Dragonfly Run

====================== Dragonfly Run by Ed Howdershelt ====================== Copyright (c)2003 by Ed Howdershelt First published via Abintra Press Abintra Press www.abintrapress.tripod.com Fiction

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*Chapter One* Incidents happen. My team managed to bring a family of four out of East Germany near Fulda on 3 August 1973 with only one casualty, and that casualty wasn't one of our team or our extractees. This was remarkable for two reasons: first, because our teams had never had or caused anyone else to have a casualty in three years of smuggling people; and second, because it was later deemed a miracle that more people weren't killed or wounded during our escape. We used the fact that it was a Friday to our advantage, timing our exit for the late afternoon shift changes at the guard shacks. Monika, my 'client', had the passports supplied by our employers (unnamed in this story to avoid repercussions) ready to show as we approached the first small gate in our decade-old Ford Taunus. Her father was in the back seat pretending to be asleep and her two children were in the car behind us. We had split the family to increase chances of at least partial success if things went to hell. Splitting was a normal procedure on some of our extraction missions and in this case also served the pretense that Monika was my West German wife, that I was a U.S. Army sergeant stationed in Kaiserslautern, and that we had been in East Germany to visit members of her side of the family -- which was just about the only true part of the story. Will and Connie were in the car behind us, doing their best to act like typical hurried and harried middle-class American tourists who were ragingly frustrated with both their children in the back seat and the bureaucratic hoops of entering and leaving East Germany. It was likely that they were only half-acting, since the kids were the only ones in our group who'd had enough sleep in the last thirty-six hours. The adults were all just about dead tired from preparations and waiting in a long line of cars at the checkpoint. Throughout the mission they'd stood out like sore thumbs in their polyester outfits, dragging the kids to various museums and monuments for a couple of days as cover activities while they coached them on how to act and what to say. The checkpoint guards were obviously old hands at their duties and were actually moving people through with relative speed, but you could see them glancing at their watches as their shifts neared completion. As the guards heard Will and Connie bickering and bitching from three cars away, they rolled their eyes in anticipation of having to deal with a couple of cranky, obnoxious Americans who probably didn't have their papers in order for the cheap souvenirs they'd purchased.

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I looked across at Monika. She was tense, but containing her fear. I'd gone in with one fake wife and was leaving with another. Darlene had been dropped at the US embassy and would be listed as a robbery victim with all her luggage and personal effects stolen. It would be a week before she was back at her desk at Landstuhl's 2nd General Army Hospital. Monika and the children had been appended to our exit passports by a friend in the business of "assisting various circumventings of convention", as he put it. We'd used him several times in the past and not once had his alterations invited suspicion. Preparations had been fairly extensive. Everyone in both cars had been outfitted with ID's and used clothing from the thrift shop at Ramstein AFB. In the weeks previous to our extraction effort, I'd had friends in some Stateside German-American clubs write letters and postcards to Monika and her father at a Kaiserslautern address and some of these bits of correspondence were in their luggage and personal effects. There was even a past-due bill for membership dues for her father from one of the clubs. He said that if he actually made it to a meeting he'd pay the bill just for the hell of it. I won't belabor you with all the other details of preparing people for escapes from Communist countries or the gut-clenching worry that something would suddenly go very wrong somehow. I will say that we thought we had it nailed down, detail-wise, and the Eastie guards apparently thought so, too. After the usual minor interrogations, examinations of documents, and some less-than-subtle insinuations that Monika had somehow sullied herself by marrying a non-German, we were allowed past the gate to enter the narrow, twisting lane that crossed the hundred meters to the West German side of the barrier. Other sections of the barrier between East and West were much more elaborate, often with wide, well-lit trenches and multiple fences. Some even had mine fields, but those areas of the 'wall' were mostly for the benefit of the news photographers, since nobody was ever dull-witted enough to try to escape at those points, anyway. I lost sight of Will and Connie as we made the first turn between the concrete dividers. Monika almost turned to look back. I backhanded her leg softly before she could complete the move, which made her instead turn to stare at me. She looked like a deer in the headlights. Her face was a mask of stark terror and she was rigid with fear. "Meine kinder..." she whispered. "Your kids are fine. You knew this would happen. Stay cool and hold on, Monika." The incident didn't begin until our Taunus sedan stuttered and died a little over halfway through the concrete maze. I put it in neutral, set the footbrake, then got out and opened the hood. One of the tower guards behind us blew a whistle and got on the radio. On the West side I could see someone aiming a camera at us from a watchtower as a number of people stopped what they were doing and came to the fence to watch. Monika was so visibly frightened I felt I had to do something to make her emotions fit our circumstances, so I stepped up to her side of the car and slammed my palm hard against the window by her face, which made her cringe away from the window as two East German guards came jogging up to our car. I pretended to have hurt myself, holding my "injured" hand and swearing effectively about everything and calling the Taunus "...this piece of foreign-made shit!" "With MY car this wouldn't have happened!" I yelled at Monika, "You dumb bitch! You just had to take YOUR goddamned car to show off to your poor relations!" I slammed my other hand on the window. "We haven't had it a whole goddamned week and the damn thing just has to fucking die in the middle of a goddamned free-fire zone!" One guard seemed to disapprove of my behavior while the other seemed

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not to give a damn as he peered under the hood. He reached for something and I yelled, "Watch out! It's hot!" Both rifles immediately pointed at me. Monika squeaked and quickly explained my outburst in German and the rifles lowered somewhat. I told her to tell them that I thought the problem was a vapor-lock and that I would pour water from the washer bottle on the fuel line to cool it. One of the guards wordlessly handed me his canteen, instead. I took it and trickled water on the fuel line as he watched. The one who had disapproved of my earlier tantrum strolled around the car to have another look inside, stopping at the driver's door. Glancing back over the hood, I could see that it was business as usual at the guard post. Will and Connie had been passed, but wouldn't be allowed to continue until my car was moving again. They moved only slightly forward from the guard post and waited, as instructed. As the last of the water ran down the line, I got the guard's attention and made a key-turning motion in the air with my hand. He reached in and turned the key. When it wouldn't start right away, he sat in the driver's seat, holding his rifle outside the car, and put a foot on the gas. The Taunus finally started fitfully and smoothed out after a moment. I handed the canteen back and smiled as I thanked him, then closed the hood and quickly walked back around to the driver's door. The other guard was standing there, blocking my way. I looked at him questioningly. He glanced around once, then quickly drove the butt of his rifle into my belt buckle. As I painfully straightened myself, he spoke sharply to me, then glanced at Monika and spoke to her in the same tone. Monika fidgeted a bit, then seemingly reluctantly said, "He tells me to tell you that a man who treats his woman as you do should be beaten, that any good German woman is too good for you, and that he would enjoy meeting you out of his uniform." I played the role as expected, glaring back at him as if tempted to do something stupid. After a few moments, he realized I wouldn't give him the satisfaction and spoke again before he turned to leave. I got back in the car -- carefully because it hurt to move -- and started us moving for the West German gate as the guards walked back to the East. Monika's giggle came a few moments later. It had an edge of hysteria, but it was real humor. "He called you an asshole," she said, giggling again. "Yeah, I know," I said, "I speak German, don't forget. Good for us 'cause it means he bought the act and good for him 'cause it means he isn't an asshole." Will and Connie were on the move again as we neared the West gate. She didn't relax much. As I negotiated the final turns of the maze, I heard a gunshot and thought, "Oh, damn." A machine gun opened up, some rifles fired, and I was ready to try to get real small real fast as I ordered Monika onto the floor under the dash. She was peering up in abject terror as she squeezed herself into the area. It crossed my mind as odd that nobody'd been able to hit the car yet. Ahead of us , a jeep quickly blocked our West gate exit, and just as quickly an officer appeared next to the jeep, screaming at the driver. I hoped the driver wasn't stupid enough to think I'd stop before ramming him and his jeep out of our way. As I entered the final straightaway, I slipped the car into neutral, gunned the engine, and beeped the horn twice quickly. They looked at me. I waved them away. "C'mon, guys," I mumbled, "Clear the deck. I'm coming through anyway, so move it." The jeep backed away to clear the gate. I dropped the car into first and we made the dash across the white lines in seconds. Two machine-gun-equipped jeeps came up fast to take positions on either side of the gate, and soldiers everywhere had weapons out and ready as if expecting

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some kind of invasion. Four MP's came running up to surround Monika and me, rifles at ready, and demanded ID's and explanations. I handed our paperwork to one of them, pointed back at Will and Connie's car and said, "They're with us and we're part of a D-team. Why the shooting?" "I don't know, sir," said the MP, moving to stand between me and the gate. "Do you think I'm going to try to walk back into East Germany?" I asked him, "Get the hell out of the way. I just want to see what's going on." The guy just stood there looking confused, so I stepped around him and went up to the officer who had been arguing with the jeep driver. "Who's being shot at, Major?" "The shooting's stopped," he said, pointing a bit left of the narrow lane between gates, "And now something else is happening over there." An enlisted man ran up to us with a radio that was chattering in German. He turned it up a bit and we all listened intently as we watched the drama unfold in the zone. Will and Connie were about to negotiate the last zigzag before the straightaway when the shooting started again. I saw glass flying as car windows shattered and then saw someone running alongside the car. There was another short burst and the running man went down hard, sliding to a stop ahead of the car. He began trying to crawl forward, trailing far too much blood, and he only made it a few yards before he went limp and slumped flat to the road. One of the guards on the other side pointed a rifle at the guard tower as an officer spoke into a radio by the guard shack. "Well, goddamn," said the Major, "He was trying to use them as cover. He probably thought they wouldn't shoot if there were tourists near him." "Their officer must be holding the key down, sir," said the enlisted man with a grin, "He just told the guy with the rifle that if the guard tower fires again, he's to shoot that gunner. He's pissed, sir. Very pissed. He's saying ... He didn't order anyone to fire ... To shoot the next man who fires without orders..." Will stopped his car only inches from the fallen man. He jumped out and ran around the car, scooped the guy off the ground and laid him face down on the hood. After using his belt to tie the injured guy's belt to the windshield wipers, he dropped himself back into the driver's seat, moved the car through the last turn of the maze, and floored it on the straightaway, accelerating right up until he crossed the white lines. Will's car crossed the lateral road behind the guardhouse, jumped the eight-foot-wide ditch on the other side and was dragged to a stop by the deep mud more than halfway across the open field beyond the road. Two jeeps full of MP's immediately hauled ass to catch up to him, having to go nearly a quarter-mile down the road to the gate. One of the men at the chainlink border fence had a pair of binoculars. The Major waved him over and used them to view the distant car. I could see Monika struggling briefly with the soldiers at our car. They wouldn't let her go to the other car. When she looked at me, I raised both hands in a "stay calm" gesture and yelled, "Stay there. It'll be all right!" To the Major, I said, "Nobody took a stretcher," I said, "What are they gonna do, leave the guy as a hood ornament?" The Major snapped a look at the enlisted man with the radio. "Gimme that. Get a stretcher out there and get that man off the hood of that car." Done and done. The guy was off and running for the guardhouse door. He reappeared quickly with a green stretcher and tossed it and himself into the jeep that had blocked the gate for Monika and me. The driver didn't argue this time. The Major flicked a switch on the radio and called a Lieutenant Someone for a sitrep. In the field, one of the MP's stepped a distance away from things and used his radio. "The guy on the hood is still alive, sir. Two adults and two kids seem

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to be okay, but there's glass everywhere and all of them have some cuts and bruises. I've called for a medevac. They'll take 'em all if it's okay with you." "Yeah, good. You go with them, arrange for guards at the hospital, keep them isolated for now, and keep me posted. My authorization is yours within reason, but don't go crazy with it, okay?" The Major then turned to me and asked, "Now, exactly who the hell are you, sir? And the short version will do just fine." "Name's Ed," I said, "Your guys already have my phony ID's. When you call Brigade, tell them that D-319207 and his clients and crew are safe in port, okay?" The officer's eyes narrowed and he swore softly for a moment. "A goddamned Dragonfly run, huh? Mind telling me why you people had to use my gate?" He didn't really expect an answer. He was just venting a little as he said, "Tonight this place will be swarming with reporters and brass. None of us'll get out of here 'till around midnight. Thanks a lot." His attitude pissed me off a bit. "One man may die and some people are stepping on free soil for the first time in their lives, and all you give a damn about is going home late? Should I quote you to the press, the brass, or just to some of the people I work for? I'm sure any or all of them would love hearing your opinion on this matter." He deflated instantly, but I felt that it wasn't really due to my casual threats. Now and then you meet a brass hat with a conscience, and the Major seemed to be one of them. "How many, um, clients, total, did you bring over this trip? Is anyone still stuck over there?" "Four clients and this was everybody. I don't know the guy who got shot. Where's the lady I had with me?" I looked for Monika but didn't see her by the car. "They've taken her inside," he said, leading the way to the office, "What needs done and who needs called?" "I don't think anything needs done that isn't being done and I'll give my office a ring when we get inside. Got any coffee in the guard shack?" "We're the Army. We always have guns, ammo, starch, boot polish and strong coffee, and you aren't using the phone until I've verified you with somebody." I nodded. Monika was the center of a cluster of MP's when we entered the office. She was at a small table by the coffee pot, so all backs were to the door as we entered. The Major slammed the door. Six men spun at the sound and were suddenly standing at attention. "This is a surveillance unit," said the Major, "So how come not one of you zeroes was aware that an officer entered the room? All except the company clerk get out now ." He sat down at his desk and asked the clerk to get him a coffee, then to get my particulars and call Brigade for verification 'of some sort'. "Serve yourself," he said, waving at the coffee pot, "Then sit down over here and tell me what you can. I'm going to have some things to do before the circus really starts around here." I noted that he said, "Thanks, Harry," when the clerk delivered his coffee, so I didn't assume he was a martinet-type. I took a moment to reassure Monika, got a coffee, and sat by his desk to give him the company line. "We have observers on both sides of the wire, so my people already know what happened. Probably the best thing to do, Major, is simply contain everybody and everything in whatever manner seems appropriate and wait for them to take us off your hands. That way neither you nor your office has to be involved to any great degree." He agreed with a nod. We were interrupted by the arrival of the medevac helicopter. Monika was at the window instantly, watching for her children. I joined her there and the Major joined us at the window to watch them load the

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stretcher and the other passengers. Two medics worked on the gunshot victim for a few minutes while people and luggage were loaded, then the stretcher was attached to the inside wall of the chopper and two intravenous drip bags were hung on the wall above the patient. With everybody aboard and strapped in, the bird lifted off and the MP's went back to matters at hand. "Sir," the radio crackled, "This is Davis. The car's full of holes but you ain't gotta tow it out of here. We can drive it up there if we put a couple of boards across the ditch." "Wrong, son. You don't have to tow it. I wasn't going to help with that anyway. But why tell me?" asked the Major, grinning at us, "Tell someone who has some boards. Just get that car out of that farmer's field and up here under secure cover with a guard. Use one of the old mess tents. Someone may show up thinking it's evidence, you know." Someone laughed in the background as the guy replied, "Yes, sir." The Major half-turned to face the company clerk as he keyed the radio and said, "Nobody goes near that car or any of those people unless they clear it with me. Got that?" "Yes sir," said the guy on the radio. "Clear, sir," said the clerk, "I'm on it. After I contact the L.T. I'll pass the word." The Major said, "Thank you, Harry. Stay on this and call me if you need me to back you. I really mean nobody, okay? This place will be a goddamned circus tonight." "Got it, sir. Potential international incident. Lockdown. By the way, this guy checks out. Brigade was expecting a delivery today, but they didn't know which gate." "An announcement might have been difficult to arrange, I suppose." The Major chuckled at his joke, turned to us and said, "All right, make your call. I hear another helicopter coming and it doesn't sound like one of ours. It's probably the first busload of brass-hats and bureaucrats looking for a useable angle on this thing." I called our Bonn embassy office, made a quick report, took a moment to confirm which hospital was receiving our crew and clients, and was told that one of our people was very likely on the incoming helicopter if it was blue. When I had hung up, I looked out to see a sleek, light-blue helicopter with civilian markings setting down in the parking lot. I grinned as some of the eight men who got off that bird looked as if they wanted to kiss the ground. Fancy pilot, probably. None of the faces were familiar, so I sipped coffee and waited. The blades were barely moving when the last person stepped off. A brunette woman with a briefcase stood at the top of the steps and looked around for a moment. She took off the sunglasses she'd worn on the flight and tucked them into her suitjacket pocket, set her briefcase down long enough to straighten her skirt and jacket, then disembarked the aircraft. She had to duck to clear the doorway and descended the steps with a sort of sidewise step, probably because she was wearing a close-fitting skirt. The legs I saw flashing in the sunlight were the kind I use in my sketches, not skinny model's legs, and she wasn't wearing heels to enhance them. She waved off a guy who was about to carry her suitcase and picked it up apparently effortlessly, then approached the guard shack with a steady stride. I poured a cup of coffee, set it on the nearby table, and went to get the door for her. When I heard her measured steps on the wooden porch, I opened the door, smiled at her, and said, "Hello, Linda." "Hello, Ed. They sent me to annoy you with lots of questions." She smiled slightly as she said it and never slowed her stride as she entered the office. She set her bag and briefcase on the floor by the small wood-and-glass table and scanned the room, spotting the Major and Monika in the center of a clustering of the people who had been on the chopper. The Major sat at his desk sipping coffee as he scanned various documents that would relieve him of

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the situation and the people. Linda looked hard at my shirt. "Cut me some slack, lady. I earned this rumpled look today and I even poured you a coffee as you were walking to the shack, just in case you still drink the nasty stuff." "Thanks for the amenities," she said, "But no coffees until we do the secret handshake and all the other spooky rituals. Them's the rules, mister." "Bruno, D-31..." I said, and waited for her to finish my number and password. "Giordano, 9207," she said. All she was verifying by that was her involvement in our case. She might have known my number from another case, but not my current mission passwords. As she had said, "Them's the rules." I took her over to meet Monika and the Major. Linda reassured each of them according to his or her concerns, then suggested she and I go back to the table so I could bring her up to date. I took her light jacket and seated her as if we were in a restaurant, asking if she'd like to see a menu. She smiled. "Cool," I said, "Linda Baines, Girl Spy. I didn't know they let you out of the office." "Oh, now and then I slip the shackles," she said, "I have your bag with me, too." She bent at the waist and knee to retrieve her briefcase. I watched the lovely play of muscles in her legs and her graceful self-control until I realized she wasn't moving. She was gazing back at me via the reflective glass top of the small table next to the chair. Linda straightened with the briefcase and looked at me rather piercingly for a moment. I gazed evenly back at her, unashamed of my interest in her legs and waiting for her response, if any. She merely opened the briefcase and pulled out the manila envelope in which I'd placed my personal effects at the start of our mission. There were no signs of tampering, so I flicked open my belt knife and slit the top of the envelope. If my facility with my knife impressed her, she concealed it well. I took a quick inventory of the contents. Everything was there; DAC-ID card, keys, etc... Linda sat down at the little table and sipped coffee as I rooted through the small pile of pocket stuff. In the clear space between my stuff and her briefcase I could see that her skirt had ridden up a bit when she sat down. Her legs were wonderfully solid-looking, so I counted everything again between lingering glances. "What's the matter? Don't you trust your own outfit?" She grinned at me. I had no doubt she was just as thorough about such things. I grinned as I said, "Trust, but verify. Just taking a second look." "I noticed that," she said, setting her coffee on her napkin to block the clear space, "I'm actually slightly flattered, but may I have your attention elsewhere for a moment?" "Ah, hell, you caught me," I said, taking the other chair. I looked through the table top and made a minor production of placing the manila envelope precisely to block my view of her legs through the tabletop, then met her laughing gaze as I sipped my own coffee. "Such a sacrifice," she said, producing a tape recorder, "Thank you. Now report." -------*Chapter Two* I gave Linda a synopsis of the mission from the moment we entered East Germany to the moment we left it. She took notes of her own as I offered my observations about changes in routes, two breaks in the chain of contacts, some buildings missing due to construction or renovation projects that interfered slightly with plans and that hadn't been mentioned in our briefings beforehand, and some ideas for substitutions and drops. Linda questioned me on a few points, but they were the kind of questions that clarify meanings. She wasn't doubting my abilities or

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judgments. That would have been someone else's job, anyway. She was simply nailing down bits, pieces, and details. I studied her face as we went over things. She wasn't a ravishing beauty and used very little makeup, but her face and demeanor radiated strength and competence and she was a truly attractive woman in every way. Her hair was pinned in a small, businesslike bun, something which can't be done unless the hair is at least shoulder-length. My imagination was beginning to kick in when she tapped my cup with her pen. "Hey, there. Where are you?" asked Linda in a soft voice. I realized that I hadn't said a word for several moments. I'd just sat looking at Linda. She rose with our coffee cups and strode over to the pot for refills. I watched her go and watched her return, as did every other man in the room. She met my eyes as she handed me my cup and sat down, saying, "Monika is asleep on the couch back there. You look damned tired yourself, Ed. I think I have enough notes for now." "You don't have to furnish me excuses, Linda. I'm tired, but not that tired, and I don't usually distract so easily. For some reason you truly fascinate me. I was just looking at you with nothing else at all on my mind. When you tapped my cup I was daydreaming about how long your hair would have to be to make that bun." Linda sat staring at me for a moment. "I don't know what to say, Ed. Thanks, I guess." "You don't have to say anything," I laughed, "Just keep me on track until we finish. Once you're out of sight I should recover enough to function on my own again." Linda blushed and said, "I really do have enough notes. But you're not going to be free of me right away, Ed. That's why I brought a suitcase. We're going to join the others at the hospital, and I'm to remain with your group until this incident is completely over." "What incident? The guy who got shot isn't dead and wasn't part of our operation. We can just turn everybody over to the 'crats for processing into the West and we're done." "He's not dead yet , Ed. You delivered potential witnesses to a murder. You and Will and Connie are also witnesses. IF that man lives, we can probably sweep the whole mess into a file folder and process him for potential asylum. Business as usual." "What the hell...? Half the barracks here saw what happened. There are plenty of other witnesses available, Linda. They don't need us. We could just disappear." "Will and Connie aided an escape, as far as the Easties are concerned. They're going to be considered participants, not witnesses. Pictures were taken at the guard post over there, so we couldn't substitute even if they were just witnesses. Word is that the guards who fired are being tried for acting without orders. It's all about politics, of course, and trying to create the appearance that they give a damn. You haven't heard the news, have you? The world is already watching. Everyone wants a useable piece of this political cake and they won't care who gets trampled in the process." She took a sip of coffee and continued, "If it becomes a murder trial, the trial will be on the Eastern side of the wire, where the shooting happened, and things will be very well covered in the press and propaganda mills. We'll have to produce the witnesses and participants or explain how we lost them. The extractees will have to be granted immediate residency and asylum in either the U.S. or West Germany to avoid being arrested once they're discovered to be escapees themselves. This crew will have to be reassigned, and this incident could suspend the Dragonfly runs for a long time." "Huh. Maybe I'm more tired than I thought. I just figured there were enough witnesses without us and that we'd disappear for a while as usual. I didn't think the Commies would give a rat's ass about shooting an escapee, whether he survived or not, and you're right, I haven't heard any news. The only radio I've heard is that thing."

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I pointed to the walkie-talkie on the desk. After a moment, another thought occurred to me. "You're here to take more than notes, aren't you, Linda? You're here to take over command of the mission post-op." Linda sat quite still, her eyes gazing steadily into mine for a moment as she gauged how I might respond to being displaced. "Yes, I'm here to relieve you, Ed. You accomplished your mission. Now we need someone between you and the press, politicians, and police in just about that order." "That's a nice way of saying that you've been ordered to take over and explaining why in the same breath, Linda. Someone at the office knows me pretty well. John sent you, and I'd bet a year's pay that choosing you wasn't any sort of accident, even though there are probably a couple of others who could handle merely being our social secretary." Linda didn't answer immediately, but when she did, she said, "John knows what it's like to end a mission. We knew you'd all be dead tired, Ed, running on adrenaline and coffee, just as you are, and he also said you're an easy mark for tall, strong women. He used exactly those words, by the way. John told me you respect brains and competence and that all of those reasons added up to my being directly selected for this job. He was going to send someone out here anyway. Was he wrong to send me?" I chuckled. It surprised her. "Let's see," I said, "You're tall and have magnificent legs, so you commandeered my attention immediately. Add grace, beauty, brains, competence and orders from the home office to take over because I don't handle political terrains well. I'll even add my own reference, Linda. You have great management abilities, too. I've hardly felt a thing, and you've been in charge since you boarded that chopper." She continued her steady gaze as she asked, "You mean that? No hard feelings, Ed?" "I'm not paid to have feelings, Linda, hard or otherwise. I'm paid to find ways to haul people out of places, not to deal with the press and politicians. I'm glad to leave that crap to someone else. And you shouldn't be too worried about my feelings or anyone else's if you're going to have to order troops around. They tend to take advantage of your good intentions. Besides, John's right. He's seen me deal with politicians before." Linda laughed softly and said, "He told me about a nosy new Senator's visit last year. Did you really push him into the canal?" "The official story is that I tripped and fell against him during his third visit, Linda. He thought he could conduct some grand little inquisition and came at us like an officious, spook-hating fop. I suggested a tour after lunch, so he and his dozen or so "assistants" accompanied me to a restaurant and afterward we walked back on the path by the canal. He was too out of shape to save himself from rolling and sliding down thirty feet of grassy slope, screaming for help all the way, so he got very wet in front of all his sycophants. Strangely enough, the press somehow got pictures. He didn't visit us a fourth time. John is afraid I'll catch another case of the clumsies in the middle of all this." Linda laughed again, whether at the mental image of the Senator rolling downhill or only because it seemed expected of her I couldn't tell and didn't guess. John had sent her, so she had all the qualities advertised. He didn't make personnel choices casually. With that in mind, the whole mission takeover I'd experienced could easily have been something such a woman could have executed without difficulty, not that I really gave a damn about that. My job was finished, as we'd both said. All I had to do was stay clear of the press and pols while the boss found me something else to do somewhere else. "Linda, there's something else you should know about me. I hate deceitfulness from anyone working with me. I'm discovering that I like you for a lot more than your legs, so if this friendliness is an act to make your takeover easier, let's drop it and get down to business. No hard feelings if we do it now."

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I sipped my coffee and said, "My trust in John's judgment in choosing the right people for a job is based on my own experience. In three years he's never made a bad field choice of which I'm aware, and in our business mistakes of that nature can lead to people getting imprisoned or shot. You're here because you're well above simply being competent, Linda, and I completely understand that. An entire segment of our agency's reason for existing could be shut down over this incident, and you were John's choice." Linda just stared silently at me for a time. She put her notes and the recorder in her briefcase and closed it, then drank some coffee and continued to stare at me for a while longer before speaking. "Well, that was pretty direct. Did you mean it?" she asked. "I meant it. No hard feelings if we drop all pretenses right now." Linda made an exasperated expression and said, "No, not that part. The part where you said you were beginning to like me for more than my legs." She grinned. It was my turn to stare at her. I grinned back. "Yes, I very definitely meant that, too." Linda laughed nervously. "What were you trying to do, talk me out of this? First you make me sound like Wonder Woman , then you tell me how bad things will go if I fail." "Both items appear to be true. Ah paints what Ah sees." "Well, thank you anyway, but all this flattery is going to give me a nosebleed, Ed." "Flattery? You know better than that, Linda. If I ever even once handed you flattery you'd trash it instantly and never trust me about anything else. Have you considered any other reasons for putting you in charge of something that is potentially momentous?" "We're all expendable in one way or other," she said, "If I slip, I can be reassigned..." I held up a hand. "John retires in less than two years, Linda. We've talked about it, and I was wondering if I'd even stay with the agency if John couldn't pick his replacement." The shock on her face told me she'd thought this was just another assignment. The fingers that covered her lips were trembling. "But ... me ? Are you serious , Ed?" "I'd refuse that crown and haven't been asked anyway. My next choice for boss is retiring for medical reasons next year. I know the rest of the possibles in the office and I'd leave before I'd let any of them design or conduct one of my missions. You were the wild card, Linda. I remember when John spent six months stealing you from the Navy two years ago. I almost wished I had a desk job when you showed up in the office, miLady. The Navy had you running some SEAL ops, and you handled all facets as needed, but you weren't being ticketed for a command slot. Why?" I held up a hand again and answered my own question. "You were too damned good for your own good, Linda. You made the brass look too good, too. John said the 'old boy' network was going to keep you there 'till you were old and gray. He didn't steal anyone else that year, but he yanked some strings hard and the pretty Navy Lieutenant was attached to us for a year. You must've walked across a swimming pool somewhere along the line, because John busted his ass to keep you when your TDY tour was up. Your decision to leave the Navy and join us was largely based on pay grades and benefits that John arranged to have sprinkled in your path. He didn't want you to get away, Linda." After a few moments of startled silence, Linda said, "I thought you're supposed to be a local hire, Ed. How in the hell do you know so much about all this? And about me?" "About you? Just how you came to be in our outfit. No personal stuff." "Well, that's really comforting, Ed, but I'm asking why John confides in you at all. You've only been there three years, yourself, and you work in the field, not the office. You're listed as a circumstantially-necessary 1970 local hire with no explanation as to why you're still on the payroll. I only

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scanned your jacket lightly." "Consider that you even saw my jacket or anyone else's. You aren't in personnel. Logic, Linda. Logic. You know John well enough to know that I'm still on the payroll because I'm good at what I do. Do you know how I came to be with the agency?" She shook her head. It mildly irritated her to be lectured by someone under her command, but she sat for the rest of it without interrupting, so I continued. "It isn't a secret around the office. John's only son Rick was in Vietnam in 1968. I'm the medic who pulled him out of a muddy, bloody hole and dragged him to cover. He was hit bad, and I thought he'd be a KIA when I got a good look at him. He had chunks blown out of his leg and shoulder and he was already a couple of pints down." Linda gave me an odd, sideways look and said, "That sort of thing wasn't unusual there, was it? I mean, John didn't think he owed you a government job here, did he..?" "Doubt it. Anyway, I couldn't stop the bleeding in his leg without cutting circulation, so I used a piece of jeep radiator drain tubing to splice the vein. Tied the ends of the vein around the hose with dental floss. One of the other guys died and he was a "type-O", so I pushed his body up the paddy dike and rigged an IV tube to drain some of his blood into Rick before he spoiled. The zone was so hot it took an hour to get a medevac bird to us. About two weeks later they pulled me out of the field and sent me to Tan Son Nhut airbase without a reason. That's usually a bad sort of thing. In this case it was some guy who wanted to take me to dinner, and that's not usually a good thing, either." I grinned at Linda. She chuckled softly. I continued, "The civilian said his name was John and that I was assigned to him until he chose to let me go, which was just a plain damned weird thing as far as I knew. Then he got me a room at the Bachelor Officer's Quarters, even though I was only a sergeant, and told me to report back to Brigade HQ at six o'clock. By this time I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I thought he was CIA or like that, about to try to get me to volunteer for some strange-assed mission, so I called Brigade from the BOQ and got nowhere with questions. I was again told firmly to be wherever I was told to be. When I arrived at HQ, he was waiting with two women, introduced as Sylvia and Darlene. Nurses, he said. Darlene was a friend of his and Sylvia was a friend of hers as well as my blind date. Both looked at me as if I'd just arrived from Mars. Hell, I thought it was because I was enlisted instead of an officer." Again Linda laughed softly as I drank some coffee. "Go on," she said. "Well, he took us to dinner in the restaurant at the U.S. embassy in Saigon and fed us steaks and booze. After dinner, he circulated a picture of his son and told us that I had saved his life. I said thanks, but that I barely recognized the son from among all the other guys I'd patched up. John said he'd expected that, so the dinner and weekend away from the war was as much for all of the guys I'd ever saved and tried to save. Sylvia said John had told Darlene what I'd done and that Darlene had told her and that she had actually volunteered for this "dinner mission" just to meet the guy who installed auto parts in people." Linda smiled a little smile. "So how did the weekend go?" "Classified," I said, smiling back, "But Sylvia seemed to like me enough. Monday it was back to work. When I married back into the Army two years later and we came to Germany I took a job at Landstuhl Hospital. One day John showed up and recruited me." "And the rest is history, as they say," said Linda, "How and why did he know you were at Landstuhl? Do you think John was keeping an eye on you all that time?" "Hardly that. I was just a team medic in the war. My name probably popped up when my wife got very drunk, nasty, and arrested during a tour of East Berlin. She had to have special permissions to travel in or near

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East-bloc zones due to her job and all of those permissions are tracked. We were put on the next plane to Frankfurt. Back at Landstuhl she was told she was being transferred to the States. I'd had enough of living with an alcoholic, so I cut a deal with her. We send each other forms to sign and we still have all the bennies of being married in the military. She gets COLA and supplemented off-post housing near Washington while I get to keep my green car tags, PX privileges, and the NATO/SOFA stamp in my other passport. She has her world and I have mine." "I was wondering about that ... The wife nobody ever sees. Any regrets?" "Have you ever lived day-to-day with an alcoholic? Hell, no. No regrets." The company clerk came over and said the helicopter would be leaving in about half an hour. We decided to have a look at Will's car before leaving and cleared it with the Major. Linda produced a camera and devoted a roll of film to the car, then we boarded the chopper with Monika for the trip to the hospital. -------*Chapter Three* It was well after dark when we set down in Frankfurt. A car met us and we were ferried from the helicopter to the hospital side-entrance. The driver handed Linda an envelope, which she opened on the short trip. After reading the note inside, she handed it to me. It said the shooting victim would remain at 92nd General and we would be continuing on to Landstuhl 2nd General Hospital. Fine. My stuff was there. Monika looked at me curiously, but since Linda had said nothing, I simply shrugged and followed Linda's silent lead. Will was asleep in room 1203 and Connie was reading in bed in the adjoining room, 1205. Monika's family was in a room a few doors away from us. Linda excused herself and went to the nurses' station to use the phone. Monika embraced and held me for a few moments, tried to say something, lost the words, and just kissed me quickly before she walked away to join her family. I set my two suitcases quietly by the other bed in 1203 and padded back out into the hall. The nap on the helicopter had me vibrating. I was still damned tired, but no longer sleepy. The nurse at the ward desk directed me to the mess hall, where I might be able to find something to eat, even though it was after hours. I stopped to ask Monika if she wanted anything, but she was already asleep. Connie said she'd rather just read herself to sleep, so I looked for Linda and couldn't find her. The nurse said she'd gone, so I left a note and headed for the mess hall. At the end of the hall two MP's stopped me. The Corporal said we weren't supposed to leave the ward. I asked if one of them would go to the mess hall and bring something back for us. He said they weren't allowed to leave their posts. I asked him to call his duty officer for me. He said he couldn't do that unless it was an emergency. I said, "Fine," and walked on past them. He lunged to stop me and grabbed my arm, so I put him on the floor in a thumb lock. Quietly, of course. It was a hospital, after all. The other guard reflexively aimed his rifle at me and approached cautiously. "What the hell are you gonna do with that?" I asked him. "Hit me with it? Wake up the whole ward because I'm hungry? Have your duty officer meet me in the mess hall. We aren't prisoners as far as I know. We're guests, and your job is to keep people away from us." "I don't know about any of that, sir..." said the guard with the rifle. "Then find out," I cut in, "And if you're going to try to intimidate someone with a rifle, you should at least lock and load before you point it. You weren't issued any ammo, just orders to stand around and say 'no' to people. The duty officer to the mess hall. Okay?" I let go of the guy on the floor and waited. The guy with the rifle

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nodded as the other one stood up, examining his thumb. They were a couple of clerks who happened to get night duty. I continued on my way to the mess hall as one of the guards jogged to the nurses' desk for the phone. About halfway down the corridor I heard a noise ahead and spotted someone turning the corner in the main hall. When I turned the corner, a blonde woman in her mid-twenties was sitting on one of the benches, trying to appear surprised. I took the opportunity to look her over as I passed the bench. She had good features, was well structured, and had obviously been waiting for an opportunity to buttonhole someone who might talk about what was going on in the ward behind me. She quickly stood up and greeted me with, "Hi! I'm Marsha." "That's nice." I walked past her extended hand. "What's the matter? Did your mother tell you not to talk to strangers?" "Yup. Told me to watch out for women who lurk in hallways, too." She caught up to me and tried to match my stride. "I wasn't lurking. I was waiting." "Well, then, go back to the bench and wait some more, Marsha." "Can't I just walk along with you? Slow down! This place makes me nervous." "Then go someplace where you won't be nervous, Marsha." "That's not very nice. Where are you going?" "Nowhere, now. I'm just walking fast to tire you out so you'll go away, Marsha." "What's the matter? You don't like women?" "That's what a street hooker says when you ignore her. Are you a hooker, Marsha?" She ran a few steps forward and tried to block my path like a basketball player, arms spread a bit and ready to dodge to intercept me. "No, goddamit, I'm not a hooker! I just want to ask you a few questions, okay?" "Not okay. Get lost, Marsha." I made to walk around her, but for the second time that night someone grabbed me. She stepped into my path so that I'd run into her and grabbed my arms. I stopped as her breasts compressed against my chest. "You feel great, but I can't play with you, Marsha. I mean it. Let go of me or I'll drop you on your ass and call the MP's to have you removed from the hospital." "What if I call the MP's and tell them you tried to do something to me?" "Something like what in a main hospital hallway?" I kept my word and spun her to the floor fairly gently, with enough momentum to spin her some distance away on her butt on the freshly waxed floor. Nice legs flashed as her skirt flew up in her face. I started walking again. "You can't do that to me, you bastard," I heard her mumble, but I didn't hear her coming at me soon enough. She'd taken her shoes off and was sprinting at me when I turned. She slammed into me hard enough to take us both down and we slid into the adjoining hallway in a tangle of arms and legs. She was pummeling me with her fists as I pushed her away. Her hair was all over the place, mostly in her face, and she was frantically trying to kick me when she was too far away to reach me with her fists. I got to my feet and looked down at her. She was wordlessly glaring up at me. I turned to walk away again. This time I heard her coming and stepped quickly aside. She tried to change direction, but her stockinged feet flew out from under her and she went down on her own. Hard. She was keening with rage and pain as she rubbed her hip. "Nobody shoves me around like that! Nobody!" She was trying to get up, but a sharp pain took her breath away and she fell back.

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"I think I just did," I said, "You could have just let me go. You didn't have to grab me and bodyblock me, and you definitely didn't have to tackle me. How bad is it?" "Don't touch me," she said as I reached for her arm. I stopped. "It hurts like hell, she said, "I think I want to stay right here for a minute." "Is anything broken?" "I don't know. I don't think so." "That's good, Marsha. In that case, when you're ready to get back on your feet, you can find your shoes and haul ass out of here." I walked away from her again, watching her in the reflection from a glass door. She lunged to her feet pretty quickly for someone supposedly in great pain and came at me again. This time I stepped to meet her charge and caught her in my arms, pivoting to pin her against the wall. She couldn't hit or kick, but I thought she might just bite me if I got careless. After a moment she realized she was trapped. I waited to see if she was going to try something like a knee in the groin, but she didn't. I let go of her right hand and swept the hair from her face. It was a nice face. "Well, hello, again," I said, grinning, "I don't usually get this familiar on a first date." "Let me go," she said sullenly. "So you can attack me again? I think not. I like you just like this for the moment." "You're just feeling me up," she said. "Yeah, right. Promise you won't attack me again and I'll let you go." "Okay," she said, too quickly to suit me. "Liar. You'll pounce on me the minute my back is turned, Marsha." "I won't. I promise." "If you do, I'm going to pin you to the wall like this until the MP's haul you away. That's my promise, Marsha. And I promise to thoroughly enjoy every single moment of being pressed against you like this. I also promise to..." "OKAY," she said, "Okay, I get the picture. Lemme go now." I stepped back carefully. She didn't move except to rub her arms where I'd held them. I looked her over for damage. She must have thought I was just looking her over. "Well, do you like what you see?" Her tone wasn't pleasant. "Yeah, I do, but I was looking for battle damage. You'll live to tackle another guy." Marsha glared at me and pushed off the wall. I stepped back as if expecting an attack, grinning at her. After a moment, she couldn't quite hold back her own grin. Then I noticed the small red spot on the wall behind her. She saw my expression change and looked behind herself to see the spot. "Hold still," I said, stepping around her to check her back. At first I couldn't find an injury, then I parted her hair and found a small gash. "You must have bumped your head sometime during all the commotion. Come on, let's get your shoes and purse and take a better look." "How bad is it? I don't feel it." Her fingers lightly touched the area and she winced. "Oh, yes, I do! Damn! It's starting to hurt now." "That's because you know it's there now," I said, "There's a washroom up the hall." We walked back a surprising distance to find her shoes, then continued on to retrieve her purse from behind the bench. A camera sat next to it. I took charge of both items and led the way to a womens' bathroom across the hall. Marsha hesitated as I held the door for her. I waited a moment, then just went on in with her purse and camera, set them on one of the countertops, and waited. A few moments later she entered the bathroom rather cautiously, peering around the corner to locate me. I gave her a small wave and a smile. She straightened and crossed the few paces separating us to look up at

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me, waiting to see what I'd say or do, I guess. In a conversational tone, I said, "Boo." Marsha giggled. "Now that we've got that settled," I said, "Take a look in the mirror. You look like a morning-after prom queen." Marsha spun to look at herself in the sink mirror and said, "Oh, my God." "Exactly. I'll wash out that cut and then I'll get out of here so you can polish your nose or whatever it is women do in bathrooms." "Powder," she said, "The term is 'powder one's nose'. We never polish them." "I stand corrected." I soaked a paper towel and blotted the cut. She didn't wince or squeak too much while I worked. "No stitches necessary," I said, "It's more of an abrasion." "What can I put on it?" She held her makeup mirror so she could see the reflection of her injury in the big mirror. She fingered the area gently and winced. "Without shaving the area so a Band-aid will stick, use an ointment. Just keep it clean and let it heal and try not to rest your head on anything that will stain easily." "Funny. I'll pass on shaving it. I know you must be disappointed about that." "Damn right," I said, "Bald women are considered exotic, you know." "I always just considered them bald. What's so exotic about hairless women?" "Well, I don't really know. Never met one. No experience with bald women." "You certainly seem to have experience at shoving women around, though." "Don't start," I said, "That was just plain old Ranger-type personnel management." Marsha gave a short bark of laughter. "Management , you call it?" I finished cleaning and drying the area. "Yup. Management. Okay, you're on your own, now. Make yourself gorgeous and I'll treat you to coffee if there is any." I took a moment to wash my face and run a comb through my hair. Marsha watched me. "Why the change of heart?" she asked, "You don't still want me gone?" "I probably should," I said, "But I don't." "Why?" She sounded suspicious. I sighed. "Because I think you look damn good even when you're all rumpled up, Marsha, and you're a tough lady. You don't give up easily and you have a personality when you aren't badgering someone to death." Her mouth fell open. "Badgering? I may be a little pushy, but..." "Don't kid yourself. You DO badger and you're a LOT pushy. Argumentative, too. Pushy AND argumentative. You'll be some poor man's slavedriver some day." I paused at the corner of the counter. "Hurry up if you want to find some coffee with me." I stood waiting in the hall trying to figure out whether she was being meticulous or stalling me. After a little while I cracked the door and said, "Sometime tonight or not at all." "Okay, okay! Just another minute." It didn't take that long. Her hair was generally back in place, her clothes were neatened, and her stockings were gone. She noticed my eyes on her legs. "They had runs and I don't have another pair, so I just took them off. Do I look okay?" "As I said, you look damn good to me, Marsha, even in an unpolished state. I think I like this bare-legged look, too. Why do women wear stockings, anyway?"

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"I don't know. Probably because some man invented them." "Huh. What a damned dummy he was. Your skin looks pretty good all by itself." She smiled at me. "Glad you like it. It's the only one I own. Where to?" "That way," I said, "The mess hall may still have some stuff out for the night shifts." -------*Chapter Four* An Army Captain met us inside the mess hall doors with two enlisteds when we entered the mess hall. Marsha's presence threw him off. He'd expected me to be alone. "I have to see some ID, sir. And yours, too, Ma'am." I unbuttoned my shirt pocket and handed him my card as Marsha rummaged in her purse. "I had it in here somewhere," she said. The Captain read off my name. "You're the guy we came for. Why did you rough up one of my men and how come you don't carry your ID in your wallet?" I turned and patted my flat back pocket. "Don't need a wallet and your guy grabbed me." "Everybody needs a wallet," said one of the guards, "Why don't you?" The Captain glanced at him and he shut up quickly, then the Captain looked at me curiously. He wasn't going to repeat the enlisted guy's question, mostly because the enlisted guy had gotten the words out first. I realized the Captain barely understood his temporary duties as Watch Officer and was going to try to play it as a tough guy. Marsha finally came up with a card. He glanced at it and held it with mine. "Let's get coffee and talk," I said, waving at the room, "Since we're already here." "We didn't come here for coffee," said the Captain, "We're here to take you back." "Figured that. If you have time to stand here waiting for me, you have time to let us have a snack and coffee, too. How about it?" "We have orders to contain you in ward twelve." "CONTAIN me? Not DE-tain me?" I was getting pissed off at all the meaningless hoops and rituals. "Is that your word or someone else's? Did anyone actually use either of those words, or did they only say 'no unauthorized visitors to the ward'? How far do you want to go with this, Captain? I'm tired and I'm hungry and I've got some lovely company and I'm fast on the road to being very pissed off. I'm going to talk to my friend here over coffee and snacks unless you guys are prepared to get drastic over a rather questionable interpretation of your orders. Is it worth it? There's nothing in it for you." "There are three of us, and I can call more, sir. Will you come along peacefully?" I looked at the other two guys, then at Marsha. "You want coffee?" She nodded and set her purse on the table behind us. She looked ready to rumble. I turned back to the Captain and said, "Not a chance. You don't have enough men, Captain. If you aren't going to join us, you'd better make that call, 'cause I've seen her when she's pissed. I guarantee it isn't worth it for an overnight incident report that will be kitty litter in a year or so." There it was. Showdown time. Do it or get off the pot, and now there was a woman who appeared quite ready to join the fight. The guards were looking at the Captain for orders. The Captain was glaring at us, but he had to decide quickly or lose face with his men. He handed us back our cards and said, "You have a point. There will be no unnecessary violence in this hospital while I'm the one who has to do that goddamned paperwork. As long as these men are with you, you're under guard, as ordered. If you try to get away from them, I'll find you with enough men to

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get the job done. Got that?" "That'll do fine, Captain. Everybody hates the Army's quadruplicate paperwork." "Wow," said Marsha, "You know some big words, don't you?" She gave me a big, vacuous smile. The guards snickered. Even the Captain was holding back a smile. "You're with them until they're back in the ward," the Captain told his men, then he left. The guards looked momentarily lost, so I suggested they take it easy a few tables away from us so we could have a little privacy. Marsha gave me an odd glance as if to ask why I thought we'd need privacy. "We're getting to know each other a little better," I added. The guards joined us long enough to get their coffees and settled a few tables away, as suggested. There were only a few apples and single-serving boxes of cereal in sight. I chose a couple of apples and some frosted cereal for later. Marsha waved off on food, so we chose a table and sat down. "Why did you change your mind about me?" she asked. "I liked what I saw of you. Aggressive women fascinate me." "That's hard to believe. You didn't even introduce yourself. I wouldn't know your name now if General Patton back there hadn't read it off your ID card." "Maybe I wanted to know you better first. I'm shy, you know." She snickered. "No, I don't think so. Why were those MP's after you?" "They aren't MP's. They're just soldiers who have to pull guard duty in the halls." "But why were they after you?" "Can't say." "You mean you won't say, right?" "Can't. Won't because I can't," I said, "Same thing. Who do you work for, Marsha?" "My real job isn't much to talk about," she said, "But it lets me stay in Europe and work on a US base so that I don't need a visa. I sell encyclopedias. Well, actually, I just show them to people in the PX and write up the orders for the other guys who sell them." She named a Stateside newspaper, then added, "Really I'm just a stringer for them, somebody in the area who can take notes and pictures and phone in the details they'll use to make a story. They called and told me they wanted more info on that border thing today. They said there was shooting and that an Army medical helicopter landed and took off again, so I figured it would head for a hospital if someone was hurt. It had to be this one or the one down south, and this one was closest to me." "What the hell made you think I knew anything about it? I was just walking down the hall to get coffee when you tackled me. I could be an outpatient from the clinic." Marsha laughed. "You aren't. The clinic is up in the main hall and there's been a lot of activity at this end of the hospital this evening, all of it focused on ward twelve. Guards and big black cars and lots of very healthy-looking civilians and brass types have been coming and going. Then a big blue civilian helicopter landed an hour ago and a bunch of guys drove off in some of the cars and I saw you get off with two women..." She blushed slightly and backtracked, "I mean ... you got off the helicopter with them..." "I think I liked the first version better," I said with a small smile. Her blush deepened and she silently reached for her cup. "So, Marsha, you just assumed that blue helicopters somehow had something to do with green ones? What if I told you I was just a poor little civilian pilot who flies where he's told to fly and that I don't really know anything about anything else? What if I told you that I've been stringing you a little since patching you up to keep you with me because you're a pretty blonde? Would you still want to sit here and drink free Army coffee with me?" "That wouldn't explain all the activity or a civilian helicopter on a

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military base." "But it sure could explain why I wanted to keep you around, pretty blonde lady." "Oh, damn," said Marsha, fingering her ear, "I think my bullshit detector just went off." She grinned at me. I grinned back and trailed a finger down her bare arm. "You could try making me prove that I think you're a pretty blonde," I said. "Oh, I believe that part, but I'd rather make you prove you're a pilot," she said. "That could be tough. It isn't my helicopter, you know. No joyrides allowed." "Pilots have licenses. Where's yours?" "My bags are in my room. Want to come with me and see if I have one?" "If I even half-believed you had one, I might say yes, but you've carefully avoided actually lying to me by saying you're definitely a pilot. Or anything else, for that matter." I heard footsteps and knew their cadence. Linda had entered the mess hall. I gave her a little wave and said, "Hi, Susan." She didn't bat an eye at my calling her by a name other than her own. She passed our table with a little return wave and said, "Hi, back at you. Want some company?" as she took a coffee cup from the racks. "Sure. This is Marsha. We met in the hall on my way down here." "Trust you to find a cute blonde in the middle of the night in a hospital." "Ow. Unfair, Susan. She found me. Tell her, Marsha." Marsha said, "That's right. I, um, ran into him in the hall." In a whisper she asked me, "Is this your wife or your girlfriend?" I shook my head and whispered back, "Neither. Just a friend." My guards were suitably impressed with my additional company, if maybe also a bit confused. One came over and asked to see her ID, of course. She handed it to him and with a steady gaze at him said, "Sorry to disappoint you. I'm just a night-shifter looking for some strong coffee." He wasn't stupid, I'll give him that. His expression never changed as he read her card and handed it back, saying, "Thank you, Ma'am. Sorry, but we were told to stick with this guy. We're supposed to escort him back to his room, too." "Well, I'm sure he deserves the attention," said Linda. She sat down and extended a hand to Marsha. "Nice to meet you. Are you new here in the hospital?" Marsha took the hand and answered, "Nice to meet you, too. No, I work in the PX." "I just shuffle papers," said Linda, then, to me, she said, "We need to be getting back. I just came down here to find you and take a break." "Okay," I said, "Sorry, Marsha. Duty calls, and all that." Then, to Linda, I said, "Marsha doesn't believe I'm just a simple pilot, Susan. She thinks I do something dark and secret." "Pulling me into this was dumb, Ed. Let me guess, here ... You told her in a way designed to make her not believe you, right? Your old 'I just drive the bus' routine?" I pretended irritation and mumbled, "Um, well ... I just sort of mentioned it, is all." "Uh, huh ... Marsha, did he ever come right out and say he was a pilot?" "No, Susan," said Marsha with a quick, hard look at me, "He actually didn't." Linda gave her a 'just between us girls' look. "He pulls this crap on every good-looking woman he meets. They wind up thinking they've slept with James Bond's American cousin or something. It keeps them from trying to call

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him at work, I guess, and if he doesn't call them, they think he's off saving the world. Just between you and me, Marsha..." Linda looked hard at me and said, "I don't approve of men being devious to get a date." "I see," said Marsha, her narrowed gaze bouncing from Linda to me. She picked up her purse and said, "I have to go, now, everybody. Nice meeting you." I began to protest, of course. She waved me off as she picked up her purse and camera. "It's getting late. Thanks for the coffee, and thank you for clearing something up for me, Susan." Her steps were quick and angry as she headed for the doors. While she was still within earshot, I said, "Well, thanks a helluvva lot, Susan! I'll make damned sure to find a way to return the favor sometime!" Marsha didn't look back at my outburst. Linda sipped her coffee and gazed steadily after her until she was out of sight, then turned to me. Her demeanor had changed between one glance and the next. "Explain that encounter, please," she said. I told her what I knew about Marsha and described our battle in the hallway. I concluded with an opinion that we probably hadn't seen the last of Marsha. "She figured out that we'd be here or at Landstuhl, Linda, and she doesn't give up easily." "Well, now that she thinks you're just a horny pilot," said Linda, "She'll probably go back to watching for someone else she can fish for a story." "Maybe. Maybe not. She didn't buy it from me, and now you're with me. Assume she develops some doubts. How do you want to handle it if she pops up again?" "If she pops up again, she's smart enough to be useful. We'll put her to work. She'll sign a Secrecy Act and we'll tell her what we want the press to know as we go along." Linda then informed me that the gunshot victim was still barely alive, that she'd made arrangements at Landstuhl for us, and that we'd be leaving early in the morning. As we rose to leave the mess hall, I motioned to the guards to saddle up and come along. On the way back, I noticed the tiniest bit of movement of the ladies' washroom door and whispered to Linda that it might be a fine idea if she could suddenly need to use that particular bathroom at that very moment. She excused herself and went in. We waited for her. A few minutes later she emerged with Marsha. For the benefit of our guards, she told me that she'd run into Marsha in the washroom and that there was someone she wanted Marsha to meet back in the ward. Marsha was a little embarrassed, but otherwise looked determined. The guards stopped at the guardpost in the end of the hall of Ward Twelve. Inside Linda's room, Marsha was told that she would be staying in Linda's room for safekeeping and that if she tried to leave she would be quietly jailed until someone happened to remember she was there. Linda then took Marsha's purse and camera and locked both in a suitcase, then left to make a call. Marsha sat on the bed looking at me as if I'd betrayed her. I walked over to sit beside her on the bed. She scooted farther away, looking anywhere but at me. "I tried to make you go away until I realized that you wouldn't," I said, "And then I tried letting her tell you I was just a horny pilot, but that didn't work, either. Don't blame this on me." "You don't give a damn about me, so why are you telling me this?" "Not true. If I didn't give a damn, I wouldn't be saying anything to you. Marsha, you got yourself into this. Now you're part of things." "Is she going to have me put in jail?" "She certainly has the power to do so." Marsha didn't say anything. I

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reached for her hand. "I'm really sorry, Marsha. I really didn't want this to happen to you." "I was just doing my job." She was trembling and looked ready to cry. "So was I, when I told you to leave me alone. So were the guards, misguided as they were in my humble opinion. We were all just doing our jobs. Now, so is she." After a moment, Marsha looked up and said in a small voice, "I don't want to go to jail. I haven't done anything. I don't know anything. She doesn't have to put me in jail." There was nothing I could say. While I agreed with her, it truly was up to Linda to decide. I sat with her until Linda came back to the room. She handed Marsha a towel and a little bag of hospital-issue toiletries, then told me to get some sleep and took my arm to lead me firmly to the doorway. I tapped Linda's arm in our 'play along with me' signal. I said, "She really doesn't know anything. She just got a hint something was happening here." Marsha looked up hopefully. "Tell me in the morning," said Linda, "I'll decide what to do with her before we leave." I left after those words. The pressure was on for Marsha's cooperation. She had only to become the impromptu voice of our operation to avoid difficulties. There would be no reason and no point in misleading her about anything our offices wanted made public, but we would want various of the news items to be released according to our own timetables to counter possible propagandizing by the Easties. I was for bringing Marsha aboard. The Commies had shot a man who had only wanted to live in the West. He was clean, with no police record or other legal difficulties that we could discover. He had only wanted out badly enough to try to escape, and I thought that might make a good first article if Marsha signed on with us. -------*Chapter Five* I don't know what was said between Linda and Marsha, but in the morning the Judge Advocate General's office provided Security Act forms and Marsha signed them. Linda told us in a quick meeting that Marsha was now our official voice in this matter and that she, Linda, would be the only one other than John to authorize any information releases. John called to welcome her aboard and caution Marsha, then asked to speak to me. "Trust you to come up with a date on short notice," he said, "How are things going?" He didn't mean for me to report on known details. He wanted my opinions. I told him that I thought Linda was a good command choice. He laughed. "Is she listening, Ed? Just nod your head if you can't talk freely." He thought that was hilarious, of course. I had to admit it was fairly original, anyway. "Glad you approve," said John. "Yeah, well, she's got the brains and legs for this job, John. She told me what you said about me being a sucker for tall women, by the way. I thought that was classified information." "Ha. Nope. I was planning on adding it to your file, Ed. Big letters on the cover." "Great. I'll finally have some kind of reputation around the office. Anything else?" He had me put Linda on and they talked a bit and hung up, then Linda had us board the chopper for the short flight to Landstuhl. Six seats faced each other and two shared a starboard-side window, one of which which Marsha claimed for herself. Linda's briefcase dropped into the seat next to mine and she sat in the seat just beyond it. I looked over at her, but she was busily rooting through

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the briefcase. "Here's an update," she said. "The gunshot victim is still with us as of eight o'clock this morning, so there's still a possibility that this will wind down and become old news in a week or two. Ed's the only one of us who doesn't work in a cover job provided by the company, so we're using him as bait. We'll return Ed to his job and apartment at Landstuhl and see if anyone contacts him about the matter. The rest of us will be in base housing until the situation changes enough to return to business as usual or until we have to make a decision to the contrary." Marsha raised a hand as if she were in a classroom. "What does 'a decision to the contrary' mean, exactly?" Linda said rather curtly, "It means that if the man dies and we can't go back to what we were doing, you don't need to know what we will be doing after that. You'll be debriefed, cautioned, and either reassigned or dismissed." "Nobody said anything about reassignments! This was supposed to be all there was!" Linda looked at her steadily and asked, "If this situation changes because what is now just an escape from the East becomes a murder case, aren't you going to want to cover it? You have a degree in journalism, but you're selling encyclopedias in the PX and only stringing for a Stateside newspaper. You don't speak German and you only have a tourist stamp in your passport, so you can't get an off-base job without a work permit and those are too much of a hassle to go through for an inexperienced beginner. If you aren't still too upset at being shanghaied, think about turning the work you do for us into a real job somewhere. If you do well, half a dozen English-speaking papers might want to talk to you. Armed Forces Radio and Television might be able to use you, too." Linda grinned at Marsha and continued, "I can almost guarantee it if your work is good." "I'll bet you can," said Marsha. "What is this, another carrot-or-stick choice?" Linda's demeanor seemed to ice over. She said, "I don't ever want to hear something like that from you again, Marsha. That offer was real and the best I can manage. You know enough about what we've been doing and why we have a problem at the moment to know that we aren't monsters and that you aren't absolutely essential, so don't become in the least way inconvenient. This is your only warning. You're in or you're out. If you're out, say so and you can sit in jail until this is over and they ship you Stateside. If you're in, I suggest that you try to make the most of the opportunities we can offer you during and after this incident." Marsha sat staring at her for a moment, then said, "Sorry. I know you aren't monsters and I know you don't really need me. I just feel as if I've been drafted or something." "That's because you have been drafted. It's my only other option and Ed believes in you." Marsha glanced at me in surprise. Linda said, "That's right. He stood up for you. It would have been convenient to hand you off to a holding facility, but Ed argued that you might be useful, so you must have impressed him a damn sight more than you've impressed me so far, lady. If he's wrong about you, I'll be wrong, too, because I listened to him. I don't like being wrong and I guarantee you'll like it even less, so if you have any doubts about being here, bail out now." Linda paused a moment for effect and added, "Let me make the decision a little bit easier for you. It isn't really a jail, just a country house where people are held temporarily during times like these. You'd have a room to yourself and limited run of the place, but you wouldn't be able to leave or contact anyone until all of this is resolved. I don't know if they'd actually bother themselves with shipping you back to the States when this is over." Marsha looked at me, then at Linda. "Thank you. You didn't have to tell

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me that and I know it. I'll stay here if it's still all right with you." Linda smiled said, "This was never really all right with me, but I listen to my people." She then stood up and went to the front of the aircraft to talk with the pilot. Marsha watched her go, then looked at Will and Connie. They returned her gaze impassively until Connie said, "You already know that we pull people out of East-Block countries. You can identify us. As far as I'm concerned, you know too damned much already. I don't happen to think we need a publicist and I don't like having one." Will said nothing, his gaze unfaltering. Connie added ominously, "Just don't fuck up, lady," then she looked at me. "She better be more than a sex toy, Ed." "Ease up," I said, "If we couldn't use her, John and Linda wouldn't have allowed her along." Marsha flared at Connie's closing remark. "You think I'm just his toy, do you?" I touched her arm and said, "Don't. Connie could trash you before you were out of your seat, but Will would get you first. Don't even think of getting physical over words and opinions or you'll be in a hospital instead of a cozy farmhouse during your isolation." Connie said, "I don't care if you become his toy or he becomes yours. That isn't important. I just don't want to find out later that your face and legs screwed up his common sense and maybe wind up in an Eastie prison or cemetery because of you." Will hadn't said so much as "Good morning" to Marsha until then. He leaned across to get eye-to-eye with her up close and said his first words to her. "Like she said, but one more thing. If something you say or do harms anyone on our teams in any way, you'd best be already dead when we find you." He then sat back in his seat, still glaring ominously. Marsha looked at me when I didn't say something like 'Ease up' to Will as I had to Connie. I shrugged. "He's right," I said, "Someone would come for you and you should know that while you can still bail out." Marsha stared at me, then at them. She said nothing for a moment, then, sounding uncertain, "You don't scare me. You can't go around killing people." Will said nothing. Connie was usually the somber one of the pair. Now she actually laughed aloud. "Oh, Auntie Em! Lions and tigers and bears!" She then leaned forward as Will had done and said, "Grow up or get your ass out of here, little girl. You're the only innocent on this bird." "I don't believe it," said Marsha, "You rescue people, you don't kill them." Will said, "Let's suppose that one of our people was caught trying to help someone escape to the West. What would be done to them in an effort to find out, as you journalists say, the 'who, what, when, where, why, and how' of things? Easties don't ask questions politely, sweetie. You can think Gestapo, here. Prison, torture, drugs, and propaganda mileage. Let's say it happens because you didn't take things seriously enough and let something slip out. We don't forgive and we don't forget. Someone will be coming for you." I was surprised. I hadn't heard that many words at one time from Will in the two years since I'd met him. Even Connie looked startled by what was something of an outburst of conversation from him. We were all staring at him, albeit for different reasons. Marsha simply seemed shocked by the revelation that we weren't merely nice people doing good works in the world. She rather quietly and acidly said, "I see," and said nothing else during the remainder of the flight to Landstuhl. When Linda returned to strap in for our landing, she noticed the silence reigning over our little group and likewise said nothing. We landed at the helipad at the hangar complex a quarter-mile from the hospital instead of

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the medevac pad near the entrance. Linda commandeered an office for a quick briefing. "Will and Connie, you'll be checking in at the BOQ using your third-string ID's. You're married and Will is here for testing and diagnosis. Work it out yourselves according to these general notes. I'm also in the BOQ as a Navy Lieutenant here for treatment." She gave us a four-digit autovon phone number, 7217, and her room number, then continued, "Ed, you'll go home and back to work on Monday. Marsha needs a shepherd, so you found her while you were touring Frankfurt. She goes home with you as a new girlfriend who is looking for a civilian job here in order to be near you. We'll appear to meet for the first time at the commissary around one this afternoon and talk as we shop, then you'll invite me to join you for dinner at the officer's club tonight. We're still in covers due to the incident and we'll play the game that way while we're here. That's all for now. Call for taxis." When it crossed my mind that the arrangement would put a crimp in finding a way to spend some time with Linda, the thought must have shown on my face a bit. Linda gave me our 'later' signal, which didn't go unnoticed by Will and Connie, but they probably assumed there was something Marsha wasn't supposed to hear. End of meeting. Will and Connie left the airstrip first. Marsha and I would take the next taxi out and Linda would wait a while before leaving. Linda stopped me as I was about to make the call and asked Marsha to wait outside for me. I was expecting final instructions concerning Marsha, and after a fashion, that's what I received. Linda leaned on the desk and waited until Marsha had closed the door behind her before speaking. "I'm your boss until this is over, and according to John, it looks as if I'm going to be your boss on some of your future assignments," she said, "That changes things for us." I looked directly at her. "I don't have a problem with it. I told you that before, Linda." "But I have a problem with it, Ed. Before John told me I'd be doing this job from now on, I had tentatively cast myself in the role of your new girlfriend. That idea just won't fly now that you'll be working for me." I absorbed her revelation and realized a sudden sense of loss as we faced each other. After a moment, I asked her, "Why not, Linda? What can I say that will change your mind?" "Nothing. I won't have an affair with a man under my command, Ed." "That sounds like a line from the Bluejacket's Manual, Linda. You're not in the Navy anymore and I've had women as bosses before. No problem." I tried to take her hand, but she moved away. "I think I need more of a reason than that, Linda. I wasn't kidding in the least about my interest in you." "That's just it, Ed. I know you weren't kidding. When you said you wanted to know me better, I could tell you weren't just looking to get laid. You want more than that from me, but I can't give you what you want and expect to remain objective. That's my reason." I didn't want to hear what she was saying. "You can't remain objective? I don't believe that for a minute, Linda. Not for a minute. You're tougher and smarter than that." Linda sat down behind the desk. A few pensive moments later she said, "No. I won't let a man in my bed unless I care about him, and I was ready to find out if I could care that much about you. That means I was already halfway there. It's very hard to send someone you care about into potentially nasty situations, Ed. I know because I've had to do it before. At first you just sit and worry yourself sick, but later you tend to look for reasons to send others out, instead, and find ways to justify those decisions." "So you want to stop us before we've even started. Is that part of why you didn't argue about Marsha coming with us? You maybe thought she might want to take a shot at filling the role you wouldn't and sidetrack me away from

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you? If so, you've lost your own argument. I'd consider that a very real breach of security based on a personal issue." Linda was angry as she opened her purse and pulled out a few folded sheets of paper. "Read these," she ordered me, tossing them at my chest. I scanned the pages. They were copies of college transcripts that had been copied a number of times between offices, which only made them harder to read. Marsha had been an 'A' student. The last page was a page of assembled clippings, each with her byline or sharing it. "Your instincts were right on the money, Ed. She's good," said Linda. "Very good. Good enough that John and I are wondering why the hell she's hustling encyclopedias when she could be opening a real career in journalism somewhere. Those clippings are from several newspapers, but they all have one thing in common. Marsha's polishing touch." She paused, then said softly, bitterly, "No , Ed. I didn't bring her aboard as a goddamned replacement for your affections. You'll have to find your own playmates." I looked at Linda as I folded the papers and handed them back to her. "Okay. I see what you mean about her work. Be sure to show these to Will and Connie. They seem to think she's some kind of a decorative pet. I was hoping we could find something together, Linda, and I disagree with your assessment of our personal situation, but I guess I'll survive. Please take my recent display of selfish disappointment as a compliment, ma'am." "I will," she said, "And I'll treasure it, too, whether you believe that or not. I brought those clippings for just this moment, Ed. I knew you'd need some kind of proof as to why I'm doing this. It isn't you. It's me. My job." I didn't want to talk anymore. I just nodded slightly, turned, and walked to the door after I'd called for a taxi. The bright sunshine that greeted me irrationally irritated me. I guess I just didn't feel very bright and sunny at that moment and it must have showed. Marsha almost spoke, then canceled the act before saying anything. She was trying not to stare at me and not really succeeding very well. "Well," I snapped, "What's on your mind?" "Sorry. Never mind. It isn't important. Later. You look upset right now." "That's because I am upset right now. Thanks for not asking why." After a moment, Marsha said, "Please don't be angry, but I don't have to ask why, Ed. I saw how you looked at her. I hope I'm not the reason you had a fight with her." "It wasn't a fight and don't worry, Marsha. You're still on board. No jail." Marsha's eyes narrowed slightly at that, but she didn't snap at me. "That isn't what I meant, Ed. Remember when I asked if she was your girlfriend?" "Oh. Yeah. Well, that suddenly doesn't seem likely to happen." "But you wanted it to happen and so did Linda, I think. I saw that much. I just don't want to be the reason for another set of problems, particularly those kinds of problems." "You aren't. We managed those all on our own, Marsha. She won't play where she works, that's all. Doesn't want to get too attached, don't you know. Let's drop it, okay?" "Okay. Sorry." "And don't apologize. You had nothing to do with it and an apology wouldn't fix a damned thing if you had been at fault. Useless apologies irritate me when I'm not upset." "Right. Okay. Sor..." She caught herself, her hand to her mouth, her eyes big. I gave her a glare, then heard my own words and backed down. "No, I'm sorry. Like I said, it's personal and it isn't your fault. Let's just go home, Marsha."

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She nodded and began paying attention to the scenery instead of me. -------*Chapter Six* I had the taxi wait fifteen minutes or so outside building 3774 while I dashed into the PX for some household essentials, then we proceeded to my apartment. Marsha hadn't been outside Frankfurt and Wiesbaden much and seemed to be expecting to see thatched huts and happy peasants or something along those lines, so the fairly modern buildings and streets of Stadt Landstuhl had her staring out the windows during our short trip. My building had a mural on the side of it, a common practice in much of Europe. It was a condensed panorama of seashore-to-mountain sceneries that somehow managed to blend almost believably. Marsha ooh'ed and ahh'ed now and then as we rolled over the cobbles. Her jaw really dropped when she saw my apartment and furnishings. I told her how a divorced Colonel from the dentistry wards had to return to the States quickly and permanently due to a family crisis two years before. His landlady had called me due to his recommendation of me as a prospective new tenant. The Colonel had left a number of things behind when he'd moved and in a letter addressed to me and the landlady he decreed that I owned them for having helped him retrieve his runaway thirteen-year-old daughter. He staved off any protests on my part by telling me it would cost a bundle to ship them to the States. I bought his car, too, a five-year-old Mercedes sedan. Marsha was investigating one of the antique wooden closets in the bedroom with great interest, so I told her to use it while she was with me. As we were taking my stuff out and putting hers in, she asked if I was sure. "I have two suits, a tux, and miscellaneous shirts and pants," I said, "We'll leave the tux and suits and put the rest in the other one. No sweat. There's another schrank in the basement if we need it, but I don't keep enough clothes to bother hauling it upstairs for my use alone. Save me a drawer here for socks and undies, okay?" "Okay," she said, "I'm not trying to hint that I want this drawer, too, but isn't that schrank a match to this one? Doesn't it have drawers, too?" "It does and they're in use," I said. "The steel liner-boxes in them could survive a fire and contain things worth locking away for either security or safety reasons." "A well-delivered explanation," Marsha said. "Terse and precise without telling me much of anything. The kind of explanation someone still not in the best of moods would use. Tell me, Ed, would you really rather that I just shut up and leave you alone?" I looked at her a moment before replying, "No, not really. I'll try to lighten up some for you. Brooding won't help and I have things to do before we meet Linda." "Like what? Maybe I can help." She paused, then, "Actually, there is something to talk about. The others don't even know me, but they hate me. What can I do about that?" "It isn't hate. They don't trust you because you aren't one of us. You don't do what we do or go where we go, so you're not at risk like us. Loose lips sink ships, and all that." "But you don't feel that way about me, do you?" "Of course I do. Can't help it, I'm one of them. But I can think around it, Marsha. If John and Linda couldn't see your presence as potentially useful, you'd be at the farm." "Well, they made me think they hate me on the helicopter. You heard them." "I heard them," I said, "Will offered you a piece of the risk and you accepted it by staying. You now know that what can happen to them can happen to you, and that will help them find ways to accept your involvement. Maybe it would help to know that they gave John, Linda, and a number of others we have to work with who never see the field essentially the same speech."

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Marsha handed me some of my things while she moved clothing around in the schrank. I continued, "Ranks and pay grades of office brass don't automatically guarantee common sense, and field personnel in the dangerous jobs know it all too well. What does guarantee the parity is a sharing of risk. We can accept a certain reasonable amount of risk and chance during a run, but if an office type were to risk or waste one of us in some half-assed scheme, that office type will become an enduring example to the others very quickly. You won't find this in the official manual, but you might ask someone about one GS-14 who wasn't with us very long in 1972. He screwed up big-time." Marsha turned to look at me. "Okay. I'm asking. What happened to him?" "He told a politician friend from his home state where to be and when so the guy could be on hand with a photographer when a team came back from a run. Their plan was to give the voters back home the idea that the politician had something to do with rescuing that family and others from the Commies. Hungry politicians leak like babies. Word got out, the mission was exposed, one of our people was killed and the other had to run for it without the family. The family was arrested and we haven't been able to locate any of them since. We noticed the politician in the area at the time and looked a little closer at the overall situation." Marsha remembered it. "Did that happen in March? All anybody heard about it was some bragging rhetoric from the East about an escape attempt being smashed." "You got it. The politician was out there faking a tour of military posts in the region. Vehicle signouts and other docs provided us with a trail that led straight from the Bonn embassy to our planned exit point, so we questioned that politician rather extensively in private. He coughed up the name of his contact in our offices fairly quickly and our leaker was immediately and very visibly transferred to a thoroughly nothing job in Bremerhaven to get him away from us. About two weeks later he wrote a note of apology detailing the whole incident and the people involved before he shot himself in his car in a restaurant parking lot one night." "I remember that!" exclaimed Marsha, "Something wasn't right about something at the scene...! One of the cops wanted to know why something had happened!" "Actually, he wanted to know how something didn't happen. The driver's window was up and intact and clean, but the bullet was found imbedded in the wall next to the car. They decided that one of the cops was afraid to admit having tampered with evidence by rolling up the window. They never did figure out why anyone would feel the need to do that, but they settled for that explanation and closed the case. They didn't find the note in the car." "Why not? And should I suppose that you know why the window was up?" "The note is in a file in case we have a use for it later. The window was a signal to others in similar positions in the intelligence community. Nobody in our offices and several other offices we have to work with at times had any doubts about what had really happened." "My God ... And the politician? What happened to him?" "Nothing as drastic. He returned to the States in a hurry to duck the publicity and he resigned immediately at the request of some people who visited him at home in the middle of the night. He was told that the note would be discovered instantly in a plausible manner in his ex-contact's office if he ever again ran for any political office or was appointed to one anywhere." Marsha asked, "How do I know you aren't just telling me all this to scare me?" "That's something that you'll just have to decide for yourself somewhere along the line. I suggest that you play it safe and assume the story is true while you're deciding." "Without proof, I guess I'll just have to take your word for it, won't I?" she grinned at me.

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I grinned back at her as I named the politician and his state. Marsha's face changed to one of incredulousness as she remembered the man's abrupt, very poorly explained retirement from politics a week after the Bremerhaven suicide. "Oh, my God..." she said again. I left her to consider things and finished transferring stuff out of the closet. There was a thump on the terrace. I went to open the door for Bear, my landlady's huge black cat. "How you doin', Bear?" I asked as he paraded into the apartment. He paused for a greeting-rub and then made a beeline to the closet to investigate the new person in his world and all the new stuff she'd brought with her. Marsha was amazed at the size of him. "Bear, huh? Named after his father or his mother? He must weigh twenty pounds!" "No idea. My landlady's family owns a trout farm. When she brought him home from a visit he was already this size." I went to the kitchen and opened the treats box. Bear heard the familiar noise, but he stayed where he was, soaking up Marsha's attention. I set a few treats in his dish and went to sit next to them on the bed. "Well," I said, "I guess you can stay. Bear seems to like you." Marsha laughed and sat down next to me with Bear on her lap. He folded himself to generally fit her lap and seemed perfectly satisfied to be there. "He certainly knows a sucker when he sees one, doesn't he? I just realized that I haven't touched a cat since I've been in Europe," said Marsha, "I wonder why?" "Time and circumstance. You probably didn't know where to look for a cat in downtown Frankfurt. When you get back, you can stop in at the BMW dealership on Marktstrasse. Mags keeps several around. She says they're good for the customers." Marsha giggled. "You're right. I never would have thought of looking in a car lot. How is it you know she has cats? Is she an old girlfriend or something?" "Or something covers it well enough. Mags looks great, but she's almost twice my age and she didn't always sell cars. Right after they started building the wall in Berlin, she and some other student friends began finding ways to sneak people out. A few years later they were caught and jailed. They escaped, taking the contents of the safe from the prison office with them. There wasn't much money in it, but there were documents that she thought would be worth a few bucks to the West, and she was right. She bartered them for escape assistance and a fair-sized pile of money and started a business here." "So how did you meet her and find out about all that?" "Her daughter Giselle invited me out to a disco one night and we dated for a while in 1971. Our outfit checks out the people in our lives and they already knew Mags." "She invited you out? You didn't do the inviting?" "Don't look so surprised. This is Europe, not Indiana. Women aren't so timid here." Marsha glanced sharply at me, interrupting her attentions to Bear. He protested. "Timid?" She asked, "You think American women are timid ?" "I've been invited out by a couple of dozen Euro women. Not once did that happen back in the States or here with American women. American girls drop hints and wait for the man to get the idea they're interested. They're devious about snagging a guy. Euro ladies will simply ask if I want to go to someone's party or a show or whatever. I haven't dated an American girl for over two years, Marsha. There's too much guesswork involved. I prefer forthright women who say what they want, whether it's just friendly male company at a movie or dinner or a wild weekend somewhere along the Weinstrasse in a tourist hotel." Marsha sat there staring at me, automatically petting Bear. "I see," she said. "Don't get all fuzzed up, Marsha. I was just telling you how I see

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things." "And you said you see American women as being timid creatures. I'm an American woman. Did I seem timid to you in the hospital hallway?" "Not a valid comparison. You were pissed off at me, not interested in me. When's the last time you saw a guy who interested you and asked him out? Or tackled a potential date?" "I've never had to. They always asked me out." "Uh, huh. And how many times did you have to do or say something to spur the guy into asking? Or did they just dash right up to you and introduce themselves?" She smiled. "Yes, I'll have you know a few have done just that. But I see what you mean, too. Usually even the interested ones wait for a sign of some sort." "I used to wait for a glance or a word. Now I just talk with a woman long enough to see if I'm really interested in her. If so, I ask if she'd like to spend some time together." "And if she says no?" "Then I'm crushed and heartbroken, of course. So I try another one." Marsha hesitated slightly, but noticeably. "I guess Linda must have been more important to you than some of the others. I couldn't help overhearing some of it." "Don't worry, Marsha. I'm not going to bite your head off over that. Linda thinks that she shouldn't date the guys who work for her. I didn't like her decision on the matter." "She's right, Ed." "Maybe. I think we could probably handle it, but she seemed pretty set against it." "She's right, Ed," repeated Marsha. "Everybody always thinks they can handle it, but office relationships nearly always end in disaster." "Are you some kind of authority on the issue?" "You could say that. I'm just a stringer because of an office relationship that went sour. After I called it off, he kept trying to get back together for a while, but when it didn't happen, he said he couldn't see me and not want me, so he fired me. When I tried to find another job, I couldn't even get interviews. I don't know what he said about me, but everybody knows everybody else in that business, so I'm not working for a paper." "Want us to look into it for you? See what's been said, at least? Maybe fix it?" Marsha laughed. "Not if he's going to be another suicide." I laughed with her. "No, not that. Just give some thought to where you might want to work when this is over. We may be able to help you get back into things." Marsha looked closely at my face. "Your people can do stuff like that, can't they?" "We can push a bit. Give us some good work during this situation. Having someone of sufficient clout talk with your old boss later could clear the air quickly enough." "I can't believe this is happening. I thought I wouldn't be working for a newspaper again until I got back to the States. But what are you going to do about Linda, Ed? Try to find a way to get her to change her mind?" "No. I think you're both right about office romances, but I didn't want to admit it to myself because I wanted her. She caught it in time. It won't come between us at work." "You're sure you can do that?" "I can do that." Marsha finished unpacking and looking around while I made sure my car would start. It hadn't been run during my three-week absence, so I took the easy route with it, putting a couple of spoonfuls of lighter fluid in the carb bowl before cranking it. It fired up and ran sputteringly until the gas flow filled the bowl properly, then smoothed out.

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I let it run while I checked the tires, then turned it off and went back into the apartment at about noon to tell Marsha to get ready to go. As I turned the corner from the hall to the bedroom, I almost ran into Marsha. She was down to bra and panties and was standing in profile with a dress up to her chin in front of the closet-door mirror. Her face turned to mine in startlement, then settled into a 'well?' questioning expression. "Whups!" I said, "Sorry," as I backed out of the room. A few minutes later I heard Marsha say, "Okay, you can come in now." I opened the door to see her still in her bra and panties, holding up a different dress. She spoke without turning her head. "What do you think of this one for a trip to the commissary?" she asked. "Uh, fine, I guess. I thought you might actually be wearing one of them by now." "I haven't decided which one," she said, hanging the dress on the door. I let my eyes travel over her from head to toe and back. Firm, slightly rounded thighs and full calves. Trim belly and solid arms. Creamy skin. Her eyes met mine at the end of that journey. "Is this assertive enough for you?" she asked. I nodded. She held up two dresses. "Good. Which one of these do you think looks best?" I chose the sundress, then watched her stretch and shimmy as she slipped it on from above and adjusted it. "Button me?" she asked. I moved to do so. Fresh perfume, not too much, not too little. Her natural scent still carried through as I examined her shoulders and back at close range. Fine, smooth skin. I ran my hands over her shoulders and down her arms before I said, "You're buttoned, MiLady." She turned to face me. "I gave it some thought," she said, adjusting the dress, then she continued somewhat nervously, "While we were having coffee at the hospital. I was hoping you'd ask me out then, but Linda showed up. Then all the other stuff happened. Now I'm picking it up again. Are you still hung up on Linda? If I'm out of line I'll cool it. If.... Damn, now I know why guys are so afraid of rejection. So what do you think, Ed?" I stepped around her and pulled her to me. "Linda's made herself unavailable. You've got a lot of nerve, Marsha, and I like it. Would you rather not meet Linda for dinner tonight?" Marsha squeezed me slightly in her embrace and said, "No. Not if we don't have to." "Then we'll try to get out of it gracefully," I said, "It's time to go meet her. After we go through the motions with her we can come back here and put the groceries away." She blinked at me. "Huh? Was that some kind of really vague sexual innuendo?" I laughed. "Nope. The commissary is a grocery store for military personnel. Check the cabinets right quick and see what we need, because I don't buy anything but cat food, beer, canned soups, coffee, and junk food. If you're going to want real meals here, you'll have to make them. I usually feed at the mess hall in 2nd General before and after work." Marsha went through the kitchen taking notes, then made a few more notes once we were underway in the Mercedes. To save time, I didn't return to Landstuhl base by the same route the taxi used. Marsha acted like a tourist, pointing out each and every little thing that caught her attention. I used the entrance near the blood bank and the road behind the motor pool as a shortcut to the commissary. Marsha put on her sunglasses and sat on the back of the seat to poke her head and shoulders up through the sunroof, laughing and waving at a couple of guys working on someone's personal car, a Dodge Charger. They laughed and waved back to her as we passed. A friend of mine named Sondra was walking near the base theater. She

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stopped completely and watched us go by. Sondra was the NCOIC at the WAC billets, so I knew that news of my new blonde ladyfriend would be common knowledge around the hospital by nightfall. A medical community is worse than a small town about gossip. As we neared the commissary, I tugged on Marsha's skirt to get her attention. She slithered back down to the seat with a glorious display of legs and asked where we were. "Well, that's building 3701," I said, pointing. "The Class Six store. Coffee, tea, cigarettes, booze, and anything else that requires a ration card. We'll get you into some part-time job somewhere around here so you'll have access to the base without me. You'll have to be able to come and go as needed. As a base employee you'll have a DAC ID card, be able to register a car with green tags, get PX gas coupons, and use most of the facilities." Marsha nodded. As we walked through the parking lot, she saw women with children and shopping carts and said, "I thought it would be different somehow, but it isn't. It's pretty much like any grocery store back home, isn't it?" "Yup. Pretty much. You can even use manufacturer coupons. All the usual brands." We found Linda stalling around by the bulletin board, maybe even reading some of the ads that offered cars and furniture for sale by people rotating back to the States. She turned as we approached and bumped into me, then apologized profusely. "No problem," I said, "See anything you can't live without up there?" "Actually, I did," she said, "I'm new here, so I need just about everything." I gallantly offered to answer any questions she might have while we shopped. She accepted the offer and we pushed a shopping cart through the main entrance. It didn't take long for Linda to notice Marsha's behavior. "She's really shopping, isn't she, Ed?" "Our understanding includes her cooking if she doesn't want to live on canned soup like me. Apparently she doesn't." Our shopping basket was filling quickly as Marsha checked items off her list. "An understanding?" said Linda. "Do tell. Should I feel discarded? Cast aside? Forgotten?" "Yeah, I guess so. Sorry, but Marsha let me know in no uncertain terms this morning that she doesn't intend to fake being a girlfriend." Linda gave me a small smile. "Wouldn't that necessarily require your cooperation?" "She made a very convincing argument, Linda." I gave Linda a quick briefing on the events of the morning and finished with, "Shepherding Marsha could turn out to be an enjoyable assignment after all." Linda wondered aloud if maybe I wasn't promising too much concerning helping her back into her old job later. I told her that I didn't think it too much to ask that someone talk to the guy if Marsha came through for us as required. Linda told me to get the names of those involved for later, so I knew she'd look into things. She never collected useless info. When Marsha declared our shopping mission complete, we went through the motions of exchanging names and contact information. After loading our stuff into our cars, I asked Linda if the dinner date was really necessary. She said we'd be 'meeting' Will and Connie the same way we'd met her, so the dinner had to happen. I looked at Marsha and shrugged. She made a wry face and shrugged back at me. Linda laughed softly. "You two look so disappointed! I had no idea you'd take your cover roles so seriously. Tell you what ... we'll try to make it a short encounter. How's that?" "If that's the best we can do, we'll take it. I really don't want to be out late tonight. My new girlfriend has a real mean streak." Marsha turned

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slightly red, but smiled. "Poor Ed," Linda said to Marsha, "Women are running his life at home and at work. See you both at seven at the O-club." With that, she got in her car and drove away. Marsha was quiet as we got into the Mercedes, but as I headed us over to the Class Six store for coffee, she said, "It's only about two. We have five hours before dinner." "That's just about time enough for what I've got in mind for you," I said. Marsha glanced sharply at me, but she was grinning. "Oh, really? And just what do you have in mind for me?" "Anything you'll allow. Should I tell you some of my ideas on the way?" "That might be a good idea, stranger. I'll let you know what I think of them." "Good. I'd hate to put my tongue anywhere you didn't approve first." Marsha blushed again, but she gamely came back with, "There's only one place I wouldn't want to be tasted." "There's only one place I wouldn't want to taste you, so that works out just fine." "I hope we're thinking of the same place," she said as I started to get out of the car, "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't waste any time in there." "Come in with me, then. You can pick out your favorite booze." Marsha got out of the car and joined me for the walk up the steps. "You're going to be a lot of fun, Ed. I just know it already." -------*Chapter Seven* We only took time to carry the groceries in because some of them were frozen foods that couldn't wait in the car in the summer heat. There was a subdued element of haste in putting the groceries away, but as soon as the last can was shelved, I reached for her. Marsha's arms wrapped around me as mine embraced her and we spent a couple of moments just looking at each other before we kissed. All the trembling nervousness in her faded as she melded against me. I'd been a little nervous, too. Things had happened so fast I thought there was a good chance she'd have second thoughts about her previous boldness, but as I held her and kissed her my own nervousness faded. Marsha felt not at all confused or reticent to me. "Are you sure we aren't moving a little too quickly with this?" I asked her. She smiled. "No, I'm not sure, but I don't think so. I guess we'll find out, though." "Just don't be too proud or afraid to change your mind, Marsha." "I'm not a damned virgin, Ed. I'm here because I want to be here." "Oh. Well. Yes, ma'am. Got it. Won't mention it again." Marsha giggled as I saluted her. We used the rest of the day to play and explore each other as thoroughly as possible in only a few hours, then explored each other again in the shower we truly needed by then before heading out to face the world. Marsha's fondness for tennis had given her spectacularly firm muscles without causing vascularity or giving her that chiseled appearance, so it was a very pleasant surprise when my wandering hands discovered the solidity beneath her velvet skin. I'd begun by working my way upward from her ankles with a bottle of Jergens, expecting, I guess, the usual less-than-firm resistance of woman-flesh as I massaged her. Marsha stiffened a bit when my hands stopped moving on the backs of her thighs. "What's wrong, Ed?" She twisted a little to try to see why I'd stopped. "Lawsy, ma'am, not a damned thing is wrong. Fact is, everything is right. Just right. Damned near perfect. I was just taking a moment to admire what's under my hands."

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"Well, thanks, of course, but it felt better when your hands were moving." "Yes'm. Moving the hands, miLady . Sorry for the delay, there. Got distracted, y'know." Marsha giggled. "You really enjoy this, don't you?" "You're just realizing that? I had no idea you were so solid, Marsha. Feels gooood ." "What you're doing sure feels gooood , too, Ed. I'm not used to this kind of attention. Most guys I've known couldn't seem to wait long enough to use their hands on me. I like it." "I've heard that before. I was hoping my wanting to play like this before and after wouldn't be too strange for you. Once upon a time a woman even told me to stop messing around and get to it. She was the only one, ever, but it made me realize that women can be impatient, too." "What a dummy. I love massages, especially after a game." "No problem. We'll just lock the door to the locker room and break out the oil." "Sounds good to me, Ed. You'll really watch me play?" "If I can get loose, I'll be there to watch you sweat, lady. Then I'll be there to wash and wax you and whatever else I can get away with." "I've never had a personal trainer before. If this is an example of your work, you're hired." "Ha. Trainer? That better be a euphemism. I can't teach you a thing about tennis." "Don't worry about it. It's just a title for our purposes. It just means you get in for free." I oiled Marsha front and back, missing no part of her, until her skin wasn't absorbing any more. She was almost glowing when I stopped. I kissed her as she pulled me onto her and into her. "Mount up," she said, "You deserve this more than any man I've ever had." It was a long, blissful ride for both of us. Oiling her thoroughly had taken the urgency out of me and put it into her. Just being with and in her seemed enough for me. Marsha rolled us over to place herself on top, then proceeded to use me. She was glorious in her repeated peakings of pleasure and I marveled at her capacity to use me so well. My own climax came as almost an afterthought. I was so enraptured with watching and experiencing her that Marsha noticed it happening almost before I did. She smiled as she realized my nearness, bounced quickly a few times, then leaned forward to kiss me, which triggered my gushings. Her soft chuckle by my ear let me know I'd been as much taken as I'd been used. Marsha was letting me know she had just claimed me. "I don't like passive women," I said, "I'm real glad you aren't one." "Nope, not me," said Marsha with another chuckle, "I know what I like." "Excellent. Don't ever change, please." I kissed her gently, then firmly. "Don't worry, I won't. I learned early that men don't really know or care how to use those things well, so I taught myself how to make them work for me." "I noticed that. Feel free to use me again anytime, ma'am. You looked radiant up there." We chatted and snuggled a while, then snacked in the kitchen and came back to wash up again before we had to start getting ready for dinner. I was especially thorough in the shower. Marsha said that showering with me was a way to get another massage, as well as a shampoo. I told her that I was just looking for reasons to keep my hands on her body as I soaped her from head to toe. She laughed and held out her arm for soaping. "I like your attitude," she said. It must have taken Linda all of two seconds to realize how we'd passed

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the afternoon. She greeted us rather perfunctorily and led us to the table she'd chosen. Will and Connie were already there. We went through the motions of introductions for anyone who might be watching and took our seats to look over the menus. When Marsha and I ordered the big steak dinners, Connie snickered and said, "I thought so," as she gave Will a knowing look. "Thought what?" asked Marsha. Connie leaned her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her interwoven fingers as she answered, "Only three things make people that hungry. Weed or sex or starvation." Marsha mimicked Connie's position, facing her across the table. "It wasn't weed," she said, "And we haven't been starving, so feel free to feel jealous." Will let out a bark of laughter. Connie and Marsha just stared hard at each other until Linda rapped her knife on the table and softly said, "Enough, children. We're here to discuss a number of things, but your sex lives aren't on the list of topics for this meeting." "Well, damn, Linda," said Will, "Just when it was getting interesting, too. I love hearing women brag at each other." "Can it, Will. Everybody listen up because we have a problem." It was as if the previous exchange hadn't happened. Everyone was suddenly attentive as if they'd heard a twig snap in the darkness. Linda passed a few sheets of paper around. "These are transcripts of Eastie communications since yesterday that pertain to the escapes." Linda eyed Will and Connie, "Note the plural. 'Escapes.' The dead guy's and yours, now." She paused a moment to let that soak in. "He died around two this afternoon. An Eastie guard is under arrest for murder, but it's a front to bring in favorable publicity AND to give them an excuse to investigate to an extent that makes the word 'freely' seem inadequate. Monika's family in the East is being questioned, as expected. All records of yesterday's border crossings are being examined, and that means that pictures of anyone not thoroughly cleared will be on every guardhouse wall along the border for a long time to come. We won' t be able to use any of you in East Germany again for years." Will shook his head. "Just like that," he said, "One wild card and we're out of business." "What's next for us, then?" asked Connie, "I don't want to fly a desk." "John's put you all on admin leave until we can find you slots in other areas." "Well, that's vague enough," said Will. "Did he give you any idea what kind of slots they'd be? Our most recent job description may be hard to match elsewhere." Linda sat back in her chair and said, "No, he didn't, but let's assume he's going to have to farm you out to other agencies and that you won't be seeing the other side of the Iron Curtain again for quite a while. Marsha, your part in all this can be canceled. There won't be anything to defend in the press. If a debriefing finds that you don't know enough to be dangerous to us, you'll be released. If not, you'll be given a post in public affairs at our offices in Bonn. That should be a gravy job, since we mostly avoid the public." "Wait a minute! What about helping me get back in with a newspaper? I don't expect you feel very strongly about it, now that you don't think you need me anymore, but..." Linda cut in, "You're right. I won't kid you about it. The main office doesn't feel you've earned any assistance from us, and we've nothing we can show anyone that would help you." "Wonderful," said Marsha, "But you haven't really let me go yet, either."

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"After debriefing," said Linda. "We have to be sure of you." Marsha sat glaring at Linda in silence. Linda continued, "I mean it. If we can, we'll let you go immediately." Marsha said, "That's just great. You don't know how much I was counting on being part of this, do you? Do you think I want to go back to being a decorative flunky for a bunch of guys who con people into buying overpriced books? I was going to work my ass off for you people, Linda. I'd have been the best goddamned press secretary you've ever had." "I have a suggestion about that," I said, "Marsha's problem seems to be the result of one man's ego and selfishness, if my info is correct. I'll visit with him quietly when all this simmers down a little. If her problem is as stated, he'll very likely fix it as quickly as possible." Connie laughed, "I'm sure he will. You can be very persuasive, Ed." Linda said, "It will be a very quiet visit. That is not a request, Ed." "I hadn't thought otherwise, Linda. Our offices won't be involved." Will spoke up. "So how you gonna do it?" Connie added, "Yeah. Unofficially, you're just another civvy American." I let the questions hang as I sipped my beer, then said, "I'll give you plan 'B' first. The IRS liaison office is in our building. I'll see a friend who can arrange a pre-audit investigation for Marsha's ex-boss. News of it will get out immediately. The paper won't be happy with him about inviting IRS scrutiny. A few days later, I'll catch him on the way to his car and suggest that it will all go away if he hires Marsha back or finds her an equivalent job elsewhere. It won't go away, of course, but he likely will. As I said, the paper won't be happy. He's only middle-management, so he's very replaceable." There was quiet around the table for a moment before Will asked, "An IRS audit. Isn't that just a little bit like calling a napalm strike on your own position?" "I said it was plan 'B', didn't I? And I won't be the one being audited, Will." "So what's plan 'A'?" asked Linda. "Simple. Marsha and I go talk to him. He's reasonable or not. He'll put her back on the payroll or he won't. If he won't, I tell him to expect the IRS to call for an interview." Marsha coughed slightly to interrupt. "Okay, but what if he's been straight about his taxes? What if he doesn't have anything to hide?" We all looked at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. Linda said, "He's in a management position outside the U.S. If this guy's clean, he'll be the first one ever." Will had an inspiration. "I still have that Eastie bank check we didn't have to use. It's only a week old, it's good for a year, and if it were made out to him and intercepted, it would be enough to help get the IRS interested. It's too small to be a payoff of some sort, but it would have to be checked out and it would invite a lot of curiosity. Want it?" "Sure do," I said, "Thanks, Will. I can offer to send it to him in care of the embassy if he seems reluctant to help. No damned doubt he'll see where that could lead." Marsha said, "Yes, thanks from me, too. I'll reimburse you for it somehow, Will. How much is it worth in dollars?" There was another round of laughter. Marsha looked confused. Will said, "Over there it's a week's pay or more. Over here, maybe ten bucks. Cashing it or depositing it over here would invite questions. Don't worry about it. It wasn't our money." Food began arriving and we put our previous conversation on the shelf. The mood of the table had changed once Will had dropped his wall of reserve a bit concerning Marsha. Nobody wanted to chat about possible future assignments in front of her, of course, so that limited the range of topics. We batted around humorous ideas about how to further annoy Marsha's ex-boss, talked about various tourist traps, and made arrangements for our next get-together on Wednesday,

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unless the situation changed drastically in the meantime. Marsha and I remained at the O-club after the others left. I ordered drinks and we adjourned to a table in the bar. "What now?" asked Marsha, "They'll find something else for you to do and I won't be part of it. I guess I'll have to repack my stuff when we get back to the apartment." "Only if you want to," I said, "There's the rest of the weekend, at least, and as long as you want to stay, at most, unless you'd rather get started on getting your old job back soon." "You want me to stay, Ed? Without having it be part of anything else?" "Sure. Take some time for yourself. I have some leave time stacked up and it looks as if I'm going to get a chance to use some of it. We can take a tour or three. There's a lot of Europe I haven't seen yet and we were just getting to know each other. You're beautiful and intelligent," I said. "Besides, you're a demon in bed, Marsha." Marsha blushed and said, "A-ha. Now we know, don't we? You just want more sex." "Do I look stupid? Of course I want more of you, but don't think that some cow who couldn't carry a conversation in a bucket and doesn't share some interests would do as well." "You don't know my interests, Ed, or even if I have any." "You're stalling, Marsha. You're too smart not to have interests, even if they aren't exactly the same as mine. I'm only offering to keep you as long as you want to stay, you know. No strings or hassles, if that's your worry." "What about helping me get my job back? Is that still on, too?" "No change. That doesn't depend on your staying, if that's what you think. We can just put it off for a few weeks and have some fun before you dive back into things." She took a few moments and made it look like a real decision. Maybe it was. "Okay." I grinned at her. "After this morning, how can you have any doubts about me?" She grinned back. "That was first-timer enthusiasm. Let's see if you can keep it up." I laughed. "Marsha, I like you and just looking at you makes me feel hungry. We may argue and disagree about a lot of things, but you'll never get less than my best in my bed. More than half of my pleasure comes from the pleasures I bring up from within you." Marsha just sat there staring at me wordlessly for a moment, then said, "That's not a man's usual philosophy. Most men just want to get it on so they can get it off." "You don't believe me? Or are you just wondering where I got these ideas?" Marsha held up her hands in protest. "Oh, no! I have to believe you because I've been through a ... session with you. I don't have a problem believing it, Ed. Not at all. No way. I loved this afternoon. But you seem pretty normal in all the usual ways, so where did you get your views about making love?" "Her name was Anne. I was sixteen, she was twenty-six, and we spent a summer together fixing up her farm. I'll tell you about her sometime." "Okay. Someday, maybe. Right now, I don't want to hear about your conquests..." I interrupted her sharply. "No conquests. I don't approach women that way." Marsha held up her hands again. "Okay! Wow. I just meant that I don't want to hear about what you've done with other women." "Okay. Sorry I snapped. But that isn't what I'd have told you about her, Marsha. She was special in a lot of other ways that had nothing to do with sex." "I can see that. She was more than just a first time, huh?"

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I grinned. "Yeah. More than a first time. She set my standards pretty high." Marsha gave me a wry grin in return. "I'd say you never got over her, too." "That depends on what 'over' means. Anne is history. I can't go back, so I have to move forward or stand still. Standing still won't do. Moving forward means being with you." Guitar licks and drumming announced that the band was starting up. Not long into their first number, Marsha leaned close and yelled, "Old music, too loud! Let's go home!" We left to spend the rest of the night and the weekend in more interesting pursuits. -------*Chapter Eight* Monday I checked with 2Gen Hospital admin and found that an extended leave wouldn't be a problem for their staff, so I signed off a month and called John on a secure line for a personal view of the situation concerning the future of our extraction program. John was of the opinion that we should suspend all operations indefinitely and pull everyone in from the field as soon as reasonably possible. He wouldn't say much more than that, even though we were on a scrambled line from the JAG office. Linda arrived while I was still on the phone to John, so I handed him off to her and went next door to the NCO club to meet Marsha and claim a table for our lunch. When Linda came in a few minutes later, she unhappily dropped herself into a chair at our table. It was official, she told us, that the program was under suspension. "...at least until the latest wrinkles are smoothed out. Probably about six months at minimum, a year or so otherwise. It will give us time to plan and look for new people, so it isn't all bad news. You and Will and Connie are out, Ed. I don't know how long it will be before you're called back in or if you'll be called back in at all in this sector. If they feel it's reasonably safe to use you elsewhere..." "Other outfits can probably use me," I interrupted, "And John will do some fishing for us. I'm not going to worry about it right now. At least we're going to be out of your hair for a while, Linda. Marsha and I are going on the road for a month." For some reason, I felt compelled to mention our sketchy vacation plans. The look on Linda's face told me both why I'd felt compelled and why I shouldn't have said anything about it. In a flash of belated brilliance, I realized that I'd no longer be working under her whether I stayed in D-group behind a desk or was assigned to some other outfit. I would again be fair game. Something other than my conscious mind seemed to have realized that sooner, however, and took the opportunity to slip a verbal knife into her. "I see," she said. She gathered her purse and jacket and stood. "Do keep in touch." Marsha was staring at me as if I'd sprouted horns and a tail. "Was that really necessary, Ed? She'd have found out anyway. You acted as if you wanted to be the first to tell her." "It slipped out, Marsha. I honestly hadn't intended to mention it unless she'd made plans I couldn't keep." "I think you were just getting even for being dumped." "I think so, too. I just didn't realize it until it happened." "That's kind of hard to believe, Ed." When you've said or done something you wish you hadn't, having it pointed out and then having your motives questioned can be rather irritating. I snapped back, "Then don't believe it. What the hell can I do about it? Wait here." I rose to follow Linda. Marsha grabbed my wrist. When I looked at her, she said, "Now I believe

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it." I trotted after Linda. When I caught up with her in the parking lot, I made a quick and probably ineffective apology and asked her to return to the table. She declined, saying she had places to go and things to do. I told her they could wait. She said they couldn't. "They have to wait, Linda. I just truly fucked up and I want to apologize." "You don't want to keep Marsha waiting, Ed." "So come back inside with me, Linda." "I don't think so. Three's company, and all that." She fished for her car keys. "Look, Linda..." "No, you look. You're with her, not me. It was my doing at first and now it's yours, but it works out the same. Call us even, if it'll make you feel better." "It doesn't, damn it. I'm sorry, Linda. I didn't mean to hurt you." Linda glanced up from trying to get the key in the door lock. Her eyes were brimming. I took her arm and said, "Linda, please take a moment with us. Marsha knows what happened. She can tell you better than I can. I didn't want to hurt you. I just wasn't thinking worth a damn when I said that." "Oh, I know that for a fact, Ed. If you HAD been thinking and really wanted to hurt me, it would have been the first thing you had said to me in there. I think I'm upset right now more because it did hurt, and I'm trying to figure out why. I know how you spent your weekend, Ed. That didn't bother me much, because I'd placed you off-limits. But when the situation changed, your status changed with it, and I thought she'd be out of the picture shortly. That would have left us free to..." her sentence trailed off. There were footsteps behind me. I moved to one side of the walkway, but they stopped close behind me. I turned to see Marsha looking angrily at me. "Jesus, Ed, you've made things worse, not better. What the hell did you say to her?" Marsha reached in her purse and brought out a pad of tissues. "Here, Linda." Marsha took a used tissue from Linda a moment later and turned to me, holding the damp tissue near my face to invite inspection. "See? Real tears, Ed. Do you think you can find a way to turn them off as easily as you turned them on? Right now, I'm not sure I want to go anywhere with you. It might be better for all of us if I just get on the next train to Frankfurt. Someone else can help me with my job problem." Linda looked as startled as I was, then developed a skeptical look. She said, "Hold it. I know what you're going to do, Marsha." Marsha let the tissue-hand fall to her side and said, "You got me. It was that easy, huh? And I thought I was going to heroically martyr myself, too. Oh, well..." "Yeah, it was pretty transparent," said Linda, "At least to me. I don't know if he had any idea what you were up to." "Yes, I did, and thanks for your confidence in my discerning abilities, Linda." "Yeah, well, the offer stands," said Marsha. She nervously ran her hand up and down the back of my arm once, then patted my shoulder. "I'll just go and leave you two to sort yourselves out. Let me know if you still want to help with the job situation." "No!" said Linda, unexpectedly and forcefully enough to startle me, then, "I mean, no, don't go. I think a month away may be a good idea. I feel humiliated right now. Hurt. Angry. And it's ridiculous. I've met Ed a few times before and didn't have any problems then. It only bothered me a little to turn him down when the job was the reason. Why the big change? Why does it suddenly matter more than I think it should? I don't like it. It feels as if I'm not in control of myself the way I ought to be."

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"Maybe you aren't," said Marsha, "But what you really aren't in control of is Ed and the overall situation. You couldn't stop what's been happening." She handed the tissue back to Linda at eye-level. "Take a look at those stains, Linda. I think some of them are tears of frustration, not heartbreak." I could sense Marsha's tenseness as she waited for Linda's response. Linda simply stared at her for a moment, then said with a wry grin, "Ed, I think we may have to kill her. She knows too much." "Can we wait and do it after lunch?" I asked. Linda hesitated, then said, "I guess so, if you're buying." "Buying lunch is part of the apology, Linda." We trooped back into the NCO club and found our table had been taken, so we picked another. I was still trying to decide which of the women to seat first when they changed course for the ladies' room and left me to my own devices, so I sat down and watched them disappear into the bathroom together, then rested my face in my hands for a moment. "Tough day, huh?" came a voice. I glanced up to see the bartender grinning at me. "That word would almost cover it," I said, "I'll have a Pabst and we'll need menus." The bartender grinned again and went down the bar to the cooler. I went back to resting my face in my hands until a waitress brought my beer. She was a big girl, a blonde, whether real or not, wearing high heels, tight shorts, and a tight blouse, the better to tease more tips out of the mostly-male patronage. She, too, asked, "Tough day, huh?", but she grinned as she glanced toward the restroom. Leaning too far deliberately, she gave me a close-up view of her cleavage as she reached over my shoulder to place my beer well toward the center of the table. If she'd been any closer, I'd have been able to hear her heartbeat. I saw her arm come back in a practiced move that knocked a napkin off her tray. She said, "Oops," and turned slightly as she knelt to retrieve it, pulling those too-tight shorts even tighter around her thighs. She then looked up at me, smiled sweetly, and said, "Sorry." All in all, I gave her performance a fair score, but it would have been higher if she hadn't been quite so obvious and just overweight enough to bulge slightly over the top of her shorts. Give her a six, I figured. The shorts probably weren't too small a few months before. "No sweat," I read her tag, "Debra. That's a good routine. How are the tips here?" Her eyes narrowed, then her face adopted a 'what-the-hell' grin. "Pretty good. The boys like the show, and I make more here'n I ever did at the O-club." "I'd bet more than half of the guys think they're in love with you, too." "Love? Ha. No, Honey, it's plain ol' lust. Yeah, I get lots of offers." "I'll bet. Did you see the ladies I'm with?" "I thought you had an argument," she said. "They're comin' back?" "That's the plan," I said. "They've got me booked for a while." "Both of 'em?" Debra's eyes widened in mock shock. I just looked up at her with a tired sort of expression. She grinned at me. "If that's for real, I'd call you whateverthehell you wanted, stud. Whenever, too." She wasn't a giggler. She had a real horselaugh as she waggled her fingers at me. "Woo!" "Would it help to say it isn't quite like that, Deb?" "Was one pissed at you and the other crying because of you?" I said nothing as I gazed up at her. "Thought so," she said. "It is like that, stud, whateverthehell else

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you may think." In a tone of finality, I said, "Thank you for that bit of insight and wisdom, Debra." Debra looked at me sharply and left me with, "Well, just you watch out for that blonde. She's been lookin' for somethin' and she thinks you're it." She hadn't quite given up, knowing I'd watch her walk away. Debra straightened and strode to the back of the bar, placing each long-stemmed foot directly in front of the other in a Marilyn-style saunter. She didn't shimmy all that much, I decided. She was only a little overfilled, but she still needed to move up a size in shorts. Nice legs, really. When the ladies returned they said nothing about any discussion they may have had in the bathroom. My curiosity bothered me a little, as I'm sure they expected. Throughout lunch our waitress made a point of checking with me every few minutes to see if all was going well and if we needed anything else. The ladies apparently didn't like having all the solicitous interruptions. In the midst of Debra's fourth or fifth visit to our table, Marsha read her badge and said, "Debra, is it? Tell you what, Debra, we'll wave if we need anything else, okay?" Debra gave her a saccharine-sweet smile and left. "Yesterday," said Linda, "She dropped my food on the table and disappeared." "Must be something different about today," said Marsha. Both women were looking pointedly at me. I raised both hands in innocence. "Oh, no ... I was just sitting here waiting for you. I ordered a beer and menus. She's probably just curious. Two women who look like you having lunch with just one guy?" "Oh, good try, Ed," said Linda. "'women who look like us '. What else you got?" "There's nothing to tell, ladies. Really. I was just sitting here waiting for you." "He could be right," said Marsha, "It is odd. We're all civilians, too, in an NCO club." "Maybe," said Linda. After a moment we all went back to eating. "You've been a spook too long, Linda," I said around steak, "Too suspicious." "Yeah? What would you think?" With a ladylike snort, she added, "Maybe you're right." Linda finished her steak and dabbed her lips clean, then said, "Later, people. I have to check in on some things." She gathered her jacket and purse and stood. "Call before you leave, Ed. We need to know where to find you if everything goes any farther toward hell on us." "I thought it had already arrived there. What are you talking about?" "You may have to completely disappear for a while. Same for Will and Connie." "Mind if I call John on this? A resignation would be enough, wouldn't it?" Linda looked shocked. "You'd quit?" "I could. For however long is necessary, Linda. I signed an SA. They couldn't force me to testify about anything involving our group and couldn't pressure the office to produce me." "You're right about that, I think, but clear it with John first, okay?" "You got it." Linda leaned over and kissed me on the lips. "That's just to confuse Debra," she said. Marsha had at first been startled, then she giggled. We said our good-byes and Linda left us. I caught a glimpse of Debra peering around the end of the bar. She gave me a thumbs-up and a big grin. I just nodded at her,

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wondering briefly what her imagination was conjuring, then turned back to my plate. A few bites later, I asked Marsha, "Well, what are we doing now? Is the vacation still on, or do I go back to the personnel office and tear up my leave papers?" Marsha didn't answer until she'd finished another bite. "Linda's leaving for Frankfurt tomorrow. She offered me a ride, by the way. But if I left you'd fall victim to Debra." I looked up from cutting my steak. Marsha had a wry grin. "You must think I'm a complete pushover," I said, "She's cute, in a blowzy, brassy sort of way, but she isn't even close to my type. And she looks pretty damned experienced." Marsha feigned shock at my words, then broke into giggles. "She does, doesn't she?" "Yup. She seems to actually be making a living as a waitress. In Europe, no less. That would require a lot of unrecorded income, I think." This time the shock, although slight, was real. "You mean you think she's..." "Go ahead and finish that thought," I said, "You don't have to say the word." Marsha tried to be surreptitious about her long glance at Debra. The ever-alert Debra noticed and thought we wanted something else. As she approached the table, Marsha turned beet-red and seemed to get smaller. "Oh-my-gawd!" she whispered frantically, "She's coming over!" Upon arrival, Debra gave Marsha a glance, then turned to me. "Whatchall need here, Honey?" Her accent had thickened considerably. She stood slightly hipshot, with one hand resting on the outflung hip. Her other hand rose to pat her hair, then smoothed an eyebrow as she again glanced at Marsha and asked, "Yew awright, there, ma'am?" Marsha was recovering slightly. "Oh, yes," she squeaked. "Yes, I think so. I'm fine, now." Debra's attention instantly switched back to me. Her bare leg waved slightly back and forth between us as she said, "Well, that's good. Now, what can I do for you, Honey? See anything you like?" She rather belatedly tapped the menu as if that's what she had meant and her leg never stopped moving between us. "We were wondering about the check," I said. The leg stopped and Debra fixed me with what was almost a glare as she pulled out her pad and tore off a ticket. Seven bucks and change. I gave her a ten and told her to keep the change. She nodded and said "Thanks, Honey," and did her Marilyn strut back to her corner. Marsha made an effort to sit up and appear normal, but her eyes were huge as she whispered excitedly, "She really is, isn't she?!" "Can't say for sure," I said, "But you may be right. Ready to go?" Marsha hurriedly grabbed her purse and jacket and stood up. "You're being noticeably hasty," I said, "What's the big deal if she is or isn't?" "I don't know!" whispered Marsha, "I've just never met one before!" "You maybe still haven't," I said, "I've seen that southern-fried bimbo act before. It just means she's interested in something or someone at this table and she thinks she's being nonchalant about it while displaying the merchandise. And that leg show could merely have been intended to boost my tip." Marsha seemed to deflate a bit. "Oh. Well, did it work?" "I don't think so," I said, "I figured on dropping a ten at lunch, tip included." Marsha brightened back up immediately, as if everything was all right, after all. I mentally scratched my head and wondered if she didn't have a few

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screws loose. "Oh! Wait!" whispered Marsha as we stood to leave. She leaned forward and kissed me rather fully for several moments. I cooperated very well, of course. When she broke the kiss, Marsha whispered, "Like Linda said, that was to confuse Debra." "Why is confusing Debra so important today?" "It just is. Take a look at her." I glanced at Debra. She was standing absolutely still, gazing at me with one eyebrow arched. I whispered to Marsha, "I think it worked." -------*Chapter Nine* We spent the rest of the week in Landstuhl and Ramstein to roll up some final details of mine and contact Marsha's encyclopedia sales-crew manager. She was honest with the guy, telling him that she'd met someone who wanted to take her on a short tour of Europe. He said to go for it and asked if I had a girlfriend who'd take him on a tour like that. We decided to start our great Euro-tour with a trip to Paris. When Marsha drew most of her remaining funds out of her American Express account for traveler's checks, I questioned her action. Her answer was simple: "What if I never get the chance again?" It was an understandable view. She'd left herself only $200, the price of a ticket home or a month of low rent. My transactions involved a bit more, so I told her I'd meet her in the PX coffee shop in a few minutes. I fished Marsha's receipt out of the trash and used the same teller, who was now watching me closely. I filled out a deposit ticket. "Put this in her account," I said, handing her $200 and the deposit slip. "She doesn't need to know about it until and unless she needs the money. This is her big adventure." The teller nodded and smiled and took care of it while I signed a stack of traveler's checks of my own. I met Marsha in the coffee shop afterward and we did some last minute shopping, then we went home to finish packing for the trip. That evening over a quiet dinner on the balcony, Marsha noticed aloud the shaking in her hands. "I'm so damned nervous," she said. "I don't know why." "It wouldn't be considered an adventure if you weren't, would it? If you weren't excited about it, you could just as well be visiting Cleveland." "You don't seem nervous about it. Why's that?" "I have you to protect me," I said, "Besides, I'm driving." She swatted my arm. "I'm serious, here, Ed. Why am I nervous when you aren't?" "Can't say. If I could, then you might not be nervous, either. No fun in that. How long did you say you've been in Germany?" "Almost a year." "Have you been able to go see anything but parts of Frankfurt and the PX bookstore?" "No. I've just been working almost all the time. This is farther than I've ever been." "There you have it. You may as well be in the States if you've been cooped up on a base. Little Americas, each and every one of them. You're finally getting to travel and sightsee, so you're excited about it. Go ahead and be excited. Stack up some memories." "Okay, but that doesn't answer my question. Why aren't you excited?" I looked at her, then let my gaze wander to her ankles and back to her face. "I get excited about other things, I guess. I've already been a lot of places, Marsha, and done things that were somewhat riskier than sightseeing. It's nice to see new places and things, but my real interests lie in just getting away for a while and having you with me. I want to see how you look on top of the Eiffel Tower or Strasbourg Cathedral. I want to find something new every day to keep you excited and let you spend all that nervous energy on me

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when we get back to the hotel room." Marsha gave me a wry grin. "Uh, huh. You're willing to act like a tourist and haul me around the countryside just to get me in bed?" "Not quite, but you'd probably be worth the trip, even if that was all it was about. As I see it, we're taking some time for ourselves, that's all, time to see and do all we can to make our lives unique and memorable. Any cathedrals you can name are landmarks. That word means they've already existed longer than we can expect to live and will probably be there when we get around to visiting them. You and I, on the other hand, only have a window of about thirty years we can count on for seeing the world in reasonably good health while at the same time trying to make a living and build our futures." Marsha said, "Speaking of futures, what kind are you trying to build, Ed?" "I'm not trying to build one. I'm just trying to prepare for it. Maybe I'm preparing against it, really. It all depends on how you think about futures." Marsha poured us more wine and sat back in her chair. "It kind of sounds as if you're afraid of the future, Ed." She sipped her wine to avoid looking at me. "Hardly. It happens to us all, unavoidably. I just don't want to find myself suddenly fifty or sixty or infirm and wondering why I didn't go see or do something when I was able. My home town is full of people who worked at a plant for 20 or 30 years and retired. They're in debt beyond their lifetimes and most have health problems. They've never been part of anything bigger than making a daily living, except maybe World War Two. Only a very few of them have the money or health to travel, and fewer still seem to have the desire anymore, if they ever did." "Damn, Ed. You make it sound as if they never had lives. What about the kids they raised and the homes they made for themselves?" "What about the kids and homes? They created their replacements for the treadmills and paid for the housing and feeding and educating of them. Most became parents after accidental discharges or during homecoming heat. They made the best of things. They came to love the children, if not necessarily the wage-slave lifestyle required to support them. I can understand it, but I don't feel duty-bound to participate. I don't view children as necessities in my life." "Obviously not. What about those of us who do want children. Are we stupid?" Marsha had adopted a legs-and-arms-crossed posture and her tone, while soft, had an edge to it. "Stupid? No. It's a way-of-life-choice, and if it's what you really want, then it's perfectly reasonable. Go for it when you think you're ready. It just won't happen to me." Marsha giggled, then laughed. "You sound so god-almighty sure about that, Ed. What if a rubber breaks? Are you going to just say 'oops!' and walk away like so many men do?" I rose from the table. "Be right back," I said. Marsha said, "Oh, sure! Hit the powder room when the discussion turns on you, right?" I ignored her and fished a manila envelope out of one of my suitcases. I sorted my medical records out of the stack and handed her the folder. "Look at April, 1971," I suggested, "I was at Ft. Monroe, Virginia for a couple of months and had a doctor friend do me a favor." She found the entry and read a moment, then sucked in her breath. "Oh, my gawd..! Is this for real? You really had a..." When she looked up in some combination of shock and amazement, I just hoisted my glass and said, "Yes. A vasectomy. Here's to personal freedom, guaranteed." "But you were only ... What, twenty-two? How could you..?" "Twenty-one. It wasn't a big decision for me, Marsha. I've never developed any sort of fondness for children. None at all. I've worked some

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pretty nasty medical jobs and cleaned up battlefields on a full stomach, but the smell of an infant will make me instantly sick. I've read paperbacks during artillery attacks. There's nothing else to do, after all, but wait them out and hope they miss. But the high-pitched shriek that a playing child or a child in pain can make is like chalk on a blackboard or a drill sergeant's whistle to me." Marsha continued to stare at me. "Damn," she said, "Linda said you were separated from your wife. Is this what caused it?" "Good old Linda. Did she say why she felt compelled to tell you that? No, it wasn't the reason. She drank a lot. When the Army rotated her back to the States I stayed here." "Just like that, you let her go? You didn't try to help her? Ok, we have drunks and children on the list. Anything else you'd like to add?" Marsha's tone pissed me off. "Sure, Marsha. Barking dogs and people who weren't there but who form opinions. My wife was a boozer at fifteen. It didn't take me a lifetime to realize she had to save herself from herself. It only took a couple of years. I couldn't do it for her, and neither could anyone else, but at least the Army has a fairly flexible unofficial containment program. If she weren't in the Army, she'd be fending entirely for herself and probably losing to the bottle." We sat and glared at each other across the table for a few moments, then Marsha stood up and said, "Maybe we need to reconsider things." "If you can believe that, it will become a fact. It isn't your job to pass judgment on my likes and dislikes or decisions and actions unless they can affect you. Knowing myself has allowed me to act to prevent probable disasters that would have affected my life and the lives of others. For that reason alone I don't have a dog, children, or an alcoholic wife on my hands who needs to be bailed out twice a week or..." I just let the words trail off and shook my head. "It's simple, Marsha. I won't be a slave to her weakness for booze or to my own weakness for tall goddess-like blondes with too much education and too little common sense or strength of will. Love does not really conquer all. It couldn't win against booze." Marsha said nothing. She filled her glass and stood by the rail for a while, looking out over the valley below. It was getting darker, which made the town below glow like a spreading splattering of light among the surrounding hills. I studied Marsha in profile and hoped she wouldn't cancel our plans. It seemed a long time until she turned around. "A woman tries to see a husband in a man she likes," said Marsha, "Even when the chances are poor or there's no chance at all or she thinks she's just looking for a good time with a friend. She can't help it. It's what women do." She sipped her wine and stared at the valley a bit more. "Most women usually want kids, sooner or later," she said. "So it can be hard for them to accept views and, uhm, personal solutions like yours, Ed. Damned hard." "You don't have to accept them, Marsha. That's the key to things. You can turn off that husband-seeking radar and act like a kid in a candy store with me. There's no risk of being stuck with me or my offspring in the long run of things." Marsha giggled softly at that. "Just stuck by you, not with you, huh?" Bear came over the balcony wall and wandered through the space between Marsha and me as if he was undecided about which one of us to park on first. I scuffed a toe slightly to capture his attention and he followed his nose in my direction. As he settled on my lap, I talked to him and scritched his chin. Bear instantly began purring loudly. Marsha watched him organize himself and came over to stroke him after he was settled. If anything, his purring got louder. Bear's little face turned up toward her so she could scratch his chin and cheeks. It looked as if he was wearing a huge, truly fatuous smile.

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Marsha giggled. "He looks so happy there." "He is happy. That's because he only wants what he knows is here." "Are you using him to try to tell me something?" "No, I'm hoping you'll see it for yourself. Bear knows I like him and that I'll be nice to him, but he also knows he belongs to someone else. I'm replaceable. You're still looking for the man you'll belong to and who will belong to you. Vacationing with me is just a month of travel and good times in Europe and probably a friendship afterwards. I'm a temporary toy, whatever else I may become. You won't have aged too much by the beginning of September, you know. Go back to screening possible husbands then." "You said you wouldn't tell me, then you told me anyway. Do you realize that?" "Yup. Wanted to see if you were listening or just hearing. There's a difference." Marsha's finger moved from Bear's chin to my chest and poked me. I looked up to see her lips not far from mine. "I was listening," she said. Then she kissed me. Wine and a good dinner combined deliciously with the arguing and making up. Our lovemaking was equally delicious, but there was a difference from any of our previous passionate encounters that I couldn't immediately put my finger on, and that was not meant as a pun, by the way. The source of the difference eluded me as I kissed, nibbled and licked all the places I knew would turn her on so well, but when she rolled me onto my back and lowered herself teasingly to my lips for some tongue-tickling, I knew what the difference was. A sense of abandonment. Before, Marsha had held some small part of herself in reserve even as she had driven herself to her completions. Now there was a sense of wantonness that hadn't been part of our lovemaking then. Marsha came shudderingly and then let herself slide back to sit softly across my hips as she took a moment to catch her breath. Her big grin reminded me of one I'd seen in a cartoon once ... On the face of a wolf in granny clothes. I continued to study her face as I reached to run a finger around her sweaty breasts. "Something changed for you, or I'm particularly talented tonight, ma'am." "Oh, it's you, of course. How can you even ask such a question?" Her big smile settled back into place after she'd spoken. "Mind if I take that compliment with a grain or three of salt, Ma'am? It seems to me that you're really in a mood I haven't seen before." I pushed on her right nipple. "Is this the honesty button? Or is it the other one?" "Actually, you have to carefully adjust both at the same time. They have to balance." "A-ha. Okay, I'll see if I can tune you in some. About my question...?" I played with her nipples and caressed her breasts. "Oohh, you've almost got it, there. Getting closer ... Closer ... Oohh ... Why does that feel so good? Ed, could we talk about things later? I really don't want to have to think right now." Having said that, Marsha slipped me into herself and began easing her way slowly backward onto me. I capitulated the moment to her, relishing the sensations of her. Any of my questions could wait, and Marsha seemed to need me for other things. -------*Chapter Ten -- The French can be difficult* Paris would be an eight-hour drive for sensible tourists who didn't want massive speeding fines, so we got an early start. My landlady's phone hadn't rung for me, so we headed south on Autobahn E-12 toward Saarbrucken and the French border, where we were practically waved through the gates due to my green Army plates. The bored woman at the gate asked us where we were going, made some notes, and stamped our passports after only the most cursory of glances at us.

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We were in France in less than two minutes. Marsha made a joke about toll booths in the States being slower. We stopped at a roadside cafe in Metz for a snack and Marsha had her first experience with an unfortunately common French attitude toward Americans. Two guys saw us walk in to order and liked what they saw of Marsha. When Marsha and I took a table on the patio, they followed us and settled at a table nearby, chattering about various parts of Marsha's anatomy in French. I turned to face them and said I'd be happy to make similar comments about their girlfriends, if they happened to have even one girlfriend between them and if she was worth such comments. My French is terrible even to this day, but the message was clear to them. The chattering stopped. They rose and approached our table. I rose and waited quietly. Marsha realized there was a problem and belatedly stood beside me. I heard her knuckles crack as she wove her fingers together and stretched them in front of her, then let her hands fall to her sides. I raised a hand in a 'wait a minute' gesture to halt the two guys' progress, and for some reason, they stopped a few feet away as I turned to Marsha. "You don't have to get into this," I told Marsha, "I can handle it." "I saw your face. I heard your tone. They said something about me, and you didn't like what they said, so I don't like it either." If there was a drop of fear in her, I didn't hear it or see it. Neither did the other guys, apparently. They looked at Marsha and saw a beautiful blonde woman who was perfectly willing to go to war if it came to that, just because I was. They stared at her for a moment in awed silence, then one of them jabbered too quickly for me to understand his words and the other one grabbed their bottle and glasses. They continued to approach us and stopped a few feet away. "We apologize," said the one who seemed to be in charge. "I am Emil and this is Jac. This wine is from my father's fields. You will have some, please." His English was better than my French, and he was speaking more to Marsha than to me, clearly very impressed with her. When he looked at me, I nodded, waved at our table, and said, "Merci. Assayez-vous, sil vous plait." Once we were all seated and introduced, Emil poured generous dollops of wine and enthusiastically urged us to taste it. I'm not much into wines, but that red, rich-tasting stuff was good, and I said so. Marsha agreed, her eyes opening wide as she stared into her glass. Emil grinned widely and motioned quickly to his friend, who almost dashed into the cafe and came back with a new bottle of the wine. He was trying to scrape the price tag off, but I saw the price, 45 Francs, before he succeeded. Ten bucks or so. I figured the locals got the stuff for half that or less, but it was still a fine gesture and the wine was definitely better than I'd had in quite a while. I protested slightly, but of course Emil insisted. He pressed the bottle into Marsha's hands and in the same motion managed to momentarily get his hand caught between the bottle, her hands, and her breasts. His other hand placed itself on her shoulder as he quickly freed the first one, then let it trail down her arm as he backed away. Marsha glanced at him sharply, but said nothing, instead trying to read the bottle's label. She said, "Thank you. It's very good wine." I'm a suspicious sort sometimes. I compared the labels as we talked about Emil's time in the U.S. as a student and our vacation plans. The labels were identical, as were the seals and corks. I was looking for something that would indicate an ingredient otherwise known as anti-freeze had been added for flavor or any other such differences, but I found none. "We have a three-week journey," I said in my bad French, "But many of our friends will be passing this way enroute to Paris this summer. How much

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for six cases and some more of your town maps, marked just like this? At least one for each bottle?" I took out a pen and carefully marked the location of the cafe on the map I'd picked up as we'd come into the cafe. Emil didn't have to look surprised. He was very surprised. He may have expected to sell us a few bottles before we left, but probably not a case and most definitely not six cases. "But surely you cannot to carry so many cases of wine with you as you travel?" "No, I only want one case for our travels. I would have you send the rest to me here." I gave him the shipping address of my storage building and unit number at Landstuhl. We haggled a little, but Emil didn't want to miss the opportunity. I got the wine for just under $4 per bottle, so I ordered six cases to be delivered with at least one map per bottle. Emil was glowing as we completed the paperwork. As we started to leave, he told us to wait and ran into the shop next door, returning with a large red rose that he presented to Marsha. He then ran back into the cafe and came back with a small box, which he handed to me. Inside were two small, silver-trimmed wine glasses. "For you and your lady," he said, "For the private moments." Marsha loved them. She held one up in the sunlight and declared it beautiful. You could almost see Emil's tail wag at her reaction. After a round of handshakes and thanks and good-byes, we were finally back on the road. Marsha opened the box and admired the wine glasses again. "He was so generous," she said. "Yup. You won't find those in a KMart. You really impressed him, Marsha, but don't pat yourself on the back too hard. He made a dollar a bottle over what they charge the locals," I said, "I saw the order book. We only got a very good tourist's price." Marsha looked at me quizzically. "Then why did you buy so much? You said that bottle of wine in your apartment has been there almost a year. And why the maps?" "Somebody gave me that wine and it isn't very good. That's why there's so much left in the bottle. This stuff is special primarily because you can't get it anywhere but here and it tastes good. I'll find uses for it. People like feeling special. Open a bottle of special wine and they feel special. Share the source and you're like fishing buddies with a secret hole." "Is that the only reason you bought six cases? To make people feel special?" Marsha's tone changed slightly. "Who do you plan to use this stuff on? Linda?" I feigned hurt indignation. "I never should have married you. You don't trust me." "Very funny. The question stands. Who?" "You, first, of course, but the question isn't who. It's why. The first person to receive a bottle will be my boss at Landstuhl hospital, even though the job is mostly just a cover. His wife is arriving in September sometime, so I'll address it to both of them. John and Linda will get a bottle each for Christmas, and so will a few other people. I'll probably trade some, too." "Okay, why the maps, then?" "Think about it. Two guys in their twenties drinking wine in a roadside cafe on a Monday morning. No jobs? Maybe. More likely, from Emil's reactions, that he's going to take that order in to show his father or just let it be well-noticed as it's processed. He considered that relatively small order -for a winery, anyway -- to be pretty important, even though his dad owns the winery, so you can assume that either daddy's a tough guy to impress or junior just felt the need to impress him for a change. Now he's going to suggest putting maps on the bottles or in with them. He's also going to try to sell some to every American who comes through instead of making obnoxious wisecracks about their women. It will probably occur to him to try the stuff

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on German visitors and other tourists, too, which can only improve international relations a bit. There are still hard feelings about Germans in France." "Jesus. Now you're telling me you bought seven cases of wine for diplomatic reasons?" "No, that was really an afterthought, but a good one. Bad economies start wars and good economies can help heal the scars. Greed has it's uses. Emil's a kid. World War Two is just history to him, no matter what other feelings and opinions he may have inherited." Marsha looked at me almost totally skeptically, but I'd told her my thoughts. She hadn't seen much more than a few square blocks in Frankfurt in nearly a year, so every little thing outside the windows deserved some comment. Somehow it hadn't occurred to her that French farmers might actually have -- and use -- modern farming equipment. She marveled at the sight of a tractor on one occasion. I looked at her as if she'd just arrived from the moon. "How did you think they plow fields?" I asked. "Oh, I dunno. Horses, I guess. Maybe I've seen too many old movies." "A lot of things changed with the middle of the century. Reconstruction money poured in and was spread around pretty freely. There were jobs, for a change. People gave up their horse-drawn buggies here just as they did in the US when cars became affordable. You'll still find three or four generations living in the same house in Europe, though. Land is mostly expensive like you wouldn't believe, probably because there's so little that isn't being farmed or used for factories. Gabrielle's family added two floors instead of building outward. Her dad didn't want to waste valuable land, she said." "Who's Gabrielle? An old girlfriend?" "Just a friend who works on base. When she married a city boy and brought him home, they moved in with her family. A year later they borrowed enough to add a floor and moved in. Her brother did the same thing." "Well, I guess that solves the babysitting problem. There'd always be someone around." "Yup. But Gabbi's not in a hurry to crank out a family of her own. She's still in college in Kaiserslautern and so is Klaus. They want to pile up enough money to either buy their own place or buy out most of the family interests in the old homestead." "Family interests? Doesn't her father own the farm?" "They all do. Everybody over 21 has chipped in something. They're incorporated." "That's a hell of a way to run a family, isn't it?" "I think so. Shares are votes, when voting is necessary. It was Gabbi's mother's idea to set things up that way. Her first husband was killed in the war. Her new husband had nothing after the war. She wanted to be sure her kids grew up to be solid people and that the most deserving would inherit accordingly, and she wanted the land to stay in the family, so by unanimous agreement nobody can own more than 51% of the place." "Damn. She sounds pretty ruthless, Ed." "Be a woman trying to hang onto her world after a war. Germany is in staggering debt and everybody's pissed off at her. It was just like the aftermath of our Civil War. Ancient land grants now belong to corporations or have been sold off in bits for survival money. Pre-war law held that women could sign contracts, but not own certain properties. That's different now, but Gabbi's mother had it pretty rough. She lost a son to an unexploded bomb in a field, too. For a while she had a rather dim view of Americans." "So how did you get so tight with them?" "We got her grandmother out of Magdeburg, in the East, on one of our visits. I didn't know she was Gabbi's granny until I got back to Landstuhl and met them coming out of the PX together a couple of months later. I thought the old lady was having a heart attack, but it was just that she recognized me. It

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was a grand little reunion. I took them to visit the JAG office immediately for some SA's, US and German versions, and since then we've all been friends, mama included. Mama still has some hard feelings, but not for me." -------*Chapter Eleven -- Americans in Paris* We decided not to drive straight through, after all. There was a nice little hotel in Chalons, a crossroads town, and the daughter of the owner spoke English well enough to give us a quick tour of the town where so much had happened throughout history. (Look it up.) The next day we set out for Paris again and arrived into the midst of horrendous traffic in a driving rainstorm. Our hotel had outside parking, but it was just about full, so I pulled into one of the unmarked spaces near the building and had no sooner begun to haul our bags out than an officious little man came hurrying over to let us know we were in his spot. I looked carefully around the car and found no name or number on the space and told him so. He went ballistic, offering to have us jailed and the car towed and promising all sorts of dire penalties if we didn't move at once. He was relatively dry, so I figured him for a hotel employee and asked him where his car was. He said that was none of my concern. I said that if he wasn't going to help us carry our bags to the door he could shut up and disappear. The bags were in the lobby by the time the gendarme arrived. He spoke eloquently of how foreigners should behave in the countries they visit and suggested I move my car immediately. I asked him where the other guy's car was, and was informed that the man had taken the train today and so didn't need his car. I said that in that case he didn't need that space today, either, and that my car could remain there at least until the rain stopped. The cop disagreed instantly and insistently. Finally I had the desk clerk get the manager, who listened to the entire story from both sides and then informed me that it was his sad duty to tell me that I was in the wrong. Everybody knew the space belonged to whosis, he said, which is why it hadn't been taken by someone else. "He'd rather have it empty than have an American use it in the rain?" "That is his prerogative, sir," said the manager with a shrug. "Can the cop have my car removed from your hotel parking lot?" "I fear he is able to do that. I can do nothing about it." "I can," I said. "I want a refund of our deposit immediately. Our week here is canceled. As a writer for the Stars and Stripes and the Times, I would now be more than happy to make it my life's work to make sure that no American or Brit ever stays in this hotel again." The manager paled a bit. More than half the cars in the lot had tourist or green plates. When he hesitated, I added, "All names would be mentioned in a full report of this incident in my column. Yours, the cop's, and this cretin's. Copies of that report will be sent to every travel bureau that handles hotel reservations for NATO personnel. What I'm telling you is this: you don't just lose one quickly-replaceable tourist's business for a week. A columnist for two newspapers wouldn't have to settle for filing a tiny, ignorable complaint in a local office. It could become a news event. This could become an off-limits hotel within a few days of publication. You're old enough to know what off-limits means from the last war, aren't you, sir?" The manager answered carefully. "Yes, I do, sir. Let me speak with them again." He hurried over and the gabbling began, with much gesticulation and many unkind words imbedded in the sentences that went by too fast for me to fully understand. The little fart apparently wouldn't back down. More words and finally a shouting match that ended abruptly. The little fart stared at the manager for a moment, then spun on his heel and stalked out of the lobby to the elevators. The cop left, too, and the manager returned to us. "The man is one of our office employees. I told him to consider that the hotel actually owns and needs that space for a customer. He said it was

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his as part of his employment contract and that he paid taxes on it as a form of income. He wouldn't give up his space, even for a little while today, so I've suspended him for the duration of your stay. Is that acceptable?" I said, "It is, as long as nothing happens to my car. You do have insurance for the parking lot, don't you? Any vengeful damage would be covered, wouldn't it?" Marsha said, "He's a nasty little man. You might be better off without him." The manager pulled himself up straight and said, "Of course we have insurance, sir, but you won't have to worry." He looked at Marsha. "That nasty little man is my brother in law. I'll have words with him tonight after dinner." Marsha turned red. "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't have any idea..." The manager chuckled, gave us a sardonic grin, and said, "Neither had the rest of us in the family when she brought him home. Don't worry about him. This may be a good experience for him. He'd have acted like that if you'd been Swiss or Italian, as well, and the hotel's financial interests should always come first. Also, I won't have to pay him while he isn't here. Shall we sign you in now?" I asked for a first or second floor room and was issued one on the second floor that overlooked the parking lot. I could see my car a few spaces away when I looked out the window. Since the old hotel was surrounded by larger, newer buildings, there was no view to ruin, and since the hard rain was still falling, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. As soon as the bellhop and manager had left us, Marsha turned to me and said, "You never mentioned being a journalist for two papers to me, Ed." "Because it would have been a lie. I merely said that AS one, that's what I would do." "You merely said it pretty well. Service and consideration improved greatly. Do you think the rooms on the top floors are better than this one?" "Some. The VIP suites will be fancy. Otherwise, they're all about the same." "Did you have a reason for asking for a low-level room?" "I always do. I can jump this far to the ground if I have to." Marsha looked down at the parking lot and said, "Well, I don't think I can. Anyway, why would we have to? Who's chasing us?" "Nobody I'm aware of. How old would you say this building is? Turn of the century? This is France. I don't trust that the sprinklers or alarms work here any better than they did in Alabama. I had to go out a hotel window in Anniston because of a fire. I was on the eighth floor, near the end of the building. The hallways were burning. I couldn't get to the stairs. I tied a bunch of my loose stuff in a bedsheet and tossed it out the window, then used another one for my suitcase. By then my door was burning. There was a drainpipe about ten feet away, so I jumped for it and climbed down. Tore up my hands and knees and lost everything still in my room. The alarms and sprinklers didn't work. From this floor you could slide down a bedsheet and only drop about ten feet." Marsha grinned at me. "What?" I asked. "Almost burned, twice shy?" She gave me a big, innocent smile. "There must be some old proverb about messing with old proverbs," I said. "I'll look for it later," said Marsha, "It's too rainy to sightsee. What now?" "Hmm. Let me just look at you for a moment and I'll think of something, I'm sure." Marsha made a 'naturally-you'd-think-of-that' face at me, but when she turned to walk around the bed, I saw her smile in the dresser's mirror. She loved that I found her so attractive. "Damn," I said, "That line didn't work well at all. You're still dressed."

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She laughed. "You just say things like that to make me feel good, don't you?" I walked over to her and put my hands on her arms as I gazed at her reflected eyes in the mirror. Our eyes met and held each other. I leaned forward into her and held her close and let her feel my solid bar against her backside. "Sure I do, ma'am. I like making you feel good, but I've noticed a bit of swelling occurs every time I'm near you." Marsha giggled and turned to face me. She ran her hand over my swelling and giggled again. "I just love having that effect on you, you know." "Yeah. I do know." I pulled her to me and kissed her. Her hand stayed where it was, squeezing me intimately. When we broke the kiss, Marsha began undoing the buttons of her blouse. "We can't leave it like that. Think of all the little old ladies of France who would be shocked absolutely witless if they noticed." She tossed her blouse on a chair. I began stripping, too. "Ha," I said, "Whatever they are now, they were once young girls. Shocked they may truly be at this late date, but not witless, I'll bet. They'll have their own memories of such matters." "Such a cynic," said Marsha as she unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it, "You seem to think all women ever look for in a man is a good lay." "Oh, no. More than that, I'm sure, but I also think that women should be able to appreciate a good lay when they find one. What do you think?" "I think," said Marsha solemnly, "That a woman who can't appreciate a good lay is probably not well at all." She took off her bra as I stepped out of my pants, then skinned out of her panties. I didn't wear underwear, so I couldn't match her last move. She waved the panties under my nose and said, "Ha! I was the last to take something off. I win." "Well, since you've already won the Paris vacation," I said, "I'll have to think of something else. If only Monty Hall were here..." Marsha laughed again. "I think I can find a prize around here without Monty's help." She reached out to wrap her hands around her prize and squeezed it. "Yup. Found one." The rain didn't stop until late afternoon, and neither did we. I did manage to see her standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower at sundown. It happened at the end of our second week in Paris, and it was a dramatic moment, partly because she took the opportunity to scream. She was grinning beamingly afterward. Marsha said she had 'just felt the urge to scream' while looking over the rail and that it had felt soooo good to do it, and that was all the explanation she offered me or the cop who arrived almost instantly. The cop took a good look at her and shrugged. No crime, no problem. She also looked splendid leaning into the wind on the walls of ancient castle ruins, determinedly climbing the hundreds of steps of the Strasbourg cathedral, and feeding the swans bits of bread from our lunch on the covered bridge of Lake Lucerne. I never ceased to marvel at Marsha's capacity to draw seemingly extreme pleasures from the smallest things and the sight of her never failed to cause a sense of hunger in me, particularly when combined with the taste, feel, and smell of her and the sound of her laughter. Things were going better than merely fine when we arrived back in Germany on the 24th, a Friday, with about a week left of my August leave time. Two more days of touring Munich and environs had almost finished the month. We'd met an Austrian couple and had gone to the local carnival with them Sunday afternoon. It was a small carnival such as you might find anywhere in the States. There were several rides, special foods and candies, games of chance and/or skill and the like, and, of course, the inevitable human jackals who lurk on the fringes of any such events.

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On our way back to the hotel there was some rough going through a street-construction area where the cobbles were being repaired. The street was an ankle-twisting mess and the sidewalk had been blocked with an overturned barrel and two signs. I saw nothing wrong with the sidewalk, so I moved the signs to let everybody through and then put them back. I also picked up a loose cobblestone and held it under my coat. Things didn't feel quite right. Sure enough, a little more than halfway through the construction zone, three guys tried to magically appear in front of us and behind us. They weren't very good at magically appearing. I'd seen two of them not long after we'd passed the signs, but I'd been hoping they'd been just sharing a bottle or something. One tried panhandling in German first, speaking to the Austrian couple, who tried to walk on past them. The panhandler stepped into their way and yammered something in German with an accent that rendered his words almost undecipherable to me, but the tone was as clear as any you'd hear in New York or Boston. The one behind us came up quickly and was less than a foot from my back when I heard the 'snick' sound of a knife opening. It's possible, maybe even likely, that he only intended to use it to intimidate us, but my reaction was the result of training, not conscious thought. I spun and slapped the blade hand away, threw the cobblestone at his legs, and then slammed the edge of my right hand into his throat. As he went down, I guided him into the legs of the nearest of his friends and lunged for the one blocking our way. He backed up, as expected, so I grabbed at the one trying to avoid tripping over his choking friend. When his fist came up, I went under it and pulled his elbow down across my knee. Just a pop, not a snap. He screamed anyway and backed away fast, holding his right arm close. Two down. I picked up the guy's knife and turned to the guy in our way. He wanted to run, but couldn't leave his friends and not have it known. I indicated with the knife that he could pass around us at the wall to join them. He did so, careful to keep a distance and watching me all the time. The Austrians were staring at me in shock. Marsha was just waiting for me, but the Austrian woman seemed to be more terrified of me than she was the men behind us, cringing well behind her husband as I folded the knife shut and stepped back into our group. The Austrians backed away slightly at my approach. My opinion of that woman changed drastically at that moment. I no longer saw her as an attractive, intelligent woman. I saw her as a stupid, panicky cow, and I'm sure it showed. I picked up another cobblestone and handed it to the Austrian man, then picked up two more for Marsha and myself, not bothering to try to hand one to the Austrian woman. "Keep these for a little while," I said, "They're good for bashing rats." The man had a rather sickly smile as he accepted it. Marsha hefted her cobble like an overweight baseball, tossing it a few inches a few times to get the feel of it. She nodded to me, and with a few glances back at the three guys, we resumed our journey to the hotel. Before the incident the Austrians had been walking close to us and talking freely with us in a mingling of German and English. Now we proceeded in silence with a few feet of space between us as they followed along, and it made me feel resentful. Marsha sensed my feelings and put a hand on my arm, then an arm through mine as we walked. I kept my sentiments to myself. As we reached a well-lighted area nearer to the hotel's block, the Austrians lagged farther behind. I heard the man's stone rattle down the street and didn't have to look to know he'd tossed it back the way we'd come. Marsha heard it, too, and looked at her own stone. "May as well toss it," I said, "It's probably against some law to keep it." Marsha laughed softly. "Yeah, and I prefer lighter souvenirs," she

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said, tossing her stone into the bushes. I let mine follow hers. The Austrians had stopped and were pretending to have an interest in something at the end of the block. They waved at us and called goodnights. The resentment surged in me again as we went up the steps into the hotel. "Try not to feel that way, Ed," said Marsha, "They can't help it." "The hell they can't. Would they rather have been mugged? Screw 'em." "Don't let it bother you. We're different, that's all. Different cultures." "Spinelessness isn't a culture, Marsha." "It isn't a matter of nationality, either. You'll find people like that everywhere. Nice, polite, circumspect people who shy away from trouble and feel very uncomfortable around people who don't. We're in the minority about that, Ed. I can't tell you how many boyfriends I've lost because I wouldn't back down from something." "Ha," I said, "You can't tell me because you forgot them the minute you lost respect for them, and you lost respect for them when they couldn't accept your strength. You don't cut people any more slack about things like this than I do, Marsha. You're just less obvious about it." Marsha grinned. "Yeah, well..." "Uh, huh. I saw the 'what's-wrong-with-you?' look on your face when they backed away from me. You just don't show it the way I do. If we met them tomorrow, you'd be polite but distant and you'd keep it very brief. I'd just ignore them completely." Once we were alone in the elevator, I pulled out my captured knife. It was a cheap, flashy piece of crap. The blade snapped off easily in the gap between the elevator and the doorsill and the handle clatteringly followed the blade down the elevator shaft. Marsha giggled. "Someday somebody will find that and wonder what the hell happened in here." "Everybody needs a little mystery," I said with a grin. The phone was ringing as we entered our room. Only a few people knew how to reach me and I really didn't want to hear from any of them, so I let it ring a few times as I kissed Marsha. When it didn't stop ringing, she broke away, grinning at me, and handed me the whole phone. "Go ahead," she said, "Answer it. Whoever it is won't stop trying." It was Linda. "I'm back in Frankfurt. Things got crazy," she said, "Senators, Congressmen, and CIA brass are swarming like locusts for some reason yet unknown. We're stalling the hearing, but we can't delay them more than a week or so. They have subpoenas for all of us, Ed. I can't duck it, but Connie and Will decided to visit friends in Kenya. If they find you, they can deliver a subpoena. How do you feel about that?" "Without even knowing why this is happening, I don't like it. It sounds like political football and I don't want to play. What do you and John think would be best?" "Until someone tells us what has made this mess so important, stay out of sight." "Good 'nuff. What about Marsha?" "We've put her on the payroll. We want her back here tomorrow if you can spare her." "If I can spare her? That's cute. Hold one." I handed the phone to Marsha and opened one of the remaining two wine bottles as Linda briefed her. She handed me back the phone as she took her glass of wine. I told Linda that Marsha would be arriving by train and that she'd call the office for a ride, but that it would be a few days yet. Linda demanded a reason for the delay. "I want some things from my apartment," I said, "And I may have to send someone else in for them if the place is being watched. Marsha wasn't part of the incident and probably hasn't been subpoenaed, but if they pick her up, I'll find another way." "Oh. What's so important at your apartment?"

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"I have to finance my absence and arrange to have my car put on blocks. Need to let my landlady know I'm going to be out of town for a while, too." "Oh," Linda said again, "I see. Okay, then. Speaking of financing, you'll find some extra money in your Bruno Stachel account by Monday afternoon. If you need more, we'll work something out. Hey! How did you get across the border without being noticed?" "They were probably watching the exits, not the entrances. You'll know where I'm going when I do, Linda. I may be out of touch for a week." "Okay, then. Don't talk to strangers and all that stuff. See you." Linda hung up. Marsha had been raiding the room refrigerator as I spoke with Linda. She placed the various cheeses, crackers, fruits, and condiments on the table and asked if I was hungry. I gave her my Cary Grant impression. "Only for you, my dear, only for you." Marsha grinned and said, "That's wonderful, but you really ought to try to keep your strength up if we only have a week left together." "Uh, oh. That sounds as if you have plans that involve me." "You could say that. You're going to remember me forever, mister." She handed me a knife and napkin. "Now eat something. I don't want you fainting away on me." We discussed the situation as we nibbled our way through most of the hotel snacks. I told Marsha what I had in mind; that she would contact some people as soon as we arrived in Landstuhl and give each one a note from me. After that, she'd go to the apartment, but only to get her belongings and see if anyone was watching the place. "What's it all about?" she asked, "What's different now?" "I don't know what's going on, Marsha. Something happened that turned things into a political circus and my department isn't happy about it, so I'm not happy either." "What are you going to do? Damn, this stuff's salty as hell, isn't it?" "That's to encourage you to drink the overpriced beer, wine, and sodas in the fridge. Like I told Linda, I won't know that until I do it, but I'll probably have to leave Germany. I'll see what the others think first, but I expect to be told to disappear for a while." The atmosphere at the table was slightly glum for a time as we finished off the snacks and a bottle of wine. I was about to open another bottle when I realized that I'd only had three half-glasses from the last one, which meant that Marsha had killed most of it. When I turned to look at her, she had a big, glassy-eyed grin and was pulling her dress off. "I was going to open another bottle..." I said. "Don't need it," she said, tossing her bra over the chair back. "Get a move on, there." "Yes'm," I said, "Moving now, Ma'am." I put the bottle back and went to her. Marsha wrapped herself around me, kissed me, and then whispered that she could guarantee that not a damned thing would happen until I got out of my clothes. I picked her up and carried her to the bed, then stripped as she watched. "I'm beginning to think that thing is always like that," said Marsha. "It is when you're naked," I said, "It thinks you're heaven or something close to it." Marsha giggled, then laughed. "Hurry up," she said, "Heaven awaits." -------*Chapter Twelve* We spent another two days and nights in the hotel, then headed back to Landstuhl on Wednesday. Instead of heading to base, I took us for a late last-lunch-together at Schloss-Landstuhl. The restaurant's dining room provided an overview of both the town and the castle ruins, and while we were waiting for food, I suggested that Marsha spend a few pfennigs in the coin-operated binoculars on the reconstructed parapets while I made some phone

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calls. On the way to the phone booth I had a waiter take her some change. My first call was to Linda, to let her know she should expect a phone call from Marsha in the early evening. Linda said she'd planned to be in the office until ten or so anyway. My landlady was surprised to hear from me early and asked if everything was all right, then asked how my vacation was going. She mentioned nothing about anyone looking for me. I then called Frank, a friend from the hospital, and told him that there'd be a twenty in it for him if he'd put my car on blocks for me. Frank said some people had asked about me. I told him I'd already been in contact with someone in Frankfurt and would be out of town for a while. He asked if I was in trouble, and I said that my other job needed me. He didn't know quite what that job was, of course, but knew it involved 'spooky James Bond-type stuff' and agreed to help. I told him that Marsha would meet him at the hospital main entrance and let him into the apartment to get the blocks from the basement. I then joined Marsha on the parapet and waited until the timer clicked off the binoculars she was using. I put in another coin and aimed them in a different direction. "Take a look," I said, "Right down there. What do you see?" "Houses, streets, people? The road that goes to the base? A building with a mural on the wall...? Oh! Okay, now I see why we're up here! It's your house!" "You got it. And I have binoculars that work without coins in my car. You'll drive it down and meet a guy named Frank at the hospital main entrance around five, then go to the apartment. He'll put the car on blocks, then you can ride back to the base with him and call Linda at this number for further instructions from any autovon phone." I handed her a piece of paper with the phone number. Marsha took it and stared at it. She spoke softly without looking up. "Well, this is really it, isn't it?" I took her in my arms and said, "Only for a while, Marsha. After whatever stirred everybody up has been dealt with, I'll come back in." "That could take months, Ed." "Maybe not. The hearing is on Monday. Everybody will want their piece of things right now, if not sooner, and they'll push hard, so maybe it'll all blow over fast." After lunch we went to the car and took out my luggage and binoculars and stood holding each other for a while. I said, "Frank will be off duty in a few minutes." Marsha nodded against my shoulder and hugged me before letting go. I kissed her again and gave her the keys, then watched the car grow smaller down the mountainside. As the distance between us widened, it was as if a connection of some sort was straining like a rubber band. When the car rounded a bend and disappeared, I was shocked to feel a great sense of loss. 'What the hell?' I thought, 'She'll be working with us. It isn't as if I won't see her again.' But the feeling persisted. I picked up my bags and went inside to watch my house. About fifteen minutes later my car pulled into my driveway. Frank's old BMW pulled up at the curb, negating the need for Marsha to pick him up, and he helped her with her bags. Scanning the street each direction, I saw nothing for a few moments, then a very-obviously-government-issue black Chevy came up the street. It slowed down as it passed my house, but it didn't stop until it was at the corner. A man got out of it and went into the corner pub, then the car moved on. About fifteen minutes later, it drove by the pub on the cross street. I was able to watch it cruise a few blocks west, then north, then back along the

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curving backroad that led to my street. Then the Chevy parked a little off the road and waited about fifteen minutes more before moving again. This time it rolled the opposite way and used the cross street again, slowing briefly by the pub before continuing it's route. In the meantime, Frank had jacked up my car and placed the blocks under it. I watched him carry Marsha's luggage to his car, then saw Marsha appear in the doorway with Bear in her arms. She patted him a while as she looked around the neighborhood and up the various hillsides, then set him down, pulled the door shut, and joined Frank in his car. Bear just sat on the porch step and looked right up the mountain for a few moments as if he knew I was there, then ambled away. As Frank's car passed the pub, the man from the Chevy came out and watched them go by. He wrote on a pad and stood waiting until the Chevy came by again, then got in. I watched them follow Frank's car to the base, then watched my street a while longer. Nobody else showed up. I didn't really need anything from my apartment. When I saw one of the waiters heading to his car, I offered him ten marks for a ride to the train station to avoid using a taxi. He readily agreed. I took the train to Frankfurt, deposited my luggage in a locker, then walked the two blocks to the American Express office and called Mags. I told her I needed a bunk for the night. She didn't ask why, she just said she'd pick me up in half an hour or so. As I waited, I looked through the literature on display for someplace interesting enough to visit for an indefinite while. One of the booklets told of month-long student-participation archaeological tours of several sites in Israel. I checked to see that my University of Maryland/USAFI card was still in my wallet. It was. I asked the woman at the counter if there were still some slots for that particular adventure. There were. I thanked her and told her I might be back for one of them. Mags showed up with her daughter, Giselle, and new son-in-law, Karl, so I took them to dinner and roughly outlined my situation. I say 'roughly' because I really didn't tell them much beyond that it involved all the noise in the press about the dead escapee and the political circus surrounding the escape attempt. Mags knew John and Linda and knew I worked with a D-team, so she didn't have to guess at much. We talked in circumspect sentences until Karl became a bit tense from being excluded. I apologized and told him that I hadn't been thinking or it would have occurred to me that he wouldn't know what we were talking about, then proceeded not to tell him what we were talking about. Neither did Mags. I also mentioned Marsha and our recent vacation trip, but told them to check with John before telling her anything current if they happened to meet her. We stopped by the train station for my bags and Mags installed me in one of her upstairs rooms for the night. As Mags led the way upstairs, my eyes were locked on her lovely legs below her pleated, near-knee-length skirt. Glancing back, she saw me looking and laughed as she told me that a woman's legs would someday be the cause of my downfall. She then asked me if Marsha meant more to me than I'd said. I told her, "We won't be getting married, Mags." "Ah," said Mags, "Then you're still a free man. Seeing you again reminds me of the old days, you know. Very exciting times. Now they're merely very exciting memories. Did you tell Marsha about our time together, Ed? Is that how she knows of me?" "Old days? It's only been a couple of years since we played together. No, Mags, I didn't tell her about us. I told her about how you masterminded your family's escape and cleaned out the commandant's safe and how I dated Giselle briefly and about your car company cats, but nothing else. I didn't even tell her I prefer you to your daughter." "Ah," said Mags again, "Good. You have made me an heroic figure. It's

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so nice to have a strong reputation to fall back on as the years nibble away at one's beauty." I laughed. "Mags, you should fish for a living. I'm going to take that bait and tell you that you're still very beautiful and that the last two years have taken nothing from you." Mags smiled and said, "You're as kind as ever, Ed, but I remember when you lusted for me. You don't seem to feel that way now." "I thought that asking for a place to sleep was probably enough, Mags. I thought you might have a boyfriend or husband, and I didn't want to offend anyone. How can it be that a woman who looks as good as you isn't already taken?" Mags laughed at that. "Taken? Oh, I don't mind being taken now and then, of course. I just don't want to be kept, and I certainly don't want to marry away half of my business and home. I've worked too hard for them. Besides, if I were married I might feel guilty about asking if you want to sleep in my room tonight." "If only there were more women like you in the world, Mags ... Beauty and brains." "I'm glad there aren't," she said with a grin, "There's less competition. Let's have a couple of drinks and send the children off to bed, then you can tell me the REAL story." It was my turn to laugh. "Real story? Sure. A bunch of political pigs on both sides of the Berlin Wall are lining up at what they hope will be a trough full of useful publicity. My group is in the middle and we're being considered expendable in the sense that any of us who are dragged into court will be exposed and no longer useable. Nobody cares about that except us, it seems. Hell, all I need is for a Senator to pat me on the back for a job well done. They never do that unless there's a camera nearby. Instant fame." "Instant what? I like to think my English is good, but..." "Your English is excellent, Mags. Fame. As in famous. Like a movie star. Everybody knows who they are and they can't go anywhere without being recognized." "Ah. Fame-as-in-famous. I know famous. Now I know fame." I gave Mags a wry grin. "You must have skipped all the four-letter words, huh?" Mags grinned back at me. "Oh, no! I know many English four-letter words, but they're all grouped by subject or manner of use." She leaned conspiratorially close and softly whispered, "Fuck. I know about that word. I keep it in the action group. How do you call those..?" "Verbs, ma'am. Verbs. Action words are usually verbs." Her lips touched my neck softly. "Yes," she said, "I keep it among the verbs." I turned my head and kissed her with the soft, brushing kisses I remembered she liked so well, then kissed her rather firmly. It turned out to be a long night. At breakfast, Giselle said hello and Karl just stared at Mags and me. Mags snapped her fingers to focus his attention and fixed him with a stare of her own. In a voice of iron she said, "You will have to get used to it, Karl. I am a woman who takes what I want when I can, and I wanted him last night." Karl was just out of his two-year military obligation and very nearly locked his heels and saluted her. Giselle was standing at the sink, rinsing a glass. I saw her shoulders shaking and realized she was doing her best to conceal laughter and nearly failing at it. "You could be more quiet during your conquests, Mother," said Giselle. Mags laughed. "Ed is no conquest," she said. I feigned great shock at her words. Mags said, "He knows where all the buttons are and he loves pushing them, daughter." Karl was turning bright red, absolutely uncertain as to what to do or say. Mags got his attention momentarily and simply pointed to his plate. He

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sat and picked up his fork, but he was still staring at the two women. After a moment, he took a bite of his eggs. Giselle giggled and went to sit next to him. "Mother is only teasing you," she confided. It sounded as if she were reassuring a five-year-old. Then she looked up at me and asked, "Isn't she?" It sounded like a question, not a request for confirmation. She winked at me. Karl's head came up as he looked at me. "Better to ask Mags," I said, "She's the one you'll be living with, not me." Karl just sat there gazing up at us for a moment. "You are all kidding me, I think," he said. "Kidding? Is that the right word?" Mags came to the table with a big grin and said, "Only a little, Karl," just before she grabbed me and pulled me to her in a long, hot kiss. When she broke the kiss, she said again, "Only a little," and sat down. I sat down, too, partly to conceal the rather obvious results of Mags's kiss. Giselle was giggling, then broke into laughter. Karl just stared at all of us for another moment before forcing his attention to his food. That afternoon I made arrangements to join a student dig that would be based on a kibbutz not far from Refidim, Israel. I had three main reasons for this choice: my interest in archaeology, kibbutz food, and company other than the other members of the dig team, who were likely to be starry-eyed, fuzzy-brained students. I then called John's office. I was a little surprised when John answered instead of Linda. "Hi, John, this is Bruno. I'm looking at cars before I go." That told him who was calling, where I was staying, and that I was leaving. "Can you make any suggestions about who to ship it with?" John said, "Bruno, I'm a little busy right now. Can I call you back later?" Mags had taken the day off to stay home and play. We were just out of the shower and lounging on her bed when John called back. Mags answered and handed me the phone. The silent background told me he was in a booth in one of the Bundespost offices. "Where to?" asked John. I told him. "I'll contact ahead for you," said John, "Is there anything you need for the trip?" "Nope. Got it all or I'll get it there. Thanks, anyway, John." John told me who to call in Israel for assistance or to leave messages, then gave me a quick synopsis of how things were going at his end. Not good. 'Crats all over the place, pontificating and posturing for the cameras. "Check in when you get there, Ed." "Will do, John." As I hung up, I told Mags that I had two days to kill or fill. "I can help you with those," she said, rolling onto me and kissing me. "Are you going to say goodbye to Marsha?" It was an odd time to be asking about another woman. Had that question come from any woman but Mags, and if I weren't a couple of days from being gone, I might have thought it was some kind of verbal trap. "Yeah, I'd planned to," I said, "But not like this." Mags chuckled and reached between us to guide us together. "Ed, I was -- ooohhh -- just asking. You really should call her before you go." "I think Marsha and I have had our time together, Mags. By the time things blow over, she's likely to have a new boyfriend." "We had our time together, too, two years ago. Yet here we are. Just call her." I agreed to call Marsha and the matter was dropped as talking took a back seat to our other endeavors of the moment. When Mags dropped me off at the Frankfurt airport, a blinding rain was making the usual snarl of traffic worse. I kissed her goodbye and dashed from the car to the shelter of the roofed entrance. Again I felt that tugging

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sensation as Mags pulled away from the curb and disappeared quickly into the rain.. When I stopped at the El-Al information counter to get gate and actual departure time info, the woman there told me there was going to be a two-hour delay due to weather. I didn't buy that and asked if she could tell me the real reason for the delay. She said she'd only been told it was a weather problem, then told me there was a message for me attached to my reservation number. She printed it and handed it to me. The message read, "I'll be at the gate. Marsha." One: El Al pilots are among the best in the world. Most of them are combat vets. No little rainstorm is going to keep them on the ground if the instruments are working. Two: It seemed damned strange that someone from the office would want to meet me in a public place while there were still subpoenas to be delivered to team members. Three: While Marsha might have wanted to take the afternoon off to say goodbye in person, it seemed unlikely that John or Linda would have okayed it, since they'd have expected someone to follow her in hopes of turning up one of the sought-for people. I called John from a pay phone on the second floor. He said Marsha was still in her office, as far as he knew, and got up to check. She was. I heard John call Linda into his office and issue some quick instructions, then he came back on the line. "Ed, we're only fifteen minutes away. Watch for Linda and Easton." He didn't ask where I'd be or tell me to meet them somewhere on an open phone line, meaning that he was leaving contact up to me. I waited by the stairs, a little to one side and above the El-Al desk, watching the flow of people below. Twenty minutes later Linda and Easton arrived. Linda spotted me, of course, but gave no overt indication of having done so. I watched her stop at the counter below, then proceed to the gate. I gave them a full minute head start and followed, keeping them in sight. At the gate, Easton and Linda appeared to discuss something at length, then Easton said to the attendant there, "Hello. You have a boarding pass for Howdershelt?" A man immediately separated himself from the waiting crowd and approached Easton and Linda. He held out an envelope and said, "This is a subpoena to appear before a U.S. Senatorial investigations committee. You have just been served, Mr. Howdershelt." As the man quickly walked away, Easton handed the envelope to Linda and reached into his jacket, producing another envelope and handing it to the attendant. "Please make sure that Mr. Howdershelt receives this with his boarding pass," said Easton. He showed his I.D. to the attendant as he spoke. The attendant nodded and tucked the envelope into the pass, then put the pass back in the lockbox. Linda gave me a smiling glance as she and Easton departed the gate area. Easton barely knew me and appeared not to notice me. I could envision that they'd go to a long lunch, then return to the office and report that they'd delivered the envelope for me to the gate attendant, but that someone had mistaken Easton for me and delivered the subpoena to him. They would then delight in letting the error become general knowledge before they returned the subpoena to the issuers. Instead of two hours, the delay was only about forty minutes altogether. I received the pass and the envelope from the attendant and found my seat on the plane. I opened the envelope to find five thousand dollars in hundreds and a note from John that said, "Just a bit of expense money. Make it last. John & Linda." -------*Chapter Thirteen -- Israel*

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IDF = Israeli Defense Force. Army, Air Force, Navy, and everything military. (Please remember that you'll be getting only my own, limited Point of View concerning events of October, 1973. A lot went on that didn't involve me.) It was late and I was dead tired. My attempt at napping on the plane hadn't fared well due to a couple of kids nearby. One was about four and the other maybe two. The two was asleep, but the obstreperous four had been on the edge of a whiny fit the entire flight, ticking like a little bomb that might explode into a squalling, ranting brat. He was at that moment pounding a plastic spoon incessantly on the tray table. A woman two seats behind them was trying to sleep and having no luck and a man just ahead of them looked as if he'd cheerfully strangle the little snot and his mother, who was ignoring the harsh looks of the other passengers as she read a magazine. After asking the mother to quiet her child with no results, I asked the attendant who served us drinks if she would be so kind as to put the brat in the hold with the other animals and baggage or tie him up and gag him and put him in one of the rear restrooms for the rest of the flight. A few people snickered and one laughed outright. The mother started berating me, but the attendant and a couple of other fed-up passengers let her know her kid really WAS a pain in the ass and that they were actually glad someone had said something about it. The stewardess moved me to an empty seat in first class to avoid an ongoing scene. No kids and very quiet. No special services, either, but that was fine with me. I could sleep. At the airport I thought perhaps the security people were going a bit overboard. My bags and I were searched thoroughly upon arrival, as were many of the others on the plane. Another passenger, a woman, said it was unusual. I looked at her questioningly. She told me that she flew into Israel about once a week for her husband's business, and that this was the first time she'd ever been searched. We sat chatting about things until they let us go. Truth: I don't like Tel Aviv. It has a personality too much like New York's in too many ways. Snotty attitudes and frayed tempers are much too common. I continued on to Jerusalem and took a room in a minor hotel about three blocks west of the King David Hotel (It makes a good local landmark and is listed on most maps) and picked up a Berlitz Hebrew pocketbook so I could figure out how and what to order for breakfast and how to ask directions. After a week of touring all the immediate landmarks and museums, the kibbutz sent word that my dig team would be arriving soon, so I hopped a bus the next morning as instructed, digging my old combat boots out of my duffel for comfort in what I anticipated to be rough terrain. I had to change buses in Sinjil, and the second bus seemed to stop at every possible opportunity along the route. It took two more hours to reach the kibbutz. After seeing a certain amount of too-similar desert go by, I was deep into a book when we stopped at what appeared to be another of the fruit and veggie stands along the way. Someone tapped my shoulder and pointed. The driver was looking back at me in his rearview and making a come-along gesture. I grabbed my gear and disembarked. As the bus roared off up the dusty road, I shouldered my duffel and walked to the fruit stand for some shade and directions. Huge green bell peppers caught my eye, so I bought three, sat on my duffel under a tree, and riffled through my Berlitz book of Hebrew phrases. The two women and a man who ran the stand glanced at me now and then, but other than initial greetings laden with heavy Eastern European accents, they didn't attempt to hold a conversation. The girl of about seventeen came over and stood looking at my old jump boots for a moment, maybe wondering about the odd lacing pattern. She wore mid-thigh cutoffs, sandals, and a man's shirt and was attractive in a plain way.

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I smiled at her and asked, "Do you happen to speak English?" She shook her head, so I tried, "Parler Francais?" She shook her head again. "Deutsch?" That got me a nod. I asked her where the kibbutz was and she told me I was on it. "You are American," she observed, "You like our..?" She couldn't find the English word. "Peppers," I said, "Yes. Three will not be enough." I handed her money enough for three more. When she returned with three well-selected peppers, she said, "The office is that way," and pointed up a dirt road. "Why do you sit here under the tree? Do you expect someone?" "I was told to wait at the bus stop. They'll probably want to check me here." "They checked none of the others here. Why you?" She eyed me critically. I shrugged. "No idea," I said. "I was told to wait here." She left me and went back to her work, chatting briefly with the others. After a few glances, they seemed to adopt an 'oh, well...' attitude and ignored me as I read. They seemed to be sorting fruits and vegetables into other boxes, but I didn't see any obvious difference between what was in one box or another. When the few dozen or so boxes had been packed, wired shut, and stacked, they all found shade and sat talking. Maybe half an hour later, a truck pulled in and, after some discussion and an exchange of money, the man and girl started loading the boxes on the truck. I got up and went over to help. They nodded and smiled, and the man said something I didn't understand. "He said 'thank you'," said the girl. I looked at the man and nodded. When the boxes were all on the truck, the girl stuck out her hand. "I thank you, too. I'm Lea," she said. Her hand was extended in an exaggerated version of the American style of handshake. I took it and held it a moment, then released it. "You're welcome. I'm Ed." It was a moderately awkward moment. Neither of us had anything to add, so I went back to my tree and opened my book. Lea brought me a metal cup full of water and sat down on the other end of my duffel bag. After a moment, I began to wonder if she'd thought of something she wanted to say, then saw her glance at the water cup. "Oh. You're waiting to take this back when I'm finished?" She nodded. I finished the water and gave her the metal cup. She smiled and returned to the others. A jeep with two armed men in it arrived. After greetings and a quick visit with the others, the men came over to me. One asked to see my papers, and after a cursory reading of them, said drily, "We have learned that you are enrolled nowhere as an archaeology student, yet you apparently have come here to go on a dig." He sounded German. "That's right," I said. I fished out my University of Maryland card for him. He didn't seem impressed with it. After a quick look at it, he added it to my other papers. "Please explain," he said. "I wanted a vacation. There was a poster about this place in an American Express office. It interested me, so I signed up for it." "Of all the places you might have gone for your vacation, you chose to come here?" "I'm here, so I guess I must have." He stood looking at me rather critically for a moment, then said, "Combat boots. A duffel bag. You do not resemble in the least our usual student-archaeologists. You will be coming with us. Put your bags in the jeep." He handed back my papers. "Two M-16's," I said, tossing my bags into the jeep, "A .45 pistol, and an Army-surplus jeep don't make you look much like farmers, either. More like

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border guards." "One could say we are border guards. We simply farm while we guard." With that, he put the jeep in gear and off we went. The other man watched me but didn't speak to me. In the fields to either side of the road were people heading in from the day's work. They were a mixed bag of ages and genders and, I discovered later, previous nationalities. I was taken to an office in the main building. The silent guy carried my bags in, but not as a favor. He and a woman in shorts and a shirt similar to Lea's stood by my bags as I was escorted to a chair near a desk by the jeep driver. She was in her mid-twenties and looked none the worse for being a farm worker. The driver remained by my chair and they remained by my bags. When nobody seemed to want to talk and nobody else showed up after five minutes or so, I pulled my book out of my pocket and opened it. "WHAT are you doing?" hissed the jeep driver. "Reading." "You were brought here to explain yourself, not to read a book!" "So ask me something." "It is not for me to ask you anything," he said. "Then don't bug me while I read. Somebody important will show up soon enough, right?" He clammed up and leaned on the desk, glaring at me. I looked at the other two. The guy had a slight smile, but neither of them spoke. More than twenty minutes passed before a man in his fifties entered the room. I closed my book and stood as he entered. The jeep driver belatedly put a hand on me to keep me in my chair. I grabbed it and gave it a little twist and shove that made him gasp in shock, then let him go. The older man indicated I should sit back down. I did so. He then sat down. He said, "We are all are here because you don't seem to be a student anywhere." "Everybody can stop acting like Gestapo," I said, "I have a visa. I'm here because I had to go somewhere and this place looked interesting. If you don't believe me, refund the price of admission for the dig and I'll take the bus back to Jerusalem tomorrow." The older guy seemed unimpressed. "If there's anything in your bags that shouldn't be, you'll be out of here tonight," he said, "Under arrest. Search his bags, please." They began unpacking my bags onto the other desk, examining my camera, shaving kit contents, and various other solid objects. The metal lunchbox that contained my few medals, papers, and traveler's checks drew special attention. The woman brought it over to the older man and he began riffling through the contents. "Does everyone get this kind of reception?" I asked the man behind the desk In a conversational tone, he said, "Israel must guard against espionage and terrorism. You may be an American, but you may be working for someone else." "I may even be on vacation," I said, "Not working for anyone." "So you may," he said, "So you may." He scanned some of the documents he found in my lunchbox. My DD-214 and a couple of others caught his attention. We discussed them in moderate detail before he folded them and put them back in the box, then got up and went to have a look at the contents of my bags, then returned to his desk. "If nothing comes back about you from Tel Aviv tomorrow, we will assign you to a group participating in the dig. In the meantime, this man, Mr. Heifetz, will be your guide and will show you where to eat, sleep, and where not to go." Mr. Heifetz was still unhappy about his wrist being popped. He glared at me sullenly, obviously also unhappy about being assigned to escort me. "Be nice and I'll show you how to do that," I pointed at his hand. He

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didn't reply. I turned to the older man and said, "I don't think he wants the job." Before the older man could reply, the woman who'd searched my bags spoke up. "I'll take him. These boys think he'll be problem for them." She emphasized the word 'boys' slightly. "But I don't think he'll be difficult with me." I stood as she approached the desk. "You're American," I observed. "I was," she said, "Now I'm an Israeli. Does that bother you?" "Do you think it should?" I asked. "I thought it might. Nationality means a lot to some people." "So do lots of things that are nobody else's business." Turning back to the older man, she asked, "Well?" The older guy shrugged and said, "As long as someone is with him until tomorrow." The other two men followed the older man out of the room. The woman and I stood looking at each other for a few moments. She was about five-ten and lean without being skinny. She had a deep tan that ended where the shirt began. A worker's tan, not the tan of a beach bunny at all. Her face was framed by sun-bleached brown hair and her eyes were an odd shade of green. Her gaze met mine in silence. "I'm Ed," I said, extending a hand. "Hannah," she said. Her grip was firm and brief. "I don't know why everyone's so tense about me," I said, "Farmers with M-16's are more unusual than a guy with a duffel bag and combat boots. Hell, half the people I saw coming in here had combat boots on." We started stuffing my things back in my bags. Hannah said, "That's not it. We like to know a bit about people coming here. Something about you hasn't checked out." "What didn't check out?" "I don't know. Procedure says there will be witnesses during any interview such as yours. I was nearby and available. It's lunchtime. I'll show you where to put your things and take you to the dining room." Hannah led me to a cabin not far from the office building. There were six bunks with both footlockers and wall lockers for each. I tossed my duffel on one of the footlockers and said, "I feel as if I'm back in the Army. Nobody else is here?" "This is a spare cabin. You'll only be here overnight, whether you stay or go." As we left the cabin I said, "Everybody else in that room was armed. Why not you? And why have you, the unarmed one, been assigned to guard me?" "I was working inside today. My rifle is in a rack over there. Nobody assigned to escort you would be armed because you might be able to take the weapon from them, and if you try to go anywhere without me, you'll be arrested." "Amazing," I said, "They think I'm a suspicious character, so they assign a beautiful woman to escort me. How logical is that?" "I've had some training," said Hannah, "I'm not exactly helpless." She didn't seem to respond at all to being called beautiful. I smiled and said, "Somehow I really didn't think you were, Hannah. Do you have anything to do with the archaeological stuff?" "Very little, and only here in the compound. Some students are American or British. I translate and do other things to help. Otherwise, I'm working on the farm." Hannah had a long, quick stride. I seemed to be a pace behind her most of the time as we walked to the dining hall. I watched her strong, tanned legs flashing before me and noticed a scar peeking out from under her shorts on her left thigh as she moved. She glanced back and saw me apparently leering at her legs and instantly whipped around to face me, hands on hips and her face set in a glare. She said nothing. I shrugged and said, "You have great legs, Hannah. Should I apologize

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for noticing?" "You weren't just noticing. You were staring." "There was nothing better to look at. Ask around. Most of the men would agree with me. Actually, I was wondering about a scar on your left leg. Mind if I ask how you got it?" "Yes, I mind. Let's go." She pointed at a building and stood waiting as I passed her. During lunch, I said, "Tell you what, Hannah, I've seen farms, so there's no point in a tour." Hannah said nothing for some moments, then, "So what's your point?" "I just thought I'd give you my itinerary so you could decide whether or not to find someone else to babysit the prisoner." She seemed startled. "You're not a..." I interrupted her. "Quote: If I go anywhere without you, I'll be arrested. If I'm not a prisoner, what the hell am I? I didn't like the reception I received. Israel issued me a visa while I was in Germany, so you know I've been verified harmless. I made it all the way here past various security agencies, but the honcho of a damned truck farm seems to think he's next in line to run a check on me. After lunch, we'll go see him about getting my papers and passport back, a refund of the dig money, and a ride to the nearest town or bus stop." Hannah stared at me briefly, but said nothing more during lunch. When we were finished, I headed back to the cabin for my bags, then over to the office building. The older guy who had 'interviewed' me was in his office. I let my duffel hit the floor outside and waited in the doorway. He looked up and said, "Yes?" "I paid my dig fee. Your government cleared my trip here. I was treated to an unpleasant reception and I've met exactly one person since I got off the damned bus who seemed really friendly. I want a refund, my papers and my passport, and a ride to the nearest bus stop or town with a hotel." The man straightened papers and put them in a folder. "Why should I allow that?" "You don't have a good reason to stop me, for one thing. For another, I'll make no secret of my treatment when I talk to the press if you try to detain me." "TRY to detain you? We can detain you, make no mistake about that." "Why bother? You won't find a damned thing to support it. It will look like petty harassment later, no matter what you say about it. Why not just let me go and make room for someone who looks a little more like a real, live student to you?" The man stood and came around his desk. "And why not say you tried to leave without authorization and let the police have you? Would that suit you?" "That depends," I said, "How far is the police station from the bus station? They'll be able to check me out and let me go in no time." The man got nose to nose with me. "You have your wish," he said, "I think you might not fit in well here, anyway. I'll call for your ride personally." "How about giving me my stuff?" "You'll get them back before you go." "Fine," I said, "Who do I see about the refund?" "Me." He pulled a checkbook out of a drawer and made one out to me, then had me sign a ledger and a form stating I was withdrawing from the archaeological program. "I have a question," I said. When he looked up at me I asked, "What the hell is all this really about? You claim to doubt everything about me, which would include my identity, but you just wrote me a check that should be worth about $370. Either the check's no good or something very damned strange is going on here." After a moment, he sighed and said, "The check is good. Sit down, please." Whups. About face. Why the change of attitude? I eyed him as I sat.

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"We now know who you were working for in Germany. You're just using us as a place to hide from your own authorities for a while. We are not a hideout." "I had to go somewhere and this looked interesting. There's no warrant for my arrest. It's a bureaucratic game they want me for. Did anyone tell you what I was doing in Germany?" "They did not. My only concern is that you're here under false pretenses." "Call this number," I recited the number for him, "And ask for Yasha." "Why should I do this? Who is Yasha?" "One of yours, my emergency contact here." "One of our what?" "Call and see. I don't know what he or she does or for whom, but my boss gave me the number and the name Yasha." "Yasha is a man's name. Please wait outside." I waited. About fifteen minutes later I was called back in. "You may stay as long as you feel the need. I'm Moshe," said the older man, shaking my hand. He was smiling. This seemed surprising to Hannah and the two people standing by the door. At that point it rather surprised me, too. "Uh, okay, fine, thanks. But what happened? I expected someone to clear my travel plans, but that's about all. Who and what is Yasha?" "Yasha isn't his real name, of course. He's a Mossad official who told me a great deal about you and what you've been doing for the last two years." I didn't think John ran an operation so loose that our doings became international news. That startled me, and it must have showed. Moshe laughed. "The Mossad knows all, sees all. They probably helped plan some of your extractions, as well. There are still many Jews behind the Iron Curtain." "Makes sense," I said, "That would explain why we never worked with other U.S. agencies much and why our Eastern Bloc intelligence was better than theirs. You'd have people over there who could gather it just about daily." "Indeed so. He said your teams extracted a number of our people at his request." Moshe called in the others from the hall. The six men and women stood wondering what was going on. Hannah was flatly staring at me. "This man," said Moshe, "Is to be considered one of our own until he leaves us. Group leaders will be briefed on this matter later tonight." He turned to me and said, "If you still want to participate in the dig, give me the check, please." I gave him the check. He tore it up and crossed out the entry in the ledger before ripping up the resignation papers. "You will be assigned to a dig team this week." "Thank you," I said, "What about my passport?" "It will be in the safe with everybody else's while you are here. You'll be issued an ID card. That is the law. You are free to move about the kibbutz, but I recommend you have a guide for a day or two. Hannah, do you wish to continue in that role?" "Uhm, yes, I can do that. No problem." I heard the hesitation in her voice. I looked at her. She looked back at me briefly and then switched back to Moshe. "Should he be issued a rifle?" she asked. I felt the question was some kind of test. Moshe had to think about that a moment. "After indoctrination he may carry one if he wishes. He should first know why we carry them in the fields." "If I can see something, I can hit it, and I already know the weapon." "Still, the indoctrination comes first," said Moshe, "We don't wear uniforms, so you need to have some idea of how things are here." I nodded. So began my stay on the kibbutz. Hannah took me on a quick, clinical tour of facilities such as the dispensary, the processing building and others, a few fields and the irrigation system, and the small fire station. I was made to stand to be identified to others at the evening meal and without much explanation the assembled people were told that I was no longer under any

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suspicion. As an afterthought, Moshe said, "He was cleared by the Mossad. Who can argue with that?" Throughout the day and evening Hannah was quiet unless she was defining something or directing me. At first I thought it might be embarrassment, but I lost that impression quickly once I asked her why she wasn't as talkative as before. "I don't like heroes," she said, "They get people killed." "Well," I said, "You let me know if you see one, then. We'll run away from him together." She gave me a rather flat stare for a moment and pointed to a cabin we were approaching from behind. "That's your cabin," she said. "Fine enough, Hannah. See if someone else will be my guide tomorrow. You don't seem to like me or the job, and you haven't been good company. I've been wondering why you let Moshe hang you with the job a second time." "You can just keep wondering," she said. I nodded. "In that case, you can just keep walking. Get someone else tomorrow or I will." I turned and walked to the cabin without waiting for her response. -------*Chapter Fourteen* The next day another woman had been assigned to me. I saw no more of Hannah except at a distance. I asked the new guide how she'd happened to draw the duty of escorting me around the compound. She said she was on "sick time" due to an injury and showed me her left hand. It was a mass of bruises, but there were no splintings, so I assumed there were no broken bones. I asked how she'd hurt herself and she said that one of the goats had gotten obnoxious. It had attacked her and knocked her down. She had defended herself by punching the goat repeatedly until it had decided she wasn't as easy a target as she had seemed. I looked at her hand again, more carefully, this time. "What's your name?" I asked. "Susanne," she replied, "What are you looking for?" She sounded very American to me. "Broken bones. You hit hard for a girl. Is there an X-ray machine in the dispensary?" "Yes, but it's only used when the doctor makes visits, about once every month." "I think we'll use it today if we can. Who looked at your hand before now?" "A number of people here. My fingers still work, so they aren't broken." "Really? Make a fist. You can't. Squeeze my finger. You can't. Does it hurt deep into the core of you when I touch between joints, like this?" Susanne paled visibly, but uttered not one sound. I put my hand gently to her face, looked in her eyes, and said, "Bullshit. You have at least two fractures." Moshe's first concern was that I knew how to use an X-ray machine. He knew from my DD-214 that I had been a medic in a war, but medics don't usually get to play with the big toys. I asked him when the machine had last been recalibrated. He looked on a chart next to it and said, "Four months ago." "Good enough. It takes more than the kind of use it gets here to muck it up in that amount of time. Let's set up for a shot." An hour later we had pictures of Susanne's hand. The two worst fractures were obvious even to his untrained eye. The third was more subtle. I pointed it out, tracing it with a pencil. "She hits pretty hard, doesn't she?" I asked him. He agreed. We locked up the X-ray room and gave Susanne the news. She'd never seen her bones before and paled again as she stared at the damage depicted in the films. The nearest doctor was in a town about thirty-five kilometers distant. I packed up Susanne's films and immobilized her hand and Hannah and one of the

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guys took her there in a jeep. "What happens if there's a real emergency?" I asked Moshe. "A helicopter can be called," he said, "It would land over there in the field." The space he indicated had to be a hundred yards or so distant. A gurney couldn't be used in the rutted field and the plants were almost four feet high. Moving a patient to the helicopter would be a real chore. I mentioned these details and asked, "Why not closer?" indicating the circular loading and parking drive in front of the buildings. There was a telephone or power pole and a flagpole in the center. "The problem has never come up," he said, "We've never had such an emergency." "There's a proverb about fixing a roof before there's a storm," I said, "This place looks as if it was designed in the thirties by a civilian." "It was designed in the thirties. It was patterned from one of your depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps camps." "The news has been saying this area of the world is very tense and getting worse. Some people think the Arabs are up to something that's going to happen soon." Moshe and a couple of others who had stopped by just stared at me. "You carry rifles and practice defending the place from terrorists," I said, "Why not make it really defensible? All you have for cover is some cars, trucks, and farm equipment. Sandbags may be sort of unattractive, but they do stop bullets." Moshe told me he'd been in farming all his life and had been hired to make the kibbutz profitable, which he had done by streamlining operations and adding fee-paid participation in student digs. His mandatory military service had been spent as a supply clerk. "I'll mention your suggestions to the council," he said, "But I can tell you now that they won't appreciate the idea of having sandbags all over the place." "1967 happened six years ago," I said, "What was here back then?" "Nothing," said Moshe proudly, "This farm was a piece of the desert in 1967." "It wouldn't be here at all if there weren't access roads and easy terrain, just like everywhere else people farm. They also make it ideal for troop and tank movement. Did you have to clear out any metal debris to start plowing around here?" Moshe just looked at me for a moment. "Yes. Our jets destroyed a convoy of several vehicles on the road that brought you here. We found vehicle parts in many of the fields as we plowed. In fact, we removed a burned-out tank from the field where we now grow soybeans." He paused. "I see what you mean, but unless there's an imminent threat, it may be hard to convince those who are happy with things as they are. We did win that war, after all." I looked back at him for a moment, then asked, "Can you get us some sandbags? If they became necessary, you have people enough to fill and place them almost overnight. If they aren't used, we can always send them back or pack something in them." "That would be a major requisition. The council would have to approve such a request, then the request would have to be forwarded to the military. As I said, I'll make your recommendations known. It is all I can do." Someone called his name and Moshe headed that direction. My day-before jeep driver was standing nearby, apparently to become my next guide, if necessary. I looked at him and said, "Damn near half the people here are ex-military or current reserve military. I can't believe that nobody's brought this up before." "You're right, it has been mentioned. But how would sandbags and fortifications look in tourist and student travel brochures like the one that brought you here?"

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"Probably better than student and tourist body bags after an attack." Susanne was back that afternoon with a cast on her hand and wrist and a note from the doctor for me concerning her follow-up treatment. He'd apparently assumed I had joined the kibbutz as a medic. I had Susanne transcribe the note into English for me and then take me to see the goat she'd slugged. The goat was a mean little shit that had literally been too mean for its previous home, where there were more small children wandering about. I found a bit of rope and tossed a loop over his horns, then pulled him up tight to a fencepost and cinched it close to the ground. When he seemed to calm down a bit, I hobbled his legs and pushed him onto his side, allowing some slack to the horns so he could breathe. I patted and talked as I checked him over, and after a while he seemed more or less resigned to the indignity. His legs, nose, and jaw were intact and there was nothing I could do if he had cracked ribs, so I slipped the now-slack ropes off his horns and stepped back. He lay there for a moment before realizing he was free again, then bolted to his feet. After shaking himself, he glared at me and charged. I stepped to one side and let him slam into the fencepost. He almost sat down from the impact. His legs wobbled a moment, then he pulled himself together for another run at me. This time I grabbed a horn and swung the eighty-pound little monster off the ground and into the air and kept him there in a spin for a few moments. When I let him down, he wobbled away a few feet and retched, but he was a determined little soul. He got turned around and came at me again, weaving like a drunk the first few steps. After three such spin sessions, he decided he'd had enough and went to stand in a far corner of the pen, breathing hard and glaring at me. I turned around and put a foot on the fence rail by the fence post, glancing back as I did so to see what he'd do. Susanne said, "Look out!" The nasty little monster had himself up to speed and was coming straight for me. I waited till the last second and boosted myself up. The goat slammed into the fencepost again, this time hard enough to rebound onto his ass. He was glazed, dazed, and barely conscious as I let myself back down, but he was struggling to his feet as I reached for his horns. I lifted him completely off the ground in one sweeping move and hung his horns over the top rail of the fence. After a while his kicking and squealing stopped and I went over to talk with him again. In a moderate, conversational tone, I said, "You are without a doubt the nastiest, meanest, sneakiest, ugliest little bastard I've ever had the displeasure to call a patient. You are going to hang here while I check you over again, and when I let you down, you are going to remember me for the rest of your obnoxious little life, however long that may actually be." As I talked to him, I searched him for bruisings and damages that I couldn't roll him over to check for when he was on the ground. There were a couple of lumpy spots on his lower hind legs that didn't seem to belong there. I pointed them out to Susanne. "Old leg fractures, I think. He spent some time in agony from these, and he may hate people for a good reason. Can you find out where he came from and who was in charge of him? How and when his legs were cracked?" "I don't know. I can try. What good would it do?" "Someone doesn't need to be in charge of animals, that's all. Young goats play by butting each other. Sometimes they butt people, too, but they can be trained out of it if the training starts early. This wasn't necessary." "It may have been someone on temporary duty, not a regular keeper." "You'd better hope that person never has to babysit, then," I said, "If he or she can do this to a playful young goat, I wouldn't put child abuse past them, either. Come on." We left the goat hanging on the fence and went behind the processing building to put some of the better green scraps into a paper bag, then

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returned to the pen. I waved a handful of the vegetable scrap near the goat's nose and watched his eyes try to focus on them. He'd been on the fence long enough to calm down thoroughly, so I hoisted him up and off the rail and lowered him to his feet with his nose almost in the scrap bag. He looked up at me blankly and warily, as if confused about what was going on. I reached in the bag and held a wad of the scrap out to him, then dropped it by the bag. After a moment, he lowered his head and sniffed it, all the time keeping an eye on me. Once he had taken his first bite, I seemed to cease to exist for him. I turned and walked to the fencepost without being attacked from behind, so I hopped the fence and told Susanne that now was the time to get in there and say nice things to the goat if she was going to have to deal with him again in her duties. She declined. "I won't be working around him again. I'd rather shoot him and give him to the kitchen," she said, "We can always get another goat." "Are you going to try to find out how his legs were broken?" "Yes, I'm going to do that. I think you may be right about not letting that person babysit." Other than being asked to look at a few other peoples' dings and scratches I simply killed the rest of the week with a book and conversation. They never bothered moving me out of the cabin because it was right next door to the dispensary building. When no archaeology students had appeared by Friday mid-afternoon, I went to ask Moshe what was holding things up. I heard him telling someone to find me and ask me to come to his office as I entered the hall. Hannah stepped into the hall from his office. "I heard," I said, knocking on the doorframe, "I'm already here, Moshe. What's up?" He waved a slip of paper at me. "I had to write you another check, I'm afraid. The dig program has been suspended for the time being." "Suspended why?" I took the check and pocketed it. "Politicians are making rude noises at each other again. Or, should I say, more rude noises than usual. There's talk of troop buildups along the borders. Don't be surprised if they start sending tourists home soon." "That won't work for me at the moment. I guess I'd better call Yasha and maybe get in touch with some other people." "Use the phone in the other office for privacy," he said, "We can only call within Israel unless we link to an outside line through an operator." I called Yasha's number. A woman's voice answered, took my info, and said someone would call me back shortly. I waited only a few minutes until the phone rang. A man's voice asked, "You are Mr.Howdershelt?" I said I was. "Then you should pack and continue your vacation in another country. You still have the money John gave you?" "I still have it. Now I'm wondering how you knew about it." He laughed. "Good. The south of France is nice this time of year, and they aren't known to be overly cooperative concerning U.S. bureaucratic affairs such as the one involving you." "Sounds good to me," I said, "I wonder, could you do me a small favor?" "That would depend, of course, on what that favor might be." "This kibbutz needs sandbags. It's a showpiece of vulnerability." "You want sandbags? We don't have any here that I'm aware of. That would be an entirely different department. Has anyone there made such a request?" "I don't know. I doubt it. They're too worried about their public image here. I do know they don't have bags, and I thought you might know where I could lay hands on some in a hurry." "Ah!" laughed Yasha, "So they're to be a personal favor?" "Guess so," I said, "A thousand ought to be a good start. They can't cost more than a dime apiece, whatever that is in your money. I can probably

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spare it." Yasha laughed again and said, "You're serious! All right, I'll have one of the people here look into it and call you back. Someone here must know where to get sandbags, but someone there will have to authorize them as a request." "Moshe might do it. Thanks. I can pay whoever delivers them if that's how they want it." "Thanks for the offer, Ed, but I believe we can find a way to cover the expense. Is there anything else on your Channuka list?" "My what?" "That would be like a Christmas list if it existed." "Oh. No, I guess not. Thanks for your help, Yasha." We rang off and I went back around to Moshe's office to let him know he'd be receiving some sandbags soon. His reaction wasn't what I'd expected. I'd figured he'd either be pleased that bags were coming or pissed that I'd gone outside the system. Instead, he started laughing and couldn't seem to stop for a while. It got the attention of a number of people in the adjoining rooms, who came to see what the fuss was about. Moshe saw their questioning faces and laughed even harder as he tried to tell them what was so funny. "The Israeli secret service may be sending us a present soon! Ed just asked the Deputy Director of the Mossad to send us some SANDBAGS!" I was no less startled than anyone else. I'd had no idea who Yasha was other than someone I was supposed to call if I needed help. There were titters and guffaws and some shocked faces, but among them stood Hannah, apparently unaffected by the hilarity. She waited for the laughter to die down and asked, "Where should we put them?" Fact: A Jewish weekend wasn't what I was used to. In the States or Germany I'd have found a party or headed down to the local disco or a bar with a pool table. Not in Israel. I settled for some time on the pool table in the rec room and finished my book. Several people asked when I expected to have to leave and where I'd go, but I couldn't give them an answer. I'd been to France and disliked the French attitudes toward Americans. No European country would provide any particular shelter or anonymity and the matter of the Senate subpoenas had yet to be resolved, so I really hadn't considered leaving unless I was forced to do so. On Monday morning two IDF deuce-and-a-half trucks arrived around eight with crates containing 2000 bags and a note on otherwise blank piece of typing paper that said, "Just in case." The crates were offloaded onto the porches of four of the buildings for lack of inside storage space. The council had convened for about fifteen minutes over lunch and decided that the Mossad wouldn't be sending sandbags as a joke or simply to please me. When a discussion ensued about where to get the dirt to fill the bags, I had to question that question. There's lots of dirt around a farm, after all. The woman in charge of something to do with vegetable production told me that all the rich, dark soil in which anything grew had been created or imported, and she couldn't see using it to fill the bags. Someone else asked if any of us had any idea how much dirt it would take to fill all those bags and made a remark about the crater that could create. "So let's make a fishtank," I said, "Channel a little irrigation from the well to fill it and keep it filled and get some catfish somewhere and..." I was interrupted. "What's a catfish?" some woman asked. Another woman recited a few of the Latin names for types of catfish and described them in general. Someone asked why anyone would want to raise fish like that. "Because they taste good," said Hannah. I looked at her in surprise. "They're a big business in the southern U.S. for that reason alone. They can

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also be fun to catch." Well, well. Gone, but not forgotten. I wondered if she ever missed the U.S. and all the things she grew up with. Probably, but apparently not enough to go back. A decision was made to mark off an area near the groves and redistribute the topsoil there to the fields, then to make a fishpond out of the resulting crater. Motion and second, hammer (big spoon) on table, and motion carried. It was decided that where to get the fish and what kind to raise would be grist for another meeting. Around two o'clock a guy showed up bleeding from a gash on his calf. I opened the dispensary and performed for an audience of about a dozen people. Moshe detailed the guy to help me clean and straighten the place after all the traffic had left and tossed me the front door key. "You may as well have this," he said, "I have another one." Over the next two weeks I treated minor injuries and illnesses no different from those I'd handled in other dispensaries. Susanne and David -the gash patient -- took an interest, so I taught them quite a bit of what I knew about general treatments. A fishpond was taking shape by the grove and the fronts and rears of each of the buildings were sandbagged two layers deep by the end of my third week at the kibbutz. News had it that while things were tense, as usual, along Israeli borders, nothing worth mentioning was going on. I figured by that time that John would be calling me soon to tell me things were all over and that I could return to Germany, but no such call had come by Thursday, October 4th, when Moshe called me into his office to take a call from Yasha, who advised me to ignore all press and news media and get my butt on a plane. "We disagree with the politicians," said Yasha, "And the politicians make the official statements on such matters. They don't want to hear us because they don't want to think the Arabs would do anything rash during their Ramadan and our Yom Kippur. We, on the other hand, think something is up on the other side of the river. I can't give you details, of course, but I would be happy to make an airline reservation for you." "That bad? Okay, then. I can be back in Jerusalem tomorrow. Any suggestions for a destination other than France or Africa?" "It's no time to be too picky, Ed. I'll book you to Paris and you can figure it out from there. If things get hectic, we may be out of touch, so write down this number. When you get to Paris, call it and they'll let me know you got there." "Okay, got it. I'll call you when I get to town. Thanks again, Yasha." Moshe was looking at me as I hung up the phone. I gave him the gist of my conversation with Yasha. "So, when's the next bus to Sinjil?" I asked. "Not until tomorrow," said Moshe, "It only goes by here twice a day." "I'll take the morning bus, then. I'll have to change to another one for Jerusalem." That evening, everybody seemed to have something to say to me and a number of people presented me with token gifts. Even Hannah had something for me. She pressed a slip of paper into my hand and said, "I have a friend in Paris. Her name is Audrea. Call her when you get there. Tell her Chrissie says hello." "Chrissie?" Hannah smiled. "I didn't use my real name when we went to the bars and discos." I smiled back and said, "You don't look at all like a Chrissie, Hannah." "I used to, now and then. High heels and short skirts and big hair." "Wish I'd been there. You look great in shorts and sneakers here, but I'll bet you were stunningly beautiful in Paris." "I was," she said with a grin, "Believe me, I was."

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She stepped forward to give me a quick kiss, which surprised the hell out of me, then giggled at my reaction. "You want to know why I kept you at a distance all month, Ed?" "Because I'm not Jewish?" I grinned. "Actually, yes, that was part of it. But the real reason was that I didn't want to keep you at a distance, and I knew that you'd be leaving too soon." "Thank you," I said, "And just so you know, I really was leering at your legs that first day. The scar was just an excuse that got me nowhere. You're very beautiful, Hannah." Hannah remained after dinner and after the others had left my impromptu going-away gathering. Someone looked the other way when I snagged another cold bottle of wine from the fridge, and we sat talking about the states, the situation that was forcing me to leave, and many other things about ourselves for some time. Around eight o'clock, Hannah seriously surprised me again. She stood up, stretched, and asked, "Can we go back to your cabin? Now?" I tried not to scramble to my feet like an idiot. I like to think I succeeded, but I'll never really know if her smile was because she was getting her wish or because I knocked over the lamp in my haste to comply with her wish. We splurged. We overindulged. There was a long, hot shower with much giggling and carrying on, during which I washed her hair and offered to lick her dry later. I lavished attention on her and spent a couple of hours finding ways to make her sigh with pleasure. Hannah was a most willing recipient of these attentions. It was sometime after midnight before we had to give in to sleep. The bus was due around eight. Hannah and I went to breakfast together at about seven and discovered that our evening was almost common knowledge already. More than a few people seemed to be grinning at us where before there might only have been a slight smile in greeting. Susanne was flatly staring at me from a few seats away at one point. I waved and smiled. She reddened considerably and dove back into her meal. "What are they saying about us?" I asked Hannah in a whisper. "Not us. You," she answered, "Some of the women are very speculative today. We seem to have kept a few people up last night." "We didn't make that much noise," I said. "That one," she said, pointing with her fork at a woman at the other table, "Just told her friend that she had to move her chair to the middle window to hear us better, so I guess we weren't really all that loud." I looked where Hannah was pointing just as the woman turned to look at us. She turned beet red and tried to cover with a nod and a smile, then dropped her fork and had to fish it out of her plate. Hannah declined to wait with me for the bus, opting instead to kiss me goodbye when I went to the cabin to get my things. Moshe shook my hand and wished me luck, as did a few others who weren't already in the fields or working elsewhere. By noon I was in Sinjil and by evening I was at the same hotel behind the King David Hotel that I'd used when I first arrived in Jerusalem. -------*Chapter Fifteen* When I called the airline the woman said my tickets could be picked up at the airport and that I was, indeed, booked on a flight to Paris on Saturday evening. She also made mention of the decidedly high number of reservations for flights leaving Israel and suggested strongly that I get there early and get logged in immediately to avoid losing my seat during final call, fifteen minutes before departure. I assured her that I'd be there. I left a message for Yasha that I was in town and ready to go, then went to find some food and drink and have a look around. Other than the fact that there seemed to be fewer people milling on the streets than I remembered

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from my last visit, things looked fairly normal. Saturday I spent as a tourist, wandering about with a cheap camera. Toward evening, I decided to splurge and have dinner in a world-famous hotel, so I walked the few blocks to the King David and ordered a steak with some German beer. I had finished my meal and almost finished my beer when the windows exploded on the other side of the doorway from my table. I pulled my table over for cover, making so much noise that my already-ringing ears almost didn't hear the dull clunking and skittering of metal across the hard floor. Someone had tossed a grenade through the doorway. Where there's one, there may be more. I got as small as possible behind my table and covered my ears. Two explosions later I was still able to hear well enough to hear the small-arms fire in the street. When nothing more happened after a few moments, I peeked around the table. The immediate danger seemed over. Looking around, I saw several people injured or dead and a few who were heading for the door. There were bits of glass and other debris everywhere. I went to the bar in the next room and grabbed a tray of rolled cloth napkins, then returned to use them as bandages. Of the eight people hit by shrapnel, the two who had been sitting nearest to the windows were the only ones to die. The woman mumbled something and closed her eyes the final time as I examined her. The man was already dead. I left them to tend the others in the restaurant. A waiter was the worst off. He'd been standing and caught a lot more shrapnel than those who'd been sitting down. A hotel employee appeared and I detailed him to find me some more clean napkins and some real medical help. "Napkins first!" I yelled as he left he waved back as he ran to the bar. He came back almost instantly with another two trays of rolled-up cloth napkins, then he disappeared. I had to tie off arms and legs on a couple of people to stop the bleeding and a young woman was screaming hysterically, repeatedly, until I draped a napkin over her rather moderate leg injury and told her to hold it there. When her blood started seeping through the napkin she began screaming again, so I tore the wrapper off one of the champagne bottles on a nearby shelf and put the plastic wrap over the first napkin before applying a second. When no blood soaked through, her screams stopped again. I tried to tell her she wasn't seriously injured, but I don't think the words got through her wall-eyed terror. One woman couldn't seem to stop staring at the dead woman by the window. She lay next to a man who was unconscious and she looked as if she might start screaming, too, as she tried to move herself in their direction, so I threw tablecloths over both bodies and returned to see if there was any more I could do for her at the moment. There appeared not to be, and she stopped trying to go to them, so I went to the bar phone and tried to get someone on the line. It was dead. So was the hall phone. I stepped outside to see if there was a cop who could call an ambulance and saw just how bad things were. Someone had apparently tossed grenades at random along the street. The aftermath was chaotic and bloody, as you'd expect. Someone was yelling at me on my right. I turned to see the cop I'd been looking for and pointed into the restaurant rather than try to yell above the noise in English. I held up six fingers and then put a thumb up, then held up two fingers and put a thumb down. He understood well enough to go see for himself. I followed. The screamer had moved to be with the others and made her leg worse. I checked and found the blood was no longer just seeping. It was now flowing out of the wound and although she was no longer screaming repetitiously, she was more agitated than ever. When she tried to get to her feet, something in the leg popped audibly. Blood began spurting out. I grabbed her to put her back down and the cop tried to help me, but she was unbelievably strong in her panic. We managed to drag her to the staircase and tied her wrists to the handrail supports. The cop held her legs so I could tie off her bleeding with

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knotted napkins. We then tied her legs together, to limit her frantic thrashing. Then her goddamned screaming started again. The woman who had been staring at the dead slowly rose from the floor, tottered over to the screamer, and belted her in the face with a ringing open hand slap that was hard enough to rock the screamer's head back against the railings. When the woman's eyes uncrossed, she didn't begin screaming again. The other woman went back to where she'd been lying on the floor and pulled up a chair. I got her attention, then pointed to several places on her arm, chest, and hip where shrapnel or glass had entered. I gestured that she should lie back down, but she shook her head, pointing at the man she'd been with. I pointed to several places along his torso and arm, then shrugged slightly and patted his shoulder, saying, "Okay. Okay." She got the message. He didn't seem seriously hurt. She pointed to her purse. I retrieved it for her. She pulled out a large ID badge with a clip at the top. The word 'hospital' appeared amidst the Hebrew characters and her name had abbreviations after it. On the back of the badge she was identified as a nurse in several languages. Looking around, she gave me a questioning gaze. I held up a napkin and shrugged. She got that. Nothing else to work with. I suggested again that she get back down on the floor. She looked over at the woman tied to the rails and made motions around her wrists, then pulled them apart. I got her message. Untie the girl. I went to the girl and untied her hands. As she rubbed her wrists she gazed first at me and then at the cop. There was no accusation in her look, just simple acceptance of what had happened to her and why. I guided her attention to her injured leg and the knotted-napkin tourniquet on her thigh. I put both my hands over it and said "No" a few times. She raised both her hands to show she knew to leave it alone. I untied her legs and went back to have a look at the others. One of the men had blood trickling from his mouth. It was pink, so I opened his coat to make sure that the punctured lung was toward the floor. It was. There was literally nothing more I could do for anyone there. The cop understood. He seemed suddenly to have an idea and said something I didn't understand before jogging out the front door. A few minutes later several men in IDF uniforms came through the door. I was sitting in a chair next to the woman who wouldn't lie down. A guy dashed to the bodies on the floor and checked them, then to the sitting woman, then to me. I shook my head and waved him off. He proceeded around the room in that manner, checking everybody. The cop came in with someone who seemed to have some rank. Two of the men snapped to attention, but the apparent-medic just glanced up from retying the girl's tourniquet and nodded. The guy with the rank looked at me for a moment and said, "He says you speak English. Are you English?" He certainly sounded English. "American. It looks like a war out there." I gestured to the street. "Close enough. You treated these people?" I nodded. "Your passport, please?" "At my hotel." I gave him the name. "Would a driver's license do for now?" "No, but I'd like to see it anyway." He said something to one of the men that included my name, read from my license, and my hotel's name and showed him my license. The man took a good look at me and dashed out into the night. "I'm Levi Goldstein," the man said to me. "You don't have any plans for the evening, do you?" "My flight to Paris is at ten." "All airports have been closed. They will need some repair before they can be used." "Then I guess I don't have any plans for the evening." I shrugged and pulled up a couple of chairs. As I sat down, I said, "The dinner was good,

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though." He didn't sit down, but he chuckled. "I don't think you'll have to pay for it. That's a small blessing, I know, but a blessing nonetheless. Did you know any of these people, or were you dining alone?" "Alone. I've been at a kibbutz for the last month. Everyone I know is there except for Yasha in Tel Aviv, and I've never even met him except by phone." "Yasha who?" "I don't know his last name. All I have is a phone number. Yasha helped my kibbutz get some sandbags, so he must be somebody worth knowing." I didn't say anything about the Mossad or that Moshe had referred to Yasha as the deputy director. It would sound like name-dropping and the phones were out, anyway. No way to check it out. "Give me the phone number," said Levi. I did. "That's not a Tel Aviv number. It's something like your American toll-free numbers. I may not be able to call it, but I can find out who it belongs to. You may remain here," he said, stepping out of the restaurant to a vehicle and keying a radio microphone. His runner came back with my passport in hand. A few minutes later he came back in and handed me my passport. "Your friend Yasha has a unique job," said Levi. "That much I'd already found out." "His office is not in Tel Aviv. He's here in Jerusalem, about ten blocks from here." "That I didn't know. This isn't just a terrorist attack, is it?" "Israel has been attacked by both the Syrians and Egyptians and perhaps Jordan." I gave the situation thought as the man talked with his two troops. "Well," I said, "If I can't get out of Israel, how can I get back to my kibbutz?" "Tonight? You can't. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not. You're free to go, by the way." I took a last look into the restaurant. The nurse was the only one looking in my direction, but it was a faraway look that really sees nothing not already seen. I returned to my hotel to consider what to do next. Sleep came easily enough the first time, but I was startled awake by the sound of gunfire from some distance down the street. It took longer to get to sleep the second time and morning came far too early to suit me. My landlady had breakfast on the table downstairs as if nothing unusual was happening all around us. Vehicles passing the window were almost all military, as were the people. It took me a moment to realize that all those uniforms were on people who yesterday wore civilian clothes. The radio was chattering endlessly in Hebrew in the next room, surrounded by half a dozen men and women who were also mostly in uniform. Now and then one of them commented or groaned aloud. What sounded like a simple list read aloud finally came to an end and the group broke up to leave the hotel. "Those were casualty lists and unit call-ups," said a familiar woman's voice to my left, "Just like the last time, in 1967. They went on for hours sometimes." I turned to see Susanne pouring herself a coffee. "Thanks," I said, "Figured it was something like that. What are you doing here?" "Looking for you. We heard that the airport closed last night and Moshe figured that if you couldn't get out of the country you might like to come back." "Moshe did a lot more figuring than that if he knew where to tell you to look for me." Susanne smiled. "Probably so. If you decide to come back, I'm to take you a couple of places first for paperwork." She paused. "So, have you found a way to leave?" "Something happened last night." I told her about my evening. "I think I'd rather stay."

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"I don't know why you would," she said, "But you can tell me about it on the way. David will be back here with the jeep after he picks up a few things." We sat drinking coffee until he returned. "A few things" turned out to be a trailer full of ammunition, anti-tank tubes, and other supplies that looked as if they'd been loaded in a hurry. We took a few minutes to redistribute the load and pulled the tarp back over it, then headed to an office building where I was given forms to sign. A man of about forty-five in a uniform with no insignia came out of one of the offices to take my paperwork. He stood a new-looking M-16 next to my chair and introduced himself during a handshake. "I'm Yasha. Glad to meet you, Ed." "Likewise, sir. You've been a big help to us." David and Susanne seemed in awe of him as I introduced them. He shook hands with each and said, "Sorry, but we are a bit busy at the moment, so I'm going to have to cut this short. I have a couple of things for you, Ed." He handed me a manila envelope and said, "From John and Linda. It's a correspondence printout." Yasha then picked up the M-16 and handed it to me. I released the magazine and saw it was full, then put it back into the rifle. "You may need this," he said, "This one's been issued to Bruno Stachel. You have that ID with you?" I nodded. "Good. We can't issue you one in your own name, by law, but we can't let you wander around without one at the moment, either. You also get a genuine, verifiable press ID in your own name, courtesy of someone named Marsha who handles PR for John. You're a freelance reporter if necessary, but lose the rifle before you show the ID." He didn't bother to clarify what would make that necessary as he gave me the card and folder. He didn't have to. A woman appeared with a box. From it Yasha handed me three sets of fatigue uniforms, boots, a bandoleer of ammo, and a pistol belt with two pouches and a canteen on it. Each pouch held two full magazines for the M-16. "If we're going to mislay a rifle, we should also mislay some ammunition and a cleaning kit for it, as well, don't you think? Your friend Marsha told us your approximate clothing sizes, but not how she happened to know them. There are no insignias, and if they're too big, trade them with someone. Have a nice stay in Israel, Ed." We said our thanks and goodbyes and went back downstairs. I took a moment in the restroom to change into a uniform and bag my other clothes to stash in the jeep, then we were off through the streets of Jerusalem on our way back to the kibbutz. Several blocks rolled by before I realized I still didn't know Yasha's last name. I had thought that there might be gunfire or worse on any street in the city as there had been in Saigon and Hue, but while we saw mostly military people and vehicles along the way to Sinjil, we saw no violent activities. The jeep had no radio other than the 23-channel CB that served well enough around the farm. Susanne spent some time flipping the channels, hoping to find some news that wasn't purely rumor. She had no luck with it. We stopped in Sinjil to get gas and lunch and asked a few people how the war was going, but nobody could or would tell us more than we already knew. Susanne mentioned having an eerie feeling on the way to the kibbutz from Sinjil. I told her it was because we were being watched closely most of the way and pointed out likely spots for sentries along the roadsides. David laughed, but Susanne started looking for them. It soon became apparent that only the civilian airports had been closed. It seemed as if everything the military had that could fly was in the air at the same time. David suddenly shouted and pointed. There were two small blossoms of fire in the sky to the northwest. It was impossible to tell whether the planes had been IDF's or someone else's. The sound of jets overhead was so frequent it seemed almost incessant. Several times we joined or followed convoys of vehicles heading the same direction, but all of them took various roads leading elsewhere

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eventually. A jet made a strafing run on one convoy not long after it turned off the main road. We saw the jet and guessed it was after them, but the hill blocked our view of the attack. As the jet swung around for another pass, a trail of smoke rose to meet it. It jinked and swerved and managed to evade the missile and the pilot apparently decided not to make that second pass after all. We watched it head East toward the Jordan River, then continued our own journey's last twenty miles alone, anxiously watching the sky. Turning onto the lane to the kibbutz we were slowed by two mounds of dirt placed a few yards apart, each a bit larger than our jeep. We had to drive around each mound to continue up the lane, affording anyone defending the entrance ample time to shoot at anyone who didn't belong there. We didn't see any gunners, which meant either that we weren't supposed to see them or that preparations were still underway and incomplete. A tracked vehicle wouldn't need the road, and I doubted that a modern attacking army would be stupid enough to try to take other countries' property without tanks, at least, so the mounds had to be no more than redirectional devices. When we were about three hundred yards farther along the lane, I saw what was really intended for stopping tanks. Hannah and a couple of others were preparing a trench some distance to the side of the lane. In the trench were half a dozen or so LAWs. These are long green tubes with trigger handles. Open the caps at each end and pivot the sight up, then pull the trigger to send an armor-piercing rocket at your target. Hannah waved to us with one hand and lifted one of the LAW's with the other. We waved back at her. 'You betcha,' I thought, 'You'll feel invincible until you see a tank coming at you.' I wondered why anyone thought tanks or armored personnel carriers would bother with the lane in the first place, since a road of any sort is the best place to look for mines or ambushes in a war. David's words echoed my thoughts. "They seem to think a tank would use the lane," he said, "If I were in a tank, I wouldn't. I'd come right across the open fields." "Hopefully someone else has thought of that, too," said Susanne. Moshe met us as we entered the driveway circle and detailed a number of people to unload the trailer, then told David to put the trailer to work with someone who was hauling dirt and rocks somewhere after it was empty. The supplies disappeared into the area between two buildings where they'd set up a large green tent. Moshe turned to me. "I'm only asking out of curiosity. Why did you decide to come back out here? You could have remained in the city and looked for a way out." "A woman," I said, "She was in the restaurant last night when things blew up." "We should be using her as a recruiter, then," he laughed softly, "Who was she?" "No idea. A nurse, having dinner with someone. She reminded me of a woman I knew back in Virginia. Two men broke into her apartment and robbed and raped her. I saw her door open when I got home and thought she was moving things or something, so I leaned in to ask if she needed any help. She had the same look." After a moment, Moshe said, "I see. Here's the key to the dispensary." He handed me the key and asked if I needed any help. I said not, since there was nothing much to do to prepare the place. He detailed Susanne to me anyway and told her to get a radio for us. The rest of the day and much of the night was spent in last-minute preparations. Holes and trenches were dug or made deeper and close to a hundred yards of various crops were flattened around the compound in all directions by running a harvester in widening circles for a couple of hours. Most of the vehicles were parked next to or between buildings with their fuel tanks drained to provide extra protection. I supervised the installation of claymore mines in the grove and in the fields. When I instructed my crew to

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tie some of the claymores to the trees about a yard off the ground and some more in the branches above, facing downward and heavily camouflaged, they questioned me. "They'll be looking for more once the first ones have gone off at ground level. They'll be looking for wires and watching where they step and maybe they'll let a tank lead the way in. The wires for the upper claymores will be long, hanging loops that won't fall until the first claymores fire and release the retainers. Troops stick close behind tanks, so it doesn't matter whether the tank or the troops hit the wires. They'll get a hot shower." Next on the agenda was the filling of some old uniforms with sticks and filler materials to create dummies to tie into the trees. Their purpose was to draw fire when spotted and slow the enemy a bit. When we stood back to look, it seemed as if people were standing in the trees. Everyone agreed they looked real enough at a distance. I took some time to zero the sights on my newly-acquired M-16. The big coffee can fit loosely over the top of a fencepost about twenty-five yards from the dispensary. When it had been verified that preparations had ceased in that area, Moshe waved to me. It took three shots to tune the sights. I shot the can three times more to be sure the first hit wasn't luck, then cleaned and reloaded the weapon. As I was running a swab down the bore, I heard a shot and the can rang again. I looked to see who was shooting at it. Susanne. She had taken my former position at the sandbags and was smiling at me. I gave her a wry grin in return and finished cleaning my rifle. She fitted a new bore swab on the cleaning rod for her own weapon. "Ha!" said David, sitting on a nearby sandbag. "She can shoot, but can she cook?" Susanne grinned and gave him the Euro version of the finger, a backward 'V' sign. "That's something you may never know," she said. She put her weapon on 'safe', dropped the magazine, ejected the round in the chamber and put it back in the magazine, used the bore swab, and put the magazine back in the rifle. Click, clack, done. I whistled at her. "Moshe wants a general discussion before dinner," said Susanne, "Preparations." We joined her for a walk to the dining hall. Most of the group leaders were either there or on their way and maps lay on several tables. By dinnertime we knew generally who was going to be doing what, where, when, and how. Fallback and escape routes were identified. Spotter teams were assigned a few hilltops and would be dropped and picked up by jeeps in shifts of four hours each. They went to check their radios. It was decided that we should set up teams to fire at hostile aircraft if they came in range. I showed them how the VC did it, with the old 'if it looks this big, lead it by this much' maxims of 'arm, hand, head' for measuring. Chances are we wouldn't hit any more planes than the VC had, but it would make them feel as if they weren't total victims and if they actually knocked one down or crippled it, it would be cause for celebration. There was no shortage of either .223 ammo or antitank tubes. Pairs of LAW's were buried in shallow trenches and covered at various points along the fencelines. The two jeeps were issued three each and spotter teams who might be trapped or have to run for it were issued both claymores and the LAW's. Eight M-60 machine guns were assigned to positions that would allow intersecting fields of fire around the compound. Moshe's map said we weren't that far from the border. I said I could envision troops arriving inside two days if they met little or no resistance. Moshe agreed, and said it was probably also likely that we'd be seeing hostile jets well before the troops. That was one of the reasons he was having everyone conduct business as usual in caring for the farm. It would keep them spread out and busy in the event of an air attack. He also had about half of us camping out instead of sleeping in the buildings, which would be obvious targets. Hannah met me on the way out and took my arm to guide me off to one

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side of the porch. "Where will you be sleeping, Ed?" "If that's an offer, you already know the answer. If it isn't, I'll be in the cabin." "It's an offer," she said, tiptoeing to kiss me, "But I'd rather be in a tent until this is over. I've seen what rockets can do to buildings." "The cabin's pretty small, Hannah. They'd have to get lucky." "I've seen jets hit small targets." "I'm convinced, then," I said, "And if you're there, anything will be perfect." Hannah grinned. "You're easy," she said, then she kissed me and walked away. Later in the evening a single military 3/4-ton truck arrived and sat beeping it's horn by the dirt mounds. I heard our spotter confirm IDF markings and uniforms by radio. Somebody went out to the truck in a jeep and brought back the driver, a woman named Rachel. Her co-driver had remained with the truck. She delivered a good-sized box to Moshe and was taken back to her truck with a couple of servings of our dinner and many thanks. While they ate, we used the jeep to unload and transport the contents of the truck. The kibbutz was now in possession of a dozen SAM missiles, courtesy of someone in the IDF. These shoulder-to-air missiles had limited range, but could be highly effective if used properly. Moshe briefed us on their use and had us divide them into three groups to be placed some distance apart around the compound. Hannah and I were assigned to a SAM site and would have to move her tent to accommodate matters. Hannah's dry comment was, "Good, we now have these SAM's. Bad, because someone seems to think we may need them." The main building and the dining hall would remain active all night. All exterior lightings were turned off and blankets were hung to cover windows that had no shades. The password question and answer for the evening were issued. "London" was the question word. "Paris" was the response word. People were reminded that frightened sentries tend to shoot, and that all sentries should be considered frightened sentries. Moshe had everyone in the dining hall repeat the words once. Runners and escorts were assigned to various posts and people and there was a last minute equipment check before everyone dispersed into what seemed utter darkness outside. Hannah helped me carry a case of grenades to our new location. I was whistling softly as we reassembled our tent, combining bits and pieces of classical music into a melange that I could modify and continuously rework. I always seem to start from Brahms' 2nd when I do that, and Hannah remarked that she had hardly expected to hear anything other than rock or country from me. I feigned shock and acted hurt. "I'm being maligned by the woman I came to rescue," I announced to the world. Someone nearby laughed and said with a German accent, "You know how women can be." He instantly made a sound of pain and I heard a slapping sound. A woman's voice carried to us in the darkness, "NOW he knows how women can be." People were laughing around us. The guy said, "It's always the same place on the same arm. I hardly even feel it anymore." Smack. "Ow!" "You felt that, didn't you?" As the gabble of voices continued around us, Hannah and I finished the tent. Someone asked how the hell we were supposed to see anything, and someone else said it was more a matter of listening and feeling than seeing. I moved among the tents handing out grenades in pairs after making sure someone in the tent had had some training with them. A few seemed to wonder why we needed grenades. "You and your rifle flash can become a target. If you use a grenade, you don't have that problem," said David from a few tents away. "Just be sure

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you're throwing it at the enemy." He repeated the words in Hebrew. There were a couple of laughs and one, "Indeed so." Someone came along with a red-lighted flashlight and asked if anyone needed to visit the toilets or fill canteens. I realized that this is what Moshe had meant by designating escorts. With a large number of half-trained and untrained people in total darkness, it made sense, but it made the whole thing feel like a basic-training exercise to me, even with the occasional sound of jets overhead to lend the situation some reality. "The use of passwords will begin in one hour," he said, "If you are not with an escort, you will stay with your tents. Smoke only inside your tents. Get some sleep if you can. Those assigned watches will be wakened fifteen minutes early to prepare." "Why wait an hour to use passwords? Why not start now?" asked a voice. "I don't know," said the escort, "If you figure it out, you can tell me." Hannah and I were sitting just outside our tent, close enough to feel each others' presence even though we weren't touching. I vaguely heard her go through the motions of taking a quick drink from her canteen, recapping it, and putting it back. She asked me something. I was so lost in thought that I had to ask her to repeat the question. Hannah said, "You're so quiet, suddenly. What are you thinking about?" "Other times and places." "Were there women in these other times and places?" "Nope. Just other times like this in worse places than this." "What made them worse places than this?" I laughed softly. "Well, for one thing, there were no women in any of them." Hannah chuckled. "Okay. What else?" "They were holes in the ground. Listening Posts. We listened to the night and hoped we wouldn't be the ones to hear the first signs of an attack, because the guys in the LP holes were the first ones to meet the enemy. Most didn't survive those meetings." I could feel her demeanor change, even though I could barely make out her form in the darkness. Her hand found my arm and squeezed softly. "Did you know it could be like this when you decided to come back to us?" she asked. "Yes. It couldn't be any other way out here. Hunker and wait. Hope the enemy goes around us and doesn't waste time or ammo on this particular bit of dirt. Hope the tanks are hit before they can get this far. Hope the jets don't waste fuel and ammo on farms. Hope the war happens somewhere else altogether." I knew others around us could hear our words and wondered what they were thinking. "So why did you come back out here, Ed?" After a moment, I simply said, "You. Susanne. Others here. A woman in the restaurant. The whole damned situation. It felt right to stay, so I stayed." A man's voice from the darkness asked, "Do you think they'll go around us?" I didn't like my answer. It took a moment to get it out. "No, I don't. Their objective is to eliminate Israel completely. Even if they go around us on the way in, they'll come back for us, sooner or later, if they can." Someone said, "You sound as if you think they'll win." "I don't mean to sound like that," I said, "Israel has a helluva lot of jets and helicopters, which can kill tanks, other helicopters, other jets, and troops, but how many Arabs are there? How good are their pilots? Last I heard, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt were attacking. What if Iraq, Iran, and the others attack, too? The Saudis backed the 1967 war. Who is backing this one? The Russians? Those are big odds. I wouldn't be surprised to see America jump into this, but I'd expect to see enemy tanks in our fields first. We're a lot closer to any front than they are." "That just means it's up to us to stop as many as we can," said someone

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else. Someone strongly agreed with him and a babble of bravado rose among the tents and continued for some moments before tapering down. Someone else said, "I think we're out here to slow them down. We're almost all reserve military. Why weren't we called to our units? I was told to stay here, and I'm a vehicle mechanic. They know all of us are out here, but only a few of us were called to our reserve units." "You fix things when you have time," said a woman, "I don't think there will be time to fix much for a while. They know where to find you later." The distant sounds of jets had become so commonplace that people barely looked up anymore, but suddenly there appeared in the distance of the western sky the bright blossoms of aircraft exploding in flight. One, two ... three ... four. It was impossible to tell which side they belonged to or which way they were going. The darkness around me was silent until well after the last of the blossoms had faded. -------*Chapter Sixteen* Another escort came by the tent. This time Hannah and I decided to visit the restrooms and see what might be available in the dining hall during our fifteen minutes of freedom. Each doorway in use had been outfitted with a wooden frame on the inside, upon which were hung heavy woolen blankets to block light from escaping. You entered, closed the door, then pushed past the blankets to enter the room beyond. To either side of each door were two guards and a few feet in front of the opening was a table with various foods and pastries and a coffee pot. I was refilling my canteen when Hannah came in behind me. "David said there's a television in the back," she said. One of the guards said, "There is," and pointed to an office. Hannah took a coffee and a roll on her way to the office. I didn't follow. After a glance back, she continued on. "You don't want to see it?" asked the guard. "Ten minutes of watching the war on TV won't tell me anything," I said, "All I want to know is how long we have until they get here." "We can hold them near the border." He didn't sound convinced. I just looked at him. He said, "We did it before and we can do it again. You aren't one of us. You don't understand." "Not one of you? What the hell does that have to do with the progress of the war?" He stood by his remark. "You aren't a Jew. You can't understand." "And you don't seem to understand that you don't have to be Jewish to give a damn." I left him and went to sit on the porch with a cup of coffee and a roll. Ten minutes later Hannah came out, almost walking into me before her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She didn't seem happy as she sat down next to me to wait for our escort. "No new news?" I asked, "Or just bad news?" "High casualties for both sides," she said, "The worst seems to be in the Golan Heights and along the southern border. Tanks came across the river on pontoon bridges at night and hit the Bar-Lev line hard. They had to evacuate. One newsman called it an air and armor war, so far." "Anything about how far from us the bad guys are?" "No, but Moshe says we aren't likely to even see them for another day or more, depending on how things go. Maybe their planes, but that's all." "That's enough," I said. "Are you going to be able to sleep tonight?" "I think so. Why?" "A lot of people won't. They'll be dragging ass tomorrow. Duties and details will have to be covered, then we'll face another night like tonight, the enemy will be that much closer, and everyone will be dog-tired and either sleeping or freaking out." "Better tell Moshe. He probably knows it, but it can't hurt to mention

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it." We went back inside and found Moshe at his desk. I told him my thoughts and he said he'd already considered that. People would have light, short workdays for the duration of the crisis. The watches would be two hours instead of four and coffee would be available anywhere, anytime. He seemed to have it pretty well covered. Back at our tent there seemed to be a quiet that hadn't been there before, but there were other sounds, as well. Soft groanings and whispers and gaspings. Hannah giggled softly and put a hand on my shoulder. "You hear that?" she whispered. "Sure do," I whispered back, "But I don't think it's an enemy sneaking in." "There must be half a dozen couples going at it. I wonder how it got started." I followed her arm with my hand until I cupped her face and pulled her to me for a kiss. "Probably about like this," I said, "What do you think?" "Could be," said Hannah, "Or maybe like this..?" I felt her hand undoing my belt. We quietly joined the others in making the most of the darkness. We took our time and made it last and I managed to hold my climax until I could share in hers. "Now I know I'll get some sleep," said Hannah. She giggled softly. "I'll take that as a compliment, Ma'am. Me too." We used our tee-shirts to clean up. Only a few minutes later I heard her soft snoring, and not long after that I must have fallen asleep myself, because the next thing to assault my awareness was a thundering roar above me and bright sunlight. Hannah came instantly awake, too, and we wasted no time getting out of the tent with our weapons. People were on their feet around us, some holding the SAM launchers they'd been issued and wondering whether or not to do anything with them. A second jet followed the first over our heads as if in hot pursuit. It had Israeli markings. The pilot seemed to be waving to us. We waved back, of course, some with rifles and a few with the SAMs. The jets were Israeli. I first thought they were just having a little fun, giving us a loud wake-up call, but that soon ceased to make sense to me. As they circled for another flyover, it seemed to me that they were trying to accomplish something. The lead jet jinked hard and came at us directly from the east, followed by the second jet. As he passed low overhead, dead-level, he fired his guns in a quick burst, then nosed almost straight up. The second jet also tapped his guns as he passed over, then he, too, headed upward. They leveled off and headed due west together, then, when they were mere specks in the sky, separated when one of them seemed to go into a long, flat descent. I'd seen that sort of flying before. He was trying to draw fire even as he attacked something on the ground. The jet above would provide cover, then take his own turn. They'd been telling us to have a look to the west. I figured they'd tried to contact us by radio and failed. Someone's CB radio started yammering in Hebrew, so I looked to Hannah for translation. "Post four," she said, "They see eight tanks in the distance." "How far away?" I could no longer make out the jets against the sky. Guesswork only, but I figured the tanks to be over ten miles from our hilltop kibbutz. That's about how far jets had been from me at other times when they'd blended so totally invisibly into the sky so that even flashes of light from the wings were sometimes hard to see. A column of black smoke began to rise above the hill, then another. In short order there were four such columns of smoke. As the people on the kibbutz realized what the smoke meant, there were cheers and shouts. I saw David approaching us, his SAM launcher held crossways in his arms. He wasn't one of those cheering as he watched for activity in the sky. It seemed unlikely to me that so few tanks would be rolling around out

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here without air cover somewhere nearby. There was a blossom of fire in the sky in the distance, and suddenly more planes appeared as shining specks before disappearing again. Another column of smoke was rising from the ground as the jets engaged each other. Two seemed to split off from the others, one following the other. The one in the lead became a fireball before it got much closer to us and the trailing plane was suddenly swerving sharply. There was another explosion within the fireball of the first plane, and I realized that a missile had missed the second plane and mistaken the heat of the fireball for a target. The plane that had swerved seemed to be heading our direction and another jet was following it. The lead plane seemed to duck again and this time we could see the trail of smoke as a missile barely missed it. When he straightened out, he dropped altitude sharply and seemed to be heading straight for us, ducking and jinking frantically. People were almost panicking around me. Hannah ran the few feet back to the tent and picked up a SAM and David already had his on his shoulder. I tapped his other shoulder to get his attention as Hannah came to stand within a few feet of us. "If the one in front is ours," I said, "Let both of them go by, then fire at the rear plane's exhaust, just like the man told you. Okay?" David nodded and said, "Okay!" The planes were getting closer. "Hannah," I said, "If David fires, you fire, okay?" "Okay!" She was grinning at me like an excited kid. The lead oncoming jet rose, fell, and danced sharply sideways. A trail of smoke passed under him, barely missing his fuselage, and streaked well above the buildings just before the lead jet passed over us. It was Israeli. The pilot of the second jet must have seen us standing in the open with the SAMs. He banked hard left almost directly above us and broke off the chase. David and Hannah fired almost at the same time. Twin trails of smoke rose to follow the jet as it tried to escape and failed. Somewhere above the soy fields the missiles caught up to the jet and turned it into a fireball. The Israeli jet was swinging back around. He waggled his wings at us as he passed over the farm and headed back the way he'd come. The aerial battle in the western sky had continued. We'd been so wrapped up in our local affair that we'd forgotten about it for a few moments. There were blackish-grey puffs in the air from two other explosions to the west. A jet coming our way was trailing smoke and being followed. The jet we'd just rescued suddenly veered straight up, then appeared to roll over on it's back and corkscrew itself through the air. It fired a missile and then seemed to dive straight at the ground as the jet chasing the other jet banked away. The missile flew for less than two seconds before it turned another jet into a fireball. The jet trailing smoke was heading generally in our direction in what appeared to be a fairly straight line. The Israeli jet circled out a bit and seemed to be heading westward again, then it climbed sharply and fired a missile upward at another jet that was taking an interest in the smoking jet. As the smoking jet neared us, a trail of smoke extended from the chase plane, which then broke off and banked back westward, apparently blissfully unaware that a missile was heading straight for him. All we could do was watch as the line of smoke quickly closed the distance to the smoking jet. At the same time, the other line of smoke made contact with the enemy jet, turning it into another fiery blossom. The jet below was now heading toward the smoker, but it was well beyond too late to do anything but watch. The smoking jet seemed to lose a couple of pieces of itself only a second or so before the two missiles blew it apart. Most watched in shocked silence as debris fell from the sky. People around me began cheering again as a parachute deployed in the distance. I grabbed my medikit and ran to the jeep by the porch. David and Hannah were right behind me. David jumped into the driver's seat and Hannah climbed into the back as I took the passenger seat and off we went, following

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the driveways between the fields to meet the descending parachute. It touched down and collapsed not far ahead of us. The other jet circled widely as we approached, both keeping watch and waiting to see if we'd find the pilot alive. David took the jeep across the field from the end so that our wheels could go with the furrows instead of across them and we pulled up within a few feet of the downed pilot, who was struggling feebly to free himself from his parachute. We got it off him and got him to lie still for the moment. The pilot was alive, but barely conscious. He looked as if someone had used a baseball bat on his face and there was blood all the way to his lap. David unfolded the stretcher as I pulled his helmet off and tossed it into the back of the jeep. The jet came in low and waggled his wings at us, then veered away to the east. The three of us rolled the pilot onto the stretcher, then David and I hooked it across the back of the jeep. Hannah and I strapped it down as David turned us around and headed us back to the compound. I didn't know much about ejecting from aircraft, but unless the pilot had been injured beforehand, it seemed to me to be as dangerous as riding the damned plane down. The pilot was having trouble breathing. His nose was obviously broken and his eyes were swelling shut. Even running with the furrows, the jeep was bouncing too much to do much more than hold his head still until we got to the pathways. When the pilot started gagging and choking, I had David stop the jeep. We helped him to roll onto his side, as he seemed to want to do, then he screamed as his arm slipped and dangled oddly off the edge of the stretcher. We helped him as best we could by pulling it gently clear and supporting it. A gout of blood came from his mouth and nose. Hannah screamed, but the pilot's breathing was suddenly much deeper and easier and his eyes opened slightly through the swelling. He glanced at us, then his eyes closed and he passed out again. David and I took the pilot inside the dispensary and set the stretcher on the cleanup-table. I motioned to Hannah to shut the door and put on surgical gloves as Susanne opened a fresh packet of gauze pads near the sink. "Now's the time," I said as I rigged an IV, "To get that flight suit off him to see if he's hurt anywhere else. David, grab some scissors and start from the bottom. Hannah, you start from the top. Sleeves, pantslegs, and up the middle. I want it to fall off him when you're done. I'm going to immobilize that arm and clean him up so he can breathe better." I started by checking his nose and mouth for blockage. After I cleaned out his airways a bit, I set his nose and taped it in place. The cleaning shocked him awake to some degree, but not enough that he interfered with our efforts before he passed out again. His arm was another matter. There was a two-inch-wide dent in his upper forearm. Something must have slammed it pretty hard against something else. I figured the bone in there had been pinched instead of just cleanly broken. That meant it had splintered like bamboo instead of snapping. I couldn't imagine how such an injury had happened. Not long after we arrived back at the dispensary we could hear a helicopter in the distance. The best I could do was to gently pad the arm and immobilize it. I was taping the splints into place when Moshe and the military arrived. There were now six people in the room besides Hannah, David, Susanne, the pilot, and myself. "Pick out the medics in this bunch," I said to Hannah, "And tell the others politely to get out of here. Tell them the forearm was squashed like bamboo right here," I pointed, "That the other damage seems to be fairly superficial around the face and upper torso, and in the meantime I'll give them some gloves so they can get in here and take over." Hannah began to speak in Hebrew, but a firm, feminine voice interrupted her in English. "I'm a doctor, not a medic. He's right. Everybody out." She repeated it in Hebrew.

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I glanced up to see a stocky, red-haired woman in IDF-issue fatigues putting on a pair of surgical gloves by the sink. She grinned at me and asked, "Mind if I have a look?" "He's all yours," I said, moving aside for her. The others who had come in with her were grudgingly heading for the door. Susanne said she'd take them to the office. The woman looked the pilot over and checked my work, then suggested we help her move him to the gurney. "Does that X-ray machine work?" she asked. "It does," I said, "Recent inspection and calibration, too." I moved ahead to set up films and put on a radiation apron as they wheeled him into the little room and placed his arm over the target zone. "Ready," I said. They exited the zap room and I hit the button. The doctor went back in, moved the arm to another position, and taped it down again as I switched films. I took another shot of the arm and they wheeled him back out front. The doctor came over and asked how long it would take me to come up with pictures. I said not very long and she went back to the gurney to take another look at the pilot and rig a new IV bag. I went to the bathroom while Hannah bagged the pilot's flight suit and pocket stuff. When I came back, she and the doctor discussed something quickly and Hannah left with the bag. After another fifteen minutes of so of studying the pilot and making some notes, the doctor said something else to David and then came back over to me. "The pilot will be just fine and the young lady will be bringing us refreshments after she gives the bag to the others who came with me. You'll be receiving the shiny new gurney from the helicopter in exchange for this one. My name is Elena. What's yours?" The last part caught me off guard. Not Doctor Somebody? Elena? Okay. "I'm Ed." We shook hands, then she said, "I'm told someone here shot down an enemy plane." "The young lady you sent for refreshments and that young man over there were the ones who shot down the jet." She looked at David, who for some reason blushed slightly. Elena laughed. She waved him to join us and shook his hand, then hugged him briefly. He blushed again, worse than before. She laughed again and said something to him in Hebrew. He blushed a third time, making her laugh again. I just stood there, and it suddenly dawned on her that I didn't understand what she had said. "I can tell you're American. You don't speak Hebrew?" "Nope. I'm not Jewish, either, before you ask. It's a long story." "But you seem to be in command of this medical facility," she said, "How is that?" "Moshe needed a medic. He's..." She interrupted me. "I know who Moshe is. Tell me, Ed, why are you here in the middle of our war if you aren't one of us?" The way she asked the question bugged me. "I just am," I said in a flat tone. David spoke up. "Moshe trusts him, and he knows someone in the Mossad." Elena looked at me oddly. "The Mossad? How very interesting." I heard her tone. It was interesting to her, all right, but apparently not in a pleasant way. I didn't elaborate. If she wanted to know who, she'd ask. I went over to have a look at the pilot just as Hannah came back in with a tray of iced teas and pastries. Elena exclaimed something in Hebrew and embraced Hannah as soon as she'd put the tray down. Hannah stared surprisedly at David and me over Elena's shoulder. David shrugged. "We told her you helped shoot down the jet," he said. Elena said something else in Hebrew, partly while looking right at me. That bugged me, too. I checked the films and found they were ready, so I dried them and hung them on the light boxes. As the doctor came over, I said, "You have your pictures and there's

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nothing more I can do for the pilot. He needs a hospital. If you'll take over I have other things to do, Doctor." After a moment, Elena asked, "And what might those things be?" "Personal things. Breakfast. A shower. Coffee. Trivia like that." "I see. Well, I suppose you're right. You're all finished here." She turned back to Hannah and David and chattered something else in Hebrew as she looked at the films. Hannah and David looked at me and I looked at them for a moment. Noticing this, the doctor turned to me and asked, "Oh, are you still here? Was there something else?" I thought about keeping quiet, since I didn't know her rank or position other than that she was an officer and a doctor. Then I decided it didn't matter. "Yeah," I said, "There is something else. I've decided to wait and take that shower later. You're in MY office here, doctor. I'm the only medic these people have, for some reason. You don't dismiss me and you speak English about things that concern my office or you can take your patient and leave now. If you don't like that you can take it up with Moshe and find him another medic with equal or better experience." David actually paled. Hannah backed up a pace until the desk stopped her. Doc Elena just stood there, the crimson rising around her ears as her temper peaked. She started to speak, but I interrupted her. "Don't bother to bluster or threaten me. I'm needed here, not in jail, and someone's bound to be smart enough to realize that. You might even be able to get me removed from the country, but all that would do is take a medic away from this kibbutz. It isn't your business to question my motives for being here and I won't quietly tolerate your bigotry while there's a goddamned war on our doorstep, so if you can't treat me right, leave and let us get back to work." The doc was sizzling. She turned to Hannah and said something sharply in Hebrew. Hannah stared at her very briefly and then darted to the door. The doc turned back to me and said in an ominous tone, "We'll both wait right here for a few moments." I'd said all I had to say, so I said nothing. The doc turned back to the x-rays as if dismissing me altogether. David was staring at me as if I'd lost my mind. I grabbed a tea and a pastry and sat at my desk wondering how long it would remain my desk. About ten minutes passed before Moshe and the guys from the chopper arrived at the dispensary. Hannah was the last to come in, and she looked as if she would have preferred to wait outside. I stood up as Moshe approached the desk. "What happened?" he asked. The doctor started to speak, but Moshe held up a hand. "I was asking him, not you. He'll be here when you're gone, unless you arrest him or replace him. Ed is my only medical person. I was supposed to have two and never got them. I can understand why that could happen now, but we've been waiting for six months, so I'm sure you'll understand why I'm going to listen to what he has to say." When Moshe turned back to me, I said, "The doc doesn't like me being here because I'm not Jewish enough to suit her. I turned the pilot over to her and told her she could take her patient and leave if she couldn't get over her bigotry and treat me right." Moshe turned to the doctor and asked, "Is that correct?" After a moment, she nodded. "That is what he said." Moshe turned back to me. "Do you know who this woman is?" "Her name's Elena and she's a religious bigot with some rank on her collar." "She's also in charge of all medical facilities and personnel in this sector." "If that includes this one, you've just lost your only medic. I'm not backing down, here, Moshe. If she has a problem with my non-Jewishness, it's

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something she needs to deal with and keep to herself. There are important things to worry about right now." I paused to look at the doc and her group. "And what the hell is someone in her job doing out here? They could have sent any doctor. Why are all these brass hats out here with her?" Moshe sighed and named a politician I'd actually heard of at some time or other. "That's his son on the gurney, Ed. Two of these people are with the news service." I just looked at him for a moment. "Well damn. If you don't need me here, I'm going to take a shower and have breakfast. I guess you can let me know later if I still have a job." Moshe nodded and gestured at the door. I shrugged and left him to deal with the others. Hannah and David remained with him. I grabbed a towel and my kit at my cabin and took a shower. When I came out, Susanne was there. She silently fell into step with me as I headed to the dining hall, smiling at me when I looked at her. "Did you hear what happened in there?" I asked her. She nodded. "You sure you want to be seen with me?" She nodded again and smiled. "Well, then, how about joining me for breakfast, lady?" She laughed. Someone said the remaining few tanks had turned back while the jets were fighting. I wondered aloud what we could expect next, and how soon, but the guy was just repeating what he'd heard from the helicopter crew. Anything else would be speculation only. A little after that I heard the helicopter lift off and Moshe came in with Hannah. "David is taking your new gurney to the dispensary," said Moshe. He sat down with a coffee and proceeded to stir into it what seemed to be a lot of sugar and cream. "You're still our medic," said Hannah. She grinned. "They said they didn't have anyone else to send out here." "Not precisely," said Moshe, "The doctor said that if there was a possibility that anything would happen to a medic out here, she would rather it happen to you than one of her people." "Did any of the reporters hear her say that?" I asked, "Will it be on the news?" Moshe grinned. "I wouldn't expect so. Would you mind, in the future, involving me in your disputes with the higher-ups before they become battles? I had to take a side in something that really never needed to happen. I could have defused her for you." I told him I'd call him in on things the next time. Hannah said that the parachute was being brought in and that she thought it would probably become a number of useful items rather quickly. The ejection seat had been taken away on the helicopter. Post four had reported on the battle in the valley as it had occurred, and further info had come from the helicopter group. The two Israeli jets had knocked out five enemy tanks and several jets. "Sounds as if we're doing a lot better than anyone had hoped," said Hannah, "At this rate, the enemy will be out of hardware and the war will be over in a week or so." "I wouldn't count on so short a time as that," said Moshe, "But we've definitely given them a bloody nose since yesterday. The Russians deny being involved, of course. The U.S. isn't sending anything but supplies at this point, and the word is that they're not being too obvious about doing it. They're afraid of their oil supply drying up, I think." "No doubt. I'll bet all the NATO countries are having the vapors right now." "The vapors?" asked Moshe. "Fainting spells," said Hannah with a grin. "Wringing their hankies and swooning." "Fainting I've heard of. Hankies? Swooning?" "Like confused little old ladies," said Hannah, "Later, Moshe. I'll explain later." After breakfast, Susanne and I spent some time cleaning up the

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dispensary. Hannah said she'd be back after some time in the fields with David's crew. Our only customer that day was a guy who'd managed to slip off the back of a tractor and cut his leg. Around three in the afternoon, Moshe called a halt to work for the day and he and David dropped by to ask if I wanted to take a ride around the observation posts with them. Our hilltop wasn't quite a Mount Everest, but it was tall enough to afford a good view of the countryside around us. At post four, I borrowed Moshe's binoculars for a look at the dead tanks across the valley and tried to envision the battle that had knocked them out. I expected it was a very brief one from their viewpoint. There was no sign of activity to be seen. After some moments I handed the field glasses back to Moshe and pulled out a map of the area for comparison. The dead tanks had been marked on the map already. "Our people went to look for survivors after the battle and found none, but they reported that the hatches were open on three of the tanks. If there were wounded, why weren't they found in or near the tanks?" He lit a cigarette and continued, "There were bodies in the tanks, but not enough bodies to account for five tank crews. That means any survivors were taken away on the retreating tanks or left behind. The jets reported that the surviving tanks turned and ran without stopping. Would you want to try to hop aboard a fast-moving tank? I wouldn't. I think they're still out there." "So maybe three to five of them would be headed for the nearest settlement," I said, "Possibly wounded, possibly not, and maybe ready to die as martyrs for Allah. They'll want to take as many Jews as possible with them. You think they'll care that I'm not Jewish?" Moshe grinned. "We will assume they're out there," He tapped the map and said, "And we will be expecting visitors tonight. I'll make an announcement when we return." -------*Chapter Seventeen* Group leaders were called to the dining hall and briefed. The password city names for the night were Berlin and New York. A quick flurry of questions and suggestions followed, but impending nightfall cut the meeting short. As word of a possible encounter spread around the compound, the atmosphere changed subtly to one of alertness that hadn't quite materialized the night before, when nobody had really thought there was anything to worry about. Moshe asked me and a few others to stay for a moment as the meeting disbanded. Four other men and two women remained in their seats around the table. He had us all state our names as an introduction that was undoubtedly only for my benefit, which was a polite, but wasted, effort. Names don't stick with me as well as faces. I was told that this was one of several such meetings that had occurred in recent days and that Moshe felt I should be included in them from now on. "You," said Moshe to all of us, "And several others here have actual combat time. Not time at a desk during a war, but actual time in combat. Everybody else was too young or infirm during the last war. You have faced an enemy and succeeded, some in field units and two of you," he indicated the women, "When their hospital was under attack. These ladies directed fire teams they assembled from among their wounded patients to keep the enemy out of their area." He paused to light a cigarette. "I was a supply officer in the last war," he said, "I know little of infantry tactics, so I'm drafting you people to be my advisors concerning what may happen on the ground around here tonight. You know the current situation. Feel free to make suggestions." One of the men said, "They're tankers, probably quickly trained to drive or fix or fire and little else. They'll know very little about how to handle themselves on foot." "If that were truly the case," said someone else, "Wouldn't we have seen some trace of them? They seem to know how to hide fairly well." "That is a matter of simple camouflage and keeping still," said the first man, "They'll move in the cool of night if they're out there at all. We

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have to assume they are." "A question," said a man's voice from the end of the table. Oddly, his name came to me. Samuel. It must have been his bushy moustache. "Do we need prisoners? They'll be trying to kill us and they won't be able to tell us anything we don't already know." Someone else chimed in an agreement. "If they don't walk in with their hands up and empty, I say we shoot them as we find them," he said. One of the women raised her hand and said, "I say we just shoot them. I found my brother's body in the ruins of our home in 1967. He was only eleven years old." People were glancing around at each other, but eventually most were looking at me. I was the unknown in the group. Even Moshe was silent as the group's attention fell on me. "If they show up unarmed, trying to surrender," I said, "They may just be unwilling draftees who had no choice at all. I've known a lot of those in the American army, and I'd hate to shoot somebody who was forced to participate and really only wanted to go home alive. If they attack us, I will not be trying to take any prisoners unless ordered to do so." There were a few nods and some impassive faces. Others translated my words to one or two of those at the table. A man near the end of the table quietly said, "We don't know anything about you. What all did you do in the Army?" "I began as a medic," I said, "Then wound up doing whatever was necessary at the time. Door gunner, rifleman..." I paused for effect, "Sandbag filler..." There were a few chuckles. Everybody gets detailed to fill sandbags or something else along those lines at some time. Someone said something in Hebrew. The woman said, "He wants to know if you've ever actually shot an enemy, not just shot AT them. He says we know nothing about you and have no way of knowing how you'll act under fire." "That can be said for almost everyone in the compound, can't it? All we can do is wait and see who freezes and who doesn't." Moshe tapped the table with the butt of his map pointer. "I can answer that," he said, "Ed is known to the Mossad. He will shoot as necessary. Now, let's move on." A reassuring answer was all any of them really wanted. I wondered if the Mossad had actually told him a damned thing about me and figured he was just closing that line of questioning down so that he could get the meeting moving again. "Regarding prisoners," said Moshe, "Remember that someone may ask questions later. Act accordingly. We can make a place to hold them until the Army picks them up. We will now focus on defensive activities." Two men wanted to form search teams. Moshe disagreed, as did many others. The woman said that there was no reason to search for someone who was coming to us. She added that it would be better to work on detecting their arrival and not risk key people or have them outside the defense perimeter if we were attacked. One man who had proposed searching disagreed slightly with that. "The spotters have orders to retreat rather than engage if discovered," said the man, "If that is possible. I think we need a few people outside the perimeter to provide surprise cover fire around likely points of visitation. They'll have seen that the sentries retreated inside and won't be expecting someone to have remained behind." After a measure of debate, his idea was rejected as too risky and unnecessary. It was decided that alertness and warning devices would have to do. The three men who had been of middle-rank in the infantry were assigned to assemble fire teams and the others were detailed to handle emergency services and backup defenses. We had a simple perimeter with overlapping fields of fire and pairs of

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people dug into sandbag-reinforced shallow trenches at mutually-viewable intervals. Everyone had a rifle and a few grenades. The three other men and I were given the task of traveling the perimeter once every hour. Half an hour after the first guy started his circuit, the next guy would start his own. This allowed time to make position adjustments and, if necessary, to allow the sentries a moment to relieve themselves nearby without weakening the line. After four hours, the second team would take over the job. The cloud cover of the previous night had been fairly complete for several hours. Tonight's sky was patched with roving clouds, but they were mostly thin, and a good deal of moonlight found its way to the ground. I cautioned those along my sentry route that moonlight worked both ways and told them to stay well out of sight or they might find out how well tankers could shoot. Most said they'd already been warned of that. One guy looked back along the way I'd come to the nearest other foxhole and asked how I'd been able to get from there to his foxhole without being seen. I told him to ask the man who'd followed me and thumbed at a bit of shrubbery behind me. The guy plainly didn't believe anyone was there. I gave the shrub a 'come here' gesture and some of it detached itself to join us. It was the guy who'd questioned whether I'd shoot. "You're almost as good as the guys who trained me," I said, "Almost." "What an honor," he said in a droll tone. "Better listen for us," I told the sentry. "If we think you aren't paying enough attention, we'll play dirty jokes on you to keep you alert. This guy looks like the type who'd think that sneaking up on a sentry was lots of fun." About halfway to the next station, the guy patted my shoulder to get my attention. He was looking at me with a solemn expression, so I gave him a questioning one and waited. "No apologies," he said, "I just like to know who is working with me. Rigging claymores in trees could be a matter of training, but handling yourself out here..." I nodded. "I know. Don't mean nothin', as we used to say." Without further comment, he faded into the darkness and I continued my rounds. Nothing happened during my four circuits of the camp. When the other guys came to replace us at one a.m., I headed for Hannah's tent and some sleep. Hannah was already sleeping soundly, so I just took my boots off and slipped in next to her quietly and listened to the night around us as I waited for my own sleep to come. It seemed to me that I'd been asleep only moments when there was an explosion. Someone yelled for everyone to remain where they were and stay calm. Someone else said that one of the sentries had tossed a grenade. Hannah gave me a quick kiss and I grabbed my rifle and medikit and went to see if anyone was hurt along the fenceline. People have accidents, especially when there's lots of tension and too little sleep. If there really was someone to toss a grenade at, it meant that he or they had gotten too close to, or past, the outer guardposts. I heard a muffled clunking sound to my right and stopped behind one of the slender trees to see what had caused it. One of the sentries appeared to be rolling out of his foxhole. It could have been that he'd been stricken with a sudden urge to take a leak or throw up. Stuff like that happens after explosions in the dark. The figure suddenly rose to his knees and I saw him pull the retaining pin from a grenade. As he reared back to throw it, I brought the muzzle of my M-16 up and fired three times quickly, letting the muzzle climb on its own. At least one round hit him and knocked him backwards before he could throw the grenade. I saw it fall, or thought I did, but couldn't tell if it had fallen back into the trench. I tried to make myself thin enough to completely hide behind the tree as another explosion rocked the night only a few yards from me. Bits of

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shrapnel flew past me, hitting the protruding stock of my rifle hard and knocking my medikit a couple of feet away from the tree. I could feel the shock of metal fragments hitting the tree like a cluster of small hammer blows. I checked my rifle for damage and found that some of the plastic stock was missing, but it seemed otherwise okay. "One inside!" I yelled, "Maybe more!" Acknowledgment shouts came back to me in English, then there were shouts in Hebrew. Someone down the line fired twice and someone else fired at least half a dozen times. I hoped they weren't shooting each other in the darkness as I watched and listened for further movement around me. A pebble hit me in the middle of the back, and although I swung my rifle around and stepped quickly to put the tree between us, I held my fire. "Coming in," said the guy who'd followed me around the sentry line. He detached from the darkness and approached, holding his rifle muzzle downward. He stopped a few feet away and looked toward the sentry post. "Heard the noise and thought I'd come have a look," he said, "If you're okay I'll go out there and look around some." I knelt behind the tree, covering the area. "I'm okay," I said, "I'll cover. The number is twenty when you want back in, okay?" "Twenty," he confirmed as he passed me. He moved past the body of the grenade-thrower and looked into the sentry trench. I knew when he moved on without a word that the sentries were beyond help, but I slipped forward and dropped into the trench to be sure. They were both dead. Some fifteen minutes passed. The sky was getting lighter. "Hey, American," came a whisper from beyond the wire. "Seven," I said softly to the night. "Thirteen," he said. "Close enough," I said, "Come on in." I heard a chuckle, then nothing else. I kept the shadowy form covered until he was close enough to identify by sight. He stopped in front of my tree and beckoned me to take a look. He chuckled again. "Well, didn't you get lucky tonight?" That side of the tree was pocked and shredded. I asked, "Find anything?" "One more a few meters out. He must have been watching to see what his friend was doing, because the grenade got him mostly above the waist. About fifty meters back from there is evidence that there may be more them around here somewhere." "Coming toward you," said a man's voice behind me. "Have you checked out the sentries?" said another voice from farther behind him. It was David, approaching somewhat more slowly. "The sentries don't need me," I said. "Shouldn't you at least check them?" "I did." "I checked them on the way out, too," said the recent returnee, then he rather formally said, "You may go have a look at them if you feel we may be in error." After a moment of hesitation, David came forward. "I have to." He stopped in front of us for a moment. I shrugged and thumbed toward the sentry trench. David climbed down into it. After a few moments, he rolled out of it and stood up, then walked quickly past us without more than a glance in our direction. We heard him retching in the darkness not far beyond us. When he returned to stand a few feet away, he said, "I'm sorry. I wasn't accusing you of anything. I just had to know." "And now you do," said another voice. David nearly jumped out of his skin as Moshe joined us. "We think we have another one down outside the wire. There will be daylight in less than an hour. We'll install new sentries, then we'll have a look at things." Another explosion. It was a claymore in the grove. David started that direction, but Moshe yelled in Hebrew, then in English, "NOBODY goes near the

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grove! Stay where you are!" There were a few answering shouts, then silence. Moshe calmly asked David to bring us some coffee. David just stared at him. Moshe then asked if he had to make that an order. David snapped to and left at a trot, returning a few minutes later with two large thermoses and some cups. He was one cup short, having forgotten one for himself, so I handed him mine and poured some of the fresh hot coffee into my canteen to warm up the coffee from the night before. "Ugh. How can you drink that?" asked David. "Try some and ask me that again if you have to." I held out my canteen to pour. "No, thanks," he said, covering his cup and backing up a pace. "Suit yourself, you candy-assed civilian," I grinned and took a drink. Not bad, really. The guy whose name I didn't remember laughed. "I haven't heard that term for a while," he said, "Not since Vietnam." "How'd you wind up there?" I asked, "And who are you? I don't remember names very well from group introductions." "I'm Alan," he said, "I was one of those draftees you mentioned earlier. First Cav." "I was 25th Infantry, but I was assigned to First Cav and others," I said. "That means you didn't get along with officers, right?" "That's about the size of it. None of us followed stupid orders. Some of us made suggestions that weren't followed. We let the heroes and idiots find the tripwires." "So did we. Funny how most of the heroic idiots had yellow bars on their shoulders." "So how did you get here?" I asked him. "Home wasn't home anymore. I needed a new one." "Same for me. I went to Europe." Our conversation didn't last much longer. Vietnam was seriously old news in comparison to immediate events, and all we really had in common was people-hunting experience. We decided we were best qualified to have a look at the exterior sentry posts together and looked to Moshe to okay the plan. He'd been watching and listening. "Yes. Do it," he said, "When do you want to go?" "Sooner done is sooner back to sleep," I said, "We can backtrack their trail." Alan nodded. "Another quick coffee first. The bad guys'll still be out there." I gave David my medikit to take back to Hannah after wrapping the forward stock of my rifle with surgical tape to cover the broken plastic. A little mud made it dark enough. By that time Alan had finished his coffee and watered the tree. I switched magazines, pulled three rounds out of a speed-clip to replace the ones I'd used and we were off. Alan took the lead, ranging about thirty feet ahead of me most of the time. The trail didn't go far before it split. We stayed on the one leading outward from the encampment until it met one of the plastic field-irrigation pipes. The trail seemed to end there, but the pipe had been moved out of its indentation slightly, so we followed it in the same general direction and found where they'd forced it apart to get a drink. I barely recognized the area almost dead center between posts three and four. Things look different at night or in the dim, pre-dawn sort of light. We stopped following the trail there and ranged to the left to check post three. The guys seemed alert enough as we watched them from a distance and they'd obviously been checking in as expected, since there'd been no alarm because they hadn't. We decided not to follow the trail far enough to put ourselves in front of the sentries in the half-light. Instead, we crept up on post four and found adequate cover less than ten feet from them before announcing ourselves.

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Alan said, "Pssst! Hey! Coming in," and we watched the two guys whip around, searching the predawn dimness frantically. One of the sentries found his voice and demanded the password. "Berlin," I said. We were told to advance and be recognized. I kept the sentries covered as Alan rose and moved carefully towards them. Impostor sentries wouldn't be impossible and it was equally possible that, if anything were to startle them, these greenies would panic and start shooting at us. When everybody could see each other well enough, Alan waved to me to join him there. We briefed them on recent events and asked if they knew the guys in post three. They did. The other sentry asked why we hadn't announced ourselves in Hebrew and why I'd kept them covered. Alan said, "He doesn't speak Hebrew and you could have been anybody." He asked the sentry if he didn't think some of the enemy troops could speak Hebrew, since many were once residents of Israel. Then he asked him how many of the enemy were likely to be able to speak English. "Contact three and tell them we're coming over." The guys at post three answered immediately. We left four to go there as they were talking. A little over halfway to three Alan suddenly made a hand signal behind his back that told me to hang back. I waited, examining the bush around us in the early light as he proceeded forward. He signaled me to move up as he rounded a room-sized boulder and I began to move forward, knowing that I was someone's distraction if anyone really was watching our progress. I was about halfway to the boulder when there was a bit of noise to my right. I stepped behind a tree and waited. Alan's voice said, "Got him." Alan brought his quarry out of the bush. A kid of about fifteen stumbled forward with his hands up. He was obviously terrified. Alan kept him covered and said nothing as I checked his pockets. There was nothing in them other than his wallet, a key, and a small folding knife. We took him with us to post three and called in our capture. "That makes five," said Moshe, "We'll send out jeeps for you." The guy we captured was a less-than-dedicated soldier who, he said, like many of his university classmates had been drafted into service only a few months before. He said he thought the whole war was a major mistake and was ready to let anyone who would listen know his feelings about it. He then spent some time deriding the judgment of those commanding his side of the war as he told us how the commander of the battlegroup had made the decision to attack our kibbutz as an "incidental target" that lay in their path. Others had suggested bypassing us to more quickly rejoin the main force, but the commander had said that it would take no time at all. Just about then the jets had attacked them. An officer had pulled the survivors together to continue the attack. Two of the survivors had deserted them almost immediately, but the rest had followed him. Two jeeps arrived shortly, one with fresh sentries and one for us and our prisoner. At the compound we turned him over to Moshe and two other guys and gave a report. People would go out later to make changes to the vegetation between posts three and four. Half an hour later we were able to get out of there. Alan lit a cigarette on the porch. "Well, see you later," he said, "It's been fun." "Yup," I replied, "A real circus. Later." He walked away and I headed for Hannah's tent to see about another couple of hours of sleep. It was almost six in the morning. Everything that had happened since the first explosion had taken less than two hours. Hannah rose quickly to meet me as I approached. Her face was a mask of concern as her eyes traveled the length of me. "David brought me your kit," she said, "I was so worried, Ed..." When I put my rifle down, she saw the tape on the stock and looked at me questioningly. "I was behind a tree, but my rifle wasn't, quite. It wasn't a big tree." "I know. I've seen your tree. Are you sure you're all right?"

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I laughed softly. "You're welcome to look me over, ma'am." Hannah glared at me and said, "Damn it, this isn't funny!" "Oh. Yes, ma'am. Not funny, ma'am. Sorry." I stood straight and saluted her. Hannah glared at me. "I don't think that's funny, either. I was worried sick about you." I sighed and went around her into the tent. "Well, hell. I was too, Hannah, so I guess we're just about even." I put my gear in the tent and sat down on my cot to pull my boots off. "You sound as if you think it was my fault. Blame the war, not me. There's probably going to be something or other to worry about every day for a while." Hannah came to sit on her cot and asked, "But did you have to be the one to go?" "Alan and I were best qualified and on the scene, so we went. It was necessary." "ALAN?" Hannah straightened up. "You were out there with Alan?" "Yeah. Alan was out there with me. What about it?" She hesitated. "Uh, well, most of us think Alan is a little ... uhm ... nuts, I think." I just looked at her. "Well, then, you'll have to tell me why, later. He knows his shit out there, Hannah. I couldn't have had a better partner for the trip." Hannah just stared at me for a moment, then she leaned to kiss me and said, "Get some sleep. I'll be back later. Need anything?" I shook my head. "Okay," said Hannah, and she left the tent. I stared after her for a moment, then stretched out. So they thought Alan was 'a little nuts', huh? Until yesterday they were a bunch of what we used to call 'DAC's', short for 'Dumb-Assed Civilians'. Now, two days into a war that had barely touched them, they were running around in field gear, sleeping in big tents, and thinking they were supertroopers. Alan undoubtedly ran into much the same crap I ran into in the states. Too quiet? That means you're strange. A Vietnam veteran, too? Well, that means you're probably dangerous and crazy, as well. Screw 'em. Jew or not, Alan must have felt he was only marginally a part of anything here. Being a Jew meant they almost had to let him into Israel, but that just put him in a position similar to what he'd found back in the states. He was a Nam vet and thought to be potentially dangerous. He was perceived as wolf among the sheep, and probably had no more to talk about with these people than those back in the U.S. Sleep is sneaky. Somewhere along the line I fell asleep without realizing it and suddenly someone going by with a wheelbarrow woke me up. It was almost noon. Four hours would have to do. I grabbed my kit and towel and headed for the showers. The first thing I noticed was that the people seemed different to me. I realized that it was something similar to when I came home on leave and got together with friends from before the Army. They weren't different. I was, and it must have showed. Usually talkative people seemed to think twice about engaging me in conversation. Even Hannah, when she met me in the dining hall, seemed a bit distant. She gave me a greeting kiss and a smile, then updated me on the prisoner. My lack of interest must have been too evident. "You don't give a damn about much of this, do you, Ed?" "The prisoner? Nope. Can't say as I do. He'll be gone on the first pickup bird." "Aren't you interested in what he had to say?" "Nope. Things will be as we find them, not as he remembers them from yesterday or the days before. He's a low-rank nobody who knows nothing." Hannah sat looking at me for a moment, then continued to eat in silence. After a bit, without looking up from her plate, she said, "I was just trying to make conversation." "I know. Sorry," I said, "Got any real news?"

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"Just rumors, but you probably don't want to hear rumors, either, right?" There was a definite edge to her voice. I sighed. "Yeah, I'm afraid so. News is made of facts, not rumors." Hannah glanced up at me. "Too bad. We're all out of hard news today, but there's a special on rumors. There's even one about you." She waited to see if I'd respond. When I didn't take the verbal bait, she continued, "Rumor has it that you've changed, Ed. That you aren't the same guy you were yesterday, and that the new you is kind of hard to take." "Then the new me will have his stuff out of your tent today." Hannah looked at me with a shocked expression. "That's not what I..!" I kept my tone conversational. "Then what? I'm adapting to immediate necessities. Four of us will be picked for any activities outside the wire, and I'm one of those four. Since last night, all four of us will appear -- to the rest of you -- to have changed. We're just pulling up and dusting off a set of experience-tools, Hannah; tools that you and the others don't have and don't understand. Maybe you will, by the time this is over. In the meantime, let those of us who have them use them. If you're really uncomfortable with me, let me know and I'll move out of your tent." "Damn it, Ed, I'm just so worried about you..." "Don't be. It won't do any good and will just create hard feelings." Hannah's frustration became truly apparent. Her tone of voice became a bit strident. "Why, Ed? Why will it create hard feelings? Why don't you just go ahead and tell me why it will create hard feelings?" "Can you hear yourself right now? It just does, Hannah, and if people worry about me, I don't want to know about it. It's just another path to an ulcer and doesn't do a damn thing to help the situation. Let's talk about something else or nothing at all, okay?" Hannah clammed up and said no more during the meal. When a woman from Moshe's office came looking for her, Hannah excused herself brusquely and followed her out. After lunch I got my rifle and gear and went to see about a new rifle stock, then went to the dispensary. Susanne started to get up from behind the desk when she saw me. I waved her back into the chair. "No sweat," I said, "It's THE desk, not MY desk only. Stay put." I tossed my gear in the corner and put my toilet kit in a desk drawer. "Where are you sleeping?" I asked her, "Here?" "Uh, no ... Over there," she said, pointing out the window at a tent. I nodded. "Okay. Then I'll be bunking in the back here if anyone needs to find me." I took the old stock off my rifle and trashed it, then put the new one on. I could feel Susanne watching me and decided to head off her obvious next question. "Hannah doesn't know I moved out yet and she won't want to understand why. If she shows up, I may need some time alone with her to discuss things." After a moment, Susanne said, "I'll find a reason to leave for a while if she comes." "Thanks." I could still feel her eyes on me as I broke open my rifle and began cleaning it. Looking up at her, I asked, "Yes?" "Would you consider telling me why you left her?" "She worried about me and let me know it, then told me how much I've changed." Susanne stared at me in amazement for a moment. "You're serious?" "I'm serious. I don't want the emotional baggage, so I left." Susanne continued to stare. "That's it? That's all?" "That's it. I'm not inviting opinions or discussion at the moment, Susanne." I pulled the rifle's bolt and swabbed everything, then put it back together. "Maybe I could talk to her for you." "I don't want that, either. Let me put it this way, Susanne. You're an

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attractive woman and a friend. I'd work with you or for you as necessary. I'd either help you or get out of your way unless I thought you were screwing up big time. I'd sleep with you without hesitation if we discovered we wanted each other, but I would not accept a load of emotional baggage just to remain in your company. Hannah tried to hand me a load of the stuff this morning and when I didn't take it, she became rather tense, so I got out." "Did you try talking to her?" "Some. What am I going to do, ask her not to act like herself?" "No, you're right. That probably wouldn't work," said Susanne with a grin, "How are you acting, though? Have you thought of that?" "I have," I said, "I'm not looking for a serious girlfriend or a potential wife. I'm not looking for anything that I'm aware of except getting us through this war alive." Moshe was walking across the courtyard. I poked a finger at him to point him out to Susanne, grabbed my gear, and headed for the door. "You're in charge, Susanne. Later." -------*Chapter Eighteen* Moshe wanted to move people out of tents and into foxholes and bunkers and wanted this done the quickest way. He eventually decided we'd make three-foot deep trenches and park the tents over them the same distances apart, then put sandbags around the bottoms of the tents and reinstall the people. Work began the moment we finished discussing the matter and began telling people how to dig in. I asked him if he'd heard something new that precipitated this activity, but he said he hadn't. It was just the result of some re-thinkings since the grenade of the night before had splattered parts of itself in a wide radius around the compound. The war had become very real and personal for everyone. If the grenade had actually been thrown toward the tents, there could have been many casualties among those above-ground, as most were. No new activity in the valley or the plain below us had been detected, but the air, as usual, was bustling with fighter craft and helicopters heading in most every direction. The wreckage of the Syrian jet that had been knocked down the day before had been searched by the military, but they told us nothing more than that they'd haul it away later. Late in the afternoon wood and glass flew off a couple of the buildings and big puffs of dirt kicked up all along a path leading to and from the buildings. We heard a faint ripping noise in the sky. Like thunder, if you can hear it, it's too damn late already. One of the enemy's jets had decided to put a few rounds of 20mm cannonfire on us on the way by in a long shot, probably just for entertainment. He had sense enough not to pass too low, so nobody wasted a SAM on him. There were no casualties, but a woman who survived a near miss noted the size of the hole in the ground one of the rounds had made very close to her and fainted. There were no incidents that night involving the enemy, but someone spooked and fired most of a magazine at what turned out to be a rather large rat who was just trying to liberate an ear of corn. The corn was still attached to a chunk of stalk, so it made some noise and motion during the rat's efforts. The rat did not survive the incident. A week or so later there were more tanks moving into the valley almost thirty miles from the kibbutz. This time they were closely followed by troops. Multiple engagements were occurring at a distance around our hill, so we figured this small battlegroup was part of something else that was going on nearby. Maybe they were, but they took a bit of a wrong turn when they headed our direction. There was a half-track vehicle and eleven tanks with perhaps a dozen men following each tank. When it became apparent that they weren't going around us, Moshe called for air support while the tanks and troops were still over twenty miles away. As expected, he was told it might be as much as an

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hour before they could get somebody to us. Moshe ordered an interdiction and sent out five fire teams of three men each. Each team had three LAW's, a few grenades, and rifles, and our task was simply to slow them down for the IDF's air force. We loaded our gear and ourselves into the jeeps and one truck and set off down the hill to take our positions. While the truck dropped people off in relatively defensible positions, the jeeps ranged ahead to place dozens of radio-detonated claymore mines in places where the tanks wouldn't be likely to run over them, such as atop huge boulders. A few were placed in the usual sort of ground-level positions well ahead of the others, some quite visible and some not visible at all. These were meant to be encountered first and to instill some caution into the enemy troops. The jeeps then ranged out perhaps a mile farther and very visibly repeated the process with only a few claymores, mostly going through the motions as a ruse without putting anything anywhere. When everyone and everything was in place, the truck and jeeps scampered back up the hill to the kibbutz as visibly as possible, kicking up dust and running fast. The fire teams immediately and covertly moved from their previous, observed and noted positions to backup positions almost a hundred yards away and concealed themselves, their hands grasping pull-cords that led to brush-stuffed uniform-parts. The tanks had been moving at a fair walking pace until our flurry of activity caused them to stop and consider what was being done ahead of them. After a lengthy pause, the tanks proceeded with the troops even farther behind than before. When the first few claymores were triggered, the tanks stopped again and seemed to take stock of the situation. Once they realized the explosions were from antipersonnel mines, I could almost imagine them laughing at us. When they started moving again, the troops were farther behind than before and the half-track vehicle had decided to follow a tank rather than run alongside them. Our guy with the detonator set off some more claymores when the tanks were moving again. A cloud of shrapnel moving at high speed slammed into the tanks and the half-track. The tanks ignored the hail of steel, but the half-track stopped, the driver's door opened, and a guy dropped to the ground holding his face. Apparently one or more bits of shrapnel had found the viewslit in the armored windshield. A passing tank nearly ran over the guy as he staggered around outside the half-track. After a few moments, the door was closed and the half-track moved on, leaving the ex-driver to his own devices. One of the tanks had also stopped, but after only a few minutes was underway again. Maybe their driver had been hit, too, and had to be replaced? No way to know. By this time the troops were coming into range of the first line of claymores. When they went off, men dropped to the ground whether they were hit or not. Many didn't get back up, and the rest were doing so very cautiously. There was a certain amount of terrified confusion as the leaders tried to round up their uninjured troops and endeavored to get them moving again. Many seemed very reluctant. Just as the tanks came into machine-gun range, some of our guys pulled their cords and the brush-filled uniform shirts and pants appeared to move as if retreating. The gunners took the bait and fired at the decoys. While they were distracted, four of our teams used their LAW's on the leading tanks. The idea was to hit the tank where the turret met the body, and two of them managed to do just that, even at what was considered fairly long range for the light anti-tank rockets. One turret jumped its ring and sat rattling loosely atop the tank's body until it ground to a halt. The other LAW didn't cause such dramatic damage, but that tank stopped, too, as did a tank that had been hit in the tread. As its big gun swiveled to aim at the source of the rocket, another of our teams hit the tank with another LAW. The gun stopped.

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As soon as they'd fired, our people switched positions, dragging with them the decoys. The gunners in the tanks still automatically tried to nail the nearest targets, which were the decoys, presuming that 'closer' meant 'more dangerous'. Only one of them tracked high enough to almost hit one of our people. Two guys fired LAW's at that tank and the machine gun stopped firing instantly as one rocket seemed to impact directly on the gun port. I'd kind of expected to see people trying to get out of the disabled tanks, but that wasn't happening. I guess they thought it was safer inside. Only one tank hatch opened, and only long enough for the guy to take a quick peek before he slammed it shut again. I moved down the hill with two LAW's on the far-right perimeter of activity as Alan moved on the left. We didn't try to conceal ourselves. The idea was to draw a bit of fire so one of the nearer teams could take another shot, and they did. When the outermost tank made his choice and tried to track me with machine gun fire, each base team was able to take the time to aim properly and fire before ducking back into their holes. Both tanks were disabled, and this seemed to have an impact on the remaining five tanks. All five remaining tanks stopped just outside of LAW range and their turrets began lining up on us. We got up and ran downhill toward the disabled tanks just below. Only one tank got off a round before we reached the cover of the tanks, and that round was too high on the hillside to do more than shower some of us with dirt and rocks as we ran. Using the disabled tanks for cover seemed to be a good idea at the time, but we soon realized that we were the only ones of that opinion. Someone shouted and pointed, and I looked to see one of the tanks aiming its big gun at one of the disabled tanks. I didn't know the guys in the fire team who were using it for cover, and that's still just fine with me. Their cover suddenly exploded as the other tank fired on it. I think there were four explosions in the space of a couple of seconds. The round that hit the disabled tank exploded in it and through it, taking with it the fuel tank and some of its cannon rounds. The tank seemed to shudder for an instant before it literally flew apart. The turret assembly with its big gun went flying through the air and landed on one of the other disabled tanks before sliding off to the ground. We had a problem. There was no way to approach the remaining five tanks on foot and it appeared that the guy in charge of them had no problems with killing his own men to get us. I couldn't hear a damned thing over the ringing in my ears, but I could see Alan and others waving, indicating that I should look behind me. Turning, I saw the two jeeps barreling down the hillside. Where the road split, they split. One headed directly for us and the other one headed for the remaining healthy tanks. Two of the tanks' machine guns opened up at the jeep, but neither seemed able to hit it before it got too far to one side of them, even though tank turrets were rotating to try to track them. The jeep that had headed for us suddenly cut hard right and zipped between two of the derelict tanks. It gathered speed as it seemed to be heading right for the lead tank, but as soon as the machine gunner there started firing, the jeep cut to the left. Another gunner opened up on it, but the jeep was hauling ass in a wide loop and neither gunner could track fast enough to hit it. The first jeep suddenly slammed to a halt when it was within range of the ragged line of tanks and the guy in the passenger seat laid an LAW across the top of the windshield, aimed, and fired in only a couple of seconds. The jeep was immediately moving again, accelerating toward the enemy troops even as the rocket slammed into the tank right on the ring. The turret lifted completely off the tank's body. The second jeep made a sudden right loop and wound up diving around the end of the line of tanks. Probably fearing the same fate, the tank backed up and turned itself to try to keep the jeep in sight. The jeep maintained his curving path and the tank kept backing until it backed into the tread of the

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tank next to it. I saw some kind of gear-wheel go flying, then rolling across the plain. The backing tank slammed to a stop, then lurched forward again as it tried to keep the jeep in sight. The jeep turned back and ran straight at the spot where the two tanks had collided. Well after I'd have thought it would have been sensible to stop and fire a LAW, it kept boring in on the wreck. The passenger had his LAW up and ready as they closed in. A moment later he fired, and the tank on his left, the undamaged one, suddenly flared up intensely. They had hit the fuel tank. The jeep banked hard right and got out of there, circling to run directly behind the other still-operating tanks, one of which was turning to try to keep them in sight for their machine gunner, who opened fire at them. The two jeeps met each other in the space between the tanks and the troops, both jeeps now going the same direction. For some reason only a few of the troops were shooting at the jeeps at first, but more joined them. As the tank gunner tracked the jeep, he must have failed to notice the troops in the distance. I saw some of them fall and all of them duck frantically as the tank's machine gun tried to follow the jeep past them. I still couldn't hear what the guys behind the next tank were trying to yell at me, but they were pointing upward. Four helicopters were practically diving into the area from the East. The jeep drivers split up and zigzagged their way back to the main road and up the hill as the helicopters began firing at the tanks. Whatever the helicopters used on the tanks had a lot more punch than our LAW's. In just a few seconds all the tanks were turned to heaps of scrap metal, some burning and some not. Men were climbing out of only a couple a couple of them, and since the men in the ones we'd hit weren't doing that, I guessed that these guys had excellent reasons for trying to get away from their dead machines. As if to validate my guess, just after two guys got out of the tank on the far right, multiple explosions ripped it apart. They hadn't quite been fast enough and both of them disappeared in the explosion and fire. The helicopters then used their miniguns to subdue the troops, who had forgotten the jeeps and were now firing at the helicopters. That didn't last long as what seemed to be a wave of the troops fell under the minigun-fire. Hands went up and rifles fell to the ground everywhere, but some truly stupid guy continued to shoot at them. The return fire from the choppers put him down instantly, literally slamming him to the ground. Someone else also fired from amid the group and the choppers fired back at him, too. People around the second idiot were trying to get well clear of him and some of them made it, but certainly not all. Both of the helicopters fired back at him at the same time, each from different angles as they circled. I couldn't tell how many of the soldiers were hit in the process of eliminating the stupid one. Nobody else seemed willing to shoot at them and after a few moments one of the other two helicopters landed to take charge of matters out there. Another of the helicopters put down near the tanks we'd disabled and an officer dismounted to approach us. After a look around and a quick conference, he walked from one tank to another, rapping on each tank with his pistol and shouting. I have no idea what he said, but hatches started opening and men began climbing out of the tanks immediately, handing their weapons to our guys as they came out. When they'd been herded together and searched for other weapons, the officer had us toss one grenade inside each of the tanks. I then understood what had made them exit so quickly. Some of our guys were detailed to escort our prisoners to join the other troops on the plain. From that point on, all we did was stand around and wait until the jeeps and the truck came back down the hill for us. We loaded all the tankers' small arms in the truck. Three more big helicopters arrived and the enemy troops were loaded aboard as we watched, then we headed back up the hill to the kibbutz.

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Everything had happened in just under two hours and we hadn't had any casualties other than the one fire team. Dinner was still being served when we returned, so most of us got cleaned up and headed to the dining hall. People were celebrating the victory and mourning the loss of the fire team all over the compound well into the evening. I can only take so much of loud congratulations and backslapping, so I hijacked a gallon bottle of the concord-grape wine and a bucket of ice and headed to the dispensary after dinner. I cleaned my rifle over a couple of glasses of wine and I'd just stretched out on the bunk with a book when there was a knock on the door and Hannah's voice asked if I was there. I thought about not answering. "Ed, Susanne said she saw you come back here from the showers. May I come in?" I got up and went to the door, cinching my bigger towel around my waist, then blinked and rubbed my eyes as if I'd been napping and raised my eyebrows questioningly at her. "Sorry," said Hannah, "I didn't know you were already asleep. But now that you're up, can we talk? I really think we need to talk about some things." I left the door open and waved her in, then headed back to my bunk. "Do I have to get dressed for this?" I asked. Hannah seemed to ignore that question and pulled up a chair by my bunk. "Why did you move out, Ed? What did I do?" "Having someone tell me how much they worried about me bugs the hell out of me. Having someone come at me about that worry as if it was my fault bugs me. Having someone give me a hard time for adapting to what's going on in a manner that seems right to me bugs me, too, and then having them tell me that someone else who is operating in the same manner is nuts really bugs me. Alan's not nuts. He's never quite come home anywhere because every home he tried on was full of people who couldn't even barely understand how he got to be the way he is. Civilians, those who ask dumb questions about Vietnam and then cringe from the answers. Who alienate and shun people who don't relate well anymore instead of trying to find ways to reach past the barriers that war installs in people. He probably wasn't expecting that response here." Hannah just sat there looking at me for some time. "That sounds as if you've had some personal experience with Alan's kind of problems." "You got that right. The object of the game in Nam was to get home alive after a year in the bush. You were sent individually and came back individually, not in units. While you were there you tried to avoid getting attached to anyone because the casualty rates were too high. It was worse than a prison sentence in many ways, and when it was over you were yanked out of whatever muddy hole you'd been hunkered in and put on a plane to San Francisco so the anti-war, anti-GI freaks could throw rocks and crap at you as you as you left the airport. You were a symbol of everything people were protesting because the marching morons couldn't reach the ones who were really responsible for the war." Hannah started to say something, but I held up a hand. "Have some wine, Hannah, 'cause I'm not quite through. Once you were back in the States you had to be careful what you said at parties or social events or even to your friends and family. The WW-II and Korea vets and damn near everybody else treated us as if it was our fault America couldn't win the war and get started with Americanizing Vietnam. Go for a job or an apartment, but don't be stupid enough to say a damn thing about your military time. Tell you what, Hannah ... most Nam vets may not know how to spell the word 'pariah', but they for damn sure know what being one feels like. They learned real quick the habit of silence, and because they're silent about where they've been and what they've had to do to survive, the civilians of the world think they're strange and probably dangerous." Hannah had poured two glasses of wine during my low-key tirade. She handed me mine and said, "But that doesn't quite tell me why my caring about you made you leave."

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"Well, damn. I thought it was in there somewhere. Maybe it wasn't. Okay, Hannah, I just don't handle being worried about very well. It feels as if the worrier is trying to find a way to put a leash and collar on me, so I'd rather not be worried about." "A leash and collar..? Don't you think you're exaggerating a little, Ed? It's fairly normal for a woman to care about the man she's been sleeping with." "That occurred to me," I said, gesturing at the bunk. Hannah said nothing for some time, sipping her wine and apparently just staring into the glass. She stood and walked around the room once, winding up back at the chair without sitting down. "I don't know what to do or say," she said, "That was quite a speech, Ed, and I still don't fully understand why you left, but I'll give what you said some thought. In the meantime, give this some thought, will you..? You're refusing someone else's concern for you rather than trying to learn to deal with it. Maybe something else made you put up walls, but that something else is history now, and you're carefully maintaining those walls for no good reason." "Tell me that again when the war is over. When we don't have to run out and play tag with tanks or shoot at aircraft with missiles and sleep in tents with twenty men pulling sentry duty at night in sandbagged trenches. When bad guys with grenades don't wake us up before dawn. Seems to me that the circumstances that made me this way are still very much in effect, Hannah. You could have been in the building when they strafed it. You're in there all the time. Worry is something to be avoided in times like these, as far as I'm concerned. It does no good at all and it screws up both your stomach and your sleep." "You're going to go through life as Mr. Don't-get-attached, huh? And you don't think that's a little abnormal?" "Normal isn't always the most sensible thing, Hannah. It's just what most people do, and I'm not most people. Most people haven't been where I've been or done what I've done and most people have nothing more to worry about in their lives than finding ways to pay bills and deciding what color the wallpaper should be in the kitchen." "And what's so wrong with that?" "Nothing, for them. Everything, for me. Why do you think I'm here? I was doing something else somewhere else that was every bit as dangerous as this. I had to take a vacation when the whole operation became a political game. When I missed my flight, I could have finagled some kind of ride out, but I didn't. Does that tell you anything?" Hannah put her glass on the chair and said, "Yes, it does, Ed. It tells me that you look for trouble and you find it. It tells me that you haven't come home, yet, either, but in your case it's totally voluntary. Maybe it isn't that way with Alan, but it is with you. I'm going to let you go back to sleep, now. Let me know if you change your mind." She picked up her rifle and slung it on her shoulder, then looked at me for a moment before she turned and walked to the door. She stood at the door for a moment more, as if giving me one last chance to recant. I said nothing. Hannah opened it and stepped out onto the porch, closing the door softly behind her. I saw two shadows under the door and realized that someone had joined her out there. I could hear muted voices for a few moments, then Hannah's shadow moved away. I was getting curious when there was a quick rapping on the door that I recognized as Susanne's. "Yeah, sure. Come on in," I said, sitting up on the bed and checking my towel for gaps. The door opened and Susanne came into the dispensary with a couple of small boxes. She put them on the desk and said, "I brought you some of the cake from the party." She eyed my towel and said, "Nice outfit. I take it you aren't planning to go out?" "Nope. Hadn't planned to. I grabbed a bottle of wine," I said, "How would they mix?"

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She looked different than she had earlier in the day. I realized that her t-shirt was a size or two smaller, hugging her more closely than the one she'd been wearing. Her shorts weren't the same, either. She'd been wearing her usual shorts that came almost to the knee, but these shorts stopped about mid-thigh. She had long, solid, tanned legs. It occurred to me that if she wasn't running out of clean laundry and having to borrow clothes, she was dressing to impress. "I'll pass on mixing them," she said, "Maybe later for the cake, too. I'd take a glass of wine, though." She eyed the glass on the chair. "I'll rinse that one clean and use it." I nodded as she picked up the glass and took it to the sink. There were other clean glasses on the rack near the sink. Susanne's words about cleaning the glass that Hannah had used felt as if they had more than one meaning. She was trying to wash me clean of Hannah, too. I watched her walk to the sink and admired those legs again as she stood there for several moments. Susanne came back and held out the glass. I poured, expecting her to say "Stop" sooner or later, but she didn't. When the eight-ounce glass was full, Susanne sat down in the chair across from me and crossed her legs, making the shorts pull on her thighs until she adjusted them, which simply uncovered another few inches of her legs. When I could pull my eyes away from them, I looked up to see her observing my reaction. "We may need another bottle at this rate," I said, filling my own to match hers. "If you think we will, let me go for it now," said Susanne, "I don't want to have to get dressed again later and they may have put it away by then, anyway." She delivered those words in as conversational a manner as if she'd been commenting on the weather, but the words and their quiet manner of delivery combined to impact me. I was startled by her frankness and didn't bother to conceal it from her. Susanne grinned and took a sip of wine. Not a gulp, just a sip. "Actually," she said, "I don't drink much. Two glasses like this will probably last me most of the evening." "Then I guess we don't need another bottle. The part about not wanting to get dressed again sounded as if you came here with a plan, Susanne." She nodded. "I did. Hannah said she was going to come here and either straighten you out or let you go, so I decided to be here when she failed. You made a grand little speech about how you'd work with me or for me or sleep with me if we wanted each other. Was all that just steam because of your situation with Hannah, or was it true?" I laughed softly. "When she failed? Such confidence. It was true, Susanne. If you know the job and I don't, I'll take directions, and you're a good-looking woman. Very desirable. And it was steam, but I don't think that matters anymore. Hannah told me to let her know if I changed my mind about things, but I don't really think she'll wait that long for me." Susanne grinned again. "No, I don't think she will. A week, maybe, but not years." "You sound as if you know a lot about this kind of thing." "Not really. I'm just moving in on you before someone else does." "I noticed. Now tell me why. What are you looking for that Hannah wasn't?" Susanne stretched her legs, toed her sneakers off, hooked an ankle on the bunk, then rested the other leg on top of that one. She let herself slide down a bit in the chair and got comfortable that way before answering. "I don't go home until February unless I leave early. Sooner or later you'll be leaving us, too, Ed. I like the way you look and think and talk, but I'm not in the market for a husband. In the several months I've been here, two guys have proposed to me. Neither of them took it well when I told them I'd rather not become a wife. I don't even like the way that word sounds, for some

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reason. Wife..." She shuddered. "It means different things to different people, but it almost always means making babies and housekeeping, and I'm not ready for motherhood and drudgery. There's no chance of that with you. I read your folder in Moshe's office." "Snooping in my file." I tried to look shocked. "And what did you discover about me?" Susanne grinned slightly. "You're allergic to pentathol derivatives, you have a history of epididymitis attacks due to a complication that occurred during your vasectomy, and you've been separated from your Army wife for over two years, but you still have a NATO/SOFA stamp in your passport as a military dependent, so you don't need many visas when you travel. That would seem to mean you and she have struck a deal." I grinned back at her. "Yup. She gets COLA, off-base quarters, and other such benefits of being a married GI. I get PX and commissary privileges, green Army tags on my car, super-cheap insurance, access to most military bases, and standby MAC flights. A couple of times a year we send each other papers to sign to keep the bureaucrats happy." "You're attractive, you can't get married, and you can't make me pregnant. Before I read your folder, I was content to put you on the pile with the other guys around here, you know. Look, but don't touch. Play nice. Be polite and friendly, but keep a distance." She paused as she sipped her wine. Her eyes were on mine as she said, "Hannah once told me she caught you staring at her legs the first day you were here. Do you like mine?" I pretended to examine her legs thoroughly, even going so far as to touch her knee to make her uncross them, then I examined them some more, touching and squeezing her thighs and calves. I ran my fingers from above her knee to her ankle and said, "Hmm." "Well?" she prompted me with a grin. I looked up at Susanne very solemnly and said, "Those are most very fine legs, my lady. I'd like to kiss my way to the top of them and see if they'll work well as earmuffs." Susanne giggled, then let out a bark of laughter, then began laughing and couldn't seem to stop. When the torrent slowed a bit, I wiggled my tongue at her and she started laughing hard again. At long last she took a couple of gulps of wine and seemed to settle for a few moments, but it didn't last. When she finally stopped laughing so hard she couldn't speak, she said, "Now maybe I'll be ready for that one if I ever hear it again." Her feet were on the floor again. I placed both hands on her knees and knelt between her legs to kiss her right thigh, then her left. When I looked up, Susanne was looking down. I kissed her lips and let the kiss linger as I slid my hands up her thighs and then up her arms and then around her for an embrace. When we broke the kiss, I softly told her that I had one small fetish. Her eyes opened a bit wider and she asked what it was. "I do love to see how high I can take a woman and how long I can keep her there," I said, "I have an obsessive fascination with the female orgasm." Susanne thought I was joking. She laughed and said, "If only that were true." I smiled at her and kissed her again, lightly drawing my fingers along the nape of her neck, across her shoulders, and down the backs of her arms. I could feel the goosebumps my efforts caused as my fingers drew circles on the backs of her arms. Susanne sat back a bit and rubbed her arms in amazement. I held up one finger in a silent command for her to wait there and went to the sink for a fork. Susanne's eyes got rather large and she said, "Hey, wait a minute. What's that for?" "Don't worry," I said, "I'm not into painful things. Hold still." I moved behind her and let the tines of the fork rest lightly on the nape of her neck for a moment before softly trailing them down the same path my fingers had taken, across her shoulder and down her arm. The goosebumps

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appeared instantaneously and spread widely in the wake of the fork. Susanne gasped and started to turn to look. "Hold still," I said, "I don't want to stick you with it. Just let me play and tell me if you like the effect when I run it over your bare back." I lifted her t-shirt as a hint. Susanne realized what I wanted and took the shirt off. I drew the fork lightly over the muscles of her back and shoulders until the goosebumps were nearly everywhere. "Now," I said softly, "There's only one way to deal with goosebumps properly, milady. The ones here, for instance..." I kissed her shoulder and then licked it lightly. Susanne shivered at the touch of my tongue. I lapped softly to the nape of her neck, kissed her there softly once, and then whispered in her ear, "How was that, ma'am?" The breath came out of her in a huge sighing rush. Susanne turned her head to look at me and softly exclaimed, "That was ... well, I don't know what that was, but I hope you don't intend to stop until I've had enough of it. Wow!" I gave her a fake look of remorse. "There's something you should know, then." "What's that?" she asked, taking the fork and staring at it as if it could somehow be a special, magic fork instead of just an El Al, airline-issue, stainless food-scooping device. "You won't ever get enough. I can tell. You reacted entirely too well just now. You're going to demand it of me day and night until I just sort of wither away with a fork in my hand and blisters on my tongue from pleasuring you. I think I'm probably doomed. Now it's time to do your front a while." Susanne was laughing again as she stood up and went to the door. She locked it and returned to the bunk. "Unhook me," she said, turning so I could reach her bra strap. As soon as it was undone, she shook it off and skinned out of her shorts and panties. She was a magnificent sight. Firm and trim, tanned and lovely, and only two feet away. The tangy fragrance of her, mingled with her slight perfume, wafted across to me and the taste of her skin was still on my tongue. It seemed to me that I could feel the heat of her body. Susanne saw the effect she was having on me and pulled my towel away. "Oh, my...!" she said softly, reaching for me. When she looked up, I leaned forward and kissed her long and soundly. "Oh, my..!" she said again. In the course of the evening only one visitor knocked on the door to interrupt us. I pulled Susanne's legs away from my ears so I could hear. The knock came again. I looked up at Susanne. She put her hands on my head and pushed lightly downward to let me know what she thought of being interrupted. "Get back to work, there," she grinningly whispered. "Better see if someone's hurt," I said, "This IS the dispensary, after all." Susanne sighed and let her legs drop away from my head. It was David at the door. I asked if he was sick or injured, and he said he wasn't in a rather puzzled voice. I then asked if he couldn't possibly get with me the next day. He replied I was on the list to walk the sentry line and that I was due in about an hour unless I had something better to do with my night. He then softly said, "Hello, Susanne." "How does he know I'm here?" shrieked Susanne in a whisper. "The same way probably everyone else knows by now," I whispered back, then to David I said, "Okay. I'll be along in a while." "Okay," said David. His footsteps led off the porch. "Well," I said, "We're probably tonight's gossip. If you're still in the mood, I'd like to play a while longer, ma'am," I licked her inner thigh, "Even though you do taste kind of tense right now." I made to kiss her other thigh, but she stopped me. "You don't go on duty until midnight. That means it's almost eleven!" "Yeah. Guess so. So what?"

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Susanne looked at me as if I just really wasn't getting the picture at all. "Ed, I got here before seven. We've been at this for four hours!" I gave her a blank look. "Yeah? And? So? Who cares how long? Is there some kind of time limit?" I made a frustrated face. "Nobody tells me anything about local rules." Susanne giggled. "Poor little you. No, there's no time limit. I was just surprised." "Be surprised later. I have my arms full of your lovely thighs and I'm happy." Susanne chuckled softly and then laughed. "You have to report in, Ed." "In an hour. Lots of time." I licked her belly, making her laugh again. "I'll be here when you get back or you can come to my tent." She pulled me up against her and kissed me. "Another half hour, then you can take a break for sentry duty." That first evening with Susanne set the pattern for all the others while I was at the kibbutz. Hannah was distant and vaguely hostile for a few days, but by the end of the week David was sharing her tent and we were on speaking terms again. There were no further military incidents involving our kibbutz by the time the war effectively ended with a cease-fire imposed upon all participants on October 22. My role in everything came into question only once, largely due to someone having included my name on a salutary list of those who had sallied forth against the tanks. By the end of the day the entry had been changed to that of "Field Medical Specialist" to appease both the U.S. government, which hadn't given me permission to participate, and an investigatory team from the UN and NATO. Some petty bureaucrat from the U.S. embassy came all the way out to see for himself what I'd been up to, just as if that were really even possible. He was given the tour and shown my dispensary, and when his questions became too sharply worded, Moshe took him into his office. I heard his words from outside the office, as did most everyone else within a hundred feet of the building. "He stayed to treat the injured. He helped us through a very hard time. If we aren't upset about his being here, why the hell are you? You have all the report you're ever going to get from me or anyone else here, and while it doesn't give you any reason to harass Ed, I'm sure you'll read it over thoroughly, just in case it might. Your 'request' that I turn his passport over to you is denied. That word means 'NO'. You'll have to get it some other way if you can. It hasn't been revoked, so you have no need of it, and if it is revoked later, I'm prepared to sponsor him for Israeli citizenship, if only to piss you off. You've worn out your welcome and I want you off these grounds immediately." Moshe called me into his office. "Your passport and all your other papers are staying in my safe, Ed. If I were you, I'd burn them before I gave them to this vulture." I nodded and thanked him before leaving the room. The bureaucrat was glaring at me, so I made a mental note to get his name from the record. John and Linda would want it in case the guy or his offices continued to cause trouble that could involve the agency. I stayed on at the kibbutz through November to help restore it to its pre-war condition. Susanne and I made the most of every moment we were together. She moved into the dispensary with me and we borrowed another bunk from the cabin so we could strap them together into a double bed of sorts. If we weren't on duty, we were together. Hannah was the one in the office the day Linda called to let me know it was safe to return to Germany. It was a Tuesday in the first week in December when the message runner came by to tell me I had a call in the office. I asked her to find Susanne for me and have her meet me there. Susanne sat nearby as I spoke to Linda about returning to Europe. I hadn't expected things to clear up before January at the soonest because of the holidays, but there had been a consensus among investigators to stop the investigations.

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I was careful with my words, of course. It was a long distance call on an unsecured line and Susanne was sitting nearby, but I wanted her to know that if I returned to Europe right away it would be by order, not by my own designs. "Since you don't have work for me that needs immediate attention," I said, "There's no reason to rush back, is there? Don't you want some time to reorganize?" Linda seemed surprised. "Aren't you glad it's over? Don't you want to come back?" "Oh, yeah, sure. Just not this very minute, if it's all right with everybody." "Uh ... well, I guess we could get along without you for a while until we've put something together here. Mind telling me why?" I heard her hesitation, then, "Oh, hell, of course. What's her name, Ed?" "Susanne." "I see. Is it serious?" "We aren't planning a wedding." "Will you be bringing her back with you?" "No, she has family in California. When her time is up, she's going home." "My God. You found a Jewish beach bunny from California on an Israeli kibbutz?" "I did. She's gorgeous and tanned and loves what I do for her." "Oh, Jesus. Oh, wait! Am I allowed to say that on this line? Okay, Ed, I'll tell John that you'll be delayed somewhat and somehow, but we want you back early in the year." "Got it. Early in the year. Yes, ma'am. It's a date." I held the receiver out and saluted it. Susanne giggled. I heard Linda groan and mutter in Germany. "Okay, then. No later than mid-February. Call in a week in advance for travel plans." "No later than mid-February. A week in advance. No problem." "Don't you want to know how things are going here?" "Things there are going fine or you wouldn't be calling me to come back, Linda." "Oh. Right. Okay. Oh, Jesus." I heard her say something to someone off-line. The someone laughed and said something equally unintelligible, then Linda came back on. "That's it, then. See you when you get here. John says hello and have fun." "Him too. You, too. Bye, Linda. Give Marsha a kiss for me." "I'm not that kind of girl. She'll have to make do with a handshake." "You don't know what you're missing. Bye." And that was that. I didn't have to leave Susanne until she had to leave for home. -------*Chapter Nineteen -- The Bear's Teeth* In mid January, Susanne told everybody her departure date was February 4th. I let John and Linda know this, as requested. A few days later, Yasha called to tell me that the U.S. Embassy vulture was still interested in talking to me and suggested that I drop by his office. Since Hannah and David were scheduled to make a supply run to Jerusalem later in the week, I told Yasha that Susanne and I could get a ride into town with them and maybe act like tourists for a while, as well. Once we were off our hilltop, the penetration of the war into Israel became much more apparent. There were shell holes and derelict or destroyed vehicles all along the roads. Some were ours, some were theirs. Hannah had us stop near a blackened Russian-made tank that had its turret blown completely off. There was nothing inside, of course. The cleanup crews had already been there. She stood and stared at it for a long time before she placed her hand on it in a

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shaded area. I saw what had caught her attention. It was the hole in the front of the tank body. She put her hand gingerly into the hole. The next time you see a tank, consider what it takes to punch a fist-sized hole through several inches of steel and blow a huge steel turret off a tank. Also consider what happens to those inside the tank in that split-second of hell. Hannah withdrew her hand, and after peeking in the hole, asked David, "Is this what those LAW's can do? You guys were up against THESE that day? My God..." David said, "Yes, these are what we faced. No, a LAW doesn't punch that hard. If they could, we probably wouldn't have had any tanker prisoners." Hannah walked completely around the tank once and said, "Those poor men." David spat on the sizzling hot surface of the tank. "They were Arabs on a Jew-killing spree. Fuck 'em. Let's go." He headed back to the jeep in disgust. We all stared at him for a moment, mostly because his remark was highly uncharacteristic, then followed. Yasha met us at the door to his office with bear hugs. "I took a personal interest in your welfare," he said, "Not just you, Ed. All of you at the kibbutz. It's good to see you all in one piece after so much has happened." He took us to an early lunch at a nice nearby restaurant and made much of our efforts for close to half an hour before settling into the meal. Toward the end of lunch he handed each of us a small, gift-wrapped package and sat back to watch. The packages didn't weigh much. I shook mine slightly as the others opened theirs. It didn't rattle. Hannah gasped and held up a one-inch Star of David. It appeared to be made of silver. Susanne and David found similar jewelry in their packages. I raised an eyebrow at Yasha, wondering if my package held the same. He gave me a blank smile and waited as I finally opened mine. Inside was a tiny sword. As I lifted it out, I could see it was in the shape of a Roman Gladius short sword. I looked at Yasha. "Teeth of the bear," he said, "Teeth of the bear. These are bits of stainless steel from that jet that you shot down. I'm having them made for everyone on the farm. Yours is a Gladius, Ed, because you aren't Jewish and we won't have time to try to convert you before you get away." There was a round of chuckles at that, largely because Jews don't make much of an effort to convert people. Yasha continued, "I don't know when anyone is going to be issuing medals in the near future, so I took it upon myself to have these made. They're wholly unofficial, but I hope you'll accept them in the spirit in which they're given." "You know we do," said David. We took a moment to put them on. After a round of thanks, Yasha held a somewhat larger packet out to me. "Your embassy appears determined to have a word with you about your contribution to our efforts," said Yasha, "This package is from John and me. John sends you a special passport and various documentation and I have arranged for you to be reimbursed for your time and efforts on our behalf while visiting as a tourist in our land." "Not necessary..." I started to say, but Yasha held up a hand. "Necessary," he said, "No arguments. I quote the 'Loss of Nationality' paragraph from the back of your U.S. passport: '...by serving in the armed forces or accepting employment under the government of a foreign state.' It is only five thousand dollars, and it has been listed as payment for your medical services only. That way you have solid evidence that you were primarily employed to tend the wounded, and it would look very bad if they tried to harass you for doing good deeds, no? Look who signed the receipt." I looked. It was signed by Doc Elena. "How did you threaten her to make

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her sign this?" I laughed, "Or did you just promise her that I was leaving her country forever..?" When the laughter died down around the table, Yasha said, "Neither, really. Her aide was in one of the helicopters that gathered up prisoners after the tank battle. He saw you there, investigated further, and discovered that only one of your teams had casualties after knocking out several tanks. The doctor thought that was somewhat amazing." "You may want to tell her that Alan and the other two combat vets came up with most of that plan," I said, "I just suggested using rope-decoys and staggering the fireteams." "I'll tell her nothing," he said, "She feels very good about overcoming her prejudices. Now, back to your departure from Israel. When you buy your ticket, they'll know you're about to leave and watch for you. We know of a flight going to Frankfurt two days later than your planned departure date. Would you like us to save you a seat on that, instead?" "Yes, thanks. I'll come into town with Susanne and get a room someplace to wait." Someone came for Yasha during the end of lunch and he had to go back to the office, but he told us to check back in the evening so we could pick up the "Bear's Teeth" for the others at the kibbutz. David and Hannah left to take care of their supply run and Susanne and I were left at the table to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. With almost four hours to kill, we set off on a walking tour of Jerusalem. The city was ripped apart in some places and apparently undisturbed in others. Street vendors were set up wherever possible and various businesses were back in operation already. I had no idea what rules had been installed during or since the brief war, but it was obvious to me that a very large number of people who had been bustling about the streets were absent. I didn't assume they were casualties. They were more likely Arabs who had been living and working in and around Jerusalem who would now have to answer the questions: "...and what did you do during the war? Can you prove that?" As we passed the King David Hotel, I showed Susanne the restaurant where the bombing had happened. She seemed lost in thought, and I thought she might have seen enough of various scenes of destruction, but that wasn't what was on her mind. "Ed, what do rooms cost here?" "A bunch. More than a bunch. A lot. Damned if I know, but..." She interrupted me. "Let's leave the kibbutz on Thursday and spend a weekend in a place like this before I have to get on that Monday plane to the states." I instantly responded with, "We'll make reservations now. We'll spend some of Yasha's money to make ourselves some special memories." Moshe took the news of our slightly earlier departure well enough. He simply revised his calendar accordingly. One of the clerks said they'd have to move the party up, then went on to explain that anyone leaving the kibbutz was given a small going-away party. It wasn't a small party. Just about everyone on the kibbutz attended. The next day a supply helicopter ferried us into Jerusalem and we checked into the hotel. Because of the embassy vulture, I had mailed a package to my parents in Texas. In the package were my Israeli-issue uniforms and other trinkets and souvenirs given to me or found while I'd been in Israel. The only exception was Yasha's Gladius pendant. Susanne and I spent a lasciviously glorious last-weekend together before I took her to the airport. All the usual sort of "Look me up if you get into town" words were said and tears were shed and I'm sure the flight attendant was looking for a crowbar to get us apart as the last call was announced, but Susanne made her flight with seconds to spare. Standing at the big glass windows, I watched her plane back out of the dock. She was seated on the other side of the plane from the window, which was

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probably just as well. I felt that tugging, wrenching sensation and the sense of deep loss as the plane moved away. My world seemed empty again. It was in this sort of mood that I turned from the window and left the gate area, and it was in this sort of mood that I ran into the embassy vulture who'd been waiting outside the gate for me. "We thought you might be here today," he said with a smile. "If you don't have good news, you might want to leave me alone right now," I said. The guy laughed. "You're coming with us to the embassy. Is that good enough news for you? We want to talk about what you were doing here during October and how it may affect your future. You have taken an unauthorized part in a foreign military operation." Three uniformed cops were heading our way. At first I thought they were the vulture's backups, but they ignored him completely as they confronted me. "You will come with us immediately," one of them said in heavily-accented English. When the embassy vulture protested, the cop simply feigned poor comprehension and signaled the others to take me. The vulture was livid with suppressed rage as they led me away. "Am I being charged with something?" I asked, not knowing if they understood me. "You are being delivered to Yasha's office," said the cop in perfect English. "He thought this might happen and arranged for us to be standing nearby." We stopped at the King David to get my bags on the way. Yasha wasn't in, but one of the women in the office knew the situation and took me off the cops' hands with thanks. "There's a flight to Frankfurt tonight," she said, "Would you like to take it?" "I thought my flight was two days from now," I said. "Yasha says you need to be away from some people now. There's a flight this evening. It's a chartered jet. They said they'd be happy to take you along as far as Germany." "I guess so, then. What corporation is it?" "A nominally-British consultancy company called Solutions. They provide corporate security people and advisors." She told me no more about it. Yasha returned a little before closing time and picked me up for dinner and another ride to the airport. He told me that Solutions was retrieving some of its people and that I would not be free to ask questions of the passengers. "If they choose to chat, fine, but don't expect overt friendliness. Solutions is an employment agency for mercenaries." "I didn't know Israel used mercenaries," I said. "We don't," said Yasha, "And that's official." He chuckled and said, "They, like you, chose to come here and chose to stay and help. We simply chose to reimburse them." At the airport, the Solutions people were boarding at their own gate. Yasha took me to an office near the gate and introduced me to the woman at the desk there. She was about five-seven, in her thirties, and had stark black hair and tanned skin. Their smiling handshake turned into an impromptu hug and Yasha said, "Good to see you again, Carla." "You too, Yasha. This is your passenger?" Her accent was almost British. Not quite. "He is." "He has no legal problems that would create problems for us?" "None. His legal problems are his alone. It seems that someone from the local U.S. embassy wants to question him about his involvement in recent events for political reasons. We think it would be better if they didn't. You know how that can be..." "Oh, indeed. Just as Australia takes a dim view of my present employment. Well, it's a quarter to ten, so let's log him in and talk a bit until I have to board, shall we?"

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I wasn't surprised that someone checked my passport and such, but I was surprised that nobody checked my bags at all. They simply asked if I had any aerosols or flammables or explosives and then tossed my duffelbag on the loading cart. I was then directed to the gate to wait with the others. "Another time, perhaps," said Yasha, "It was good to have you with us, Ed." As we shook hands I thanked him for all the help and told him I'd like to return after they'd had a chance to clean up a bit for the tourists. He laughed and told me to remember his number so he could arrange a grand tour. When I looked back from the gate area, he and Carla were nose to nose in conversation. A British voice next to me asked, "How come she won't have anything to do with us, but she's all cozy with that Mossad spook?" "No idea," I said. "I wasn't asking you, mate." "Shut up, Harris," said someone else, "The Major can date whothehellever she wants without your permission, and she wouldn't tumble you in any case. You're just jealous." I looked over to see a guy closing a paperback around his finger to mark his page. Major? I had yet to see a uniform on anyone in this group. "Up yours, Barrett," said Harris with a grin. "You wish," said Barrett, also grinning. He re-opened his book and went back to reading. I found a seat and a stack of newspapers and sat down to wait. There was motion to the right. Yasha was leaving the Major's office. When I glanced into the Major's office, she was looking back at me. She crooked a finger at me. I rose and went to her desk. "Yes, ma'am?" "Sit, please. We have half an hour and I have some questions." I sat in the plush swivel chair she pushed over to me. "Yasha said you fought tanks and won. He said you know the night and brought back a prisoner." "The prisoner was just a scared kid. No weapon. All he wanted was out of there." "He might not have been. What about the tanks?" "Well, there isn't much to say. We won. We had LAW's and choppers came to help." "Don't be coy. There's a reason they call it a 'LIGHT' Antitank Weapon. Tell me about your adventures. Be factual. No bragging or modesty." I did so, boiling it down but leaving out nothing important. She seemed to be appraising me. I asked her if this were so and if so, why. "Take this card," she said, "If you ever need a job, we can talk again." "If you're coming back with us, we can talk on the way. Did Yasha tell you who I was working for and why I was in Israel?" "No, he didn't, and we can't talk on the way because I'm the co-pilot. I'll be busy." I looked back at the gate. There was nobody in sight. "Guess I'd better get aboard, then," I said, pocketing the card, "Thanks. I may have reason to call you fairly soon." "You expect to be dismissed?" "No, not fired. Just unusable for a long while in my old line of work." Carla didn't ask what that work might be. She simply said, "Well, Yasha seems to think highly of you, so call us if you find reason to do so. We'll talk then." I nodded and waited as she gathered her things into a briefcase, then walked with her onto the plane. When Carla turned left to go to the pilot's cabin, I turned right to look for my seat number. On the way to my seat, I noted that about a quarter of the passengers were women. Mercenaries? I wondered what their roles might be. Everyone was looking at me in an examining way as I passed down the aisle. My seat was one of two and on the aisle. The window seat was occupied

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by a blonde woman in her late twenties who moved her purse so I could sit. I looked her over as tossed my bag in the overhead compartment and took my seat. Shoulder-length blonde hair and a set of blonde eyebrows, so probably natural. A slight resemblance to Kim Novak, but somewhat heavier in frame and form. A slight, tangy perfume. Solid, well-filled thighs under that a-line skirt that didn't seem to flatten much when she sat down and solid arms that filled the sleeves of her light jacket. She looked up at me. "Are you quite through with your examination of me?" She was British, by her accent. "Good," I said, "You speak English, so you'll understand when I call you beautiful. Sorry I was staring, but you're just this side of being a goddess, ma'am." After a moment of gazing rather critically at me, she asked, "Just this side?" "That's slang for 'almost'." "I know what it means. I want to know why you think I'm only 'almost' a goddess." I looked for any trace or hint of humor and found none. "Well, if you were really a goddess," I said, "You wouldn't need a plane. You'd just zap yourself to wherever." "Maybe I'm traveling incognito." Her tone was one of beleaguered boredom, but if she'd been bored, she wouldn't have bothered asking questions. "Oh, hey, of course. What would be more incognito than traveling with this crowd? Nope. Close, but not quite, ma'am. You've got the looks and the build and you're a sharp dresser, but I'd bet money you can't fly without a plane." She cocked an eyebrow at me. "Promise you'll behave yourself and I won't have my many friends," she waved a hand at the rest of the plane, "Beat you to a pulp." "No problem," I said, "I brought a book, if you'd rather be ignored." That got a smile out of her. "You tell me I'm almost a goddess, then offer to ignore me for the rest of the trip? Why do I have trouble believing that?" "Damn. You got me there, I guess. I confess, I lied about that. There's no way I could sit next to you and not notice you. What now? Do you want me to find another seat?" She smiled again, only slightly. "Not necessary. Stay put, but be careful." She leaned forward and started to slip her jacket off. I reached to help. As her arms came in to view I saw cords of muscle rolling over other cords of muscle in her tricep and shoulder. I'd never seen musculature like that on a woman before. It wasn't the veiny, overdeveloped, lumpy look so common to weightlifters. It was just solid muscle under smooth, feminine skin. She caught me gazing at her arm and shoulder. "What's the matter? You don't like muscular women?" Her tone was sharp. "It's just that I've never seen arms like that on a woman before. Wow." She sat back and lifted her arm, twisting and turning it to make the muscles roil under that layer of smooth skin. I caught myself raising a hand to touch her arm and stopped, but she said, "Go ahead," and bent her elbow, making her bicep rise. I didn't just touch her bicep, as she expected. I ran my fingers lightly from her wrist to her elbow and then up the side of her upper arm, ending with a squeeze of her tricep. "Tell you what," I said, "It feels as good as it looks, and it looks damn good on you." "You mean that? You aren't just saying that? A lot of men..." I interrupted her. "A lot of men? I'm just me. I represent nobody else, and I like what I see here." I let my fingers trail back along her arm to her wrist and pulled her close enough to lightly kiss her shoulder. "That's what I think of your muscles, miLady." A man's voice from a seat across the aisle said, "You touch her like

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that again and you may need help getting off the plane, kid." He sounded American. I turned to see a man in his mid-thirties glaring at me. "You her boyfriend?" I asked. "As far as you're concerned, we're all her boyfriends, kid. She's with us." I turned back to my seatmate and asked, "What's your name? I'm Ed." "Christie," she said, smiling. She was enjoying the attention or anticipating the results of it. Or both. "Christie," I repeated her name as if I were tasting it, "That's a really nice name. Feels good just to say it. Christie, is this guy your boyfriend? Does he have any right or reason to be concerned about who you invite to admire you or to touch you?" "He probably thinks so. He's my team leader." "Uh, huh. This is a personal matter. If you're off-duty, he's out of line." The guy said, "Why don't you change seats, kid, and leave our women alone?" "Would I be on this plane if I were a kid? Why don't you back off and let her decide whether she wants my company? I'm only going as far as Germany, anyway." Carla's voice from the gangway to the forward compartments was almost conversationally quiet, but there was an undertone of steel in it. "There will be no schoolboy heroics on this flight, Derek. Ed. Christie. Everybody. Stop trying to stir things up, Christie. Contain yourself until we're back in Britain." Having said that, she turned and walked back into the forward compartment without so much as a glance back. Derek continued to glare at me for a moment before opening his magazine again. I looked at Christie. She had an exaggeratedly innocent look on her face, eyes large and questioning as if to ask, "Who, me?" "Okay," I said, opening my own book, "So you really don't give a damn if I think you're beautiful or not or whether I like your physique. You were just trying to start some shit. Fine, lady. As I said, I brought a book." I'd progressed about ten pages before Christie stood up and nudged me to move so she could get past me to the aisle. I pulled my feet back to let her pass, all the while gazing at her legs. Her jacket fell to the floor in front of her seat. Instead of sitting back down to reach for it, she simply bent at the waist and hooked the collar with her finger. Her pleated skirt rose, exposing a good deal more of her thighs in the process. I was paying attention to nothing else when I heard her whisper, "Are you having trouble concentrating on your book?" I glanced over to see a wicked smile on her face. She tossed her jacket on the seat and straightened up, then leaned close to whisper, "Show's over. I have to pee. Let me out." The top three buttons of her blouse were undone and the blouse was gaping slightly open. Those buttons had been buttoned when I'd first sat down. I was being treated to a look as she leaned to whisper to me, which meant that the show was nowhere near over, no matter what she'd told me. Although there was room to slither past my legs, Christie pulled her skirt up a few inches and very gracefully swung first one leg over mine, then the other. More show, and a damned good one, in my opinion. I looked up at her and whispered, "Thanks!" as I quietly applauded her feat. She put a finger under her chin and made the slightest dip to imitate a curtsey, then strode off to the bathrooms in the rear. Derek was glaring at me. I gave him a "What the hell do I know?" look and a shrug. He turned back to his magazine with a grunt of disgust. I heard a soft chuckle from the seat two rows back from his and saw another woman smiling back at me. She crooked her arm and pretended to gaze in fascination at her bicep, poking and prodding it as if it were the greatest discovery of

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the age, then looked back at me and giggled. Derek noticed our silent exchange and peered around to see who I was um ... exchanging with. The woman immediately assumed a face of total innocence, but it lasted only seconds. She giggled again and went through the motions of examining her bicep again for him. He turned back in his seat with a sigh that spoke of much endurance. To the woman I grinned and whispered, "Not the first time?" She returned my grin momentarily and then gave me a "poor little you" look while shaking her head slowly. Nope. Not the first time. Probably not even the hundredth time. I nodded and turned back in my seat to think. I was undoubtedly supposed to try to chat her up and become a frustrated admirer when they dropped me at Frankfurt. I decided to see if I couldn't possibly find a way to allow her to share the frustration of our parting. The plane took off while Christie was in the bathroom and light turbulence was jostling the plane more or less continuously as I heard Christie coming back. She stopped by my seat before I could get up, of course, and made no move to allow me room to do so. I was supposed to just sit there as she stepped over me again, so I did. This time she was facing away from me as she hiked up her skirt and lifted a leg to step across. I knew what would happen next. Derek was watching. He glared at me again. I thumbed up at Christie and gave Derek a wry grin. It seemed to be taking her an inordinately long time to get past me, then the turbulence jarred the aircraft again and she was able to pretend to fall backwards into my lap with a little squeak of "surprise". I gave Derek a "What did I tell you?" look. He rolled his eyes and turned enough to prop his elbow on the armrest and his chin on his palm to watch the show. "Oh! Excuse me!" chirped Christie as she plummeted to my lap. The grin on Derek's face told me of the confusion on hers when she felt what was under her. She glanced down to confirm what her butt-sensors told her she'd landed on, then turned her head slightly farther to get a look at me. I gave her a smile and said, "I was afraid you'd land pretty hard on a sensitive part of me, but now that you're here, you feel pretty good and smell rather nice," I ran my fingernails up the back of her right arm, "You don't have to be in a hurry to get up." I could feel the goosebumps I'd caused on her arm and quickly did the same for her other arm. She shivered and rubbed her arms, then levered herself up and forward to finish stepping over me. "It was an accident," she said, draping her jacket over her headrest. "They happen," I said, "Sometimes." Christie glanced at me when she heard the pause between my words. I noticed that a fourth button had somehow come undone on her blouse as she arranged her pillow behind her back and leaned the seat backward. Her breasts pushed forth against her blouse as she adjusted herself to position the pillow. "I don't like these cup-shaped seats," she said, "They curl you up instead of letting you straighten out. The pillow keeps your back straight." "Seems to work," I said, "Maybe too well. Would a thinner cushion be better?" "Probably, but there aren't any thinner ones. This will have to do." She stretched and placed her hands behind her head as she looked at me. "You can breathe better if your back is straight," she said, taking a deep breath to demonstrate. I dutifully watched her breathe and said, "It's nice to see how you take such good care of yourself. Your breathing really is pretty magnificent." In truth, her breasts weren't huge, but they did a good job of tightening her blouse as she lay back and an even better job of it when she took those deep breaths. Then she crossed her legs and my attention was drawn elsewhere as her skirt rode up a bit. Christie made no move to straighten her skirt back down. When I looked back at her face, she was grinning slightly as she flicked her eyebrows at me. "I'm cold," she said, "Would you be so kind as to fetch me a blanket?"

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'Uh, huh,' I thought as I reached in the overhead compartment. 'This is either the end of the show or the real beginning.' I let the blanket fall open and draped it over her. She put her hands together in her lap and wriggled herself so I could tuck it in around her, smiling at me all the while. I settled back into my seat and opened my book. "You're going to read?" she asked. "Neither the seat nor the blanket is big enough for both of us," I said, "Besides, I can't seem to remember being invited to play." I met her eyes. "Only to watch you play." Christie chuckled and stuck her tongue out at me. Her fingers moved under the blanket and she said, "You tucked me in. Now, how about telling me a story?" "Lordy, woman. You're truly demanding of a man, aren't you?" "Yes. Now, tell me a story." "You want a fairy tale or a tale of passion? Unicorns or satyrs?" "Oohhh. I'm impressed. Most Americans I've met don't even know what satyrs are. A good number of them might not know what a unicorn is, either, I think." I gave her an aloof look and said, "I'll have you know that I'm quite familiar with satyrs, being that I am one. My first lady transformed me from a callow youth into a man who seeks only the pleasure of women. That may even be the story I should tell you." "Does it have any good parts? I mean, does she nail the boy she's transforming?" I gave her a look of suffering. "Of course she does. How the hell else could she transform him? Theory only goes so far, you know. Practice is absolutely necessary." Christie giggled and said, "Then quit stalling and get with it. Try not to be so crude as to offend my delicate sensibilities, though. I'm very sensitive, you know." "Uh, huh," I said, "I noticed that." I scooted down in my seat until our faces were almost kissing-close and softly said, "Once upon a time, only a few years ago, really, there was a poor, inexperienced youth in Texas who grew to be inordinately fond of one of his teachers. She was a tall, dark-haired woman of surpassing beauty who had lost her husband the year before..." "How did he die?" "What does it matter? I hesitate to tell you at our present altitude." "I have to know things like that or the story won't ring quite right," she said petulantly. "You're sure?" "I'm sure." "Okay, then. He was a Navy jet pilot who landed way too hard on the side of a hill." "You mean he crashed?" "I mean he almost dug a tunnel with his plane in some Vietnamese hillside." "Ooo. For real?" "Yup. Anyway, the teacher and the young man..." "The young man had to be you. Why don't you continue the story that way?" I gave her a look of mock exasperation and said, "Let me tell the story my way, please. Now, as I was saying, we became friends during the school year. When she bought a bit of farmland in an inconveniently-distant part of Northeast Texas, I volunteered to help her move there the week after school ended." I went on to tell her the story of how Anne and I came to an agreement in a restaurant and how nearly running over a rabbit and almost crashing the car on the way back to the farm triggered her into rationalizing away her remaining reservations well enough to join me in the shower. "Oh, my..." said Christie, "I can actually see how that could happen.

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Something similar pushed me into joining the RAF when ... Never mind. Tell me the rest of your story." "Tell you what," I said, "I'll tell you my story first, then you can tell me yours." "We'll see," she said, "Get on with it. I want to hear about that shower." I cleared my throat. "Oh. Yes, ma'am. The shower. Well, she suddenly stepped in with me and we soon discovered that nothing pleased me more than pleasing her." I dropped my tone to a whisper as I carefully chose the most attractive words possible to describe events of that evening. Christie's eyes were closed as she listened. As my description of that night became somewhat graphically detailed, her hands moved slightly, but visibly, under the blanket. I told her briefly of some of the things we'd had to do around the farm, but in no time I was again describing to Christie some of the ways I'd used my hands, tongue, and other parts of me to pleasure Anne as thoroughly and as often as possible during that summer. Christie's eyes were shut even tighter. Her breathing was rapid and shallow and her hands were becoming very active under the blanket as I began to wind up the story of Anne, telling her of the time we'd made love by the pond with the silvery light of the moon coating us so that we resembled a pair of glowing silver statues. As I described our climactic moments under that moonlight, Christie let forth a guttural, groaning, "Hhhuuuhhh...", then sucked her breath between clenched teeth and groaned again. A small sound behind us made me peek between the seats. There sat the woman from two rows behind Derek. She'd quietly moved into the seat behind mine at some point in the story. I had no idea how much she'd heard, but she'd definitely heard Christie's groanings. Her face was rather flushed as she -almost -- raised her hand to wave a timid hello and smiled slightly. Her other hand was clenched on the armrest between the seats. I asked her in a whisper, "Well, did you enjoy the story?" Both women answered. Christie didn't know the other woman was back there and thought I was asking her. At the sound of the other woman's whispered, "Yes", Christie's eyes flew open and she twisted around to peek between the seats. "Marie? What the hell are you doing back there?" "Uhm ... Listening to a story, same as you." Christie's quick motion roused Derek from his magazine. He asked, "What's going on, Marie?" "Nothing, Derek. We're just talking." "I can see that much. What about? Is Christie all right?" "Oh, Ed's just telling us about one of his experiences," said Christie. "I'm fine." "Huh. I'd say he doesn't look old enough to have had many of those yet." He chuckled. Both ladies laughed softly. "You might be surprised, Derek," muttered Marie. Christie heard her and giggled, which made Marie giggle. Derek shook his head skeptically at us and turned back to his magazine. The ladies watched him settle back for a moment, then Marie softly asked, "Was that a true story?" "Yes." "Are you two trading histories or something?" "No, not really," I said with a smile, "I just figured that if Christie, here, was going to play exhibitionist games with me, I should give her something to remember me by, too." "I think you've succeeded," said Marie. Christie giggled softly and agreed with her. "He sort of got me in the ear," she said, giggling again, "You could say he talked me into it." Marie giggled with her until Derek glanced over again. Both managed to

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give him a straight face for a moment until he turned back to his reading, then they giggled again. This time Derek turned quickly, angrily. He stuffed the magazine in the seat-pocket in front of him and asked, "What's so damned funny over there?" "We're not laughing at you," said Christie, "It's personal." "Very personal," agreed Marie. "How the hell personal can it be? You just met him half an hour ago." Marie said defensively, "It just is." "Yes, it is," said Christie. "Personal." I said nothing. Better to let the ladies handle him, since they knew him. Derek glared at us a moment longer and seemed to deflate a little when neither woman looked as if she were kidding. He straightened in his seat and muttered, "You people better think about getting some sleep. There'll be a lot going on tomorrow." "Dammit, he's right," said Marie, "Tomorrow's going to be a big day, Christie." Marie excused herself and went back to her seat. Christie looked at me, then reached to pull my face to hers for a quick kiss. "Thanks," she said, "And you know what for." "You're very welcome, ma'am. Anytime." "Now let me out again," she said, "I need to ... Well, never mind. I just need out." She clambered over me as before, this time facing me with a smile, and headed for the bathrooms again. I settled back and tried to relax, but couldn't seem to get comfortable, so I left my book on the seat and stood up. There was only one restroom on this side back there, so I cut through the galley to use the one on the other side, but someone was in it. I headed forward to see if there was an open restroom in the front. A guy was just going into the port side restroom as I arrived. I decided to wait there instead of going all the way back and peeked into the forward galley to see if there was any coffee available. Next to the coffee pot stood Carla, talking with one of the men. Carla stopped talking when the man's eyes spotted me. She turned to greet me, then told the guy they'd continue later. He left the galley as I found the coffee cups and filled one. "Don't worry," she said, "There's someone in both driver's seats up there. Having a good flight?" she asked, holding out her cup for a refill. "Sure," I said, "Christie's been a good listener." "Christie?" Her voice and her face displayed surprise. "Sure," I said again, "She's been very attentive." "Christie?" she asked again. "Our Christie? That's unusual." Carla laughed. "I never would have guessed that. She's been hanging on every word." "OUR Christie? I'd better check that girl's ID. She may be an impostor." "Well, it's possible that she did seem a little aloof and vain at first, but..." "Oh, no," said Carla, "Not seem. IS. She is a little aloof and vain. Maybe even a lot." I looked at her in the subdued lighting of the galley for some moments. "This isn't a pass," I said, "I just want to tell you you're a very attractive woman for someone who commands the troops." "And this isn't an invitation," she said, "But if that wasn't a pass, why tell me at all?" "I've always been a sucker for Ingrid Bergman. You look a little like her." "Well, thank you, then. I like her, too. I suppose you've seen all her films?" "As I said, I'm a sucker for Ingrid Bergman. I've seen most everything she's ever done." Carla smiled and said, "I was like that with Cary Grant for a while.

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Did you ever see his 'Mister Blanding's Dream House'? It was hilarious." We talked about movies for a little while, then I excused myself when the restroom came open again. When I came back, Carla was still there. She tapped a fingernail on her cup and said, "I know who you're meeting in Frankfurt and why you had to take a vacation. You wouldn't have been on this flight if I didn't know something about you, of course. Why not stay aboard all the way to Heathrow? Your people in Germany can't use you anymore for a long time, if at all. We may have something for you in Solutions." "I really should visit with my outfit first, Carla. They're expecting me." She nodded. "Is one of them someone named Linda?" she asked. I was mildly surprised by that. I neither confirmed nor denied her speculation. When she saw I wasn't going to answer, she continued. "I thought you worked for John," said Carla, "He checked with us when he was looking for you a few years ago. He thought that you might be working with us when he couldn't find you anywhere in the States." More surprise. I hadn't known that anyone, much less John, had been looking for me. "I really can't say much about my employers," I said, "I hope you'll understand..?" Carla's demeanor turned businesslike. "Perfectly. If you had been willing to discuss them, we wouldn't want you and I'd have mentioned it to them. Do you still have my card?" I pulled her card from my pocket. She nodded and said, "Good. If you lose it, you can get the number from John. Now I need to get back up front." As she parted the galley curtain, she stopped and looked back at me. "By the way," she said with a small smile, "Thank you. I've heard that I look like Bergman before, but it's always nice to hear again." I finished my coffee and returned to my seat to find Christie softly snoring in hers, so I quietly installed myself to catch a little sleep of my own. -------*Chapter Twenty* John and Linda were waiting at the gate when I got off the plane. As we shook hands, I asked, "Who's minding the store?" "We just locked up and left," said Linda, "The President can call back later." "Marsha couldn't come along?" "She had something to do at the office," said John, "We'll go back there first." I tossed my stuff in the trunk and got in the back seat. Linda was leafing through a folder as John drove, filling me in on how things had gone in my absence. Because many of the people we'd pulled out of the East had reason to fear discovery, John had pulled some heavy strings to keep most of the files away from even Senators and Congressmen. The investigating committee had turned up only information that it was allowed to discover, ultimately. It went away with little more than it had upon arrival. "There were certain compromises made, of course," said John, "But those were in exchange for other information that we could use later. The problem at hand concerns you and your team. You can't go back to the East. They tried the guard who shot and found him guilty of acting without orders. Nothing else. In the process, they conducted an investigation of most of the people who passed through the gates that day. During the inquiry we were presented with photos of all of you and asked to identify you. Instead of doing so, we began investigating the Senator's source of the photos and information. He couldn't have had them unless someone he knows has a link to the Communists, directly or indirectly, because those photos were never formally introduced as evidences." "So what are you going to do with us?" I asked. "We can arrange to lend you to other agencies in the West," said Linda. "Think you'd be any good at undercover drug busts? The Army has asked for a

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few fresh faces." "No thrill," I said, "The whole drug problem never had to exist at all. It would pretty much go away by itself in a couple of years if drugs were legalized. The pushers would go broke if the stuff were handed out free to junkies, and the junkies would soon kill themselves with overdoses. Having legal, free drugs available would make both ends of the problem disappear." Linda asked, "But would you take that kind of work if it's all we can find for you?" "I don't think so, but try me if you can't find anything else for me to do. Speaking of other things to do, I've been offered a job at Solutions. Who are they and what are they, really?" Linda looked at John. John took the helm on this question with, "They're mercenaries, but they tend to be politically picky about who they accept employment with. I'm sure they've passed up a lot of instant money because of it, too. We have a file you can root through if you're interested in changing employers, Ed, but you already know that the U.S. government takes a dim view of its citizens taking certain foreign employments." "Yeah, I know. A bunch of political whores in Washington won't like it if I sign up with Solutions as a medic. They're worried about an image more than anything else. You know, John, I've been hauling people out of the East for you for some time. For you and the people who need out of there and for our outfit. Not Washington. It only suits their immediate purposes to fund our operations. Tomorrow that could end because one bureaucrat decides to end it. What would happen then? I'd be looking for work or reassigned to another department." "Well," said John, "I hate to spring this on you, but that's essentially what's on your plate, Ed. We can't use you on extractions because they know you now. The names and photos of everyone associated with your last run are on file over there. If you don't want to fly a desk we'll have to find you another line of work in another agency." "What are Will and Connie going to do?" Linda said, "They've already transferred into the DEA. Almost two months ago." "Well, damn. I'll talk to them before I make a decision, John. The drug war is worse than Vietnam. I just can't believe in it. We can't win it the way we're going. We can only perpetuate the situation and make it worse. I don't really want any part of it." Linda looked at me wryly. "Who died and made you the ultimate authority on this?" "Tell you what, Linda," I said, "If nothing changes, the same agencies will be 'fighting' the same drug war on the same turf against the same people at the turn of the century. We aren't going to end drug crime by busting dealers or wiping out poppy fields. As long as there's big money in illegal drugs, there's gonna be a drug war. The only way to beat the pushers is to legalize drugs and hand the stuff out free to anyone who wants it. The pushers will go out of business and the idiots who use the stuff will die off." "My God..." said Linda, "That's kind of harsh, isn't it?" "So spend some of what's being spent now trying to rehab the users. Most of 'em will still die off, but everybody will feel better for having made them suffer longer." John chuckled. Linda glared at him. "Still," said John, "The laws are as they are and the situation is as it is and there's a job for you there if you want it." "I think not," I said, "The same kind of people ran the Vietnam war miserably." "You mean the government?" asked Linda, "The same one that you've been working for all this time? Have you any idea how many kids may wind up dead from overdoses?" "No idea," I said, "Pulling people out of the East had a constructive purpose, sound motivation, and a reasonable risk. This doesn't. The kids who

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wind up dead from overdoses will do so because they're stupid or mentally ill or both." Linda glared at me, then turned back to face front in her seat. She jammed the folder into her briefcase and slammed it shut. "I guess I was wrong about you," she said. "Same here," I said, "I didn't think you'd blindly followed anyone's flag, Linda." To John, I said, "I have some leave time accrued. Maybe I should use some of it." He nodded. Conversation ended there and didn't resume while we were in the car, the elevator, or the front offices. Marsha started an effusive greeting that faded quickly as she detected the atmosphere surrounding our little group. She settled instead for a quick kiss as John and Linda handed me off to her and went to their own offices. "Trouble?" asked Marsha. "Differences of opinion," I said. "I don't want to be a drug dog." "Oh. That. Well, put it on a shelf and take me to a late dinner. We have a lot of catching up to do, Ed. There are some changes are ahead for both of us." "Such as...?" "Feed me first. I missed lunch and I'm starving." "Yes, ma'am. Feed the lady first. Why does it seem to be that way with everything?" "Oh, cute. Well, actually, it does seem that way sometimes, doesn't it? Let's go." Most of the restaurants were closed along Johannestrass at that hour, so we asked a cab driver if he knew of one that was open. He said he did. It didn't seem like much of a place compared to the restaurants downtown, of course, but would have fit very well in one of the outlying villages. The owner and his wife were our cook and server at that hour. "So, what's your news, Marsha? Staying with the agency or moving on?" "I'm staying. The money's better and I'm in charge of something for a change. That's the news, by the way ... I've been promoted and converted to a permanent hire." "Good going, lady," I teased, "I knew wearing those miniskirts would pay off for you." "I'll have you know," she retorted haughtily, "That my work was reviewed, not just my legs. I've earned what they're giving me." "Oh, well, in that case, congratulations, indeed, ma'am. I'm most impressed." "As you should be. How was your trip abroad, Ed? I heard there was a war..?" "Ha. Yeah, there was. We didn't get too much of it up in the hills, though." "Enough, though, according to some things I've read and heard. You can now add 'tank buster' to your other achievements, for instance. Anything else?" "Well, we shot down a jet early into things, but not much else." "Oh. Just a jet, huh? What about something about taking a prisoner, maybe?" "Not much to tell. He didn't want to be in a war. Unarmed. Just a scared kid." "But he might not have been, though, right?" "You're the second to mention that. Okay, I'll concede that point. So? He wasn't." The food was arriving. Marsha nodded and we suspended conversation until the woman had left the table and we'd started eating. Although she was wolfing down her steak, Marsha seemed tense, so I figured the next bit of talking would be about us. I worked on my own steak and waited for her comments. I didn't have to wait long. "I hear you had a woman while you were on the kibbutz, Ed. Will you see

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her again?" "If I happen to be in southern California, maybe. She isn't exactly a local girl." "What about the other one? Hannah, was it?" "That's the trouble with working with a bunch of spooks. They find out stuff that's none of their business. No, I won't be seeing Hannah, either, Marsha. They're both history." After a moment, she asked, "What if I told you I've met someone since you left?" I stopped eating to meet her gaze. "Tell me what you want to hear, Marsha." "What do you mean by that?" "You either have or you haven't. If you have, let me know so I can call for a hotel room. No games or hassles about anything, please. Yesterday was, today is, and tomorrow will be, as always. I've usually had rather chancy jobs, Marsha. The yesterdays or tomorrows could just as easily have happened without me, so I usually didn't turn down food, sleep, or appealing women when they were offered." "I see." Marsha's words had a flat tone that always seems to go with those words. "Damn, I hate it when people say that. It usually means they don't see a damned thing." "Things just aren't that simple, Ed." "Things are as simple or as difficult as people make them. That was there and then and this is here and now, and I'm yours if you want me, just as I was yours before." Marsha was silent for a while. Her motions with her knife and fork were abrupt and rather forceful for a few minutes, then they seemed to soften, but she was very nearly finished with her meal before she spoke again. "Are you going to take the drug job they're offering, Ed?" "I'm hoping they'll have found something else." "Will and Connie switched over to drug work when they got back from Kenya. You could probably work with them or their department." "I know. That doesn't matter. It wouldn't be the same, Marsha. The motivation just isn't there for me in drug busting." I told her more or less what I'd told John and Linda. Marsha was skeptical. "You could join long enough to find something else in another department, couldn't you?" "You mean I should do it to keep the government checks coming in no matter what? Just take the job to stack up more time? If that's all I wanted I'd work for the post office or the embassy, Marsha. I'll do what seems right to me when I've seen what's really being offered. I'll talk to Will and Connie first to get their take on things." "What is it you want, then, Ed? What makes a job special to you?" "That would be hard to say, Marsha. I just know that some of the things I've done meant something to me in one way or other. Other jobs didn't, so I didn't stay with them." Marsha sighed and put her fork down to wipe her mouth with her napkin, then refolded her napkin and placed it carefully to one side of her plate. After a moment, she looked across at me and rather sardonically asked, "So all you want out of a job is some excitement and a few bucks...?" I didn't answer that. I finished off my steak and green beans, then motioned for the check. Marsha sat watching silently as I paid for dinner. There was wine left, so I poured our glasses full. The silence continued as the table was cleared of dishes and we sipped our wines. Silence can be irritating at times. It can become a contest of wills, even when there's little reason to hold such a contest. I could have asked if she wanted dessert or another wine. Instead, when the lady came back to our table to ask if there'd be anything else, I asked her to call us two taxis. Marsha sat straight in surprise and asked, "Two taxis?"

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"One for me and one for you. It's getting late." "It isn't getting late. It is late. So you've decided not to stay with me tonight?" "I wasn't asked and you inferred that you'd met someone. We're making each other uncomfortable, Marsha." Marsha stared at me. "Well, we could at least talk about it, couldn't we?" "Talking is what made us uncomfortable." "And not talking is going to keep the tension going, Ed." "You sound very sure of that, Marsha, so I'm going to believe it." "So you're just going to call a halt to the evening?" Marsha's voice had risen an octave. "Yeah, I think that would be a good idea right now, Marsha. You're getting a little shrill and I'm tired. Maybe we can try this again sometime." "That didn't sound very sincere." She started to get up, but I held up a hand. "Have some wine while we wait." "You can wait here for the goddamned taxi," said Marsha, "I'll wait out front." A few steps away, she stopped and returned to the table, looming over me. "I WAS going to take you home with me. I was thinking we'd spend some time together after all this time apart. Stupid me. All you want is..." I interrupted her diatribe. "That would have been just fine, but you were beginning to sound like a recruiter for that damned drug job everybody wants me to take, and then you gave me the silent treatment when I didn't respond to you the way you wanted me to. Now you're venting at me and all I want is peace and quiet. Either sit and finish your wine in peace or let me finish mine that way." A beeping from the street made Marsha glance that direction. One of the taxis had arrived. Marsha stood glaring at me a couple of moments more, then walked toward the door. She stopped to look back at me from the doorway, but I made no move to stop her or join her. The cabbie beeped again. Marsha turned and went outside without comment. I finished my wine and waited for the second taxi. I called our offices for hotel advice as I waited, expecting to be answered by the night-duty guard. Instead, Linda answered the phone. I said, "I just wanted to know what hotels our people use near the office. What are you doing there at this hour?" "Paperwork. I'm taking tomorrow off and don't want to leave it for someone else." "Diligence. That's probably why John stole you from the Navy. Diligence." Linda chuckled. "Maybe that was part of it, but he says it was mostly my brains and legs. What do you think?" "Entirely possible. He's an admirer of both. Back to the reason I called. Let's say I wanted to walk to work tomorrow. What hotel is close by?" She named three hotels, then asked, "Why not just use the couch at my place?" Her offer startled me. "What about your rule of not getting involved with co-workers?" "Who said anything about getting involved? Yes or no? I'm almost finished here." "Yes. Definitely. Thanks, Linda. I'll be there shortly." When my taxi pulled up at the curb in front of our offices, Linda's blue Peugeot 504 pulled up behind it. I tossed my stuff in the back seat and me in the front. Linda said, "I won't ask about Marsha. You'd be with her if you weren't here, right?" "Right. Things could be somewhat tense between us for a while, though." "You won't have any official reasons to visit the P.R. office. About what you said earlier concerning the drug war, Ed ... I talked with John a

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while about that. He seems to agree with you about the current ineffectiveness of efforts and methods, but he says they're the only methods the public will accept. I just want to know if you've decided to take the job." She grinned at me. "Either way, my offer for tonight stands." "I don't want the job, Linda. Sorry 'bout that." "Don't be sorry. I'm not. You have to believe in what you're doing, and you couldn't, so you would have made a lousy drug agent." I looked at her in the dimness and smiled slightly. "Thanks for understanding that." "It changes something else, too," said Linda. "I'm not going to be your boss anymore." She glanced sharply across at me and said, "And I'm not very sorry about that. You can forget about sleeping on the couch if you'd like." "But this is so sudden," I said. Linda laughed. "That's supposed to be my line, Ed, and this is the seventies. You're just supposed to be grateful and happy. It's called social progress." "Oh, right. Well, I'm still kinda new at this sort of thing..." Linda laughed again as we pulled into her parking space. Upstairs, I was surprised by Linda's apartment. I'd expected to see something that seemed more feminine, I guess, but the place seemed starkly functional. It didn't quite have the atmosphere of her office, but that was probably only because there was no kitchen area or couch in her office. As I put my bags down in the bedroom, I noted that there seemed to be very few touches of personalization in there, as well. "Are you sure this is your apartment?" I asked. "How can you be sure?" "What were you expecting? Lace curtains, knickknacks, and homey pictures? This is where I sleep and keep a few of my things. It's just a rented flat, not a home." She appeared in the doorway with a gin and tonic for each of us. As I tasted mine, she said, "I've been sending a lot of stuff back to the States to avoid hauling it around with me since I was Navy. I've got what I need here and cleaning is quick and easy." I nodded. It may have been untypical behavior, but it definitely made sense. I peeked into the bathroom. There were the usual European bathroom accommodations and a bathtub with a circular shower curtain enclosure. The bathtub was longer and larger than any I'd ever seen in a European home and I commented on its size. "The indoor pool is kind of small, isn't it?" Linda laughed. "The woman who used to own this place weighed three hundred pounds or so and liked her comfort. Want to see if it's big enough for two people?" "You mean you haven't already tried that? I thought you said this was the seventies." "I hadn't gotten around to it yet. I was waiting for the right opportunity, I guess." "Well, your opportunity is here. I'd be pleased to help you test your bathtub, ma'am." "Oh, you're too kind, sir. I know how busy you are these days." I grinned at Linda and said, "Oh, yeah, right. Busy as hell, lately. But I've always wanted to get my hands on you, ma'am, soapy or otherwise, and this does present a perfect opportunity, so I'm going to put my busy schedule on the highest shelf I can find." "So gallant. So self-sacrificing. One could almost say noble," laughed Linda, "Almost." She turned her back to me and said, "Unzip me, will you?" Suffice it to say that Linda and I passed the evening and the following day well-entertained with each other. Linda said on Tuesday that I'd stay with her until I heard back from Solutions or found other employment outside her domain of control and that she hoped that the process would take a couple of weeks, at least. "I meant what I said about not being involved with co-workers," said Linda. "If John comes up with something and you don't leave the agency, it's over between us instantly."

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"I know, I know ... Being with you could almost make the drug job endurable. Almost." "Such flattery. Liar. You'd hate the job and come to blame me." "Never. I'd hate the job and blame myself. But I'd be just as hard to live with." Linda chuckled and gave me a quick kiss before heading to the bathroom. "Without a doubt," she said, her words drifting back to me. I went into Frankfurt with her just about every day for the next few weeks, having coffee with John and the others and checking the list of openings, but nothing but drug work seemed to be available. Then John met us in the hall one Wednesday morning as we got off the elevator. He handed Linda a folder and said he wanted a word with me, then steered me toward the break room. Linda nodded and stayed on her course to her office. "What's up?" I asked. "Nothing. That's the problem. A big budget cut became official yesterday, which means we're facing some cuts around here. Marsha may be one of them." "Damn. Well, at least she has something to show now and some strong connections. But since you've dragged me in here, let me have your candid opinions about Solutions." "There's a folder on my desk. You can read it. Personally, I still think you should consider other options. If you don't like the drug war, you aren't likely to like Africa, either." "Africa?" "That's where the majority of Solutions's people are working these days. Carla's based at Solutions' Ops center in Johannesburg, South Africa." "What's going on in Africa these days?" "Four police actions and one war in five countries. They're busy these days." We chatted about things for a moment longer, then headed for his office. Marsha glanced up briefly as we passed her office door. She said nothing, choosing instead to ignore us. I read the Solutions file from cover to cover that morning. Solutions seemed to choose its employers well. They were always paid on time and never seemed to be on the losing side of things. They didn't seem to sign up with any of the dictatorships and carefully avoided appearing in the news. John dropped another list of U.S. government possibilities on my desk around ten o'clock, shaking his head. No non-drug work had been listed. I held up Carla's card and told him I was going for a walk. He nodded and went back to his office. "Linda," I said, poking my head around her office door, "I'm going out. Want to meet somewhere for lunch?" She named a restaurant nearby and said, "Noon." I nodded and left. Just down the street was the Bundespost office. As well as being the German post office, it was a place where one could utilize the national telephone system. I left twenty deutschmarks with the attendant at the desk and chose a phone booth. The glass enclosure with its small table looked as if it could easily belong in a diner. I felt like ordering a coffee and a roll as I sat down to make my call. After two rings, a man's polite voice answered, "How may I help you?" He didn't identify himself or the company. "Your lady Carla offered me a job interview," I said without preamble, "On the Monday night flight from Israel. What's the usual procedure for contact?" "What is your phone number, please?" He didn't ask my name or where I was calling from. I gave him the number on the telephone. "Are you in any sort of legal trouble?" "No. No trouble of any kind." "Fine, sir. Someone will call you back shortly at this number." He read the phone number back to me. I confirmed it. He said, "Thank you, sir. Goodbye."

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I went to pick up my change from the attendant and told her I was waiting for a return call at that phone number. She asked if it would be collect before handing me my change, then flipped a switch. I saw the light go off over the door to the phone booth. "It is reserved while you are here," she said, "If you wish to leave and wish to have us take a message, that service will cost extra." I nodded and went to look out the windows. The American Express offices were just across the street a few doors down. That would be my next stop. I'd need a rented mailbox there. The phone rang in the booth. I caught it on the third ring. "Hello." "You inquired about employment?" said a man's voice. It sounded familiar. Derek. "I was on the Monday night flight across the aisle from you. Carla told me to call." "Obviously. I can stop in Frankfurt this evening. Can you meet me at the airport?" "I can. Where and when?" "Same gate, ten o'clock. That's it," he said, "See you then." And that really was it. He abruptly hung up, leaving me wondering if the interview would be worth the bother. I got the feeling he didn't like me much or couldn't have cared less and was just following orders by going through the motions of a meeting. When I told John and Linda about the meet, John suggested that Linda accompany me without saying why. She agreed and said we'd go in her car. I said that fit in just fine with my plans. When they looked at me oddly, I told them I'd planned to ask Linda to go with me after dinner. "They aren't going to Shanghai me, as far as I know. It's an interview." "Whatever," said John, "I just want them to meet my new second-in-command. It's only fair, since you've met theirs. Carla. She's already called me about you. Of course I told her you could barely spell your own name right and warned her not to let you drive anything bigger than a bicycle." Linda chuckled. "Oh, gee, thanks, John. Nothing like a glowing reference to speed my interview along." "Think nothing of it. My pleasure. Now let me get back to work." Over dinner Linda said, "Gee, mister ... I've never had dinner with a mercenary before." "Maybe you still haven't. Derek didn't seem fond of me the last time we met." "Oh, I think they'll hire you, Ed. Personalities don't mean much to Carla. She looks at qualifications and damned little else, according to John." Derek was waiting near the gate when we arrived and apparently not in the best of moods. "I'm having to delay enroute to meet with you tonight," he said, "You'd better be worth the stopover. Who's your pretty friend?" "If I wasn't worth it, there'd be no stopover. Until you hire me, my pretty friend is my boss, and she'd probably prefer to introduce herself in her own fashion." Linda rattled off her name and job title as they shook hands. Derek's eyes flicked my direction once in mild surprise, but he maintained his surly facade. "What are you looking for with us?" he asked me. "What's in Solutions for you?" "Suitable employment. By now Solutions should know enough about me to know what that would be and why I'm looking for work." Derek actually cracked a small smile. "We do. How soon can you be ready to go?" I looked at Linda for the answer to that question. She thought a moment and said, "Three or four weeks can clear all the decks with us." "Good enough," said Derek. "Call when you're ready. Pack lightly. We'll supply you with whatever you'll need. You'll be going to Nairobi first for

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familiarization." After another round of handshakes, Derek left us. "Well, that makes it official, doesn't it?" asked Linda. "Seems so. How'd you come up with three to four weeks?" "Some time for us and I figured you could use the time to bone up on Solutions and Africa's situations. You can hold down Sally's desk until she gets back from the States." "Does Sally coincidentally return in a few weeks?" "She does." "What other duties go with that desk, Linda? Off-duty duties?" She grinned at me. "Bathtub toy. Playmate. Companion. Can you handle all that?" I grinned back. "It sounds like a real challenge, but I think I can handle it." In the course of 'packing lightly' I sent much of my stuff to Texas to be held for me against the time I might actually make it back there. The cases of wine, certain pieces of my furniture, and some crated personal effects I placed in a chain-link storage bin in a building on a U.S. base that many of the agency people used when on extended assignments. I sub-let my apartment to a couple of female medical officers who had just arrived at Landstuhl and debated aloud whether to put my Mercedes in storage or sell it while we were discussing how soon they could move in. After an interview with Bear, who seemed to think that I'd brought him the women as a present, and a test-drive, one of the women bought the car on the spot by giving me a deposit to hold it for her while she had the money wired to her. Two days later we squared away her German insurance and went to the vehicle registration office in Vogelweh to transfer ownership and do some shopping at the big commissary and PX there. She was thrilled to be a Mercedes owner within her first week in Germany and we celebrated by going out for a big Italian dinner that evening in Ramstein. My almost-real job at Landstuhl hospital was put on hold to be re-opened as needed at some later date and I took the opportunity of the visit to introduce my two new tenants around the hospital before they dropped me off at the train station in Landstuhl township that afternoon. A few hours later I was back in Linda's office with my bags. -------*Chapter Twenty-one -- Africa* Derek met me at the same gate at the same time and handed me tickets on a commercial flight to Nairobi after I signed a few forms and a temporary contract. He said the two Solutions jets were unavailable at the moment because one was in use elsewhere and one was in the shop. We talked for a while over a couple of drinks before he boarded his own continuing flight to Britain and I got the definite impression that every word I said was going to be repeated to someone else later. He wasn't very informative, but he was pleasant about it. The flight to Nairobi was uneventful and uninteresting. After being checked aboard, I met nobody I knew and spent the time napping and reading. I was handed off to a woman at the airport in Nairobi who walked me through customs and signed for my gun, then took me by limovan to what appeared to be a private villa on the outskirts of town. Only a small brass plaque above the mail slot in the guard shack that said "Solutions, Ltd." gave any indication that the villa wasn't simply the private home of someone wealthy. The guard at the gate buzzed us in after a look inside the car and we drove around the circular driveway to the front entrance, where another woman led me up the steps and through the lobby to an office on the right side of the hall. She asked if I had any weapons. I dug in my baggage and showed her my .22 revolver, which she placed in a locker after giving me a receipt. She then assigned me a room and gave me instructions to return to that office after breakfast or no later than nine

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o'clock in the morning. The room was neat, clean, and contained a bed and a small desk with a phone. The bathroom was down the hall and had been modified to accommodate several people at once, as one would expect in such quarterings. I took a shower and had just begun shaving when two women in their mid-twenties came strolling in, chattering softly in French. They were wearing only big towels and carrying their own personal hygiene kits. They stopped when they saw me. "Am I in the wrong bathroom?" I asked. "I didn't see a sign on the door." One of them looked at the other, who said, "This is the only bathroom on this floor. We all use it. See that partition?" She indicated a partial wall that divided the room. "Men use this side. Women use that side. The sink area is open to all." I nodded. I saw nothing in the way of a sign or symbol to indicate that sort of a room division, but I said, "Thanks, I'll try very hard to remember that." The woman smiled slightly and told her friend what I'd said. Her friend didn't smile and said something in return, which was translated for me. "She says to see that you do." I nodded again as they resumed their journey to the ladies' side of the bathroom. There were a couple of muted giggles as they turned on the showers. I continued shaving and brushed my teeth, all the while wondering if I were somehow being set up for a "new guy" joke, but nothing had materialized by the time I'd finished, so I packed up my gear and headed for the door. I almost bumped into the woman who'd checked me into the villa. She, too, was wearing a big towel and had another one, probably for her hair. "Well, hello again," I said as we regarded each other after our near-collision. "Indeed," she said. "I see you're finding your way around well enough." "No problems so far. I didn't realize this was a coed dorm, though, until a little while ago. You might have mentioned that when I checked in." She smiled slightly. "Maybe you're being tested," she said. "If so, did you pass the test?" "Only if the test was a matter of minding my own business." "Then you passed," she said, "And now, so shall I. Goodnight." With that, she made her way past me into the bathroom without a backward glance. I watched her go by and noticed she had a nice figure under that towel. When she turned to put her extra towel and kit on the sinkboard, I turned to continue my journey to my room. It did indeed seem that I was being tested, but I wasn't sure in what manner I was being tested. People passing my door woke me at six in the morning. I tossed myself into a pair of pants, slung my towel around my neck, grabbed my toilet kit, and joined the exodus to the bathroom, curious to see what I'd find at what should be rush hour in a military unit. About a dozen women and four men were taking turns at the eight sinks when I arrived, so I found some wallspace to lean on and waited with the others. The noise level previous to my arrival abated somewhat for a few moments as I was noticed, then picked up again. I caught a number of glances my direction as they scanned the new guy. If they smiled, I smiled. If they simply glanced, so did I. A brunette in her twenties stood next to me, also waiting for a turn at the sinks. When she moved forward, her toothbrush slipped out the back of her partly-unzipped toiletries bag. I started to catch it, but her other hand beat me to it. The toothbrush had fallen less than a foot from the bag. Impressive. "You're pretty quick," I said with a small smile. "Yes," she said. No smile. "I thought you were reaching for something else. Thanks, anyway." "In that case, you're very quick," I said, "To be able to change targets so fast. You're British?" "No. Not British. Not very friendly before coffee, either." She turned

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to go to the sink. The guy standing behind me said, "You'll have to prove yourself to that one before she'll have anything to do with you." I turned to see a guy in his mid-twenties who obviously worked out a bit. Maybe too much. His musculature stood out like cords under his skin. As we shook hands I said, "She can wait for proof until she's old and gray. I'm willing to be civil in the meantime, though, if she is." He chuckled. "Rudi, here. Don't hope for too much with her. She is ... uhm ... a tough one." "I'm Ed. It can get damned lonely being so tough. I think there will probably be enough challenges ahead of me in life without adding cantankerous women to the list." He laughed. "Well said. You're American? I'm from Sweden. How did you find us?" "I hitched a ride one night," I said, "And someone gave me a card." "Hitched...? Oh, yes, I have it now. Did you have your thumb out?" "No, not really. Someone set up some transportation for me. Say, how come there are so many women here? I'm not complaining, of course, but...?" Rudi laughed and said, "Transients. Some are new to Solutions and some are enroute to other duty stations. Most spend only a week or two here while in transit or pending assignment." A sink opened up and I excused myself to make use of it. The sink happened to be to the left of "the tough one". I nodded to her in the mirror as I moved in and then deliberately and completely ignored her. She seemed to take little notice of my arrival and ignored me in return. The mess hall was like most mess halls. There were long tables, simple chairs, and a buffet line. It was only about seven, so I dawdled over breakfast and coffee to listen to some of the conversations going on around me. It was a wasted effort. By seven-thirty I'd heard nothing more informative than one brunette woman's lengthy discourse about her plans concerning her return to Ireland at the end of her tour of duty in Africa. She was the "tough one" from the sinks. I was about to leave when she finally said something moderately interesting. She was planning to buy a Mercury Cougar from an American GI she'd met at Heathrow. I leaned her direction. "Excuse me, please? Have you thought about getting parts for it in Britain and how much it will cost to feed it at twelve miles per gallon?" She slowly turned to face me and asked, "Did someone ask for your opinion?" "You don't have my opinion yet. I just asked a reasonable question because I know a bit about American cars and making one pass European auto inspections and insurance costs." "Well, bully for you, Yank," she said, "I'll be sure to look you up when I think I might give a fat rat's ass what you know about anything." She turned back around to dismiss me. "Okay," I said, "On that note, let me say that I won't wait around for the day you finally get your head out of your ass. Buy the car, the inspection changes, insurance, and gas and then take what little change that may remain by that time and try to buy yourself some personality." Her expression switched from shock to a glare as she began to rise from her seat. I noted a few others nearby also getting to their feet. The woman on my right rapped the table with the butt of her knife and waved slightly to the others. They stood waiting as she tapped my forearm with the knife and said, "You don't know who you're talking to, there. It might be better to be more careful what you say and to whom you say it until you've been here a while." "Thanks, but it doesn't matter," I said. "I expected a bit of the 'new guy' syndrome from everyone, but I've only met one or two friendly people

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since I've been here and I've been less than thrilled with the attitudes of most of the others. I think I met friendlier border guards in East Berlin. If I'm likely to have to work with or for that woman, I'd probably be better off to leave now, anyway. She or one of her followers, there, will be out to get me." Someone nearby snickered. I gathered up my breakfast leavings and utensils and stood to leave the table when the woman said, "Wait a minute. Sit down and listen to me." I looked into her hard, flat gaze for a moment and decided she might have something to say that wasn't just rhetoric in defense of a teammate. I sat back down and said, "Go ahead." Her gaze continued for a moment, then she said, "Most of us here have been through a lot together. We know each other better than the people we grew up with." "Where have I heard that before maybe ten or twenty times? Nothing new. What else?" "What else? I'll tell you what else. We don't know you at all. That's what else." Everyone within earshot was quietly attending our discussion. I stood up and said, "Okay, people, here's the story about me. Two wars, so far. Over three years of combat time as a medic, a helicopter door gunner, and an infantryman. Most recently part of a guard unit in Israel during the October War. I'm here by invitation of Carla, so you need to decide whether you trust her recruiting instincts." I paused to look around the table. "I don't know you, either, and I'm deciding now whether I want to have to depend on you, so we're even in that regard. Those of you who speak English will kindly translate for the others so we can get this finished. Either you people become reasonably civil immediately or you lose an experienced medic immediately. I have some coffee left. If I don't see a change for the better by the time this cup is empty, you can all go to hell." Some guy a couple of tables away said, "So leave. We don't need you." "If you didn't need medics I wouldn't have been invited. Anybody else care to comment?" The woman who intended to buy the Cougar quietly said, "Yeah. Fuck off, Yank." "Why? Because I decided not to endure your little hazing ritual? I told you a little about my experience and training. I still don't know a damned thing about yours. If you aren't forming your opinions based firstly on my field qualifications, you simply aren't bright enough to work with me. Obviously, we aren't all going to be friends, but we may have to rely on each other anyway. Now let's get down to a vote. All those in favor of being intelligent raise a hand." Someone laughed, then someone else. A few raised their hands and translated for those nearby, some of whom also raised hands. The Cougar-buyer pretended to ignore them as she glared at me, but the woman across the table from me poured the coffee from her extra cup into mine and said with a smile, "There. Now your cup isn't empty. Stay and see how this turns out." "Just because of your caffeinated kindness, I will," I said, returning her smile. "Good," she said. "Because I want to see how this turns out, too. You just insulted a junior officer personally." She indicated the Cougar-buyer. "That's a real, live Lieutenant." "And I'm a real, live Sergeant, but I haven't officially been hired yet. For the record, everybody, I think a woman boss is okay, but not one with a bad attitude." The Lieutenant rapped her knuckles on the table for attention and demanded, "And who the hell are you to tell me that I have a bad attitude?" "I'm someone who has worked with and under a lot of military women of much higher rank who were a helluva lot easier to get along with, even in

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places much harder on the nerves than a mess hall breakfast table. If they snapped at someone, they usually had a good reason for doing so, and most of them knew better than to do it in front of the other troops." Somebody said, "Yeah, I'll just bet he worked under them." There were a few laughs. "You can provide your own cheap laughs," I said. "Those women deserve anyone's respect. You try running a triage unit when the wounded are coming in by the dozens." I got up again to take my tray to the racks and said, "I'll see everybody later if I'm still here." Nobody cheered or jeered as I left, for which I was thankful. People find it harder to forgive and forget when there's been a real scene with public involvement. I went to the upstairs office to report in as instructed. The woman at the desk called someone and a man came to the office. He was about six feet and two hundred pounds of starch and polish and brusque military bearing, far less casual than the others I'd seen. He had three pips on his shoulders and could have been the poster boy for the macho soldier image. After a glance in my folder he said, "We'll chat in my office," and set course for a door across the hall. What a game. He could have just told the woman to send me over there, of course, but he had to make an impression on the newbie. I didn't keep up with his deliberate quick march pace, so he was standing behind his desk when I arrived. I stood straight without quite standing at military attention. He looked me over and dropped the folder on the desk so it would slap when it hit, a minor theatric, then sat down. He didn't invite me to sit and didn't introduce himself. Something immediately struck me as odd about his office. For such a precise personality as his, not having his name on the door or his desk seemed a bit unusual. A glance at the walls near the bookshelves found pictures of him with other people and some certificates almost illegible at that distance. I wondered why they weren't hanging behind him. He cleared his throat to get my attention. "Do you always report to a new commanding officer in this fashion?" "Nobody's issued me a uniform yet and you called this a chat, Major Phillips." That startled him slightly, but he recovered quickly. "Where did you hear my name?" he asked quietly. "We weren't introduced." "My previous employers let me read what they had on Solutions," I said, "In Nairobi there are presently only two flag-grade Solutions officers and one is female. Major Carla Mason." He wasn't going to admit that he hadn't read my file by asking me who my previous employers were. His gaze narrowed slightly as he tried to decide whether I was being difficult. "I heard what happened during breakfast," he said, "Do you want to tell your version?" "There's only one true version of it. She snapped at me and I snapped back." "Were you aware that she's an officer, Mr. Howdershelt?" "Not then, but I was told so by another woman. Everybody was in civvies. You're wearing the first uniform I've seen since I arrived and I can't tell what your rank is, either." "We use British rankings. I happen to be a Major. Do you understand what you are?" "I do. I'm the new troop everyone feels a need to impress. I'm also one who feels that if you can't talk openly and honestly with those in command, it's already time to leave. I didn't like the starch and spit-polish end of the military when I was in it and won't be part of another such outfit, so please either assign me field work or put me on a plane back to Germany. Sir."

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The Major regarded me quietly for some time, then grinned slightly and tried to let me wonder for a few moments why he was grinning. I don't bother wondering about things like that. I fixed his gaze with my own and waited in silence. The Major soon realized I wasn't going to rattle and dropped the facade by tapping my folder. I didn't bother glancing at the closed folder. He then reached under his desk blotter and produced some papers that he tossed in the middle of his desk. Those I looked at, then back at him when he began speaking. "Your folder brief says your last active military rank was Sergeant E-6, although you were only in service three years. It's obvious that you didn't attain that rank so quickly by kissing anyone's ass, so we'll assume for the moment that you must be competent. Here's your probationary contract. It also generally spells out your immediate duties and responsibilities and has a place for insurance information." He paused to place a Mont Blanc pen on top of the forms and sip his coffee. I let the expensive pen roll off the forms as I picked them up. The Major continued, "You're entering Solutions' service with rank equivalent to that of your last active duty military posting. Further promotion is mostly dependent upon performance and capabilities, of course. Your first months with us will likely be spent here and are probationary, as are everyone's first six months with us. Questions?" "One, for the moment, sir. What if I decide Solutions isn't for me?" "Then you'll be paid off and you will be entitled to a return flight to Germany." "I'd like time to read this contract and I'd like to know about your internal legal system." "Legal system?" "Yes, sir. Legal system. If someone decides I've done something wrong, I want to know how it will be handled by Solutions and whether I'll have any legal recourse available." The Major's eyes narrowed again. "Are you anticipating getting yourself in trouble?" "Not particularly. I just want to know how you handle infractions." "I see. Well, fines may be deducted from your pay. Most misdemeanors are handled in that way, as stated in your contract. Enough of them on your record will cause us to let you go. Anything worse than a misdemeanor and you'll be turned over to local authorities." He paused, then leaned forward to say, "We don't flog people, Sergeant. We are technically a civilian employer, like a uniformed guard service, subject to all the usual laws of the sovereign nations who employ our services." "What about personal disputes? Someone saying I did or didn't do something?" "That person would be fined and their employment possibly terminated if it could be proven that they were lying about having given an order. Or having received one." I had no more immediate questions, so it was time to let him close the meeting. "I guess it's time to go read this contract, then." He simply nodded and stood up at his desk. We shook hands and saluted and the meeting was over. I returned to the mess hall to review the contract over coffee. There were perhaps a dozen people at a few tables, some obviously working on things and some obviously not working on anything. I nodded and smiled and received a few of the same in return. Part of the contract dealt with severances. It boiled down to two types; voluntary and involuntary. While the contract covered two years, one could quit Solutions while between assignments and be returned to wherever they'd found you with accumulated pay. When I gave the signed contract to the woman in the other office, she

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assigned me to a room with a man named Carver and detailed one of the other women to show me around as we got my uniforms and other equipment. There was an introductory briefing later that covered some of the more mundane details, then a general announcement during lunch in which I was introduced to a number of people specifically and to the group as a whole. After lunch I was issued a training schedule that seemed mostly to cover skills I already possessed, which meant that they wanted to see for themselves that I was competent. A doctor took time to quiz me extensively that afternoon, both about my own state of health and about my field and hospital medical experience and training. Two women took me from there to a firing range a few miles away from the villa. One woman was an instructor and the other was there to learn how to handle a pistol. I got the impression that I was there only to prove that I could use a rifle, but the instructor surprised me. She opened a cabinet in the panel truck and told me that I'd be qualifying with each of the weapons inside. There was an M-16, a 12-guage Remington 1100 shotgun, an M-79 grenade launcher, an L.A.W., and an M-60 machine gun on the top rack. I had to disassemble and reassemble each weapon as if for cleaning it before demonstrating my ability with it on the range. The only exception was the L.A.W., a one-shot disposable. I began with the L.A.W., aiming at a huge block of concrete well down-range, as instructed. The round exploded against the side of the block, but at that distance it was hard to tell how much damage had been done to the block. The other woman asked why she wasn't being trained with those weapons. The instructor handed her one of the other M-79's and said, "Same target. He'll show you how to do it." I took the woman through the motions of opening and prepping the weapon, then showed her how to aim it. She didn't seem to need much coaching. Her round also hit the block. She was obviously excited by her success. We grinned at each other and I said in my best Bogart voice, "Stick with me, kid. I know this stuff." After I'd fired each weapon, the woman fired them with tips from the instructor about using the various sights. The instructor took notes on her clipboard for each of us. When we'd finished, she read off the scores. The woman had done rather well for a newbie. The instructor indicated the woman and said, "You will be scheduled for weapons classes tomorrow. You'll be shooting again and learning how to disassemble, reassemble, and clean these weapons." Indicating me, she said, "You did well enough on everything to get by." "Well enough to get by? I hit everything, didn't I?" She smiled. "Right. And that's good enough to get by. Pack it in. It's time to go back now." The other woman snickered and grinned at me. "Stop complaining. I'll be helping you clean these. At least you don't have to take weapons classes tomorrow." She was wrong on both counts. She was called away before we got to the cleaning tables and the next day I was at a range again, this time to learn about antipersonnel mines I might encounter in that part of the world. Three types of mines I knew about and two I didn't, and then there was a display of some of the homemade mines and booby traps in local use, which were about the same as the ones I'd seen in Vietnam. On the third day of training twenty of us were taken on a rather gentle ten-mile hike and introduced to some of the local wildlife, some of which made me glad to have a loaded rifle. The next day we were shown films about some of the wildlife we hadn't encountered on the hike and shown how to deal with various African poisonous species of plants and animals. In many cases, avoidance was the answer that worked best. The following day we were led on another hike which lasted all day and were shown how to deal with the type of heat that is unique to central Africa. In some ways it was like being in Vietnam again, but in other ways it was more

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like that dry Texas heat that could suck the moisture out of you and give you heatstroke before you knew it was happening. We had two such heatstroke casualties in the late afternoon on the return leg of the hike. I treated them and we rigged up some shade with our shelterhalves (half-tents that everybody carried). An ambulance came for them shortly and the rest of us resumed our journey. In the mess hall that evening the Lieutenant I'd argued with the first morning waved to motion me over to her table. She wasn't smiling, but she wasn't frowning, either. When I arrived by the table she tossed a snapshot picture on the table and said, "That's my car." I set my tray down and picked up the picture for a look. It was a 1971 maroon Mercury Cougar. The picture had been taken in what appeared to be an English village in front of a pub. "So you bought it after all?" I asked. "Not yet. I'm going home in a few months. I'll buy it then." I nodded. There wasn't much to say to that. There was a momentary awkward silence that she broke by taking the picture from me and putting it back in her pocket. "I'm bringing it here," she said. That surprised me. "You'd better hope the air conditioning works," I said. "That's a bit of a drive, isn't it?" "A bit. I'll be here for two more years, though, so why not drive it down here?" I thought about it. "A long drive, but yeah, why not? It'll be the only one on the block here, too, and it probably won't be any harder than usual to get parts for it." She chuckled. "No doubt." After a moment, she said, "I'm Lisa Cameron." "Ed Howdershelt." I put my silverware down to shake her extended hand. "Should I take it you don't hate me anymore, or are you just looking for a cheap Cougar mechanic?" She chuckled again and said, "I think I'm just in a better mood today and you treated one of my less-careful friends for heatstroke this afternoon. For that, dinner is on me." That made me laugh. "In that case, I'll order the mess hall's best lobster and champagne." We talked over dinner and then went to the day room and talked some more over the pool table until she had to meet someone in the office. Sometimes no amount of small talk will completely conceal the existence of a hidden agenda. This was one of those times. I didn't know for certain why I thought so, but Lieutenant Cameron seemed to be up to something. I resolved to be on my best behavior around her and try to have witnesses present at all times. As the guy who'd been waiting for a turn at the pool table racked the balls, I asked, "Why is she suddenly being so nice to me, I wonder?" He glanced up and said, "Maybe because you stood up to her and didn't go stupid in the mess hall. Maybe she likes you all of a sudden." "Uh, huh. Sure. Does that really seem likely? An instant change of heart?" "Women can be odd creatures sometimes." He grinned and added, "My Mama said so." "Not that odd," I said. After I broke the rack I added, "Not without reason." "Damn," he said, watching the balls spread across the table. "Do you always break one-handed? Well, I'm sure you'll find out what she's about. If you're worried, be careful." "I had my left arm in a cast when I first learned to shoot pool. Old habit. And I'm already being careful about her. Now I'm moving up to Very Damned Careful." He laughed and said he thought that was probably a good idea in any case with her.

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Every alternate day of the next week was spent hiking around in the day or night to get us acclimated to Africa. At the end of the week we hiked all day Friday, camped out Friday night, hiked back in on Saturday with no casualties, then picked bugs off each other in the showers before heading downstairs for dinner. Somebody remarked that Africa was a place that considered humans to be a food source. Somebody else said that Africa should be either paved over or abandoned completely. Removing a tick from someone's neck, I could pretty much agree with that. I seemed to be encountering Lieutenant Cameron more often than usual during the next two weeks. She suddenly seemed to be involved in our company's training as an acting executive officer. Her gradings seemed fair and on occasion she made suggestions that eliminated some of the guesswork concerning the actions or reactions of others in our team's field simulations. Because I was an NCO, Cameron assigned me as a team leader on about half of the exercises. I kept alert for any sign of deviousness, but the fact was that when she was in charge of a training group, that group scored high. Cameron took her job very seriously and rode people hard at times, but the results were golden most every time we went out. "When you look good, I look good," she'd say, "And this is my year to make Captain." During one of our four-day outings, I found that things were quite different from anyplace I'd been before in the African night. Smells and sounds and even the shadings of darkness were either starkly or subtly different, but I came to know what to expect from the night well enough by the second night that when a night-bird noise didn't sound quite right on the third night, I called an alert that had us all facing outward with weapons ready at nearly four in the morning. Anyone on a team could call an alert, but if you called one in error you stood to be ragged unmercifully for some time thereafter. Our other sentry was looking at me questioningly, as if he thought I might have been hallucinating in the darkness. After several moments of nothing happening there were a few caustic remarks concerning my mental abilities and a couple of mild threats. Lieutenant Cameron even suggested that if we were in the Navy she could keelhaul me for waking everybody up, looking at me as she said it. I shook my head and held up three fingers. Cameron's eyes narrowed. I held up the three fingers again and pointed into the darkness ahead of me. Cameron glanced that direction, then back at me, then around the others, and cautioned us aloud not to relax. Where they hadn't quite accepted my alert completely, they took her words on faith. Right or wrong, she'd been there for years and had the weight of rank behind her. That's when a familiar voice from the darkness said, "Lieutenant Cameron, there will be no keelhauling while I'm in command. I've seen enough. Do you still have any drinkable coffee?" Cameron loudly said, "At ease, group. Back to bed and safeties on, please. We don't want to lose a Major at this hour of the morning. It would just be too embarrassing to write up." One of the tree-shadows elongated and separated itself from the moderate forestation around us and stepped forward. It was Major Phillips. Two more shadowy figures detached themselves from the woods and approached with the Major. As the two officers traded salutes and pleasantries I moved the coffee pot back over the small campfire to warm up. "Coffee in five or so," I said to the group. "Thank you, Sergeant," said the Major, "Are you enjoying your stay with us?" "There have been entertaining moments, Major," I said, "And this has been one of them." "What tipped you?"

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"Use three hoots instead of four, Major. Two shorts and a long. Did I interrupt anything?" "Damned right you did. It was supposed to have been a highly successful ambush." "That's very gratifying to know, Major. I'll bring the pot when it's ready." "Thank you, Sergeant." There was a muffled laugh from somewhere in the camp as people settled back into their tents. I took the coffee over to Cameron's tent when it was warm enough and sloshed some in each cup, then set the pot down and started back to my tent. The Major said, "One question, if you don't mind. I saw your gestures to Lt. Cameron. How were you able to determine that there were precisely three of us out there?" I looked at him so he could see I was serious and said, "That I can't tell you. Can't , not won't. I'm not sure how or why, but I was sure there were three of you. Maybe more." He nodded, seemingly accepting what I told him. I started to leave again. Cameron's voice whispered, "Sergeant." She moved up beside me. I turned to face her. Major Phillips was watching and listening. "Yes, ma'am?" She smiled slightly. "Good work. He killed us all the last time we were out here." I nodded and returned her smile, then went to my tent. The Major left in the morning. I woke to find Cameron sitting on the log by the campfire, sipping coffee. After watering a tree, I took my cup and joined her. She watched silently as I held my canteen cup in the fire prior to pouring coffee in it and set it aside. I went back to my tent and brushed my teeth, then broke down and packed my tent and rejoined her at the fire with a K-ration package. The coffee was by then cool enough to begin drinking. Cameron voiced an opinion. "You do most everything your own way, don't you?" "Yup. Rinsing a cup isn't enough out here. The coffee had time to cool while I packed up." "You wouldn't tell the Major how you knew they were there. Maybe you'll tell me?" "Couldn't, ma'am. Not wouldn't. Like I told him, I don't know how I knew. I just did. Just like right now. There's a snake behind that log." I pointed to a log near the woodline. "A snake, huh? What kind?" "No idea. Just a snake." "I'm going to call you on this one." She sat up straight and yelled, "Angelo! Look behind that log and tell me what you find there!" She pointed at the log. "And be careful!" Angelo looked at us as if he thought we were putting him on, but he went to look. At first he apparently didn't see anything. Cameron gave me a skeptical look. I shrugged and sipped coffee. Angelo suddenly appeared to be dancing away from the log as he yelled, "Holy shit!" Cameron glanced sharply at me and watched as another couple of people ran over to Angelo asking what was going on. Angelo angrily came stomping over to us. Cameron put her hand up. "What did you find, Angelo? Ed, here, told me there was something behind the log, but he hasn't been near it since he got up. I just want to know if he's full of shit or not." Angelo was still angry. He glared at me for a moment, then returned his gaze to Cameron. "No, ma'am, he isn't. It was the biggest goddamned snake I've ever seen, ma'am." "Was it poisonous?" "I don't know and don't care, ma'am. It's a snake. That's all I know

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about it." Cameron nodded and said, "Thank you, Angelo. Just so you know, this wasn't a joke on you. I wanted someone to check that log and you were closest. That's all." "Yes, ma'am." Angelo turned to leave, then turned back to us and asked, "Okay, so how did you know the snake was there, Sergeant?" "Just did. She needed proof. Like she said, thanks." I sipped coffee and looked at Cameron. Angelo just looked at me for a moment. Realizing I didn't intend to say anything more, he turned again and left us. Cameron looked at me and said, "Neat trick. You saw the snake go behind the log." I looked back at her evenly and said, "Believe what you have to believe, Lieutenant. Now look behind us and see if you can spot the rat that's watching us. This is one of the regular training campsites. He's waiting to see what we'll leave for him this time." Cameron turned and her expression, before she caught herself, betrayed her surprise as she spotted the rat. She turned to look at me again as she got to her feet. "Finish your coffee and saddle up," she said. "We break camp in half an hour." I grinned as she walked away and tossed a packet of crackers at the rat. It dodged, then returned to check out the crackers, looking suspiciously at me before dashing off with them. When I turned back, I saw Angelo and someone else staring at me. I smiled and nodded at them and went back to my K-ration breakfast and coffee. We'd been back from that training exercise two days when I was called to the office. Two new people were arriving on the midnight flight and I was detailed to go with Lieutenant Cameron to pick them up in the limovan. Cameron was waiting near the stairs, ostensibly leafing through a folder while waiting to go into the office. As I came out, she stopped me with a hand on my arm. "No uniforms on airport runs. Do you have a suit in your gear?" "It's out of date by now," I said, "It's about two years old." "That's good enough for Nairobi," she said, "I'll drop by later to help you pick out a tie. Men have trouble with things like that." "You'll have two to choose from. I never had to dress up much in my old job." "You won't be dressing up much in this one, either, so don't worry about it." With that, she patted my arm and entered the office. Curiouser and curiouser. Nobody had dressed up to retrieve me and nobody on the flight to Frankfurt had been wearing a tie except one guy up front. It seemed unlikely to me that two new people would rate a tie unless they were field-grade officer recruits or something like that, so I began to consider what else she might have in mind. Major Phillips stopped by my room on his way downstairs that afternoon. He shut the door and said, "All protocol aside for the moment, Ed. I'm here to talk. You're going to the airport tonight. It's usually a trip that takes an hour in and an hour back and probably less than half an hour at the airport. The flight arrives at midnight and Lieutenant Cameron has scheduled to leave for the airport at about five. That would suggest that she has interim plans." "She told me to wear a suit, sir." "I see. Well, she's been cooped up here for some time now. How do you feel about her? I know you two had difficulties early on." "She's a good looking woman and seems to have brains enough to look out for herself while going after what she wants, Major. I'm not close enough to her to know more than that about her, but I've no complaints about her as a team commander. She's been fair with me as far as I know. It could well be that she just wants to get out for a while and knows of somewhere to go dancing after a dinner in or around Nairobi. I'm not anticipating more than

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that." "How would you react if she, uhm, approaches you for more than dancing?" "Unless you flatly order me not to fraternize, I'm probably going to go along with whatever she wants. I've been cooped up, too, and as I said, she's a good-looking woman." "Probably?" "Probably. I don't know what she's into and there's a lot I'm definitely not into." The Major laughed. "Cautious courage. That's probably the best course here." "It usually is, sir. And, if something of a private nature should happen, it will remain private unless she chooses to publicize it. I don't advertise my personal matters." "Good enough, then. How are you set for contingency money?" "I'll draw from my deposits at the office. How much is enough around here?" He named a figure that translated roughly to about fifty bucks and added, "You shouldn't need more than that, surely." He then handed me a slip of paper with the name and location of a restaurant and said, "It's on the way. Have a good time. The food is good and the bar is well stocked." After he left the room, I went to the office and drew twice that amount. The Major knew the area and I didn't, but expenses tend to mushroom when the locals anywhere spot a tourist. Lieutenant Cameron did come by to choose my tie. She was wearing a blue near-knee skirt with matching waist-jacket over a pale blue blouse. Everything fit her rather closely without appearing too tight. Her four-inch heels matched the blue of her jacket well and her light brown hair cascaded around her shoulders. My eyes finally came to rest on hers. "Well? What do you think? How do I look?" she asked. "You know exactly how you look, Lieutenant Cameron. The word 'goddess' sprang into my stunned little mind." She laughed and called me a flatterer. "Now let me see your ties." I held up the one I favored and she agreed it would do, so I turned to face the mirror and started to tie it. Her hands reached for it, brushing mine away. I turned to face her. "Let me," She said. "I did this for my father after he got arthritis. One should keep in practice." I stood looking into her eyes as she tied my tie and snugged it into place. She gave it a final pat and let her arms fall to her sides. "You're ready," she said. I almost asked, 'for what ?' as I let my gaze travel over her face. Eyes, lips, cheek, jaw, back to lips, then back to her eyes. She said nothing. I said nothing. The moment stretched into two, then three. She suddenly raised her hand and lightly rattled the van keys. "Time to go," she said, "It's an hour to the restaurant." I took the keys without comment. She led the way to the door. I lingered a few paces behind her as far as the stairs. Great figure. Really great legs. Apparently others agreed. There were some hoots and whistles as we descended the stairs on our way to the front door. I got the van door for her and handed her into the seat, then got in myself and started the engine. Cameron punched up the air conditioning. There was an unmarked button on the dash that I didn't recognize, so I asked her what it was. "Lieutenant..." I began. "Lisa," she interrupted me. "From now until the airport, I'm Lisa. That's an order." I grinned and said, "Yes, ma'am, Lieutenant Lisa. What's that button for?"

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"It opens the rear door electrically." "Anything else I should know before we get moving?" "Yes," she said. "I asked for you to be assigned to accompany me on this run so we could get to know each other a little better. I didn't think you'd mind. Is that okay with you?" I looked across at her incredulously and said, "You have to be kidding. When I saw you upstairs my mind seemed to stop working for a moment. I could just stand you up someplace and stare at you for a few days, Lisa. This is much better than okay." She made a production of putting her purse on the floor beside her feet as she said, "Well, that's probably a bit more than the effect I was looking for, but it will probably do. Now let's get moving, shall we?" I saw the pink tinge around her ear and along her throat and realized she was blushing. She wasn't used to receiving such compliments. Out of practice, I guessed. I realized it might be better to admire her quietly and go lighter with the praise at first. "Sorry," I said as I got us underway. "Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." "No, no," she said. "I just haven't heard things like that in a while." I grinned across at her. "Well, then, should I go easy on you or just blurt out how I feel?" She turned to face me with a small smile and said, "I didn't say I didn't like it. I only said I wasn't used to it. If you feel the need to blurt out more of the same, please feel free." "I'll do that. It's hard to contain myself when I look at you, you know. I had no idea you had such great legs, for instance. I just knew that those whistles on the stairs weren't for me." "I would hope not. Only one of the three women in the room was whistling." "Yeah, I saw her. At me, do you think?" Lisa pretended to think about that. "Well, I really couldn't say and I won't ask her." "So it could have been you. Damn. I'd begin feeling deprived now if it weren't for the view." Lisa laughed and said, "Such blarney!" We chatted our way into Nairobi. I let her catch me glancing at her fairly often during that hour or so of driving. Not all compliments involve words. Lisa consulted a bit of paper from her purse and guided us to one of the hotels near the airport. Our destination was a British-run restaurant and club. She said the place came with very good recommendations. I recognized Major Phillips' handwriting on her note. "There it is!" she said, pointing to a multi-story building with the name on the side of it. I thought about showing her my own note from Phillips, then decided not to. One note could be taken as a friendly recommendation. Two notes might invite suspicion, as it had in me. It could be that the Major was going to receive a report about our activities, or it could be nothing more than a place he'd thought we'd enjoy. Or it could have been both. "That's the Major's handwriting," I said, "It's probably his favorite restaurant." Lisa looked at the note. "You could tell it was his handwriting? Oh, hell, why not? You knew how many hoots and in what order, too, didn't you?" She put the note back in her purse as we approached the hotel. "Do you think we're being set up? Monitored?" I put the van in a space near the doors. "I think he'll hear of it if we do anything truly stupid," I said. "He'd hear of it anywhere in Africa, probably. But otherwise, I think we're intended to have a good time. This place speaks British English, right down to the food and drink." "How do you define 'truly stupid'?" she asked.

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"Drunken brawls. Obnoxious behavior. Getting arrested or something like that. We're soldiers in the Major's army and we're in the company vehicle with an errand to complete, but he recommended this place as our stopover for entertainment, and he knows it has various facilities. I think we could dine, drink, dance, get a room, or anything else that pleases us as long as we don't make a tawdry scene and we get to the airport on time." Lisa giggled. "Tawdry. My aunt used that word now and then." After a long look at the rather plain concrete building, she said, "Well, we're here, so let's go in and have a look." Lisa's demeanor had changed to one of cautious determination. Her exit from the van was graceful as I handed her out and her pace to the front door was a march step, but as soon as we got a look at the inside of the lobby, she simply stopped and stared for a moment. There was old, polished wood everywhere. The place reeked of antique money and social stratification. As we approached the dais in the center of the lobby, the man behind it looked up and greeted us by our names without referring to our ranks. I was Mister and she was Miss, and he was Chichester, without any other designations or titlings. He pointed out the dining room, the bar, and the lounge, from which came the sounds of music and laughter. "Welcome, welcome! The Major said you might be arriving tonight, so I took the liberty of reserving a table for you in the dining room and club. The Major said that since you were on company business in the later course of the evening, I should simply send the bill for all services to him. That would include dinner and drinks, of course, and the use of a room if you should like to freshen up a bit before continuing on to the airport." As he showed us to our table, I almost asked, "Freshen up?" It seemed unlikely to me that Chichester didn't know that our villa was only an hour distant if he knew where to send the bill. Perhaps half the tables in the restaurant were in use by a variety of people, some obviously military or para-military, and a sprinkling of people who may have been civilians. While many wore suits or uniforms, many also looked as if they were about to play a round of golf. Chichester waved at one of the waiters, holding his other hand above us. The waiter lost no time in arriving at our table with menus. I seated Lisa and Chichester held my chair for me. Chichester said, "This young man will handle your dining desires with absolute consideration and efficiency. Simply sign the check when you're finished and let me know if there's anything else we can do for you during your visit. I'll be right out front, as always." We were still in a state of surprise as Chichester left us. We ordered and had drinks as we waited for food, discussing among other things the Major's motivations for such generosity. The dinner and drinks were excellent, as was the service. After dinner we moved into the lounge, where we found a few people dancing to music from a number of different decades. We chose a table in the back so we could talk without having to shout to raise our voices and ordered another couple of drinks. "Do you dance?" asked Lisa. The music of the moment was a light rock tune. "I like the kind of dancing that allows holding your partner close," I said, "Not the kind that has you three feet apart and wiggling in place. That's just a form of exercise." "You're on," she said, writing something on a napkin and waving the waitress over to our table. She gave the note to the girl and asked, "Please give this to the bandleader?" When the current tune ended, I recognized the opening of "Stardust". Lisa rose from her chair. "On your feet, mister," she said with a grin, extending her hand. After a few moments she leaned slightly back to look up at me. "Well, this is a nice surprise," she said, "You actually dance fairly well."

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I smiled and said nothing, choosing instead to gently pull her back to me. It felt good to have Lisa in my arms. We never really bothered to get out on the main dance floor, remaining instead near our table and by ourselves. The bandleader must have liked the results of the tune. More couples than before were dancing. When "Stardust" ended, another such tune was played, one merging so well into the other that I barely noticed the change. Lisa chuckled softly. "What sort of 'freshening up' do you suppose Chichester meant when he mentioned we could use one of the rooms?" I laughed, too. "That same question crossed my mind. Chichester seems like the kind who would allow the term to cover just about anything. Since you ask, though, what would 'freshening up' mean to you this evening?" She chuckled again. "Just about anything. When was the last time you showered without half a dozen people around you? When was the last time you had any real privacy, even in your room, because your roommate could return at any time? When was the last time..." "When was the last time for anything like that?" I asked. "Months." "You've been a perfect gentleman all evening, Ed. Would you continue to be one if we took some time to 'freshen up '?" "That depends entirely on you, Lisa. If that's what you want me to be, yes." "And if I'd rather you weren't quite such a gentleman?" She grinned up at me as we danced. "I'll happily cooperate, miLady. Enthusiastically. So ... How might I please you this evening?" "Do you really have to ask?" she made herself look startled by my question. "I'm asking about personal preferences here, ma'am, not general activities. Tell me a little about what you particularly like or would like to find out if you like. We only have a few hours to play and I'd like to impress you well before we have to climb back into uniform." Lisa smiled. "You want me to tell you such things here on a public dance floor?" "Scandalous, isn't it? Just a few tips about how to best please Lisa Cameron will do fine." A few steps later she whispered, "Why don't you begin this by telling me how you'd like to proceed? I'll chime in if I have any objections or adjustments to make." I whispered, "Well, first I'd finish this dance and whisper a few of the more important details into your ear between one kiss and the next." I let my lips brush the side of her face and neck just below her ear and inhaled the scent of her hair. "I'd tell you how I'd kiss and nibble my way up your thighs, for instance. How much I'd enjoy letting my fingers trace the contours of your face and shoulders and how I tend to relish now and then a firm grasp of thigh or calf and how the scent of you makes me want to taste you thoroughly from your ankles up." "You're making my shoulders all bumply," she whispered, "How thoroughly?" "Very thoroughly. Most every inch of your skin and maybe more." "Maybe more? What do you mean by 'more'? And what do you mean by 'maybe'?" "That depends on you, too," I said, "Do you think you can stand such intimacy?" "I believe so," she said, then, in a confidential tone, "I have before, you know." I whispered into her ear precisely what that meant to me. By the time I finished describing to her how much I enjoyed what I intended to do with my tongue, her loose hold on me, appropriate for dancing, had intensified enough so that dancing was becoming difficult. The song ended, but we remained moving together as if it hadn't while I whispered things that raised goosebumps on the back of Lisa's neck and her

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shoulders. I finished my dissertation with a few brushing kisses on those goosebumps. "You seem a little tense, there, ma'am," I whispered. "Would a massage help?" "Tense," she whispered, "Yes, that's it. Tense. Yes, a massage might ease my tension." As we approached the desk in the hotel segment of the building, Chichester appeared. He reached into a cubbyhole behind the desk for a key and presented it to us. Room 322. "Don't tell me," I said, "You took the liberty of reserving a room, as well?" "Of course, sir. It's my job to see to the happiness of our customers. When I peeked in to see how you were doing earlier, it seemed a reasonable course of action." I nodded. "We need you in our outfit, Chichester. I'd like to ask a small favor, if I may." "Of course, sir. What would that be?" "A ground-floor room." I pointed at the keys in the first row. "How about one of those?" Chichester looked at me curiously for a moment before scanning the cubbyholes. "A ... Of course, sir. No difficulty at all." He grabbed the key for 105 and handed it to me. I said, "I'll pay the difference, of course. I just strongly prefer the ground floor." "Room prices are all the same on the first five floors, sir," said Chichester. Lisa was looking at me curiously, too, as I thanked him and guided us down the hall. After a moment to get out of earshot of the desk, she asked, "What was that about?" "I was in a hotel fire once. Tell you about it another time." She accepted the partial explanation gracefully enough as I let us into the room. The room was of a luxurious antique decor similar to the lobby. It looked like a room might have looked in a turn of the century quality hotel. A canopied four-poster bed dominated the room and the only concessions to modernity were the electric lamps and a small refrigerator near the door. The cabinet above the refrigerator held a fair selection of booze and mixers in airline-sized bottles. The bathroom, on the other hand, was no-nonsense modern. It sported a sunken tub with a curved chromed pipe around the top that supported the shower curtain. There was a rack of bath items in one corner of the bathroom that included oils and soaps of a wide variety. In a wondering voice, Lisa said, "I think we should try to move in here." She looked over the bath selections and examined the hair dryer. "What would a place like this rent for?" "A bunch. Maybe two bunches, like both our salaries and some change every month." "I'm still trying to understand why this is happening to us," said Lisa. "Want a drink?" "Sure, thanks. Same here," I said, "I'm wondering, too. But as long as we aren't getting the bill for it, I'm inclined to ride with it. What about you? Any reservations?" Lisa smiled at me sardonically. "I'm making our drinks. Does that answer your question?" For the next three hours I did everything I could to pull every bit of pleasure possible out of Lisa. Now and then she'd make a suggestion or hint to redirect my attentions, but for the most part she simply allowed herself to be overwhelmed and responded in kind to my ministrations. Chichester presented us two hotel token-coins on our way out. Each appeared to be made of silver, about the size of a quarter. On one side was a coat of arms of some sort encircled by the name and location of the hotel and

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on the other side was a courteous invitation to return. "Not everybody gets one of these. Do come back sometime," said Chichester. I told him flatly that I was unaccustomed to such services and that while I felt I should tip, I had no idea how much would be appropriate. Chichester didn't pretend indignation or shock. He simply said, "No gratuity is necessary, sir. Solutions is an excellent customer, just as you have been excellent guests in the short time you've visited. Give my best regards to the Major." "Well, Chichester," said Lisa, "I feel as if I've been through Alice's looking glass. This is one of the finest places I've ever been in my life. Thank you very much for having us." Chichester's tail would have been wagging if he'd had one. In the van, Lisa tilted the seat back and turned her head to look at me. "I feel gooood ." "I was happy to be of assistance," I said magnanimously, "Call on me anytime, ma'am." Lisa laughed and said, "Happy to help? You were very obviously thrilled to get your hands on me, Ed. I liked that, too, by the way. It feels good to be so well-desired." I gave her a look that began at her ankles and ended with her eyes. "Anytime you want to be desired, Lisa, I'll be perfectly willing to volunteer." By the time we approached the terminal gate, we were Lieutenant and Sergeant again. On the way back with the two men we retrieved from the airport, one asked why we were dressed up. Lisa told him only that we'd had another commitment earlier in the evening. The two guys were handed over to the office and issued a room. Lisa and I went to the dining room for a last cup of coffee before climbing back into our uniforms. "This is where I say thank you for a lovely evening," said Lisa. "Thank you, miLady. You must know that you made it wonderful for me, too." Lisa giggled. "Where the hell did you learn to talk like that? I thought you were from Texas?" "I learned courtly manners in Texas, miLady. Also how to make swords, shields, and armor." "Armor? We do have to talk later, then," she said, "I've always wanted a suit of armor." "No problem. There's plenty of scrap metal around here." "You're serious? You can make a suit of armor?" "Can and will. Many private fittings will be required, though. Do you mind?" "Oh, I don't think finding time for fittings will be a problem at all." -------*Chapter Twenty-two* Major Phillips called all officers and NCO's to his office just after lunch the following afternoon. "We're expanding our scope of operations a bit," he said, "To include the local fauna." He tapped a map of the region south of the airport and pointed out a deep arroyo. "Poachers have been driving animals over the edges -- here and here -to kill them so that they can harvest ivory and skins without being prosecuted for using illegal weapons. Other poachers are less concerned and better equipped with vehicles, so they simply drive the animals to remote regions where they can shoot them and load trucks undetected. We have agreed to supply volunteers for a cooperative effort to stop the wholesale slaughter of the local wildlife." He went on to say that most of us would be alternating between being on poacher-hunting teams and assisting in the building of a seventeen-mile fence along that arroyo. When someone muttered that he hadn't signed up to become a

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rancher, the Major was quick to note that the room had a door and that the guy could use it anytime. "Part of our agreement with the government that allows us to use this villa and the land surrounding it concerns assisting as needed or as able in local and national affairs. We're being asked to assist in protecting one of the vital resources of this country and you haven't heard all the details yet, Captain." He grinned at the guy who'd barked earlier. "It seems that some of the poachers use automatic weapons and have been quite willing to engage or ambush the regular preserve officers. Officially, we will be conducting our regular training exercises with perhaps one or more of the preserve officers assigned as observers to each unit. Unofficially, this is a war. When we run into armed poachers we are to eliminate them and call it self-defense. How do you feel about ranching now?" "Better, sir," said the Captain, with a grin of his own. "Much better." "Good. Now, does anyone object to hunting criminals? If not, I'll proceed after you've all had a look at these pictures and had a few moments to think about matters." He left the room. The pictures that circulated were of mutilated animals and people in the process of removing tusks or skins. One had been taken from the air and showed a truck being loaded. Picture number twenty had obviously been taken by someone who had discovered poachers at their work. In the background men were stripping animal corpses of valuables. Next to one of the trucks, the muzzle of a rifle was aimed directly at the camera. The Major returned and parked his rump on the edge of the desk. "Has everyone seen all the pictures? No matter, they'll be posted later. Send up picture twenty, please." The picture was handed forward to him. He pinned it to the wall behind him and said, "This picture was taken by one of the park officers under the previous program of merely identifying poachers for later arrest and prosecution. His body was found at the site. The camera turned up not long after in a street vendor's stall in Nairobi and was bought for use as a source of replacement parts by a German tourist, who found the film still inside. He had it developed with the rest of his vacation pictures upon his return to Darmstadt and reported his findings to the authorities there." The Major sipped his coffee and continued, "To give you an idea of what kind of people we'll be up against, I'll tell you what happened to that luckless park officer. He was skinned like one of the animals and his head is still missing. They left him as an example. Identification was accomplished by x-raying his left arm, which had been broken the year before." Someone behind me asked, "Didn't they expect some sort of retaliation?" The Major said, "Park officers carry bolt-action rifles, usually Mausers, and often have only one uniform each. They've been underfunded and underequipped since their inception. Their job has traditionally amounted to counting heads and reporting illnesses, migration routes, and food shortages. They're more observers than anything else. By law, the local military cannot become involved in civilian crises that are not acts of nature unless martial law is declared. Obviously, the murders of a number of park officers aren't reason enough to declare martial law in an area this size." "How many others have there been?" That question came from someone else. The Major consulted a sheet of paper and replied, "Seventeen in two years that they're sure of. Others who haven't been found may have fallen victim to animals or illnesses while on duty. Or to poachers." The rest of the afternoon was spent discussing how best to go about the mission. We had over twenty teams we could field for this special "training", so it was decided that a few park officers should be assigned quarters in the villa compound so that they would be immediately available to lend an air of officialness to things. The Major's phone call to someone validated this idea and further plans were made. We essentially had carte blanche to hunt the hunters.

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It was essentially a repeat of Vietnam in many ways. Some units, on foot or in land rovers, would search using park officers as guides and advisors to try to intercept poacher activities. Most small aircraft from the airport would take off and land along approach paths that took them over the affected regions and they were instructed to report anything unusual on the ground. They and military helicopters ostensibly on training flights would pass information to us. Anything our ground personnel couldn't get to reasonably quickly would fall to our one helicopter to attend, so it began to appear that I might see some action fairly soon. The helicopter was a Bell UH-1D that had been customized somewhat for creature comforts, but I could feel the mounting fittings for a door-gunner's M-60 under the carpet on both sides and see where the mounts for rocket pods had been covered and painted. It took a day to find and get the parts for door-mounting an M-60, which we mounted on the left side, then we removed both of the doors and rigged cargo slings for delivering water and other supplies to the field units. Two coats of tan paint later there was an unmarked aircraft in our Quonset hangar. Only a few of us had helicopter time and I had the best knowledge of using one in medical evacuations, so the flight crew other than the pilot and copilot was me. We hadn't had or needed a unit pilot for months, so Solutions sent us two pilots from somewhere in Britain. A rotating group of eight people would be standing by or on call to load and unload us at the villa and any wounded would be taken directly to the airport infirmary. No particular arrangements were made for prisoners, since none were expected. We were also advised that someone hunting for meat was not to be considered a poacher, even though that was technically the case. The natives had pigs and cattle, but the animals were a source of income, not food. If a man was simply feeding or defending himself or his family, we were to ignore the situation. If he was killing animals for any other reason, he became fair game. During all the hustle and bustle to get things ready, Lisa and I several times found various ways to engineer time alone together, usually in the Quonset hangar. It had a small office and a shower, so all we had to add was ourselves. As people usually do in new relationships, we took every reasonable opportunity for privacy to re-christen our togetherness, but we never strayed far from where we dropped our clothing. It wasn't that nobody suspected or even knew we were having an affair. It was just a matter of being able to maintain some sort of decorum, and anyway, it wasn't anyone else's business. On Monday of the following week we were given the final green light on the operation. Six units left the villa compound by day and eight more departed by night, leaving six units to handle and maintain matters at the villa. They radioed in as they reached their appointed positions and set up camps. The idea was to become part of the scenery, so to speak, and conduct localized patrols while the aircraft kept general watch overhead. Lisa was in command of two units that were to operate by day. Her area of operation was centered about one hundred miles from the villa and encompassed a zone that extended about fifty miles from the center of each unit's camp. This distance was based largely on travel time. If you couldn't get there quickly enough, there was little point in going. The poachers would have too big a head start toward a border and we had no permissions to extend our hunt into neighboring countries. Two days went by without contacts, but in the early evening of the third day one of Lisa's land rover teams encountered heavy fire while investigating an aerial report of animal carcasses. I started the helicopter and did a preflight as I listened to the radio.

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An estimated eight poachers with automatic weapons had initiated the firefight and were apparently doing pretty well. We had one wounded and a broken land rover out there. Radio chatter said another land rover was circling to come in on the position from the north, and Lisa had just sent a third rover to help. It was about twenty minutes away. The senior NCO had pulled the driver from the first land rover and was heading to cover when he went down, which made two wounded. There was a whoomping noise above the talking and within a few minutes the sound of multiple small explosions. The ammo still aboard the burning land rover was cooking off. I handed the running helicopter and the finished preflight over to the somewhat surprised pilots and strapped in to handle the door gun as we lifted in Lisa's direction. We were soon at max speed and about a thousand feet up. There was radio chatter in my headset, then the pilot's voice. "Hello, back there, gunner," said the pilot. "I'm told you're an American with some previous experience in these matters." "Hello backatcha," I answered, "You heard right. When we pass the range marker, I'll clear the gun. How long until sundown?" "About forty-five minutes or so," said the copilot, "We'll get there well before dark. In the future, would you mind terribly if we do our own preflight checks?" "As long as I get to do one, too. My ass will be hanging in the sky right along with yours, Cap, and I never cut corners on preflights. Helicopters are too damned sensitive." "I'm rather surprised that you'd even know where some of these bits and pieces are." "You aren't used to working with paranoids, are you? I know what can knock one down and I know what keeps one up. More choppers fall due to sloppy maintenance than anything else. For the record, Cap, if you don't want me looking under the hood and kicking the tires, you can get yourself another medical gunner after this trip." "Medical gunner?" "Roger that. Medic by training, door gunner by innate talent." "How very convenient," said the pilot. "We'll see how things go today." Further radio talk said there were no trucks reported in the area. That meant the poachers had been dropped off and would be picked up after dark unless they had radios of their own. Each group had the other group pinned down, so nobody was going anywhere for the moment. As we passed the range marker, I put a few rounds on a fifty-five gallon drum. "Hey, gunner, do you ever hit that drum?" "It's our first flight, remember? You're welcome to hop out and check it on the way back if you want." Radio chatter from our destination said the trucks I'd been wondering about had been located about twelve miles north of the firefight, and now the second land rover was taking fire. The trucks had been coming up and out of an arroyo behind them, apparently also on their way to the scene, and had opened fire on the land rover. It was quickly disabled and abandoned for better cover. Our people were on foot and the trucks were still on their way to the firefight. The pilot said, "I think we ought to do a flyby, then see about slowing or stopping those trucks first. Do you think you can hit something as small as a truck, gunner?" "Hey, Fearless Leader, I can hit anydamnedthing I can see if you don't run into it first." "He sounds happy back there, doesn't he?" the pilot asked the copilot. "He does, indeed. Simple pleasures, and all that, I guess." The pilot called his interception plans in for confirmation and got it. I could hear them work out the details of intercepting the trucks and our course changed slightly. A thousand feet isn't very high if you're zipping

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along at close to two hundred miles an hour. I watched the scenery dash past underneath us. "There's the fight," said the copilot, pointing ahead and slightly to the left. As we got closer, I got a glimpse of the situation and managed to put nearly fifty rounds in the direction of the baddies hunkered behind an elephant carcass as we thundered over the scene at full speed. I couldn't tell if I'd hit anything other than the elephant. "Gunner, it'll be a fast orbit about the trucks and I'll be changing altitude now and then, so do try to stay on your toes back there." "On my toes? I may even hook up now that you've made me nervous about your flying." "Just try to hit something, Yank," said the pilot, "Or we've wasted a lot of petrol." The trucks were suddenly ahead and to the left. Someone leaned out of the lead truck and fired a rifle in our direction. I led them by half a truck-length and walked a belt of ammo from the front of the first truck to the tail of the second, then back to the front one. Tires blew and glass shattered and the trucks swerved, one to try to get out of the line of fire and the other to avoid ramming the one in front of it, which caused it to turn directly at us for a moment. I let another twenty rounds or so slam into the grille and windshield of the second truck and then turned my attention back to the first truck. People were getting out of it and shooting at us. I tapped off bursts at each of the shooters and then put a longer burst into the cab of the truck. Two of the shooters fell instantly and the other ran into the bush. He was running like a track star. I tracked a short line of fire from just behind to just in front of him. A few of the rounds knocked him instantly flat on the ground. "Goddamn , he's rather good with that thing, isn't he?" said the pilot. "It appears so," said the copilot. "He may have missed his calling." "How do you figure that?" I asked. "I'm the gunner." They pretended to ignore me. "At least he didn't miss the trucks," said the pilot. "I was really a bit worried about that, y'know." "Oh, I wasn't," said the copilot. "Just about anyone can hit something the size of a truck." "Well, now at least I won't have to get out and check the drum at the range." "Indeed. This has all been very reassuring, hasn't it?" "Hey!" I said, "I do all the work and you two chat like a couple of old ladies on their way to a tea party. You don't happen to see anything moving down there, do you?" "Not a thing," said the pilot. "We'll go around again once and then head back." "I'm going to spend a few on the trucks," I said, "Just to make sure everybody was properly attended. Don't panic when you hear the shooting, guys." "This bird didn't come with a panic button," said the copilot. I put maybe twenty rounds through the canvas tops of each truck and a few rounds into each of the visible bodies, then the pilot headed us back toward the firefight as the copilot called in the location of the trucks to the ground force. Moments later we were orbiting the firefight. "I'll keep us out just a bit," said the pilot. "Some of them are still holed up behind that elephant in the clearing and there may be more behind the other carcasses. Please note that our people are on the far side of the rover, gunner." "Out just a bit is fine with me," said the copilot, "I didn't bring any patching tape." "I did," I said. "Two whole rolls of it. But try not to get us hit,

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okay?" "Oh, ye of little faith," said the pilot as he established an orbit. I began laying rounds on the elephant carcasses in medium bursts of fire. After three such orbits a man jumped up from behind the smaller elephant and began to run. Someone down there took care of him before I could line up for a shot, then waved his rifle at us and cautiously approached the elephants as the others covered him. I held fire and we orbited yet again as the guy on the ground checked things out. He found reason to fire his rifle behind another, smaller elephant and fired again next to the bigger one. He then motioned to the others and they all cautiously approached, then one of them waved to us to tell us it was safe to land. There were no prisoners that day. By this time the dust cloud of the approaching third land rover was visible in the distance. The pilot advised them by radio of the location of the second rover and the trucks. They said they'd go have a look and maybe even offer the other team a ride if they asked real nicely. There were only two wounded among the four-person team and neither wound was life-threatening. The NCO had been hit in the leg and the other guy had a deep gash across the side of his head from impacting the rover's doorframe, but both had been treated well enough that we could afford the time to drop by the location of the second land rover. Nobody there was injured and the rover looked as if it would roll, if not run, so we left them for the third rover team to tow back to camp and headed for the camp ourselves. Lisa came aboard to briefly congratulate us before we flew our wounded to the airport infirmary. She shook hands with the pilot and copilot and then with me, adding a quick squeeze of my arm. "Miss you," she said. "Miss you, too," I said. "Any chance you'll be back at the villa soon?" "Not for a while yet. Three more days out here, at least." "I'll cross my legs and wait for you," I said with a grin. "You damned well better wait," said Lisa, glancing both ways before kissing me. "Going up," said the pilot. "All ashore, and all that." Lisa jumped out of the helicopter and scurried clear of the rotor blades, then turned to wave. I waved back at her as we lifted and turned toward Nairobi airport. -------*Chapter Twenty-three* Our wounded were treated and released at the infirmary. My instructions were to change dressings, medicate as directed, and observe. They were to be reexamined in a week. Major Phillips met us at the helipad and fussed appropriately over the two wounded heroes before chatting with the pilot and copilot for a few moments. A ground crew secured the helicopter and rolled it into the hangar. I prepared to clean the M-60 and replace the ammo cans. The Major came in and carried the ammo cans to the bench as I carried the M-60. He said, "Davidson says you did very well out there." "Which one is Davidson, Major? I never caught their names." "The copilot. He also said he might as well have brought something to read." I chuckled. "As I remember things, that's the way it's supposed to work. Copilots are ballast until needed for something else. Then they become real important real fast." "Well, they gave you high marks. Now I want to know what you thought of them." I thought about it. "The pilot got us there quick and knew what to do to help me." "Help you?" "He put the bird where I needed it when I needed it there. I never had to stretch for a good lineup and I never felt like an easy target for

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groundfire. He varied speed and altitude and kept the gun facing them." "Anything else?" "Not really. He flies better than me and I'd fly with him again. What's his name?" "Ellison. Any other comments about anything that happened?" "Well, the land rovers are too easy to kill, apparently." Phillips laughed. "That's already been noted by a number of people." "I'd get rid of the spare gas cans and add some steel plates here and there before sending one into another firefight. They're great for transportation around here, but not tough enough. A few rounds of rifle fire are all it takes to kill one." "Anything else?" he asked again. "Not that I can think of, Major." I swabbed out the barrel and began reassembling the 60 as he watched. When I was finished, I wiped down the bird's gun mount and tapped each of the floor bolts with a wrench. The Major watched me with curiosity until I found one that didn't sound quite right. I was able to give it three full turns in retightening it. Noting his interest, I handed him the wrench to do the others. He tapped the bolts and listened. One sounded a little different to him, so he tried turning it and was rewarded with two full turns to tightness. "Where did you learn to do that?" he asked. "No manual tells you to listen to bolts." "Maybe they should. Things you have to depend on should ring right. People, too." "Did you have anyone in particular in mind?" "No, that was just a general personal opinion," I said as I put the tools away. As we were walking back to the villa, the Major said, "You said Ellison flies better than you do. There's nothing in your folder about your being a pilot." "It was an unofficial thing. The U.S. Army officially has no enlisted helicopter pilots, but I wanted to learn how to land the aircraft I was riding in after a couple of incidents. In one, the VC hit us coming into a base. Pilot dead, copilot hit bad and trying to keep us in the air. There was nothing I could do and I didn't like that feeling at all. I learned to fly a crop duster biplane as a kid in Texas, but that wasn't much help in a helicopter, so I learned the basics of flying one later with a little help from a warrant officer friend." "Why didn't you get a license, later, too?" "It's an expensive hobby and I haven't had time or circumstances available to take the classes to get certified. I can take off, land, and follow a compass heading in fixed or rotary wing aircraft, and that makes me feel better when I'm in them." "You could become a commercial pilot, Ed. That pays pretty well." "I'm not doing what I'm doing just for the money, Major, and I don't want to become an airborne bus driver or haul cargo endlessly through the sky." "Just out of curiosity, Ed, why are you here?" I stopped and turned to face him by the door. "I'm going to tell you something you'd eventually read in someone's report anyway, Major. I had a good time today. A real good time. Days like this are why I take jobs like this. I won't get rich and I don't give a rat's ass about being anybody's hero, but I do manage to have a good time now and then." Major Phillips gazed back at me evenly, waiting to see if there was more. There was. "I'm not here for any god or country or for democracy in Africa or politics. I never collected ears or noses. I used to have a hooch wall covered with right-foot sandals, but that got old and I left them all in a duffel bag in San Francisco when I realized I didn't give a damn about collecting anything at all. Sometimes I've thought I do this stuff because I like

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adrenaline, but that doesn't quite cover things completely, either. I have to be able to justify what I do." "That shows in your employment history," said the Major, "But it only in the vaguest sense answers my question. We all have things about ourselves that we generally avoid advertising. All you've told me is why you aren't in a more mundane job. Not necessarily why you're here in particular." "Hmm. You're right. I had to leave Europe, Major. My job there closed. Beyond that, I just know why I'm not somewhere else doing other things. I'll let you know if I come up with another answer, though, if you want. It might be interesting to discuss." "Do that. I'd like to know if you find one." We split up at the stairs and I went to my room. Carver wasn't there, which was fine with me. The guy was a neatness freak. I didn't mind maintaining my zone to military specs, but Carver was a bit maniacal about precise displays and such. If I left a book face down on my bunk, it would be closed with a marker and lying centered on my end table when I next saw it. No biggie, since he never lost my page, but irksome nonetheless. On the other hand, he preferred to do all the general cleaning. The following day I was on call but considered available for odd chores if found to be unoccupied, so I decided to take my revolver to the range for a while and target practice the way I'd practiced in other zones. I went to the mess hall and managed to liberate a small box full of food scraps, then went to the office and signed out my revolver, six boxes of ammo, and a PRC-25 walkie-talkie in order to keep in contact. I then walked out to the area behind the hangar that bordered the firing range and tossed the food scraps about fifty paces from the shade of the building. My years-old soft-rubber artillery earplugs were getting too brittle, so I wadded bits of paper towel and used them instead, then picked up the radio. "Hello, Base. Radio check," I said, "At the gun range." A woman's voice said, "Yeah, well, you do seem to have a radio, Yank." I could hear her fine, although didn't recognize the woman's voice. It didn't matter. I just wanted to be sure the radio was working. "Glad you agree, Base. Out." She clicked twice in response, which meant 'received and understood '. I almost called her back to find out where she learned to do that. It was SOP for special ops units on quiet missions, but not something I expected from a female desk jockey. Instead, I broke open my revolver and loaded it while I waited for targets to appear. The H & R Model 999 is a .22 caliber, 9-shot revolver. That means that the CCI hollow-point bullets from it's six-inch barrel will only shatter a brick at thirty feet or so and only flatten to the size of a dime as they fragment a bit on impact with a live target. I'd been teased about my "mouse gun" a number of times, but only until they'd seen what it could do and how well I could use it. I didn't have to wait long. The first big, brown rat appeared in only minutes. I let him investigate until a few other rats began to appear. When my first round knocked over the first rat, the others scurried for cover, but they'd had a taste of the goodies and they started coming back almost immediately. The first rat, now dead or near it, immediately became an item on their menu. The others began squabbling over bits and pieces and positions. I popped three more with quick shots and reloaded as I waited for them to return again, then it was suddenly as if they'd called for reinforcements as they rushed back to the feeding zone. There were upwards of twenty big rats out there, fighting over the food scraps and the bodies of the fallen, and more were joining them as I watched. As the number of rats doubled I picked up the radio and told Base to send out someone with a shotgun.

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In no time at all the number of rats milling about the target zone seemed to double again. I began backing away from the range toward the hangar door. The woman's voice came back to me with, "Come get your own damn shotgun, Yank. We don't run a delivery service for spoiled Americans." "This isn't a request, Base. This is a call for backup. I underestimated the enemy." The gathering of rats was growing larger by the second. What had been a puddle of brown out there became a pond. I placed several quick shots in their midst and to the farthest side of the gathering herd in order to keep them busy squabbling over fresh meat as far from my position as possible and again began backing toward the front of the hangar along its eastern wall. If they noticed me and started in my direction, I was going to try to make it inside the hangar before I became part of their menu. The radio barked, "Yank? Hey, Yank! What the hell are you talking about?" "Rats!" I whispered, "Stop yelling, damn it! There are hundreds of them! I have to put the radio down and reload, so send some goddamned shotguns out here now !" I slid the radio hard on it's back toward the hangar doorway and reloaded as quickly as I could. The rat horde was still growing and a few of them had, indeed, noticed me. I faintly heard Base's answer. "Okay, Yank, but you'd better not be having us on, you got that? Hey, Yank?" I shot some more rats toward the middle and far side of the gathering to try to keep them distracted as I backed closer to the door. A pathetically small number of the nearest ones ran away from the sound of my shots. Too many were just standing there staring at me as if coming to a decision. Most of the others were either ripping into the ones I'd shot or milling around looking for scraps of one sort or other. It was impossible to miss at that point. I reloaded again and fired from a low crouch to try to hit more than one at a time. It worked. My rounds would hit as many as three at once. I continued to back away as I fired. When I stumbled on a hard clod of dirt, I picked it up and threw it well to the side of the nearest rats, hoping they'd chase an unfamiliar moving object other than me. They did. I shot the first two rats to reach the clod, which created further commotion in that direction and bought me a bit more time as the two rats I'd hit became victims of the others. I found I could still guide the horde's attention somewhat by selecting my targets. Vast numbers would swarm in the direction of the squeals of the wounded. There were running footsteps behind me. Phillips and two women from the offices were arriving with pump shotguns. Each had a game bag full of ammo and carried an unopened box of shells. Phillips had two shotguns and two bags of ammo as well as a big canvas shopping bag with several boxes of shells. Between firings Phillips told them to use the boxed ammo first, ripping the top off his own box. They quickly reloaded their guns and began firing into the center of the now-vast gathering of rats, who generally ignored the noise and began attacking their own wounded in a feeding frenzy usually associated with sharks and piranha fish. "This hasn't been the brightest thing you've ever done, has it?" asked Phillips. "I'll agree with that, Major." "Are you ready to call it a day, then?" "Whenever you're ready, we can go, Major." The extra people and activity drew the rats' attention. Some of them began moving in our direction. I quickly shot the most daring of them and knocked over seven in nine shots, but their bodies seemed only to serve as bait to draw others our direction. As soon as I fired my last .22 round, I stuck my revolver in my belt and grabbed the extra shotgun and ammo bag and quickly loaded the weapon from the box at my feet.

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All of us were firing from the hip at that point, using up the boxed shells first so we'd have full gamebags for the retreat. There was no doubt about retreating. The seething, squealing horde of rats now seemed to be neither growing nor shrinking, which only meant we were shooting enough of them about as quickly as new ones arrived. Phillips told one of the women to send for more shotgunners. She emptied her gun into the rats and turned to run for the radio, which was a mistake. Rats are bright enough to know when something is running away from them, and some of them gave chase. Like a brown, furry amoeba the horde stretched outward toward the hangar wall as a goodly number of the rats tried to follow her. Phillips and I fired repeatedly down the length of the wall to cut the tentacle of rats while the other woman reloaded. She then fired at what was left of the ratty tentacle as we reloaded and returned to holding the larger group at bay. "On the way, sir! More ammo, too!" shouted the woman with the radio. She then set it down and began reloading from her game bag. I kicked an unopened box of shells over to her that broke open when it landed near her feet. She immediately dropped to her knees and finished reloading from the spilled shells, then fired from that position along the wall of the hangar at the rats now coming for the bodies of the severed tentacle. About a dozen rats managed to get past us and were running in a cluster toward her as she again reloaded. She interrupted the procedure, fired twice point-blank at them, and grabbed some more shells to cram into the gun. One of the rats made it to her feet, but stupidly took time to check out a shotgun shell on the ground. Her heel mashed its head and she punted it well away from her. The others that had broken through fell upon it in such a tight bundle of seething brown fur that she was able to get them all with two shots. Grabbing the bodies by the tails, she slung them away from us and back into the horde. We seemed to be winning or at least holding our own. The horde was still large, but it seemed at the least that fewer rats were arriving to replace the dead and wounded, and when we fired at them, more of the mass seemed to stop moving toward us than before. Phillips and I kept firing as the two women gathered up the boxed ammo and moved it back by the hangar door, then they fired as we, too, moved back to the door, firing as we retreated. Three more men with shotguns joined us and began firing at the rats as we opened ammo boxes and refilled our bags. Phillips had been down to two rounds, which meant that he'd fired nearly fifty times, having gone through a box of ammo as well. Leaving the new arrivals to hold that side of the building, Phillips told one woman to stay with the radio and took the other woman and me to have a look along the other side. When we looked around the corner of the building we saw only a relatively few rats who seemed to be milling around excitedly in a small area. One of their wounded had made it that far from the horde and was trying to defend himself against the others who had discovered him. One of the attackers got through his guard. There were squealings of triumph and agony as the others joined the attack on the injured rat. One of the attackers suddenly backed away and limped quickly to the side of the building, but the others spotted his injury and instantly turned on him, too. Phillips moved us back. "Hold your fire. Let them handle themselves for the moment and ignore us. Just keep an eye on this side of the hangar." He turned to me and said, "This happened last year when a pair of romantics discarded a stale sandwich, thinking to feed some birds. They were in a rover and managed to drive away to be romantic another day. In the future, do not encourage the local fauna." "Definitely understood, Major. There were a few more targets than I could handle." "By nightfall there will be only stains in the dirt, if that much, to mark our great little battle here. Now, let's get everyone away so things will

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calm down and take care of themselves, shall we? You can come out here tomorrow or the next day and police up all the empty shells. I recommend that you not come alone." There were no longer quite enough rats to devour their wounded and the unwounded were now more occupied with feeding themselves than with chasing us as things calmed down out there. We all reloaded, formed a line of shotguns facing the remaining rats, and held our fire as we began backing away from the carnage. Someone grabbed the radio as we passed the hangar door and one of the men helped me gather the remaining ammo and boxes. He was grinning at me. "Sorry I missed the main event," he said. "It must have been something to see." One of the women looked at him as if he was nuts and snapped, "Oh, definitely! We had three shotguns out here and still almost wound up as rat droppings!" She turned to me and said, "All because of you, Yank!" "Quiet, please," said the Major, "You wouldn't have known any better, either." The guy asked, "Why didn't we stay and shoot the rest of them?" One of the women answered him, "Because the rest of them aren't here yet, and we don't want to be out here when they arrive. I saw what rats can do in Somalia when they overran a refugee camp. They'll scour the place clean of anything edible, and that would include us. There will be thousands of them. We only encountered the ones who live in the brush nearby. Now that there's blood in the wind, there's no telling how many more rats or what else will show up." The questioner seemed to become more alert. "You mean we might get a lion?" The Major said, "Not likely. Just rats and other vermin in quantities that even lions won't challenge. All it takes is a little blood in the air to draw all sorts of traffic around here. Now you know why our garbage pit is a mile from the villa." We were halfway up the paved road to the villa before most of us felt safe enough to stop walking backward, but we were still very alert to the rear. The Major announced that I had volunteered to clean all the shotguns. I didn't argue with that statement at all. In fact, I thanked everybody for their participation. I gathered weapons as we approached the screened-in cleaning tables and said, "I'd like to thank all of you for attending and I do apologize for sending your invitations so informally and on such short notice, but congratulations to all of you for making the occasion a resounding success." One of the ladies grimaced. "Resounding is right. You had the only earplugs." She opted to stay to help clean the shotguns, saying she was still too wound-up to go back to her desk. The other woman who'd arrived with the Major and one of the guys stayed, too. By the time we'd finished cleaning the guns we had a well-polished little war story to tell the others. For the rest of the day there was a commotion on the range that we could periodically hear all the way up at the villa as the rats continued to occupy that area. We placed poison baits around the villa and in the basement and attic and instructions were given that everyone should be alert for intruders. The Major's attitude was simply that such an event was about due, anyway, since there were so damned many of them out there. Someone suggested spreading the poison baits at the garbage pit, as well, but the Major vetoed the idea as too dangerous to the more desirable wildlife in the region. Someone else suggested napalming the garbage pit a few times every year on general principles. The Major said he'd consider that idea. Later in the evening I was called to the radio. Lisa said in very cool tones that she'd been told that I'd been out shooting with a couple of the women that afternoon. I asked if she'd also been told how the two women had

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been involved in the matter. She giggled and said, "Yeah. They saved your butt, as I heard it." "You heard right, ma'am. I was about to become an afternoon snack." "Well, as long as you weren't really enjoying yourself, I guess it's okay," she said. "Oh, trust me on that, ma'am. I wasn't enjoying myself in the least. At that moment, their finest attributes were their shotguns." "At that moment? What about now?" "Never fear. I can wait for you as long as necessary." "Good for you. My spies will tell me if you don't, you know." "Just as my spies will tell me if you don't, miLady." "Then I guess we'd better both behave. Oh, just a minute. Go away, George. Go with him, Paul, and take Ringo with you, too. Sorry, guys. Okay, I'm back. Where were we?" "We were wondering why John wasn't leaving with the others, I think." "Damn. You too, John. He knows about you. Sorry." Lisa giggled again. "Very funny. Next time I'll take you with me to the gun range." The duty officer pointed at her watch. I started to say something to Lisa about having to sign off when she said her radioman was pointing at his watch and she had to go. -------*Chapter Twenty-four* The Major rotated the poacher-hunting teams weekly so that everybody would get some time in the bush. One land rover was scrapped and the other was repaired and the helicopter acquired the nickname "The Dragonfly" during one mission. By the end of three months it became exceedingly difficult to find any poachers in our regions, so the Major began tapering back our efforts until they became essentially flying squads of eight people in a pair of rovers who would cruise our zones on a seemingly-random schedule. It was decided that more people needed experience with the M-60 in the helicopter, so we set up a target in the center of the range and would simply circle it until the gunner trainee seemed to become proficient enough. The Major told our pilot to check me out as a copilot so he'd have a backup and I managed to get in some flying time now and then that didn't involve standing in the side door. On one such early-evening gunner-training flight we received a call to check an aircraft's report of ground activity and chanced to discover an elephant herd that had been attacked not far from the Ugandan border. Four of the adults were down and a two baby elephants were standing near the smaller adults, rocking back and forth in a state of confused fear. As we landed, a male managed to get halfway to his feet to try to challenge us, but collapsed again and just lay there struggling to breathe. The poachers had used automatic weapons and chainsaws on the adults, not even waiting until they were dead to carve away the tusks, and that haste had cost them a man. He lay partially concealed beneath the male elephant's head, indicating that the male had managed to exact a portion of revenge. We radioed Base to tell the range officers about the baby elephants and took off again, this time with me in the back with the trainee gunner, who strapped himself in on the bench behind me. We found where the trail was joined by two others. The convoy of three trucks was less than two miles from the border when we caught sight them. Ellison took us into contact at full speed, veering into an orbit only when he knew the M-60 could be brought to bear effectively. As we passed the convoy, I swept it with machine gun fire from front to rear, aiming mostly for the tires, then swept back to the front with the rounds impacting cargo areas and windshields. The gunner trainee behind me was strapped in by the other door and couldn't use his own rifle without shooting past me, and I was glad he had sense enough to realize that.

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As Ellison swung us around the front of the convoy for a pass down the other side of it, the chopper was at an angle that made it difficult even to see the trucks. When he had leveled us a bit I sprayed the other side of the convoy in the same front-to-rear, rear-to-front pattern. There were thumpings on the hull and a few holes appeared in the wall. "Ellison, back us off a bit. They're going nowhere and we're taking hits." "Copy that. Say when." When the distance felt better to me, I said, "Good enough," and the sidewise motion stopped. Ellison kept us in a concise orbit of the convoy as I watched for targets. Anyone stupid enough to fire at us received a burst or two, and the only ones I couldn't hit were those who moved with us to keep the trucks between us. "Company coming," said the pilot to base. "Two cars inbound from the border." "Any idea who they are?" a woman's voice answered. I couldn't tell who she was. "No idea," said the pilot. "Gunner, can we wrap this up quickly?" "Not without a clear shot. We could drop someone here and circle to drive them into view." "No time. That cloud of dust is the incoming traffic." "Cap, we're legal, sort of. No markings on the bird. Let's take a shot at turning the cars away or leading them away, then come back for these guys." "Good enough, but no time for that either. They're already here." The two white cars, both Peugeot 404's, entered the area below cautiously. One remained at a distance as the other slowly approached the trucks. The hidden poachers didn't shoot at them, nor did they reveal themselves to the newcomers. The white car stopped next to some of the bodies by a truck and two men got out. One checked the bodies as the other looked in the back of the truck. An excited exchange occurred between the two men for a moment, then they looked at us, hovering in the distance. One of the men waved at us, but we held our position. "Cap," I said, "Those guys will either be their friends or their next victims. Land us but keep the motor running. I'm going to get out and let the other guy take the door gun while I take a walk. Once I'm halfway there, lift off and put yourself on the far side of the convoy." "We don't know who they are, gunner. They could be medics or news people." "Then they're dead people, Cap. They just don't know it yet. The poachers need new rides, and those cars are the only things running." "Going down." I turned to the trainee gunner and motioned him to take the 60 as we descended, telling him not to hit those cars under any circumstances. He nodded vigorously. I then grabbed my rifle and went out the other door. There were termite mounds and a lot of low, sun-dried vegetation for concealment as I moved toward the convoy. One of the men waved again and the second white Peugeot entered the area to park near the first one. Two men got out of that one, too, and the four of them seemed to be conferring. I heard the chopper lift off behind me, which got their attention. I watched them watch it as it slowly circled the scene to place itself on the far side of the trucks. Since the door gunner didn't fire, it seemed likely that the remaining poachers had taken cover in the trucks or around them. I wasn't close enough to warn the car people when rifles fired and the men from the cars fell. The first man to jump from a truck fell to one of my own rounds. Another man tried to jump down and run for the cars, but I nailed him, too. Nothing happened for a few moments, then six men jumped out of the trucks at once and sprinted for the cars. I only got two of them before they were out of sight again. One of my hits was still moving, trying to crawl the

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rest of the way. One more round stopped him. I got up and moved forward as quickly as possible in a zig-zag run, then dropped flat. Someone fired at me, kicking up dirt some feet ahead of me, and ducked back down behind the car. I held my fire for the same reason I hadn't wanted the door gunner to hit the cars. Our ammo in shot-up poacher trucks was one thing. Our ammo in shot-up non-poacher cars was another thing entirely and would require explanations. Another zig-zag run got me to the front of the first truck in the dead convoy. Two bodies lay nearby, both formerly armed with the cheapo Chinese AK-47's. I slung my rifle and grabbed one of the dead mens' rifles. Both men had extra clips in belt pouches, so I grabbed an extra clip and peeked around the wheel of the truck. A car engine started, then another. I aimed the AK beneath the truck and used a few rounds on each car's tires, but they began moving anyway. When they'd moved about a hundred yards away, I sprayed their backsides with both clips of ammo and reached for more. One car was now staining the dirt behind it with gasoline. As the men realized the hazard, they ran to hunker behind the other car. The first car kept leaking gas but didn't catch fire. Someone shouted and pointed at me and a round spanged off the truck wheel I was using as cover. I fired back, making a hole just behind a car's headlight, but not hitting the shooter. It was time to call the helicopter back. I stayed well behind the truck's wheel and started backing away with the extra clips from both bodies. As soon as I could drop into the ditch by the road, I did so and quick-crawled some distance to where there was some relatively heavy vegetation at the edge of the road, then waved at the helicopter to circle the dead convoy. The chopper began to move. That seemed to be enough for them. One of them raised his rifle over his head in both hands and stood up to surrender. Three more did the same and they all slowly moved away from the cars and into the open. I turned and jogged some distance so the helicopter could pick me up in relative safety, then took over the door gun again once I was aboard. We circled cautiously a few more times as I waved at them to throw their weapons down. Two of them did so immediately and dropped flat, thinking I meant for them to get down, too. That was fine with me. Ellison brought us in a bit closer. I continued to point at the weapons and wave them down. The men appeared to be talking to each other. "Hold up, Ellison. Three of them still have guns. I want those guys empty-handed first." I fired a quick burst to one side of them and waved again to emphasize my demand that they drop their weapons. Instead of doing so, two of them turned sideways and opened fire on us with their rifles still at arm's length over their heads. Some of the poorly-aimed rounds were nonetheless hitting us as I returned fire, cutting the men down. Two of the men who had been flat on the ground had retrieved their rifles and were aiming at us while the other one ran for the trucks. There's no such thing as spot-shooting with a post-mounted machine gun. I held the trigger down and walked a line of hits through the dirt and across the bodies of the guys firing at us and then tracked the line of fire across the runner. Ellison had lifted us and backed us away fast when the shooting started. "Is everybody okay back there?" I glanced quickly around to check for damage and saw that the trainee gunner was holding his left thigh. "Nope. I'm okay, but the trainee's hit." For the life of me, I couldn't remember the guy's name. "How bad?" "Don't know yet. Set us down at a safe distance and I'll unbuckle myself for a look."

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Ellison swung us out until the trucks looked toy-sized and set us down, then came to the back as I was unstrapping the trainee. We laid him out flat and looked for other hits. None, but the hole in his thigh was bleeding too freely. When I slit his pantsleg open, blood gushed out. Ellison applied pressure to slow the bleeding as I reached for the wall-mounted first aid kit. It wasn't there. A round had ripped the kit off the wall and sent the contents flying everywhere. I found materials for a tourniquet and we got it in place. With the drip bags gone, all we could do was take him to the airport infirmary. We strapped him for flight. "Okay," I said, "He'll make it. Let's check the trucks again on the way out." "You sure?" "He'll be down a couple of pints, that's all. Look around. It's all right here on the deck." Ellison flew us to the trucks. He thought he spotted motion almost a quarter-mile away toward the border and headed us that way to check it out. "Hang on. Going down." Sure enough, someone was out there, limping along as quickly as possible in a straight line away from the trucks. As we got closer, the guy dropped flat behind some bushes. "Ellison..." I started to tell him to circle to the guy's right. It's harder to track a target accurately to the right with a rifle. Too late. The guy on the ground started firing at us. I heard Ellison say, "Holy shit!", and as he said that I heard thumpings on the bulkhead between me and the front of the helicopter. Ellison swung us sideways and yelled, "Shoot! Shoot the bastard!" As soon as the bird swung back to fairly level I managed to put a few rounds into the bushes the guy was using. I can't have hit him because he jumped up and started running, after a fashion, but my next burst caught him and shoved him to a sliding halt in the dirt. "What happened to his limp?" asked Ellison. "He took off like a star player." "Maybe he forgot he was hurt," I said. "Take me in closer." Ellison brought us to within a hundred feet of the guy. I gave him another quick burst and jumped out to retrieve his rifle and ammo when we touched down. "Okay. Just wanted to be sure. We still have to check the trucks and get this guy to the hospital. You okay up there?" "I'm fine. There's some glass missing up here, but I'm fine." Back at the trucks, it seemed to me that one of the bodies wasn't quite where it had been. Imagination or not, I gave everybody a few more rounds each for certainty before we landed to grab the weapons and check the trucks. On the way to the infirmary, the trainee gunner woke up enough to ask if we'd got them all and apologize for not being of any help to us. "Yeah, we got them all," I said. "And you couldn't shoot past me, so don't worry about it." He seemed to accept that and nodded back out. At the infirmary they off-loaded him while I secured my end of the helicopter. Ellison set the ground straps and shook glass out of his hair. "Shit," said Ellison. "I can't go to the duty free shop looking like this." "Same here," I said. "What did you want to get there?" "Oh, just a couple of bottles of decent scotch and a little something for one of the ladies." "Good idea. I have a lady to consider, too. Let's borrow a couple of lab coats." We told a nurse about our situation and she said we couldn't wander the airport in lab coats, either, but she offered to go to the shop for us. We made a list and gave her some money, then went out to have a look at the helicopter. None of the hits were critical. All of them could be sanded and

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patched except one. A piece of the interior framing would have to be rewelded. Ellison stood looking at a hole a foot or so behind the cockpit and said, "Helluva job, isn't it?" I looked through the hole to see what might have been damaged behind it and agreed. "Yup." The nurse got sidelined by some emergency that took an extra hour. There was nothing we could do about the windshields until we got back, so we settled for trying to clean out the cockpit a bit and checking everything behind every hole for damage as we waited. The nurse finally returned with our stuff in two bags and we offered to let her keep the change, but she said the change was in the bags and that we could buy her something nice next trip, instead, so we took off for the villa as soon as we could get clearance from the tower. We were still technically on duty and there was really no point in sticking around without a change of clothes. Fact is, there was really no point in sticking around at all. The Nairobi airport had few facilities of interest to either of us beyond the duty free shop and the small bookstore, and the papers that arrived at the villa were frequently younger than the ones in the airport. The next morning I helped work on the helicopter, then went to find Lisa for lunch. Um, make that 'to take Lisa to lunch '. Anyway, she was in a card game in the mess hall with a couple of the other women when I waved on my way to the coffee pot. The two other women were trying to convince Lisa not to drive the Cougar she intended to buy all the way to Africa. One of them turned to me and asked me what I thought of "the whole ridiculous idea". I thought about that a moment while Lisa dealt me in. "If she's determined to buy it and drive it here, that's her business. If she decides to leave it in Britain after she buys it, that's her business, too." The other woman told the first one, "I told you. He doesn't give a damn." I grinned at her and said, "Promote that woman immediately. She's got a brain. What game are we playing, anyway?" Lisa smiled and sipped her coffee, then made a face. "Dreadful stuff. We're playing Hearts." "There's tea, you know," said the second woman. "The tea here is dreadful stuff, too," said Lisa. "But I'm getting used to the coffee." Somebody tossed out the two of clubs and the game got underway. As she scribbled our scores after the first round, the first woman dragged the subject of the conversation back to the Cougar. Her argument boiled down to "far too expensive altogether" and "a ridiculously large American barge of a car". As the game progressed, it became apparent to me that all they were accomplishing by making their objections known was reinforcement of Lisa's determination to proceed with her plan. Lisa suggested firmly that someone introduce a new topic. "Well, it can't be sex," said one of them. She nodded at me. "Because he's here." "So what?" asked the other one. "He doesn't look like a virgin to me." "No, he doesn't, does he? But what if he learns too much? Then we'd have to kill him." Lisa said, "Too late, he already knows, and you can't kill him 'cause he belongs to me." One of them peered at me and asked, "Z'at right? You belong to her?" I tossed the Queen of Spades on her lead and said, "For the duration." The other woman saw the Queen and sagged a bit before tossing a card that guaranteed she'd get the pile. "Gawdammit , I always get the Queen. Weren't you listening before? Of course he belongs to her. Remember the night

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they went to the airport? That's when she got him." "More likely he got her. He looks like the type for that, doesn't he?" "Could be. Could be. Gawd , just look at 'em grinning at each other." "Bet they were dragging ass when they got to the airport, too." "Oh, yeah. Not a doubt. Not-a-doubt. You know what they were up to, don't you..." As the cards fell, I let the banter go by without comment or interruption, partly because there was nothing to correct about their assumptions. Now and then Lisa's eyes would meet mine as if she was trying to gauge how I was reacting to some of the comments. I just smiled at her. We finished the game and the other two women wandered off. Lisa sat fiddling with her spoon, apparently thinking about something. After a bit, she asked, "You want to come with me when I get the car?" "Sure. How do I get the time off?" "That's probably not a problem. Phillips wouldn't want me traveling alone, anyway." "Do I hear reservations about it? Would you rather I didn't go with you?" "Oh, no. No, not at all. I'm just thinking about how far I want to go with you." "How about a few thousand miles south from England in a Cougar?" I grinned at her. Lisa smiled slightly and said, "No, I mean you're still married and you can't have children." "I told you that first thing, Lisa. You've been checking your facts?" "Yes. I wanted to see if what you told me was true. Now I'm beginning to wish it wasn't." "Why not wait and see if you still feel that way a year from now? We've only known each other for a few months, Lisa. Could be you'll feel differently about things then." She gazed steadily across at me and asked, "Well, what if I don't? What then?" I sat back to look at her. "Well, I guess we'll have another conversation like this one. Lisa, I haven't ever been with a woman more than about six months at a time, even my wife. We separated over her drinking several times and now she's back in the States. If we really have something more than lust, we'll know it by then and we can deal with it then." She nodded slightly and changed the subject. "How bad was it yesterday?" "We took some hits. Dragonfly will probably be down for a week at least." "I heard the copilot's seat was shredded. You were in it when you left." "Well, maybe I'll become one of those mysterious legends. I took over the gun on the way." Lisa returned my grin with another slight smile and looked at me for some moments in silence before speaking. "Let's go to my room. Cathy's on field duty all week." "I thought you had an aversion to room visits." She gave me a wry look. "I do, but I'm making an exception. Are you coming or not?" I stood up and extended my hand. "As I've said, I'm yours, miLady." As we walked to the stairs, Lisa said thoughtfully, "Yes, you did, didn't you? For the duration, as you put it. Just how long is a duration these days?" "I don't speculate about such things, Lisa. They tend to take care of themselves." She hesitated, then said, "You don't really think we'll last, do you?" It wasn't a question. "How should I know if we'll last? I'm not Nostradamus, ma'am. I'll just

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wait and see." Lisa turned to me on the stairs and said, "I want to know how you feel about us now, Ed. I want to know if there's anything solid to build onto." "How we feel now could change. I'd rather wait and see. I don't have another answer to give you, Lisa, and if you keep pushing, all you'll do is create a barrier between us that will..." She raised a hand and interrupted, "...will what? Will it shorten the definition of 'duration'?" I just looked at her for a moment and then asked, "What's the real problem here?" Lisa gazed back at me and eventually said, "I don't know, but there seems to be one." I walked to the banister and leaned on it. When I looked down, two women sitting on the leather couch below the stairwell were looking up at me. One had a book and the other had a craft kit of some sort on her lap. She had apparently been stringing beads. I had no doubt that they'd heard our discussion. I straightened and turned, indicating with a thumb that we had company. Lisa took a quick look over the rail and sighed as she turned back to face me. "Damn," she muttered. "There's just no goddamned chance of privacy around here, is there?" I said nothing about the fallacy of conducting private conversations on stairs in the main room. She was making a decision and I was going to let her make it on her own. After a moment's hesitation, she started up the stairs, then stopped and looked back. "Would you be upset if I changed my mind about visiting?" she asked. "I want to think." "I'll survive," I said. "See you later, Lisa." She nodded, seemed about to say something else, then turned and continued up the stairs. I went back to the mess hall and picked up someone's discarded German newspaper, then got another cup of coffee. I was barely past the headline story when one of the women from the couch walked in and went to the coffee pot. She was blonde, in her mid-twenties, about five-ten, not quite slender without being heavy, and she had long, solid legs that extended below mid-thigh jeans cut-offs. Her white t-shirt advertised the Black Eagle Pub in Coventry, England, and she filled the shirt well without blatantly inflating the front of it. Like all of us, she had a bit of a tan. I could feel her speculative gaze on my back as she stood by the pot stirring her coffee. "You want some company, Yank?" she asked. "As long as you don't ask me to try to cure your shyness." I turned slightly to face her and gestured across the table. She gave me a wry grin and sauntered over to place herself carefully in chair across from me, then marked her page in her book with a paper napkin. "I'm Karina. You're Ed," she said, extending a hand. "I asked a friend." She also told me she was a driver with one of the supply units as I took her hand lightly and smiled at her. "Karina. That's a nice name. Are you here to sympathize or gather intelligence?" She smiled at me. "Both. How else can a girl learn enough to make an informed decision?" I smiled back. "Ah. A sympathetic spy mission. What do you want to know?" Karina smiled again and sipped her coffee. "I want to know if you're just pretending not to be upset because the Lieutenant changed her mind, for one thing." "I'm not pretending. The Lieutenant wasn't in a good mood and I don't subscribe to the belief that any sex is good sex. I think it would have been nearly impossible to please her."

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Karina's eyebrows went up at that. "I was actually referring only to whether you were upset, not necessarily why you might be upset." "But then you would have wanted to know why I'm not upset, so I just got it out of the way." Her smile turned into a grin as she said, "Touche. I think you got me. Were you two serious?" "Were ? I've known her for a few months. She was asking if I thought we'd last. I said to give it a year and ask then. She said she wanted my immediate opinion. I told her that was it." "Very direct," said Karina, "And either very dumb if you want to keep her or very smart if you want a quick ending. Women don't ask questions like that to hear answers like yours." "Well..." I leaned back a bit to look at her legs under the table, then at her shoulders and face. Meeting her gaze, I said, "I guess you should know. You're most very definitely a woman and one of the best examples I've ever seen. Which do you think I am?" Karina laughed softly. "I think you won't give in to pressure, that's what I think." "Congratulations, miLady, you just proved that beautiful blondes aren't necessarily dumb." She smiled at that and asked, "So what now? She may want to dump you." "So I let her corner herself into making a stay or go decision so she can retire gracefully." "That may take quite a while. What about tonight?" I deliberately misinterpreted her words. "Uh, uh. I don't do that, Karina. She has to let go of me or send me away before I can play with you. Sorry. Until then, I'm officially hers." Karina giggled. "That wasn't what I meant, but I really do like your answer. I meant why not go up there and talk it out tonight? Just get it over with one way or the other?" "One: I like her and I don't want to hurt her by starting an argument. Two: If I let her bring it up when she's ready, she'll be ready to hear the answer, too. Three: We have to live in the same building and work together now and then. Animosity won't help that a damned bit." "Four..." said Karina, "She outranks you and she could cause a lot of trouble for you." "Not my biggest concern," I said. "She doesn't seem to be the backstabbing type." "If she ever thinks you've manipulated her..." "But I'm not. She brought up the idea of us not lasting and she applied the pressure. I think she wants the truth so she can either start planning a future or call us a dalliance and move on. That's what smart career women do when they feel their hearts becoming involved." Karina gave me her first hard glance at those words. "You know so much about women?" "Bright people look before they leap. Others just let themselves fall and hope for the best." "Is this vast experience speaking, or have you just been very observant?" "Some experience and lots of observation of people in general. Lisa wouldn't be leading troops if she wasn't capable and the job requires objectivity and foresight. She's always trying to see around the next bend and trying to be ready for whatever can happen next." "Don't we all do that to some degree?" Karina was relaxing a bit. "No, we don't. Most people can't or won't try to govern their feelings until the feelings begin to interfere with other priorities or cause them pain. By then it's usually too late and they have to ride out the results. Most people get married or pregnant because of the first few months of passion that goes with a new relationship. By six to nine months, they've usually seen some of the other person's foibles and they've talked several times over about

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everything that seemed to make them unique to each other. By the end of a year or so, most couples either adjust into a bonded relationship of some sort based on a compromise with each others' good and bad points and the necessities of the moment, such as a baby, or they break up." Karina just sat there for a few moments. She didn't stir in the least as she stared at me, then she said, "I've been married twice and lived with a man once. None of them lasted more than two years, and the second year was a descent into hell with two of them. No kids, thank god." I said nothing, waiting for more but after a few moments, I asked, "Did they start off by seeming to almost worship you? Did they seem ready to live or die for you?" She laughed. "Oh, yes. All of that and more, and I felt the same way about them. Why do you ask? Isn't that fairly normal for people in love, doctor Ed?" "Normal? Sure. A foundation for a long-term relationship? No. But people tend to do it anyway. You're a tall, beautiful blonde with great legs and a tan. There'd be something seriously wrong with a man who didn't see you as some kind of goddess at first, Karina. But sooner or later the 'new' wears off any relationship. When that happens, there has to be something more between people or the whole thing can collapse inward on itself from it's own weight. I prefer to take the time to get past the 'new' and see what's left." Karina softly asked, "Did I just hear you call me a goddess?" "Not exactly. I only said normal men would see you that way." "Normal men. Do you see me that way, Ed?" "Sure. I was fairly normal the last time I checked. Okay, then. I guess I did call you that." Karina gave me an odd look and rather distractedly said, "I've never seen myself that way." I laughed and said, "And if other women don't turn you on, you probably never will, but you really ought to be aware of the effect that just seeing a woman like you has on men." If she'd been fishing for compliments the obvious next question from her would have been something like, "What effect?", but she didn't say anything for some time. She used a forefinger to spin the paperback book a few times and didn't look at me as she fiddled with it. When she finally looked up, she said, "I felt some of what you said just now. I felt it all over, like a big tingly rush. That's almost scary, Ed." "What's scary about it? Sometimes that happens when you hear music or read something." "Not like that. That's what's scary about it. When you slip and almost fall, you get a rush like that, too, but it doesn't leave you wanting another rush just like it." "I guess I'm still missing something here. What makes that scary? Wanting more? I'm just happy to have said something that made you feel good for a moment, Karina." Footsteps approaching the mess hall made me look up. Lisa came through the entrance, hesitated just inside, then approached the table. Karina turned to see who was coming in and suddenly blushed profusely. Lisa's eyes narrowed slightly as she stopped by my chair, her gaze resting on Karina. Karina's blush was fading, but still evident. "Sorry if I'm interrupting something here," said Lisa. "I thought we might have a talk, Ed." Her gaze never left Karina as she continued, "But nobody blushes like that without good reason, so I think I'll just say what's on my mind. I've decided that I don't want to wait a year to hear how you feel, Ed. That's all. You can go back to whatever now." Lisa's gaze turned to me. I nodded and said, "Okay. Now stick around a minute and let Karina tell you what I told her about looking around the next bend."

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When Lisa made no move to sit or leave, Karina blurted, "He said you always want to know what's around the next bend so you can be ready for anything that can happen." Lisa remained unmoving, just looking at her. Karina continued, "He said people need time to get to know each other before making commitments, that's all." Lisa looked hard at me. "You've been talking to her about us?" "Not really," I said. "Just about what she heard on the stairs. She was trying to help. She said that my answer about waiting wasn't what a woman would want to hear." "She's right," said Lisa. "But she's no good at minding her own business." The last of that statement was spoken with a sharp glance at Karina. Lisa said, "I need an answer I can work with, Ed, and 'later' isn't that answer." "It's still the only one I can give you that wouldn't be a lie, Lisa. I don't trust passion. It fades for everyone. I want to know that there's something underneath it. We have time. Let's take it." As Lisa looked at me, I could almost hear doors slamming shut in her mind. "No," she said, "I'm getting out while I can. A year from now you could be looking for someone new." I sighed and said, "So could you. A piece of paper or well-meant promises today can't make something like that not happen, Lisa. That's why I want to wait." Lisa said softly, "That's not how it works for me, Ed." She looked at Karina, who still appeared to fear the worst from the encounter, and asked, "Do you want him, or were you really just talking about things? I saw that blush, remember." After a moment under Lisa's stare, Karina was blushing again. "Yes," she almost whispered, looking at the tabletop. "I ... I want him..." "He's yours, then," said Lisa. She looked at me and said, "I burn my bridges, Ed. Don't let any of this get in our way on duty and we'll be fine. Sergeant." She extended her hand. I stood as I took her hand and instead of simply shaking it, I kissed it. "Yes, ma'am," I said, "Business as usual, guaranteed." "I'm not kidding," she said, pulling her hand back quickly. "Neither am I. We're just going back to what was, and I'll be there for you as before." After a moment, Lisa nodded and left at her usual pace, walking perhaps a bit stiffly. Karina turned to watch her leave, then turned back to me. She seemed amazed at what had happened. "She ... she just gave you to me, I think..." "Yup. She felt she had to do something to finalize matters." "But..." "But? I thought it was pretty clear, Karina. I'm yours, now. An officer said so. And you said you wanted me. Are you going to break my little heart now by casting me aside?" Karina giggled involuntarily, covering her mouth with a couple of fingers. "I can't believe what just happened. Does she really think she just gave you to me?" "Probably. She saw you blush and got you to admit wanting me, and I didn't put up any argument about being given away to a beautiful blonde. For that matter, unless you say otherwise, I'm perfectly happy to go along with the program. Off-duty, that is." Karina giggled again. "Off-duty..? Oh. Yeah. This is not the way I usually meet men." I shrugged and stood up. "Hey, if you're not up to it I can look for another goddess..." Karina laughed and stood up, too. She came around the table and looked into my eyes before she kissed me. It became a lingering kiss that left us

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both breathless. Her thigh was still pressing firmly against me in a sensitive spot as she said, "It feels as if we're both up to it." "I wouldn't dare disagree with you, even if I could. You might make me let go of you." "Good," she said. "Let's go upstairs. We can't talk like this." "Like this? Like what? We can say anything we want. We're alone in here." "We're both horny as hell, too," whispered Karina in an 'isn't it obvious ?' tone. She grabbed her book. "So let's go. You may be a hand-me-down, but I want to see if you're worth keeping. My roommate is visiting her family for about another week." "Well, that ought to be time enough for something, shouldn't it? No whips or chains or pain." Karina glanced at me. "No ropes, either, and my own lingerie or nothing at all." "Fair enough, ma'am. I've always considered lingerie to be an impediment, anyway. Hey, before anything happens, I need a shower." "So do I. Too bad we can't share one. That would be a fine way to get acquainted." "There's one in the hangar, but we can't use it because they're working on the helicopter." Karina stopped on the stairs and looked thoughtfully toward the door to the garage building. "Have you ever seen where they store parts and things above the garage? It used to be the chauffeur's quarters. Do you think he drove around dirty?" As she took my hand and tugged me toward the garage, I said, "It's worth a look, isn't it?" We met only two people along the short hallway to the garage. One was the NCO who ran the motor pool and the other was Major Phillips, who was taking a shortcut from the armory back to his office. Phillips took the opportunity to ask if I had found some pegboard for the helicopter yet. I said I hadn't. Phillips nodded and continued on his way after telling me to let him know if it had to be ordered. The NCO had seen and heard the exchange and came over to ask why I'd need pegboard in a helicopter. "I want to string it with surgical tubing and keep certain items at hand and visible by securing them through the loops. I also want more convenient places to hang plasma bags." "Like a tool bench?" He pointed to the area above his bench. Hooks and loops of wire held pliers and screwdrivers and other assorted tools. "Like that. But with rubber tubing to hold the stuff when we're moving." "Why not use strips from old inner tubes?" asked Karina. "They might take the heat better." "Sounds good to me," I said. "Let's look upstairs." The NCO said, "It isn't upstairs. It's in that room over there. Two big sheets of it." Karina looked at me, then at the NCO. She looked up the stairs and then back at the NCO, then she asked, "Does anybody use the upstairs bathroom?" "Not that I know of," said the NCO. "There's a full bathroom down here." She then asked, "Would it be against any rules to use the upstairs bathroom?" "Not that I know of," said the NCO again. "If you can get to it, that is." Karina glanced at me once and said, "We'll get to it. There can't be anything up there that didn't go up the stairs and through the door." With that, she proceeded up the stairs. I tossed the NCO a mock salute and jogged to catch up with her. The apartment was now definitely a storeroom, with heavy wooden shelves along the walls and a tire rack in the middle of the room. We threaded our way back to

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the bathroom and discovered what the guy had meant by 'if we could get to it '. A set of shelves blocked all but a few inches of the doorway. "Suggestions?" asked Karina. "We can't just shove all this stuff around at random without ticking someone off. It's pretty obvious there's a system at work here." "We don't want to make it too easy or obvious, either, or we'll be standing in line the next time we come up here. If I can pry my eyes off your legs for a few minutes, maybe we can find something useful in all this junk." Karina grinned at me and said, "If you have any hope of getting your wet, soapy hands on me we'd better find an answer of some sort." "I can't think of better incentive to be inventive, miLady." I tried to lift the end of the shelves. They were heavy, but they rose about five inches before things started to slide sideways. The other end had heavier stuff on it. When I tried to swing my end around, wood creaked loudly, but the legs on the other end didn't move. Karina said, "That won't work. They'll break off first." We looked around the room for ideas. In one corner stood a toolbox dolly that was missing one of its four wheels. I tried to shove it under the heavier end of the shelves. It only went about halfway. When I lifted the other end again, Karina pushed the dolly to the wall. When I let the shelves down, the legs on the heavy end were a sixteenth of an inch or so off the floor, a barely noticeable difference in height. The shelves were wider than the dolly and concealed it with the exception of the one visible wheel at the heavy end. I concealed that by moving the box on the bottom shelf so that it protruded beyond the shelf an inch or so. Karina helped me lift the end of the shelf this time so we could control it. We inched it away from the wall, listening for creaking wood until we had an opening that allowed us into the bathroom. I moved aside for her and said, "Ladies first, of course." Karina gave me a pretend-curtsey and reached for the handle. It wouldn't turn. "Locked. Why the hell would someone lock a door nobody can get to?" "Gimme a minute," I said. My laminated DAC ID card barely fit the slot between the frame and door, but I was able to flex and slide the corner of it downward against the latch, then wiggle the latch to one side and open the door. "Try it now, ma'am." Karina didn't wait for me to get out of the way. She squeezed herself in next to me for a peek inside the bathroom, chest to chest and thigh to thigh with me as she wiggled herself past me. It was deliberate. She was grinning at me the whole time until the door stopped opening. Karina's softly exclaimed, "What..?" made me roll against the door frame so that both of us were finally in the bathroom. We'd been expecting to see a fairly standard bathroom, and that's what it was, but we hadn't expected to see more than a dozen Samsonite suitcases stacked in there. I started to move one aside so we could proceed farther in and was surprised again. I indicated that Karina should try lifting it. The suitcase had to weigh eighty pounds or more. "Damn! What's in this thing?" said Karina, rubbing her hands. "Not clothes, I'll bet." I lifted the suitcase and placed it across three of the others and tried to open it. Locked. Looking around, we spotted no keys. Suitcase locks aren't all that sturdy. I flicked open my belt knife and pried up first one latch, then the other. Lifting the top slightly, I encountered a resistance that stopped upward motion. There was a slender wire visible in one corner. "Time to call the Major. This bag may be rigged." "Are you serious?" Karina knelt to look and saw the wire. "Oh, my God..." she said. I gently lowered and latched the suitcase's lid, then jimmied open another few cases in the stack at random. That way it would appear that not all of them had been locked. I wrote a note on the back of a parts label and

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Karina took off to deliver it while I stood at the foot of the stairs talking to the NCO to keep him from going up there. Some minutes later the Major showed up with two men and I took them upstairs. Fifteen minutes later the Major supervised the transport of all the suitcases to the gun range. Each bag was sling-carried carefully by two men. The bags had indeed been rigged to explode. Opening the lids too far would pull the straightened pins out of grenades anchored near the tops of each bag. All they had to do was cut the wire to render the bags safe to open, but it was still one of the demolitions men who opened all the bags. As he worked, the Major questioned Karina and me. "What were you doing up there, Sergeant?" "Looking for a bathroom, Major." "I daresay you found one. Will I actually have to ask you why you were looking for a bathroom up there when there was a bathroom downstairs?" Karina said softly, "We wanted to use the shower, sir." She was blushing. "Ah. I see." He looked at Karina from head to toe once and said, "Perfectly understandable, but I'll have to write this up, so you were actually searching for the source of a leak, which I shall report as having been repaired promptly. Agreed?" "Sounds good to me, Major. We actually were intending to test the plumbing in there." "I'm sure you were. Had you planned to share your find with others?" "No, not really, Major. Maybe later. Eventually, probably." "I see," he said again. "Why didn't you open any of them before you called me?" "Why would anyone leave a pile of very heavy suitcases in nothing more secure than a locked bathroom? What would protect them until they were retrieved?" He nodded. "So you assumed the contents were very valuable and probably rigged?" "Nothing else made sense." The Major nodded again. "Just so." The Major received a signal to come out to the bags and stepped forward. "Come have a look. This should be interesting. The original owner of this villa was hanged a few years ago by the government of Uganda for spying. That simply means that he did something while there that irritated Idi Amin, because there isn't a damned thing in Uganda that would interest a spy in the least. His wife was arrested, but she was released from prison a year later and returned to find the doors open, the house in shambles, the servants gone, and the chauffeur in her bed with a native woman from a nearby village. The village woman ran away and the chauffeur apparently fell down the main staircase while drunk that very afternoon. In the course of the next month, the wife sold most of her possessions and put the house in the hands of a broker who happened to know Solutions was looking for something in this region." Karina asked, "Where is the woman now?" "She died in Scotland not long after we bought the place. Her solicitor had to handle the final paperwork for us. Unpaid taxes ate most of her estate, as I heard it, and I don't know what happened to whatever may have remained. They never had children." "The poor woman," said Karina. The suitcases all contained stacks of flat, black cases with small gold-colored swivel-latches. Inside every black case we found either jewelry or gold coins. The Major ordered the suitcases closed and taken to the mess hall, where everything was opened, inventoried, and photographed, then closed again. The suitcases were then placed in an empty, windowless office on the second floor and the Major contacted Solutions's home office about the find. The bathroom was sealed until it could be examined and cleared by Solutions's own security people who were to be flown in from Johannesburg that evening.

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When Karina and I were finally no longer immediately necessary, it was after four in the afternoon. We still wanted to shower together, so I called the hangar to ask what time people intended to stop working and told Karina we'd be able to have dinner first. After dinner, we stopped by the office with our towels and toiletry kits in our travel bags and signed out a pair of shotguns and game bags with ammo on general principles, then strolled down to the hangar for our shower. We fooled nobody, as expected. We were told not to let the shotguns get wet. The Major called Karina and me into his office early Friday afternoon. Inviting us to sit, he pulled a desk drawer open and said, "The chauffeur did it, to paraphrase an old mystery novel axiom. His prints were on everything. Best guess at present is that he stole the estate blind while the owners were imprisoned and had a getaway prepared. He probably got the grenades through his links with an anti-government group that operates out of Rhodesia. Apparently a locked bathroom door in servants' quarters was just inconvenient enough and nobody ever got around to bothering themselves with opening it. When the apartment was designated as a storeroom, shelves were needed in a hurry and the door was blocked. The suitcase photos were sent to headquarters and the police were notified. It appears that much of the jewelry was insured and the insurance company is grateful. Solutions, as property owner, will receive the reward, but I'm told that you will be receiving a percentage of it, as well. I told them that we might have had fifteen grenades going off within ten feet of the parking area, the motor pool, and the mess hall. It could have been a disaster if anyone else had found the bags." He handed each of us a black case and said, "The gold was not insured and no provisions were made to reward you concerning them, so I'm taking it upon myself to do so now. These are your personal souvenirs of this little adventure." Inside each case were five gold coins and an envelope. Phillips said, "I am entitled by my rank and position to make such awards as I deem appropriate within the scope of my command. Those are letters transferring ownership of these coins to you as awards for unusual or special services to both your local command and to Solutions as a whole. I'm also doing it because the find and the unavoidable furor surrounding it seem to have caused some people to think I should be promoted before I'm set in front of the bureaucrats to tell the story." He tossed a set of insignia on the table. "When I return from England next week, I'll be a Colonel. It might not have happened for another year or so if it weren't for you two looking for a place to ... um ... wash." After a round of mutual congratulations, he dropped another surprise on us. "I thought one more item was in order for all of us. You both have the weekend off with the use of a rover. I thought it unlikely that the two of you could stay out of trouble in the middle of Kenya for two whole days and nights, so I took the liberty of contacting Chichester at the club on your behalf. He had somehow already heard of events here, by the way." The Major handed us two more letters. "Whether you go together or not is your business, of course, but each of you may eat, drink, and be merry at the club for the weekend. Give these to Chichester for his accountings." Karina asked, "The club? Isn't it just for officers and civilians? Who's Chichester?" The Major smiled and said, "The club is for anyone who can afford it, which doesn't usually include junior officers or enlisted personnel. Chichester is the owner and operator, but you'd never know it to meet him. Ed can show you around the place a bit. He attended a function there during an airport run recently." That brought my eyebrows up. 'Attended a function '? The Major smiled again as he said, "Chichester said Ed was quite civilized for an American and even invited him to return sometime. I'd consider that fair praise, indeed, because while Chichester is nice enough to

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most everyone, I've never known him to say much about anyone that he didn't actually mean." I nodded. "I can't imagine how I might have impressed him. I wasn't there very long." Phillips continued, "You may also run into Major Mason and me this weekend. She's coming up from Johannesburg to see the loot before it goes to Britain." "If I don't see her, would you thank her for me?" I asked. "I wouldn't have been here at all if not for her. I might still be trying to explain things to some embassy bureaucrats." "Of course I would, but I think it won't be necessary. She arrives in less than an hour. You can thank her yourself while she's here." He stood up in preparation to dismiss us and said, "You two might want to go get cleaned up. Your leaves begin at six this evening. Anything else? No? Good. Have a good time." We were almost to the door when he added, "The bathroom is no longer sealed, by the way, but your secret could be out soon due to all this fuss. You might want to hurry." We took his advice. We hurried. Karina and I grabbed toilet kits and towels and fresh uniforms and put them in our travel bags before we headed for the garage so that people wouldn't immediately realize what we were up to. The few people we met on the way we made sure to greet only in passing. The NCO in the garage saw us and grinned, pretending to zip his lips shut as we climbed the stairs. Sure. Not a word. Right. I didn't believe it for a second. Gossip traveled quickly in a barracks. The yellow tape was still across the closed bathroom door. Someone had moved the shelves even farther from the wall. We decided to leave the tape in place and push the shelves back when we were finished, just on the off-chance that it would deter people who checked out rumors. The bathroom sure looked a lot bigger without the fifteen suitcases stacked in it. We left the bathroom an hour or so later a little tired, very happy, and very, very clean. -------*Chapter Twenty-five* On my way to the office early that evening to check out a land rover for our trip to the club I ran into Carla in the hall just outside the office. We were in civilian clothes, so I wasn't required to salute, but I greeted her by rank and last name on general public principles and extended a hand. She grasped it lightly for a moment and congratulated me on my discovery, then grinned hugely as she asked if I had incited any more rodent rebellions. "Things are under control, ma'am," I said, "We now practice mutual avoidance." "Good, good. We've found in the last few years that avoidance is the best approach to the matter. Note this, please: At the club I go by Carla unless I'm being introduced formally." "You mean I don't get to salute you then, either?" I made a face of disappointment. "Funny man. Behave, Sergeant. If you feel you absolutely must, you may salute me now to get it out of your system. Will that do?" "It might," I said, giving her a perfect salute. She returned it with a wry look. I said, "I think I feel better already." "What's all this?" asked Major Phillips from the office doorway. Carla said sardonically, "The poor dear wanted so desperately to salute me." Phillips glanced at me. I said, "I was beginning to feel deprived, Major." "I see." He stared at us a moment and said, "I'll be ready in about an hour. Good?" Carla nodded and said, "Fine. Me, too." She turned back to me with a

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smile and asked, "Are you happy now? Can I go back to what I was doing now?" "Oh, certainly, ma'am," I said with a grin. "Carry on, have a good evening, and thanks." She looked puzzled for a moment. "Thanks for what in particular?" "Thanks for signing me up when I was a jobless waif. It's been interesting." "Oh, that. You're welcome. Interesting, huh? Go on, now. I have to get ready to go." I left Carla and went downstairs. Karina was ready and at the foot of the stairs in a greenish-blue, satiny dress that fit her a bit too closely and made me think it was borrowed for the occasion. The skirt was just above the knee, which seemed to be the style of the moment in Africa, which is to say probably a few years behind what was current in rural Alabama. Her hair rested on her shoulders in a sort of folk-singer style of simplicity. If I hadn't known her to be British, her conservatism might have made me feel as if I were dating some preacher's daughter from back home in Texas. On the other hand, she was lovely and tall and looked like a big piece of candy to me as I stepped up to put an arm around her and kiss her hello. "It's so nice not to have to bend down to kiss you. I think I may have to give up short women completely." Karina gave me a sidelong glance that needed no words to express its meaning. I stood back from her a pace and looked her up and down. "Not a hair out of place. You're ready. Am I? Do I have my pants on? How's my tie?" Karina laughed and said, "At least you didn't have to borrow what you're wearing." I pretended ignorance. "Borrowed? Well, if that bothers you, there's a small shop inside the club. We'll have a look tomorrow if you want." "Assume that I want." "Done." When we arrived at the club, Chichester greeted us at the door, as expected. I saw nothing in his face or demeanor that betrayed the least surprise that I was with a different woman. He simply hove his ample self ahead of us into the dining room and seated me after I seated Karina. While he was signaling a waiter, I pulled our letters from my coat pocket and laid them on the table by the menus. When Chichester saw them, he nodded and smiled and made them disappear between the other two menus. "No one else here needs to know that you aren't spending your own money, right, sir? On the other hand, this is the second time you've been awarded a visit with us at Solutions's expense, so they must think quite highly of you. We're honored to have you with us again, sir." He then hovered a moment to sprinkle Karina with floral compliments. "And you, madam ... It is rare, indeed, that we have such a lovely guest visiting with us." He leaned and confidentially whispered, "Most of the women we see here are my age, you know. Some of them even look a bit like me, I think." Karina's giggle nearly turned into a laugh. Having achieved the result he was hoping for, Chichester resumed his staid British pose and wished us 'bon appetit ', then turned us over to the waiter with, "These lovely people are my guests, George." George nodded solemnly and graciously requested our pleasures, remaining by the table as we selected dinner and drinks. Karina was spellbound by the lush, antique decor and shocked at the prices when she opened the menu. "Jesus..!" she muttered, then glanced around quickly with her hand over her mouth and stared at me. "Could be worse," I said, "The really expensive places often don't post prices at all. They believe that if prices mattered, you'd be somewhere else." "But this..?" "It keeps out the riff and the raff and their noisy kids and pays for

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the atmosphere. When riff and raff show up with money, Chichester probably either coaches them in behavior if necessary or guides them back outside." "You're saying that we qualify as riffraff, aren't you?" "Moneywise, we could. But if Chichester gives you one of these," I handed her my coin from the last visit, "You're welcome to return when you can." Karina looked the coin over and commented, "Fancy little thing, isn't it? Silver? Looks like it. What can you really do with it? What's it worth?" "Tell you what," I said, "The coin is just a well-meant token. A form of paternalism, probably, because you can bet that someone like Chichester would have a hard time accepting us as social equals. For that matter, so would Major Phillips. We're young, we aren't rich, and we're enlisted soldiers, after a fashion. This coin and our prepaid visit are their way of rewarding people they consider worthy beyond the standard awards and military trinkets. We're supposed to feel as if we're being allowed to visit heaven." Karina laughed softly. "Compared to the villa, this is a kind of heaven." Dinner and drinks went well, but Karina was reluctant to consider dancing. She was used to rock and disco and hadn't danced to anything else since age twelve or so. I offered to help her brush up in one of the shadowed alcoves ringing the lounge. Some of the steps came back to her immediately and she seemed competent enough to me, but she still wasn't interested in going out on the more public dance floor, so we remained by ourselves in our alcove. There's something particularly nice about having your arms full of a woman like Karina and having her head resting on your shoulder. After dancing to a couple of tunes we simply embraced each other and stood swaying with the music. There was no urge to say anything as there had been with Lisa. It seemed to me that words might have broken the mood. When the music paused between numbers, Karina whispered that she thought it might be time to go up to our room and I kissed her cheek by way of response. Her face turned upward to mine and we shared a kiss before we reluctantly released each other to go back to our table. Stealing time and finding private places for togetherness at the villa lent the happenings a bit of specialness by circumstance, but the sheer elegance of the club made such an impact on Karina the following day that she seemed torn between our romantic escapades in our room and exploring the rest of the club's shops and facilities. Karina had drawn fifty dollars worth of 'incidentals money ', as she called it, which disappeared rather quickly when exposed to the prices in the little shop. I excused myself to go speak to Chichester about a tab that would be covered from my Solutions account. He called the villa and immediately offered me a five hundred dollar limit based on the club policies concerning known guests of guests. I thanked him, then returned and told Karina. After some protesting and then some discussion, she asked to use only two hundred. Karina wouldn't simply take the money as a gift, even though I told her it was no problem, and much of her pay was already going back to Britain. At fifty bucks a month, it would take her four months to pay me back the two hundred. I also had to convince her that loaning her the money would be no hardship to me. Chichester helped with that. "Madam, we always verify such matters before issuing lines of credit. I can assure you that a two hundred dollar loan to you will scarcely scratch the surface of his Solutions account." Karina looked at me once more, then thanked Chichester and pulled me back to the shop. She gleefully tried on various items and asked my opinions. I let the shop clerk's expression be a guide of sorts when clothing combinations fell into question. The clerk would look at the items, give me a yea or nay glance, then resume her duties. A good deal of Saturday was spent shopping and swimming and Saturday night we found the disco lounge at the other end of the seventh floor. It

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wasn't really a disco lounge any other night of the week, of course. The place was too staid for that, but once a week at least one room of the place rocked, and Karina was in her element there. Sunday was not a day of rest, either, although we spent all but three hours of it in our room, sparing time only for breakfast near noon, dinner, and the drive back to the villa. Karina's attitude was, "More, more, more," and I was only too happy to oblige. She was athletic and demanding of her pleasures, and my fascination with her was up to the task, but I was damned well tired by the time we drove back to the villa late Sunday night. Monday morning brought a change for some of us. Solutions existed to rent troops to those it deemed worthy of its services, after all, and anti-government forces were suddenly creating serious problems in both Sierra Leone and Angola. A goodly number of us were sent to reinforce defenses at diamond and gold mining operations and power stations in places where the local forces' capabilities were questionable. We were, of course, sent under the catch-all label of 'consultants', but the jobs were what they always were. Military postings. The semi-official efforts around the wildlife preserve were ended as political repercussions from left-wing politicians seeking publicity tried to make the arrangement known to the press. We destroyed a couple of our more permanent encampments on the same day that the unofficial government offices concerning our protective venture were closed. The government stonewalled the reporters, setting the tone for our own responses. Two weeks later, Karina's name came up on a roster from Johannesburg that added a dozen people to a 'consultancy membership' at one of the diamond mines. A few days later my name appeared on a list to help keep a gold mine in operation on the edge of Angola. We would be almost a thousand miles apart and had only a week or so left for goodbyes. Enough of us were being reassigned that some bright soul engineered a going-away party that lasted a whole weekend. I always figured that the Major was behind it, since the duty roster seemed extremely flexible that weekend. -------*Chapter Twenty-six -- The mine* My new posting wasn't quite the jungle duty that I'd expected. The mine was located on a flattened mountaintop in Sierra Leone and the forestation around it was rather sparse for a hundred yards or so due to periodic clearings. There were sandbagged gun emplacements, barbed wire, and sentries, but a couple of Mercedes sedans somehow made the place seem a tad more civilized than the other encampment hilltops I'd seen in other parts of the world. Our company commander was a Captain Haglund, and he was one of those spit polished types who seemed to nonetheless spend a lot of time trying to be both 'just one of the guys' and their own, personal General Patton clone. My first exposure to him left me wondering how he'd managed to piss someone off enough to have himself sent out to the boondocks, then one of the other guys told me he'd been a Captain for nearly three years and during all but the last seven months of those years he'd been an office administrator. This was his first field assignment, but one of the other NCO's said he'd actually been pretty good about taking the advice of his senior NCO's to heart. Security going in and out was tight for the workers and lower management types, to include being searched at will, but we weren't supposed to give the brass any grief at all when they zipped by without stopping in their limos and other vehicles. That laxness was to cause them their own brand of grief a week later, when one of their inspection-immune luxury vehicles exploded on the tarmac just outside the main office. Speculation was that the bomb had been planted while the car had been at the local airstrip picking up VIP's. Mandatory vehicle inspections were instituted that day, of course. The next morning a goodly number of rounds were fired at workers

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arriving in company trucks and buses. I fired back into the trees at the muzzle flashes, as did all of us near the gate, but short of going out to check, there was no way to gauge results. The firing tapered off and stopped. Eight workers and one of the mine's own guards were hit and two were killed. A cautious patrol of the treeline found only empty cartridges and a broken thermos bottle. That afternoon a meeting resulted in the mine providing two helicopters for perimeter defense. We spent the afternoon modifying them for door guns. While an explosives team felled trees and bulldozers shoved or hauled the results into a burnable pile over the following days, we in the helicopters flew overhead as guards. We saw nothing to shoot in two days of this activity, but the sniper fire kept coming in every morning. On the third day, one of the bulldozers hit a homemade mine that blasted off a track and killed the driver. The log it had been hauling uphill broke free and set off two more mines on its tumbling way down the hill. Clearing operations were declared suspended until something could be figured out. That evening there was more shooting and a Solutions member was hit. Captain Haglund immediately called a number of us into his office and it was decided that we'd form four search and destroy teams, one of which I commanded. We slipped down the hill a couple of hours after dark. Either nearly a week of uninterrupted activity had made the rebels somewhat careless or they were untrained rabble trying to be insurgent guerrillas. Their repeated passages through the vegetation had made trails. Real, trained troops would have at least varied their paths a bit, but these guys had apparently no skill in the woods. We waited in teams of two each at key points for their next visits. I was teamed with a guy named Tony. All I knew about him was that he'd been in the British Army for six years and that he wasn't particularly friendly with anyone. With six hours until daylight, we alternated napping and watching in pretty much absolute silence. At about five in the morning the lights from the top of the mountain were shrouded in heavy mists that were rolling down among the trees. It was interesting to sit in my tree and watch a dense cloud pass by below me, ghosting its way among the trees in lazy tendrils of fog. Two clicks sounded softly on our radio, indicating that one of the other teams had sighted someone approaching the treeline from below. Within moments two more teams clicked, then we saw two shadowy forms approaching our position. We clicked our contact to the others. It was a simple matter to take out our targets with bayonets. We then waited a few moments and listened for the sounds that would mean that others were either coming or trying to escape back down the mountain. There were no such sounds near our position, but someone about a hundred yards away found some reason to shoot once. When there had been unmitigated silence for some moments after that, we collected weapons and ammo, then hauled the bodies up the mountainside about fifty paces from the treeline. There had been only six of them, and all had been armed with AK-47's. We left the bodies after checking pockets and bagging the contents. My target had only a wallet and a few coins. He was wearing old sneakers, surplus-type pants and shirt, and a fairly new-looking jungle-issue boonie hat. I didn't bother to speculate about his reasons for being there. I tied the bag to my pack and started up the mountain with the other fire teams once everybody waved or clicked the radio in readiness to proceed. When the workers arrived, they were informed of our activities, shown the bags, then shown the bodies. Binoculars were passed around. There were some happy-sounding comments in a language I couldn't understand and others in languages I did understand, but nothing even remotely like an outburst of relief or happiness that the sniping had ended. One man was crying. I didn't want to know why. It could have been that one of the bodies was a relative. Someone berated him for some moments. He

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snarled back at the berater and went to the supervisor's office. A few minutes later he was walking down the mountain toward the bodies, where he simply hunkered in the sun next to one. One of the mine's own guards aimed his rifle at the man, but someone in a suit barked at him and he lowered his rifle. I didn't mistake the suit's motivation as one of compassion. It was now almost mid-day and to anyone who might be watching, it would be an unreasonable shooting that could result in more problems with the locals instead of fewer. The bags and weapons were turned over to the local authorities, who also photographed and removed the bodies later in the morning along with the man who had quit. Few of the team members had much to say about what had happened, even among ourselves. The matter was too cut-and-dried to deserve much commentary. We had simply stopped the regular morning sniping. We of the fire teams caught some sleep until about noon, then picked up our regular duties for the rest of the day. That night we again slipped down into the trees to wait for whatever the morning might bring. The next day a repeat of the previous morning occurred with one exception. One of our targets, although wounded in the right shoulder, was still alive when it was over. We again laid out the bodies and collected weapons and bagged personal effects, then took our prisoner up the mountain for some questioning as I treated his wound. We called the authorities for the bodies and other items, but Captain Haglund didn't mention our prisoner to them. The prospect of being turned over to the local authorities seemed to scare him worse than the prospect of being interrogated by us. He said he'd already been a guest at the local jail once for questioning concerning rebel activities. The experiences he described having endured and witnessed were right out of the worst horror stories imaginable. He also said that when several inmates made an escape, three were shot during their attempt and one was wounded in the leg and recaptured. When the wounded man's wife tried to visit him, she was told he had died of his wound and had been 'disposed of'. She was then forced to leave the station. I asked how the man had been wounded. The prisoner touched his heel and said that much of it had been missing. I told Haglund that the only way such a wound could be life-threatening would be if it were allowed to continue bleeding or an untreated infection had set in. Haglund thanked me and left the infirmary. Haglund called the authorities back to tell them we'd bring the bodies with us on a trip into town. He then sent a truck for the bodies and we delivered them to the authorities around noon at the jail in the town down below the mine. The prisoner remained in our encampment under guard, but he'd given us the name of a shopkeeper when we asked who might be able to verify some of what he'd told us. We found the shopkeeper while Haglund went into the police station to announce our delivery. The shopkeeper only begged not to in any way be involved once we finally convinced him we weren't there to arrest or kill him. He gave us directions to a section of the high wall behind the jail compound that was not in the best of repair, where people often tried to sneak a look inside the compound in hopes of seeing a missing family member. People scattered in fear as we approached the area. We took turns guarding each other and looking inside the compound through the narrow cracks in the wall near the top. Dante couldn't have described hell any better. The compound contained so many black men that they were practically shoulder-to-shoulder with each other. As I watched, two men tossed a man from a second floor window balcony into the crowd below. There was no room for anyone to try to get out of the way. The body landed on a couple of men, one of whom was injured so that he

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couldn't get up. I couldn't see what happened to them after that. Motion at the window drew my attention. A man in uniform was screaming at someone in ragged clothes who looked as if he'd been beaten thoroughly. The uniformed man screamed at him again and again received no response. Without hesitation, he stood the man on the balcony edge and ran him through from behind with what appeared to be a curved sword. The man stiffened and looked down at the sword protruding from his midsection, then fell to his knees. The uniformed man then withdrew the sword from the man's back and used it to behead him in one stroke. The head and body tumbled into the courtyard below. I told the others what I'd seen and one of them took my place at the crack as I kept watch in the alley. Some moments later, the guy at the crack said, "Another one. Same thing." He climbed down and we went back around to the truck to wait with the others for Haglund's return, which didn't take long. The bodies had already been removed from the truck, so we climbed aboard as Haglund came down the steps. He was escorted by two guards and some kind of officer in rather gaudily-decorated camouflage uniforms. The officer was glad-handing Haglund as if he were a visiting dignitary. Haglund simply smiled and saluted instead of shaking hands with the guy before he got in the truck. The driver immediately put us in motion when Haglund's door closed. Haglund had the driver stop at an open-air restaurant a few blocks away and told us we were going to stop for a drink, cautioning us that, "We're here to make our visit to town believable, not to get smashed. Remember that. This is one of the few places in town with booze." We pushed a couple of tables together in a corner that provided a breeze and Haglund ordered club soda and listened to what we'd seen as we soaked up some watery booze. "Who the hell are they trying to kid?" asked one of the guys. "This isn't Johnnie Walker. It isn't even watered-down Johnnie Walker." "Forget it," said Haglund. "I'm buying belief, not booze. Look dumb and happy, okay?" "Yes, sir , sir. If you want me to pretend to be drunk, too, it'll take a dozen of these." "Dumb and happy will do. Anything else to report?" There wasn't. We killed an hour trying to act like soldiers stealing off-time and then trucked back up the mountain. Haglund didn't say what he might do, but he went straight to the office when he got back. He didn't seem overjoyed an hour or so later when he came to my infirmary. "I reported our discovery and was told that our contract is for guarding the mine. Nothing else. We are not to be concerned about things which don't concern us. End of story. I was ordered to turn the prisoner over to local authorities as stated in our permission of employment contract with the government." This didn't sit well with a few of us, myself included. We voiced objections. Haglund said that what we'd witnessed appeared to be normal for the area and that it would continue whether we liked it or not. The country had changed hands several times since its independence and no regime had been better than any other in its treatment of people. We worked for the mine, not the government, but without the government's permissions, we'd be removed and replaced to avoid disagreements. Captain Haglund was a company man. In his view, the simplest answer was to take no prisoners in the future. I took a last look at the prisoner's wounds before the cops came for him and spent the afternoon cleaning and restocking the infirmary. I wasn't happy, but I wasn't ready to quit over something about which I could do nothing, either. There was no point in pitching a fit of righteous

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indignation, and the locals would have thought it strange, anyway. Westerners had brought their architecture and industries to that region of Africa and had installed themselves as lords and masters in the colonial days. They had cared about nothing that didn't interfere with their businesses and their personal comforts. The natives of the region had been in the midst of an eons-old tribal conflict when the whites had arrived and not much had changed about that other than the methods employed in trying to wipe each other out. With or without my -- or anyone else's -- approval, this would continue. A Canadian, British, and South African consortium owned the mines, and all they cared about was getting gold from the ground to the market. They didn't care who was in power as long as business as usual could be maintained as it had been for a hundred years or more. If either side of the conflict beyond our mountaintop had truly been trying to bring any measure of civility to the region, I might have had a right and a reason to give a damn, but civility wasn't the bloody game's goal. The first thing a new regime did was contact the mines for tribute money in exchange for uninterrupted operation. The second thing it did was execute as many of the opposing tribe as it could. Regimes typically lasted less than a decade, and a few had survived only months or a couple of years. Reasonable tithes and political bribes were acceptable and expected, of course, but one Communist-backed group had attempted to take over the mines in the mid-sixties "in the name of the people", attacking and securing several of the mines briefly. There had been a bloodbath of dead mine workers and company employees. The consortium had responded by hiring mercenary forces to retake the mines and largely eliminate the local leadership which had caused the problem, leaving the nation pretty much headless for a couple of months until someone in the local military organized a coup to fill the vacuum. After that the world seemed to take more notice of goings-on in Sierra Leone and Angola, where the Communists were most active. The U.S. and capitalist nations tossed money and arms to just about any local group that claimed to be anti-Communist and the Communists began sending Cuban military advisors as well as arms and supplies in through Angola. None of the successive regimes had been foolish enough to attempt to take over the mines again, preferring instead to simply tax the mines. The mines allowed the taxes to prevent further costly takeover attempts and employed contingents of mercenaries to guard the status quo. The only legitimate issue in the eyes of both the mining company and Solutions had to do with appearances as concerned the outside world. The morning display of the snipers' bodies would stop. They'd be left where they had fallen, just inside the tree line and beyond the reach of the cameras. Personal effects would remain on the bodies, but not weapons. Those would be collected and shipped out on the weekly supply helicopters, which would at least remove them from local circulation. -------*Chapter Twenty-seven* The rebels were slow learners. Each of our morning huntings turned up as many as half a dozen snipers over the next month. A total of 152 brand-new AK rifles were collected before the morning sniping ceased. We lost one man to snakebite during that month and lost none to rifle fire. The land mines we collected were used on the mountainsides to clear a wider skirt of open ground around the mine perimeter. Something changed during the second month, however. One day there were thumping noises from the treeline in the early afternoon. Most of us mercs got flat fast and yelled to anyone else around us to do the same. A few of the business-suited types actually did as ordered, but most tried to run indoors. When mortar rounds began slamming into the buildings and parked cars, people on their feet were at a definite disadvantage. The barrage was repeated

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twice in overlapping patterns, indicating that the shooters either knew what they were doing or were being coached. The last barrage was delivered rather slowly, obviously by only one or two mortar teams, which meant that the others were making a getaway. When the explosions stopped, we mercs spread out down the hillside to try to find the mortars and encountered inaccurate sniper fire that was intended to slow us, which it did. Half an hour later even the sniper fire had stopped, but we proceeded with caution anyway. We came up empty after an afternoon of searching. That was another sign that the shooters had a coach. The slow last mortar barrage and the sniper had been intended to keep us pinned while the others disassembled the tubes and got away. Mortars have a finite range, so possible distances to probable firing sites wasn't too hard to compute. That night sixteen of us loaded up with ammo and grenades and parked ourselves in the bush around the mountaintop somewhat below the maximum possible range of a mortar. Another two teams of eight each were stationed and spread out about midway along the two switchback roads that serviced the mine. It was a long, boring night, but it paid off. One of the trucks that transported workers seemed to be losing parts near my position. I first thought it might be a trick of the dim dawn light and road dust. I looked closer with binoculars and saw that men were dropping off the truck as it passed my position. The same was happening with the other truck and the buses. I clicked my radio three times, said, "Four," to identify my location, then clicked three times again. A whispered, "Can you talk?" came back to me. It was one of the team leaders. "Yeah," I whispered back. "About a dozen guys have been dropped off on the switchback just below me and they're hauling stuff together in a pile down there. I can probably mess up their morning, but I don't want to be here alone if they decide to come up after me." "Do it. We're less than a hundred yards to each side of you. We can flank the bastards." "Doing it, then. Hurry, if you don't mind." I received a double-click response as I put the radio down and opened fire on a couple of guys who were strapping mortar parts to pack frames. Both went down and I swung to target two more heading for the woods to their left. They went down, too. About six of them directly below tried to take cover close to the face of the mountain, which put them at an angle below my ability to shoot. I let three grenades tumble over the edge in front of me about thirty feet apart and targeted the remaining visible pair who were running into the bush for the rest of my clip before I ducked back and reloaded. As soon as the grenades went off, I scrambled forward to peer over the edge. One man was only lightly wounded and was running for cover. I dropped him and looked back down in time to get a faceful of dirt as one of the other survivors fired upward at me. My eyes were stinging, but I managed to put a few rounds in and around him and sat back to spit and snort and hurriedly rinse my eyes clear with canteen water. When I looked back down, there were still five bodies directly below and one by the edge of the road. One by the trees was still moving, so I put another round in him and waited. There was shooting from somewhere down on the next level of the switchback. The radio said, "Two contacts here. Got 'em. We see you, Four. Look down by the creek." Where the creek crossed under the road someone waved up at me. "I see you. Come ahead. Any others incoming?" Someone else said, "We're almost there. West of you." I said, "It's over up here, guys. I'm okay. Have a look around in case I missed any." I rinsed my eyes out again and took a couple of gulps of coffee from my

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other canteen before I started down the road to join them. We policed up seven mortar tubes and forty-two rounds for them. That worked out to about three rounds per man and seemed about right, but we took time to search the area thoroughly on general principles. After finding no more weaponry, we called for our unit truck to pick us up. "Check it out," said Captain Hagland upon our return. "We got us a fucking hero, here." He was only kidding, but it irritated me for some vague reason. "Does that mean I get a bonus today, Cap? You can't spend a medal." I dumped out my coffee canteen and refilled it with fresh coffee. He noted my tone and let up a bit. "Nope. No bonus and no medal, but you do get to sleep in for a few hours instead of having to ride in a parade downtown. How's that?" "If that's the best you can manage, I guess I'll take it." Haglund stepped up to me and said, "Good work out there. Me to you. Good work." "Thanks, Cap." When he saw that I had no more to say he let me pass without further comment. I gave my weapon a quick wash and wipe in the solvent sink, reloaded my magazine, and took a shower before I dropped into my bunk to make up some lost sleep. When I woke, it was nearly noon. I headed for the mess hall and discovered a pool table sitting to one side of the hallway just outside our day room. Haglund said there were six of them in one of the storage buildings that had been damaged by mortar fire, so he'd liberated two for us. Why we hadn't been offered one before was left unasked, but we knew why. We were just mercenary troops to the mine's three-piece-suit-types, hardly better than the local natives to them and only considered that slight bit better because most of us were white. To offer us any amenities above pay and quarters wouldn't have occurred to them. When Captain Haglund had asked if we could use a couple of the tables for the duration, they naturally acted as if not offering them had been merely some slight oversight. Haglund had a surprise for us after lunch, as well. He pulled a tarp off two smallish wooden crates and revealed to us the second miracle of the day. There sat two full cases of Pinch. "For the unsophisticated among you," said Haglund, "This is some of the best booze in the universe. Call it a unit bonus and smash the crates so we can put the pieces back in the shed tonight. The cleanup crews need to find the remains." He walked up to me with a bottle. "Here's your bonus, Sergeant. This one's all yours." I thanked him and didn't tell him that the pool table available meant more to me. I never drank much, so that bottle would probably last me a year or more if it didn't get broken in transit, sold, or traded. While the crates were being smashed, I took the bottle to my locker for safekeeping. Someone was behind me as I closed my locker door. I turned to see Haglund. Without preamble, he asked, "You have a problem you want to talk about? You're not the same guy who came here two months ago." "Not a problem, no. What I have are bad feelings that are getting worse, Cap." "Bad feelings about what? Maybe I can help." Haglund sat on the end of my bunk and lit a cigarette with a big Zippo lighter, snapping it shut with his habitual flourish. He was a guy in his early thirties who liked being in charge and had a tendency to strut a bit, but he generally let the NCO's run the unit and managed to defer to better experience in most of his decisionmaking. I decided it couldn't hurt to let him know what I was thinking, if only to prevent his thinking that I might be having personal problems. "For a month it was daily shooting, Cap. Local clods with shiny new AK's who generally couldn't hit shit. Now there are mortar teams out there and

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they have new equipment, too, but they aren't having to figure it out as they go. What's next? Artillery? When are they going to try to overrun the place? Is it like this at the other mines, too?" "Whoa! Hold it just a minute, Sergeant. They don't have personnel to waste in trying to overrun us, and all they have to do is shut down the mine operations. If the equipment is damaged the money flow stops and the government goes broke just about overnight." "Closing this mine wouldn't be enough, Cap, so it has to be like this at the others, too, unless they're shorthanded enough to have to hit them singly, which I doubt, given the number of people in that jail yard. I think we're going to be in deep shit in another month and I wouldn't discount the idea of being overrun. These people kill each other like rats. Sending a few hundred people up the hill wouldn't mean any more to them here than it did in Korea." Cap snorted. "What would you know about Korea? You were a little kid back then." "I can read. I've seen newsreel footage. The only difference will be the weather." "The weather?" "Yeah. Sentries won't freeze solid here in winter." Cap laughed. "No, they never have, that I know of. Let me tell you what happened the last time the mines were taken over, Sergeant. The enemy came in on the trucks and buses. That's why we keep M-60's trained on them as they come and go and search them and the vehicles. If they don't ride up, they'd have to walk up two miles of mountain roads on each side to get to us. They'd be sitting ducks." "When they're ready, Cap, they'll walk if they have to, just like the Korean Communists did when they overran US bases. They'll have women and children and cattle out front and people behind them ready to cut them down if they try to retreat, but before anything like that happens, they'll try worker-sabotage using the workers' families as hostages." Haglund wasn't liking what I was saying. "Sergeant, that will be enough speculation. Do you think we somehow hadn't considered the likelihood of sabotage efforts? If I find out you've been talking this way around the others, you'll be locked up instantly and shipped out to be fired. Do you understand me?" "Sure, Captain. Don't be surprised if they start to smell trouble on their own, though." "You better hope that what they may smell doesn't sound like what you just said." "I can't help how they add up what they see and I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but you might want to be sure you can lay hands on a lot of reinforcements in a hurry." Haglund was pissed. "Do you want to go to the brig now? One more word will do it, Sergeant. One more word." He nodded at my locker. "You keep that bottle. You earned it this morning, but you did not earn the right to tell me how to run this unit." With that, he turned and stomped out. He didn't seem to notice Tony lying quietly on his bunk in the room diagonally across the hall. Tony stared at me for a moment, then waved at me to join him as he got to his feet. We met in the hallway. Tony asked, "You really think these local shits will try something like that?" "Whatever's been done anywhere else can be done again here. Nobody's importing any troops except the mines. We're the only tourists around here, Tony. I think they'll start having equipment problems and accidents up here. Anything to delay or stop production. If that doesn't work, we can probably expect lots of company someday soon." "Why did Cap get so pissed? You were just thinking out loud." "Haglund is political. He doesn't want to be the one to deliver bad

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news or rock the money boat. What's been going on lately has been easy enough to handle, but something that would make the company bring in more troops would probably bring in someone with more rank, too. Haglund likes being in command. He's the type who has to believe he has things under control until it's too damned late. There'd be rebels in the mess hall before he'd admit needing help." Tony appeared to consider matters for a moment. "I dunno," he said. "If you're so smart, why ain't you the Captain here? Later, man." With that, he headed back to his room. I was scheduled to work with our medevac team in the afternoon, so I met the other four guys near the helipad and we went through the motions of weekly refamiliarizations and practice drills with some of the equipment aboard one of the helicopters. One of the pilots, a Captain Kent, came out to watch. He sat in a lawn chair in the shade of the bird's tail and sipped his tea as we ran through our routines. When we had finished the drills, I produced a 3-page chart for each helicopter and had the guys check the inventories while I talked to the pilot. While he knew I could fly, I'd had no occasion to be other than a gunner or medic since he'd joined us at the mine. He asked why I hadn't become a pilot. I told him I preferred doing other things and explained my views. When I told him that I really ought to put in some flight time and have a look at the charts in case I had to copilot sometime, he said he'd been looking for an excuse to get off the ground for a while and that one would do just fine. Half an hour later we were in the air above the mine. I played with the aircraft for a time to get the feel of it, then he suggested a cross-country flight to one of the other mines and back. He took the bird while I looked over the charts, then handed it back when I was ready. Another hour or so of uneventful flying later we were back. I landed us and suggested that I should spend a bit more time learning the charts of the area on general principles. He agreed, telling me only to be easy to find in a hurry until I was finished. Two hours later I had a few pages of notes and tracings on typewriter paper. If things got bad enough on the mountain, I knew where to go and how to get there, with or without a helicopter. I returned the charts to the bird and let Kent know I had done so, then went to the day room to see about a game of pool. Captain Haglund interrupted my third game by calling me into the hall. "Let's take a walk," he said, leading the way. Outside, he said, "I just heard about your joyride. Since when are you a helicopter pilot?" "I've been a backup pilot all this time, Cap. It says so in my folder." "Then why aren't you assigned as a pilot and why aren't you an officer?" "Everybody asks me that. All I can say is that I'd rather be doing other things." He stopped and stared hard at me for a moment. "Then you do those other things and you stay the hell out of my helicopters unless you're gunning or tending wounded." Captain Kent was in the mess hall. He'd overheard Haglund and stepped into the hall. "Captain Haglund, can you spare a minute?" Haglund glared at me a moment longer and followed Kent into the mess hall. I heard the beginnings of the discussion as I moved away from the doorway. Kent asked, "What the hell was that about? We may need a backup pilot now and then." Haglund said, "You work for me here, Kent, just like he does. When I want to explain something, I'll call a meeting. I don't want him flying. That's all you need to know." "Maybe I need to know why you're acting this way and telling me how

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little I need to know, too, Haglund. I grant you that I'm under your command here, but I can fix that real fast and you can bet someone will want to know why you're countermanding someone's occupational rating, so why don't you get a grip, take it easy, and fill me in?" There was a period of silence before Haglund said, "Let's go to my office." I stepped quickly around the day room door and grabbed a cue stick from the rack. When Haglund passed the doorway and glanced in, I was chalking the stick on the far side of the table. A couple of the other guys were looking at me curiously. Two games later I decided that I didn't want company at the moment, so I put the cue stick back and went to my locker for my revolver, then came back through the mess hall to grab a couple of cans from the trash bin and headed to the edge of the mine compound. Adding a bit of dirt made the cans travel well beyond the wire when I threw them down the hillside. It wasn't the first time I'd sat popping cans, so I didn't draw much attention from the sentries as I pushed the cans a bit farther down the hill with each shot. When they were far enough away, some of my shots began to miss, so I took more time to aim each one. It was while I was aiming at one of these long shots that a real long shot presented itself. I almost missed the motion in the treeline as I aimed at one of the cans. I thought I saw someone or something about halfway up a tree down there. Keeping an eye on the tree, I got up and walked over to ask a sentry if I could use his binoculars for a moment. He handed them over the low sandbag wall and I used them on the tree. For long moments nothing moved in the tree, then just as I was about to say to hell with it and hand the glasses back, I saw a small flash. "There's somebody down there," I said. The sentry sat up and looked harder. I gave him the glasses and aimed. It had to be a bit more than a hundred and fifty yards, a fairly ridiculous distance for my .22, but I was in the mood to try it. I aimed well above the spot and fired all nine rounds, actually expecting nothing at all to happen. I was therefore justifiably surprised to hear someone yell and see him jump or fall out of the tree. Did I hit him? Unknown. Did I come close? Undoubtedly close enough. The sentry stood up and quickly fired half a dozen rounds at the fleeing figure in the trees, but his target was still up and running when he disappeared into the vegetation. I left the sentry to explain his shooting to those running toward us and went back to popping cans. Word of my disagreement with Haglund had spread to just about everybody by the end of the day. A few guys acted as if it made no difference, but the act was visible, so of course it did make a difference for just that reason. I became something of a pariah to some of the men, who actually avoided me when they could. The one thing they all had in common was their reluctance to ask what the disagreement had been about. I didn't know if they already knew or just didn't want to be seen in my company long enough to try to find out. I didn't defy Haglund's order not to discuss my speculations. There was no point to doing so. Judging by the occasional conversation I overheard, the appearance of the mortars already had some of the others talking about what could or might happen next. -------*Chapter Twenty-eight* We were two days into July when Haglund tripped over a puff adder. All the snake had wanted was a bit of shade beneath some wooden steps, but the steps were the ones that led up to the back door of the mess hall. One of the workers had seen it and freaked out completely, screaming and running. Haglund had been in the mess hall getting a coffee. He saw the man panic and run and stepped out onto the small porch to see what was going on.

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Seeing nothing, he put his coffee cup on the handrail and stepped down the three steps to the ground. The cup fell off the rail and the snake was covered in hot coffee that dribbled between the boards. It slithered away in the only direction available, which was back toward sunlight the way it had come in, under the first step. By this time I and a few others were at windows to see what had interested Haglund enough to venture out into the midsummer heat. Haglund suddenly yelled, pulled his Beretta pistol, and began shooting at the ground around himself while appearing to dance maniacally. The dance ended when Haglund ran out of ammo and tried to leap up onto the porch. A loop of the big snake caught his right foot and his left foot slipped on the coffee-wet boards. Haglund sprawled flat on the steps and rolled over just in time to see the snake's head come up between his legs and strike. Haglund screamed. The snake gathered itself a bit and struck at him again. Someone shot on full automatic through the window as the snake reared up a third time and the snake's head disappeared. A number of us rushed out to Haglund and I sent a man for the mining company's doctor. The adder had hit Haglund twice just below his brass belt buckle, a very difficult area to treat for snakebite. Arms and legs can be isolated to some degree by tying them off, but there's no way to isolate the lower torso. Haglund's best chance of survival was a hospital. The company's doctor appeared and took over. After one look, he simply asked how quickly we could get Haglund to the hospital in town. I told a man to get Kent to his helicopter and went out to start the bird and run the preflight while several others put Haglund on a stretcher and strapped it in. Kent arrived, saw that everything was in order, and lifted us while the copilot radioed for a clearing near the hospital. Haglund was stabilized and I heard he had an operation or two, but he never rejoined us on the mountaintop. He was shipped to Nairobi a few days later and Kent became the de facto company commander until a new CO could be delivered. His first act as such upon our return was to review my folder and remove all of Haglund's restrictions and comments. That evening we held a party, ostensibly in Kent's honor as our interim Fearless Leader, but in fact it was a party that as much honored the removal of Haglund. The brass didn't seem in much of a hurry to replace Kent as CO. It was a week before a new CO was sent, and when he arrived, he had with him two other officers who would be staying a few days to look things over and evaluate everything and everyone. After the newcomers gone through the motions of meeting and greeting with Kent and the mine officials, they were assigned quarters and turned loose on us. I hadn't bothered to go meet and greet. I was in the air conditioned infirmary to give it the weekly dusting and inventory check when Lisa came through the door, put her briefcase on a chair, and said, "Hi! I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd drop by." She was wearing Captain's bars on her field-utility uniform. Yes, I was surprised. I hadn't seen a white woman in months, and this one had looked pretty good back when I'd been surrounded by them. I set my clipboard down instantly. "All right, lady! You made Captain without me! Do I salute you or would you rather have a big hug, a kiss, and a shot of Pinch?" Lisa glanced around and said wryly, "Without you, indeed. We're alone in here, so yes, do all of those things, certainly, but hold the booze for later." I punted the door shut and gave her a kiss and a hug. As I held her, I asked, "When did you get these railroad tracks, ma'am?" "Last month. Finally." She made a face and said, "Oh, hell, it really didn't take as long to make Captain as it would have in some regular army. Solutions is results-oriented."

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"Cool. I wouldn't be lucky enough to have you as my new CO, would I?" "Nope. Sorry. That would be the Major. They aren't stationing women out here in the bush yet. I'm only going to be here long enough to write reports on everybody and count the paper clips. Probably about a week. Maybe two if things are really fucked up here." "Damn. You'd be a better CO than Haglund will ever be. He was a real prima donna. Tell 'em to save a few bucks and send the Major back to wherever." Lisa laughed. "Thank you, but no. My next posting will be in Johannesburg, in an air conditioned office on the fifth floor." She laughed again, "No snakes on the fifth floor." I kissed her again and asked, "Can someone else do my evaluation? Just so there are no questions or suspicions later?" She smiled and said, "Lieutenant Kress or Major Spencer. I've already thought of that." We chatted a bit until dinner time and headed for the mess hall together, which caused a few heads to turn. The Major and the 2nd Lieutenant looked up with mild surprise as we came in. Kress's eyes narrowed slightly. Lisa introduced me as one of her best students at the villa, and you could hear the quotation marks around the word 'students '. I seated Lisa at the table and asked, "Would you like me to order for you, MiLady?" Lisa chuckled and said, "Why, certainly, thank you. Whatever you think I'll like." I went through the line with two trays and brought them to the table, then went back for her tea and my coffee. Upon return, I took the chair next to Lisa and across from Lieutenant Kress. Throughout all this, Major Spencer watched with an expression of mild amusement. During dinner, he seemed to be taking mental notes every time I said anything, particularly when I spoke to Lisa. The Major still seemed slightly amused when he said, "You seem to have a great deal of admiration for Captain Cameron." "Well, she's not just a pretty face," I said. "She's commanded field units during well-armed engagements and directed at least one helicopter assault in which I took part. In all instances, we won quickly with few or no casualties." "You mean at the villa? I only heard a little about that while I was in New Guinea." "Yup. We were up against poachers with assault weapons." "I thought we were just assisting local authorities in establishing deterrence measures." "I guess that's one way to say it. It may even be the official version. Anyway, if I were to evaluate Captain Lisa Cameron, I'd say she's company-commander quality at the least." Lisa was giving me a 'please shut up now' expression as she blushed slightly. Major Spencer saw her embarrassment and said, "I'll certainly take your evaluation under advisement, Sergeant. It appears I have some reading to do to catch up on local events." Lieutenant Kress looked at me without much expression on his face. I had a feeling he viewed much of the world without expression, particularly the parts of it in which enlisted men and officer women were friends. He tonelessly said, "I'll be your evaluator." When it became apparent that he didn't intend to say anything else, I said, "That's fine, Lieutenant Kress, but I'll be candid and say that I'd appreciate it if you let Major Spencer and Captain Cameron read it before you send it in. No offense meant." "None taken, of course. Yet. Would you mind telling me why?" "Everybody has pet peeves that can flavor opinions, even when they're trying hard not to let that happen. When we came in you had a look of

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disapproval. I won't ask you to explain it, but I will ask you to work around it by arranging a multiple review of your evaluation of me." Lisa was mildly shocked. Major Spencer said tersely, "Maybe I should be the one to conduct your evaluation. How would that suit you, Sergeant?" "Not necessary, Major. I just want to ensure fairness. You'll be seeing it anyway and I saw you notice his apparent disapproval, too, when I came in with Captain Cameron. You were wondering what his look was about. I would guess that the Lieutenant isn't used to seeing lady officers so friendly with the enlisteds and probably doesn't think it's quite proper." "You're right," said Kress in a low tone. "I don't think it's proper at all." I could see Lisa's reaction forming and spoke quickly. "Rest your mind, Lieutenant. You heard what I think of her abilities. I wasn't kidding about any of it. I respect competence wherever I find it." "All fine and good, Sergeant, but what about your general familiarity with other officers, such as myself and the Major? Do you think that's proper?" I glanced around the table. "Lieutenant, I'll tell you what I told a brand-new tight-assed Lieutenant in the US Army some years ago. I've been getting along well with officers for years because I don't bullshit them in the least way and I'm friendly if they are. If you don't like me, leave me alone. We can work together without being friends." I held up a hand to forestall his interruption and continued, "I issue everybody a measure of respect on general principles when I first meet them and let time tell me whether to salute the collar brass or the person wearing it. Some officers know why they're being saluted. Other officers don't care why as long as they get one. Those are usually all pomp and posture and fret about getting respect from anyone they view as an underling. Some officers never have to worry about having respect and trust. They get it because they give it." I turned to Major Spencer. "Does that sound about right, Major?" Major Spencer had been about to take a sip of coffee when I began my speech. He had yet to complete the motion as he stared at me, but he answered. "Essentially, yes." "Thank you, sir. Lieutenant, I don't know anything about you, but I'm affording you a level of respect based on your rank and the company. Now, what do you really know about me?" After a moment, Kress softly said, "Your name and rank. Enough to know that you don't have the faintest concept of proper military discipline." I turned to Lisa. "Captain? Was I ever disrespectful in the least or less than capable?" Lisa glanced at me, then looked at Kress. "No," she said in a flat tone. "Not once. Never." "Thank you," I said. "Does that include my off-duty behavior?" Lisa said, "It does." She faced Major Spencer and asked, "Would you still be willing to handle the Sergeant's evaluation?" Major Spencer grinned slightly and said, "I don't think the Sergeant wants that at this point, Captain. I think he'd rather that I make his evaluation the Lieutenant's sole assignment while we're here. Isn't that what you had in mind, Sergeant?" "If that means he goes where I go when I'm on duty, it's exactly what I had in mind, Major." "Then that's exactly what it means, Sergeant." "Cool, sir. That'll work just fine." Kress said, "But ... But there are fifty-six other men here to consider, sir." "The Captain and I can manage," said Spencer. "No hurry, Lieutenant. We'll be interested in your findings after two weeks of field duty." Kress almost stood up in surprise. "Two weeks ?" Spencer said, "We've been office-bound too long, Lieutenant. We all

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need some field time to stay sharp." He turned to me and said, "See to the Captain's quarters, Sergeant. The Lieutenant and I will draw field gear and weapons. You may let the others know we'll be going on some of their outings with them and that we expect to learn from the experience." He rose from the table and said, "This has been interesting. Sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes not. We'll see which it is for whom soon." Lisa stood with the rest of us. "Am I to be excluded from field exercises Major?" "Excuse me, Captain. Yes, you'll be included, if you wish." "I wish. Thank you," said Lisa. "Everybody be ready in the morning, then. Lieutenant, come with me." Lisa and I sat back down as they left. A few of the other men had heard some of our discussion and had a hard time concealing their startlement. I said, "The new brass will be coming with us on some of our patrols. Business as usual." Some of them looked as if they considered matters anything but business as usual. Lisa suggested we take a walk, so we stopped to get her field gear and rifle on our way to her quarters. After dropping the gear on her bunk, we took her new rifle and my revolver to the edge of the compound with a couple of coffee cans. I paced out twenty-five yards and planted the first can. After loading a few magazines, Lisa fired a round at the can and missed. She tuned the rear sight and shot again, missing again, so she tuned the sight a bit more. Her next round hit the can, then all but one of the next sixteen rapidly-fired shots as she repeatedly knocked the can down the hill. Someone whistled. The sentry waved and grinned. "Damned good shooting, ma'am!" She waved and smiled back at him and accepted the new magazine I offered her. I put a few handfuls of dirt in the other can for weight and asked, "Ready?" Lisa smiled, flicked the selector to 'auto' and said, "Pull." I threw the can. A round from her first three-round burst hit the can about fifteen yards out and sent it up and to the right. She tracked it and fired another burst, hitting it again. This time the can dove to the ground. The sentry was just staring open-mouthed at her as she flicked the selector back to 'single' and continued knocking the can around until her ammo ran out. "Want to try my revolver?" I asked, offering it to her. Lisa took the revolver, broke it open to check the loads, then snapped it shut and aimed at the nearest can. The dirt kicked up a few inches from it on the first two shots, then it jumped and rang seven times in rapid succession as the remaining rounds hit it. We traded weapons a few times until all that remained of her ammo was enough to fill two clips. They went in one of her pouches and we adjourned to the cleaning table, where Lisa insisted on cleaning her rifle although I and others volunteered. We talked as we worked. "That was fun," said Lisa. "Think anyone has any doubts left?" "Nope. They were lined up at the mess hall windows every time I looked. I think you impressed them with more than your good looks, miLady Captain Lisa." "Do you think there'll ever be a time when it isn't necessary to impress them? Men take other men at face value. Why not me? They know I've had field time." I looked at her. "Actually, that isn't true. Men don't take each other at face value unless forced by circumstance. You're beautiful, Lisa. That works against you in some things. If you were mud-ugly and weighed two hundred pounds, they probably wouldn't need convincing." Lisa pulled the cleaning patch through the barrel and closed the M-16. "Are you so sure that they needed convincing this time? All of us are quite able to use a rifle."

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"You heard the sentry. When the rest of us have shot at cans, he never showed that kind of enthusiasm about it and there weren't a dozen guys watching us at the windows." "Um. Okay, then. Feel like a game of pool?" "If that's the best you'll offer, sure." Lisa looked at me with mock sharpness. "Don't even think about it, Ed. Not here." "Sorry, Captain, ma'am, but I just can't seem to help remembering you fondly." "Just behave yourself. That's an order." "I will if you will, ma'am." We stashed the guns and joined the list at the pool tables. A number of the guys made complimentary remarks about her shooting skills as we waited for a game. Lisa wouldn't allow them to let her skip the list, but when someone volunteered to rack for her, she thanked him and spent the time chalking her stick. The Major came in for coffee while Lisa was shooting. I went over to him and whispered, "How about telling me you want to talk to me? Then I can leave gracefully and let her work these guys a bit on her own." Spencer looked at me for a moment and said, "Sergeant, I need a word with you." Lisa looked up. I shrugged and followed the Major out. As we started down the hall, he said, "As it happens, I do want a word with you. My office, please." As we entered his office, he said, "Close the door. Have a seat. I want to know what you have in mind for the Lieutenant." "Nothing unusual," I said. "We'll go out with the regular teams." "You don't think much of him, do you?" "He's probably a whiz in an office, but I didn't think much of his automatic prejudice, Major. It doesn't allow for friendships, and like it or not, they do happen. I won't know what else to think of him until I've seen how he handles himself around here and out in the field. A 2nd Lieutenant is an still officer trainee who should be learning on the job." Spencer gazed at me for a moment and asked, "Did someone put you in charge of our junior officer training, Sergeant?" "Teaching junior officers comes with the stripes, Major. It always has. If the basics are there, people like me will teach him confident, competent, cooperative leadership, the same way someone taught you to learn by doing during your first field assignments. If the basics aren't there, no amount of training will make him anything other than an office worker." The Major sat back in his chair and said, "I've read your folder since our discussion in the mess hall. I saw how you engineered immediate acceptance for Captain Cameron today, and I've heard what you've had to say concerning pompous junior officers. I'm inclined to put some faith in you, Sergeant, but heaven help you if you disappoint me." He reached into the cabinet by the desk and pulled out a bottle of Pinch. "I found three of these in here. What do you know about them?" I told him about Haglund's liberation of the pool tables and the Pinch. "I see," said Spencer. "It's time to fetch the Captain and the Lieutenant, Sergeant. We're going to quietly get to know each other a bit better over a couple of drinks this evening." "I'll go get them, Major." I rose to leave. Spencer said, "Bring Captain Kent and five glasses, too. You're included." "Thank you, Major." "Save the thanks until you hear what I have in mind." I left to notify everybody and returned with ice and six glasses. "One for insurance," I said, arranging chairs around the small table in the office. I sat in one and waited with the Major. The bottle and the glasses were out of sight in a desk drawer. Major

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Spencer wordlessly indicated to each arrival to take a seat as he appeared to be studying the contents of a folder on his desk. Lisa arrived first, wiping powder and chalk off her hands with a damp towel. She chose the chair on my left. Kress arrived next, slightly out of breath and somewhat nervous about being summoned. He chose the chair to Lisa's left. Kent was the last to arrive, having been caught in the shower by the request to attend. He took the chair on my right and looked at me questioningly. I gave him a shrug in return. The Major let another few minutes go by before he closed the folder and solemnly looked at each of us in turn. Although all of them were dying to know what the meeting was about, nobody broke the silence. After another moment or two, the Major said, "I want all of you to consider the possible reasons for my having called you together." After another few moments he opened the desk drawer and said, "Sergeant, it's time." I rose and brought out the Pinch and five glasses, then poured a shot in each one. Spencer said to the group, "Whatever you thought, you're wrong. You're here to have a couple of drinks and break the ice with everybody else." When everybody had a glass, Spencer raised his and said, "To us." There was a mixed chorus of "To us" as everyone sipped. Kent was the first to speak. He said with a grin, "Well, you all know I fly helicopters and that I had to take over when Haglund left. I already know Ed, here, and I met the Major when he told me he was taking over, so that leaves you two." He nodded at Lisa and Kress. Lisa said, "I think we all know Ed in some manner by now. I used to be his XO." Kent turned to me and asked, "Your XO, huh? Was she any good at it?" "Yup." Kent grinned at Lisa and said, "Well, that's good enough for me, then." He turned to Kress and asked, "What about you?" I'd been wondering why the Major had called this meeting. Now I knew. Kress was having to try to find a way to describe himself and his job that would somehow sound equal with the others. He finally settled for, "I'm here to evaluate personnel and equipment." Kent nodded and said, "Well, I guess somebody has to do it. Glad it isn't me. Just get with the Sarge, here. He knows where everything is and how many there are of them and it isn't even his job to know that stuff. I think he just needed a hobby." I laughed and said, "Nah. My hobby was helping you fly that helicopter. Good thing we had a manual in the glovebox. Have you had a chance to read it yet?" Kent held out his glass for a refill and said, "Later. I know what most of the buttons are for." Lisa rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, fine. Now I'm not worried at all." Kent patted her shoulder and said, "No sweat. He knows what the other ones are for. Of course, sometimes he'll be stuck in the back with a patient. When that happens, he's no damn help at all up front, and there's no time to look things up, so I just guess real hard." Lisa laughed and held out her glass. "Clowns," she said. "All pilots are clowns at heart." The Major held out his glass. I tossed a shot in it. He asked, "How'd she do with that rifle today, Ed?" I noted his use of my first name. "I'd say she did all right," I said, "Did you hear anything about it, Kent?" The Major, in turn, noted my use of Kent's last name without the "Captain" prefix. So did Kress. While the Major only glanced at me, Kress glared as Kent answered. "Jack said she's too good to be true. He had the duty out there today. Did she miss at all?"

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"One or two times. The damned cans kept moving when she shot them, y'know." "Ow. That's too bad. I like my targets to hold still." Lisa said, "Enough, guys. Now everybody knows I can shoot. That was the whole idea." "Not the whole idea," I said, "I didn't want any flak from the men in the morning. I thought I might put you and Kress in charge of a couple of teams and run some tactics downhill. These guys could use some fresh training and you've been cooped up in an office for months. Can't let anybody get too rusty." Lisa smiled nodded. "Rusty, huh? Sounds like fun. Who keeps score? You?" "Nope. The Major. I'll be working for you tomorrow, ma'am, so you'd better make me look real good out there." Kress stood up. I pretended to think he wanted a refill. He ignored the bottle and asked, "You're going to put us in charge of tac teams, Sergeant ? Did I hear you right, Sergeant ? You can't put a Captain and a Lieutenant in charge of anything. Sergeant ." Lisa was incensed and about to say something, but Spencer waved her off. He was watching to see how I handled Kress and to see how Kress reacted. That was most of the reason he hadn't made the announcement himself. I steadied Kress's hand and filled his glass as I spoke. "Lieutenant , if I didn't have it on the highest local authority that I can assign you to teams tomorrow I wouldn't have said so, and that should have occurred to you before you spoke to me in that manner. You let personal prejudice override your common sense." Kress turned to look at Major Spencer as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Spencer stood up to walk to the table. I refilled his glass and he sipped it, then he said, "That's right, Kress." He turned to Kent and said, "You'll be the base commander again tomorrow, Kent. I'm going out to keep score." -------*Chapter Twenty-nine* Just before dawn I assembled everybody involved in the day's exercise behind the mess hall and explained the operation. Twenty-eight of our fifty-six men waited for instructions. "There are six fire teams inside the tree line. Even I don't know where they are. Find them. The clips in your ammo pouches will be loaded in case we encounter real hostiles. There will be no ammo in your rifles during the exercise. Everybody check each other's weapon now ." When they'd finished, I said, "Count off one, two, three, four and remember your number." Once they'd done this, I said, "Even numbers step forward ten paces. Good. You are team one. Odd numbers are team two. Captain Cameron will command the evens. To keep things fair, tomorrow the evens will be commanded by Lieutenant Kress. Any questions?" There were no questions. "Captain Cameron, you will take the north side between the roads while Lieutenant Kress takes the south side. The first team to collect the hidden three fire teams on his or her side of the mountain and bring them back up here wins the day. Major Spencer, you may start the exercise when ready." The Major looked everybody over once and said, "Go!" The results in a nutshell were that Lisa let her team leaders do their jobs and kept in contact by radio while the Lieutenant tried to personally manage every little aspect of the hunt. Lisa's team returned with their six "captives" around two in the afternoon. After everybody'd been fed and showered, I held a half-hour meeting with her team leaders to discuss what had been done right and wrong and recorded the meeting. The Lieutenant's team didn't get back until almost six in the evening.

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I held a similar meeting with his team leaders and recorded that one, too. I played the tapes of each meeting for the Major in his office, after which he called both junior officers in to hear them and discuss improvements. "You're new at this, Kress," said the Major. "You generally know what needs done, but you need to loosen the reins a bit because the men know what needs done, too." After the meeting, Kress came to my room. "Let's go outside," he said. I'm not a trusting soul, sometimes. I led him out the side door to the helipad, where I knew at least two sentries would be able to see and hear pretty much everything. I turned to face him about halfway to the helicopter and waited. "Okay. We're outside. What can I do for you?" Kress stood with fists clenched, but he kept his voice down. "You can tell me why you've been doing everything in your power to make me look bad since the moment we met. You put your best men on her team today, didn't you?" "Bullshit, Kress. You saw me split the group. As to making you look bad, that's bullshit, too. You do well enough on your own. If you do it now, nobody dies because of you. If you wind up doing as poorly as you did today in a real combat situation, it's entirely possible your own men will kill you and call it an accident. What happens now is just training unless some rebels pop up, and if they do, the best thing you can do is shut up and let your men handle things." "Is that what you told Major Spencer?" I sighed and said, "Do you really think I had to? You heard the tapes and you came in four hours after Cameron's group. The fire teams said you'd be dead if it had been real out there, and so would a good number of your men. Your men said you were more of a bottleneck than anything else. Every little move had to be ratified by the Lieutenant. Do you think those guys survived in the bush against the real bad guys by pure luck until you got here, Kress? Hell, no, they didn't. They know their jobs better than you ever will. The best thing you can do for now is state the objective, let them do their jobs, and be ready to provide cover fire while you pay attention to how things are done most effectively." Kress was livid, but he seemed in control of himself. "Tomorrow you're in my outfit, right?" "Right." "If you do anything to sabotage me..." "I won't. That really isn't part of the plan, Kress, whether you believe it or not." "Lieutenant," he corrected me. "If it'll make you happy, fine. Lieutenant it is. I thought it was just us out here. I thought maybe we could get real for a minute or two. I didn't care if it was a talk or a fight, L.T. I just wanted you to be something other than a spit-shined, bean-counting dilettante for a little while." "You're trying to provoke me into a fight, aren't you?" "Nope. All that would prove is that I can kick your ass. It wouldn't prove a damned thing else and the Major might ask about the bruises." The door opened behind Kress and Lisa walked out to join us. "We've been looking for you," she said. "One of the sentries just called in. He thinks he saw something in the trees." We trotted around to the sentry position. He said that there had been enough motion in the treeline to get his attention. Given the darkness at the extreme edge of our lights, it must have been quite a bit of motion. I called inside on his radio for a starlight scope. When it arrived, I used it to scan the bush. Seeing nothing, I handed it to the sentry and told him to keep us informed. "I don't care if it turns out to be an animal," I said, "Anything means anything." I turned to Kress. "L.T., do you know how to operate a mortar?" "No." "You will in short order. How about you, Captain?" Lisa said, "I fired one in training. That's all."

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"Well, how would you guys like to help me blow up some trees?" Lisa said, "Sure!" Kress looked confused. "We don't have a valid target. We'd be wasting rounds." Lisa and I looked at him as if he were terminally stupid and set off to get one of the captured mortars and some ammo. Kress followed belatedly. We returned to the sentry post with the mortar and nine rounds and began to set up. I asked the sentry, "Anything move out there?" "Nope." "How far do you make it?" He took a moment with the scope, then gave me a number. "Okay. Don't be looking through that starlight when it hits, guy." "Roger that." The first round impacted somewhat behind the general area where he'd said he'd seen the motion. I adjusted and sent another round down there. It seemed to burst in mid-air, meaning I'd hit a tree pretty squarely, which would have sent chunks and slivers of wood as well as steel flying in all directions. The sentry yelled, "Motion! Motion! Do it again, quick!" I steadied the mortar and dropped my round in, then Lisa dropped hers in and grabbed another one. She'd fed that one into the mortar before Kress finally got organized and reached to put one in. The mortar thumped each time it sent a round out, moving the platform slightly, so each round impacted a few yards from the one before it. Multiple explosions rocked the night and lit up the trees momentarily down there. Someone staggered away from the trees and fell, then rose to stagger another few feet before falling again. Another someone scurried out to the body, keeping low. The sentry put a burst on him and he fell, too. Nobody else made an appearance down there. Men were arriving behind us. Some were fully dressed and some were not, but all had boots and rifles. The Major arrived, but said nothing. They watched as we pounded the treeline. I turned the mortar slightly left and said, "Drop two more rounds." Kress and Lisa each dropped one into the tube. Two more explosions shattered trees down there. The sentry reported two runners, maybe more, heading back to the previous position. I turned the mortar to the right half an inch beyond its original position and said, "Last two, guys." That was it. We were out of ammo for the mortar. I debated sending for more and decided against it. After doubling the sentries for the night and issuing extra starlights, I sent the mortar back to the arms room and sat on the wall of bags around the sentry post to scan the treeline. Kress stepped up beside me and asked, "Aren't we going down there?" I didn't look up. "You can if you want. Better ask the Captain, there," I said. When he turned to her, Lisa was looking at him as if he was nuts. "You want to go down there, Lieutenant? With the light at your back and maybe some survivors aiming at you as you walk down a bare hillside? Those bodies are going nowhere tonight." She indicated the two bodies we could see above the treeline. "We'll wait for daylight and come up from below, through the trees, if you don't mind." We went to the mess hall and found the Major and Kent waiting for us with charts of the mountain from the helicopter. Over coffee and tea it was decided that the game would go on, after a fashion. The two teams would conduct a real perimeter sweep in the morning. Those who had been slated to be the enemy fire teams would be added into the sweep units. The Major was at first against Lisa going on the sweep, but she argued well enough to keep her position as team leader. At about ten o'clock, plans were finalized. "Good enough, then," I said. "I'll take the L.T. with me, as planned. We head down the middle of the north side, split at the trees, and complete

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the sweep where we lit up the woods tonight. That good for you, Captain?" "Fine," said Lisa. "No more than a hundred yards deep in the trees. Cleanup only." "Unless you see or hear something else, that should do it. Extra radios in both units." Kent said, "I'll keep the motor running for you, just in case." He started to gather the charts together, but I volunteered to take them back to the bird for him. As everybody got up to leave, I tapped Lisa's leg beneath the table. She continued to rise, then headed for the tea machine for a refill. I sat folding charts until the others had left. Lisa came back to the table and said, "What's up?" "Nothing. I just wanted you to myself for a while." She sat down and sipped her tea, then said, "Okay, you've got me to yourself. Now what?" "Again, nothing much. I thought I might just sit and stare in rapt admiration as long as you could stand it. We might even find something to talk about." Lisa laughed softly. "Rapt admiration, huh?" "Yup." I put the charts in their folders. "You're still a very beautiful woman, Lisa, even after all this time and making Captain." She laughed again. "All this time was only a few months, Ed. I doubt I'm getting gray and wrinkled already, even with the extra weight on my collar." "Definitely not. You seem to be holding up just fine. I was also wondering if you'd like to help me put these charts back in the helicopter, miLady." Lisa leaned to pick up the chart folders and heft them. "Wow. Two pounds or so. Why do I get the feeling you could probably manage this chore alone? Could you possibly have some other reason for wanting to lure me into the helicopter? Hmmm ... Flight lessons, maybe?" "Damn," I said, "You guessed it and ruined the surprise." "Nah," she said, "That was too quick and easy. I think you're up to something, Sergeant." I gave her my most innocent look. She laughed and said, "And if I had any doubts, I don't have them now. You should never use that face with me. I've seen it before." "Would it help to tell you I'm going on a dangerous mission in the morning?" "Actually, it might, since I'm going out there, too." Lisa leaned forward and whispered confidentially, "One of us might not come back, you know." She leaned back in her chair and asked, "What the hell ever made you think I'd give you another tumble after what happened at the villa, Ed? Have you suddenly decided you're ready to commit to something?" I shook my head. "Sorry. I'd still want to wait a year before I propose or anything like that, but I'd be willing to commit to being yours, here, as long as you'll have me. Unless you're already involved with someone else, of course. If that's the case..." "It isn't. There's nobody else yet. It's strictly my decision." She paused and sipped her tea as she thought. "I pushed and you shoved and all we accomplished was a breakup and then I handed you over to that blonde." I almost laughed when she said, 'that blonde '. There was no way Lisa couldn't have known Karina's name after all that had happened. Lisa continued, "I wound up doing without and wondering why I'd let a manufactured issue break us up, Ed. I still wonder. Pride? An inability to back down once I'd asked the question?" I took her hand in mine and said, "We'd have been transferred to separate places anyway in a few weeks. It's a moot point now, Lisa. The only

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way to guarantee being together to any degree at all would be if one of us had a soft assignment and the other left Solutions or got assigned to the same place, and that's not much to count on." Lisa looked at my hand upon hers and said, "No, you're right. It isn't much to count on." She seemed lost in thought for a few moments before she softly said, "Yes, I think I would like to help you put the charts away, Ed." When she looked up, I smiled and said, "Gee, maybe there is a god, after all." Lisa giggled. We contrived to look businesslike on the way to the helicopter, talking about terrain and distances to various places as we walked down the hall. At the helicopter I opened the side door only enough for us to climb in, then closed it. As an afterthought, I draped some cargo netting so that loops of it would prevent the door handles from turning. Lisa tossed two blankets on the deck and folded them in half over each other. "I hope you don't mind if I don't hurry," I said. Lisa looked up and saw my grin. "Oh, not at all. Please take your time." She grinned back. "But remember we have to be up early, so all we have is an hour or so." An hour was almost enough. I could have spent the night exploring and adoring her, but she was right, and I knew what it was like to pull a day in the field without sleep. We put everything back in place when we'd finished and went back inside the building, where I called the sentry post by the helipad after seeing Lisa to her room. "Have you seen anything this evening, Phil?" I asked. "Just you, Sarge. About an hour ago you went to the chopper and came right back out again. Nothing else. Nobody else, either." "You're sure?" "Someday I may need a favor, Sarge. I'm sure." "Just ask. I'll do what I can. Thanks, Phil." I hung up and went to bed. The sweep began uneventfully in the morning. We put on our camo warpaint and split up as planned just inside the north side treeline. We made it all the way to the roads dividing the mountain without incident. After radio checks to coordinate positions and a brief rest period, our two teams began sweeping the south side. Some of the men had been nervous about having Lieutenant Kress with us, but Kress seemed to have little to say as we spread out and moved forward. We were maybe two hundred yards from the mortar zone when a single shot rang out, then several more. AK's and M-16's make distinctively different sounds. The single shot had been from an AK. The others had been from an M-16. I stood behind a tree and radioed Lisa to hold positions while we checked it out. Lieutenant Kress joined me to ask what I'd found out. I told him that we didn't have much yet. Kress demandingly held out his hand for the radio. I gave it to him and told him not to go far with it. He glanced glaringly at me but only went a few feet away. We were facing the direction we'd heard the shooting when a shot came from the right of us. Kress spun around as he dropped. I got flat fast behind a fallen tree and looked for the shooter, but saw nothing. Another round kicked up dirt in front of my face. He could definitely see me. I got further behind the tree and kept searching for him in pop-up glances. A muzzle flash in a tree about a hundred feet distant gave the shooter away as another round tore into the tree only a few inches to the left of my face. I tapped off a couple of short bursts at him and rolled to another tree. Another round missed me by inches. He had the advantage for the moment. Kress moved slightly and groaned. I tossed a pebble at him and told him to lie still. Men were moving toward us from behind me. I put another short burst on the sniper's position and rolled to the other side of the tree. Kress was now about fifteen feet from me and only a few feet from a big tree. I

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asked him if he could move. He said yes. I told him to wait till the sniper fired at me again, then to roll behind the tree to his left. He agreed. I took off my shirt and put a stick through the arms to keep it spread out a bit, then held it to one side and slowly lifted it. Two rounds tore through it and I let it drop. Kress rolled behind the other tree and lay on his back, groaning. A round tore up dirt near him, but he was safe. "Where are you hit, Kress?" "Left side ... above ... the belt. Did you see where the sniper is?" There was a flurry of gunfire from behind us as I said, "I saw the flash. Can you shoot?" "No rifle." There was more shooting behind us in half a dozen separate directions. I tossed my rifle to him and drew my .22 revolver. "I used about nine rounds. Stay down, but raise the rifle so he thinks you're trying to aim. When he fires at you, I'll try to nail him with this, then grab your rifle on the way to another tree. We may have to do this a couple of times, so try not to get hit again, will you?" Kress looked as if he would have given me the finger, but his hands were full. I barely peeked around the tree. The sniper's face and rifle were all that were visible behind the tree trunk. I raised the .22 and said, "Ready. Do it." The sniper fired twice at the raised M-16, perceiving it to be the immediate threat. He may not even have noticed the slim barrel of the revolver pointing at him around my tree. I fired four times at what little I could see of him. There was a screech of pain and the rifle fell out of the tree. I lunged forward and grabbed Kress's rifle off the ground as I ran to a tree nearer to the sniper. There was no firing, so I peeked first and then ran to another, closer tree. Still no firing came my way, which meant he was alone. I was now within fifty feet of the sniper's tree. When I looked up, the sniper was looking down in terror, frantically jerking at a rope. I could see his rifle on the ground under his tree. He managed to untie himself and dropped straight down, landing hard almost on top of his rifle and grabbing for it. I put two rounds from Kress's rifle in him and moved forward. He was still alive, clutching his middle and trying to say something that ended with an attempt to spit at me as he reached again for his rifle. I lifted the muzzle of Kress's M-16 and pulled the trigger twice, then walked over to pick up the guy's AK and headed back to see about Kress. There were two of our guys with Kress when I got there and he was staring at me as I approached. It occurred to me that he probably couldn't have seen the guy reach for his weapon in the dense vegetation. It also occurred to me that I didn't give a damn what Kress thought about much of anything. When Kress said nothing, I ignored his gaze and looked at his wound. The other guys were doing well enough with patching him up, so I leaned the AK rifle against a tree and looked for the radio. I had to whack the side of it a couple of times before it came on. Silence became static, then, "...got two, but now we're pinned. Come in from the north." Someone said, "Seven, five, you copy?" Someone else said, "Copy, five." "Flank us in two minutes. We got one in a tree." "Copy, five. Two minutes." The two minutes turned into three, then four. "Three, six." It was Lisa. 'Six' was her designation because a Captain was an O-6. "Go, six." "We know you're here but we can't see you. Can you see us?" "We see you, six. You're fifty feet west of us. We're down behind a

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dead tree." "Stay there, three. We have a problem in a tree thirty feet ahead. See him?" "We see him, six. Same guy. Our problem, too. Get his attention and we'll take him." There was a short burst of M-16 fire. "No problem now, six." "Good shooting, three. You guys okay?" "Thomas is hit in the leg. We got it tied off." "Six to everybody. Secure your areas and report in." "Six, eight," I said. "Go, eight." "One wounded, six. Area secure." "Copy. How bad?" "He can wait a few, six. Could be worse. It's Kress." "Six, four. Secure." "Copy, four." It went like that for a few more minutes until everybody was accounted for, then Lisa called Kent to pick up the wounded and we picked our way through the bush to get the wounded to the edge of the treeline. Once Kent had taken off again, we had another look around in case we'd missed any bad guys or weapons. Things didn't make sense to us. There seemed to be no damned point in putting snipers in trees at that distance from the base unless the snipers had scoped weapons, which they hadn't, and antipersonnel mines would have been more effective than snipers against people moving through the bush. After an extensive search found nothing more than the snipers' rifles and equipment, Lisa and I held a conference with team leaders to see what they thought. One suggested that the snipers were attention-bait and that something else would be happening while we beat the bushes. Another thought the snipers just couldn't think of anywhere else to go but up when we closed in on them. Otherwise, nobody had any real idea why there were snipers at all. I finally climbed one of the snipers' trees to see exactly what they would have seen at that height. Things didn't seem markedly different from just twenty feet up a tree. The only change of the view was that now the buildings and cars were visible at the top of the hill. I climbed down and reported my findings. "Halfway up I could have shot at the helicopters and buildings on base with a reasonable hope of hitting something. A little higher, like thirty or forty feet, and I could probably have actually expected to be able to hit things on base. We need to move the treeline back some more." Our last act in the field that day was to check the bodies for anything important. None of them had identification, money, or personal effects. That was unusual. As we gathered captured weapons, I noticed a scarring down the wooden forestock of the AK that had been used against Kress and me. The scar ended with a bit of lead embedded in the wood. Looking the weapon over, I found another mark on the side of the magazine where one of my .22 bullets had glanced off it. Either bullet could have made the guy screech and drop the weapon. Lisa found me. I showed her the marks on the rifle and told her generally what had happened. She told me that Kress had already mentioned it, but that he'd seemed disturbed about something other than his wound and hadn't told her what it was. I told her about the sniper spitting at me and reaching for the rifle and how I'd fired the last two rounds less than a yard from his chest. "That's probably what he didn't want to mention, then. He thinks you just shot the guy cold." "I hope Kress has sense enough to keep what he may be thinking to himself." "By tonight those bodies will be gone. It would be his word against

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yours, and he might find it hard to find someone who wants to hear about it. Snipers aren't well-liked by troops." "I'll go see him. I saw his hit. If he's in bed more than a week, he'll be malingering." Back at the base, my first stop was the weapons-cleaning sink. Second was the mess hall to refill my coffee canteen. Third was the infirmary. Kress appeared uncomfortable to see me. I said, "What's the matter, L.T.? You afraid I'll tell them how serious your wound isn't?" Kress's face stiffened into a mask. After a moment he said, "I saw you shoot that prisoner." I let my own expression go hard. "You saw me shoot a man who was reaching for his rifle, Kress. He'd taken two rounds in the gut and wanted to take me with him. Think about it and grow the fuck up. You read the reports. In the last few months we've taken one prisoner, and Haglund gave him to the locals for torture and execution, so what's your goddamned point?" Kress snapped, "I never saw him reach for his weapon." "You didn't see the bastard shoot you, either, did you? Back off. That's the way it was." His expression said he thought I was lying. "There are rules..." I interrupted him. "Actually, no, there aren't. They shoot. We shoot. That's all of it. So how long are you supposed to be lying around here? There are beans yet uncounted, you know." Kress glared at me and said, "A week, then light duty." "Wow. You must have kissed the doctor smack on the lips. I'd have said three days and a big Band-aid for a week or so." Kress said softly, "Get out of here." I saluted and said, "Yassah, boss! Hey, one last thing? Why'd he shoot at you and not me?" Kress actually looked perplexed. "I don't know." "Well, I do. See if you can figure it out." I turned and walked out of the infirmary. Lisa was waiting just outside with a big grin. "That was mean, Ed. Now he'll lose sleep thinking about it." "Aw, gee, you're right, Cap'n Lisa. Oh, well. Do you think he'll figure it out?" She laughed. "No, I really don't. Not unless someone gives him a big hint that mentions not holding radios while standing in the open." "You don't think much of him, either, then?" Lisa sighed. "I think Solutions will be better off without him." "Will be?" "Will be, as in released from contract as soon as he's fit again. It seems that the Lieutenant told the mine company doctor what he thought he'd seen you do. The doctor asked Major Spencer if it really happened. Spencer said he had nothing on his desk about anything like that happening and suggested that Kress might have been short a couple of pints at the time." I laughed. "As it happens, he probably was. It took a few minutes to nail that sniper and Kress was leaking the whole time." Lisa started us moving to the main building and air conditioning. As we passed the Major's office, he paused on the phone to tell us to come in, then went back to talking to someone for another few minutes. When he hung up, he said, "The doctor tried to sell the story to a tabloid and gave too much away. A reporter will be arriving tomorrow evening and right now I could cheerfully put another bullet in the Lieutenant. Did anyone else witness the incident?" I said, "Probably not, but we'll ask around to be sure, though. What does the reporter hope to accomplish?" Spencer sighed and leaned back. "That was the reporter on the phone. He wants to spend a couple of days and go out with -- as he called us -- 'the dogs of war' to see how we operate." Lisa said, "Wonderful. That means I'm not going to be able to go out

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again while he's here because it wouldn't look good in print. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll be a casualty. No, wait. That would just generate more questions and bring more reporters in, too. Damn." "Damn, indeed," said Spencer. "I'll have a word with Kress before he arrives." When the Major dismissed us, Lisa went to check with Nairobi about something and I went back to my room. All I could find that I hadn't already read was a 1967 copy of "The Hebrew Goddess ", by someone named Raphael Patai, who put forth a believable case for the premise that the Jews and nearly everybody else in the world worshipped a number of different, yet similar goddesses almost exclusively prior to the advent of militant Jewish monotheism. -------*Chapter Thirty* The next afternoon I was on page eighty-two when I heard a helicopter that wasn't one of ours coming in to land. I decided to wait until someone called me and kept reading. Nearly an hour passed before there was a knock at my open door. I looked up to see Lisa standing with a young guy who had a camera around his neck and two travel bags. I ignored him as I got to my feet and addressed her. "Yes, Captain? Come on in. What can I do for you?" I memorized my page number and set my book on the bunk. Lisa came in and the guy followed her, shaking my hand and standing in the center of the room for a moment before sitting in the chair by the desk. I didn't like the fact that he hadn't offered it to Lisa first and was about to order him out of it, but Lisa moved between us. "This is Robert Hayes, a freelance journalist," she said. "He'll be with us for a few days and he needs bunk space." She was eyeing my book. I picked it up and handed it to her. She made a face of surprise at me as she read the title. "There are empty rooms up the hall," I said. "He can pick one." To Hayes, I said, "Keep it clean and leave it the way you found it. We don't have any maids here. And next time you're in a room with an officer, especially this one, offer her the chair before you park your butt in it." Hayes looked startled to realize he was the only one sitting and doing so in the only chair. "Sorry," he said, hurriedly standing up. "I wasn't thinking. I've been on the road all day." "Too bad," I said. "Haul your stuff to one of the rooms. I need a word with the Captain." Hayes looked a little miffed, but he picked up his bags and went out. I closed the door behind him and asked Lisa what was supposed to happen next. She leaned over to kiss me and said, "That, first. And maybe another to help you over the bad news. Hayes is all yours for the next couple of days. Spencer says he can walk in the woods with us and that if he doesn't have his story by Friday, he leaves without it." "Um. Yeah, I'm gonna need the other kiss for that." She smiled and kissed me again. "He's ex-American Army," said Lisa. "No combat time anywhere, been in Africa less than a year, been writing for the tabloids, mostly, for a year or so, and takes his own pictures." "Huh. Nobody's risking much by sending him anywhere, are they? This must not be quite front-page news, then. How do we want to handle things?" "Well," said Lisa, "As the Major put it, Hayes is here because he smells blood, so let's give him a chance to see some. Stick with him around here and take him on sweeps for a few days. If he doesn't get his ass shot off, maybe he'll just go away happy." When Lisa left, I went down the hall to Hayes's room. "You'll need field gear for sweeps," I said. "Canteen, shelter half, bugjuice, and all that. Let's take care of that now so you'll know what everything is before you need it. Tomorrow you go on a sweep with us."

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I sat down on the end of his bunk and said, "But before all that, I want to know why you're here. No bullshit, Hayes. We're nobodies in the middle of nowhere, but here you are." Hayes opened a notebook and sat at his desk. "Okay. All cards face up. I'm here to try to find out if you were shooting prisoners yesterday. Do you have a comment about that?" "We don't shoot prisoners," I said. I didn't say it was because we never had any. He took notes as I described the incident and asked if anyone could verify my story. I said that I'd take him out to the same place and position him as Kress had been, then reenact the incident. The two guys who had been with Kress would at least be able to verify the locations of Kress, the sniper, and me. After a moment Hayes quietly said that it could be a well-rehearsed cover-up and waited to see how I'd respond. "Yeah," I said. "We practiced our lines all day, just for you, Hayes. I played Oscar Madison and Kress played Felix Unger." Hayes at least recognized the names from a popular play and movie. He laughed and said he hoped we'd had enough time to get the lines right before showtime. I decided to see if he had any guts to go with his suspicious nature. "It could also be a set-up to get rid of a reporter, Hayes. A captured weapon could be used and you'd go home in a body bag. Trust me that much or don't. If you don't, you may as well call for a ride right now because you won't believe anyone about anything anyway." Hayes summoned some bravado and asked, "May I quote you on that?" "If you quote me, quote it all as the personal speculation that it is. No excerpting bits and pieces out of context or you'll hope never to see me again in your lifetime." Hayes closed his notebook. "I expected to find myself attached to a dumb gun-for-hire type out here. What are you?" "A smart gun-for-hire type?" "Cute comeback. Possibly even the truth?" Hayes stood up and slid the chair back under the desk. "See? I'm being neat, as ordered. How about some coffee?" I nodded and we set out for the mess hall. "Hayes," I said, "You're here about an incident, not about me. I'm here because I'm not somewhere else. I really don't want to tell you much else about me and I'd appreciate it if you don't bug me with questions about me." Hayes looked at me briefly and laughed. "That's gonna be tough. Why are you being so shy about yourself? Is somebody looking for you?" "Not that I know of. I'm not in trouble with the law." Hayes opened his little notebook again. "Your name came up with an open warrant for your arrest when I checked you out, so that's not altogether true." I glanced at him and said, "Two warrants, both East German. Communist warrants don't mean shit on this side of the line, Hayes. They're just a way to pass info around so that everybody on their side knows to watch for you in case you're stupid enough to sneak back over there. If they really want you, they don't wait. They send a team." "A team?" Hayes looked as if he didn't believe me. "You mean to kidnap?" "Two or more people who make it look like a car accident or something to cover the question marks they leave on a body. Once in a long while they'll sneak someone back East. Not often." "I find that hard to believe." "No you don't. You work for a tabloid and you know who to see about warrants, so there's no way you don't already know about things like that, too. No bullshit, Hayes, remember?" "Yeah. Sorry, I was just fishing. I had my office look you up. You get around, don't you?"

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"You're still fishing. Forget it, Hayes, or forget cooperation. If I ever want to publicize my life, I'll write a book, but I'm not going to hand my life story over to a first-year tabloid journalist." "Ho, that hurt. You make it sound as if I'm using yellow ink." "I've seen your paper, Hayes." I glanced at him. "In birdcages." Hayes snapped back, "Oh, and I guess that among your other credits, you're a journalist, too? What the hell would you know about writing anything more than a letter home?" We'd arrived by the coffee pot. I poured a cup and said, "1967 to 1970, stringer for the Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Times Herald, and the New York Times. They usually only printed about a third of what I sent them about the war and they heavily edited it to suit their views, but they bought all the pictures." Hayes stared at me for a moment, then flipped through his notebook. "Oh," he said. "DMN, $1270. DTH, $1340. NYT, $2210. Well, hell. They could at least have spelled things out. I didn't know what the hell any of that was about." I looked over his shoulder, then grabbed the notebook. When he protested, I asked, "Who the hell have you been talking to, Hayes? Why all this background crap? I'm not supposed to be the story here, goddamnit." Hayes stood stiff in front of me, glaring at me. "Give me that notebook." "After I've read it and you've answered my question." I'll give him credit. He didn't say anything as stupid as "you can't do that" or do anything as stupid as grabbing for it. Instead, he picked up a coffee cup and started filling it. "So read it," he said, "But give it back when you're finished or I'll have to do all that calling around again when I get back." "If you don't answer my question, you'll be out of here tomorrow and talking to people who automatically won't like you enough to be polite, Hayes." He smiled and asked, "Oh, you mean the people who sent you to Israel?" "They didn't send me, but they'd be interested in finding out why you think they did. I'm serious, Hayes. You'll talk to me or you'll talk to them. You may be talking to them anyway." I didn't tell him he would be talking to them anyway. He needed to think there was an option and I wanted to know why he'd been researching me. Hayes gave me a wry grin and said, "No problem. So I talk to them. I don't mind, Sarge. It will just make a better story and that means more money for me." I let him wear his grin another moment before I said, "It'll be hard to spend it in prison." I stepped over to the phone and punched two-seven. When the duty NCO answered, I told him to send two guards to the mess hall. Once they arrived, I told them to keep Hayes in his room and took the notebook to Major Spencer's office. Spencer barely glanced through the book before placing a call to Carla, who said she'd call my previous employers immediately. Three hours later the Major sent a runner to tell me to have Hayes brought to his office for a phone call. When the guards and I rushed Hayes into the Major's office, Hayes was almost sputtering with rage. He began to protest his treatment, but the Major told him sharply to shut up and handed him the phone. Hayes waved it away. Hayes barked, "I don't care who the fuck is on that phone! I won't be pushed around like this, Major. I don't care if it's your General or whatever. I'm a U.S. citizen...!" The Major held out the phone again and said, "Shut up, Hayes, or I'll have these men tie you and gag you and hold the phone to your ear myself. Take the call." Hayes was glaring as he took the phone and snapped, "Hayes here. Who

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are you?" I enjoyed watching him turn slightly pale as he sank into a chair and said, "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know. They didn't tell me ... Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'll do that." After another few moments of 'yes, sirs' Hayes handed the phone back to the Major. "He wants to speak to you, Major." Spencer told the guards to take Hayes to his room and told me to stay. After a brief conversation, he thanked whoever it was and hung up, then said, "His top editor just told him to stick to the reported incident and forget about you." He tossed me the notebook and said, "Someone named Linda said to say hello. She also said to send her the notebook, but I thought you might have reason to want to study it first." "I'd like that, yes. Thanks, Major." "Bring it back later and I'll send it by red-bag tomorrow. Dismissed, Sergeant." His tone was as brusque as his manner. I asked, "Is there a problem, Major?" Spencer had already sat down. He looked up and flatly said, "I don't like spooks." "I wasn't a spy." "You worked for them." "But I wasn't a spy and neither were the people I worked for. Ask Major Mason." "Rest assured, I'll do just that. Dismissed." I went to the mess hall to read over coffee. Hayes's notes about me were fairly extensive where mundane and public details were concerned, but he also had a surprising amount of info that I'd have thought was more difficult to get. Tax notes, for instance. Where the hell did he get info about my earnings for the past few years in less than a day? How did he get access to info about my work with a U.S. government agency that was supposed to be entirely classified? It seemed unlikely that he'd volunteer the information to me, so I decided to let Linda and John handle him when he got back to Britain. I went to the mine offices and used their copy machine to replicate the nine pages about me, then went to see Hayes. I dismissed the guards. Hayes wasn't going anywhere on foot. He almost jumped out of his bunk when I walked in. "Where's my notebook?" "On its way to Frankfurt," I said, "Some people think you dug up too much too easily. They want to close some doors. Don't bark at me about it. I was ordered to send it." "I don't need it, anyway," he said. "I can remember enough." I sat on his bunk and indicated he should sit at the desk. He didn't move, at first. "Oh, sit down, Hayes. You were fishing in the wrong ponds and you got caught. Now let's talk about the story concerning the shooting. I'll take you out there and show you what happened, but you'll run the copy past the office here before you call it in, also from here. No exaggerations, no bullshit sensationalism. Some people are already unhappy with you and you don't want to really piss them off by writing with your yellow pen." "You can't threaten me and you can't tell me what to write. Once I'm out of here..." "Once you're out of here you'll be questioned at length by others who aren't happy with you. Don't be an idiot, Hayes. It doesn't end here. You dug too deep, and while you didn't turn up anything particularly damning, you turned up things that should have been off-limits to you." Hayes picked up his coffee cup and said, "That's my job, isn't it? Getting stories?" I didn't feel I was getting anywhere with him, so I indicated his field

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gear as I got up and said, "Well, Hayes, tomorrow you'll get one. Be ready to suit up and play at six a.m. You'll be in the company of two of my men the whole time we're out. We may encounter guerrillas. Chances are they won't know you're a journalist and won't care. I doubt many of them can even read." Hayes said, "Wait up, there. You sound as if you don't think much of the local people, Sergeant. Do you even consider them human?" He was referring to their being black African natives, of course. "Sure, they're human, Hayes. That they let tin-plated assholes run their country and live in squalor and think brutality is normal and that some of them think the Cuban advisors are going to usher in a new age of prosperity under Communism doesn't make them less human. It just makes them ignorant or stupid. Their kids will kill each other over a zippo lighter or a few coins tossed in the street. I saw that happen. The adults are apparently divided between apathetic poverty and bloodthirsty greed, just as people are in many other parts of the world. Also very human of them. But come to Central Africa if you want to see all the worst traits of primitive humanity on display at the same time." "Uh, huh. What about the black-African doctors and lawyers and leaders who are trying to change things? Make things better for everybody?" "They'll be sadly disappointed in this century. Some people accept rule by law and others can only be ruled by force. A local woman once proudly told me that she makes babies who will become warriors who will kill all the members of another tribe. She and her five children were on a bus to town that was attacked by men with machetes and guns, then burned. Shit like that happens somewhere in Africa every day, Hayes. Every damned day. It's so common that it isn't even worth print-space here, and what little is reported elsewhere in the world is heavily filtered by the government-run media. About all the U.S. and Europe see concerning Africa is the ongoing starvation rate, complete with pitiful pictures to generate donations." Hayes was making some notes on loose paper. When he looked up, he said, "So if you have to shoot a few of them, it's no big deal, right?" "If they shoot at me, I shoot back. The west sends them food and guns and the east sends guns and propaganda. Everybody's wrong to send a damned thing to Africa, Hayes. When they civilize themselves they'll stop starving and stop killing each other. I'm here to guard the mine, not to try to reform the people and governments of Africa." "So you people are just hired guns, just like in the old west?" "Has anyone disbanded the world's armies yet? Are words alone enough, suddenly? Why shouldn't a company hire armed guards in a place like this, just as they do in Dallas or Boston?" "The armed guards in Boston or Dallas don't conduct search and destroy missions." "Really? What are they doing when they're 'making the rounds', Hayes? They're searching. What do they do if they're shot at? They shoot back." "They arrest. You people shoot to kill. There's a big difference." "There's a difference between opinions and facts, too, and that was only your opinion. If you want facts, be ready to go in the morning." With that, I left. He was right, of course. We didn't particularly want prisoners, but our reasons wouldn't have struck a chord with him. Hayes was predisposed to think the worst of us and would have to experience matters to understand them. The next morning we headed out to sweep our way from the road to the site of the shooting with Hayes in the company of two other men at the rear of the loose sweepline. Without incident we found the site and I staged a demo of the incident using Hayes as the Lieutenant and one of the other guys, Barrin, as the sniper. "Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang," I said, "Four rounds from my handgun. Now I'm moving forward and the guy's going for his rifle. Bang, Bang. Did you see anything through the grass, Hayes?" "Just you moving forward. I couldn't see Barrin at all."

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"Okay. One more time, switch places with Barrin and I'll coach you." Once they were ready, I moved forward again. "Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang. You fall out of the tree onto your rifle. Reach for the rifle as fast as you can. Bang, Bang. That's it. Can you see Barrin over by the tree from that position, even sitting upright?" Hayes looked, shook his head, and pulled the empty rifle across his lap to stare at it as if he'd never seen one before. "This hasn't proved a thing, you know. You could have just shot the guy." "I know that, Hayes. I just wanted you to see why the L.T.'s opinion might be flawed as hell. He couldn't see a damned thing from where he was by the tree. Hell, he had to raise the rifle over his head to be seen by the sniper, and at the time, the sniper was in a tree." Hayes got to his feet and took some pictures from both positions, then asked, "Why would one of your own officers say something like that about you after you saved his life?" I grinned. "Ask around. Listen to some tapes in the Major's office. His performance in the field came in very low compared to Captain Cameron's, and she's not even a field officer. He thought I was trying to make him look stupid in front of everybody." "Were you?" I grinned. "Didn't have to. He didn't need any help to look stupid." We wrapped things up and continued the sweep to the other road, then started back to base. Hayes wanted to know why we hadn't swept the other side, as well. I pointed down the road as half a dozen men emerged from the treeline and kept watch as more emerged. "They had that side today, Hayes." After lunch, Hayes excused himself to set up his portable developing kit. Portable is a relative term, sometimes. The box was about the size of a footlocker and it took two men to carry it any distance. He'd left it in the CQ room after hauling it off the helicopter, so I helped him lug it to the empty room next to his. He said the stench of developing chemicals could drive away bears, and he was right. I soon left him to it, glad that the room was once a corner office with windows on two sides. He didn't come back out of there until about two in the afternoon. I was called to the Major's office about three. Lisa and Hayes were already there and there were a dozen or so photographs spread around Spencer's desk. "I used most of a roll," said Hayes, "But the most telling of them are these." He held up a few photos apparently of dense grass as seen from ground level. Only my head and shoulders were visible above the grass at that angle. Hayes sighed. "This is one of four I took while I was in the Lieutenant's stated location behind the tree. You're right. He couldn't have seen a damned thing." The Major said, "I'd like copies of the photos and your signed statement to that effect, please, signed and witnessed by the other two men who were with the Lieutenant at the time." "No problem," said Hayes, "I have extra copies cooking now." Spencer nodded. "Thank you. Now I'd like to see what Lieutenant Kress has to say about them. You will all come with me, please." "Major," said Hayes, "As I told the Sergeant out there, this proves nothing." Spencer looked at me. "He's right," I said, "As I see it, there's no proof of anything except that the L.T. had a poor view and assumed too much because he wanted to. He probably never considered having to prove his allegations and never counted on photos proving he couldn't have seen what he said I did. Without some other meaningful evidence, this is a dead end." Spencer looked at Hayes and said, "I agree. Don't you, Mr. Hayes?"

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"That's not what I meant," Hayes said. He made a face of exasperation and said, "But yeah. Okay. It's a dead end unless something else turns up." Lieutenant Kress was presented with the photos and Hayes's description of what he had been able to see while lying behind the tree. Kress seemed unable to believe what was happening. He agreed to let the matter drop, I think, only to avoid having to eat his own words in a courtroom. That evening Lisa and I managed to accomplish another rendezvous in the helicopter. We had thankfully finished and dressed and were just sitting in there talking about whether to include Hayes on the sweeps in the next few days when there came a knock on the hull. A familiar voice asked, "Who is abusing my helicopter at this hour?" I said, "There's nobody in here, Kent. This is your imagination acting up on you." "My figments never sound like you, Sarge. They don't look at all like you, either. Is this a private party, or can I climb in and get my charts?" "Let me see if you're on the list." I pulled the bungee cord off the door handle and slid the door back three feet, saying, "Yeah, okay. We took a vote. It was close, but you made it." As a grinning Kent climbed aboard, he said, "Thank everybody who voted for me, will you? Hi, Cameron. I thought you might be out here." Lisa made a face and said, "So much for military secrets." Kent laughed. "Don't worry. None of us will talk." "Who is us?" asked Lisa. "Everybody who thinks you're the most beautiful Captain on the base, which pretty much includes everybody on the base, since you're the only Captain at present." "Wonderful," said Lisa. Kent got his charts and came back to the cargo bay. "So, what are you going to do about Hayes?" he asked. "I overheard you talking about him." I said, "We'd about decided to let him tag along. If we said no, he'd think there was something we didn't want him to see. If we say yes and he gets tagged, he either dies or leaves here with a story, right? End of the situation, either way." "Sounds about right. What do you think, Captain, ma'am?" "Let him tag along. Same reasons." "Hum," said Kent. "Just curious. I'll let you two go back to whatever, now." He hopped out and slid the door closed. "Just put everything back and try not to break anything," he said. That week Hayes accompanied us on two more sweeps, the last of which turned rather active. A sniper's bullet tore his camera away from his face as he was snapping a picture and the wrenching broke his left wrist in the process. The man next to him was hit by a second round, and Hayes wound up trying to remember enough first aid to be useful and find a way to do something one-handed until another man showed up. When the shooting stopped, four snipers lay dead and one of our own men. Hayes couldn't stop shaking and responded rather dazedly to instructions. Twice he had to step away to throw up and he kept his distance from all of us. Some of the men told him his reactions were fairly normal for a newbie, but that didn't seem to help him much. When I saw he was walking awkwardly, I called a break and told him quietly to go bury his underwear and take a few minutes to clean up before we headed back. He said nothing as he picked his way carefully behind some dense foliage. The best Hayes could manage at lunch was some fruit and coffee and he took that back to his room rather than be around other people. When I'd finished my own lunch, I went to his room and had to knock on the door twice before he said, "Come in."

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The apple was half-eaten and the coffee almost untouched. Hayes was trying to look busy at the desk, apparently scribbling notes or assembling a story. I said, "I could let you go back home like this, I guess. I wouldn't recommend it, though." "Like what?" he asked, never looking up from the notes. "Thinking you're a coward." Hayes glared up at me. I held up a hand to stop him from speaking. "Let me finish. You had a reaction to being shot at that I've seen fairly often, Hayes. Smart guys talk it out until it becomes just a mildly embarrassing anecdote. Dummies hold it in, bury it deep and never realize they aren't the only ones it's ever happened to." "Has it happened to you?" "Nope. First time someone shot at me and didn't miss by much I was where I could get my pants down in time." I grinned. "But a lot of other guys haven't been. Most of them, Hayes. Fear is normal. Fear is natural. You get past it and contend with it, but if you aren't scared when bullets zip past your nose, you're either a moron or you're insane. Or both." "But..." "But, hell. Count on more than half the troops doing the same thing the first time under fire. You have to face it, realize it's normal, and get past it." Hayes looked horrified, then the look turned to irritation. "And just how the hell do you do that? Go back out there and let them shoot at you again?" "Sort of. You do go back out, but you pay a lot more attention when you do. You were ambling along like a tourist, taking in the sights through your viewfinder." "You don't really think I'm going back out, do you? Being a target isn't something I plan to do for a living, you know. I can get over this just fine once I get the fuck out of here. I don't..." I interrupted his tirade. "Shut up, Hayes, and listen to someone else for a change. If you don't at least hear what I'm saying to you and understand it, a month from now you're going to think that the bullet that broke your wrist took your balls off, too. You're going to compare yourself to other men, thinking that they somehow wouldn't have had the same reaction." Hayes sat looking at me in silence. I continued. "Eat the rest of that apple. Drink that coffee. Think about what I've said and let me know whether you're going out with us tomorrow." I left him to consider things. A good friend might have stayed and tried to convince him, but I wasn't his good friend and wasn't particularly interested in becoming one to him. I'd felt a duty of sorts to give him my views and I'd done so. I could have told him about Carl, who hadn't been able to fire at Viet Cong but somehow found the nerve to shoot himself a few months after the Army tossed him out, but Hayes would only have thought I was pressuring him. I stopped to see Lisa and told her what I'd told Hayes. She passed on offering an opinion on whether he'd go out again but invited me to have dinner with her if I thought I could put my worries aside long enough to eat something. I gave her a skeptical glance at that comment. Lisa said, "He'll do whatever he's going to do. If you aren't willing to drag him out there, it's strictly up to him. Think about things you can fix or control and lose no sleep over the other stuff. Advice like that is why I'm a Captain, you know." She grinned. "Maybe I just relate better to the male aspects of the problem than you do, Captain Lisa." "I should hope so." She glanced meaningfully below my belt. "But are you saying women don't have ego problems to contend with? I'd beg to differ if you were." "Nope. Wouldn't dare. You might bolster your ego by telling me to get

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lost." "Indeed I might, and you keep that in mind in the future. Now let's go to dinner." Dinner was served for two hours on the principle that anyone who can't find his way to the mess hall in that amount of time isn't interested enough. Lisa and I and a few others were playing Hearts and talking when Hayes came in with less than half an hour of serving time to spare. With him was Williams, one of the guys who'd been on the sweep with us. We waved to them to join us as they filled their trays. Hayes set his tray on the table and pulled the chair out. I nodded to him and tossed the Queen of spades on a pile of clubs. Lisa groaned and gathered the cards, uttering an unladylike, "Well, shit. That's twice, now. I'll get you for this." "No doubt you will, ma'am. I only play this game to get a glimpse of your mean streak." "You won't be disappointed. Oh, by the way ... I'm going on sweep with you tomorrow." Hayes stared at her in surprise. I said, "Her call. She outranks me, you know." Another couple of hands of cards went past before Hayes asked, "Captain Cameron, why are you going out there?" "Mr. Hayes, are you asking, 'why is a Captain going out there ?' or are you asking, 'why am I, a woman, going out there ?' Do be specific." "Yes to both questions," said Hayes. "I see no reason..." "I see reasons," said Lisa. "You don't have to, Hayes." Kent shuffled and began dealing the next hand. Hayes cleared his throat and asked, "May I ask what those reasons may be, ma'am?" "Of course you may. But I'll decide whether I want to answer." "But..." "But? Mr. Hayes, write about the incident you came to investigate and about Communist-sponsored snipers on the mining company's mountain. Tell it like you see it, by all means, because a free press is necessary, even when it seems to be a pain in the ass, but don't question me concerning my reasons for including myself on sweeps. Those are not your business." She looked Hayes in the eye and quietly added, "Right, guys?" There was a ragged chorus of 'yes, ma'am s' and 'damnright s' and one 'fuckin-a '. Lisa continued, "I may be a woman, Mr. Hayes, but I'm also a field-grade officer. To me, that means being willing and able to do whatever I may have to order someone else to do, so now and then I go along to keep my hand in. This discussion is over. Who has the two of clubs?" Hayes glanced around the table once with his mouth open and saw a number of impassive faces looking back at him. Somebody led the deuce and another hand started as Hayes dug into his meal without further comment. During the night a sentry detected motion in the treeline and marked the spot by lining up the heads of two nails stuck in the top of a sandbag. One of the mortars was set up and a team of two men were assigned to it before we set out on our sweep. An hour later we were a couple of hundred yards from the spot. Lisa had the radioman call in our position and the sentry got a visual verification on one of our people who stepped to the edge of the trees. A moment later the mortar shells began pounding the trees ahead of us. Not long after the first rounds fell, we heard someone approaching from that direction with less than reasonable caution. We were concealed in the surrounding vegetation and the guy didn't notice us until he almost ran into one of our people. He backed up fast and tried to bring his AK into firing position, but he never had a chance. The guy he'd almost run into and another guy had him in their sights from the moment he'd come clambering through the trees. Both

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fired twice or so and the guy dropped. Two more appeared, one of them slightly wounded, running like rats from a burning building. When they saw us, one of them threw his weapon down instantly and raised his hands, but the other guy tried to use his rifle. They were standing less than a yard apart at the time, and when the shooter was knocked sidewise by a couple of hits, he went down firing on full automatic, nearly cutting the other guy in half. One more appeared, running along a trail somewhat downhill from the others. Lisa stepped out and yelled, "Halt!" The guy did the stupidest thing imaginable. Faced with someone who was already aiming a rifle at him, he changed course and ran at her, bringing the muzzle of his rifle up as he ran. Lisa fired once, hitting him high in the right side of his chest and almost stopping him in his tracks. The guy looked incredulous as his run turned into a stagger. He tried to look down to see the wound, lost his balance, and fell sideways. Hayes was near Lisa. He had a horrified expression as he started toward the fallen man. Lisa tried to grab the shoulder of his shirt and yelled, "No! Wait here!" But Hayes didn't wait. He yanked himself free of her grip, looked at her as if she were some kind of crazy, and started forward again on his mission of mercy. We kept the guy covered as Hayes approached him, holding his hands out to his sides to show he meant no harm. The fallen man was watching Hayes approach. His expression went from alarm to rage as he tried to point his rifle at Hayes. I aimed carefully and shot the rifle, not the man holding it. The AK was twisted out of his grasp. Hayes cast a startled glance back at me before continuing to advance. He was talking to the guy in a tone you'd use with a wounded animal. Lisa said, "Hayes, don't get too close, damn you." Hayes stopped and looked at her. "It's okay. He'll see I'm trying to help. I just want to talk to him, that's all." He took out his canteen and continued approaching the man. Hayes was completely unprepared for what happened to him next. The man lunged at him with a knife that seemed to appear from nowhere and he left it embedded in Hayes's left thigh when Lisa's quick burst of fire ripped through him. Hayes was staring in shock, first at the body in front of him and then at the knife in his leg. I stepped forward and helped Hayes sit down, then sliced open his pantleg to see what needed done. He looked at the outline of the knife under the skin of his thigh and nearly fainted. "Look at the angle of penetration, Hayes. That guy was going for your guts, not your leg. You got lucky. It's practically just under the skin. No sweat." Hayes turned pale and looked as if he might pass out when I pulled the knife out of his leg. I handed it to him and prepped a bandage while the wound drained. "She tried to warn you, you dumb shit, but you wouldn't listen. Now you got a hole in your leg." He squirmed and hissed as I swabbed the wound. "Sit still and shut up, dummy. Things like this are supposed to hurt. It gives you something to remember next time." "Could ... couldn't he see I was just trying to help him?" "Yup. He saw that just fine." "Then why..?" "Hard to say, since he's dead now. See if you can stand up." Lisa and I got him on his feet and leaned him against a tree, then checked in with the others of the sweep group. There had been no more contacts. We moved into the area that had been mortared and found two more bodies in the trees. After a good look around and gathering the dead mens' weapons we called Kent to pick up Hayes and the weapons, then continued the sweep until we'd reached the other road and returned to base.

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As Lisa and I approached the infirmary we could see through a window that Hayes was sitting on the edge of a bed near Kress. We stopped outside that window to listen a moment. Kress: "...and I still think he just shot the man cold." Hayes: "Not good enough, Kress. You either saw it or you didn't. No guessing. I'm not sure it matters anymore, anyway, after today. That bastard stuck me while I was obviously trying to help him. I have a hard time giving a damn about people like that. If he shot one like that, so-fucking-what? There doesn't seem to be a shortage of them around here." Lisa and I made a point of scuffing our boots clean on the porch before entering. Hayes slid off the bed and tested his leg. "The doctor says I'll live," he announced. "Well, congratulations, then," said Lisa. "Will you be joining us for lunch?" "I'll even put on some pants for the occasion, Captain Cameron." "That would be an excellent gesture," said Lisa. "Will you be coming out with us tomorrow?" Hayes laughed. "Thanks, but I don't think so, ma'am." That afternoon we didn't see Hayes at all. He stayed in his room, typing out his thoughts. At dinner he presented us with eight pages he intended to use and said again that he thought he might skip tomorrow's sweep. He patted his bandage and added that he felt as if he had enough details to work with. I spent some time correcting his spelling as he spoke with Lisa and some of the others. When I handed it to Lisa, she made a few notes and comments and gave the pages back to Hayes. He glanced sharply at me when he saw all the corrections. "Okay, so spelling is something I leave to the office staff. So is grammar. Could I see you alone for a few minutes later?" I agreed to visit him sometime in the evening as Lisa and I left for my room to open the bottle of Pinch in private. After a couple of drinks we pulled the mattress onto the floor to minimize noise. We might be an open secret, but not a public event. When Lisa left to go to her room, I stepped across the hall to visit Hayes. He was pounding away at what looked to me like a toy typewriter. Having lugged an Army-issue Royal around for a couple of years, the little white gadget was interesting to me. The print seemed to be about the same, but when I lifted it, the difference was immediately apparent. It couldn't have weighed ten pounds. Hayes grinned at my surprise. "Wish I'd had one of these back when," I said, putting it down. "Bet yours was green or black and weighed half a ton by sundown, right?" "Maybe more than that, and usually by noon." "Want this one? I'll just tell them it was damaged along the way and get another." "Nah. If I ever need one, there are a few around here." Hayes sighed and said, "I had a chance to listen and back off when Cameron told me to and again when you shot his rifle away. I guess I'm a slow learner, huh?" "A lucky one, anyway. But you're the one who said you don't intend to do this sort of thing for a living, so does it really matter? You're going back to civilization soon." "Yeah. Right. Why did Captain Cameron go along on that sweep? To keep me from chickening out of going?" I sat on the end of the bunk. "She told you. It's one of the things her job is about." Hayes gave me a skeptical look. "It made it hard for me to say no, too." "An incidental result. She had reason to look the situation over, Hayes. She's recommending a burn-off that will back the treeline down a hundred yards more."

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Hayes maintained his skeptical look. "I'll be gone soon. Why not wait till then?" "Captain Cameron is the one to ask about that." After a moment Hayes said, "All right. I'll ask her tomorrow, before I leave. Here's the complete copy I'm going to call in to the office. Want to check the spelling first?" I laughed. "Sure." I took the dozen or so pages to Major Spencer's office. He called Lisa to join us and we went over the story. Lisa circled one questionable paragraph and suggested it be deleted as possibly too informative about our procedures, but there weren't many other changes. The duty runner was sent for Hayes, who called the story in from the Major's office. Spencer hauled out a bottle of Pinch and we sealed the entire event with a drink "Here's to...." said the Major. "Fill in the blank and make a wish. This bar has a one-drink limit because I have things to do, so make it count." The following morning a helicopter picked up Hayes not long after we'd conducted an uneventful sweep. I was on my way to work with Kent on a flyover of the region when I found a cardboard toilet-paper shipping box with my name on it outside my door. The folded sheet of typewriter paper taped to the outside of the box said, "This was getting kind of heavy, so I'll let you carry it. Thanks." Inside the huge box was the little white typewriter in its case. -------*Chapter Thirty-one* We conducted a limited burn-off around the mountain over the next two weeks and drove the treeline back as planned. Sniping activity stopped altogether after that and the range was too extreme for mortar fire. Lisa was recalled to Nairobi not long after that and Major Spencer used her as a courier when he sent for some detection hardware that we mounted alongside the two roads at night. The devices had an effective field of view about ninety feet wide in which motion could be detected. We placed them along the second bends in the switchbacks so that if they went off we could use binoculars to see whether the alarm was due to animals or people. We also practiced shooting at a couple of white-painted, rock-filled, 55-gallon drums that we installed in the area of the switchback bends. The purpose in targeting at that distance was intended to be more to make intruders duck and slow down any attack, but the drums took a surprising number of hits during both day and night practice sessions. It was actually fun to swing the big spotlight on the barrels and plink at them at night, and if anyone had been out there as the barrels rang from the hits, they may well have been deterred from considering that avenue of attacking the mine. I wasn't much concerned with the politics of the region, but a change in local leadership happened in mid-year that couldn't be ignored. The new honchos put forth the Communist-inspired idea of nationalizing all natural resources in the area "in the name of the people", and that would have included all the privately-owned mines. Our forces on-site were doubled and four small artillery pieces were installed and made ready for use. Our practice rounds reached well down the mountainside, and we spread rumors among the workers that we'd be protecting them with some truly nasty ammo such as white phosphorous and flechette rounds and that we were installing claymores. I call them rumors because, while we did have such rounds and the claymore mines, we rather misinformed the workers about some of the deployment details. The workers talked, of course, so it soon became common knowledge in the region that we were armed to the teeth with the meanest antipersonnel hardware available. The much talked-about proposals about nationalizing the mines remained only talk for another few months after the new leadership was installed, but

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again there came a day when some noisemakers and rabble-rousers began to loudly advocate taking the mines over by simply marching civilians up the mountain. They said that the mine couldn't afford the negative publicity that harming civilians would cause. They were wrong. The mines placed charges throughout their underground mazes and issued a press release to the effect that they would unconditionally defend their properties and render the mines totally unusable if they were driven out. Any takeovers of mining operations would have to start from scratch with all-new equipment and dig their own holes, and the likelihood of enticing investors after nationalizing private holdings would be very small, indeed. A stalemate was reached that lasted the better part of a year, but one Monday in March of 1975 less than a quarter of the workers showed up for work. An hour later we received a radio call saying that a column of people had begun moving up the road from the town. Kent and I took the helicopter up to take pictures and verify matters. We saw men with rifles flanking the column at intervals of about fifty feet. The column began in a huge cluster of people where the road intersected two others at the edge of town. The only people with weapons were those at the outside edges of the cluster. It was apparent that the herd of people was being driven up the mountain. I radioed in our observations and the Major told us to stand by until he got back to us. Half an hour later we were told to return to base and make a full report. When that order came and we returned to base the column of people was less than a quarter of the way up the mountain. The base was on full alert with all personnel at their defensive positions along the perimeter and the big guns were trained on the road below. It was ordered that when the column reached the fifth switchback bend the guns would be used to destroy the road just ahead of them and thoroughly get their attention before they actually came into effective range. Someone from the mining company asked if we'd seen any television cameras. Kent rather tersely said that if we had they would have been mentioned in our report. The Major commented that it was unlikely that the Communists would invite news coverage while their armed 'shepherds' were forcing people to climb the mountain and they'd much rather wait and declare a 'peoples' victory over capitalist oppression' or call the news people to cover the carnage if they failed. All local news agencies were government-controlled and the government was callously waiting to see how things turned out before choosing sides. At the Major's order I made a radiophone relay-call to Frankfurt and spoke to Linda. She said she'd have to clear it, but expected to be able to put some newspeople in the area by early afternoon. The news planes and helicopters began appearing above our mountain a little after one. They swooped in and took pictures of the column of people being force-marched up the mountain for half an hour or so before being ordered to stand clear. Two of the small helicopters landed on base and disgorged half a dozen reporters. Once the flying aircraft were at a safe distance, Major Spencer ordered the guns to wipe out the section of road at the beginning of the sixth switchback and explained his deterrent reasons to the media as the guns fired. The mine officials were notably absent during this event except for one, who steadfastly refused to comment. When the first four shells fell, they literally obliterated most of the bend in the road and sent fountains of dirt and rock dramatically into the air. Those in the forefront of the column, as well as their 'shepherds', scattered and retreated rather dramatically, as well. For some moments it seemed that the advance had been stopped, but then two jeeps appeared and some of those trying to reach the supposed safety of

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the trees were cut down by rifle fire as examples to the others. These shootings were caught on film. The column was gradually re-formed at gunpoint as we watched. Some minutes later it was ordered forward again. When it began moving, the Major ordered another barrage in the same place. Four more high-explosive rounds enlarged the craters made by the first four rounds. The column again faltered and fell apart, but it was again reassembled. Major Spencer immediately called a press conference by the artillery pieces. The media people were brought to that edge of the base to hear him say, "I'm ordering one of my helicopters into duty as a gunship. Gunners will target only the armed personnel who are forcing the others up the mountain. You may all listen on the radio, there. That's all." The media people were confused, having expected a longer speech. They milled like cattle as they trained their cameras downhill. Kent and I took the helicopter up with four extra men and headed toward the column. As we swept past the jeeps at the head of the column, I opened up with the M-60 on the vehicles while the others picked off the herdsmen, most of whom were uniformly standing far enough from the road that they could cover the crowd of people directly in front of them. This made it almost astoundingly easy to simply shift aim from one to another, and close to a dozen of the herdsmen fell on the first pass. I ran close to a full belt of ammo through the door gun as I sprayed the jeeps. Brightly-uniformed men who had been screaming orders to advance seemed at times to fly apart as the rounds impacted them and the jeeps went up in flames when my rounds found gas cans and fuel tanks. We started receiving ground fire from further down the column, so I switched my aim to the herdsmen and managed to knock down four of them in a rather long sweep before the helicopter suddenly swerved sharply. "Kent? Are you hit?" "No, but I'm glad I had my sunglasses on. There's glass everywhere up here." I could hear him snorting and spitting, then, "You ready to go again, Ed?" "Ready." I told the others we were making another run at the herdsmen. Only a few had sense enough to hide within the column. The rest were aiming at us. Kent sidled us in this time, generally heading downhill, but keeping the door of the helicopter facing the downhill-line of the column. The noise was deafening as we all fired at once. I walked a line of ammo across another six or so of the herdsmen as the other guys picked their targets from among both the standing and the still-moving fallen. The people in the column were cringing against the rock wall, away from the incoming fire as we swept the mountainside, which worked to our advantage. "Let's get these people moving back down the hill," said Kent. "Put a few rounds above their heads and kick some dirt on them." Kent had only to turn the bird slightly and we were able to sweep the next switchback by shooting well over the heads of those being herded as they clustered against the sheer wall of rock along the topside of the road. The rounds blasted dirt and rock from the wall and showered the people below with the debris. The Major called us to get out of the area and sent another couple of rounds from the big guns down the mountainside as soon as we were clear. One hit some particularly dense rock and made a hellacious ringing noise as it sent splintered rock in all directions like shrapnel. That seemed to convince the herd. It began to turn back on itself and became a complete rout as people did their best to get the hell out of there and down the mountainside to safety. When a few of the remaining herdsmen tried to stop the retreat by shooting into the crowd, a number of people picked up weapons from the dead

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herdsmen and cut them down. When we returned the press people swarmed to take pictures of the helicopter's damage and ask questions. Kent brushed them off quickly to hit the showers and get the broken glass off himself. The other gunners and I only said we'd shot at nobody who wasn't armed and pushed our way with Kent into the main building after two men had been assigned to keep people out of the helicopter. A man with a press card hanging on his jacket who had been inside for some reason met us in the hallway and did a very un-reporterlike thing. He let us pass without comment or question. I slipped my .22 out of its holster and -- without quite pointing it at him -- I pulled the hammer back and told him to stop where he was. At the sound of the hammer cocking he stopped, as did everybody else. Two of the gunners also leveled their weapons at the reporter, but they looked as if they were wondering why they were doing it and what the hell was going on. I said, "The rest of the press are acting like jackals at a kill out there. Why aren't you?" The man looked calmly at us and said, "I was using the restroom and the story out there is already being well-covered." He handed his ID badge to Kent. "The story out there is all there is," said Kent. Then he asked me, "Why the gun, Ed?" "I don't know yet. If I'm wrong, nobody will be hurt." I asked the reporter, "What else were you doing inside while everybody else was outside? Where's your gear bag?" "I told you. Taking a leak. I don't need a gear bag. This vest has eight pockets." I raised the .22 and pointed it directly at his chest. "Show me. Empty the pockets." Kent had moved back a pace. "Ed, what the hell are you doing?" "I want to see what's in his pockets." To the reporter I said, "Now . Just set things on the floor. Somebody go get Major Spencer." Spencer's voice came from behind me. "Not necessary, Sergeant. Put the gun away." "This guy isn't a reporter, Major, or if he is, he's damned well off duty today." "I said to put the gun away. I know who he is." I moved slightly to get a look at the Major, then let the hammer down and holstered my .22. The Major stepped forward and indicated to Kent to give the ID badge back. The man clamped it back on his vest and looked at Spencer, who nodded. The man then continued on his way to the helipad without a backward glance. Again, not a very reporter-like response. Kent looked at Major Spencer and asked, "Who or what did Ed just pull his gun on?" Spencer said, "That was a properly registered journalist and nothing just happened in this hallway. As you were and on your way, all of you." With that, he turned and walked away. Kent said, "Bet you a day's pay you almost plugged a spook, there, cowboy." "Looks that way, doesn't it?" "Wonder who he's with?" "Don't waste your time wondering. If the Major doesn't tell us, we'll never know, and if either of them did tell us, would it be the truth?" Through the window in the door I saw the guy get on the helicopter that took the other journalists away later in the day. He saw me watching and looked back at me without expression as the bird lifted from the ground. We never did find out who or what the fake reporter was. Spencer didn't see fit to explain the visit and didn't encourage questions about it. The story that the journalists seemed to independently develop was that we had been fired upon and bravely defended ourselves. Since we didn't

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originate the story, it was generally believed to be true. The Communists took a beating in the world press for a couple of days, but the times were such that other news from elsewhere soon displaced everyone's concerns about Sierra Leone, Angola, and Africa in general. The closing Vietnam War and a disgraced U.S. Presidency took center stage for the rest of the year in the media. Local instigators didn't try using herds of people again and they were out of range of any but the biggest guns, which they didn't have or couldn't use for fear of further negative publicity, so we had a quiet couple of months before we received the news that corporate bigwigs and their family members were being targeted. Four such people were kidnapped and held for ransom. Things happened so quickly that the Italian cops were helpless in the matter. The mining corporations had been prepared to pay, of course, but the kidnappers added to their demands of money the release of various prisoners and what appeared to be a hastily composed laundry list of other concessions involving corporate interests. Money would have been no problem, but the prisoner-release got bogged down in bureaucracy as government officials tried to find a way to negotiate. The terrorists decided to make examples of their victims. None of the four kidnapees survived the ordeal. Only a few days after the victims' bodies had been recovered I was called to Major Spencer's office and told that I was being transferred to Johannesburg. "You're also being promoted," said Spencer. He handed me a packet of insignias with a smile and a handshake and added, "Have these on your uniforms before you leave." When I arrived in Johannesburg a car took me to a small walled villa on the outskirts of town. This villa differed from the one in Nairobi in that it had no firing ranges and was constructed almost entirely of concrete and block. Everything exterior was painted stark white except the roof tiles. Two armed sentries occupied the gate booths, which had doors leading into the courtyard beyond the gate. The two front and side windows of each booth were like the kind you used to see in banks, with the crosshatching of wire between the windowpanes. Conversation was conducted through a grille and enhanced by an intercom system, and even after my ID had been returned by way of the booth's sliding drawer and we moved forward through the slowly opening iron gates I had the feeling that any wrong move could be a final one. Carla explained that Solutions was interested in my background as it pertained to extracting people from difficult circumstances and that I was one of several people they'd recruited who possessed such experience, most of whom would be arriving within the next few days as they wrapped up whatever else they were currently doing. Exercises to help us familiarize ourselves with each other and working together would begin at the villa as soon as everyone had arrived. As soon as we felt we were ready to do so, we began training others to work in small, self-contained, modular groups. The training wasn't only house-to-house or room-to-room search procedures. The Red Army Brigade and other such groups tended to use safe-houses that were often heavily defended and wired with explosives and they didn't always just scurry back into the woodwork when someone managed to find their hostages. A car chase through Rome and environs had lasted for an hour and had ended in a shootout involving members of the Red Brigade, Italian police, and Solutions. The new line of thinking about hostage rescues was to make the hostages disappear without a trace as soon as they'd been separated from their captors, taking down as many captors as possible in the process. The only thing new about it, really, was that we were to operate as cell-units instead of as part of a massive overall plan and not concern ourselves with trying to secure an area such as a building or floor of one. Hit hard and fast, get to and secure the hostages, appear to run, then

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disappear and check in as soon as possible for pickup. After running almost a hundred Solutions and police personnel through training at the villa, a part-time cadre of six people was retained to operate and maintain the course. The rest of us were dispersed back to our home units or assigned new ones where trouble was expected. Carla called me into her office about this, asking me if I wanted to 'return to civilization', as she put it. I gave her my answer while rising to leave. "I don't do well among class-conscious people. The usual divisions of society have never meant anything to me." Carla said, "I wouldn't be asking you to socialize with them." I took her hand and asked, "Carla, would you come to dinner with me some evening?" Carla sat very still for a moment before pulling her hand back and replying. "I fail to see how that could possibly pertain to our present discussion, Sergeant." "Exactly the response I expected. It was an impromptu example, but a valid one, I think. I tend to speak my mind. People who fancy themselves above the herd don't like that much. If something happens, they're slow to respond and difficult to deal with. If I feel there's a danger and need to tell someone to duck, I don't want to have to ask permission to speak first. You've trained the guards, but have you trained any of the people we're supposed to protect?" Carla said nothing for a time as she examined me, tapping her pen on the desk, then she said, "I think I'm almost disappointed that you weren't making a real pass at me. Tell me, Sergeant, exactly what actual experience have you had that prompts you to think this way? Or is this just a personal opinion about rich people?" I stood behind my chair and looked right back into her stern gaze. "Once upon a time," I said, "I had occasion to tell a visiting Bird-Colonel from Brigade HQ to get down. Incoming small-arms fire didn't seem very accurate, so this guy was standing outside, next to the bunker like John Wayne, looking for the shooters with binoculars in a real hero-type pose. We'd been flanked by sappers and a guy was lining up to shoot into our bunker. The Colonel saw me aiming at something to his right and instead of dropping flat as I ordered, the dumb-ass looked to see what was going on. Three hits later, he was dead and I got my ass chewed for letting it happen." "Are you confident there was nothing you could do to prevent his death?" "Things happened too fast. The sapper swung from the Colonel to fire into the bunker, spraying all the way. I had to duck fast and just managed to spray him with a few rounds while he was flipping his magazine over." Carla was no longer Carla. She had become Major Mason right about the time I had asked her to dinner. She said, "I see. Is there nothing you'd do differently?" "Not a thing. Rank of any sort doesn't automatically grant intelligence or common sense. You had both common sense and intelligence before you got rank. If I'd told you to duck, you'd have done it instantly, without a thought." Major Mason gave me a hard glance. "You barely know me. How can you be sure?" I sat back down. "You don't really think I'm trying to flatter you, do you, Major? You got me from a spook unit. I know some of where you've been and what you've been through. If you were stupid or incompetent, you'd have long since been as dead as that Colonel. And one more thing ... That was a real pass at you. Working for a woman like you might be just the bait to change my mind about going back to mine duty." After some moments she stood up and walked around the desk with her coffee cup held in both hands before her. For half a moment I thought she might be about to toss it at me, but she parked herself on the edge of her

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desk and just stood there regarding me for a time as she sipped the coffee. The position pulled her skirt tight around her hips and thighs and my eyes couldn't help traveling that direction as she shifted herself for comfort. When I looked back up at her face, her eyes met mine and held them over the rim of her cup. "Rank doesn't mean much to you, does it, Sergeant?" "Sure it does. It's necessary in a military organization." My gaze fell on her face and hair and then returned to her eyes. "Someone has to make the important decisions, ma'am." "I mean, it doesn't intimidate you at all? Not even a little bit?" "You can fire me or cause me to be fired, but you can't put me in front of a firing squad and I can find other work. You've got this job because you wanted it and you can do it well, but it's only valid as long as people like me support your decisions and orders in their implementation. This organization needs both of us to make things work. So the answer to your question is no, I'm not intimidated by rank." "You're saying we're equals?" Her eyes sparkled at me even as they narrowed slightly. "I'm saying we're both necessary. Equality is another matter, but do you think I've ever regarded you as less than equal, Major? Maybe because you're a woman? Do you think I'd even be having this conversation with someone I couldn't respect?" She put her cup on the desk and placed a hand on each side of her perch on the desk, then just looked hard at me for a few moments. "No," she said, "You'd have simply requested a transfer." I said nothing as I looked back at her. The silence between us ticked on for some moments until she looked at her watch and said, "I have to be somewhere in an hour and rules say that Solutions personnel will travel in pairs at least." "Need an escort? I'm not doing anything this evening." "In that case, climb into a suit and be ready to leave in half an hour. We'll get something to eat somewhere after the meeting." I watched her slide her butt off the desk and admired her shape as she strode back around the desk. When I looked up from her legs, I found her watching me watch her. I rose from my chair and said, "Thank you," on my way to the door. "Thanks for what?" she asked. "You don't even know where we're going." I laughed. "I don't have to. You already know that because I'll be with you it won't matter a damn to me where we're going." Carla smiled slightly. "It might. I may have to treat you like a Sergeant, Sergeant." I gave her a wry grin. "You handle the protocol. I'll watch your back." Carla laughed. "Just be sure you have a look around once in a while, as well." I tossed her a salute and left to get ready. On the way to my room I stopped to draw a shoulder holster and Walther PPK from the arms room. Not only were we not supposed to travel alone, we weren't supposed to be unarmed outside the villa. I checked the action and racked a couple of rounds, then reloaded the magazine and replaced it in the gun. The woman at the duty desk handed me the form for the car. I signed it and took the keys, then handed the clipboard back. She was looking at me oddly. "Something?" I asked as I adjusted the fit of the holster straps. "You just seem so happy," she said. "I'm getting out of the villa for a while, even if it's just for a business meeting." "Oh." She didn't sound convinced. I leaned over and confidentially whispered, "Got news. Stone walls do a prison make." "What?" She sounded confused.

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"That's a quote," I said. "Richard Lovelace. 'Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage '. I personally believe the guy who wrote that was wrong, by the way." "Oh." She gave me an odd look and returned to her desk. "Is that all you needed?" I looked at the gun in my right hand and the car keys in my left. "Yup. Bye." "Goodbye." Her tone said she was relieved to see me go. She'd likely never read anything a teacher hadn't forced her to read and just as likely couldn't have carried a conversation in a bucket. Half an hour later I was shaved, showered, suited, and at the front door. Carla came down the stairs in a near-knee-length black shift that conformed to her figure well. Four-inch spiked heels made her almost as tall as me. When she bent slightly at the desk to sign out her skirt rose a bit and I caught her glance my direction. She wanted to see how I was reacting to her. I let her see that I was appreciative. As I handed Carla into the car I was treated to another flash of those legs. We'd been underway for some minutes toward town before she said, "I'm Major Mason around other people this evening. Otherwise, I'm Carla." "Figured that. Anything else I need to know before we get there?" "Possibly. Do you know how old I am?" I looked her over from toes to hair while we were stopped at a light. "About thirty?" "Thirty-five. Why'd you guess so low? Don't want to offend the Major?" "Nope, not the rank. Why, should that have been figured in somehow?" Carla sat back and sighed. "I'd have figured it in. Most officers in their mid-thirties are about to become Light Colonels if they haven't already. I would be, too, if I hadn't stayed too long in someone else's Army." "Hm. Let me guess. Too good at the job you were doing? Making others look too good, which made them reluctant to move you?" Carla nodded. I said, "Sounds like Linda's situation in the Navy. A bunch of codgers knew a good thing when they had it." "The Linda who works for John, in the outfit we got you from?" "That's the Linda. Same general story?" Carla sighed again. "Yes. Same general story. Vague promises of consideration for promotion and no action on the matter. That and putting the time in to cover the college time and money. It cost me almost four extra years. Solutions waved the rank of Major at me when I was near having to either reenlist or leave service." "Can you say that you made the right choice?" "Oh, definitely. No question of that. What about you, Ed? You've been with Solutions a while, now. Did you make the right choice?" "I'd say the right choice for the time, and nothing's come up to make it a wrong choice." Carla nodded and lapsed into silence for a bit. I pulled into the SoTran building's parking levels and found a spot, then handed Carla out of the car. She caught me looking at her legs as she stepped out of the car. I said, "You've got great legs, Carla." She glanced down at her legs, then gave me a slight smile and straightened her skirt. "That's nice to know. I haven't heard that for a while." I smiled back at her and asked, "How long is a while? Last week? Yesterday?" Carla looked at me and said flatly, "Slightly less than a year, I think. Let's go in before we're unfashionably late." I thought about her response and decided she wouldn't mind hearing such compliments in carefully measured doses for now, but that I probably shouldn't hand out too many too soon. She was another woman who didn't hear them often enough to handle them comfortably. I'd have to wrap them in casual circumstances.

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"Wait one," I said, and busied my hands dusting her back and straightening her collar, which really didn't need it. I then touched her hair near the collar and stepped around to examine the front of her. "Good. Not a speck anywhere else. You look perfect, miLady. Beautiful and well-contained in that outfit." "Well-contained? That's a new one." I gave her a skeptical look. "Isn't that what you were shooting for?" "I was 'shooting for' looking reasonably nice at a business meeting." "Oh. Well, no sweat, then. You have that covered, too." Carla gave me another small smile. "I'm glad you approve. Now can we get moving?" Upstairs at the meeting she was one of only two women present, and the other was taking notes for one of the corporate honchos. After introductions they largely ignored me and focused their attentions on Carla, of course. I heard several bland compliments aimed at her but not one of them wasn't attached to a question, a request, or a suggestion concerning business. They must have thought they were buttering her up, but although Carla responded in rather formal tones to their blandishments, she didn't seem to be at all confused about their purposes. I was glad when the meeting was over. "There were four briefcases in there, Carla. Any one of those guys could have been carrying a bomb like the one that nailed Getty's offices in April. The bad guys held someone's family hostage and made him carry the bomb in. Why couldn't it happen again with this crowd? They need better building security." Carla said, "That occurred to me, too. I'll take it up with people by phone tomorrow." We were back in the car and ready to leave the building when she told me which restaurant and how to get there. It wasn't one of the regular Solutions haunts, but I didn't say anything about that. Italian foods weren't my specialty, so I suggested she do the ordering. The waiter gave me an odd glance or two as Carla ordered dinner for us, then another odd glance as I suggested openly that she choose a wine she was sure she'd like. At that point his expression told us he was pretty much certain that I was an ignorant sod, so I said to him, "Maybe I don't know Italian food, but this is the lady's first time out in quite a while and she chose this restaurant. If you can make her happy, you will make me happy, and I'm in charge of the tip." The waiter stopped giving me looks and nodded understandingly before leaving us. Carla laughed softly. "You know how to delegate responsibilities, don't you?" "Tell people like it is and you'll get by most times," I said. "He knows I'm here by and for your pleasure, that I think highly of you, and that his tip depends on your happiness." Carla sat back and regarded me for a while. "Is this how you've treated the others?" "Others?" "Yes, others. Don't play coy. Three others since you've been with Solutions, the last of whom was a repeat engagement. A Captain." Okay, she knew about the others. "Yes," I said. "I see no point in socializing with a woman who doesn't inspire me to please her or won't allow me to please her." Carla heard the words, but seemed to be examining them in her mind. "Why is it so important to you to please women, Ed?" She smiled wryly. "Is it some kind of hobby with you?" I put my wine down and looked into her eyes. "It pleases me, Carla. How many other reasons could there be for wanting to please someone else?" She sat gazing at me for some time without speaking.

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"Carla, let me be very open with you before we go any farther in any direction. I know that I'll get out of something like this what I put into it and I don't discuss relationship matters with anyone other than the woman herself." Carla gave me another wry smile and asked, "Don't you mean the woman of the moment? You don't seem to spend much time alone." I looked back at her and said, "I suppose I do mean something like that. I can't have children and can't conveniently remarry even if I wanted to, so I'm limited in what I can offer a woman other than my efforts to give her pleasure. Sooner or later all women seem to want more than just pleasure, so they move on in search of all the other stuff." Carla chuckled and said, "Poor little you. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride?" I returned her soft laugh with my own and said, "For now, that's fine with me." Various foods I still can't name appeared and the waiter was polite enough and present enough during our meal to rate a rather decent tip. I thanked him for his understanding in the matter of my not knowing what to order and told him that when we returned to his restaurant I wanted to be remembered favorably, not as an obnoxious American. The waiter wished us a pleasant evening and said something in Italian to Carla that I assumed to be the usual sort of complimentary thing a waiter would say to try to guarantee repeat business. I was wrong about that. As we walked to the car, Carla said the waiter had called me a man of 'vast consideration for others'. I asked her if she agreed with his diagnosis. "Not entirely," she said, "I'm privy to your employment record, among other things." "Well, how about just a percentage of agreement, then? Fifty? Sixty?" "Maybe eighty, but that would probably only apply only to waiters and women." I grinned at her. "Does anyone else really matter eighty-percent's worth?" Carla laughed and said it would be foolish of her to contradict my sort of thinking, since she fit well into one of those categories. Then her laughter died as she saw the car. The front left tire was flat. Carla said something unladylike as we looked around the street. Sometimes a flat is just a flat. This wasn't one of those times. Three blacks appeared from an alleyway and took a good look around before approaching us. They all appeared to be in their twenties. None of them were dressed well at all. Only one was wearing clothes that had no holes, and he, of course, was the leader. One of the guys wandered over near where Carla stood by the front right tire. The apparent leader offered to help us out for a price. I told him that I could change a tire. He insisted that I might get dirty. I said I could handle the situation. He then snapped his fingers and the guy near Carla produced a knife and asked if I could handle two flats. As he leaned toward the right front tire, I pulled the PPK and racked a round into the chamber as I aimed it at him. He froze, and as soon as he did, Carla's gun was behind his ear. I then aimed mine at the leader as Carla took charge of the other guy's knife. "You can have one of your guys change that tire," I said, showing him the car keys. "I know you were just trying to make a little money, but that knife was a bad idea." The leader was fairly calm as he said, "I can see that now, but there is still a problem, sir. You look fairly law-abiding, except for the pistol, and the police do patrol this area frequently. Also, the police definitely do not like to see black faces in this part of the city. We really shouldn't be in sight at all if they happen to drop by."

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Carla said, "They'd be arrested and most likely beaten, Ed, just for being here. If they get out of jail in a week they'll be lucky." She was telling me that the situation could turn desperate if the cops happened to drive by while I was forcing them to stay in the street. Carla added, "We should probably try to reach an understanding quickly." I said, "So far all we have is a flat tire and a failed extortion attempt. Let's make a deal, then. If you see us, or this kind of car with this kind of license plate again, you avoid us?" "No problem, sir. We'll avoid you like ... well, you understand, I hope?" The leader and the other nearest him were getting antsy, watching the streets around us rather alertly. "Then let's by all means disengage. Carla, give the man there some room, please." The guy who had held the knife hurried to get away from Carla's gun and join the others by the curb, where he said something to the leader. "He wants to know if he can have his knife back," said the leader. Carla looked at the knife in her hand and said, "No." She then added, "He can't seem to keep it in his pants, so I'll keep it for him." The leader was startled at her choice of words, but he passed them on with a laugh. The ex-knife-owner wasn't amused, but the other guys were. At a word from the leader they began backing away, then almost ran to the safety of the shadows in the alleyway. Carla hefted the knife in her hand and said, "Cheap." She then threw it onto the roof of the restaurant. "Wow," I said. "You throw pretty well for a girl. Cover me while I change the tire?" Carla said, "I usually throw grenades. Distance is important. You're covered." When two cops showed up a few minutes later, Carla's gun disappeared into her purse. I left them to chat while I changed the tire. My PPK in its shoulder holster was under my suit coat in the trunk, and when I finished, I let the flat tire rest over the gun as I wiped my hands and put my jacket back on. One of the cops handed Carla a piece of paper as he said something. She never even looked at it as she reached to tuck it into his shirt pocket. The cop shrugged and shook his head, then they left. "That arrogant bastard," muttered Carla as she stared after the cop car. "He was trying to give me his number right in front of you." "Did you maybe tell him I was your escort or your driver?" "Well, yes, but still..." "Do you think he'd have done that if you'd called me your date?" She looked at me for a moment. "That one might have done it anyway, the bastard." I smiled. "Well, then you could have slapped him for insulting you. As it is, you just received a clumsy compliment from a lust-struck cop." "You aren't angry? Maybe a little upset?" "It's a little late for anger. Take it as a second to my opinion that you're beautiful." Carla watched silently as I wiped my hands as best I could and retrieved my holster and gun. After I'd handed her into the car and gotten another flash of those lovely legs, I got in and started us in the general direction of the villa. She continued her silence another few blocks, then said, "My last few dates were with men who thought I could put in a good word for them. You have no idea what it's like to be with a man who doesn't really want something from you." "Nope. Guess not. I don't date men." I grinned and she returned it wryly.

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"I mean," she said, "I don't think you want anything from me..." "I just want you," I said, glancing at her. "No strings, no favors on the job. I just got another stripe before I came here, anyway. Another so soon wouldn't look quite right." Carla laughed. "No, it definitely wouldn't. Neither would appearing to be too close." "No, that wouldn't do either. I might wind up working for someone you turned down someday, for one thing. On the other hand, men have been known to become quite loyal to their commanders and especially to female leaders. Queen Bodicea's handful of personal guards fought the Romans to the death, even though they faced thousands of Roman troops. Men seem to become very attached to women of magnificence." "My God," said Carla. "What magnificence? I'm just a Major, not a Queen." "It wouldn't matter a damn to me if you were a mere Sergeant, miLady. You'd be my Queen, and they wouldn't get you until they could get past me. Some of us are just like that, I guess." Carla laughed softly. "I wonder how she inspired such loyalty in her guards?" "She was a libertine. A Druid. Those guys were probably all her lovers, too." "Hmm. I don't think I want to put together a handful of personal guards that way." I looked over at her and caught her eyes. "How about just one personal guard?" I asked. Carla was quiet for a moment, then said, "One I could probably manage well enough, as long as the matter didn't become a problem or the topic of gossip." "Agreed. What's between us is for us alone to know." Carla was quiet again for a time. "What if people find out? Repercussions?" I thought about that for a moment. "Solutions isn't a government army. They can frown all they want, but they can't actually order us not to be together and we can't be fired for it. They'd probably consider transfers for one or both of us if there were problems, but that's about all they could or would likely do as long as nothing interfered with our work. By the way, how did you find out about Lisa and me?" "She told me when she got back from the mine. She was considering requesting an assignment there, but she was needed elsewhere. There was also a rumor while you two were at the Nairobi villa, but it was more chatting about who was sleeping with who than what ranks were involved." We were passing the airport road. "A suggestion," I said, "It's only eight o'clock or so. Let's get a drink at the Hilton bar and talk about things some more." Carla looked at the hotel in the distance and said, "We can have that drink and talk in our Hilton room instead of the bar. I think I'd like that better." And so it went. A decision had been made and an impromptu tryst arranged. We used each other pretty much without mercy for a few hours, then caught a nap before heading back to the villa. Carla had little to say as we dressed and little more than the necessary directions to say as we drove. I wanted to say something reassuring, but the best I could manage was, "I guess only time will tell, Carla." She looked at me in the dim lighting of the car. "Time will tell what?" "Whether you can trust me to keep my mouth shut and keep things business as usual. I can only tell you not to worry." Carla looked into the night beyond her window and chuckled softly. She said, "That's only a part of what's bothering me at the moment, Ed, and if I was really worried about that so much, we couldn't have happened so easily." "Huh. Thought I had that one figured out, too. Oh, well. What else is

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on your mind?" She looked across at me again. "I need a while to add things up before I can put things into words. It's more about me than you, anyway. There's something I didn't bother mentioning before we fell into bed together. It's been over two years since I've been with a man. Since my divorce, it just hasn't seemed worth the bother to subject myself to more of the same, and there really haven't been any reasonable candidates, anyway." Carla looked away again and started tapping one fingernail nervously on the window ledge. I waited for her to speak again. After a moment, she said, "Then you showed up. You even came with a staff reference, for god's sake." She laughed. "Lisa said you were one of the most ... uhm ... attentive men she'd ever known. We had a few drinks the night before she left. She said that if I ever had the chance to ... uhm ... get to know you much better ... that I should go for it." I laughed softly. Carla thought her choice of words amused me. In truth, I was thinking that it was the second time Lisa had given me away to another woman. "Anyway," said Carla, "Your med exam came back clean, you've had a vasectomy, and I became interested almost against my will. Tonight was supposed to be a fling to get the whole thing out of my system." She looked at me tensely. "I hope you don't mind?" Actually, I did mind, but there seemed to be little point in saying so. Instead, I tried to smile effectively and said, "Well, I guess I'll survive. At least we had a good time of it." Carla smiled back and said, "Yes, we did." After a pause, she said, "In fact, all I managed to do tonight is make matters worse. I've discovered that I'm not ready to let you go just yet. We're going to have to work out how to find time together." If we hadn't been within sight of the front gate, I'd have found a place to pull over and stop. Before we got to the gate, I brought her hand to my lips and said, "Thank you." -------*Chapter Thirty-two* My affair with Carla was one of stolen moments and clandestine arrangements. She continued to worry about being discovered and I catered to her paranoia to keep her fairly happy. In no time at all, of course, everyone knew we were seeing each other, but nobody seemed to care once it became obvious that no favoritisms were being granted. Things were business as usual until an incident occurred that brought out a side of Carla that I had never encountered before. Solutions cared nothing about the apartheid situation of South Africa. It was a corporation, and as such, it cared mostly about profits and losses and image. We had a mixed bag of people from many places and many races, and now and then there would be social difficulties when we sent the best person for the job at hand and the person happened to be black. The SA's would usually grit teeth and bear the presence to get the job done, but sometimes their underlying prejudices and stratification caused trouble. In late 1975 just such a troublesome situation arose that put one of our people, Andrew, at risk from the very people we were guarding. A white SA didn't move fast enough when some rioters got too close, so our guy shoved him into the car and took off in time to save both of them from probable 'necklacing', a practice which involves tying the victim up and placing a tire around his neck. They would then drench the tire in gasoline and light it. (Use your imagination if you want the details of such a death. I witnessed one necklacing and won't describe it.) The white SA waited until they were clear of the riot to pull a small gun on our guy, who took it away from him. The SA's arm was broken in the process. Our guy reported in and we met him at the hospital. The SA wanted to press assault charges. I suggested that would be a very bad idea and offered to snap his neck

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right there in the hospital bed rather than wait to see if he was stupid enough to continue to be an asshole about matters. He stared at me as if I was a totally new creature in his world. "But you're white! How can you defend...?" I told him that Andrew was a Solutions employee and a damned good one, that I valued him more than an obnoxious South African bigot, and that he wouldn't last to the end of the day he filed those charges against Andrew. "Andrew saved your stupid white ass from an angry mob when you didn't have sense enough to get moving. You pulled a gun on him while he was doing the job I assigned him simply because he touched your lily-white skin in the process. I don't expect you to change your views of blacks, but you'd better change your mind about black Solutions personnel or find someone else to keep you alive. We have a mixed crew and I send the best for a job, not the whitest." He made some threats to have me fired or worse and blustered a little, but he calmed down after a while. I called Andrew in and asked him if breaking the guy's arm had really been necessary. Andrew said that when the guy had stuck the gun in his back and pulled the hammer back, he'd just reacted without thinking. I asked the SA if that was about the way it had happened and watched him closely as I waited for a reply. The SA said, "You're going to take his word over mine anyway." I was fed up. "You talked me into it. We need him. We don't need you. Too many people around Africa need guarding and there aren't enough guards. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because rich white bastards like you do your best to keep all the money in white hands, do you think? Your company hired us to guard you because you can't guard yourselves. That means that you listen to your guard and you obey as required as quickly as possible. If you can't do that, get other guards." I waved Andrew out of the room and softly continued, "If you press charges, you'll die. It won't be as nasty as a burning tire around your face, but I won't allow a pig like you to fuck over one of my people. Do you understand? I want to hear it." After a moment, the SA muttered, "Yes." "Thank you. You just saved us all a bit of trouble. You get to continue living and your company doesn't have to hire new guards or your replacement." Because I didn't fully trust the SA to have any sense about reporting the incident to someone after we'd left him, I told Carla what had happened when I returned to the villa. Carla turned livid as she raged. "You threatened one of our clients?" "Privately. Quietly. Personally. No witnesses. Not even Andrew was in the room." "Didn't it occur to you that he might tell others in his company?" "It did. But while we might die in defense of a client, we aren't supposed to be killed by them, are we? That moron was going to buy himself a jury and screw Andrew simply because he hates blacks. Doesn't that mean anything to you? Andrew's one of us." "He's replaceable, Sergeant. We could have sent him to another unit." I was getting pissed, too. "You couldn't have sent him anydamnwhere, Major. He'd have been in prison and you know it. I had to make a point and I made it." Carla got nose-to-nose with me and said, "Well, now, let me make a point, Sergeant. Andrew is worth maybe a hundred thousand a year in profits. The average client is worth close to half a million. The one you threatened is worth more than that. Am I getting through to you?" I was shocked. I know it sounds corny, but I was shocked at her attitude. I froze over and said, "There is no shortage of rich clients in South Africa, Major. There is no reason to let one of our own hang or rot in prison for defending himself. Not financially or otherwise. If you truly believe what you just said to me, I'd like to be dismissed so I can begin writing up a transfer request. Will there be any difficulty getting it

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approved by your office in a timely manner?" Carla stared at me for a moment as if trying to determine whether I was serious. When she saw that I was, she said, "No, Sergeant. No difficulty at all. Dismissed." "Just in case what we have here is a clash of egos, Major, I'd still like to know if you were serious just now. You'd really rather I'd left Andrew to face bullshit charges?" Carla was sitting down as I spoke. She looked up and met my eyes. "Dismissed, I said." "Dismissed it is, then. Before I go, I'd like to suggest that you transfer all three of our blacks out of here. The situation locally is getting worse and this could happen again." Carla just looked at me. "I'll take it under advisement." "I'll make sure their paperwork is in order by tomorrow, Major. Goodbye." She said nothing as I left the office. I summoned Andrew and the other two blacks and told them exactly what had happened at the hospital and what could happen in the future. We all requested transfers 'based on local issues' that afternoon. The blacks were on their way to other duty stations that week, but I was still waiting at the end of that week. I went to ask Carla what was holding things up. After keeping me waiting about fifteen minutes she called me in. "Something is going on downtown," said Carla. "I may need you here for a while yet." At my skeptical look, she continued, "You remember the vice-president's daughter Kristin from the stockholder party last month? She's missing, presumed kidnapped." "Why should that affect my transfer? You have other people." "It affects your transfer because I'm putting you in the extraction team. The locals don't have any sort of assault and rescue system, so they'll pay us to use our people if it comes to that. She may be in bad shape when she's found. If she's found." Carla paused and added, "Or she may waltz in on her own later." She went on to tell me that Kristin was a starry-eyed idealist who had been involved in the anti-apartheid movement at her college and that it was entirely possible that she was simply holed up with some of the other members of the group. No ransom demands or other contact had been made, so nobody really had any idea where Kristin was. During the next few days the E-team drilled on the range as we waited for word. On Thursday, word finally came, after a fashion. A white finger in a cardboard box arrived at the company headquarters with demands for money and a list of other concessions. The note said there would be further contact by phone on Friday, which there was, and at which time Kristin was allowed to speak to her father to prove she was still alive. The various police agencies spent the weekend frenetically trying to locate the source of the call and the box, of course. No good. On Monday they were no closer to the answer than before, but on Tuesday they got a break. One of the men who had been involved called to try to cut a deal with the cops. He said that Kristin had come up with the idea of a fake kidnapping to raise money, but that some others had taken over the effort and made it real by stashing Kristin just over the border in Mozambique and sending her father one of her fingers. The guy said he'd trade information for immunity, and the cops agreed pretty much instantly. Mozambique didn't have a rescue system, either, so the job fell to us. We found the hideout, a couple of tents pitched half a mile uphill from a dilapidated old farmhouse at the far southern end of Mozambique, and quietly surrounded it. Each of the three team leaders had one of the new, smaller walkie-talkies and my radioman had a comm set that could contact both our

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helicopter and our panel-van mobile base. The plan was that the money would be dropped on command from a helicopter as it flew over the border region. The kidnappers said that if all went well they would then release Kristin without further harm in the middle of a town. The cops had no choice but to play along. One of two ratty old cars left the area two hours or so before the money was to be dropped. We looked for any sign of a blonde girl in the car, but no such signs were evident. If she was in the car, she was in the trunk or concealed. As the car passed our outermost sentry-point and negotiated a sharp turn in the narrow dirt lane, one of our guys leaped to grab the rear bumper and hung on. A few minutes later he returned and gave us a thumbs-up, meaning that a radio transmitter had been stuck to the gas tank or inside the bumper. Confirmation came over the radio moments later that another team was following the car on the main road that led northeast along the coast into Mozambique. The helicopter hadn't been told yet either to take off or where to drop the money, so we continued watching the tents as darkness fell. Almost an hour later, the kidnappers issued instructions to fly to a point nearly straight north from the tents about thirty miles distant. As the helicopter got closer to its drop zone, we waited to see if the other car would leave the area, but that didn't happen. The helicopter dropped the money and left the area, reporting as well that if there were any roads in the area he hadn't seen them. The pilot suggested that the pickup person or persons had to be on foot in that terrain and was told that was already being considered. We were told again to wait, but we moved closer to the tents and sent a couple of guys up the trees with binoculars. They reported no movement in more than fifteen minutes. I had a thought and keyed the radio on. "Look for narrow tire tracks," I said. "Motorcycle tracks or bicycle tracks." One of the guys keyed up and said, "Bicycle tracks, north side." I keyed up the other radio. "Helicopter, come in," I said. "I'm here," said the pilot. "We've found bicycle tracks heading north from the tents. The pickup guys are probably heading to the nearest town in the direction the car went. Just about everywhere around here is downhill from the pickup site." The pilot received orders to head our direction and we were told to move in on the tents. I had three other guys come in from compass points with me. We found no Kristin, but we did find assorted trash and a bright blue sleeping bag that smelled faintly of perfume. I secured the area with the three guards and told the others to stay out of the zone in case there was useful evidence, then radioed a report. Major Mason answered the radio herself. She said that the car had been followed to a restaurant, where it had parked behind the building. Nobody had entered or left the vehicle. I asked the helicopter pilot if he thought he could get a crew of us to the town ahead of the bicyclers and he told me that there was no place to land among the trees. "Half a mile below us on the hillside," I said. "The farmhouse. We'll meet you there." "That spot isn't big enough, either," said the pilot. "There's not enough room in front of the house to put down." "Just get there. We'll be on the roof or we'll flatten the place." I signed off and took off down the hill at a loping pace, the other radio in hand. The helicopter was overhead when we arrived. A couple of us had some trepidation about climbing on the roof of the place, but a quick look inside showed us the beams were still in place and apparently fairly sound, so team two members boosted team one members up and onto the roof and the helicopter was able to hover low enough for us to get aboard. I radioed team two to

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return to the campsite and set a perimeter until the Major or local cops arrived. The car behind the restaurant still hadn't moved and nobody had gotten in or out of it. Major Mason told the watchers there to shoot the driver immediately if it tried to leave, then reminded all of us that we needed a prisoner or two because the girl was still missing. "Oh, by the way," she added, "The local authorities are asking questions about some kind of helicopter over their airspace. That's you, of course. The second and third chase cars are parked about five miles out of town. Set down there and ride in with them. The helicopter will stay as long as possible, but since the locals are still dragging their feet about getting helpfully involved in the matter, it may have to leave." The helicopter dropped us at the cars and lifted again to wait for orders. Five minutes or so later we were positioning ourselves at a distance around the restaurant. We had arrived just in time. Within only a few moments three men on bicycles burst out of the trees and came coasting down to the restaurant. They threw the money bags and themselves into the waiting car and the car started. Before it could begin to move, one round was fired from the car that had been watching the kidnappers' car and their driver's head exploded. As we began to move in around the car the men inside tried to get outside. My first burst cut the legs from under one who climbed out over the driver and someone else knocked down the ones who got out on the other side. They returned fire at first, but when they saw how many of us were aiming at them, the remaining kidnappers surrendered. Two dead, three wounded. I radioed, "We have your prisoners ready to go, Major." The helicopter landed and we tossed the money and the prisoners on board. All but two other guys and me from the team left in the cars. Once we were in the air, I suggested that someone tell me where the girl was hidden before anybody bled to death. They'd lost a lot of blood and they could see most of it on the floor of the chopper, but they were very brave until the first one of them passed out. I was holding the first aid kit in my lap, tapping my fingers and making no move to do anything else. One of them cracked a bit. "I know where she is," he said. "Help me." "I want to know where she is first." "If I tell you now, you'll let me die." "If you don't tell me, I'll let all but one of you die. I only need one of you. Can you last longer than your friend, here?" I nodded at the other conscious baddie, who glared at me and spouted some rhetoric about how noble it was to die for a cause. "Let's see if he still feels that way in a few minutes," I said. "It's up to you. Talk or die." As if to verify my words, the guy who'd passed out began gasping and having convulsions. The other two watched him spasm several more times and go limp. He wasn't breathing when I swatted the knee of the guy I'd been talking to with the medikit. "I'm getting tired of this. Where is she?" He couldn't seem to stop staring at the dead guy. The medikit slammed his head against the wall and brought his attention back to me. He stammered and started to look at his friend, but I raised the medikit to keep his eyes on me. "That's how you're gonna die if you don't talk. You're running out of time, man. We don't have to land for another hour and you don't have another hour of blood in you. Where is she?" The other guy said something I didn't understand and the guy I'd been talking to went pale before he seemed to get a bright idea of some sort. His expression turned desperate and he said, "I'll tell you where she is, but you have to let him die." He glanced at the other guy and back to me. The other guy's shock

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turned to a glare of hatred and he started to rant. I grabbed the shirt of the guy I'd been talking to and hauled him to the other end of the deck, then dropped the medikit in his lap. When he started to open it, I put the barrel of my rifle on the lid and said, "First you talk. Then I fix your leg." The guy blurted an address in Johannesburg, which I relayed to the Major. As I did so, the other guy screamed and lunged at the one with the medikit. My shot almost knocked him out the side door, but somebody grabbed his leg and pulled him back in. "There's your deal," I said. "You're now the sole survivor. If she isn't there for any reason, you'll be shot while trying to escape, you understand that?" He nodded and gave me an address that I radioed to the Major. I handed my rifle to one of the others and began tying off the man's leg so I could patch him up. "How many others are with her?" I asked. He said he didn't know for sure but guessed two or three. I relayed that to the Major, too, and continued questioning him as I worked, but he didn't seem to know much else. We stayed aloft until the girl was found. She was alive, but not in the best of condition. Her three 'guards' had taken turns with her often and beaten her pretty badly during the previous week. I doubted that her rampant idealism would survive the incident and had my doubts that she'd be able to live with what had happened to her once the story got out. I heard later that the guy I'd patched up had hung himself in his cell after several lengthy interrogations. He'd apparently used bootlaces, but it wasn't quite clear how he'd managed to acquire them. Others were arrested and a few of them put up a fight or were made to seem as if they had put up a fight. The cops only managed to arrest the ones in charge of various things. The rest went down in shootouts with the cops or while trying to escape, I was told. The next day the Major called me into her office. She wanted to know if I still wanted a transfer. I asked why she thought I might have changed my mind about it. "Okay," said Carla. "I'll level with you, as you Americans say. I don't want you to go." "For personal or business reasons?" Carla fixed me with a level gaze. "Both." She moved to stand in front of her desk, then parked her butt on the edge of it in a manner I'd once told her outlined her legs very well. She was putting herself on the line in a way, and I knew it would be smart to choose my next words carefully. I didn't preface those words by addressing her either as 'Carla' or 'Major' in order to avoid flavoring her reaction. "When I asked if you'd have left Andrew in jail you dismissed me and told me that we all meant nothing more than our rentable worth. I took that to include myself. If you still feel that way about those under your command, I still want a transfer." Carla's eyes narrowed. "What makes you think any other officer of this company will tell you anything different? This isn't anybody's regular army, Ed. We're mercenaries. In case you weren't aware of it, that word means we do what we do for money." "Not completely." I still used neither her rank nor her name. "Have I asked for a raise? I'm not here just for the money. A lot of the others aren't, either, even among the officers I've met." "Then why? You just like shooting people?" The discussion was beginning to become an argument. "That's my business," I said. "You didn't ask before, so why ask now? Is my transfer ready to send out?" Carla slid off the desk with a glare and reached for a pen. When she'd signed all copies, she handed them to me.

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"Drop these with the company clerk. Dismissed, Sergeant." -------*Chapter Thirty-three* They call it Zimbabwe now. While I was there it was called Rhodesia, and that's where the company sent me next. I was almost sure that some measure of the assignment was simply Carla's way of exacting revenge and isolating me until she could be sure I could keep my mouth shut about our fling. On the other hand, the slot called for my sort of training and, while I was too often bored, I was never without something to do. After a two months of station-keeping sorts of duties at a very small guardpoint base in a small unit at the north end of nodamnedwhere, I called Carla on her quiet line and told her that by now something else must have opened up and it was time to get me out of there. Carla laughed. At first I thought it was a preface to refusing to move me, but she said, "I was just about to call you , Ed. We almost lost two NCO's in a rover accident a few days ago. Both are pretty badly injured. How would you like to take over an aid station?" "That would be more than fine, I think. This place should be used to teach recruits how to deal with life-threatening levels of boredom." "Done. Pack your things and saddle up, then. I told them you would probably be available, so they'll be expecting you. Ride the Wednesday supply bird back here first, though, so you can take a few things up to them from here. Plan on being here a few days or a week enroute while things are assembled and made ready." Carla called me into her office Wednesday afternoon to hand me my itinerary for the week, which amounted to a Friday night social event and another on Tuesday evening. She told me to try to re-civilize myself enough to avoid being an embarrassment to her as she handed me the notepad with the list of details for each event. I looked for anything but humor in her face and saw only that for some reason she seemed rather amused. "Am I missing something?" I asked, scanning the notepad. Nothing I could find there was worth a laugh to me. "You aren't taking me anywhere until you shave," said Carla. It suddenly dawned on me that I had a beard. I mean, it dawned on me that having a beard might actually matter in Johannesburg. I hadn't bothered to shave in weeks. "You never said anything about my having to escort you anywhere. Should I unpack or get on the next supply run back to Camp NoDamnWhere?" Carla stood and used her usual sit-on-the-edge-of-the-desk pose, and yes, I noticed her legs as she did so, as expected. "It's only a couple of evenings. Would it pain you so much to be seen with me, Ed?" I let my eyes travel her from head to toe. "Hardly. You're good-looking as ever. I'd be the envy of other men, I think. But that isn't the point now any more than before." "All we're talking about is dinner and dancing after some speeches. I thought you might be able to endure my presence for that amount of time." I thought about things. The reason I'd transferred before was still in effect, as far as I knew. If I said no, I might wind up choosing between another stint at Camp Nowhere or, if nothing else was offered, leaving Solutions. Or I might not. The aid station was already on my agenda and canceling my new change of address would have required some amount of explanation. I also considered that what she wanted from me wouldn't be so very difficult after two months in the bush. I'd never found the native women attractive in the least and venereal disease was rampant in rural Africa, so sexual continence had always been my choice in the field. And then there were Carla's legs and face... But I had a question, still. "After all these months, you haven't found someone else?"

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Carla gave me a look usually reserved for the village idiot. "No. I haven't found someone else, Ed, but don't think I haven't looked. There's just too much risk involved with anyone else. Pregnancy. Disease. Gossip. When I learned they needed an NCO for a field medical unit, I thought immediately of you. When I thought of you, I thought about the times ... Well, here you are, and in a week or so you'll be gone again. I just wanted ... Damn it, I just wanted..." Her fists clenched where they rested on the desk. I stood and reached for her shoulder. "I'm sorry," I said. "I wasn't trying to hurt you." She shrugged off my hand and hissed, "I don't want your goddamned sympathy." "That wasn't sympathy. It was just an apology." "Well, thanks," she said, "But apologies aren't very useful, so don't bother." It was an awkward moment. I stood gazing at her in silence for that moment, then picked the notepad up off the chair and said, "Okay, then. Things are as they are, I guess. Will you still want me as an escort, or is that position open again?" Carla gazed steadily back at me for some moments, then said, "I have to go and I have to have an armed escort, so be shaved and ready early Friday evening, Sergeant." It was an order, and it was legal enough to satisfy her pride. I didn't tell her that I'd already decided to go with her. I'd wanted to see how she'd play it. Now I knew, and 'the game was afoot ', as Shakespeare had put it. She wasn't giving up. I'd become a challenge of sorts, and she was a woman who responded to challenges. I could almost see her determination settle into place like a cloak around her shoulders. Carla drew herself straight and said firmly, "Dismissed, Sergeant." As I left Carla's office the clerk outside glanced up at me, which reminded me that I needed to update a couple of things in my folder. The woman's name was Barbara, a Brit from South London with a cockney accent and a genius for office work. Her face reddened as I turned to approach her desk and I knew she'd either overheard or deliberately listened to what had been said in Carla's office. I pretended not to notice and plunked myself in the chair by her desk. "I have a tux that needs dry-cleaned quickly and some stuff to put in my folder, Barb." She nodded and retrieved my folder from a cabinet. Her hands were faintly trembling and she reddened a bit all over again as she faced me. I handed her the additional info and watched as she tacked it into place in the folder. She then pulled her Rolodex forward and riffled through it with a degree of clumsiness I'd never seen in her before. Her genius and efficiency had taken a back seat to her embarrassment. She finally found the card and in a tense voice made a call to have my suit picked up and returned on Friday afternoon. I sat looking at her for a moment after she'd hung up. "Would you like to talk about what's bothering you, Barb?" Her instant response was, "Dear lord, no ! I mean, uhm, no, no, thank you, Sergeant." "You're sure?" "Very sure, Sergeant." I fixed her with a calm gaze. "I think we should. And drop the 'Sergeant' for now." Her deer-in-the-headlights look made me want to laugh, but I didn't. Barbara leaned across the desk and whispered, "I know the Major. She's gonna get you. I've heard her use that tone of voice before when she's miffed."

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"Miffed? Yeah, miffed. That would be an accurate assessment. Miffed." Barbara was shocked at my cavalier attitude. "I mean it," she whispered. "The Major's not happy with you, Sergeant. I'd bet money on it. She's probably already thinking..." At that moment Carla appeared at the door, saw me, and asked, "Was there something else, Sergeant? She's here to work, not chat with you." "Adding to my folder, Major." I pointed to the desktop. "Arranging dry-cleaning for a tux." Carla glanced at my folder, then to Barbara. She tapped the paperwork she was holding and said, "Come in when you're finished with him, please." "Yes, ma'am," said Barbara, but Carla was already closing her office door. Barbara was staring starkly at me. "See ?" she whispered. "You were saying...?" I prompted her. "The Major was thinking what?" Barbara looked at me, trying to conceal the fact that she thought I must be terminally dense while carefully choosing her next words. "You just be careful of her," she whispered. "Real careful. I'd go along with her program, Sergeant. Don't cross her." I'd chosen my words carefully, too. You never know who may be listening, after all. "Barb, I'll follow my conscience about everything. Always do. Good enough?" Barbara rolled her eyes and said, "You'd better damn well hope so," then, quickly, "Sorry, Sergeant. No disrespect intended." As I stood up I smiled and patted her hand and said, "Thanks, Barb. I appreciate your concern. I'll try to be careful around the Major." I could see that she thought I was taking things far too lightly. She appeared to want to say more, but she held her tongue as I left. As I walked to my room I wondered briefly whether Barbara's true concern had been for Carla or me. She'd been in Carla's office for a few years, so there was undoubtedly an attachment, even if it was one simply based around dependability in the office. Ah, well. Whatever. We'd just have to see what happened next. Friday afternoon my tux came back to me as promised. Barbara delivered it to my room herself. I thanked her, hung it on the back of the bathroom door, and turned to find her still standing in the doorway. I tightened my towel and asked, "Was there something else, Barbara? If so, come on in and have a seat. We can talk while I shave." After a hesitation, Barbara entered the room to stand near the bathroom door. She'd left the hallway door open, I noticed. She watched me prep my face and strop my straight razor in silence, then continued to say nothing as I started stroking the beard off my face. When I'd removed the worst of my weeks-old growth, I rinsed and dried the razor and put it in its box, then picked up my injector-blade razor for the finishing work of removing stubble. Barbara finally spoke. "I've never actually seen anyone use one of those big razors before. I didn't think anyone still did use them, really, and I was afraid to say anything while you were using it." I grunted noncommittally and prepped for my second shaving with a sigh. "I'm sorry," said Barbara. "I don't mean to be bothering you." "You aren't," I said, "I've just always hated shaving. What's on your mind, Barb?" She leaned on the doorframe for a few moments before saying, "Don't hurt the Major." "I hadn't planned to. Hurt her how?" "The Major ... well ... she wants you. If I were you I'd be very flattered." I glanced at her in the mirror, then went back to carving the stubble without speaking. After a moment, Barbara said, "I've never seen her give a damn about anyone else here that way. Does that mean anything to you?" I looked at her again in the mirror. "Barbara, I'll let you in on

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something if you'll keep it to yourself, okay?" She nodded. I told her, "I'm going to let her decide whether to seduce me or not." Barbara looked slightly confused. I rinsed my face and said, "We had a disagreement a while back. I asked for a transfer. The reason is still valid, but I've been in the bush for two months and I'm only going to be here for maybe a week, so if she makes a serious attempt to nail me I'm going to cooperate." Barbara brightened slightly, but still looked confused. When she started to speak, I interrupted her. "Consider this, Barb. She's some years older than me and she's a Major and I'm enlisted and we had a disagreement the last time I was here. If I'd been agreeable in the office, there'd have been some small doubt as to whether I was going along out of fear that she'd send me back to Rhodesia or somewhere even worse. I think it would have flavored everything badly to have that slight, nagging suspicion in the back of her mind. This way I'm a challenge of sorts. She has to convince me as a woman, not as my commanding officer. You're following me on this?" Barbara nodded. "Yes, I think so. The last part, anyway." "Good. Now consider that she may want to tell me to piss off, too, because of the way I've been acting toward her since, um ... our disagreement, and especially after Wednesday afternoon's office visit. If she does, it will be as a woman, not my commanding officer." Barbara looked confused again. "Why would she do that? She wants..." I waited, but she didn't finish the sentence. "Barb," I said, "The Major may also need to flatten me a little to get even. I plan to let her have her way in the matter, whichever way that may be." "I still don't see why she'd want to do that if she can have what she wanted to begin with." I grinned at her. "Why is she a Major, Barb? She likes to control things and people, and she's at the top of her own list of people to control. She may need to deny herself so that she can deny me so that she can feel in control enough to change her mind about denying either of us." Barbara simply stared at me as I dried my face. I decided to boil things down for her. "That way," I said, "The Major can remain secure in herself and her abilities as both an officer and a woman. There won't be any question about why I'm with her -- or without her -- because she'll have made all the decisions." Barbara continued to stare at me. "You're serious, aren't you? You really believe all that stuff you just said?" "Enough so that I'm going to handle things pretty much as I explained them, Barb. Now you can stay or go, but I'm about to lose this towel and get dressed." Barbara levered herself off the doorframe and said, "At least you seem to mean well. Good luck, I guess." She closed the hallway door behind her as she left. Half an hour later I was dressed and ready and signing out a gun and a car. I parked in front of the entrance and went in to wait in the lounge for Carla. One of the night duty people, Gary, came over to chat and said he was glad it was me pulling escort duty instead of him. I asked him why and he told me that he hated the dull-assed parties the clients threw. "All speeches and bullshit," he said. I told him to stick around and see if someone wouldn't appear who could change his mind about being an escort. He laughed and said, "Not a chance. I hate those embassy parties," but he stayed anyway. A few minutes later Carla descended the staircase in a shimmering, emerald-green evening gown that fit her closely, moved with her, and nearly

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matched her eyes. Gary was staring at her as he tapped hard on my arm to make sure I'd seen her, too. When I moved my arm, he continued tapping on the table, completely unaware that my arm was no longer there. Carla's hair cascaded lightly around her bare shoulders as she moved and a mid-thigh slit allowed much of her tanned leg to escape the flowing, shimmering fabric with every step down. She paused on the middle landing and turned gracefully to look at the back of one of her high heels as if examining it for some small problem she'd noticed, then turned to look at me as I approached her up the steps in order to escort her the rest of the way down. "You look radiantly gorgeous," I said, offering her my arm. "Very impressive." "Thank you," she said rather coolly. "You look nice, too." "But I didn't just gain a new worshipper. Look at Gary, over there." She took my arm and we began our descent of the stairs. Gary was still sitting at the small table, apparently mesmerized by the sight of her. Barbara was coming out of one of the downstairs rooms and noticed Gary staring upward, so she looked the same direction. Her mouth fell open as she, too, began staring at Carla. I laughed and said, "You should wear this outfit into battle sometime. It has an effect." Carla stopped our descent and glanced at me. The flush of self-consciousness was beginning to show around her ears and throat. "Maybe I should wear something with a little less effect," she said, trying not to stare back at the two people below. I clapped my hands twice to break their reverie. Gary instantly turned beet-red and sat back down, then seemed to think that was the wrong thing to do with the Major in the room and stood up again, almost at attention. Barbara managed to close her mouth, but that was all. They were still staring at Carla, who was turning as red as Gary. As Carla said, "I really should go back up and put on something else..." I interrupted her. "No, please don't do that, Carla. You look magnificent." Her eyes widened slightly as she realized that I'd said her name for the first time since requesting a transfer, but she said nothing. I continued leading her toward the door. I whispered, "When we get to the door, take another look at them." She whispered back in a puzzled tone, "Why?" "Just do it." I reached to open the front door and Carla started to step through it, then turned to look back at Gary and Barbara. Carla was framed in the bright daylight that streamed through the doorway. I heard somebody whisper, "Wow !" I gave Gary a 'See? What did I tell you? ' -- sort of expression and a flick of the eyebrows, then one of those little 'See-ya!' waves and a big smile as I closed the door. "Did you hear that?" I asked Carla on the way to the car. "I heard it," she said. "My God..." "He said he hates going to embassy parties. I think you either changed his mind or melted it for him. Those two used to think of you only as 'the Major '." Carla gave me a sharp glance, but said nothing as I handed her into the car. She caught my own glance as the slit allowed her left leg to show extensively. For a moment we held each other's eyes as she pulled the dress across enough to almost cover her leg. I walked around and got in, then paused as I reached for the ignition for another look at Carla. She'd reached to her right to pull her seat belt into place and the leg had become uncovered again. She looked to see why I wasn't moving and caught my glance at her leg. In the time I'd known her before, Carla had never bothered with seat belts unless the road had been particularly rough. Unless something had

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changed about her, she'd made a move designed to uncover that leg again. She snapped her belt shut and pulled her dress back into place, then looked up at me and said, "Whenever you're ready, feel free to start the engine." I did so and put us in motion. Other than necessary directions, not much was said along the way, but I made sure she caught me glancing her direction many times during our drive to the embassy, sometimes deliberately poorly masking the looks by redirecting my gaze past her at something outside the car and sometimes only pulling my eyes back to the road. People at the embassy were somewhat more sophisticated than Barbara and Gary. When I waved off the attendant and handed Carla out of the car myself, that drew notice, but when Carla emerged from the car, she made them realize why I'd done it. They didn't stare quite as raptly as had Barb and Gary, but they certainly took note of her. I handed the keys to the attendant with a slight rattle to get his attention. He snapped to and went to park the car. Just inside the foyer someone in uniform reached to tap the butt of my pistol through my coat and held out his hand for it. I looked at Carla. She said, "He'll be keeping that. We're on the security list." The man said, "I'll have to check that, madame." He used the phone briefly, then indicated with a nod that we could continue. The meeting, dinner speeches, and after-dinner dancing went well enough until one of the embassy types had a drink too many and was too well-taken with my date. He came to our table and began trying to move in on Carla, and even my presence and the presence of another couple near our table didn't deter him from his moderately inebriated course. Carla politely refused his offer to dance and his offer to show her their extensive courtyard arrangements and told him she'd prefer to keep things strictly business because he worked for the company that was employing her. When he persisted and said an embassy limo could take her back to the villa whenever she wanted to leave, she said she had other plans for the evening. Her tone held a note of firm finality that made a few heads turn our direction. Nodding to me, she said, "My Sergeant will see that I get where I need to go safely." The embassy pogue seemed to accede and moved away from us, changing course to intercept a waiter and pointing to where he wanted the drink delivered. Carla sighed and said, "Mr. Wonderful, there, is a vice-president of the company. I've turned him down half a dozen times at these events. 'Hope springs eternal ', someone said." "Alexander Pope," I said. "Huh?" Carla looked at me questioningly. "Alexander Pope said it," I told her. "A British poet." Carla gazed at me for a moment and said, "You're trying to impress me, aren't you? You want me to believe you're a student of poetry?" "Nope. I just happen to know that it was Pope who said it, that's all." "Uh, huh," she said, "If thou must love me, let it be for naught except love's sake only ." "Browning. Elizabeth, not Robert. I didn't say I hadn't read a bit, did I?" "I see." Carla sipped her drink, then said, "How about one more? Just to be sure?" I nodded and shrugged. "No guarantees." Carla grinned and said, "A soldier's life is terrible hard ." "Alice is marrying one of the guard ," I quoted back. "A.A.Milne." "Damn, that was quick. Are you sure you weren't an English major?" "No, ma'am. You're the only English Major around here, Major." "Well," said Carla, "You do seem to have some hidden talents,

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Sergeant." "What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering ," I said. "Thank you." "That sounded like a quote, too." "It was. George Bernard Shaw." "Damn," she said again with a quick grin. "All these quotes. Now I'm beginning to wonder if there's an original thought in your head." "Just one or two now and then, and I save those for emergencies." Carla laughed softly and gathered her purse as she rose from the table. "Back in a few," she said, heading toward the bathrooms. I took two strides to catch up with her and said, "Same here." There were perhaps half a dozen men in the bathroom waiting to use the facilities, so I used the time to check my appearance. Something about the place changed as I stood there. Fleeting, evasive glances from others that I noticed in the mirror as I adjusted my tie set my alarms off. The sudden quieting of background chatter also served to verify that something wasn't quite right. Then I saw a big man in a gray suit stop to stand directly behind me. When a voice boomed behind me asking if I was, indeed, 'one of those rough, tough mercenary fellows', I knew there would be a problem. The guy was fairly huge and by the way he was dressed in only a suit instead of a tuxedo I knew he wasn't one of the guests. More likely he was someone's driver or personal flunky. I looked at him in the mirror impassively. He said, "I hear you're a Sergeant. Now why would a Major be out with a Sergeant if there wasn't something wrong with her? Or are you a good little soldier who follows orders well?" People were watching and waiting. He wasn't going to swing at me until I turned around because it wouldn't look good either there in the bathroom or on paper later. I fixed my tie and collar and said, "Not that it's any business of yours, right? You sound a bit jealous to me." He wasn't good at making small talk. "Just you turn around and face me like a man." I stepped right one pace quickly before turning around to face him, which threw off his dim plan to a degree. He had an arm raised for a sucker punch, but now he just looked a bit silly. Someone else in the bathroom chuckled at him. He glared at the chuckler, then aimed the glare at me and stepped forward to close the gap between us. When his left leg was extended in the step, I kicked it. My foot snapped his knee hard against the tiled wall near the sink and he grunted as the stunning shock ran up his leg. His knee wasn't working right and he had to grab the sink to stay upright. I snapped a heel into his other knee and faked a punch at the same time. He tried to duck as his legs gave way and landed on his damaged knees in front of me. "The rough, tough guys couldn't get time off tonight, shithead. Just me. Lucky you." He tried to grab at me as I stepped around him, but he missed. I didn't. One more kick slammed his head against the wall by the sink. He growled something at me and reached for me again, so I kicked him again. One of the tiles fell off and landed by his left knee. He picked it up and made to throw it at me, so I kicked him one more time, this time for the gold. I put a lot into it. His head slammed against the wall and sink and he fell face forward on the floor. As the room cleared a bit, I expected someone would be along to say or do something about the incident, so I took a leak and waited a few minutes to see if anyone would show up. When nobody authoritative appeared to take charge of matters, I took a last look to see if the guy in the gray suit was still breathing and then headed for the door. I looked toward my table as I left the bathroom. Carla saw me and the

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embassy pogue who was sitting so close to her that he was practically sitting in her lap saw her notice me, so he looked my way. The surprise on his face said he hadn't expected to see me come out of the bathroom under my own power, so I knew who'd sent the big guy to the bathroom to keep me there or worse. I smiled a big smile as I approached the table. "You're in my chair," I said without greeting or preamble. He just sat there with a sullen glare. "I didn't see your name on it," he said. "And at the moment I'm talking to this lady." I kept smiling at him and clapped him on the back. "Your big friend is sleeping in the bathroom, asshole, and I'm still a little pissed off about things. If you don't get lost and leave my Major alone, I'm going to hurt you. Right here and right now, in public." My hand moved up to rest on his shoulder in an apparently friendly gesture and my thumb dug hard into the side of his throat below his jacket collar, pinning him against the back of the chair. "You do believe me about that, don't you? Your rowdy friend is probably still on the bathroom floor. You can be on this floor, if you like, and we'll all pretend to be concerned about your mysterious condition until they haul your sorry ass out of here on a stretcher." The guy wasn't convinced, I guess. He gritted his teeth against the pain and hissed, "You don't have the slightest idea who I am, do you, you ignorant sod? If you had, you wouldn't dare put a hand on me." He turned his face to Carla and said, "Explain to him who I am, my dear." I didn't take my eyes off him to look at Carla and I didn't relax my grip on him. Carla sipped her drink and said nothing. After a moment, he hissed at her, "Tell him who I am, Major...!" Carla still said nothing. I glanced at her and saw complete impassivity in her face. I grinned down at the asshole in the chair. He glared into Carla's impassive gaze and said, "I'll have the whole goddamned lot of you fired , Major. That's a promise !" Carla looked at me and calmly said, "Oh, well, I guess that's it, then, isn't it? We're going to be fired. You may now hospitalize this arrogant, mannerless bastard, Sergeant." "With pleasure, ma'am," I said. When my other hand began to move, the pogue screeched softly and scrambled out of the chair backwards, falling on his ass with an audible thud at the edge of the dance floor. The chair fell with a clatter that made heads turn around the room. I made as if to help him up and he frantically skittered himself backward and away from me across the corner of the dance floor. I looked around the nearby faces and shrugged in apparent confused innocence, then turned to attend to picking up the chair. There were chuckles and giggles from some of the other people as I sat down. Asshole had skittered himself backward without looking and his head had rammed into some woman's butt at another table. She reached down with a soupspoon and rapped him firmly on the head with it, which elicited another round of chuckles and giggles as he yelped and recoiled away from her, again without looking. This time he bumped up against some man's legs. When he looked up, the man leaned over and whispered something that seemed to help the asshole get himself organized. He got to his feet and followed the man off the dance floor, looking neither right nor left. The man in the lead waved slightly at the bandleader and the music resumed. I sat down and looked at Carla. She looked back at me, at first with the same impassive gaze as before, then with slightly trembling lips as she tried to hold back a case of the giggles and failed in the attempt. The giggles turned into soft laughter and she said, "We may be fired."

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"Yeah, maybe. You don't seem too upset about it, though." "I'm not. Do you know what that bastard wanted?" I laughed. "Hell yes. I'm looking at her right now. What did he do? Threaten not to renew the Solutions contract if you didn't cooperate a bit more?" "That he did. You mentioned someone in the bathroom?" "Yup. A big guy in a gray suit who seemed to want to see who was tougher." "I'll assume you were, since you're here. How is he?" "Dented, but probably not broken. He'll survive. Tell me, Major, ma'am, do you still think that individuals are expendable for the good of the company? I'm prepared to argue the point with you since you refused to go along with his renewal requirement." Carla sipped the last of her drink and said nothing. I waved slightly to the waiters standing by the bar. One of them came promptly over to ask what we were drinking with a big grin, then made a special trip for our drinks. "Thanks," I said, as he set the drinks down. "Oh, no, sir. Thank you," he said. "That was most entertaining." He then left quickly. "He's probably worried about his own job for talking to us," said Carla. "Do you get the feeling that Mr. Hendrikks isn't well liked by many people?" "I think you could probably count his real friends on one finger or less." Carla put her drink down firmly and stood up. "Let's dance before they throw us out." I stood and took her hand. "You beat me to it. I was about to ask you." As we stepped onto the dance floor and into the melody I said, "Tell me, ma'am, was I good company when I was here before? Nice to have around, and all that?" Carla smiled and leaned back to look at me. "All in all, I'd say so. Why do you ask?" "I just wanted a good reference to prepare you for later advances," I said. "I see. I may have to give that some thought." "Good. Give it lots of thought, ma'am. I'd be happy to help if you want." "I'll bet. And just how did you have in mind helping me think?" "Well," I said softly, "At the risk of appearing somewhat crude, I'd be happy to tell you a little about what I might be willing to do if you were willing to allow it." "Uh, huh." A few steps later, she asked in a whisper, "Would what you're willing to do involve using your tongue? I think I'd like that, if memory serves." I kissed her ear and whispered, "Your memory seems to be excellent, ma'am. Yes, it would definitely involve my tongue. Would you like me to go over a few of the details, just to be sure?" "Ummm. Yes, that's probably a very good idea. I'd hate to have forgotten anything." For the next two sets I softly regaled Carla with tasteful, yet graphic, descriptions of my intentions. On a couple of occasions I could see the goosebumps rise on the back of her neck and feel them on her arms. On one occasion I sneaked a lick on her shoulder that, under the public circumstances, caused a whole new range of goosebumps to appear. Carla hissed, "Stop that! Someone will see you!" and lightly slapped my arm. "I can't imagine them being anything but jealous." I sneaked another lick and kiss. A few steps later Carla whispered, "Let's not wait to be thrown out. Let's get out of here now as gracefully as possible."

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I whispered back, "A great idea. Say when." "When." Carla eased us apart as we neared our table and moved to her chair, which I held for her as she sat down. She sipped her drink and gazed at me thoughtfully. I observed, "We don't seem to be moving toward the door very quickly, do we?" Carla smiled slightly at me and said, "I'll be back in a bit. Try to stay out of trouble for a few minutes this time, okay?" I rose slightly with her as she picked up her purse and left in the direction of the bathroom. As I sat back down, I noticed an older man approaching the table. He stopped a few feet away and asked if he might join me for a few words. I gestured to the empty chair across the table and he sat down and folded his hands together on the table. "My name is Hendrikks. I'd like to know more about what happened this evening." "You have the same name and you look a little like him, too. If you don't mind, we'll wait until the Major returns, then you can ask her." "I'm asking you. I'm told you're the one who assaulted one of my men. Why?" "She's the reason it happened and she's my CO and she'll tell me whether to talk to you." Hendrikks was used to getting his way fairly instantly and he obviously didn't like being refused one damned bit. He was glaring at me, but he sat back to wait for Carla's return. He asked, "How does it feel to work for a woman in your line of employment?" "I'm surviving it pretty well." "I had my reservations about retaining Solutions when I heard a woman would be commanding the garrison." He made that statement to let me know he was a very VIP. I said, "But you hired us anyway. Got any complaints yet?" He smiled too warmly and asked, "If I had any, would you be the one to bring them to?" Yup, it was a deliberate verbal poke at my ego. I smiled back. "My earlier point exactly. See the Major, not me. If I were really willing to listen to complaints, I'd be an officer, too." He chuckled and asked, "I'm told you're a Sergeant. Don't you ever hear complaints?" "I get requests or directions for specific actions and I solve problems for people who've already complained to the right other people. I don't handle complaints. I handle solutions." He laughed and said, "Oh, that would make a great motto, wouldn't it? It even uses the company name. A good line, indeed. What's your name, Sergeant?" "Sergeant will do unless the Major thinks otherwise." His expression changed. "I was only trying to be friendly." "I'm not stopping you from being friendly, but I'm responding with caution. You're a VIP in the company that hired us and I seriously doubt you just dropped by to have a friendly chat with the Major's enlisted escort while the Major's away from the table, particularly since the other Hendrikks ordered one of your men to derail me in the bathroom earlier. I should be the one asking questions, but I don't have any at the moment that I can't answer on my own. I suspect you keep the other Hendrikks on the payroll either because he's a moneymaker or he's someone you can't get rid of for some reason. I also suspect you've come to this table to decide who to get rid of tonight if you haven't already decided." Hendrikks sat very still for a moment, then waved at the waiters for service. He seemed to ignore me completely as he scanned the crowd and watched the waiter bring his drink. It was another little show of status in that the waiter knew precisely what to bring him. He watched in solemn silence as the

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waiter set the drink on a napkin and departed. I decided to play, too. The waiter who'd served us earlier saw me nod and appeared a few moments later with fresh drinks for Carla and me. I thanked him before he left. Hendrikks had noticed the play. I smiled and said, "You get that service because you run the company. I get it because I say 'thank you' to waiters." He smiled back. "There are other benefits to being in charge of things." Carla was returning. I saw her step falter slightly and her eyes widen a bit when she saw who was sitting across from me. Hendrikks and I rose as she approached the table. She gave me a 'whatthehell is going on here ?' look. I held her chair for her and said, "This Mr. Hendrikks says he has some questions." Carla looked at him curiously. "Questions?" Hendrikks sat back down as I did and said, "Only a few. Maybe it would be best if the Sergeant, here, were to excuse himself for a time?" "The Sergeant may have some of your answers," said Carla. "I have a question, too, one that concerns whether or not we were actually fired this evening, as promised by your brother after his obnoxious little plot was foiled." Hendrikks said, "About his behavior, Major. I'd like your views of the matter." Carla outlined what had happened and said that I'd have to be the one to say what went on in the mens' bathroom. Hendrikks turned to me. I told him. "I see," said Hendrikks. "Can you point out for me any who may have been witnesses?" I indicated several men in the room who had been in the bathroom. "Thank you," said Hendrikks. "You were correct, Sergeant. An incontrovertible reason is required to remove my brother. Proven misuse of subordinate personnel qualifies." I said, "Misuse? The guy in the gray suit was all set to enjoy himself by pounding on me. He didn't look or act as if he was just following orders." "Robert was hired for his enthusiasm and abilities," said Hendrikks. "But he doesn't choose his targets. On the other hand, he didn't do a very good job with you, did he?" Turning to Carla, he said, "You and your company have nothing to be concerned about, Major. No one is firing you this evening." With that last comment, he said goodbye to both of us and walked away. Carla exhaled and said, "Now I'm ready to leave. I've only seen him once in three years until now, and that lasted less than ten minutes at a welcoming party. What did he say to you?" "Not much. After he introduced himself I told him we'd wait for you." Carla raised an eyebrow at me. "And how well did he handle that?" In a matter-of-fact tone I said, "He waited for you." She shook her head and said, "Let's circulate our way to the door." A few moments later we were waiting for the valet to bring the car around. As I handed her into the car, Carla said, "Move us over there," she pointed to a loading area a few yards away, "Out of everybody's way for a moment." I did so, then turned off the motor and looked across at her in the half-light of the shadowed area in which we were parked. She looked out the window for a moment, then turned to face me, saying, "I just wanted to tell you that you're off the hook. I ordered you to attend me here, but now that we're leaving, the job's finished." "The job won't be finished until you're back in the villa, Carla." Carla spoke again. "Also ... well ... I called in a reservation at the Hilton, just in case." I stopped reaching for the ignition key and turned to look at her. When

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she said nothing more as she gazed across at me, I said, "That was good thinking." Carla said softly, "After everything that ... I wasn't sure you'd accept the idea..." I sighed and said, "Oh, I accept, Carla. Hell, I was going to suggest the same thing." "What about ... the things that ... uhm ... put us apart before?" I took her hand in the darkness and said, "Why don't we just say nothing about them. I'm out of here in a week, so those things don't have to matter for a week, okay?" She smiled slightly and said, "Okay." After a moment, she added, "We have the entire weekend, by the way. There's not a thing scheduled until Monday." "Someone may notice we didn't make it back to the villa tonight, miLady." "I had a word with Barbara after you left the office. I had to make it a completely off-the-record talk between us to get anything out of her. She admitted that knowledge of our previous affair had been an open secret of sorts and that we were generally expected to take up with each other again. She also suggested that I simply tell her where we could be reached in an emergency and try to make a nice weekend of it." I grinned. "Well, since we're signed out anyway, and since it's rather expected of us..." Carla grinned back at me. "I think Barbara would even be somewhat disappointed with us if we returned to the villa tonight." "Well, we just can't have that," I said, starting the car. The weekend was one long plunge into the small universe that was Carla for me. The taste and smell of her seemed embedded in my brain by the time we left the Hilton Sunday night. At the villa I took a coffee to my room and sat back with a book, but had difficulty concentrating. I could still feel the touch of her skin if I thought about it in the least. I could see the beautiful lines of her and slightly-brandy-enhanced glitter in her eyes as she pounced on me like some giggling, gorgeous predator after our shower. And there was more. Much more. I even considered trying to figure out a way to remain at the villa, but the Angolan Communists conspired against my desires. Monday morning had also brought changes to plans due to a series of weekend skirmishes on the Sierra Leone side of their border with Angola. Infiltrators had been staging up supplies in Sierra Leone and transporting them by night into Angola for some time. Their goal was to disrupt or completely halt diamond mining activities less than fifty miles inside Angola. Local villagers had been kept quiet with gifts of money and goods, but one tribe had decided that the other tribe was getting more than was fair, so they raided the other tribe's hamlet and incidentally caused damage to a government-owned telegraph office. When the government investigated the damage a few days later it also discovered the reason for the raid. Troops arrived by train the following day to secure the area. If the troops had been told only to secure the Communists, they might have had less trouble and fewer casualties. Instead, it was decided that anyone who had accepted the bribes was to be arrested and punished. To discover whom these people were, it was necessary to search the huts and homes and interrogate people. All possessions of certain types of goods and quantities of money above a certain amount were considered questionable and to be confiscated as potential evidence. This unfortunately meant that someone's cattle-sale earnings could also qualify as questionable, since most business out that way was conducted on a handshake basis. The natives didn't truly understand paper receipts and didn't accept them. They only understood that men in uniform had taken their stuff and their

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money. As the troops and their prisoners stood waiting for the train, men from both villages attacked them with knives, spears, sticks and stones, and almost-antique firearms. Even some of the Communist prisoners were massacred along with the troops, then the villagers began fighting over their captured spoils. When it was over there were a hundred and eight bodies in and around the train station's burning platform. The train didn't stop there that day. It slowed, of course, but when the carnage became visible, the engineer wisely cranked it up and kept it moving, regardless of the dead and wounded still lying on the tracks, and survived to report the situation. The next day's train was a troop train. Except for having been picked clean of possessions and clothing, most of the bodies remained where they'd fallen to provide easy meals for some of the local wildlife and a number of loose dogs. The soldiers were ordered to clean the place up, bury the bodies in a mass grave, and get the hell out of there before the media showed up. The government of Sierra Leone called it a tribal dispute, mentioned nothing of the troops, the Communists, or the bodies, and tried to sweep the whole mess under the rug and keep it from international scrutiny, at which they were only partially successful. Instead of locking down the region, they opted to ignore the area entirely as long as nothing else happened there to draw attention to it. This didn't happen, of course. The Communists continued their supply operations. They also seemed to see our nearby aid station as a potential problem and elected to try to destroy it. Their first attempt involved a simple plan of arson by night, but they were discovered and driven away in a gun battle. The changed nature of matters around the aid station delayed my departure from the villa by almost another week as various supplies of our own were airlifted out there to coincide with the arrival of about forty extra men at the station. Carla and I took every opportunity to be together right up to the last fifteen minutes before my helicopter was about to leave that Thursday night. I got aboard the helicopter with the taste of Carla on my tongue and naked visions of her flashing through my mind. We were on the last three birds that would be dropping off supplies and troops and we were to arrive well after dark, as had many of the others. We came in with lights off, touching down on a pad illuminated only with a few flashlights, then unloaded in the dark so that the bad guys wouldn't know how many people or what kinds of stuff came off the birds. Officially we were just a medical facility at the edge of the country. Unofficially we were also an intelligence-gathering group and, if necessary, a formidable strike team that could handle most anything that could come up within a hundred miles or so. We had several well-armed rovers and could call for helicopter support as needed. As soon as everybody and everything had arrived, the CO, a Captain Ferris, tossed a quick briefing together to tell us what we'd be doing in support of the mine across the border. The Captain stood by the map wall as everybody filed into the room and found there were no chairs available. Four large coolers were brought in and the Captain pointed out four men in the first row of his standing audience. "You men will hand out the beer. Hop to it, please." Beer? That was a first. The Captain got involved, reaching into the coolers and tossing cans of beer to various raised hands in the audience. When everybody who wanted one had one, Ferris rapped his empty can on a cooler for attention. "Standing room only! That's just fine! I love a good audience. Now, people, I'm Captain Ferris and I'm your fearless leader and this is my way of saying hello, and anyone who doesn't like my way of saying hello can just fuck off , RIGHT ?"

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There were raised cans and a ragged chorus of agreement rose and fell. "All right, then. Is anyone here stupid enough to ask why there aren't any chairs? No? Very gooood! The following men will step up here when called." He rattled some names off a list in his hand. Mine was among them. He then said, "A lot of you have never worked together, so get to know these NCO's. Before you see me, you'll see them. All of them have combat experience and if you want to know more about them, ask them later. Right now we're going to discuss the purpose of our visit to this bit of purgatory. Who needs another beer already?" A few hands went up here and there. More beers were tossed. Ferris continued speaking. "Two is all you get until you've heard the sermon, and here it is: We will be using the five local goatpaths they call roads hereabouts to conduct a program of vaccinations and general health care for the natives in this vicinity. This is our official reason for being here, so do it right." He paused to open his own second beer and continued, "In the process of treating local ills, we will be trying to locate Communist supply dumps and personnel. Because of the potential political sensitivity of matters, you will be issued the enemy's captured weapons and ammunitions for your adventures in the surrounding woods. This is our unofficial and real reason. Your regular issue weaponry will remain in storage here for the duration of our activities unless needed for defense." He went on to outline procedures, signals, call signs, and a range of other details, then pulled down a map of the area and tapped the location of the diamond mine. "Solutions personnel are guarding this mine. We may be called upon as a ready reserve to help defend it. Should that happen, you'll be taking your regular-issue hardware, not the captured ones. A last word for now, gentlemen: Our sources say that the Communists are supplying advisors from Cuba and taking prisoners only for interrogation and this seems to be the truth of it. None of our missing personnel or those of the present regime have been recovered, dead or alive. They remain missing and are presumed dead because the Communists have no facilities for prisoners that we've been able to discover and no offers to exchange prisoners have been made by the Communists or answered by them." That sobering thought was allowed a moment to sink in before Ferris continued, "What I'm about to say is to be considered a personal opinion only, not an order of any sort. I repeat: this is strictly unofficial and off the record. Is that clear to all of you?" Another ragged chorus, although sounding muted and confused, rose and fell. Ferris passed out a packet of snapshots that circulated the room. They were pictures of Solutions' and local military personnel who had been found tied to trees. All had obviously been beaten at the very least and all were obviously dead. "Gentlemen, these men are obviously not among the missing personnel." He paused to sip his beer and let his words sink in. "I am not particularly enamored of the idea of taking Communist prisoners until they show us that they've been taking prisoners and treating them reasonably well. So far they admit to having no prisoners after almost five years of this conflict, so I regard this as rather unlikely. I cannot order you not to take prisoners. I cannot even suggest that you not take prisoners." He paused to sip his beer again. "Prisoners have to be guarded, however, so I can assure you that if you do take a prisoner, you will be handcuffed, unarmed, to your own personal prisoner for the duration of his stay with us. You will be his guard, water boy, feeder, and his sleeping companion until he is removed from our custody, which I guarantee will take no less than three days, so you'd best be goddamned sure he's worth the trouble to you. Is that absolutely clear to everyone?"

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Another rather motley chorus sounded in the room. Ferris then said, "That's it. There will be a quick recap of part one tomorrow before we go out for those on sentry duty tonight. If anyone has a problem with my concepts concerning guarding prisoners, now's the time to say so." Nobody spoke or raised a hand. Ferris waited a full minute for someone to object, then grabbed himself another beer and headed for the door while telling us to kill the rest of the beer and toddle off to bed. I finished my beer, grabbed another before they were gone, and stepped out to get some cool night air. This was Africa and this was a trouble zone. I pulled my .22 out of its holster and stepped from shadow to shadow as I looked over the sentries. Near each post and behind reasonable cover, I whispered a number. At each post someone replied with a number that, added to mine, totaled twenty-four. All seemed well until I heard something somewhat to my left from behind. I continued on course until I could step around the corner of the supply building and drop to one knee behind the steps, aiming back the way I'd come in preparation for someone's arrival. I heard no footsteps. Whoever was coming was as cautious as me. A voice I didn't recognize from just around the corner of the building whispered, "Eight." "Forget it," I said. "Just show yourself." "Hands showing first, okay?" His accent was somewhat Dutch, but that didn't mean much. The Dutch had colonized South Africa. Lots of native people had the accent. "Come ahead," I said. A pair of hands extended beyond the building, then the rest of the guy appeared. He was wearing the right uniform and was white, so I held my fire as he stepped into view. He appeared unarmed, but that was unlikely. The guy had stripes on his sleeve. "I'm Fisk," he said as he moved forward into the dim light. "Who'd you think I was here in the middle of a guarded compound?" "I'm Howdershelt," I said, letting my revolver drop to my side. "Okay. I saw you in the building, so I guess I probably shouldn't shoot you. Why are you following me?" He smiled. "For the same reason you were checking the sentries. Very few of us have worked together before. This unit was assembled from spare parts. I like to know how effective people around me may be, preferably before we go into the bush together." I nodded. "Same for me. You came in with Ferris, didn't you?" Fisk smiled again. "That I did. Well, what do you think of the troops?" "The sentries are wired. They responded almost instantly, except for number four." Fisk became almost jovial, his tone like that of a proud parent. "Number four is one of my people and he probably tried to spot you before answering. He's been with Solutions for seven years and he's still very much alive and whole. Does that tell you anything?" "Without knowing any more than that about him, it only tells me that he's having to pull sentry duty after seven years with the company." Fisk's smile wilted a bit but didn't completely fade. "I see. Your opinion is the only one that counts, then?" I sighed and holstered the .22. After sipping about half my beer, I handed the can to him. "Not altogether, Fisk. I don't know anyone here by their capabilities and only a few by name. I'll form my opinions after a few trips into the bush. Not before." Fisk sat down on the steps and regarded me for a moment. "That kind of thinking works both ways, you know. Some things you kind of take on faith." "Have faith in whatever you want, Fisk. I'm not particularly religious and I've seen too many occasions when faith got people killed."

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Fisk drank some beer and let the comment go by unanswered. After a moment he held up the beer can thoughtfully and asked, "So what do you think of the Captain?" "I don't know him, either." "Nice guy, though, for an officer, isn't he?" "Hard to say. He knows how to make a meeting run short and grease the enlisted men with beer. He also knows how to pose a question so that nobody dares answer any way he doesn't want it answered. That's show biz, and it works for some things." "But you don't think he's going to be worth much in the bush?" I didn't like the way Fisk was fishing the conversation. "Don't interpret my words, Fisk. When I need an interpreter I'll damned well requisition one. I don't need a Captain out in the bush, so I don't much give a damn how good he is at being a Captain there. Out there I need shooters and damned little else that won't fit into a pack. My idea of a really fine officer is one who says what needs done and then gets out of the way." Fisk stood up and said, "Well, nobody's going to accuse you of being overly charming any time soon, are they? Thanks for the beer. See you around, sport." I stepped backward into the shadows and watched him walk away. He glanced back once and seemed slightly surprised that I wasn't where he'd left me. He looked around for me and then, with what may have been either a shrug or a shudder, he resumed walking. A showboat Captain who commanded attention with beer. A Sergeant who seemed to be too interested in my opinions about the people around me. A guy who'd been seven years in the company standing guard the first night at a new posting. Things weren't adding up well, and I resolved to limit any association with the others to duty and necessity for the time being, saying as little as possible when around them. I'd seen some of their types before, but usually in some HQ office shuffling papers or -- in the case of sentry four -- picking up trash on a light punishment detail and wondering how to get a stripe back after losing it. I'd have preferred to have totally green troops surrounding me. After breakfast the next morning I headed over to see what needed done in the dispensary. Unpacking and storing stuff ate most of the morning. I was working on resupply schedules when Captain Ferris showed up around ten. By daylight he appeared to be in his mid-twenties. I greeted him by the book with a proper salute. "As you were," he said. He sat down behind the dispensary desk and leaned the chair back with his feet up on a box as I checked off a few more rapid-resupply items for the weekly runs and shoved a couple of boxes of non-medical stuff toward the door for pickup later. Ferris watched me work and glanced through the paperwork for a few moments, then said, "You're probably wondering why I dropped in." I looked at him and said, "Nope. I have two days of setup work to think about and you wouldn't have your feet up on that box if there was an emergency." He looked at his boot toes protruding above the desktop, then back at me, and said, "Very astute of you. Lisa said to say hello when I got here. So hello." I shoved the last non-med box to the doorway and asked, "Thanks. How is she?" "Oh, she's fine. She's got herself a field job at a mine north of here." "Good. She always preferred field work." Ferris was silent for a few moments as I stocked a shelf, then he said, "Aren't you curious about how I know her?" I didn't look at him as I answered. "How would knowing that be of benefit to me and why would you want me to know something like that? For that matter, would she want me to know?"

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Ferris laughed shortly and said, "Maybe she would. I'm Richard, her brother. Step-brother, actually. Same mother, different dads. She also said you might be difficult to get to know without an introduction of some sort. It seems she was right." I turned and walked to the chair by the desk for a closer look at him. He did resemble her. "What else did she tell you about me, Captain?" He took his boots off the box and put them on the floor under the desk, then leaned forward. "She said getting to know you could be worth the trouble, so I'm making the effort. Am I wasting my time? Was she wrong about that?" I sat down and said, "Wrong? I couldn't say. You aren't wasting your time unless you intend to try to discuss sports, politics, or religion with me, Captain. I'm just not much into socializing with other men and I don't try to make friends when acquaintances will do, so I really don't know what we'll have in common, off-duty, other than Lisa." Ferris sat looking at me for a time. I met his gaze and waited him out. "Why don't we start over, Sergeant?" He extended his hand. "I'm Richard Ferris when I'm not Captain Ferris. Richard or Dick to my friends or when no one else is around." I shook his hand and said, "Ed." The handshake ended and we sat looking at each other. I had nothing I wanted to say to him and I guess he had no idea where to take the conversation from there. After a moment he rose from the chair and said, "Well, I guess I'll be going, then. I just wanted to follow orders and deliver Lisa's message for her." I stood as well and said, "Richard. I'll remember that when no one's around. It's an awkward moment because you're not only my current Captain, you're Lisa's brother. Give it a few days." He gazed at me a moment and said, "She told me about you after I heard about you. The two of you, I mean. If that's what's bothering you..." "It was." "Forget it. It isn't a problem, Ed. Lisa's a big girl. She makes her own world." I laughed. "That she does. That's why she's running a merc field unit instead of an office. It would drive her nuts to push paper all day. But a lot of brothers would have trouble accepting that in a sister." "Not this one," said Ferris. "Lisa always followed her own path. So did I. In our family that was almost heresy, so we covered each other's butts when we could. She said you were good to her, and that's good enough for me. Okay?" "Okay. I think we may have found that starting point, Richard." "Fine," he said, "I'll get out of your way, then, and let you finish up here." He held out his hand again and we shook hands again, then he left. As I watched him walk out I was thinking that his comment about getting out of my way could have been a coincidence and that he might actually be a nice guy. I was also thinking that I could have done without knowing that he was Lisa's brother. Although she'd mentioned having a brother, she hadn't mentioned having one on Solutions' payroll. Something about him made me uncomfortable and I'd said that bit about maybe having found a starting point mainly to get him out of my office. I stalled around a bit so that I was late going to lunch. I didn't want to be invited to sit at the Captain's table, so to speak. I saw Fisk chatting with a few of the others at a table by themselves as I entered the mess hall. Fisk looked up at me as I entered, but said nothing and made no gesture of greeting before returning to whatever quiet conversation was underway at the table. Quiet group conversation in a mess hall? Unusual. It was rather early in this tour of duty to begin playing power games, but that's exactly what seemed to be happening. Ferris and Fisk had known each

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other elsewhere and someone of higher rank at that elsewhere had seen fit to toss them both into this makeshift unit on the border. That, to me, meant that they were either superfluous enough to spare for the occasion or simply unwanted at their previous postings. Fisk seemed already to be huddling with potential supporters. The Captain appeared to be trying to assemble his own team, myself included. I resolved to stay clear of the potential political games, even at the risk of offending Lisa's brother and perhaps, eventually, Lisa herself. I also resolved to keep an open line back to Carla in case this whole mess wasn't just my inherent new-environment paranoia manifesting itself as a premonition. -------*Chapter Thirty-four* Our first weeks in the zone were uneventful. Teams of two rovers with two or three men in each went to the villages to set up inoculation visits a day or two in advance and used the time in the field to set up impromptu observation stations here and there along the roads. Some of the stations were in trees and others were in holes with good cover surrounding them, but all had one thing in common as far as I was concerned ... They were a waste of time. To me, the whole mess looked and stunk like the Operation Phoenix program in Vietnam. The villagers were getting friendly medical visits from us while taking bribes of money and selling their cattle to the Communists at inflated prices. They smiled at us and pretended to know nothing about any night activities in their area, but we were seeing too few young men in certain villages and too many of the villagers' clothing was a little too new. Treating villagers had to continue as an official reason for us to be in the area, but it was accomplishing little more than the updating of our maps of the region. After all the villages had been visited a few times and our vehicles were a fairly common sight to everyone the second phase of our plan was initiated. We began dropping teams of two along the various routes to see what they could find in the way of 'game' trails. That's what most of the men had taken to calling those we were trying to intercept. They were referred to as 'the game' a few times by Ferris and Fisk and the nomenclature fell into general usage around the camp. I had no problem with the unit thinking of those who'd cheerfully kill us as 'game'. It was just a typical way that people tend to dehumanize others when they're hunting each other. I did have a problem with what I saw as a decline in peoples' general level of alertness. I felt that as a group that had yet to even find the enemy at all they were becoming somewhat careless and overconfident about themselves. When I voiced this opinion to Captain Ferris one evening over a couple of beers, he laughed and replied that "any overconfidence will take care of itself soon enough" and told me not to dampen anyone's enthusiasm. Uh, huh. 'Enthusiasm', he called it. When I was told to assemble my boonie team at the end of our first month, I looked for guys who wouldn't underestimate the enemy based on racial jokes or the fact that most lived in huts. Fisk and Ferris were grabbing what they considered 'the best and the brightest', a well-overused phrase that was apparently making the rounds. Their quickest choices seemed to be the guys who laughed at their 'game' jokes loudest, and as far as I could tell, the 'yes, sir !' types with the lightning-fast salutes. In one way or other, in one place or time or other, we'd all had the same general trainings, but many of the men in this cobbled-together unit hadn't had much real experience in the field. Fisk's radioman, for instance, had been in comm-based jobs for three years in Solutions, but hadn't seen field duty prior to this assignment. I vaguely wondered whom he'd pissed off

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in order to wind up at this border outpost. We weren't the only ones to fail in finding the Communist insurgents. Flyovers in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft had turned up nothing useable, even when using infrared equipment. To me and a number of others the whole affair was beginning to resemble a replay of the U.S. efforts to locate the enemy in Vietnam, and this made a number of us decidedly unhappy. It seemed to mean that the people running the operation were unable to study and learn from the mistakes of others and would have to make their own mistakes. I did what any reasonably paranoid team leader would do. I told my men to make damned sure that they took all their routine field orders through me, no matter what the source. I also told them that any man who acted on an order that hadn't at least been filtered through me would immediately be looking for another team and would be on point or drag, not subject to rotation among the others of the team, until he found another team willing to take him. That may not sound like much of a threat, but I was deliberately picking my team from among those unchosen initially by the other team leaders and I made no secret of this to any of them. They knew that I wasn't spit-shine and gung-ho. They also knew that I wouldn't risk them any quicker than I'd risk my own hide. That sort of thing means a helluva lot to men in the field. When I let all Captain Ferris and the six other NCO's know that they were to funnel all orders through me during one of our company briefings, Sergeant Fisk stood up and belligerently asked what the hell I thought I could do about it if one of them gave one of my people a lawful order. I told him that he could try it anytime. "If you manage to get one of my people to comply, he's yours from then on," I said. "He won't qualify for my team. You can make suggestions to be passed to me and I'll consider them. You can tell Captain Ferris and he can pass the order through me. That's why we have radios. Corporal Timbral is my second if I get hit. This isn't a negotiable issue, Fisk. Everybody stays the hell away from my team." Ferris said, "That isn't an acceptable arrangement, Ed." "Then ship me back to Major Mason. I'll wear a tux once or twice a week and think of you guys while I'm drinking good booze at embassy parties." Fisk said, "Speaking of the Major, and no offense meant to her, of course, I heard a few things. You were her pet for a while, weren't you?" I grinned at him. "Betcherass, Fisk. I qualified for that job when nobody else did." Someone snickered and someone else laughed. Fisk ignored them and said, "Oh, I'm ever so impressed. Do you suddenly think you're the only one qualified for this job, too, now, and that the rest of us don't know shit?" I held up three fingers. "Three, Fisk. I know which three of this group are qualified to lead in the bush and which others aren't because they think they're hunting rabbits instead of boars. It won't be long before everyone else knows, too. All they'll have to do is count the wounded." Ferris jumped in again. "This is getting us nowhere, people. Ed, you're out on a limb. If I give an order and it's ignored because you weren't there to pass it on, I'm not going to be happy." I looked at him and weighed my next words against his rank. "Captain, if you give an order while we're out there and I'm not there, it will be because I'm dead. Is that good enough for you? If it isn't, my answer is the same. Ship me back to Mason. In the field, my men take specific orders only from me." There were some further objections, but I noted that the two other NCO's with lengthy combat histories were noticeably not among the objectors. They seemed to be silently waiting to see how this discussion turned out. After some picking of nits and clarifications concerning what passed for a specific order, Ferris said he saw no immediate reason to refuse my claim to exclusivity but told me to remain for further discussion when the

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meeting ended. Ferris waited until Fisk and the others had left and quietly asked, "You people are all under my command. Are you trying to tell me that I can't issue orders directly to my own troops, just because they're working with you?" "Yes, you can do that, Captain, because you're the Captain. But you have very little prior combat experience, so if you decide to issue field orders directly to my team, you may as well fill out the papers for my transfer beforehand, and that will leave you only two NCO's with prior combat experience under similar circumstances. If you don't think that's worth enough to go along with me on this, you may fill out the transfer papers tonight." Ferris stood up and came over to stand before me. "I don't know if it's worth all this or not, but I know I don't like it. Give me excellent reasons or forget it, Sergeant." Any pretense of attempted friendship had been forgotten. I told him about Vung Tau in 1968. "Two hundred men in several units were ordered to secure the area. Same situation. We couldn't find them, but they seemed to know where we were at all times and kept hitting us hard. Things were going to hell and casualties were over fifty percent before noon of the second day. Communications were confused as hell and everydamnedbody wearing a bar on his collar or a stripe on his sleeve seemed to think he was in charge because he inherited his position from someone who'd been hit. The NVA had experienced leaders. We had green officers trying to be John Wayne and countermanding each other without realizing it. We'd lost twenty-eight of our forty men by the time our last officer was killed. I'd had enough. I told my people we wouldn't be accepting any more officers that day, to take orders only from me or our own NCO's, to stay off the radio unless calling a strike, and to ignore all commands from anyone else, officer or not, unless that command was to say 'fuck it' and go back to base." Captain Ferris's expression showed his distaste for my last words. "We circled the base of the hill to flank our own units, just as the NVA were doing, and we started catching the NVA from behind in most cases, often close enough to use grenades and avoid crossfires. We lost only one more man during the rest of that day. That night we lost another when we happened across a good-sized cluster of VC and NVA, but we left a wide trail of enemy dead for the next three days of the operation and we only had two more men slightly wounded. All I'm telling you, Captain, is that sometimes the best thing to do is to simply say what you need done and then watch it get done. Don't try to call every shot." Ferris stood looking at me for some time before he spoke. "You have your wish, Sergeant, but you'll have to earn it to keep it. I'm turning you and your team loose in the morning. Find them and you're in clover. Don't find them and you're fired." "Good enough." Some things are best done the old fashioned way. I had a helicopter put my ten-man team down about a mile from where a consensus of thought expected to find the beginnings of a trail. There wasn't one, of course, because the consensus of thought was based on faulty info from the locals, who really weren't unhappy with the status quo of being bribed by both sides. We called in the negative trail results and huddled around a map of our own. I took a hit of coffee from my canteen and asked, "What do we need, guys?" Timbral replied first. "How about some kind of sign the brass ain't crazy and we ain't out here all by our owndamned little selves, boss?" A round of chuckles later he added, "And some showgirls. And some good booze." After everybody'd voiced a similar opinion and worn the theme too thin to continue, some serious suggestions were made as to where to look and why. When four of their suggestions matched my own thoughts, I folded the map, gave

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the second radio to Timbral, and split the group with him. We would circle around the most probable central site and see if anyone found anything that could indicate people were passing this way. Two hours later Timbral double-clicked his radio twice, then did it again a moment later. That meant he couldn't say anything, which meant someone was close enough to hear him if he spoke. It also meant he had a classic case of 'good news, bad news' to deal with if he and his four men couldn't conveniently handle whatever they'd found. Time and distance figures put his group almost due West of us about an hour away, so we headed that way. Maybe forty-five minutes passed before we heard voices ahead of us, and they weren't whispers. Someone felt secure enough to hold a conversation with someone else in normal tones. I suddenly realized I was hearing Spanish, but it wasn't the Mexican Spanish that I'd learned in self-defense back in Texas. The speaker ahead was spouting Communist keyword-laden rhetoric in the manner of a true proselyte, which meant he was Cuban. We crept up on the voice until we could see more than a dozen black men sitting on the ground in a semicircle in front of the brown speaker. They were eating as they ignored him. He was talking into a portable radio. Whatever answer he received didn't please him and he let loose another spate of rhetoric-laced Spanish that essentially translated to, "They weren't where they were supposed to be or we'd have found them by now, and we've been looking for them all morning. Yes, we're at the correct place." After a pause, he tensely said, "Yes-I'm-sure-sir." There was no sign of Timbral's group. I deployed my group in a well-concealed firing line and waited until the guy signed off to say in my Texican Spanish, "Hands up. Tell them not to move." The guy who'd been speaking didn't follow instructions well. He froze, then turned to look for us. The other guys must have thought I was like him because I was speaking Spanish. They glanced in my direction, but they didn't bother to get up or even stop eating at first. After a moment or two, they noticed that the Spanish-speaker wasn't moving and that he -- probably rather atypically -- also wasn't speaking and that I still hadn't made an appearance in the small clearing. One of them reached for his rifle, and that's when things erupted. Two rounds fired from the other side of the clearing knocked the guy face-forward into the remains of his lunch and the others began grabbing wildly for their weapons. More firing ensued and rounds from both sides of the clearing hit the sitting men. The only man in the clearing who didn't have a few holes in him when the firing stopped was the Spanish-speaker, still standing, who looked around himself at the bodies of his men and then looked back toward me. "Who are you?" he asked, lowering the radio but not letting it go. I stepped out of concealment and approached him, telling him to drop the radio. Timbral stepped into the clearing from the other side and moved to cover him without placing me in the line of fire. I repeated my order to drop the radio, but he pretended he didn't understand. "Who are you?" he asked again as I reached for the radio. That's when I saw him slowly releasing the 'send' bar on the side of it and realized that it was very likely that someone had heard the entire event from just after the moment I'd said, "Hands up." I yanked the radio from his hand. He was smiling at me in a way that said, "Gotcha ." "Timbral! Chances are real good that somebody heard the whole damn thing and we're gonna have company real soon." I told him to take his people and haul ass to the pickup point. Timbral nodded, then indicated our prisoner and asked, "Want us to take him?" I shook my head. "No. He just made himself my personal responsibility with the radio trick. You'll get there first. Set up a zone if you can and call in for a ride when you get a free minute."

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He nodded again, waved at the trees behind him and said, "You heard him. Let's go." I knew the guys were there and watching us, but not one of them was visible from the clearing. I moved my own guys out with the Cuban prisoner and started double-clicking the captured radio every few seconds. A few minutes later someone out there noticed and it barked in Spanish. I signaled everybody to be quiet and stuck the muzzle of my rifle in the prisoner's mouth to help him comply as I answered the radio callback. "Stop yelling!" I whispered. "They're all around me. There must be twenty of them." The reply was so quiet it was almost a whisper, too. "What's your situation? Are you hurt?" "Two dead. Two wounded. My leg ... I can't stop the bleeding..." "Be brave, comrade," the vengeful voice said. "We're coming. You're a peoples' hero." "I ... I..." I clicked off the radio to end the drama. To the others, I said, "Shit, guys. They're coming and they think they can take on twenty men, so we can expect a whole bunch of company." I took the rifle barrel out of the prisoner's mouth and watched his eyes as I asked him, "How many guests may we expect?" "Far too many," he laughed. "You have no chance unless you surrender to me now." Somebody behind me laughed. I said to the prisoner, "Give me a number, compadre." His tight-lipped glare was his only response. I raised my rifle and placed the muzzle on his chest. He still said nothing. Either he didn't think I'd shoot him or he wanted to be a martyr. "Last chance," I said. "Talk to me or die, 'peoples' hero'. We have to run now." The guy stood very straight and spit at me. "I am an officer," he said. "My men will have your heads on poles around their fire tonight if you harm me. You can't escape." "Then neither will you," I said, pulling the trigger of the AK twice. He was slammed back against a tree and we were moving again before the guy fell to the ground. Taking him with us would have been too dangerous. He'd have tried to do something to get us caught or killed. A quarter of a mile or so later the point man signaled 'contact ahead' as he dropped to the ground and rolled under some cover. The rest of us did the same, and just in time. Two men, then two more, came into view. Within seconds more men appeared. There were too many combing the area. We'd be spotted sooner or later whether we moved or stayed still. Signal from the left: four there. Signal from the right: three. Forward: three. I prepped a grenade and the others did the same, then we rose up only enough to throw them before we dropped to cover again. Someone out there got off a few rounds before the grenades went off, but the firing stopped abruptly. We stayed very low as we moved onward, but apparently we couldn't get quite low enough. A round from somewhere to the left tapped one guy on the shoulders as it passed over him and another round dug up dirt in front of my face. One of my team was already tossing a grenade back at the shooter. We scurried forward as quickly as possible as soon as he'd thrown it. The spoon flying off a grenade warns people to duck, so we figured we had approximately eight seconds of time in which it wasn't likely that anyone would expose himself enough to shoot. Not impossible. Just unlikely. We were up and running for six of those seconds, then we dropped to avoid shrapnel and the grenade went off. We could hear a couple of wounded nearby, but no more shots were fired at us, so we cautiously got underway again. Within a few yards we were up and actually running. Toward the end of what might have been two city blocks of

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distance, more rounds were fired at us from ahead. We had to get low again, but this time we kept moving until a volley of rounds ripped through the scenery just over the head of the guy in front of me. We all dropped flat again and watched for targets, but none appeared. We couldn't see them, they couldn't see us, and neither side was about to move and provide someone an opportunity to shoot. This stalemate continued for some moments before the thump of a grenade rattled the foliage and someone ahead of us screamed once. Another voice yelled something and there was more rifle fire, but it didn't seem directed our way. We began moving forward again. Three men suddenly became vaguely visible as they moved from tree to tree in an attempt to remain hidden from someone further behind them. One grenade from the guy behind me got them all. There were a few more sporadic bursts of fire, then quiet. We started moving yet again and nobody shot at us, so we began making better speed until we heard more shooting ahead and to the left. The shooting wasn't in our direction, so it seemed likely that Timbral's group had engaged the enemy just as we had. We now moved forward doubly careful. We didn't want to draw enemy fire and we didn't want accidental fire from Timbral's people as we approached the area. The Commies never noticed us. The six shooters who had Timbral's group pinned weren't aware of their dilemma until we opened up on them from behind, and by then it was too late. Timbral's voice came over our radio. "Got 'em all, looks like." "Just returning the favor. How's everybody over there?" "One hit, walking wounded. You?" "No hits that count. Did you call for a ride?" "No, sorry," said Timbral. "Been a little too busy and didn't want them to waste a trip." Somebody laughed and somebody else swore, saying, "Get us a fucking ride, Timbral!" "I'll do it on the way," I said. "Let's just go ahead and get there." "Roger that," said Timbral. "See ya." I switched frequencies and called in. Captain Ferris answered the call and said a bird would be there for us shortly. There was a pause, then he said, "Congratulations. You found them." "Sure did, Captain. Lots of them. Enough for everybody who wants one, I'd say." "Very good. You'll all be issued extra cookies tonight." "Oh, lordy, I done died and gone to heaven. Are they macaroons?" He clicked off as the helicopter pilot clicked on. "No smoke. Repeat; no smoke. It just draws fire. Just let me know when I'm in your neighborhood. You'll have about ten seconds to get your asses on board." "No smoke, copy that. We'll use a mirror while you have a look around first." The pilot must have spent some time at the job somewhere in the world. He brought a tiny gunship with him that orbited the area in rapid, tight circles as the big bird descended to pick us up. I barely had the headset on before we were lifting into the air. On our way up the gunship reported movement, but nothing within a few hundred yards. Hearing that report was just fine. Living by it was another thing entirely. Two rounds slapped the hull like ball-peen hammers and made holes a split-second and a few feet apart. "Shit !" yelled our pilot. "Where is he, Rover Two?" "Can't see a damned thing down there, Rover One. You might want to move your ass." "Those rounds came from a quarter-mile or more East," I said. "They punched through us almost level from side to side. Some Chuckie got lucky, but I'll agree with Rover Two." "Thanks for the info," said the sardonic pilot. "I feel lots better

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already." "Anytime, Rover One." The gunship pilot came back on. "Chuckie got lucky ? Where have I heard that before? You sound American, too. Want to have a beer later and talk old times?" "I'm enlisted. You'll have to buy the beer at the club, Rover Two." "No sweat. I'm a Captain. We'll steal it from a General's hooch." I said, "I'll bring a couple of waitresses. How's that?" "As long as I get the pretty one." "If they aren't both pretty we'll extend your tour of duty till they get that way, Cap." "Well, then, they're gorgeous already. Meet me on the ground." "Cool, but it'll have to wait a bit. I'm head medic and we have some wounded. I'll find you after I see them prepped to fly to the hospital." "Rover One , here. Can I have my radio back now?" "That depends, driver. Are you coming with us for beer later?" "Yeah, I could do that." My 'second' at the dispensary was Barrett. I watched him as he worked with me in a competent manner to prep the woundeds for medevac, then told him to yell if he ran into anything that called for help and went to find the gunship pilot. Both pilots had been looking over Rover One for other damage. The two hits were apparently all there were. The gunship pilot greeted me with, "Grant. First Cav Airmobile. By the way, make it coffee for me. I'm driving, you know." As we shook hands, I said, "Howdershelt. I worked with your outfits a few times. Worked with damned near everybody else in Eye-corps, too, I think. What are you doing here?" He grinned wryly and said, "Got RIF'd, short for Reduction in Force. There were too many Captains hanging around in our 'New, Modern, All-Volunteer Army' and the chickenshit was getting deep, so I took the out-bonus and left. I tried commercial flying and didn't like it." "I just got out when they wouldn't extend me again," I said. "They had me slated to go stand guard at Arlington if I re-upped. Taps on boots, dress uniforms, all that every day. No way." The other pilot, also a Captain, had been watching and listening. He coughed and said, "I've been stuck here since flight school and don't have a real war record to brag about. On the other hand, I definitely think four ugly holes in my baby, here, are worth a free coffee." He stuck out his hand and said, "I'm Lewis." The three of us headed to the mess hall. Someone stepped out of the main building and told me the Captain wanted to see me, so I suggested we all go see if he wanted to tag along. I introduced Ferris to the others and told him what we had in mind and he simply closed the folder on his desk and grabbed his hat. Fisk was coming in as we were going out, so he joined the group as well. By the time we got to the mess hall two more NCO's had joined us. We commandeered a table (not too difficult to do in an empty mess hall) and set about getting to know each other a bit, but before too long Grant and I were relating tales of Vietnam and the kinds of action we'd seen there and the others were just listening. Grant was telling about a flight over a supposed 'sanitized' area. "Yeah! Sanitized, my ass! We took forty hits in about ten seconds and they never hit one damned thing important." Ferris whistled softly. "Damn. Forty hits?" Grant said, "Helicopters are mostly empty space, y'know. Only time I ever lost one was by the river when somebody got real lucky and hit the tail rotor during a pickup. We just about corkscrewed into the ground that time. Picture eight guys throwing up at the same time in a spinning helicopter. There was puke all over the inside of that bird."

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I said, "The river was our bad spot, too. We had a B-40 rocket hit us in the tail, but it didn't explode, so one of us tried to get back there to shove it back out. Couldn't get to it, so it stayed there until we landed, buzzing against the cables the whole time. We were walking away from the bird when the damned thing just fell out by itself and blew everything up." Grant laughed and said, "Ha! Tell ya what; let something like that land right in your lap. We were on the ground when somebody fired a blooper at us that busted through the windshield and hit my copilot in the gut. He looked down and saw it in his lap and shit himself. I told him to hang onto it until we were a hundred feet up and then toss it out. He did, but the damned thing never did go off." One of the French NCO's wanted to know what a blooper was. Grant said, "An M-79 grenade launcher. They're supposed to arm about five feet from the barrel. That one didn't." I said, "Okay, I've got one for you. Flying along over the Mekong River and it's like we hit a wall. The whole front end of the bird is blasted when we run into one of our own mortar rounds fired from below. Shit's flying all around. I jump out the side and land feet-first in the water and wind up sunk to my knees in mud at the bottom of that sewer. Can't get loose at all. Next thing I know some guy from the next bird back is on a rope, swimming around looking for me down there. He ties the rope around me and they yank me out, then drops me on shore 'cause they've been taking fire the whole time and need to back off so a loach can get a lineup for a shot. I've got no boots or pants and two VC pop out of the trees at a run, shooting at the chopper. They never even saw me, I guess. I got the rope around one's neck and used the guy's rifle to nail the other one. By then everybody had moved on up the river and I had to walk three hours back along the river toward base until -- no shit -- a riverine boat towing two nurses on water skis pulls over and picks me up." Fisk was flatly incredulous. "Nurses on water skis?" Grant said, "Yeah. Supply could get stuff. We didn't all sit around getting stoned." I said, "The Viets used to make them for five bucks green. Surfboards, too. They were about fifteen bucks, made of solid wood and heavily painted. Anyway, I found out they weren't going to pick me up at first because they were all AWOL from Da Nang Hospital. One of the ladies told me she'd been there over seven months and had only had two days off." Ferris asked, "AWOL? Then why in hell did they stop for you?" "I was a tall white guy walking along in my underwear, barefoot and alone with an AK-47. Something they didn't see everyday, I guess. They took me with them. I was listed as MIA for a week while we partied on the boat with stolen booze and C-rations. I figured the war could manage without me that long." "What about the nurses? Who was driving the boat?" "Well, Becky wasn't giving a rat's ass about anything but getting out of Nam and out of the Army. Louise didn't say much. She spent most of her time drinking and sunning on the bow. The guy who ripped off the boat and talked the ladies into coming along was named Wilson. We lucked out one evening. There was a shootout a little above our anchorage and he ran the boat onshore there toward the end of it. Drove it right over a couple of NVA in a hole with a machine gun. I got off the boat and into the jungle fast and wandered out again later in the day with a couple of NVA belt buckles and an AK, saying I'd been kind of lost in the woods." Grant mumbled, "Jesus H. If that was in June of 68 you have to be the guy they were talking about at the club. I remember the boat deal. Two Hueys tied ropes to it and hauled it back into the water. They had two nurses and a Spec-four in custody at Long Binh jail and they said some guy just wandered into the middle of things who was supposed to be dead." I said, "Yup. June of 68. My birthday's the eleventh of June, two days after my chopper was hit. That week on the river was my birthday present to me."

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Fisk asked what happened to the nurses and Wilson. I said, "No idea. I got sent back to my unit and I never saw any of them again." Grant said, "Yeah. It was like that over there. I don't know, either, but we can guess. The Army probably sent the nurses home as quietly as possible and sent Wilson back to his unit to sweat about whether he was going to get jail or a medal. He probably didn't get either one." We spent the rest of the afternoon rehashing things and drawing comparisons to the situation we'd encountered that morning. The bull session turned into a strategy session laced with reminiscences that was still underway when the evening meal was being served. By the time Grant and Lewis left us to fly out, we'd figured out solutions for most of the world's biggest problems and even a few of our own. Captain Ferris and the NCO's remained at the table. Ferris wanted a complete report of how we'd managed to locate the 'game'. After a general description of our movements, I told him to expect the same kind of tunnel network they'd used in Vietnam, just a bit more localized. Africa's a big place. A little napalm here and there away from the major cities was likely to go completely unnoticed. Once the government-of-the-moment knew generally where to look for the insurgents, it began conducting "night readiness training" exercises that included the use of both bombs and napalm. In most cases the ground sensors in the affected region detected suspicious motions and sounds, and we'd call localized strikes, but some nights the sky lit up for no apparent reason. Then we'd hear the jets and go sit on sandbags to watch the show with cold beers. Repeated forays into the areas turned up nothing, not even tunnel entrances, after the area had been pounded and burned a few times. Our cover role as medics in the region pretty much became our actual role after a while. Two young men and a young woman from the nearby village started visiting the dispensary once their chances of being caught on the road and shanghaied into Communist service had been reduced drastically. One of the boys was obviously just tagging along to avoid other work, but the other boy and girl -- brother and sister, they said -- were very serious about learning white medicine. The girl had a nearly useable understanding of English and French from early missionary schooling, so I spent some time teaching them how to clean and use some of the equipment in the dispensary. The concept of germs seemed unusually difficult for the boys to grasp, so the girl and I came up with calling them 'tiny demons' and I showed them pictures of staph, strep, cholera, and typhus germs and described how they multiplied in the body. Once they were 'demons' instead of just 'germs', we made a lot of progress. The girl became adept with vaccinations and treating small injuries rather quickly and her brother seemed more able to learn from her than me most of the time. The other boy did a lot of watching, but seemed disinclined to get too involved in what they were learning and doing. One morning they showed up without him, and when I asked why, I was told he was gone. I wisecracked, "What did he do, find a better way to avoid work around the village?" The two of them looked rather solemnly at me and the girl said, "He was sold." I don't know why that startled me. Nothing should ever startle you in Africa. They told me that his uncle had sold him to a man in another village as a laborer. I muttered that someone had bought a lemon, then had to explain to them what the term meant in America. "Oh, no," said the girl. She said he'd work hard or be beaten or sold again, and that if he tried to escape he could be killed or have the tendons in his heels cut to prevent running. When I said that cutting tendons would also prevent walking, the girl

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told me in clinical detail how they tied a slave down and trimmed his tendons a bit without severing them completely. When I said that Sierra Leone was almost a real democracy of sorts and that slavery was illegal, she told me that the government and the people each had their own laws, that the government hadn't made an appearance in her village since before she was born, that the nearest government office was almost fifty miles away, and that it was for tax collection only. For several months the two made the trip to the dispensary almost every day, but one day she came running in alone and in tears. Armed men from another tribe had taken her brother. A few of us went out there with her to see what we could do and found him tied between two trees near a small, well-concealed hut. He'd been used as a target for both rifles and spears. The girl came apart at the seams and confessed that they hadn't really been brother and sister and that she was carrying his child. She said they had been trying to learn enough from us to someday find jobs in a city and that she'd be punished severely if she went home pregnant. We took her back to the aid station and let her move into and personalize an unused supply shack behind the mess hall. We adopted her as a sort of working mascot in the unit who accompanied our med teams to villages, both as an interpreter and as a medical worker until she was so pregnant that bouncing along in land rovers was no longer a good idea. I came back from a routine village run one afternoon to find that she'd given birth to a baby girl and that half the men in the unit were acting like proud parents, Captain Ferris and Sergeant Fisk included. When I hadn't gone back there to see the kid by the end of the next day, she brought the kid to see me, instead, joined along the way by Ferris. When she appeared in my dispensary with her child in her arms I stood with my hands firmly clasped behind my back and said, "Looks healthy. Should grow up strong." It was a lame sort of compliment for her great achievement of her life to that date, and I knew it as I said it, but I have an aversion to socializing with infants that runs absolutely core-deep within me. I get almost uncontrollably nauseous around infants. I just can't stand them for some undetermined reason and I've learned to say as little as possible, use cliches if I have to say anything at all, and to never allow anyone to hand me an infant. This well-meaning little mother thrust her child forward for my inspection. I glanced down at the kid and repeated myself through clenched teeth and a grimace that was supposed to be a smile. "Looks healthy. Should grow up strong." The baby chose that exact moment to burp and the stench of used milk hit me right in the face. I turned and ran to the bathroom rather than throw up on them or in front of them. By the time I got to the bathroom the urge to vomit was fading a bit, so I gathered myself and returned to the room, saying, "I'm not feeling well at all. Maybe it's best not to bring the baby too close to me for a while." Sudden concern filled her face. I tried to reassure her. "I'll take something for it. I think I should look at the baby some other time, though." She nodded and said, "Yes. Later. When you be better is okay-good." "And what about you?" I asked, "Shouldn't you take a couple of weeks off?" I had to explain what the phrase 'taking time off' meant. She looked uncertain. I told her not to worry about anything and just go get to know her new daughter for a couple of weeks. As Ferris and I watched her leave, he said, "I've seen you reach inside people with no particular reaction to the mess. What is it about babies?" "I said I wasn't feeling well. The kid burped in my face and I got a big whiff of it." "You were fine half an hour ago."

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"Well, I'm not fine now." "No shit. How do you manage to handle the children you vaccinate?" "Hell, I don't know. I guess that if they're standing up they aren't infants. If they can talk they aren't infants. I always have somebody else do the infants." Ferris laughed. "When you have kids of your own, what're you gonna do?" I looked at him and said, "Read my file. There are no kids in my future." Ferris was startled by both my tone and my words. "Were you hurt..?" I sighed and said, "No. I wasn't hurt. I got myself fixed." I made a snipping motion with my fingers. Ferris followed the motion with his eyes wide in startlement. Startlement became shock. "Are you serious?" "It's in my file, and don't give me that look. It's legal not to have kids, too, you know." "But..." he seemed at a loss for words. I grinned and said, "The fact that everybody else is doing something doesn't automatically make it something that I should do." Ferris didn't say anything for a moment, then he asked, "I don't suppose you have any idea why you react that way to infants?" "Nope. Don't really care, either." After a pause he shrugged and said, "It's your life, I guess." "That it is. How about calling the World Health Organization to see if they have a place for her? They use local talent when they can." "You want her gone? Just like that? Aren't you the one who pushed to let them stay?" I repeated, "How about calling WHO to see if they have a place for her?" Ferris gave me a mildly exasperated look and said, "Yeah. Right." He turned at the door and asked, "Are you sure?" "I'm sure I don't want that kid in here with her. Let them go where they're appreciated." A week later two people from WHO detoured to visit with us on Friday on their way to some villages to the south. After the interview a sort of apprenticeship position was offered and accepted. That evening's dinner was accompanied by Captain Ferris's toasting of mother and daughter and to their future success, and in the morning they left with the WHO people. -------*Chapter Thirty-five* Activities around the aid station slowed to a crawl for a couple of months. The only time we ever got away from the place was when we made the village vaccination runs or could finagle a dental appointment or something like that at either Nairobi or Johannesburg. The group as a whole received four letters from the girl I'd passed off to the WHO people, each a glowing report of achievements she'd never dreamed possible and an effusive thank-you to all of us who'd done so much for her and her baby. She was scheduled for some remedial education and a nursing school over the next two years or so and was employed at a rate of pay she still found unbelievable. Some of the guys took great delight in writing back to her while others contented themselves with simply adding their names to some of the outgoing letters. Then there was me. I congratulated her and said I hoped again to see her in a few years and left it at that. At the end of the second month of her absence, two tall young black men entered the dispensary one afternoon looking for me. That they'd made it to the dispensary in broad daylight meant that someone had checked them out and decided they weren't dangerous. One asked me if I was me, and I admitted this to be the case. He chatted with his friend for a moment and the other guy reached in his carry-all bag and pulled out a foot-long dagger. My hand fell to the butt of

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my revolver, but the other guy hastened to reassure me. "No, no! It is a gift , sir! Please forgive. He knows not English, like me." Fisk and Ferris were passing the window, probably to keep an eye on the visitors as a way of relieving boredom, and saw the guy holding the huge knife in front of me. They burst in, Fisk with his pistol drawn, and scared the living hell out of both of my visitors. I quickly assured them that the situation didn't appear dangerous and they stood by as my visitors recomposed themselves to begin again whatever they'd intended. The English speaker said, "The girl you took in and sent for school ... he is her brother. He wishes you to have this knife that he has made with his own hands as a gift. A thank-you." I accepted the knife and thanked him as I looked it over. I'd seen them before. It was a common file, hand-ground into a double-edged knife blade. The brass crossguard appeared to be a heavily-modified large faucet-handle, the pommel appeared to be a similarly-modified brass pipe-cap, and the handle of the knife was some kind of hard wood that had been stained black. I sniffed at it and smiled. Boot polish had been used. They noted my smile and smiled back at me, although they were doubtless wondering why I'd taken a sniff of the knife. I hefted the weapon a few times and pointed at the stack of cardboard boxes I'd unpacked the day before. The knife flipped smoothly and smacked into my hand as if it belonged there as I took a throwing grip and sent it flying at the boxes. It sank deeply into the center of the target box and I walked over to pull it back out, hefting it again and grinning so they'd know how well I liked it. Both men had been slightly startled when I'd thrown the knife at what was obviously a rubbish pile, but now they were grinning hard and chattering at each other. Fisk and Ferris were equally startled and were not chatting. "Goddamn," said Fisk. "That was a good throw. What is it? Thirty feet?" "Twenty or so," said Ferris. "The building isn't much wider than that." "It wouldn't matter," I said. "This may be hand made, but it's a great piece of work. I could do thirty feet with it easily." I handed it to Ferris when he put his hand out. He looked it over thoroughly and handed it to Fisk, who did the same. When it came back to me, I told the English speaker that I'd make an appropriate sheath for it. He asked what 'appropriate' and 'sheath' meant. "A proper covering," I said, covering the blade with both hands and then pretending to anchor the knife at my belt. "Oh, no, sir," he said, and chattered at his friend, who produced another item from his bag -- a handmade leather sheath. I wondered why it hadn't been presented with the knife, but said nothing. "This is also for you," he said. "For the knife." I went through another round of thank-you's with them and offered them coffee. They acted as if I'd offered them gold coins and were absolutely eager as I poured them two cups. I noticed one of them eyeballing Fisk's cigarettes as he lit one and remembered two open packs that were in the desk from various visits. Retrieving the cigarettes, I handed each of them one of the packs. Apparently cigarettes were a big deal, too. One guy looked as if he couldn't believe he was holding a whole pack of them at once. Ferris stepped over and asked the English-speaker to ask the other one how much he'd charge to make another knife like the one given to me. After some parley with his friend, the English-speaker almost embarrassedly quoted what he considered to be a vast sum that translated to about eight dollars. That would be if we supplied the file. Before anyone else could speak, I said, "Wow! That's almost a month's pay, isn't it?"

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"Regrettably so, sir, but much time and work is ... um ... needed?" "Required would work better in that sentence," I said. "Needed is like hunger. Required is like a thing that must be done. By the way, your English is very good." Fisk and Ferris had taken my hint. Don't belittle the gift by belittling the price because it's a lot of money to them, even if it isn't to us. I motioned to get their attention. "Well, is that too much to ask for a knife like this one?" Fisk surprised me by being the one to answer, "No, not at all. You have to expect such a price for such a lot of work. That knife wasn't made by a machine. It was made by hands ." He held his own hands in front of himself as he finished speaking. Ferris was staring at him in surprise. The English-speaker translated his words for his friend and added the gesture and both of them beamed like pleased school-children. I said, "A simple, machine-made knife would cost no less than ten dollars in our lands. I feel it only fair to be fair about this. Charge ten for your work." Fisk's eyes narrowed, but it was only two bucks. The two men discussed it and I was asked if I was sure. I nodded solemnly. They conferred another moment and then said that at ten they could find a way to supply the files for blades. Hands were shaken all around and orders for two more knives were placed. I took my knife to show some of the other guys and a few more orders were added. Ferris said he thought that there was probably a market for a hundred or so of the knives within Solutions, if only as souvenirs of African service. The two black men left at a trot, eager to get started. Ferris asked if I had any other commercial ventures planned for his command. "That depends on how this one works out. Free medicine is charity. Nobody likes charity, even when they need it, because it's embarrassing. And they never seem to stop needing it in places like this. They come to resent their need, themselves, and those who provide the charity." I hefted the knife and put it in its sheath, then laid it on the desk and pointed at it. "This is not charity. This is a business, and we know at least two people who can get behind that idea wholeheartedly, don't we? And if we happen to ask a question or two regarding local activities now and then, are we more likely to get useable answers? Hard to say, really, but in the meantime we get the knives and they get what is to them a lot of money and I think we'll get more actual cooperation from the locals than before." I grinned at Ferris and Fisk. "At the very least we may have begun an alternate economy of sorts here. We're sitting smack on the intersection of two main roads and our presence as protectors has opened the area to traffic again over these last few months. Let's offer to let them open a fruit and veggie stand on the other side of a street, too, and see where that takes things. All the Commies are offering the locals is more charity and dangerous times. Let's trump them with potential self-sufficiency." Ferris said he'd consider matters. He and Fisk left me to toss my new knife at the boxes. That afternoon I scribbled my thoughts on the matter in a note to Carla and gave it to the pilot on the supply bird to be delivered to her personally. The supply bird on Friday brought her reply. She felt the plan to commercialize the locals had some merit and had some news for me. I was about to be transferred again, this time back to the Nairobi villa. She didn't say why in her note but told me that the brass hats of several countries were apparently up to something and to expect short notice if I was called to go. When the brass hats are clucking and running around like panicked chickens, you have reason to think that something is going on. In late June of

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1976 something occurred that really stirred them up. On the 27th of June four terrorists hijacked an Air France flight and forced it to land in Uganda, which was right up the street, so to speak, and run by a nutcase dictator named Idi Amin, so we all had more than a passing interest in developments. The terrorists immediately released the French aircrew and all non-Jewish passengers while simultaneously demanding the release by Israel of 53 convicted terrorists. They said executions of the 105 Jewish hostages at the Entebbe airport would begin in 48 hours. Uganda was one of those pissant nations where one percent of the population had gold-plated toilets and a standing military of sorts and the other ninety-nine percent were lucky to have enough food. Amin was letting the terrorists use his turf and he even became involved in negotiations. Whether for religious, political, or monetary reasons, he was actively involved and would have to make some show of it if challenged. Africa's the kind of place where it seems that just about any little thing can spark a war. This was no little thing and our mid-Africa headquarters was in Kenya, which was Uganda's next-door neighbor. The villa was about a hundred miles from the border and would be considered a military target if Idi Amin decided to cross the line. I really didn't expect him to be so stupid as to take on Kenya, a well-connected nation, but as I said, Idi Amin was known to be more than moderately deranged and he'd already taken on Israel, which was also well-connected. In the early afternoon of the 29th of June, Fisk showed up at the dispensary. He knocked hard on the door, stuck his head in, said I had fifteen minutes to get my gear together and be at the runway, and was gone before I could ask why, but the answer was fairly obvious. The fifteen minutes turned into an hour, of course. Eight of us were sitting on our duffels in the shade of the hangar until the company jet touched down. Captain Ferris came out to give the pilot something and took a moment to address us. He said we were on our way to the Nairobi villa and that he didn't know much more than that, then he wished us good luck and shook our hands before we boarded the plane. To me, he said, "Lisa's going to expect to see you alive later, so don't fuck up." I said, "Well, when you put it that way..." and shook his hand again when he offered it. The villa was a beehive of inactivity when we arrived. I was truly, honestly surprised at the level of calm there. It was apparently just business as usual as we stashed our gear and received instructions to report to the mess hall for a briefing before dinner. Colonel Phillips led the briefing. "First of all, gentlemen, you are all here because you're good at what you do. Secondly, you're all Christian, Jewish, or known not to have a religious or political affiliation that might jeopardize matters if we are called upon to assist in freeing the hostages now held at the Entebbe airport. There are two immediate possibilities we're considering. One is that we may be asked to provide a diversion in the region prior to or during other peoples' attempts to rescue the hostages. The other possibility is that we may not be needed at all, which is our official and unofficial preference in this matter." He went on to say that if we became involved, it would have to be absolutely anonymously because we had people stationed in some of the countries suspected of supporting the terrorists. All diversionary or assistance missions would enter and leave Uganda from the west or south, not from Kenya, striking hard at Uganda's air forces and known missile positions. Helicopters could destroy most of what was on the hit list, but there were a number of places where anything in the air would be a sitting duck for missile fire. That's where we infantry types came into the picture. We were to take out whatever the helicopters couldn't. When he asked if anyone felt he could not participate, two hands went up. Those two were told that they would be incommunicado until returned to

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their units when the incident was over and were dismissed. Neither man was asked at the briefing why he couldn't participate. The next two days were almost back-to-back planning sessions. I saw many people I knew but had no opportunity to socialize. Planning for reprisals if our role in matters became known caused almost all of the female personnel to be taken to Nairobi to catch commercial or charter flights to Johannesburg rather than have anyone notice the company jet landing and taking off from a dirt strip near the villa. Four women, all of one armored personnel carrier crew, requested to remain at the villa and after some discussion both public and private, were allowed to do so. We nicknamed them "The Valkies" and they seemed to like it. That afternoon the nickname appeared in white letters on the sides of their APC. Their attitude was that they'd found a home in Solutions that they'd never had before and that they would by-god defend it. The vehicle commander was a British bull dyke named Erika. She looked like six feet and a hundred-sixty pounds of trouble most of the times I'd encountered her, but that may only have been because I was a man and I was within fifty feet of her. When I approached the vehicle she intercepted me and asked what I wanted. I introduced myself and held out my journal and asked her and the others to sign it. "Why?" "Because I may want to remember who was here someday." Erika didn't seem enthused, but one of the other women said, "Can I write something, too?" "Sure. If it gets wordy enough I'll just call it a chapter." She smiled at that and took the journal from me to look through it. Erika snapped her fingers to get my attention. "I asked why, Ed," she said. "It would be hard to say, Erika. Don't worry, I won't tell people you were my girlfriend or anything like that." Someone snickered. "You're doing something special, that's all." Erika said, "This is all most of us know how to do. We don't think it's all that special." "I do. Others do, too. The name on the side of that APC came from the rest of us." One of the other women quietly said, "I'll sign it, too. I want to be remembered by somebody if anything happens." She gently took the journal from the other woman and sat down with it. Her words seemed to have more impact on the other women than anything I'd said. Erika asked me if I could leave the journal with them for a while. I said I'd be back later for it. Two hours later Erika returned the book to me without comment as I was going downstairs. Three of the women had simply signed the page. One had added the words 'thank you '. On the night of July 2nd my team and the others were taken to the western and southern insertion points, each about two miles from the Ugandan border. All forms of identification had been removed from our Asian-made uniforms and web-gear, only previously captured Communist-made weapons were carried, and our plastic explosives had been manufactured in Czechoslovakia. We put up one big tent at each of the insertion points for use as a comm center and settled in to wait. Most of us took the opportunity to try to get some sleep inside the tents and out of reach of the clouds of mosquitoes. July 3rd was as hot as it always gets in equatorial Africa. Shade was plentiful with the tent flaps propped open, but there was not a stirring of breeze most of the day. We sweltered as we continued to wait for orders and speculation was the hobby of the moment for all of us. Someone pointed at the two helicopters and joked that if we received orders to go, we'd at least be sitting under a couple of big fans for a while on the way. Around three in the afternoon both pilots were told to start their aircraft. We didn't have to be told to get aboard. They were the coolest

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places to continue our waiting. An hour went by. We didn't mind, of course, but it was a little puzzling. Another hour went by. We were getting tired of the noise and tired of the waiting. People were getting cranky with each other. Around five the pilots turned off their engines and we topped up the fuel tanks. There was no order given to turn the engines back on, but we were told not to relax just yet. After half an hour of not having the breeze from the helicopter blades, the noise and boredom was forgotten and some serious bitching started. We dumped our gear in the helicopters so we wouldn't have to wear it or haul it around with us and went back to the shade of the tent. The evening dragged on without news and without orders to move. Most of the guys found a place to nap after chow. A couple of the guys had decks of cards with them, but we couldn't bet because the money we'd been issued was for contingencies such as unplanned emergency departures from Uganda on foot, so we used cigarettes as poker chips. I couldn't sleep. By a little before midnight I'd won and lost about equal numbers of cigarettes in the poker games and really hadn't had a decent hand of cards in a while, so I gave my seat to someone else and got up to walk and stretch. A guy named Mullins was in the tent doorway. "What do you think, Sarge?" he asked me. "I think I'm tired of this goddamned waiting." "Yeah. Roger that. But what I meant was, do you think we're gonna go or not?" "There's no point in wondering, Mullins. We thought we were going all day and didn't. If we start thinking we aren't going after all, we'll probably be told to saddle up an hour later." He grunted and lit up a cigarette. I left him there and went to put fresh coffee in my canteen, then drank some and talked to the radioman while watching the others play cards. Half an hour after midnight the order to saddle up finally came, but not the one we'd been expecting. The Captain who'd been pretty much welded to the radio all evening told us all missions were off. We were to return to the villa as soon as we broke camp. Some guys were obviously relieved. Others seemed angry. I was just glad to be going somewhere away from that damned campsite and the ride back was at an altitude that provided us the first really cool breeze we'd felt since leaving the villa. By the time we were back on the ground most of the world knew what had happened. The Israelis had conducted a super-secret long-distance raid on the Entebbe airport, killed the terrorists and freed the hostages, wiped out most of Amin's military aircraft there, and were on the way back to Israel. The strike group from the Israeli Defense Forces had apparently lost only one of their men in the operation, a fact that we found rather impressive. The Boeing 707 that had been the IDF's mobile hospital during the raid was known to have landed and waited for orders at the Nairobi airport. For this and other reasons Idi Amin was expected to be of the opinion that Kenya had cooperated with the Israelis, so while the primary incident seemed over and done, we didn't relax our guard at the villa. Idi Amin was known to be a nasty pig of a man with an ego the size of all outdoors and a temper to match. We half-expected him to mount some sort of retaliatory attack on Kenya, particularly on Nairobi and the airport for allowing the hospital plane to land, and that half-expectation was enough to keep us alert, since our villa was directly in his path of attack. We weren't returned immediately to our previous units. We turned in our non-standard weapons and other gear and were assigned quarters in the villa as a contingency force to "assist as necessary". That boiled down to mean that we were going to be waiting some more, but at least this time we weren't out feeding bugs in jungle heat. The villa was put on general alert. A base can be said to be "on alert". A unit in a hot zone can be said to be "on alert". At the villa, being "on alert" didn't excite anyone much.

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All we had to do was wake up or drop whatever else we might be doing when the alarm bells rang and get to our posts if we weren't already there on a duty shift. Our emplacements were secure and a number of people were on watch as the rest of us were released from duty to get some sleep or find some way to entertain ourselves. I had already played all the card games I cared to. Since the only women I knew on this trip to the villa were the Valkies, and since they were the only women on the grounds, I wandered out to their position to pay them a visit about an hour before dark with a platter of chocolate-chip cookies from the mess hall. I wasn't trying to accomplish any more than a bit of company and talk. Anything else would undoubtedly have been a stupidly fatal error with Erika and probably with the rest of them. As I approached their APC one of the women stood up and came over to me. "Your name's Ed, isn't it? Erika's in the building," she said. "And she wouldn't like your coming around when she isn't here. What are those?" "Chocolate-chip cookies. How long will I have to wait for Erika?" "Don't know. Why are you bringing us cookies?" "They were available," I said. "And I was in the mood for some company. You aren't playing cards, are you?" She squinted at me and asked, "Huh? Cards?" "Yeah. Everybody else is in there sleeping or playing cards. I'm not sleepy and I've had enough cards. I just came by to visit, that's all. I'm not trying to get laid. Have a cookie." After a moment, she reached for a cookie and said, "It's your neck when Erika gets back. You outrank me, so I guess I can't order you to take your cookies and leave." "Call her on the radio. Tell her I dropped by to visit a bit. Tell her about the cookies, too, before they're all gone. That might piss her off, too." Another woman got out of the APC and came over to stand directly in front of me. "Already did," she said. "Told her about you and the cookies, anyway. She's coming." I held out the tray to her and she grabbed half a dozen cookies, then she commandeered the tray and placed it on the little table in front of the vehicle. A third woman, the one who'd written 'thank you' in my journal, stepped from behind the vehicle and took a cookie. "Hi," she said. "The cookies won't save you, you know. Erika has a rule about men hanging around us." "If she's dead set against company I'll hit the road and one of you can take the tray back to the mess hall when the cookies are gone. I didn't come here to bug you." A land rover was approaching us from the villa. Erika got out of it and thanked the driver, who turned the rover around and left. She strode over to me like a drill sergeant. "What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded. "I don't like men hanging around my girls. Particularly when I'm not here." I told her what I'd told the other woman about being bored and wanting some company. "We're all bored. Big deal. You don't see us coming to visit you, do you?" I gazed back at her for a moment and said softly, "Sergeant-to-Sergeant for a moment, Erika. Cut the attitude with me and listen close. I just came out to shoot the shit for a while. That's all. I know you're not into men and if you want to isolate yourselves in a tight little clique when you're off-duty that's your business, but you need to know that you're also isolating yourselves from everybody else here in the process, and that can lead to truly wondrous fuckups when personality clashes interfere with other things." To all of them, I said, "I'm one of the men here you can most depend on

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to respect your preferences. Don't be so hard-ass with people who could turn out to be good friends to have on your side when things get shitty, and you know things always get shitty at sometime or other. All I did was drop in with cookies. I didn't try to get anyone's phone number, did I?" The one who'd written 'thank you' in the journal stepped closer and said, "I'm Rita. I don't think anyone has thanked you yet for bringing the cookies." "You're welcome, Rita. If I'd really been thinking I'd have brought coffee, too, though." The other woman came over and said, "I'm Barbara. Barb. Thanks for the cookies." Erika looked around at the others. There were a couple of shrugs and one flat gaze in return. After a moment she said, "Aw, hell. We have coffee. We may even have a cup. Come on." I looked back at her for an equally long moment and said, "If you're sure, I'd like to use that cup and maybe even get a cookie or three before they're all gone." Erika looked back at the half-empty tray, then at Rita and the others and said, "Look at those pockets. These girls didn't have chests like that yesterday. You'd better get in there and grab some before they suck the rest of them up, too." I moved to the little table and reached for some cookies. Rita said she'd get the coffee and cup and disappeared around the back of the APC. Erika naturally waited until I had a mouthful of cookie before asking, "So what do you think we'll have to talk about, Ed? Sports? Booze? War? Women ?" Her tone was slightly caustic. I was being told that I was there at her sufferance. "No sports," I said. "I used to play soccer on weekends in Germany, but that's been a while and I couldn't tell you a damned thing about the other top sports. Don't even know the team names or what games they play." Erika said, "Uh, huh. What about booze?" "Gin and bitter lemon or whatever beer is on tap will do. Booze isn't my forte, either." "That's very uncomplicated of you. We've sort of winnowed the pile down to women and war, haven't we?" I pretended to have to think about it while I chewed some more cookie and said, "Yup. Seems so. Women and war. For people like us, the usual categories of work and pleasure. If we're going to talk plainly tonight, though, you need to know something before we proceed." "Really?" she asked with exaggerated interest and innocence. "What's that?" I picked up another cookie and said, "My views of women and how to treat them aren't likely to be what you'll call typical. Neither are my views concerning the pleasing of women. I'd say they're probably closer to yours." "Think so, do you?" Erika grinned around the little group. "I'll bet you'd just love to compare notes about that. What about war?" "I like what I do," I said flatly. "I'm good at it. A lot of people are alive because of me." Barbara chimed in with, "And a hell of a lot of people aren't, too. I asked around about you after the first time you showed up. They say you can fly a helicopter, so why aren't you a pilot? You're listed as a medic, too, but you always wind up doing other things and Jennie told me you used to hang out with the officers more than anyone else. Now, why would that be?" "Did she also tell you that I was involved with an officer at the time? I can fly a helicopter. I just don't want to do that and nothing else, and that's what happens when you take a job as a pilot. And I'm a medic when a medic is what's called for. Or a door gunner. Or whatever." Barbara leaned over and whispered something to Erika. Erika's eyes got big as she looked at me. "No shit ?" she asked. The other woman nodded.

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I ate another cookie and sipped coffee while Erika stared at me. Barbara whispered to the others present and received a similar startled response. Erika came closer and looked into my eyes as she said, "I dunno. He looks normal enough. Jesus, Sarge, you must really hate kids. Barb, here, says that Jennie told her that you got yourself fixed before you ever had any. Or maybe you just don't know of any?" "Hate is maybe too strong a word, but your information is correct. I'm fixed and I don't have any kids, not even any that I don't know about. I was careful." She searched my face for a moment and said, "Damn. That's something most men just wouldn't even consider doing. Aren't you afraid there might be side effects?" "You mean like a higher voice and a lisp? No. There haven't been any changes. It isn't castration; it's like getting your tubes tied. Nothing changes except the sperm can't get out." Rita giggled and asked, "Well, what happens to it, then?" "It dies and goes to sperm heaven, I guess." She gave me a wry look. Someone else giggled. I said, "Actually, it just gets reabsorbed and eliminated as waste material, and that's just fine with me." Erika laughed and said, "That's how we always thought of it, too. Waste material." This sparked a round of laughter that gave me time to grab another cookie. Erika stepped forward until she was almost chest-to-chest with me and gazed at me as she said, "You know, I think I could take you if I wanted to. What do you think about that?" Her hands played down my shirt for a moment teasingly and then took a strong grip on it. She yanked me to her, nose to nose. "That would depend on how you mean to try to take me," I said in a quiet tone. "I fight dirty and play hard." "Oh, so do I, but I'm not talking about playing, here, pal." "What would it prove?" "Maybe I just want to see if I'm right. Why does it have to prove anything?" I sighed and said, "Because there's a lot of goddamned paperwork and other people involved after a fight and I didn't come out here tonight to find a way to lose my job. We'd both be fired and you know it, so you have some other reason for doing this." Erika looked at me a moment longer and said, "There was. I wanted to find out something." She released my shirt and said, "I think I can probably trust you around my girls. At least I think I can trust you not to push them around. You didn't start swinging at me, Ed. Most men I've ever met would have. Or they would have backed off real fast." "That's a helluva way to try to find out, Erika." Erika grinned. "It is, isn't it? But it works. If a man's got a mean streak, having a dyke like me grab him and challenge him will usually bring it out." "A dyke like you? Are you telling me that dykes come in different flavors or something?" Someone let out a bark of laughter behind her. Someone else muttered, "Sure they do. Tuna, mackerel..." There was another spate of laughter by the APC. "No," said Erika, with a look around the crew. Then, as if instructing a child, "I was referring to my size. I'm not exactly a small, quiet woman, as you may have noticed. You can bet that others have noticed." I handed her a cookie and said, "Yeah, I noticed. The way it's all arranged looks pretty damned good on you, too. Just more than most." "Oh, Erika ," said Jess, "I think he has eyes for you, girl. I think he

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likes what he sees." Erika snapped at her, "You think? You only think you think, Jess. If you could really think you'd be a driver, not a gunner." Someone laughed. Jess glanced sharply at Rita, who gave her an innocent look. "She's right," I said. "It may make you uncomfortable to know it, Erika, but you probably look like a tall warrior goddess to many men. That may be what creates some of your trouble with them. They want you instantly and just as instantly know there's no way it will happen." Erika started to say something, but didn't say it. She stood looking at me in the dimming light, one of her hands clenched into a fist and the other on the APC's hood. Jess said to me, "You should know. I saw how you looked at her." "I admitted to liking what I saw of her. I don't feel particularly frustrated about it." Jess came a little closer and said, "Well, why not ? What's so goddamned special about you? You're a man , aren't you? I think you're only here to try to get laid. It won't happen, stud." "That's not why I came out here and it's time for you to back off, Jess. Just cool it." Jess yelled, "You don't tell me shit! I work for Erika, asshole !" "Asshole ? You had no reason to call me that, but since you have, as of tomorrow you'll be working directly for me. I'll have your orders ready in the morning." Jess went ballistic and came at me with a scream. Erika reached out and grabbed her collar as she passed, laying her out flat by simply stopping her forward progress. Jess tried to scramble to her feet and Erica quietly offered to punch her out. Jess looked shocked at her words and started to speak. Erika told her to shut the fuck up for a change. When Jess sat back in sullen submission, still staring at her, Erika turned to me. She said quietly, "Don't do this to her." "She can apologize or she can report for duty at the dispensary tomorrow." "I thought you just came out here to talk, not to throw your weight around." "She threw her mouth around. She apologizes now and makes me believe her or she works for me until she knows me well enough to call me names." "We could still have that fight." "If you think it's necessary. Win or lose, she works for me as of tomorrow until you and I are both fired for brawling. I'll just go back to work for some U.S. agency. What will you do? What will happen to the others in this crew without you to hold them together? Tonight all I want is a believable apology for being called an asshole." Erika looked down at Jess, but I kept my eyes on Erika. If she was going to fight, she'd probably have sense enough to attack while my attention was on Jess. If not, she was still well worth looking at. In the periphery of my vision I could see Jess. She was looking at Erika with vehement defiance, but was also near tears. Erika said, "Well, Jess? Your nasty bullshit got you in deep this time, didn't it? He's right. You called him an asshole and standing up for your mouth isn't worth losing my job or my crew." "But..!" "But, hell ! You're always chirping off because you think we'll cover your ass, but this isn't a bar and he's right about everything that can happen if this goes any farther. This time you're on your own. Apologize or pack your gear." The moment dragged on interminably, but finally Jess mumbled something. Erika said, "Not good enough. It should be at least as loud as the name calling was." Jess looked up at her with a glare that withered to a pleading gaze

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that seemed to infuriate Erika even more. Erika said sharply, "On your feet, Jess ! Get off your goddamned knees, stand up straight, and apologize to him so we can put this thing to rest! Do it now !" Erika had a startlingly strong voice and a command presence a General would envy when she was pissed. Jess looked thoroughly shocked for a moment, then got to her feet. She stood in front of me and glared at me for some moments before she almost yelled the words, "I'm sorry I called you an asshole, Sergeant." I looked at Erika and said, "I'd like a second opinion, Sergeant. Do you believe her? Is she really apologizing, or just going through the motions?" Erika came to stand next to me and gazed intently into Jess's face. After a moment, she said, "Nope. It didn't sound real and it doesn't look real." Jess's face was a mask of betrayal and shock. "Erika.. !" Erika said in a tone like iron, "No. I'm Sergeant Miller to you. Not Erika. Not for a while, I think. Do it right, Jess, or you change jobs until he lets you go." When Jess managed to pull her shocked gaze from Erika's face to mine, she said in choked voice, "I'm sorry, Sergeant." The effort seemed to drain her. I looked at Erika. Erika looked back levelly. It was up to me. I said to Jess, "I am not an asshole. I'm actually a nice guy who happens to have too much spine to take crap from people just because they think they're somehow special and entitled to obnoxious opinions. That includes you, the officers, or anyone else, and believe it or not, after a month or so of working with me you would have come to that conclusion on your own and I'd have sent you back to the Valkies." I looked at Erika and said, "Thank you for your understanding and cooperation, Sergeant Miller. I'm leaving now. This one's all yours with all my blessings." I turned and started walking back to the villa, but I didn't get far before Erika said, "Wait a minute, Sergeant." She told the others to stay put and came out to join me. I lowered my voice and said, "If you want to talk, remember that voices carry well at night." "I'll walk with you for a bit then. I just want to know if you're really going to leave her with us after all that." "I said she stays. I damned sure don't want her with me if I don't have to take her. I made all that noise so that you'd take charge of her and stop all the bullshit and posturing that had been going on. If she'll fly at me over a few words she'll do the same to someone else and that guy may not give her a chance to apologize. He'll probably just see her as an obnoxious dyke and can her ass. I'm not the one confused, Erika. I know you ladies are tight with each other in the lesbian sense and I had no intentions of trying to sneak myself into something with any of you. Ultimately you took command and she apologized, and that's what I was looking for." "Why do you care who's in command in an APC full of lesbians?" "I started caring when she started swearing and you just stood there without correcting her back-alley behavior. As I said, if she'll try that with me..." "I know the rest," said Erika. "...She'll try it with someone else, too. Okay, I'll give you that. So you really did just come out to chat? Really?" "Really. I don't have a helluva lot in common with the other guys, even the officers. Damned little to talk about with them. I prefer the company of women, even lesbians." "Uh, huh ... Even after tonight?" She gave me a small grin. "Yeah, I think so. With one obvious exception, of course."

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Erika didn't say anything for a few paces, then said, "Maybe we need to talk a bit more. Is it okay if I get with you later on some things?" "Fine with me." "Okay, then. See you around." I watched her walk back to the APC and wondered what things she had in mind. That she'd had to pull rank so hard to get cooperation from Jess obviously bugged her. That Jess had flown off the handle like that bugged her, too. It may even have bugged her to be reminded that not all men are dickheads and that some would take a much dimmer view of such happenings than I did, which could create some serious boat-rocking for everybody in the APC group. The next morning there was a knock on my door as I was shaving. I opened it to find Jess, who thrust an envelope at me. She said, "Sergeant Miller told me to give you this." I took the envelope and said thanks, then started to close the door. Jess put her hand on the door and tensely said, "She wants me to bring back a reply." I looked at her and said, "Well, at least you know you're not staying with me, doesn't it? One sec while I look at it." I turned as I opened the lightly sealed envelope and pulled out the piece of lined paper. The note inside said, "Ed. Meet us for breakfast? Erika." I took the note to the desk and wrote on the bottom of it, "I'll be there." When I handed Jess the resealed envelope, her eyes met mine. She was trying to avoid showing her intense dislike of me and doing a poor job of it. She took the envelope and left without a word. I wondered how she'd react when I showed up at their table for breakfast. On the way downstairs I noted that some of the women had returned since the day before. A number of them were in the CO's office sorting through a stack of papers. Two more were in the day room going over personnel rosters and a few more were walking across the lobby. As I entered the mess hall I saw Erika and the others at their usual table in the corner. The four of them occupied the center zone of the eight-seat table, also as usual. I nodded to Erika as I started through the food line. When I took my tray over there she pulled out the chair next to hers. Apparently Erika hadn't told the others I'd be joining them. I received odd looks and startled stares as I sat down, and not just from the women at the table. "I invited Ed to join us this morning for a talk," said Erika. "Anyone who objects will be washing and waxing the APC until it looks as if it's never been used." Jess said, "All right. I'm not objecting, then. I'm just asking why he's here." Erika forked up some egg and said, "Because we're a little out of touch, that's why." She pointed the egg-laden fork at Jess and said, "Especially you. Now eat. We're going to have a busy day ahead of us, one way or another." I had no damned idea what she was up to, so I just sat there with the rest of them and ate breakfast. When we were finished, she told the others to be where they could be found at about ten o'clock. They just sat there. Erika said, "That means you're dismissed for now. Leave." When the others had left, Erika asked me, "Are you busy today?" "Not very. You need me for something?" She sipped her coffee a moment, then said, "How about some training?" "What kind of training?" "Cross-training so that some of us know some of what you know." "Not a problem. Where do you want to start?" "Show us how to use some of the fancy stuff in a medikit, for one thing. We had bandage-and-pray training, like everybody gets. Show us about some of the other weapons and maybe a little about how to deal with a war zone

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on foot, in case the APC gets hit. Stuff like that." "Sure. Now tell me why all this stuff suddenly became worth learning to you." "I did some thinking last night. The four of us are going to be stuck in that APC forever unless we make some connections, Ed. We're four women who are never going to get anywhere because we aren't allowing ourselves to assimilate or socialize. If we get rank, it will only be because we've been on the payroll long enough to qualify and somebody happens to notice that it's time to hand out a stripe. If we get noticed for anything else, it will probably be trouble." She added a bit of ice to her coffee to cool it and continued, "Each of us has exactly three friends here. Most of the other women avoid us to some degree. There are a few others like us around at times, but they come and go in other jobs. The men keep their distance except when they send a new guy over for a laugh as they watch us turn him down. Look around. They're confused right now because they can't figure out how you managed to be sitting at our table." She indicated the room in general with a slight wave of her hand. She was right. Other people were glancing at us as if we were strangers in their midst. I gave it some thought and said, "Wait one. You are on the payroll, as you said. Would you be on the payroll if things were as bad as you say? If it really mattered to anyone, wouldn't they have found some reason by now to let you go?" "That may only be because we go out of our way to keep it from being any kind of an issue. We keep to ourselves, Ed. We worked our way into a quiet corner of things, thinking we were making a special place for ourselves, and now we're likely to stay in that corner forever. It doesn't take much rank to command or crew in an APC, and job-type is just as important as time-in-grade at promotion times. So is the fact that while some of the women in Solutions have had combat training or experience, they number relatively few. Women are still a novelty in -- or as -- a combat unit. Until last night that seemed to be a shield of sorts. Now I'm not sure it isn't going to turn out to be an anchor for us." "Huh. Well, I did say you were a special bunch. I just had no idea how special. Cross-training can begin whenever you want, and I can take you far enough along that you could pass the med occupational tests, but what if I get transferred out of here again before we're finished?" "Let's start today. This morning. If we make some progress with you and they ship you out, maybe we can find someone else later. I still have one question, though, and I hate to ask it, but I have to. What are you going to want in return for the favor of helping us with all this? I've learned there's always a price tag on anything you really want." I looked into her eyes and said, "I guess I'll just chalk it up to line-of-duty work and my good deed for the year. I'm on standby here, Erika. I have no specific job to do except to be ready to fight if Amin goes apeshit on us. The big, beautiful blonde I'm most attracted to isn't into men, but that isn't a reason not to help her if I can and the CO approves. Good enough?" Erika just stared at me for a time, then smiled slightly. "That was almost a pass at me, wasn't it? Right now I can't decide whether I want to slap you or kiss you for being willing to help." I grinned at her and downed the last of my coffee before speaking. "Well, whichever it is, don't do it in public. If you aren't in a hurry, you can decide after we get the training underway. I kind of hope you're leaning toward the kiss because I was only answering your question, not propositioning you, and I won't just stand still and let you slap me. Are you ready to go? We need to get permission, get a medikit, and find a place to work." Eyebrows in the mess hall went up again as we left it together, apparently in good spirits about something and on a mission of some sort. We

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requested the use of the second day room for the medical training, partly because it had no hall doors and was open to the view of passers-by. The other ladies hadn't ventured far, so we simply called them in. I hung the "training" signs and secured the rope barrier across the entrance and we spent the next two hours on refresher training and basics before starting the new training. Our activity was noticed and even watched for a while by some. When we broke for lunch, we talked about some of the things I'd showed them. Rita was mildly embarrassed when something she thought she remembered was incorrect. I told her not to sweat it and turned to the nearby tables in general to ask if anyone else knew the answer. Maybe four hands went up out of the thirty or so guys in the room who were willing to respond. "See, Rita? Nothing to be embarrassed about unless being wrong kills someone. Then you'll have every right to be embarrassed. It will probably even be expected of you." Erika laughed at that. So did someone at another table. Jess started to crank off at him and Erika grabbed her arm with a glare. "It was a joke. People are allowed to laugh at jokes, even men. No more knee-jerk shit, Jess. We're trying to get along today." Jess slowly subsided under Erika's look. I wondered what else had been said among them the night before that could cause Jess to be so willing to cooperate. One of the NCO's asked, "You ladies going to become nurses, all of a sudden?" Erika responded, "No, we just want to know more than we know now about some things. It seemed like a good idea to start with this." "Could be," said the guy. "You got books and props and all that?" I answered that. "I'm using my own copy of the Army Special Forces Medical Handbook. The Major is sending away for enough of them to go around a class." "You were in the Special Forces?" "Nope. I worked with them way too often, though, and kept some of the stuff." The guy nodded and went back to his lunch. He was one of the senior NCO's at the villa and it was likely that her answer would be quoted to others later as our activities were discussed. I told Erika that it would be a good idea to get the training down quickly and perfectly. She looked at me questioningly. "Because," I said, "We're likely to wind up training others here. I'll need some help if that guy decides his entire outfit should grab some extra training, and that will be your first and best opportunity to make those contacts you were talking about. That's why I wanted the second day room for the training and that's why I posed Rita's question to the group. Guys like him are always thinking about how to keep their people going and keep them sharp." Erika nodded and went back to eating. The other women were staring at me. Jess turned to face me and said in a low tone, "Things were just fine until you came along, Sarge. Then you get a look at her and all this shit's happening. I wonder why?" To Erika she said, "I didn't sign on to be a baboon trainer. Count me out." There was silence at the table for a moment. Men at nearby tables who had heard her comments were looking at Jess and the others of our group in a rather hostile fashion. Erika said, "Ten , Jess. Nine ... Eight ... When I get to one, you'll be out, Jess. All the way out. I'm doing all this to give us a better chance at some kind of future, just like I told you people last night, and if you aren't with me, you're instant history. Seven, Jess ... Six..." More of the others were noticing the tense situation at our table.

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I touched Erika's arm and she said, "Yeah, I know they're watching. And if I have to transfer Jess out of here it'll just show them that we're dead goddamned serious about this and that I won't take any shit from anyone, not even from my own crew. Five, Jess ... Four..." Jess glanced to Barbara and Rita for support and didn't see it in their faces. Erika was about to say 'one' when Jess finally capitulated. "Okay, okay. I'm in." Erika said, "I'll never do that again, Jess. Never. You're with us all the way from now on or you're gone, attitude and all. Someone else can decide whether to cover your ass for you when your mouth goes off. We're moving up, with you or without you. Got that?" Jess sat silently glaring at me. "Yeah, I got it," she said. I instantly decided to watch my back around Jess for a while. -------*Chapter Thirty-six* When lunch ended, Erika sent the others to the day room. "We need to talk a minute," she said. "But I need a refill first." As she was rising from her seat, the NCO who had spoken earlier said, "Me too. I'll get it. Sit tight." Looking at me, he asked, "You ready for another, too?" "Sure, thanks," I said. He nodded and went for the coffee. Erika looked at me questioningly, but said nothing. The NCO came back with six cups on a tray and set them in the center of the table. "This could take a minute or two," he said. He looked at me and said, "I'm Jim Creasy. Company D, light artillery. Are the classes private?" I felt double meaning in his words. "I'm Ed. This is Sergeant Miller. Classes will be private for a week, then they'll know enough that they can start another class each while they attend more classes themselves. Next week I'll post a sign-up sheet if you want." Erika said, "The name's Erika. Are you thinking about taking a class, too?" He nodded. "Yeah. Sounds good to me. Most of my guys could use it, too, but I'll keep it voluntary. I can use the week to set up schedules. Whose idea was this, anyway?" I touched Erika's leg under the table to keep her from speaking. She didn't quite jump out of her skin. I said, "Sergeant Miller, here, has decided that her crew is undertrained and that it will help them at promotion time. It seemed like a good idea to me." Erika gave me a sharp glance, but I hadn't lied. I patted her leg and gave her a small smile, then brought my hand back above the table to reach for a cup. "The CO must think so, too, or you wouldn't have the day room," said Jim. "How many can you handle in a class?" "I like small classes. Five to eight per teacher works well. They collectively remember enough and I can take the time to focus on someone a little if I have to." Jim seemed to be gathering his thoughts. He stirred his coffee as he asked, "Will the one who thinks we're baboons be one of the teachers?" Erika answered him. "We'll see. If I don't see a change, she may be leaving us." Jim nodded and said, "This would be a good thing for her if she can handle it. I've had a few difficult troops now and then, but that one isn't just having a hard time taking orders. People aren't like that without some reason way back there to cause it. I don't know what I can do to help you with her, but let me know if you think of anything." Erika bridled a bit as Jim talked about Jess, but relaxed somewhat at his last words. She cleared her throat and rather blandly said, "Yeah. I'll do that."

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"I mean it," said Jim. "If she goes on like that she'll never amount to shit, and we have enough people like that in the world already. Could be all she needs is to see that there's no good reason to keep being so hostile when there are other ways to handle things. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you with that one." Erika nodded and with a bit more vigor said, "Okay. Thanks." Jim finished his coffee and said he had to get moving. When he'd left, Erika softly marveled, "He meant it, didn't he?" "Sounded that way to me," I said as we rose to leave. The dayroom was directly across from the mess hall. If there'd been any way to avoid being seen, I'd have suggested that we listen outside the day room entrance for a moment before going in, just to hear what the others were saying about us. As it was, the moment we appeared the other women stopped talking and turned to face us as we approached. It had apparently been an animated discussion. Rita was flushed and tense and Jess was standing with her arms crossed and a sullen glare. I left them to Erika and set up for the next segment of the afternoon's training, which seemed to go fairly well. The next day part of the activities included CPR training. As I set up the table, Jess muttered to Barbara, "Wonder who's gonna be the dummy? Him?" She saw me glance up at her and her face changed to its usual sullenness. I said, "Any more cracks and I'll be the dummy when it's your turn, sweetie. Everybody else will get to use old Elmer, here. I found him in one of the lost and found bins. Some poor woman is sleeping alone, I guess. Or maybe not, which could be the reason he was in the bin." I pulled the inflatable plastic doll out of the box and showed it to them. Barbara giggled. Jess glared. I handed out alcohol patches and said, "Rules say we wipe the dummy before use. Since we're all pals here, I don't suppose it really matters, but just in case..." Erika was looking at me. I winked at her and said, "Don't worry. I'll go first to demonstrate and let everybody finish laughing. Then we get it right and move on." While Erika took her turn first at breathing into Elmer and pumping his chest there were hoots and laughter from the others, but Jess just had to make another remark. She said, "The fucker's gonna die if I have to do that to him." Erika straightened. She was visibly pissed as she said, "We'll help you get over that right now, Jess. Ed, get on the table. You're wounded and you aren't breathing." I said, "I was just kidding about that. This doesn't really feel like a good idea, Erika." "You aren't having an affair with her, Ed. She's just saving your life, okay?" I didn't move. "For you or them, I'd be on my back instantly, Erika. But not Jess. This would make whatever's wrong with her worse than ever." Jess's eyes went huge. She glanced around at the others and hissed, "Wrong with me? You sonofabitch..!" She started forward, but Erika stepped in her path. Erika said, "Cool it. If you can't do it here, you won't do it out there, either, and somebody could die, so if you can't do it, you might as well pack now." Jess snapped back, "Why am I the only one who has to use Ed as the dummy?" Erika's voice was cold iron. "Because I goddamned well said so." I spoke up. "Wait one. That's a fair question, Erika. She's being singled out because of what may have been nothing more than a snide remark. Truthfully, do you know that you and the others could do what you're telling her to do?" Rita said, "I could. I used to be into men. No problem."

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"No doubt," said Jess. Rita gave her a 'fuck you' glance. Barbara said, "I've had men, too. I'll survive it." I looked at her and said, "Survive it? Oh. Well. Gee, thanks a lot. Just a minute while I get Elmer's air pump. I think my ego just went flat." All but Jess laughed. Erika said, "You know I haven't had a boyfriend since I was fifteen, Jess. If I can do it, can you? There's no point in going on with this otherwise." The staring contest lasted several seconds. Jess finally and quietly said, "No. I won't do it." I actually felt a measure of relief, and not because Jess wasn't good looking enough. Erika was silent for a moment, then said, "CPR is part of the course. Most of the possible patients are likely to be men. That's just the way it is, Jess." Jess's voice was small but firm. "No ." Erika said, "Okay, then. The APC needs a wash and wax today, so you've got something to do while you wait for the rest of us. Dismissed." Jess stiffly turned and walked away. We watched her go, thinking she might change her mind, but she didn't. When she was out of sight, Erika turned to me and said, "The equipment room will do. Let's go. All of us." When we entered the little room Barbara and Rita stood in the doorway as Erika grabbed my shirtfront and pulled me to her in a kiss. She let me go as roughly as she'd grabbed me, then asked, "Is everybody satisfied that I can do what I have to do for CPR?" Rita giggled insanely. Barbara looked at the front of my pants and said, "He doesn't look very satisfied. Maybe you should do that again." Then she burst out laughing. Erika looked down in surprise at my reaction to her actions, then her eyes met mine in startlement. She started to speak, didn't, then tried again and settled for "Oh, damn." Her hands fluttered in front of her like startled birds until they knit together tightly. Then she met my eyes again. I said, "Well, what the hell did you expect would happen if you did something like that, Erika? I told you I thought you were beautiful. Now you have proof." Barbara's eyes and grin widened. "He said that ? To you ? And he's still alive ?" Rita seemed equally surprised. Erika glared at them for a moment then turned to me. "I ... I just wanted to prove I could do it. To them. To you. I'm sorry, Ed." "Oh, don't be sorry, Erika. I'm very convinced." My dry tone caused another round of laughter. Barbara suddenly waved at us and hissed, "Someone's coming!" Rita didn't let the opportunity pass. She said, "No, they're not even close to that yet." There was another round of giggles as Erika and I tried to look busy. As an extra shadow appeared from the doorway, I said, "I told you they wouldn't be in here. Never mind. I'll see somebody about finding one later." "One what?" came Jim Creasy's voice from the doorway. I pretended to be mildly surprised. "A volleyball," I said, holding a dartboard in front of my belt buckle and below as I turned to face him. "Thinking of getting a game together? Probably wouldn't hurt." "Not without a lot of practice first. Rita doesn't know about volleyball and Barbara doesn't know about soccer. We just thought we'd look while we were here." "Wrong," said Rita. "It's the other way around. I know volleyball." "Whatever," I said. "The balls still aren't in here. They're probably in the supply room." Rita said, "Huh. I thought I saw balls of some kind in here."

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Barbara rolled her eyes as she stood behind Jim and tried very hard to stifle the giggles. Rita did something and Barbara's expression changed to shock, then settled to a glare. Jim turned to see what was going on and received blank, questioning stares. He turned back and looked directly at me for an instant before saying, "I'll see if I can find a ball." He then headed for the entranceway with only one backward glance at us. "Did he buy it?" asked Barbara. "Jesus, Rita! Did you have to say that?" "Yeah, I did, and I had to pinch you, too, before you cracked up." Erika looked at me. "I wish you'd thought of something other than balls to look for. That sounds pretty terrible right about now." "Sorry. It was the first sporty thing that came to mind that I knew wouldn't be in here." Erika said, "I don't even want to think about the dumb jokes this could start." Rita said, "Well, if we aren't still looking for balls, we could go finish the class." And that's what we did. Later, as we put Elmer back in his box, there was a whistle and a 'whang' sound from the front of the room. Jim slapped the volleyball again and it sailed across the room to Rita, who caught it and set it on the table. "My guys think they can beat your guys," said Jim. He looked at Erika as he spoke. Erika glanced around at us, then asked, "Four on four? Got a net?" "Got a net," said Jim. "All we have to do is hang it. Fours are fine. Or fives." He indicated me with a nod. "You can play him if you want. He doesn't belong to any particular unit here." Erika said, "Sure. Give us a few days to learn the game." "Yeah. Right," said Jim. "Fine enough, then. How's Friday evening?" "It'll do." Jim nodded again and said, "See you around, then." He seemed a little puzzled as he left the dayroom, glancing back once at us. We all smiled and a couple of us waved. He raised a hand in a small return wave and walked out of there shaking his head slightly. Erika hefted the volleyball and said, "Ed got us into this." Rita was still looking toward the entranceway. "I think he suspects something." Erika turned to look at her. "For instance..?" Rita said, "I think he thinks Ed's trying to get tight with us and he's wondering why." "Could be," said Barbara. "He may think there's more than training going on." Erika laughed. "With us ?" Barbara looked at her and said, "Well, what are you laughing at?" She nodded at me. "You're the one who kissed him." Erika's gaze was tense. "I just did it to see if I could bring myself to do it." Rita laughed. "Oh, you did it, all right. Did it real good, too, from what I saw." Erika said, "Let's not go back to that. I wasn't thinking or I'd have realized..." Barbara laughed and said, "He wasn't thinking for a minute there, either." She turned to me and asked, "Were you, Ed?" Barbara and Rita zeroed in on me for the answer. Erika sighed in exasperation. I said, "Yeah, well ... When a woman you'd love to kiss grabs you and kisses you without any warning whatsoever ... as if that would matter a damn..." Barbara pounced with glee. "See ? I was right . Erika's kiss really

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zapped him." Rita and Barbara were grinning like idiots at me. Erika was seething. "Enough!" she said. Rita rolled her eyes as if in vast sufferance from Erika's lack of humor. Barbara stood to attention and saluted. "Yes, Ma'am! No more jokes, Ma'am!" Then they giggled insanely again. Erika glared at them until they subsided. She looked at Rita and said, "It's time to eat. You can show us how a volleyball works later. Now go get Jess." I could see that they were somewhat surprised at that, but they said nothing and left. "Jess gets one more chance," said Erika. "She's been with me a while." "Can't hurt," I said. We took the medikits back to supply and returned the ball to the checkout room. Barb and Rita returned half an hour later without Jess. Erika sighed and stood thinking quietly for a moment, then shook her head and said, "Let's eat. Maybe she'll show up." She didn't. Erika stayed to talk after Barb and Rita finished eating. "This whole thing with Jess just makes my ass tired," she said. "It doesn't have to be this way, but she can't see you as anything but an intruder and she thinks I'm trying to split us up." "I'd buy the part about seeing me as an intruder, but why would she think you were trying to bust up the group? Has she said anything like that?" "Yeah. Something like that. We all talked about this training thing. It was three to one to go for it, so I sent you that breakfast note. Guess who the dissenting vote was?" "So what are we talking about here, really? Just a strong resistance to change?" Erika sighed and said, "Jess likes the arrangement as it is. She called us 'the four musketeers' once. Us against the world, and like that. Jess joined Solutions rather than re-enlist in the British Army after she'd run into Barb and Rita at a club in London almost a year ago. Understand something, Ed. Neither Rita nor Barbara class themselves as lesbians. They've been together since before they or Jess joined Solutions, but both of them have been involved with men at times. The real trouble began last month when she found Barbara talking to a man in her room." Erika rolled her eyes and sighed. "Jess went ballistic. I had to practically sit on her while Barb got the guy out of the room. She seemed to think that she'd been betrayed, even though she knew from the start that Barb and Rita go both ways." She glanced up at me and said, "In case you're wondering, Jess was with me, not them. That's why it was so damned much of a surprise when she blew up about them interviewing new toys. That's what they call it. Interviewing." "Well, I'm glad it isn't just me or the training. If I disappeared tomorrow it wouldn't matter. Someone else would become the villain. Got any thoughts about what to do?" "Honestly, no. The others and I want more than we're ever likely to see if we stay the way we are and where we are. Things were beginning to chafe long before you arrived, Ed. Arguments were becoming too common. With Jess around, Barb and Rita couldn't play with whomever they wanted because Jess would likely blow her top again. Jess just wants what is. I don't think she'll go along with anything that threatens to change things." I asked, "Are you still together? I mean, is it more than just friends between you now?" Erika was slow to answer, but she softly said, "No, not to me. Not anymore. With Barb and Rita there was always a distance between us because they had each other. With Jess it's been like being married or something. It didn't matter when there was nowhere to go. It was flattering, too. She wanted

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to be my everything, as the song says. Now I'm wondering if she didn't just latch onto me for some sort of security the same way other women latch onto men." We saw Jim wave at us from the coffee bar and start our direction with six cups on a tray. I tapped Erika's arm and said, "Tell me if I'm out of line, but individual lesbians serve in a lot of jobs in Solutions. Sooner or later Jess is going to wind up without the rest of you around her all the time because you're ready to move on. If she can, she may sabotage any efforts you make to get other training or to move up in order to keep you with her. Think about finding her another job now, before things start happening that will make all of you look like a bad risk." Erika looked at me piercingly. I said, "I don't have a damned thing to gain or lose from this, Erika. Rita and Barb may like men sometimes, but they haven't mentioned it to me. You felt the need to defend yourself after kissing me, so I think I won't count on ever dating you, either. There's no money in it for me and I won't get promoted for teaching classes. I really believe what I just told you about Jess." Jim arrived and glanced at us as he distributed coffees as was becoming his arrival habit. "You two look like you're talking about state secrets. You want me to leave you alone? The coffee's on the house either way." I grinned at him. "Nah. Sit. We were just discussing whether or not to take over the world." Jim grinned back and said, "Don't do it. There'll be too much yard work involved." Erika chuckled and asked, "Jim, do you have any women in your group?" His grin turned to a wry one. "Yeah, and you can't have her. She's one of my best people." Erika made a 'god-forbid' face and said, "That isn't what I had in mind. I have someone who is very dissatisfied with her situation. She needs to move sideways before she can move up." Jim's face became solemn. "You mean the one who won't go along with the program, right? The one who spent the day at the APC and didn't come in for chow? Tell me a little about her." "She's a gunner. Good at it, too. How come you pay attention to who spends the day where and doesn't show up for meals?" Jim looked first at me, then at Erika. "First you bring Ed to your table and shoot the shit together for an hour after breakfast. You left like friends. Very unusual for you, Erika. Then classes for four, then only three in the class, and only three at the table tonight. You can't order people to miss meals here, so I figure she's pissed and won't be with you as a statement and maybe as some sort of pressure on you. Correct me if I'm wrong. It wouldn't be the first time a guess didn't pan out." Erika said, "Well, that guess did." "No," said Jim. "I won't take her. If you let people go under those circumstances, you have to let them go to a different base. Otherwise there's nothing but trouble 'cause you can't keep from seeing them and running into them and nobody ever gets a chance to just get the fuck over things and move on." He paused to sip coffee and added, "And when it comes down to that, don't sit on it and let it fester, 'cause when something like that pops, it pops all over everybody involved. There are four peoples' needs and futures to consider, Erika, not just one." I said, "Damn, I sure do miss the candy-coating they used to put on truth pills." "Sorry," said Jim. "This isn't a candy-coated problem. The kiddie pills won't handle it. I know 'cause I've had the same problem a few times."

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Erika looked up sharply, but Jim continued, "Okay, not exactly the same, although I did go through two divorces. I'll give you the worst example I can up front. Call them Bill and Tom and say they're longtime friends and say Bill's longtime girl suddenly goes for Tom. Accidents happen, but not often enough for Bill, so he rigs one of the big guns to blow up Tom, but someone sees him do it and tells me. The gun could have killed the crew. Bill's in prison." He paused a moment and said, "I knew about the problem. If I'd have sent one of them somewhere else right away, Bill wouldn't have had the chance to try to kill Tom and he wouldn't be in prison. People usually get over things like that, given some time to cool, and I didn't want to bust up one of my best fire crews, so I swapped them off to other teams and hoped the problem would just fade away with time. But they kept bumping into each other anyway and had three bad fights before Bill finally decided to rig the gun." Erika just sat there looking at Jim. I asked, "Where's Tom now?" Jim smiled crookedly and said, "The girl left him for someone else. He went back to Britain and took a job with security agency. About a year later he was killed by a drunk driver." Erika said, "Jesus. You went through all that..! They went through all that..!" "...And all for nothing," said Jim. "How about that? If I'd just split them up when I had the chance, Tom might still be alive. Or not. But one thing's certain. If I'd split them up I wouldn't have this little story to tell and I wouldn't have to wonder what might have been." Jim finished his coffee and stood up as if he'd suddenly become very tired. "Before you ask, yes, the story is true. I hope it helps you somehow, Erika. I'll see everybody later. It's almost six and I told a guy I'd meet him in the CQ office to discuss special leave." As we watched Jim walk away, Erika asked me, "Did you know about that incident?" "No. It probably happened before my time here. Jim's over forty." Erika sat quietly for a while. There seemed nothing to say after Jim's tale. After a bit, Erika said, "Save me a trip out to my tank, mister. Buy me a drink." "Will one be enough, do you think?" Erika gave me a sidelong glance. "Enough for what?" "You're going to do the transfer papers tonight, aren't you?" "Oh. Yeah, I thought I'd stop by the office on the way out." "You like gin?" "It'll do." I got to my feet. "Good. It's all I have in my official contraband bag." We snagged a couple of glasses on the way out and headed up to my room, stopping to lose some of the coffee in the bathroom. Standing in front of my room, I opened the door for her and she hesitated on the threshold, so I waited for her decision. She looked at me oddly for a moment and seemed to make up her mind. Holding her glass ahead of her, Erika entered my room a few paces and looked around. I left the door ajar as I followed her into my room and went around her to my bag for the gin. When I looked up to offer her a choice of tonic or bitter lemon, Erika was quietly closing the door. She took the gin and mixers from me and set up shop on the low dresser top. Without looking up, she said, "We'll need some ice, Ed." I went out saying, "Sorry. Don't usually bother with it. Be right back." I was already having a flushed reaction to her deliberate actions and was glad for a moment to think. Could be she actually just wanted privacy for

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more talk about Jess and the situation and needed the gestures of control to feel in control. Or not. If not, I felt that if I didn't let her take the reins and go at her own speed, I'd almost certainly ruin things for her. I tried not to appear to be in any kind of unusual rush during my journey to the mess hall ice machine. There were no buckets. No pans. I overloaded two glasses with ice and headed back to my room. When I reached it both my hands were full and the door was closed. I didn't want to knock, so I started to set a glass on the floor when the door next to mine opened and a woman I didn't know stepped out. She offered to hold one of the glasses for me or open the door, my choice. I gave her a glass to hold and turned the door handle, then took the glass back and eased myself through the opening with a 'thank you'. She smiled and walked away. When I turned around and bumped the door shut, Erika asked, "Who was that?" "I don't know. Whoever lives next door. I needed an extra hand." Erika seemed a little stiff as she asked, "Did she see me?" "I don't think so. Wait a minute. How did you know it was a she?" Erika said drolly, "It isn't magic, Ed. There's been a woman in that room for six months." I set the ice down and let her take over the drink making. She seemed to need to keep busy for the moment. Or maybe she just liked her drinks of a certain consistency. I didn't know and wasn't about to either piss her off or scare her off by guessing wrong, so I pulled out the chair by the desk and waited to see what would happen next. As Erika made the drinks, she said, "I already knew what I have to do about Jess." She dropped a couple of chunks of ice in each glass and handed me one. "But now I have to find out what I'm going to do about you, Ed." After saying that, she downed a bit more than a sip of her drink and stepped over to lean on the desk beside me. I used the motion of tipping my own glass to have a look up. Erika was regarding me thoughtfully. I met her thoughtful gaze with a questioning look rather than speaking. She hooked a finger under my left epaulet and pulled lightly to indicate that I should stand up, so I did. "I've been avoiding men for a long time," said Erika. "They all seem to be into controlling everything and everyone they can reach. You didn't seem that way, at least not with the others and me. I tried so hard to figure out why that I found myself liking you. When I kissed you it was really to show the others and myself that I could do what I was going to make Jess do for the CPR course, but I got a real jolt from it. I haven't felt that jolt for a long time. Maybe it's just because you're not just a new experience. You were a new, different experience." I took a sip as she finished speaking and stood quietly for a few moments. "Erika, you're probably absolutely right about new and different being the cause. Is that enough reason to break a long-standing personal belief? If it is, I'll make you the center of my world when we're together, but I want to be sure you know where this is all coming from before I touch you like that." Erika drank about half of what was left of her drink and set it down before she laughed. "I know what it is and where it's coming from, Ed. You made me horny as hell. It's been a long time, but I'm not a total virgin. I had a boyfriend way back when and he's probably the main reason I've been without one for the last twelve years. But you're nothing like he was." "What happens when they send me somewhere else, Erika? You're making me sound hard to replace, and I don't want to be the cause of any hurt or loss for you." Erika sighed with exasperation and said, "Ed, I've thought of that and it's my problem, not yours. Do you want me or not?" She glanced down and said,

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"Hell, yes, you want me." "I've wanted you from the first moment I saw you, Erika. I just couldn't tell you then. You're the kind of woman I meet in my dreams. It was pretty much a kind of hell meeting one in person and running into a great big 'off limits' sign." She smiled. "Yeah, that might have been dangerous then, cookies or no cookies." "Before that. When I asked for your autographs it was all I could do not to stare at you." Erika sipped her drink, then said, "You must not go for the powderpuff types, Ed. Why's that? All Rita has to do is simper a little and bat her eyes to get a guy to do something. You gave her a kind of 'take a number, sweetie' look when she tried it on you." "No idea why. Maybe paint and powder doesn't impress me. All I can say at the moment is that I'm not into giving or getting pain. Beyond that I'm yours as long as we can manage." "You may be sorry you said that." "No, ma'am. I'll just die happy." Erika laughed again and finished her drink. When I finished mine, she took my glass before I could set it down and put it near hers. We stood looking at each other for a moment more before we came together in a long, warm kiss that left us both breathless. It was a long evening of mutual exploration, punctuated by spasmodic explosions of passion and the tendernesses of touch and kiss that let you rest between the explosions and help you build up to the next ones. We talked during these lulls about some of the places we'd been and things we'd done and why, and it was during one of these lulls -- thank whatever deities may exist -- that there came a soft knocking on my door. My first act was to look at my alarm clock. Midnight already ? Erika had done the same and met my startled gaze with her own. "Who is it?" I asked. A woman's voice, muted appropriately to keep from waking others unnecessarily, said, "Charge of Quarters, Sergeant. I need to speak with you. It's important." Charge of Quarters ? What the hell ? My first thought was that Idi Amin had launched a strike after all and that we were about to be mobilized at full throttle. I pulled on my pants and got to the door, opening it only enough to see and speak with the woman in the hall. I barely had time to recognize Jess before the door burst inward, shoving me back hard. She came at me as soon as she recovered her footing, shoving off the doorframe and lunging directly at me in what was almost a leap. Jess was actually growling as she came at me in only two or three sprinting steps. She had no weapons, so I grabbed for her hands, planted my right foot in her groin, and rolled onto my back on the floor. The move upended Jess, sailed her over me, and laid her out on her back, half on and half off the bed. Her legs slammed down across Erika's legs, then the rest of her hit the hardwood floor. Her head made a clunking sort of noise and bounced once. I let go of her hands and rolled over to pin her down, but found it wasn't necessary. She was out cold, if not worse than that. For a couple of moments all I heard was constricted breathing below me and small groanings from the bed above. Erika was rubbing the pain out of her shins and thighs and Jess was out cold, but her neck was bent enough to restrict her breathing. I pulled her far enough off the bed to straighten her out some and the rasping noise stopped. "How is she?" asked Erika, peering over the edge of the bed. "Out. She really whacked her head on the floor. How do you want to handle this, Erika?" "Handle it? I've never had to handle something like this. I don't

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know." I stood up. "She either wakes up soon or goes to the hospital. If she wakes up we either bust her or we don't. If we bust her she goes to the brig tonight. If we don't, we have to trust that she won't pull something else like this. I'll let you decide, but I favor the brig after that entrance." Gloriously naked Erika put on her fatigue pants and shirt and stood looking down at Jess as she buckled and buttoned herself together. I checked Jess's pulse, then put my shirt on. There were running footsteps in the corridor just before Rita, Barbara, and the real CQ appeared in my doorway. The CQ rushed over to Jess and tried to find a pulse, then looked up at me with a 'what have you done ?' expression. "She has one," I said. I knelt and moved the CQ's fingers an inch or so to help her find it. The CQ, satisfied that nobody was dead, said, "Everybody please stay clear of her while I call for help. That includes you, Sergeant, unless she has a fit or something. Nobody leaves." "Fine," I said, "But be ready to fight if she wakes up." The CQ looked hard at me and said, "I know what I need to do, Sergeant." Then she called in on her in-house walkie-talkie, ordering up a medic and a duty officer to take over. Erika was trembling slightly as she asked if I wanted a drink. I nodded and went to stand with her as she made it, resting my hand on her shoulder. Barb and Rita were staring at us from the doorway as if we were newly landed Martians. Except for our uniforms we looked pretty rumpled and mussed and we were barefoot. Barbara found her voice first. "My God," she said, "You've been here since chow?" Erika said, "Not now, Barb. We'll talk later." They slowly nodded agreement, then looked at each other in amazement again. Within a few moments the medics, the duty officer, and more CQ's arrived and Jess was on a stretcher headed for the infirmary. The CQ's chased Barb and Rita out when they learned that they weren't actual witnesses to events and I was taken out in the corridor so they could get our stories separately. I started telling mine where it felt right to me. "She faked being a CQ runner to get me to open the door and then came in like a freight train, knocking me on my ass. I flipped her to keep her off me and she hit her head on the floor." The duty officer asked, "Do you know why she might have done this?" "Ask Sergeant Miller. She knows Jess better than I do." The duty officer said, "We'll do that, but right now I'm asking you." I faced him squarely and said, "And I won't guess about it. Ask Sergeant Miller." "Don't be uncooperative with us, Sergeant." His tone was ominous. "What do you want me to do, Captain? Make something up for you? Ask her." He gave me a rather grim look, told me to stay put, and went back in my room. I looked into my room to see some twit photographing the section of floor where Jess had lain unconscious. Erika was standing by the bed with the Captain. She didn't look too happy with him. After a moment of staring and a contest of wills, Erika's will won. The Captain waved me over and said, "We'll be talking to the victim. If her story doesn't match yours ... Well, this is your last chance to tell me what I want to know." Erika said, "Your victim attacked him and he defended himself. That's the truth, Captain." He snapped his logbook shut and left with his crew. I closed the door behind them with a little difficulty. The top of the door was dragging against the doorframe.

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Erika gathered her things and dropped herself on the edge of the bed with them. "Well, so much for not being noticed. They asked why Jess was so pissed off. Everybody knows, but I don't want to state it for the record. I said it seemed pretty obvious that she resented you having me in your room. God, I'm glad they aren't real cops." I laughed softly and went to sit by her. As I put my arm around her, I asked, "So, Mrs. Lincoln, except for that, how did you like the play?" She was a Brit. The joke took a moment to correlate. When it finally did, Erika looked at me as if I were nuts, then started laughing softly. "Oh, that's horrible !" she said. "It worked, though, didn't it? Someday I'll tell you about the suicidal young man who learned that a milking machine doesn't stop until it gets a gallon. He's dead now, by the way." She managed to get out the words, "Oh, god! That's even worse !" through her laughter. I picked up our drinks and handed her one, asking, "Would you do me a favor?" "That would depend on what it is." "Stay the night? Don't leave? They know where to find us if anything comes up." "That they do, and probably everyone else in the villa by now, too." I grinned at her. "Well, since our reputations are already shot, why not stay over?" Erika glanced at me and said, "Ha! What logic! My reputation was barely serviceable before tonight. It may be different now, but it definitely won't be dead as a conversational topic." "As that may be, I'd like very, very much for you to stay with me tonight." Erika peered at me over the rim of her glass as she sipped the last of her gin mix. "You really mean that, don't you? Why am I so special to you?" "I really couldn't say. I just know that the first thing I want to see and touch in the morning is you. Will you stay? Barb and Rita can manage a night alone." Erika chuckled. "Yes, they can. Yes, I will. Thank you." I kissed her shoulder and said softly, "Thank you. I got my wish and you were it." -------*Chapter Thirty-seven* We almost overslept. The woman next door knocked, she said, because she didn't hear the usual wake-up noises. That gave me pause to think. What noises? Boots on the floor? We thanked her and got busy. Erika dashed off down the corridor to her room for her toilet kit after a quick kiss goodbye and a "See you at the table!" I made the bed with clean sheets (never know when they'll inspect) and followed her example with towel and kit. The looks I got in the line for the showers let me know that our night together was pretty much common knowledge, but nobody ventured to comment about it. The women were already at the table when I arrived, having an animated discussion that seemed to end abruptly as I approached. As if rehearsed ahead of time, Barb and Rita said in unison, "Good morning , Ed!" I looked at Erika. "I got one of those, too," she said. "They called me Sergeant, though." I glanced at Barb and Rita, who were grinning like cats. "Huh," I said. "Now I feel deprived and unrespected and stuff like that. Pass the salt and pepper, Rita?" "Here," she said, placing them near my tray. "Boy, you must feel like some kind of a fucking missionary this morning, huh? Converting a lesbian from her wicked ways?" Her tone was such that I had to look at her to see if she was joking,

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then I looked at Erika and asked, "What have you been telling them?" "Nothing much. This is all just girlish supposition at this point." I looked at Barb and Rita and said, "We talked and had a couple of drinks." Rita just stared at me and said, "God, look at him! He said that with a straight face!" Barbara joined her in staring at me. I looked back unflinchingly. Erika said, "That's because he's telling the truth. We talked and had a couple of drinks." Their disbelieving stares focused on her for a few moments. Erika added, "Then he kissed me and touched me and licked and kissed every square inch of my body and..." She paused and glanced at me. I'd frozen with my fork in mid-air and had turned to stare at her. "...And then..." I asked, "Erika, what the hell are you doing?" "It's girl talk, Ed. You probably shouldn't even be here for this." She grinned at me. Barbara and Rita were grinning like idiots, waiting for more. "And then ," she continued, "We made love until almost midnight. I had a wonderful time." "Uh... thank you," I said. "So did I." Barb was counting on her fingers. Rita said in an incredulous tone, "You went up there around six, Erika. Are you saying that you spent almost six hours in bed with him?" Erika nodded. "Well, I had to be sure," she said. "Then he talked me into staying over." "Oh, wow," said Rita. "He must really like you, Erika. How do you feel this morning?" "Oh, I feel so used ," she said. "So very used . Pretty good, too, really." All three of them cracked up laughing at almost at the same moment. I forked up some more of my breakfast and watched the women cackle at each other like the hens in a yard. They were having a little fun at my expense, but I considered that if they hadn't been talking about me and last night, they'd have probably had to start their morning talking about Jess. Jim Creasy came in and bee-lined to the coffee pot. He waved a greeting, got his coffee, and headed our way. The table chatter and laughter tapered off as he approached, but he received a friendly greeting when he arrived. Erika indicated the chair next to Rita and Jim sat down there. He made no comments about Erika and me and acted as if things were business as usual. "Just thought I'd pass something along," he said. "Jess woke up saying that there was an argument and that Ed assaulted her." Erika drew herself up and asked, "You don't believe that bullshit, do you?" "Hell no," said Jim. "He's not the type and you wouldn't have allowed that to happen." "Maybe I couldn't stop him." I looked at Erika. Why the hell did she have to say that? Jim smiled and said, "I've seen him look at you, Erika. He wouldn't have touched her unless she was coming at him and you're known to be a pretty tough lady. Nope, that doesn't sound like what happened to me, and nobody who knows Jess is taking her seriously." Erika relaxed a bit. Barbara asked, "What happens now?" Jim said, "Civil law applies. First there's going to be a hearing to determine what happened and who was at fault. That will be later this morning." Barb asked, "Then what?" Jim sipped his coffee, then said, "Well, Ed could press charges and have Jess sent to jail. Whether he does that or not, Solutions will probably

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fire Jess by the results of the hearing." Barb and Rita looked at me. Rita asked, "Will you send her to jail?" I set my coffee down and said, "Erika knows. Ask her." "Why won't you tell us?" "You just know me a little. You trust her. Ask her what I'll do." They turned to Erika, who was looking at me. She said, "No, he won't. We weren't hurt, nothing was really damaged, and she'll be leaving anyway, so there's no point in jailing her." I nodded agreement. "No point at all." Barb asked if Jess really had to be fired. "Couldn't they just put her somewhere else?" Jim answered. "They could, and she could blow up on someone else later. Since Solutions doesn't have a great deal tied up in her training as a gunner, they'll most likely just send her back to Britain and let her go as a bad risk." He turned to me and said, "You'll be called upstairs in a little while, so don't start anything you can't put down." Erika peered at Jim. "How do you know so much about things?" Jim smiled. "I went to turn in the duty rosters and sat chatting with the clerk. I heard the CO talking on the phone with someone about how to handle things however they went." Erika nodded and said, "Thanks. It's nice to know what's going on." Jim nodded, then looked at his watch and excused himself. Because of the expected interruption, I confined the morning's class to reviews of other classwork. Sure enough, Erika and I were called to the office around ten. After a review of our statements, we were taken to the CO's office. The Major looked everything over and told the clerk it would do, then addressed us. (Note: The CO is no longer Major Phillips and is referred to only as the Major because he couldn't allow the use of his name in this story. He had good reasons. -- Ed.) He said, "About the woman in custody, Private Prather. Her story of being assaulted didn't hold up. We found inconsistencies in her story and damage to the door and a loosened top hinge that would seem to back up your story. When the woman interrogating her caught her in an apparent contradiction, Private Prather exploded and tried to hit her." The CO referred to the papers on his desk briefly, then said, "People will have problems with each other. Hell, that's the whole reason Solutions exists, isn't it? But problems such as these don't make us any money or solve any of the world's problems. They can wind up costing us more than they're worth and creating more problems. I'm telling you this so you'll know why Solutions would like to be done with this situation quickly and quietly." He paused to sip his coffee, appeared to realize we didn't have any, and said, "If you want some coffee, it's right there in the outer office. I'll wait." I patted Erika's shoulder and went for the coffee. When I returned, the CO placed prepared documents on the desk in front of us and said they were waivers of formal civil charges. He said, "Sign these and Prather will simply be returned home and let go as unsuitable." We read them and signed them. He called the clerk in to take them and said we'd have copies placed in each of our files, then changed the subject. "How are the medical classes going?" I told him they were going fine and that I might soon need room enough for more students because Sergeant Creasy had expressed an interest in further training for his crews. "He's not the only one," said the CO. "Creasy's been talking to people. We're also letting a few of the communications people hold classes next week and there may be others. Everything is informal at present, strictly voluntary, but if things work out we could probably accommodate a small

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training center for those willing to participate." He looked at me and added, "This alert can't last forever. Will you want to return to your unit or be reassigned here to instruct?" I looked at Erika. She was grinning. I said, "Being reassigned here would be a blessing, Major. My unit has two other senior medics and we've trained locals. They'll be fine." The Major considered us for a moment, then said, "Then consider yourself reassigned. Drop by later today for a copy of your orders and let me know if you need anything else for your classes. Dismissed, and take your coffees with you. Oh, and happy birthday, Sergeant." I stopped on my way to the door and looked at the calendar on his wall. It was the eleventh of July. "Thank you, Major," I said, "But I was born in June." "Oh. Then check your folder on the way out and see if someone's screwed it up, will you?" "Will do, Major." As we left, Erika teased, "And I didn't even get you a present." I looked at her. "You were my present, and I couldn't have wished for anything better. To me, you're a wish that continues to come true." The Major's secretary, Phyllis, was staring at us as Erika smiled and quickly kissed me on the cheek. I rooted up the few forms in my folder that contained the error, then we left the office. As we turned the hall corner, the secretary was still staring when I glanced back. The alert was lifted and everything coasted along smoothly and serenely with only an occasional bump in our path. Erika moved into my room with me and brought her own bed with her. We wired the legs of the two bunks together to form a double bed, but we could only tie the handgrips of the mattresses together, so a gap always formed between them. This problem was solved one weekend afternoon while we were picking up some oversized mail in Nairobi. There was a furniture store at the end of the block. Erika asked me if I thought having a non-issue bed in our room would be allowed. I didn't know, but the owner of the store let us use his phone to call the villa. The Major came on the line and said that he was only required to make sure we had a place to sleep, and that usually meant supplying bunks. If we wanted to supply our own, he had no objections. We picked out a bed and some bedding and struck a deal with the storeowner to have it delivered to the villa and assembled. The bed was christened that evening by Erika and me, of course, but it received it's most thorough testing about a month later, when Barb and Rita sort of stayed over with us after a going-away party for someone being transferred to Britain. We were all a tad drunk when Rita said she needed to lie down. She and Erika had been talking about something and Erika sat next to her on the bed as Barb and I chatted about the transferee by the dressing table. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rita reach to draw Erika near by pulling tentatively on her collar. Erika glanced at me and I shrugged. They'd been together before I'd arrived and it hadn't prevented Erika from accepting me, so I couldn't see how their togetherness could be any kind of a problem. I air-kissed at her and gave her a small smile. She smiled back and allowed Rita to pull her down for a kiss. Being with me had apparently had no negative effect on Erika's ability to enjoy herself with another woman. In no time the two of them were rather deeply involved in each other. Barb asked, "You're okay with this, Ed?" "Two beautiful creatures pleasuring each other? I hope to learn from this, Barb." Barb regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, sipping her drink. "Barb, I knew she had a taste for other women. This isn't a shock, okay?" "I hear you. Let's see if you can say that a little later."

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"Now, later, whenever. I've been involved in a threesome before, back in Virginia. Those ladies also knew each other before I came along, same as this." Barb took another sip as we watched the ladies on the bed. The scene was having a very evident effect on me, and I noticed Barb glancing sideways into my lap. I tore my eyes away from the ladies and looked questioningly at Barb. She raised her eyebrows as if wondering why I was looking at her, then giggled. "Let's," I said. "We really should," she said. "Can't let them have all the fun, can we?" "No, ma'am. That wouldn't be fair at all." Barb giggled again. "And we really should make sure things are fair, shouldn't we?" "Oh, I think it's our duty, in fact." "Exactly that. Our duty." Erika stopped what she was doing and briefly faced us. "You two talk too much. It's very distracting, people." I waved and said, "Apologies, ma'am. Very sorry. Won't happen again. Promise." "Oh, shut up, Ed. Bring Barb over here and do something nice to her." "Yas'm. Instantly, ma'am. With alacrity." Rita looked up and asked, "With what?" "Alacrity," said Erika. "It means quickly." "Well, let him do her however he wants," she said, placing a hand to Erika's cheek. "You're doing me right now." And so it went, the first of many such occasions. Rita and Barb seemed to enjoy pretending to argue about whose turn it was to "get stuck with the guy", but neither of them ever registered any complaints about the attentions they received from "the guy". Later in the year I was teaching a field medical course and a Tae Kwon Do class. Erika and the others had become teachers in the medical classes themselves, as we'd originally planned, and later went to Johannesburg for testing that earned them certifications for that work. I was only teaching through the beginner TKD belts because it would have been difficult for me to teach higher belts properly. When Rita found out that one of the other guys at the villa was fairly accomplished in Judo and was willing to teach an evening class, she joined it immediately, taking my TKD by day and his Judo in the evenings for some months. Barbara also signed up for both classes, although she didn't seem quite so enthusiastic. She did well enough and kept up and even enjoyed a good bit of it, but her heart wasn't in it quite the way Rita's was. She was primarily interested in being with Rita. One evening Rita and Barbara came to see us in our room and wanted to know if we'd be terribly hurt if they transferred to Johannesburg. There was a real martial arts school near the offices and there were openings for both a staff medic and a clerical worker position. Rita had the transfer papers with her for Erika to sign if she would. After some discussion, Erika signed them and we had a drink together. Two weeks later Rita and Barbara left for Johannesburg. The night before their leaving was both tearful and joyful and left everybody feeling as if we'd been wrung out like dishrags. Letters flew back and forth fairly regularly and Rita kept us informed of their progress. We received pictures when they received new belts and once when they received promotions and we kept them posted about doings in our piece of the world as well. For almost two years Erika and I were nearly inseparable. There were a few short separations when one of us was sent somewhere to fill a temporary gap, or to set up classes according to local needs, but none of the jobs involved combat. The Major didn't want to lose either of us and made sure that everyone knew it.

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The subject of Christmas came up in early September when a British radio commercial came on that suggested that it wasn't too early to consider getting Christmas shopping done. We were doing some light going-away partying in our room on a Friday evening with some friends heading for another duty station and they began talking about holiday plans. One of the women was talking about how it really didn't matter whether she went home or not, since her family wasn't too happy with her choice of occupations. We held a vote and decided she should go anyway because you never knew when or if you'd get another chance at anything in our business. She told us with a smile to stuff our voting until we met her family. Erika asked how I felt about going home for Christmas for the first time in a decade and my response wasn't what she had been looking for. I said I didn't remember making such plans and that I didn't much care about holidays. She sat herself up on the bed and stated firmly that she definitely did care about them, but only because it was the only time of the year her whole family got together. She said, "I've missed the last three. I want to go home this year." "Am I invited?" I asked. She looked at me as if I really needed a smartness pill. "Of course you're invited." "What do I tell your three brothers who probably still think you're a virgin?" She pretended to give that some thought. "Yeah, that's a problem, isn't it? Well, if you survive meeting them, they'll probably let you have some Christmas dinner. I wouldn't count on any presents, though, especially from Michael. He won't like this at all." "You can be my present, ma'am. I'll unwrap you and..." "And you'll be killed instantly by my father or my brothers if they hear or see anything unusual. It's a small house with thin walls. We'll have to get a room somewhere or forget it." "Sounds as if it will be boring and exciting, doesn't it? Brothers glaring, separate rooms..." One of the women commented that her brothers wouldn't wait for noises. They'd just hide my body and pretend nothing had happened. I said to Erika, "We could tell them we're engaged." "I don't think that would be good enough and I've never lied to my mum." I got up and went to the dresser for a small box that had been there since my trip to the airport duty free shop on the last pickup run and handed it to Erika. I said, "If you had this on your finger, you wouldn't be lying." One of the women nearby, Annie, sucked her whiskey too hard in surprise and started choking. Others rushed to her aid or clucked sympathetically as she waved them off. When she got her voice back, she rasped, "Shut up , everybody! I want to hear this!" Her words and tone had the effect of causing most of the people in the room to cluster around the bed. Erika had been reaching for the box. She'd frozen in mid-reach and was looking up at me in startlement. "You're serious?" she asked. I looked around the huddle, then at Erika, and said, "Yes, I'm proposing to you. Apparently in front of a dozen witnesses, too. You're the finest thing ever to enter my life, Erika. It's taken me two years to get around to this, but I know I love you and I need you." Erika's look of surprise stayed on her face as her hand drew back. I was suddenly extremely worried that she'd refuse. "Ed, are you sure? Really, really sure?" "I'm sure. Like I said, I've had two years to figure it out. Will you marry me, Erika?"

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Tears welled in her eyes and her hand was shaking as she reached for the box. Somebody whispered harshly, "She's gonna do it! She's gonna do it!" Erika's voice was almost a whisper itself as she said simply, "Yes, Ed. I will." You'd have thought we'd sunk the winning goal or something. A cheer went up from everybody in the room. Handshaking, kissing, and backslapping went on for quite a while and a couple of people seemed to have others to tell as they rushed from the room. Half an hour later the Major and a few others knocked on the doorframe, since the door was open. The Major asked, "Is it true?" We both admitted it was. He said, "About damned time. Too bad this isn't a boat and I'm not just a Captain anymore, or I'd marry you people myself. How about a drink?" Somebody else said, "Yeah. Took him long enough. They set a date yet?" The woman who'd choked on her drink said, "Yeah. What about when?" Erika looked at me questioningly. I said, "A Virginia divorce takes thirty days. Counting time in the mail, I should be able to get loose by November. Then we can go to Britain for a marriage license and a wedding." Erika said, "Most of my family will be together for a few days over Christmas. How about just before or just after?" "I'll finally have a reason to care about the holidays, won't I? Sounds fine to me." The Major said, "I can arrange a full month's leave for each of you if you want. That could be one of my wedding presents." What had been a small going-away gathering became a two-floor party. People seemed to find enough booze on their own and someone raided the mess hall for some munchies. It seemed to me that all they'd needed was a reasonable excuse to party, and our engagement served as reason enough. We chased everyone out around one so we'd have some time of our own to christen the event. I had a hard time getting to sleep with all the imaginings of possibilities flashing through my head. There were visions of me showing her places and things in the U.S. and her showing me around Britain. There were remembrances of our lovemakings and even of our squabbles. Looking at my sleeping Erika's face on the pillow next to me made something inside my chest seem to swell until it was hard to breathe. A Virginia divorce would cost ninety bucks plus postage as far as my estranged wife was concerned. There was no animosity during the call. I figured she'd also met someone else during our several years of separation. I sent my expired 'overseas military'-version driver's license to the Richmond, Virginia DMV for renewal so that I could remain qualified as a Virginia resident and received my new license in less than three weeks, but we were still waiting for the divorce paperwork when it arrived. Overseas mail can be slow, but when the paperwork hadn't arrived by October, I called my wife. She said she'd sent everything registered mail as instructed and read the info off the receipt. I called the Nairobi post office and they began a search. Two weeks later they told me they couldn't find it and that it would probably be simpler and faster to have the paperwork sent again. My wife said it would be no problem. I began to wonder if she had really sent any paperwork the first time and why she might have lied to me. Erika said that such a thing wasn't unheard-of, but that I shouldn't jump to any conclusions. Plane fare to the States was normally astronomically priced and even more so at that time of the year, so I talked with Erika about what we could do if the papers didn't get done in time for the wedding. She said that after two years with her I should already know the answer to that, then told me the answer anyway. She said, "We'll just move it to next year. Don't worry, Ed. I don't

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plan to try to escape." In the last week of October the first set of divorce papers finally arrived. They were in a U.S. Postal Service plastic baggie with a yellow Kenyan 'expedite' label on it. The contents were slightly mangled and had obviously been subjected to soaking at some point. A USPS form letter inside the baggie apologized profusely for the flood damage and the delay in one of it's processing centers. I mentally apologized to my wife for my suspicions when I saw the original postmark date. But we were still waiting for the second set of papers, so I called her again and let her know how the first ones had finally arrived. Again she read from the receipt, and again I called the Nairobi post office and again they said they'd look for it. As I showed the nasty-looking, ragged documents to Erika, I told her that I thought we might have a problem making our wedding happen on time. She said again not to worry about it and again told me that she had no plans of trying to escape my clutches, then suggested that we make it a spring wedding and spend some time with both families by taking a honeymoon visit to the U.S. after the wedding. I couldn't help venting a bit about the whole mess when we showed the bagged bundle of documents to the Major and gave him an update that amounted to 'still waiting'. Erika smiled and patted my head and said, "Don't sweat it so much, Sarge." Erika went on to say that now that we knew my wife was truly cooperating, she felt better about letting her family know about our plans to marry, even if she couldn't give them a definite date yet. "It'll give them time to do some proper wedding-gift shopping," she said. I looked at her rather archly. "Excuse me, but aren't you the woman who told me not to jump to any conclusions about the late paperwork? So you've had the same suspicions?" "Great minds think alike. I just didn't want either of us to do or say anything that might antagonize her and cause her to be difficult about things if we were wrong. After all, you asked her for a divorce, she didn't ask you." The Major said, "Good thinking. You both handled things properly. And thanks for keeping me informed. I'll need notice enough to schedule your leave times." He then asked which of us wanted to spend the first week of November setting up cross-train classes at one of our clients' mines in Sierra Leone. Erika knew a few of the women at the guardpost and said it would be fun to see them again, especially since she could shock them with the news of her wedding plans. Monday morning, Erika tossed her stuff and the class equipment into a rover for the trip to the airport and turned to me for a hug and a kiss. I really, really didn't want to let her go, but I thought it was only my usual reluctance to let go of her combined with the knowledge that she'd be gone for a whole damned week. I didn't sleep well anymore if she wasn't in the bed next to me and I'd constantly be starting to ask her something only to remember she was somewhere else. I knew from experience that it was an irritating thing when it happened and it would just make me miss her more. Erika waited until I'd gone inside. She made me do this when she had to go away because I'd once described the feeling of vast loneliness that I felt as I'd watched her leave on one occasion. She'd smiled and told me she felt the same thing when she watched me leave on one of these setups. We had solemnly agreed never to watch each other leave again, but it was just one of those things lovers say to each other. The next time I went on a setup I saw her watching from a side window with her hand raised. I waved back. The next time she went on one, she saw me in the same window. It became a goodbye ritual. Whichever of us was leaving would say, "Don't watch, okay?" The other would say, "Okay."

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Then the one left behind would go to our window and watch anyway. I think the sense of vast loneliness served to remind us how much we cared for each other, and however it might have wrenched us, we really didn't want to give it up. Not really. I set up to begin the first class of November with only one small problem. One of the guys with a multi-consonant name hailed from Yugoslavia and was having a helluva time with the language involved. His English was fairly good, but not quite good enough. I detailed him to a couple of study-partner volunteers, one of whom could actually speak his language to some degree, and finally got the class underway around nine. We were covering the very basics of field first aid when I found myself falling to my knees. It was suddenly as if someone had slammed me against a wall and hit me in the head, chest, and stomach, all at the same time, with something like a baseball bat. As the sensations of agony continued, I clutched at the edge of the demonstration table as I let myself down into a sitting position and wondered absolutely seriously if I were having some kind of a heart attack at the ripe old age of twenty-nine. It was the shooting agonies in my legs that made me cry out a few moments later. They seemed to go on and on and were somehow tied to the pains in my stomach and chest, because just before the shooting pains in my legs happened, they'd happen up in my chest and stomach. Only my arms seemed to be without pain, and that didn't match with what I'd read and heard about heart attacks. My left arm should have been in agony. I was afraid to move for fear of making things worse, but I suddenly felt so tired that I had to lie down, so I told one of the guys to go to the office and tell whoever was there that I didn't feel well. My vision was dimming and I was dizzy and there was a roaring in my ears, and I've never been able to remember falling backward or letting go of the table. Someone came storming into the dayroom a little while later and stopped a few feet away from me, then knelt beside me. I turned my head slightly to see who had come in, but he was a blur to me. Whoever it was used a handkerchief to blot away the tears I hadn't realized were there and I saw the Major. He looked very worried. I started to tell him I didn't feel well, but he'd already turned away to ask someone where the hell the medic was. A few minutes the medic from Echo team arrived and began searching me. I realized he was searching me as I'd searched so many others, looking for the tiny indications of injuries that could cause internal bleeding and shock. I tried to tell him I wasn't hurt, but he told me to stay still and continued his searching. A few minutes later he turned to the Major and said, "Can't find anything." "Look again, dammit. Nobody's that pale in Africa without a damned good reason." "I'll look again, sir, but I know what I'm doing. This isn't from an injury." A second search also found me unmarked. The medic began asking me what I'd eaten or drunk and where I'd been around the villa as he checked my pulse. I didn't answer him. I had begun not to give a damn, and I asked them to leave me alone. "You know we can't do that," said the Major. He sounded as if he were explaining things to a child. "We have to find out what's wrong with you or get you on a bird." They got me up and moved me to a stretcher. All I wanted was to sleep, but I couldn't. I covered my face to block the light and lay there for what seemed a long time. The tears came back and wouldn't stop. At first I heard people talking around me, but for a while I was hearing only a sort of blurring of noises that sounded vaguely like speech. The Major told someone to call ahead to the hospital. He and the medic

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had decided that I must have caught something and he wanted me on a medevac bird to a hospital. His immediate worry seemed to be that whatever I had could be contagious. I was hustled aboard the medevac helicopter and taken to the hospital, where they took one look at me and began drawing blood for tests. A lot of blood, I thought. An IV was hung on the other side of the bed and I felt a sting in that arm. The taste in my mouth told me it was Ringer's with a side order of shock juice thrown in to hydrate me and bring my blood pressure up. They must have thought I had a bad case of dysentery or worse. It was getting dark when the Major arrived. He was cautioned that I might be infectious as he entered the room. That didn't make any sense at all to me. When they think you might be contagious, you don't get visitors, period. The Major just stood looking at the woman until she gave up and went away, then he looked at me and said, "I don't think you're contagious. They haven't found anything wrong with you and I know you better than they do. You just know already, don't you, son? You knew the moment it happened this morning, didn't you? I've seen this before. I've been through it myself." I just stared at him. To say anything would be to acknowledge what he seemed to be trying to tell me. He stepped closer to the bed and pulled up the one chair in the room. "I was married once," he said. "Before Solutions. Before I was twenty, in fact. She was my whole world, son. My whole world. We both worked in Brighton, but we had to take different buses to different parts of town. I was two stops from work when I passed out in my seat. I came to and knew she was gone. My whole world was gone. I had no doubt at all of that. They said I turned deathly pale and just fell out of my seat. I don't remember that, of course, but it sounds reasonable to me that one would go pale before he or she fainted dead away. I..." He stopped himself and then said, "I'm prattling, now. I'm sorry, son. I'm so sorry. I just wanted you to know that." He cleared his throat and said, "Your Erika ... She, uhm ... Her plane crashed shortly after takeoff this morning. They don't know why yet, but they think an engine failed. There were no survivors, son. God, it hurts me to have to tell you that, but I have to, and that's why I came. I didn't want you to hear it from a stranger. I'm so sorry..." I nodded slightly because I couldn't make words happen. The Major sat for a while, then patted my hand, then took a mild grip on it and said, "Don't do what I did. I stopped living for a while when it happened to me. I stopped caring about anything or anyone for a long time. Don't you do that if you can help it. It doesn't do any good and I don't believe she would have wanted you to suffer or to have those around you suffer because of her. She loved you too, son. Erika wouldn't want you to be like I was. No woman would. I was a cold, mean-spirited bastard for years after Glynis died." I nodded again. It seemed like the thing to do. I don't know what more the Major said, if anything. I didn't notice when he left. Sometime during the night it seemed to me that a woman in white came to my bed and stood looking at me for a while. When a bell rang somewhere she walked away toward the door, so I guessed she was one of the nurses. What finally stirred me to move was simply an insistent urge to pee. I sat up like an old man and let my feet touch the cold floor. The coldness somehow seemed appropriate. Moving away from the bed I nearly dragged the stainless steel IV stand over on top of me. The pain in my arm when the needle twisted was staggering. Pushing the stand back upright with a clatter I pulled the needle out of my bleeding arm with an unreasonable surge of anger and frustration and fumbled with the metal pinch on the tube to shut off the flow. The pinch didn't work after I squashed it. The IV was still dripping. I folded the clear plastic tube so that the open end was above the bag and twisted the needle off it to use as a pin. After I ran the needle through the tubes near the bend, I tied the loose end through the loop at the top of the bag and sat back down.

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My arm was a mess. A woman's voice said, "Please get back into bed, sir. I'll bring you a bandage." I turned to find a woman standing near the bed. She looked as if she was very worried about something, but I didn't give a damn about her worries at the moment. I ignored her as I put pressure on my elbow to stop the bleeding. "I just want to go to the bathroom. Then I'll need a bandage for my arm." "You aren't supposed to be out of bed, sir. I'll bring you a bedpan." The surge of anger nearly came back. "I don't want a goddamned pan. I want a bandage and a real bathroom." "But, sir..." That flash of anger hit me again. I heard myself growl, "Where's the damned bathroom?" and while she was trembling visibly, I was a little surprised that she didn't just run from me. I started to brush past her and she laid her hands on my arm to stop me. For an insane moment I wanted to knock her the hell away from me, but I held it. I let my fist drop to my side and shook off her hands. There was a box of tissues by the bed. I jammed a handful of them against my arm and moved past her again. She stepped back a pace and said, "Go to your left, down the hall several doors." I heard her following me at a distance but I didn't bother looking back. When I went into the bathroom she had the grace not to follow me in there. A motion to my right caught my attention and I found myself looking at myself in a sink mirror. I looked as if I'd already been in the hospital too goddamned long. I had over a day's dark stubble on my face and I was so pale that I almost began to give a damn about me. Almost, but not quite. More important was taking a leak, stopping the other leak, and getting out of this place. It seemed that now that I knew what was happening to me I should start feeling better, but the self I'd seen in the mirror looked like a zombie. Then I realized that all the places in the world would still be there, but that I no longer seemed to have any reason to go anywhere anymore. The tears started again and I leaned against the sink counter heavily as a deep tiredness hit me. Sometime later I realized I was sitting on the floor in front of the sink and needed to pee worse than ever and my arm was still leaking. I rinsed my arm and held a paper towel over the IV wound as I finished my other chore. By the sinks I stood staring at my reflection in the mirror again for a while. I'm not sure I had an actual line of thought as I stood there, or maybe if I did it just disappeared into the hole in my mind before I could get a good look at it. I don't remember one, at any rate. I heard a tapping and almost thought it was inside my head someplace. It wasn't. Someone was at the door. I don't know how long she had been tapping at the bathroom door. It was one of those nervous-little-bird-style tappings, accompanied by a plaintive, "Sir, are you all right?" I knew she wouldn't go away unless it was to get someone to come in after me, so I went to the door and opened it. She was hunched slightly as she had been when tapping and listening intently for -- what? Signs of life? I felt an urge to laugh that didn't survive long enough to become one. Sorry, I thought, fresh out of those, ma'am, unless taking a leak or opening a door counts. "Sir, you really should go back to bed..." "That again. Let me alone. Please just go away and let me alone." "Sir, you know I can't do that..." I just stared at her for a moment and started to close the door. Her foot wedged it open.

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"Sir, I just..." I leaned over and said, "Get-away-from-me. English. Four words. Try to understand." A man's voice said, "If you wake anyone on this floor with that nonsense I'll have these men hold you down while I give you a shot and tomorrow you'll be trying to talk your way out of here past a psychiatrist and a locked door. If you cooperate with her that won't happen." I looked behind me to see two big guys with nightsticks and a short guy in a white smock. "Why can't I just leave now?" The short guy asked, "To go where? How? It's the middle of the night and it's sixty miles to anywhere you'd want to go, and I'm not authorized to let you leave. I am only authorized to use any reasonable means to keep you here and keep you quiet and I'm the one who decides what 'reasonable means' may actually mean." I realized I didn't have the answers to his questions of where and how. I even realized he was right about having the upper hand in the matter. My mind didn't seem to be working very well. Theirs were working fine. I was outclassed for the moment. I said, "I can't just lie there anymore and I can't sleep." The short man walked over and said, "I can give you something to help you sleep." As he saw my arm, he added, "I'd like to look at that, too." For some reason I had to think about that. I tried and didn't come up with a good reason to object. "Okay," I said. "Back to bed, then." He asked the nurse to bring him a few things and 500mg of something. I nodded. I almost asked what it was, but realized that I didn't really care. When she brought me the two pills and a cup of water I said, "Sorry about before." "It happens," she said. "Usually they're rather frightened and confused. You, on the other hand, are rather frightening when confused." "Sorry," I said again. "As I said, it's happened before." She patted my hand and left, also taking the IV stand. The doctor said nothing as he worked on my left arm. Later, I slept. Whatever they'd given me seemed to discourage dreaming and I woke with cottonmouth and sluggishness and wondering where the hell I was for a few moments. Scenes of the day before jostled around in my head until the one appeared with the Major telling me about Erika. That scene didn't jostle like the others. It just kept replaying like a bad record. At least the agonies in my chest and head had stopped. Eventually I managed to sit up and noticed the nightstand by the bed. It occurred to me that the drawer should contain a toothbrush. It did, along with some Pepsodent tooth powder in a can, a bar of soap, and a comb. No shaving cream or razor. All the items were new, wrapped in a clear plastic drawstring-top bag, but there was no towel in the nightstand. I took the bag and slid off the bed to locate the bathroom again and maybe find some coffee after that and discovered that the hospital-issue slippers were too small. I hate cold floors and being barefoot. I took the slippers to the desk in the hall and put them on the counter. The nurse looked up and then dashed around to take a grip on my arm. I looked at her as if she were nuts. "I just came to get slippers that fit so I can go to the bathroom." "Sir, you need to be in bed right now." I became irritated. "Same as last night. I don't want a pan. I want a bathroom. The nurse last night gave up on stopping me. Can't you just get me some slippers that fit?" "No, sir. They're not kept here. Now please get back into bed." I saw scissors and tape on the other side of the counter and reached for both. The nurse's eyes bugged a little as I shook off her grip. She relaxed a little when she saw me cut the tops of the slippers down the center.

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I didn't want to sit bare-assed on the cold floor, so I walked around to her chair and sat down. I held a slipper on my foot and asked her to run some tape around it. She didn't move, so I rather clumsily did the job myself. As I stood up to leave the nurses' station, she again tried to get me to go back to bed. I'd had enough. "Damn it, leave me alone! If you're that goddamned worried about me, send somebody to watch me take a leak and brush my teeth!" I saw someone in a white coat approaching at a trot and said, "There! Send him." The newcomer said, "I'm doctor Morrison. She can't send me anywhere and please don't snap at my nurses. How do you feel today?" "Like I've been drugged, what else? What was that stuff? I never want any of it again." The doctor ignored my question. "Do you remember anything about yesterday?" "Yeah. I collapsed in the middle of a class thinking I was having a heart attack." "Anything else?" "If I do, I'll tell you when I get back from the bathroom, doc. I really have to go now." The doctor looked at me and said, "All right. But you go only to the bathroom and back to your room. We didn't find anything wrong with you yesterday, but I'll be around later to examine you again. If you pass you'll be released and we'll call someone for you. If you'd like coffee or tea, tell one of the nurses. And please don't call me 'doc'." "Thank you, doctor." I emphasized the word 'doctor' slightly. "Correction noted." He nodded and asked the nurse for my chart. I watched him make a few notes, but couldn't read them at that angle, so I turned and headed for the bathroom. As I passed the sinks, the man in the mirror looked a little better than he had the night before. Still pale as hell. I didn't know if that was from events of the day before or the sleeping pills. I checked my pulse and actually found one, so I figured it was probably safe enough to take a leak and brush my teeth. I discovered how much harder it is to brush your teeth when you have to stop fairly often to wipe away tears and blow your nose. I couldn't stop the crying. It would just start without warning and stop the same way and I didn't realize it until I couldn't see what I was doing. I rationalized it as being an automatic venting of some sort, but I hoped to get a handle on it before I got back to the villa. The villa. Everywhere I went there and everywhere I looked, I'd be seeing or expecting to see Erika. I suddenly didn't want ever to see the villa again. That emotion lasted only seconds before another one washed over it and I wanted very much to go back there and soak up any little essences of Erika that might still be drifting around. My chest began to hurt again and the tears started again and I just sort of said 'fuck it all' to myself and sat down in front of the sinks with my knees drawn up and my towel on my knees and my face buried in my towel. Someone came in, stopped, and then went back out. I didn't bother to look up, but a little while later I got the idea that I was hogging the bathroom. I looked around and thought, 'Eight stalls, no waiting. Ignore the man crying on the floor and do your business'. Who would? It occurred to me I should take my problems to my room, instead. When I neared the nurses' station the woman who had tried to prevent me from going anywhere held up a pair of slippers. "I looked around and found these. They may fit you." They did. I thanked her and dropped my taped ones in the trash. She regarded me in silence for some moments, then said, "I'll bring you some coffee if you want. How do you like it?"

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"Black. With a little ice or cold water to cool it. Thanks." She nodded and went around the desks behind her to their little break area and brought out a plastic cup a few moments later. "You'll have to use the fountain," she said, pointing across the hall. "It's over there." I thanked her again and made use of the fountain, then headed for my room. As I sat down on the bed, she appeared in the doorway. I gave her a questioning look. She seemed almost ready to say something, then shook her head as if to say 'Never mind' and left. The doctor came by, checked me over, and let me see my chart as he worked. He didn't really expect me to know anything about what was on it and I didn't bother to inform him otherwise. My blood workups were normal as hell. The only thing that really caught my attention was the series of blood pressure readings they'd taken. Low. Very low. So low that they resembled those of people who'd lost a lot of blood. No wonder they'd been so worried about me. No wonder I'd looked so pale, too. The Major and his aide, a woman named Elyse, showed up at the door as the doctor was finishing up. The doctor asked them to wait in the hall and concluded his investigations of me, then called the Major back in as he signed some forms and said, "You're leaving us." "Great." "Try to sound more enthusiastic. Remember you're in a hospital and you're leaving alive." The Major chuckled. "He has a point, there." I said nothing as I accepted a copy of everything he signed. He told me my clothes would be arriving shortly and left. "We thought we'd save you a long walk," said the Major. "We detoured for supplies to justify using one of the helicopters. I hate the roads around here." "Thanks for dropping by, Major." He looked at me and asked, "Do you think you can deal with going back to the villa?" "I've already considered that. I may have to sleep in the hangar, but I think so." "Good. If you find you can't, I want you to know now that I'll understand." I knew the tears were starting again and felt a slight embarrassment, but I managed to say, "And I appreciate more than you know that you aren't still the cold, mean-spirited bastard you said you used to be. Thank you, Major." He laughed with a slight embarrassment of his own as I quoted him. I used a corner of the sheet to dry my eyes, then looked for the tissues and blew my nose. The Major said, "I was like that, too. I never knew when they'd hit me or stop. I guess it comes with the package." My clothes arrived and were brought in by Elyse. She glanced at me on the way in and then steadfastly avoided doing so again as she set the clothes on the bed and left. I guess she didn't want me to be more embarrassed than I already was. The Major closed the door on his way out and I started getting dressed. -------*Chapter Thirty-eight* During the flight to the villa I suffered a growing sense of dread at the prospect of seeing the place where Erika and I had spent most of the past two years. I had no idea how I'd react when I stepped inside it again and I felt I'd already made enough of a scene at the hospital. When we landed I was the last man off the bird. I lagged behind the group as we hiked up the small hill and was also the last man through the door to go into the main building. I carried my one bag with me to the Major's office upstairs rather than

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even make the attempt to take it to my room. Our room, where I knew the scent of her still lingered and where piece of me wanted to go wallow in that scent before it faded forever. Another part of me wondered if I'd ever be able to smell her favorite perfume again and not burst into tears. Some of those who knew me nodded or said hello as I passed and I returned whatever was offered as a greeting. All of them seemed to recognize my mood and let me pass without further comment. As I turned the corner to enter the foyer, I ran into one of the women who had joined us at the villa only a few months before, but had become a good friend to both of us. She had been at the party when I'd proposed to Erika, bouncing with glee as Erika had put on the ring. She stood stock-still and uttered a small hello, which I returned. There was a look of confusion on her face as she tried to think of something to say and failed. After a moment a tear began a long slide down her cheek, leaving a glistening trail. I reached to wipe it away with my left hand and her eyes shifted to the hand, then back to my face. Again, I hadn't realized my own tears. She wiped mine away as I wiped hers away. I shared my hospital-issue tissues with her for a few moments. Someone called to her and she looked that direction, then back at me, and gave me a 'gotta go now' sort of look. I nodded and we turned away from each other to go our separate ways. At the head of the stairs I glanced back at the room below and saw that there were half a dozen other women down there as well. They'd seen my silent exchange with Bethany. All of them were looking at me and I could almost feel their hearts reaching to try to take small pieces of my hurt from me. That's what women do. Men bottle it and try to carry it alone, but women try to spread out the weight of such things and share the burden. I nodded and gave a little wave to all of them and headed into the Major's office. The clerk, Phyllis, took one look at me and hurried around the desk to take my bag and put it in the corner, then returned to kneel beside me as I took a seat at her desk. "Someone was waiting for him," she said as she gently guided me into the chair by her desk. "It may be a few minutes. Do you want to go lie down? I'll tell the Major..." I interrupted her. "Damn, Phyllis, do I really look that bad?" "I'm afraid so. To me, anyway." "I must look that way to everyone, then. I must look like a cancer patient or something that escaped from the morgue." She seemed to be holding back tears of her own. "Something like that," she said softly, "Dear God, Ed ... I wish ... I mean, I wish..." I laughed bitterly. "No, don't wish for anything, Phyllis. I wished and my wish came true. It just didn't last. Dear old god seemed to think that my Erika needed killed." Phyllis was visibly shocked at my words. She crossed herself. In a whisper she said, "Oh, don't talk like that, Ed, please. We don't know why things happen, but they do." I almost said, 'No shit, Phyllis ?' But only almost. I could feel her concern for me and see that all I'd accomplish would be to upset her more than she already was, but I wasn't about to sit and listen to anyone's religious platitudes about the mysteries of "Why Things Happen". The door to the Major's office opened and a Lieutenant emerged. He looked at me as he passed us and without stopping said to me, "You should see a doctor. Soon." Again, I almost said, 'No shit ?' But again I didn't. He was already out of the office, anyway. The Major came out and said something about the presence of eager young officers sometimes being hard to stand, then said, "He just delivered the personal effects of those of ours who were on the plane. When you're up to it,

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I'd like to talk to you. It doesn't have to be today, but I'm going to have to send her things to her family." I looked up at him and said, "I think I only want the ring, Major, and some of our pictures. I can't think of much else that would belong to me before her family. If everything has been signed for and all that I can take the ring now. I'll get the pictures later." He went in his office and brought out Erika's things. I'd expected scorching or burned fragments, I guess, so I was a little surprised when I didn't see that kind of damage. The ring was in a baggie. It looked undamaged. I put it in my shirt pocket without taking time to more than identify it and opened her purse. I'd never opened her purse before, never had a reason to go into it for anything. It seemed to me like an intrusion of some sort when I did so then. In her purse was some money and our room key, which I handed to Phyllis, and a separate photo wallet. There was a picture of us in the wallet that I also put in my pocket. Lipstick, a little bottle of perfume, odds and ends, and a letter I'd written to her while on assignment once were all that were left to consider. I put the perfume on the desk and just looked at it for a few moments, then put that in my pocket, too. Phyllis noted the last acquisition and raised an eyebrow. I told her it had only cost me about thirty dollars, but that it had been Erika's favorite and that it had been one of the things about her that had marked me and made me hers early on in our relationship. She nodded. The letter was over a year old. It was a bit threadbare and had weak spots from being folded and unfolded and was stained in places. I put the letter in my pocket and handed everything else back to the Major, who put it in a property bag. We all seemed at a loss for words until the Major said, "When you're able to go sort things in your old room, let me know." He turned to Phyllis and said, "Give him another room for now, will you, Phyllis?" "Yes, sir." Phyllis consulted a chart and handed me a key. It was eight doors away from the room I'd shared with Erika. She looked at me questioningly. I nodded and took the key. "Good enough," said the Major. "Ed will be off duty this week, Phyllis." He turned to me and added, "That isn't a request. I also think you should consider visiting your family over the holidays if you can afford it. If you want to and can't afford it..." I held up a hand and said, "Thanks, but money wouldn't be a problem, Major." He looked to Phyllis for confirmation of my words. She gave him a small, wry grin and said, "No, dear me, no. Money is not a problem for him, sir." Her tone made him furrow his brows, maybe in skepticism. She looked at me and I shrugged, then she showed the Major my deposits in the unit banking book. He whistled softly. "O-kay," he said, "I accept that. Don't show him mine, Phyllis. I'd be embarrassed." She giggled softly and put the book back on the rack. I took my bag to my new room and noted that it looked pretty much like my old room had before Erika had moved in. Spartan. I'd added a few books and that was about it. Erika had wanted things on the dresser. I kept my stuff in a drawer. She'd wanted to move the furniture to make the room look and feel bigger. I didn't much care. Bigger meant I had to go farther to get my hands on her, I said. She'd laughed and made me chase her, "For practice," she'd said when she kissed me. "So you never take me for granted." I realized that a few days or a week wouldn't very likely make any difference in how going into our room would affect me, so I put my bag inside

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the door of our old room and took the new room key back to Phyllis and told her to let the Major know that I'd be sorting stuff sooner than we'd expected. She looked very dubious about the idea as I left the office. I found Erika's and my better friends, Bethany, Annie, and Elizabeth, downstairs and told them that it would be nice to have some help packing Erika's belongings for shipment to her parents. I also told them that Erika's parents were rather conservative and that I didn't want to accidentally send along something that would embarrass either them or Erika's memory. Then I told them that handing me tissues when I needed them would be as much a part of the job as sorting and packing. Elizabeth burst into tears and hugged me. She said she considered it an honor to be singled out to help. The other women agreed with her. Annie said, "Asking us to help shows us your heart, Ed. It means you cared enough to know who her friends were and that you care enough now to have things done carefully and properly. You're not losing your head and just throwing things in a box or a bag to protect your emotions and Erika would have respected that." I looked at her and said, "I'm not being particularly brave, Annie. There's no way to protect myself from this. I'm only doing this now because if I stall too long, someone else would be told to do it, and I'd rather not have strangers pawing through her things. You three are the only other people I want in that room when my Erika's world is sorted and packed." I noticed that I'd used the term 'my Erika' again and wondered if I'd be calling her that for the rest of my life. Not just Erika. My Erika. It seemed right and wrong at the same time. We decided that they'd join me after duty hours and dinner. I scavenged some cardboard boxes and took them up to the room after marking one with a big "C". I didn't go into the room; I just pushed the boxes in and closed the door. It seemed best to keep moving for the rest of the day and not give myself a chance to sit in the midst of what was up there and maybe change my mind about doing that evening what could become progressively harder to begin. The Major's suggestion that I return to the States for the holidays came to mind, but the thought of the long flights to and from Africa and Texas and memories of other holiday seasons came to mind. I didn't remember ever particularly enjoying the holidays or having family members I saw once a year or far less often crowding me for details about my life. I also didn't like the windy Texas winters or the small town in which I'd had to survive my pre-Army years and decided that it would be much better to visit in spring or fall, when it wasn't quite as hot as equatorial Africa in Dallas. It also occurred to me that my parents might like to visit Africa, instead. In short, I decided to stay put. The villa would be short-handed over the holidays, as usual. I figured that I'd be more useful to myself and everyone else in the world if I stayed useful at the villa. During dinner I told Elizabeth, Annie, and Bethany of my decision to stay. Elizabeth said she was staying, too, since she didn't have any family. When I looked curious, she told me she'd been an orphan and left it at that. I nodded and dropped the subject. Annie was staying because she and her family weren't on the best of terms. Going her own way in life had created a serious schism between her and her father, who was an old-style 'marry 'em off' ' -- type guy. Her mother had at first seemed sympathetic, but eventually sided with her father after many discussions with him and the priest in the small English town. "What the hell," she opined. "I didn't run off to London to wear spiky purple hair and nose rings and I don't fuck and suck for drugs and money. I just wanted my own life and I have one now, and they act as if I've signed myself over to the devil because I'm not making babies in some working-class flat with a guy my father had all picked out for me."

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After everyone had agreed that she had, indeed, saved herself from a life of drudgery, Bethany said that she'd had that life and left it. There'd been no kids, just her and the mister scratching out a daily living in Manchester. He'd been rough on her one time too many one night and made the mistake of hitting her while she was cooking spaghetti. She'd dumped a pan of boiling water and pasta over the front of his pants and whacked him in the head with the pan, then left him. I took her hand in mine and kissed it. "The Lady and the Tiger," I said. "That man done made hisself the wrong choice all-to-gether that night. Good for you, Beth." The reference was lost on her, so she didn't understand the reason for the chuckles around the table. Annie volunteered to explain it to her later, but Beth wanted to know right then. She grinned as she said, "For all I know, he just poked fun at me about something." Annie launched into a fair rendition of the story. When she finished, Beth said, "The only part that fits me is the title the way he said it, I guess." Elizabeth said, "And he said it right for you, Beth. The Lady and the Tiger. You're both." Bethany gave me a much-exaggerated admiring expression and said, "Oh, Ed's so smart. We really ought to keep him 'cause he knows so much ... well, you know ... STUFF." The ladies and some others at nearby tables thought that was funny enough. I gave Beth and everybody else a look of vast sufferance and waited for their laughs and giggles to stop. I asked her, "How did you find your way into Solutions, Beth? They don't exactly put ads in the papers, do they? Actually, I don't know if they do or not. I found them by accident." Beth made a wry face and said, "I wasn't what the British militaries wanted. Boiling Robert's privates got me jailed for a month and I didn't finish school because I ran off with him at fifteen. I was looking for work in London when someone stole my purse and I chased him seven blocks and caught him. He hit me and tried to run again. I caught up and beat the daylights out of him with a trash barrel. I found out you're not supposed to do that sort of thing, no matter what he did to me, when I was arrested again for assault. While I was in jail, a woman who was there to pay a traffic fine talked to me while we waited and gave me a card and here I am." Annie had dated a guy who'd given her one of the cards. Elizabeth had run into someone who'd been in the orphanage with her who gave her a card. I started to tell them how I'd found Solutions and Elizabeth said, "We already know. Erika told us that Major Mason recruited you personally. Most impressive, Sergeant." "No, just most fortunate for me. I was in essentially the same boat as all of you. There was an investigation I wanted no part of and I couldn't stay where I'd been. I'd hitchhiked onto a private flight to Germany. When Carla handed me a card, it was based on what she already knew of where I'd been and what I'd been doing. She knew my old employers." Elizabeth said, "Erika told us you were doing some kind of spy work and had to leave the country in a hurry." "Sorry," I said. "Nothing as glamorous as being a spy." I told them some of what I'd been doing and what had happened. Annie said, "If you really have to know I can find out if it's in his file, Liz." She looked at me and asked, "That is, if you don't mind, Ed?" Right. As if it would matter whether I minded or not. I shrugged. "No problem," I said. An hour after dinner we were still sitting at the table swilling coffee and talking, but the subject material was thinning rapidly. Elizabeth had seemed quiet for a while, so I asked her what was on her mind.

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She said, "I hope you aren't offended, Ed, but I think we're just stalling around here." I nodded. "No offense, Liz. I think you're right. Are we ready?" The three women glanced at each other and nodded in return. A few minutes later we were at the door with the Major and looking at each other again. I let us in. An hour or so later we had most of Erika's clothing sorted on the bed into types. I told the women that I thought they should have the underwear if it would fit, since one of Erika's chief gripes had been getting time in Nairobi for shopping. Most of the ladies used mail order houses for such things or had family members send them what they needed. Sometimes it even fit properly. They hesitated. I told them that I'd explain things in a letter I was sending with the belongings. After another moment's hesitation the underwear was divided among them and Liz commented that whatever didn't fit them would fit someone else and save them a long trip to town. Then it was time to pack the outerwear. I said, "First, nothing of hers will fit anyone in her family unless one of her brothers has a secret life. I say we send a reasonably sized bundle of clothing back to satisfy convention and let the rest go to her friends. If she were able to tell us her wishes, would she have us do any differently? The stuff would just wind up in a trunk or a thrift shop, eventually, anyway. Might as well get some use out of it before it's completely out of date." I picked out clothing that I'd too-readily recognize on anyone there as having once belonged to Erika and put it in the pile to send home along with a small selection of casual wear and some of her better clothing. One full set of her dress uniforms and her boots and uniform shoes also went in the box. We then took an inventory of Erika's jewelry and the Major took pictures of the items with an instamatic camera while they were spread out on the bed. While he was doing that I stood up and straightened myself up and asked him to take my picture. He asked what I planned to do with it. I told him it would go with the letter I'd write so that her parents could see what kind of person Erika had been involved with. I picked out a little gold cat's head pendant that I'd bought for her during a trip to a wildlife preserve in 1977 and the cat-face earrings she'd always worn with it and put them aside, then put the rest back in the box after the Major had taken the pictures. There was a shoebox containing photos and letters in one of the dresser drawers. I debated whether to let my letters to Erika go as I looked through the photos and picked out a few for my own memory box. When I found the negatives for all the pictures in several small folders inside a small manila envelope, my plan to keep a few photos immediately changed. Only a few dozen of the pictures held special significance for me and they were all on the negatives dating from 1976. I decided to have my own photos made and pulled out only a few of the duplicates. I put the duplicates in with the negatives and closed the box on the rest. The letters were another matter. I asked the others whether they'd want some of the things they'd written to their lovers or that their lovers had written to them to be read by mourning parents. Bethany looked startled, then almost shocked as she considered the question. She said she was going to put some of her letters in an envelope marked 'Do not send. Burn these letters' . The Major laughed and said he'd handle the job personally. Bethany threatened to haunt him forever if he read them first. Liz was of the opinion that the parents were of age and should be allowed to form as accurate a picture of their daughter as possible unless the contents were truly horrible. Annie just looked at her and said softly, "You might not feel that way if you'd had parents and a family, Liz. No, wait. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings."

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She raised a hand to forestall Liz's reaction, then continued, "I don't get along with my family at all, but there are some things I definitely don't want them to know about my life while I'm alive, so why would I want them to know after I'm gone? Would it upset them any less? How do I want to be remembered?" Annie turned to me and offered to help me screen the letters. Beth quickly echoed her offer. A moment later Liz said, "Yeah. Okay." The Major said he agreed with Annie and that he could delay the shipping a few days for us, but not more than a week. I set the letters aside. In the drawer that had held the picture box was another small blue box. I knew what was in it and it most definitely didn't need to go to her family. It contained a small vibrator that a British Navy friend had given Erika as a joke birthday present years before. The box also contained various samples of other sexually oriented products and was titled "Navy Woman's Survival Kit" in big gold letters on the top. Annie and Beth had been standing near when I'd retrieved the photo box. They'd seen the blue box and neither had said anything, of course. Annie had coughed and caught my eye and given me a very negative look and a small shake of her head, just in case, I guess, but I'd already slid the box to the back of the drawer and was closing the drawer by then. We sealed the boxes and applied the labels that Phyllis had typed up. The Major said that when we'd finished sorting out the letters, everything would be taken to Britain on one of the Solutions planes rather than trusted to the postal service, making reference to the condition in which my first set of divorce papers had arrived. There was a round of general agreement to that. He then asked if I wanted to be the one to deliver them to her family. The question threw me completely. It hadn't occurred to me that I could do that, and I wondered why. When I didn't answer him for some seconds, he read my confusion and said, "Well, give it thought. You can tell me when you finish with the letters." When the boxes and bags had been taken to the office I lay back on the bed and tried to relax, but eventually I wound up with Erika's pillow under my face as the swelling sensation in my chest seemed to grow. This time there were no tears. Only various envisionings of Erika and our times together. The feeling in my chest subsided and I drifted with my visions of her. A soft knocking at the door persisted until I finally said, "It's open." I turned to look at the doorway, but I didn't get up. The door opened and in came Beth, Liz, and Annie. Liz said, "Good. You weren't sleeping already. It's early yet, Ed. We wanted to bring you downstairs with us and maybe talk a while." I didn't particularly want to go, I didn't want to hurt their feelings, and I didn't know how to say 'no' gracefully enough to believe that I wouldn't hurt their feelings anyway. As the moment drew out, Bethany came over to sit on the bed and put a hand on my shoulder. She said, "We think it would be a good idea. For all of us, that is. Please?" When I didn't answer immediately, she gently tugged my shoulder a couple of times. The others came over and stood by the bed. Annie said, "Come on. We all need this, Ed." I wondered about that. It seemed to me that they could discuss things pretty well by themselves if they wanted to, as they always had. I said, "I thought I'd turn in early." Annie looked at Bethany and said, "Uh, huh." Liz went around to the other side of the bed and stretched out next to me. She tugged Erika's pillow out from under my face and put it under hers and lay there looking at me for a moment before she said, "Bullshit. You were going to lie here feeling miserable." "I'm not miserable, Liz. I was just remembering her."

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Beth pushed me toward Liz and said, "Move over." Liz scooted back to make room. I moved over a bit and Beth stretched herself out behind me. "Gimme some pillow," she said. Annie sat down in the chair by the desk. She regarded us for a moment, then said, "Well isn't this just lovely? Instead of being where the coffee and snacks are, you people are up here piling yourselves on each other like sleepy kittens." Beth said, "We aren't piling up on each other, Annie. Why do we have to be sitting in the mess hall to have a conversation? The coffee'll be there later." Liz said, "Yeah." Annie rolled her eyes and leaned the chair back, continuing to regard us skeptically. Liz propped herself up on one arm and said to Beth, "I think she's just jealous because the bed's full. What do you think?" "I think you're right." "I think we can squeeze her in somewhere, don't you?" "Oh, sure. Things will settle out somehow." I started to call a halt to things but I was too late. The two women rolled off the bed and approached Annie from both sides as if they were ready to prevent her from escaping. Annie glanced at each of them and let the chair down. She stood up and said, "No, c'mon, now, the bed's too small anyway." "No, it isn't," said Liz. "Yes, it is." "No, it isn't," said Beth. "Come on, you can be a kitten, too." "It's too small, dammit. It'll break." I could see what would happen next. I started to move to the edge of the bed to get off it before it happened. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, about to get up, when Liz pointed a finger at me and said, "You. Stay put." I started to reply and she said, "I said, 'stay put '." Annie again voiced her concern about breaking the bed. "No it won't," said Liz. "It'll hold four easily. I know that for a fact." Annie stared at her and archly asked, "Oh, really ? Do you now? And how's that?" Beth laughed and said, "The same way I do. I was there, too. And don't look so shocked, silly. Ed knows we girls used to play together. He played too." Annie's head swiveled to stare at me and Liz pounced on her. The two of them dragged Annie to the bed and shoved her flat, then held her down as Liz climbed in. I watched the giggling, thrashing melee happen and started to get up anyway. Beth quickly put both hands on my shoulders and shoved me back down. Annie and Liz got grips on my shirt and pulled me. "No," said Beth. I didn't know if she'd said it to them or me. "We're all in this thing together, Ed. Erika was special to all of us. That's why we were so happy when you invited us to help and it's why we're here now, so unless you have a real problem with it, get flat and snuggle with the rest of us for a while, okay?" Truthfully, I don't like being crowded under any circumstances. It can really bug me. But I also don't like to trample on peoples' feelings unnecessarily, and Beth was right about us all having a piece of Erika's heart. I figured the whole thing would probably break up the first time someone had to go to the bathroom, anyway, so I let them push and pull me into the bed behind Annie, even though I felt awkward as hell about the overall situation. Beth got in behind me and we all squirmed and shuffled a bit to get comfortable and avoid tumbling off the edges.

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Annie was almost nose-to-nose with me. She said, "I've never had to have that much help getting a man in bed before." Bethany giggled behind me. Liz said, "Don't forget we had to throw you in, too, sweetie." Beth said, "Yeah. You weren't exactly enthusiastic about it back then, but now you're bitching because he was a little slow to climb in with you." She giggled again. "Oh, fuck you, Beth," said Annie. "I never bitch about anything. I don't bitch." That made Liz laugh outright and loudly. Annie tried to glare back at her but couldn't quite turn far enough to make it happen. Beth reached over me to turn Annie's head back to look at her and said, "The hell you don't bitch. What were you doing yesterday when schedules came out?" Liz laughed again and said, "Yeah, that was bitching. She was definitely bitching." The faint smell of Chanel wafted into my nose. I listened to them banter as I tried to figure out which of them was wearing the same perfume Erika had liked and discovered it was Annie. She saw my look and fell still. After a moment she asked, "What?" "I just noticed your perfume is all." Annie reddened slightly and almost whispered, "Oh, goddamn. It's hers , isn't it? It's the stuff she gave me for my birthday because I said something nice about it. Oh, damn ." I put a hand on her distraught face. "Yeah, but it's all right, Annie. Don't worry about it." Beth rose up and looked down at my face from a few inches. "Are you sure?" she asked. "She didn't know ... We didn't know..." "I'm okay with it, Beth. Think about it. How many women wear it? Am I going to burst into tears every time one walks by? God, I hope not. Talk about embarrassing..." Beth was close to tears again. Her eyes welled until a tear fell on my cheek. When my hand moved toward it, Annie put her hand on mine and stopped me. Beth wiped her eyes with a corner of the pillowcase. Annie pulled my face to hers and pressed her lips to the spot where the tear had fallen. I felt the tip of her tongue swipe over the spot, and a moment later she silently released me. Annie's eyes were damp, too, as she readjusted her head on the pillow. The CQ chose that moment to pass the open doorway. She froze with a startled look on her face and gasped slightly as she stared at the four of us on the bed. It was a woman named Mary who had a reputation for being something of prude and was not well liked by all. Liz propped herself up and said, "We've got our clothes on, Mary. We're not raping him." Annie said, "Yeah. Not that we wouldn't, you know, but not now. Check back later, okay?" Beth just looked at Mary and said nothing, but she said nothing in such a way that Mary had to know she was definitely intruding. I wondered what more than Mary's general prudishness had gone by that had made her so disliked by the others in the bed. Mary's expression had barely settled into one of stern disapproval when Liz said, "Just shut the door and leave us alone, okay, Mary? We don't need an audience." Mary began to say, "I don't think this..." but was interrupted by Beth. In a low tone she said, "Get the hell out of here, Mary. Now ." There was iron in that last word and I was more than a little surprised at the animosity she was displaying. Mary's mouth snapped shut and she was glaring, but she spun and pulled the door shut behind her as she left. Annie muttered, "Bitch."

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I stared at her. She looked back at me and said in a firm voice, "We all have good reasons for not liking her, all right?" I grinned and said flatly, "Yes, ma'am. No problem. Please don't hurt me." Annie blinked at me blankly. Liz snorted a laugh and Beth giggled. Annie looked at Beth for a moment, then said, "Now, where were we?" "We were right here," said Beth. "All piled up like kittens, I think someone said." Annie poked the pillow and let herself fall flat onto it. "Right," she said. "Well?" The others settled back in with a certain amount of wriggling and adjusting. "I think I like this," said Liz. "Me, too," said Beth. "Cuddling is nice." Liz said, "Of course, ordinarily this wouldn't be what we were doing all in a bed together." Beth said firmly, "Cuddling-is-nice, Liz. This isn't the time." "Hey, I wasn't looking to start anything," said Liz. "I was just making an observation." "No shit," said Annie. She snickered. "I mean that," said Liz. "I was just..." "Then why is your hand on my ass?" asked Annie. "It isn't!" insisted Liz. "I mean, not that way. Here, I'll move it for you. Jeez." Annie was shaking with silent laughter that didn't stay silent. Liz realized she was being teased, and in a moment everybody was laughing. Annie suddenly gasped and jerked and swatted frantically backward between herself and Liz. "That'll teach you to have me on like that," said Liz. She held up her hand and made a pinching motion for the rest of us. The laughter went on for a while. I said to Annie, "She must have pinched you pretty hard, from the look on your face." Annie looked back at me for a moment, then whispered, but loudly enough for the others to hear, "Here's a little secret, Ed. You can't pinch someone with just one finger." I just looked at her blankly and said, "Oh." Beth and Liz cracked up, then Annie, when she couldn't keep a straight face anymore. After some laughing and tickling and thrashing, Liz fell off the bed and Annie had to visit the bathroom, so I got up, too, and offered to make us a drink. I had one glass in the room, so I made a strong gin/bitter lemon mix in it and we talked about a wide range of subjects as we passed it around until it was gone. After a couple of hours the ladies left for their own rooms and I surveyed the disarray of the bed and the room in general and decided to straighten things up later, after some sleep. The Chanel scent was still on the pillow and stronger than ever, but now I couldn't help associating it at least in part with Annie's "You can't pinch someone with just one finger" and the confidential look on her face when she'd loudly whispered it to me. Examining myself for feelings of disloyalty to Erika, I found none. We'd had these other women in our bed a number of times because we both enjoyed occasional variety and collaborating to find all the pleasures hidden within one of her female playmates. When I was on assignment she'd sometimes had them sleep over, and if I'd minded such things we never would have been able to blend ourselves or enjoy each others' company as we had. It seemed to me that if the situation were reversed, Erika would have done as I did. I had referred to her as "my Erika" several times since her death.

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Before that, I had avoided regarding her as "mine" because, for all our caring and sharing, I'd long ago learned that people often need to go their own ways, especially the kinds of people who chafe at being constrained, and Erika was definitely one of those people, just as I was. For that matter, just as almost everyone I'd ever met in Solutions was, or they never would have been there in the first place. "My Erika" was now a fairly accurate term because it encompassed only my memories of her. On the other hand, due to her closeness to a couple of other women, I realized that I might sometime be hearing it from one or both of them, as well. She was also "our" Erika. -------*Chapter Thirty-nine* Phyllis knocked on my door at about seven in the morning on her way to her office. "The Major wants to see you," she said. "He told me last night to bring you in early." I nodded and wiped my eyes and when I looked again she was well down the corridor instead of telling me why I was being summoned. Half an hour later I was in his office and looking at the unit log on his desk. He was not happy. "Explain this," he said. I looked where his finger was touching the page. The log entry said, "Date, time, CQ name, etcetera, then: 'While performing my duties I noticed the door to a room inadvertently left open and checked to see if anyone was about or within. I chanced to see Sergeant Howdershelt in his room, in his bed with the following female personnel: (list of names and ranks). At least one kiss was exchanged between (me) and (Annie) and (Liz) had one of her hands on (Annie's) lower anatomy .' I said, "That's damningly accurate, Major. Deliberately so, as I've been given to understand Mary's hostile attitude toward these women. We forgot to close the door and we were all in the bed together. Fully clothed, if it matters. I got a sympathy kiss from Annie and Liz nearly fell off the bed several times, so it's safe to assume she was probably just trying to brace herself." "What do you mean, a 'hostile attitude'?" "They hate each other and have for some time. I don't know why. Mary could see nothing was going on and the door was wide open. She was finally told to get the hell out of the room last night by Beth when Mary couldn't seem to understand that she was intruding." The Major was surprised. "Beth? Our Beth? As in Bethany? She said 'get the hell out '?" "She did. We were having a personal moment of mourning that involved, as Annie called it, 'piling up like kittens in a shoebox'. It was supposed to make us all feel better and it did." The Major considered things for a moment and raised his voice to say, "Phyllis! Get the others in here, please! Mary included!" To me, he said, "I want your statement in writing." I set about scribbling my version of the event as we waited. The ladies and Mary arrived fairly quickly, and I finished my dissertation while they waited in the outer office. When I handed it to him, the Major called Bethany, Annie, and Liz into his office and told me to sit quietly. "Read this," he said, handing my paper to them. "If it's true, you'll be signing it later." The ladies read it individually and said it was true. The Major then summoned Mary. He said, "Sergeant Howdershelt says that your entry in the unit log contains only the barest facts stated in such a manner as to infer improprieties occurred. Read his version of the incident that sparked your log entry. If it's the truth, sign it and date it. Each of these women and I will witness your signature so that this document may be entered into the log."

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Mary's face was a mask of fear as she accepted the paper and read it over. She nodded to the Major timidly. He said, "I want to hear it. I want them to hear it, too." Mary said, "Yes, it appears to be the truth, sir." The Major growled, "Appears? Don't give me 'appears', Mary. It is or it isn't." Mary cringed slightly. "Yes, sir. It's the truth, sir." The Major called Phyllis in to take my paper and type it as a document for witnessing with copies for everyone. He then ordered Mary to wait in the hall, not in Phyllis' office, and told her she would be summoned when required. When he turned to us, he gazed at us for some moments before speaking. "Well, should I be disappointed in you people? Erika Miller hasn't even been sent home yet and you're all in her bed together. What kind of people should I think you are?" Liz said quietly, "People who share the good times and face the bad times together, sir." "Four in a bed?" "He wouldn't let go of her pillow and come out of it so we got in, sir. We hurt, too, but not as badly as he does. He needed us last night and he'll need us again now and then." I looked at Liz in startlement. She looked back calmly and said, "He was going to try to carry it all by himself. We didn't think that was necessary. Erika was our friend, too." The Major said, "That's a fine sentiment, but I've been through this sort of thing myself. Every day brings a brand-new round of pain for a long time." Annie asked him, "No offense, Major, but how much less pain would there have been if you'd had friends who shared the loss with you and shared themselves with you when you hurt the most? Erika belonged to all of us, Major. She was his goddess and our good friend. We chose our own way to mourn her. Together. We lost her, not just Ed. She is our loss, not just his, and Erika wouldn't have had any problems at all with last night." Beth, not to be left out, said, "That's right, sir. Erika loved all of us and we loved her." The Major turned to me and asked, "Well? Don't you have anything to add?" "Not really, Major. They covered it pretty well, and what you said at the hospital was true. Erika wouldn't have wanted others to suffer because of her. We're together to help defray the pain of loss, but we're also together in her honor and remembrance." "I see." He went around behind his desk and sat down. "And I agree with you all more than I thought I would. We train people to support each other in the field and carry on, but expect them to stand as individual martyrs in glorified suffering to personal losses like these. Why is that so? One has fallen and the others help each other carry on. That's as it should be." Phyllis was waiting at the doorway with the typed documents. She entered when he finished and handed them to us. The Major said, "Everybody leave the top line for Mary's signature and sign all copies. Phyllis, get Mary, please." Mary was brought in. Once all had finished signing, the Major made sure each of us had a copy for our files and put one in the log, then dismissed all of us but Mary. We headed for the mess hall to unwind. As we sat down at "our" table, Beth said to me, "You will need us, you know, and we'll need you. Last night was just a Band-Aid for us all." "I know it was, but I honestly fail to see how you three really need me." Beth smiled slightly at me and said, "We just do, Ed. We just do. Nature of the beasts."

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Annie spoke up. "Last night you said men bottle things up and women share them. That may be a cliche, but it contains more than a little bit of truth. We won't let you bottle it up if we can help it because we don't work that way." After lunch they went back to duty and I found usefulness unloading a truck that afternoon. That evening we got together again in my room and each of us wrote a letter to Erika's parents. Erika was shipped home with her properties on Thursday after the medical people concluded their required work. The Major had scheduled services for Friday so that most of the personnel at the villa who had known Erika would be able to attend. The second set of divorce papers arrived in Friday's mail. Without Erika I no longer had a reason to cancel all the benefits of having a U.S.Army/DOD ID card, and I certainly had no reason to arbitrarily discontinue the benefits my wife received for being married while in the Army, so I called her late Friday evening to tell her what had happened and of my decision not to go through with the divorce without a good reason. She thanked me for keeping her informed. I thanked her for being so cooperative about the whole thing. She thanked me for considering her benefits. I reminded her that I'd have lost mine, too, and if you think that part of the conversation was rather lame, you should have heard the rest. We truly had nothing else to say to each other beyond 'thank you' and 'goodbye'. Christmas drew near and someone organized a two-day party for those of us who remained at the villa at the time so that those on duty one day would have a chance to party the next. Since all that was needed was a skeleton crew, the ladies and I were off duty both days. Holidays make some people happy, some sad, and some nauseous. I normally belong in the third group. Liz fell into the second that Christmas. After a few drinks she usually became kind of warm and fuzzy and funny, but on Christmas eve her floodgates opened while we were all opening our presents to each other in what seemed to have become 'our' room almost as much as 'my' room. When she could stop crying enough to talk, she said only that she didn't want to talk about it. No amount of coaxing could get it out of her. We finished opening presents and had a few drinks and wandered in and out of the party downstairs, but we seemed to regroup and retreat upstairs every hour or so without actually having to think about it. During one such regrouping, Annie showed up with cake plastered on her shirtfront from a collision with someone as tipsy as she was and Beth was wearing someone's white wine from a similar encounter. Liz was unscathed until she reached up from the bed for a refill and bumped her elbow on the dresser. Her drink fell into her hair. 'Pissed' is a word that can almost describe her reaction to this nasty bit of luck. After a certain amount of swearing and muttering, she decided to get a shower before she turned 'sticky like the rest of us'. I said I wasn't sticky. Stupid me. One drink was poured over my head and the other into my pants. Liz said, "We suffer together, remember?" I pounced on her and flattened her on the bed and began tickling her. Annie jumped on me and pulled me off Liz, then she and Liz began tickling me while Beth looked for an opening. When I struggled a bit, Annie sat on me and tried to pin my hands while the others took advantage of the opportunity to tickle me some more. Annie was staring down at me from only a few inches. Her expression had changed and it caught my attention so that I stopped responding much to the tickling, which was noticed by Liz and Beth. They stopped and looked to see what was going on just as Annie lowered her lips to mine and kissed me warmly, firmly, and for quite some time. The tone of things changed instantly as Annie kept my hands pinned and kissed me. Beth muttered something and then said she'd make us fresh drinks. Liz said nothing and remained seated on the edge of the bed. Annie's surprising kiss caused a reaction, and suddenly a hand wrapped itself around

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me there and squeezed. Liz said, "Damn, Beth. Come see this." I made as if to get up, but Annie sharply whispered, "No!" and kissed me again. When she raised her head again and her hair was out of my face, I saw Beth approaching. She had a rather distracted look as she handed Liz a drink, then a different hand squeezed me and began rubbing me. Annie scooted herself back far enough to feel it beneath her and grinned down at me. Things are slightly different when women decide to assert themselves. They like to know for certain when they're in control and they like finding ways of periodically reminding themselves that they're in control during such an encounter, so they do things such as Annie did. She wriggled herself a few times and suddenly slid off me and went to the dresser for her drink, leaving me to the tender mercies of Liz and Beth. I could have moved. I didn't. Liz was simply looking at me with a grin, massaging me. Beth was by now very tipsy and fascinated with what Liz was doing to me. She involved herself only by running a finger up and down me now and then as she watched. Annie stepped over to stand between them and tapped my knee for attention. "Want another kiss, Ed?" She moved her knee back and forth between mine. "Seems to me that you do." I tried to be flippant. "That's very observant of you, Annie." Annie nodded to Beth and Beth handed her drink to Annie and leaned to kiss me, then took her drink back. Liz did the same a moment later. Annie said, "We've talked about things, Ed. Among ourselves. Just us girls. We want to be more than friends with you. How do you feel about becoming more than friends with us, Ed?" Beth snickered. "Isn't it obvious?" Liz squeezed again and said, "Yeah. It's obvious." She laughed softly. So did Beth. Annie said, "Nononono ... A man has two heads. We want to be sure they agree on this." I looked at the three of them and said, "They agree." Annie put a hand on each of the others and said, "We share. Right? No favorites. Right?" Liz nodded and Beth said, "Right." Then she giggled. "I have a suggestion," I said. Annie pretended to be extremely interested in what I might have to say. Beth and Liz simply looked at me like lionesses examining prey and waited. "First, I want you to know I'm not saying this just to get the upper hand in things." Annie laughed at that. I continued, "We're all sticky. I know where there's a private shower." I told them about the shower in the supply room. Had I told them I knew where there might be gold, I probably wouldn't have received a more enthusiastic response. Then it occurred to Annie -- aloud, of course -- that I hadn't told them before. Annie asked me, "You aren't just trying to save yourself, are you?" "Scout's honor. I'm not just trying to save myself, ma'am. There really is a private shower." Liz laughed. "You? A Boy Scout? What did you have for lunch? Girl Scouts?" It became an escapade. The ladies went to put on clean clothes and tuck their towels and toilet kits into their shirts. We eased our way past everybody partying below and took our drinks with us to the garage. Annie opined that there might be a minor tragedy involving me that evening if there wasn't really a shower above the garage. I moved the shelves and opened the door behind them and said, "Voila."

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They were bouncing and giggling as I ushered them into the bathroom, then pulled the shelves back and closed the bathroom door. Liz asked, "You did tell Erika about this, didn't you?" I gave her a look usually reserved for village idiots. "It was our only real secret." They couldn't believe she'd kept it secret from them. Neither could I, really, but she had, and I made all the women swear to keep the secret as well. It was to be our bathroom. No lines waiting at the door for a shower. No lines for the sink. Just us. They all solemnly agreed. I rather magnanimously said, "Well, then, this is my present to all of you." Annie glanced up at me and said, "It's only one of your presents, sweetie." Liz said, "If we don't decide to drown you for keeping it a secret." Beth said, "Yeah." She turned the faucet just to see if it really worked, I think. We looked at the stall and decided that we had to take turns two at a time. Annie flipped a coin and won. "You and me first," she said to me. When we took a little too long about it, Beth and Liz stepped in and declared it to be a close fit, but workable. It wasn't, really, but if you run enough water and splatter enough soap, eventually everybody gets clean enough. When the hot water began to run out, we each took a quick turn at getting the soap off. After spending quite a bit of time drying each other off we scampered back to 'our' room, detouring by the doors to seem as if we were coming out of the main bathrooms so nobody would think damp hair, towels, and toilet kits were strange. We'd sobered up some, but you wouldn't have known it from all the giggling and carrying on that was the residue of our soggy adventure in the garage. Annie set about making drinks so that we wouldn't get too sober and asked me when she handed me mine whether I was really comfortable with the whole thing. I said no, of course. Annie looked very startled when I said that. I explained that any man who'd truly be comfortable under these circumstances was probably too stoned or stupid to be of any use to the three women who intended to have him. She gave me a wry smile and announced to the others that I was in need of more persuasion. I'll go no further with descriptions of this event because this book is still within the limits of tolerance that keep it from having an 'X' rating. Suffice it to say that a good time was had by all and that there were enough of us to keep each other busy one way or other. -------*Chapter Forty* In February of 1979 Beth was transferred to fill a slot in the Johannesburg offices. This was an occasion for both tears and a farewell party, and I think we probably overdid both a bit. In early March, Liz was transferred to Innsbruck, Austria. Another tearful party ensued. My contract was due for renewal in May and I might have renewed it if it hadn't been for the woman they sent us as a replacement for the retiring Major. She was five-seven or so, weighed almost two hundred pounds, and threw her weight around at every opportunity as she made what she called 'a clean sweep with a new broom'. She seemed to speak in cliches. The first week of her arrival amounted to little more than inspections and drills. Spit polish and shining brass seemed to be a priority. She was an office-type officer, not a real field officer, and didn't seem to realize that shiny brass just wasn't considered an issue in the middle of Africa and that a good number of us had deliberately requested assignments in places like the villa specifically so that we could avoid people like her. One of the first things she objected to was the big, non-standard-issue

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bed in my room. I explained the bed's story to her and it made no difference. She gave me a week to find it another home and have one of the standard-issue bunks installed in its place or she said she'd have it removed for me. I called Carla in Johannesburg to see either if she could or would override the new CO's decision or at least see if anyone in private quarters was interested and discovered that Carla had retired out of Solutions in February to head a security agency in London. The new CO at the Johannesburg offices wouldn't overrule my CO, but he did look around for me and found a buyer for the bed. I shipped it on the afternoon of the last possible day of my CO's deadline to be rid of it. Annie was overheard voicing her opinion on the matter of the bed by the new CO's aide, a woman who was a shorter version of the CO in both weight and obnoxious manner, and Annie received orders transferring her to one of the mines in Sierra Leone the next day. The opening at the mine hadn't existed until our CO had requested they create it. I went to see the CO about the transfer and was quoted rules concerning disposition of Solutions personnel. She had the authority to transfer personnel and had used it. No recourse. The CO then launched into a diatribe about what she called 'womanizing' men like me. She said she knew about many of my past affairs while employed by Solutions and wondered aloud if easy access to women hadn't been my main reason for signing up. To be on the safe side, I challenged her to allow me to speak freely, person to person, rather than with regard to rank. She agreed. I told her that her research had been engineered to provide the biased results she desired and that she'd managed to ignore a hell of a lot to reach her conclusions about me. I further said that I'd worked for hard-core lesbians who at least read the credentials of the men working for them and could generate respect for others on that level if no other and that I'd be more than happy to accept a transfer to a field unit to pass my final days with Solutions in any outfit but hers. She said transferring me would be too inconvenient. At this point I was training people who came to spend two to three weeks at the villa for the courses. The CO placed her aide in charge of the training and thusly in charge of me, and the aide began immediately trying to renovate both the scheduling and the classes to fit some concept that didn't work well in practice. When she tried to blame the screwups on my reluctance to cooperate, I sent records to the Johannesburg offices to validate my claim that the aide was an incompetent toady and that the CO had a hidden agenda in making me look bad. Johannesburg sent an inspector who sided with me concerning the training and that instilled a hatred of me in the CO and her toady. I began finding work I'd finished lying dismantled the next day, so I set a trap for the perpetrator. I took my finished displays to the outside storeroom one Friday morning and propped the door to latch shut and lock behind anyone who entered the room. No door handle on the inside, of course. The toady aide was missing until Monday afternoon, when someone looking for something discovered her. She was lucky that it was February and not July. The CO was livid, but nothing could be proved. When all eleven members of an elite team requested transfers on the same day that week, her irritation peaked. Not only were the requests denied, the guys were put on shit details that couldn't quite legally qualify as punishment. I had the bad fortune to be in the hall on my way to deliver some papers and wound up on the detail with them for the rest of the week. Then she discovered my .22 revolver in the office lockup and decided it was to be considered contraband, since the CO was the only one who could permit or deny the keeping of private firearms. She called me into her office during lunch. My gun and ammo and the holster and cleaning kit were jumbled together in a pile on her desk.

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I told her I could ship it to friends in Germany, but she grinningly said it was too late for that when it was discovered in her offices and demonstratively swept the whole pile off her desk and into the trashcan on the side. That's what capped things for me. I quietly told her that she'd gotten away with the bed and other bullshit, but that the gun would go with me when I left and that she was not to so much as look at it again. I retrieved my gun and gear out of her trash can and took it with me when I walked out of her office, cradling the gun, holster, ammo, and cleaning gear in a loose wad of hardware in my arms. She followed me, threatening dire consequences. I stopped at the top of the stairs to tell her to 'fuck off' in a whisper. I'm sure my grin pissed her off as much as what I'd said. She stamped over to me and demanded that I hand over the gun. I refused. She grabbed for it. When her hand firmly clutched the holster I backed down a couple of steps and to the side quickly before letting her have the holster she wanted so badly. She plummeted past me. She'd reached a bit too far, that's all. Just a little too far in one too many ways. The CO wound up in an unconscious heap at the bottom of the stairs. As I told investigators later, she was alive when I reached her, but that I hadn't thought it likely that she'd survive with her neck broken. I'd kept anyone from moving her as we waited for transport to arrive. Her difficulty breathing was probably what woke her as she lay there on the last few stairs. She tried to say something before she died, but was never quite able to make the words come out. I held the holster where she could see it and smiled. "You got it, ma'am." The new CO, also a woman, couldn't stand the fat little aide that the previous CO had left behind. I told her about Annie. A couple of others backed my info. The toady was assigned to replace Annie in a unit that promised to help her lose weight and get into shape. Annie was assigned to help me teach because her previous position had been filled during her absence. Annie moved her bunk into my room and it again became an 'our' room. The new CO was unconcerned about sleeping arrangements as long as there was no discord in her unit. I was called to Johannesburg with several of the witnesses to the incident to give testimony and on the second day of investigatory review the case was closed as an accident. While I was there it seemed to me that Solutions was becoming rather top-heavy, and I said something like that to an officer friend I felt I knew well enough to chat with freely. She agreed, and she was in a position to know the truth of the matter as the head of the personnel section in Johannesburg. It was her opinion that the ratio of officers to enlisteds should be much lower. She went on to say that since Carla had retired there had been a string of inflated egos in brass hats, male and female, and that she didn't plan to renew her contract in June. A second opinion walked in while I was talking with her. It was Derek, whom I hadn't seen since the days of my recruitment, and he seconded her opinion. Derek was also looking for other employment for essentially the same reasons. When I got back to the villa I told Annie that I didn't intend to renew my contract. Her reply was, "Figured that." We made the most of the time we had left together and managed to put together one last farewell party in my room before I had to leave to catch the flight from Nairobi to Frankfurt. I'd called Linda before I left Johannesburg. She'd said staying with her for a while should be no more a problem than before and that she hadn't expected me to survive the changes taking place within Solutions. Her opinion was that Solutions might not survive them, either. I had a stack of unspent money and free time and lovely, willing company. Linda said it was like coming home to a vacation every night. We went

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to dinners, concerts, tours, and shows, and our weekends could be as complex as a two-day cruise of the Rhine on an overdressed boat or as simple as a walk in a park and sleeping late. In a corporate world, the death of a company only means that one company buys another, or it's remains, and that's exactly what happened to Solutions in September of 1979. For those beneath the rank of captain it was mostly an unnoticeable event. For those captain and above, according to a note from Lisa, it was an ongoing ordeal of sorts as they had to revalidate their value to the company or be demoted, retired, or simply let go. I refused again a job offer from the anti-drug warlords, this time proffered at a party by an officious, hyper individual who seemed to be less than well liked by a lot of the guests. He said that 'my capabilities' were going to waste doing anything but helping to make society safe from drugs. He was very insistent and used lots of rhetoric and would have impressed the hell out of someone looking for a way to become some kind of clandestine hero. I said I'd think about it and that didn't make him go away. Then I admitted that I didn't think I would be using the number on the card he'd stuffed in my jacket pocket. He turned slightly argumentative and raised his voice enough to cause us to be noticed by others nearby as he demanded to know why I, an unemployed and almost unemployable ex -agent of another agency, was reluctant to join his. It pisses me off when people act like that and can't take no for an answer. I said, "Tonight it's mostly because you're in charge of it, Martin. Why don't you go badger someone else? If I could believe that you guys were actually accomplishing anything much by busting dealers and users, I might go for it, but I don't, and I don't want to work for you ." He stared at me for a moment, then waved his drink to all nearby and said, "Well here he is, folks. A man who doesn't believe in fighting the drug problem that plagues our society." Some of the people nearby looked at me quizzically or with casual disapproval. Others had apparently encountered Martin before and ignored him. "Not your way, Martin," I said. "Now get lost and don't bother us again." He got up close to me and said, "You don't tell me what to do, pal. Ask your friend here if she thinks it's a good idea to mess with me." Linda pulled my arm slightly and said, "This isn't good, guys. We're at a party and you're going to mess it up for everybody else if you don't stop this." Martin stayed nose to nose with me and said, "Fuck 'em. This is between me and him." A woman's low voice said, "Not now, it isn't." It was the wife of the government honcho who was giving the party. She continued, "You said, 'fuck 'em', Mister Martin. Vulgarity aside, that would include me and everybody here and I don't like that at all. I don't like you, either, Mister Martin, and I never really have, come to think of it. You are leaving now, Mister Martin, and without another word, or my husband will be discussing this matter with you shortly." Martin almost paled. Whatever her husband may have been, he definitely seemed to outgun Martin's position and his wife's order to leave appeared totally unarguable. I was apparently completely forgotten instantly and Martin's embarrassment was nearly tangible as she escorted him to get his coat on the way to the front door. Linda said, "A lot of people think he's a nasty little weasel, Ed. Avoid him." "I will, Linda. No doubt about that." But that wasn't the last of Martin in my life. Not long after the party, someone in the drug agency's 'anything for the cause' department decided to use me as a decoy without telling me. They let word leak that I was

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a new agent on a particular Turkish-national's case and my new, powder-blue Volkswagen 411-E was shot full of holes in a train station parking lot soon after. The good news: They caught the shooters. They'd staked out my car on the premise that the Turks would send me a little warning notice in their usual fashion. The bad news: My car was trashed and nobody seemed to want to take any responsibility for replacing it or for having set me up. Because I'd refused to join their little band a number of them actually seemed to think the incident was funny. Linda did some poking around and found Martin's name at the end of a reliable info trail. I went to see him and he actually laughed about the whole thing as if it were my punishment for not taking the job I'd been offered. He ceased laughing when he understood that he had to pay me $4000 for my car or wind up in the hospital with multiple fractures. He chose to pay me. I signed the receipts for the money and left his office. A week later Linda was advised that I should leave Europe for a while. Unofficial word around the drug agency was that I was to be dealt with harshly and at the first available opportunity. Someone who still had a conscience had gotten wind of it and called her about it. The yuppie twit who had originally set me up had set his department's dogs on me and was making no particular secret of my "extortion" visit, but he'd embellished the facts a little to include my holding a gun on him in his office and said I'd received $6,000, not $4000. That had made Linda laugh. I hadn't carried a gun since I'd returned to Europe and she wasn't guessing about that, since I'd hugged her and undressed with her too often since then. I'd also shown her the receipt for the $4000 the day I'd received it. The following Thursday a middle-rank Frankfurt cop of Linda's acquaintance called her. He said that an anonymous tip would be acted upon that evening and that the car that was to be searched for drugs appeared to be mine. Linda briefed him on the situation and called a couple of co-workers into her office to accompany us to my car. At first nothing appeared out of place and our first search of the car turned up no drugs or anything even remotely related to drug use. We searched again. Still nothing. Then one of the guys grinningly suggested that my spare tire really should have some air in it, just in case. The spare wasn't just low. It was completely flat and the tire bead was away from the rim, so I used a tire tool to pry one side free for a look inside the tire. Two baggies of white powder fell out when I shook the tire. Linda was trembling with anger as she used a Kleenex to pick them up and gave them to one of the guys to be checked for fingerprints. "If there are prints on those bags, and if those prints belong to anyone in Martin's office, I will personally call the wrath of god down on those sons of bitches." Linda used a tone of voice I'd never heard often. It meant that, given any bit of evidence, the stops were out and she was going to war. One of the guys gave her a heartfelt "Yes, ma'am." No prints were found on the baggies. Linda's cop friends were informed of the situation and the dope was turned over to them that afternoon during a conference in her office. They went over my car again and found nothing, then wrapped the matter up in official forgetfulness. Friday I told Linda that I had plans for the evening and asked her for someone to drive me here and there who wouldn't remember a thing about it later. She thought a moment, then gave me the name and number of a retired agency guy who lived in one of the outlying villages and went with me to the Bundespost office to call him from a pay phone. After a bit of friendly chatter she asked if he'd be available to meet a friend of hers at a restaurant and discuss a possible business venture. He agreed. At the restaurant I told him what had happened and what I wanted from

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him and he agreed again. I offered him some expense money, but he laughingly said that a tank of gas and the lunch tab would cover it. Martin wanted to see me physically injured and either jailed or deported. I went to see him first, at about two in the morning at his rented house in Wiesbaden. He kept an aluminum baseball bat beside his bed, which was very convenient to the mission at hand. It meant that I didn't have to use the steel baton that I'd brought with me. I nudged him with the end of the baseball bat. He mumbled and rolled over. I nudged him again and he moved to push it away without really waking up. "Hey, Martin," I said conversationally. I was holding the end of the bat over his head and he sat right up into it. The bat made a little "bank" sort of sound and Martin recoiled back down into to his pillow. With one hand to his forehead, he tried to grab at the bat with the other. I spun it once and let the bat whack the back of his hand. His hand hurt worse than his head, so his other hand rushed to cover the one I'd stung as he hissed in his breath. Martin was staring up at me in shock, pain, and fear. I had his complete attention. "You put a hit order on me, Martin. I didn't hurt you last time, I just wanted my car paid for. I thought we might be finished with the whole mess when I didn't hear anything for a week." I let the bat rest on my shoulder and waited. Sure enough, he had something to say. He tried to set his face to a mask of fearless determination. "If you hurt me my people will hunt you down. You know that." I had to laugh. "Your people are already after me, Martin. What else you got?" He looked at me for a moment and said, "I can call them off. You know I can do that." I laughed again. "You could, and I could be a total idiot and believe you, and some night I'd be beaten to a bloody pulp in a parking lot by overenthusiastic muggers or busted on a drug charge. I don't think so, Martin." "I'll do it," he insisted. "I'll call them off. If you can come here like this tonight, you can do it again, right? You know I'll call them off." "You keep telling me what I know, Martin. I don't like that and I'm sure it irritates others, too. Tell you what I do know for a fact, Martin ... I know you're the guy who said I took six grand and held a gun on you. Now what are you going to do, Martin? Tell them it was all a mistake? That it never really happened that way? Let the whole fucking department know you lied to them and admit that two thousand bucks just sort of disappeared because I didn't really take it? Why don't I believe that, Martin? Why do I think that if it's humanly possible to do so you'll call your goons and make me a priority mission as soon as I leave?" Martin's facade of calm was slipping fast. His hands were shaking and his voice quavered a little as he told me he could give me more money and again insisted there'd be no repercussions. I let him believe I was thinking about his offer for a few seconds. He was starting to relax a bit, thinking he'd made some progress, when I said, "Nope. I don't believe you, Martin." I pivoted the bat off my shoulder and slammed it across his right shin. As the shock hit him he froze, chopping off his shout of, "No! Don't..!" I let him soak up the shock and then the rush of pain for a few moments. He started to draw the leg up and instantly regretted the effort to move it as another rush of shock and agony found it's way to his brain. I waited for his mind to clear a bit before I spoke again. I said, "It was too easy for you, Martin. You set me up to piss off the Turks and cause an incident you could use to bust them and it only cost me my car. What has it cost other people to be your unwilling decoys? And you've had

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people 'dealt with' often enough that all you had to do was give the word casually and unofficially and your pals knew what you wanted done. How many others were there? Were all of them uncooperative people, like me?" He was breathing almost normally again, even if the breaths were short and a little too quick. I gave him a few points because he wasn't begging for mercy or trying to bullshit me with stupid promises any more. He tried to collect himself and hissed, "Okay. You've made your point and now I have a broken leg. Can we call it even? Do you really think I'd be stupid enough to send people after you knowing that you can come back for me if I did?" I considered his words and found them lacking something. Sincerity, that's what it was. Oh, he sounded sincere enough, but I couldn't help thinking that as long as he felt he could somehow negotiate with me he wasn't likely to just forget the whole thing. He'd try to figure a way to come out on top of this. "You're being very rational about this, Martin, but, yeah, I do truly believe you'd be that stupid, so I'd like to apologize now if I'm wrong about you." I let him see that I was going to hit him again just before I slammed the bat across his other shin and waited while he went through the painful results again. When he was able to focus and think again, I said, "You were going to have someone do something like this to me. I didn't think you really had any idea what you were going to put me through, which means that I think you never gave this sort of thing much thought when you sicced your goons on other people, either. You're not a nice man, Martin. You're actually just a real, live asshole in a three-piece-suit who doesn't give a shit about anyone but yourself and making it to the next rung on the ladder. Fuck you, Martin. We're all better off without you." I moved the bat so he'd raise a hand to try to stop me and targeted his right elbow. The bat made a "whank" noise and Martin's scream ended abruptly as I stuffed the side of his forearm into his wide-open mouth. To do that I had to move his injured arm. His eyes opened even wider as I pushed his arm into place and some kind of sound escaped through his nose. He looked as if he might pass out, so I grabbed a corner of the sheet and used it to wrap my hand around the glass of water on the night table. I tossed the water in his face, let the glass fall to the floor, and stood back slightly as Martin used his left arm to ease his right arm out of his mouth and slowly laid it across his chest, then looked up at me pleadingly. I said, "Martin, you're just like some of the officers who used to send us out on all kinds of half-assed stupid missions and didn't care if we came back or not. They wanted body counts and the next bar or oak leaf or eagle and just didn't give a shit who died getting it for them. If anyone objected for reasons like, say, common fucking sense, they took it personally and had you put on point next time out. Or they had you sitting in an LP hole every night and trying to find ways to get sleep during the day. They saw the results the medevacs brought back and still didn't give a shit. We hated you fuckers a little more every time we went out with the Graves Registration people to clean up after one of your 'intelligence errors '." Martin started to say something, but the motion moved his right arm slightly. His mouth clacked shut and he sucked in his breath through clenched teeth. "Oh, gee, no, don't apologize, Martin. As if you would, anyway. I don't care if you, personally, were there or not. You're just the same type of asshole, and that's all that really counts here. You'd sacrifice anygoddamnedbody if it suited your purposes, but mostly you just plain use people and get off by seeing them suffer from your decisions. Martin, you still have one good arm. That means you can dial a phone and call your buddies, and you know I can't take the chance that you may not forgive me for

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all this when I leave." He freaked out. He wet himself. He was pathetically begging me not to do it. I let him beg and cry as I thought about the time three guys had worked me over in high school because I'd been tutoring a football team captain's girlfriend in Algebra One simply because she'd told someone she liked me. She'd told me the same thing, but in a way that meant 'just friends', so I never really felt that I'd deserved that beating. I lived through it, though, and after my recovery I had sought each one of those guys out to repay them in kind as I was now repaying Martin. I also thought about how easy it had been for Martin to order his people to do the same thing to me and wondered again how many others had been 'dealt with' in that manner because of him and his power to rather whimsically order such things to happen to people. It was true that I couldn't leave him able to dial the phone. Chances were that when he was discovered some of his people would decide to act on their own, anyway, but I figured to be on the next plane to the States before that happened. He was winding down some, possibly thinking I was having a change of heart. He suggested that I simply yank the phone line out of the wall and offered to forget the whole thing if I just went away. He offered to pay me to go away. "Martin," I said, "Shut up." I swung the bat one more time at his other elbow and waited until he'd stopped thrashing, then put him to sleep with a rap on the head. I checked his pulse. Rapid, but working fine, and he was breathing well enough. Chances were excellent that a Martin-type wouldn't change much, even after all that, but he would likely be a bit more careful about tossing out suggestions to "take care of" people in the future. I took the bat with me when I left. We detoured by way of the Army recreation center, where I cleaned the baseball bat thoroughly and tossed it into the dugouts. We stopped again at the back door of the hospital, where I slipped the lock on an office door so I could call in Martin's medical emergency. I didn't want to take the chance of facing a murder charge, after all. Linda and I had a couple of drinks and a last romp together that night. I didn't tell her anything about my visit with Martin. She didn't want to know, partly for official reasons. The following day I caught a flight to Washington without much of a plan beyond getting back to the US and out of reach of certain people for a while, people who may not have accepted that the incident was over simply because they'd need a new assistant honcho. -------*Chapter Forty-one* There was an awkward moment when I called my old girlfriend Kim from Washington National Airport that Saturday and told her I was back in the US for a while. I'd met her through my wife, and a few months after my wife had returned to the States, we'd become involved for a while, but Kim had had a booze problem, too, so we didn't last. The difference had been in the manner of our parting. We'd broken up rather softly a couple of months before her time in Germany was up, at which time we'd had a party and spent a weekend in a little hotel in Miesenbach to cap off our time together and her time in Germany. She'd left the Army and taken a similar job in DC. We'd promised to write, but never had after the first few months of separation until she'd found some things of mine in a shoebox among her own memorabilia years later. It had happened only a month after Erika had died and I'd taken the opportunity to tell her what I'd later considered far too much in a return letter. Kim's next letter to me spoke briefly of losing a fiance in a car wreck not long after high school and how that incident had been one of the main reasons she'd joined the Army in 1969.

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Her letter about her loss and her feelings was no less rambling and sadness-laden than mine, really, but she assured me that the years since her loss that had softened and blurred the edges of it for her and that things like that truly were survivable. After a few more letters our correspondence had tapered off again. When she got past her shock at hearing from me, I asked her if I could use her couch until Monday morning because I had some places to go and people to see before I left town to head for Texas. I also told her that if she had someone in her life who wouldn't like the idea that I could get a room, instead. During the cab ride to Arlington I wondered why the hell I had even considered the idea of visiting her after all the years of separation and I developed some serious last-minute reservations. This was a woman who had captured my heart so thoroughly in 1972 that I had somehow managed to overlook her alcoholism and ignore her sister's warnings. I began to wonder if seeing her again wouldn't actually turn out to be a very bad idea and began to feel as if I were heading into a trap of some sort. By the time I got to her door I was as nervous as I'd ever been while watching for trip wires on a jungle trail. The front door was open and there was a rather overstuffed bluepoint Siamese cat sitting smack in the middle of the doorway on the other side of the screen door, preventing a couple of other cats from getting near the screen. The bluepoint simply ignored their protests and efforts to squeeze around it and stared up at me with a sort of 'state your business' look on its face. I hunkered down and scratched the screen and said, "Well, hi, there, o chubby one." The cat's ears went back to half-mast and its look was very skeptical. Kim appeared in the doorway behind her. I looked up to see that she was as beautiful as ever, a sort of blonde Ingrid Bergman who was only a little heavier than the actress had been at Kim's age. She was wearing her old 'U.S.ARMY' sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up on her forearms and an almost-knee-length plain skirt. Kim folded her arms across her chest and regarded my efforts with the cat. I said, "This cat's singularly unimpressed with me so far. I think she's telling me to either stop blocking her view or do something interesting." "Could be," said Kim. "But that's how Panda looks all the time, so it's hard to tell." I got to my feet and said, "If this is really a bad idea, I'll call another cab and get a room." Kim stood looking at me for a moment as if considering that idea, then reached for the door handle. "No, it's only a weekend on the couch. We can get along that long, I guess. Don't let anybody out when you come in. They don't go outside." Unless she'd changed a lot, she still liked cooking even less than I did. As I followed her in I asked, "May I take you to dinner tonight as a thank you?" "Not tonight. I'm going to be working on something. You can order a pizza, though. The number is on the wall by the phone in the kitchen." She turned to me and said, "Oh, and if you have to call long distance, call collect. Money's tight these days." "It always was, as I remember." Her eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?" Her reaction startled me and it must have showed. "Nothing. I just remember that every time we got a little ahead, something happened to eat the extra money. Like the time we had that extra five hundred and were wondering whether to take some of it and have some fun. The car's engine crapped out the next day and cost -- what? -- four-seventy to fix. We never could seem to win."

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Her gaze softened a bit, but only a bit, as she remembered the incident. "It did always seem as if something was working against us, didn't it?" I nodded. "Yeah, it sure seemed that way, sometimes." She turned again and led me to the couch, pointing around the room as she spoke. "Bags over there, please, behind the table and not in the walkways. Bathroom's up the stairs and straight ahead. Kitchen's back there." I watched her as she gave me directions. Her shoulder-length hair swept from side to side as she swiveled to point and she still had that stance and posture she'd learned as a child in ballet classes. She still had that soft, honey-coated contralto voice, too. Her face and eyes were just as I remembered them. Ice-blue eyes that seemed to look through you sometimes and features that seemed chiseled at first, but somehow softened and smoothed at the edges when you got closer. She noticed my stillness and looked at me questioningly. I got hold of my thoughts and shook my head. "What's wrong?" she asked. I considered her question for a moment. "Nothing. I just needed to clear my head." She made a face of distaste. "Flying does that. It's the air conditioning. Want a Dristan?" "No, thanks. I'll be okay, I think." I couldn't take my eyes off hers. She made no effort to break the eye contact and stepped closer. "You haven't put your bags down yet and you look sort of confused. What's wrong, Ed?" She was as direct as before, too. I considered what to say and settled for, "I probably need some time to adjust, I guess. I just spent six hours on a plane and they wouldn't let me drive." She gave me a little smile and a chuckle. There was that voice again, used in a soft laugh that touched and tickled something inside me. I very seriously considered just calling a cab and getting the hell out of there. A rubbing of my leg made me look down. There was a little gray cat who looked up at me as he rubbed back and forth. I was grateful for the interruption. I said, "Okay, little guy. Just a minute while I set these down." "That's Jeffrey," said Kim. "Panda's his mother." I nodded without looking at her again and went to put my bags down. "Jeffrey," I repeated the name to help me remember it. "That's a proper name for a cat." There was no response from Kim. As I approached the window I could see her in the dim reflection of the room behind me. She was staring at me. One of her hands was up by her mouth and the other was clenching her skirt and she looked a little worried about something. When I'd put my bags down and turned around, she was still standing there, but her arms were folded together again and the worried look had disappeared. I walked back over there and took a seat on the couch so the Jeffrey would have a lap to use. He wasted no time jumping up and set to work sniffing all of me he could reach while purring loudly. I ruffled his chin and ears and stroked his fur as he seemed to dive back and forth under and between my hands. His eagerness made me laugh and Kim smiled at his efforts. Panda, the big Siamese, came over to investigate. She had the air of a supervisor about her as she parked her considerable bulk on the end of the coffee table and watched little Jeffrey zip back and forth in apparent bliss. "Hello, Panda," I said. One of her ears flipped back to the skeptical position and her eyes narrowed as she regarded me. "You want some of me, too?" I asked. Kim laughed when the other ear flipped back. Panda sat unmoving and apparently altogether unimpressed and unenthused.

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"Panda's a tough sale," said Kim. Three more cats showed up. I said, "Jesus. How many cats you got, lady?" She smiled and said, "Six. Panda's only litter. By the time they were big enough, I couldn't part with them. Stella must be in the bedroom. That's her chosen personal domain." "Oh, well. Gee. I think there are probably enough here to hold me for a while." I kicked my shoes off and lay back. All but the one investigating my shoes jumped up and either found a place to park on me or wandered back and forth over me, checking me out pretty thoroughly as a group. Jeffrey curled up on my chest with his head upside down and lay there staring at me as if studying me. After a few moments, they'd all found places to park and were settling themselves down. When I turned my head to say, "We're all set now, I think," to Kim, she seemed to be gazing at me thoughtfully. She said, "I'd better make sure the door is open for Stella. Do you think you can manage without me for a few minutes?" "Yeah, I guess so. We'll get by somehow. Let me know when you want to order the pizza." She nodded and headed upstairs. Same fine, solid legs, too. Same everything, and looking as good as the night I met her, if not even better. "Your mommy still looks and sounds like a goddess to me," I told Jeffrey. He blinked at me and reached to place a paw on my chin. It wasn't long before I sensed a rushing down the stairs and looked over there in time to brace myself for the arrival of Stella. She was about a ten-pounder, solid white, and not slowing down in the least as she bounded across the carpet, onto the coffee table, and then onto me, landing in the neighborhood of my belt buckle. Not to be excluded, she bumbled around almost frantically until she found a spot big enough for her and settled in with the others. She was wadded up like the others, but not really relaxed about it. When I moved my hand to welcome her aboard with a pat, she flinched. I continued the motion more slowly and let my fingers ruffle her chin and the sides of her face. That seemed to fix everything for her. She unwadded long enough to rewad herself in a slightly different position and purred. Kim came downstairs and went to the cabinet against the stairwell. She found what she was looking for, did something to it, and then turned around with an instamatic camera. "Everybody smile. I want a picture of this." I pretended to be drowning in cats as she snapped the first picture and waved slightly for the second. She put the camera back in the cabinet, set the pictures on edge to finish developing themselves, and came over to sit in the chair on the other side of the coffee table. In a radical departure from earlier years of ranting at me about doing the same thing, she propped her feet on the coffee table. "You always gave me hell when I did that." "And you always wore boots back then. I'm wearing house slippers. Big difference." I pretended to have been reminded of an extremely relevant fact. The truth was that socks and bare feet hadn't been allowed on the coffee tables, either. After some moments of watching us commune on the couch, she said, "When I was going upstairs, I heard what you told Jeffrey, Ed." I wondered where she was going with the conversation. I said, "I never lie to cats, particularly when there's nothing to gain from it. They already seem to like me well enough." She laughed. "That they do. You've always been a cat-magnet. Glad to see that hasn't changed. You're also the only man who ever called me a goddess, Ed. Did you know that?"

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I laughed. "Well, no, I didn't, but I'll bet some of the other guys have thought it, though, and just didn't have the guts to say it for some reason." She laughed a short, soft laugh. "Others? Maybe I'm just too picky. There was just one for a couple of years and some dates that shouldn't have been allowed to happen in the first place. This town is full of single men, but most of them are either married, military, or gay." I grinned. "So what's wrong with military guys? Some of them are okay, aren't they?" She smiled. "Yes, some are okay, I guess. But I got the hell out of the Army, Ed, and I don't want to reenlist as a military wife. I still work for the Army, doing about what I did before, but I'm a civilian now. It's better money and when my day is done, I'm out of there." She regarded the cats all over me for a while and shifted herself to get more comfortable on the chair, then said, "I'm sorry about Erika, Ed. I mean that. You must have been devastated." I nodded. "Yeah. That word about covers it in a technical sense. I felt it happen to her. Shared it. I was teaching a class one minute and on an ambulance bird the next." She was silent, undoubtedly remembering when she'd tripped and fallen and broken her arm and nearly her head on a curb at Landstuhl years before. I'd been working on the same base and I'd tossed the office keys to Jack on my way out in a big hurry. A quarter-mile of running later I was holding her while we waited for the ambulance. My arrival had fascinated her. She'd badgered me with questions about how I'd known she was hurt until she'd finally realized I couldn't really explain it. "You? Teaching?" she asked softly. She was surprised, but not really shocked. "Medical stuff to anyone who wanted to sign up. It was a test-drive idea that worked." She nodded and fell silent for a while, then asked, "So what are you going to do now?" "No idea. I'll call some people Monday, then go look at some cars. With luck, I'll get something dependable and I won't have to ask for more than Monday on the couch here. I don't want to disrupt your world too long." She looked at the cats on me and laughed again. "They don't seem too disrupted, Ed, and if you could disrupt my world, your phone call would probably have been enough to do it. I didn't expect to see you back in the States until you were old and grey." I was having a small problem. In order to look at her as I spoke to her from my cat-covered position on the couch, all I had to do was turn my head a bit. That meant that I was unable to avoid including a grand, expansive view of those wonderful legs of hers in my field of vision. I wondered if she'd been aware of this when she'd chosen the chair and propped her feet up, then I tossed that thought because there wasn't anywhere else to sit. As we debated the pros and cons of divorce, talked about her cats, and generally discussed things of interest to each of us, I had to either not look at her or continuously redirect my automatic tendency to let my eyes settle on her legs. It happened often enough that she noticed, of course, and the first time I noticed that she'd noticed was when her eyes narrowed a bit when mine climbed from her ankles to her thighs and then scooted up the sweatshirt to her face. I thought for a moment she'd say something and change her position in the chair or leave the chair altogether, but after a moment of gazing back at me while I was telling her what I knew about ear mites in cats, she simply uncrossed and recrossed her ankles at the table edge. The sudden motion caused my eyes to shift to her legs again, of course,

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and I watched the play of the muscles in her legs as they moved. When my eyes again found her face, she had a small, wry smile on her lips. "You're still a sucker for legs, aren't you?" What the hell. I admitted it. "Yup. Yes, ma'am. Still. The better they are, the harder I fall." She giggled softly and said, "You poor man. Here I've been, on blatant display two feet away all this time. Have you been suffering much?" "I'll admit that keeping my mind on what you've been saying has been difficult at times. I was afraid to say anything for fear you'd be offended." She giggled again. "You were afraid I'd go put on slacks, too, weren't you?" "Okay, I'll confess. There was that, too. Apologies are available if necessary, miLady." This time she actually laughed. It wasn't loud or long, but it was a real laugh, and it held all the melody it had always held for me. "No apologies needed, Ed. It's all my fault. I wasn't thinking when I put my feet up, and then, when I saw you trying not to stare, I amused myself at your expense. I'm the one who should be apologizing for exploiting your vulnerabilities." "Your apology would probably seem more meaningful if your legs weren't still stretched out like that. You don't plan to move them right away, do you?" "I hadn't planned to. I'm comfortable. It's my chair and it's my coffee table, after all." "Damned right they are," I stated firmly. "So it's all right if I sort of admire you a bit?" She smiled again and said, "It's called leering and they're still out there, aren't they? Look all you want. Just don't get any other ideas unless I give them to you." She'd said, 'Unless I give them to you.' Kim was a precise thinker and speaker. If she wasn't having ideas of her own, she'd have ended that sentence at 'get any other ideas '. "I can't promise not to get the ideas," I said. "I can only promise to behave as you wish." She gazed at me and said, "That should be good enough, I suppose." After another few moments, she asked, "Tell me, how is it you've recovered so quickly from your ordeal? Some people take years and some never recover from something like that." I considered what to say to that for some moments. "I wouldn't say I've recovered," I said. "I'm surviving it, certainly, but that's only because I didn't die with her. I've also discovered that having a hole as deep as an ocean in your heart doesn't necessarily make you immune to the basic animal needs. I still get hungry, sleepy, and thirsty, just like everyone else who has managed to survive something. Feeling guilt about those needs is ridiculous, so when another need pops up now and then, am I supposed to deny myself? Erika would have laughed long and hard at that idea. She was pretty open-minded about love and lust." Kim's innate curiosity sat chewing on my last words for a while. She'd nodded slightly as I'd explained my attitude about basic animal needs, but I'd seen her expression change at the last as I'd made the remark about open-minded love and lust. I expected she might ask for a clarification of that remark sooner or later. The request came sooner, not later. She was hesitant, but more than a little interested. "Uh ... what ... I mean, you don't have to say anything, of course, but ... What exactly did you mean by 'open minded '?" I looked up from tickling Stella's toes, which made her shake her feet as if there'd been a bug on them, and said, "Erika liked women, too, and I didn't have a problem with that. A few of her ladyfriends liked us both well enough." Kim's eyes got bigger. "Are you serious ?"

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"Yup. When I first met her I thought she was the best looking lesbian I'd ever seen. Turned out later that I was very mistaken. Can't go by first impressions every time, I guess." She laughed, and not at all softly. "Oh, that must have been difficult for you, Ed, with her so attractive and you thinking she was a lesbian." I grinned and said, "Yup. It was very hard on me at times." She caught the double meaning and laughed again. "No doubt it was your ability to suffer with dignity that caught her attention, then." "Sadly, no. I'm afraid it wasn't that at all." When I didn't explain further, Kim looked at me for a moment and laughed some more. "I'm sorry," she said. "I can't help it." "Hey," I said, "If she could be here she'd be laughing with you and helping me stare at your legs. She liked good legs, too. We'd be discussing how to get you into our bed, ma'am." A radio began playing upstairs at precisely three p.m. Kim looked at her watch and rose from the chair. "Let me go turn that off and I'll explain some things when I get back." Returning to stand behind her chair, Kim said, "Ed, you need to know that I still have an alcohol problem. I'll always have one, or so they say. I looked at all the programs and tried AA and said to hell with all the hell I was being offered and worked out something that seems to work for me. I've been doing this for over four years. I take a shot when that alarm goes off and don't touch the stuff otherwise." Her hands were clenched on the back of the chair cushion. I wondered why. Did she somehow feel a need for me to approve of her method of dealing with the booze? I couldn't think of a reason why the opinion of an ex-boyfriend would be of much meaning to her. I looked at her and asked, "How often does the alarm go off?" "Four times a day. I take a wake-up shot, a lunch shot, a dinner shot, and a bedtime shot. If I keep a little in my system all the time, I don't start craving it like I used to." "Diabetics use insulin by the clock. Some of the same people who sneer at alcoholics fail to see the correlation between booze and the prescription pills they take for their nerves. If your system is working for you and you're at ease with it, I see no difference." She seemed to relax a little, but she remained standing behind the chair, as if it were some sort of shield. I ruffled Jeffrey's chin and said, "I mean it. You got a handle on it that works for you and a hell of a lot of people out there can't or won't do that. No offense, but I remember how you used to be with booze. Four years is a hell of an accomplishment. Be proud of yourself." She was looking down into the chair at nothing. "It's still in there, though, and it won't ever go away if I keep feeding it every day." I waved to get her to look at me and told her, "And if you stop feeding it you may end up just like every other reformed alcoholic out there, paranoid that they'll lose their grip on things and half-expecting their grip to fail all the time. That sort of insanity can affect every facet of your life and make you fear every new day. Do it your way and walk in the sunlight or do it their way and cringe every time there may be a bottle nearby. Four drinks a day sounds to me as if you've already trimmed your habit down to the bone, and you look and sound sober enough to me right now. Call the problem resolved for now and work on ones that aren't." She came over to stand by the couch and leaned slightly to ruffle Stella's chin and stroke her, then gave the others some attention as well. She was such a beautiful woman and a good person in general. I was truly glad that she'd managed to get a handle on the booze problem and that I'd been able to visit with her again. After some moments, she asked, "Do you have to be anywhere in the near future?"

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A slight bolt raced through me. I said, "No, not really. Why?" She returned to her chair and sat, sadly without putting her feet up. "I'm moving," she said, "To an apartment. By the end of next week, actually. I was going to bother friends and pay movers to do it, but if you're getting a car and you don't have to leave right away..." "Sure. Sounds fine. We can rent a 'u-yank-it' trailer. Are you still working at the Forrestal building? Right smack across the street from the Smithsonian?" She laughed at the eagerness in my voice. "Yes, I'm still there. I just changed offices. Are you sure? I mean, if it's any kind of an imposition..." "I don't have to be anywhere else. No problem. I can take you to work and pick you up and spend the day in the Smithsonian buildings. Hell, a week isn't enough to see all the stuff they've got on display and I can save you money and trouble. No problem, miLady." She grinned at me and said, "Well, in that case, the pizza's on me." We discussed a lot of other things while I was pinned by all the cats. She brought us a couple of sodas and was kind enough to prop her feet up again. I had something to drink, lots of cats, a comfy couch, and a good view. I was all set, as far as I was concerned. Simple pleasures. The doorbell rang and Kim went to answer it, but her only company to the door was Panda, who had undoubtedly decided she was wasting her talents on me. The other cats all remained parked on me, although some shifted a bit so they could see who was coming in. There was the buzz of some low conversation by the door, then a brunette with a mouthful of gum came into the living room with some empty cardboard boxes, stared at me for some seconds, then said her name was Vickie and that she'd be back in a minute. She dropped the boxes in the middle of the floor and spun around to go back out. I heard her giggling as they went down the porch steps. If you're a cat, boxes have to be investigated. I lost my furry lumps as they jumped down to cautiously approach the boxes, so I sat up and stretched before I wandered to the door to see if there was anything I could carry in. Kim and Vickie were in conference again, this time by a red VW beetle parked in the street. They were trying to jiggle a box out of the back seat and I caught some of the conversation as I approached. I hung back and waited a few moments. Kim was saying, "No, I'm not making this up, Vickie, and I didn't just pick him up on the street. He's been in Europe and Africa and he's back for a while, that's all. He's going to help me move next week, too." "What's he been doing over there? Why'd he come back?" "You remember when I told you I knew a guy who was a mercenary?" "He's the guy ? Oh, wow ! Are you two gonna get, like, conjugal , and all that?" "Vickie !" "Hey, I was just asking. Don't get all crazy on me." "Well, don't ask me things like that!" "Why not? I'd tell you. 'S only fair, y'know." "Well, I just don't know yet. We could, you know. But we broke up years ago." "Oh, please," said Vickie. "That doesn't count for shit. He's been gone how long? This is a whole new day. You two hardly know each other any more. It'll be like new ! Girl, you either want to do him or you don't. If you do, just do him and be happy. If you don't, you call me!" "VICKIE !" Vickie was laughing as I stepped off the porch. When she saw me coming down the walk, she hurriedly nudged Kim and I heard her excited whisper, "Here he comes!" Vickie gave me a big grin, a "Hi, again!", and a tight, nervous little wave.

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I stopped and looked at her for a moment, then at Kim, and said, "You two look as if you've been talking about me. Hope I got a fair trial." Vickie reddened slightly and tried to stare innocently at me. Kim very calmly said, "Of course we were talking about you. You're the only new item in the house, so you're today's topic." I said, "I see," and levered the big box out of the car. There weren't any more, so we headed back to the house, the ladies leading the way. On the left, Kim. Five-seven or so, blonde, solid, calm and collected. On the right, Vickie. Five-two, maybe. Dark brown hair, skinny as a rail, and apparently living her life as a somewhat hyperactive ditz. I'd seen combinations of opposites like this before. Each seemed to find in the other things they believed they lacked in themselves. Kim again took the chair as I sat on the couch, leaving room for Vickie, but she didn't use the space. Vickie was a percher. She perched on the arm of the chair or the couch during all of her visit for the next half hour or so. When I'd sat on the couch, the herd of cats again gathered, having finished their investigation of the boxes, but this time they had to make do with packing themselves in close around me and on my lap. Vickie was flatly amazed at their behavior. "Cats usually seem to like me," I said. "Usually they like me a lot." Vickie looked at me searchingly and then asked, "Why?" She looked at Kim. Kim said, "I don't have a clue. They just do." She hauled out the instamatic pictures she'd taken earlier and showed them to Vickie, who laughed and looked at me as if I were an alien. I said, "Maybe cats just know an easy mark when they see one." "Show me," said Vickie. "Lie down like you were before. I want to see that show live." I got flat and within a few moments was again covered in furry clumps. "That's weird," said Vickie. "It's cool, but it's weird." Kim laughed. "She's got you pegged, Ed. Cool but weird." Vickie said, "Africa, huh? Isn't that where they have those ZeeZee bugs?" "Tsetse flies. They're well-known only because they carry sleeping sickness." "Eww . You didn't pick up any weird diseases over there, did you?" "I didn't even pick up any plain old normal diseases, Vickie. I got away clean." "Cool." She turned to Kim and asked, "Isn't that cool? He says he got away clean." "Yes, Vickie," said Kim. Her eyes narrowed at Vickie briefly. When she saw me noticing the look, she blushed slightly. Vickie giggled and looked at her watch, made a face, and then said goodbye as she dashed out the door. After Vickie left Kim called to order a couple of pizzas on the way back to her chair and asked what I thought I might like to do with the rest of the evening. I had no idea other than to sit and look at her, and since we seemed to be getting along so well, that's exactly what I said. "Unless you'd like to go somewhere I think I'd just like to sit around and watch you do whatever you're doing. It was a long flight." "Whatever I'm doing? I wasn't doing anything much. Just sorting stuff for packing." "That'll do, then. Want some help?" "Well, it's all the kind of stuff that I ... No, I guess not. You can help when it gets down to filling boxes and moving stuff." I nodded, saying nothing. For a while I just looked at her and patted Jeffrey, who was again on my chest. She finally asked, "What? Do I have a hair out of place or something?" "No, ma'am. You look perfect. Nothing is out of place anywhere."

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"Then why were you staring at me?" I laughed. "Because you look perfect and nothing is out of place. Why else?" "Cute. Why were you staring at me, Ed?" "Truth? Even though it may get me booted out and into the cold night?" "I won't boot you out tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Depends. What is it?" "I told you. You look perfect to me. You look wonderful. That's really the only reason." She was blushing as she examined my eyes for truth. I never could understand why a woman so lovely could be so damned insecure about herself on a personal level, but she'd always had a problem accepting that others had thought she ranged from simply lovely to gorgeous. She stated flatly, "I think you just want to get laid, mister." I laughed again. "Think back, lady. When did I ever just want to get laid? When did I ever not want to try to thrill you in bed? When weren't you the absolute center of my attention in there?" She was truly blushing by then. "God," she said, "We're like almost-total strangers who already know way too much about each other, aren't we?" "Knowledge unused is knowledge wasted," I said. "Can't remember who said that, though, so I probably just wasted some knowledge. Damn." She grinned. "It sounds like a quote, so I'm sure somebody did. Doesn't matter who." I sat up and carefully shuffled cats to avoid mashing anybody, then asked her, "How's your sense of adventure holding up these days?" There was amazement in her voice. "You're really about to proposition me, aren't you?" "Yes, I am, ma'am. I'm suggesting that we take this weekend for ourselves. A minimum of guesswork will be involved, of course, because we already know what we like and don't like. Or at least, what we used to like and not like. Example: my lips and tongue on your inner thigh, just above the knee..." I let the words trail off and watched her face. Kim was blushing furiously, her ice-blue eyes a little larger-looking than usual as she stared at me. "I can't believe this is happening. I just can't believe this is happening." "Say no and I'll shut up instantly. Say no and I'll get back flat here and smother myself in cats and watch TV or something and say no more about it. I won't go so far as to kill myself in a fit of depression, of course, but I'd consider fasting until dinnertime as penance." "A whole hour? Gee. Golly. Is that all I'm worth?" "Sorry," I said, "But I'm just not into suffering unnecessarily. I figure if I can't have you in my hands and on the end of my tongue for a while, that's going to be a form of suffering, too, and I don't want to overdo it on my first night back in the States." She sat staring at me for some time, then said, "Vickie would never forgive me if she found out I let this go by. I'd never hear the end of it and she might find out. I can't take that chance." "That's every bit as good a reason as mine. Want a kiss to seal the deal?" "I think we should. I don't want you to be able to back out later." I laughed as I got off the couch and went to her. "Me? Back out of this with you ? You'll have to pry me off you, lady." "Ha. You should watch what you say. That just became part of the deal, mister." "Well, damn. I guess I'll just have to live with it, then. How stupid of me." As we reached to embrace each other, she said, "Don't worry. I'll help you through it." -------*Chapter Forty-two*

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Kim called a few people to tell them she was taking a weekend for herself and that she'd appreciate it if they neither called nor visited until Monday. Vickie was one of those people, and I could hear her reaction halfway across the room as she screamed, "I knew it! You're gonna do it! I knew it! Good for you, girl! Get some for me, too! Make him sweat !" Kim had been holding the phone away from her ear to preserve her hearing. She turned and grinned embarrassedly at me and said, "She approves." I grinned back and said, "So I heard. Your friend will probably blab this to all your other friends by ten o'clock this evening." She made a face of resignation at me. "Yeah. I know," she said. "But most of them think I'm a kind of cold loner. This will at least shake their faith in their ability to judge people." By the time the pizzas arrived the calling of others was finished. By the time that we and the cats had decimated the pizzas, the phone had already rung once. One of Kim's friends had found a strange message on her answering machine and wanted to know if Kim was in some sort of trouble. Was someone there with her? Could she talk freely? Kim said, "Yes, there's someone here with me. An old boyfriend. We're taking the weekend for ourselves, Brigid. He's in town for a while and he's going to help me move. That's all. Time alone. Catch-up time. Yes , I'm okay and I'm not under duress. Really. Okay, I will. Bye." Kim hung up the phone and said, "Brigid had a bad experience some time ago. She was worried that I was being held hostage or something like that." "You're a hostage only to your fondest desires, ma'am. I'll see what I can do about those." "Oh, that would be nice, I suppose. They haven't had much attention lately." There was laughter between us as we headed upstairs. As I put my bags by the bed and got out my toilet kit I saw her check her clock radio. It was almost six. Kim went into the bathroom and took a gin bottle from the medicine cabinet. I watched in the door mirror as she quickly and efficiently poured a short shot into the cap and dumped it down, then put the bottle back. She really was seemingly treating the stuff as a medicine. Bravo for her, I thought. I remembered how she used to hide bottles and sneak drinks and tap the rent money if she had to for a new bottle. Bravo, indeed, ma'am. Best wishes. She brushed her teeth and used mouthwash, probably as much to kill the booze odor, and came back into the bedroom. I took her hand and kissed it and said, "I just saw you take your 'pill' in there and I want you to know how really happy I am for you." She blushed slightly. Maybe I wasn't supposed to see her do it? "I mean it. You look as if you're in the saddle instead of under it with this. That takes deep courage and will." I kissed her lips softly and said, "Back in a minute. I just wanted you to know how I felt about that." In a soft voice, she said, "Thank you." I hadn't let go of her hand yet, and the sound of her voice made me kiss it again before I left for the bathroom to brush my own teeth as she readied the bed. When I came back into the bedroom, she was out of her clothes and heading for the bathroom in her bra and panties. "Hasn't anything about you changed?" I asked. "Are you going to look like that forever?" "Well, I hope so," she said with a smile. "But it isn't likely. I'll go turn on the shower." I began stripping off my own clothes rather hurriedly. I didn't want to miss a moment's view of her. Since I've never been fond of underwear, I was naked in seconds. I almost ran into her as I hurried to the bathroom. As we narrowly avoided collision, she felt something bump her and looked down to see me standing forth and said, "Oh..." When she looked up at me, I grinned and said, "Well, I guess there's no hiding my enthusiasm anymore. You were bound to find out sooner or later."

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She looked down at me again and giggled. "That thing always did look enthusiastic." "With excellent reason," I said, reaching for her bra catch. This necessitated embracing her and she giggled again. She wasn't a small woman. Her breasts tended to pull hard on those straps. I took a few moments as I had years before to rub the strap lines on her shoulders and kiss each one "to make them feel better quicker". It had once been a ritual of ours. Her arms wrapped around me as we stood there and she snuggled her face against my bare chest. "I was worried you'd remember too many of the wrong things, Ed," she said. "I'm glad you remembered some of the nice things, too." I said softly, "I remember all of them and I'll prove it as we go along. How's that?" She nodded against my chest. "Yes, please. All of them. It's been a long time, Ed." "For you, I'll invent new ones, too, ma'am. No extra charge. You ready to get wet?" She looked up and smiled, then kissed me warmly, firmly, and for some time. When the kiss ended, she stood back and gave me a sloppy, smiling salute and said, "Ready." I borrowed a briefing-closing phrase from the Texan Captain who'd commanded her WAC company in Germany and said, "Well, then, y'all, this day's mission is a 'GO'." Kim made a face at me and laughed as she stripped her panties off. "Oh, god, I hoped never to hear that phrase again after she left, but somehow it seems to fit things at the moment." It was a long, sensually luxuriant shower that led to a similar session in her bed. I made her the center of my universe and left no stone unturned in finding every possible point of pleasure that I remembered from before or had learned of since. I wanted that magnificent woman to reach a plateau she'd never experienced before and I wanted to be her ladder to the top of it. When her musical alarm went off again, it startled her. She reached to turn it off and said, "I don't think I need one right now. You're better medicine, I think." "I'm flattered, but don't even think of breaking your schedule because of me. Don't take any chances with it. I'll go get it for you." I started to get off the bed, but she stopped me. "No, please. This is one thing I do that is truly private. We can take a break, okay?" I nodded. "Okay. Just don't get lost in there. I want lots more of you, miLady." She smiled and slid off the bed. I grabbed for her arm when her knees failed her. She stared at me for a moment in surprise before shakily heading for the bathroom and looked back at me once from the doorway for a moment, still surprised. She wanted something cold to drink. I would have gone down to get it, but she suggested we both go and we continued our break in the kitchen and the living room. The cats didn't know what to make of the two of us sitting on the couch without clothes. Most cats don't like bare skin on laps. They realize early in life that there's nothing to hang onto on a bare leg that won't make the owner rather upset. To be on the safe side, I kept a small, fat throw pillow in my lap. Kim giggled at my precaution. We sat quietly, sipping our sodas and gazing at each other in the darkened room. "It's a little scary," she said after some moments of silence. "What's scary?" "That there's so much in me that can be brought out like that. By a touch, a taste, a smell."

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"I don't find that scary at all, ma'am. I'd kind of like to make it a career, really, but the pay's lousy unless you turn pro, and then you take a chance on getting busted." She chuckled softly. "Well, by god, you could turn pro if you wanted to." "Well thank you, ma'am, but I'd just as soon not." I shook my head for emphasis. She grinned at me, but I was staring at her legs again and didn't notice right away. When I did, she laughingly asked, "And why's that? You seem to enjoy the work." "Anything I ever did for fun that I wound up doing for money stopped being so much fun." "Like flying? Did you ever get legal about flying?" "Like flying. Yeah, I'm legal now. I'm officially qualified and have a private ticket, but I know too many pilots who call it 'driving a bus' or 'driving a truck'. They aren't thrilled anymore about being in the sky, and I want to remain thrilled with it, so I'll remain private with it." She nodded. "Makes sense." After a few moments, she said, "I think we're going to need another shower, Ed." "Ummm, well, maybe in a little while." I kissed her cheek and ran my tongue along the side of her throat. "Nah. You taste fine. Real fine." I kissed and tongue-tickled my way along her shoulders and smacked my lips. "Yup. Just fine." She tasted my shoulder and smilingly agreed to forestall the shower for a bit. "You're kind of tangy-sweet," she said, sniffing my chest. "Oooo . That actually gave me a tingle." "Good," I said. "If it isn't psychosomatic, you probably sucked up a few pheromones, there. We're a couple of healthy animals and we're supposed to smell and taste the way we do right now. No perfumes or deodorants, just us, bathed in the residues of our mingled exertions. We wouldn't want these residues to age overnight, of course, 'cause they tend to go kind of rank after a few hours, but right now you taste and smell delicious, miLady." She laughed softly and said, "Actually, so do you. I think we've been programmed to conceal or eliminate all body odors. We're always washing away the good with the bad, trying to pretend we aren't animals every day of our lives." We talked a while longer and retired to the bedroom. I was still in no particular hurry to end things, so I stayed clear of or cut short the activities that would cause that to happen and concentrated on her pleasures. Eventually the time came when she seemed to develop a sense of urgency about finalization and she didn't want me doing anything but joining her at her summit of pleasure. It was time for me to fold up my selfish desires to touch and taste her and to get down to the business of fulfilling matters for each of us. When her words came, they weren't a soft suggestion or a plea. They were a command in a velvet voice and they seemed to have roots of iron. "Now , Ed. Right now. No more playing for now. Try to be there with me." The word 'now' seemed prevalent and her grip on me was as insistent as her words. When hers began to build quickly it triggered mine. She locked herself thoroughly around me and we almost sang our relief together in sighings and moanings. In the dim light of the single candle she'd set on the dresser I saw welling tears in her eyes. She hugged me to her tightly for a while and gaspingly snuffled into my shoulder. I kissed her lips and her face and neck and shoulders and remembered so many reasons I'd loved her so deeply as she held me that way. So many reasons. I even wondered at that moment why the hell I'd ever allowed her to leave my world, then something, probably some subconscious defense mechanism, caused me to notice the flashing numbers as her medicine-alarm clock changed

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the minutes from :39 to :40 . That made me remember why I'd let her go before, but I was nonetheless lost in her moment and mine. I wanted moments like that to go on forever and wanted them with her. When she finally relaxed I kissed her tears away, then kissed her lips with the tang of her tears still on my own lips. We fell apart to catch our breath and relax, and that's all I thought we were doing until I heard the soft sobbing from her side of the bed a few minutes later. "What's wrong?" I asked, rolling onto my side to look at her. She was lying on her side, facing away from me. I touched her shoulder and let my hand slide down her arm. "I'm sorry," she said. "It isn't you, Ed. You were wonderful to me. I loved every moment. I was just thinking that we could have had ... all of this ... together ... and more ... all these years if I'd just taken control of myself back then. If I'd just been smart enough to back off the booze, so many things would have been so different." I thought about what to say to her that might make her feel better and really couldn't come up with much. "Done is done," I said. "No fixes for history. All we can do is try to make the future a little better. Wanna give it a go, ma'am? I wouldn't mind. You're kinda pretty, y'know." She giggled as she was snuffling and wound up coughing. When she stopped, she croaked, "Oh, damn. Don't make me laugh when I'm crying. I could choke to death." "I'm a medic, ma'am. I'll save you." She laughed again softly. "You may already have saved me." "Huh? How's that?" "I'd forgotten how it could be, that's all. I stopped dating because I was tired of it all. Promises, then failures. Enthusiasm that stopped as soon as he got himself off. Feeling special for a while, then finding out it was just about my hair or my body or just some part of it and he didn't really want to hear what I thought or how I felt." She rolled over. "You know, don't you? How it feels to be desired, but not as a complete person? You told me once ... about someone years ago?" I thought of some of the women who'd ridden me into a lather a couple of times a week and hadn't called to even say hi between weekends. My vasectomy had been well-mentioned around the WAC shack. I'd been a safe fuck and a lot of fun, but not somebody they wanted to take home to meet the folks because there'd never be any kids out of the deal. I'd had a long, long string of weekenders and temporaries in Germany, but for the most part I couldn't even remember their names. We'd just been momentary pleasure toys to each other. "Yeah," I said. "I think I know well enough what you mean. I've had a few of those, too. A question, then. The fact is that you seem to be in control of the booze now, so is there a time limit for me here? When you're all moved, maybe I should look for a job around here. All I'd need is a place to stay, and this bed is big enough for both of us." She looked at me in the flickering light. I gave her a questioning look in return. "A woman like you is about all I ever really wanted in life, Kim. Is it possible for us to be more than just playmates for a week or two?" She was surprised, possibly even shocked at my question. In a small, soft voice, she said, "I don't know. I really don't know. Is that what you really think you want?" "I definitely think we could try it. Right now I can envision kissing every inch of you every night. I know that's not going to be the truth of it because people get used to each other, but that leads to a whole 'nother kind of truth, doesn't it? What people become to each other over time? I think we may have the proverbial, always-wished-for second chance, here, if we want it. This was just sex. Good sex, yes. Well, excellent sex, actually ... But just sex. How did it happen so quickly for us? We're years apart and within a few

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hours of my arrival we're in bed together. I know I'm not quite that slick with women. There's something left between us." Kim peered at me. "I'm not just second choice to Erika, am I? A rebound?" "Were you some kind of second choice when I first met you? You weren't a rebound before there was an Erika. Hell, I'm only offering to move in and sleep with you and tickle your itchies and generally be nice to you, ma'am." She giggled and said, "You twit. Don't joke about something like this. It's serious." "Yes, ma'am. Dead serious, ma'am. Don't hit me, ma'am, I bruise real easy, y'know." She smiled at me, then said, "I think we ought to sleep on it, Ed. I think we ought to spend some time together first and not make any promises until we can believe them." "You're a wet blanket on my passion for you, lady, but you could be right. Okay." She smiled and said, "You've been very good to me tonight, Ed. Good for me, too. I just want to be a little surer of things. I want to see it all hold together a while." "Yeah. I know what you mean. Okay. Right now I'd agree to most anything to get another taste of you and you know it." She grinned and said, "Of course. Always make deals when you have the upper hand." It was a blissful weekend and the same could be said for the weeknights that followed. Monday I found a car and we got her moved in three days of convenient-sized loads. Thursday and Friday she and I worked on making sure the old house was in the kind of condition that will get your deposit back, and Friday evening Vickie came over to ask if we were "gonna do the super-private, conjugal weekend thing again?" I said it sounded like a wonderful idea to me. Kim agreed. Vickie said she thought we could probably manage without her again, then she pretended to tell me in mock confidence to "stuff her real good", and left with a big grin on her face and a shocked look on Kim's. I yelled down the hall, "Okay! Sure will, Vickie! I'll give it my best! I'll ... oww! Bye, Vickie !" Kim had reached between my legs and squeezed lightly. "You'll be singing a different note if you say one more word in this hallway, mister." She was grinning at me. I raised both hands in supplication and said, "Okay, I give up." The next week I went looking for work. I didn't qualify Stateside for some of the things I'd been doing routinely in Europe. I didn't have a four-year degree in some instances and actual experience meant little to the paper people. In other instances the job leads turned out to be with the DEA or other anti-drug outfits. I boiled the possibilities down to four non-drug-cop openings that could lead to retirement pensions and other benefits as well as a decent salary and made interview appointments for the following week. My job-fishing seemed to have turned up some sharks, as well. The following Monday morning I received a phone call from someone saying he was with one of the prospective employers on my interview list. He said he wanted to drop by on his way home and go over a few items with me. I said I could handle all that during or after the interview, but he insisted, saying that it would really be better if the verifications were completed before the interview. I finally agreed to a Monday evening visit. Seven o'clock. He thanked me and hung up. The little bells were going off in my head for some reason by evening. When I picked up Kim after work and told her about it, she shrugged and said that the visit might mean they were more than a little interested in hiring me and she went to put on some coffee.

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I went to take a leak and noticed Stella in the bedroom. She was normally parked on the end of the bed, more than ever likely to be there since the move, but this time she was on the floor. I walked up to her expecting her to stand up and arch herself for a petting, but she just lay there between the bed and the wall under the window. She seemed asleep until I got close. Her breathing was odd and she was unconscious. There was a spot that didn't feel right at all along her right side and blood was coming out of her right ear. I called Kim in a tone that guaranteed instant response. After seeing Stella she called the emergency vet clinic down the street and brought a pet carrier upstairs. I cut and folded some cardboard and carefully moved it underneath Stella, then lifted her into the pet carrier. Kim took Stella to the vet while I looked around the room until I found a spot along the side of the bed that didn't seem to look quite right. I lifted the cover, then the mattress, and found a baggie full of white powder between the mattress and box springs. Without caring what it was, I took it to the bathroom and flushed the contents, then the baggie, then flushed three more times with lots of paper and liquid soap to clear the lines as completely as possible. I then called Linda in Germany and told her what had happened. She told me she'd call me back very shortly with info concerning Martin. While I was looking around for more baggies there was a booming from downstairs. A second boom sounded when I was halfway to the door and suddenly the apartment was flooded with yelling cops. I let them pin me and cuff me without a struggle and told them to close the door before the cats got out, but they didn't bother to close it. All of them were wearing masks, of course. The only one who came in who wasn't wearing a mask was wearing a suit. I'd never seen him before. He looked around and pointed silently in various directions. Three of the cops went upstairs with him and the suit guy came back down alone a few minutes later. I was about to be hauled out of the apartment when the phone rang. I told the guy in the suit who it was likely to be, job title included, and he had the good sense to answer the call. I was grateful that it was Linda and not one of Kim's friends calling at that moment. After a moment, he hung up and apparently called his office, asking someone to verify a number for an overseas office and the name of the people in charge there. The answer seemed to make him very angry. After a glance at me, he dialed the number given to him and waited. When Linda answered, he seemed more than angry. After some moments of discussion, he held the phone to my ear. "Hello, Linda. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I have that company, obviously." "Are you all right?" "I'm not bleeding, broken, or beaten," I said, looking at the guy. "Just handcuffed." "How's the cat? Stella?" "I don't know, yet. Things like that make you need revenge on someone, Linda." She must have heard something in my voice. "I know they do, Honey. Stay cool, okay?" I told her what was happening and she told me to let her talk to the guy in the suit again. I was hauled over to the couch to wait. Again I asked them to close the front door and this time someone among them did so, probably due to the unusual event of the phone call and the way the guy in the suit was talking with Linda. "If you're right," he said, "I and my people are being used for personal revenge, and somebody's going to hang for that." After a few minutes on the phone with Linda the guy in the suit called me over. I was hauled to my feet and walked over to the phone. He made a

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motion and one of the guys behind me uncuffed my hands so I could take the phone while he talked to someone on his radio. Linda said, "Ed, Martin is still here, but two of his people aren't. Detective Blensville only knows there's very bad blood between you and Martin. I told him why. I've given the police the names and told them to dust your apartment before they leave. Are you really all right?" "I'm fine, Linda. A little shaken about what some son of a bitch did to Kim's cat and the fact that they tried to set me up, but I'll get by. Who are the two missing Martin people?" She told me their names and I wrote them on the phone pad. She also told me that a couple of our people were in the area, one retired in Bethesda and one visiting family in Alexandria. She gave me their names and numbers, then asked how I was getting along with Kim. I told her to think back to our first night together. She laughed aloud and said to let her know if I needed any more assistance and to keep her informed. Some guy with what looked like a doctor's bag and a print kit was put to work as soon as he'd arrived. Half an hour later he came back and showed his notes to the detective. Prints on the window, the bathroom sink, and a few other places. Some were smaller prints which he guessed belonged to the owner of the clothing in the closets. He took my fingerprints and matched them up with some of the other prints he'd lifted, then declared that at least seven examples found upstairs were neither mine nor hers. The forensics guy was given the names of the two men to match prints with and sent on his way. The detective then turned to me and asked me for more info concerning why the head of a government agency in Europe had threatened to have him fired, castrated, and excommunicated before he was boiled in oil if he didn't cooperate with her. He was grinning as he said it, but some creatures seem to smile all the time and aren't really very cuddly. Sharks. Alligators. The kinds of creatures one might well find running a drug bust or perhaps even running drugs. I smiled back at him and told him that it all started at a party and that I was on the guy's list of unforgiven, uncooperative people. He said that Linda had told him that much. I told him that the guy had sicced his goons on me over there. He said that Linda had mentioned that, too, and mentioned some missing money that might have gone home with Mr.Martin. I then told him that the issues stated might not be precisely why I was being framed, but that someone was definitely trying to do it and that we needed to close down a corrupt drug enforcement outfit. We could question the prisoners when we had them, I said. He looked at me and asked, "And just who is we ? Are you suddenly on my payroll?" I looked at him and didn't say what was on my mind. "I decide what's best to do about such things as these, Mr.Howdershelt. You are still under arrest until something can be proven that gives you a break, here. If I didn't have some belief that things will fall in your favor, you'd be in a cell at this very moment, and you very likely will wind up in a cell tonight if some of those prints don't match one of the names she gave me." "If they don't, it will be because they used a local hire. Whatever you may think of me and this situation, Detective Blensville, don't treat this as an interesting little game. I'd take that very personally at the moment, and poor results from you will have my friend Linda's friends prowling through your department looking for any little problem they can find. Anything. That's how interoffice pressure politics works. Don't waste time looking for a reason to bust me when the real problem is in another supposed-to-be cop's office." "As I said, I'll be deciding what we're trying to accomplish. Are all of your cats indoors?" "I think so, yeah. If I promise not to run for it, will you let me put them all in the kitchen with some food and water until things quiet down?

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They're not used to this kind of company." He smiled and nodded. "Sure. I'll even help, now that things are fairly secure here." Kim, still very shaken, came home to find the horde of cops outside and was brought inside. After some questioning, someone called the vet to verify even the injured cat story and then was ordered to drive over there to verify it personally. I told Kim some of what was happening and she became enraged briefly, but put that aside when another detective came in with news. "The prints matched the names. We found out one had checked out a pool car and found them on Jeff Davis highway, almost to the airport. Just being questioned about this so quickly seems to have had the effect of scaring one of them into confessing, especially since we told him someone from the apartments here had seen them and had given us his license number." Blensville motioned him to stop talking and steered him outside. I could only hear fragments of the conversation until Blensville came back into the apartment. Blensville said, "Well, I'm impressed, Mr. Howdershelt. He said this was a special trip, just for you. Failure would cost him his job. It will anyway, of course." "He confessed? Just like that? Are you kidding? Who did Martin send, the mail boy?" "Close. This guy says he just kept watch while the other guy worked inside. He's just an office worker who wanted a quick promotion into a hero job. I've also heard about what happened to a Mr. Martin a couple of weeks ago. Our prisoner says you did it to him. Is that true?" "It didn't happen here, so it's a matter for the German police if anyone's pressed charges. I doubt they have and I won't rat on the guy who did it unless I'm in court and under oath. Maybe not then, either. Martin is a very deserving soul." "I see. Well, you're right, it is a matter for the German police. At present, anyway. But was it necessary to use a baseball bat on both his arms and legs? Was he really all that deserving?" Kim was staring at me in horror. I answered the detective's question. "You just had to say that in front of her, didn't you? It's legally no goddamned business of yours, but you just had to say it. Yes, I'd say he probably was. Someone took a lot more than just a casual dislike to him for some reason. They went to some trouble to get him, too." "It would seem so. That, alone, makes the case worth a look to me." "The case against me or the case against him?" The detective smiled and said, "Both, I think, but I have to follow certain rules. Unless that incident somehow falls under my jurisdiction, I'll have to focus my look into the intra-agency case against Martin. Don't leave town, and all that, but otherwise you're free for now. It seems our tipster was wrong. We didn't find any drugs here." I said, "Wait one. No drugs and no charges against me?" "That's right. And if the guy we picked up hadn't confessed to keeping watch while the other guy planted the drugs we didn't find, we wouldn't have a good reason to hold him, either." He turned and left, taking his people with him. The door lock was destroyed. That night I went to the all-night Drugstore-Superstore on nearby Glebe Road and bought a new lockset and installed it. The next day I took an extra key to the landlord and explained that the cops had acted on a bad tip, which someone there verified by phone before I was out of the office. Stella was diagnosed as having a concussion and some damaged ribs, but she was scheduled for release after couple of days of observation and treatment. I took an instamatic picture of her lying in the box I'd padded for her with a towel, then drove to the police station and asked to see the two guys who'd visited us Monday night. Blensville was surprisingly cooperative. He was probably hoping that

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someone would say or do something stupid that would give him more leverage in matters. Whatever. I didn't care. The two guys were sitting at a table under the watchful eye of a guard when I was ushered into the interview room. I remained standing while Blensville sat at the table and waited for someone to say something. I tossed the picture of Stella on the table and said, "I like cats. It really gets to me to see one mistreated like this. It bugs me even more than your fucked-up attempt to frame me. It makes me want revenge , guys. Now, you two may feel like laughing about my concern for this cat, but let me advise you that would be truly stupid at the moment, because for all you know I may nastier and sneakier than you could ever hope to be when I'm pissed about something. Do you both acknowledge that this is possible, given my last few years of employment?" One of them remained silent, gazing up at me as if in a bad mood. The other blurted, "Hell, yes! You're the guy who did Martin!" He looked up at Blensville and whiningly asked why the hell Blensville wasn't doing something about me. Blensville just smiled and told him that it hadn't happened in his jurisdiction. I snapped my fingers in front of his nose to recapture his attention. "No charges have been filed against me anywhere. You must be the office boy Martin sent. I would like to suggest to both of you that simply being anywhere or going anywhere without a police escort can be very dangerous in our nation's capitol. Even if you're offered release from this jail, I'd suggest you consider politely refusing to be turned loose." The office boy turned to Blensville and said, "He's threatening me! You heard him!" Blensville grinned. "He's expressed concern for his cat and he's told you to be careful around town. I'd have said the same. We cops can't be everywhere all the time, you know." The office guy was freaking slightly. His hands were trembling and he looked near tears when I moved to stand behind him and reached to hold the picture of Stella in front of his face. "If this cat dies, you'll be seeing me again, that I promise. There's going to be a big vet bill and someone will have to pay it, and you just won't believe what her funeral will cost you." I looked across at Blensville. He said nothing and made not the slightest nod or motion. I moved to hold the picture in front of the other guy's face and said, "You look like someone I used to know. He was the guy in our unit who interrogated VC and NVA prisoners. The only thing I didn't really like about him was that he made me keep them conscious for hours. I hated that. He didn't mind the screaming, but it kind of bothered me, you know what I mean? I sometimes wore earplugs when I had to work with him, but they didn't help much. I've often wondered how well he'd stand up to some of the things he did to those prisoners." Blensville's expression had changed. He wasn't finding this entertaining anymore. I said, "You guys better work with the Detective, here. Like I said, this is a dangerous town. He's probably your best friend in the world right now, and I'm sure that if you ask him nicely he'll let you stay here until this intra-agency thing is settled. You may not have jobs when it's over, but I'm sure you'll find something else. Your kind are always in demand as flunkies." The true meaning of my words wasn't wasted on the office pogue. He was trembling as he looked at Blensville and said, "He's gonna do us like he did Martin!" Blensville said, "Well, if he does, then I'll arrest him. You can be evidence, if you want." The other guy was glaring at me. He believed me, all right, but he was thinking that he could somehow duck in time and turn things around if I came

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after him. "Damn," I said. "I'll bet poor old Martin felt pretty safe and secure until that bat hit him." The office pogue whimpered and the guy I was talking to switched his glare to him. "Shut the fuck up," he said in a cold tone. "You shut the fuck up!" yelled the guy. "I wouldn't be here if you hadn't told me..." The other guy half-rose from his chair and yelled, "Shut-the-fuck-up !" The office guy subsided and sat staring at him in fear. I picked up the picture of Stella and indicated I was finished. Blensville called someone to take the guys back to their cell, then told the cop to put them in separate cells and sat smoking a cigarette until they were gone. He asked me, "That's all you wanted?" I nodded. "That's all." "Have you been shopping for baseball bats?" "Nope. And you'll get no further comments from me, Detective. You might want to ask them some questions, though, and offer to let them go if they won't talk to you. Goodbye." Blensville watched me leave. I saw his impassive stare in the reflection of the cigarette machine in the hallway. He hadn't moved an inch and was simply staring at me. I got in my car and drove back to Kim's apartment, stopping for pizza on the way. One problem wouldn't go away for us. Kim wanted to know why I'd done that to Martin. I tried telling her, but she couldn't seem to accept that type of retribution. Then some pictures arrived at her office. Me, standing over a black woman's body with an M-16 rifle, apparently poking at the body with the muzzle. Me walking among the bodies in the middle of a village, again with a rifle. Me and Sergeant Fisk in another picture, searching a body. Me, in a picture taken from behind me, aiming my rifle at a woman emerging from a hut. No explanations with the pictures. I tried to tell her that the bodies were almost a day old when we got there, and that we'd been searching the one body to see if he had anything on him that would ID him as one of the Communist attackers of the village because he hadn't been shot. He'd been stabbed with a common kitchen knife and we'd thought he might have fallen victim to an intended victim. I told her that the woman emerging from the hut had simply startled us and had been alive and well when we left the village, too. Last, but not at all the least of the pictures, was one of Martin, with casts on his arms and legs and a bandage on his head. He appeared to be in much agony. Maybe he wasn't acting for the camera. Who knows? One can always hope, at any rate. There were a couple of documents in the envelope, as well. One document was a copy of the investigation results from the villa, listing as the victim the CO who'd fallen down the stairs. My name, where it appeared in the part about pulling away from her and perhaps contributing to her fall, was circled and highlighted and underlined. The last document in the envelope was Lieutenant Kress's initial statement to the effect that I'd shot an unarmed man. It was the uncorrected version that he'd presented to the reporter Robert Hayes when Hayes had first arrived at the mine. I wondered what other files Hayes might be missing as I told her the real story about that, too. I explained away everything except what I'd done to Martin, but to Kim, there were just too many accusations, pictures, and documents to ignore, and she couldn't accept any sort of rationalization that would cover Martin's injuries. Apparently after discussing it with a friend or two, and at least one

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in particular, judging from the look on Vickie's face when she saw me next, Kim called the cops to see if I was still not allowed to leave the area. She was told that I'd never been charged with anything and that there was nothing on file about me having to remain in the area. That evening she cooly informed me of her discovery and went upstairs to bed without saying another word to me. I followed her a few minutes later. She said it wasn't that she actually believed anything other than the assault on Martin. She just couldn't quite completely disbelieve what she'd been shown, either. There was an element of doubt that she simply couldn't overcome. I reminded her of our first night back together and the nights thereafter. I reminded her of my comment about us having a second chance at things, so rare an event in anyone's life. I asked her to remember that being over here had removed me from all the circumstances about which she had doubt. I then promised her that the side of me that she found so intolerable would never, ever be allowed to surface again while we were together and waited for her response. -------*Chapter Forty-three* She finally relented, but apparently with strong reservations. She was out of reach both in bed and out and seemed only to be granting me a kind of acquiescence a few nights later. I got up from the bed and went to sit on the couch with some of her gin in a tumbler. Even her most basic pleasures seemed unreachable. I hoped that time would help me bridge to her. "I'm sorry, Ed," came her voice from the stairwell. I turned to see her in a bathrobe, standing on the stairs about halfway down and stooping slightly to see below the wall into the living room. A few nights before she'd have come down gloriously naked. Correction: a few nights before I wouldn't have been sitting alone with a gin, so she probably wouldn't have had reason to come downstairs at all. "Great," I said. "That fixes everything. Thanks." I turned back around and sipped my gin as I patted Jeffrey. There was nothing to discuss about the situation. Things were as they were and only a change of her attitude about what had already occurred half a world away would make things any different. "Kim? Are you still there?" "Yes." "I'll leave in the morning." Kim said nothing. After a few moments I heard the stairs creak slightly. Only the upper stairs creaked. I patted Jeffrey again and took another sip of gin. Half an hour later I'd finished my gin and needed to take a leak. I heard the stairs creak again as I put my glass on the kitchen counter. "Ed?" "In here." The cats' water bowl was low, so I filled it. Jeffrey seemed to appreciate the service and appeared to think it was his duty to try to drink all the new water. Kim came into the kitchen as I was straightening up. She said, "I don't want you to go like this." "I don't want to go like this, either. I'm probably going to put on pants first, at least." She made a face and said, "You know what I mean." "Sure do. I don't know what the hell to do or say that will change the situation, though." She started to reach for me and faltered, then clenched her hands together and said, "I don't know either. I just know I don't want you to go. I just need some time, Ed." "Time. Time to -- what? -- get used to the idea that I worked Martin over for trying to get me busted or worse? Time to forget all those pictures?" She looked at me pleadingly. "Just some time, Ed. I think I just need

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some time." Kim stepped up and put her arms around my neck and rested her face against my chest. When she raised her arms, her robe fell open and she pressed against me, skin to skin. The scent of her wafted into my nose and my reaction to her was instantaneous. When Kim felt me nudging against her, she stretched a bit to kiss me and ended the kiss by pulling me down with her to the kitchen floor. "I said I don't want you to go, Ed. Your kind of lovemaking is great for a girl's ego and all that, but once in a while everybody needs to take or be taken." She seated herself firmly on me and added, "I don't know if you'll stay or not. Tonight I take." "Where's the woman who had so much trouble with being touched an hour ago?" Kim put a hand on each of my shoulders and leaned to kiss me. "She had a couple of extra shots of gin when her clock went off. She's not here at the moment. I am. Will I do?" Actually, I didn't think so, but there was not a damned thing to be gained by being difficult at that moment except more difficulty. "Sure, you'll do just fine," I said. 'Until I can get the hell out of here,' I thought. 'I've already spent my time in hell with two female drunks. ' I decided as she was 'taking' me to make sure my gear was ready to go in the morning so I could say goodbye and hit the door, but Kim awoke before me and was making breakfast, humming and softly singing as she went about the small chores. I could smell the food and hear her moving around in the kitchen. I could smell the coffee from downstairs and smell her scent on the pillow next to me. The 'medicinal' gin bottle was down maybe five shots or so, and that correlated to her self-prescribed dosages plus a couple of shots the night before. She hadn't been at all drunk. Not even tipsy. She'd been in full control to the extent that she'd apparently used the extra two shots or so to bull her way through her severe reaction to things and make good use of me on the kitchen floor. I was about to start rounding up my gear, anyway, when I saw Kim's bathrobe on the back of the bathroom door. She'd got up, gone to the bathroom, then gone straight downstairs, so unless she was wearing a towel, she was cooking in the nude. I thought about things as we ate breakfast and watched her happily putter about the kitchen and play with Jeffrey afterward. She seemed to be in great spirits. I'd barely finished my breakfast when my plate was whisked away and my coffee shoved to the center of the table. Kim lifted her lovely right leg -ever so gracefully -- and placed it gently on the table before me. She put her index finger on a spot just above her knee. "Would you be so kind as to kiss me right there, sir? Think of it as my tip." "No problem." I leaned over and kissed her leg, then took a quick lick and a nibble. Kim said, "Thank you." She lifted her leg off the table and took her cup to the coffee pot for a refill, then came back to sit at the table. "I know you planned to leave this morning. I could feel it last night. Please don't, Ed. I wasn't drunk. I really wasn't. I only had a couple of shots to get past some things." "I know. I noticed the bottle and did some math. What'd you do? Call in sick?" "No, I didn't have to. I told my boss I had some personal stuff that just came up." "I take it you mean me?" I looked down at my lap. "I'm not up, ma'am."

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"You will be very shortly. It's Thursday, Ed. Tell me Monday morning if you still want to go. Give me this weekend." I grinned. "Let me have another taste of that leg to help me make up my mind, will you?" She grinned and swung her leg back on the table. "You can taste my legs anytime you want, mister. Anytime. Anything else you want to taste, too. I'm not giving up without a fight." Two weeks like that went by. Then one night we walked up to the Drugstore for a few things and were on our way back to the apartment when three young guys boxed us in on the sidewalk and demanded money. Two were black, one was white, and all of them had knives. The white guy talked about "getting some of that ", referring to Kim, even before they got around to telling us to give them our money. Kim had dropped her shopping bag was up against the wall in terror, but she was as much afraid, I think, that I'd do something that would possibly get us both killed. After seeing her reaction, I set my bag down, too, and joined her at the wall. She tried to hand the white guy her purse and his response was to toss it to another guy and step closer to her. The idiot then grabbed at her breasts with only a loose fingerhold on his knife as he squeezed her against the wall and tried to kiss her. I started to move and one of the guys cautioned me. Kim was staring at me in glassy terror as the guy mauled her and suddenly I couldn't play by her rules anymore. I simply took the stiletto out of the asshole's hand and drove it into his chest to use as a handle when I dragged him to the ground, then I pulled it out of him and flipped it at the nearest other guy, who was coming at us fast. The knife pinned the guy's adam's apple hard enough to get his immediate attention. He stared around in shock and reeled backward as he fumbled at the knife. It finally came out and clattered to the cement and he staggered away into the street. The third guy stared in horror at his buddies for a moment, then ran. The second guy fell in the slushy street and a car couldn't stop in the slush. The front tire bounced over his legs and he was dragged some distance under the middle of the car when the driver locked his brakes and began to slide sideways toward the other side of Glebe Road. When the cops got there Kim was still frozen against the wall. Nothing I could say or do short of physically dragging her away could make her leave the wall. A rather hefty woman cop tried talking to her and after nearly ten minutes succeeded in leading Kim over to one of the police cars, then into the car's back seat. Lots of questions were asked and we were taken to the hospital. In two hours, neither of the damaged guys had died and the third one had been located. His story matched mine well enough that Kim and I were told we'd be released pending further investigation and possible 'unnecessary force' assault charges against me. That didn't make any sense to me and I said so. I was quoted a myriad of legal terms about assaulting minors that amounted to so much bullshit to me. I said that being big enough and mean enough to attack people with a knife equates to being old enough to die for trying it. The cops smilingly said they'd take my opinions under consideration, but that until the laws were changed, there wasn't much they could do on my behalf in that matter. I said that I should have considered that, since their jobs would be of questionable value if more criminals didn't make it to the arresting stage of things. They stopped smiling. Kim was sitting on the gurney and the woman cop sat on a stool next to her. Kim didn't answer when I told her we could go. A nurse officiously told me she was suffering from a form of shock. I asked why the hell they weren't

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treating her for it and told her what to use, which startled her slightly, but she said insurance rules prohibited issuing medicines without an emergency and started to walk away. That was all I could take at the moment. "Just what the hell do you consider an emergency, then?" "She isn't injured and her condition isn't life-threatening, sir ." The cop stood up and told me not to bother the hospital staff while the nurse turned and walked away. I demanded time alone with Kim to try to talk to her and asked the cop to leave, too. She refused. I told her that she had no legal grounds to refuse. She said she was staying as woman, not a cop. I told her to strip the uniform off or forget that idea. That's when she raised her voice at me, which made Kim cringe away from us both. The cop then told me that I was frightening Kim and that I should leave. I said, "You moron. You scared her when you yelled at me." "What did you call me?" "Think real hard. It may come to you." I ignored the cop and went over to Kim and took her shaking hand and started to try to reach her, but suddenly I was seeing someone who only looked like Kim. She didn't seem to be the woman I'd regarded as courageous for having put her booze problem in the past. I felt she had to know in her heart that I would simply leave before I could ever hurt her, so I just couldn't accept that she was so afraid of me, of all people. Kim was shaking like a leaf and wouldn't look up at me. When I reached to lift her chin, the woman cop barked something at me and reached for my arm. I walked her backwards, back to the stool, and told her in a very quiet voice that if she raised her obnoxious voice or touched me again in any way, something of hers would be broken in a place of my choosing. The statement seemed to galvanize her for a moment. She was enraged and stood very close to me, her hand on her gun, but she must have discovered that she believed me enough, after all. After a moment she backed away and simply watched me. I tilted Kim's face upward and tried to find her somewhere within her eyes. She sat staring blankly upward at me. I moved my head, then hers, but her eyes weren't tracking me at all. "Can you even hear me?" I asked. No response. I checked her pulse. Rapid as hell. The shaking wasn't letting up a bit, either. I told the woman cop that we needed a doctor, but she sat on her stool like a surly child and glared at me, unmoving. I stepped over and yanked her off the stool by her shirt front and hauled her in nose to nose and said, "I've had enough of you. Look at her." I pushed her face closer to Kim's. "Do you see ? Do you ? This woman is in trouble here. They won't listen to me. They might listen to you because you're in uniform. If you really give a shit about her, you'll go get me some help. If you don't, get lost before you get hurt." The cop glared at me for a moment, then left. She came back with a doctor and another cop. The doctor looked at Kim and asked why he hadn't been told about her. I pointed into the other room and said, "The nurse on duty is an overbearing ass, that's why. She thinks she's doctor enough to judge a patient's condition." He looked at me archly, as if to apply the same supposition to me. "Yeah," I said, "But I'm right and she's full of shit." The doctor left and came back with a hypo. "We'll be keeping her overnight," he said. I watched as he tapped up a vein on her arm and smoothly used the syringe. "That was slick," I said. "I've known doctors who couldn't find a vein, much less hit it." He looked at my field jacket and said, "You were a medic?"

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I nodded. He grinned. "Some medics are just as bad as nurses about judging patients' conditions. You're her husband? Come with me. Paperwork." I didn't correct him about my marital status. He was about to escort me away from the cops. The woman cop stepped up and said, "He can't leave. He's under arrest." As the doctor stepped slightly away from me I asked, "For what?" "Threatening me with physical harm. Interfering with my duties." She held out her cuffs and spun them around her finger with a small smile. "Didn't you say you were staying as a woman, not a cop?" "I guess I was wrong about that," she said, still smiling. "Tell you what. You come over here a moment and let me ask you a private question, if you have the guts. No touch. Just talk. Promise." She looked at her partner, who emphatically shook his head 'no ', but her ego was on the line. She stepped closer to me and said, "So talk fast." I looked to be sure her radio was off and whispered, "If I spend even one night in jail because of your personality disorder, I'll hunt you down and mess you up bad, honeybear . Kim needs me to go home and take care of the kids. You play your silly games with someone who can't take out three assholes with knives. Play your games with people who say things like this and don't really mean what they say. All I wanted from you was a little help with her and you gave me shit. Give me a little more and I'll make you goddamned well sorry you did. If you doubt me, you might want to talk to Detective Blensville." Giving her a name she knew was the hook. She stepped back two paces and fondled her radio button, staring at me thoughtfully. I told her again to call Detective Blensville and ask what he thought of the idea of rousting me for no good reason. She finally called him, thinking she was also calling my bluff. Blensville told her in no uncertain terms that if she had as much common sense as God issued to a pissant she'd get the hell away from me and stay that way. Her eyes narrowed and she looked at her radio in startlement. Then he asked to talk to me on her radio. She handed me the mike. "What the hell's going on over there, Mr. Howdershelt?" "An attempted mugging, two injured perps , as you guys call them, Kim in shock on a gurney, and one woman cop with a bug up her ass to make trouble for me mostly because I'm a man, I think. The doc is keeping Kim overnight, at least. He says we'll know more in the morning. I want to go home and take care of the kids, but this ladybear here wants to run me in." "She can be difficult at times, but she usually means well. What did you do to her?" "Nothing. Cross my heart and hope to live." "Uh, huh. I know the stuff when I hear it. Any witnesses?" "No witnesses to the mugging or to my conversation with the ladybear." "Put her on, then." I handed the radio back to her and turned to see how Kim was doing. I heard Blensville tell her to get back in her car and find some real work to do. Yes, he knew her well enough, and she knew him, too, and it didn't take much from Blensville to convince her to leave. Kim would be out overnight and wake feeling confused and groggy. I could only go home and wait, so that's what I did. I put on an Itzhak Perlman tape, stretched out on the couch, and considered the evening's events while listening to music from "Carmen". I fell asleep on the couch, covered in cats, after inanely telling them that things would be all right eventually. Maybe they believed me, but I didn't. The hospital called in the morning to tell me that there'd been no change and that unless there was a change during the day, they'd want to keep her another day or two. I agreed and went looking for her sister Sandy's phone number in the drawers of the bedroom and the kitchen. I found it in a book in

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the kitchen and called her to tell her the situation. "Ed? What the hell are you doing there?" There was the usual animosity in her tone. "Feeding cats. Holding the fort while your sister's in the hospital." Sandy freaked for a few moments, but she seemed to be freaking more about my being there than her sister's condition. When I could get a word in, I told her all I could, which wasn't much. Which hospital, what happened, etc... I ended it with, "...So quit blowing in my ear about it. Neither of us got knifed or raped or even robbed. That's supposed to be a good thing. What's your problem, lady?" Sandy started another tirade, but I hung up on her in mid-rant. After a few minutes spent pouring a coffee and letting Jeffrey get settled in my lap, I called her back. "Hello?" she said. Damn, she sounded so much like Kim. "I got some coffee and gave you some time. You through ranting, or do I hang up again?" There was silence on the line for a moment. "Something happened to her a long time ago, Ed. I thought she might have told you." "Let's assume she meant to, eventually, but she didn't. Enlighten me, please." "No. Later, maybe, if she says it's all right to tell you and she can't tell you herself." "If she comes out of it, you mean?" Sighing, I said, "No, I didn't mean that, Sandy. I don't even want to think that. What the hell happened to her that would make her fear me?" She sighed. "Not you, Ed. Violence. Any violence." She didn't tell me and the conversation didn't go much farther. Sandy and I had never got along well at all. I told her I'd call if there was a change and rang off. I didn't have a goddamned thing to do, so I went to sit with Kim for a while. In the late afternoon she came out of her stupor somewhat. An hour or so later we were riding home together in silence and within ten minutes of our arrival I heard the almost-new "medicine" bottle hit the bottom of the bathroom trash can. I knew what it was. I'd heard that sound before. Kim didn't come downstairs for a while, so I went up. She was lying on the bed talking to someone on the phone in a low, slurred manner. I heard Vickie's piercing voice coming from the receiver. Vickie was very upset with her, but Kim didn't seem to give a damn. After a few minutes, she looked disdainfully at the receiver and hung up on her. Then she looked at me. I knew the look from years before. It was the 'Honey, would you make a run to the store for me?' look. If I didn't go, she would, regardless of the weather or what she was wearing unless she was still sober enough to reach for a jacket, or whether it was night or day, or whether the neighborhood was safe. None of that could stand against her need for a drink. But she'd drained a pint bottle of gin. I ignored her pleas for me to go to the package store and went downstairs to wait for the straight gin she'd drunk to either come up on it's own or put her out for the night. Or something. There was the possibility she'd try to go on her own. The gin came up shortly, as I expected. She wasn't used to it in big doses anymore. I went back to her when I heard it happening and helped her through the heaves and the aftermath. When she was focusing again, I asked her, then pleaded with her to get back to her schedule before it became too hard for her. I asked her to please keep walking in the sunlight and I told her I'd stay with her as long as it took to help her any way I could. That made her laugh bitterly. "That would be your lifetime , Ed. Or mine, take your pick. Just about once a year, every year, something like this happens. It happened twice in '77. Now you've seen how well I handle it. This

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one hit me harder than usual, but that's only because the situations that triggered it were a bit worse than usual." "A lifetime is exactly what I had in mind. We'll keep things from happening somehow." "No, Ed. We won't." Her emphasis was on the word 'won't'. "We can't. Just like the other night. It happened, and you took care of it and us, but look what happened to me anyway." "We'll find a way to deal with this. I'll find a way." "Again, no. We won't. You won't. Nobody can. I'm ordering you to leave me, Ed. You still remember how to take orders, don't you?" "You can't just tell me to leave you now. Like this. Be reasonable." "I can do it now and I'm doing it now. I'm not taking you or anyone else down with me." "Goddamnit, you don't have to take you down, either, Kim. All you have to do is get back on your system and manage this thing like you did for over four fucking years. Please?!" She looked at me calmly and said, "I didn't say I wouldn't get back on my system, did I? That's what I always do when these binges are over, Ed. A few days later I get back on my little system. And then I wait for the next time. And the next time. Got the picture yet?" I groped for something to say that would convince her. "Look, I can live with it. It's only once a year or so, right? Not every night like it used to be." "Listen to yourself, Ed. You're telling me it will be an ordeal that you'll survive somehow, that you'll get through it, like a yearly case of flu. Well, it isn't the flu, Ed, and someday you'll come to hate me for everything I'll have put you through over the years." She got off the floor to sit on the commode and I perched on the edge of the bathtub. "Ed, we've seen the results of years like that at the AA meetings on base. Remember the Colberts? The couple who were joined at the hip by their investment of time and suffering together? And we didn't even have any real idea what they'd been through together. She was the drunk and he was the enabler and they hated each other, but couldn't let go. I don't want that with you. I don't want that with anybody, but especially not with you." The phone rang. I must have stared at it through five or six rings, hoping it would just shut up and whoever was calling would lose the number for a while. Kim finally answered it and I heard her sister's voice. Sandy was at the airport and hadn't realized she didn't know the new address until she was already on the plane. She needed a ride from Washington National. Great planning, I thought, then realized how upset she must have been to have let a detail like that get past her control-freak personality. Kim volunteered me to go pick her up without asking how I felt about it. "And please try not to lose her on the way," she said to me. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, God. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, Ed." "I'll survive." I spent the next half hour fighting traffic and finding the right gate. Sandy was standing just inside the entrance next to the glass doors. I wondered if she'd even recognize me after all the years since she'd visited Kim and me in Hampton. I parked at the curb and stood by the car to wave at her rather than leave the car to acquire an 'unattended vehicle' ticket. She saw me and looked down at her two bags meaningfully. I pointed at my car and then a nearby cop just as meaningfully. She got the message and came out with her bags. She stood staring at my blue Oldsmobile as I opened the back door and put her bags in. I realized she hadn't moved and saw her looking at the front door. With a sigh, I reached to open it and let it swing wide so that she had to move back a bit to let it pass. Sandy narrowed her eyes at me as she stepped forward again and lowered

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herself into the seat after a quick inspection of it. Her skirt rode up higher than necessary and she knew it. She glanced up at me as my eyes traveled over her legs. Whatever she did for exercise had been good for her. Her legs made a fine show. Too bad they were attached to her. The rest of her looked damned good, too. Same problem. Attached to her. When my eyes met hers, she gave me a little smile and a flick of her eyebrows. Sandy liked being admired. As I took us out of the airport, she wanted to know how her sister was. I told her everything, including the draining of the bathroom bottle and how Kim had ordered me to leave her. Silence reigned until we were almost off the airport access road. We passed under a streetlight and waited for an opening in the traffic. She suddenly sat up and peered over at my face. "ooOOooo ... the big, bad, mercenary fella isn't about to cry, is he?" she asked in a childish, taunting tone. She tossed a single Kleenex on the seat between us. "Here, sport. You need this." I pulled the car off the road. I took the Kleenex and the keys and started walking back up the road to the lights of the airport. After a moment, a car door opened and closed behind me. I kept walking. Quick footsteps were approaching. I kept walking. She finally hove into view and parked herself directly in front of me. I swerved around her. She ran to get in front of me again, this time with her arms spread wide. "Where the hell do you think you're going? You're supposed to be taking me to my sister!" "I'm taking a break. Call a cab. Hitchhike. Walk. Show your lovely legs to a trucker and hope he doesn't spread 'em for you. Or maybe that he does. I never knew you well enough to know how you'd take that idea, so unlike you, I won't make any judgments. Just get the fuck away from me with your mouth and your attitude. I've never known why you hated me from day one and I just don't care anymore." I started walking again. She came running up behind me again and got in front of me again. "I'll tell you why, asshole. The first time I ever heard your voice you were asking her for money and you were going out. That's why! She gave it to you and you hit the door for the evening. When you practically ran out past me you barely took time to say hello and didn't give a damn who I was. You just wanted out of there. Now either get your ass back in that car or give me those keys." I looked hard at her and said, "At this very moment, you'll have to kill me to get them, bitch. That's a word I hardly ever use, you know. It seems unfair because it doesn't have a correlating male counter-word that's just as nasty, so I save it for really special women like you." Her hand flashed in the gloom. I barely stopped it from raking or slapping my face and said quietly, "Don't do that again. I'll knock you on your ass." Something in my tone made her step back and say, "You're crazy, you know that?" "I have a good reason for being crazy tonight. Now go away." She screamed at me, "NO ! Take me to my sister! NOW!" I started walking again, then stopped. A realization had finally hit bottom in my head. Oh, shit, I thought. I turned to her and said, "Guess what? You've hated me all these years for nothing. The night we first met your sister was fucked-up drunk, remember? She set the kitchen on fire when she tried to heat up a goddamned frozen pizza while I was in the shower getting ready for work." I stepped closer to her and she backed up a pace, uncertain whether to run. I continued, "She'd just figured it was cooked already and tossed it in the oven to warm it without removing the box or the plastic baggie. It wasn't much of a fire, but it scared the hell out of her and putting it out made me

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late for work. On top of that, I couldn't find my wallet anywhere. Looked everywhere for it. I needed money that night because I couldn't find my wallet. I found out later that she'd decided to do the laundry before she charred the pizza." I stepped closer to her and screamed in her face, "BUT I NEVER LOOKED INSIDE THE GOD-DAMNED WASHING MACHINES DOWNSTAIRS! You've been hating me all these years because I didn't think to look in..." I didn't see what tripped me. I hit hard on my palms and one knee, then sat down on the gravel, gripping my knee and swearing at the pain. There was a twist of discarded fan belt near my foot. I grabbed it and viciously flung it away. After a moment, something spurred me to finish the diatribe, but there was no point in yelling any more. "I never looked in the washer, that's all. I was way late for work again because I had to clean up where she'd thrown up and I had to put out the fire in the oven. She was crying and she said you were about to arrive, so I thought things would be okay and figured to meet you later. I ran out the door past you to try to get to work in time to save my job, which I didn't. I had a few beers myself that night just to avoid going home right away. I figured you could look after her for a few hours, Sandy. I needed a goddamned break. Just a goddamned break, you know?!" I heard a very faint, "Oh, my God..." Her voice broke off. She came to stand in front of me. I heard her sobbing as she settled on her heels to offer me some Kleenex from her purse and took some for her own tears. Her skirt rode up nearly to her hips and her fabulous legs were bared to me in the half-light all the way up to the patch of white fabric at their joining. I couldn't take my eyes off them for a couple of moments and they had a double effect, one below the waist and one above. I got rock-horny instantly and just as instantly felt as if I were cheating on Kim just by looking at her sister's legs like that. Shaking my head to clear it some, I said, "Please stand up, will you? I can't help looking up your skirt while you're parked like that and it's giving me ... Well, just stand up, okay?" I took the Kleenex from her as her mouth and eyes flew open and her legs slammed shut and she stood up. She tried to yank another Kleenex out of the box as she turned away and sniffled, but she dropped the box. Without so much as bending a knee, Sandy leaned over about two feet from my face to scoop the Kleenex box up from the ground and her skirt rode as high as it possibly could against the backs of her thighs. 'Jesus,' I thought. 'Now she flashes them at me from behind.' "Sorry," she said nervously, "I wasn't thinking. I was just trying to help." I wondered what, precisely, she was apologizing for. The first leg show? Or the second? Or all the years of mutual dislike that passed because there'd been no communication between us? "Oh, you did help, Sandy. You gave me some Kleenex and a helluva show. The pain in my hands and the shock of seeing your magnificent legs all the way to the hilt seems to have cleared my head a bit, I think. I'll take you home now." I blotted the red spots off my hands with the Kleenex. They came back instantly, of course, so I used a paper towel from my hip pocket, instead, then got up and dusted myself off. We started walking back to the car. Sandy matched my stride, and not many women do that easily. I got the door for her again and this time she got in rather more demurely, keeping a hand on her skirt. That didn't help much. Her long, lovely legs flashed bare anyway as she got in. I tore the paper towel in half and used it to keep my raw hands off the steering wheel as I drove us away from there. Shortly along the return drive I heard her say, "I don't know the words

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to tell you how sorry I am right now. I don't think such words really exist." "It doesn't matter anymore. We're history anyway. She's throwing me out to keep from hurting me. Does that make any sense to you?" "Sure. I've heard all of it before from both her and my first husband." "He was a drinker, too?" "Oh, yes, he was a world-class drinker. It got worse during the three years we were together, too. Then it got worse after that. Four years ago he rammed his car into an overpass. End of problem. I think he did it deliberately, but I never had reason to tell anyone official." "I really thought she had a grip on it," I said. "Four shots a day and all that. Then she tells me she has an event like this once or twice a year and orders me to leave." Sandy looked across at me. "Can you do it? Leave her, I mean?" "I can't reach her any more. Not even by ... Well, not even in bed. The walls are back like they were years ago. I couldn't so much as think of her and not want her then and I've already become like that about her again. That's one of the things that always made me resent you so much. Looking at you was almost like looking at her, but you weren't passed out drunk most of the time. I used to wish I had you instead sometimes and hated myself for it, but the feeling was there, anyway. The 'why can't I be in love with the straight one?' thoughts." She smiled slightly and said, "If you'd really wanted me, you had a chance to put it to me one night and you blew it, you dummy." I laughed. "Dumb? Me? Uh-uh. Stupid enough to want to hang on to her, maybe. That slipping towel trick was great, though. Oh, gawd, you looked so good ... But you just wanted to have me on the couch that night when she came in after work. You only pulled that stunt with me because you were going to try to set me up for a fall and break us up. What was that event going to be? A rape charge?" "Something like that. Not quite that. God, what I was ready to do to get rid of you, Ed." "Well, you almost succeeded because of the previous week of grief she'd given me. I was just glad I still had my clothes on when she got there and found the door open. We argued about you fairly often, Sandy, largely because of the effort you made that night to nail me. She thought I had the hots for you for a while, but she finally got over that and replaced you with a bimbette who worked in the hospital. She was wrong about the bimbette, by the way." She laughed softly. "But not about me?" "Nope," I said, and laughed with her. "Not at all. You were a glistening wet dream, fresh out of the shower and looking to nail me. I was sorely tempted, ma'am. Thanks, by the way. I needed to scream at someone tonight. Now I'm sorry it was you." She laughed again, aloud this time. "I've been screamed at before. I've even been called a bitch before, can you believe it? Of course you can. Sis got all the personality, you know." She very deliberately displayed a small green box, then just as deliberately tossed it out the window. "That was for you," she said. "I got you a joke gift on the way." I looked at her in the dimly lit car. She said, "You didn't want it. Trust me." I nodded. Sandy looked across at me for a time, then said, "There's something else, too. I'm still deciding whether or not to give it to you." She snapped her purse shut, toed her shoes off, and lit a cigarette. "So, as I asked before and you never answered, are you really going to leave?" "She says go. It's what she wants me to do and I love her, so I guess I'll do it. I never stopped loving her, Sandy. I sort of lived around it and made room for others while I was over there without her, but your sister is one of the great loves of my life. If she tells me to go, I will, if only to preserve that. Hurts go away with time. What I've felt for her has never left

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me." Sandy said, "She's afraid of victimizing you with her illness. That's all she's really worried about if she's telling you to get out while you can, Ed. There's nobody else in her life." "I know that. I know you're right, too, and that for the first time ever you're suggesting that I leave for all the right reasons. I've done it before and I can do it again if I have to." "You already know you have to. It would hurt her deeply if she hurt you, and she will. You'll hurt her just by staying to suffer with her, Ed. Just by being there to take her punches." "I know. I've heard it, thought it, and said it myself. I just don't want to believe it, that's all. I still don't want to leave her alone with this." Sandy looked at me, surprised. "Didn't you know? Vickie called me about things, too. She's going to be moving in as soon as you're gone. Kim won't be alone, Ed." "Vickie's moving in? Let's verify that. And Vickie is more than a little ditzy, Sandy..." "That's an act. She's a bookkeeper at a big Volvo dealership in Falls Church." "No shit? I mean, you aren't just making that up? Vickie? A bookkeeper?" "True. Swear. Bookkeeper. Vickie. Check it out tomorrow." True. Swear. Bookkeeper. Vickie. Sometimes her mannerisms even sounded like Kim's. She asked, "Does that make it easier for you?" "It doesn't seem to at the moment. But then, nothing really would, I guess." "There will always be someone," she said. "Vickie. Me. I dropped things to come here for her and I'd do it again anytime it seemed necessary. There are others you haven't met and probably wouldn't meet soon. She's still in AA, even though they don't like the way she's chosen to handle her problem. How do you think she got through the years, Ed? Not alone." I was stunned that I hadn't considered all that before. The woman on the seat next to me had just smacked my blinders out the window with a few very obvious points that hadn't been at all obvious to me. I looked across at her. She was looking out the window. Her bare right foot was up on the dashboard and her leg exposed to the hip. I looked at her face in profile and saw that she was looking back at me in the glass of the window. "Pretend I'm wearing shorts," she said without turning her head. "I've been cooped in an airline seat in coach class. It's all they had open. Anyway, you've seen them before, right?" "No, ma'am. I haven't simply seen them. I've admired them. I even called them magnificent when you were hunkered in front of me, if I recall correctly." She turned her head to face me. Her grin was huge. "That you did. You do recall correctly. And it gave me a big tingle to hear my legs referred to as magnificent, Ed. That word isn't used much anymore except in advertising hype." "Lots of good words are languishing due to lack of use. It's a real shame, too. There were times I'd have called you vulpine , for instance." She grinned at me. "Foxy, huh? And how would you mean that now? Cunning or cute?" "Both," I said. "And I'd give you extra points for knowing what the word means. Very much both, now that I can't seem to hate you anymore." Sandy tossed her head back and laughed. "What a fuckup," she said, looking out the window again. "Ten years of hate over a clean, wet wallet. I could shoot myself for being a such a fool, Ed."

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"Please don't. It would be a tragic waste of beauty." She glanced sharply at me. I was looking at her leg at that moment. She said, "For a minute there I thought that was a snide comment or something. Guess not, though, huh?" I looked up at her face. "Nope. You're every bit as lovely as your sister. Sorry if it didn't sound quite right to you. It was supposed to be a 'funny but true' comment." "But it would sure cure my personality disorder, wouldn't it? One less bitch in the world?" "The world needs a few bitches in its system to function as antibodies. Stay a while." She laughed again. "Well, when you put it that way I guess I almost have to, don't I?" "Yup. I have an idea," I said. "What if I stay and help Vickie get moved in? You stay a while so Kim's covered while Vickie and I are moving stuff. Everybody would overlap for a week or so and Vickie would be a visitor until the last day or two of the move. No real crowding." "Just like that, you cobbled up a plan?" "Just like that you slapped me with the truth and woke me up, so why not? You made me see what I hadn't wanted to see before. I love her, but I can't stay without causing her pain and maybe poisoning both our lives. The only thing to do now is to exit as gracefully as possible and let us both get on with our lives. You got another answer that works?" After a moment she said, "No, but I sure as hell wish I did, now. I'm sorry, Ed. For everything and all the years and being a bitch to you and ... Well, I'm just sorry about all of it." I nodded. "Me too. I could have asked why you hated me before tonight." "Oh, you could have," she said, grinning. "But I'm a bitch. I'd have told you to fuck off." I shook my head sadly and said, "Oh, yeah. Sorry. I guess I forgot that for a moment." She laughed softly and put her other foot up on the dash, then went back to window-gazing. I'm not too dense, after all. My reaction to Kim's sister hadn't been brotherly at all. Hers to me didn't seem all that sisterly, either, and she'd once tried to nail me just to set me up for a fall, so I knew that sex was something she didn't take as seriously as others might. Now she had her legs on full display -- partly because I'd called them magnificent, I was sure -- and her left hand was idly tracing lines and circles on the outside of her thigh as she stared out the window. When I looked up, she was looking back at me in the glass again. She smiled back at me as soon as our eyes met and flicked her eyebrows at me. I wondered if she'd try to nail me again eventually, and if so, for what reason? Because she suddenly liked me and wanted me? Or was I just thinking thoughts based on my own desires? I looked at those legs again and felt myself drawn to them, then felt again that sense of betraying Kim just by looking at Sandy's legs. It's hell when you can't even figure out your own thoughts. My plans had changed again by the time we neared Kim's neighborhood. I intended to skip helping Vickie move and leave in the morning. Kim noticed my quietness. "You having second thoughts about things, Ed?" I looked across at her. She was watching me closely as I said, "Yeah, sort of." That was when, in retrospect, I think we had yet another miscommunication of the same magnitude as the wallet incident. I didn't tell Sandy what I'd been considering. Her face settled into a kind of impassivity that seemed to turn into a mask of determination. As we neared the apartments, Kim said, "Let's talk some more before we go in, Ed. Pull in at this drugstore." Thinking she wanted to go into the store, I nosed the car into the lot

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and started to park it near the front. Sandy pointed to a supply trailer parked near the back of the building. "No. Put us back there, next to that thing. Behind it, if you can." I stopped the car in the middle of the lot. "Sandy, I..." "Just do it, Ed. We're going to settle this thing tonight." I thought about it. I thought long enough that Sandy spoke again. "Nailing me is something you won't be able to back away from, Ed. You won't be able to pretend it didn't happen and you won't ever be able to touch Kim again without thinking of me. And it won't matter if you don't tell her we did it because I will, whether we do it or not, so you might as well go along with the program, here." "Why not just tell her we did it, then? You don't have to do this, Sandy. I'm leaving." "I hear you, but I don't believe you. This is insurance." "Do you think Kim won't feel the same about you as she would about me?" "Me, she'll forgive, sooner or later. You, too, probably. But she'll never forget, Ed. Never. Neither will you. I'll always be right there between you if you stay." "Tell you what, Sandy. If I don't leave in the morning you can try again later." I backed the car out of the lot and we drove the four blocks to Kim's apartment in total silence, but as we entered the building, Sandy said, "Hey, Ed." I turned to look and Sandy stepped up to me, put her arms around my neck, and kissed me. When she let me go she stepped back a pace. "That was a 'just because' kiss," said Sandy. "Now we can go on in." We installed Sandy in the spare bedroom. I went downstairs and sat in the sofa chair with Jeffrey. After Kim and Sandy had had some time together upstairs, Kim came down by herself. She'd sobered up considerably since I'd left for the airport. She came to stand by my chair and looked down at me for some moments before speaking. "Sandy's taking a shower. She told me what happened in the car, Ed." I wondered if she'd been told that I had or hadn't nailed Sandy as I waited for more. Kim went to the couch and sat down. "She said she tried, but you wouldn't cooperate." I said nothing, preferring to look down at Jeffrey as I ruffled his chin. "Sandy said you're planning to leave in the morning, Ed. Is that true?" I didn't look up. "It is." After a few moments, Kim asked, "Will you sleep with me tonight, then?" "I'd sort of figured to sleep on the couch and leave early, Kim." "I'd rather you didn't. I'd like our last night together to be better than that." I looked up when I heard the catch in her voice. She was on the verge of tears. I said, "Then I'd like that, too, Kim. Very much." She rose and came to the chair and reached for my hand. I rose and followed her upstairs. We took a long, sensual shower and made love ... Well, as if it would be the last time. There were tears of both sadness and happiness before we finally slept. I woke to an empty bed, but I smelled breakfast and coffee. Sandy was at the door, her hand poised to knock again if necessary. I waved at her. "I'm up. Be down there in a few." She nodded and smiled at me, then left me to prepare for facing the world. I took my two bigger bags out front and put them beside the couch and went into the kitchen. A herd of happy cats was playfully attacking Sandy, who was sitting on the floor with them. She looked up at me as I came in,

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apparently as happy as they were with the game. Kim was loading three plates with eggs and bacon. She kissed me on the cheek as I passed her on the way to the pot. I got a coffee and got out of her way. Kim said, "Sis tells me you guys are all made up now that a washed wallet explained things." "Yup. All better now." "Good. In that case, maybe you won't mind doing her a little favor a month from now." "What kind of favor would I be able to do for her? I'll be in Texas and she'll be in ... huh ... Where do you live these days, Sandy? All I know is the area code, and it wasn't familiar." Sandy looked up and said, "Columbus, Ohio." "As I was saying, then, what kind of favor am I going to be able to do at that distance?" Kim set the plates on the table and I helped Sandy rise from the floor. Kim said, "Her company is looking at moving its headquarters to a corporate park in Irving, Texas. How far is that from where you'll be, Ed?" I made no secret of my surprise. Kim and Sandy were grinning at me. I said, "About twenty miles or thereabouts, I think. What sort of favor and how soon?" "I'll need a place to stay while I find an apartment," said Sandy. "A guide, too, probably." Kim said, "We decided this morning to keep you in the family for a while. If you want to be kept in the family, that is. Sandy suddenly seems to think you're worth knowing." I looked at the two of them with uncertainty. Kim took my hand and smiled at me. "Do I look as if I have a problem with this?" Sandy said, "Just say yes, Ed. If the company moves, why not? If we don't get along, I won't stay, and if we do get along, you can show me around Texas on weekends." I nodded. "Okay. I'll make sure I get a place big enough, then." I poured myself another coffee and went back out to the living room to make sure I had all my stuff together. There was a knock at the door. I went to it and found Vickie. She moved in past me without a word, so I figured she was in bookkeeper mode. I put my bags in the car and then went back into the kitchen. After we'd all said our last round of goodbyes I began the long drive to Texas. -------*Epilogue:* Sandy's company canceled the move to Texas when Columbus offered them a heavy tax break to remain there, but Sandy took a two-week vacation that added a couple of days at each end by including the weekends and stayed with me in my Irving, Texas, apartment. After the first couple of local tours and a trip to the Alamo in the first week, she told me she'd seen enough of Texas and wanted to spend more time in the bedroom. She was outspoken and forthright about most everything, and her desires and pleasures were no exceptions. I honestly, seriously considered moving to Columbus, Ohio by the time she had to go back, but my Dad became ill and I wound up staying to help out where I could. During 1980 I met a blonde lady named Mindy and her friend Diane during a medieval reenactment society's weekend event and we all took another apartment together later. In November of 1980 I filed for a divorce in Dallas. My wife signed, added only that she wanted her maiden name back, and we were finally legally free of each other. I didn't see or hear from my ex-wife again until I contacted her about writing this story. Being divorced and available caused a change in Mindy's level of

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interest in me. Diane's and my relationship was unaffected by my divorce, but Mindy distanced herself from me a bit fairly quickly once I became single again. She wouldn't discuss it much, but Diane said that Mindy was afraid that she'd "want to do something stupid"; i.e., get married. When Diane died of cancer, Mindy's and my relationship grew somewhat rocky rather quickly without Diane's buffering personality. Not long after that a friend named John, who'd been particularly devastated by Diane's death and had disappeared for months, called asking me to pawn one of his guns for enough money to come back to Dallas. I loaned him the money and suggested that Mindy might need some help with her rent. John moved in with Mindy and some months later I was invited to their wedding. I was the one who handed John the ring to put on Mindy's finger in the ceremony. Of the Israelis I maintained contact with only three. Yasha died in 1987. Moshe retired, whatever that may actually mean on a kibbutz, and Alan is now retired in Jerusalem. Linda, now semi-retired near Washington, D.C., contacted me a few years ago to tell me that my old boss, John, had died in his sleep in his Maine home. Carla Mason is also retired, sort of. She owns a bookstore in Coventry, England. Her husband is a retired British Army Colonel who also has a fondness for books. Lisa Cameron was killed in 1991 in a car accident in Scotland. Her brother Richard was wounded in 1988 and decided to take a job with a computer company in London the following year. Sergeant Fisk and some of the others mentioned in the Solutions segment were listed as killed or missing during the mid-eighties when things got particularly bad in Angola. Fisk was rumored to have joined the infamous Buffalo Brigade, but I was unable to verify that. Marsha joined a west-coast newspaper and wound up marrying her boss there in 1985. Robert Hayes is still working for a tabloid newspaper. I gave his white typewriter to a friend's daughter in 1987, I think. She was working on a school newsletter at the time. Most of the women mentioned were untraceable without too much searching and effort, so I simply changed their names for this story just to cover my ass and include them without being able to directly contact more than two of them. I now live in Florida and am also retired after a fashion. I say 'after a fashion' because I keep busy designing jewelry, working with Internet newcomers and people who want web sites, and writing things like this. Since my endeavors make money, I can't call myself completely retired. -- Ed Howdershelt, 1/20/2000 -- -End Dragonfly Run -- -------Other titles from Abintra Press: * * * * *SCIENCE FICTION* "3rd World Products, Inc., Book 1" "3rd World Products, Inc., Book 2" "3rd World Products, Inc., Book 3" "3rd World Products, Inc., Book 4" "An Encounter in Atlanta" "Assignment: ATLANTA" (A Sandy Shield Novel!) "Bitten and Smitten" (Vampires!) "HUNT CLUB" (Vampires!) "In Service to a Goddess, Book 1" "In Service to a Goddess, Book 2" "In Service to a Goddess, Book 3"

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"In Service to a Goddess, Book 4" "STARDANCER" * * * * *FICTION-EROTICA-ROMANCE* "Anne" "Dragonfly Run" "Field Decision" "Kim" "Mindy" * * * * *COMING SOON:* "3rd World Products, Inc., Book 5" "ANSEN" "Crystal River Witch" * * * * An index to articles and ebooks may be found on our website: http://abintrapress.tripod.com Abintra Press! ----------------------Visit www.abintrapress.tripod.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.

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