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“Please. Got anything to eat?”

He prepared a hearty breakfast similar to the one he’d fed Barrie the day before. As they ate, the silence was broken only by the clink of flatware against dishes. After a time, Spence asked, “Is it always like this?”

“Like what?”

“This quiet.”

“No.” Gray sipped his coffee. “Usually it’s quieter. There’s nobody talking.”

“Gray the loner,” Spence said. “The strong and silent, stalwart, unsmiling hero who eschewed publicity and sought a solitary life. Damn! It’s the stuff of legends. Who knows? Maybe a hundred years from now, schoolchildren will be singing folk songs about you.”

Gray was silent.

After the hostage rescue mission, he’d been approached by publishers and movie producers eager to turn his real-life adventure into entertainment. They’d offered staggering amounts of money, but he had never been tempted. He’d saved up enough to buy this place and live comfortably for the rest of his life. All he’d wanted was out, and out he was.

Gray removed the dishes from the table, then returned with the coffee carafe and poured each of them a refill. Finally, he brought the topic back to why Spence had come to Wyoming.

“You. Simple as that,” Spence said. “David sent me out to Seattle on an errand. I thought as long as I had to fly over, I’d drop in and check on you.”

David might have sent Spence on an errand, but nothing Spence did was ever simple. He had a multiplicity of motives for every action. That way, he was covered. He had fallback positions to take if an action came under close scrutiny by one of the checks and balances built into the federal system.

Spence had been the unqualified best of their entire infantry and reconnaissance division. He had aced everything—weapons, intelligence, survival. He knew no fear. Spence was a machine. Gray wouldn’t have been surprised to find a computer instead of a brain inside his skull. Or an engine inside his chest where a heart should have been.

He knew with absolute certainty that the man seated across the breakfast table from him had no soul.

“You’re lying, Spence.”

Spencer Martin didn’t even blink. “Fuckin’-A, I’m lying. And I can’t tell you how glad I am that you caught it, Gray. You’re as sharp as ever. Haven’t lost your edge.” He leaned forward. “He wants you back.”

Although he was surprised, Gray maintained his rigid calm.

“David needs you back in Washington,” Spence pressed.

“Like hell he does.”

“Hear me out.” Spence held up both hands, palms out. “He’s a proud man. Hell, I don’t have to tell you that. He’s stubborn and determined, and the hardest thing for him to do is back down or apologize for being wrong.”

“So he sent you to do it for him.”

“I’m not groveling, but I’m asking, on David’s behalf, that you get your ass back to Washington, where it belongs.”

“My ass belongs right where it is.”

Spence glanced at the spectacular scenery through the windows. “You’re not Grizzly Adams, Gray.”

“I like the mountains.”

“So do I. They’re great for climbing and skiing and yodeling. Keep the place here for vacations—but return with me to Washington. Your talents are being wasted. The President needs you. I need you. The country needs you.”

“That’s a stirring speech. Who wrote it for you? Neely?”

“I’m serious.”

“The country needs me?” Gray snorted. “Cut the crap. The country doesn’t care if I’m dead or alive. I did the job I was trained to do. My country asked no more from me, and I sure as hell asked no more from it. That’s as it should be.”

“Okay, forget patriotic duty. What about David?”

“Hell, he doesn’t need me. His ratings are through the roof. The other party will sacrifice some poor bastard to run against him next year, but that’ll turn out to be an expensive exercise in futility, because David will serve his second term. He needs me like he needs a boil on his butt.”