Whatever Gods May Be Part 17

"You're a G.o.dd.a.m.n officer. Ma'am."

"Jeezus, Marty, I only went along with it to save us from another Koenig." Jamie thumped the bottle she held onto the ground between her knees. "It's your dream, not mine. Well, you can have it, okay?" Rhys's eyes filled with tears. "Just doesn't work that way, remember?"

"What about your contagious magic?"

Rhys shrugged and looked away.

Jamie raised the bottle to her mouth and belted down more of its contents. After she did it twice more, Rhys took the bottle from her.

* 142 *

"How'd you get all the way up there?" she asked when she realized Rhys stood over her.

"Come on." Rhys reached down a hand. "Time to hit the rack." Jamie didn't move. "Think we can keep sharing the same hooch?

Y'know, unit responsiveness and all that?"

"Don't know, Lieutenant. How about we talk about it in the morning, okay?"

v Jamie woke nauseous and aching and remembering her question.

Even before she opened her eyes, she knew Rhys's answer, could feel Rhys's answer in the spa.r.s.e almost-echo of unoccupied s.p.a.ce around her. Rhys had packed up and moved out.

She waited for the tears to stop trickling down her temples into her ears, tried to steady her breathing and accept the inevitability of it. Rhys was just a few feet away, only a couple sheets of thin cloth and mosquito netting between them. All forty-one of the people in the Three-Eight scout/sniper platoon- her scout/sniper platoon-were right there. If she shouted, every one of them would come running. But knowing this didn't help her feel less alone.

* 143 *

Chapter FiFteen.

Coyote We got a bunch of civilians here wanting help," Ramirez reported over his comlink.

Cleanup duty. For the third day in a row, one of Jamie's squads had encountered-and successfully terminated-rogue PIA snipers.

Ramirez and his people had been scouting ten kilometers upstream from Iwahig, inching along the river's steepening southern bank, while second and third squads had dispersed into the ridges above the north side of the river.

And now civilians. This news surprised Jamie, who prowled the high ground with third squad. The citizens of Palawan had been skilled at getting out of the way of the conflict. Except for Puerto Princesa, rarely were they caught in any crossfire. Jamie's surprise deepened when Ramirez said there'd been no skirmish, just ten souls on the run, hoping to find safety downriver.

"Christ, Ram. Ten? Where from?"

"Well, we're mostly communicating with our hands, you know?

Seems to be south of here. Called, uh, Apur-Uh, Apur-some-d.a.m.n-thing."

"Apurauan?"

"Yeah. Apur-uh-whatever."

"So they've come over the Anepahan Peaks. That's a haul. At least thirty klicks. Jungle klicks. How they look?"

"Hungry thirsty tired terrified."

A chill tingled along Jamie's spine. Her gut tensed, too, because she hadn't been visited by that chill in quite a while. Certainly not in her thirty-five days of lieutenantness, thirty-five days of scouting and * 144 *

cleanup missions that dinged three of her people, one seriously. But n.o.body killed. No chill, no KIAs. Maybe a coincidence, maybe not.

"Okay, Ram, back at you shortly about how to bring them down to Iwahig for debriefing."

Over the next several days, even before Ramirez got back to the FOB with his ten souls, the chill skittered up and down Jamie's back more and more often, reigniting her belief that saying yes to Embry had been a calamitous mistake. I am so out of my league. Officers are supposed to know what the h.e.l.l is going on, but I don't have a clue. All she had was a p.r.i.c.kly spine and the unceasing fear that any minute now she'd get someone killed.

If the Three-Eight's officers met to talk about what was percolating, they didn't invite "Embry's b.a.s.t.a.r.d child." She'd heard the insult twice in those first couple of weeks after she returned to the Three-Eight's FOB with a one-lite's black bar on her cammie collar-even though her boss, Captain Pinsof, had introduced her around as Lieutenant Gwynmorgan, like she was for real.

Pinsof had seemed okay that day-the day she now thought of as EBC6, her sixth day as Embry's b.a.s.t.a.r.d Child. Yet since then she'd spent little time with the rushed, harried Pinsof-at briefings and debriefings mostly. And yes, he asked her how she was doing, but she figured he wanted to hear she was doing fine, so that's what she said, even though she was- I'm lost, that's what. f.u.c.king lost.

"It's because you're hardly ever in the G.o.dd.a.m.n FOB, much less in the officers' mess," Rhys said from her side of the Rubicon, exasperation showing. "If you want to find out what's really going on, you have to hang around and shoot the s.h.i.+t." So Jamie had tried to do what Marty suggested: Go to the officers'

mess.

She'd tried just once-on EBC24-and she ate alone, meticulously ignored by the other officers, who talked with each other in clarion tones about how the Pentagon wouldn't publicly admit to the existence of combat appointments. And someone said, "Hey, I'm all for mustangs, but these f.u.c.king coyotes..."

She stood then, picking up her food dishes because she saw that the officers in the mess just left their dishes for some lance coolie to clean up, and she sure as h.e.l.l wasn't going to let any enlisted person do servitude for her. Dishes in hand, she turned toward the word. Coyote: * 145 *

Combat-boosted from mid-level NCO all the way to one-lite. Coyote: Breaking in line and f.u.c.king up promotions for "real" lieutenants.

The word had come from Captain Cavanaugh, commander of Kilo Company, the guy Alonzo didn't salute at San Salvacia. "Oh," she'd said that first and only time in the officers' mess. "So a coyote's like a mustang, only smarter and faster. Good to know. Sir." She stood there long enough to return Cavanaugh's frigid stare, then walked away-only to spend days haunted by one shoulda after another: Shoulda told them the Marines could use more coyotes and a whole lot less of this feudal c.r.a.p from the days when only aristocrats could be officers and the enlisted were slaves. Shoulda told them what they can do with their d.a.m.n commission. Shoulda kicked that a.s.shole's b.a.l.l.s into his throat...

So on EBC37, Jamie had only Marty Rhys to talk to about Ram's civilians. Rhys had just returned to the FOB with second squad, which gave Jamie a few moments to watch her from a distance, to yearn for what used to be, before Thumb Peak, before Marty lost her l.u.s.t for contagious magic.

It was the same memory, always, and one more time Jamie savored it, their last time together. They'd been on an easy mission, a couple of days and nights cleaning up the high ground north of Puerto Princesa.

Easy enough to actually relax in the magnificent limestone cave they'd found. That night, away from the rest of Rhys's squad, hidden in the unconditional darkness, their sounds masked by a small waterfall nearby, everything she'd hoped for with Marty seemed possible.

For a little while that night, touching Marty, kissing Marty, bringing Marty to fierce, breathy consummation, she believed Marty might be in love with her. Not her combat instincts or the way she could nail a distant target. Just her, for her own sake. She made love to Marty that night from deep within; she turned herself inside out. "I want you to care if I die," she said. "I'm in love with you," she said. "I would die for you," she said. That night, she gave Marty everything she had the power to give and wanted to give more, more.

Jamie remembered as though remembering was a sacred act. Rhys saying, "I know, I know." Rhys saying, "Shush now." Rhys holding her, kissing the top of her head while she took refuge in Rhys's bewitching b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her c.l.i.t sated but throbbing anyway.

* 146 *

Flashes of it all crossed her consciousness every time she saw Rhys, talked with Rhys. And at night, too, when she was alone in her hooch, hoping Rhys would come to her again, just once, just this once, seeking magic.

EBC37 and Jamie had only the yearning; she wanted the yearning to beat in her c.l.i.t and twist in her belly and claw its way up through her chest until it grabbed her throat. Better than nothing. Just before Rhys noticed her, she pushed it down, into its prison, to keep it from showing.

"Hey, Rhys," Jamie called out.

Rhys nodded, but her eyes stayed veiled.

Still the same. Before Thumb Peak, the way Rhys used to get edgy, the way she couldn't hide how p.i.s.sed she was at being stuck, still, a rank behind-it had galled Jamie. After Thumb Peak, that edginess disappeared, and now Jamie yearned for it, too.

EBC37 and she still hadn't been able to get back across that Rubicon. Not for lack of trying, though. Jamie started trying even before her firewater hangover had worn off.

"Please, Marty," she'd said. "Tell them to talk to me like always.

Jamie, Gwynnie, Gwynmorgan, whatever."

"Okay, Lieutenant Whatever. It's a deal."

And Rhys had mostly made it happen. Except Jamie had to let newbies start out with "LT," which remained a semi-scandalous breach of Corps etiquette, but not as dastardly as "Gwynnie." Plus, of course, she had to suffer her crew's ma'am c.r.a.p whenever other officers came around.

EBC37 and as Jamie approached her, at least Rhys was willing to use the greeting that had become their private joke, delivered with her usual arched, that's-all-you-get eyebrow. "Hey, Lieutenant Whatever." But her smile evaporated when she saw Jamie's face.

"Hear about those folks Ram brought in?" Jamie asked.

"Please don't tell me they're refugees."

"Wish I didn't have to."

"Ah s.h.i.+t. Zhong? Confirmed?"

"Yep. Chinese regular army soldiers in the frigging flesh." v * 147 *

When Jamie spotted her boss, he'd almost reached the last place in the FOB she ever wanted to go, but she couldn't allow that to stop her. Not this time.

By chance and maybe because of those chills needling up her spine, her ignorance hadn't killed anybody-yet. At EBC65, though, Jamie sensed the looming limits of dumb luck and instinct. She needed to find out what all the other officers knew. Those sc.r.a.ps of gossip and banter she heard at briefings had to be hiding something. The time had come to chase down her commander, the battalion's intelligence officer.

But please, please, not in there.

She'd missed him at the FOBCOC; even so, if she moved fast enough, she could intercept him, might persuade him into a u-turn.

"Captain Pinsof!"

"Hey, Gwynmorgan." A smile creased Pinsof's broad, pleasant face-a genuine enough smile that it reached his eyes and helped Jamie resist a knee-jerk urge to bolt. She stepped in front of him, hoping he'd have to stop.

"Want some coffee?" he asked, his thick, sandy-colored eyebrows elevating slightly while he waved an oversized mug. Jamie realized his question was rhetorical, and he wasn't even slowing down.

"Uh..." She stepped sideways. Any excuse to decline and retreat would do, but before Jamie found one, Pinsof planted a ma.s.sive hand on her shoulder and nudged her toward the entry to the officers' mess.

"I owe you an apology," he said. "We should be getting together regularly so we can pick each other's brains. But it's been crazy as h.e.l.l ever since Thumb Peak. Price of progress, I guess."

"Yes, sir." Jeez, that sounds okay. Now if we could just turn around and go back to the fobc.o.c.k...

"Come on." Pinsof's smile made her suspect he'd read her thoughts. "It's being automatically deducted from your pay. Might as well get a meal out of it once in a while." None of the half dozen officers in the mess outranked her, but every one of them looked her over as though Pinsof had walked in with an especially mangy dog.

"Have breakfast with me." Pinsof said. "I gotta eat something, and I hate eating alone."

Keeping an eye on the other officers, Jamie nodded. Pinsof led her through the well-stocked food line, ordered scrambled eggs, double * 148 *

bacon, and home fries from the cook, then got her to do the same. He introduced her to the mess clerk-"Make sure you always take real good care of Lieutenant Gwynmorgan, Peter"-and ambled to a solitary table while casually letting her know the hours when the officers' mess was mostly empty.

"Peter can fix you up with a decent meal that you can pick up at the kitchen entrance and take back to your hooch. I do it all the time. By the way, have you heard?"

As Jamie shook her head, she saw that smile again. Okay, you know perfectly well I haven't heard. She suspected n.o.body'd heard.

Maybe that was his plan: He'd talk while she chowed down. Jamie started with the eggs, wondering if Pinsof had guessed this was her first hot meal in six weeks.

"Just got word from Brigade HQ." Pinsof spoke a little too loudly.

"They're saying the Three-Eight's got the only snipe platoon without any KIAs. Not a single one since you took over as platoon NCO. No go-home wounds for a month, either. Same month in which everyone else has put in for replacements, by the way."

"Dumb luck, sir," Jamie mumbled around a mouthful of home fries. "We're getting the easy a.s.signments, that's all."

"Nah, I don't think so, Lieutenant. I know everybody's a.s.signments, and I'd say yours've been as tough as any-tougher." Jamie shrugged without missing a bite. "Got a good team."

"Yeah, you do. And I notice you pretty much built it yourself."

"Had lots of help, sir," she replied between swallows. "Rhys is a much better platoon NCO than I ever was. Probably be a much better officer too, if she ever gets the chance. And our squad leaders-Ramirez, Elliott, and Avery-are primo."

She scanned the mess again. At a table four meters away, three second lieutenants clearly unimpressed by Pinsof's remarks were attempting to scowl her out of their presence. She s.h.i.+fted in her chair slightly to keep them beyond her peripheral vision.

"Amazing how ill-behaved some people get," Pinsof said resoundingly after following her glance, "when they can't control their envy." Then he glared at the two-lites until they abandoned their table.

Jamie stopped eating and examined Pinsof. "Thanks for that." Maybe with this guy I can shortcut around the usual bulls.h.i.+t. "Sir, I need to get my people prepared for what's coming next-" She halted * 149 *

at the sight of Pinsof's forming frown. Oops. She'd just hijacked the conversation from her commanding officer. "Sorry, sir." But his expression seemed to relax into curiosity. "Please go on, Lieutenant."

"Well..." Jamie stalled. What was it about talking to Pinsof that wound her up like this? It reminded her too much of those last hours before a mission, after the planning and packing, when you contemplated-or not. Whatever it took to keep The Fear from ruling you. Rhys, who traveled around before joining the Corps but hated airplanes, once compared it to flying: You figure there's nasty odds you'll crash and burn, but you say okay, I can deal with it if it comes to that, I'm ready-and then you get on the d.a.m.n plane and try like h.e.l.l to keep your fists unclenched.

This was even worse. This time, Jamie found herself in the pilot's seat, and the flight had forty-one other souls aboard, and the corporal in the pilot's seat had been faking everything for sixty-five interminable days. Jamie flexed her hands. "I want to talk about the rules of engagement, sir."

"Okay. What about them?"

"Well, they're about to change, aren't they? I want to know when.

And how. I need to know what everyone else knows."

"I'm not following you, Lieutenant."

Oh christ, I thought he'd be straight up. I can't let him keep me out, too. "You guys all talk, right? You got a line all the way up to Embry, to the Pentagon even. So you know what's coming. But-" s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t, just say it! "But n.o.body's talking to me, Captain, so my people are hanging out there, unprepared."

"I'm afraid that's my fault. But I gotta tell you, Gwynmorgan, n.o.body around here is anywhere near as connected or as omniscient as all that." Pinsof's smile had developed a gallows look to it. "Nice thought, though."

"But you talk, right?"