“You and I should talk,” she says, closing the door. I remain tight-lipped, stubborn. She doesn’t seem to care. Rodrigo says she’s taken a shine to me, but there is absolutely no indication in her demeanor. “You need to forget what happened up in the mountains.”

“I see no reason to.”

“The operation was sanctioned by high command.”

“What operation?” I ask. I’ve been putting the pieces together in my head, and I think I have a pretty good idea by now, but I want to be sure.

Marie pulls a chair over beside my bed and sits down. She is still distant, cold, but I sense this is meant as a gesture of trust between us. I don’t buy it. She says, “For five months, Commander Paco and I have been organizing a false mass-defection. It has been a colossal effort of misinformation that included fooling some of our own generals. It was an enormous risk, but we desperately needed that air base intact.”

“You could have told us about it,” I say. “You could have given us a part to play.”

“We couldn’t find you.”

“We got radio communications from you all the time! And Rodrigo was in Bava almost every other week!”

“The radio was too risky, and Paco thinks that Rodrigo is a loose-lipped fool. Besides, Gift Horse had to look genuine. If we gave you the chance to set up an ambush it might have tipped off the enemy before we had taken their base.”

Gift Horse. A code name for handing my platoon over to the enemy as a distraction. It is a bitter pill.

“You got most of my platoon killed.”

“And saved almost all of the strike force in the process. It was a distasteful strategy, but I would do it again in an instant.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I demand.

“Not in the least.” She lowers her voice until her tone is almost gentle. “Teado, your friends did not die for nothing. I’m sorry it had to happen like it did.”

“I won’t forget it.”

“Why not? This is war. We forget things which are inconvenient to remember. Just like I will forget the grenade I dove on when you attacked a government strike force.” She unbuttons the front of her shirt and pulls it down. Her chest is crisscrossed with week-old scars, the skin barely beginning to heal. I remember the grenade I tossed over my shoulder during my mad scramble to escape Paco’s camp.

She buttons her shirt back up. “No one died,” she says. “I was Changed at the time so it didn’t do any permanent damage, but Paco still wanted you court-martialed.”

I feel a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck and almost laugh. After all this, will I get shot by my own side?