Various Short Stories

Special Ops

Dear Daddy, 

I turn 8 soon, on October 28, same as you mommy says. She crys when I ask about when you are coming home, and tells me to be patient. She says that you will be home soon, and that you wouldn't miss my 8 birthday. She said that last year about my 7 birthday too. How come you weren't there daddy? Was I a bad girl? How come you don't write back anymore? Well I got to go daddy, mom wants me to do my homework, says that its very impotent and that you want me to do good in school. I love you. 

Love, 

Lisa 

That was the last letter that my daughter sent me while I was in a North Korean prison camp being interrogated on what I knew about their 'secret'. The secret being that in the sixty-six years after the Korean war, the North Koreans had secretly tunneled under most of Asia and some of Europe. They had sprawling cities and a lot more people than once thought. Of course being a Pararescuman disguised as a Marine named Joseph Benfield, the Koreans had to try many techniques to get me to talk. None very effective. They concluded that I knew nothing and put me to work in a camp. 

The war started in 2016 about two years after my completion of basic, and about two weeks after my completion of the Pipeline, what they call Pararescue School. I was in almost every major conflict from the first attack in Beijing, to the invasion of Japan, and even the raid on Seoul. Every place you could think of that would need emergency med-evacs, I can say I was there, in the thick of it.  

Now let's start at the beginning, back when beautiful daughter was born to my deceased wife.

"Well this is it man..." my best friend James said with a grin. "You're gonna be a dad!" He looked at me his face lit with happiness. 

"Dude...I'm pararescue..." my heart was torn between this event and my career. Since I was in high school I had always wanted to follow this path and be a Pararescuman. "The kid will grow up without his or her dad, my job is demanding as hell..." 

"C'mon man, it's not that bad, I mean look at you, you're a good guy, and I know the kid will understand that..." James said a reassuring smile on his face.  

"Alright man, I want you to be the godfather..." James' face lit up and he made some lame joke about the 1972 movie "The Godfather". 

"Course I am man! We didn't go through high school together for nothing." Apparently he'd been waiting for this, a long time. He knew that I'd be the first to 'settle down' and just wanted to get to know fatherhood before he actually became a father. Ingenious plan in my opinion.  

There was a bustle and doctors rushed into the room my wife was in. Then there was eerie silence. My heart sank, I began to pace, there was no noise anywhere, at least none that I could hear, and James' mouth was moving almost as if he was talking to me. Then a doctor dressed in all white walked out holding a small bundle of blankets in his arms. 

"It's a girl!" He said joyfully, but I read the fear and grief in his eyes, "but-" 

"My wife is dead..." I plucked the small being from the doctors arms and held it close to my body. My eyes closed hard, and I looked to James. His expression was one of pure and utter horror, this, the greatest day in any father's life was marred by the death of the woman who'd brought my child into this world. I looked James in the eye and asked him, "Do you wanna hold her?"  

His eyes lit up, but his face remained horrified. "Yeah..." I handed my newborn daughter to her godfather and walked into the room where my wife was lying dead. I smiled and grabbed her hand.  

"Uhhh... sir, your wife isn't dead."  

"What?" I asked looking at the doctor as if he was crazy.