He'd stabbed over and over, feeling the boy squirm in terror. Murphy could taste the boy with his face tight against the youth's scalp. He could still smell that stale, acrid sweat - the smell of fear. Then the memory of when his knife finally found the gap between the boy's ribs to slip smoothly into the boy's body. It was almost sensual, like entering a woman's sacred place - but it gave no pleasure, just death, and he immediately felt an enormous shame. He was ashamed that he'd killed that kid. So many times since that nightmare twenty-four hours he had wondered how old the boy was: thirteen, maybe fifteen at the most?
Watching the MRH-90 Taipan helicopter burning its way to the ground was like he was watching his buddies falling to their death leaving him alone in that valley of evil.
