“Look, about Kandahar,” said Franklin. “I know you didn’t mean to do anything wrong. Hell, maybe it wasn’t even your fault. It’s just that we lost . . .”

“Family,” said Patton.

“Yeah,” said Franklin.

“I lost family that day, too.”

“And then we had all these years since when we relived it in nightmares and flashbacks and failed therapy. So I guess we thought by killing you we might finally leave Kandahar behind.”

“I get that,” said Patton.

“I don’t know about Bob and Ted, but for me . . . well, now that I’ve met you, now that I know you, that seems a pretty stupid solution to the problem. I’m not saying I’m going to stop the others from doing what they want to do, or what they think they have to do; and I’m not saying that I forgive you and I’m totally OK with you. I’m just saying, I’m not really interested in killing you anymore.”

“I don’t have any interest in stopping the others, either,” said Patton. “I’ve got no desire for running or being hunted or playing games. When this is over, my life is in their hands, and honestly, I’ll be fine with whatever they decide. Even though I haven’t tried suicide, if I thought it would balance my guilt, I would have done it a long time ago.”

“So you’re OK if they decide to kill you?”

“Yeah,” said Patton. “But I’m also OK if they decide we should all work together against people like Ingrid Weiss or if they decide to cut me out of that work altogether or if they decide I should spend the rest of my days scrubbing floors and mowing lawns for the families of your unit. I fucked up, and whether I could have avoided what happened, we’ll never know, but my fault or not, it happened because of me, so it’s about time I face whatever music the survivors think I deserve.”

“Damn,” said Franklin, “this is not the conversation I thought we’d be having when I was thinking about hunting you down all those years.”

“Yeah, well I never expected to team up with a guy like Nemo to steal three quarters of a billion dollars from a bunch of racists, so, you know, life is some weird shit.”

“What’s the deal with Nemo, anyway?” said Franklin.

“Trust me,” said Patton. “You don’t want to know.”