Primary Target

“Before he died, Wayne asked me to be your daughter’s godfather,” Luke said. “I agreed, and I’m here to honor that commitment. Your daughter will be born soon, and I want to help you through this situation in any way I can.”

There was a long, silent pause between them. It stretched longer and longer.

Finally, Katie shook her head, just a tiny amount. She spoke softly.

“I could never have a man like you be my daughter’s godfather. Wayne is dead because of men like you. My girl will never have a father because of men like you. Do you understand? I’m here because I still have the healthcare, and so my baby will be born here. But after that? I’m going to run as far away from the Army, and from people like you, as I can. Wayne was stupid to be involved in this, and I was stupid to go along with it. You don’t have to worry, Sergeant Stone. You have no responsibility to me. You’re not my baby’s godfather.”

Luke couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He looked in his cup and saw that he had already finished his tea. He put the teacup down on the table. She picked it up and moved her bulk to the door of the tiny house. She opened the door and held it open.

“Good day, Sergeant Stone.”

He stared at her.

She began to cry. Her voice was as soft as ever.

“Please. Get out of my house. Get out of my life.”

* * *

Dinner was dreary and sad.

They sat across the table from each other, not speaking. She had made stuffed chicken and asparagus, and it was good. She had opened a beer for him and poured it into a glass. She had done nice things.

They were eating quietly, almost as though things were normal.

But he couldn’t bring himself to look at her.

There was a black matte Glock nine-millimeter on the table near his right hand. It was loaded.

“Luke, are you okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.” He took a sip of his beer.

“Why is your gun on the table?”

Finally, he looked up at her. She was beautiful, of course, and he loved her. She was pregnant with his child, and she wore a flower-print maternity blouse. He could almost cry at her beauty, and at the power of his love for her. He felt it intensely, like a wave crashing against the rocks.

“Uh, it’s just there in case I need it, babe.”

“Why would you need it? We’re just eating dinner. We’re on the base. We’re safe here. No one can…”

“Does it bother you?” he said.

She shrugged. She slid a small forkful of chicken into her mouth. Becca was a slow and careful eater. She ate little bites, and it often took her a long time to finish her dinner. She didn’t strap the ol’ feedbag on like some people did. Luke loved that about her. It was one of their differences. He tended to inhale his food.

He watched her chew her food in slow motion. Her teeth were large. She had bunny teeth. It was cute. It was endearing.

“Yeah, a little,” she said. “You’ve never done that before. Are you afraid that…”

Luke shook his head. “I’m not afraid of anything. We have a child on the way, all right? It’s important that we keep our child safe from harm. It’s our responsibility. It’s a dangerous world, Becca, in case you didn’t know that.”

Luke nodded at the truth of what he was saying. More and more, he was beginning to notice hazards all around them. There were sharp dinner knives in the kitchen drawer. There were carving knives and a big meat cleaver in a wooden block on the counter. There were scissors in the cabinet behind the bathroom mirror.

The car had brakes, and someone could easily cut the brake lines. If Luke knew how to do it, then a lot of people knew. And there were a lot of people out there who might want to settle a score with Luke Stone.

It almost seemed like…

Becca was crying. She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. Her face had turned crimson in the past ten seconds.

“Babe? What’s wrong?”

“You,” she said, the tears streaming down her face. “There’s something wrong with you. You’ve never come home like this before. You’ve barely said hello to me. You haven’t touched me at all. I feel like I’m invisible. You stay up all night. You don’t seem like you’ve slept at all since you got here. Now you’ve got a gun on the dinner table. I’m a little bit afraid, Luke. I’m afraid there’s something very, very wrong.”

He stood, and she took a step back. Her eyes went wide.

That look. It was the look of a woman who was afraid of a man. And he was that man. It horrified him. It was if he had snapped suddenly awake. He never imagined she would ever look at him that way. He never wanted her to look that way again, not at him, not at anyone, not for any reason.

He glanced at the table. He had placed a loaded gun there during dinner. Now why would he do that? Suddenly, he was ashamed of that gun. It was square and squat and ugly. He wanted to cover it with a napkin, but it was too late. She had already seen it.

He looked at her again.

She stood across from, abject, like a child, her shoulders hunched, her face crinkled up, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I love you,” she said. “But I’m so worried right now.”

Luke nodded. The next thing he said surprised him.

“I think I might need to go away for a little while.”

CHAPTER FIVE

April 14

9:45 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

Fayetteville Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) Health Care Center

Fayetteville, North Carolina

“Why are you here, Stone?”

The voice shook Luke from whatever reverie he had become lost in. He often wandered alone through his thoughts and his memories these days, and afterward he couldn’t remember what he had been thinking about.

He glanced up.

He was sitting in a folding chair among a group of eight men. Most of the men sat in folding chairs. Two were in wheelchairs. The group took up a corner of a large but dreary open room. Windows against the far wall showed that it was a sunny, early spring day. Somehow the light from outside didn’t seem to reach into the room.

The group was positioned in a semicircle, facing a middle-aged bearded man with a large stomach. The man wore corduroy pants and a red flannel shirt. The stomach protruded outward almost like a beach ball was hiding under the shirt, except the face of it was flat, like air was leaking out. Luke suspected that if he punched that stomach, it would be as hard as an iron skillet. The man was tall, and he leaned way back in his chair, his thin legs out in a straight line in front of him.