Hard Beat

I swallow over the lump in my throat, hating him for not being there to protect her once again, because if she was his partner, that was his job, and at the same time knowing that this is my anger speaking, because there’s no way to protect someone from a bomb blast you didn’t know was coming.

“I’m so confused,” I confess, using the wall for support because it’s taking everything I have to concentrate on his words and not on the pressure in my chest.

“Beaux wasn’t just a photographer. She was an agent sent to gather intel for the agency on the high-level meet. Her job was to document figures in the game, watch their comings and goings, where they met up, who they spoke to. Cause some confusion amongst some of the local contacts so that we could make sure to take the targets out without them knowing.”

“Omid.” His name falls from my lips as I recall the look on his face the first time he got a good look at Beaux.

“Yes, Omid,” Dane says. “He was sharing info with both sides. Beaux called me one night, afraid that he had recognized her when they came face-to-face in enemy territory when she was out gathering intel. She wasn’t sure if he had or not, but —”

Dots connect for me. Her phone call in the hallway that night and how upset she was. Was that all about Omid? “He sent me a text about not trusting her that made no sense at the time. I just thought it was because she was a woman.” All I can do is shake my head at all of this.

“She wasn’t sure.”

“The photos with odd time stamps, the late nights out by herself, the —”

“All missions to gather information and meet with sources,” he says as pieces start clicking into place. Now things make so much sense, and yet I feel so stupid for not putting them together sooner, but how could I? This is like a Tom Clancy novel. Who would think this shit exists even though I live in its world on a daily basis? “We cleared her room out of all of her info while you were on your way to Germany,” he explains as I just sit there and shake my head in disbelief.

“So her cover was blown?” I ask him, trying to draw connections that still aren’t clicking solidly into place.

“In more ways than one,” Dane says, and stares sternly at me in a way I can’t read. “She called me one night while you were filing your report and told me she broke her cover with you. I was so pissed at her, told her she was risking everything, including her life. It was so hard having her there with you when I couldn’t be there to protect her,” he says, and for a moment I sympathize with him because I know that exact feeling, have failed twice in fact in doing just that. “She said you guys were talking and she forgot for a moment where she was, what she was supposed to be doing, but that she told you about her parents, her past… Fuck man, that’s like rule number one, know your backstory like the back of your hand, and she completely disregarded it.”

I blow out a breath as a small part of me grabs onto his comment because that means that I have something more of Beaux to hold on to, that regardless of the reason she was there, she still showed me the real her. I fell in love with the real person on the inside, not something she wasn’t.

“It was right then I knew something was going on between you two. She denied it fiercely, but I knew her well enough to know she was lying. I got her to admit in a roundabout way that there was something between you, but she told me that you guys weren’t telling anyone, that you’d honor the promise because the integrity of your work was so important to you and so if push came to shove, her cover would hold…” His voice fades off, allowing me to absorb what he’s said to this point, and while I still feel like I’m drinking the information from a firehose, at least I have information to drown in. And heartache. There’s definitely no escaping the weariness that assails me from finding this all out too late. Everything is just too late.

“The IED,” Dane says, pulling me from the riot in my head and heart. “Both Rosco’s and Sarge’s reports stated that they thought they heard someone call Beaux’s name. We intercepted radio chatter congratulating over a takeout. We couldn’t be positive they meant Beaux, so we immediately went into protective mode, because if someone called her name, that meant she might have had eyes on her, a bounty on her head for playing both sides.”

“So if her caring husband shows up at Landstuhl, makes a scene —”

“And she goes home with him and has a domesticated life in a house that they suddenly moved into and a fake background to reinforce it, then there’s no way she could be a spy. Eyes and ears everywhere, making sure that —”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” I say to no one as something dawns on me. “You guys were fucking listening to us that day?” The look on his face tells me what I don’t want to know, and now it’s my turn to pace the floor. The one last memory I have of her, the bittersweet and intimate moments between us were documented by who knows what kind of devices and the perverted fucks on the other end of them.

“They were turned off when we realized what was happening,” he murmurs, but the admission does nothing to stop the anger that eats at me. “She wanted to run after you, you know…”

“No, I don’t know!” I yell, at him, at her, at everyone because I feel so fucking in the dark right now, and while I don’t want to know another thing, I need to know everything. Then I can leave here and try to comprehend so that I can mourn the loss of her even though I still can’t believe she’s gone.