Part 17 (1/2)

”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.