“This thing is a joke.”
Marcus’s finger touched the worn fabric.
For Richard, the world distorted.
The smell of whiskey, wood, and sawdust vanished. In its place came the metallic scent of blood, smoke, and cordite.
The bar’s cooler transformed into the deafening rhythm of helicopter rotors beating against a dusty, ink-black sky.
Richard was no longer eighty-one years old inside a North Carolina bar.
He was twenty-five and packed into the rear of a military helicopter, the vibrating floor slick beneath his boots. Red cabin lights flickered across tired faces while the aircraft moved through darkness.
A young man beside him, his face streaked with grime and sweat, grinned through the chaos. He slapped the newly issued patch on Richard’s shoulder.
It was identical to the one now attached to the old jacket, but its colors were new and sharp beneath the red cabin light. The skull at its center appeared to stare back at him, a promise of what they were and what they were about to do.
The memory lasted less than a second.
It still left the taste of ash inside Richard’s mouth.
He blinked, and the bar returned.
Marcus remained beside him with one hand near the jacket and smug certainty across his face.
Sarah had seen enough.
She watched the operators close in and saw the profound exhaustion in Richard’s eyes. For all their power and experience, the younger men had no understanding of what they were touching.
They resembled children playing beside an unexploded mine.
Sarah gave them one last pleading look.
None of them noticed.
Their attention remained fixed entirely on Richard.
She set the towel down, tightened her jaw, and walked quietly toward the small office behind the bar. Sarah closed the door and moved toward an old wooden desk.