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Nor was not "I just-"
"Please" She took a deep breath "You’re "
"Lila-"
"I said I have to go"
He knew she was crying She didn’t make a sound to tell hi about Eva, and thinking about Eva would ether anymore, and couldn’t be How many hours of his life had he held her as she cried? And that was the thing; he’d never knohat to say when Lila cried It was only later-too late-that he’d realized he wasn’t supposed to say anything at all
"Damn it, Brad I didn’t want to do this, not now"
"I’ about her"
"I know you were Goddamnit Goddamnit Don’t do this, don’t"
He heard her sob, and then David’s voice came on the line "Don’t call back, Brad Ito you"
"Fuck you," Wolgast said
"Whatever you say Just don’t bother her anyast looked at his handheld once before hurling it across the roo like a Frisbee, before slapping the wall above the television with the crunch of breaking plastic He instantly felt sorry But when he knelt and picked it up, he found that all that had happened was the battery case had popped open, and the thing was perfectly fine
Wolgast had been to the compound only once, the previous summer, to meet with Colonel Sykes Not a job interview, exactly; it had been nment was his if he wanted it A pair of soldiers drove hiast could tell they were taking him west from Denver, into the mountains The drive took six hours, and by the tied to fall asleep He stepped froht sunshine of a suraphy, he’d have guessed he was somewhere around Ouray It could have been farther north The air felt thin and clean in his lungs; he felt the dull throb of a high-altitude headache at the top of his skull
He waslot by a civilian, a compact man dressed in jeans and a khaki shirt rolled at the sleeves, a pair of old-fashioned aviators perched on his wide, faintly bulbous nose This was Richards
"Hope the ride wasn’t too bad," Richards said as they shook hands Up close Wolgast saw that Richards’s cheeks were pockh up here If you’re not used to it, you’ll want to take it easy"
Richards escorted Wolgast across the parking area to a building he called the Chalet, which was exactly what it sounded like: a large Tudor structure, three stories tall, with the exposed tie The ast knew, hulking relics from an era before ti faced an open lawn and beyond, at a hundred yards or so, a cluster of more workaday structures: cinder-block barracks, a half dozenthat resembled a roadside motel Military vehicles, Hu up and down the drive; in the center of the lawn, a group of men with broad chests and tri theast had the disorienting sensation of peeking behind a utted to the studs, its original architecture replaced by the neutral textures of a , acoustic-tile drop ceilings He h-rise off the freehere he met his accountant once a year to do his taxes They stopped at the front desk, where Richards asked him to turn over his handheld and his weapon, which he passed to the guard, a kid in caed them There was an elevator, but Richards walked past it and led Wolgast down a narrow hallway to a heavy ht of stairs They ascended to the second floor and made their way down another nondescript hallway to Sykes’s office
Sykes rose from behind his desk as they entered: a tall, well-built led with the various bars and little bits of color that Wolgast had never understood His office was neat as a pin, its arrangeht down to the fra been placed forin the center of the desk was a single ast kneas almost certainly his personnel file, or some version of it
They shook hands and Sykes offered hiast accepted He wasn’t drowsy but the caffeine, he kneould help the headache
"Sorry about the bullshit with the van," Sykes said, and waved his"
A soldier brought in the coffee, a plastic carafe and two china cups on a tray Richards re behind Sykes’s desk, his back to the broad s that looked out on the woodlands that ringed the coast to do It was all quite straightforward, he said, and by now Wolgast knew the basics The Army needed between ten and twenty death row ine trials of an experie for their consent, the inmates would have their sentences coast’s job to obtain the signatures of these ally vetted, but because the project was a matter of national security, all of these ally dead Thereafter, they would spend the rest of their lives in the care of the federal penal system in a white-collar prison camp, under assumed identities The men would be chosen based upon a nues of twenty and thirty-five with no living first-degree relatives Wolgast would report directly to Sykes; he’d have no other contact, though he’d remain, technically, in the east asked
Sykes shook his head "That’s our job You’ll receive your orders froet their consent Once they’re signed on, the Army will take it from there They’ll be moved to the nearest federal lockup, then we’ll transport theht a ?" He see sast nodded "I understand I can’t be very specific But I’n over their whole lives I have to tell theed a look with Richards, who shrugged "I’ll leave you now," Richards said, and nodded at Wolgast "Agent"