“I hear you. You heard what happened after the last trip out?” Mac asked.
Rand shook his head.
“A guy went home and killed his wife and kids. Another guy took his wife and daughter hostage, but a police sniper got him before he could use the weapon on them,” Mac said bluntly. He watched Rand closely for his reaction.
Rand was silent. He looked over at the men who were collected around the fire. “I wish I could say I was surprised,” he said. “I don’t know who’s feeding them that shit. Craig doesn’t do it here. But those guys ought to be nice family men coaching Little League. And maybe they were. But they’re not anymore. They’re becoming suspicious, anti-government militia types. You ever know any of those kind?”
Mac shook his head. “Not personally.” Then he reconsidered. “Well actually, I went up against Army of God last fall.”
Rand raised his eyebrows. “Militia and religious fanatics,” he said. “We get the militia types out here in the Cascades. And they are all assholes, and their women live in fear. But they don’t leave.”
He shook his head. “I’ve said too much,” he muttered. “Time for me to work on supper.” He walked away. Mac looked after him thoughtfully. Then he headed toward the fire and his partner.
“Heads up,” Craig Anderson said and tossed him a Mountain Dew. Mac caught it, popped the tab and took a long drink. He sat down next to Angie and glanced at her beer bottle. It was full. If she had any, it was one sip, maybe two. Smart girl. She was getting the men to accept her as one of them, but she stayed alert. Good. Rand’s comments worried him. He hadn’t said anything Mac hadn’t already observed. But the fact he said them? Rand was worried about something too.
“So, Mac, you were in Afghanistan,” Craig said. He sounded casual; Mac didn’t think he was.
“Yeah,” he said. “Three years, felt like a decade.”
The men laughed, as if they had any idea what it was like. It struck him that none of these men had military experience. Was that by design or coincidence? What exactly was Sensei up to?
“Bad place,” Craig said. “You were recon?”
Mac nodded shortly. He didn’t want to be show and tell for these assholes. Unfair, he thought. Just because two men came back and went off the deep end last trip doesn’t make these men assholes.
“What’s that like?” one of the clients asked. “Did you kill?”
Mac frowned. “That’s not something you ask a veteran,” he said shortly. “It’s just not. It’s private, for one thing. And for another? You could trigger flashbacks, nightmares. Most vets come back with PTSD, and they struggle with it for a long time.”
“But you saw action?” the man persisted.
“Yeah, I saw action,” Mac responded. He had a hard time not sounding sarcastic about the phrase.
“What’s one mission you won’t forget?” he asked.
Mac looked at him. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Brett Butler,” the man answered.
“You cheat on your wife? What’s your favorite sex position?” he asked.
“You don’t ask a man that!” he protested.
“And what did I just tell you about asking a veteran about his experiences?” Mac demanded. “You want me to talk about death, but you think sex is too private? Fuck, man!”
Craig intervened. “Mac’s right,” he said. “You have to respect a man’s silence about what he did while in uniform. And some things? We aren’t allowed to talk about even if we wanted to.”
Brett Butler looked like he wanted to protest that, but Craig stared him down.
“I can tell you about Army of God trying to blow up Planned Parenthood Clinics last fall, if you want,” Mac said. “A lot of that was in the newspaper.”
“You were the reporter for that,” someone else said. “That’s why your name sounded familiar.”
Mac nodded. He told them the basics, let them ask questions.
“FBI arrested the men involved,” Mac said.
“One man died,” Brett Butler said suddenly. “Did you shoot him?”
“No,” Mac said coldly. “What is your problem?”
“I want to know what it feels like to kill someone,” he said.
Mac hesitated, thinking of the body bags he’d seen two weeks ago. Thought of the man he’d killed a year ago, a man he’d thought was a friend. “Depends on what kind of man you are,” he said. “A good man, a real man? He feels sick to his stomach even if it was a necessary kill. He hates that he had to kill someone. If you don’t feel like that? You’re a sick son of a bitch, a sociopath.”
The men were silent. Mac chugged the rest of his Mountain Dew, and started to get up. Way to kill a mood, he thought bitterly. This whole thing was getting to him.
“And which kind of man are you, Mackensie Davis?” Ken Bryson asked.
Mac wondered how he knew his whole name. “Best if you don’t find out,” Mac said. And then he got up and went for a walk in the dark.
Angie watched him go. Well, then, she thought. She took another pretend sip of her beer. He wouldn’t go far. He wouldn’t leave her unprotected with these men. But something about this entire situation was getting to him.
There were rumors about Mac Davis. The Examiner gossip was full of stories and speculation. About what really happened in the story that ended Howard Parker’s nomination for Homeland Security. About the Army of God and Mac’s rescue of Janet from kidnappers. All of them were believable because if you were around Mac, you sensed this coiled rage buried deep inside of him. Smart people shied away from the rage. These idiots seemed to want to poke at it with a stick.
But Angie had noticed that Janet Andrews didn’t fear Mac or his rage. And she thought Janet was one smart woman. So, she had decided she would trust him too. Trust him to be a protector,
