“Of course. My thing is just how am I supposed to know you’re legit? I need assurances, references.”

  “References.” Laughs at that. Ari saying, “How about some trust, Mr. White? This too old fashioned? I thought you were the old-fashioned guy.”

  “My capacity for trust ain’t what it used to be, Sheena.”

  “Ha, of course not. See here. How would I otherwise know about the arrangement our organizations have?”

  “Na, girl, I gotta have more than that.”

  Ari shifts in her seat. “Okay, make it simple for you. Just give me location, I take it from there. You sit it out, Mr. White. No problem.”

  Consider this one. Consider the available plays. Consider how I feel about handing a young lady like Haifa over to this bruiser, and that’s no, no, and no way, no how. Khalid, on the other hand, I could be persuaded . . .

  Ari carries on, “They have no humanity, Cheep. This is the moment to put an end to tyranny, real tyranny. History, eh?”

  “Hey, I don’t give a shit about the larger issues, doll. But I let you do this on your own, what’s my slice?”

  Ari giggles, tsks. “Listen, man, this is courtesy visit. Okay? I do what I want. I give you options, you throw them back in the face, not polite.”

  “And I ask again what I got to gain, giving up bitches to any motherfucker who rolls up.”

  “So crass with language. Well, time is . . . fleeting, okay? Your slice: you get to go home today. And not in a bag, okay?”

  Renew my grip on my pistol hanging at my left side. With my other hand I’m breaking off a small bit of the C-4, balling it up.

  “You gonna come and threaten me now? I’ll make it home any which way, pumpkin. Asking you what I get for serving up some scalp, and you with no voucher. Dig, this is my world up here, peaches, you’re just driving around in it, talking your Zionist mess—”

  Wham. The SUV jerks and bounces up the curb, cutting hard to the right, as Ari leans across and opens the door, through which I tumble. Oopsie daisy.

  Boom. I didn’t notice her smacking me but I’ve been hit in the head. The Israeli looms, leering, gat pressed to my gut.

  Reach up and hold the barrel with one hand. Somewhere else I find the wherewithal to click off the safety on the pistol pinned behind my back.

  Ari saying, “See, I find this money cunt with or without you, Mr. White. You’re not capable of slowing me down. Inferior training. But I had thought, eh, perhaps it’s a good thing. We can be working together, okay.”

  She spiels personable, but “inferior training”? It’s an ill way to kick off a potential working relationship.

  I’m easing a marble-sized bit of C-4 putty into the mouth of her weapon, saying, “Like, partner up.”

  Ari shrugs. Rictus smile. One thing she’s not good at. “Why not?”

  Me saying, “Well, miss, that’s downright neighborly of you.”

  She nods. “Our countries, is special relationship like bond. So?”

  “Na, I do better riding solo. It’s just a thing with me. ’Sides. Y’all fundamentalists give me a rash.”

  The Israeli clucks her tongue. “Ach. Pity.”

  “Ari. I just stopped up this heater with some C-4. FYI, darling.”

  She studies my blasted face for a spell, flat and unreadable. The smile is gone.

  I continue, “Pull the trigger and you got yourself a hot old mess. Fair warning, big girl.”

  Her eye twitches. She doesn’t buy it.

  “Straight up, Ari, no bluff. Best way forward, just let me up and let’s shake on it, start fresh. Checkmate. No shame, angel, let’s just back it up.”

  Ari shifts. Fuck me. Do I not try, people?

  As she pulls the trigger I’m getting my gat out, get it up, crack her kneecap hard with the butt. Her weapon blows up. Gun shrapnel seasons my exoskeleton and I thank Jah for pricey military tech. Prepare for further, more intense explosions . . . gotta hustle.

  Lose my awkward grasp on my chrome as she shuffles sideways. While she’s going down, that’s me scrambling to get up, scooping up my gun, careening ugly toward the edge of the park and the black density of the undergrowth. Working some PurellTM out of my bag.

  “Cheep!” Ari is calling. Elated. “Impressed with this resolve! My friend! Me, I can be more convinced than ever. Our collaboration will bear much fruit!”

  Fucking loons I gotta deal with. I crash into the woods gracelessly, twigs and dead leaves raking my helmet.

  _________________

  Smoke coming off the garden is pretty easy to scope from the North Woods, all the way across the park, even without the choppers, solid ebony smoke dark against the ever-present golden smog. My heart is in my gut, desperate, flopping like a beached fish.

  Smoke.

  Haifa. Haifa, I’m coming.

  I ditch caution and break into my best approximation of a run, a stumble, a lumber, mumbling, “No . . . no . . . no . . .” like it wasn’t completely inevitable, like I could have somehow altered this outcome in the slightest.

  Legging it down the old East Drive, rounding the bend near the old skating rink, brown with algae and dead moss. The sand making its way into my nostrils now, coming up my sinuses, working its way to the brain.

  Cause clearly something is fucking up my brain. Might as well be sand.

  Chopper with a Parks Department leaf on its side cuts loose, spits a long rope of fire out of its dorsal.

  Push it, Decimal. Knowing it’s way past too late. Knowing I’m only witnessing the cleanup effort, knowing the work is done. Still I push it, all the time with this useless “no, no, no . . .” The weight of my “weightless” space suit, the weight of my equipment, my less-than-fully-functional legs . . .

  The first wave hits me hard as I leave the paved road to cut straight through the brush, sulfur, burning wood, and the far more sinister touch of something meaty-organic. It’s not an odor you mistake if you’ve experienced it once, and I can’t help but dry-retch into the mouthpiece, trying to control my innards cause I don’t want to be breathing my own puke . . . stumbling over a protruding root . . .

  No. It’s just not possible that they would do it like this. Mass arrest, yes. Beating, yes, that would be par for the course. But this . . .

  And yet I said it myself, didn’t I? “Vietnam ugly.” And that’s just what this is.

  Catch a heavy branch on my face mask, smack, and again I dance sideways, regain my legs, and push forward. I’ve lost sight of the smoke and the choppers what for the tree cover. At this point, horribly enough, I’ve only got to follow the smell.

  Inexplicable silence, except for my own torn panting. My nose catches onto something new, recalling a public pool . . .

  Chlorine. And it might be psychosomatic but my cheeks are immediately streaked with tears, despite the filter in my helmet.

  Fucking chlorine? And I must be downwind of it. Gotta cut south.

  Sweat. Cause even in this moment I feel the aura of a Freeze. Please, no.

  And without warning I’m in a clearing, closer than I thought I was. I clock it all in extreme detail.

  It’s quite simple, really. The tent 100 percent encased in flame, burning unnatural blue with accelerants. A connect-the-dots halo of bodies surrounding it like moons in every direction. Here and there, trails of fire and the occasional small dark form at the center. These details indicating the manner in which they dispatched those who tried to make a break for it.

  Cyna-corp insects strolling around, poking at things.

  This is profoundly on me. How I could have thought any protection . . . Somebody dropped a dime. Or simply observed us crawl in here. God forgive me.

  Squat near a sad clump of brush, dial the ’com till I’m on the Cyna-corp frequency.

  “. . . air support pulling out, over.”

  “Copy that.”

  Not a lot of folks made it out of the tent. The rest died within. Smoldering forms here and there, unrecognizable as anything, really, so reduced, they could be dogs. Or children.

  Did I cause this to be?

  A scuba suit puts a bullet in something, and it stops moving. They’re combing the grounds. They’re eliminating everybody. They’re not discriminating.

  Miss Marcia, the White Witch.

  Haifa. The twins.

  Did I . . . is it on me, this too? The killer in me drops science: If you go to that place, Decimal, you’re finished. Finito. There is no direction but forward.

  Forward. Grasping. Go, Decimal. Fucking think. Stay frosty.

  Plenty Cyna-corp here. Relative disorder, the vast bonfire a distraction.

  Approach the tent. Figure it this way: if there was any suspicion that the Saudis were on the premises, this would not have gone down in this manner.

  Unless the Saudis were identified. Removed beforehand.

  Watch a group of soldiers, masking up, smoking and laughing, just looking at the fire. Assuming everybody knows I jumped those two soldiers and stole a suit, I get on the ’com anyway. Suicide play. Knowing my signal will ID me right away.

  “Yeah, control, can I get a twenty on Gemini?”

  The intervening silence seems unbearably long. I’m about to duck back into the woods and simply say fuck it, then: “You’ve been off-com, Thompson. Just hold your position, please.”

  “My signal is intermittent, think I got it fixed here. You got that twenty?” Such a Hail Mary. This won’t work.

  Another tense pause. I’m just positive I’m gonna get caught out. My eyes darting here and there. A soldier comes around the side of the tent, doesn’t even look at me.

  “Gemini en route, over.” Another voice. Amazing. Huge snafu on their part. They just confirmed the twins are alive.

  Dispatch cuts in with a sharp, “Radio silence, please. Thompson, just stay put a moment.”

  Gemini en route. They’re alive, they’re being transported . . . where? Knowing it won’t work, me pushing it, saying, “Gemini en route to which facility? Trying to recon, assuming I’m still on security detail, over.”

  Fuck, I’ve gone too far and I done gambled wrong. I can hear the gears whirring on the other end. Fumbling with the latches on my neck, lose the helmet pronto, dispatcher saying, “Two-fourteen. All boots converge on . . .”

  Two-fourteen: rogue unit, i.e., me.

  Jerk the headpiece off and hurl the thing straight through the wall of the tent, into the gut of the flames. Commence wobbling toward some cover, nothing too fast, naked without the head covering, scoping the group of soldiers to my right. They don’t look my direction. I’m already weeping copiously, undeniably from the chlorinated air, but I reckon: I got this. Thinking, Alive, she’s alive.

  Solid gold. Ripping off my uniform, nude in the bushes. Pulling my pants out of my bag, my suit pants, I struggle into them. I got this. Haifa, I’m on my way . . .

  That’s what I’m thinking, as my legs are unceremoniously knocked sideway. Come down hard, eating dirt and charcoal. Vicious hands are on me, dragging my carcass into the shrubbery, where I’m flipped over like a toasted cheese. Massive figure straddles my chest. Fuck.

  All-too-familiar voice rasping eager and triumphant, “Nobody but me, bitch. Nobody but me gets to eat your evil fucking heart.”

  _________________

  Blinding spotlight in my face.

  Table, empty metal folding chair.

  My hands are restrained. Sand partially obstructs my throat. Rest my eyes a moment, open them again and a big dude in a Cyna-corp outfit is seated across from me. Scratchy peels off his helmet. All these years and I’ve never seen his face, till now. Besides being white, he looks nothing like I’d assumed.

  Dude flips a pack of cigarettes on the table, exhales. Blue eyes, receding reddish-brown hair cut Marine short. Older than I reckoned. Didn’t figure on a gingersnap. Forehead shiny with sweat.

  Almost completely disfiguring eczema and traces of a harelip set off a small jolt of compassion, but the vibe is gone as quick as it came. It’s like I can’t control it, this empathy thing, extremely disturbing.

  Cause this dude is officially a tremendous problem.

  The tattoo rat-a-tat of rain against a metal gate, somewhere beyond all this. Grit on my tongue, I try to conjure up some spit without success. Gullet bone dry, me rasping, “Scratch, I got no active beef with you. Personally, dog. But you keep giving me all kinds of reasons to fuck you up.”

  This is amusing to Scratch, which he indicates by raising his brows and flashing his incisors. “Goddamn, Decimal. You best take a look at yourself. You’re done, kid, it’s already over. Better start figuring that out.”

  Trying to get a sense of the room we occupy, if we’re alone. Eyes still acclimating.

  “You were stone crazy over there in the Suck. I’ll give you that. Crazy and good with a unit. Thought you had mucho heart, Decimal. Otherwise we would’ve never given you responsibilities.”

  “Crazy where?” But I know where. I see the rippled sand, the metal huts, the Hummers. The desert on fire.

  “The fuck,” spits Scratch. “The sandbox, man. Whaddya think? Don’t bullshit me with the amnesia bit, that nonsense is old. And way too convenient.”

  Yeah. Convenient. It suits me to continue not recalling stuff. “Shit’s not a ‘bit,’ pal. Sorry to disappoint. I’m just as God made me.”

  “News flash: Nobody believes you. And nobody gives a flying fuck about you neither, so there’s that too. You’re not worth the goddamn tattoo on your back, you get that, Decimal? Nobody, but nobody, is gonna stand up with you, kid. So knock off the fucking around.”

  “I live in the present, dog. That’s just my real.” My teeth are akimbo again. I try to work them back into place with my tattered lips . . .

  “Don’t get it, Decimal. You talk like ghetto trash. You dress up like a clown. It’s like an act. You don’t even make sense. Either you’re just fucking damaged goods or you actually know more than the rest of us, which I highly fucking doubt. I just don’t get you, Decimal. And you don’t get it. It’s like this.” Leans in. “Me? Deluccia? We would have never, ever handed you that mission pack if we didn’t think you had the stones to execute.” Man spits on me. “You’re a disgrace. You disgraced us. You disgraced the nation. You’re a motherfucking traitor, and a coward.”

  Clear my throat. “Yo, Scratch, I’d be getting all worked up if I knew what the fuck you were talking about.”

  He gapes at me as if for the first time. “The library, cocksucker. You were supposed to take it down? Hello? And you fucked all of us. Why do I gotta sit here and tell you this like I’m talking about some other nigger?”

  Tilt my head. Yeah. That tracks. The explosives in the subbasement. It tracks.

  “Na. Not me, Scratch. This a gag? That’s my joint. That’s home. You got told wrong, heard?” But it tracks. I see the sand again, and I taste it at the back of my tongue. Burning oil.

  Scratch wags his noggin. “Deluccia was a father to both of us and you know that’s true.”

  I shrug.

  “Like I say, it’s a fucking shame. And you’re not enough Marine to get up and cop to it.”

  I shrug again. I’m shaken though. “What you know about me, son?”

  “Plenty. More than enough.”

  Let that fall off my shoulder. “Where we at, Scratch?”

  “My office. You’re a privileged man. This is where I go for some R and R, just kicking back.”

  As my vision adjusts I make out a row of cartoony headstones, rubber Angry Bird and Fifty Shades masks, plastic rats . . . “A fucking Halloween shop? You gotta be playing.”

  “You’re gonna see,” he responds simply. I work my gums. My piece back in place, more or less.

  “Na, you know what? They got magic shit here, joke stuff like rubber puke and whoopee cushions . . . suits you. Cause you yourself, you’re a big fucking joke, Scratch.”

  He grins. Flips the light around and directs it at the wall to our left. The other direction.

  At first—I reckon we got some more masks and spooky gear, but nobody would mass manufacture something as boring as a nondescript Chinese-guy mask . . . nobody would make a torso of some moderately overweight white male or a . . . or a . . .

  Then I really see it.

  Heads. Fingers. Hands. Unidentifiable bits.

  Some have been molested almost past recognition, others look strangely unruffled. A female peers out at us as if lacquered, lips pulling into a faint leer. Too many, too much to register. There’s the hides, dried out. Tattoos blurred, numbers and symbols. Moles.

  Then there’s all the wigs . . . That’s what finally turns my stomach. Funny what will do it. It’s the scalps. There’s just so many. It seems impossible.

  Clear my throat. Proceed with caution.

  Feels like duct tape on my wrists. I get to working on it. Systematically working my hands in a knitting motion. I’m not going out like this, not here. My fake paddle can absorb a lot of pain, so I’m letting that one do most of the work . . .

  “Okay, man,” I say, attempting to keep my voice steady, breezy. “I got it. I get it.”

  Scratch spins the light back into position. I try and fail to stare him down, but my eyes itch and I have to blink. Sand clogging my nostrils. I drop my chin, open my mouth, breathe.

  “Just so you take your situation seriously,” he whispers.

  I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. Breathing into my gut, “So I can dig. You got hobbies.”

  He laughs. “Sure. Why not?”

  Shake my head. “No reason. It doesn’t matter a fucking bit. No rules. Fuck it. Do what you want. That’s my attitude. Whatever it is . . . any kinda stuff.” I’m talking too much but I can’t stop, saying, “I don’t judge, man. I don’t judge nobody. No rules, kid.”

  A long stretch of silence, Scratch looking at me, bobbing his head in slow motion. I try and fail to swallow. Working on my hands . . .

  “No rules,” he echoes, and produces a pistol, lays it on the table next to the cigarettes. Then he produces a machete, and adds it to the equation.

  “Can I ask, though, is it like a thing where you start with squirrels and whatnot, or is that just kind of a media—”