Read No Easy Hope - 01 for Free Online

bear that out. As time went on Gabe gradually began to open up about some of the things he saw and did during the war. It seemed to help him, somewhat, to share his experiences. In light of all he had seen, Gabriel began to make more sense as a person, but I always got the feeling there was something he wasn’t telling me- some secret he was hiding.
     
    That all changed one night almost three years to the day from the first time I met him. We were sitting on the back patio of my house in Morganton drinking liberally from a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. A low fire was burning in the outdoor fireplace to ward off the last of the stubborn winter chill. Gabe was telling me about the first and second battles of Fallujah. He served in the First Marine Expeditionary Unit at as a scout sniper. The operations were long and brutal, and Gabe had racked up more kills than he cared to remember.
     
    “I still see them sometimes, the men I killed.” He said. “I lie down and try to sleep, and I see their faces. No matter how many times I did it, pulling the trigger never got any easier. Even though the man on the business end of my rifle would have done the same to me given the chance, I was still taking a human life out of the world. I was killing someone’s brother, or son, or father. Even the worst of men have somebody that cares about them.”
     
    “Yeah, but the guys you took down are the kind of people that the world is better off without.” I replied.
     
    “How do you know that?” Gabe shot me a piercing stare. “Put yourself in their place for a minute. A bunch of foreigners come into town and take over everything. They set up shop in your church, start laying down curfews, and confiscate people’s property. They go after the people that try to fight them, and wind up killing a bunch of non-combatants. Not just men, but women and children too. How long do you think you’d be willing to put up with that shit? How long would it be until you picked up a rifle and started trying to chase the invaders out of your home?”
     
    I thought about that for a moment. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live through a foreign occupation. I remembered all the times my mother had told me never to judge a man until you had walked a mile in his shoes. Maybe Gabriel had a point.
     
    “I don’t know.” I replied. “I guess I never thought about it that way.”
     
    Gabriel looked away, anger fading from his expression. “Yeah, well, it’s all in the past now. My soldiering days are over, thank God. As bad as it was, Fallujah wasn’t the worst of it for me. When I went to work for Aegis…” Gabe stopped mid-sentence. He glanced at me, and shook his head.
     
    “Never mind, I don’t want to talk about that.”
     
    “That’s bullshit.” I said. “You wouldn’t have brought it up if you didn’t want to talk about it.” I turned and leaned toward Gabriel.
     
    “Gabe, we’ve been friends for a good while now, and I’ve gotten to know you pretty well. I can tell that whatever happened when you worked for Aegis is eating away at you. You can’t just carry that shit around forever, man. Get it out of your head. Drag it out, and stop letting it ruin your life.”
     
    Gabriel passed a hand over his face, his palm making a loud rasping sound on his beard stubble.
     
    “You don’t understand Eric, I can’t talk about it. If the wrong people found out, things could get real bad for me and whoever I tell. You’re better off not knowing, it’s safer that way.”
     
    “Safer? What are they gonna do, take me away and lock me up?”
     
    Gabe gave me a level stare. “Yes, or worse.”
     
    That stopped me. I looked at Gabe for a moment, and then sat back in my chair. What the hell had Gabe been involved in? What could be so bad that the government would be willing to imprison or kill people to keep word of it from getting out? I had seen enough evidence of past government cover-ups to know that things like that