13.
Napa, California—November 11, 2010The next morning I’m sitting on the garden bench, watching the rusting chickens and the metal cat stalking them. I have to spot them actually moving, I think, or admit to myself that I have indeed gone around the corner, like Kelly probably suspects by now. I can again sense the potential violence hanging in the air over the rusting chickens, and it reminds me of a similar sense of déjà vu from back at Mir Ali…Back during…Damn, I’ve forgotten the exact moment of the feeling. What the team was doing at the time. Actually I don’t remember very much of the violent end of the operation at all—only that we’d made a successful neutralization, permanently putting down the five targets in or near the hut in the center of the compound. But I think that things
