In the cavern that served as his control room, Usa Awar smiled back at Nichol’s determined face on the monitor screen. It was just one of many monitor screens, each manned by one of his people, with each person ready to take complete, detailed, notes.
“You see?” he said with a smile. “Look at her. She does not cry.” He nodded slowly. “She is the bravest of their soldiers I have yet encountered. Unlike the others, I feel certain we will learn what we need to know from her. We have tried every other variation possible, so watch carefully, my children. Watch carefully, and remember everything.”
Back at the curve in the cavern, Nichols turned the corner. She found herself standing in the entrance of a larger, circular cavern. There were no strung lights here. The only illumination came from the lights beside and behind her.
She peered closer. The walls of the space did not seem to be made of rock. They seemed to be made of mossy clay. The clay was tan, like potter’s clay, seemingly squeezed on top of the rock beneath it. The moss was white and gauzy, and Nichols immediately noticed it riffled in a wind she did not feel. But that meant that there was an exit somewhere. She could follow the air until escape.
Then something else moved. Her senses knew before she did that it was not human. Every pore on her body went concave. Then whatever moisture was left in her slopped out. Terror widened and sharpened her eyes.
Something was crawling over the lip of a clay-plastered hole. Something as big as a brown bear. Only it wasn’t anything as familiar as that.
She saw the legs. She saw the mandibles. She saw the six shining, dead eyes. She saw the bulbous quivering abdomen shuddering like a castanet. She saw the fangs.
Theresa Jane Nichols didn’t know she screamed. She didn’t realize that she screamed so loudly and piercingly that Usa Awar and his cabal winced and cringed many caverns away.
Then it was on her.
Chapter 3
“You should’ve seen him!” Morton Daniels laughed. “He was just standing there in the middle of the worst shit-storm ever, looking around like it’s a day at the beach. And then he starts walking like he’s in candy-land or something. Just walking over a bluff like he hasn’t got a care in the world—while I’m screaming at him to get the fuck down….”
“Ssh,” said a nurse, who, because she wasn’t young, pretty, and slim, Daniels ignored.
“You wouldn’t believe it,” Daniels continued, his eyebrows practically crawling into his hairline. “I’m fighting like a sonuvabitch for what seems like hours only to find him, like, a klick away, staring at nothing, his weapon empty and smoking. Then the next thing you know, he drops into my arms like a fainting debutante.” Daniels took a second to grin at Key, who lay, expressionless, in an infirmary bed. “You did, you know,” he added pointedly. “You did.”
“I told you he was suffering post-concussion trauma and post-detonation deafness,” interrupted another, calmer, more professional, voice. Key turned his impassive face to Doctor Stanley Weicholz, who sat on the other side of the bed, away from the leering faces of Daniels’ audience, who were other patients at the Camp Lemonnier Hospital.
“Hey, doc, don’t be a killjoy.” Daniels grinned, hooking a thumb at his listeners. “They seem to be enjoying the story.”
“Yeah,” said the doctor calmly as he continued to take Key’s pulse. “They can. They’re not from what’s left of your squad.”
Daniels’s face changed, as if his brain had been yanked out his mouth. He took a second to recover, then patted Key on his other arm. “Yeah, that’s right. You take it easy, Joe. Rest and recover, okay? I’ll be right outside if you want me.”
“Yeah, no wux, as some Aussies say,” Key replied, using an old in-joke between the two of them. Even so, his voice was more noncommittal than conciliatory. He waited until Daniels was out the door, and Daniels’s audience returned to their own beds and concerns, before turning to Weicholz. “He’s just trying to process it, doc. Cut him some slack, would you?”
“Well, there’s processing to get better, and then there’s processing to get back to where you started,” Weicholz commented while filling out Key’s chart.
“Hey, it’s a miracle he’s still alive,” Key said. “The blowback from his grenade launcher alone should have perforated him.”
Weicholz stood and looked down at his patient with caring concern. “It’s a miracle you’re both still alive. Honestly, Joe, I don’t know why you put up with his, shall I say, somewhat Neanderthal approach to life.”
Key nodded knowingly. “Because, as you now know, doc, I wouldn’t be here without him. Right?”
Weicholz couldn’t argue the point, marveling again at Key’s equilibrium, especially after what he had recently been through. He could only attribute it to the calming influence of the post-concussion and detonation response.
“Right,” he finally agreed, taking a second to reconsider his reaction. “Okay, I could’ve done without his crude fairy tale, but his parting advice was solid. Rest and recover, Corporal. That’s an order.”
Key gave the doctor a mild salute. “Yes, sir,” he said, then returned to his recuperation stupor. It was so thick that the doc was almost out the door before Key thought to call out. “Hey, any word on when I can get back to the unit?” But Weicholz was already gone.
Key stared vacantly out the ward’s window, trying not to think of anything: not his brush with death, not what now seemed to be “his” unit, and especially not what happened to everyone else in the 3rd. But, try as he might, he couldn’t help wondering what he was doing in the Seth Michaud Emergency Medical and Dental Facility at Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti on the horn of Africa.
Sure, it was directly due west, across the Bab al-Mandab Strait, from Shabhut, Aden, in Yemen, but there had to be at least two aircraft carriers in or near the Strait that were closer, and even better equipped to deal with wounds both physical and psychological. Coming to Lemmonier couldn’t have been Daniels’s decision. Nothing Morty liked better than hitching a ride on a carrier.
“Corporal Josiah Key?”
He turned his head and instantly guessed that the speaker had something to do with it. Standing in the hospital room doorway was a blonde woman whose blue eyes could be appreciated even from this distance. So could the rest of her, which was amply evidenced by Morty Daniels, who was standing right behind her, much in the way, Key imagined, that the wolf stood behind Little Red Riding Hood.
“Yes,” Key replied to her unnecessary question. He had little doubt that the file she was carrying had everything there was to know about him, probably going back to kindergarten.
She nodded, with a small smile of accomplishment, then started walking toward his bed. None of the new gender-neutral uniforms for her. Her service uniform of cap, coat, skirt, and even the one-inch black pumps looked tailored to her with a laser measuring device. But the thing that stood out to Key was the gold second lieutenant bar insignia on her garrison cap and shirt collars. That meant she outranked him, even if the field promotion Daniels had cracked wise about was true.
Only then did Key note the wave of eyes that followed the Second Louie across the room like dandelion seeds following the breeze. They were mirrored by Daniels, who trailed her like a devoted hound, only his eyes were transmitting different information: five-seven, a hundred and twenty pounds; thirty-six, twenty-five, thirty-six…
“Good morning, Corporal,” she said, putting out her hand. “I’m Second Lieutenant Barbara Strenkofski. I’ll be supervising your debriefing.”
She pulled over a metal chair with green seat padding and sat down beside his bed, at the same moment Daniels pulled out the neighboring bed’s chair and sat opposite her, with a look of excited expectation on his face. Key looked at him like the endlessly patient owner of a naughty puppy, then turned his calm gaze to the Second Louie.
“I thought I was already debriefed,” he told her.
“I wrote a thorough report—”
“Which I have right here,” she said briskly, holding up the file. “Perhaps debriefing was not a wholly accurate term. Consider this more of a personal follow-up.”
“Personal follow-up,” they heard Daniels snigger before he leaned in with eager anticipation. “I haven’t been debriefed, ma’am. You can debrief me.”
There was a moment of silence before Strenkofski slowly looked down and, just as slowly, opened the file. She seemed to be reading, then, without looking up, spoke coolly. “And you are?”
“Sergeant Morton L. Daniels, ma’am.”
“Yes. I see you are mentioned in Corporal Key’s report.”
“Mentioned?” Daniels looked at his bedridden friend with a slight look of hurt on his face.
“Yes,” Strenkofski said again, same tone as before, without looking up. She didn’t speak until she did look up several moments later. By then the chill of her tone and attitude was just reaching Daniels. “You will be debriefed in good time, Sergeant. Until then, I would appreciate it if you could afford Corporal Key and me a little privacy.
Daniels nodded, smiling, until he processed her actual words. Then, continuing the canine analogies, straightened like a puppy who had been tapped on the nose by a rolled-up newspaper for the first time.
“What? Oh, sure. I mean, yes sir, um, I mean ma’am. Sure.” He hastily got up, slid the chair back to the next bed, and started for the door before stopping by the end of the mattress. “I’ll be right outside if you need me, Joe.”
“Yes,” Key said with humorous pity. “I know, Morty. Thanks. I believe I can handle it from here.”
Daniels almost got to the door when Strenkofski called out. “Sergeant?”
Daniels stopped on a dime, and made a sharp turn. “Yes, ma’am,” he said expectedly.
“What’s the ‘L’ for?”
Daniels looked at her blankly. “‘L,’ ma’am?”
“In your name,” she said patiently, giving him a look that would cool soup.
“My name? Oh. Oh, yeah.” Daniels’ expression fell a little. “Leonard, ma’am.”
Strenkofski turned her head away, as if in disappointment. “I figured it would be something like that. Thank you Sergeant. We’ll be in touch shortly.”
Daniels left the room with his figurative tail between his literal legs. When the blonde officer’s satisfied face returned to Key, he was looking at her with amused disapproval. “I appreciate your, no doubt, hard-earned coping skills, ma’am, but watching a top cat play with a trapped mouse isn’t always the most enjoyable thing.”
Strenkofski looked at him evenly. “No regrets, Corporal.” Her eyes returned to the report. “His kind makes me tired.”
Key studied her as she read. Dropping this ice princess into the African horn was the opposite of dropping a cockroach on a wedding cake. Either way, no one would miss the contrast.
“Personal follow-ups can be tiring too, Lieutenant,” he said carefully. “What can I do for you?”
She didn’t look up, nor react to his mild insubordination—both actions convincing Key that his and her presence here was above and beyond the call of due process. “Your report says something that concerned you about Lieutenant Colonel Goodman’s death.”
“Yeah,” Key said. “It was the last second before the concussion symptoms began taking over. It was the only thing I could be certain of.” He waited until she looked back up at him before continuing. “I’ve spent my life and career distinguishing between flesh and bone exploding from the force of ordnance, and flesh and bone exploding from…other sources.”
Suddenly she didn’t feel like reading. Apparently, she didn’t feel like doing anything except staring intensely into his steel-grey eyes. “What are you suggesting, Corporal Key?”
“I’m not suggesting anything, Lieutenant Strenkofski. Just telling you, or anyone else, what I saw. And what I saw makes me believe that Lieutenant Colonel Goodman’s head exploded from the inside.”
Chapter 4
Key really didn’t want to dislike Captain Patrick Logan, but he also really didn’t want to use the wheelchair that Weicholz insisted he have.
Ultimately, he settled for both as means to an end. Besides, even he had to admit it was worth being ‘incapacitated’ to see the look on Daniels’s face as he went by—being pushed by Second Lieutenant Barbara Strenkofski. It gave him a nice opportunity to appreciate Camp Lemonnier’s facilities, when he wasn’t imagining what the back of Strenkofski looked like pushing him.
The former, like so many of the military bases in this region, was both impressive and makeshift. Lemonnier was five hundred acres of well-meaning intent; an expansive schematic of what were amusingly called “containerized living units,” plunked down on the southwest side of the Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport—between the runway overflow and a French military munitions storage facility. It had two recreation centers, a wastewater treatment plant, a Navy Exchange Store, a laundry, a fire department, a Disbursing Office, and even an inflated gymnasium.
Strenkofski wheeled Key into the chapel, a small chamber with six rows of steel pews facing a plain, tan-colored, table before a modest altar. It was empty of people, save for Captain Logan, who sat at the table, seemingly intent on yet another file. Key inwardly smirked at the location and the man.
“Brought me to confession, did you?” he asked the blonde as she rolled him to the table’s other side. “Do you think I need it?”
“Do you?”
The question was probably rhetorical, definitely unanswerable. In his time, Key had shattered many of the Commandments, often in tandem, frequently in multiples.
There they both waited for Logan to finish reading, acknowledge them in some way, or anything. Key heard Strenkofski’s breathing get shorter and shallower, but he just relaxed, letting Logan’s tightly wired energy roll over him.
“Do you object to the setting,” Logan finally asked, without looking up.
“If God doesn’t mind, why should I?”
“All the other camp facilities are stretched thin trying to sort out the Gate of Tears,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard. Maybe he hadn’t. Or, more likely, he didn’t care to engage in small talk.
Gate of Tears was the translation of Bab-el-Mandeb, the name of the strait that separated Djibouti and Yemen. But it had come to signify the two-way clusterfuck of refugees fleeing the east’s civil war, and smugglers sailing west to take advantage of the conflict. Key had already witnessed the Kafka-esque pit debaters of the situation fell into after two ward-mates took up the issue.
Instead of talking, Key took the time to study Logan. His uniform, like the blonde’s, was laser-tailored and the same color as the altar table. That alone gave Key plenty of mental ammo, since it was definitely more than a hundred degrees outside, and here were his friendly neighborhood debriefers in full dress. Although he was given the opportunity to change clothes, Key remained in olive-colored short sleeve, short-pant, hospital scrubs Daniels had found for him.
“Josiah, no-middle-name, Key,” the shaved-bald Logan continued quietly, as if reading. “Born 1992 in Murrieta, California. Mother a singer, father a marine and then a USMC recruiter.” Logan glanced up to meet Key’s eyes for the first time. “Sounds like an interesting recipe. Mom wants an entertainer, dad wants a warrior.” When Key continued his silence, Logan’s bright, beady, eyes returned to the open file on the table top. “On the basis of your college record, you apparently decided to be both. Wrestling star and drama club president. Managed to excel at both.”
“You left out the strawberry shaped birthmark on my left buttock and my date for the senior prom,” Key finally said.
“I’ll make those notations when I give a shit,” Logan replied.
Key glanced back at Strenkofski, who looked as if she were molded by a paper-thin coating of ice. “It
was Destiny Arnold, by the way,” he said pleasantly.
“Sorry?”
“My prom date,” Key replied. “Smartest girl I ever met.”
Strenkofski looked like she wanted to guess why, but hid behind a small, tight grin.
Key turned back when Logan’s voice cut through his bonhomie. “How’s your health?”
Key returned the gaze, at half-intensity. “You tell me. You obviously know more than I do, since Doc W wanted me decommissioned, and you, apparently, wouldn’t hear of it.”
“We have a ‘three conks and you’re out’ rule in the Marines, Corporal.”
“Don’t I know it,” Key retorted. “I was counting on it. De-comm was doc’s idea, not mine.” He glanced back at Strenkofski again with another pleasantry. “Supposedly that kind of thing is a medico’s prerogative but not today, apparently.”
“Not today,” Strenkofski echoed then waited.
Logan waited until Key returned his attention. “Not here, not now,” he agreed. “A supervising commander has full discretion to dictate the service of any active marine.”
Key perked up at that piece of the puzzle. “You don’t have to quote regs to me, sir. I’m sure you know there’s a reason I’m still a corporal at my age. That aberration notwithstanding, I know the regs by heart.”
“Yes, I know you do, Corporal Key,” Logan said clearly, trying to establish rank without question. But when all Key did was continue to show him his knowing little smile, he went back to studying the file. “And you know how to bend them just to the point of breaking. No reprimands, no blots, no arrests. I can’t even find an official warning.” He looked back up. “You’re still a corporal because the men who could promote you just didn’t like you.”
“No, sir, I disagree,” Key pleasantly, but immediately, responded. “I think they liked me. I think you’ll like me too. But I also think that they, like you.” He turned quickly to the blonde. “And you.”
“Don’t trust you,” Logan interrupted, again trying to regain control.
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