The Severance (10 page)

As soon as the door closed, Jessica walked to her dresser and produced a small green Army-issue notebook.

“You left this here the last time you were over. I thought it was mine. I jotted a few things down in it before I realized that.”

She handed the notebook to Jake. He didn’t really need it, but he took it anyway. He’d already been in the room twice as long as he’d originally hoped. Events rarely worked out as well as Jake hoped, and this was no exception.

“We really should talk, Jess,” Jake said, as he tried to step back from her now-ardent embrace.

“What’s wrong?” Jessica said, pouting.

“Jess, I’m leaving today. They are bumping up my platoon’s departure so they can award us medals tomorrow at Bagram.”

“Oh, that’s so great, babe!” Jessica said, giving Jake a mighty hug. She looked confused when Jake pulled away again. He hated this pretense.

“This isn’t easy for me to say, Jess, so I’m just going to say it. When I leave here, you and I are going to have to stop seeing each other. We have to end our relationship. I hope you understand that this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”

“Wh-why are you saying this?” Jessica asked. Her hands were trembling and she was beginning to tear up. Jake wanted to comfort her, but he had to finish what he’d started.

“I don’t want to be cruel, but I have a wife and a son at home. I’m sorry, but you must have seen this coming. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m a shithead, and chances are I’m always going to be a shithead. I’m not going to lay on any clichés here, but you really would be better off without me—”

“So you’re dumping me?” Jessica interrupted. Sexiness seemed to have been replaced by rage.

“Uh, yeah, I guess that’s the short version.” Jake said.

“You
are
dumping me! You think you can just dump me?” Jessica shouted.

“Well, yeah, but I’d hoped you would take it a little better,” Jake said.

“You’re such an asshole! You make me fucking sick!” Jessica screamed, tears streaming down her beautiful face.

Jake absorbed the abuse. He knew he deserved most of it.

With his plan for a graceful exit completely botched, Jake decided to make any exit he could.

“Hey, I can see that you are really upset. Totally understandable, so I’m just going to jet. I’ve got a lot of stuff to do before I fly,” Jake said.

He began to back up toward the door. To his amazement, Jessica lunged forward and closed the distance between them, putting herself nose-to-nose with her former lover.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” she snarled.

“Uh, I got some stuff to do before I fly. Haircut and laundry. Stupid stuff, ya know,”

“You’re not going anywhere!” Jessica snapped.

“Ah, come on, Jess, don’t act like this,” Jake said. He was frantically groping for the doorknob. He finally got a hold on it, quickly cracked the door, and slid out through the opening. He began to power walk away from the door. The door opened and Jessica leaned out into the hallway.

“You think this is over! It isn’t, you son of a bitch!” Jessica bellowed after him.

“Naw, Jess. I-I’m a little busy right now—I gotta go,” Jake said, looking over his shoulder without breaking stride. His voice was trembling ever so slightly. Jessica had him scared.

He had almost made it to the outside door and his freedom when an object hit him in the back of the head that knocked him off his feet. The pain was intense. As he clambered to his feet, Jake saw the object that had hit him: a Swingline stapler. Jessica cackled at Jake’s distress.

“Why did you do that? That really hurts!” Jake said, wincing.

“Good, I hope the next one kills you!” Jessica shouted, disappearing back into her room.

Jake didn’t wait to see what Jessica was going to throw next. He stumbled out the exit and ran away at a full sprint. He had never run away from any man in his life, but he was now fleeing a 105-pound nurse.

How did this happen? Jake thought, processing the last ten minutes of his life. He should have known that taking up with Jessica would eventually prove to be a bad idea. She’d been too young, too naïve, to see the writing on the wall. Now, she would tell his wife about their affair. His marriage was as good as destroyed. The worstcase scenario was going to happen. To make matters even worse, he was bleeding from the back of his head, and he needed medical care. But he couldn’t exactly go to the hospital and have one of Jessica’s friends patch him up, right?

“Sir, as far as I can tell, you don’t have a concussion or any brain injury,” Doc said, examining the growing lump on the back of his captain’s head.

“So, there’s nothing wrong with my brain?” Jake asked.

“Well, nothing that was caused by a stapler,” Ramirez said. Then, “Would you stop squinting, Sir?” Doc was now shining a small penlight in Jake’s eyes.

“That hurts,” Jake complained, His eyes were watering.

Ramirez turned the light off and held his left index finger in Jake’s face.

“Follow my finger with your eyes.”

Ramirez moved his finger from side to side in front of Jake.

“No abnormal eye movements,” he commented, and removed his latex gloves. Only a few hours before, he had been treating a guy with a bullet in his leg, so a lump on the head was hardly worth getting excited about. Jake wiped his eyes.

“Yeah, she really got you good, Sir.” Doc said.

“Does it need stitches?” Jake asked. Stitches meant the hospital and a delay of his flight to Bagram.

Ramirez turned back to the wound for a few more seconds.

“Nah, it’s not that bad,” he said. He reached into his bag and produced a small bottle of antiseptic ointment and a cotton swab.

“Okay, Sir, I’m going to clean this up a little bit, and I think you’ll be good. I’m not going to bandage you on account of your hair, but you should keep the area clean.”

Doc put some ointment on the swab and began dabbing the swab on the small cut on the back of Jake’s head.

“Ouch! That stings!” Jake said.

“Sir, stop being a baby,” Doc said.

Once Ramirez was done with the ointment, he put away his gear and threw away his used gloves and swab in a nearby trash can. He then produced from his medical bag a cold compress and a small bag with two 800-mg Ibuprofen pills. He activated the cold compress and handed it and the pills to Jake.

“Put the cold pack on your head to reduce the swelling; take the pills for the pain,” Ramirez said as he zipped up his medical bag.

“Oh, I was going to try to swallow the compress and rub the pills on my head,” Jake said, as he popped the pills in his mouth and swallowed them without water. Doc shook his head as he took his bag back over to his cot.

“Good to see that blow to the head didn’t hurt your sense of humor,” McBride said, as he came into the tent with Sergeant Olsen.

“It’s all I’m going to have left after this,” Jake said, rubbing the compress on the back of his head. He immediately felt better.

“Take heart, Sir, it’s not as bad as all that,” McBride said, as he and Olsen took a seat across from Jake.

“Come on, don’t rub it in, I’m completely fucked,” Jake said.

“Nah, I think you’re going to be okay on this one. Sergeant Olsen has an interesting bit of information. Tell him, gramps.”

At 44 years old, “Gramps” Olsen was the oldest man in the platoon. Olsen was due to be discharged with the rest of them, after 18 years of service and only two years shy of retirement. Jake took a deep breath and readied himself for what he was sure was going to be a disconcerting story.

“Check it out, Sir. I was over at the hospital today, picking up a refill for my Lipitor. I was walking back through the hospital barracks when I heard someone crying. Naturally, I go investigate.”

“Naturally,” Jake said, though he’d never known Olsen to be the compassionate type. In fact, Jake could vividly remember Olsen searching a mortally wounded insurgent in hope of finding a cigarette lighter. Olsen continued.

“Well anyway, what do I find but your nurse sitting on the stoop of her building, crying.”

“Yeah, she was pretty upset when I left.”

“That’s not the point, Sir. The point is she wasn’t alone. Some guy in a flight suit was sitting with her, and his arm was around her shoulder. It looked like she was being comforted,” Olsen said, a smirk of satisfaction on his face.

“Gramps, how does this help me?” Jake asked.

“Because, Sir, after a few minutes, they went back into the barracks together. Males don’t live in those barracks, so it can only be assumed that they were going back to her room,” Olsen said.

“Maybe it’s the head trauma, but I’m not catching the point,” Jake said.

“Okay, let me break it down for you, youngster. The one thing that helps a chick get over a dude is another dude. She’s going to be too busy with this new guy to fuck with your life. If you’re worried she’s going to nark to your wife, I think you’re in the clear.”

“She couldn’t have rebounded that fast,” Jake said.

“Come on, Sir!” McBride chimed in. “That chick you had was smoking hot, Sir. I mean she was a perfect 10 by anyone’s standards. There were guys ready to pounce on her the very second she dumped you, or in this case, you dumped her. Looks like some hotshot pilot got to your girl. Like Gramps here said, she’s going to be too busy with Flyboy to wreck your life,” McBride said. Olsen nodded in agreement.

“Chick was a knockout, Sir,” Ramirez called out from the other end of the tent.

“Thanks, Doc,” Jake called back.

He hoped that McBride and Olsen were right. The likelihood of Jessica seeking retribution against him seemed directly tied to how happy she was and would be. He could only hope that this aviator could keep her satisfied long enough for her to forget about him, or at least long enough for her stapler-throwing rage to subside.

Looking at his watch, Jake realized that it was 12:30. Time was rushing by at a whirlwind pace.

“Man, I have so much that I need to do. I gotta call home and let them know I’m coming early,” Jake said.

“Sir, maybe you need to take it easy for a bit. Everyone else has got some rack time,” McBride said. Though Jake outranked him, McBride occasionally gave stern advice. Jake usually made it a point to heed that advice.

“She’ll kill me if I don’t call,” Jake said.

“Sir, you saved a guy’s life, shot another guy, blew up a house, and got hit in the head with a stapler. Take a nap. You can call your wife from Bagram,” McBride insisted.

Jake knew he needed the extra rest, but he also knew just how upset his wife would be if he didn’t call. On the other hand, his head was throbbing and he couldn’t call his wife when he was in pain.

“Okay, you’re right. I’ll call from Bagram tonight,” Jake said finally.

“Good decision, Sir,” McBride said, as he and Olsen rose to their feet.

“Don’t leave without me,” Jake said, as he lay back on his cot and stretched out.

“Wouldn’t leave without you, Sir. You’re the showstopper,” McBride said.

“Gotcha in my hip pocket, Cap,” Olsen said.

Jake took a deep breath and tried to relax. Maybe McBride was right. Maybe everything was going to work out. The thought of making it back home was comforting. What good was a severance package if there was no one to spend it on, Jake thought. He hoped he could dream about his wife as he drifted into sleep.

Planning their next move after taking the contractor’s money wasn’t nearly as easy as counting it. Many hours were spent going over the various options. Both Jake and McBride had heard rumors about how to smuggle things back to the United States. Plenty of people bragged about knowing guys who had taken AK-47s home with them. There were legends of soldiers who had smuggled home Nazi artwork during the Second World War. Despite all the bravado, none of these stories had any useful details that could have aided Jake or McBride in their plans. They needed to come up with a scam from scratch.

Finally, it was decided that they would stash the money in a container slated to fly back to the United States directly, as opposed to one that would travel by ground convoy through Pakistan. McBride had suggested that they try to get the money into the battalion intelligence section’s container. Unlike other sections, the Intel section had footlockers and other cases that were labeled “Contents Classified Secret.” By regulation, these boxes were not to be opened and inspected by customs.

After some research, McBride and Jake were able to procure a Pelican 0370 case like the ones that Intel was planning to use to ship its classified material home. After a little red spray paint and a stencil, their case looked identical to the genuine article, with only a thumbnailsized white paint spot on the bottom of the case to identify it as theirs.

Jake and McBride took the money out of the gym bags and neatly stacked it in the case. On top of the money, they placed old maps, so that in the event anyone opened the box, it might at least appear to be legitimate classified material.

In the meantime, the soldiers were briefed to continue their silence about what was now referred to as “The Severance.” Each of the men was going to be cut in for $25,000. Cutting them in for any more than 25K would end in disaster, surmised Jake and McBride, as the soldiers would all go out and buy Ferraris or yachts and be immediately audited by the Internal Revenue Service. The remaining money would be split between the Captain and the NCO, roughly two million dollars each. The other men in the platoon were never told exactly how much money there was, but they all seemed satisfied with how much they were getting. None of the soldiers was staying in the Army; most of them were barred from reenlistment outright and also denied full veterans’ benefits. Their share of the loot would help them land on their feet.