you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be away from them, worrying about them.”
Thomas leaned forward, defiant. “Don’t want to know. What does it get you? Nothing.” He sat back. “Me? I’m just here doing a job. Didn’t join the Guard to go fight Muhammad in the desert, but here I am. So be it. I just stick to routine. Wake up, put on the same clothes, eat in the same place looking at your same sorry-ass faces, mount up for patrol, sleep, wake up and do it all over again. Only thing I’m going to die from over here is boredom, and that’s just fine by me.”
“Where’s home?” Ford asked.
“Tacoma.”
“The Aroma of Tacoma,” Cassidy chirped. “Smells like shit driving through there.”
Thomas scowled. “You smell like shit.”
“At ease,” the captain said again, trying to keep the peace.
“They cleaned that shit up long time ago,” DT said. “The pulp mills caused it.”
“What do you do there?” Ford asked.
“I used to work at a health club, but I got an application in with the city, and being in the Guard is going to put me top of the list. I get on with the city and I’ll be set for life. Get me benefits and a pension.”
“Bet you didn’t think that deal would include an all-expense-paid trip to Iraq, though, did you?” Kessler said.
Cassidy laughed.
DT sat back, disgruntled.
“I like it here,” Cassidy offered.
“That’s because you’re a dumb shit,” Thomas muttered.
“I do. I like wearing the same clothes and eating in the same place. You don’t even have to think about it. Einstein did that, you know, wore the same clothes so he didn’t have to use his brain.”
“You and Einstein have that in common all right,” DT said, causing Ford to chuckle.
Cassidy said, “I look at this like a hunting trip.”
DT scoffed. “That why you keep that dumb-ass Rambo knife strapped to your ankle?”
“You a hunter, Butch?” Ford wasn’t buying Cassidy’s bravado. He had a lot of experience with kids like Cassidy. They were usually loners from abusive homes. When they did get some attention, it usually wasn’t for anything positive, but they relished it anyway because at least it acknowledged their existence. Columbine and other school shootings had proved that.
“Hell, yeah,” Cassidy said. “Me and my dad hunted all over eastern Washington. Bird mostly.”
DT mocked him. “Bird? That don’t make you no hunter.”
“And deer.”
“Bambi? You shooting Bambi!”
“Not just deer neither,” Cassidy persisted. “Boar.”
“Boar?” Kessler gave Ford a look. Wild boar did not live in eastern Washington.
“You know,” Cassidy said, “those big pigs with the tusks and hair all over them. Mean sons of bitches.”
“You sure that wasn’t your girlfriend?” DT said, bringing laughter.
“Laugh all you want. But I shot one with a compound bow once and chased it for miles. Slit its throat and gutted it right there and brought the meat home.” Cassidy looked out the window. “The way I figure it, killing Hajji ain’t going to be no different. I’m looking forward to getting me some.”
“One big difference,” Kessler said, turning to stare out the windshield. “Bird and deer don’t shoot back. Hajji does.”
WHEN HE HAD finished reading the statement, Sloane sat back, thinking. Something here, something. He thought of a sermon he’d recently heard by the pastor of the church he attended with Tina and Jake. Then, rising quickly, he made copies on the Xerox machine in his office and placed the duplicates side by side on his desk to reconsider them more closely. As he read, he picked up a yellow highlighter.
CHAPTER TWO
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
T he following morning, Sloane pushed open the door to his office and stepped into the entry. He leased a suite in the One Union Square Building in downtown Seattle, sharing a receptionist and two conference rooms with other businesses on the floor.
“Are we sleeping in now?” Sloane’s secretary
Laurie Kellogg, L. L. Kellogg