Between Here and the Horizon (36 page)

Linneman sighed when he saw me brush my fingers against the torn edge of the envelope. “Yes, unfortunately the military police did read it before I could take it off the base. I’m afraid the contents of Sully’s letter probably haven’t done his case any good.”

I took out the letter and began to read. It explained everything. As I read, eyes scanning quickly over the pages Sully had written to me, things began to make a lot more sense. At the same time, they were far more confusing, too.

“So…
Sully
was the one who pulled those men out of the wreckage, not Ronan?”
 

Linneman nodded.
 

“I don’t understand. How did Magda and Ronan explain why they got married, and not Magda and Sully? When did they switch back their identities?” My head was hurting, to the point where every single last scrap of this new information I was being given simply wouldn’t make sense.

“Ronan found out when Sully finally came home from deployment. He came back to the island and found him. They agreed then to become themselves again. It was time for them to be who they were meant to be. I oversaw the meeting between them. Ronan was worried that Sully might not exactly be pleased to see him.”

“So you
knew
about this? All these years?”

“I did.”

“And you didn’t think to mention anything about it when Ronan died? You didn’t think to explain why it would be so damned hard to get Sully to take Connor and Amie?”

Linneman smoothed down his suit, politely declining a tray of hors d’oeuvres from Aunt Simone. “It wasn’t my place. I can only legally discuss the matter with you now because Sully has asked me to.”

God, what a mess. It was
all
such a mess. In times like these I would normally have turned to my father for guidance, but that wasn’t possible anymore. “How much trouble is he in?” I asked.
 

“A considerable amount,” Linneman said. “It seems he triggered some sort of red flag when his ID was entered into the airline’s systems back in Maine. The army has been trying to hunt him down for some time. It seems a number of sensitive files were leaked during the time that Sully was deployed under Colonel Whitlock. A specialist named Crowe was arrested for selling military secrets to outside parties. He’d somehow figured out Sully was pretending to be Ronan back then, and he told the police
Sully
was the one selling the information. That he had taken a number of files when he left the army, and since Crowe didn’t have any files on him when he was arrested, it looked like Sully was at least complicit in hiding evidence if not directly involved in the crimes that were committed.”

“Espionage? I’ve never heard anything so stupid in my whole life.”

“I know. Sully insists he doesn’t have any secret files, but the military aren’t likely to believe him since he lied about who he was for so long. Basically, it’s not looking good, Miss Lang. It’s not looking good at all.”

“Haven’t they searched his place back on the island?”

“They’ve torn the place apart. Not a thing was found, but now they’re saying he could easily have hidden the files somewhere else. Buried them. Secured them in a safe place. Given them to someone else, perhaps.”
 

This was outrageous. There was just no way Sully would be involved with selling top secret military information to anyone. No way whatsoever. And no way he was involved with this Crowe guy, either. The name was familiar to me, Sully had mentioned him once or twice, but if they were aligned with each other in any illegal activities, surely he wouldn’t have mentioned him at all?

Then…

My blood ran cold as I remembered something. Sully, sick with a fever after the Sea King went down, tossing and turning on his couch, yelling out a name. Yelling at a man to help him. He had been yelling at Crowe. When I’d asked him about Crowe later, I recalled the sour look on Sully’s face as he’d said he wasn’t a friend.
 

There was another time, too. Another time Sully had mentioned Crowe. I wracked my brain, trying to bring the memory to the surface of my mind, scouring every single moment Sully and I had spent together, trying to scan through conversations and interactions until I came across it.
 

“Miss Lang? Ophelia, are you quite all right?” Linneman touched my shoulder, a deep frown of concern on his face, but I held up one hand, burying myself deeper in my thoughts.
 

When? When had it been? God, I had to remember. I
had
to. And then, just as I was about to give up, it came to me in a sudden rush, a revelation that made my head spin. “Shit,” I hissed.
 

“What is it, Ophelia?”

“I know what the files are,” I told him, shaking my head. “I know exactly what they are, and I know where to find them, too.”

Linneman looked alarmed. “If they can help clear Sully’s name, then we need to get them to the police immediately,” he said.

“I know. You should call them and tell them they need to go back to the island. The files are a set of USB drives. They’re in my underwear drawer. And…well.” I cleared my throat. “
They’re full of porn
.”

******

The USB drives Sully gave me for Christmas were actually full of tactical operations intel and Taliban profiles. Each and every one of the files was apparently corrupt and the drives had been overwritten with porn, but the information was still there, lurking beneath the surface, waiting for someone to come and find it. Crowe’s digital military ID was stamped on the files, showing the times and dates when he had downloaded them from the army’s protected servers. Sully’s digital military ID was nowhere to be found. A week after the drives were handed over to the military police, Sully was unexpectedly released from Camp Haan. Linneman called me to relay the good news.
 

“I think you should be the one to go get him,” he told me. “He’s been pretty wild over the fact that they haven’t let him call you. I’m sure he’d appreciate a pick up from his girl over a dusty old man like me.”

I drove out to Camp Haan in Mom’s 4Runner, the whole way dreading having to face another arrogant man dressed in uniform, but when I got there, a tall, handsome guy dressed in civvies greeted me instead. He came to get me at the gate and walked me inside the building, introducing himself as Sam. He was pretty young, still in his mid twenties, but he walked with an air of importance, and when we passed other soldiers in the hallways of the administration building Sam took me through, they all stopped and saluted him without exception.
 

He led me to a small, windowless room and gestured for me to sit down at a low table—the only item of furniture inside the room. “Sully will be with you in a second, Miss Lang. If you’d please wait here, I’ll be back in a moment too with Sully’s release papers.” He left, and I sat down at the desk as he’d instructed, trying not to bite my fingernails.
 

Five minutes later, Sully was escorted into the room by two armed guards. He was dressed in military uniform, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. There were dark circles under his eyes, but his back was ramrod straight, his chin held high and proud. When he saw me, he rushed into the room and threw his arms around me, sweeping me up off the floor.
 

“Damn it, Lang,” he said through gritted teeth. “I thought you wouldn’t come.” He rained kissed down onto my face. Putting me down, he cupped my face in his hands, scanning me from head to toe, as if storing every last minute detail of me to memory in case he never saw me again.
 

“Of course I came,” I whispered. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“The U.S. Army doesn’t see it that way,” he said. “I still fucked up pretty bad. I should never have done what I did.”

I leaned my forehead against his chest, closing my eyes, breathing a sigh of relief. “You loved your brother. That’s all. And whatever you may have done, it seems like you’re in the clear. They told Linneman you were going to be released.”

Sully frowned. “They did?”

“Yeah. The officer who came and got me at the gate said he was getting your release paperwork.”

At that moment, the door opened again and Sam appeared, hurrying into the room. He gave us both a brief smile, and then held out his hand to Sully. “Second Lieutenant Coleridge. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Sully shook Sam’s hand, head tilted ever so slightly to one side. He looked perplexed. “Coleridge?” he repeated.
 

“That’s right, sir. Sam Coleridge. Your brother pulled me out of that burning wreck outside of Kabul. I was only nineteen at the time.”

Sully rocked back on his heels, recognition dawning on his face. “That’s right.
Kabul
.”

“We’re almost done here, sir. If you’d just sign here, where we’ve indicated with the red crosses, then we can get you on your way.” Sam handed Sully the paperwork in his other hand, smiling wider.
 

“I don’t understand. Ronan wasn’t—”

“Don’t worry, sir. It’s all been taken care of. I personally testified that you weren’t the one to pull me out of that wreck. It was definitely Ronan Fletcher, as records of that night confirmed.”

“But what about the letter I wrote? I confessed that—”

Sam shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know of any letter being held in evidence relating to this matter. As far as we’re concerned, Ronan Fletcher served a total of five tours in Afghanistan, saving the lives of well over thirty-eight men during the period of his service. The USB drives that were found in his house were taken by him, under the proviso that they were something else entirely. We believe he had zero knowledge of their hidden contents.”

Sully closed his hand around the pen Sam was offering him. “Ah. I see.”

“Yes, sir. Luckily for you, this matter was resolved. You’d have been sent to Gitmo for sure, otherwise. Probably wouldn’t have stepped foot in the States again.” The tone in Sam’s voice made things very clear—he knew Sully was the man who saved him. He knew perfectly well that Sully had broken the law, but he was feigning ignorance in order to save
him
now.
 

“Then I ought to be thanking you,” Sully said slowly. He signed the paperwork and handed it back to Sam while I watched on in amazement. Sam took the paperwork and reached into his pocket.
 

“I always wished I’d seen Ronan again,” he said. There was an odd, obvious twist to his voice that made me want to cry. “I’ve wanted to thank him for a very long time for what he did for me. That wreck was catastrophic. I was badly injured.
Beyond
badly injured. It took me eighteen months to regain full use of my body. It was a long, hard, painful road, but I was grateful that I was alive to take each agonizing step of it. Ronan risked his own life to save me and the two other guys he dragged out of that truck that night. I’ll never forget it. Neither will my wife, or my two kids.” He opened up his wallet and held it out for Sully to see—inside was a photograph of a beautiful blonde woman, holding onto two tiny little boys who were unmistakably Sam’s. “They want to convey their thanks to the man that saved my life just as much as I do, Captain Fletcher. It’s a debt that can
never
be repaid.”

Sully stood motionless, looking down at the picture. He nodded very slowly, his hands now curled into fists as his sides. “I’m sure my brother would be honored that you’d built such a beautiful life for yourself, Sergeant Coleridge. And he’d want to tell you that saving your life was one of the only things he was proud of accomplishing in
his
life, too.”
 

Sam’s eyes shone brightly, filled with tears. “Well. Hoo-rah for second chances, huh, Captain?” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “For me,
and
for you, I think.”

EPILOGUE

Dr. Fielding was way taller than I’d assumed in person. His office smelled like worn leather, but not in a manly way. In the kind of way it might smell of worn leather if he’d gone to an interior design store and bought a candle called “Worn Leather” that he burned on a shelf, while he mentally assessed troubled children and their equally troubled parents.
 

Connor sat on the very edge of his seat, pressing two Legos together and pulling them apart again over and over. Amie was happily entertaining herself on the floor on the other side of the room with another little girl, who seemed perplexed by Amie’s disinterest in her Barbie collection.
 

Fielding, at least six foot four, refused to sit down and was standing by a bookcase, running his fingers absently over the spines of the books displayed there:
Dr. Seuss
mixed in with
From Childhood to Adolescence
and
The Cambridge Anthology of Child Psychiatry
. “So, Connor. Tell me. Are you happy to be back in the city now?” he asked.

Connor stopped pressing the Legos together and pulling them apart. “Yes. I like it here a lot.”

“And do you like your new place? Were you sad you weren’t moving back into your old apartment? The one you lived in with your mom and dad?”

Connor put down the Legos and raised his head, looking Fielding right in the eye. “No, I’m not sad. I like the new apartment. You can see the park from my bedroom window. And the river, too.”

A lot happened after Sully and I left Camp Haan. The restaurant was safe, and Mom was determined to be independent. I’d been worried about telling her I was going to move permanently to New York, but when I’d plucked up the courage and blurted it out, she’d been absolutely thrilled for me. Aunt Simone was moving into a house a couple of doors down the street, and she was going to run the restaurant with Mom. With the extra money left over from the payout Linneman put into my bank account, there was enough cash to rebrand the place and really give it a fresh start. Umberto’s was now “George’s Place,” and I couldn’t have been happier.
 

When I’d gotten off the plane at JFK, Sully was by my side, smiling softly. To me, he hadn’t looked anything like his brother in that moment. He was purely Sully—a new man. Tall, dark, devastatingly handsome, and all mine. He’d picked me up and taken me into his arms, holding onto me like he was afraid I was some kind of mirage and I was going to disappear any second, and he’d kissed me hard. The world had stopped. There was no airport. There were no announcers over the tannoy. There were no crowds of people waiting for their loved ones, or hurrying to make their flights. There was only me and him, and our future lying out before us, and it was the most perfect moment.