The punk blinked, his sneer vanished, he glanced at his companions, and then

they all turned and hustled off.

 

It was then that Rogers did something he almost never did.

 

He smiled. And it wasn’t because he had intimidated the punk. He had intimidated

many men. And he had never smiled any of those times.

 

He walked back to his car, climbed in, tucked his money away, and looked at the

map he’d bought.

 

The Virginia border was still two hundred miles from here. And the place within

Virginia he was heading to would tack on about another three hundred or so

miles.

 

He should be tired, exhausted really, but he wasn’t. He should be a lot of

things. But he wasn’t.

 

Now he was only what he was.

 

He drove to a diner, parked at the curb, and went inside. He ordered food, drank

his coffee and two glasses of water, and let his mind wander back to the point

where it had all started.

 

He made a fist and looked down at it. The skin on top was real but not his. The