Cutter stares at him. Under no circumstances is the boy to be harmed. Standing orders. Injured or dead, he’s worthless to the enterprise.

“Just an expression,” Wald says, picking at his teeth. A nervous habit indicating deception on his part.

“So you didn’t shoot him.”

“Nope. He’s unshot.”

Unshot. An expression Wald used in the field, usually when he’d beaten a civilian nearly to death. Don’t look at me, the fucking rag head is unshot! Sir!

“You beat him?” Cutter asks, very calm.

“No way.”

“So he’s untouched? I go in there, I’ll find him untouched?”

Wald stares right back, eyes cold. He shrugs. “Pretty much,” he says. “Little smack on the nose. Like you’d smack a puppy. For what he did to Hinks.”

“Hinks? Is that what happened?”

Hinks has his eyes closed. He seems to be inhaling the bloody rag. “’Eed a ’octor. My node.”

“I’ll fix your nose, Hinks. After I check on the boy.” He turns to Wald. “Keys.”

“What?”

“Give me the keys, Wald.”

“Cap, are you pissed or something?”

“I’m handling the situation. Give me the keys.”

“’Cause it was like a reaction thing,” Wald says in his not-my-fault, never-did-a-thing voice. “I see Hinks all bleeding and everything, I see the kid trying to sneak by him, make a run for it. Which if the outer door hadn’t been padlocked—following your orders to a t, sir—like I say, if it hadn’t been locked, the kid was out of here.”

Wald in his excuse-generating mode, spewing effluent like a broken sewer pipe.

“Keys,” Cutter demands, holding out his hand.

“So, Cap, it was like a reaction thing, okay? I see the kid, I see Hinks all bloody, I give the kid a little smack. So he can’t escape or nothing. That’s all. We had to keep him in control, right? I grab him by the arm or something, it might have been worse. Could have dislocated his shoulder. Which I did not do. Never grabbed his arm or nothing. Always thinking, Cap. Even when it’s a light-speed deal. Smack on the nose, it hurts. Like it hurts a puppy. But no lasting damage.”

Reluctantly, Wald slips a hand in his overalls pocket, produces the key ring. Two keys for two padlocks. Hands it to Cutter.

“Captain? Just to be totally honest? Before you go in there? Maybe I yelled a little. To make him, you know, docile.”

“I’ll check him out,” Cutter says, starting for the padlocked outer door.

Wald puts his hand on Cutter’s right forearm. Cutter looks down at the offending hand. Wald hastily removes it.

“Thing is,” Wald says, “I told him we were coming back to kill him.”

“You said that?”

“I told him to say his prayers.”

“You told him to say his prayers.”

“Right. So what I’m saying, you go in there, he might think you’re going to kill him. Just so you know.”

“Just so I know.”

“It was a reaction thing, Captain. Are we clear? I did no permanent damage. One little smack.”

“Fine,” says Cutter.

“’Octor,” Hinks mumbles. Staggers to his feet with raccoon eyes. “Node,” he says into the rag.

“Be right back,” says Cutter.

He unlocks the padlock, slips it free of the hasp and opens the door to the small passageway. A passageway constructed to both hide the enclosure and provide a backup door should the first one be breached.

Cutter listens, ears attuned for sounds of life. Hears nothing. The passageway is illuminated by a single fluorescent tube. Blood trails are pretty obvious. Spatter from Hinks’s leaky nose heading for the outer door. Spatter from the boy leading to the inner door. The boy’s blood trail looks wrong. Wobbly somehow. He’s not walking, he’s being carried. By Wald presumably.

Palm-smear on the inner door, has to be Wald.

Blood on the padlock, too.

Blood everywhere in the passageway. More blood than can possibly come from one adult nose.

Little smack, Wald said, like you’d give a puppy.

We’ll see, Cutter is thinking. His icy composure and self-control a bulwark against the dark possibilities. It had been a simple assignment. Two grown men to watch over one eleven-year-old boy. Trained soldiers, special forces no less, with beaucoup experience in dicey, difficult operations. And they had fucked up at the very first opportunity.

Cutter decides he’ll deal with disciplining the troops after he’s dealt with whatever awaits him in the enclosure. First things first.

A fuckup. A bloody damn fuckup.

Deal, he urges himself. His fingers tremble slightly as he inserts the key in the second padlock. With an effort of will, he calms the trembling. Takes a breath, waits three heartbeats, and then slips the lock off the hasp and pushes on the door.

Jams before it swings wide. Something on the floor, in the way of the door. Cutter forces the door open.

Just beyond the door, blocking it, lie the remains of the splintered dresser. Cheap particleboard and Formica. Evidently stomped by Wald in his fury. Using the edge of his foot, Cutter clears the debris away, then locks the door behind him. As much to prevent Wald and Hinks from entering as to prevent a possible escape from the enclosure.

Cutter sniffs. Strong odor of urine and feces.

The enclosure is quite small, ten feet by ten feet. Enough room for a mattress, a potty-chair, a small, two-drawer dresser with a TV on top. The dresser smashed to bits, of course, and shards of glass underfoot means the TV has been similarly destroyed. Sizable dent on the wall where Wald hurled the television. Must have been in full rampage, young Wald. Savoring that sweet adrenaline surge. Stomps the offending dresser, trashes the TV, tips over the potty-chair—and that explains the stink of piss and shit. Although not the odor of fear, very distinct to Cutter, who has smelled it many times, under various circumstances. Sometimes his own fear, more often someone else’s fear. Distinctive odor that makes the air feel sharp, crystalline, dangerous.

Smacked him like a puppy.

“Tomas?” Cutter says gently.

He’s aware of the lump under the mattress. As if Wald tried to cover his mess. Out of sight, out of mind. Cutter takes a deep breath, reaches down, flips over the mattress.

The boy, hiding his bloody face, trying to scuttle back under the mattress. Nowhere else to hide. Moving and therefore alive. Cutter sighs, plops himself down on the mattress, hugging his knees. No ski mask today. Mask time is over.

“Tomas? My name is Steve, Steve Cutter. Come here, I want to see how badly they hurt you.”

The boy has made it to a corner of the room, arms covering his head. Not sobbing or crying. Not saying a word. Waiting.

“Tomas, I know that one of the men threatened to kill you. He won’t. I won’t let him hurt you again.”

The boy is frozen against the wall, head and face averted. Cutter notes the white patches on the boy’s bloody knuckles. Tension. Fear.

“I’m sorry this happened, Tomas. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. But you’re safe now. Let me see what he did to you. Assess the damage.”

Cutter gets up from the mattress, edges slowly to the corner. No movement from the boy. Waiting.

Cutter crouches next to him. Smells the fear exuding from his young skin. Reaches out, strokes the boy’s matted hair.

A small fist smacks him in the jaw. Not enough to loosen his teeth, but a pretty strong punch.

“Got me good,” says Cutter, touching his lip. “Go on, take another punch. I won’t hit you. Free punch, kid, now’s your chance.”

The small fist connects again, not as hard this time, and Cutter grunts. “Ow,” he says. “Let’s stop hitting, shall we? Let me see your face.”

Small brown eye peeking through fingers. The boy would kill him if he knew how, that’s what his eyes reveal. Cutter closes his hands over the boy’s fists, pulls them away from the hidden face.

“Took a pretty good shot to the nose,” Cutter says. “Might be broken. I can fix that, once the bleeding stops.”