Ever since he had woken up in the hospital after his concussion, he had felt different. The report sent to Cutler from Bethesda, though entirely routine, had almost derailed his getting back in the saddle. Cutler was wary of concussions in his people—far more than he was of bullet wounds or broken wrists or ankles. “Concussions can fuck with your sensory input,” Cutler was fond of saying, “not to mention your judgment.” Flix had Whitman to thank for his continuing on with Red Rover. His compadre had gone to bat for him with Cutler, vouching for his health, saying he was indispensable, and that if Cutler wanted the brief to be completed successfully Flix had to be part of the team.

Flix, never one for expressing his emotions, hadn’t known what to say or how to thank Whitman, so he’d simply nodded and kept his own council. Again, that was just as well, as he didn’t know how to convey to anyone else how the world had changed for him. BC, before the concussion, it had been dull and gray. Now it was bright, clear, almost radiant.

Rip currents of color registered not only in his brain but throughout his entire body; he felt the colors as well as saw them: the deathly pallor of the faces of the dead, the smell of death, like a freshly opened casket. With the sight of each of the guards lying in unnatural positions memories flashed through him of how easy they were to spot, how easy it was to target them, pull the trigger, keep going, pulling the trigger again. It was as if his mind, his body had melded with the AR-15, or, conversely, as if it had come alive in his hands, as if it was telling him what to do and when. He had not missed with even one shot, and each one was a killing shot, even though that seemed improbable to him. And yet, he was seeing the proof with his AC—after concussion—vision. There simply was no denying it.

Something deep inside him contracted with each of these memories, as if quailing at the implications. He went in search of the dogs in order to shift his thoughts in a different direction, but he saw no sign of them anywhere. Seven dead, not including one of the girls being held by el-Habib. He had killed seven Americans. He should have felt sadness, remorse, self-revulsion even, but he felt none of these emotions. In fact, he felt nothing at all. It was as if he had scored 100 on his target at the USA firing range. What the hell, man?