The Eye of Shiva

CHAPTER 26

Nick lay between crisp, white sheets in a hospital bed on Clark Air Force Base. His body was covered with bruises. He had a relentless headache that sent spots dancing before his eyes. His old wounds ached with dull, throbbing pain that clawed deep into his body.

Pointless. The word echoed in his mind.

The embassy was in ruins. Most of the hostages were dead. The American ambassador was dead. All of the terrorists were dead. Ronnie was fighting for his life. And for what? What had any of it accomplished?

He'd gone over what had happened again and again. Each time he came to the same conclusion, but it didn't help. There was nothing else he could have done. There wasn't any other way to get to that ballroom. There wasn't any way to rescue the hostages without getting in a firefight. It felt as though a relentless, dark force had wrapped itself around him like a cloud.

You should have shot the man with the pistol first. It's your fault.

He told himself the feeling would pass, that in a day or two things would seem almost normal.

It wasn't the first time he'd told himself that. It was a familiar, inner lie.

Pointless.

He'd spent his adult life telling himself that what he did had a purpose. That it made a difference. He'd taken an oath to defend his country. He'd honored that oath, even when there were times it seemed to him his country was wrong. It was a matter of integrity, of honor. Now it had all brought him here, to a hospital bed far from home.

He'd been lying in a hospital bed when Harker offered him a job with the Project. He'd thought it would be different. A new start. A better way to serve his country. But it was the same old story. It was like the game where you hit a target with a hammer and a new one popped up on another part of the board. There was always another target to hit. No matter what he did, no matter where he went, there was always another enemy ready to take the place of the last one. There would always be another enemy. It was a war he could never win.

Selena came into the room.

"Hey." She pulled up a chair next to his bed.

"Hey. How are you doing?"

"I'm the one that's supposed to ask that," she said. "So, how are you doing?"

"I've got a hell of a headache. I get dizzy if I stand up too fast." He looked away for a moment then turned back. "I keep thinking about Ronnie."

"I know. I do, too."

"I don't know if I can keep doing this," Nick said. "I used to think I was fighting for something that had meaning. I don't think like that now."

"Because of Ronnie?"

"It's more than that. What we do seems meaningless. I don't know what I'm fighting for anymore."

Selena heard a note in his voice she'd never heard before. It made her uneasy. Nick was one of the most confident men she had ever known, but he didn't sound that way now. She chose her words with care.

"I've thought about this a lot," she said. "What we're fighting for. I think it's what Lincoln called increased devotion."

"What do you mean, increased devotion?"

"It's what Lincoln said at Gettysburg. I don't remember the exact words, but he was talking about the men who'd died on the battlefield and about taking increased devotion to the cause they died for. He said that they didn't die for the North or the South but for the idea of freedom. So the nation wouldn't perish."

Nick was silent. Then he said, "I'm not so sure what happened in the embassy was about freedom."

"What else would you call it? Abu Sayyaf and the other extremist groups hate the whole idea of freedom. They're the enemy of freedom. I'd say stopping them and everyone just like them is a job with plenty of meaning."

"Christ, Selena. Next thing you're going to tell me is that somebody has to do it."

Suddenly she was angry. She stood up. "That's right, somebody has to do it. You're angry about Ronnie, I get that, but don't you dare tell me that what we do has no meaning."

She stalked from the room.