Alex Lukeman - The Cup

"I'll help," Selena said.

"We'll all help," Nick said.

"Let me show you where everything is," Mercurio said. "I'll choose wine for our meal. I have a rather exceptional cellar."

"Do you have a nice Barolo, by any chance?" Selena asked.

Mercurio's face broke into a broad smile.

"One you will remember for the rest of your life," Mercurio said, "a 1958 Giacomo Borgogno, an astounding vintage. I have several bottles. It will be a pleasure to share it with you."

Ronnie mopped up the Chef’s blood. Then everyone got busy doing something to make the meal. Lamont and Ronnie chopped vegetables. Nick put on a large pot to boil for pasta. Selena began assembling a salad in a large wooden bowl. The bowl was dark and gleaming from years of careful used and conditioning. No one had ever spoiled it with soap. Making a meal provided an illusion of normality in what had been anything but a normal day.

They sat down at the kitchen table to eat. The wine was everything Mercurio had said it was and more. One sip set the body glowing, as if the sun had come out from behind dark clouds. It was that kind of wine. The count entertained them with stories of Italian politicians who had made fools of themselves in one way or another and stories of his childhood and his grandfather, the patriarch who had started the olive oil business.

They had just finished when the cleanup crew arrived in two white vans. There were eight of them. The leader had a brief conversation with Nick and they set to work. Three hours later, there was no sign of the terrorist attack. The holes in the wall and ceiling from the bullets had disappeared. The chandelier was back where it belonged. The bodies and blood traces were gone. The broken windows in Mercurio's study had been repaired.

Mercurio stood at the entrance with Nick and watched the vans pull away. He looked around.

"Amazing," he said. "You'd never know anything had happened."

"That's the idea, Count."

"It's clear this isn't the first time you've used the services of men like those. Don't you get tired of dealing with this sort of mayhem?"

"It's all part of the job. But, yes, I do get tired of it."

"Then why do you continue?"

"I've been asking myself that a lot, recently. It's pretty simple. There are evil people in the world who will do anything to get what they want. Some do it with money and politics. Others do it with bombs and guns. Someone has to stop them and that's where I come in."

"Do you think any of it makes a difference in the long run?"

"I don't know about the long run, Count. I deal with situations in the present. Does it make a difference? The day I stop believing it does is the day I'll quit."

"That's a fair answer," Mercurio said. "By the way, thank you for what you did today."

"You're welcome."

"It's getting late. Let me show you where you and the others can sleep."

Mercurio took them upstairs. Lamont and Ronnie had separate rooms overlooking the front of the house. Nick and Selena's room looked out over the villa gardens. It had glass doors that opened onto a wide balcony. The bed was a queen sized four poster with a brocaded canopy. A private bath completed the suite.

"If the olive business ever goes bust, he can always turn this place into a hotel," Nick said.

"It is something like a boutique hotel," Selena said. "That bed looks comfortable."

"I'm going to take a shower. Care to join me?"

"I thought you'd never ask," she said.

Later, after they'd made love, Nick looked up at the canopy overhead and thought about how close they'd come to dying earlier. He fell asleep. He dreamed.

He's in Afghanistan again, the rotors echoing from the valley walls, the monotonous sound of approaching death. There’s the village where he almost died, a shitty, dust-blown cluster of flat-roofed buildings surrounded by sharp, brown hills. A potholed dirt track runs through the cluster of hovels.

He drops from the chopper and hits the street running, M4 up by his cheek, his Marines behind him. They're looking for a Taliban mullah who's making trouble. He comes to the market, a mix of cobbled together bins with cloth walls. Flies swarm around the butcher’s stall.

He stays away from the walls. Somewhere a baby cries. There's no one in the street..

Bearded figures on the rooftops open up with AKs. The market stalls shatter in a storm of splinters and rock exploding from the sides of the buildings.

A child runs toward him with a grenade and he hesitates too long. The boy throws as he fires a three round burst. The child's head vanishes in a burst of blood and bone and brain. The grenade drifts toward him in slow motion and explodes…

The dream changes. Before, he's always come awake when the grenade explodes but this time he finds himself standing before a building he's never seen before. It's a very large building of stone, old. There are galleries with windows and arches, long stone balustrades and open spaces, stairways and doors. Narrow bell towers topped with odd looking crosses soar into a dark sky.

A deep voice booms in his mind.

"PAY ATTENTION!"

He woke shouting.

"Nick, it's alright."

Selena was standing by the bed a little distance away.

"It's just a dream. You're all right."

Nick sat up. He was slick with sweat, the sheets tangled around his legs.

"What are you doing over there?"

"You were thrashing around, the way you did when we first met. I didn't want to get in your way. Were you dreaming about Afghanistan again?"

He rubbed his eyes and swung his feet over the side of the bed.

"Yeah, it was the same old dream. Except this time it was different."

"How?"

Nick told her about the building and the voice.

"What do you think it means?" she said.

"I don't know that it means anything. I've never seen that building before. It looked real, like I was standing in front of it. Then I heard the voice. That's what woke me up."

"You haven't had that dream for a while. It must've been because of what happened today."

"I was thinking about today before I fell asleep," Nick said. "That was close, too close. I wasn't expecting it, and that worries me."

"You think you should have anticipated it?"

"Yes, I should have. I let my guard down. It was a mistake."

"You're human, Nick. You're allowed to make mistakes."

"Not when it can get us killed. We knew ISIS might follow up on Bergstrom."

"But we weren't killed. That's why we're a team. We protect each other."

"That's right," Nick said. "But Ronnie and Lamont won't always be around to save our ass."

"I have an idea," Selena said.

"I'm listening."

"Let's go down to the kitchen and finish that second bottle of wine."

The base at Incirlik hadn't changed much since the last time they'd been there. They were met by a man in civilian clothes who introduced himself by his last name, Monell. His eyes were hidden behind old-style aviator sunglasses. He led them to a blue Chevy suburban parked nearby.

Lamont looked around the base as they drove away from the hangers. "Seems kind of busy."

Monell nodded. "It's the war in Syria. They're flying missions all the time."

"Any problems with the Russians?" Nick asked.

"Every day. Most of it doesn't make the press, but there are always incidents. Some hotshot pilot in an SU-35 will come too close. It's only a question of time before something happens. When it does, all bets are off."

"That's an encouraging thought," Selena said, "that some jet jockey just out of adolescence could touch off World War III."

"Let me guess," Nick said. "Langley sent you."

"I work for the DNCS Monroe," Monell said. "I'm supposed to give this to you."