Psychic Warrior by David Morehouse

days?”
    â€œMore like a few weeks would be better. I don’t want you jumping into this; that wouldn’t serve my purpose any more than it would yours.” He stood up from the desk and walked to the same file safe as yesterday. “I want you to look at some material.” He pulled a thick stack of papers from the drawer and handed them to me. “That should hold you for a while.”
    â€œWhat is all this stuff?”
    â€œIt’s documentation pertaining to the unit you read about yesterday—some historical stuff, branch programs, more session summaries, and so on. It should give you a fairly good overview of the program. We’ll keep in touch, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have about any of it. You know where I am.” He laughed, thinking his last comment was a joke. “Now let’s break this up, shall we?”
    â€œSure, Doc … but we didn’t discuss any of the files.”
    â€œThat’s okay; I have a fairly good sense of what you thought. That’s all I needed.” He raised his eyebrows, said, “Thanks!” and motioned me to the door of the office.
    I said nothing else. Lost in thought, I quietly walked back to my office, my head low. I closed my door and sat at the desk, staring at the pile of documents. I can’t do it, I thought. I just can’t do it. I placed the documents in the safe, closed the drawer, and slowly spun the tumbler.
    Several days passed and I never opened the drawer. I
refused to spend time worrying about the future. Instead, I concentrated on my family.
    Debbie planned outings for the entire family. I’d never had the chance to be involved in those, back when I was in the Rangers, and I wanted to get to know my children. It was a struggle at first, trying to adapt to a quasi-civilian way of life. It seemed I was in the way more than anything else. I guess it’s difficult for a family to contend with Dad being home so much, when for years they’ve barely seen him. I think I was cramping their style, but they were as tolerant of me as they could be.
    Michael started taking skating lessons, which eventually led to his playing ice hockey at an arena near Alexandria. It was a lot of fun for me to take him to the arena for practices and games. His gear bag was bigger than he was at the time. On Saturdays and Sundays the entire family would go to his games in the arenas about the capital Beltway. It was a tremendous escape from the events of the office and a fair diversion from my nightly journeys into the unknown.
    I was beginning to feel I was fitting into the family again, to feel that Debbie and I were gaining confidence in each other. We seldom talked about what went on in my head at night, but I knew it troubled her. She was the one who comforted me when I became frightened, who wiped the perspiration from me, and who often shook me awake from my screams. There was no avoiding it, I was slowly losing ground with her on this issue. She was concerned about me, and angry that I wasn’t seeking professional help. The career didn’t matter to her. All that mattered was for me to be rid of these nightmares—these visions.
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    It was Easter weekend, 1988. We attended church as we usually did and picked up my parents at National Airport immediately following the service. It was good to see them again. I always felt comfortable around Mom and Dad. They made me feel safe. We spent time together catching up on family and friends; we even looked up some of Dad’s
old army buddies and spent an evening laughing over stories of World War II and Korea. It was without a doubt one of the most pleasant times I’d had in quite a while. Dad and I enjoyed a small glass of wine before retiring.
    â€œHow’s the new job?”
    I looked at him and grimaced. “It’s interesting—and that’s about it. No matter how good it gets, it’ll never be as good as the