Barnwell raised an eyebrow. “He killed those men.”
“Yes, he did. He was perfect, Doc. He’s a hell of a lot stronger than before, though. I guess we didn’t plan for that.”
“Yes,” Barnwell agreed. “For all of our technology and planning, we still make mistakes. What about Fletcher?”
“It happened so fast,” Eric said. “Maybe he would have missed, I don’t know. I was trying for my weapon when John shot him.”
“John saved your life but you lost Fletcher.”
Eric shrugged. “Fletcher could have known the location. Or, maybe not. Dyer was paranoid. Fletcher might have been another dead end.”
“Perhaps. John cost you that intel.”
“He saved my life, Doc. Can’t blame him for that.” He tipped up the plastic cup and drained the last of the Scotch. He offered it to Barnwell who poured more and carefully handed it back. “He’s nothing like you expect. He killed those men, but he was tore up about it—”
“How so?”
“He’s been in firefights, but not like this. Not up close and personal. He was like,” Eric paused, “like a lost puppy dog. A cliché, but true.”
Barnwell nodded. “How does that make you feel?”
Eric squinted at him. “So this is a therapy session?”
“Call it what you like. I’m just trying to assess his performance. Yours, too. So, how do you feel?”
Eric thought about it. “Angry. He’s a killer, Doc. A psychopath. And, an asshole. But he’s not, anymore. He’s completely different, and I have to hold his hand—”
“You think he deserves something else?”
Eric pondered that. “I don’t know. What’s been done to him, it turned him inside out. Where does his responsibility end? The man he was, or the man he is?”
Barnwell smiled. “A very astute question. Can I offer an observation? John is just about the right age to be someone’s younger brother. Your younger brother?”
He laughed in spite of himself. “I feel responsible for him, like an older brother?”
“It’s not so crazy, is it? You’ve killed men, but you didn’t know them, not the way you know John. You didn’t train them and mentor them and watch as they tried to impress you. You didn’t get to know them as people. John is different. You know him.”
Barnwell made a lot of sense. He sighed. “I guess I do.”
“Let’s continue. How about the bar? And Dyer?”
He took another swig from the cup. “Another sideways situation.”
“And once again, John saved your life.”
“Without hesitation. He saved Kelly, too. Then we found Dyer.”
“What’s your opinion of Dyer?”
Eric snorted. “A lunatic. He’d been spewing the same hateful bullshit so long, he convinced himself he was a patriot.”
Barnwell leaned forward. “He was wearing a suicide vest. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Lucky? It was John. He’s impressive as hell. If he hadn’t hit hard enough to knock us completely out of the room, we’d be dead right now.”
“Yes, I heard. The Weave. The Implant. The drugs. It’s almost miraculous, isn’t it? He’s operating at the peak of human capacity, but he’s not unbreakable. He can be hurt and he can be killed, just like you.”
“There’s no way I could have broken down the door, or knocked us out of that room. I’m in decent shape for a man my age, but I’m not young anymore.”
“No, you’re not. An Operator has a relatively short shelf life, before the stress on the body starts wearing away at them. You’ve been shot, hit with shrapnel. Your last MRI shows stress and strains on the ligaments in your knees. You’ve got mild hearing loss. No, you’re not a young man anymore. You’re going to be thirty-seven. About the time an Operator starts to transition out of day-to-day ops.”
Barnwell’s assessment was disturbingly close to his own. During John’s training he noticed his own body aching and knew it was only going to get worse. “Uplifting speech, Doc.”
Barnwell chuckled. “I’m just saying that you’ve got some miles on you. The body is not what makes an Operator. It’s their spirit, their mental determination. In some ways, they’re the opposite of a regular soldier. They’re rugged individualists. You know what motivates an Operator? Telling him he can’t do something. That’s what John needs. You have to teach him.”
He sighed. “I’m doing my damnedest.”
“I know.” Barnwell eased back in his chair. “Dyer killed himself rather than be taken alive.”
“Yeah. The police and FBI were not happy.”
“Fulton wasn’t pleased, but he understands. It’s not the first time we’ve had an operation involve the local authorities.”
“We played the DHS card, but they were mad as hell about DHS operating in their city without their knowledge.”
“They’ll suffer through,” Barnwell said.
“Doc, I’ve been thinking about Dyer. All that bullshit about angels. Could he mean Los Angeles?”
Barnwell sat back, his fingers forming a steeple, thoughtful. “Why Los Angeles?”
“He wants a race war. What better way to than set off a dirty bomb in Los Angeles, blame it on a black militant group.”
Barnwell nodded slowly. “An interesting theory, but there’s no indication that he was working with anybody else, and there’s very few members of his organization left to interrogate.”
“What about the codes they used? The cell-phone shielding?”
Barnwell shrugged. “You make a good point. Perhaps you’re right.”
Eric nodded. “I asked Karen to dig deeper, try to find the remaining members who’ve gone to ground. In the meantime, what about drones over Los Angeles?”
“Too risky,” Barnwell said. “Every time we do a drone overfly, we risk alerting the civilians. It creates…complications. We have a stealth blimp, but it would take weeks to re-outfit it with radiation sensors.”
Eric considered their options. “What about DHS?”
“Pass it along,” Barnwell said, “and they can send a VIPR team, but it’s a needle in a haystack. You need actionable intelligence.”
Eric grunted. “I’ll work on it.”
“And, if you don’t mind me asking, when was the last time you had sex?”
“Kind of personal, isn’t it?”
Barnwell grinned. “I’m not one for casual relationships, myself. I’ve been married to the same woman for almost forty years. I make it a point to fly out every night, if I can, to our home in Vegas. You younger folks are a different matter. We have a high single rate in the Office. That’s why we allow the dating culture. It’s well established, and there are rules that one must follow. It allows human contact and keeps everyone from going stir crazy.”
“It’s been a year, maybe.”
Barnwell raised an eyebrow. “Really? Hasn’t it been closer to two?”
“Keeping tabs on me?” Eric asked, annoyed. “I didn’t work for the Office then.”
Barnwell laughed. “We weren’t keeping track of you, if that’s what you’re thinking, but it’s plain as day. It was your last relationship.”
“Yeah, I guess. I didn’t realize how much time had passed.”
“Perfectly all right. Just consider sex a healthy form of stress relief. One of the rules is that no rank or position can be used. Take Karen Kryzowski. She’s married, but they have an arrangement.”
“Karen? Really? She’s attractive, I guess, but not the first woman who comes to mind.”
“She’s reasonably fit, and moreover, quite enthusiastic. My advice would be to get the pipes cleaned, so to speak.”
Eric coughed. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“Just a piece of advice, though,” Barnwell said. “Don’t even consider Nancy.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to him, but once stated, it made him wonder. “Out of curiosity, why?”