He held the tags tight in his fist. “Alfonso was dead by the time I got to him. A head shot. Never had a chance.” Or much of a head left. “Neither did the kid. By the time we sorted things out, the rest of us had already—well … Not sure it would have mattered if we’d known who’d been firing at us.”
He shrugged. “The thing of it was, afterward, our, ah, leadership thought it best if that particular incident was never a matter of public record. The number of civilian casualties, all the ones that got caught in the cross fire … I mean, it was a slaughter. Leadership decided that they didn’t want another, ah, unfortunate incident tarnishing the sterling reputation of the United States military.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that leadership never owned up to us being in that particular location, at that particular time. They blamed the whole thing on a local militia group. A rival faction.”
“So it was … covered up?”
“Yes.”
“That kind of thing really happens? Government cover-ups?”
He shot her a look. “You don’t strike me as the na?ve type, Doc. Or the hypocritical one, either. Didn’t your boss pull the same kind of thing with you?”
She leaned her head back against the bare cement wall and stared at the ceiling. “Just doesn’t seem right.”
Sebastian shrugged. “Wasn’t the first time. Won’t be the last. Even though they never owned up to it publicly, my bosses needed a scapegoat. Alfonso had been our ranking noncom; our officer had died in a helicopter accident en route. Alfonso was also, conveniently, dead. So they blamed him. Made him the scapegoat in the official report that, officially, doesn’t exist. And that was that. Disgraced him. Dishonored him.” Even now, after all of this time, the bitterness flared. He wanted to punch his fist through the closest wall, not caring if he broke every single fucking bone in his hand. Instead, he spat into the white-plaster dust on the floor.
“So yeah, Doc,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I wear his tags because they make me feel, if only a little, like he’s still here.”
They also help keep the nightmares away.
Sometimes.
Wu appeared unmoved. “Now you work for Finney.”
In his nightmares, he always sees the kid with the AK-47. Except it’s not the kid, but Sammy. His eyes are wide with terror, like a pair of small green headlights in the night-vision goggles.
“Yes.”
“The things you do for Finney,” she said with unmistakable contempt. “Is that what your friend, Alfonso, would have wanted?”
The balls on this chick!
Passing judgment on him. Her life destroyed, Finney rummaging around in her goddamn head, and still she had the nerve to tell him what was what. He supposed he should be angry with her. But he wasn’t.
He wanted to tell her how much more complicated it was. That Finney was his ticket to giving his niece and nephew better lives; that in giving them better lives, he could honor the memory not only of Alfonso, but of the kid who’d killed him, the kid Sebastian had been forced to kill and rob of his future.
But the thing of it was, she was right.
There were good guys in the world, and there were bad guys.
When did I become one of the bad guys?
“Sebastian,” said Finney over the receiver in his ear. “I’m here.”
RITA
The man who called himself Sebastian cocked his head to one side. He put his hand up to one ear and gave the appearance that he was listening to something. Or someone.
“Roger that,” he said. “I’ve left the door across the bridge unlocked for you.”
He rose, walked over, and knelt beside her. He was holding something in his hand. She couldn’t see what it was.
His eyes were … sad. Yes. Most definitely sad.
“Sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“This.”
And then the plastic mask he held in his hand was over her mouth and nose.
Cool air blew against her face. It smelled sweet.
Nitrous oxide.
Laughing gas.
His hand was around the back of her head and neck, holding her mouth and nose in place, against the mask.
She squirmed, tried to move her face away from the mask and its invisible slumber. But his grip was strong.
“Don’t struggle,” he said with surprising gentleness. “It’ll only make it harder if you fight it, Doc.”
She fought anyway. Tried to hold her breath, to ward off the sweetness.
Sweet smell.
Sweet darkness.
RITA
Disjointed sensations, disjointed images. Fragments of fragments.
She was lying flat on a hard surface.
She felt a pinch, in the crook of her elbow—
(the antecubital fossa it’s an IV going into my antecubital vein an IV going into me)
—and then a burning sensation, spreading through her arm—
(is that propofol? but can’t be propofol … why propofol? why now propofol? why me?)
—shafts of fire racing along venous highways from her elbow to her shoulder—
—her throat something was in her throat she was choking on it, then …
RITA
… back to awareness.
Out of all the times she’d woken today, this time was the worst.
The worst time waking up ever.
The first thing she perceived, as she emerged from unconsciousness, was an awful sensation in her throat.