The airport speakers crackled, broadcasting an announcement over the intercom. Gate numbers updated on a blue departure board. Grungy backpackers grabbed their hiking bags and dashed down a long white corridor. A golf cart honked, transporting an elderly couple in the opposite direction. Another announcement dinged and a series of red font delays trickled across El Prat’s arrival screen.

“Spaniards can’t get their shit together today,” Hunt griped. He sipped his cold coffee and slid further into his airport chair.

Despite the late planes, cold coffee, and Hunt’s growing belief that the Spanish enjoyed their indifference to efficiency and order, Spain was easier than home, which was hard for him to admit. There were days on deployment when all he wanted to do was be back in the States, but then he’d get home and all he wanted to do was escape. He’d enter his apartment, unpack his gear, and stare at the empty space. It didn’t take long before he turned around and raised his hand: shooting course, forensics course, voluntary deployment. It didn’t matter, “Send me.” Truth was, after all the years of fighting, he grumbled out of habit, but he knew deep down, it was easier to be a foreigner in Spain than a foreigner at home…