“He could do this. He'd survived boot camp. He'd survived combat and the harsh weather of Afghanistan. He could survive broccoli. Probably.”

“But you know, everybody who survived has an extraordinary story. Otherwise, he'd be dead.”

“Under the damage, he could still see Kitten, surviving despite it all.”

“He can survive anywhere. Anytime. Surviving is what he does.”

“Somewhere along the line, it occurred to him that he hadn't spoken to Virgil Flowers. He'd probably taken the day off, and knowing Flowers, he'd done it in a boat. The thing about Flowers was, in Lucas's humble opinion, you could send him out for a loaf of bread and he'd find an illegal bread cartel smuggling in heroin-saturated wheat from Afghanistan. Either that, or he'd be fishing in a muskie tournament, on government time. You had to keep an eye on him.”

“It was a fire of conscience, and meanings that made up packages of hell which seared into the mind. And what could we do? Supply a variety of survival strategies that made sense of the cacophony of survival?”