The misguided but well-meaning private was enacting a surrender he had had in his mind as soon as the night-garbed apparition had come hurtling through the window. He knew instantly he was in the wrong league. The explosion of the window still sounded in his mind behind the sharper reports of the killing that followed it.
This big stranger clearly embodied more than the vast majority of men could hope to enact in a lifetime — he seemed to represent in his presence, his manners, his dark and profound look, the manifest destiny that no longer could be spared on the frontiers of the American West but which was a gift to the Old World now, to tame and to teach the primitives of a new generation who should know already that the lessons of American history are written in blood.
PFC Cottonwood was only too happy to give in to that history and be accountable, at least, for his own blood. He would watch this stranger with manifest awe.
And he would serve him if he could.
2
April Rose hovered over the Diablo 1650 printer as it spat out information, printwheel clattering across the paper like a machine gun. She read each line twice, then shook her head grimly. She reached over and picked up a stack of the according paper and let it unfold to her feet as she scanned quickly for something encouraging. But all she could do was shake her head again. It was getting worse and worse.
Someone unfamiliar with operations at Stony Man Farm might take one look at her and wonder if some fancy glamour magazine was shooting a special fashion layout. Maybe a Hollywood film crew was shooting a scene for a high-class thriller? Why else would such a beautiful young woman be isolated out here in Shenandoah Country with her finger on the pulse of international terrorism.