Vincent Briggs was the most fascinating man I’d ever met.

His profession was killing.

When he entered a room, people within eyeshot either feared him, were fascinated by him, or a little of both. His walk was precise and sure-footed. Confidence radiated from his being. His alluring honey-colored eyes commanded the attention of anyone fortunate enough to look into them.

If he chose to speak, he did so in as few words as possible. He was methodical, extremely neat, and had no living parents or siblings, making him a perfect choice for the government’s clandestine New Dawn program.

The program used specially-trained Marines that were detached from the military. They dressed as civilians, wore their hair much longer than standard regulations allowed, and didn’t carry military credentials. In the eyes of the military, they didn’t exist.

Yet, one of them sat on the other side of my desk, gazing blankly through my window and into the parking lot.

My relationship with Vincent was professional. I wondered if I’d simply met him in passing if things would be different between us. My list of clients that shared his profession included five others with comparable qualifications. The similarities between them stopped there.

Vincent differed from his colleagues. His counterparts all shared the same diagnosis—antisocial personality disorder. The disorder allowed them to kill without feeling remorse.

Simply stated, they were psychopaths.

To them, killing was no different than walking to the mailbox to retrieve the mail. There was no mental, psychological, or emotional repercussion associated with murder. Drinking a can of soda evoked the same range of emotion as taking a human life.

I’d learned in the three years that I’d known Vincent that grandiose sense of self, superficial charm, sexual promiscuity, and pathological lying were things he knew nothing of. He was humble, sexually inactive, valued women, and accepted responsibility for his actions.

Despite my desire to categorize him as completely off-limits, I often thought of him in my idle time. I was fascinated that he accepted humanity’s greatest crime as a necessary part of his duty to protect the nation from harm. The fact that he did so without outwardly wallowing in guilt was contrary to every textbook I’d studied.

“Did it bother you that someone believed you’d done something wrong?” I asked.

He gave me a puzzled look. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking, Doc.”

“You indicated you suffered from insomnia following your assignment in west Texas. After completing the mission, you were arrested. It was the first time you’ve been questioned for suspicion of a crime. Did having someone suspect you of wrongdoing bother you?”

“No.”

I crossed my legs. “Why not?”

“Should it?”

“There’s no right or wrong answer,” I explained. “We’re just talking. I’m trying to find a way to get you back on track with your sleeping.”

“It frustrates me that I was arrested.” He shifted his eyes from me to the window. “But that’s not the problem with my sleeping. The target was a woman. I think that’s what’s troubling me.”

Discussing his true feelings made our sessions rewarding. The manipulative behavior, half-truths, and canned responses expressed by my other clients provided little satisfaction that I was being of any assistance to them. Vincent’s willful offering of the truth was a nice change of pace.

It didn’t surprise me that having a woman target troubled him. Having never received a woman’s approval as a child, he yearned for it as an adult. Subsequently, harming a woman was completely out of character for him.

Vincent was often left for days—and sometimes weeks—by his mother, who was a prostitute and drug addict. His only known address as a child was the strip club where she worked. He slept on the streets, considered her coworkers his family, and looked at her “clients” as fatherly figures.

His upbringing, when combined with the fact that the normal human mind needs to feel threatened to justify murder, left Vincent feeling uneasy about his last mission. Killing a woman who wasn’t perceived as a threat went against the grain of his very being.

“Would you like to explain what frustrates you about being arrested?” I asked. “We’ll discuss that portion first.”

“The same thing that would frustrate a professional basketball player if he missed the game-winning free throw.”

I uncrossed my legs and quickly crossed them again. “Feelings of incompetence?”

He winked playfully.

I blushed a little.

I hadn’t mastered the ability to completely conceal my feelings while in his presence and doubted I ever would. Vincent’s ability to evoke emotion with nothing more than a wink of his eye was one of the reasons I found him so fascinating.

I placed my hand on his file. “The field report stated a neighbor armed with an assault rifle held you at gunpoint. It also states he was a former Army Ranger. He had Special Forces training. You weren’t duped by a seventeen-year-old high school kid with his dad’s shotgun. I don’t see where incompetence—”

He chuckled. “I should have seen him.”

“You find that amusing?”

He shook his head lightly. “Not at all.”

“You laughed.”

“I was thinking about the detective that questioned me. He was sloppy. I don’t want to end up like that.”

Each of New Dawn’s operators were tested and subsequently ranked based on their abilities. Explosives, small weapons, evasion, negotiations, surveillance, and foreign language were in the skills categories. Neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were in the personality categories.

The testing allowed New Dawn’s brass to determine field skillsets and decide which operators were prone to psychological distress, unrealistic ideas, maladaptive coping responses, a need for stimulation, and lackadaisical behavior.

Vincent’s scores in each respective category were as high as the chart measured. Not only was he the best operator in the program, he was considered by many to be the best operator in existence.

“You’re a very methodical man, Briggs. In no way are your actions during that assignment indicative of sloppy behavior.”

“According to you,” he responded dryly.

“Looking back on it, what should you have done differently?” I opened the file and scanned the field report, making note of Briggs’ perfect penmanship. “He was armed with an AR-15 fitted with a high-capacity magazine and he was hidden from view by the dense shrubbery.” I looked up. “It sounds like he had the element of surprise in his favor. Was there an ample amount of time to react?”

“Obviously not.”

I glanced at the report. “Your sidearm was holstered and concealed by the tail of your shirt. Would it be typical for you to leave a residence with your sidearm brandished?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Why not?”

“The risk of being identified by any onlookers as being a threat. We’re to appear to be simple civilians. We’re expected to blend in with our surroundings.”

“Let me summarize.” I leaned forward. “In accordance with your training and the behaviors typical of your profession, your sidearm was concealed, and holstered. Upon completing your assignment, you exited the residence, at which time an individual armed with a civilian version of the military’s M-16 pointed his weapon at your chest from approximately seven meters away. He threatened to shoot you if you moved.” I lifted my brows. “Correct?”

“Correct.”

“In that summary, where is sloppy behavior indicated?”

He broke my gaze. “It isn’t.”

“Are you still frustrated?”

“I am,” he said. “It’s unwarranted. I’ll work on accepting it as being what it is.”

“Which is?”

“An event that I had very little, if any, control over.”

I sank into the comfort of my chair and mentally smiled. Now that we’d cleared that hurdle, I needed to convince him that the woman he killed was a threat.

His target, a woman with ties to ISIS, was in the process of recruiting like-minded radicals. Recent intelligence gathered through the testimony of an informant indicated that she purchased enough C-4 to blow the city of Dallas, Texas completely off the map. Upon receipt of the explosives, her intentions were to immediately distribute them to her extremist underlings.

Testimony of the informant wasn’t enough to obtain a grand jury indictment. In the absence of an indictment, an arrest couldn’t be made. Eliminating her prior to the delivery and distribution of the explosives was critical to the Nation’s safety.

I closed his folder. “Now that we’ve determined you acted in accordance with your training and had no control over the armed neighbor, explain how having a woman target made you feel.”

“Guilt. I’m used to that.” His gaze fell to the floor. “This time it’s different. I feel regret.” He looked up. “That’s what I’m struggling with. She seemed, I don’t know, like a typical housewife.”

“Does it trouble you that she looked like a housewife?”

“The housewife comment was an observation.” He lifted his brows and shook his head. “Until now, I’ve been convinced these assignments are securing the safety of this Nation. Feeling regret is a new thing for me. I don’t know that I like it.”

Vincent’s justification for completing his missions was derived by convincing himself the targets posed an imminent threat to the security or welfare of the Nation. The regret he felt made sense, as his justification was likely missing—typically, men didn’t feel threatened by women.

If we could agree that she was a threat, it would be the first step in minimizing his feelings of regret.

“None of your previous assignments were women,” I said. “None that I’m aware of.”

“That is correct.”

“If you were in combat, and encountered her in the streets of Fallujah, what would have been your reaction?”

“If she was armed?”

“Yes.”

“I would have eliminated her.”

“Without hesitation?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Why?”

“If she was armed, she would have been a threat. Elimination of the threat is paramount to my survival.”

“In this instance, she was armed with enough C-4 to blow Dallas off the map,” I reminded him. “She was a threat to this Nation’s security, and to the welfare of society.”

He nodded once. “Understood.”

“Did you have reservations about the assignment when it was given to you?”

“I did not.”

I knew what his response would be. Vincent had never questioned a mission, nor would he. He viewed his job as an extension of his military training. Completing the tasks assigned to him without reservation was one of the strengths noted in his file.

“Upon completing the assignment did you feel differently?” I asked.

He brushed the wrinkles from his tee shirt. “I need to think about it. This assignment isn’t as easy to accept as the others. Hopefully, in time, it’ll all make sense.”

“The brain’s lateral orbitofrontal cortex plays an important part in making moral decisions,” I explained. “Using MRI’s to measure the brain’s activity, studies have proven that killing an enemy soldier—a perceived threat—creates minimal activation of the cortex, while killing innocent civilians—not a threat—causes an influx of activity. That response in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex creates the feeling of guilt. To convince yourself that your actions were warranted, it’s critical that you see the woman as a threat.”

“I’ll give it some thought.”

“We can readdress it in your next visit,” I said. “If you like. In the interim, I’d like for you to think about the threat she posed. She was assembling a rather large terrorist cell on US soil.”

“I’ll chew on it. Let’s look at it the next time I visit.”

“Is there anything else that’s troubling you?” I asked. “That you need to discuss today?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Have you experienced any short-term memory loss?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Long-term?”

“Nothing we haven’t already discussed.”

“Suicidal thoughts?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Good.” I closed his folder. “I’ll see you on the fourteenth.”

He stood, swept the wrinkles from his clothes, and then met my gaze. “Do you think killing is always a sin?”

I was surprised it had taken him so long to ask the question. The subject was something I struggled with since my placement in the program. There wasn’t a clear-cut response I could give.

“I think it depends on the circumstances,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Under the right circumstances, do you think it can be forgiven?” he asked.

I had no idea what the answer was. To believe killing was a sin, and then alter that belief to support the actions of my employer was either hypocritical or a damned good job of justification.

Nevertheless, wars had been waged since the advent of sand, and I had a difficult time believing that the millions upon millions who had fought in them all committed an unforgivable sin.

Despite my inability to give a definitive response that I believed in, I needed to say something. Vincent maintaining a clear mind and a positive attitude was crucial to the program’s success.

“Yes, I believe it can—and will—be forgiven,” I responded.

He gave a nod and then turned away. “See you in two weeks. Doc.”

As he walked away, I hoped I was right.

For the sake of both of us.