Read Online Liberation Day by Andy McNab - Free Book Online Page B

did it to get my citizenship. George has gotten me a U.S. passport. We can—”
    “We nothing,” she snapped. “We don’t exist anymore.”
    “But—”
    “You don’t understand what you’ve done to me, do you?”
    The next few seconds seemed to pass in slow motion. Carrie moved toward the door, anger and sadness etched across her face. She stopped and looked at me for a long time, as if she had something to say but couldn’t find the words. Then she was gone.
    I didn’t move. I told myself I needed to give her some space. In truth, I just didn’t have the balls to go after her.
    Then the decision was made for me. The engine of the Plymouth fired up and the car shot down the drive.

7
    A gang of seagulls screeched overhead and dived into the water just forty yards away as I ran toward the front of the house.
    The sea was choppy; there was a wind picking up that made the yachts in the bay bob agitatedly at their moorings, and their rigging sound like the rattle of a hundred cages.
    As soon as I was through the heavy wooden front door I was hit by the overbearing heat. Her mother kept the temperature at a solid ninety degrees, day and night.
    George called out from the rear, “In the kitchen.”
    My Timberlands clunked on the dark hardwood floor of the hallway and I passed the loudly ticking grandfather clock.
    George was sitting, straight-backed, at the old pine rectangular table. A dozen or so photographs of boats were stuck to a corkboard behind him, and he was looking down at a picture frame in his hands. Little lace doilies and smelly candles sat on every scrap of surface.
    “You know what they say about New Englanders and the cold, Nick?”
    I shook my head.
    “When the temperature hits zero all the people in Miami die. But New Englanders, they just close the windows. Trust my ex-wife to be different.”
    If he was extending a hand of friendship, I wasn’t shaking.
    Just like in the old picture of years ago, square-jawed and muscular, George was still looking like something off a recruitment poster. The only difference now was that his short-cropped hair was graying. His face was cold and unyielding. This setting of New England family domesticity didn’t suit him at all.
    “What the hell are you doing here, George? We were supposed to meet downtown on Wednesday, remember?”
    “Our plans have changed, Nick. We’re not talking about a vacation booking.”
    He pursed his lips and picked up a framed photograph from the Welsh dresser. I could see it was of the three of them. Carrie must have been about ten years old in her blue-checked schoolgirl summer dress. He was in his medal-and badge-festooned military uniform, holding a certificate, with his wife standing proudly beside him. I’d told Carrie when I first saw it that they looked the perfect family. She’d laughed. “Then hellooo…meet the camera that lied.”
    “You could have sent somebody. You didn’t have to come in person. You know I wanted to keep her out of this.”
    He didn’t answer as I looked down at him. He was a man who had never let power and success go to his clothes. He was dressed in his civilian uniform, a brown corduroy sports jacket with brown suede elbow patches, white button-down-collar shirt, and a brown tie. There had been one addition since September 11: he now had a Stars and Stripes badge pinned to his right lapel. But, these days, who didn’t?
    At last he looked up. “She didn’t even give you time to dry your hair.” There was just a hint of a smile as he thought of his daughter fucking me off, as he placed the frame carefully on the tabletop. “I’ve done you a favor, son. She needed to find out sometime. And I happen to think she deserved to know.” He bent down and picked up a leather folder from beside his feet. “Maybe this will help. Compliments of the U.S. government.”
    He went and poured himself some coffee from the pot while I sat opposite his chair at the table and unzipped the folder. “It’s