Ray moved.
He didn't run away. He sprinted directly at Sterling.
Before the captain could bring his sidearm up, Ray hit him with the force of a runaway truck. They crashed onto the asphalt, rolling across the yellow dividing line.
Sterling fought back with desperate fury, bringing his knee up into Ray’s ribs, but Ray didn't feel it. He felt absolutely nothing but the ghosts of twelve men buried in the sand, and the ghost of the best man he ever knew, burning in a cabin on the mountain.
Ray pinned Sterling to the ground, his heavy, mud-caked hands wrapping violently around the captain's throat.
“This is for Thomas,” Ray whispered, his eyes entirely dead.
Sterling gasped, clawing at Ray’s hands, his eyes bulging as his airway crushed.
Behind them, sirens suddenly wailed from the mountain switchbacks. The local sheriff’s department and fire trucks were descending from the north, drawn by the massive pillar of fire from the cabin. Red and blue lights reflected off the dark trees.
The mercenaries, seeing the approaching cavalry, abandoned their crippled vehicles. Two of them dragged their bitten comrade into the remaining working SUV, threw it in reverse, and tore down the highway, abandoning their employer.
Ray tightened his grip on Sterling’s throat. The captain’s face was turning purple.
Marcus hobbled over, grabbing Ray’s shoulder.
“Hammer! Stop! Let him go!”
Ray ignored him. He wanted to watch the life leave Sterling’s eyes.
“Ray!” Marcus shouted over the approaching sirens. “If you kill him in the street, you go to prison! The files disappear! He wins! Let him face a military tribunal. Let the world know what he did to Thomas!”
Ray froze.
The word *Thomas* broke the spell.
Killing Sterling here was easy. It was quick. It was what Sterling deserved. But letting him rot in a federal supermax, disgraced, stripped of his medals, and exposed to the families of the men he murdered?
That was justice.
Ray slowly, painfully uncurled his fingers from Sterling’s throat.
He stood up, breathing heavily, leaving the captain coughing and vomiting on the asphalt.
The first sheriff’s cruiser locked its brakes, sliding to a halt in the middle of the road, deputies pouring out with weapons drawn.
Ray didn't raise his hands. He just stood there, towering over the broken man on the ground.
Ranger, limping heavily, walked over to Ray and leaned against his leg, panting. Ray reached down, resting his hand on the dog's blood-matted head.
A deputy approached cautiously. “Nobody move! Keep your hands where I can see them! What the hell is going on here?”
Ray reached into his vest.
The deputies raised their weapons.
Ray slowly pulled out the heavy, sealed plastic package. He looked down at it. The evidence of a twenty-year lie. The reason a dog had crossed a train track. The reason a mountain cabin was burning to ash behind them.
He tossed the package onto the hood of the cruiser.
“I need to make a phone call,” Ray said, his voice flat, exhausted, but entirely unbroken. “To the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
He looked down at Sterling, who was staring up at him with pure, naked defeat.
“And I need a body bag for the mountain.”
Ray turned away from the flashing lights. He walked over to his Harley, threw his leg over the saddle, and waited for the war to begin.
He was finally done running.