C. Box - Force of Nature

It was two minutes until the half, and the Falcons were up 21–14, when an officer he’d never seen before approached him and stood a few feet away, studying him up and down with a flat, superior expression, as if he were about to bid on him in an auction. The officer looked hard, and there was a palpable sense of purpose, dark menace, and explosive action about him. Although he had the single silver bar that designated the officer as a lieutenant, he had a black patch sewn onto his uniform sleeve Nate didn’t recognize. The patch was in the shape of a badge and it had no words or numerals. Just a white embroidered profile of a falcon slashing through the air with both talons outstretched. And above the lieutenant’s breast pocket was a black metal pin with the roman numeral V, or five.

“This isn’t your first time handling falcons, is it cadet?” the lieutenant said.

“No, sir. I’ve flown birds all my life.”

“Name them.”

“Started with a prairie falcon, sir. I’ve worked with three prairies. But I’ve flown redtails and kestrels, and a gyr.”

The lieutenant cocked an eyebrow, but his mouth didn’t change. “A gyr? Isn’t that like flying a B-52 bomber?”

“A little. It was a challenge.”

“Ever hunt a peregrine?”

“No, sir. But that’s something I want to do someday.”

The lieutenant nodded knowingly. “Pound for pound, it’s the greatest hunter alive. Fastest, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did you get all those birds?” the officer asked.

“Trapped them myself, sir.”

“Really?”

“Yes, sir.”

The officer extended his hand and Nate shook it. The man’s grip was dry and hard.

“I’m in command of a small Special Forces unit, and I’ve been looking for a couple of fellow falconers to round it out. The reason, I can’t disclose. Is that something you might be interested in?”

Nate shrugged. “I’m not sure, sir. But I’d be eager to learn more about it.”

“Our official team name is Mark V,” the officer said. “Informally, we’re known as The Five. But within the team, we call ourselves the Peregrines.”

Nate grinned.

That was the first time he met Lieutenant John Nemecek.

Nate slid into the right-hand lane and took the exit for Cimarron Street onto State Highway 24 west toward Cascade. It wasn’t long before the buzz of morning traffic was behind him. As he climbed into the foothills, he noted that the inch of snow from the night before still clung to the pine boughs of the trees and sparkled in the grass.

The gravel road he took to the right wasn’t marked with a sign. Within a few minutes, the canopy of trees closed above him, and for half a mile it was like driving through a tunnel.

The place he was looking for was a squat brick home nestled into a shaded alcove with a view of a sloping mountain meadow in front and the massive jagged horizon of Pikes Peak behind. A single stringy white cloud seemed to have snagged on the top of the peak like a plastic bag caught on a tree branch.

He pulled into the circular driveway and drove around it until his Jeep was adjacent to the porch and front door. There were no signs of life, but a rolled-up Colorado Springs Gazette on the top stair of the porch and an American flag flapping on a pole indicated someone was there.

Nate killed the motor and swung his legs out of the Jeep. He looked at the house through squinted eyes, trying to remember the last time he’d been there. And wondering why it seemed so lifeless. He slipped off his shoulder harness and holster, and bundled it under the front seat.

Before he reached the front steps, the interior door opened and Nate’s father stood behind the storm door with a scowl on his face.

All he said was, “You.”

“Hey, Tech Sarge,” Nate said, hesitating on the porch. “Are you going to let me in?”

Although his father was still tall and wide-shouldered, his body looked ravaged and sunken-in. His thin, pale hair was wispy, and his eyes looked out of deep sockets like dull chunks of basalt.

“I’m thinking,” his father said.

“Where’s Dalisay and the girls?” Nate asked, when his father finally stepped aside and let him enter.

“Around,” Technical Sergeant Gordon “Gordo” Romanowski growled.

“Is there coffee? I’ve been driving all night.”

“In the kitchen.”

Nate paused for a moment, then said, “It’s okay, I’ll get it myself.”

“You know where the cups are.”

The interior of the house hadn’t changed much, Nate noted. Despite the mountain location and the three-hundred-plus days of sunshine in Colorado, it was designed to be dark inside. The shaded windows were small, and the corners were lit with dim lamps. The wall of framed photographs of Gordo Romanowski in exotic locales was as it had always been, but there had been a few changes. As Nate poured a cup of coffee, he studied the photos.

Gordo, Nate’s mother, and five-year-old Nate in Turkey. Gordo with a forty-pound tuna off the coast of Baja, Mexico. Gordo in full dress in his tech sergeant’s uniform.

What was missing, Nate observed, was his Academy entrance photograph. And a shot of him with his first falcon. In their place were photos of Dalisay when Gordo first met her in the Philippines, and another of Gordo, Dalisay, and their two infant daughters. The girls were striking miniatures of Dalisay: petite, dark hair, big eyes, caramel skin. Because it was Colorado Springs and therefore a military town, Nate assumed Asian wives and children weren’t unusual at all in the community. But Nate had never met his stepmother or half sisters.

“You look fit,” Gordo said.

“Wild game meat and clean living,” Nate replied.

Gordo snorted with doubt and disapproval. “Why are you here, anyway? Why now, after all these years?”

Nate sipped the strong coffee and met the glare of his father with his own. “That’s why I called. I wanted to touch base.”

“What’s that mean?” His father was uncomfortable, and looked away.

“I wanted to see you one last time,” Nate said.

“Shit,” Gordo said, and groaned.

They sat in overstuffed chairs on opposite ends of the coffee table. Gordo seemed stiff and edgy. Nate put his cup down on a coaster and sat back.

“So Dalisay and your girls… they’re still with you, right?”

Gordo nodded.

“What, they’re at school? Dalisay is working?”

“Let’s not talk about them.”

Nate shook his head, puzzled. He swiveled his head around. A stack of children’s books was on the floor by the bookcase next to a plastic milk crate of Barbie dolls and accessories. The refrigerator in the kitchen was cluttered with school photos and a Polaroid shot of a grinning seven-year-old girl labeled “Melia’s first checkup: no cavities!” It was dated from August, two months prior. In the photo, Melia boasted a perfectly symmetric row of Chiclets-like teeth.

“Why in the hell did you come here?” Gordo asked, pain in his face.

“I told you.”

His father said, “Do you know how many times men have come to this house asking if I’d heard from you? Special agents from the FBI? Pentagon brass? Even detectives from the Montana and Wyoming DCI?”

Nate hadn’t thought about it, but it made sense.

“I had to tell them I hadn’t heard a damned word from you in twelve years. That the last time we talked, you called me from who-the-fuck-knows-where saying you’d left the service and had decided to drop out of the world and become a fucking anarchist.”

“I don’t think I said that, exactly,” Nate said.

“You might as well have.” Gordo leaned forward in his chair and gripped his knees as if to squeeze the life out of them. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to live in a patriotic military town when your only son is a goddamned traitor to his country?” The last words were shouted out.