Episode 224 · An Outstanding Assignment

The man in uniform cleared the hall before he let anyone near Bull’s body.

Soles sat on the bench until the medical orderly arrived. The man glanced toward the body once, then kept his eyes on the cut across Soles’s forearm.

— Put the knife down.

Soles laid it on the bench beside him.

The orderly washed the wound and drew its edges together. It stung more than the cut had. The man wrapped the forearm. He spoke toward the doorway while he worked, asking for another dressing. The doorway stayed empty.

When he finished, Soles picked up the knife.

The man in gray was waiting at the office doorway. He kept the open floor between them.

— We’ll use the office.

Soles moved along the bench to collect his bag. Somebody had put his clothes on the bench but left the little case beneath it. He crouched, collected the soap and toothbrush and put them away. The inventory sheet had blood on one corner.

His agency phone lay on the shirt, screen down. He put it in his coat.

At the foot of the stairs, one of Bull’s men stood with his back against the wall. He had laughed when the bag opened. Now he watched Soles’s wrapped forearm until Soles came level with him, then looked down.

There was enough space to pass. Soles went through it without asking.

The two men took him across the service yard to the office.

From the office window he could see the service yard and the fence beyond it. An agency car had stopped at the gate. The man in uniform shut the door; the man in gray remained standing behind the desk.

— Sit down.

Soles kept the bag beside his chair. The knife lay wrapped inside it.

The man in gray looked at the bandage.

— What happened when you struck him?

— You saw.

— I saw his balance go. Then it went again. He said something to you.

Soles could still hear the question. Where is he?

— He couldn’t find what he was using.

— Could you?

Soles looked up.

The man waited for an answer. On the desk lay an unfinished incident form, the top half filled in with the room and the time.

— No, Soles said.

The man in uniform moved away from the door.

— You killed a colleague.

— You let him come at me with a knife.

— You had already disarmed him.

The room stayed quiet.

Soles could have told them about the doorway, the case on his first Sunday, the six weeks of the same hand turning him back toward the bench. They had been there for enough of it. At the end, Bull had been backing away without his knife.

— Yes, he said.

The man in gray sat down.

— There were witnesses.

— Both of you.

His eyes remained on Soles for a moment before he drew the incident form closer.

— There are also several accounts of how the confrontation began. And Bull’s record. That matters.

— Does it?

— It can.

The man in gray opened a drawer and laid a file beside the incident form. Bull’s name was on the cover. More than one colored slip projected from its edge.

— His discharge was waiting for a signature, he said. Another unit had already refused to take him.

Soles remembered the officer holding a cleaner back while Bull’s knife came toward him.

— You had easier ways to finish that.

The man closed the drawer.

— We’re discussing what you did after he lost the weapon.

The uniformed man put a folder on the desk. It was thinner than the one Soles had carried north three months earlier.

— An outstanding assignment.

Soles left it where it was.

— I leave today.

— Under the operational extension you signed, the uniformed man said.

— Which part of this is operational?

The man in gray put his pen down.

— We can submit an account of a fatal training incident. We can record the assault that preceded it and keep the witnesses within this office. The local authorities would receive the finding.

— And if I don’t take the folder?

The pen stayed on the desk.

The man in uniform opened the file himself. He turned it so Soles could see the heading.

Hunter.

Under it was an instruction to locate and eliminate.

Soles looked at the next box. No accompanying unit had been assigned.

— Who’s going with me?

— This requires a small presence.

— Who’s bringing me out?

— Transport can be arranged when you report completion.

— Before that.

The uniformed man waited.

— If I need help before that, Soles said.

— You have the agency number.

He had used it at the pump house. He had waited beside the grille while a voice asked him whether he could manage alone.

The man in gray slid the incident form to the side of the desk, beside the folder.

— This keeps the matter here.

Soles looked from one document to the other. They had watched Bull to see what he could make Soles do. Now the same men were offering a door, with something behind it they did not want to follow him toward.

— How long?

— A month allocated.

— Then I go home.

— On completion.

— Still on your books.

— Your employment continues.

Soles put his left hand flat on his knee. The bandage beneath the sleeve pulled when he bent the elbow.

— Write the release into the order.

The man in uniform began to speak. The man in gray held up a hand.

He took a clean sheet from beneath the incident form and wrote the terms. Return to his home address after confirmed completion. Continued service obligation. Reporting arrangements to follow.

Soles read it while the pen was still in the man’s hand.

— Signed.

The man signed.

Soles took out his own phone and photographed the page. Neither man objected. He waited for a copy, folded it into the inner pocket of his coat and stood.

— The file, the uniformed man said.

Soles took it.

At the door, he stopped and looked back at the man in gray.

— You could have told him to put it away.

The man looked toward the signed page, then back at Soles.

— You had room to leave.

Soles opened the door.

He carried the folder back across the yard. The training building’s outer door had been pulled almost shut. A man came out carrying a bucket and a folded cloth. He stopped on the path when he saw Soles.

Soles waited until he moved clear, then continued toward his room.