“All right, it’s time to tell me,” Syd said softly.

Dar propped himself up on one elbow. “All right,” he said. “Tell you what?”

“Why you joined the Marines and became a sniper.” Syd’s eyes were bright in the dying firelight.

Dar actually laughed. He had been expecting something a bit more…romantic?

Syd’s voice was soft but serious. “I want to know why someone as intelligent and sensitive as young Darwin Minor joined the Marines and became a sniper.”

Dar lay on his back and looked at the ceiling. He found himself strangely unprepared to explain this because he never had before. Not even to Barbara.

“I’ve already told you I was interested in the Spartans. But I didn’t really tell you why.” He paused. “I was scared,” he said at last. “I was a scared kid. At age seven…I remember the day, the afternoon, where I was, the curb I sat on, when the realization hit me…At age seven I realized, knew, that I was going to die someday. I was already an atheist. I knew there was no afterlife. The thought scared the shit out of me.”

“Most of us encounter that sooner or later,” Syd whispered. “But usually not that young.”

Dar shook his head. “The fear wouldn’t go away. I had night terrors. I began wetting the bed. I was afraid to be separated from my parents, even to go to school. I was aware that not only did I have to die, but so did they. What if they died while I was away in Miss Howe’s third-grade class?”

Syd did not laugh. After a minute she said, “So you joined the Marines to find courage…to get over that fear?”

“No,” said Dar. “Not really. I graduated from high school early, finished college in three years with a degree in physics, but all the time, what I was really interested in was death and fear and control. That’s when I started studying the Spartans and their ideas about controlling fear.” He rolled over to look at her. “The Vietnam war had started…”

Syd set her palm flat on Dar’s chest. He could feel the coolness of her fingers. “And so,” she said very softly, “the U.S. Marines.”

Dar shrugged slightly. “Yeah.”

“Thinking that perhaps the Marines would still know the secret science of controlling fear.”

“Something like that,” said Dar, realizing how stupid all of this sounded.

“Did they?”

He chewed his lip a moment in thought. “No,” he said at last. “They had preserved a lot of the disciplines started by the Spartans—tried to live up to their ideals—but had lost most of the science and philosophy which lay behind and beneath the Spartan mind-set.”

“But…a sniper,” said Syd. “The only snipers I’ve met are on SWAT and FBI tactical teams, but they seem to be outcasts…”

“Always have been,” said Dar. “That’s probably why I gravitated in that direction. Whereas even Marines are taught to be part of a bigger organism, snipers work alone—or in teams of two. Everything has to be factored in: terrain, wind velocity, distance, light—everything. Nothing can be ignored.”

“I can see why you would gravitate to that,” whispered Syd. “Always thinking.”

“The guy who set up and ran my sniper school was a Marine captain named Jim Land,” said Dar. “After the war, I read something that Land wrote for a little sniper instruction manual called One Shoot—One Kill. Want to hear it?”

“Yes,” whispered Syd. “More sweet nothings, please.”

Dar smiled. “Captain Land wrote: ‘It takes a special kind of courage to be alone—to be alone with your fears, to be alone with your doubts. There is no one from whom you can draw strength, except yourself. This courage is not the often seen, superficial brand, stimulated by the flow of adrenaline. And neither is it the courage that comes from the fear that others might think you are a coward.’”

“Katalepsis,” whispered Syd. “You told me about that before.”

“Yes,” Dar said, and continued. “‘For the sniper there is no hate of the enemy, only respect of him or her as a quarry. Psychologically, the only motive that will sustain the sniper is knowing he is doing a necessary job and having the confidence that he is the best person to do it. On the battlefield, hate will destroy any man—especially a sniper. Killing for revenge will ultimately twist his mind.

“‘When you look through that scope, the first thing you see is the eyes. There is a lot of difference between shooting at a shadow, shooting at an outline, and shooting at a pair of eyes. It is amazing when you put that scope on somebody, the first thing that pops out at you is the eyes. Many men can’t do it…’”

“But you did it,” said Syd. “At Dalat. You looked into human eyes and still squeezed a trigger. And that’s been your survival secret for all these years.”

“What’s that?” said Dar.

“Control,” said Syd. “The constant pursuit of aphobia—avoiding possession at all costs.”

“Maybe,” said Dar, uncomfortable with the psychoanalysis and all his blabbing that led to it. “I haven’t always succeeded.”

“The .410 shell with the firing-pin imprint,” said Syd.

“A misfire,” agreed Dar. “That was eleven months after Barbara and the baby died. It seemed…logical…at the time.”

“And now?”

“Not so logical,” he said. He turned and took her in his arms. They kissed. Then Syd pulled her face back far enough to focus her gaze on his.

“Will you do something for me tomorrow, Dar? Something special…just for me?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Will you take me soaring?”

Dar chewed his lip again. “You’ve been flying. You were up in Steve’s sailplane…You know mine only has one seat and—”

“Will you take me soaring tomorrow, Dar?”

“Yes,” said Dar.

First, there was the silence.

The high-performance, two-person Twin Astir glided through the air as silently and purposefully as a red-tailed hawk soaring and lifting on unseen thermals. The only external sound was the soft rush of air over the metal-and-canvas skin of the craft, and since their airspeed was low, that was hardly any sound at all. When they had passed eight thousand feet of altitude, Dar had had them both put on their oxygen masks—he had leaned forward to check that Syd’s was working properly—and because of the masks, they did not speak. Only the soft hiss of oxygen acted as undertone to the movement of air outside.

Second, there was the sunlight.

It was a brilliant day, blue sky, only a few stacked lenticular clouds over the lee slopes of the high peaks, visibility otherwise unlimited. Sunlight prismed on the clean canopy which gave them a 360-degree view from twelve thousand feet. To the west, beyond the ridges and mountains and deep-running faults, gleamed the Pacific. To the south and east burned the brightness of high desert and the Salton Sea. Easily visible to the north was the smog bank held in by the hills east of Los Angeles, and the great red expanse of the Baja flowed south beyond the smog banks over Tijuana and Ensenada.

Third, there was the closeness.

If it had not been for his five-point harness straps, Dar could have leaned forward over the low rear instrument console and wrapped both of his arms around Syd. Dar could smell the shampoo that he’d lathered into Syd’s hair that morning. He remembered the water and shampoo running down over her shoulders and breasts when he had rinsed her hair, squeezing the water out, the soap bubbles glinting on her breasts and nipples in the morning sunlight…

Dar shook his head and concentrated on flying the aircraft.

When they had arrived at Warner Springs gliderport that morning, Steve had been surprised but happy to loan Dar his Twin Astir—he would not accept a rental fee—and Ken had been surprised to see Darwin Minor there with a woman.

Dar had done a long preflight inspection of the high-performance two-seater, and then he and Syd had gone over the parachute procedures for the third time.