Inside Outt

abdication of command responsibility. He started to think about what he was doing, and about what the politicians would do if it leaked. Graner, England… how was he any different? He’d be the perfect fall guy, especially for the Caspers.
    He didn’t want to accept it. He wanted to believe what he was doing was different, that
he
was different, and that anyway it would never leak, it was too closely held. But he knew that was all bullshit. Nothing was more important in combat than avoiding denial and engaging reality, and the habit of combat helped open his eyes to political reality, too. Eventually it would all come out. They’d need a fall guy then. The fall guy would be him.
    Once he realized it, he could see it clearly. They’d talk about his temper, which ironically was why they’d had him working the Caspers in the first place. They’d call him a steroid freak. They’d dig for other dirt. If they discovered his secret, they’d crucify him with it. Rogue. Sadist. Nutcase. Homo. They’d say he volunteered for this detail so he could be alone with detainees, so he could work out his twisted fantasies on naked, helpless men. And then, to prevent him from talking, to prevent him from revealing what he knew about the Caspers and taking everyone else down with him, one morning he’d be found hanging in his cell.
    Yeah, that’s the way it would happen. If he let them.
    So he found a way to not let them. A way to protect himself, bring down the hypocrites who were going to set him up, and create a new life for himself—and for Nico—all at the same time.
    His heart rate had returned to normal. He turned off the light and lay back on the mattress. He kept the Glock in his hand.
    All he had to do now was stick to the plan. After that, Costa Rica. Costa Rica was where the dreams would stop.
    He just had to get there.

CHAPTER 14
Projection
    A t some point during the flight, Ben nodded off. He was still recovering from three near-sleepless nights in the Manila city jail and a lot of time zone shifts after, and he was glad for the chance to get a little shut-eye.
    When he woke, Paula was looking at him the way earlier he’d been looking at her. “What?” he said, scrunching up his face and blinking. “Was I drooling?”
    She cocked an eyebrow and gave him a bored look. “Not that I noticed.”
    He saw she was holding an iPhone like his. “You like it?” he asked, gesturing with his head.
    “Love it. Does just about everything but shoot bullets.”
    He laughed. “iBullets. Maybe one day.”
    He looked out the window. The sun was low in the sky. He checked his watch. Damn, he’d been asleep for almost an hour. They didn’t have far to go.
    “So how’d you get into this line of work?” he asked, sitting up and cracking his neck.
    “What, you mean a nice girl like me?”
    “I don’t think you’re nice.”
    “Oh, but I am.”
    “All right, a nice girl like you, then.”
    She looked at him for a long moment. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, and he thought maybe she wasn’t going to answer. But then she said, “Nine-eleven happened during my senior year of college. I was planning to go to grad school for an M.A. in psychology—psychology was my undergraduate major—but I decided to do something to make a difference, instead.”
    “How’s that working out for you?”
    “Making a difference?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s hard, sometimes. Getting anything done in this bureaucracy is like trying to swim in molasses. But I’ve found ways.”
    “You work in the D.C. headquarters building?”
    “I do. Do you know it?”
    “Visited on a school field trip when I was a kid.”
    “You grew up in the area?”
    “For a while. Among other places.”
    “But you know Washington.”
    He remembered a family excursion to the city when Alex had still been in a stroller. The five of them had stayed in a single room in a cheap hotel off Dupont Circle. Alex wanted to start at the zoo. Katie wanted the ballet. Ben wanted the war memorials. Their dad wanted the Smithsonian. Their mom had tried to negotiate the resulting hairball. It had rained the entire weekend and even Katie couldn’t stop the fights. Ben had been back maybe a half dozen times since then, never staying for longer than he had to.
    “I know it well enough to know I’d rather be somewhere else,” he said.
    “And where is that?”
    “Why, you thinking about visiting me?”
    “Just making conversation.”
    Her questions were