The Emerald Scepter

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Rambo led the way to the quartermaster where she picked up a couple of uniforms then to the barracks to drop off her bag and change. The man’s camouflage uniform was too big, but she cinched the belt tight round her waist and rolled up the sleeves and pants. They rejoined Kurtz who proudly showed off the refurbished barracks, mess hall and the auditorium where he gave his pep-talks. Sutherland nodded like a bobble head doll, but she was more interested in the surrounding territory.

The camp was on several acres of rolling land at the base of a mountain. It was surrounded by forest that covered the lower slope of the mountain, rising to the bottom of a sheer rock face that soared up to the summit. Kurtz saw her looking at the road into the woods and said it led to the old copper mines scattered around the slopes of the mountain.

He ended the tour and dropped her off at the obstacle course which is where she met her trainer. The athletic woman was in uniform and her short blond hair was tucked under a drill sergeant cap.

“I’m Sergeant Paine, corporal, and my name is what I am,” she said in introduction. She gave Sutherland a once-over, shook her head, and said: “Let’s see what you are made of.”

She started off with push-ups, prisoner squats, jumping jacks and planks, then Sutherland ran through the obstacle course. After she crossed the finish line, doubled over from exhaustion, Paine escorted her back to the women’s barracks, told her to shower and report to the mess hall. After dinner there was a training film in the auditorium. Then it was bed time. Sutherland drifted off the moment her head hit the pillow.

A sharp-edged blast of a bugle playing reveille roused Sutherland from a sound sleep. She sat up in her cot and stared bleary-eyed out the barracks window, wondering what fool would be tooting a horn in the middle of the night. Then a woman’s voice barked over the loudspeaker:

“Rise and shine, grunts!” Sergeant Paine said. “Time to stretch!”

The strains of the Washington Post March blared over the PA system. Sutherland put her head under the pillow which failed to muffle the rousing beat of the John Philip Sousa composition.

She sat up again and glared at the wall speaker as if she could melt it with her eyes.

There was a pounding on the door and Paine shouted, “Five minutes, Corporal Sutherland.”

She pushed away the blanket and got to her feet. She was only wearing her underwear and the crisp air in the unheated barracks raised goose-bumps on her pale white skin. She got into uniform and pulled on her boots, jacket and floppy hat. Her basic training in the real army kicked into gear and she made up the cot to military standards without even thinking. Someone knocked once and the door swung open. Two people strode in. The man she called Rambo and Sergeant Paine who shouted, “Atten-shun!”

Sutherland stiffened her back, tucked her plump chin in and stared straight ahead, arms tight to her side.

The sergeant circled Sutherland, hands behind her back.

“Not bad for a newbie,” she said. “At ease.”

Sutherland relaxed, but kept her eyes fixed straight ahead.

“You’ve already met Captain Krause.” She put her face close to Sutherland’s. “We will be your teachers and your tormentors. When you leave here, you will have been transformed from your current sorry state into a hard-assed sonvofabitch who eats nails for breakfast.”

“Yes, sir!” Sutherland said. “Ma’am.”

“Good.” The woman’s voice lost its edge. “The men in this camp think women are soft. Do you think women are soft?”

“No, ma’am.”

Paine glanced at her comrade and grinned. “We will prove them wrong. Now get your ass outside for calisthenics. Hup.”

Sutherland marched out the door of the women’s barracks, swinging her arms like a wind-up soldier, and stepped out into the cold mountain air to join the half-dozen other recruits. Krause stood in the background watching the sergeant put them through their exercises with no change in his pit bull expression. Sutherland started gasping for air after a few sets of jumping jacks. Paine cut the session short, told the recruits they were pathetic, and said they had fifteen minutes to wash up and head toward the mess hall.

Sutherland went back into the barracks and splashed cold water onto her face. She booted up her computer. Kurtz had emailed her so there must be a wireless signal. She found the link, easily figured out the entry code, which was HAK, then she logged off and put the pack holding her computer under the cot. She would feel naked without her computer, but couldn’t risk damaging it. She slipped her phone under the mattress and smoothed down the blanket.

Halfway through breakfast — Froot Loops and skimmed milk — the sergeant burst into the mess hall and ordered everyone outside. The sky was graying with a pre-dawn light. She told them to line up according to height. As the only female, Sutherland was the shortest. Paine marched the motley column past the other barracks to a road leading into the woods.

“Normally we start the day with a five-mile run, but this crew is clearly incapable of anything more strenuous than feeding your face, so we will make it a brisk three-mile walk.”

Boot camp had begun.

On the road, Sutherland saw other groups, more tightly disciplined, as they trotted past with full pack and weapons. She broke the people in the camp into two groups. Some were citizens trying to look tough. Others had the easy swagger that comes with real experience as a soldier.

After the hike, they were given fake wooden rifles and put through bayonet practice. There was a short break for a lunch of protein bars and water. Next were martial arts and finally, the shooting range.

Many of the other recruits were hunters, and reasonably good shots, but they were tired from their exertion and barely able to lift their rifles. The sergeant’s scorn faded when she saw the tightly grouped holes Sutherland put in the target.

“Well, we got a real Annie Oakley here.” She clapped her hands. “Back to your barracks to clean up. Then supper and political orientation conducted by General Hak.”

She patted Sutherland on the back and told her she had made the men look like girl scouts.

On the way to the barracks, Sutherland glanced up at the mountain, recalling from her research that it was honey-combed with mines. She wondered whether it would be possible to sneak off on an exploration. She could pretend she got lost. But as she trudged back to the barracks, she saw that she had more pressing matters to worry about.

General Hak barred the door to the barracks. Standing slightly behind him, rifle resting in the crook of his arm, was Krause. The general was holding her phone.

He growled, “What the hell are you doing with this thing?”

“You never said anything about phones.”

“That’s because most of them don’t work out here. This one does.”

“A lot of places don’t have phone service, General Hak. I was a woman, traveling alone. It would have been dumb not to have communication.”

He gazed thoughtfully at the phone. “Yeah, I guess, so. But we’re confiscating this. For as long as you’re here, there is to be no communication with the outside world.”

She snapped off a salute that provoked a slight smile.

The other man who had met Sutherland in the Jeep came out of the barracks. “General. Could you come inside, sir? There’s something you should see.”

As she was marched through the door, Sutherland saw her laptop on the cot. The man picked the computer up and handed it to the general, who gazed at the screen then turned it to face her.

Before leaving the B and B, she had backed up all her files on a remote data storage center then eliminated them. She expected to see a blank screen except for a few icons, but someone had written her an email.

The general read the message, handed the laptop off to Krause and bore into Sutherland with narrowed eyes.

“Girl,” he said in a menacing tone. “You are in deep, deep trouble.”