Chapter 8: It's you; Don't question the mission (rated T); beginning to seep in.
Upstate New York, late December, 2016
She was sitting next to him on the floor at his left side when his eyes opened. He didn't look at her, but fixed his eyes on the fire blazing in the fireplace. So hot on his skin that the sweat poured off him. The soft leather hide that she'd thrown over him was saturated with it.
It made Reese think of some kind of ritual or ceremony – and maybe that's what he needed. Nothing else had worked. He'd tried to ignore it for years – keep working as if this damage wasn't there, but it was dragging him down. It was like a heat inside. White-hot, like a poker sometimes.
Reese took in a breath, but the air was hot going in, and hotter going out. Something had to give or something bad was going to happen. He started to reach for the hide, to pull it off. But her hands were on his the second he started to move. He closed his eyes, couldn't look at her. And then Reese could feel something heavy, like a rolling, building pressure coming from her direction. It was strong, almost painful. He hadn't noticed it at first, but now he realized it had been there, slowly pumping up, the pressure building until he had to pay attention.
She still had his hands. He wanted to back away before something happened.
"Look at me," she said.
He didn't. There was something painful there, and looking her way could make him lose his grip. He was looking down instead, pursed-lip breathing to handle the pressure-pain. She leaned in closer.
"In The Book of Five Rings Musashi describes what makes a Warrior. Do you remember?" Reese bent forward, grimacing, as the pressure ratcheted higher. He didn't answer. She leaned in, whispering.
"He tells us what makes a Warrior different – different than any other class of people. Do you remember?" More pressure rolled in on him. He still said nothing.
"Mortal combat, John. Death. Either you live or you die in the next moment. And it is only your devotion to the training and the strength of your spirit that makes the difference. Do you remember?" Reese could barely breathe. The pressure rolled up over him, pressing him down like a giant stone.
"– a master achieves the Way by being devoted to the art," she whispered. She was watching him bend under the weight.
"Do you understand what he is saying, John? Warriors are different than everyone else. You put it all on the line. You face death, John, every day – and it is only the training, your skill, and the heart you bring to it that lets you survive. Without those, you are defeated. That's the price you have to pay, John. Every day."
Reese was shaking his head, no.
"I'm not that person," he said in his whisper-voice.
"But you are," she said, lifting herself higher next to him. "Didn't you train for years to be the best? Didn't you fight, and bleed for your men? Didn't you lead them in battle? Mortal combat, John. No one else does that."
"They weren't soldiers at the end," he whispered. "just people, kids sometimes – I was sent and I killed them all."
"That's what Warriors do, John. You go where you are sent and do what you must do."
"Not like that," he said.
Reese knew what he had signed up to do in black ops, but it had started to change him inside. He'd grown uneasy in this role. Certainly, if the information he was given was true about his targets, they deserved to be stopped. He began to believe, though, that he was not the right one to do it.
Musashi would not agree. In the second book of The Book of Five Rings, called Water, Jules recalled his writing:
why would you want to appear as one thing and be another? If you are a warrior then you are a warrior and if you are not a warrior then you are not a warrior. The Way...is the Way...Do not be false to yourself...For whatever reason you have chosen to be a warrior, you must understand your responsibility to the art and to yourself. They are one and the same.
And she remembered another passage in Water, one she'd recited many times, when Musashi wrote of the strategy of a Warrior. It started with how a Warrior carries himself:
You are undoubtedly familiar with men who are quiet and strong and seem to be doing nothing. They do not appear to be tense and do not appear to be in disarray. They simply appear...When it is necessary to attack, they do so with complete resolve, sure of themselves, neither over-bearing in attitude, nor with false humility.
A balance must be found within oneself so that neither false bravado nor a lack of confidence tainted the internal sense of self. There must be a stiff resolve, a confidence that flowed directly from unceasing practice and immersion in the Way. The bearing of a Warrior was hard-won, evidence of mastery of oneself, and acceptance from what Musashi called the spirit of the thing.
This was what it took – to live the life that Reese had chosen. There was no middle ground. If you are a warrior, then you are a warrior...the Way...is the Way.
Jules leaned toward him. The pressure shifted, and his head was pounding.
"What are you afraid of, John?" he heard her say. He didn't answer. She decided to push him harder.
"Could it be your brother?" His hand came out in her direction.
"Stop," he whispered, but she kept coming.
"You're afraid he won't accept, won't understand. You just found him, and now you're afraid you could lose him."
"Stop."
Jules could see the anguish in his face. She knew this was it.
"You have a family now – that you didn't know you had. A brother, his wife and kids, the new baby they named after you – so much to lose," she whispered. He wouldn't speak.
"They aren't the ones you have to fear, John. It's you. You can't accept you."
Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China, 2010
They were on their own until the chopper came back with the extraction team to get them out again at dark. Ahead was the steep, long staircase, running next to the office building, and they descended it quickly, Kara first, with Reese following.
At the bottom they could already sense that something was wrong. It was too quiet, and there was a faint smell, like blood and something dead nearby, in the air coming around the corner of the building; it wasn't until they rounded the corner that the full picture was clear.
In broad daylight, at tables where the young Chinese workers had been sitting, death was everywhere. A massacre of unarmed kids. Bodies were slumped over tables, or lying in their own blood on the cement, heaped together trying to escape; dozens of them.
Reese stopped in his tracks. Someone was there ahead of them on their mission. Someone had cut through the workers while they were eating on the pad outside, firing bursts with each finger-pull from automatic rifles. They hadn't had a chance.
Reese looked around at all the bodies, while Kara waded in, looking for anyone who might threaten them, too. Maybe the killers were still there, hidden. Maybe they were after the same laptop that Reese and Kara were sent to find.
Up ahead, they could hear a moaning sound. Someone on the ground was still alive. Kara went forward first and knelt down beside him, turning him over to face her. Reese heard her speaking in Mandarin to the wounded kid, jostling him to keep him conscious, pushing him hard to give her what she wanted.
Reese kept watch while she was at it. He listened to the sound of her voice, interrogating the kid. He was moaning in pain, crying out when she pushed her gun against his wound. Even in Mandarin, Reese could tell he was delirious. But she kept pushing him for more. She didn't care that he was wounded; she just wanted him to talk.
A gunshot startled him and he flinched – until he realized it was Kara firing. She stood up and started walking away from the man on the ground, and then she turned back to Reese.
"Let's go," she said. Reese frowned. "What did he say?"
"He wanted something for pain," she'd said.
Reese felt that familiar tightening inside. She was keeping things from him, again. She wouldn't have killed him without getting something from him, about what had happened here, who had done this. And mercy was not Kara's strong suit.
It made him uneasy sometimes, to work with someone who killed without question, who followed orders without thought, and expected him to do the same. Don't question the mission. Just get it done, she had always told him.
Upstate New York, late December, 2016
She could see it in his face. He didn't know what to do, what to think. She had the solution.
She reached forward and pulled the leather hide from his shoulders. Underneath it she could see his white shirt plastered to his skin, soaked in his sweat. He was about to get uncomfortable.
"Get up and follow me," she said. She stood and waited for him to do the same. He hesitated, but there was something in the sound of her voice that made him obey.
She moved to the French doors at the back of the room; outside, the first light of morning was just brightening the sky to the east. She slid the door open, and the two of them walked, barefoot, onto the deck in the back. She could hear his breath change as the cold air and cold footing hit him. It would take a few minutes. The roaring fire inside and the leather hide she'd wrapped over his body had overheated him; at first, this cold would feel welcome.
She led him off the deck and down onto the grass at the back. The blades were hard and stiff with cold, and they walked over them toward the left. She knew he would guess where she was taking him. They could see their breath in the cold still air, and mist was rising off their heated skin. Up ahead was the field with the tall brown grasses bending low. The footing was harder here, and they stepped gingerly over frozen dirt and fallen stalks, prickly and sharp on their feet.
The cold was beginning to seep in.