chuck answered. ‘Because he’s there on the CCTV footage. It’s obvious to anyone he’s our bomber.’

‘Don’t get smart with me, you know exactly what I mean… I want to know why, when this is an FBI issue, you took him off American soil to Turkmenistan to question him almost immediately after his arrest? I’ve had the director of the FBI on the phone as well as the Attorney General. And let me tell you. They’re not happy. And hey, what do you know, neither am I, Chuck.’

‘Mr President, if you’ve got a problem with the way I’m managing the CTC, I feel I’d have no other option but to step aside so a more suitable candidate could take over the role. My duty to this country and the security of the American people is paramount. I won’t hesitate on doing what’s needed.’

Woods rolled his tongue in the back of his mouth. Tried not to be goaded by the glint in Chuck’s eye – nor by the fact Chuck knew he was the best man or woman for the job, so he had him by the balls… Failed on both counts. ‘Start explaining, because I need to tell the FBI what the hell is going on.’

Chuck looked around the room. Made a sweep count of the number of pens in the pot-holder. Began to count the number of files on the table. Forced himself to break away. It was a habit. A tiring one. Surveying everything including the most banal of stuff. A direct consequence of working too long in intel. There was no switch off button. Ever. Not when you were on vacation. Not even when you were making love.

Drawing his eyes away, Chuck said, ‘Mr President, not everyone here is privy to the level of classified information we need to discuss. Perhaps we can convene with just the necessary?’

Woods nodded. Slightly afraid to make a sudden movement. Watched most of the assembled men and women walk out. Envied the fact they could use the restroom.

COLORADO, USA

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Maddie drove. Hard. Fast. Making sure Cooper felt every moment of it. Every bump. Every Goddamn pot hole on the road back home. To the home they’d once shared before life with him had become too complicated. To the home their six-year-old daughter, Cora, had loved.

To the home where she’d packed her bags, taking too long about it, just in case he’d come back home and begged her to stay.

That had been last year. And she wished she could say she’d never looked back. But she had. Damn, had she. She’d looked back so many times her neck hurt. She didn’t even bother trying to deny to herself how much she still loved him. But loving someone wasn’t enough if they were hell bent on destroying themselves. And Cooper was. And like a maelstrom she knew he’d pull and draw everyone who was near enough down with him.

‘You want to slow down a bit, Maddie?’

Maddie side-glanced Cooper, as they sped along Colorado’s dirt track roads in the heat of the afternoon sun. The dial hit eighty-five miles per hour, and the dust blew from underneath the wheels as if on fire, and the wind billowed in through the open Chevy windows, and she brushed away spiraling curls from her eyes and shouted over the sound of the engine. ‘No, actually I don’t, Tom. You know what I actually want to do? I want to go faster…’

She put her foot down.

Hard.

Harder.

Pushing the engine. Swerving those holes in the road. And not giving a damn.

‘Remind you of anyone, Tom? Do I? Bring back memories from your cannonball run?’

‘Jesus, slow down, Maddie! What the hell’s got into you? I know you’re mad at me, but wasn’t leaving me in a cell punishment enough?’

‘Mad at you? Oh you haven’t seen mad, Tom. You wanna see mad, Tom? ’Cos I can show you that.’

Maddie pushed down on the accelerator, touching the worn out brown carpet of the Chevy floor with her equally worn out cowboy boot.

‘Whatever it is you’re pissed about, killing us both won’t solve things.’

‘Won’t it? Isn’t this what you want, Tom? Isn’t living on the edge what you want to do?’

‘I won’t tell you again Maddie… slow down.’

‘No, Tom, because this is the only way you feel isn’t it? Fast. Dangerous. To hell with anything else. With anybody else.’

‘Maddie…’

‘You feeling this, Tom? You feeling it? Doesn’t it feel good…? Or are you feeling scared? Desperate? Out of control? How about powerless? You feel that one? Powerless. That one’s good. Eats your soul. Like there’s nothing you can do to stop, and any moment you’re going to watch a car crash and feel the pain that goes with it.’

Cooper brushed the sand out of his mouth. ‘I’m sorry… Okay. I’m sorry!’

The car hit ninety-five and Maddie glanced over at Cooper. ‘Not good enough, Tom! Everything’s just a big-ass sorry with you… Do you know how hard we’ve all tried to stop loving you? Because we would, you know, if we could. We’ve all been through hell, thinking that we’re going to lose you. And then just as things start to quieten down you go and do it all again like the last time, and the time before Goddamn that.’

‘Maddie…’

‘No, you promised, and you just couldn’t keep your promise could you? And before you ask, these aren’t tears in my eyes, it’s the Goddamn wind.’

Cooper let go of the seat he’d been holding onto. Tightly. Still shouting. Still not quite sure what had brought this on. ‘I don’t get it, Maddie, because remember, it was you who walked away. You walked out on me. You didn’t want us anymore.’

Maddie screamed at the top of her voice. Shrill and high, reminding herself of the bobcats which roamed and hunted the Sonoran Desert at night. ‘How dare you, Tom!? God, I always wanted us. I always loved you. But you? Most of our marriage you weren’t even present. And when you were, you never even noticed I was there.’

‘That’s not true.’

Maddie swerved the car. Had Cooper holding back onto his seat. ‘It is true, Tom, and you know it.’

‘You’re acting crazy, just stop the Goddamn car and we’ll talk.’

‘I thought crazy was where it was at.’

Maddie slammed her foot on the brakes. The ’54 Chevy churning up the earth like a cyclone.

Cooper flew forward.

Banged his head.

Sense told him it was best not to look for sympathy.

Pushing open the door, Maddie marched round to the trunk. Banged it. Sprung right open. Pulled out a Beretta 87. Marched right on back to Cooper.

‘There you go, Tom. Take it.’

Cooper cocked his head. Hadn’t a hell clue what she was talking about. But then women and sense weren’t always an equal equation in his experience. ‘What? I don’t know what all this is about.’

Deep brown eyes stared at Cooper. Pain filled them. Love filled them. But most of all anger lounged and simmered in them.

‘You’re right, Tom. It wouldn’t have made any sense at all if we’d crashed back then. Both of us dying. Now that wouldn’t be good. So as this is about you… here you go.’

Cooper’s strawberry blonde hair blew over and covered his eyes. One blue. One green. He didn’t need to look at her to know the woman had lost all sense. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you.’

‘Don’t you, Tom?’

Maddie pulled back the hammer on the single shot nine-inch pistol. Span round a one eighty. Faced and aimed towards the bottom of a flowering cactus. Two shots. Two dead shovel-nosed cobras.

She turned back to Cooper and said, ‘No, you probably don’t. You don’t even have a clue… Now your turn.’

Cooper gave a half smile to Maddie. She was one of the best shots he knew. Hands down there was no competition. And many a time her steady hand had gotten him out of scrapes.

‘Can I pass on this?’

Maddie shook her head. Spun the gun. Pushed the pistol grip towards Cooper.

‘Hell, no.’

Cooper held onto his sigh. Then couldn’t hold it in any longer. He let it out. Hard and loud. Irritation began to seep up and over Cooper. Patience wasn’t always his strongest point. And right now, after almost a week in a cell and his tongue feeling like he’d caught it in a vice, his patience had just gone and run out. ‘Maddie, just give me the Goddamn keys, I want to go home.’

‘Do it.’

‘Do what? For Christ sake woman, I love you. You hear that. I love you. But this… This, what we’re doing right here, can we do it another time? Because I’m beat.’

Maddie didn’t take away her gaze. ‘If you’re so hell bent on killing yourself, why don’t you just go on right ahead and do it? Put the gun against your head and pull the trigger. Go on… Save us all the time and heartache, Tom. Then we can lay you to rest on the top of a hill somewhere. I could pick some daisies from the ranch and Cora and I – remember her, Tom? Your daughter? Well, we could make the grave look real pretty. And we’d give you a big old stone with your name on. Here lies, Thomas J Cooper, he lived as he died; quickly, selfishly and it was over in a shot… So what do you say?’

Cooper bent his six-foot-three frame down. His handsome, tired face towards Maddie’s brown freckled one. Inches away. Smelling the perfume he’d bought her from Paris. ‘I say, this time… this time you’ve finally lost it.’

‘No, Tom, you have. All the pills and…’

Cooper jumped in. ‘Those pills are legit, Maddie. Prescribed from my shrink. They help me sleep, okay?’

‘Don’t kid yourself, Tom. You can’t do without them or…’ She trailed off and Cooper looked at her curiously.

‘Or what?’

‘… Or without the memory of her.’

Cooper rubbed his head. ‘Jesus, has this all been about Ell… about… you know…’

‘Oh my God. You can’t say it, can you? You can’t even say her name.’

‘Of course I can.’

‘Then say it, Tom… I need to hear you say her name.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? You don’t think it’s strange that after all this time, after eight years you can’t say it? You’ve made her almost sacrosanct.’

‘That’s a dumb thing to say.’

‘Is it? Because God knows when we were together all you did was worship her. It was like living with a ghost, haunting every moment of what we did. How did you think it made me feel when I listened to you call her name in your sleep instead of mine? Or when I saw her things neatly boxed in the attic, like you were waiting for her to return.’

‘It’s all I had left.’

‘No it wasn’t, Tom, you had me but you never thought about that. You never thought about me.’

‘Jesus, this is crazy.’

‘It’s not, and God help me, I hate her more now that she’s dead than when she was alive.’

‘Maddie, what’s the matter with you?’

‘I just want you to say her name…Say it.’

‘You’re not thinking straight.’

‘Just say it.’

‘Look, what’s the big deal?’

‘Then say her fucking name.’

Cooper kicked the car. Felt the pain. ‘I can’t. Okay. I can’t…You happy now?’

Maddie blinked. Then blinked some more. This time it wasn’t the wind. Nor the dust. Nor the scorch of the sun in her eyes. This time they were tears. Tears which seemed to come straight from her heart. And as she watched the heatwaves rise up from the road ahead she took a deep breath and quietly said, ‘Come on, I’ll drive you home…’

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