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“Whoa. Isn’t that China’s version of a stealth fighter?”
“Correct. So, there’s this Chinese stealth fighter in our airspace, but it was only when one of the other guys on the E-3 heard the Chinesechatterthat people on the ground even knew how close that plane was. Now, those planes are hard to see on radar, which is the whole point. But, looking back over the flight data, Command figured that the planewasvisible. Just for thirty seconds, but it was there, and the kid should’ve caught it.”
“And he didn’t?”
“No, see, that’s the thing. Hedid.”
“What? And he let that go by? Why?”
“Because he claimed he received instructions to allow that plane to pass by.”
“And there weren’t any instructions.”
“Nope.” John paused. “At least, not on Earth.”
Flowers was silent for ten seconds. Then: “You’re shitting me.”
“Cross my heart.” John drew an X over his left chest. “That boy said he’d gotten orders from his ‘superiors’,” he said, adding air-quotes, “and his orders were to ignore the plane. Problem withthatwas…the kid’s superiors were on a spaceship.”
Flowers was quiet a long moment. “Holy Mother of God.”
“Yup. Turned out that kid had been quietly psychotic for some time. I observed Roni’s interview through a one-way. That boy was so watchful and paranoid, he barely blinked. Face was really waxy, too. Practically no expression whatsoever.”
“So, what happened?”
“She admitted him. Loaded the kid with antipsychotics. He got better.” Swallowing the last of his coffee, John lowered a window and shook out the remaining drops. “And then the powers-that-be returned him to duty. Not in the same job, but…” He screwed the cup back onto Flowers’s thermos. “They did not board that kid out of the service.”
“What? They kept a psychotic kid on-duty? How could they do that?”
“Remember I said he was brought to our ER because ofwhohe was? Turns out that the boy’s dad was a full-bird. So, you’ve got a kid with a boardable diagnosis for whom the rules were bent,” John said. “Just like you guys bent the rules, and they were, in turn, bent for you.”
Flowers was silent for so long that John thought their conversation was done. But then, Flowers drew in a long breath and let it out. “It’s not the same. Remember, we got separated.”
“But nicely. With the chance of return when you should have been court-martialed. An error of omission is still intentional.” Flowers opened his mouth, but John pushed on. “I don’t blameyou guys. Your lieutenant was poison. There are some things you can’t forgive or look away from and pretend they never happened. So, me, I think you did the right thing,” he said—and then thought,what am I saying?
“Even if we had to sell our collective souls to the devil?”
Yes.Hadn’t he, as a teenager, done exactly that? Much later, he saw a movie where a character talked about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few—or the one. Once upon a time, when John was fifteen,he’dweighed those needs—and thenhehad killed.
The one thing he also knew: he hadn’tneededto kill. He could’ve wounded. He was that good a shot. But he hadn’t.
Taking that kill shot made him a hero—until everyone decided he might be the next monster in their midst.
Aloud, he said, “Better the devil you know. Although the way I see it? What you and Mac and Shahida are doing? You’re on the side of the angels.”
4
An hour later,the sun was up and revealed an eerie landscape: a vast expanse of semi-arid flatland edged with high, largely barren peaks. The colors were a monotonous study of browns and reds. The area must once have been farmland, John thought, if the occasional cluster of tumbledown structures and long troughs of defunct irrigation canals were any indication.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“Central Hindu Kush, north of Kabul. This is practically the only area in the whole country where the Taliban aren’t in control, but that’s mostly because no one lives here.”
“Why is that?”
“Look around you, man. There aren’t any rivers or even tributaries worth talking about in this area. They once had aqueducts, though, until the Russians took them out way back in the eighties. The aqueducts in this region were fed from the runoff of that big monster of a mountain to the right.” Flowers pointed. “ That’s Kohe Koran.”
He studied the mountain a moment, trying place why it look so different from others he’d seen. Then, as his eyes picked out specks of green topped by smears of white. “Why is there vegetation there and not anywhere else?”