“A Blue Falcon?” Ariel asked, frowning. “What’s that?”
“A military term for a soldier who leaves a wounded buddy on the battlefield. It means Buddy—” He just couldn’t say that word, it was undignified. “Effer.”
It hit Nomad. Hit him hard and square, right in the brainpot. Our barracks sergeant, Berke had said.
“You never told us where you were a cop before you joined the FBI.” Nomad’s voice sounded thick. “You were in the military, weren’t you?”
True’s gaze did not waver. “Military Police. United States Marine Corps.” He had joined right after college, knowing the MP experience would put him on the fast track for the job he really wanted.
Nomad saw the whole picture, even as it came clear for the others. “This isn’t about saving us. It’s about saving him.”
“That’s right,” said True.
“Shit,” was Berke’s caustic response. She leaned toward him in full attack mode, her teeth clenched. “You’re hoping he’ll try to kill us?”
“Planning for it,” True corrected.
True is False, Nomad thought. “Our road manager,” he said, the old familiar rage growing in his heart, “wants to save his boy. His little wayward nutbag Marine. Doesn’t matter if one or two or all of us get drilled. Is that it, Gomer?”
“Not exactly, but close.” True again stared at his shoes. He liked to keep them well-polished. He liked everything neat and clean and polished, but unfortunately life had a habit of getting very messy. He could feel, of all them, the girl staring at him with hurt on her face. He liked the girl. Really, he liked everyone in this room. Life had a habit of getting so very messy. “No one wants any of you to be injured,” he said, keeping his face lowered. “I knew there was a chance Pett might come after you at Stone Church. Every possible precaution was taken.”
“Yeah, except for one fucker getting in with a pistol.” Nomad’s voice was a whipstrike.
“Every possible precaution, except metal detectors. And, yes, I was hoping he’d show. I was hoping he’d try something when we stopped on the highway.”
“Christ!” said Berke. “Are we that worthless?”
“With the gear they’ve got—what you’ve seen and what you haven’t seen—my men only need a single shot from the dark to pinpoint a location. I’ve already told you how good a sniper Pett used to be. He set up that shot on Mike Davis with some of his old precision, but he didn’t hit with the first bullet. Did he?” True watched Chappie pour herself another drink. Her hand was slightly trembling. True waited until she was finished before he went on. The way the girl was looking at him—he could see her with his peripheral vision—made him wish this hour had never arrived.
“So Pett’s skills have diminished,” he told them. “It’s unlikely he can make a kill with a first shot, unless he gets lucky or close, which he doesn’t want to do. You knew you were bait when you agreed to do this. I believed then and I believe now that if Pett is still in this country, if he’s still following us and he wants to kill any one of you, he’ll try again. It doesn’t matter where. You go back to Austin and call it a day…guess what? It’s his call.” True aimed his cool blue eyes at Nomad, whose mouth was twisted with disgust. “But you’re absolutely right, John. My first priority in this situation is capturing Pett alive and getting him the help he needs.” He paused long enough for Nomad—for all of them—to absorb that. “That’s why I’m here, and not an agent from the office who wasn’t a Marine. Let’s just say, veterans look out for each other. For life. Or let me say…they should. What this young man has gone through, both in Iraq and here after he was discharged…that’s a tragedy I’m not willing to let continue by having someone shoot him in the head and drag him off like a piece of filth. Which he is not.” True felt the heat rising in his face, and maybe it was the Jack or maybe it was because he was just plain effing angry.
“I want to get this straight,” said Berke. “You’re saying you value his life over ours? And if he pops up somewhere, your people won’t shoot to kill?”
“My men are well-trained in what I expect them to do,” came the answer. “I want him in a mental hospital, getting the best possible care. Not in a cemetery.”
“Our government in action,” Chappie said, with a bitter smile. Her eyes had gotten small. “Fuck the people!” She lifted her glass in a toast.
Nomad had finished his own drink. He wondered how quick the old man’s reflexes were, and if he could dodge a glass thrown at his skull. “If your men sighted Pett before he could get off a shot at any one of us, they wouldn’t try to put him down for good? They’ve been ordered not to kill him if it comes to that?”
“Pretty much,” True said. “Yeah.”
Ariel got up from the sofa and carried her empty glass to the kitchen. True avoided looking at her, and she did not immediately return.
Silence filled the room. Or, rather, it hollowed out the room.
“You don’t understand,” True said, with a harsh note of steadily increasing anger, “what those young men have gone through. You don’t understand what they’ve seen. You can’t understand, because you take everything for granted. Everything you have. You’ve never fought for anything worth dying for, have you? Answer me!”
“Who gets to say what that is?” Nomad fired back. “You? The President? Some corporate chairman who’s got plans to build a shopping mall and a megaplex in the middle of Baghdad? Who?”
“See?” True gave a crooked smile, but his cheeks were flushed. “You don’t get it. Some things, like freedom, are worth dying for whether you think so or not. If everybody turned their backs on their responsibility, where would they be?”
“A lot of them,” Terry said, “would be alive.”
“Easy to sit here and not have to do anything. Nothing required of you. Just sit and take.” True almost got up and put an end to this, because it was about to get very messy and it was not going anywhere, but he had something important to say. Something he wanted John Charles and everyone else to hear, whether they wanted to hear it or not. He was aware that Ariel was standing in the kitchen doorway. Good. She should hear this, too.
“What you don’t understand and can never understand is that the young men and women over there are fighting for you,” he said. “For your future.”
“Oil for my car?” Nomad returned a ferocious grin. “Is that what you mean?”
“That’s part of it. Our way of life, until we can get other energy sources going. But you don’t get that Jeremy Pett and young men like him went over there with courage and purpose, to do a job they were obligated to do as soldiers in the service of this country. It didn’t matter if they wanted to go or not; they weren’t asked, and they didn’t want to be asked, because this is what they were trained to do. And I can tell you, Pett’s training as a sniper was far harder than most. It’s incredibly difficult, and only the best of the best pass through. You couldn’t qualify to carry his socks.” A stabbing finger drove that point. “So he’s the best of the best, doing what he’s been trained to do, and then something terrible happens to him there and at home and the spirit drains out of him and leaves him basically a broken shell. But he has no serious and long-lasting physical injuries, and maybe he can cover up his psychological wounds because he’s been trained to be tough and to deny pain, and his own father has taught him a lot of that, so nobody follows up on Sergeant Pett. No, the VA hospitals are understaffed and overworked, so solid, tough guys like Jeremy Pett are given a certificate that says how much the Marine Corps appreciates their service. Maybe they’re awarded a medal too, like Pett was, so they can remember what sets them apart from men like you. Then this broken young veteran who’s been trained to kill people at over eight hundred yards goes out into the world looking for work.” True’s blue eyes were no longer cool; they were aflame, and they dared Nomad to interrupt him.