And the medic had been so panic-stricken that he’d forgotten to drop his kit before running for his life. “Those who manage to return to base, each will have his own story to tell, but they all will match. Lying is the Esperanto of cowards.” Olaf spoke as he always did, in the confidently commanding tone of a surgeon ordering a nurse to hand him a scalpel. He never needed volume to get others to listen—if you had any sense, you just moved closer. Even now, sprawled on the jungle floor with his life bleeding away, his voice was devoid of anger or bitterness. Assuring me he knew how to die quietly—it wouldn’t be his screams that would bring the enemy closer. All terrorists operate off the same premise: People can never find answers in the center of their own fear. Stampeding sheep will follow those ahead of them, even if it’s into a waiting slaughterhouse. But not all human minds are programmed the same way. An injection of terror will cause an instant response in us all, but that response runs full-spectrum.
