Free Blood Ties by Nicholas Guild

randomly, sometimes even from line to line in the same message.
    Overnight, he was the indispensable man. He held the whole apparatus of naval security in the palm of his hand.
    The brass couldn’t do enough for him. Anything he wanted was just fine. He still wouldn’t take a promotion, but lieutenants and above answered to him like they were messenger boys. His commanding officer had only one standing order: keep Seaman Tregear happy and working.
    Then, halfway through his third tour, he put in for separation. Even more astonishing, the Navy agreed. He was mustered out and entered into a murky arrangement with the Department of Defense, the details of which were classified.
    Roland had a theory that Tregear had given the brass an ultimatum—either let me out, in which case I will continue to do whatever it is I do for you, except as a civilian, or I stop doing it. You can set me to swabbing decks for the next two years, or you can send me to the brig, but you can’t make me do what you want done on any terms except my own.
    But that was just a theory. Two things that Roland did know for certain were 1) the powers that be considered Tregear indispensable, and 2) it was in the terms of his contract with the Department of Defense that he was subject to surveillance and could not leave the United States without the Navy’s permission.
    Otherwise, he was free to come and go as he pleased. He worked at home, and home had been a lot of different places in the eight years since he had taken off his uniform.
    Fine. Lots of people liked to travel. But a normal human being with complete freedom of movement didn’t spend six months in Spartanburg, South Carolina, then pay out the lease on his apartment to move to Wichita, in the middle of winter. Then some dog hole in New Mexico, then Chicago, then half a dozen places nobody ever went if he weren’t born there or didn’t have to, then Seattle for six months, then San Francisco.
    Also fine. The world was filled with very bright people, and a lot of them were reasonably weird, but Roland had always figured he could handle anyone. That was what he was good at, handling people. Tregear, however, was a little different.
    It wasn’t that he wasn’t a nice guy. He seemed to be a very nice guy. It was that he insisted on playing by his own rules and he made the lives of his babysitters miserable—because, of course, the Navy wasn’t going to let him just wander around loose.
    There was a story, unconfirmed but probably true, that one team of watchers in Seattle got tired of the way he kept disappearing on them and put a signaling device on his car. The next day Tregear went for a ride, and everything worked precisely according to plan. For about twenty minutes. He was headed south on Highway 5. The team was about three-quarters of a mile behind him. Then all at once, the signal shifted. Tregear’s car was on Highway 90, halfway to Mercer Island. Except that was impossible, because the intersection with Highway 90 was three exits north of them. They turned around and went back, and found the car in a parking lot. The signaling device was precisely where they had put it. They never figured out how he did that.
    And there was something about the way he looked at you. Roland had been his case officer for two months, and in that time he had met personally with the man twice. On both occasions Tregear had been scrupulously polite, but you had the feeling he could see into your brain. Every word you said, every smile, every gesture, was analyzed and understood. He seemed to know exactly what it meant, what it was intended to mean and what it was hiding. It was like being naked—no, that wasn’t quite right. It was like being transparent.
    You couldn’t control Tregear. You couldn’t charm him, and you couldn’t do without him. And he got you into situations like this. Situations that could easily backfire and end up as nasty little