Chapter 7 - The Colonel’s Secret
As we drove back to the farmhouse,
I looked at my father’s profile.
The grey hair,
the weathered skin,
the steady hands on the steering wheel.
"How did you do all of this in one night?"
I asked.
"I didn't,"
he said,
turning the truck onto the dirt road leading home.
"I told you,
Clara,
I’ve been watching him for years."
"I had the files ready."
"I had the contacts lined up."
"I was just waiting for the right moment to strike."
"I hoped it would never come."
"I hoped he would grow up and realize what a gift he had in you and Lily."
"But when I saw you on that porch last night,"
"shivering,"
"blue-lipped,"
"holding my granddaughter in a garbage bag..."
His grip tightened on the wheel until his knuckles turned white.
"I realized that I hadn't been waiting for him to change."
"I had been waiting for the justification to destroy him."
We pulled into the driveway,
and he turned off the engine.
"You think I’m just a mechanic,
don't you?"
he asked,
looking at me for the first time.
"I know you were a Colonel,"
I said.
"Intelligence."
"Yes,"
he nodded.
"But 'Intelligence' is a broad term."
"I was the man they sent in when they needed to bankrupt a dictator without firing a single shot."
"I was the man who specialized in 'asymmetric financial warfare'."
"I have spent my life learning how to make the powerful feel small."
"Carter Miller was an amateur."
"He thought he was playing chess with a pawn."
"He didn't realize the pawn was the one who built the board."
We walked inside,
and the warmth of the house felt like a sanctuary.
The phone in the kitchen rang.
My father answered it.
"Yes?"
he said.
"I see."
"Good."
"Keep him in custody for the full seventy-two hours."
"No bail."
"He’s a flight risk."
He hung up and looked at me.
"They picked him up at the gas station."
"He tried to steal a car."
"Desperation is a powerful thing,
May you like
Clara."
"It makes smart men do very stupid things."
