In the same attenuated microsecond, Shreck broke through the shards of disbelief that clotted his actions and yanked the Marlin up to put a shot into Bob, but he was not quite fast enough. Bob, pivoting through a short arc to his new target, beat him by a clean tenth-second and double-tapped a pair of deer slugs through Shreck’s vest so swiftly the blasts seemed like a single sound. Their roar hit the mountains and rolled back across the valley and still vibrated in the air as the colonel’s legs went and he toppled backwards.

Shreck felt no pain. He lay on his back in the yellow grass. He thought of landing zones, frontals, good men dead in far places, K-rations and C-4, and that bitch duty whom he’d never once betrayed, always doing the hard thing.

Bob stood over him. Shreck blinked and felt his fingers turn to feathers. He had no legs, he had no body. He was very thirsty and confused. Then he realized: it had finally happened.

“I deal in lead, friend,” Bob said, and fired another deer slug into him. It blew out his heart.

In an instant, Bob ran to Julie.

“Okay, okay, honey, it’s all right,” he said to her, taking her in his hands. “Don’t move, don’t jerk, just be calm, we’re almost home free, Dobbler, Dobbler, goddammit, come here!”

He tried to get her to lie still, terrified that a sudden motion might somehow trip the trigger. She was blinded by the tape and making mewling noises, but now he got his arms around her, squeezing her tight, just to hold her steady against his own strength.

“Now, just relax, baby girl, please, just relax.”

He reached into his boot and drew out his razor-sharp Randall Survivor. Looking at the knotted strands of black tape he was at first unsure where to cut, afraid that if he cut too savagely, the vibration on some unseen strand of the stuff might fire the gun. Very carefully, he began to slice through the strands around her face until he’d freed it and peeled the strands away. One by one they broke, but the gun did not budge.

“Okay, okay, we’re almost there, nothing’s going to happen to you, we’re almost home free.”

Gently he rotated her trembling head and inserted the blade in a knot of tape right under the muzzle and began to saw. The edge devoured the tape, one by one popping the individual links. But the gun remained jammed against her and seemed a living thing, a snake almost, with its fangs sunk crazily into her skull. He didn’t want to touch it; he could see that the safety was off and that the weight of Payne’s dead finger still lay across the trigger.

He sliced another strand of tape and the gun seemed to loosen and slide. The breath came so hard to him he thought he’d pass out and someone seemed to be pounding a kettledrum against his ears. Then another strand went, and the gun dropped and Bob had the thing, free and clear.

He looked at it. Soaked in blood, one of Payne’s tattoos remained visible. AIRBORNE ALL THE WAY, it said. You got that right, son, he thought and heaved the goddamn thing as far as he could. It landed in the grass fifty feet away, and did not go off.

“Oh, Jesus,” she was saying as he pulled the tape from her face.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re fine, we made it.” He hugged her, held her very tight.

Dobbler was crouching beside them. He lifted one of her eyelids, looked into her pupil, read her pulse.

“What did they give you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Well, you’re stable. Bob, give her your coat. The danger is shock. If we keep her warm, there should be no problem.”

She lay back, clutching the coat.

“It’s all over. We’re home free, I swear to you. Nobody can hurt you now or ever again.”

He set her down on the grass, where she settled in, though she did not want to let go of his hand. But he had some other business still.

He drew the doctor away from her until they confronted the bodies in the grass. Dobbler stopped and stared.

“G-god,” said Dobbler. “I can’t believe we – ”

Bob silenced him.

Four feet apart, Payne and the colonel lay in the yellow grass. The colonel’s eyes were open, Payne’s were closed. Payne’s grotesque stump still gushed a magenta delta into the yellow grass. The vests, however, constricted the blood from the chest wounds in both men; only the burned puckers where the slugs had blasted through signified the cause of their deaths.

“Look at them,” Dobbler said, half in shock. “I can’t believe – ”

“They’re men. Shoot ’em, they die, that’s all,” said Bob. “Listen here, we don’t have much time. I’ve thought this out carefully.” He reached into his shirt and pulled something out. Dobbler saw that it was a money belt.

“There’s seven thousand dollars in here. It’s all I have left from my magazine money. You take it.”

“I – ”

“Now just listen. I want you out of here and gone before that damned boy shows up with his badge and remembers what he does for a living. You see that white pine at the far end of the valley?”

He pointed to the tree.

Dobbler nodded.

“At the tree, you’ll find a creek bed. You follow it about seven miles, mostly downhill, to a river. You can follow the river either way, it doesn’t matter. If you walk hard you’ll come out of the forest around three tomorrow on U.S. Route two-seventy. Flag down the Greyhound that makes the four P.M. run to Oklahoma City. Take the money. Disappear. Start a new life.”

Dobbler looked at him in shock.

“But – You need a witness. You need someone to testify. You – ”

“Don’t you worry about me, Doc. You did your part. It doesn’t matter what came before. You go on that stand and you’ll be in a mess that’ll destroy you forever. I know. I’ve been there. Take your freedom and go.”

“But – ”

“But nothing,” said Bob. “Now get out of here before that damned kid shows up.” He pushed the doctor along and then watched as the man, confused at first, but then with more spirit in his step, made a beeline for the white tree. Soon, he had disappeared.

Bob returned to Julie. She lay quietly in the grass, breathing softly.

He knelt. Her hand came up and touched his. He bent and kissed her on the lips.

“We’re going to have plenty of time together,” he whispered. “I guarantee it. Now I have just one little thing to do.”

He went to the knapsack, still lying in the grass.

He opened it and removed the green plastic bag that held Annex B and the cover letter. He ripped it open, took out the paper. He couldn’t wait for the sun. He pulled out a Zippo lighter that said USMC and beneath that SEMPER FI, a souvenir of the days when he smoked. He ignited it, held the bright, small flame against the corner of one of the pages, watched the flame begin to spread. In seconds, Annex B was engulfed. He held it until he could hold it no longer, then tossed it. It burned to ash.

“Stop it! Stop it!”

It was Nick, yelling at him from two hundred yards away. He began to race toward him. “What are you doing? Jesus Christ!”

But Bob now grabbed the video cassette. He placed it on the ground and drove his boot into it, smashing the plastic. He pulled the tape out into a loose jumble, leaned over and lit it. It went like a flash and was gone in seconds.

“Jesus fucking A, what are you doing?”

Nick stood over him, dark with anger.

“That’s evidence! That’s the goddamn evidence that can get you off the goddamn hook! What the fuck are you doing?”

“You know what I’m doing,” Bob said.

“Bob, I – ”

“Now you shut up, boy, and you listen. It’s over. These boys are in the goddamn body bags now and what they did is going in there with them. And that’s where it’ll stay. There’s nothing left to tell elsewise now.”

“You’ll go to – ”

“Nick, you saved my ass with that shot. We’re even up now, and you have to be your own man and make your own decisions. You’re free of me, do you get it?”