Trudy spoke. “If you take the case, the CIA will provide you with an identity as a corrupt military contractor on the make,” she said. “You and a partner will proceed alone to the Sunni Triangle, find Parr’s headquarters from half a dozen suspected locations, infiltrate his team, arrest him, and then call for a helicopter extraction.”

Luke grunted. He nearly laughed. He looked at young, lovely Trudy, graduate of an elite East Coast university. For some reason, he focused on her hands. They were tiny, immaculate, even beautiful. He doubted they had ever held a gun. They looked like they had never lifted anything heavier than a pencil, or been sullied by an ounce of dirt, in their lives. Her hands should be on a commercial for Palmolive. Her hands should have their own TV show.

“That sounds good,” he said. “Did you come up with that? I can tell you that my last helicopter extraction went pretty well. My best friend died, my commanding officer died, pretty much everybody died, actually. The only people who didn’t die were me, a guy who lost his mind, and another guy who lost both his legs and his mind. And… you know, his ability to…”

Luke trailed off. He didn’t want to finish that sentence.

“That guy won’t speak to me anymore because he asked me to kill him, and I declined.”

Trudy stared at Luke with those big, pretty eyes. The glasses made her eyes seem bigger than they really were. She looked, at this moment, like a scientist staring through a microscope at an insect.

“That’s awkward,” she said.

“It’s old news,” Don said. “You either climb back on the horse, or you don’t.”

Luke nodded. He raised his hands. “I know. I’m sorry. I know that. Okay? So let’s say I go in. What if Parr doesn’t want to come quietly? What if spending the rest of his life in prison doesn’t exactly appeal to him?”

Don shrugged. “If he resists arrest, then you terminate his command, and terminate his group’s ability to operate, by whatever means available to you at that time.”

“You realize we’re talking about Americans?” Luke said.

They both just looked at him. Neither one answered. A long moment passed. It was a silly question. Of course they realized.

“Do you want it?” Don said.

It took a minute before Luke spoke. Did he want it? Of course he wanted it. What choice did he have? What else was he going to do? Sit in this office building and go crazy? Sit here and turn down missions until Don finally got the message and let him go? This was what he had been hired for. Compared to the things he had done previously, it wasn’t even much of a mission. It was practically a weekend getaway.