Alone in the elevator, Jackson explained the plan. He held out that same device he’d used back in Raleigh, the screen showing a framework of the neighborhood, the physical structures as well as its wireless networks. It reminded Jasper of some early computer game where the world was mapped out in three-dimensional outlines and boxes. They could see their own position, their own dot, moving in the 3D world as the elevator cruised down toward the lobby. And then Jackson pointed out another dot. “That’s him.”

“Our listener?”

“He hacked his way into our conversation. It took a bit of work on his end, so, it’s not just some random, curious observer.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“Someone who knew about us coming to Washington. Look at how they followed us across the street. How’d they know we’d have to move?”

“Maybe they were behind the security alert? The bomb scare or whatever that was?”

“Maybe. The Saudi Embassy isn’t exactly a piece of cake to infiltrate.” Jackson sighed. “The Watergate, on the other hand . . .”

The elevator slowed to a stop on the lobby level. It was a bit surprising no one else had walked in.

“So, we’re just gonna walk up to this person?” asked Jasper.

“Yeah. Just have a little chat. That’s all. You're strapped, aren’t you?”

“I thought we’re just going to chat.”

“Well, they might not feel like talking.” Jackson reached around, feeling something at his hip. “Oh, speaking of which. Let’s check in with our friends.” He clicked on a radio and they heard the continuation of the meeting they’d just escaped from. It sounded like more of the same, Clarence and the Saudis exchanging veiled insults while Mr. West tried unsuccessfully to intervene, his little tinny voice barely audible through the laptop and through the phone.

“Listen to them go at it,” said Jackson. “We might not even have a mission if they keep this up.”

“I’d almost rather we didn’t.”

“Yeah? You got better stuff to do?”

Jasper thought of his brother Kyle. A visit there was long overdue. Maybe he could find an excuse to call Kyle’s wife, check up on him.

“Yeah, I know,” said Jackson, a hint of sincerity to his voice. “I hear you.”

As they walked out of the lobby, Jackson called in to his operatives back at the DARC Ops headquarters. He was requesting a tail, someone to follow someone’s car.

“How do you know it’s a car?” asked Jasper.

“I’m guessing it’s a van. As we walked over here, I noticed this white moving van parked in the service alley.”

“Washington probably has a million of those.”

Jackson laughed. “Don’t you watch the news? Ninety percent of the time it’s some guy parked in a van. A white van. I don’t know why.”

They walked out of the front entrance, by a whole gaggle of smokers, and around the corner toward the rear of the building. Sure enough, a white van was parked next to a Dumpster by the loading docks. And sure enough, it was the source of the hacker.

Jasper took one last look at the glowing dot on Jackson’s screen before he pocketed the device and instead drew a small flashlight. Just your every day typical security guard with a flashlight.

It was their standard plan. Approach the van like a security guard, to ask for ID and credentials. But the real goal was to get close enough to attach a tracking device on the van. Maybe even on the person inside if they were cooperative enough.

Jasper hung back, by the rear of the van, recording its plate to memory and then watching Jackson approach the driver’s side window, carefully, slowly, hand at his hip holster, the other hand pointing a flashlight inside the car.

“Excuse me, uh, can I get you guys to move?” Jackson said with the casualness of a bored security guard. “We’ve got a courier who needs to access the—”

There was a small explosion in the front cab of the van, a flash of light in the mirror and against the dirty floor of the alley. And then Jackson was down on the ground, scrambling on all fours, crawling to cover. Jasper had his gun drawn and begun firing through the rear of the van, hoping to get a piece of the driver through the sheet metal. The van’s brake lights flickered on as the engine started. Jackson had regained his footing and started returning fire as the van suddenly lurched backward. Jasper ducked away just in time.

More fire rang out, a simultaneous volley from Jasper and the driver as the van sped by in reverse. He was shooting blindly, close enough to feel the muzzle blasts of his opponent’s gun— instantaneous, reactionary, and not always well-aimed. Not a type of shooting he’d usually find himself using, the normally organized and methodical tactician.

“Take cover,” Jackson yelled.

But Jasper stayed out, wanting to take advantage of his open shot through the front windshield. He stayed out while bullets slipped through the air around him, the hot rounds cracking and ricocheting off the metal Dumpster behind him. He kept firing, feeling quite rusty, just like someone who’d spent too much time at Fort Bragg, someone who’d become soft with the real deal.

Between Jasper’s shots, he could hear the quieter shots of his enemy, shooting from farther and farther away as the van sped backward. And then came another sound, the van’s tires screeching and then an explosion of metal. It had backed up into a police car that had tried blocking the lane.

He had to aim carefully now, aware of friendlies in the background, the driver of the police cruiser coming around the front of his vehicle, crouching with his gun resting on the hood. Jackson had joined him, taking carefully aimed shots through a windshield marked with white circles.

And then he felt Jackson grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him down behind a Dumpster. “Are you crazy?” he yelled.

Yes, he was crazy. He felt crazy. Crouching behind a great hunk of metal wasn’t the smartest place to hide, but there weren’t many options in the alley and it was better than getting a couple of new bullet holes.

From behind the Dumpster, they could hear the van’s engine revving up, its tires squealing louder. Jasper peeked above the metal lid and saw the headlights and the grill speeding right for him. There were shots coming from behind the van now, from a gathering of police cars, the lights of the muzzles and the cars flashing wild. Their voices panicked and crazed. And through the frosted, cracked, bullet-riddled windshield, Jasper could see movement. And then more flashes of light as the van aimed for their Dumpster.

Jasper took shelter behind the solid metal, his gaze meeting Jackson’s for a split second. It was long enough to see the strain on his friend’s face. It was something he’d never wanted to see. Jackson was finally terrified about something.

There wasn’t time for one last awkward hug, or “I love you, Man,” or any other cheesy sentimentality that would have actually been quite fitting. Nor was there was any time for Jasper to think of his life in retrospect. They always said it flashed before your eyes, as if time stopped long enough for a hyper-condensed biopic to flash before your eyes. In this case, huddled behind a Dumpster, Jasper’s biopic got as far as Omaha, Nebraska, his childhood home, before it ended with the Dumpster smashing into his body.

Flying through the air, he seemed to have a little more time to put things into perspective. And to try again at running that film reel of his life through his mind. A happy, normal childhood—even boring, perhaps. And then that strong adolescent yearning for a purposeful life, be it music or military honor. He wanted to do great things, to enact great causes. And perhaps die for them. But never did he suspect it would happen on US soil, crushed under a filthy Dumpster of old, half-eaten, half-rotting banquet food.

* * *

He woke in darkness. Crushed. In between the hard weight of two solid objects, his body jumbled in a heap. He was on his side, most of his weight on an arm that felt bent back in the wrong direction, and perhaps bent in more places than one. His whole side felt destroyed, the pain already radiating up to his shoulder.

Shouldn’t there have been some brief period of painlessness? That numbness set in from the adrenaline? He was that unlucky to not experience the phenomenon?

And how long had he been ignoring the voices? He was suddenly flooded with babbling nonsense, from what he hoped were rescuers, showering him from above with unintelligible phrases that at least sounded like they were caring and helpful. But it was too dark to see anyone’s faces.

He called out to Jackson. And a hand appeared, grasping his shoulder—his good shoulder—squeezing it, patting it. And then a voice, a reassuring, reaffirming voice.

“Hold still, Buddy.”

They kept asking if he was okay.

Was he?

They asked him where it hurt.

His arm. Badly.

And then Jackson asked him to hold still again.

“Come on, Buddy. Just try to relax and wait. They have to haul away the car first.”

Jasper could only blink at the words, mouth agape, head throbbing.

“You’re pinned between the Dumpster and the hotel. They have to tow back the car, and the Dumpster, and then we’ll get you out of here.”

“What the fuck happened?” asked Jasper. There were brief spurts of memory, of firing into the passenger window of a van as it drove past. Of police sirens and screeching tires. Hard metal.

“Just hold still, Jasper. Stop trying to get up.”

He should have known better. For a lot of reasons. But right now, he wanted nothing more than to get up and get out of whatever God-forsaken hole he was trapped in. If he were on the scene as a medic, and not as a broken and disoriented victim, he’d be the one offering the calm instructions, the pointless platitudes—hold still, and help’s on the way. It was almost a little annoying to hear Jackson doing all this instead. How did he get out of this so unscathed? The whole thing had been his damned idea.

“Where are they?” Jasper tried asking. “Did the . . . ? Did they . . . ?”

“Single driver,” said Jackson. “I have no idea who he is. But he’s dead.”

Looking between legs, Jasper could see a bloody mound of clothing along the ground. It was hard to make out the details, the shape and direction of the body. There was an exposed hand, shining red with blood. He looked down at his own hands—they were bloodless. As was most of his skin, and his clothing. His arm felt horrible, and he was a little banged up. But he was alive.

He started to feel that rush that would usually come on after a firefight, or some near-death experience. A rush of energy. And when the Dumpster was pulled back and he had room to move, the first thing he did was shoot up onto his feet, to the amazement of the crowd.

There was also a hushed concern, voices telling him to “take it easy,” and “slow down.”

No fucking way. In fact, he would just take care of his arm, right then and there.

“Hey,” called Jackson. “What the hell are you doing?”

Jasper was trying to grab hold of his elbow a certain way, at just the right spot. “Can you get something for my mouth?” he asked Jackson.

“Something for your mouth?”

“To bite down on.”

“Fuck no.” Jackson rushed forward to stop his medical work. “You’re not doing that here. And not by yourself.”

He’d done it to himself plenty of times in the past, even outside of military accidents. It would come in handy when taking a big fall while alone, when he was out hiking or mountain biking, and when the only option for survival was to return home under his own power. He’d slide a stick between his teeth, bite down as hard and long as it took him, and then pop the joint back in place. Just pop that sucker back in. Just do it and be done with it. It didn’t hurt too badly. Not afterward, anyway.

“Jasper, just wait,” said Jackson. “Just take a seat and let’s go over some things before the ambulance gets here.”

“Alright, fine,” said Jasper, then he reached around and popped his shoulder back into place with an intense growl that seemed to startle the onlookers.

“Fuck,” said Jackson.

“Sorry,” Jasper said breathlessly. “Had to.”

It didn’t feel any better yet. But at least it was back in its rightful spot.

“Don’t you want to wait for an X-ray?”

“What good’s an X-ray? I know my shoulder was dislocated. I don’t need an X-ray.” He tried moving his wrist, but it was too painful. “I’ll leave everything else for later, though.” He looked back down at his wrist. The way it had already swelled, it was most likely broken. His elbow, too; it was more than a little sore. Fractured, perhaps.

The crowd that had gathered around him after the Dumpster was removed seemed shocked by not only his shoulder popping, but the fact that he was coherent and on foot. He was in pain, of course, from his hip and his leg and his back, but it was superficial pain. Light damage. Nothing like what the driver had absorbed.

“Well, I guess you found your guy,” Jasper motioned at the bloody lump on the ground. He joined Jackson, sitting on the bumper of a police cruiser, watching for the ambulance.

“My guy?”

“Your hacker.”

“Maybe. But I’m guessing he was doing a lot more than hacking.”

They dropped the topic as a team of paramedics rushed in. They asked him the usual questions. Had he hit his head? What name? What city? State? Date?

Jasper wanted to talk his way out of all that, out of the preliminaries, the vitals checks. He knew he was fine. He could feel it.

But they were professionals. They insisted.

And he played along. Fine, fine.

They also insisted he ride along with them to the hospital. Maybe he’d get a CT scan.

Why the hell not? It wasn’t like he had anything else to do.

He stood, ready to refuse transport, when his legs almost went out from under him, causing Jackson to grab his arm and haul him up, complete with another string of cursing. Maybe it was about time he experienced things from the other side of the stethoscope, Stateside, anyway. He could consider it like a vacation.