“About what?”
“God.”
A cold chill spiked through Goose’s belly.
“I heard about what happened out there on that mountain, Sergeant.”
“It was just a fluke,” Goose said. “The mountain had been shelled. It was ready to fall. When the Syrian heavy cav came through there, the fissures gave way and the mountain fell.”
Icarus smiled. “I’d heard it was the hand of God that spared you.” He shook his head. “Maybe I heard wrong.” He gazed into Goose’s eyes. “What do you believe?”
Goose hesitated. “I don’t know,” he replied.
“If it was just that the mountain that chose that time to fall, or some kind of uninvolved fate that simply occurred at that moment, the timing couldn’t have been any better for you and your men.”
Goose couldn’t argue with that, so he didn’t.
Icarus glanced around the room. “I was fooled, Sergeant. I was used.”
“You need to talk to the CIA.”
“I can’t. No one there will believe me. And if Cody finds me, I very much believe he will kill me.” Icarus smiled. “I think you and your team were better than he bargained for. I don’t think I was supposed to survive the rescue yesterday. But I did. And now he’s afraid of me because of what I know.” He paused. “Cody had a team waiting for me here. They captured me. I had to kill them to escape. Cody’s looking for me. And I know your captain has men out looking as well.”
“Why talk to me?” Goose asked.
“Because you seem like a good man,” Icarus said. “I’ve seen few enough of them my life that I’ve learned to know one when I see one. Your friend, Bill, is a good man, too.”
“He disappeared,” Goose said.
Icarus nodded. “I can’t say that I’m surprised.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Yes.”
Blood thundered through Goose’s temples. If the man knew where Bill was, then maybe he knew where Chris was. “Where?”
Icarus studied Goose for a moment, then shook his head sadly. “You’re not ready.” He shifted the detonator in his hand. “I’ll tell you this, though. As bad as you think things have been, as bad as you think they’re going to get, they’re going to be even worse. Worse than you can ever imagine. Seven years of lies and subterfuge and unspeakable horror, Sergeant. Only those who find the truth will be spared. And even after everything that has happened, there are going to be so many that don’t believe.”
“Don’t believe what?”
“That’s what I’m talking about, Sergeant. The proof is lying before you, and still you refuse to see. That’s what the Antichrist is relying on.”
Goose studied the man. “You don’t have a bomb.”
A smile flitted across his face. “Of course I have a bomb.”
Goose shook his head. “You come in here worrying about the souls of people you don’t even know, and you claim you’re prepared to destroy this place and kill everyone in it? I don’t believe you.”
“Listen to me.” Icarus looked even more nervous, and he was scared now, too. “You’ve got to listen to me.”
“No,” Goose said. “No, I don’t have to listen to you.” He surged up from the table. Then his bad knee locked up in a blaze of pain that took him to the ground. He fought his way through the agony, willing himself to stay conscious.
By the time Goose got to his feet in the crowd of confused and concerned tavern patrons, Icarus was gone. Goose limped through the crowd to the back door to the alley.
Nothing moved in the fetid shadows that filled the narrow alley. Icarus was gone as if he’d never existed, but his words hung in the air.
“As bad as you think things have been, as bad as you think they’re going to get, in reality they’re going to be even worse. Seven years of lies and subterfuge and unspeakable horror, Sergeant. Only those who find the truth will be spared.”
Goose limped out into the alley. Overcome, nearly exhausted, hurting over his losses and more confused and lonely than he’d ever been in his life, he sat in the alley with his back to the wall.
He looked up at the star-filled sky and wished he could believe the way that Bill had, wished that he could hold Chris again, wished that he knew.
And only a sheer effort of will and years of training kept him from screaming in frustration. Still, just as Remington had said, he was a professional soldier. No matter what happened, he knew his place in the world.
But sometimes—sometimes when they were hurt and lonely and scared and confused, when there was no fighting to be done, sometimes soldiers cried.
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