"Ah." "Alex." "Paul." " So, are there any rules?" " Er, rules?" "Ground rules." " Anything I should know before we start?" " Oh, not really." "It's more or less up to you." "Oh, right, right." "I'm a customer." "Yeah." "Though in my profession, we say that the customer is always wrong." "It's a..." "It's a therapist's joke." "So, do you recognise me?" "No." "I'm sorry, uh, should I?" "I was told you were the best, a man in tune with everything around him," " so you should." " Thank you." "But I do think that in this profession," ""the best" is really a matter of personal opinion." "No, the best can be established by facts and figures." "You're the best." "I did my research." "Couple of former patients, someone who knew you from graduate school." " Does that pressure you?" " Is it important for you to know" " that I am the best?" " Yes." "It's nothing personal, I always go to the best - dentists, mechanics." "You know what they say - save now, pay later." "So what do you think being the best therapist entails?" "Do you recognise me?" "No, I..." "I..." "I don't." "Let me help." "The Madrasah Murderer." " Does that mean anything to you?" " No." "It wasn't that long ago." "US Navy aircraft hit a target on the outskirts of Baghdad." "Naval Intelligence identified the structure as an insurgents' safe house, a bunker." "Turns out it's a madrasah." "Let me tell you what that is." "It's an Islamic religious school." "Boys like bees in a beehive studying the Koran." "16 of them... dead." " Rings a bell?" " Yes, I remember that, yes." "So, that's me." "I flew that mission." "The Madrasah Murderer." "So, uh, do you surf the net?" "Well, somehow..." "Well, it wasn't really somehow, it was..." "Let's call a spade a spade." "A leak." "Probably another intelligence fuck-up." "Anyway, I was identified as the pilot in that mission and my photo was placed on fundamentalist websites." "And I'm not talking Al Jazeera, I'm talking websites that are... asking for my head on a platter." "Offering up the heavens and 40 virgins to anyone who will slit my throat from ear to ear." "Here, um..." "Here you are." "It's not a recent photo." "It's a photo taken when I was 18." "On a high-school trip to Europe, Holland." "That city with the miniatures." "Ult..." "Utrecht." " Utrecht." " Right." "So while I'm talking to you, a million fanatics are downloading my portrait and printing it out as a dartboard." "Silly motherfuckers." " So, why have you come to see me?" " Whoa, whoa." "We'll get to that." "So you're probably thinking, "What's it like?" ""He flew his mission, then he flew back" ""and he saw the bodies of those children on CNN."" "You're probably trying to figure out what went through his head." "Let me tell you, after that kind of mission, I don't watch CNN." "I go to sleep." "I'm dead tired." "And you're probably dying to ask how I can sleep nights." "OK, um..." " How do you sleep?" " I sleep well, thank you very much, knowing it was mission accomplished and with great precision." "I followed my orders, which were hit my target and hit it on time." "Time and target." "Do you know, we have to hit our targets within two seconds of the estimated time?" "It's surgical." "And that's one small window and I have never missed it." "If I had failed that task, I'd be in trouble with my superiors, with my conscience and with the system." "But I hit my target." "So, I sleep like a baby." "Um, h-how many... children... died in this... in this mission?" "The media puts it at 16." " And the air force?" " The navy, Doctor, listen." "The navy says nothing and why should it?" "We're not into body counts, we just hit targets." "We don't look back over our shoulder." "We do our thing so you can sit here in peace, talking to people for a living." "(Chuckles)" "So when did you hear that children had been killed?" "The following afternoon." "I heard it on the internet." "What exactly did you hear?" "Anything specifically that you remember?" "Like what?" "It's not like there's time in the day to be surfing the net, this was a moment, I got away." "There's a lot of stuff to keep me busy." "What kind of stuff?" "Mission review, aerial photos, videos." "Just data, stuff." "Preparation versus execution." "Every tiny technical aspect of our flight is recorded and analysed by the man." "There's nowhere to hide." "And that's the way it should be." "It's just stuff and more stuff." "When my mother died, my father had a year's worth of stuff to deal with." "Last will and testament, her office, garden, a lifetime of photo albums." "And every time I talked to him, I'd ask how he was, expecting, uh... you know, that... he'd break down." "Finally." ""It never ends, Alex, it never ends." "Your mother left such a mess." ""She didn't know she was gonna die."" "And that's all he said." "After less than a year, he met another woman and got married, just like that." "How did that make you feel?" "Well, surprised." "A whole life together and not a single tear." "Mm." "It's interesting that you compare the death of your mother with this mission that you've just flown." "That's very clever of you." "But there's no relation whatsoever." "My mother's death was the most traumatic event in my life so far." "That mission was just another mission for Alex." "There is no comparison." "Anyway, look, that's over and I'm back now at my home base and now I'm on RR." "What kind of things do you do for RR?" "Don't try to get ahead of me." "I'm a runner." "I was a hell of a runner in high school and I'm still a good one for an old man." "So, I run with my fairy friend." "This gay guy who could kick your ass at any sport." " And does he have a name, this friend?" " Mm." " Daniel." " Daniel." "We've been running together for a long time, between six and ten miles." "Depending on whether one of us is on his period." "Only this time, I challenged him." "It was no good running in the Middle East, not for the US military, unless you want a bomb to blow your balls off!" "So, I wanted to do some serious running." "I said, "Let's go for 15."" "After 15 miles, I said, "20." He didn't want it." "I said, "OK, I'll go on my own." So, he followed." "I said, "You know, only six more and it's a marathon." "Let's do it."" "He wanted to stop." "Little bitch." "But I wasn't gonna stop." "No stop." "We were out of water, we were on fumes." "At 22 miles, I had a heart attack and died." "A textbook case, straight out of med school." "Enlargement of the left ventricle, in accordance with the family history on both sides, fatal." "According to the EKG and according to statistics," "I had a 97.3 per cent chance of dying." "Or a 2.7 per cent chance of living." "Anyway, dead." "You actually died?" "In the clinical sense - no pulse, no brain activity, total clinical death." "But here I am." "Now I'm gonna disappoint you, Doctor." "Wanna know why I'm gonna disappoint you?" "Let me help you - the light, the tunnel, life flashing before my eyes." "That's what you're interested in, right?" "No, I wasn't actually thinking of that at all, but I am interested." " Tell me." " I couldn't give a shit about it either." "But that's all everyone wanted to know about - my father, my wife." "Everyone wanted to hear about the goddamn tunnel." "Just such bullshit." "Do you feel that maybe you disappointed people by not having that experience?" "That maybe in some way you failed to deliver the goods?" "Nobody really knows what was going through my mind during those last few moments." "As soon as there was no more tunnel, no one was interested." "And what was going through your mind?" "Oh, I knew what was happening, you can tell." "And you're afraid it's the end." "In all that time until I lost consciousness..." "All that time..." "I don't know, it was maybe seconds, maybe half a minute." "All that time I kept trying to figure out if I had a hard-on." "I don't know how I remembered, it was something my grandmother told me, when I was in high school, and she said when Grandpa died, she found him lying naked in the bathtub with a huge erection." "Now, he's... he was 92 years old." "She hadn't seen an erection like that in 20 years." "She liked it." "She said that was God's final gift to a man." "A dead man's boner." "They call it angel lust." "Anyway, I'm lying there thinking about that story." "I know what's happening and I said to myself," ""God Almighty, just don't let me have an erection now, not a hard-on."" "Because if you had an erection, it would mean..." "That would mean that I was dead." "And your friend Daniel was with you throughout this?" "Yeah, resuscitation, CPR..." "Daniel's a doctor." "I forgot to say that." "Oh." "For a minute I thought you were going to say something else, that perhaps your fear of an erection was associated with the presence of your friend, Daniel." "(Laughs) Excuse me?" "You're exaggerating." "I explained something simple, a dead man's erection - what's that got to do with Daniel?" "Well, maybe I didn't make myself clear earlier on when I was talking about the customer always being wrong." "What I meant was that sometimes the patient hides things from his therapist, from himself." "And so part of our job is to uncover the things that we hide." "(Laughs)" "So, my secret is I'm afraid of homosexuals?" "No, not necessarily." "But I just wanted to clarify that." "Yeah, that's neither here nor there." "I want to get to my point." "I didn't have the erection, so relax." "But I remember very vividly that moment just before passing out, before losing consciousness." "Losing consciousness, that's a funny expression." "Why do you think that's a funny expression?" "Losing consciousness - it's an expression my father would use." "Everything in terms of profits and loss." "Fits him like a glove." "So something about how you describe your last moments is equated with your father's seeing things in terms of profit and loss?" "OK, OK, with all due respect, I think we've come to this way too early." "The father-son relationship stuff shouldn't come up so soon." " You think it's too soon?" " Forget what I feel." "I know it's too soon." "I wanna know what you think." " So you're..." "You're testing me?" " I'm entitled to some testing." "I'm paying." "Actually, I think you've been testing me since you walked in." "You've asked about me and my reputation, you ask, you practically demand that I ask certain questions that you think I am dying to ask." "It's important to you, I think, that I adhere to certain standards you set before you walked through the door." "What's wrong with that?" "Look, I did my research." "It's a 1 ½ hour drive to get here and I'm paying you good money." "And I'm expected to tell you, a perfect stranger, the most intimate things about my life." "Plus there are risks here." "It's not like the navy's gonna give me a medal for spilling my guts," "I'm not gonna open up to you without knowing what you are." "And what do you expect to find, Alex?" "How are we going to know that I'm a good enough therapist for you?" "I'll know... according to your opinion." " My opinion of what?" " Of the issue I came to talk about." "But I'll come to that in a minute." "It's to do with what happened after taking me out of the freezer." "The freezer?" "Oh, you mean that you were grounded?" "No, literally frozen." "They froze me." "The mobile intensive care unit arrived and put me in a suit that freezes you." "They got one no more than three-quarters of a mile from where I collapsed." " And their ER is tops." " Let's go back to this..." "We're getting there." "You have no patience." "I was told you're a good listener." "Now look, it works on a very simple principle." "It reduces the shock to the body's systems by dropping the body temperature." " So how long were you..." " In my case, 48 hours." "It's a record." "There's no history of anyone who's been in that suit for such a long time." "I guess I went a long way up that tunnel." "The tunnel that wasn't there?" "No, unfortunately not." "So tell me what you remember about this 48 hours." "Mostly I remember, um..." "a terrible fatigue." "I guess that's why they call it "dead tired"." "It's physical, but mainly mental exhaustion." "And I remember very clearly the relief I felt when I succeeded in coming back over into the world." "You say that you succeeded in coming back to this world." "Did..." "Did you feel it was under your control?" " What are you trying to get at?" " I'm not trying to get at anything." "But what you're describing is a strong will to live." "During this experience, there was a decision to go on living." "Yeah, I guess you're right." "Despite having made this effort to live... everybody's disappointed." "It's not every day people meet someone who's come back from the dead." "It's a one-in-a-million thing." "And if you don't supply the goods, then..." "Listen, I have never spent a day in my life in a hospital." "You get it?" "Never." "So, perhaps your anger isn't directed at those people interested in the tunnel." "Perhaps you're angry at yourself, Alex." "How your body betrayed you." "This is a systems failure that was not supposed to happen to somebody like you." "Hmh." "I have a brother, who's not bright, he's a real-estate agent." "Anyway, he's a great athlete." "And he once proved to me, and he does his research, believe me... that all the great quarterbacks in the history of football were also the best looking." "Namath, Staubach, Cunningham, they're all good-Iooking people." "The best-Iooking students in the class are often great athletes." " You know why that is?" " I've no idea." "It's got nothing to do with sports." "When they got their gift from God the Father, or whoever the hell doles out the talent, they got the whole package - beauty, talent, character." "That's how it is." "It's an evolutionary thing." "So, how is your football?" "Nah." "Football's not my game." "Running, of course." "Wrestling." "Pole vault, once upon a time." "But now, I am part of a military elite." "Athletes may be popular, but we are the crème de la crème." "You have to understand, this is a person whose whole life was perfect." "People in my line of work are born to excel, to be perfect." "It wasn't our choice, it was life that chose us to be the best." "And what does that mean?" ""Life chose us?"" "Yeah, you don't become a fighter pilot suddenly at age 20." "At age seven or eight, when you're in the third grade, you know you're talented." "You know you're headed somewhere special, you are going to be the best and it all lays out right in front of you." "Top grades, varsity letters, you name it." "I'm a TOPGUN grad, you understand that?" "That training is not for pussies." "So if you don't achieve your personal best," " are you disappointed in yourself?" " No, no, that's not... (Sighs)" " How much longer do we have?" " We've got time." "I'II..." "I'll tell you when it's..." "when it's time." "OK, so here's my point, finally." "I came to get your advice on something." "Sure." "I decided to go there." "To the target." "You understand what I'm talking about here?" "You mean to the site where you dropped the bomb, to the school?" "Madrasah." "I wanna go back, take a look around." " Where the children were killed?" " I know what you're thinking, so let me straighten this out." "I don't have a guilty conscience, I already told you that." "I sleep very well." " But why would you want to go back?" " I'm interested." "From the moment I came out of that freezer, I knew I wanted to go back." "It came up in a conversation I had with Daniel when he visited me at the hospital." "He thinks I'm gonna freak out or something, he thinks it's a crazy thing to do." "And he said I need to see someone first - psychologist, psychiatrist." " Don't you think it's dangerous?" " Not at all." "I don't think anyone would recognise me." " But your picture's on the internet." " No way." "You saw the picture." "It's ridiculous." "My mother wouldn't recognise me, not even Michaela." " Who's Michaela?" " My wife." " What does she think of all this?" " What's she got to do with it?" "Don't you talk with your wife?" "This is not for me, all this "What do you feel?" "What do you think?"" "I asked you something, I came to you to consult about something specific." "So, you want me to tell you that this desire of yours to go back to where the bombing took place is a good thing?" "OK, yeah, yeah." "Yes." "Do you want me to take responsibility for this visit?" "OK, don't make me into an idiot." "Are you telling me I'm not taking responsibility?" "No, I'm just going back to something you said earlier on." "Remember you said that life chose you to be a member of an elite, that it wasn't your decision?" "Maybe that's an attitude you're comfortable with." "You're comfortable with it because you don't have to make any decisions." "It relieves you of responsibility." "Your commanding officer, he makes the decisions, conveys them to you and you execute them." "Wait, are you trying to tell me that I'm asking you to be my commanding officer?" "OK, I'll buy it." "So, are you willing to... to be my CO?" "For $150 an hour." "I don't think I'm..." "I don't think I'm qualified for that." "But would you agree to be your own commanding officer?" "Oh, listen, you know what?" "Just leave it alone." "I..." "I'm not gonna get anything useful out of you." " And you're supposed to be the best?" " I'm not the best." "Maybe you're the best." "But I'm..." "I'm not." "Think about the ramifications of what you're about to do." "You're going back to a place where you dropped a bomb, 16 children were killed, your face is on the internet and there's a price on your head." "Wait." "Now you're saying you agree with Daniel, that I've gone crazy?" " How would you feel if I did agree?" " How hard is a straight answer?" " I got a plane to catch." " Why?" "Where..." "Where are you going?" "Are you not listening to me?" "I am going back there." "Nonstop, DC to Frankfurt." "Then Frankfurt-Amman." "Thursday morning, by charter, to Baghdad." "You're leaving tonight?" "Good morning, Doctor!" "I'm going back as part of a church group, a charity, and we're visiting those neighbourhoods." "No, this is not part of navy protocol." "May I ask you something?" "When you were running with Daniel, 22 miles?" "Mm." " How long did that take?" " I don't know, almost three hours." "Daniel wanted to quit." "He's always going on about optimum pulse during exercise." "He thought we shouldn't go over 85 per cent." "You know what I find interesting?" "That shortly after you complete this mission, you go on leave and against the advice of your best friend, who also happens to be a medical doctor, you work yourself up into a state of extreme exertion." "It's as if you were avoiding going back to active duty." "No, I have no problem flying again." "In fact, I'm dying to get back in action." "Do you not see a connection between your collapse and what went before?" "Now, I know you say you don't have any guilt feelings." "But don't you think there's a strong desire there to atone for your actions?" "Do you have any coffee round here?" "I could use a good cup of coffee." "Um, our time is up, I'm afraid." " I still got things I wanna talk about." " I'm happy to see you again." "It... (Sighs)" "I think it's important that you keep talking about all this." "OK, I'll keep that in mind." "I'd better pay you now." "Who knows how this little trip will turn out?" "You're serious about travelling today?" "It's this way." "I'll write you an invoice for the..." "Don't worry about it." " Aren't you gonna wish me luck?" " Yes." "Good luck, Alex." "English SDH"