2

MONUMENT, COLORADO

Marcus Ryker forced open the window and crawled out onto the ice-crusted roof.

Making his way to the edge, he stared the twenty-odd feet to the ground . . .

And jumped.

Everything that happened next seemed to be in slow motion. All he could hear was the bitter winter wind howling down the Rocky Mountains and surging across the Front Range. All he could see were flakes swirling around his head, the early signs of a January squall. And the ground and the sky. And the ground and the sky. And tree branches and snowdrifts and clouds and boot prints and then—

He hit the ground hard, his legs collapsing beneath him. He crumpled to his back. Then all was quiet. He was not dead. He hadn’t broken a leg or his neck. The wind had been knocked out of him, but he was fine.

And then he heard the back door flying open.

“Marcus Johannes Ryker, I am not going to say this again,” his mother shouted. “Knock it off—no more backflips off the roof or you’re grounded. Do you hear me? Grounded for a month. Are you listening to me?”

Marcus didn’t get up. Didn’t roll over. Didn’t move at all. But as soon as he could catch his breath—still staring up into the gray winter sky—the eleven-year-old promised his mother he wouldn’t jump off the roof again.

“Now get a move on and shovel the driveway like I told you—and put your coat on, for crying out loud.”

Marcus grunted something, but the moment the back door shut, a new plan began to form. Wearing only a ratty U2 concert T-shirt, ripped blue jeans, and an old pair of pac boots, Marcus raced for the garage. His mother had just given him a magnificent loophole. She’d made him promise not to jump off the roof. She’d said nothing about the family’s Dodge Grand Caravan. So scrambling to the top of the rusting green minivan, Marcus once again began doing backflips.

When he noticed two black government-issue sedans turning onto their street, he paid little attention to them at first. It was another blustery gray and far-too-quiet Wednesday morning in the smallest and most boring town on the Front Range. Mickey Reese, his best friend since the age of five, was in bed with chicken pox. His sisters, Marta and Nicole, had already left for school.

Suddenly both cars pulled to a stop in front of their house. Having just climbed again to the roof of the minivan, Marcus stared down as two men in black suits and long black winter coats emerged from the first sedan. An Air Force officer in full uniform got out of the second sedan, along with a pastor or priest or somebody wearing one of those weird white collars. The officer came up the not-yet-shoveled driveway and asked the boy if his mother was home.

Marcus nodded.

“Would you let her know we’re here?”

The man was a stranger, but he was a military man and polite enough, so Marcus nodded again, did another backflip, perfectly stuck the landing, and ran inside. He found his mother in the kitchen making homemade vegetable soup as she watched CNN coverage of the war on a small black-and-white TV that sat on the counter.

“Mom, there’s some men here for you,” he said.

“Marcus, how many times have I told you to take off your boots in the vestibule and not to track snow through the living room and kitchen?”

Marcus shrugged.

“What kind of men?” his mother now asked.

When Marcus shrugged again, she shook her head as she tried to hide a smile, then wiped her hands on her apron, headed to the door, and told him to clean up the snow. Curious, Marcus ignored the order and followed her to the door instead. That’s when he saw her freeze in her tracks.

“Excuse me, ma’am, are you Marjorie Ryker?”

Marcus noticed that his mother didn’t speak, didn’t even nod. Yet the officer kept talking.

“Mrs. Ryker, I’m afraid we have some difficult news. Perhaps it would be best if you sat down.”

Marcus would never remember the words that followed. But he would never forget the image of his mother stumbling back several steps, her trembling hands moving to her mouth.