This is Richard Cain, age eighty-one. He wears a faded field jacket with an almost unreadable patch, walks with a permanent limp from a hip that never healed correctly, and carries a hearing aid inside his right ear.
This is also the night five young warriors learned that some ghosts are very real.
“You sure you are in the right place, old-timer?”
The voice was young and sharp, carrying the casual arrogance that often came from being exceptionally good at something exceptionally dangerous. It cut through the bar’s low murmur, the clinking of glasses, and the distant drone of a sports recap playing on the television in the corner.
Richard Cain did not turn his head. He kept his pale eyes fixed on the dark amber whiskey inside his glass while condensation traced a slow path down the tumbler. His hands, gnarled with age and speckled with liver spots, remained steady around it.
To the rest of the world, Richard appeared to be another old man slowly drinking at the end of a long day inside a quiet neighborhood bar on the outskirts of Fort Bragg. Nothing about him seemed important enough to attract attention.
The young man who spoke was lean and tightly built beneath a plain gray T-shirt. He interpreted Richard’s silence as permission to continue.
He and four friends had occupied a nearby booth, bringing an energy too large and restless for the sleepy establishment. All five were in their late twenties or early thirties, with closely cut hair, neatly trimmed beards, and watchful eyes marking them as something other than civilians.
They were off duty and dressed in jeans and casual shirts, but they carried an invisible uniform of discipline, danger, and confidence. They were Delta Force operators, although nothing on their clothing openly identified them as such.