He woke up with grass in his face, the sharp, freshly cut tips stabbing jagged pieces into him like tiny little daggers. On his lips were the faint taste of dirt and about half a bottle of dark spiced rum. His hair and clothes were damp from the late-night dew and the sweating out of booze.

It had happened again.

And what really disturbed him was how unsurprising it all was. He almost expected to meet his sunrises that way, waking up in some random corner of his backyard. Waking up in a tired heap of numb limbs and fuzzy memories.

He could remember the start. He’d ended his day with another binge session, and then wandered outside from some fresh air, to look at the stars, to lie against the ground. Where it was safe. That was his anchor, his rock. The cold earth that he’d clung to during firefights, or hunkered down into for a few hours of sleep in the midst of some campaign. It was a place to hide. To reset. And it provided a comfort that beds rarely touched. Lately, the only comfort he got from a bed was when it was shared with another one of his new lady friends. And even that comfort had begun to wear off, until it had become as empty a comfort as the cracked seal of another fifth of rum.

The two comforts usually came together, a pair of bad choices that left him waking up with strangers in strange places. Who was it that night? What new friend had he made who was only interested in his body and the expensive clothing, cologne, and cars that it hid behind? Was it anyone he knew?

No. Not that night.

He remembered that night.

He’d settled for just one comfort, a most miserable solitary of comforts. His head certainly felt that way, its dull ache pinning him to the ground. He knew it would hurt to move, that even the slightest of head movements would trigger the beginnings of a debilitating migraine. Even just the simple turn of his head to see where he lay in position to his house, turning slowly and evenly, would trigger it. He decided to listen, instead, with his good ear pointed toward the street, toward familiar sounds. He could geolocate himself by his proximity to the droning sound of the pool filter and the whooshing sound of his house’s air-conditioning unit.

But there was something else. Something new. He was trained to notice these things, the changes, slight deviations from the norm that meant the presence of an unfriendly. Tonight it came in the form of an odd-sounding thud. The sound of boots—and the weight of a man inside of them—falling onto the narrow strip of concrete between the side of his garage and privacy fence. He knew just where. He could see it in his mind.

That specific type of thud, the sound of someone scaling and jumping down from a fence, had a distinct sound signature. Jackson knew that thud, and how to mask it. But the person who’d just jumped onto his property likely didn’t have his Navy SEAL training. It was a relief. He’d much rather deal with a petty thief than an expert. If it was someone good enough, someone who’d been sent to assassinate him, he wouldn’t have heard a thing.

Jackson silently lifted himself off the ground, ignoring the headache completely. It was as if he was sober now, fully alert and healthy, the adrenaline and endorphins beginning to rush through his body. He mobilized toward the threat, his brain going still and quiet in a tight, focused concentration; his body creeping silently across the yard like a lion approaching its prey. He turned his good ear toward the garage, listening to another familiar sound: a screen being peeled off a window frame, then falling to the ground in bouncing clatter.

It was amateur hour.

And he was slightly relieved. He wasn’t armed in any way except for his close-quarters combat skills. And as long as the intruder didn’t have a gun, the take-down would be easy. He’d done many of those in the past, just never protecting his own house.

When he opened the gate to the walkway between the garage and fence, he saw the screen frame lying bent on the ground, and above that, the almost comical sight of two legs sticking out horizontally from the garage window. The legs were kicking slightly, as if their body had been squirming its way inside. Jackson figured he would beat him to it, waving a remote sensor on his keychain to unlock the side door, and then, ever so carefully, creeping into the darkness of the garage.

Inside, he had a split second to decide which, if any, tools he’d like to use from the tool bench. Ball peen hammer? Big, heavy file? A bungee cord that could be wrapped around the guy’s neck until he went to sleep? There were more effective tools, too, like knives. But there was no need to be overly effective, especially if it was just some kid, a crack addict looking for change in the car’s cup holders. All that would require was a little scare. A reminder not to come back.

The intruder, who looked to be medium build, if not skinny, dropped through the darkness from the window down to the floor of the garage, and straight into Jackson’s arms. It would’ve been funny had it not been a home invasion, the kid screaming in fear as Jackson tightened the bungee cord around his throat, holding the intruder’s back up against Jackson’s chest, lifting him kicking and squirming off the ground so that the cord caught his full weight. His hands went immediately to the cord, clawing uselessly, and then to Jackson’s hands, his face, all while the garage filled with the gagging, choking sounds of the young man’s struggle for air.

“Do I know you?” Jackson asked as he twisted him to the ground, pinning him with his knee. “Do I know you!?”

“No,” he rasped.

Jackson dropped the bungee cord, holding the other man to the ground. “You came to the wrong house. Didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said, an arc of moonlight spilling in through the window and gleaming the whites of his eyes. He was young. He was scared.

“What do you want?” Jackson asked.

The kid tried to lurch out of his grasp, but Jackson just pinned him down harder with his knee, more of his weight now on an almost concave chest.

“Trying to rob me? What do you want? Money? What?”

The kid struggled to say something, and then struggled harder to break free again, but it was totally useless. He had the strength of a child. But this child kept on reaching for something in his waistband and suddenly a twinge of danger raced up Jackson’s spine. His blood rushed and thumped in his ears, his movements quicker and harder now, slapping away the kid’s hand and holding it hard against the ground, by the wrist, crushing it. The kid yelped, but it was overshadowed by the sound of metal skittering across the concrete floor of the garage, just out of the kid’s reach.

It was a fucking gun, knocked loose by the struggle and his attempt to reach for it. Jackson didn’t feel quite as sorry for the little punk now. He slammed the crown of his head hard against the kid’s face in the struggle. There was a sickening popping sound, and then the flowing of a warm wetness around Jackson’s hands as he held his face down.

“You little shit . . .”

Jackson retrieved the gun, a Glock, the feeling of the grip sending him into another fit of rage. He held it, the barrel pointed at the kid. “I told you, you picked the wrong house, you little fuck.”

Under his body he felt the kid’s chest rise and fall in quick panting, the only sign that he was still alive. Everything else, his will to fight and to struggle, had melted away into a sad little puddle of human underneath Jackson’s weight. And then he finally said it, the weak words coming out half-whispered and scared, “I’m sorry . . .”

“You’re sorry?”

“. . .I’m sorry . . .”

“Because I caught you and beat your ass?” Jackson stuck the muzzle of the gun up against his forehead. “You’re lucky I don’t empty this clip in your head right now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”

Jackson laughed. He wouldn’t make it that easy.

He pushed the gun barrel to the punk’s head, squeezing him against the concrete until he heard another yelp. And then he let go, rising to his feet and backing away several steps, the gun still firmly aimed at the dark shape of intruder.

“Get up,” Jackson said. “Now.”

The shape didn’t move.

So the swift kick in the ribs was not only necessary but effective, starting the slow process of the intruder rolling over onto his knees, his hands feeling at his face, his groaning music to Jackson’s ears.

“Get up!”

He was finally standing, a little wobbly but upright and ready to follow Jackson’s commands.

“Stay right there.”

When he clicked on the light, he was surprised at the blood. And how young the kid appeared to be.

He almost felt badly about the whole bungee cord business.

But then he remembered the gun, and how things could have easily been the other way around—how it could have been his own blood spilled onto the floor, his life draining away as some punk ran away with a just few hundred dollars to show for it.

“You fucking asshole,” Jackson muttered. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” he said, wiping the blood away from his mouth.

“Fucking nineteen . . .” Without looking, Jackson reached a hand behind him to the workbench table, sliding it into a canvas shopping bag. “That’s old enough to do time. Big-boy time.”

He spat blood, the gob landing with a wet, smacking sound. He spat right in Jackson’s fucking garage.

“Do that again and I’ll break your jaw. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jackson pulled out another useful tool from his bag, a gun much different than the one he’d just snatched from the intruder. He held it behind his back and said, “Alright, now come with me out back. There’s something I want to show you.”

Jackson walked him out of the garage at gunpoint, carefully watching for any sudden movements, any desperate attempts to do anything stupid. But now that he had his gun—the real one—the Glock was more of a prop now. He wouldn’t shoot if his captive tried running away. Maybe not even if he’d actually come after Jackson. There was such a difference in size and strength—let alone skill—that made the gun more than a little unnecessary. Especially with how badly the kid had already been busted up. There couldn’t have been much fight left. But Jackson knew enough about wounded bears than to get lackadaisical.

He marched him out through the door and then past the gate until they were both in the backyard.

“What do you want?” he asked Jackson without turning around.

“Just keep your hands on your head.” Jackson said, walking backward toward the house. “And keep your eyes off me.”

The shovel head, when he pulled it out of a wheelbarrow of crushed stone, made a metal scraping sound that carried through the clean night and echoed off his wooden fences. It also made the kid turn around.

“Hey.”

His face—where it wasn’t smeared in blood—was white with fear. Eyes wide and staring at the shovel.

“I said keep your eyes off me.”

He turned away from Jackson, holding his head down, and then shaking his head, muttering something. “I’m sorry, man, I’m sorry . . .”

“I know,” said Jackson. “Of course you’re sorry. That’s not what I’m confused about.”

“What do you want?”

“Well, kid, it’s pretty simple.” He walked up to him, dragging the shovel head along the damp grass. “I want you to cooperate.”

“I am.”

“And I want to know something.”

“What?!”

“Who sent you?”

The kid started speaking but then stammered over his words. He shook his head again, giving up with the effort.

“Who sent you? I know it’s not your idea. You’ve got nothing to do with this. You’re just a little fish. You’re expendable.”

“No one sent me.”

It was an idea that had been gnawing away at Jackson more and more every day: that he was being watched, being followed. Whether it was an alcohol-fueled paranoia or just the reality of what black ops soldiers lived through after their return to “normal” life, the feeling was real. And the anxiety was real.

And this fucking kid was real. Him and his gun.

In Jackson’s time with the SEALs, he’d made a lot of powerful enemies. And while most of them were foreign, like Nicaraguan drug kingpins or Middle-Eastern warlords, there was still an element of mistrust he’d felt even from high up on his own chain of command. His own leadership. It was like the snake eating its own tail, what happened when someone like him was no longer useful. Especially after an injury like his. God damn it. He felt like a broken-legged racehorse just waiting around for the bullet.

It was a sad and horrifying truth that no new recruit would ever believe. Even in the thick of it, while still performing his deadly secret missions, he’d felt so valuable. So integral to the entire system.

But it was a beast system. A quasi-legal and sometimes definitely unethical one. And sometimes the ends justified the means.

He’d heard the stories of other veterans reaching some mysterious, gory end, long after they’d returned safely home. Improbable suicides. Cars with brake trouble. He’d always tried keeping it in the back of his mind. But when something like this comes up, like when he’d catch someone following him or staking out his house, or fucking breaking in his garage in the middle of the night, then things like assassination suddenly become very, and sadly, believable.

Of course, the alcohol didn’t help. He’d been going steady for almost a month, his brain rewiring itself to believe with more and more certainty in these dark conspiracies, the dread of being gunned down by his own people.

How far he’d fallen . . .

Fuck, he needed help.

Jackson dropped the shovel and picked up the half bottle of rum that was waiting for him on the grass, the latest friend he’d spent the night with. The escape and cause of these mounting problems, physical and psychological. The shaky hands in the morning. The clouded judgment. The paranoia.

Fuck it.

He took a swig.

And the warm medicine steadied him, helped him refocus on the task at hand.

“Listen kid . . . I believe you.”

“No one sent me. I’m just . . . I’m . . .”

“I know,” said Jackson, taking another swig and then capping and tossing down the bottle.

“I’m just a fuck-up. I swear.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” Jackson picked up the shovel again, sticking the head into the ground so that the kid could hear. “But you will be in a minute.”

“What?”

“Listen, I’m crazy. Okay?”

“Huh?”

“I’m sick, and I’m crazy. That’s why you made a mistake coming here. I don’t have anything to lose.”

“What do you mean?”

“And if you don’t do exactly what say, then I’ll just shoot you in the fucking head. Got it?”

The kid could barely stand now, his legs wobbling uncontrollably, his head turning from side to side as if to fight off the reality of it, to shake it all away. Or to look for an escape. But Jackson was right there, behind him, approaching with a shovel.

“No,” the kid whimpered.

“No? You won’t do what I say?”

“Don’t shoot. Please.”

“Then take this shovel and start digging.” Jackson tossed it to the ground in front of the kid. “Go ahead.”

The kid tried turning around to face him.

“Don’t turn around.”

He stopped.

“Just pick it up and start digging.”

“Where?” he asked.

“Right in front of you.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

Slowly, shakily, he bent down and picked up the shovel. It looked heavy in his weak, unsteady hands.

“Go ahead,” Jackson said, “Just start digging. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

His shoulders were shaking now, like he was crying.

“Go ahead, tough guy, get started.”

He stuck the shovel into the ground, and then just let it sit there.

“Trust me, this is better than me calling the cops. You don’t want that, right?”

He might have actually wanted that, preferring the cops to whatever Jackson had planned for this new hole in his backyard. Whatever he’d planned to fill it in with.

The kid finally, awkwardly, put his sneaker onto the shovel’s shoulder. He tried to stand on it, to force his weight onto it, but his foot slipped off and he stumbled. He seemed so weak and disoriented. Jackson watched him struggle.

“That’s it,” Jackson said, watching him finally start digging with some success. It began slowly at first, halfhearted stabs into the dirt with only minimal amounts of it coming up and getting tossed onto a pile. Jackson figured he could use some advice.

“You want a tip? Cut a rectangle into the grass, and then you can just peel it all back like a carpet.”

Jackson had dug holes before. For all kinds of reasons and all kinds of burials. And he knew how to do it quickly and efficiently. Here, he watched the kid work with a lot less zeal and confidence, struggling to rip up a little rectangular section of Jackson’s lush green lawn.

“That-a-boy,” Jackson said after he’d returned to digging in the freshly exposed soil rectangle.

The kid took a moment to wipe the sweat, or blood, off his face, and then said, “Can I ask what this is for?”

“No.”

He went back to digging without much more protests, working more evenly now, and with a tempo. He’d gone from robber to landscaper, all with minimal coaching and gun threats. Jackson had even relaxed his grip on the Glock, too, realizing that the kid’s will had been broken a long time ago. He was just a worker now. A slave indebted to him, though still probably scared for his life—as he should be.

After he’d made it down a few feet, Jackson told him to stop digging and to toss away the shovel.

“Can I go now?”

“Not yet,” Jackson said, approaching him. “One last thing. Get on your knees and keep looking away from me. Look down in the hole.”

The kid turned around to face him, tears streaming down his dirty, bloodied face. The morning sky had begun to lighten up and he could see the youth and the fear on his face.

“I said turn around,” Jackson said, waving the gun at him.

“Please, sir. I’m sorry.”

“I know you are. It’s okay.”

He put his hands together. “Don’t kill me. Please.”

“Okay. Just turn around.”

He turned around and then dropped to his knees.

Jackson approached, now with two guns in his hands. He pointed the gun from the bag, not the Glock, against the kid’s quivering, shaking shoulder blade. He was full-on crying now, begging for his life. Jackson held it to him firmly. And then he pulled the trigger.

There was a loud snap as the RFID tracking chip was implanted in the intruder’s shoulder. And he was scrambling away on his knees, crawling away from Jackson and his chip gun, crying loudly. “What the fuck? What the fuck, man?”

“Relax, you’re okay.”

“What the fuck was that?”

“I put a tracking device in you.”

“What!?”

“I don’t know who you work for, but I don’t want you around here anymore. I’ll be able to see you, where you are at all times.”

He was lying on the grass, on his side, his hand massaging where the chip had been inserted. “Ow, fuck. Man, that hurt.”

“Better than a bullet.”

“What the fuck . . .”

“And better than the cops.”

“Can I go?”

“And don’t come back.”

Jackson walked him out of the yard, the walk turning into a jog, the kid having to reach back and hold up his pants as he limped out of the yard and down the walkway, past the busted-up screen window, through another gate, and then onto the road where Jackson watched him hobble away toward the faint early light of a sunrise.

It was looking to be a beautiful day.

It hadn’t started that way for Jackson, with the intruder, and with the sad task he had to carry out early this morning. But at least he’d made it alive to see another sunrise. He wasn’t gunned down in his garage by some punk.

Returning to his backyard, Jackson oversaw the punk’s handiwork, the six-by-nine grave he’d just dug into his yard. It wasn’t a bad job. It looked big enough. Jackson let out his breath, holding back any threatening emotions, pulled out his phone, and called Jasper.