In the south, Sigrid learned in school—in Kenya, in Congo, in Brazil—the equatorial sun would plummet like a burning rock into the surface of the earth, spreading its fire wide over the horizon to burn the day and relent before the night. Every season the same. Every day the same length. A ritual that devoured time. But up north, in Norway, the summer sun would pilot through the clouds to make the softest and slowest of gentle landings, and if the summer was at its peak, that pale and weak orb would only skim the surface before rising—slowly, almost imperceptibly—back into the sky, rising on its own reflected warmth off the distant snow, to take its place—where it belonged—above them.
She and her brother traveled with an old army compass from the war found in a box in the attic. Marcus carried rations in a Spiderman knapsack. They each had green Fulton flashlights that looked like tiny periscopes and they would flash each other messages using the little black button over the switch, messages through the trees in a Norwegian Morse code they invented themselves.
Where had that boy gone? How does such an open and free child become reclusive and withdrawn and solitary and later holed up in a decrepit house by an off-ramp that absorbs all natural light?
Their mother’s death. Yes. But now? Some thirty-six years later? What is it that has caught up to him?
Sigrid emerges from the woods at the end of a large pond that is empty of boats and dotted with lily pads. The sun glistens with an intensity that blinds her as she pulls herself out of the darkness of the forest with the realization that she is hot and sweating and thirsty. But she does not bend to the pond to wash and drink and replenish herself, though it invites her. Because there, sitting on a rock with his feet in the water, surrounded by the dense copse, is her brother, Marcus, dangling a revolver between his knees.
F-U-N, Fun
This is Pinkerton’s first visit to the swanky towns of the Adirondacks, out here where all the rich assholes take their trim to summer homes. He is cruising down Route 3 at breakneck speed with the rest of his team. The sun is shining, a heat is pounding down the way it always has in war zones he’s been in, and he has a green light—no, an order!—to form an iron fist around a foreign killer on American soil.
OK, no, fine, this isn’t Afghanistan. It’s Lake Placid or whatever, but the mission is the mission and the stage is just a stage.
He bounces along on the back of the pickup and feels giddy. Today he has a role in the world and a chance to play his part. His only regret is that he doesn’t have a cigar to hold between his teeth so he could spit out the soggy bits before giving his big speech to the team. But . . . well . . . heck. Life is still good and Irv the limp-dicked sheriff isn’t here to get in the way. What he concludes, as they pass a Mercedes C-Class going the opposite direction, is that this town they’re headed toward is going to provide a nice place to launch an amphibious pincer assault.
The team is divided up into two Ford F-150 flatbeds that are breezing along Main Street past the Lumberjack Inn. Fifteen guys still pumped from the standoff last night and feeling like warriors on their way to an alien invasion, boxes full of tactical nukes and a weapons-free directive to light things up. That might not be exactly how it is, but it feels close enough for this chickenshit job that has never given him a chance to pull the trigger. He smiles at the five other guys swaying along beside him and they smile back. They are going to have this fucking foreigner surrounded and on his face in the dirt with his hands behind his back within the hour. And if not? If he resists? He’ll die of lead poisoning the way they did when the West was won.
Pinkerton doesn’t care one way or another. This is a milk run in a nice town and he is going to come out looking good, good, good, especially after having broken up the black mob last night. That’s two stripes in two days in a place where, frankly, very little happens and his team has grown flabby and complacent.
Back in Afghanistan he learned that a good kill can help morale and fill a team with purpose. It helps focus their minds on what’s real, and mints them as a deadly force. Eventually word gets around and those words sound like fame. No, something better: glory.
If they capture or kill this wiener-dick, Pinkerton might even be able to get out of here and into some real action in a big city or else join one of the FBI teams. Pinkerton has always fancied himself a hostage-rescue guy. Especially in this whole post-9/11, terrorist-soaked biscuit of a world they’re living in now. Back in earlier years hostage rescue was a talky-talky profession; lots of gabbing and negotiation and takeout pizzas. But today? When the Muslims are there to kill people? Oh, no. Now you put together an assault plan and you kick in the fuckin’ walls and go full Call of Duty on those jihadist motherfuckers right at the start.
Pinkerton wants a piece of that.
And—he thinks, as the wind blows through his hair—maybe a chance to go mano a mano, too. Yeah. He’s fit these days. And this guy they’re up against is . . . what? A Norwegian bachelor farmer or something? Whatever. He wants the reputation of taking one down with a knife. Guns are guns, but a good knife kill? That’s the kind of solid street rep that doesn’t follow you around:
