Page 2 of The Fourth Option
Yet those who knew him well, and there weren’t many, understood the look wasn’t about the fighting or the bad memories. It was about the way he thought, the perception of his surroundings and his place within it, even more than that, mankind’s place within it. Half of Chris Walker’s soul was that of a philosopher, a soul that seemed in constant conflict with its other half, that of a warrior. That battle had run its course. Both sides were exhausted. Walker would finish the clash with a single bullet to his head.
He bent his knees and twisted the handle on the sliding side door of the Syncro four-wheel drive Vanagon. He ducked and stepped outside.
Under the crack of thunder and the strobe of lightning, Paladin lunged from the shadows, forcing Walker into a seated position on the step outside. The dog’s breath was frantic, his tongue desperate, licking at Walker’s face like he was trying to pull a man from a coma.
Walker didn’t resist. He let the dog’s panic wash over him, grounding him. Barely sheltered by a fabric awning, he stroked Paladin’s head with a trembling hand, fingers brushing the scars behind the ears.
Beyond the edge of the canopy, the rain didn’t fall so much as collapse; vertical surf pounding the earth, retreating, then crashing again.The forest swayed under it, cedar limbs writhing like the arms of monsters. No wonder Paladin was losing it. Out here, the world looked like it was coming undone.
And maybe it was.
Walker dropped to a knee on the patch of AstroTurf under the awning, the soaked green square squelching beneath his weight, and tucked a strand of shoulder-length dirty blond hair behind his ear. He leaned in close, forehead to fur, and thought of the commands taught to Paladin in his training, a combination of Dutch and German, a canine language of obedience, of control, of war.
“Nothing really covers this, Pal, does it?”
Despite all his canine combat training, Paladin wasn’t buying it. The dog’s light brown eyes flickered. His breath came in ragged spurts. Paladin had taken shrapnel to the neck during a raid in Kandahar, leaving a scarred hole in his windpipe. When he panted, it sounded like a hacksaw cutting through a pipe.
“It’s all right now,” Walker soothed, pulling the dog close.
He shifted to the camp stool near the cooler and stroked Paladin’s head. To the right of the door, firmly secured by black rigger’s tape, was an envelope in a Ziploc bag that read: “ATTN TOMMY HAWKEYE. INSTRUCTIONS AND MONEY FOR PALADIN’S CARE.” Tommy was a Vietnam vet who lived with his wife not far away on the reservation. They would give Paladin a good home.
Walker had used his vintage Navy-surplus Royal Quiet De Luxe to hammer out the instructions. The typewriter, stowed in its olive-drab case, rested between freeze-dried food packets, Tupperware containers, and barbecue tools in the camper. Everything had its place in the van.
Those instructions included the commands the dog would understand, guidance for his exercise and food, and most importantly, the phone number of a fellow former SEAL in Southern California who ran a combat dog rehabilitation and rescue camp in case Hawkeye and his wife needed it.
More thunder. Paladin whined.
“Just take it easy, boy,” Walker said, staying with English as the dog licked his hands. Paladin would be okay. He wouldn’t be alone for long. Walker stood up to head back inside.
“Blijf,” he said halfway through the door, telling the dog to stay. “Baywaken,” he added, a command to guard the site. “Attaboy.”
He slammed the door shut and tried to block out Paladin’s growls.
Back in the van, he snagged the pistol off the cutting board and resumed his seat on the cushion. It was time.Just do it, he told himself. Like yanking a Band-Aid.
A headshot would take care of the memories. Of Afghanistan. Of John Staub.
Walker checked the ship’s clock and retrieved the phone, which blinked with a flashing light that he ignored. His right hand held the .45-caliber pistol, his left the phone. He stabbed the preprogrammed number for the tribal cops with his thumb.
One shot at this, he said to himself, pausing for a second to appreciate the double meaning.
As he waited on the tribal police dispatcher to pick up, he surveyed the interior of his van, eyes passing over his books, tomes from NYU and a few others he had picked up since abandoning his postgraduate education, a collection of philosophers: Plato, Voltaire, Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer. Next to these great teachers of the West, he had arranged texts on the Eastern faiths and philosophies: Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, Buddhism.
I guess I’m finally going to see which of you guys was right.
Above the books were other letters for the authorities, more envelopes taped to the cabinet doors, one for the wife of a long-gone friend.
His eyes lingered on his guitar, the instrument he played only for himself. He would miss it.
“Quinault Nation Tribal Police,”a female voice answered.
“Hello,” Walker said. “I’m calling from the Lower Quinault River, close to the estuary. I need to report a dead body.”
“A dead body? We’ll get someone right out. Do you have any idea as to the identity of the individual, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Who is it?”
