Don't Go Quietly.

May of 1992.

"Where are you headed?"

It was an innocent question, and one that I never expected an answer to. Larry was extremely secretive, even under that veil of nonchalance.

But he smiled at me, putting his arm around my shoulders. He had a single duffel bag around one arm, and despite the intensity of our last mission, he almost looked like a normal guy. I could almost believe him when he said, "I was thinking about taking a vacation."

"Where to?"

He shrugged, "Dunno yet, wanna get outta the States for a while."

We waited to check in together, and before we split, I asked, "Do you think Meyer will betray us?"

Larry laughed, like there were not lives on the line, "Oh, yeah, definitely. Once someone thinks they're the king of the world, it takes more than a little threat to knock them off their throne. I'm on cleanup duty for that, so I hope he waits a little while."

He was apathetic. Cleanup duty involved killing him, his family, and anyone else he may have spilled the beans to. It was a pile of bodies, at the very least. Larry talked about murder like it was just another fact of life. I had spent the last two days pointing out to myself all of the ways we were different, and that was one of them. I valued human life. I saw purpose in it. I was not fond of other people and I preferred to be alone, but I still cared about others. It made me wonder if Larry had a mother he loved, or a brother, or even one little thing that could force him to be human.

"See you around, kid," Larry said, slapping me on the back as we separated.

I wanted some time away from him, so instead of following him to the international flights, I headed for the bar. It was dark and quiet, a lazy mid-week afternoon. I sat at the far end, away from a couple of loud tourists, and ordered a water.

"Mojito please, and this guy's paying."

I jumped as hands clamped down on both my shoulders. Sam slid into the seat beside me, grinning, wiggling his eyebrows until I nodded to the bartender.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, wondering if something had gone wrong already.

"I can pull strings, too, Mike. I know things." He accepted his drink, took a sip, and sighed like he had just come up for air. "I came to see you off. Heard you were leaving the country."

He was dealing in classified information, but instead of wondering how he had tracked me down, I let myself be happy he was here. I tapped my water to his drink. "Are you staying here?"

"What, in New York City? I would rather bite a bullet, Mike." Sam glanced around, taking in the people, lingering on some pretty girls passing by. "I guess it's not so bad, if you like the smell of pee and the sensation that any tall building could be housing a sniper. We just got new orders."

"So, you just happened to be here, and spotted me?"

Sam shrugged, "Less mysterious when you say it that way."

I laughed, a freeing feeling.

"How did it end up going down?"

His question gave me pause. He had to have seen the reluctance in my face. "I can't talk about it."

"Come on, Mikey, it's me. I was on the same mission."

"It ended in the best possible way."

Sam watched me, suspicious, and then accepted that lackluster answer. Somehow, he understood. "I know you can't tell me, but I'm gonna ask anyway. Where ya headed?"

"Someplace sunny." I looked up from my water and found him smiling thoughtfully at his drink. "I probably won't be back for a while."

"Here. Ignore that this is on a cocktail napkin." Sam wrote his number down in long, scrawling script, tucking it into my shirt pocket. "Call me anytime. Just to chat. If you need a tire changed. If you get pinned down in a firefight. You know, normal stuff."

I plucked the napkin from my pocket and folded it, holding it in my hand. "Thanks, Sam."

"Listen, I gotta go. I really shouldn't have stopped, but I couldn't resist." Sam hopped up, downed his drink pretty impressively in a few gulps, and patted my shoulder. His voice got low all of the sudden, more intense than normal. "Listen, Mike, I know it gets tough out there, but you gotta stick to your guns."

And then he was gone.

I watched him go, wishing I could go with him. Maybe life would have been easier for me if I had joined the navy instead of the army. I might have never met Larry, never become a spy. It seemed that Sam was saying to me, "Don't go quietly into the dark." I wish it were as easy as he made it seem – to be good, to be righteous, to draw a line in the sand dividing good from bad. I wish my mom had been right when she explained the difference to me.

I would not see Sam again for more than a year.

I should have followed him.

I should have stayed at the bar.