"Why not? I needed to judge your character. Your commander recognized that."

"What about the rest of it?"

"What?"

"The operations. The missions. What did you think?"

"I didn't get that. I only got your personal files. Nothing about..."

"Oh. Then you don't know."

"I can guess. Don't forget the time in Miami with your Colonel Phoenix and that Cuban Romeo."

"I heard about it," Lyons nodded. "All you did was drive the car..."

"What? They said that? I just drove the car? I had to kill two men in Miami, before we even went to the camp. So I just drove the car? That's like saying the kamikaze just flew the plane."

"I'm joking." Lyons rolled in the bed and held her. "They told me all about it. Very extreme."

"Was it?"

"You tell me. You were there. I only heard the stories."

"I mean, was that mission extreme? Or is that what you do all the time?"

Lyons sat up again. He reached out for one of the beers beside the bed. He twisted off the cap and gulped. Foam ran down his face and into his chest hair.

Flor's hand massaged the cold foam over his chest and shoulder. Her fingers traced the rope-like scar where a 7.62 NATO slug had touched his side, breaking ribs and making him cough blood for weeks. Her fingers found other scars where fire or knives or shrapnel had marked his body.

"You don't get scars like these working in an office."

"I used to be a cop. They'd dispatch us to break up a family fight, and the family would call a truce long enough to beat us half to death."

"This scar on your arm is new." She touched his left arm where the scabs and discoloration had finally disappeared after months of healing. A crescent-moon scar remained from a wound caused, absurd as it seemed, by a rearview mirror thrown by the impact of a machine-gun slug. The mirror had almost broken his arm.