End Game by John Gilstrap

right.”
    A glimmer of hope grew in Philip’s mind. “So, that’s what you did?”
    “Is what we almost did.”
    “Ah, Christ.”
    “Yes, was bad. Dudaev arrived at Mitchells’ house already wounded, I think. When we got there, he is already on floor bleeding. Maybe Mitchell shoot him, but I don’t think so. There is other shoot-out. Mitchell dies, Dudaev dies, but wife and boy get away along with their maid.” Datsik scowled and shot a look to Philip. “Why would they have maid?”
    Philip fell silent as he ran the facts through his head. This could still have a happy ending. “But the codes,” he said. “You got the codes.”
    Another sigh, this one deepest of all. “No codes,” he said. “We think maybe wife took them with her. What’s her name?”
    “Sarah.”
    “Yes, Sarah. We think she took codes with her. Sarah, maid, boy, codes, all gone. But she was shot and shot bad. Gut shot.” He pointed to a place high on his own abdomen. “Maybe not live.”
    Philip’s mind raced. That happy ending was feeling further and further away. “Wait here,” he said.
    Datsik recoiled. “Where are you going?”
    Philip cupped the back of his own head with his hand and rubbed the lump that was a souvenir from a bar fight gone bad in his twenties. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I just need to think. I think better when I walk.”
    “If walking makes people smart, someone must have been sitting on his ass when they came up with this Chechen missile idea,” Datsik teased.
    Philip pretended not to hear.
    Think this through, he told himself. It can’t be as dark as it seems. There has to be a way. Because if there wasn’t another way, the world—Philip’s world in particular—was going to be in a very, very bad place.
    Philip walked slowly, unaware, really, that he was even walking. He thought through the logic. If this was an FBI operation, the logic had to be perfect, because Fibbies were that way, so buttoned-down and regulated that every one of them tied their shoes the same way.
    Sarah, maid, boy, codes, all gone.
    “Yeah, why would they have a maid?” he asked aloud, his words lost in the traffic rush. That was a significant point. Why would they even want a maid? The house they lived in wasn’t that big to begin with. It would be tight enough with the three of them living there. A fourth person would just be in the way.
    Perhaps she was just a housekeeper. You know, one who just comes in the daytime.
    No. That wasn’t it. The raid happened at night, and she was there. That meant she was live-in help, a conclusion that just circled him back around to his original question—Why was she there?
    Then he got it. At least he thought he did. He turned and walked back to Anton. “You said the Mitchells got away with a maid,” he said.
    “Yes.”
    “Are you sure she was a maid?”
    “Who else would she be?” Datsik asked. “You told me that they have only one child. A boy. Our intelligence confirmed. Who else would she be?”
    Philip didn’t want to jump to his conclusion. He had a tendency to do that. Once he had an idea in his head, his brain took ownership and then nothing else would make sense to him.
    “You look like you’re having a vision,” Anton said. “You seeing God?”
    “No,” Philip said. “I think the girl you thought was a maid might be a security detail.”
    “Not much of a detail,” Datsik scoffed. “One girl.”
    Philip rubbed his head again. “When you got to the Mitchells,” he said, “what was their response?”
    “They fought back,” Anton said. “They were better fighters than the Chechens at the drop-off.”
    They were also expecting you, Philip didn’t say. “That meant that they were prepared,” he did say. “Which in turn means that they expected to have to defend themselves.”
    “That’s what happens when you betray everyone all at once,” Anton said. “Makes friends hard to find.”
    “The point,” Philip pressed, “is that if they