The Jefferson Allegiance

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Outside the restaurant, Ducharme was getting impatient.  The General was late, something very out of character.  Kincannon was down the street, waiting in the black Blazer with tinted windows and maintaining surveillance of the street and sidewalk traffic. 

Ducharme was outside because he’d already checked the restaurant and not spotted the General; and he disliked crowds.  His irritation beginning to border on worry, he entered the restaurant once more, ignored the maitre’d station, and took a left toward the less crowded bar.  He found a seat that gave him a perfect vantage of the door, dropped his black raincoat over the back of the seat and ordered a neat scotch without looking the bartender in the eye.  The lack of warmth would cause the bartender to pour light, but Ducharme easily accepted that for full door coverage.

He took a sip of the scotch and saw the lone woman at a table just to the right of the door.  He stared at her a moment too long because he’d just come back from a long tour in Afghanistan and he had forgotten about lone women.  That was a big part of the problem over there and in Iraq—too many lonely, driven men, and the wrong crusade. 

Then he saw that she too was looking at the door and realized she also was waiting for someone.  She sensed his stare and turned her head and her strikingly blue eyes locked onto his.  He recognized the look for what it was:  pure interest from someone who is interested in things and people outside of themselves.  A rare trait in his experience.

He wondered what she saw in him:  the uniform?  Did she know what all the glittering badges and little strips of cloth lined up on his left chest meant?  Was she gauging his height, a little over six-three, or was she wondering about the tan that no amount of sun-block will prevent in the high arid mountains on the Afghan-Pakistan border and so out of place in winter-time Washington DC?  Maybe she was comparing the grey of his eyes against the white of his closely cropped hair and trying to guess his age?

But then, in the corner of his eye, he spotted movement as the door opened and a man dressed similarly to himself, entered.  Not the General.  Much younger.  Yellow oak leaves on his shoulders.  A major, two ranks below Ducharme.  Ducharme stood.  The man scanned the room and locked onto Ducharme immediately.  He downed the rest of the drink and dropped a ten on the bar even though it was undeserved. 

Ducharme moved forward.  The major was nervous.  Not good.  He was talking with the maitre’d, who led him to a table.  Moving quickly, Ducharme took the seat facing the door before the major could take that very seat being offered to him.  The maitre’d frowned, but Ducharme could give a shit.

“Where’s the General?”

As the man took his coat off, he revealed the crossed arrows of Special Forces on his greens, and his ribbons indicated he was no lightweight. 

“The General told me to let you know he’d be late and to start dinner without him,” the major said.  “I’m his aide de camp.”

There was no ‘sir’ in the sentence, either leading or following, and Ducharme felt a slight surge of irritation cross his worry.  Special Forces was a tight community, always with a disdain for traditional army way, but etiquette was etiquette and he didn’t know this guy and this guy didn’t know him well enough to so readily discard it. 

The waiter was hovering and Ducharme simply ordered the special.  The major ordered off the menu, something complicated, with heavy sauces.  The major looked blatantly at Ducharme’s ribbons and badges after handing the menu back to the waiter and began talking about his time in Iraq, with just enough jargon, and just loud enough, that nearby diners got quiet, trying to listen in.