The Increment: A Novel - By David Ignatius Page 0,65

put their son’s things into boxes and take them down to the basement. That was her way of saying goodbye, but Harry had said no. He wanted to leave the room the way it had been.

The bric-a-brac Alex had accumulated since childhood filled the room: a Redskins banner from one of their Super Bowl seasons, along with a foam rubber pig nose to celebrate the team’s offense line, known as “the Hogs”; athletic trophies and ribbons Alex had won through school; a model sailboat he and Harry had built one winter from a balsa wood kit; a pennant from Princeton, which Alex had attended for the academic year that began in September 2001, before he dropped out to enlist in the Corps. A picture of him in his marine uniform, taken on the day he completed basic training.

The colors in the picture had faded since it was taken: a softer blue, a duller red, less shine to the brass. Alex looked fierce and determined in the picture, a fighting machine rather than a fragile young man, but Harry knew what was in those eyes: Are you proud of me, Dad? Is this enough?

Harry lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. He told himself that he could lie there until dawn and not bother Andrea anymore. Next to the bed was a picture of him with his arm around Alex, after his son had quarterbacked his high school team to a Northern Virginia divisional championship. Alex was as tall as Harry, but leaner and more fair-skinned. Did God ever create a more handsome boy? Harry turned the photograph over, and then took it back and studied it. There was a glow on Alex’s face, a smile of achievement that made Harry smile as he remembered the game. Then Harry felt the tears welling in his eyes.

Alex had been stationed in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province. The insurgency was in full swing then and Americans couldn’t move without risking their lives, but Washington was in denial and so, by God, were the Marines. Harry had become station chief in Baghdad a few months earlier. A friend at the Pentagon said they could arrange for Alex to go somewhere else, where Harry wouldn’t have to worry about him, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Alex would be furious if he was taken out of his unit. He was a corporal now, trained as a “recon” commando to do the toughest and most dangerous work the Marines encountered. The Corps had wanted him to apply for OCS, figuring that he was a natural officer, but he had refused that, too.

Harry looked for any excuse to visit Ramadi that summer of 2004. It was hotter than hell itself in the Euphrates Valley. He would pay a call at the CIA base, spend a few hours, and then scoot over to the Marine encampment where Alex was stationed. Sometimes he would call ahead and sometimes he wouldn’t. Alex was always glad to see his father—never embarrassed. He didn’t have anything to prove now. Harry would stride over, big as life, dressed in his light khakis with his sidearm in a holster strapped to his thigh. His personal protection detail would disappear for a while, and Harry would embrace his boy, usually covered in sweat and sand from a day out on patrol.

“How’s it going out here?” Harry would ask, and his son would always give a version of the same Marine Corps answer.

“It’s fucking great, Dad. We are kicking ass.”

Harry would nod, and they would take a walk for a while, sit in the shade, and drink a Coke until it was time for Alex to go back out, or for Harry to return to the Green Zone. He didn’t need to ask his son for details of what he was doing. The reports came over his desk every morning. He studied them, looking for the name of Alex’s unit, just the way he studied the raw casualty reports as soon as they moved. He knew too much about what Alex was doing; that was part of the problem.

Several times, the Marine base was mortared while Harry was visiting, and he dove for cover with his son, behind one of the big cast-concrete shelters that had been arrayed every fifty yards. That was strangely exhilarating, to be huddled together with your boy as the shells came in, tight smiles on both their faces. That was the part he could never have explained to