Chapter 29

The gathering before Bryan had "intervention" written all over it. He had been seated by the fire, stuffing the usual amounts of fodder into it to make a good warm blaze when Silver approached him.

She sat down beside him and put her hand on his shoulder in a manner that made him look up. His eyes met hers questioningly and she frowned, as if unsure of what to say. She seemed as if she were about to speak twice before audible words came from her lips.

"Bryan," she said. "There's something we've been meaning to talk to you about."

His eyes focused beyond her and he noted that they were not alone for the first time. Rob, Jack, Andrew, Amanda, Jamie, Derek, and Cassie were all seated before them. No one was smiling. All looked concerned and some even a little sheepish. Bryan looked them all up and down, a shiver running down his spine as the implications began to unfold in his mind.

It was Rob who broke the silence.

"Bryan," he said. "I want to say thank you for taking us in and keeping us safe first of all." He paused and everyone nodded their agreement.

"I sense a 'but' coming on," Bryan said somewhat sarcastically.

"There is," Rob continued. He paused for a moment, trying to find the right way to say what he was thinking. "A big 'but.'"

Bryan raised his eyebrows questioningly, irritation beginning to form below the surface in the back of his mind.

"You, as you made clear when we came are the owner of this property," Rob said slowly. "We agreed to follow whatever you dealt out for the time being."

Bryan nodded, a frown beginning to form on his face. Where was this going?

"Well," Rob continued. "We have observed that while you are a brilliant planner and excellent a lot of things, you're overall strategizing has been lacking somewhat."

Silver cleared her throat at this. She turned to Bryan and gave him a look that he was well familiar with. It was a look that said "I'm looking out for your best interest here." Bryan had seen it hundreds of times over the years when Silver asserted her spousal authority.

"What we are saying her Bryan," she said solemnly. "Is that you have carried everything on your shoulders for weeks now. You're not sleeping well. You're grumpy, irritable, and sometimes unpredictable."

"And sometimes your decisions are questionable," Derek added.

Derek had been walking about on crutches for the past week. The delirium and fever had finally passed and he was well on his way to healing. Andrew pronounced that he would walk again, though likely with a limp for the rest of his life. It had been he that night, who had made a fifty yard shot in semi-darkness that had neutralized the last invader and saved Bryan and Maggie.

"I am not trying to criticize you by any means," Derek continued. "However, you don't have the training and know how to really lead what amounts to a military campaign. Our OPs are understaffed, our internal patrols are largely unnecessary except in rare cases where someone actually gets past out Ops. We were apparently observed from a distance and noted that we had escape tunnels and were using them. They used those tunnels and it was only by sheer luck that we had people in place that prevented tragedy." He took a deep breath. "And as much as it seems like a good idea at the time, never ever disarm yourself when dealing with a hostage situation. I had to make a potentially dangerous shot because you almost got all three of you killed. You bargained away your leverage in the situation."

Bryan sat, aghast as he listened. He looked around the room at the people he had trusted, feeling more than a little betrayed. His mind was spinning out of control, unable to grasp the situation at hand and hang on. Finally he simply asked for clarification.

"So," he began. "What you're saying is I am being removed from my duties so to speak?"

There was a collective wince throughout the room. Apparently he had struck a nerve.

"Well not exactly," Rob said. "We still acknowledge your ownership and head of household status. What we are saying is that there are people whose expertise is beyond yours in certain areas and we feel like we should divide the duties somewhat, according to ability."

Bryan's frown lessened a bit, but it was still quite prominent. "So what do you want me to do?" he asked cautiously.

"Relinquish a few responsibilities," Silver said quietly. "Delegate. Give some of these burdens you are carrying to someone else for a change."

Bryan looked doubtful. Delegation was not one of his best skills. Organizing so that he could take care of everything was more his speed.

"For God's sake Bryan," Andrew spouted. "You have six kids and you are the one collecting eggs and feeding chickens every morning. We know handing tasks over doesn't come easy but you can't micromanage everything and expect for rosy results every time. You nearly got killed out there, not once but twice."

Rob nodded. "The thing of it is, there are three military people here. We each had different specialties and different branches, but the bottom line is we need to use those skills where they are greatest. You are not the greatest here at the tactics involved with keeping the place secure. Rely on those that are."

Bryan's shoulders slumped. He shrugged, holding his hands out in defeat. "It's clear I've been outnumbered here." He glared at Silver with a look that seemed to say "et tu, brute?" He got up from his seat and walked down the hallway toward the Master Suite. No one followed.

Though it was only sometime after seven o'clock in the evening, and the sun had still not set he got undressed and climbed into bed.

For a time he lay there, looking at the ceiling, feeling the itch upon his skin where the wounds from the shotgun blast were healing. He tried to sleep, but kept tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable or relax. Every time he closed his eyes a vision of the gun barrel waving into his face frightened them into opening again. The sight of the man's face exploding from Derek's bullet was next. The only saving grace of the entire fiasco was that Bryan had been unable to see his bullets strike the three people he had killed. But the sounds of the battle haunted his nightmares, both waking and sleeping.

"I'm a killer," he thought to himself. "I have shed the blood of three other human beings. I have ended lives."

He pondered this thought longer than he should have, rolling it over in his head. He had felt justified in doing the things that he did, in nearly getting killed to save the lives of those inside the compound. And now everyone had ganged up on him, trying to convince him that what he had done was somehow strategically wrong and harmful. They had felt threatened because of what he had done.