“I appreciate that.” She wiped at her eyes and pushed herself to her feet. He stood with her. “I do. But the fact is Ozzy would still have both legs if you guys hadn’t gotten into a gunfight in the first place.”

He gritted his teeth and shook his head. “You know something? I almost convince myself that you and I could be friends, and then you say something like that. Maybe if you kept your mouth shut more often, we’d get along better.”

Anger coursed through his body like a current. He felt too tired, too emotionally charged, to have this argument right now. He imagined the same applied to her.

He spun on his heel and stormed out of the waiting room. He needed sleep. Hours and hours of restorative, empty-minded sleep. Instead of taking the elevator, he went down the stairs and exited the stairway into the courtyard of the compound. He crossed to the annex building and slammed the door open. “Get me a ride to the hotel, Lance Corporal.”

Chapter
Twelve

Cynthia walked out of the waiting room berating herself for her timing in speaking out. She wanted to run after Rick and apologize but knew that both of them needed food and sleep first. She went back through the corridor and into the room where Sergeant Sanders rested. The nurse there directed her to the dining hall.

She stood in the doorway and breathed in through her nose. It was between breakfast and lunch, so most of the serving stations had closed down, leaving brunch selections like cold cereal, fruit, and pastries. But they had pancakes! She loved pancakes. She took a stack of four, covered the fluffy disks with fresh strawberries and blueberries, and added coffee and cranberry juice to her tray.

The tables held only a scattering of people. That gave her a chance to sit alone and try to figure out how she could apologize to Rick and have him believe her sincerity.

“Excuse me, Doctor Myers?”

She looked up and examined the man before her from head to toe. He wore a dark-blue suit with a green-and-blue tie and had a coil coming out of his jacket, leading to the earpiece in his left ear. “Let me guess,” she said, taking a drink of her juice. “Secret Service.”

“Special Agent Zachary Monroe,” he said. “Doctor, your father is here and would like to speak with you.”

Her father? What was he doing here? She looked at her tray and the steaming pancakes and smiled up at the man. “Do you mind if I eat first? I haven’t eaten anything other than an MRE in a couple days.”

A smile came quickly to Monroe’s face. “I’ve had a few weeks like that. When you’re finished eating, I’ll escort you to the sixth floor and take you to the vice president. If you don’t mind, I’ll join you for a coffee in the meantime.”