The Last Day

NINETEEN

From his hide overlooking the house, Watcher observed the couple through his binoculars as they ate dinner. The romantic tint to the evening was an unpleasant development, but his spirits soared when the meal was ended by an argument. Dr. McCarty stood up, had a few heated words to say-no doubt about what a limp- dick idiot her hubby was-and left the room. Seconds later her bedroom light came on. Ward remained seated at the table alone after she was gone. The man watched through the binoculars as Ward stared out through the window into the darkness-a beetle in a jar. Watcher knew McCarty couldn't see him, but he found himself holding his breath as their eyes met.

Watcher waited until Ward was in the kitchen cleaning up like a housewife before he put down the binoculars. He pulled out his survival knife and the diamond stone and started sharpening the blade slowly and deliberately. The tip was the only part of the knife he had used in a long time, and it was the tip he concentrated on sharpening while he waited in the hole he'd dug into the earth.

He looked at the blade in the moonlight, tested the edge with the sole of his thumb. He felt the notches he'd filed into the top of the blade near the hilt years earlier. Each represented a man killed in a war in a country whose landscape looked like the surface of Mars. He had liked doing it, more than that; Watcher had felt like he'd been born to end the lives of his enemies.

The luminous hands on his watch dial told Watcher it was nineforty He gathered his binoculars, notebook, and camera, and packed them all away in the rucksack. That done, he lifted the hinged roof and slipped out of the hide, lowering the lid until it was flush with the ground. Slowly, he walked through the woods with the pack over his shoulder.

Because tomorrow was going to be a very busy day he would sleep tonight. In the morning, he would go into the house to collect the tape and he'd find out exactly what it was they had been arguing about. Their marriage was at the breaking point, and that gave Watcher a decidedly warm feeling. If things were allowed to run their natural course, the once perfect couple would break up and go their separate ways. Time was too short for that to happen.