It was a very odd sensation to look out the window and see nothing but blackness below. It reminded her of flying across the Atlantic Ocean the summer after she graduated from college. She’d left the JFK airport at 9:30 p.m. and flown all night over nothing but blackness. She couldn’t even sleep on the flight, afraid she’d wake up swallowed by the dark. She made sure her return trip from London left in the late morning so it would be daylight the entire trip.

“I imagine that was a beautiful journey,” Waller said.

She thought back to the day she’d arrived in Katangela. She’d had so much going on inside her head and hadn’t really paid much attention to her environment. But after months here, she knew what he meant and nodded. “It was. I was actually looking forward to the return journey.”

YAMBULI

Rick never enjoyed reentering civilization after extended time in combat zones. He’d spent too long with his senses on high alert, and civilization tended to have bright lights, lots of noise, and people going about their civilian days without a thought to what went on outside their safe little walls or borders.

The sun started to lighten the early morning sky as the jungle opened below them and they flew over the slums on the outer limits of Katangela’s capital city of Yambuli. The city sat where the river met the Atlantic Ocean. Gradually the slums became flat-roofed houses lined up like building blocks in chaotic rows, and eventually they flew over multistory buildings. About fifteen million people lived and worked there, from the world’s poorest children beggars to some of the most affluent moguls. The dichotomy between the villages in the jungle and this city fascinated him.

The American embassy in Yambuli contained several buildings inside a walled compound, including a fully staffed medical facility. After they landed on the main building in the compound, medical personnel met the helicopter with gurneys to transport Ozzy and Sanders.

Cynthia didn’t even look at Rick as she bent her head and ducked out of the helicopter, then spoke to the nurse at the head of Ozzy’s gurney. The medic who had flown with them stayed with Sanders. Fighting the impulse to follow, Rick got off the bird with Swanson and waited for the rest of their team to dismount from the other two helicopters. Together, they made their way to the one-story annex that housed the Special Operations headquarters. Once there, Rick discovered that they could not get barracks rooms.

“Why?” he asked.

The Marine lance corporal at the desk had her black hair pulled back into a tight bun and a scattering of freckles over her brown nose. She had a hard time looking him in the eye, which bothered him.

“We have a detail of DVs here from DC. All the rooms are taken, sir,” she said.