"Michael Duncan is very not welcome in Holland and France," Pierson said. "And they're well aware that it was a cover identity, so I'd suggest staying out in your own person."
"Wasn't planning on going to either," Mike admitted, negotiating his way around a pothole. He had his earbud in his ear and both hands on the wheel to negotiate the lousy Russian roads. "Well, maybe Amsterdam. I've got a date with a hooker there."
"The President, however, is pleased, despite the diplomatic repercussions."
"Glad to hear it," Mike said tersely.
"He wondered how you knew it was the Fire circuit," Pierson said.
"Tell him to read Robert Frost," Mike replied. "Or listen to Pat Benatar."
"Seriously," Pierson said.
"Honestly it was less than fifty-fifty," Mike replied. "But it was going to go off, anyway. So I thought about Assadolah's interests. More than the poem, the song caught me. In the song, the guy comes on with fire, but the cutting part, the damaging part, is ice."
"That's it?" Pierson asked, aghast.
"That's it," Mike responded. "Paris was doomed, anyway. I probably would have let the damned thing go off if it wasn't for the kids that would get killed. And, hell, Chateauneuf is the exception that proves the rule that all Frenchmen are bastards."
"Well, there's more money coming your way," Pierson said, wondering at the response. "Another five mil. Arguably, the French should be paying it, but they're unwilling to admit that you kept Paris from being obliterated."
"Normal for them," Mike replied.
"And I don't suppose there's any chance of an after-action report, this time?" Pierson said diffidently.
"Nope," Mike replied. "Don't care for them. Staff officers pee in them."
"Where are you now?" Pierson asked, sighing. Just once, he'd like an AAR out of Ghost. Was that too much to ask?
"Russia," Mike said, glancing at the sky, which was gray and pregnant with snow. "But the weather is really getting crappy so I'm headed south. Probably to Georgia. There are lots of cute hookers from Georgia. I'm going to go see what the original quill looks like."
"Switzerland of the Caucasus," Pierson said, a grin in his voice. "I was there for a few months training their local commandos and the girls are, yeah, spectacular. Try not to get caught in that border war that's building down there. The Chechens use Georgia as a base of operations against the Russians, and the Russians are getting tired of it."
"I'm going to stay well away from the Chechen area," Mike agreed. "As well as Ossetia and all the rest. I'm actually sort of looking for someplace to settle down for a while. I liked the Keys, but the action was just too hot for me."
"Gotcha," Pierson said, his grin evident over the circuit. "So you're heading for a country that's on the edge of war with Russia, to an area where terrorists move freely and through which both weapons of mass destruction and lesser evils are transported. Too hot. Gotcha."
"No, really," Mike protested. "I'm just looking for a safe place to lay my head."
"Whatever," Pierson said, chuckling. "Take care."
"Don't I always?" Mike asked, hitting the disconnect.
He was on a small back road that was headed in the vague direction of Georgia, according to the Michelin map. But what he was mostly looking for was peace, quiet and aloneness. Finally, he spotted a barely graveled road that headed into the interminable birch forests that had been covered in an early winter snow.
He turned the late-model Mercedes sedan down it until he was fairly sure he was completely and totally alone. Then he pulled it over to the side, got out, and started pulling out supplies, tossing his sidearm in the back of the sedan.
First there was a comfortable reclining chair. Then a cooler with some cold Pepsis. Then a poncho liner, since it was bloody cold. Next he pulled out a couple of plastic cups and a bottle of Maker's Mark bourbon. He filled one of the cups with ice, then poured Pepsi over it, setting it in the holder of the chair. Then he sat down in the reclining chair, pulling the poncho liner over his legs and tucking it in. Last, with shaking hands, he removed the cap from the bottle of Maker's Mark and put the bottle to his lips, chugging.
"Why the fuck do I do these things?" Mike asked quietly. "I go charging in to save some girls that could care less about 'my kind.' I get shot up stopping a nuke for a country that doesn't even know I exist? I took it on myself to DESTROY PARIS! WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING?" he ended in a shout that was very near a primal scream.
The woods were lonely, dark and deep and did not answer as the snow began to fall.