by Cat Johnson
With that resolve firmly in place, she picked up the phone and dialed Peter’s number again. And this time she had no intention of whispering. She had plans to make. The weekend was nearly upon them, and she’d be damned if she didn’t do something fun.
Chapter Two
The command-post runner pounded on John’s door, startling him awake. “Good morning, Staff Sergeant Blake!”
Even when muffled by the door, the runner sounded more energetic than anyone should at zero-four-thirty. John groaned. He was awake, but it didn’t mean he liked it.
From years of military life, he could go instantly from sleeping like the dead to being alert and ready—mostly anyway. He still needed some coffee in a bad way.
He grunted some sort of audible response to the extremely spry man who had delivered his wake up call. Just because John was awake did not mean he was ready to be civil. Flipping on the light near his bunk, he glanced at the watch that rarely left his wrist and then corrected himself—no one should be that lively at zero-four-thirty-five—he had been left to sleep five minutes past his requested wakeup time.
Last night he’d had a whole three hours—and five minutes—of sleep. Not bad. He’d been running on less than that all week. Maybe he and the men would actually not be called out again for a few hours. It would give them much-needed rest and time to refit. He himself had woken up early to get some mundane things done, like paperwork. Those things needed doing even when the insurgents kept them up all night. The Army didn’t accept excuses for tardy paperwork, not even good ones.
He swung still-weary legs from the thin pad masquerading as his mattress and planted them firmly on the icy floor. His bones ached and his joints popped as he rose and stretched his six-foot frame to full height—though he was probably closer to five foot eleven and a half inches at the moment. Wearing seventy plus pounds of body armor in addition to weapons for more hours a day than not tended to compress a body. Nothing a chiropractor couldn’t fix when he got back home.
Home… Just thinking the word could make him homesick for all the niceties he’d lived without for so long now. Hot showers. Good food. No snipers. A remote chance of having sex.
Shaking those pointless thoughts from his mind, he set about getting ready for another day. Now that he was out of the shelter of his sleeping bag, John shivered in the teeth-rattling chill of his small room. The plastic, stretched over holes that had once upon a time been filled by glass panes, rustled slightly with what had to be a pretty brisk wind.
It wouldn’t have surprised him one bit to be able to see his breath in the cold morning air. The sandbags now piled over the window opening stopped snipers’ bullets, rocket-propelled grenades and other assorted dangers pretty well. They just didn’t do much against the cold.
There were a few space heaters around, but no one dared plug them in. The generator-driven electricity coming through the decrepit Iraqi wiring in the building barely limped along enough to power a light bulb and a coffee pot simultaneously as it was.
John supposed it could be worse. It could be summer. Being from Pennsylvania, John was a Yankee by birth, according to Morales anyway, so given a choice between sweltering or freezing, he’d choose freezing.
No use worrying about things he couldn’t change. Besides, John had a list a mile long of things he needed to do, but first, before tackling the paperwork piled insanely high on his desk, he needed coffee. The closest place it was most likely to be already made and still fairly fresh would be what they jokingly referred to as the Internet café in the MWR.
Soldiers lined up day and night for their thirty-minute allotment of Internet access. Five old, temperamental computers hooked to the World Wide Web by a satellite dish that had been hit with more shrapnel than all of Uncle Sam’s troops combined were shared by over one hundred enlisted men. That meant the MWR consistently had both a line of people and lots of coffee.
John walked in and found exactly that—about half a dozen soldiers including his loader and, across the room on another computer, his gunner, who would both be still deep in dreamland if they had any brains.
“Jesus, Jazzy. Why the hell aren’t you still sound asleep in your rack?” John stepped up behind the man seated at a computer terminal.
Jazzy grinned up at him. “I had a ton of emails to write including one to Summer to tell her I’m reading her book. And it’s the wife’s birthday today. I couldn’t risk us being called out again and not getting a chance to see her quick.”
He couldn’t blame Jazzy. If he had someone at home to email, he supposed he might be there on a computer at zero-four-fifty also. John glanced down at the window open on the monitor and saw the image of Jazzy’s wife on the video camera. She was a looker. Nope, he couldn’t blame Jazzy one bit for choosing her over sleep.
Slapping Jazzy on the back, John decided to make a graceful exit. “I gotta grab some coffee. I’ll give you two some privacy.” At least as private as you could get in a big, open room full of soldiers.
“That’s okay. I was just saying goodbye. I’ve been on for my thirty already, and the crowd is about to get hostile if I go over time again. Just let me sign off and I’ll grab a cup of joe with ya.” Jazzy typed a few more brief sentences into the Instant Messenger window to his wife, signed out and grinned big again as he wandered over to John at the coffee pot.
He was always happy. It would be really annoying if John didn’t like the guy so much. Instead, it was simply perplexing.
Jazzy whistled as he poured them both a cup of steaming coffee. Taking the cup from him, John finally couldn’t resist asking about the man’s constant good mood. “How can you be so damn chipper all the time?”
The response to his question was a deep, rumbling chuckle that grew into an all-out laugh. “Have you seen my wife?”
That made John smile. “Yeah. But she’s back on the base in Germany and you’re in frigging Hell, Iraq.”
“There are ways.” Jazzy smirked.
“Really?” John raised a brow and glanced around the bustling MWR. “I would guess cyber sex but that would definitely be impossible here, or at the very least really, really difficult.” Not to mention public and embarrassing.
His reaction was met with another chuckle. “Funny, I was just discussing cyber sex with Summer in our emails. Her friends think we’re cyber lovers since we write to each other. Too funny.”
Ugh. John inwardly cringed. He didn’t want to discuss this Summer woman’s cyber sex life.
“Anyway, as I said, there are ways. You just have to get creative like the wife and I do.” Jazzy continued talking, so thankfully John didn’t have to comment about Summer.
He was afraid to ask, but for some inexplicable reason he did anyway. “Such as…”
“Such as I’ll write her the beginnings of a sexy fantasy and send it to her, then she continues the story and mails it back to me. Believe me, I have a very vivid imagination.”
“I bet you do.” John laughed. Having known him for a while now, he had no doubt about the imaginative capabilities of Jazzy’s mind. “I’m not so into fantasies myself though.”
That statement was met with a cocky grin. “You should try it sometime. Don’t know what you’re missing ’til you do.”
“Ha. Who do you suggest I fantasize about?” John scowled. He certainly would not be fantasizing about his ex. Definitely not about one of the few females he ran across at camp. Fraternization was a big no-no, and his career was not worth losing to briefly satisfy his dick.
“I could set you up with a pen pal.” Jazzy raised an eyebrow and waited. He didn’t have long to wait for John’s response. There was no doubt in John’s mind.
“I don’t want a pen pal.”
“Why not? Pen pals are fun. It’s interesting to get to talk to new people. And you know, with a single guy like yourself, you never can tell where it could lead.”
First Jazzy was reading chick books and now he was playing matchmaker. “No. I don’t want a pen pal.”
“I could give you Summer’s email and—”
“I don’t want Summer’s email address.” Christ, that was all he needed. He already had one grandmother…one who didn’t write sex novels.
“Okay, then go on the support website and pick one for yourself. Someone who interests you. Maybe someone you’d like to get to know better.”
Did this guy never quit?
John wasn’t that hard up that he had to go online looking for female companionship…yet. “Yeah, sure. That would be as productive as trying to find a girlfriend by calling one of those 1-900 phone numbers where you can pay four dollars a minute to talk to some supposedly hot sex kitten. In reality, on the other end of the line is some hideously unattractive, sweat-suit-clad mother of nine sitting in her kitchen.”
Jazzy shrugged. “Hey, she’s got to pay the bills.”
Gonzo walked up, grabbed himself an empty coffee cup and glanced from one man to the other. “Who’s got to pay the bills?”
“Phone-sex operators,” Jazzy supplied, sipping his coffee through the ever-present grin.
Gonzo nodded as if that made all the sense in the world to him. “Mmm.”
John sipped at his own cup, very happy that Gonzo had entered the conversation and taken the pressure off him to get a girlfriend, or a pen pal or anything else of that sort.
“Gonzo, what the hell are you doing awake too?” Didn’t his men know to sleep when they had the chance?
John glanced around the MWR. At least it seemed Morales had been smart enough to sleep when he could. Although at this point, John wouldn’t be surprised to see him swagger in any minute. Then all personnel of Charlie Company, Alpha Section, Tank Two would be accounted for.
“I crashed so hard when we got home last night, or rather early this morning, I fell asleep in the middle of cleaning and stowing my gear. I woke up early when I heard Jazzy here creeping around, so I finished cleaning my weapons right quick and decided to pop on the net and check in with my girl.”
Weapons first, girl second. The leader in John appreciated Gonzo’s priorities.
Gonzo, meanwhile, waggled his eyebrows. “My girl is real appreciative when I send her a mushy love email. She always sends something special back to surprise me.” Gonzo held up a tiny USB flash drive in one hand. “This time she sent some pretty damn good photos. Can’t wait to load them onto my laptop back in my room and have a nice long viewing for myself.”
Jazzy let out his familiar laugh again. “I better give the rest of our roommates a heads up before you do. Tell them to stay out for a bit or they may get a bigger surprise than they bargained for. Don’t want them to catch you cleaning your other weapon.”
Gonzo shrugged casually. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Jazzy shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t. I at least have since learned to knock and take my time when entering to give you a chance to cover up.”
It seemed to John everyone was getting some action…except for him. Although, since the action was with their own right hands, he supposed he wasn’t missing all that much. He did say a silent thank you that he actually had a private room this deployment, small and cold though it was. But lately he was far more interested in sleep than anything else when he finally arrived back at his bunk.
He sipped his coffee again and it struck him suddenly that it was not only drinkable, but enjoyable. “I must be delirious from all the action we’ve seen the last few days. The coffee actually tastes good today.”
Gonzo nodded vigorously. “You can thank one of Jazzy’s pen pals for that.”
Jazzy shrugged. “What can I say? Just doing my part for the war effort.”
John frowned, not understanding. What? Had Jazzy gotten himself a different pen pal, besides the sex novelist? One who’d taught him how to make decent coffee? “Exactly how many pen pals do you have?”
“A few, but the coffee was from Summer. I complained in an email that the coffee here tasted like shit, so she sent us a case of gourmet coffee beans, unbleached filters and a grinder.”
The granny who wrote sex books was also a coffee aficionado? John took another sip. At least he would enjoy the coffee. As for the books—well, one out of two wasn’t bad.
Gonzo, eyes closed, drew in a long swallow of steaming liquid, then released a slow breath filled with satisfaction. “Man, I love that woman. Wasn’t she the one who sent the Halloween candy and the candy canes for Christmas? Candy, coffee and porn. Gotta love that.”
Of course she sent them stuff. Her own kids probably never called her so she’d adopted some soldiers to fill the big empty hole in her life. Probably the same reason she wrote those sex books. But the coffee was damn good, and who was he to judge other people’s empty lives?
Luckily, before John could further consider his own empty life, the radio hooked to his belt let out a squeal. The three all heard the alert at once. “All elements. Red Con One.”
John downed the last remnants of tasty brew and threw the paper cup in the garbage. “Here we go, boys.”
“Damn. I was hoping to at least get breakfast first.” Jazzy tossed his own cup as they sprang to action.
Gonzo and Jazzy took off at top speed for their gear and to get Morales, still sleeping in their shared room. John followed in their wake and popped into his own small, private quarters to grab the rest of his stuff.
Once geared up and outside, instinct led John to his tank through the star-sprinkled pre-dawn darkness. This battle drill had been repeated hundreds of times. Morales, wide awake now, jumped into the driver’s seat and hit the start button, throwing the turbines into a high-pitched whine.
John glanced down and noticed the man’s bootlaces were untied and shoved inside his boots. He had no doubt Morales had been sound asleep just five minutes ago, yet here he was now, alert, dressed—mostly—and leading the charge into battle. They all knew too well that shaving seconds off reaction time by doing things like not tying your laces could literally save lives. One day, those lives they saved might be their own.
Jazzy and Gonzo, as loader and gunner, prepped their areas and stowed gear—thermal systems, night sights, radios and more. John prepped his tank commander’s station and used his radio to check on the status of the crews in the other tanks of the platoon.
They were all ready when the order came over the airwaves. John and his tank crew, otherwise known as White Two, were to lead the platoon to the hot zone to assist in recovering a wheeled vehicle that had slipped off the path and was for the moment precariously dangling over a cliff. That situation in itself was bad enough, compounded by the fact that at that location enemy contact was a definite. Rescue would mean securing intersections along the way and clearing the route of improvised explosive devices while checking for ambushes before they could even attempt to pull the vehicle to safety. All in a situation where time was of the essence.
The platoon rolled swiftly but carefully along the most direct route, all eyes peeled for danger. Mere minutes into the journey, the hairs on the back of John’s neck stood on end. “Hold up, Morales.”
The forward motion of the tank slowed to a stop.
Blocking their way was a huge obstacle. It was obvious it had been deliberately laid out across the road to prevent any forward progress. It looked to be constructed of palm trees and scrap metal, among other things.
“There’s an approximate hundred-foot-long obstruction across the road. Probable IED.” John reported what he saw to the platoon leader in the tank directly behind him.
Jazzy shook his head at the tactic. “Jeez. Not too obvious. Why don’t the baddies just put a flashing neon sign pointing at it that reads Attention, stupid Americans?”
Exactly. The obstruction was far too obvious. The insurgents definitely did not want the Americans to miss this one. The question was why?
John evaluated the situation. To the right of the main, blocked road was a dirt path just wide enough for the tanks to pass through. To take that route would most likely se
nd them directly into an ambush if not another, more carefully hidden IED.
That left them only one choice—eliminate the blockage on the main road. John reported his assessment to the leader.
“I agree, White Two. Fire a round into the obstruction.” The lieutenant gave John exactly the order he’d already had in his mind.
“Yes, sir.” He forwarded the instructions to his crew.
The crew sprang into action. When Jazzy had loaded the round, John issued Gonzo the order to fire. The main gun released a deafening blast followed shortly by the sound of the IED in the road exploding upon impact, sending debris and palm fronds everywhere.
“Whoo hoo! Just like the fourth of July,” Morales whooped as the dust settled.
Except fireworks didn’t generally rock a seventy-ton tank or the ground it sat upon.
Jazzy’s brow rose. “Damn glad we weren’t on top of that when it blew.”
Gonzo let out a long breath. “No shit.”
John agreed whole heartedly. He’d had that particular pleasure more than once, and it was not one he wished to repeat any time soon.
“What’s your evaluation, White Two?” The sound of the platoon leader’s voice came over the radio as he asked John’s opinion of the situation.
“I would assume there is a secondary farther on, sir.” From experience, John knew that to be a favorite trick of the insurgents.
Lull the Americans into a false sense of security by letting them think they had disabled the IED and then hit them just past the original with a second better-hidden, usually underground, device. It was dark, and there were plenty of places to hide an explosive that would detonate when they passed over it.
“Hit the area with two more rounds,” came the order.
“Yes, sir.” Gladly. Nothing more satisfying than blowing the shit out of something. “Jazzy, load another round. Gonzo, aim twenty yards past the first location.”