The Deep Zone

We’re Washington, after all. I meant, where do you work?”

“I know. No place important. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”

“Try me.”

She heard him sigh. “Say you go out to dinner. They want to know what I do. I say I can’t say. Okay. They drop it. But they can’t really. It’s Washington. You are what you do. They keep picking, through the soup, the salad. Halfway into the main course, they’re still picking. Not funny now. They get irritated. Think I’m weird, or just pretending, trying to get over on them. Man, woman, doesn’t matter. About dessert, I see them get down behind their eyes, the hell with that arrogant jerk look.”

“Wow.”

“Why wow?”

“That’s the most I’ve heard you say since we met.”

“Oh. Well, you asked.”

“So are you like, a black ops guy, doing clandestine things all the time? CIA? DIA? Delta Force?”

“I don’t talk about what I do. Didn’t I just say that?”

“Sure. I just wanted to see how you handled it.”

“Oh. Well?”

“A little testy. But not a deal breaker.”

“That’s good.”

“Why don’t you just make something up? Create a fantasy life?”

“Never works. ‘Fantasy’ is another word for ‘lie.’ You make mistakes. Somebody close finds out you’ve misled them about a huge chunk of your life… I mean, how would you feel?”

“Used. Abused. Betrayed.”

“Well, then.”

“Are you really from Colorado?”

“Yep. My mom is dead. My dad runs our cattle ranch.”

“Like, a working ranch?”

“Very working. About three thousand acres in Gunnison County. He’s a cattleman, through and through. A vanishing breed, but it’s all he knows. He’ll die in a saddle one day.”

Horses, she thought. “Are you a dog person or a cat person?”

“Not much for cats. Some dogs are okay. Really, I’m a horse person.”

Yes. “You know what? Me, too.”

“Really?”

“Yep. I grew up on a horse farm down in Virginia. My mom raises horses and trains them. I was riding before I could walk, almost.”

“What breeds? Quarter horses?”

“Quarters are kind of like Goofy, don’t you think? We have Morgans and Trakehners. They’re rocket scientists with four legs.”

“Ever worked cattle on a really good cutting horse?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t know much about quarter horses. Maybe not about riding, either.”

“Ever gone over a six-foot jump?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know anything about horses. You’ve never ridden until you’ve jumped.”

He laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“How about this? I’ll get you on a great cutter if you’ll get me on a jumper. Deal?”

She could sense him reaching for her hand. She took his and they shook. “Deal.”

“You can ask some things about me.” She left her hand where it was.

“I already know some things about you.”

“How?”

“They put together files on all of the team members.”

“Who’s they?”

“Just they.”

“Okay, okay. What was in them?”

“A lot.”

“Example?”

“Stephen Redhorse.”

“He was in there?”

“Him and a few others. Not as many as I would have guessed, though. But from the volume of data, I’d peg him as the one. What happened?”

“Wasn’t that in the file?”

“It was in the file that you haven’t seen him for a few years. Not why.”

“We met at Hopkins. He was a physics PhD. And a full-blooded Native American. Comanche.”

“Complicated?”

“No. We got on well. The thing was, his parents hated me. All whites, really. We tried, but couldn’t get past that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you really?”

“No,” he said.

“Me, neither. Not now, anyway. With hindsight, I can see it was for the best.”

“What happened with you and BARDA?”

“So we’re really going deep here?”

“We’re already deep.” No smile in the voice now.

“In more ways than one. Didn’t my file talk about that?”

“There were odd redactions.”

“Somebody wanted me out, and they made it look like I was selling secret research for big bucks.”

“But you weren’t?”

“Of course not. That’s the first asshole thing you’ve said.”

He ignored that. “Who would want you out? And why?”

“I asked myself that a million times and haven’t come up with a good answer. My turn. Do you kill people?”

“Rarely. And only those who really do need killing.”

Wow, she thought. That’s something you don’t get in every conversation. “Tell me about your family.”

“I’m an only child. My mother died of brain cancer six years ago. Glioblastoma. At least it was fast. She was diagnosed and was gone six weeks later. My father is one tough customer. He’s sixty-four. Served in Vietnam, a LRRP.” He pronounced it “lurp.” “Works sixteen hours a day, most of it horseback.”

“A LRRP. Those were tough men.”

“You know about LRRPs?”

“Told you, my dad was career Army. He was in Vietnam, too. Airborne Ranger. You have a wife? Kids?”

“Neither.”

“I didn’t think so, but I needed to ask.”

“Sure.”

She waited for another question, but an instant later her head snapped up and her eyes opened. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything. You dozed off.”

“I did? Yeah, I did. ’S funny… couldn’t sleep over there.” Her brain was sluggish with lactic acid and fatigue.