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difficult to become excited about her proposal. “I don’t know.”
    “Most of all, I need someone I can trust, and you’re at the top of my list. I’ve got bad vibes about this mission, and I want to make it home. Not in a body bag.”
    So it’s Syria again.
    Years ago, Chris would’ve been thrilled at the prospect of the kind of mission she implied, but he enjoyed the peace of not having to wade through the cesspools of the world, chasing its refuse. He was helping people where he was. And he was safe. “I’d like to help you, Hannah. I really would. But you want me to leave my calling here without knowing more than you just told me. It’s wanting a lot.”
    Her face appeared calm, but behind her eyes, her mind seemed engaged in an internal debate about what to say next. Then the internal debate stopped. “After you left Iraq, Professor Mordet was transferred to a prison, and a few weeks later, he escaped.”
    “If you didn’t have my full attention before, you have it now.”
    “Mordet is now head of Syria’s cyber warfare unit, and we think he’s planning a major attack against the US. He has outsmarted a lot of people, but he didn’t outsmart you. You’re the best person I know to stop him.”
    “I’d like to help, but you’re asking me to quit my job here—”
    “You don’t have to quit preaching. Just take a three-week vacation. Think about it.” She handed him a sheet of La Quinta Inn stationery with her room number handwritten on it. “This is where I’m staying. I’ll be checking out tomorrow morning. Meet me in the lobby at 0700 with your bags ready to go. I have an extra ticket for you to fly with me to Langley, where you’ll be briefed on the details.”
    Chris touched his prosthetic ear. He wasn’t angry about what Mordet had done to him, but he was still angry about what Mordet had done to Young.
    “I need you, Chris.” There was a sincerity in her words that pulled at his heart strings. Hannah wasn’t the type who needed protecting, but Mordet was the type who needed stopping, and he might never forgive himself if he let something bad happen to her.
    He took the paper and put it in his pocket.
    Hannah turned and cruised to the door—her body erect, leading with her breasts, a Venus de Milo with swinging arms. Her hips swayed to and fro in a hypnotic rhythm. Then she was gone.

4
    _______
    C hris stood there, silent for a while. He heard someone nearby speak but didn’t catch the words.
    “You okay?” the head minister, John Luther, asked, placing a hand on Chris’s forearm.
    Chris groaned. “I don’t know.”
    Pastor Luther waited quietly. He was a good listener, and Chris wished he could listen as well as Pastor Luther. He wished he could do a lot of things as well as Pastor Luther. People commented on Chris’s big heart, but next to Pastor Luther, Chris felt like his heart was twenty-two sizes too small.
    “Uncle Sam wants me back,” Chris said quietly.
    “It must be important.”
    Chris tried to think critically about the situation. “Or maybe it’s just a wild hawg hunt.”
    “How can you know?” Pastor Luther asked calmly.
    “I can’t know until after I accept the mission.”
    “And then if you find out it’s an important mission?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Pastor Luther nodded.
    After Chris left the Navy, he’d returned to Harvard to finish his degree and completed his internship under Pastor Luther, who’d invited him to return to work for him after graduation. “In the eleven months I’ve been your assistant pastor, I’ve really felt at home with the congregation,” Chris said.
    “You’ve brought a lot of new members to our fold and found some of our lost sheep. You have talents that I don’t have. Is she asking you to quit?”
    “She’s asking me to take a three-week vacation.”
    “You two were friends?” Pastor Luther asked.
    “Colleagues,” Chris replied. “And friends.” The admission came out shy, almost embarrassed.
    “I