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scapegoats
     to pin blame upon when things went to hell. Thus, Web did not accept the man’s statements right now at face value. Nor did
     he accept the subdued tone as a token of peace and goodwill. Yet the night Web had lost half his face in the fury of combat,
     Bates had been one of the first people by his bedside, and Web had never forgotten that. No, Percy Bates was not a simple
     equation, not that any of them were. He and Bates would never be drinking buddies, yet Web had never believed one had to do
     shooters with a guy to respect him.
    “I know you’ve given us the prelims, but we’ll need your full statement as soon as you’re able,” said Bates. “But don’t rush
     it. Take your time, get your strength back.”
    The message was clear. What had happened had crushed them all. There would be no outbursts from Bates. At least not right
     now.
    “More scratches than anything,” Web mumbled in response.
    “They said a gunshot wound to your hand. Cuts and bruises all over your body. The docs said it looked like somebody had taken
     a baseball bat to you.”
    “Nothing,” Web replied, and then felt exhausted by saying the word.
    “You still need to rest. And then we’ll get your statement.” Bates rose. “And if you’re up to it, and I know it’ll be hard,
     it would help if you could go back down there and run us through exactly what happened.”
    And how I managed to survive?
Web nodded. “I’ll be ready sooner than later.”
    “Don’t rush it,” Bates said again. “This one ain’t gonna be easy. But we’ll get it done.” He patted Web on the shoulder and
     turned to the door.
    Web stirred, trying to sit up. “Perce?” In the darkness the whites of Bates’s eyes were really the only things visible of
     him. To Web they were like a pair of dice hanging, showing deuces somehow. “They’re all dead, aren’t they?”
    “All of them,” Bates confirmed. “You’re the only one left, Web.”
    “I did all I could.”
    The door opened and then closed, and Web was alone.

    O utside in the hallway, Bates conferred with a group of men dressed exactly as he was: nondescript blue suit, button-down shirt,
     muted tie, rubber-soled black shoes and big pistols in small clip holsters.
    “This will be a media nightmare, you know that,” said one of them. “It already is, in fact.”
    Bates stuck a piece of gum in his mouth, substitute for the Winstons he had given up for the fifth time now and counting.
     “The needs of suck-wad journalists are not high on my priority list,” he said.
    “You have to keep them informed, Perce. If you don’t, they’ll assume the worst and start making it up. There’s already been
     stuff on the Internet you wouldn’t believe, that this massacre is tied to either the apocalyptic return of Jesus or something
     to do with a Chinese trade conspiracy. I mean, where do they get this crap? It’s driving the media relations people nuts.”
    “I can’t believe anybody would have the guts to do this to
us,
” said another man, who had grown gray and plump in the service of his country. Bates knew this particular agent had not seen
     anything other than the top of his government desk in more than a decade but liked to act as though he had. “Not the Colombians,
     the Chinese or even the Russians could have the guts to attack
us
like that.”
    Bates glanced at the man. “It’s ‘us’ against ‘them.’ Remember? We try to cram it down their throats all the time. You think
     they don’t want to return the favor?”
    “But my God, Perce, think about it. They just slaughtered a squad of our men. On our home turf,” the old fellow blustered
     indignantly.
    Perce looked at him and saw an elephant without tusks, just about ready to drop and die and become dinner for the jungle carnivores.
     “I didn’t realize we had laid claim to that part of D.C.,” said Bates. He had last slept the day before yesterday and was
     now really starting to feel it. “In fact, I