With a scowl on his face, he trudged from his bedroom, looking for something to alleviate his boredom. Kotto and all of his servants were already in bed, sleeping peacefully in their air-conditioned rooms, but Greene was still on New Orleans time, unable to rest because of the difference between the two continents.
Limping down the marble staircase, he heard the far-off mumble of an announcer’s voice. He followed the sound to Kotto’s living room.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Holmes asked while glancing up from the game on the plasma TV.
A smile returned to Greene’s lips. “It’s late afternoon in Louisiana. My body won’t be ready for bed for another ten hours.”
Holmes nodded in understanding. As a mercenary, he had been forced to work in several different countries, so he knew about the inconveniences of travel. “Don’t worry, Levon. Your internal clock will adjust to the sun. You should be fine by the end of the week.”
Greene sat on the couch across from Holmes. “What about the other stuff? When will I get used to that?”
“Like what?”
“Food, culture, language, girls . . .”
“Oh.” He laughed. “You mean all the stuff that makes life worth living. That will take a little bit longer, but if you’re flexible, you’ll learn to adapt. Every country has its advantages and disadvantages—if you know where to look.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Greene said while rubbing his knee.
Holmes instinctively glanced at Greene’s left leg, staring at the gruesome scars that covered it. “Does your knee still trouble you?”
Greene didn’t like talking about it, but he realized Holmes was the only American friend he had left. “The pain comes and goes, but the instability is constant. As I start to get older, my joint will deteriorate even more, meaning I’ll have to get knee replacement surgery . . . Something to look forward to in my old age, I guess.”
Holmes realized there was nothing he could say, so he decided to change the subject. “Levon, I’ve been meaning to ask you a question for a while now, and since this is the first time we’ve ever talked about your knee, I was wondering if I could ask it.”
Greene looked at Holmes, studying his face. He knew what Holmes was going to ask even before he asked it. “You want to know about Nathan.”
“If you don’t mind talking about it.”
“No problem. You brought him here for me.”
“True, but I don’t want to overstep—”
“It’s fine. What do you want to know?”
A thousand questions flooded Holmes’s mind. “Everything.”
Greene smiled as he thought about it. He’d waited nearly three years to get back at Nate Barker, the player who had ended his magnificent football career. Thirty-three months of pain, rehab, and nightmares. One thousand days of planning and plotting his personal revenge.
“I started thinking about Barker as soon as they wheeled me off the field. It was amazing. There I was, in unbelievable pain, listening to the gasps of horror from the crowd as they replayed the incident over and over on the scoreboard, but for some reason, a great calm settled over me. You could actually see it during the TV telecast. One minute I was writhing in agony, the next minute I was serene.”
Greene shook his head at the memory. To him, it felt like it had happened yesterday. “The team doctor assumed that I had gone into shock, but I’m telling you I didn’t. The truth is I started thinking about Nate Barker. The bastard who did this to me was responsible for getting me through my agony. I’m telling you, one thought, and one thought alone, allowed me to get through my pain. It was the thought of revenge.”
“So you knew right away that you wanted to get even?”
“Hell, yeah! He took away my livelihood. He took away my leg. You’re damn right I wanted to get even. And do you know what? I’ve never regretted it. From the moment we seized him to the moment I locked him in the cage downstairs, I’ve never looked back. In fact, I view his kidnapping as the crowning achievement of my life.”
A bittersweet smile appeared on Greene’s lips.
“Nate Barker ruined my life. Now I’m getting a chance to ruin his.”
THE loud ringing startled Kotto, causing him to flinch under his purple comforter. Nightmares had gotten the best of him lately, so he’d been sleeping in a state of uneasiness.
The damn phone just about killed him.
After turning on a nearby light, he realized what was happening and grabbed the cell phone