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had ended up under after officially becoming a “Reconnaissance Man,” a title that had been assigned to him only after he completed twelve weeks of backbreaking training that made boot camp look like summer camp.
    In some ways, Charlie Miller was from a former life, a life in which John had been a hero, pure and simple, a life in which no one had been forced to give up an eye to save his life.
    During the Battle of Fallujah in the fall of 2004, John had been part of a four-man sniper team doing sweeps for IEDs in Ramadi. The team went inside a seemingly abandoned house, when a grenade was tossed into the room by an insurgent cowering on the floor of the hallway. Charlie Miller was blasted out onto the balcony, where he was hit by insurgent sniper fire the minute he got to his feet. The grenade took out half of the insurgent’s head, so John crabwalked out onto the balcony to cover Charlie while another member of their team went to call the Quick Reaction Force. For three hours, he and Charlie lay together, John counting his blessings that the concrete spines of the balcony railing were too thick to allow a bullet to pass through. But mother of God, those sons of bitches tried. Volley after volley of AK-47 fire splintered against the concrete railing while John told Charlie dirty jokes and tried to keep him talking, because checking Charlie’s wounds or trying to carry him back inside would expose them both to sniper fire.
    Outside the Golden Door, he found Charlie sitting at a concrete patio table, a pair of metal crutches leaning against the bench seat next to him. His long legs were sticking out almost straight in front of him as he rested his back against the edge of the table. He almost looked relaxed, but John knew the reason for his extended posture was that he couldn’t move his left leg thanks to the bullet that had felled him on the balcony that day. His brown hair was now a shaggy mess, and John thought he resembled the pimply-faced Tennessee hick John had met long ago in boot camp, the kid who could barely suck down an entire cigarette and who held a rifle like it was a cottonmouth that might sink its fangs into him, not the Marine he had grown into by the time they went to Iraq.
    Charlie sat up as straight as he could to receive John’s one-armed embrace, and John emitted a high, barking laugh that sounded surprised and relieved at the same time. “You look good,” John said before he could think twice.
    Charlie lit a Marlboro Red and blew a thin stream of smoke from pursed lips. “I look like shit, man. I didn’t come all this way for you to blow smoke up my ass.”
    “Good,” he said. “’Cause I don’t smoke.” Charlie’s laugh was tense and almost silent—it worked his shoulders and eyes more than it did his mouth.
    “What you gonna say next, John? Trina look good, too? Shit—she’s gained like twenty fucking pounds since I got back, and she walks around the house like I beat her with a stick.” He sucked a quick drag off his cigarette. “She wants to move close to her parents in Kentucky, but I can’t get the same kind of care out there, so the answer’s no. But she keeps bringing it up and the answer keeps bein’ no.” Charlie’s eyes caught on John’s, as if he had suddenly heard himself. “Shit, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to start off this way. And I don’t mean to rain on your little pizza party, but sometimes when you can’t move your legs so good, you just gotta sit in it, you know what I mean?”
    He didn’t know what Charlie meant, so he just nodded gravely for a few seconds. Then he asked, “What are you starting off here, buddy?”
    Charlie’s eyes focused on some point in the distance; then he started digging in the plastic drugstore bag on the bench next to him. As he pulled out a large manila envelope and handed it to John, he said, “Did I ever tell you I’ve got a cousin who’s a PI over in Murietta? He owed me a favor, so…”
    John opened the