TWENTY-SIX
Antimony, Utah
“I’LL BE OPERATING on American soil, Tara, not a million miles away in hostile enemy territory. The Agency will supply logistics, everything from intelligence and surveillance to aerial reconnaissance via satellite and unmanned drone. I’ll have the support of every Bureau Field Office and FBI Agent throughout the United States. The mission is simple: track and terminate, do not engage. I’ll never be within a mile of the target, never in harm’s way.”
Tara rinsed plates at the kitchen sink, back turned to Mathias. She didn’t know what angered her most; Mathias lying to her or lying to himself. She said, “The shooter has been active for months, Mathias. He’s meticulous. He’s skilled, and he’s killed. You? You’ve been mothballed for years.”
“All that experience didn’t help me in The Registan, did it?”
Turning to face him, anger rising like lava from the lip of a volcano, Tara said, “Is that what this is? A do-over? A chance to make amends?” Tara regretted the remark as soon as it left her lips, but in for a penny in for a pound, she doubled-down. “To ease your guilty conscience? For those men who died or for you not dying alongside them? I’m sorry, Mathias, but I won’t apologize for that, for being thankful you made it back alive. Why should you?”
Mathias sat at the kitchen table feeling bleak. He stared down into his mug, examining the dregs of his morning coffee. He couldn’t argue her logic. But as a commanding officer, you don’t walk away from seven dead on your watch scot-free. Did Mathias feel responsible for the death of those men and what it had done to their families? Roger that. Did he feel the need to make amends? Ditto. Would a successful resolution to the opportunity offered by Berkshire expunge his guilt? Possibly not, but it was a damn good start.
“I need this, Tara,” he said.
“Need it or want it?” Mathias didn’t reply. “Fine. But if you fall off the wall, Humpty, don’t expect me to pick up the broken pieces; not this time. Put your own self back together, cowboy.”
Tara turned, exiting the kitchen. Mathias sat for a moment contemplating the receding image of her backside. After a while, he moved from the table. He rinsed his mug. He loaded it to the dishwasher. Outside the kitchen window, the thermometer remained stuck at an even seventy-three degrees. Twenty thousand feet above the Plateau a ribbon of cirrus cloud formed, morphed and dissipated, looking to Mathias like a river finding a new direction.
Unwilling to over-think his decision, Mathias reached for his mobile phone. First, he arranged for the care of the stable in his absence. Next, he booked a one-way ticket to DC departing day after tomorrow. Lastly, Mathias telephoned his attorney in Provo with instructions on what to do should he fail to return home.
◊◊◊
The wind howled. In bed, Tara refused to move close. Preparing for separation, Mathias imagined. From her breathing, he knew she was awake.
Like Tara, Mathias, too, prepared to confront his demons. But unlike Tara, Mathias was resigned to knowing he had no choice. He’d made it out of The Registan by chance. Every minute he lived beyond that terrible day the RPG demolished his vehicle was, to him, time stolen from dead men. He’d failed to honor an obligation to his fallen comrades. In the life he chose to live—the ranch, Tara—he’d dishonored their memory miserably.
Repeatedly, Tara warned him You don’t owe anyone, anything. Mathias disagreed, knowing his debt incalculable.
Knowing Mathias well, Berkshire knew it too, which is why he came. Why he chose to recruit a broken-down former soldier to do a job more suited to a team of younger, better-trained professionals. Berkshire knew Mathias would run the shooter to ground. Berkshire knew Mathias would kill him.
And Berkshire knew, if Mathias didn’t, he would die trying.
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