MIA

184. It is an unmistakable sting. The chill runs like an electric current up my spine upsetting whatever stasis has grounded the absolute reality of this eternal eventuality. We are all going to get sick and die. The variables being in the how and how much. How will we go and how much drama and suffering will accompany it? No matter the level of enlightenment and acceptance it is the personal reaction to the binary fact that a person you once interacted with in a positive, flowing, professional, personal and loving way, has walked through an invisible portal, never to return. It is a loss that only the passage of time will prove as one of nature's very few absolutes. We are human. We decay and die. This happens when completely unexpected and we will be woefully unprepared when it knocks on our door. I am woefully unprepared for the news about TOM. He was my friend, mentor, father-figure and up-chain commander for almost thirty years. I was just provided the intel that he is gone. Not even the morphine drip can mask the pain I am feeling. My knee-jerk reaction is brusk and violent. Who did this to me? How did it happen? Was it a part of the operation of which I currently lie in convalescent incapacity? Who is responsible? I can feel the bitter tinge of anger's revenge build in my veins as I look for my badge and gun. Having the experience of an earlier response Davis senses this and puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. His touch sends a painful charge through my upper torso and I wince. Go ahead and dump a truckload of salt in the wound, I challenge, any further injury is secondary to the insult of this news. "We are in lockdown, all operations suspended until further notice. The primary objective is for you, and Saunders, to heal up and get back on your feet," Davis says in a neutral monotone. "Saunders?" It is the first word I have spoken in eight months, my voice is shallow and filled with what sounds to me like sand and gravel under a truck tire. "She got hit as well, part of a, we think, a retaliatory strike by, well, it's still conjecture at this point, but without orders and TOM, we are…" I cough and try again. "The Queen?" I watch as Davis purses his lips in an interesting combination of silent codes, a cultural mixture of omerta and the fifth amendment. He locks on to my stare, leans twenty degrees forward, loosens his lips and whispers, "MIA."