Inside Outt

convinced he had begun to feel that no one would ever find him.
    He breathed in and out a few times, pulling himself together. When he trusted himself to speak, he said, “What are you doing here, Hort?”
    Hort laughed, the sound deep and not at all unfriendly. As always, Ben was struck by the man’s complete ease and confidence, by his natural command presence. Colonel Scott Horton was a legend in the black ops community. He had personally designed and now commanded Ben’s secret unit, the absurdly blandly named Intelligence Support Activity, and his exploits in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and elsewhere were such that he was held in awe not just by his men, but even by the Joint Special Operations Command brass who were his nominal superiors.
    The laugh slowly died away, a paternal grin lingering in its aftermath. “When I heard they had visiting hours in hell, I just couldn’t stay away.”
    “I don’t need you to bail me out.”
    This was so obviously untrue Ben immediately felt like a blustering child for saying it, and expected another baritone chuckle in response.
    Instead, Hort said, “It’s not a question of what you need. I’m responsible for you.”
    Ben knew he was being stupid, but anger was the only thing keeping him together and he was afraid to let it go. “Got a funny way of showing it.”
    “Don’t ask me to apologize for putting the mission ahead of the man, son. I already told you, it was the toughest call I’ve ever had to make.”
    Hort had been tasked with securing and erasing all knowledge of an encryption application called Obsidian. The op started with the liquidation of the inventor and the patent examiner, and would have taken out Ben’s younger brother, Alex, too, who was the inventor’s lawyer, along with Sarah Hosseini, an associate at Alex’s Silicon Valley firm. But Alex had realized he was in over his head and had called his big brother for help. Together, they’d managed to turn things around, though not before Hort, in the service of putting the mission before the man, had tried to erase all three of them.
    “Yeah, well don’t ask me to apologize for not forgetting.”
    Hort nodded, his expression grave. “That seems fair.”
    Ben walked over to the chair opposite Hort, pulled it away from the table, and sat. He knew Hort would read it as a concession, but he didn’t care. He’d never felt so wrung out. His ribs ached, he’d only half slept since all this shit had started, and much as he hated to admit it, he was terrified Hort would leave as suddenly as he’d materialized. It was a ridiculous fear, but he couldn’t shake it no matter how much he blustered.
    “How’d you find me?” he said quietly.
    Hort nodded, as though expecting the question. “Pressure from the Australians. You’re lucky you killed one of theirs. If it had been a local, they’d have just dumped you here and no one would ever have heard from you again.”
    Ben felt something sink in his chest. He realized he’d still been hoping the cops had lied to him. The hope felt suddenly stupid, and he knew he just hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, admit what he’d done.
    “The guy was a sailor?” he said.
    “Royal Australian Navy, yeah.”
    He’d known as much already, but somehow having Hort confirm it eliminated Ben’s ability to deal with the guy as an abstraction. Having this little window opened on the guy’s humanity made part of Ben want to push it open further, but he knew better. Still, even the speculation was no picnic. Had he been married? He’d been pretty young, so maybe not. And Ben hadn’t seen a ring, though he supposed the guy might have removed one before a night of carousing on Burgos Street. Regardless, he would have had parents. Maybe brothers or sisters. He thought of Katie, his younger sister, who’d died in a car accident her junior year of high school, and what her death had done to his family. The thought that he probably had caused something similar to someone else’s family because he was too sullen to just walk away from some woofing was suddenly making him feel sick. Not to mention the guy himself was never coming back, either.
    “Anyway,” Hort said, “the Aussies made local law enforcement go to all the hotels in Makati, asking whether there was a guest who was supposed to check out but who’d ghosted off instead. It didn’t take them long to find the right hotel, the right guest, to have the room safe opened, to check the guest’s