“You go out at the rank of Master Sergeant. Honorable discharge, effective at the end of this calendar year, though you can go on indefinite leave as early as this afternoon. The new pay goes into effect immediately, and carries on until discharge. Your service record is intact, and your wartime veteran’s pension and all other benefits are in place.”

It sounded like a good deal. But Luke hadn’t considered leaving the Army until this minute. The entire time he was in the hospital, he had been hoping to rejoin his unit. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Don had been negotiating an exit for him.

“And if I want to stay in?” he said.

Don shrugged. “You’ve been in the hospital for nearly a month. The records I’ve seen suggest you’ve made little or no progress in therapy, and are considered an uncooperative patient.”

He sighed. “They’re not going to take you back, Luke. They think you’re damaged goods. If you refuse the package I just described, they plan to send you out with an involuntary psychiatric discharge at your current rank and pay, with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the sort of prospects faced by men with a discharge under those circumstances.”

Luke supposed that none of this was a very big surprise, but it was still painful to hear. He knew the deal. The Army didn’t even formally acknowledge the existence of Delta Force. The mission was classified—it never happened. So it wasn’t as if he hoped to receive a medal during a public ceremony. In Delta, you didn’t do it for the glory.

Even so, while he expected to be ignored, he didn’t expect to be thrown on the scrap heap. He had given a lot of himself to the Army, and they were ready to dump him after one bad mission. True, the mission was more than bad. It was a disaster, a debacle, but that wasn’t his fault.

“They’re kicking me out either way,” he said. “I can go quietly or I can go kicking and screaming.”

“That’s right,” Don said.

Luke sighed heavily. He watched the old town roll past. They passed out of the historic district and into a more modern roadway with strip malls. They came to the end of a long block and Don turned left into a Burger King parking lot.

Civilian life was coming, whether Luke liked it or not. It was a world he had left fourteen years before. He had never expected to see it again. What went on in that world?

He watched an overweight young couple waddle toward the door of the restaurant.

“What am I going to do?” Luke said. “After the end of this year? What kind of civilian job can I possibly get?”

“That’s easy,” Don said. “You’re going to come work for me.”