Colonel," he
himsel_
Colonel," he said at length. "We cannot simply lock the man up." He glanced at Dan. "Do you know what I think, Colonel Collins?"
Dan was sure Carreras would tell him, if it suited Carreras' plans.
"I think our friend McKee isn't crazy at all."
Dan twitched. "What? I questioned him myself, under truth drugs. Carreras, his mind never came home from 'Nam. He's as certifiable as they come."
Carreras smiled. Dan suppressed a shiver.
"I think," Carreras said, leaning easily against the edge of his massive desk, "that our friend is a killer without purpose. Without a job. When he is placed in war, he is like the orca, deadly and efficient in his own element. Take him out of war . . . Tell me, Colonel, have you ever seen a beached whale? The seagulls peck at it, pluck at its eyes, nibble it to death."
"So what do you want me to do with him? Find a nice, bloody little war for him?"
Carreras chuckled. "No, Colonel. I do not want you to find a war for him." Carreras rested his palms against the desktop and glanced into one corner of the vast room. "He knows too much."
"He doesn't know anything—" Dan protested.
"He knows this place!" Carreras struck the desktop with one fist and propelled himself toward Dan. "He knows that he has been . . . displaced. When I get my hands on Tony . . ." Carreras muttered. "I warned that fool. . . ."
Dan didn't want to hear this. Men had died for knowing less. Men, he realized with a sickening lurch, like McKee.
When Carreras straightened, Dan already knew what he was going to say. He wasn't wrong.
"Kill him, Collins."
Dan shook his head in a hopeless bid to save the man's life. "He doesn't know anything, Carreras. Nobody's going to believe a crazy man. And with his record—"
"Need I remind you, Colonel"—Carreras' voice was an icy whiplash—"that you are in no position to defy my orders?"
Dan bit back the rest of his arguments and swallowed. "I know," he managed.
A polished obsidian gaze caught and pinned him in a puddle of stinking sweat. "I could easily arrange an unpleasant transfer for our mutual acquaintances. You do understand that, don't you, Collins? Judea, perhaps, say, 50 b.c.? I'm told leprosy was quite common—"
"You wouldn't—!" Dan halted abruptly. Carreras would dare and there was absolutely nothing Dan could do to stop him. Dan shrank away from Carreras' contemptuous look, from the knowledge that he was a traitor, a coward, a crawling worm. . . .
Jésus Carreras' voice was as cold