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thing, from my perspective, was that prudence required I steer clear of the area for a while.
    There were other places, though, and I continued to visit them at night. Still, the nocturnal prowling helped only so much. Situational awareness for countering potential street crime is one thing. The fever pitch alertness required to survive professionals who are patiently, dispassionately, specifically, maneuvering to take your life is something else. If you’re addicted to the latter, and maybe I was, the former is no more than an occasional dose of methadone in the face of a long-term heroin habit.
    As my relationship with Delilah deepened, and as I gradually eased myself away from the mindset you need to survive in the life, it was as though the part of myself that was so adept in dangerous environments, the part that had kept me alive in the jungle in Vietnam and then in countless urban jungles afterward, didn’t like what was going on. That killer inside me, that iceman who could always do what needed to be done, felt he was being marginalized, disenfranchised. But what could I do? I didn’t know how to propitiate him, or even if I could. All I knew was that he was deadly, as deadly as anyone I’ve ever known, and capable of almost anything if he felt his survival required it. I could feel him looking for a reason, a rationale, an excuse to come surging back and shove me out of the way.
    Someone who needed him, say. Someone in danger. Someone like Dox.

4
    D OX CAME TO SUDDENLY. One moment he was out, gone, and then it was as though someone had pressed his reboot button. He blinked and swallowed, and for a moment he thought maybe it had been a nightmare. He had that kind of dream from time to time, where the bullets would just plop out of his rifle, or his knives would all get stuck in their sheaths, and when it happened he knew he needed to train, because hard training was the only way to sleep well again. But this time, as he came around, the images in his mind only grew sharper, and he knew it had really happened. He’d gotten grabbed.
    Christ, he was sore all over. Must have gotten bounced around some while he was out. He tried to move and couldn’t, then realized why. His wrists and ankles were secured, and his hands were stretched back above his head. Actually, below his head was more like it, because as he recovered his senses he saw that he was strapped to a declined board, with his feet about a foot higher than his head. Well, that wasn’t a good sign.
    Where the hell was he? A small room, maybe ten by ten. Wood walls. Fluorescent lights. Nothing else to go on. He felt like he was rising and falling and thought it was because he was woozy, but then he recognized the rhythm for what it was. He was on a boat, and the movement he felt was of swells underneath him.
    Who had taken him? Whoever they were, they were good. They hadn’t wasted a second once the blond guy engaged him. The flankers were ready and knew exactly when to move in. Coordination like that showed not just skill, but the kind of unit confidence and cohesion you get only after a lot of training together. These weren’t freelancers. They’d worked together as a team before.
    He wondered if that asshole Jim Hilger had something to do with it. He’d sensed as much in the instant before he blacked out, and he’d learned to trust his instincts on these things. First answer, best answer, that was usually his experience. And now that he was awake and thinking, he saw there was some logic behind that initial, unconscious conclusion. The coordination and skill, for one thing, that felt like Hilger. After all, the man had been Special Forces and then CIA before going off the reservation. And there was a motive that could explain things, too. He and Rain had killed two very bad men in Hilger’s network, one an arms dealer, the other a terrorist trying to buy nuclear matériel, forcing Hilger to go to ground in the process, and it was possible the man