The exception was a table at the back where a heavyset man with dark hair was holding forth apparently at the top of his lungs. Mike figured he was one of those guys who just always had to talk as if they were shouting from one mountain to another. The three guys gathered at the table had the look of toadies and nodded at everything the man said. He was a bit better dressed than the rest but didn’t exactly look prosperous. Whoever the guy was, he was a pain in the ass. He was loud enough that it made it hard to think and Mike had a lot of thinking to do.

He wasn’t sure where he was headed or what he was going to do. Being rich had always sounded great. And in plenty of ways it was better than being poor. But Mike had always had something that he was working towards. He was used to struggling, pushing his limits, excelling. Now he found himself in a situation where to excel, to stand out, was tantamount to a death sentence. Not only for himself but, potentially, for anyone he was involved with. He’d killed senior terrorists, foiled operations and done it outside the “normal” parameters. Generally, despite their effectiveness, special operations personnel weren’t major targets except “in-country.” Terrorists didn’t, generally, track down and attack spec-ops guys, much less their families. But there were half a dozen fatwahs against him, personally, even if they didn’t know exactly who he was. He needed something to do but at the same time he needed to go to ground. Somewhere that he’d be reasonably secure.

Georgia probably wasn’t the place. The Chechens were starting to use eastern Georgia as their personal stomping grounds and the government was half in shambles. Terrorists, drugs, guns and sex slaves moved through the country in a constant stream. He’d be much better off in a place like, say, Kansas. But the only thing in Kansas was wheat. Okay, and spectacular blondes. But he liked wild countries like Georgia. They just had more soul than Peoria. Or New York, which thought it had soul but didn’t realize it was butter substitute.