Chapter One
In the dream, he’s walking through the north St. Louis neighborhood on his way home from school. It’s a late autumn day, and the sky is crystal blue above. The weather has been brisk and snappy, but this afternoon summer seems to have breathed one last warm gasp into the city. He’s smiling. He wears a jacket, but it’s warm, and he is thinking about taking it off and carrying it. He walks alone. The leaves crackle underfoot.
He is happy today, contented. For the first time since his family moved here, he feels at home. He has finally adjusted to his new junior high. He has found some good people, some of whom have become his friends, and he has identified some bad people, all of whom are to be avoided. He is finally beginning to know his place in the school, the city, and even the world.
Up ahead, the far corner of the line of trim red brick townhouses where he lives has just come into view when he hears a strange whistle of wind, then a thumping roll in the grass off to his right. Catching a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, he at first thinks it is a baseball, and he smiles. The smile leaves his face when he realizes that it is a rock thrown from behind him.
Ducking just a bit reflexively, he turns back to see a group of three boys behind him a ways across the street. He did not want to see these boys. They are not his friends. They are people to avoid.
Before he has time to react, there’s a whirl of an arm, and a tiny arc of gray motion, and a rock hits him just above his right eye.
He reels sideways from the blow, almost falling down in the street. Another rock snaps off the asphalt and cracks against the curb. His head suddenly feels large and heavy. His feet chase slowly under his tipping body before he gets his balance. His eyebrow feels wet.
And then he is running. Another rock swishes through the air past his ear as he reaches the sidewalk. He makes the split-second decision to dodge between the houses to his right rather than run straight up the street, where he would be an easy target.
He picks up speed, dashing down the driveway toward the narrow gap between the garage and the house next door. A rock clacks off the picket fence out front.
Suddenly, his path is blocked. Someone has put up a new redwood fence from the garage to the house, closing in the backyard but shutting him out. The fence is tall—too tall to jump over, too tall to climb over quickly. He can hear footsteps running through the leaves behind him. His mind in a panic, he ducks through the side door into the garage. As he reaches for the door, he can see a spot of blood on the web of his hand between his thumb and forefinger.
All at once, he isn’t twelve anymore; he’s twenty-nine. He isn’t alone; he’s with his team. He isn’t in a darkened garage; he’s in a house in a suburb of Baghdad.
It’s chilly outside, but it’s hot under his bulletproof vest, and he’s thinking about taking it off.
Suddenly, an Iraqi man walks in and spots him. His rifle swings up. The man’s mouth opens.
It isn’t a warm fall day in St. Louis. It’s Christmas Eve in Iraq.
In his bed, he’s drenched in sweat, and he tries desperately to wake from the dream.
* * *
In his apartment in downtown St. Louis, Victor Storm woke with a start, gulping breath, heart pounding. He drew his hands up in front of his face, expecting to look at the rifle he was holding, but as his eyes adjusted, he saw they were empty.
The studio apartment materialized from the darkness around him. A rectangle of soft, gray light entered the room from around the blinds closed across his front window. His eyes searched the darkness, finding reassurance in the familiar forms of the lamp on the nightstand next to his queen bed, the wide, low bookshelf between his bed and the living area, the arch to the kitchen, and the kitchen counter. His ears picked up the distant rumble of a diesel engine idling somewhere in the parking lot outside, and this, too, was familiar and reassuring.
For a while, he sat on the edge of the bed. Though it was still before dawn, he didn’t want to go back to sleep.
In time, he walked to the window, twisted the blinds open, and stared out at the darkness. His apartment was too low to the ground and too far away, but he could imagine he could see the flat black Mississippi River rolling through the darkness. He could almost see the Arch, rising and falling like hope, like life.
In the eastern distance, he could see the first touch of blue beginning to lighten the far horizon.
