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Slowly Maddox sank back into his chair. “Holy shit.”

“I’m thinking something along those lines, yeah.”

My heart was beating fast again, my blood pumping. I could actually feel the progress now, like we were finally getting closer to the truth about Connor.

“So… who is this guy?” I asked hesitantly.

I saw Kane’s eyes shift downward, in the direction of the floor. I knew something was wrong right away. Kane never looked down.

But I wasn’t the only person in the room who sensed it.

“It’s someone we know,” Maddox said solemnly. “Isn’t it?”

Kane cleared his throat uncomfortably. His arms were crossed over his chest now.

“Someone we served with…” Maddox went on.

Very slowly, almost painfully, Kane nodded.

“Tell me,” demanded Maddox. His expression was twisted with fury and anger now. “Tell me which rat fuck son of a—”

“It’s Dietz.”

Fifty-Two

DALLAS

The ride out to the desert was sullen and strange. I sat alone in the back seat, silent for the most part, listening to the conversation between Maddox and Kane.

They talked at length about a man named Dietz.

Dietz… Dietz…

For some reason, the name rang a bell. Either Connor had mentioned him directly, or I’d heard my brother talk about him in passing. Whatever the case, the man was a soldier they all knew, and apparently loved.

Worse, it was a person they all trusted.

“How in the fucking world could Dietz have gone bad?” Maddox was saying. He sat in the passenger seat, sounding as hurt as he was confused. “And how could he have ever gone against Connor?”

Kane didn’t say much of anything, but he did a lot of jaw-clenching, and flexing of his fists. Before the end of the trip I was sure he’d squeeze the 10 and 2 points of the steering wheel into dust.

We left early, hours before the times usually indicated on the GPS logs. There was no real-time tracking of our target, and no way to be certain they were coming at all. But if they followed the already-established pattern, and the previously-visited coordinates? We’d get there well before they would.

Kane had already entered the spot into his phone’s own tracker. It was a blip on a digital map — a place that grew infinitesimally closer with each rock and pebble that whizzed by. We’d left the road half an hour ago. The hills and ridges beneath our tires were hard-packed sand, almost like concrete as we wound our way downward into what looked like a tiny, stone-faced valley.

“There,” said Maddox, as we approached the end of our journey. “That ridge looks good.”

“Not good,” muttered Kane. “It’s perfect.”

We rolled upward, as they talked more about the apparent betrayal of their former brother-in-arms. I could tell they were holding back a little. Sometimes the conversation would dip low for a phrase or two, as if they were saying something they didn’t want me to hear.

Normally it would’ve made me angry. Right now though, I was pretty numb.

Connor came here.

It was all I could think about as I glanced around. All I could really see. Whatever had gotten my brother killed, it all started right here, in this little stretch of desert. This stupid fucking strip of nothing, where he’d stuck his nose where it didn’t belong.

Don’t be like that, an inner voice admonished me sternly. Your brother was a goddamn hero.