There was no answer. There never was. Over the years, Alex had gotten to be as precise and predictable as clockwork. Ferret out some evil, lead Chris to it, and when the Enemy didn’t show, immediately start looking elsewhere, leaving his brother to hold the bag no matter what form it took. It was an unspoken arrangement between the two—Chris was repaying a debt—but these days the debt seemed overpaid already and the deal completely one-sided. But that was Alex, and that was to be expected. He’d always been that way.

Well, not always.

Stiles’s mind wandered back, away from Sykes Road and the culvert and Sebastian Danner, and as it did so he finally achieved that waiting state of mind. It was like riding a bicycle; once he stopped trying it came naturally, like second nature. His mind strayed while his senses did not; they stayed alert, watching the culvert, waiting.

Mechanically, he raised the scope and swept it across the roadway.

Nothing. He swiveled this way and that, straining to see through the rain-smeared lens, focusing his eye alternately on the red sighting dot and the lush jungle around him. Fronds hung limp and flapped heavily when the wind picked up, and the elephant grass, shoulder high in the open, waved like flexible sword blades. Little else moved in the face of the squall. No Charlie. No nothing. Damn.

He lowered the Aimpoint away from his eye and sat back against the exposed roots of a tree, where the downpour seemed a little less severe and laid his rifle across his lap. He was numb, and the pounding rain wasn’t helping. He got that way when he walked, and they’d sure as hell done enough of that today, up one hill and down another and up a thousand more. His body just seemed to go on autopilot for a while, letting his mind wander but not so far that his senses couldn’t call him back if necessary. Boredom must have triggered it, or monotony, or exhaustion. The trouble was, those three things were what this tour of duty, this country, was all about. Waiting for Charlie, walking, waiting some more, always waiting. He was numb most of the time, as stuporous as any drug addict. He was like a grain of sand in an hourglass, slipping slowly, inevitably toward the middle, away from the World, further and further. . . .

He tilted back his helmet and let the wind lash needles of water across his face. Jesus, he thought, rubbing and slapping his cheeks. I can barely feel anything. Better straighten up. Think about the men. They’re depending on you.

He looked behind him. They were a hundred or so feet away but already obscured by the rain, little more than shadows in the grayness. They waited there, resting.