“Last night was a shit sandwich, but it happened,” Tate said. “Say it.”
“It was a giant shit sandwich,” said Basset. “It was a big, major, double decker shit sandwich.”
“Shit happens and we move on,” said Tate.
“Shit happens,” said Basset firmly.
“Roger that, Corporal,” said Tate as he stood up.
Basset straightened up as a weight fell off his shoulders. He dragged his sleeve across his face and smiled at Tate.
“All right, Sergeant Major,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
* * *
“No patrols, or Vix contact?” said Wesson. “Was he sure?”
Tate and his team sat around a table in the DFAC. The base activity log sat open in the middle of the table. The hum of the air conditioner was the only reminder they should be inside.
“Nothing,” said Tate. “The only thing I could find was a delivery drop the day of the attack.”
“Did you check the manifest?” said Monkhouse. “Maybe they shipped a Vix in with the drop.”
Tate opened another folder and slid out a sheet of paper. His broken rib protested as he passed the paper across the table to Monkhouse.
“Believe it or not, I looked,” he said.
Monkhouse only had a moment to glance at the manifest sheet before Kaiden intercepted it.
“Hey,” said Monkhouse. But his objection went unnoticed, as Kaiden got up and left the DFAC. “I think she likes me,” he said.
The rest of the team groaned and chuckled as he grinned.
“I know you’re kidding,” said Tate, “but it would be a catastrophic mistake to go down that road.”
“I’m not a chaser,” said Monkhouse. “I let my natural charm bring them to me.”
“Yeah?” said Rosse. “You’re the only guy I know who female Vix run from.”
Monkhouse took the jab good-naturedly, as the others amiably laughed.
As the group settled down, Wesson straightened slightly. “Sergeant Major,” she said; the change of formality got everyone’s attention and the table went quiet.
“How long will Ms. Benedict be attached to our team?” she asked.
Tate had explained away Kaiden’s presence as a liaison officer embedded in the team. It wasn’t a great cover story, but considering their new-found autonomy since the formation of the Grave Diggers, he could bend the rules with little fear of being called out.
“I can’t go into the details of her assignment,” he said.
“You mean any details,” chimed in Rosse. “Is she a civilian, cause she don’t wear a rank.”
“Or a reporter?” said Fulton, hopefully. “Top, is she doing a story on us? Should I get a haircut?” He took off his cap and tried to straighten the shaggy heap of his dark-brown hair.
“I think she’s one of them spooks,” said Rosse. “She’s got them kind of eyes. They’re always watching you.”
Tate stopped himself from reacting to Rosse’s guess. He was partially hitting close to home, and responding would give credence to it.
“All right. Let’s cut the chatter and get back on task,” he said.
“With respect, Top,” said Wesson. “We don’t know anything about her, her qualifications or what she’s doing here.” She began counting off questions on her fingers, making it clear she had be harboring serious doubts about Kaiden for some time.
Everyone else had gone quiet as Wesson doggedly continued ticking concerns off her list.
“She’s a closed book. Rosse’s right. She’s got no rank. Who’s she taking orders from? Who’s she reporting to? What’s she telling them about us? What if a mission goes sideways, or we’re in trouble? How do we know we can trust her?”
“Trust me to do what, Sergeant?” said Kaiden.
With the exception of Wesson and Tate, everyone snapped their heads around to see Kaiden, who had come into the DFAC without them hearing her.
Wesson flushed bright red and Tate put his face in his hands, muttering something under his breath.
Awkward silence laid thickly on the group, as Kaiden walked around the table to an open seat, across from Wesson, and sat down. She put a binder on the table and rested her folded hands on top of it, all the while looking at Wesson with a calm but steady gaze… and said nothing else.
The silence dragged painfully on for only a moment, yet felt like hours.
Wesson composed herself, adopting a stoic poker face, not looking away from Kaiden.
Tate decided to break the stalemate, but Kaiden spoke up first. “Sergeant Wesson’s curiosity is understandable,” she said evenly. “I have been assigned as an acting member of this unit for an unspecified duration. Should a mission go sideways, Sergeant, yes, I can be trusted to save your ass. The rest of your questions I’ll answer at my discretion.”
She looked around the table, challenging anyone else to say something. The table was silent.
“I’m glad we had this talk,” smiled Kaiden. “Now let’s get back to the mystery Vix.” She opened the binder and slid it across the table to Tate.
He quickly read through the page of the open binder, then looked up at Kaiden.
“This is the manifest for yesterday’s supply drop,” he said. “How does this answer the question about the Vix?”
“The answer to the question,” said Kaiden, “is causality. This is a small outpost and they don’t back-stock supplies like a large base would. They supply personnel ‘as needed’. The last six supply drops included a bottle of foot powder for a Private First Class Alex Stockton.”
Tate leafed through the pages of previous manifests and began nodding his head in understanding. “It’s always something,” he said. “Now it’s foot powder.”
“I don’t get it,” said Fulton. “We’re in a jungle. Feet get sweaty.”
“Sweaty enough to go through a bottle of foot powder every two weeks?” said Tate. “No, Private. Someone was smuggling him drugs.”
“And yesterday’s supply drop was four days behind schedule,” said Kaiden. “That’s a very long time to go without a fix. When that supply drop came in, Pfc. Stockton must have been crawling out of his skin, and he still had to wait until lights-out before he could feed his craving. My guess is he was hurting pretty bad and took more than he should have. Overdosed.”
“You got all that from an order of foot powder?” asked Fulton. “I’d have never figured that out.”
“I know,” said Kaiden.
“Monkhouse,” said Tate, “you’re assigned to finding Stockton’s body. I want proof he was ground zero for last night’s attack.”
“That might be hard considering our surprise bonfire for the Vix last night,” said Monkhouse. “If Stockton was one of those walking matchsticks there won’t be much to find, if we can even ID him.”
“Then start with the Vix that were killed before the ambush,” said Tate. “That’ll make your job easier.”
Monkhouse smiled uncomfortably, but didn’t move.
Tate wasn’t in the mood for Monkhouse’s humor. In fact, he wasn’t in the mood for anything. His head was beginning to throb, he hadn’t eaten very much, and all he wanted to do was stretch out on a cot and sleep. His irritation was doubled by his thoughts of how far he had let himself go. He was working on dropping weight, but the hardcore, lethal operator with a hard body of densely-packed muscle who could go days without rest, fight like a demon and never slow down was a mocking shadow of his former self. The desire to be that man again was there, but the drive and willpower came and went. He was to blame for letting himself get fat and lazy; taking out his frustration on others would be a cheap shot and undeserved.
“What is it, Sergeant?” he asked, still looking at Monkhouse.
“Yeah, about those other Vix,” said Monkhouse.
Tate rubbed his hand over his face, feeling the gritty stubble of his whiskers as realized what Monkhouse was about to say.
“They already burned the Vix we shot?” predicted T
ate.
“About an hour ago,” said Monkhouse.
“All right. Okay,” said Tate, collecting his thoughts. “Rosse and Ota, go through Stockton’s barracks. See if you can find his stash. Everyone else get packed up. I want to be on the first chopper out of this hole.”
The team got up from the table, some breaking into side conversations when the air conditioner started rattling like a coffee can full of bolts.
Something popped and the air conditioner gave a final wheeze, then died; a wisp of smoke escaped the vent.
“Heaven help the soldier who makes me miss that chopper,” growled Tate.
* * *
As they neared their home, Fort Hickok, Tate looked out the open cabin of the Blackhawk over the sprawling city of Ciudad de Rosa.
Before the Vix, it had been just another small town among the hundreds that dotted Panama. The town sat between two mountain ranges creating a natural funnel from Colombia into Panama. The location was a perfect strategic location for the Army to put a base to stop the movement of Vix from South America into the just barely stabilized north.
With the establishment of a military base came the opportunity for businesses to profit; not only as a place for soldiers to spend their off-duty time, but companies to take advantage of leap-frogging expansion into new territory as settlements progressed into South America. The rapid growth of the town provided those with less savory business interests to set up shop, well before law enforcement could catch up. At the moment, business was good for both legitimate and illicit. With money to be made, the small town had quickly grown from a few thousand to nearly seven times that amount.
The city was an odd combination of a downtown, metropolitan area with tall cranes putting up high-rise buildings and suburbs, but on the edges of the city were large areas of shanty towns with confusing warrens of streets; shacks of tin siding and cement bricks, where many had come to set down roots in hopes of a job and a future for their family.
By the time the team landed, everyone was showing signs of fatigue and stress. Tate was anxious to discover the story of Private First-Class Stockton and how so many soldiers had died, but after humping his pack from the helipad to his quarters, unpacking, cleaning up, and getting dinner, he was bone-weary.
He spotted Wesson alone at another table, nearly head down in her food. Tate felt a guilty smile crease his face. Even though he was badly out of shape, he could keep up with the younger, fitter members of his team. His original plan was to meet that evening and go through everything that Rosse and Monkhouse had discovered from their search of Stockton’s possessions, but seeing how exhausted Wesson was, he decided to give everyone time to rest up. It could wait until tomorrow.
Back at his quarters he called Wesson’s phone and left a message, with instructions to set up a meeting for the next day.
* * *
Tate walked into the briefing room, glad to leave the humidity behind. The sun had come up just after zero-six-twenty, with eighty-three percent humidity, and it just kept climbing from there.
Someone had pushed the desk against the wall to make room for a long fold-out table. Wesson, Kaiden and Rosse were sitting at the table, and the look of relief on Rosse’s face hinted that Tate’s entrance had broken up a frosty situation.
To anyone else, Kaiden appeared slightly distracted and at ease, but Tate saw a hint of amusement on her face, the kind of expression she got when she knew she was getting under someone’s skin.
Wesson was unusually focused on the contents of the folder in her hands.
“Morning, Top,” said Rosse. “Really glad to see you.”
Tate stopped a grin from reaching his face as he imagined poor Rosse squirming in the chilly silence between Kaiden and Wesson.
Kaiden wasn’t the warm, fuzzy type, and for the first year she’d been with his Delta team he never knew if she liked him, or hated him; but she was as dependable as any other member of the team. It took a while to get used to her, but Tate was beginning to doubt Wesson would eventually get there.
He made a mental note to think about how he could clear up Wesson’s objections to Kaiden’s presence in the team.
Glad to give his aching leg at rest, Tate sat down at the table across from the others. “Before we get to whatever Rosse found in his search,” he said, “did any other info come to light about Stockton, or the Vix attack?”
“No,” said Kaiden smoothly.
Wesson and Rosse only shook their heads.
“All right,” said Tate. “Rosse, show us what you found.”
Rosse picked up an olive drab-colored utility bag sitting on the floor next to his chair and put it on the table. He unsnapped the buckle on the cover and reached inside.
“By all accounts, this was our guy,” he said, as he took out a small metal box, a length of rubber tubing and a can of foot powder. He opened the metal box and took out a couple of cotton balls, a small glass bottle and two individually sealed syringes.
“I found the tubing next to his cot along with this,” he continued, as he took out a small piece of rolled up cardboard. Inside the cardboard was a plastic baggy containing another syringe.
Tate took the baggy by the top, careful to avoid the exposed needle. He spent a moment looking at the syringe up close, then put it on the table.
“That thing’s filthy,” he said.
“I seen a lot of contraband like that,” said Rosse. “When I was a corrections officer. Cocaine’s easier to get than syringes, and prisoners would use the same syringe over and over.”
“Why not snort it?” asked Wesson, entering into the conversation. “You don’t need anything for that, right?”
“That’s right, Sergeant,” said Rosse. “Snorting don’t require all that other stuff, but you don’t get nearly the intense high as shooting up. Thing is, the high don’t last very long. Some guys would shoot-up with the same needle ten times a day, or more.”
“How about exhibit C?” asked Tate, motioning to the foot powder.
With a grin, Rosse picked up a plastic, green bottle of foot powder and twisted off the cap. A string was taped to the underside of the cap, and Rosse lifted it away from the bottle until several packets of white powder appeared. Each packet was attached to the string with a staple, and above the first packet was a bent staple but no bag. Each packet had been stamped with a crown and a sword stabbed through it.
Rosse laid the string of packets down in front of Kaiden. He turned the bottle over and out tumbled another packet, but open and empty.
“That was some quick thinking about the foot powder,” he said. “I’m glad she’s on our side, Top.”
Tate was sure Wesson didn’t feel the same way as he quickly glanced at her, instantly regretting it because she had glanced at him at the same time and they’d made eye contact. He was hoping that if he ignored the tension between her and Kaiden, it would somehow magically go away, but with that one look he’d told Wesson he knew what was happening and how she felt.
Her look was an unspoken question of what are you going to do about this?
“You called it, uh, Misses, Miss?” stumbled Rosse.
“Kaiden is fine, Sergeant Rosse,” she said with a smile. “Did you find any more of these bottles?”
“Nothing,” he said. “No bottles, no packets, and trust me, I know how to throw a room. I checked everywhere. Until that shipment came in, his last hit was days ago.”
“Did you find anything else?” asked Tate.
“Nah,” said Rosse. “Anything of his I put in his footlocker and had it brought here. You can check that out, but drug-wise, this is it.”
“Good work, Sergeant,” said Tate. His chair creaked as he sat back and frowned at the items Rosse had laid out on the table. He tapped a finger on the armrest as he focused on each object, until finally breaking the silence.
“Thoughts?”
“Looks like we’re done,” said Wesson. “We write up a report, and send it with the evidence to Criminal Investiga
tion Command.”
“CID?” said Kaiden. “They won’t do anything with it.”
“There’s nothing else to do,” said Wesson.
Tate inwardly cringed as he saw the expression on Kaiden’s face as she turned to him. Among Kaiden’s varied and useful skills was her ability to profile people. She could figure out what made someone tick, their motivations, weaknesses, etc., and if the opportunity was there, she’d test her theory on the unfortunate person of her attention.
“She doesn’t see it,” said Kaiden.
Wesson was about to ask what Kaiden was talking about, but caught herself before saying something that would both confirm her ignorance and prove Kaiden right.
Tate could see Wesson’s irritation growing and jumped into the conversation. He was going to have to have a talk with Kaiden about easing off of Wesson.
“No offense,” he said, hoping to sound diplomatic without being condescending, “but among Sergeant Wesson’s many skills, I suspect shooting coke isn’t one of them.”
His efforts were rewarded as Wesson’s expression softened. “There’s two things Kaiden is talking about. Serious addicts don’t use coke without purifying it. The final processing of cocaine can leave behind a lot of impurities and additional alkaloids, which screws up the buzz. Addicts will purify the coke different ways depending on how much chemistry they know and the access to chemicals. The most basic way is using high grade acetone and coffee filters. Rosse’s search didn’t turn up any of that. So, Kaiden’s first point is that Pfc. Stockton wasn’t very picky about the quality of coke he used, or if it was quality stuff.”
“Thank you, Top,” said Wesson. “What about the other thing?”
“The other thing is what’s really troubling me,” said Tate. “He died from using a single packet.”
“So he OD’d,” she said.
“Not this time,” said Rosse. “I tested a small sample from the second packet.”
The Suicide King (The Grave Diggers Book 2) Page 5