That was ten hours ago.

Now the three freed American college students were with their families. Laughing and weeping, hugging each other, kissing their families and each other. A happy ending and for once no one had died. Despite his weariness, it made Top feel like there was some clean air to breathe in the world.

Bunny sat nearby on an overturned milk crate, sipping Coke from a can. Khalid was throwing grapes into the air and catching them in his mouth. Lydia, who had found her own way out of Iran, had her boots off and her feet in a bucket of cool water.

The three of them looked like they were at a picnic, but Top wasn’t fooled. He knew every trick in the book about the “fake it till you make it” approach to regaining personal calm. All of them were feeling it. Anyone who ran this kind of game or played in this league felt it; but all of the nerves, the fears, the existential doubts were wrapped tight in affectation and shoved out of sight of the rest of the world.

To let it show would be to admit openly that they were human, and they couldn’t do that. Not on the job. Not in front of people. Not when there was another mission ahead, and another after that.

Top ached for the cigarettes he’d given up fifteen years ago. Or maybe a nice cigar. That would give his hands something to do, and concentrating on the smoke rolling down into the lungs and then swirling out again was something orderly and controllable. Even if the cigarettes were killing you, the process of lighting, inhaling, holding, exhaling, watching the smoke, shaping it with lips and tongue as it flowed out, and tapping the ash—all of that was deliberate process. Process was part and parcel with calm. But he didn’t have a smoke and promised his ex-wife that he would never start again. So, instead he chewed a piece of gum very slowly and precisely, and he grinned at the hikers and their families.

It was Bunny who finally spoke, starting the process of talking about it. “Smith should be here pretty soon.”

Top nodded. Smith had called from a border post right before climbing into a jeep with a Kuwaiti sergeant. “Any time now.”

A few seconds blew by on the hot wind.

“You think the Cap’s okay?” Bunny asked.

Khalid caught two grapes in his mouth, bobbing and weaving like a boxer to get under each of them. “Cowboy’s always okay.”