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“He could do it. Easily.”

“Who could do what easily?” Barrie asked, entering Daily’s kitchen, where he and Gray Bondurant were having coffee. She poured herself a cup and joined them at the table. She avoided looking Bondurant in the eye. As he’d predicted, she had slept well.

After exchanging good mornings, Daily answered, “Gray was convincing me that our president is capable of committing murder.”

“I have no proof of what I’m about to tell you,” Gray said. “You might think I’m delusional, or paranoid, or a downright liar.”

“Or we might believe you,” Barrie said. He turned his head and, for the first time that morning, their eyes met. Her tummy went weightless. Quickly, she returned her attention to stirring creamer into her coffee.

“Well, let’s hear it,” Daily said.

“David appointed me to organize and command the recons that rescued those hostages. There was a reason.”

“You were eminently qualified?”

“So were a lot of other men. But he sent me over there to die.”

“Because of the gossip linking Vanessa and you?” Barrie asked.

“Yes.”

He paused for a few moments, as if collecting his memories. “I chose thirty men. The best recons the Marines had to offer. These young guys could creep up on you and pluck out an eyelash and you’d never know they were there.

“We were flown in by helicopter from a carrier in the Persian Gulf. A squadron of F-16s created a diversion and took heat so we could be dropped in. We walked three miles into the city. I can’t describe the stench. There was raw sewage and rot everywhere. The country’s entire national budget was appropriated for war; none to sanitation and quality of life.

“The place was a warren of ancient buildings and dead-end streets, but Intelligence had given us the prison’s exact location, and we knew how we were going to penetrate it. We had a blueprint of the building and a detailed description of its security from a former prisoner. The security wasn’t sophisticated or well organized, but the guards were part of the military and were heavily armed. We also knew the location of the cells where the hostages were being held. Needless to say, we had rehearsed and timed our every move.

“It went like clockwork. We took out the guards without them ever knowing what hit them. Once we reached the hostages, I was worried that they’d blow it, but they were quiet and obeyed our hand signals without question. A couple of them had injuries that had gone untreated. All of them were weak from malnutrition and sickness, but they could walk. We were halfway home.

“It was when we were on our way out that everything began to unravel. Several of the guards had dragged a young boy prisoner into a vacant cell and were taking turns with him. Since they weren’t supposed to be there, and that part of the prison was supposed to be closed off, we walked right into the middle of it. All hell broke loose. Gunfire erupted from both sides. The first one I took out was the boy.”

He fell silent. Neither Barrie nor Daily so much as blinked.

“He, uh… he couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old.” He closed his eyes and massaged his eye sockets with his thumb and middle finger. “The backs of his legs were running red with blood. The floor was slick with it. I’m sure his bowel had ruptured. Those bastards had… Well, he was screaming. With that much blood loss, he wouldn’t have made it. He was in agony. So I shot him.”

Through the tears standing in her eyes, Barrie watched him reach for his coffee cup, but he didn’t drink from it. He folded his strong hands around it and held on.

“We rained hell down on those goddamn perverts, but of course we were blown. We had—God, I don’t know how many corridors still to get through. The hostages had lost their cool and were terrified.

“But we were determined not to die in that shit hole. Miraculously, we made it out of the prison, but by then the army had been alerted. We were surrounded by American-hating, gun-happy troops. Those crazy sons of bitches were shooting anything that moved—even their own men—in their bloodlust to kill us.

“We found some temporary cover. I radioed our air support to see if they could help us out. They did their part, but the choppers couldn’t get in any closer than the designated place. If they got shot down, we’d all die.

“One of my men reconnoitered and found an alley that looked clear. We ran to it, although we had no idea where it would lead. Right then, getting away from the prison was all we cared about.

“But as soon as we entered the alley we started taking sniper fire from the rooftops. My guys took out the shooters one by one, but for five minutes or so we were pinned down with very little cover. That’s when it happened.”

He raised his head and made eye contact with both Barrie and Daily before continuing.

“We’d spotted sniper fire coming from the open window of what looked like an apartment building. Someone suggested firing a missile into it, but David had urged me to prevent civilian casualties if at all possible. He wanted this to be a rescue mission, not an aggressive action that would create ill will in the world community.

“Pinned down as we were, our only choice was to draw the sniper’s fire and let one of our sharpshooters pop him. I volunteered to be the decoy. I made myself an open target. My guys blasted him. But during the exchange, one of my men turned his assault rifle on me.

“His name was Ray Garrett. He was a big, rawboned boy from Alabama. I grew up in Louisiana, so we had joked about being from the South. I had selected him, worked out strategies with him, ran the drills with him. But he was going to kill me. And would have, except that we made eye contact.

“He must have entertained an instant of doubt, and that saved my life. He hesitated a second too long to fire. That’s all it took for an enemy shooter to pick him off.”

Gray stared into space for a moment, then took a deep breath. “You know the rest, more or less. After six harrowing hours, we made it to the choppers. We even brought Garrett’s body out with us, and he was given a hero’s burial.”