“I’ve got a mission for you, Major!” she said, in a more formal tone of voice now. She was done playing games. All of a sudden, she was all business.

“You know I failed my last mission,” he droned. He didn’t think she’d be offering him another one, not after something like this. After all, she personally booted him from the military.

“I know, I know,” she confirmed, rather annoyed, without further elaboration.

“You want it or not? I would’ve preferred if you just said yes.”

“What’s the mission?” he asked.

“I need you to find a priest. Bring him to me. He’s in danger, or we think he might be. And the government needs him. You know how that goes,” she explained. “We’d rather minimize risk and have him brought to us safe.”

“Any priest would do?” he quipped. She hated when people did that during briefings.

“No, unfortunately, we need one in particular.”

“Why does a government want a priest?” he asked, growing weary of this conversation. The whole thing, so far, sounded preposterous. He wondered, for a second, if she made it all up just to poke fun at him. But he dismissed it. It wasn’t her style. It was something else. He needed sleep. He was not as sharp as he would have liked to be at the moment. At any rate, he was sure she had a hundred men lined up for the job. He couldn’t figure out why she decided to ask him to do it.

“That’s classified,” she replied, growing weary too. She didn’t come here to beg him to take the job. It was just that, for some reason, she thought that he’d be up for it. He was still her best man. She trusted him. And she thought that maybe there was something he still needed to prove, if not to her then to himself maybe. But if he was going to be difficult, she would pull the offer off the table and think nothing else of it, she could swear. She cared for him but, as with everyone, she thought his fate was in his own hands.

“You want it or not? You have one shot at this, Major.”

“I’ll pass,” he said, straight-faced. If she was going to put it like that, he had to.

She blinked, sighed, disappointed.

“Suit yourself!”

She showed herself to the door, and he watched her. She could have sworn he would have taken the job though. Guess, she was wrong. Maybe he didn’t want her to baby him. Maybe he didn’t want a second chance. Maybe he was beyond saving at this point. Maybe they all were. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She was growing old. It was probably best to put these matters to rest now. Just as well, at the moment she had bigger problems.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Major!”