Chapter 11

Taylor closed his eyes almost as soon as they were on the plane and it was in the air. He’d learned in the service that you never knew where your next bit of shuteye was going to come from, so get as much of it as you could whenever you could.

If anything, his work with the bureau had been even worse. Many of his cases kept him going for twenty or more hours at a time, and this one had been no different. He’d been go, go, go, since the minute he’d touched down in Caracas and he needed some rest. Bonnie wasn’t going anywhere, not sealed in this tube, and she wasn’t likely to kill him in his sleep, considering, and there were no weapons to take from him anyway, so for once, he could sleep without having to worry about her.

Or so he’d thought.

He’d only had his eyes closed for a couple of minutes when she started fidgeting. She’d move this way, then that, forward, back, sit up, push her chair back, buckle and unbuckle her seatbelt. It was endless and half the time she bumped him when she moved. He tried to ignore it, but when it stopped, it only made it worse.

His eyes were closed, but he could feel her staring at him, like she was willing him awake.

He popped one open and confirmed it. She was just sitting there, facing him, her eyes boring a hole in him.

“What?”

“Can’t sleep on planes. Too many people around,” she said, almost nonchalantly, like she hadn’t just been doing a whole jig in her seat.

Taylor grunted. “Then look out the window.”

She didn’t take his suggestion.

Instead, she seemed to take his being awake as some kind of invitation. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. After our first ... encounters, I did some digging. Saw you had an adopted daughter from Belarus. Then, a newborn. How’d all that happen? Seems like you only met your wife five, six years ago.”

“I don’t want to talk about my family,” he said, as firmly as he could to make sure she understood he was serious.

Again, she didn’t take the hint. “Why not?”

Taylor sighed, sat his chair up, and turned to face her. “You’re kidding. Considering who you are and what you do? Why do you even care? We’re not friends.”

“We could be. I actually like you, Taylor. It’s one of the reasons I never came after you, even after I healed from my escape.”

“Great. Thanks. I appreciate you not murdering me,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes again.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant ... you’re not a bad guy. Most people I’ve dealt with, had to go up against, the time someone’s chased me, they were like Ellsworth. They hire idiots. It was ... refreshing to face a professional. Though I’d have preferred if you were a little less proficient at your job.”

“I bet.”

“Don’t be like that. I know you think I’m trash, but you know my back-story. How I got here. I didn’t have a lot of choices.”

“You’re joking,” Taylor said, opening his eyes again. “You definitely had choices other than murdering people for money.”

“What, work at some crap minimum wage job? I had to get out of my shitty life. I had skills, and I used them.” Taylor just shook his head and closed his eyes. What was the point? Bonnie, however, wasn’t giving up.

“Tell me something, Taylor. Those villagers you displaced in Afghanistan, the freedom fighters you killed ... how do you think they saw you? Just another Western invader, right? Do you think they’d see you any differently than how you see me?”

“That’s not even remotely the same.”

“Isn’t it? You dealt with terrorists, right? You know what they’re like.”

“You have no idea what I dealt with!”

“I read up on you. I even managed to get some of your redacted files from the DOD...”

“How?” Taylor asked, surprised and a little appalled.

“Doesn’t matter? So yes, I do know what you dealt with. But do you think those guys were born terrorists? Not everyone who fought for him was like the guy who held you. A lot of them were people with grudges, who felt you and the rest of the West forced them into it. I met my share of them and I can tell you they felt as vindicated trying to stop you as you felt trying to stop me. Do you think every village you guys bombed, house you blew up, person you shot was a radical true believer? You guys killed a fair amount of kids, what terrorism did they do? So maybe cut me a little slack. Face it, Taylor. You’ve probably murdered more people than I have.”

Taylor didn’t say anything; he just stared at the seat in front of him. Part of him wanted to fume, to be pissed, but he’d come to terms with a lot of what he’d done already. Was she wrong? No. But war was war. Innocent people got hurt. Trying to say a soldier was the same as a paid killer was ridiculous.

Which made him wonder why she’d hit such a deep nerve.

For a long time, he just stared at the back of the seat, trying to ignore her, trying to put things back in check. He didn’t look at her and hoped she’d decided now that she’d scored some points she could take a nap or something.

Instead, she said, “You talk in your sleep.”

“What?” Taylor said, so surprised by the non-sequitur that he forgot about the earlier slight and turned to look at her.

“At the safe house, when you got those couple of hours of sleep, I could hear you talking. Barking orders one minute, begging the next. Telling someone to stop.”

Taylor turned front again, trying to ignore her. He’d thought he’d stopped. Whitaker hadn’t said anything for a few years and he didn’t really remember his nightmares like he used to. He’d assumed that meant they had gone away.

Or he’d hoped that was what it had meant.

“I also saw your scars when I was trailing you last year. What they did to you...”

“That’s in the past,” he cut her off.

“Is it?” Her eyes bore into him. “Because from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t look like it.”

He didn’t like how much she was getting into his head. It made his skin crawl.

“I’m doing the right thing now,” Bonnie said after a long silence. “That should count for something.”

Taylor studied her reflection in the seat back entertainment screen. He could see the need there, the desperate desire for approval. Or maybe absolution. She was a game player, though. That much he knew. She’d manipulated people professionally for the longest time. He thought he was a good judge, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think he was immune.

“You’re doing it to save your own skin,” he said flatly.

“True,” Bonnie admitted. “But I’m still doing it. My motives don’t change that fact.”

“You want a pat on the back for turning on the people you call corrupt and evil? The same ones you worked for?” “A lot of bad people are going to get caught because of me.”

“And that makes up for all the innocent people you’ve killed? You don’t get to wipe the slate clean that easily.”

Bonnie fell silent, leaning back and turning to look out the window. Taylor leaned back and closed his eyes. Now, she was the one hurt by the truth of how things were.