His initial excitement had decreased with each moment waiting out front of a doctor’s office. And the less exciting his mission got, the deeper he retreated into his inner thoughts, an inner fantasy world populated only by him and Laurel. None of last night even seemed real. Especially now that he was back to work, sitting and wasting away in Ernesto’s car. It was typical of his work with DARC Ops, those few moments of excitement or terror mixed with long hours of sheer tedium. The more he fell back into the familiar rut of work, the more distant her memory became until it almost matched his fantasy world. There was certainly a dreamlike euphoria about how he and Laurel had finished off their night together. That in itself was a fantasy.

Matthias escaped deeper into his fantasy world as he felt himself drifting into sleep. He fought to keep his head from nodding against the side window. Maybe he should just close his eyes and meet Laurel there. Why not? What would be the harm in a brief little dream encounter? Ernesto could wake him when something finally happened in the real world, something worth waking for, like their target, Mr. Malloy, emerging from the doctor’s office and walking back to his car. Besides, he’d done his job. He listened to Ernesto’s debriefing. Now it was just waiting around, listening to his shitty music. And drifting... . . .

He drifted further, feeling heavy and warm and dark.

Thank God.

Finally. Fuck it, just let it happen.

He opened his eyes, but Laurel was nowhere in sight. He wasn’t even in Atlanta. Instead, it was D.C., that same familiar hospital that he’d dreamed about time and time again, that same haunting memory always gnawing at him.

Matthias was in the hallway again, on his back, screaming for help, closing his eyes and looking away as the barrel of a gun once again swung back in his direction.

His eyes opened again, but what he saw was a blurry smudge. He strained to focus on the moving light, the movement of the city around him, the car he was sitting in traveling down a busy, rain-soaked freeway.

“Wakey, wakey,” said Ernesto.

He was back with Ernesto. In the Impala. In Atlanta. He’d already forgotten the why and where of it. Were they following the politician?

“Come on Matthias, snap out of it.”

Matthias yawned and straightened up in his seat.

“There you go,” Ernesto said. “If I’m not allowed to sleep, then you sure as hell aren’t.”

“So did he leave the doctor’s? Are we following him?”

“You see that silver car right there?” Ernesto pointed up the road, about three cars ahead. “That’s our guy.”

“He’s out early,” said Matthias, yawning.

“No, you just slept for half an hour.”

He was surprised. It felt like a minute, lying there in the hospital, the worst minute of his life repeated. More than just the usual trauma of it, he found the flashbacks annoying now. More annoying than frightening. That was a good thing, he supposed. He’d already made steps to move on in his real life, with Laurel. Something new and beautiful and good. Why did his subconscious insist on dragging him back, kicking and screaming, to the pool of blood from which he’d been kicking and screaming for five months?

He imagined the calm, almost bored face of Dr. Smyth, saying his usual bit about Matthias needing patience. He needed to allow himself time to heal, actually having to relive the event, and reliving it properly, in order for him to finally get over the trauma. It was like a catch-22.

So fucking annoying . . .

He felt the anger sometimes, the self-hatred. It was frustrating. But he tried his best to wipe all that from his mind. He had to accept the fact that he, yet again, had another flashback. He dreamed of it again, no matter how badly he wanted to dream of Laurel instead.

“What do you need so much sleep for?” Ernesto asked. “You’ll just be sitting around all day, here, and then at Sentry headquarters.”

“That’s what makes me so tired, sitting around. It’s basically what you’re doing all day, sitting in this car.”

“Fourteen coffees, Matthias. Fourteen.”

“Is that what helps? I was maybe thinking a beer. A warm beer. Hair of the dog.”

“I don’t know,” Ernesto said. “I think just a single sip would put me to sleep. You hungover or something?”

Matthias thought for a minute. His thoughts were clear and un-fuzzy, his vision crisp, his tongue not coated with a fur-like film. He turned to Ernesto. “No, I feel great.”

They had followed their target off the freeway and into a semi-rural, industrial area. As the roads became increasingly quiet and bare, it gave them fewer and fewer options for blending into traffic. And when there was no traffic at all between them and the politician’s car, Ernesto’s only option was to drop back considerably and stay out of his mirrors. They creeped along, driving slowly past scrap yards, abandoned sheet metal warehouses, and huge mounds of old tires. Occasionally, Ernesto would stop the car at the side of the road to allow more of a gap. There was a careful balance to maintain: contact vs stealth.

Ernesto kept drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, impatiently waiting and lagging behind the lead vehicle. “We’re approaching an area known to be used by the Southern Dragons, a clubhouse of sorts.”

“Oh,” said Matthias. “Like a roadhouse?”

“No, some abandoned factory,” Ernesto said. “Nothing cool about it. It’s basically just some half-collapsed storage shed where people sometimes get killed. Think of it more like a slaughterhouse.”

It was pretty grim. But this was the reality of Matthias’ line of work, and the sad truth to what he was really supposed to be doing in Atlanta. Not banging hot bar chicks, but working hard to protect society while uncovering the evil just below its surface.

Evil today looked as mundane as a rusted sheet-metal box with garbage and old broken wood pallets strewn about. It looked like any other of the symbolic ruins of a nation’s de-industrialization, a place where Americans had lost their jobs—and now, perhaps, their lives, too.

“So,” Matthias said. “How long will we wait before you start falling asleep?”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret, about why you’re here.”

“What?”

“So you can wake me up when something happens.” Ernesto laughed at him. “Come on, man. I’ve been up all night.”

“I’m not your personal alarm clock. Besides, I don’t even know what the hell we’re doing here.”

“We’re just sitting in a car,” said Ernesto. “We’re waiting. You’ve never done that?”

Surveillance and tailing was one of his specialties, but Ernesto didn’t have to know about that right now.

“We’ll park next to that scrap pile right there so we can be out of the way.” Ernesto was pointing to an abandoned salvage yard. “And we’ll just watch the road and note who’s coming in and out. That’s it.”

“I’m not leaving this car,” Matthias said, leaning his head back.

“Well, aren’t you brave.”

“I would be if you gave me some warning. But even still, my gear isn’t even here yet.”

Matthias had been waiting for a shipment to arrive from Washington, his weapons, his armor, his tech toys. It would come along in a secured transport car, a special delivery. “Give me a few days at least, before we do any of the fun stuff.”

“Don’t worry,” Ernesto said. “This is probably as fun as it’s gonna get.” He stared out the window, a laughter building up inside of him. “I told you, it’s a real sleeper.”

“Yeah, I keep hearing that.”

It was said more often than it was true. So far, on his “vacation,” sleep was what Matthias had gotten the least of.

“The good stuff starts tonight,” Ernesto said. “I’ll be back out here after around midnight. Me and a few other agents will have listening devices. I don’t think I can take you along for that one.”

He wasn’t sure if he was upset about that or not. Would he really want to go if he had the chance?

“But you should really just focus on Sentry,” Ernesto said. “Do you know what you’re doing there today?”

“Just a meet-and-greet with the CEO,” said Matthias. “Get his opinion on things. Ask who he thinks the leak is.”

“Well, that hasn’t been proven. It’s just a suspicion we have.”

Matthias shrugged. “I’ll ask him. And then I’ll just snoop around, I guess. I’ll have access to everyone’s work and communication history.”

Ernesto started drumming on the wheel again, his knee bouncing slightly. “We actually have someone in mind.”

“The leak?”

“Yeah, but we want to see what you come up with first. Don’t want to influence your findings.”

“It could help, if I knew.”

“You will.”

A black SUV came to a crawling stop at their driveway. Ernesto was staring at it. It stopped their conversation dead.

“Who the hell is that?” Ernesto muttered.

They waited for something to happen, anything. A group of armed men to pour out of the SUV, or for it to leave a patch of rubber. But it just sat there, waiting, like them.

“Friends of yours?” Matthias asked.

“You mean, FBI?”

“Yeah.”

His drumming on the wheel had stopped. His knee was perfectly still. All Matthias could hear was the patter of rain on the car increasing as another storm cloud rolled overhead.

“You scared, Ernie?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Ernesto chuckled, but it came out tight and forced. “Are you?”

“No. Just checking. Anyway, if it was an ambush, they wouldn’t just be parked there like that.”

Ernesto grabbed his phone from the center console. “I might have to call this in.”

“Yeah,” Matthias said. “Call it in.”

Ernesto described the events to his commanding officer as Matthias settled into his seat, trying to breathe slowly and evenly. He wasn’t anxious, per se. Not even when they found out that the car didn’t belong to fellow FBI agents or other law enforcement officers. Especially when they were told to just sit tight and keep their eyes on the warehouse.

“I feel like an ass,” Ernesto said. “Calling in like that. It’s probably just a dumbfuck civilian motorist who took the wrong turn.”

“Or it’s someone who traced your whereabouts,” said Matthias. “What about that call, by the way? Aren’t you worried about that being hacked?”

“Our comms are secure,” Ernesto said without taking his eyes off the SUV. “It’s just this damn tracking system. Full of holes.”

“They should send you guys out in armored cars, then.”

“Well, with the way some of us have been targeted lately . . .”

The SUV suddenly lurched forward and drove off, away from the warehouse.

“There she goes,” said Matthias. “Feel better now?”

“Not exactly.”

“Me neither.”

“I feel more . . . I dunno, just that feeling like I’m being watched again. It was with me all last night.”

“I don’t know how you could do this by yourself.”

“Well, I think that’s going to stop now.” Ernesto’s knee began to bounce again. “Like I said, we’ve got a team coming up here tonight.”

“Should I talk to Jackson?”

“About what?”

“Well, I thought you needed my help. I thought that’s why I’m up here.”

“Yeah, you’re up here to deal with Sentry Systems.”

Matthias stared at him. There had to have been at least some discussion between Jackson and Ernesto about the PTSD, and the need for him to be eased back into work. He knew there would be an element of that through this assignment. But he didn’t need to be treated with kid gloves, or to be given cupcake assignments. Office work instead of field work. He’d rather stay home in D.C. than to suffer that indignity.

“Matthias, don’t worry about it. You’re helping.”

“Not by sitting in cars and in some cybersecurity cubicle. Come on, you know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” Ernesto said, eyes still peeled on the road.

“Helping, like how I used to help you back in Kandahar.”

“Oh, well, that. Yeah.” Now, instead of drumming, Ernesto’s fingers were peeling at bits of the seat fabric, lint or something. He’d always do that when he was uncomfortable, hands always working at something. Back in the day it would be his gun, constantly loading and reloading. “That was a long time ago,” Ernesto said, pulling his hands away from the seat. “A lot’s happened to both of us since then.”

“I was just thinking, you know, that maybe I need a challenge. Something more than this Sentry shit.”

A crack of lightning and its simultaneous thunder blasted through the car, causing the two men to jump, and then laugh about it.

“How about that?” Ernesto said. “Was that exciting enough for you?”

“I’m serious, though. I need to do something. I think I need something real.”

“This could get real, and fast. Even right now.”

“The ambush?”

“You never know.”

Matthias sighed, and then began wondering if there were any donuts left. Might as well do something.

“Matthias, you being here is a real help, even if you don’t think it is.”

He nodded, looking at his friend. There wasn’t really anything more to say to him, except for “Thanks.”

But there was another loud sound, another startling jolt. Not thunder, but something hard and heavy hitting the car with an incredible velocity.

“Incoming!” cried Matthias.

“What the fuck is that?!”

“Take cover!”

Matthias knew that sound. Live rounds hitting against, and into, the sheet metal of their car.

His heart was already racing, his body instantly taking cover by hunching over and diving down to the floor. He laid there in a jumbled heap as the incoming rounds thudded against the car.

“Get down!” he cried at Ernesto. “Take cover!” But from what Matthias could see—mainly just an inch of his friend’s leg through the gap between the center console—Ernesto wasn’t moving.

Fuck.

Was he hit?

“Ernie?”

No answer. Matthias could see Ernesto’s leg twitching. Shaking.

“Ernie!”

And then the sound of laughter coming from the driver’s seat, the car shaking with it now. A laughter so loud that it overshadowed the sound of heavy artillery turning their car into Swiss cheese.

“Ernie, what the fuck?!”

His heart was still racing, but at least he—and somehow the car—was still in one piece. And from that little piece of information, that he and Ernesto were still alive, Matthias could grasp tighter and tighter onto reality and drag himself up from the depths of complete hysteria. And also from the donut-crumbed floor mat, Matthias crawled back up onto the seat, still trembling, but now, finally, joining in on the laughter.

“Good thing the car is lined with super strong armor plating,” Ernesto was finally able to spit out as he wiped tears from his eyes. “It’s strong enough to block little balls of ice.” He laughed even harder, almost choking with it.

Matthias couldn’t do anything but laugh, looking away, out the window to a field of golf-ball-sized chunks of hail.