The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(81)

Lipsky didn’t seem to notice. His X-ray eyes were focused on Peter, and his voice was calm. “Here’s how it is, Peter. You and I are men of the world. We’ve been to war. We’ve killed other men to protect our friends and our own skins, and to do our job. So I’m going to be honest with you. You’re going to die. There’s no way around that. You can’t save yourself.”

Lipsky held up the phone with the picture on it. Reached out and cleared a space in the bomb parts on the table, and set the phone where Peter could stare at it.

“But you can save that woman out there, and her son. They haven’t seen anyone’s faces. They don’t know where they are or what’s going on. They won’t be touched. You can save them. If you give me that C-4.”

Breathe in, breathe out.

The door to the veterans’ center opened again, and the man in the black canvas chore coat came through.

Peter watched him read the room in a single silent glance, including Peter cuffed to the chair behind the desk, the flag on the wall, the video camera on its tripod, and Felix working feverishly at his laptop. There was a kind of empty, coiled stillness to the man, like some purpose-built mechanism awaiting only the triggering of his function. But he looked at Peter with a kind of curiosity.

To Lipsky, Peter said, “You’d kill an innocent woman? A child?”

Midden’s head swiveled to stare at Lipsky.

The detective just shrugged. “Collateral damage? That’s up to you.”

“Not collateral damage,” said Peter. “This is taking hostages. Killing hostages. For money.”

“I don’t want to kill them,” said Lipsky, sounding like the voice of reason. “I hope I don’t have to kill them. But again, that’s up to you. Where’s the C-4?”





38





Midden


Midden looked at Lipsky, trying to gauge his seriousness. Was he bluffing?

Midden had killed many people in war, and more after. So many he’d long ago lost count. Even women, when he’d had to.

But he’d never killed a child. Not knowingly.

Was this the man he had become?

Midden knew there was a point of no return. He thought he’d gone past it long ago. That he was past any salvage, let alone redemption.

But he understood now that there were additional waypoints on the path to hell that would change him further. Beyond his own recognition of even this damaged version of himself.

Would he become a man who would kill a child?





39





Peter


Peter looked at the image on the phone on the desk in front of him. On the small screen, Dinah sat on the dusty floor with Miles on her lap, her arms wrapped protectively around him. Their torn blindfolds gave them a ragged, haunted air. He knew hostages were almost never set free.

He thought of other times when he’d needed to make a similar decision.

It was different with his own men. It was part of the job to send his Marines into the fight. Knowing that men could be injured or die. It was part of the job. Part of what he had signed up for, what they all had signed up for.

Peter wasn’t a lieutenant who hung back, who directed his men from the firebase. Peter went to the fight with them. His job was accomplishing the mission, yes, but his job was also protecting his men, making their jobs as safe as he could. Which didn’t include leading from behind. The risk of his own injury or death should be no less than that of his men.

And men had died at his orders. As a direct result of his orders. Of his mistakes. That was part of his life now. Living with it. Those consequences. Those sacrifices.

Dinah and Miles had been drawn into this battle despite everything he had done to prevent it. Whether they would die as a result of his decision was still undetermined. But if he handed over the C-4, the odds were good that more than two would surely die.

So the answer was no.

He wasn’t going to give up those beige rectangles.

Lipsky must have seen the result on his face. Because as soon as Peter reached this final point of reasoning, Lipsky’s eyebrows popped up. As if the conclusion was unexpected. His X-ray eyes hadn’t been able to see as deeply as he had thought.

Or maybe Lipsky simply couldn’t imagine sacrificing anything he cared about for a larger cause.

“Huh,” said Lipsky. “You are full of surprises. Okay. So who should we kill first, Peter? The woman?” Peter didn’t answer. Lipsky kept talking, now to himself. “No, then the kid will become uncontrollable. And Boomer will have to be a babysitter. Definitely not.”

He turned to the man in the black canvas chore coat. “Midden, kill the kid.”





40





Midden


No,” said Midden.

   It came out before he knew he would say it.

   He said it again. “No.” With an odd sensation he couldn’t place. An internal tug. Like his organs were trying to realign themselves.

   He said, “I know where he’s hidden the plastic.”





41





Peter


Lipsky ground his teeth in frustration. “Why the fuck didn’t you say so?”