I looked down at the tiny roses painted onto the stack of ceramic plates in my hands. I hadn’t taken them out since the last time Beth had come home from college and Tanya and I had had some dinner with her, grilling her about her classes, her campus. I traced my finger over the roses. They looked soft and three dimensional, but under my fingers they felt cold. And dead.

“Oh and Jack? We’ll need some knives and forks over here too,” came Max’s voice form the other room. I grabbed these from the side board and tucked them under my arm, then closed the drawer with my hip and went into the living room. I wasn’t much of a cook, but I certainly knew how to make a passable mac and cheese and with some good wine on the table, the boys weren’t complaining much.

They were all here this evening. Max and Hugo, pretty boy carbon copies that looked straight out of a daytime talk show where they do the makeovers. Hugo was definitely the ‘before’ guy, with shaggy hair hanging in his eyes, a weathered shirt and some faint stubble. Max was the ‘after’, in a duck egg blue Polo shirt and his sandy hair combed neatly to the side. We had called them “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” back in the day. I watched as Max got to work distributing forks around the old dining table and Hugo was cracking wise at something on the other end of the table. They both were doing well for themselves, from what I could tell.

David was there. Everyone had been a bit surprised by David’s transformation these last few months, but not me. I had never been fooled by all that nasty crap scribbled on his arms – he’s a big softy and I always saw that in him. All during deployment, I was the only guy who’d had children. I knew what it did to you, to have that responsibility on your shoulders. And I saw it in David’s eyes tonight, as he passed around wine glasses for everyone. I saw how those two little boys he’d gotten attached to had changed him somehow. His eyes were softer. He seemed to laugh a lot easier now.

Noah was there, too, and in a shitty mood, which was unusual for him. He had always been the mature one, in my eyes, a few years older than the other guys but intellectually in another class altogether. Noah knew how to get shit done. He’d been with his girl Carla for years now and nothing in the world kept him from keeping things up no matter where in the world our team was posted. Noah looked just like the bad guy in every movie you’ve ever seen. Pale, dark hair, and slender. Looked like a French aristocrat, not a Navy man. Fuck knows why such a smart guy joined the military – I thought he was more like a chess master than a marksman.

I smiled at seeing everyone, filling up the old living room, all talking at once and laughing, the wine flowing. I held out my glass and got a refill from David. I took a deep breath. I’d need the Dutch courage for what would happen next.

There was a moment of quiet as the boys tucked into their steaming plates of mac and cheese and I cleared my throat, and lifted my glass.

“To Team XXX,” I said and solemn dropped my head. The men grabbed their glasses and did the same.

“Hear hear!” cried Hugo. “To the best of sons of bitches who ever wore the trident.”

Murmurs of approval went around the table.

“You all…” I said. I always got a lump in my throat when all of us were gathered like this, all safe and smiling like this, when we’d been through so many days together where none of us thought we’d make it to morning.

“To all the good men here tonight, and to all the good men who couldn’t be here,” I said. The table fell silent as we all recalled the many who hadn’t made it. I don’t know what possessed me, but I grabbed a wine glass, poured a full glass and set it aside. The guys watched me closely and when I was done, I nodded at it and turned to them.

“Brett Johnson, you were one of the best. Gone but never forgotten” I said, choking up. I lifted my glass to the empty space at the table and the glass I’d placed there. The boys raised their glasses again and toasted our fallen soldier. Brett had come so far with all of us. There had been many tragedies on that final mission, but Brett was one we all felt particularly deeply. We sat in silence.

“Brett, my man, it’s God’s mercy you don’t have to endure Jack’s mac and cheese tonight, cheers to you!” Hugo said and took a big glug of wine. There was a moment of silence and then all at once the guys roared with laughter at the joke. When you’ve done the work me and these men spent years of our lives doing, you learn to balance out the morbid with the ridiculous.

“He’s with Jesus now,” David laughed. “Do you think they put peas in the mac and cheese in heaven?”

“Yeah, yeah very funny,” I said. “People put veggies in mac and cheese all the time, it’s no big deal.”

David held up a fork of pasta and gave it the side eye.

“To all the good men who’ve made it out here tonight, and all the good men who’ll survive this dinner,” he said, held his nose and swallowed down his forkful.

The guys broke out into laughter again. I wasn’t mad. I knew they looked up to me, and when we were on a mission there wasn’t a second I didn’t trust them to follow an order. But that didn’t stop them from pushing their luck once in a while, especially these days.

I smiled and hoped nobody saw me wipe my eyes a little and set the wine bottle aside.

“You guys are great,” I said softly. David leaned in and gave me a big hug round my shoulders.

“Not so bad yourself old man,” he said.

The next few moments were spent eating and drinking and laughing, but I knew I had to speak soon or I’d lose my nerve.

“Actually, fellas, I didn’t just bring you here to torture you with my cooking,” I said.

They all looked over at me.

“There’s… something serious I wanted to talk to you all about.”

The room was silent as they waited for me to speak again.

“I’ve been thinking about… September” I said.

Just the mention of the name seemed to change the quality of the air in the room. Hugo put down his wine glass but other than that, everyone was frozen and listening intently. The unspoken rule of our brotherhood was this: we never talked about September.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. About you guys, about what happened out there. And I’ve been thinking about how I can’t let go of it. How… none of it seems right.”

Silence.

“Look, since nobody wants to hear me yack on and on, I’m just gonna spit it out. I think we should go public with what happened on the mission,” I said, and soothed my own nerves by downing the last pinkish-red dregs in my wine glass.

The guys exchanged looks but said nothing.

“Go… public?” Max said.

“Yup, go public. Break our silence. Let the world know about the injustice that happened out there, and why. Tell the world exactly what’s being hidden from them,” I said, feeling the alcohol going to my head. Their eyes were wide.

Hugo laughed nervously.

“You’re not joking,” he said and rubbed the back of his neck.

I sighed. This reaction was what I expected, pretty much.

David was shaking his head slowly.

“But Jack… that’s crazy. Not to be crude, but… I know for a fact you guys were all paid as much as I was to keep quiet. You don’t just take hush money and then blab anyway.”

The others looked deeply worried. That, too, I was prepared for. I knew the deal. We were discharged, but with no incriminating record to follow us. Neat little retirement packages and more money you could shake a rifle at. Several non-disclosure contracts handed to us by shady lawyers wearing sever looking ties. The whole thing.

“Yeah. But maybe we made a mistake. Maybe I don’t want to help them lie anymore,” I said. The other half of that sentence was and I want you guys to join me, but that was already implied in the way I was looking at them right now. Dammit, I had tried my best with the mac and cheese.

I had in my living room five of the nation’s military elite; men who’d been trained and honed and polished to perfection, men who were the cream of the cream of the crop of the country’s fittest and most mentally tough young men. Before me was an impressive concentration of tactical and artillery know-how that had the highest echelons of government putting their faith in us to execute the most dangerous missions on earth. And yet, none of them could look me in the eye right now.

I turned to Max.

“You know, you’re the sharpest shooter I know, and that’s not a compliment. That’s the truth. It’s not even a weapon to you… it’s like, an extension of your own hand. I never saw a man who knew how to handle a gun like you. It’s a gift.’

I wasn’t in the habit of blowing smoke up people’s asses or heaping on the praise. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

“And you, Noah? Your mind is the weapon, isn’t it? You think straight, and that’s a rare thing in this world. There was never a time when I was worried about planning, so long as I knew you’d looked over things and gave them the thumbs up. You’re good. And you don’t need me to tell you that.”

“You’re all men. Men of honor. Men who appreciate that they’ve taken on a role in this life, not to count away their days in some little place in an office somewhere, but to do something hard, something that’s worth something. Am I right?”

“David. I’m looking at you. Those little boys of yours. I know you love them. I know you try every day to teach them, to show them what it means to be a good human being, to act with integrity. Isn’t that important to you? I know you’d want them to grow up into men who always told the truth, no matter what.”

I saw David’s jaw tense but he still couldn’t look at me.

“Hugo…” I said, and there it was, my voice cracking again. I didn’t care though. I had to say what needed to be said. “Hugo I… I love you like a son, you know that right?” I said, feeling my face heat up.

The women had come and gone. The missions were always changing. The countries were always different, and we were all getting older, one day at a time. But one thing that didn’t change was this. Our friendship. What had been forged between us all was stronger than all the adversity we had overcome together. Love was a wonderful thing. So was serving your country. When Tanya passed away they sent me to a shrink who told me that the most important things in a man’s life were to love, and to work. A wife and a good job were a man’s anchors, he told me.

But he was wrong. My anchors were here. These men meant more to me than any brother, any son. The bond between us went deeper than all that, and I knew that I didn’t have to speak anymore for them to understand what I meant in that moment.

“We made an agreement to keep that information confidential…” Max said quietly after some time had passed. The mac and cheese was going cold on the plates.

“But we also made an oath to serve,” I said. “We made that oath first, before anything.”

There was silence as they considered my words. I knew they knew I was right. I knew that they, like me, had been avoiding the raw truth of the thing for a long time: we had participated in a breathtaking piece of deception, and we were part of the very thing we had all once believed we fought against.

“Who are we serving, right now?” I asked, driving the point home.

“Yeah, but we all signed those documents, Jack,” Hugo said, and he pushed his plate away from him.

“So? We made a promise to each other, too. Didn’t we? When that mission was over, didn’t we all swear to each other that we’d do whatever we could to make it right? That we were done with all that, that we’d live the rest of our lives the best way we could…?”

“Yeah, but that has nothing to do with stirring shit and going public with something that could…”

I noticed that Hugo couldn’t finish his sentence. In silence we all thought for a moment how massive the ramifications would be once this information was known. It was almost horrifying to imagine how much classified information was sitting in this ordinary dining room at this very moment.

I sighed.

“You boys have all made such a success of your lives. I can see that. Despite everything you’ve found new work, you’ve found good women, you’ve all settled into something good… but if I’m honest? If I’m honest, you’re lying to yourselves. We’re all lying to ourselves.”

At that very moment, Kay popped into my mind. Her severe eye makeup, her wry smile. Yes, I suppose she had been the catalyst for all of this. She had looked into me and seem everything. I hated it. I hated knowing that she could see how weak I was, how much in denial. How could I have kissed her, knowing that deep down I was nothing but a liar? How could I… do even more with her?

“You say something, we’re all implicated,” David said.

“Well, that’s why you’re all here tonight. Because I need everyone on board,” I said plainly.

The guys respected me. They always had. But they made no effort to hide what they felt about my request, and I lowered my head as I heard them grumbling amongst themselves. They all had skin in the game. I understood that, truly. They were unconvinced. I had to bring out the big guns, so to speak.

“Look, guys. I’m not going to bullshit you here. I’m serious about this. I need you guys. And I’m not ashamed to say it: I’ve personally saved each of your asses. And not just once. Now I’m calling in a favor. Do this for me. We’re brothers, all of us. And I know that we’re all better than this. Just say that you’ll trust me on this. Say you’ll consider it. Come on, tell me honestly that you haven’t dreamt of setting the record straight? Tell me you haven’t thought about hitting those assholes right where it’ll hurt them? I know you have.”

I rejoiced inside when I saw Max slowly nodding his head.

“It’s just…how the hell do you imagine pulling off such a thing? It’s insane,” he said. “Which newspaper is going to want to touch this story …who the hell are we going to pitch it to?”

“I know, I know. It’s not going to be easy. And yeah, it’s dangerous. We could get in a lot of trouble. But if we do things right, well… I don’t have to tell you what a big deal that would be. Think of it as another mission” I added with a twinkle in my eyes. Who could resist a good mission? And wasn’t this the ultimate deployment, the mission to end all missions?

“It’s dangerous,” Noah said thoughtfully. “We’d have to be smart about it. We’d need someone who knows what they’re doing to give this information to exactly the right people. Someone who isn’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Someone who knows what’s on the line here.”

I smiled and leaned back in my chair, feeling a little giddy. I looked at each of their faces in turn and nodded.

“I think I know just the person,” I said.