Pelayo says, “Tomorrow, a special project, just for you.”

“Yes?”

“Track down the Cornwalls, find out where they are, kill them both. Use whatever resources you need, but don’t take too much time. I want that matter settled.”

“All right.”

“Save their heads,” Pelayo says with relish, remembering his earlier plan for that young Denise Cornwall. “Freeze them. We will send them to their respective superiors.”

“As you wish, jefe.”

Pelayo looks out again, sees the wide and long pavement of the runway.

He loves his life.

CHAPTER 93

AT A remote lake in central Maine, Tom Cornwall is sitting in an old gray Adirondack chair, watching his family at play. Denise and Amy are swimming and splashing each other, squealing and laughing. There’s a small dock with a pontoon boat tied up to it, and a comfortable cottage that has a wonderful view of the lake and the nearby mountains.

There are other residents on the lake, who wave at them as they take the pontoon boat out, or as they walk side by side along the dirt roads linking the cottages on this rural shore.

His wrist itches. He gently traces his fingers over the bandages, wondering how his burnt skin is healing, wondering how the sickness inside of him is healing as well.

The past days have been a blur of packing, flying, driving, and getting used to this slice of country paradise, and along the way, apologies, apologies, apologies.

He apologized to Amy the day he and Denise were rescued at Beachside, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Each time Amy has given him a slim smile, and said, “That’s nice, Tom. We’ll talk later.”

He wonders when and how later will come.

And if the sickness inside of him will ever go away.

He looks at his fingers, tracing the bandage on his arm, the fingers that held that cutting tool, killing the young Afghan who had been ready to kill him.

One of the many surprises during these past days is feeling no regret or guilt at having done that.

Denise squeals one more time, and then the two of them step out of the water, and Amy wraps Denise in a thick blue towel, rubs herself down with another blue towel, then drops the towel and runs up to Tom, wearing a conservative one-piece dark-red bathing suit. He has a brief memory of seeing her wearing that skimpy bikini, her eyes swollen and red, her feet bleeding, her hands shaking.

Amy comes up to him and suddenly sits in his lap. “Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” he says, putting his arms around her. With her wet bathing suit she has instantly dampened his shorts and T-shirt, but he won’t say a word about it.

He hugs her and he whispers, “Amy, I…I’m sorry. I betrayed you, I put Denise in harm’s way, and—”

Amy gently pulls his head into her side, and says in reply, “Tom, I betrayed you, too.”