Page 31 of PSYCHOlogical

“It was dark, so she couldn’t see us. I’d given an order not to shoot. He just stood there, like he couldn’t decide whether to follow my order or the written orders of the intel sheet. He was staring at her, and I was staring at him. I figured if he shot her, I was going to shoot him. Orders, or no orders, killing a twelve-year-old American girl that’s not a threat? Not on my mission. That’s what I told him.”

The more intimate I became with the missions the men went on, the clearer the difficulties they faced became. I couldn’t imagine being in a situation where I would have to make either of the decisions Vincent spoke of.

Killing a twelve-year-old girl or killing a friend. No one should have to make such choices or go through the emotions associated with contemplating them.

“Eventually he lowered his weapon?” I asked.

“After thirty seconds or so.” He took another drink and then set his bottle aside. “It felt like an hour and a half. Things changed during that mission.”

“What do you mean?”

“For one, I was okay with defying the orders.” He shrugged. “That’s not like me.”

“Your circumstance was unique,” I explained. “You’ve never been in a situation like that. Nothing I recall can compare to it.”

“The situation isn’t supposed to make a difference.” He gave me a serious look. “Orders are orders. My ability to follow orders is one of the reasons I was selected for the program.”

“Everyone has their limits,” I said. “Or, at least they should.”

“I never have,” he argued.

“What else changed?”

He raised the bottle to his mouth and looked away. After taking a few drinks, he met my gaze. “I think the girl became human.”

“Can you explain what you mean? She became human?”

“I don’t see my targets as being anything other than a necessary component in the completion of an assignment. An obstacle standing between me and the overall objective.”

“What’s the overall objective? In your mind?”

“Making the Nation a safer place.”

Emotional detachment is a common way to deal with anxiety. A person’s emotions, moods, or feelings are a direct result of what they’re thinking. If we train ourselves to think certain things about a particular event, it prevents the feeling typically associated with the event from coming to the surface.

“Your targets? They’re not human? In your eyes?”

“They haven’t been until now,” he responded. “I asked her name. We’re taught to separate ourselves from our targets. Learning her name was the complete opposite from what I’d been trained.”

“What was her name?”

“Amber,” he said. “Amber Kilgore.”

“Things changed for you in Texas, correct?”

“Something happened with that assignment.” He rubbed his head vigorously with the tips of his fingers. “Something changed.”

“The common denominator is that the targets were women,” I explained. “I don’t know that now is the time to discuss it, but it may be that you’re trying to salvage something with your female targets that you weren’t able to salvage with your mother. You know, save them because you couldn’t save her.”

He shrugged. “Makes sense.”

He set his beer aside and pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. My analogy had hit a nerve. It was time to change the subject.

“Are there others in the program that are like Shephard?” he asked, changing the topic before I had a chance. “Sociopathic sadists?”

“I shouldn’t discuss the diagnosis of my clients. I really shouldn’t have told you about him,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He gave me a lingering look. “If Pike got shipped to Somalia would it surprise you?”