Matthias had lured Jim Heron to that abandoned, dusty hut as a witness because there was nobody else in the XOps community whose word held more weight and credibility. The idea had been for the soldier to leave the body parts in the sand and go home to tell the others there had been a terrible accident: If anyone else had filed a report like that, the assumption would have been that they had done the killing. Not in Jim’s case, though—he was a straight shooter in a world full of curves, and he’d never had any problem copping to what he’d done, right or wrong.

Which was proof there was a little bit of good in Matthias, after all—at least he wasn’t dumping his suicide on the head of another guy.

And yeah, of course he could have just blown his own head off in a bathroom somewhere, but although he was suicidal, he had his pride. Taking a self-administered lead injection was just too fucking weak—much better to spackle the crap out of a few stone walls and be mourned as the strong fighter he’d always been.

Pride, however, had had its costs: instead of leaving him in the sand, that cocksucker Heron had saved him—and figured out his little secret. The explosive device had been the tip-off. As Matthias had lain there bleeding like a stuck pig, Jim had found remnants of the bomb and recognized them for what they were. Namely, one of their own.

The SOB had taken the fragments, put them in his pocket, and slipped off his belt. Then he’d thrown a tourniquet on Matthias’s leg, picked him up, and started hauling ass. He’d been royally pissed off, and his savior routine had clearly been part punishment, part leverage—and all consuming. The bastard had walked and walked and walked . . . until sometime later, Isaac Rothe had showed up among the dunes with a Land Rover.

Jim’s demands had come weeks afterward, at a hospital in Germany. By that point, Matthias’s head had been nothing but a huge hot-air balloon of agony, and he was having to get used to only one eye working. Heron had sat at the bedside and laid down his terms: Out. Free and clear. Or he took what was left of the bomb and all of the story to the only person who could have done anything about it.

Hello, Mr. President.

Irony of ironies, had it been any other soldier, any other human with a beating heart and a trigger finger, Matthias wouldn’t have worried about the threat. But again, Jim Heron—good ol’ Zacharias—was one of those motherfuckers people believed in. Bomb fragments could be fabricated; the believability of a worthy guy? Pretty damn indisputable.

And there was no surviving as boss if people didn’t think you had the balls for the job anymore.