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Rybek licked his lips.

“I’d usually have a smoke right about now,” he said. “It’s like you and your morning coffee, but without the urge to pistol-whip someone if it’s withheld.”

“I only have a few more questions. Look upon it as delayed gratification.”

I didn’t want to push Rybek harder, but neither did I want to give him the opportunity to reconsider. Standing outside, smoking something ofwhich Dunkin’s head office would almost certainly have disapproved, he might decide to clam up. I’d then have to work on levering him open again. I could do it, but it would be tiresome for both of us.

“Fine,” said Rybek. “Wouldn’t want you thinking I’m an addict. You have kids?”

“A daughter.”

“Bet you’ve warned her about the dangers of dope.”

“She’s a teenager, so I’ve warned her about the dangers of everything, but I couldn’t swear to how much she took in. And you?”

“A son. I was married until I wasn’t. My boy lives with his mom up in Houlton.”

“Have you warned him about the dangers of dope?”

“He’s four, so yeah.” Rybek had relaxed again. “I told him only to accept a hit from a friend.”

“Go back to the job Wyatt accepted,” I said.

“Right. As I said, Wyatt was coiled, like a spring, so I suggested that a night on the town might not be a bad idea. We ended up in Ruski’s, heads down. We weren’t too drunk, but I still wouldn’t have wanted either of us behind the wheel. Later, back at my place, we got more drunk and I broke out the good stuff. At Ruski’s, we just had a buzz on.

“It turned out that Wyatt hadn’t been sleeping so good, and the VA had given him pills for anxiety. They’d also offered him psych sessions, but he told them he wasn’t ready for therapy yet. Wyatt let them assume it was PTSD, or whatever you want to call it, but with me, he claimed it wasn’t. What he’d seen and done overseas hadn’t affected him, he said, or not in a way that couldn’t be dealt with by a couple of days spent fishing or hiking. No, this came from something more recent: his last detail down in Mexico. He’d spent a month there, October into November last year, working on the advance logistics. The main thing, for him, was that nobody would get badly hurt—on either side. He was very insistent on that: no losses, especially CIVCAS, or civilian casualties. He was tired of seeing bodies.”

“What sides were these?”

“Wyatt didn’t say, exactly. I only know he was part of a group, each member with a specialization, though only Wyatt and this other fella, Emmett Lucas, had military experience. Wyatt and Emmett grew up together in Weverton, Maryland. I come from Lovettsville, just over the Potomac in Virginia, which is how we got to know one another. We all used to smoke pot, drink beer, and chase girls down by the river on weekends.”

“Who else was in the Mexican detail?”

“Again, Wyatt wouldn’t say, but they weren’t all operating in the same location. It was like a chain or relay, with the goods being handed along, one to the other, until they were safely out of the country.Goods. That was the word he used, but, you know, fuck that.”

For the first time, Rybek looked disturbed.

“Are we talking narcotics?”

“No,” said Rybek, “we’re talking children.”

CHAPTERXXXV

I haven’t learned a lot during my years on this earth, or not much worth sharing. Getting shot hurts, but you probably worked that out already, while getting shot more than once constitutes carelessness, a death wish, or a message from God to seriously reconsider your lifestyle choices. The great mass of people are fundamentally decent, but the worst make the most noise and do harm out of all proportion to their numbers. Fear is more prevalent than hatred, but the first morphs easily into the second, which is why moral courage is essential. Never trust strangers who call you pal, buddy, or friend, because they mean you no good.

And here’s something else: most people want to talk. They want to share their thoughts. They want to be heard, to be recognized. The ones who don’t are either without insecurity or insane—which, when examined closely, is the same thing. If you give them the opportunity, and are patient, men and women will tell you a great deal more than they might originally have intended, especially in the case of those who have been asked, perhaps out of friendship or weakness, to conceal knowledge of an act they believe to be wrong.

The noise of Dunkin’, the comings and goings, faded away, leaving only Rybek, me, and the last word Rybek had spoken:children. I broke the silence.

“Wyatt Riggins was involved in a kidnapping?”

Rybek appeared miserable but relieved. The wound had been lanced. The poison was flowing out.

“What he admitted was that they took children out of Mexico in December, and it was a real bad idea. Which, you know, maybe goes without saying.”

“Who were these children?”

“He didn’t say. He wasn’t crying when he came clean, not exactly, but he was close. I could hear his voice catching. I could also see that he was worried, even scared.”