The airman spat out blood again. This time splinters of one of his remaining teeth came out with it.

  Barely audible, he spoke, taking deep, quick gasps of air in between words.

  "No! Wait! I told you. I told you where it is. The coordinates are right. I gave you what you wanted. What else do you want?"

  A second man stepped behind the man with the blowtorch. He was taller than the one with the blowtorch. His face was long, horse-like. Two wicked H-shaped scars gashed across his temple like tick marks on a chalkboard. Two parts of his eyebrow were missing where hair didn't grow anymore. He had a big, thick beard like the others. His eyes were deep-set and brown, but far closer to black than brown.

  The man was pale white, like a ghost. So was the blowtorch-man. His skin was also pale. The rest of them were all dark tan, like cowboys who worked out in the sun all day, but under the clothes, they were equally pale.

  The man with the H-shaped scars was obviously the leader. He was the one giving the orders. He was the one asking the questions. He was the one who spoke. He was the first man the airman saw when they ambushed him.

  At first, he'd wondered if it was because he wore his uniform out in public. If that was how they identified him? He wasn't supposed to wear his greens in public. That's why he had been ordered to keep them in his locker, but he hadn't listened. He had driven back to the house wearing them.

  It turned out not to be the reason he had been identified, because his crew members were already captured. They were already shoved into the bed of the pickup truck, hands and feet and mouths already duct-taped.

  The airman didn't know how they had been identified or captured or ambushed. He guessed it was as easy as anything. Most ambushes are easy because of the element of surprise. That, and trust. He had walked into the house he shared with the other two crew members and trusted that it was all good, that it was all normal. It wasn't.

  He had walked into a trap. Why wouldn't he? Who would think that armed mercenaries were waiting for him inside his home?

  The man with the H-shaped scars was the highest-ranking man there. Concerning military units, he was Major. That was how the airman thought of it.

  Major grabbed the arm of the man with the blowtorch and pulled him back, like he was wrangling a wild animal, a vicious pet, like an attack dog. Which he was.

  Major stepped forward, and Attack Dog stepped back. The rain picked up its pace and pounded harder around them, as if it was growing angry. The raindrops were on the verge of becoming hard hail.

  The airman had his only remaining ear tuned in and heard rushing streams of rainwater and crackling of flames from the things in the fires. He wondered how long before his friends would be put out by the rain? However long it took didn't matter, anyway. Their bodies were already burned beyond recognition. The only thing that would remain of them would be ashy human forms, like the remains of vampires who were captured by villagers and executed by bursting into flames under the midday sunlight.

  The thought was ghastly, yet he couldn't let it go. He didn't want to let it go because if he stopped focusing on his dead men, then the thought that came back to him was the thought of death.

  A tear rolled down from the remaining eye of the airman.

  Major saw this and stepped closer, close enough for the airman to smell his breath. He recognized the smell immediately. It was a variety of things, but whiskey was the main ingredient.

  Major knew the airman smelled his breath. He breathed out, exhaling the whiskey fumes toward the man's broken nose.

  "You like that smell?"

  The airman said nothing.

  Major reached out and violently grabbed a tuft of airman’s hair. He jerked the airman's head back and slammed it into the cabin's outer wall. With his other hand, Major lifted an object, slim and sleek and wet from the rain. It was black and terrifying. It looked like a short-barreled modified shotgun, only smaller and a little more terrifying because the airman knew what it was.

  The gun had a colossal magazine stuffed into the base. The gun was the nail gun. It was the most violent nail gun he had ever seen, and he had seen a lot of carpentry tools. Like a lot of men from New England, he had grown up in a house where instead of a garage, his dad had put together a colossal tool shed.

  "No! No!" he begged.

  Major brought the barrel of the nail gun close to the airman's face; pausing it, leaving it, drawing it and pulling it back to give a sense of relief and then bringing it back to his face, slowly. He repeated this like a cannibal who was playing with his food.

  Major was a sadistic man.

  The nail gun's muzzle skimmed the chin of the airman; then it slowly coasted over his lips, flicked his nose, and stopped dead over his good eye.

  Major was a big guy, but not stocky, not like Attack Dog, but still massive. He was dressed like a biker. He wore a flannel shirt under a black leather vest covered in patches from a violent motorcycle club. The flannel shirt was unbuttoned at the top. The top three buttons flapped open, showing the top of his chest.

  The airman stared down at Major's neck. Major wanted him to look. He wanted him to see what dangled there.

  Major wore dog tags around his neck. Several of them. Most of them were shined clean, but two pairs of them were smeared with wet blood. They were fresh. They had belonged to the friends of the airman, to the things in the fire. Before Major lit them ablaze, he'd stripped them of their dog tags and put them on, like trophies from a fresh kill.

  Major reached up with his free hand and scooped up the dog tags that were wrapped around the neck of the airman. Slowly, he pulled them upward, choking the airman; then he jerked down hard, and the tags came off.

  Major lifted them, letting them dangle in front of the eye of the airman, next to the nail gun. Then he lowered them and shoved them into his pocket, out of sight.

  Major stared at him with his cold, black eyes. Then he moved the nail gun aside, just an inch, to the bridge of the nose of the airman. But he slanted it up a degree as if to suggest that he was aiming the next nail to fire right into a targeted region of the brain of the airman. Which he was.

  Major made sure that the airman saw it.

  "Where is it?"

  "I told you. I gave you the location."

  Major paused a long beat.

  "You're sure that you're giving me the right coordinates?"

  The airman coughed up more blood.

  "Yes! Kill me! Please!"

  Major let the answer hang out there in the air like he was letting the airman mull it over, reconsider it.

  "What about the next crew?"

  "What?"

  "The graveyard crew? Do they know?"

  "Know what?"

  "Do they know about us? Did you sound the alarm?"

  The working eye of the airman flicked back and forth, pointing east, pointing west, desperate like the cavalry was coming to save him at any moment.

  No one came.

  "What alarm?"

  Foolish.

  Major whipped the nail gun up and over the man's head and to the side and fired it.

  A nail exploded out of the barrel and hit the wood behind his head. The nail, the wood, the explosion from the barrel, had all been so close to the man's head that it would've deafened his ear on that side of his head if it had still been there. But it wasn't.

  Ear or no ear, the airman still felt the violent vibration in the back of his skull. It reverberated through his head like a marble in a can.

  He closed his good eye tight, expecting to be shot, hoping to be dead, praying that he would be dead. But he wasn't.

  He opened his eye.

  "Please. They know nothing. I didn't warn anyone."

  Major looked at him for another long moment.

  "Kill me! Please!" he begged again.

  Major's eyes opened wide and slow and then narrowed. He understood. The airman wanted death. He yearned for a quick release, for an escape.

  Major released the man's tuft of hair and stepped back. He called out to Attack Dog, who stepped forward, gladly, obediently. Major handed the nail gun back, and Attack Dog took it like it was the only thing in life that mattered to him. But Major didn't give up his weapon to be unarmed. He kept his now empty hand out and said, "Blowtorch."

  Attack Dog smiled and handed the blowtorch to him.

  Four other men in heavy rain slickers, hooded, all big and tall and loyal guys, like a pack of wild dogs, stood around in a wide formation that looked trained, almost like an elite military unit, like they had been together, trained together, and gone out on missions together in a past life.

  The airman screamed and shouted, "NO! NO! NO!"

  Major said, "Shout all you want. No one can help you now, but you."

  Major stepped back close and showed the airman the tip of the flame from the blowtorch. It burned blue.

  "You're a strong guy. I've never seen a man endure what you have endured here today. I torture you. Your friends. I burn them alive, and yet you stay strong."

  "No! I'm not strong! Kill me!"

  Major smiled and laughed, an evil laugh as if he enjoyed this, like a madman waking to find the door to his cell wide open.

  "You're right. You're not the strongest I've tortured. Not even close."

  "I'm not! Kill me!"

  "I'll kill you, eventually. After you tell me what I want to know."

  "I know nothing else! I told you everything!"

  Major pursed his lips and made a sound while shaking his head slowly, taunting the airman like a schoolyard bully.

  "Do you have children?"

  The face of the airman froze like he was thinking about the question. Major noticed.

  "No."

  Major nodded and said, "Too bad, because your seed will die with you. I'm going to burn your testicles off now."

  The airman said nothing, but his eye began darting from side to side again.

  "I hear that to be very painful. Even though the torch burns too hot for you to feel anything. It's all mental, you see."

  "No! Please! I told you everything!"

  "Do they know?"

  "No one knows."

  "Did you trip an alarm? Have you signaled to them?"

  "No! I swear!"

  Major reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a crumpled slip of white paper. He uncrumpled it and stared at it, then he flipped it around and showed it to the airman.

  "We go to these coordinates. We go down there to get what we want. Are we gonna find the business end of an AIM-9 Sidewinder?"

  The man just stared at him, fear in his eyes.

  "Did you warn anyone?"

  "No! No! How could I?"

  Major looked into the man's good eye for a long moment. Eventually, he retreated and crumpled the paper back up and shoved it into his pocket.

  He reached up and patted the man's head tauntingly.

  "Okay. Okay. I believe you."

  Major handed the blowtorch back to Attack Dog.

  "Kill me now! Please!"

  Major backed away and stopped and spoke.

  "Just one more question. Where's the other one?"

  "What?"

  "There're supposed to be four of you."

  "No! There's not! Just three!"

  "Where's the other one?"

  "There's not!"

  Major frowned.

  "This time, I don't believe you."

  "It's true! I don't know where he is!"

  Major looked at him.

  The airman had given it away. They both knew it.

  "You don't know where he is?"

  The airman said nothing. He was feeling scrambled, confused. Had there been four of them? Had there been another member of his crew?

  He couldn't remember.

  Major smiled and said, "I believe you."

  He reached into a vest pocket, slowly, and pulled out a cigar that he had been smoking for a few days. He liked to take puffs when he was in the mood, and now he was in that mood. He pulled out an expensive gold Zippo. He flipped the lighter to light, and he put the cigar in his mouth, brought the flame to the cigar's foot, and lit it.

  He puffed away, blowing the smoke into the man's face.

  Major returned the Zippo to the pocket of his jeans and continued to enjoy the cigar.

  Attack Dog stood by, ready.

  "Please! Kill me!" the man begged again.

  Major ignored him again, and stared out into the rain and then back down at the burning bodies.

  He called out to Attack Dog.

  "Yes?"

  "Gas him up."

  The airman heard the order but didn't understand at first. Not until he saw Attack Dog's eyes. Not until he watched Attack Dog coming at him with one thing on his mind.

  That's when he knew. Attack Dog set down the blowtorch and picked up a half-empty gas can, metal and red like a fire truck.

  The man called out.

  "NO! NO!"

  It was pointless.

  His heart raced as the contents of the gas-can emptied over him, uncaringly. Gasoline splashed everywhere. It poured down and burned his good eye. It burned his nose. Some of it got into his mouth, and he swallowed it. The liquid fumed and nearly choked him.

  Attack Dog shook the can at the end to make sure he'd used every drop.

  The airman never stopped begging, but his voice stopped working. It ran dry. They no longer heard his pleas. It would have made no difference, but he tried anyway.

  Attack Dog tossed the empty gas can out into the darkness and picked up the blowtorch again.

  "No," Major ordered. "Switch that off."

  Attack Dog didn’t argue. He followed orders. He switched off the torch.

  Major beckoned to Attack Dog and gave them all an order.

  "Saddle up, boys. Let's head out."

  Attack Dog nodded and stepped off the porch into the rain. His long hair was drenched in the rain. The rain beat down on his face, battering his eyes, but he didn't flinch. His eyes stayed open.

  The four men standing in formation broke and walked down the path to the F-150.

  Attack Dog followed them.

  The airman watched.

  Major stayed where he was. He stepped off the porch, rain covering him. He stood by the burning corpses and smoked the rest of his cigar. Then he looked at the airman.

  He said, "This country has gone to hell."

  The man said nothing.

  "It's gone to hell, and no one does a thing about it. No one cares. They're all blind to it."

  The airman hung by his wrists and continued to listen.

  "The politicians in Washington. The bastards in the White House. The assholes in Congress. The justices in the court. The cops on the street. The soldiers out there fighting. Even the citizens in their beds. They don’t know. But we're going to change that. I want you to know that. I want you to know. We're going to reboot everything. All of it."

  Sheer, unadulterated terror came over the remains of the airman's face. He thought of someone close to him. And he was unequivocally afraid of what Major was going to do with what he had taken possession of. He hoped they would never learn how to operate it.

  Silence fell over them for a long minute, and Major finished the cigar. With the last bit of it in his mouth, he stood straight and saluted the airman.

  Then he stepped back and took the cigar out of his mouth and aimed it.

  Before he tossed it, he said, "Thank you for your service, Captain."

  He threw the cigar at the airman's feet. It hit the porch. The gasoline lit up in a fast WHOOSH!

  Major turned and walked down the footpath.

  The airman screamed.

  Major joined his guys down by the F-150. Attack Dog got into the truck with one other guy, and Major and the other three men got onto their wet motorcycles, put on their helmets, and revved the engines.

  Seconds later, they pulled off down a rugged dirt trail and drove away.

  The airman's screams were swallowed by the flames and the rain until the cabin went up in the fire.

  Fighting to grow, the fires burned against the hard rain.

  2

  At dawn, Jack Widow made a life-threatening decision. Only he didn't know it. It was a wrong choice, the kind of wrong choice that anyone might've made. It was all by chance. Anyone could see that it was the wrong choice afterward, in the post-game analysis.

  If there were after-action reports of things to come his way, this would be the decision that turned everything wrong. He would've been blamed for the deadly outcome that would plow straight through his life in the days to come.

  At six-foot-four, Widow stood solemn and alone and statuesque and weathered, all like an outmoded old water tower. He looked like a giant lost on the side of the road to the motorists on the highway.

  He was unaware of the deadly mistake he was about to make. Widow also was completely unaware that he stood twenty-five miles away from where a cabin had burned the night before.

  Widow turned his head, shifting it due south, stopping southeast, toward a guesstimation of the direction of the state of his birth, Mississippi.

  He stared in that direction for a long moment. He let his mind wander back to a different realm, a different life, his first life. If there was a god in the afterlife keeping score, tallying up all the lives a man lived, then technically he was on his third, or maybe it was his fourth. It was hard for him to keep track since he was no longer in the business of lying to protect his cover.

  Widow had grown up in a small town in Mississippi, the son of a sheriff mother and a drifter father. His mother raised him on her own, with her own money and with her own capabilities. She had done the best she could with the little she had. He had no complaints, not now.

  But back then, he did—just one big one.

  She had lied to him his whole childhood. She had lied about who his father had been. He still didn't know the man. Not now. Not ever.

  She had told him that his father was some sort of army hero who died in combat. That turned out not to be true. She came clean when he was seventeen. Feeling betrayed, Widow ran away from home, joined the Navy. He stayed quiet for sixteen years, never speaking to his mother the whole time. Not once. No phone calls. No postcards. Not one word.

 

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