Page 9 of Into the Fire

He caught me watching, and I watched him fix it. Hands opened. Shoulders dropped. The pack came back down onto his hips, and he made all of it look like an afterthought.

“You’re staring, Hatcher.”

“I’m evaluating.”

He crossed the two-mile mark without breaking stride.

“Very thoroughly.”

I looked at the clipboard and wrote the split. Twenty-eight fifty. In his rookie year, he’d come through here at twenty-four and change.

As I drove toward the base, Dante was in the rearview, steady, climbing a road he hadn’t walked in five years.

Silvertip was awake when I got back. Doors stood open. Somebody had a compressor running behind the loft, and the Otter’s windshield reflected the sun.

I parked the truck and climbed out. Shep stood near the gate.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Working.”

“At what?”

He considered the question with the seriousness it deserved. “Support.”

“Go support something else.”

He didn’t move.

Dante was hurting when he passed the gate. His jaw was tight, and there were deep lines beside his mouth, but he carried it well. He didn’t sprint for the line or provide a triumphant show for whoever was watching.

I stopped the watch at forty-one twenty-two. He’d passed with plenty of room to spare. I handed him a water bottle.

Shep wanted the number.

“He passed,” I said.

“I know he passed.”

“Then your question’s been answered.”

“No, it hasn’t.”

Dante lowered the bottle. “He’s very demanding.”

“I like complete information,” Shep said.

“Does any of that information include minding your own business?” I asked.

“No.”

Dante laughed.

Shep asked again, and I finally gave him the official time.

“Forty-one twenty-two,” he repeated. “What’d you do before?”

Dante turned him back toward the buildings. “I was just a rookie, but I had one of the best times. For my first jump…”