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the others behind as they raced back to the safety of the coast.
    Kolt climbed back up to his feet, staggered again a moment, and suffered a short bout of dry heaves. Captain Thomasson was being tended to by a ship’s officer with a medical kit. The white-haired Norwegian captain stared angrily at the American while prostrate on the hot deck.
    “You fool! Typical American cowboy! We have insurance to deal with these matters. They would have been reasonable if you had just offered them the money!”
    Kolt turned away and toward the first officer. “Get the crew to throw the bodies and the guns overboard. Then I want you to show me how fast this boat will go,” Raynor said. “I’ll be in my room.”
    “Getting drunk?” shouted Thomasson. Icy derision in his voice.
    “Damn right, Skipper,” mumbled Kolt as he headed alone back toward the superstructure.

 
    FOUR
    Raynor unlocked the door to his mobile home, stepped inside, and tossed his keys and wallet on the peeling Formica kitchen counter. He crossed the tiny living room and plopped down roughly on the mattress on the floor, grabbed the half-empty bottle of Old Grand-Dad he’d left there, and took a violent swig.
    It had been a long afternoon with his shrink, and Raynor needed this drink. He was careful to avoid smelling like a honky-tonk bar when he went in to meet with Dr. Rudolph in his office just off base of Fort Bragg. He knew the interminable session would only become more insufferable if Doc got a whiff of the whiskey, and Kolt would do anything to just get in and get out, and get back home, where Old Grand-Dad, his true therapist, would be waiting for him.
    As he swigged another mouthful, making up for lost time, he surveyed his worldly possessions. Kolt’s mobile home looked like it had been ransacked around him, but in actuality it had been trashed by the occupant himself. Every dish in the trailer was filthy, stuck to tables or stacked high in the sink. Empty, nearly empty, and soon-to-be-empty whiskey bottles lay strewn around the kitchen and den. Adventure gear lay on the couch and floor, and backpacks with dirty clothes were scattered about, as if Kolt had just returned from one of his overseas security postings.
    In fact, Pete Grauer had fired Raynor a month earlier, almost immediately after the pirating in the Gulf of Aden. Kolt didn’t blame him. He knew Grauer had no choice in the matter. Most of the witnesses said that Raynor had doubtless saved lives with his actions, but every last one of them admitted he’d likely done it while intoxicated. Wounding the captain and then firing a full magazine into a boatload of pirates, all but one of whom were little or no threat to the freighter, didn’t set well in maritime security circles, though Jorgensen Cargo Lines had done its best to cover up the matter. They removed Grauer’s firm from future crossings and voided their contract with him.
    Consequently, Grauer saw no alternative but to let Kolt go.
    Kolt returned to the States and went back to his dingy trailer, his home since he had rented it with his best friend and Delta teammate T.J. seven years prior. It sat on a poultry farm a few miles from the north gate of Fort Bragg, away from the busy Fayetteville side of the post. The farmer who’d rented out the mobile home asked only two hundred a month, but that would have seemed a criminal rip-off to anyone not accustomed to the austerity of a special operations unit. The nearby chicken coops filled the air with the dander of old feathers and the musky stench of bird droppings, and training at the artillery range just across the road used to shake T.J. and Raynor off their mattresses at night. Still, the two friends had outfitted their pad with a big-screen TV, cardboard boxes full of clothes and canned food, and a computer. They trained together in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the dirt yard behind the trailer, they competed for hours on end overhanding throwing knives from distance into a head-sized