Carruth couldn’t put his finger on it, but it felt . . . off, somehow. He had the information Lewis had given him, codes, orders, specific and detailed directions, same as always. The gate-check had gone smooth as silk. The sun was shining, felt almost like spring was in the air, getting close to shirt-sleeve weather. Lewis hadn’t screwed up yet—the time that things had gone south was something nobody could have figured, some GI who wasn’t supposed to be where he was, an X-factor for which it was impossible to calculate, and certainly not Lewis’s fault. This would be easier, it involved stealth, and nobody would think twice about seeing him until he grabbed up the target. And even then, all he had to do was show the colonel the gun and keep it hidden, they’d be two guys walking to his car, nothing to see here, move along. Once he drove onto the base, there was a roadwork sign blocking the main drag a couple hundred meters in, and the detour wasn’t on her plans, but that could have started this morning and even so, it shouldn’t matter.
