The Lance

Epilogue

Selena and Nick headed up into the Sierra Foothills. They turned off the paved road, bounced over a stretch of dirt and gravel and pulled up in front of Nick's cabin.

The cabin was at the end of the road on top of a good sized hill. Built of old, dark wood, it had a steep, hunter green metal roof sloping down over a covered front porch. The foothills rose up behind. East were the High Sierras. West was a wide vista to the coastal range. It looked like the Pacific might not be too far away, but it was a hundred and fifty miles or so to the beach.

The cabin was home. He always seemed to think better here. The place in D.C. was only where he stayed.

They stepped from the car under clouds of black, gold and deep red.

He unlocked the door, dropped his bag on the couch and opened a window. He opened the grate on the woodstove and set a match to the kindling and wood laid there.

He opened a bottle of wine. They went outside and sat on the porch, watching the sun go down in splashes and streaks of vivid color behind the Coastal Range. Shadows lengthened under the trees. The air smelled of wood smoke from the stove.

After a few minutes Selena said, "Do you think we got them all?"

"I think we wrote the last page of Himmler's medieval fantasy. But Nazis are like the Hydra in that Greek myth. You cut off the head, two more spring back. You can't ever get them all. But Greenwood's bunch, yeah. We stopped them."

Selena looked out at the afterglow of the sunset. "I was thinking about what I said a while back. About us being so different. How it was natural for you to jump into action and start shooting, but not for me."

He tensed. Natural born killer.

"Maybe we're not so different. It does seem to me that you…that you're more reckless than I am. But there's something that's the same."

"What's that?" he set his glass down.

"Instinct. You can't get where I am in martial arts without that. It's a zone, a place where I just do. Or it does me. I don't think about it. You do it too. Our training and experience are different but we both act out of instinct without thinking. So, it's the same."

She drank some wine. She frowned.

"I always thought my martial arts would protect me."

He waited.

"I couldn't get out of those bonds in Greenwood's room. I can't stop a bullet with a side kick. I can't use my skills to deflect it. It scares the hell out of me."

"Bullets scare the hell out of me, too."

"I guess it goes with the territory."

"You could quit."

"No. I don't want to. It would let everyone down. The team means a lot to me. It's the first time in my life I've felt like I was part of something important. I've got a real purpose in life, now. Bullets or not."

Selena pulled up the collar of her jacket. The night was coming on and it was getting cold.

"Are you going to take Rice up on his offer?"

"I don't know."

"Do you trust him?"

"As much as any politician. But he's the President. He's always got to think of protecting the office of the Presidency. He could disown us if something goes wrong."

"I've known him since I was fifteen. He and my uncle were good friends. I don't think he'd hang us out to dry. But you're right, he has to do what the office demands. Why do you think he set up the Project in the first place?"

"He knows people like Lodge don't tell him the truth. He needs someone outside the agencies. We're a counterweight so he can find out what's what. It puts us at odds with everyone. CIA and DIA and the others are always jockeying for position. There's a lot of stonewalling and competition. They protect their turf and argue about the meaning of intelligence and what should be done about it. They hide things from him."

"You make it sound like they're the enemy."

"I don't mean it that way. But things get lost in the bureaucracy and there are a lot of personal agendas. Rice created the Project to cut through all the bullshit."

"See, that's why Elizabeth and Rice want you to run things with Steph. You understand the dynamics, how things work behind the scenes."

"There's a lot I don't know."

"Nobody knows it all, not Elizabeth either. What's really bothering you?"

"You want the truth? What if I make the wrong call and someone gets killed?"

"Do you really need me to tell you there aren't any guarantees?"

He looked at his empty glass. "What if you get killed? Because of one of my decisions?"

It was out in the open.

"Oh, Nick. You can't make me the reason to take this on or not. Elizabeth said something to me a while back, about feelings. About how we have to put them aside. Does it really make any difference, in the end? Did it make any difference in Argentina, or in Tibet?"

"No. But I think about it."

"You wouldn't be who you are if you didn't think about it. You're not like Lodge, or one of those Pentagon types. That's why you're the right person for the job. I trust you. We all do. Besides, it's my choice to stay. I know what I'm up against. I'll deal with it. And so will you."

"So, you think we should take this on?"

"We?"

"You're on the team. You're part of the decision."

"Would it make a difference, you think? What we'd be doing?" Her voice was light, but Nick heard a deeper question in her words.

We.

"It could," he said.

"Then let's do it."