Secret sanction

Chapter 30

Sergeant First Class Francois Perrite,” Imelda announced with great formality and astoundingly clear enunciation. Morrow’s head reeled back in surprise. Imelda could speak like the Queen of England herself when she had a mind to.

Perrite had the same cocky, self-assured walk I remembered from before. And again I also noticed how soundlessly he moved, how catlike, as though there were a blanket of air under his feet.

It was my idea to do Perrite next. He was the hothead of the team. He had also been at the center of nearly everything that happened. More important, though, he was very clearly Chief Persico’s boy. There was a powerful bond between them, and I judged that to be as much of a strength as it was a possible vulnerability.

I indicated for him to take the same seat Persico had vacated only thirty minutes before. I repeated the explanation of our purpose and invited him to smoke if he so desired. He did so desire and quickly pulled from his pocket a pack of Camels, unfiltered. Among other loyalties, he and Persico preferred the same brand. Smoking buddies.

I stared down at some papers in front of me till he had a cigarette lit and was seated in a relaxed posture. He wore an amused smirk, as though we were all gathered here for his entertainment.

I looked up. “Sergeant Perrite, we’ve already determined that you and other members of this team have perjured yourselves. We know Captain Sanchez supported Captain Akhan’s desire to raid the Piluca station. We know that, afterward, there was a general loss of confidence in his abilities, and Chief Persico virtually took charge of your team. We know your location was never detected by the Serbs. We also know the ambush was not an act of self-defense. It was a deliberate act of retribution.”

We didn’t actually know those last two points, and we only suspected some of the former, but I thought I’d just toss it all into the cauldron and see what came out. He didn’t contradict me, either. Instead he stared up at me, scratched his face, then smiled. “Then what the hell do you need me for?”

“We need to question you about your role in these events.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Start with when you and Machusco went into Piluca on the morning of the fourteenth. What did you encounter?”

He bent over and used his right hand to stub out his cigarette on the floor next to the three butts Persico had left behind. Perrite had barely smoked it a quarter of the way, so I guessed his real purpose was to bend over and inspect the brand of the crushed butts lying around his chair. Real recon men are curious that way.

When he came back up he said, “Fuck you. I got no reason to answer your questions.”

“But you do,” I said. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Have you spoken with a defense counsel yet?”

“Sure. Some fatassed bitch stopped by. I tol’ her to get lost. Like I tol’ you before, I don’t like lawyers. They give me hives.”

“I hope, before she left, she had enough time to explain that once you’ve been charged with a single court-martial offense, I can add as many charges as I deem fit. The judge at your court-martial will instruct the board to consider each individual charge separately. You understand what that means?”

“No.”

Very matter-of-factly, I said, “It means that every charge receives its own punishment. Sentences accrue. Even if you’re found entirely innocent of everything that happened in Kosovo, the additional charges I might bring against you-for refusing an order, for disrespect, for obstructing justice, for perjury-will all be weighed and sentenced separately. Is all this clear to you now?”

He nodded. It was a flinty, reluctant nod, but it was a nod.

“See, Sergeant, you’re here to bargain years of your life with me. Get your head out of your ass. Think about whether you want to spend your entire middle age watching the world through iron bars.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied in a way that made “sir” sound like something that needed to be flushed down a toilet, but nonetheless indicated he now knew the stakes.

I said, “Now, again, what exactly did you encounter when you and Machusco entered Piluca?”

He said, “You really wanta know, huh?”

I nodded.

“Okay, then I’ll tell ya,” he said, although he said it angrily, like I’d asked for it, and I was going to get it. He leaned forward in his chair and put his elbows on his knees. He looked around the room and studied each of us in turn, his head nodding in a sort of derogatory motion, as if we were all unworthy, but what the hell.

Then he stared back at me. “For starters, it wasn’t just me and Machusco. Brian Moore came with us, too, ’cause he speaks the local patois. We went in around ten. The place was real quiet, but there was this heavy odor in the air.”

“What kind of odor?”

“Two smells, actually. Blood and cordite. And the reason it was real quiet was because everybody left. There was lots of smoke and some of the buildings was still burnin’ or smolderin’. There was lots of pockmarked buildings, like you’d see after a real nasty fight. There was cannon holes in some of the walls, made by tank rounds, we figured. I tol’ Machusco and Moore we oughta get outta there real quick. I mean, it sure as shit didn’t look like Akhan won. But Machusco figured that Chief would just make us turn our asses back around and find out what happened. Knowing Chief, I guessed he was right. So we kept on.”

He paused to take out another Camel, which he tapped on his palm, just as Persico had done. Amazing.

“Then what happened,” he continued, “was we snuck down some side streets. Moore kept cover for me and Machusco, and we worked our way close to the town square, like they got in all them little Kosovar burgs. That’s where the police station was located. Machusco and I got as near as we thought was smart, then dodged into this three-story building. We worked our way to the top. We climbed out a window and got up on the roof.”

His hands and arms did a panoramic sweep through the air.

“We could see the whole square and the police station. Saw it real good, too. It was crawling with Serb militia. We could see about ten tanks, old T-34s, all lined up, and the crews were climbing all over ’em, doing post-op chores. We could also see this huge stack of bodies. We had binos with us, so we pulled ’em out, and we studied those bodies. We were near enough that with our binos we could see their faces, you know. There was a few faces that had been tossed on the pile that we didn’t recognize. Probably villagers that got in the line of fire. But we recognized most of the faces we saw. Then Machusco elbowed me and pointed at something by the police station. So I looked there. There was this tall pole that’d been stuck in the ground, right by the front door. On top of that pole was this black, dripping thing. It was Captain Akhan’s head. They’d chopped it off and stuck it there like a trophy.”

He paused to look at us. He wanted us to know it was a terrible, gruesome scene.

“After that,” he said, “we climbed back down and got the hell out. We found some tracks just outside of town and followed them. After about three miles we found some villagers who was hiding in the woods. They’d left the town that mornin’ after all the shooting was done. They said the Serbs was on a blood rage, and nobody felt safe. There was two old ladies, an old man, and I guess, about three, maybe four little kids. They was all scared to death. We gave ’em some food, and Moore questioned ’em for about twenty minutes. They said the Serbs had brought in a real big unit late the day before, just before dusk, maybe six hundred men, and hid it in various places around town. They parked tanks inside barns, and hid most of the men inside buildings. They spent all night stacking ammunition, running commo wire, building positions, getting ready for somethin’. Then around six in the morning, they told us, the town just kinda exploded. There was shit flying everywhere. The fight lasted about two hours. There was a lot of shooting inside the town, but the villagers said they heard a lot of shit up to the north, too. That was where Akhan’s security team was supposed to be positioned, and we figured that was what they was hearing.”

I asked, “And what did you judge had happened?”

His face was red, and his anger was beginning to boil over.

“What happened? Pretty fuckin’ obvious, ain’t it? The Serbs knew Akhan was coming. They was waiting for him. Six or seven hundred men in town. Probably another big force waiting outside, maybe a reinforcement that they used to take down Akhan’s security team. Poor bastards never had a chance. They was all butchered. One of the old ladies told us that the last thirty minutes of the fight was just Serb troops roaming around, hunting down the last survivors. They found about ten or fifteen and brought ’em into the town square. They butchered ’em to death with bayonets. She said she’d never forget the sounds of them men screaming.”

Something about the way Perrite told the story made it enormously affecting. Maybe it was the coarse, simple way he expressed himself. Maybe it was just the brutal believability and awful sense of what had happened to Akhan and his men. Even Imelda and her girls were all bent forward, fixated on Perrite’s agonized face.

Perrite was deeply affected himself. He’d wanted to shock us, but in doing so, he’d had to relive the scene inside his own head. His jaw was tight, and his eyes were gleaming with anger.

I said, “Do you blame Captain Sanchez for that?”

“Of course I blame that dumb son of a bitch!” he exploded. “Bastard was desperate to get something good on his record so he could get promoted. Chief Persico told him not to let Akhan go. He warned him. I even heard him screamin’ at Sanchez. He took him off in the woods the day before where he thought none of us could hear, but I heard ’em arguing. Sanchez wouldn’t listen to him, though. He kept sayin’ it would be a real coup if Akhan and his guys knocked off that police station. It would enflame the whole countryside, he claimed. Dumb bastard.”

“When you, Machusco, and Moore rejoined the team, what happened?”

“Well, uh, we went to see Chief first. I wasn’t in no mood to talk to Sanchez, you know? Machusco and I felt like beating the crap outta him, or maybe even shooting his dumb ass. So Moore said we’d better go see Chief first. Let him handle it.”

“And what did Chief Persico do?”

“He got real pissed and upset. I mean, he never said it, but I knew he’d told Sanchez not to let this happen. Still, Chief felt real guilty. I mean, that’s the kind of guy Chief is. He done everything he could to stop it, but he still felt responsible.”

“And did he confront Captain Sanchez?”

“Not that I know of. He might’ve said something to him when none of us was listening, but the Chief can swallow a lot and keep goin’.”

“Okay,” I said, “let me phrase this differently. Did you detect a noticeable shift in leadership afterward?”

“No.”

“Who was giving you your orders?”

“Sanchez mostly, Chief some of the time. No different than normal.”

“By your own earlier testimony, you said you made all your reports to Chief Persico. Why was that?”

“’Cause I couldn’t stand talking to Sanchez. I know it’s unprofessional and all that, but he got those guys killed. I didn’t wanta go near him. I mighta done something I regretted.”

He was lying again, but I couldn’t tell how or why. It was just a sense. Maybe he was trying to cover Persico’s ass.

I said, “What can you tell us about the execution of the ambush?”

“Nothing really. Like I told you before, I was half a mile away, out on the left flank, performing security. I wasn’t in on the decision to do the ambush, and I never saw what happened.”

I turned to Morrow, but she shook her head, indicating she didn’t want to ask any more questions. I told Perrite to return to his cell and nodded for Imelda to escort him.

When he left the room, you could almost feel the decompression.

Morrow went, “Phew!” and her eyebrows shot up. “It’s beginning to make sense, isn’t it?”

“Only up till the afternoon of the fourteenth. What happened after, that’s still murky.”

I let Imelda and her girls go out and take a potty break or a smoke break, or a relax break or whatever their hearts desired.

Morrow and I put our heads together to figure out what to do next. We were at the point now where it was real fluid. The story was cracking, and we had to follow the stream where it led us. With each witness, we’d know a little more about what actually happened, and we’d use that as our start point for the next team member we drew into our confessional web.

Morrow said, “I think we ought to bring Brian Moore back in next.”

I thought about that but wasn’t sure what he could add. “Give me another name,” I told her.

“Okay. Ezekial Graves, the medic.”

“Why him?”

“He’s got the least to lose. He didn’t participate in the ambush.”

“That means he also knows the least about it.”

“But he can fill in the blanks between the fourteenth and the ambush.”

She was right, of course. We went and got a cup of coffee while I idly flirted with her. She wasn’t real responsive. Maybe her mind was too preoccupied with what we were doing. Maybe she was still sore over me suspecting her to be the mole.

Ten minutes later, Imelda did her bailiff thing again, announcing Sergeant Ezekial Graves. She was getting better and better at it. I could have sworn she was enjoying her new role.

Sergeant Graves was thin, mulatto-skinned, and handsome. He had large, watery brown eyes, clean-cut features, and a long, narrow chin. The Army chooses soldiers with fairly high IQs for the medic corps. This is one of the things the Army actually does right. Nobody wants a dummy who can’t add feeding morphine into their veins, or struggling to remember exactly how to tie off a tourniquet to stem a pulsing artery.

I introduced myself and Morrow to Graves and explained our purpose again. He seemed a little nervous, although I remembered that Floyd, aka Delbert, had described him as fairly tough. Of course, Floyd was trying to sabotage us, so maybe that was a contaminated judgment. I had a strong suspicion that maybe Sergeant Butler was the tough one, and Delbert had actually been trying to steer us away from Graves.

I told Graves how much we already knew about what had happened out there, adding the new details we had just learned from Perrite. Then I added my admonishments about truthfulness, commenting that we didn’t think he had much to fear, since he didn’t participate in the ambush. By his expression, it struck me that he’d already figured that one out on his own. Like I said, medics are generally pretty smart.

I then said, “Could you please tell us what happened after Perrite, Machusco, and Moore returned from Piluca with their report about the fate of Akhan’s team?”

He bit his lip and looked around the room. He was the newest member of Sanchez’s team, and he was a medic. That cut both ways. He had the lowest loyalty quotient. But he could also be the one who was trying the hardest to fit into the powerful tug of the fraternity.

He stopped looking around, but he began fidgeting with his hands. “I’m not sure what you’re asking, sir.”

He knew damn well what I was asking, and I guessed he was still trying to sort out whether to reveal anything or not.

I said, “Look, Sergeant Graves, the story is coming out. You can’t stop it. The others are coming clean, and it would be a terrific shame if you destroyed yourself for nothing. Now, was there a blowup? Was there a perceptible change in morale, or maybe in the attitude of the team?”

I was trying to pick my words carefully, because some future defense counsel might claim that I had first told him he wasn’t likely to be prosecuted, and now I was discreetly, or indiscreetly, leading him in what to say if he wanted me to lay off him.

He said, “No, sir, there was no blowup. It took a while for the word to get around about what happened down in Piluca. Sergeant Machusco and Sergeant Perrite sort of circulated around and let us know.”

“Did they blame Captain Sanchez?”

“Yes, sir. They didn’t need to, though. We all knew. A team that small gets to be like a family. Not a lot happens we don’t all know about.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything. He waited for me to ask the next question but I didn’t.

Finally he said, “It wasn’t like a mutiny or anything, sir. I swear it wasn’t.”

I found it interesting that he would choose to jump to that particular denial. “What was it like?” I asked.

“Well, you have to understand, sir, we all liked Captain Akhan and his guys. It was crazy, really. It wasn’t like we had a whole lot in common with one another, at least with Akhan’s guys. Most of them couldn’t speak any English. They were farmers, butchers, shop people, a few schoolteachers. I don’t know how to explain it. It was kinda like you might feel toward an overeager puppy. But don’t get me wrong; that’s not the way we all felt toward Captain Akhan. No, sir. He was different… real different from them.”

“Different how?” Morrow asked.

“Did you know what he did in real life?” he asked.

Morrow shook her head.

“He was a doctor. A heart surgeon, in fact. Graduated from Harvard Medical School. That’s how I got to know him real well. At night, after the training, he’d take me over to the UN medical tents. They were swamped with all these wounded, sick people pouring out of Kosovo, and we’d work there about seven or eight hours every night. I don’t know how he did it. He’d get up every morning at five-thirty for the training, and since the training program was only six weeks, we were really busting their asses. When we let them go, usually about five, his men would stagger over to get something to eat, then climb right into their sacks. I mean, they were all exhausted. Akhan would skip the meal and work till one, sometimes two or three in the morning. I don’t know how he did it. You had to see him with those people in those tents, though. He wasn’t just a doctor. He was like a saint. You’d get some little kid, with maybe a broken leg and maybe some shrapnel wounds, and the kid would be wailing with pain till Akhan got there. He’d talk to the kid in this incredibly soothing voice while he was operating on him, and the kid would stop crying and just let him do it. None of the other doctors had that touch.”

Graves stopped for a moment and you could see he was in some kind of private reverie.

He finally said, “I mean, Captain Akhan, he didn’t even have to be here. His parents had immigrated to the U.S. a long time before. Did you know he was a U.S. citizen? He had a wife and three little kids, a house in Boston, and he worked in some big hospital there. When this thing blew up, he parked his life, paid his own fare, and got over here. The UN folks wanted him to work in a camp hospital full-time. He refused. He figured that was the coward’s way out. He didn’t know anything about soldiering, but he was smart, and everyone naturally looked up to him.”

Graves’s face had by this point become a study in human agony. It was evident that he, like Persico, had developed a very deep affection for Captain Akhan.

Then Graves said, “I’m sorry. It’s hard to describe sitting here in a room with you all, but he was… well, he was different than anyone I ever met. It’s just hard to put into words. It was like he emitted some kind of strength. You had to like him. Everybody liked him.”

I opened my lips to ask another question, but he cut me off.

“No,” he said. “People didn’t just like him. People sort of loved him. I did. The other guys in the team, even Machusco and Perrite, who’re pretty tough, we all loved him. Even Chief, I think. I mean, the Chief doesn’t show a lot of emotion. That’s not his way, but whenever he and Akhan were together, there was some kind of a special bond there. It really made no sense. I mean, Chief’s a soldier right down to the bone, and Akhan was really a doctor at heart. You wouldn’t think they’d be that close.”

“So what happened?” I asked. “If it wasn’t a mutiny, what did happen?”

“Uh… I guess we all just decided we weren’t going to follow Captain Sanchez anymore. Nobody said anything. It was just a feeling. We didn’t mutiny, though, sir, I swear.”

“But the effect was the same?”

“Yes, sir, I guess it was. It’s odd, though. Even Captain Sanchez seemed to be part of it. Does that make sense?”

“No. Please explain it.”

He looked down and studied the floor, and his face became perplexed as he tried to find the right words. “He just sort of faded out. He was there, but he stopped giving orders. Maybe it was guilt, I don’t know. Chief just sort of filled in the gap and started giving orders.”

I said, “Then you spent a day and a half in your base camp, right?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“What was the team doing during all that time?”

“Waiting.”

“What were you waiting for?”

“I don’t know exactly. I mean, I’m a medic, and I’m the new guy, you know? If they were sick or hurting, they’d talk to me, but nobody wanted my opinion on operations. Perrite and Machusco and the Moores kept going out on their patrols, while I guess they were all trying to think about what to do next. I mean, after what happened to Captain Akhan and his company, none of us wanted to slink back home with our tails between our legs.”

“Was your camp detected by the Serbs?”

“Not that I know of. We pulled up stakes about two days later. I remember, because that was the morning Sergeant Caldwell cut his foot with an axe. He was chopping firewood and opened up a deep gash. I had to stitch him up.”

“How did the ambush come about?”

“I don’t know, sir. I just remember that on that night, we pulled into a hasty perimeter. It was late and we’d been moving all day. Then the word went around to start checking ammo and cleaning weapons for a fight. Since I’m a medic, I didn’t have to clean my weapon or check my ammo, so I dozed off. Sergeant Caldwell woke me when it was time to move. He wanted me to give him some more aspirin, because his foot still hurt and we had to start walking again.”

I looked at my watch. It was seven o’clock and none of us had eaten since breakfast. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but the golden rule of the Army is that you have to feed your troops. I thanked Sergeant Graves for his insights and asked Imelda to please escort him back to his cell.

Morrow and I then walked out together. We didn’t say much until the van delivered us back to the entrance of the hotel. I guess we were both sort of entombed in our own thoughts. Until this point, we’d been handling a legal case with evidence and elements of proof and all the other cold, rational pieces that lawyers are trained to delve into. Now the fragments of an immensely human tragedy were coming together before our eyes, and that has a tendency to leave one disturbed.

“Dinner?” I asked.

“Who’s buying?” she parried.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“If we treat this like a date, I’ll buy. If it’s more in the line of a business meeting between associates, my hands are tied, and we go Dutch. Some guy left a tablet on a mount somewhere and it’s carved in stone someplace near the bottom: Thou shalt only pay for dates that show some promise of conquest.”

“Dutch it is,” she said, leaving me thoroughly dispirited as she headed up the stairs.

I got changed faster than her and rushed downstairs and got us a table. A good one, too, right in the corner, right beside the big picture window that looked out over the plains below. There were twinkling lights as far as the eye could see.

I didn’t spend any time studying the landscape. I guiltily and swiftly knocked down two long and tall glasses of scotch and decided not to mention that I’d started before her. My ribs hurt, though, and I owed them a nice surprise. I even had the waiter carry off the evidence before she joined me.

He was just escaping with the glasses when she glided through the entrance. If this wasn’t a date, she was a little overdressed, or underdressed, or both. She had on this short, clingy blue skirt that stopped about five inches above her knees and a perfectly lovely blouse with what is politely termed a plunging neckline. Suddenly, you could see just about everything she’d been hiding under those BDUs these past few weeks. I almost gasped, but I’m too cool for that, too. I limited myself to some heavy panting and a long, filthy, ogling stare.

I wondered what she was up to. Maybe she was trying to show me what I was missing out on. Like, hey, this could’ve been yours, all yours, if only you hadn’t suspected me of being Tretorne’s stooge. Or maybe it was some subliminal impulse inside her, like she was out to prove that Miss Smith back in Tuzla wasn’t the only one with what my grandfather would call a great set of gams. Now, I did know the precise meaning of the word gams, and Morrow had a perfectly sterling set, I assure you. Ever so long, ever so slim, tapering down to this wonderful pair of slender little ankles. A nice set of uptoppers, too. That was another of my grandfather’s favorite words. I knew what uptoppers were, too.

Her walk across the dining room attracted a flock of attention in the form of lots more ogling stares. Two Italian gentlemen even rushed over to pull back her chair. She sat down, said thank you very pertly, then both the men sort of stood there gaping, like nobody knew what to do next. I caught one of them peeking over her shoulder at her uptoppers, and I gave him an evil stare. He smiled at me, then retreated. The other man stood there until the waiter came to take our orders. Then it got a little crowded and he finally ambled back to his table. Some lady, I guess his wife, was there, and she started yammering at him in Italian.

I said, “Nothing like making a low-key, unobtrusive entrance.”

She smiled politely and blushed a little. “I had nothing else to wear. If I don’t get to a laundry soon, I’ll be out of clean underwear, too.”

I thought of ten cleverly lascivious retorts to that, but this was a business meeting between associates, no matter what my libido was screaming at that moment.

“No sweat,” I assured her, patting her arm like any good senior officer who’s concerned for the welfare of his troops. “It gets to be a problem, I’ll just loan you some of mine.”

She giggled kindly at that. “So, should we get a bottle of Chianti?”

“Go ahead,” I said. “I’ve got two broken ribs and a body that’s screaming for some genuine medication.” I looked up and winked at the waiter. “I’d like to start with two scotches, straight up.”

She said, “A glass of Chianti, please.”

Then there was this long, awkward silence. She smelled absolutely stunning. It wasn’t that sweet lily of the fields crap, either, but something much more pungent. Something musky and naughty.

It’s damned hard to think of something intelligently businesslike to say when you’re staring at a beautiful woman whose uptoppers are peeking out her shirt, your nose is getting hard from her smell, and your mind’s off in a boudoir wildly cavorting between some silk sheets.

Finally, she said, “Who do you want to start with tomorrow?”

I very reluctantly retreated from the boudoir and thought about that a minute. “Why not Sanchez?”

“You don’t want to wait until we know a little more?”

“What’s left to know?”

“Was there a mutiny? The ambush, whose idea was it? Why did they really do it? Why did they shoot the Serbs in the head?”

“And just who’s going to tell us about all that?”

“There are still five others we can pick from.”

“I just have this sense,” I told her, watching the waiter walk across the floor with our drinks. “The fastest way to all that is through Sanchez, and I think we have enough to get him to open up.”

The glasses were deposited on the table and I tried not to appear too desperate as I grabbed the first scotch, which was actually my third scotch, and knocked down a huge slug. Before I knew it, the glass was empty. They were the big, tall kind of glasses, too, and the bartender wasn’t one of those awful cheaters who waters things down. For some reason, my ribs had started to ache like hell. Must’ve been her perfume, I thought.

She was twirling her glass of wine with her slender fingers. “It’s a terrible story, isn’t it? It really touches your soul.”

“Yep,” I said, feeling the effects of that third scotch right quickly. “What did you expect, though? Did you really think we’d discover nine evil men who got together and decided to commit an atrocity?”

“No. I’ve just never handled a case like this. It’s confusing. Not very black and white.”

“But it is. You’re wrong, because they were wrong,” I said, starting on the next glass and hoisting up two fingers at the waiter to rush over with some reinforcements. “One of the reasons the Army insists on iron discipline is situations just like this. Officers are human, too. They screw up, and when they do, their men see it. The structure, the discipline, they have to remain. Persico’s an old soldier. He knew that. Hell, they all knew that.”

“I understand all that,” she said, still twirling her wineglass, “but Sanchez got all those men killed. I know what the rules say, but I can also see why those men didn’t want to follow him anymore. Besides, it sounds like he stopped giving orders. Almost like he went into a walking coma.”

My glass was now empty, and the waiter was there with the two fresh ones. I smiled at him quite happily.

Morrow said, “Are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “Just administering a little painkiller. Look, there’s going to be plenty enough blame to go around for everyone. Smothers never should’ve given Sanchez the job,” I said, taking another huge swallow. “Sanchez should’ve gutted it out when things went south. His men should’ve supported him. Even Hollywood knows that. Did you ever see Mutiny on the Bounty, or The Caine Mutiny? Great movies, both of them. Remember that scene with Captain Queeg, this battleship commander in World War Two, sitting there on the stand rolling those ball bearings around in his hand, ranting about who stole his strawberries? It was Humphrey Bogart at his best, playing this hard-nosed son of a bitch who rode his men mercilessly, and his first officer sympathized with his men and ended up undermining him, until it resulted in mutiny. The lawyer got the first officer off, then in the final scene he told the first officer he disgusted him, because what he did really was wrong. The system has rules and everybody has to obey them.”

“Strange words coming out of you,” she said as I got a good firm grip and hoisted down some more scotch.

“What? Because I act like a wiseass? Because I don’t seem to have a lot of respect for the system? Don’t kid yourself, Morrow. I was raised an Army brat,” I said, pausing only long enough to inhale a little more painkiller. “I’ve never shoved a bite of food into my mouth that wasn’t paid for by Army dollars. I saw my father go off to war three times. When the Army ships your father away to the other side of the world, and he’s being shot at, you do a lot of thinking about the Army and what it means. I actually got shot at a few times myself. That’s also been known to make one think about it, once or twice. I believe in the Army and all its silly rules. Doesn’t mean I like them, but God knows, we’ve won a lot of wars. We must be doing something right.”

Morrow was wearing a look of surprise, and I realized that I was drinking way too much and was letting my mouth get way too carried away. My ribs still hurt like all hell, though, so I kept wading through the glass in my hand. Besides, it would be a damned shame to let a perfectly good scotch go to waste.

She took a sip from her wine and studied the bruises and swells on my face. “You’ve had a difficult few weeks,” she said.

“I’m not complaining,” I answered, wondering if I should stick up my finger to get the waiter to bring two more. The waiter was actually sweating from running back and forth. People from other tables were staring at me.

“Do your ribs still hurt?”

“I think sho,” I admitted.

She giggled a little.

“What?” I asked. “Wassshh so damned funny?”

This was when I first noticed that my ribs hurt so much that they had made my tongue swell. Until that instant, I never knew my ribs were connected to my tongue.

“We’d better order dinner quickly and get some food in your stomach,” she said, flashing those wonderfully sympathetic eyes.

This was also about the same moment when I realized that eating had just gotten a little beyond my reach. I looked down at my silverware and there were at least ten forks. Which one would a polished gentleman choose, I wondered.

I said, “Mmmnydnodmebok,” or something like that.

Morrow stood up and came around the table. She took my arm, and she was really strong, because she hoisted me out of that chair like I was a fluffy pancake. She wrapped my left arm around her shoulder and led me out of the dining room. My left hand was dangling right across her left uptopper, and her naughty perfume tickled my nose. I wanted to give that comfy uptopper a gentle little squeeze, but my body was way past the point of listening to my brain.

She leaned me against the wall in the elevator, and I stood happily humming some song as we sped up to the third floor. Once we got to my room, she actually dug around inside my pants pocket until she found my key. Then she led me over to the bed. This was the moment I was waiting for. She thought I was intoxicated. She thought I was a harmless, incapacitated, drunken eunuch, too scotched out to raise ye olde noodle. Heh-heh-heh. I lunged toward the bed, tugging her along.

I said, “Youydod a jummbock,” and it was a real good thing she couldn’t understand a word I said, because what I’d just invited her to do was something nice girls don’t usually do.

The next thing I knew, the alarm on the nightstand next to my bed was howling at me, and I could hear someone pounding on my door. I rolled out of the bed and stumbled over and opened it. That damned Morrow had changed out of that fetching skirt and was back inside her BDUs again. Now how had she done that so fast?

She brushed past me and headed for my bathroom, while I stood there feeling stupid. I looked at the alarm clock. It read 7:40. I had set it to go off at six. I heard the shower go on, and Morrow went over to the phone and called room service. She told them to send up two American-style breakfasts and stylishly offered them a ten-dollar tip if they had it here in ten minutes.

She put the receiver down and said, “You’ve got five minutes to shower and shave. Don’t walk out of the bathroom naked, either. Army rules dictate that higher officers shall not display their Pudleys to lower officers. It wouldn’t bother me, but you’re the one who loves Army rules.”

Damn, so that’s what a Pudley is, I thought, as I lurched toward the bathroom. The shower felt great and my ribs only ached a little. Dr. Drummond and his scotch cure had accomplished another medical miracle. I emerged from the bathroom fully dressed about seven minutes later. Morrow was at the door paying the bellhop for our breakfasts.

I couldn’t help myself. “Where’d you learn about Pudleys?” I demanded.

“What?”

“Pudleys? Where’d you learn that word?”

That made her giggle a lot. “At that private girls’ school I went to. That was the word we used for… well, you know. Only for little ones, though. Big ones we called Humongos.”

I thought about that a moment. I took a bite of eggs and wetted it down with a little coffee. “I don’t have a Pudley,” I insisted.

“Be that as it may,” she said, smiling, “we’re going to be late, so eat quickly.”

“Okay,” I grumbled. “Just remember. I don’t have a Pudley. Maybe I’m not a Humongo, but damn it, I’m no Pudley.”

“Eat,” she ordered.

“Maybe I need to wear different pants or something,” I mumbled.

She was still smiling when we went out and caught a sedan to the air base.