Good. I need him too.
27
Cole can’t stand the sight of Colorado from the air. It’s not the altitude that gets to him; it’s the state.
He’s never been a nervous flyer. One of his favorite pastimes is gazing out the window as he slices the clouds. But no matter how high up he is, Colorado’s mountainous folds always seem ready to swallow whatever plane he’s in, disappearing him forever. As the rented Gulfstream descends toward Eagle County Regional Airport, he feels like they’re about to land on a stormy sea of conifers and snow and he might need to reach for a life vest at any minute.
He doesn’t need a psychiatrist to interpret these feelings.
Colorado is where he suffered life-changing wounds; Colorado is where his father’s plan for healing those wounds only made them worse. Not just Colorado, but Stonecut Ridge, the ranch his father built to put him back together again.
It’s too far from San Diego to get there by helicopter, so this two-and-a-half-hour flight has been the longest period of time Cole’s spent with his new security director since hiring the guy. They’ve only exchanged a few words. That’s a good thing.
Exchanging words with Scott Durham would require that Cole occasionally look at him, and right now Cole can’t stand to look at the guy because, despite Cole’s best efforts, Scott Durham is most definitely something to look at. And that’s annoying. He really did make every effort to pick Ed’s replacement based on qualifications alone, but of course, the most qualified candidate walked into his office looking like a fitness model.
But Durham’s most important selling point was the small string of letters in his personnel file that only Cole, and previously Ed, would have been able to interpret. EFLEVAL5, an abbreviation for Excellent Flight Evaluation Rating 5, code for some very important facts. Not only had Scott Durham done a fine job working security for Project Bluebird 1.0, escorting the test subjects to the island lab (and asking no questions when none were escorted back) and securing the facility itself. He’d also passed his postpsychiatric evaluations with flying colors. Cole couldn’t say that for all the men who worked security for Bluebird. One guy had been so disturbed by what became of the second test subject, they’d had to enter him into treatment and then gently retire him with a nice benefits package.
On paper, Scott Durham was the only man for the job.
“How many are coming to meet us?” Cole asks.
Scott lowers his tablet. For most of the flight, he’s been swiping through schematics of Stonecut Ridge and topographical maps of the surrounding landscape, occasionally watching live feeds from the microdrones that regularly sweep the property from several hundred feet up.
“Two SUVs. If I’m reading this right, that takes a third of the ranch’s security away from the ranch. For a little while, at least. Are you comfortable with that?”
“The security team probably looks light to you,” Cole explains, “because there’s something else in place that’s going to keep him from running. And it’s invisible.”
“His TruGlass?”
“No, that’s just for monitoring. He’s got blood trackers. They’re weaponized.”
“Does he know this?”
“No,” Cole answers.
“Do they give him a warning if he tries to run?” Scott asks.
“Yes, and it’s painful.”
“I’m not seeing anything in the ranch logs about an escape.”
“There hasn’t been one.”
“So he hasn’t . . . felt the burn yet, if you will.” Scott’s smile is slight, but there’s mischief in it, and a hint of sadism. The guy must have already read Ed’s written account of everything that’s happened since Noah Turlington, who was then going by the name Dylan Thorpe, met a woman who’d recently changed her name to Charlotte Rowe. So Scott wouldn’t mind seeing Noah Turlington punished for some of the sins he committed as Dylan Thorpe; that’s a good sign, Cole thinks.
“There’s something that keeps coming up in the logs,” Scott says. “I apologize if it’s not worth mentioning, but it’s so frequent I—”
“Go ahead.”
“He wants to shave,” Scott says. “After he puts his TruGlass in every morning and does his mirror confirmation, he writes out a different note for us. Some are funny. Some are angry. But the subject’s always the same.”
Cole remembers the debauched sight Noah treated all of them to when Julia first insisted he wear her prized invention at all times. He wonders if Scott would think that was funny, too.
“Shaving,” Cole says.
Scott nods. “We could let him if you wanted. I mean, it’s doubtful our guys would get taken out by a Gillette. Also we could give him an electric razor. No blade.”
“I don’t want him shaving,” Cole says before he can stop himself.
I don’t want him looking anything like the man who used to reward me with deep, passionate kisses right after he inflicted just the right amount of pain.
“He’s learning to go without some things,” Cole says. “It’s good for him.”
The plane touches down on the runway with a brief jolt.
When their feet meet the tarmac, Scott’s right next to him, Secret Service–style, a definite change of pace from Ed. The man’s over six feet tall, rare for someone with a special operations background. When it comes to Navy SEALs in particular, shorter guys have an easier time making it through BUD/S. It’s all about endurance; six feet or more of man requires a lot of oxygen and blood to endure the hardships of running miles in thick sand and treading cold water for hours on end, more than is required by a guy in the five-foot range.