The Soldier
The explosion was smaller than the ones I remembered. No desert heat behind it. No screaming metal.
Just wood and cold air and the sharp crack of a breaching charge doing exactly what it was designed to do. The front door disintegrated. Splinters and smoke poured into the cabin.
Snow followed, driven by wind that had been waiting for an opening. I didn’t move from the chair. The first man through was big—six-two, maybe two-forty, tactical vest, night vision goggles pushed up on his helmet.
He had the walk of someone who’d done this before. Military, probably. Private security now.
The kind of contractor who took jobs without asking too many questions if the money was right. His flashlight found me in the darkness. Swept across my face.
Stopped on my chest. On the small rectangular patch pinned there, just above my heart. Silver and blue.
An infantry badge. Combat patches on both shoulders of the flannel shirt I wore. And above them all, small but unmistakable even in flashlight beam: a Medal of Honor ribbon.
The man’s flashlight trembled. Just slightly. Just enough.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, his voice flat. Not to me. To whoever was listening on his comm.
Two more men entered behind him, slower now, weapons lowered but ready. They saw what he saw. One of them actually took a step back.
“Ma’am,” the first man said carefully. Very carefully. “We were told this was a property dispute.
We were hired to… secure the premises. Nobody said anything about—”
“About what?” I asked quietly. “About the owner being home?
About her being someone who knows exactly what you’re doing and why?”
I took a sip from my mug. Earl Grey tea, getting cold. I’d made it before they arrived, when the drone told me they were coming.
“You were hired to scare me off,” I continued. “Maybe hurt me if I didn’t leave. Burn the cabin if necessary.
Make it look like an accident. Am I close?”
The lead man’s jaw tightened. He glanced at his team, then back at me.
“We didn’t know,” he said. “The client said it was a family thing. Said his cousin was squatting on property that belonged to him.
Said she was… unstable. That we needed to remove her for her own safety.”
“Unstable.” I let the word hang there. “And the breaching charge?
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