Predator Ch. 05

There were men at the bottom of the ramp, men in suits, and when his stretcher reached the men they looked at his chart, and one of them came over to him.

"Major Acheson?" the man said.

"Captain. American Airlines."

"Yes, Major Benjamin Acheson, United States Air Force Reserves. C-17 pilot. We have your file now."

"So. I'm a prisoner of war, I take it?"

"If there was a war, yes, you would be. But now you are just an enemy of the people, of the Soviet Union. You will be dealt with accordingly."

"I see." He heard a voice, a familiar voice, and he turned, saw Rutherford with a Russian colonel, laughing gayly now, her arm slipped inside his, and as he watched her disappear inside a black Mercedes sedan, he looked up at the sky - at a passing cloud. "The law of unanticipated consequences," he said, laughing a little.

"What was that, Major?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking. How funny life is, sometimes."

"Da. Funny. My family lived in St Petersburg. I am sure you think that funny, too."

And he did, in a way. He thought of Genie and The Duke, and of a butterfly sneezing somewhere on the far side of the world, and he smiled as they put his stretcher into the back of a dark green truck.

And he smiled when he thought of all the butterflies out there, just waiting to sneeze.