“Uhh . . .” He walked around to the desk, picked up a slip of paper, and glanced at it. “Could you make seven thirty work?”

“Seven thirty is fine.”

After Rick checked into the hotel, he managed to toss his room key near the television and drop his kit bag on the floor before he fell facedown on top of the bed. The next thing he knew, he was waking up in the same position, but the night sky now replaced the bright morning sunlight that had streamed through the big window. He lifted his head long enough to see the clock. Eight thirty. His stomach felt like it could eat itself out of his body. He hoped the hotel restaurant stayed open late.

He rolled out of the bed and went into the bathroom. Tropical flowers floated in a sink full of water. It took a moment to register why, and he realized it was designed to impress the hotel guests with luxury. He considered the running faucet and clean water more than luxury enough.

He washed his face, then stared at himself in the mirror, pressing his fingers against his red-rimmed, puffy eyes. He ran his hands along the sides of his face, scratched at his beard, then scrubbed it with some soap that smelled like hibiscus, digging out the rest of the camouflage paint. He would be glad to get home and shave the beard off. He turned his head and studied the stitches in the top of his ear and the bandage along his temple.

It annoyed him that he’d gotten shot. He’d gotten stabbed once in a hand-to-hand fight with an insurgent in Afghanistan, but never shot. The stab wound had hurt a lot more than this graze to his temple. But his ear throbbed, and he hoped Waller had known what he was doing when he stitched it.

His body hummed with energy and exhaustion all at once, like he needed to jog for three miles and sleep for three hours at the same time. His mind felt fuzzy, fatigued, dull, as if stubbornly lingering between asleep and awake.

When he went back into the bedroom, he saw a light flashing on his phone. He pushed the button for messages and listened to Fisher’s voice. “Hey, Daddy. We had them just send this to your voice mail so we wouldn’t wake you. It’s eighteen hundred and we’re going to eat. We slipped a note under your door with all our room numbers.”