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“That was the plan. Doesn’t mean every one of the shithead engineers followed it. Maybe they got lazy with the programming on every tenth mine they turned out. Maybe someone forgot to insert the discrimination programming altogether and just built the thing to go off if a bird landed on it.”

On the other side of the body, a soldier named Lisa saw their burden’s lips move.

“Hey, he’s conscious! He’s trying to say something.”

Williams strained to hear. She would have switched positions with the other woman, but it was more important to get the injured man to where a doctor could work on him than to listen to what he had to say.

From the depths of Wright’s throat two words emerged, barely intelligible.

“What...happened?”

Nobody answered as they approached the nearest operating table. Turning toward her burden, Lisa struggled with the body. Wright was dead weight, but not dead.

“On three! One, two, three—lift!”

All four of them had to work in unison to get the body onto the table. Stepping back, the fourth soldier regarded the limp figure as he wiped at his brow.

“Son of a bitch is heavy! No fat on this guy.”

Williams was about to comment when the door burst open and Kate Connor strode purposefully into the operating theater, tying the string of her surgical mask behind her head as she came toward them. Studying the injured man, she moved purposefully around to Williams’ end of the table. Her eyes were roaming over the body; examining, appraising.

“Okay, what’ve we got here?”

A distraught Williams explained.

“He stepped on a mine. My fault. I told him it wouldn’t go off.”

“Not your fault.” Barnes hastened to correct her. “Fault of the bastard who improperly programmed the device.”

Kate spoke to her assistant. “Start a large bore intravenous. Keep it open. Push twenty ccs morphine.” Her gaze flicked back to the anxiously watching Williams. “What’s his name?”

“Marcus,” Williams managed to mumble.

Kate had returned her attention to the patient.

“He’s lucky to still have a leg. Both of them, no less.” Turning to a waiting tray of instruments, she selected one and began cutting away the shreds of Wright’s left pants leg. “Marcus—Marcus. I need you to keep talking to me.”

Still stunned, Wright tried to follow what was happening around him.

Kate spoke calmly as she worked.

“Just keep listening to my voice. Do you hear me? Concentrate on what I’m saying. You don’t have to reply; just try to understand. Keep your mind working.”

It was impossible to tell if he had heard and understood because he did not reply. Already working fast, she picked up her pace even more. Peeling away the last strips of shredded fabric revealed blackened flesh beneath. She scrutinized the damage coolly.

“He’s got a prosthetic leg?” Without waiting for a response from Williams, she raced on. “Okay; we’ve got burns—multiple lacerations. Can’t tell how bad until I get in deeper. I need gauze, disinfectant, antibiotic—methicillin for a start, keep some vancomycin handy.” She didn’t need the scissors to rip open Wright’s shirt. A large chunk of metal was embedded in his chest.

“Pulse is good. Okay—let’s see what we’ve got....”

Wright opened his eyes. At almost that exact moment she dropped the surgical instruments she had been wielding and stumbled backward. Compassion and professionalism gave way to a look of uncontrolled horror.

Lying on the table, Wright turned his head just enough to meet her dismayed gaze.

“What’s the matter? What’s wrong? How bad is it?”

She continued to gape at him—lips parted, mouth wide, pupils expanded, focused on something he could not see. He tried to understand, just as he had tried to understand everything that had happened to him since—since....

Since he had been executed by the State of California.

“What’s happeni—?”

Relieving him of confusion and its accompanying angst, the butt of Barnes’s rifle slammed into his face.

When he regained consciousness for the second time since activating the landmine, he was too overcome to speak. But not too dazed to realize that he was unable to move.