The Right Side

by Spencer Quinn

  “How do we do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Take a swing at it. No penalty for wrong answers. Hell, maybe they’re all wrong.”

  All answers ending up wrong: that was something LeAnne, now with three tours behind her, and a trunk full of bloody and stinking memories best left unopened, had begun to fear. Meanwhile, the colonel was waiting. There had to be a reason for the question, had to be a reason for this whole meeting. LeAnne searched her mind for something to say, came up with only this: “Show them what we’re really like,” she said, “but take no shit.” Better to have kept her mouth shut? LeAnne was pretty sure of that until she saw Colonel Bright open her leather-bound notebook and take out a pen.

  The colonel spoke what she was writing, the way people do sometimes, drawing out the words. “Show—them—what we’re rea—lly like, but take—no—shit.” She closed the notebook and sipped from her coffee cup, gazing at LeAnne over the rim. “If you’re worried I’ll pass that off as my own, don’t be.”

  “I wasn’t,” LeAnne said. “And you’re welcome to it, ma’am.”

  “Oh, I’m going to use it all right, but with attribution.” Colonel Bright glanced at LeAnne’s burger, untouched. “Eat.”

  LeAnne took a bite. The colonel watched her chew. That reminded LeAnne of her mother, otherwise unlike Colonel Bright in every way she could think of.

  “I understand you’re not planning to re-up,” the colonel said.

  “No, ma’am.” LeAnne had eight weeks of service left, all of them to be spent here, stateside, instructing recruits on the range.

  “Hate the army?”

  “No, ma’am, not all.”

  “Have some grievances?”

  “No.”

  “Bored?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  LeAnne put down her burger. “It’s just that I’ve thought of something I’d like to do next and I’m kind of excited to be doing it.”

  “Mind sharing?”

  “Well, it’s not anything earthshaking,” LeAnne said. “I want to start a military-style summer camp for girls, ages ten to twelve or so. Living in tents, cooking outdoors, hiking, rope climbing, building stuff, martial arts . . . that kind of thing.” She watched the colonel’s face for some reaction, saw none.

  “What kind of girls?”

  “Any who want to come.”

  “Including inner-city ones?”

  “For sure.”

  “How are inner-city girls gonna pay?”

  “That’s something I have to work on.”

  “And what about setup costs?”

  “I’ve got some money saved. Plus a small inheritance.”

  Something unmilitary appeared for a moment in the colonel’s eyes, and in that moment they weren’t a colonel and a sergeant, but just two people contemplating an idea. Then the colonel nodded. Her expression returned to normal, and they were back in the army.

  “Hate curveballs, and you’ve thrown me one,” Colonel Bright said. “But it’s a hell of a concept, and you’re just the right person. Can’t help you with the money, not directly, and I suspect any direct link—or any link at all, really—to the military isn’t the way to go. But I’ve got contacts who I’m pretty goddamn sure will be useful on the fundraising side, and I’m going to start lining them up no matter what happens from here on in.”

  “What happens from here on in?” LeAnne said. “I don’t understand.”

  “Meaning whatever you say to a proposal I’m about to make,” said the colonel. “Yes or no, I’ll still back this camp of yours. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Got a name for it, by the way?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Out with it.”

  LeAnne felt herself blushing, a strange sensation for her, but she couldn’t help it, the feeling rising up in her also being strange: a mixture of shyness and pride. “Roadmaster,” she said.

  “Roadmaster Camp or Camp Roadmaster?”

  “Camp Roadmaster.”

  “I’m with you.” The colonel rubbed her hands together, as though heating things up. “Back to the agenda—ever heard of CST?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “Not a surprise. We’re still new. Stands for Cultural Support Team. Special Ops finally realized that those nighttime raids of theirs, hunting bad guys in the Afghan boonies, yield at best fifty percent of the potential intel. Any idea why that might be?”

  “Because the Afghan women won’t talk to them.”

  Colonel Bright sat back. “You’ve already thought about this?”

  “Some,” said LeAnne.

  “So the idea of attaching highly trained and combat-capable female troops to Special Ops makes sense to you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “It’s a one-year commitment,” the colonel said. “That includes two months at Fort Bragg for selection and training and the rest for deployment. Someone like you won’t have any trouble getting selected. Hell, you could probably train most of the trainers—all male at the moment, which pisses me off like you wouldn’t believe. With me so far?”

  LeAnne nodded.

  “Like the idea?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Any questions?”

  “Does combat-capable mean official combatant?”

  “No.” The colonel smiled one of those conspiratorial smiles, like they were a couple of mafiosi planning some heist. “Not officially official, at least not yet. But that’s just politics. The CSTs will be fully armed, identical to the men. What else?”

  “I don’t like the name,” LeAnne said.

  “Cultural Support Team? Just politics, again. I hate it, too. But we’ve got to think big picture, you and me.”

  In the parking lot, Colonel Bright’s driver got out of the car and came toward the door, tapped on the glass. The colonel rose, held out her hand. “Just tell me you’ll consider it. No pressure.”

  LeAnne didn’t feel any pressure. She said yes on the spot, not because of pressure, not because Colonel Bright was higher in rank, not because of all the colonel’s flattery. It was simply that the job needed to be done and she could do it.

  They shook hands again, and again LeAnne felt the similarity in hand size, hand strength, and power; although now the colonel’s palm had dampened a bit. As she watched the colonel’s car drive off, LeAnne suddenly pictured the cover of a brochure for Camp Roadmaster: a pigtailed girl in shorts and a T-shirt climbing up a rope toward a golden sky. That was when she realized she’d had enough of the army. Not that she didn’t still love it. She did. But she’d seen enough blood and guts, literal blood and literal guts. She’d come to her limit, meaning that this CST gig would have to be played out in overtime.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Initial Evaluation for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Military History:

  9. Combat wounds sustained (describe):

  “If you don’t put a lid on it this second, we’ll be forced to sedate you,” the nurse said, her voice rising.

  LeAnne herself was already at full volume and had been for some time. She stood in front of the nurses’ station, screaming her head off. “What did you do to her? What the fuck did you do to her?” Just those two sentences, over and over, her brain on fire. Meanwhile, she was surrounded by nurses, doctors, orderlies, with her former commanding officer, Major Sands, pushed out to the periphery, his mouth open and her Bronze Star in one hand.

  “This is your last warning.”

  “Just try it. Go right ahead.” LeAnne raised Marci’s prosthetic leg as a weapon, ready to use it on anyone who came one step nearer, and was just realizing she did not in fact have the prosthetic leg, was weaponless and empty-handed, when she sensed movement on her blind side. She started to turn in the that direction, felt a sharp jab in her right arm, just below the shoulder. Then all the faces around the nurses’ station melted into funhouse shapes.

  She awoke.

  Eye.
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  LeAnne rolled onto her side and took her bearings, task one when you were in the field. She was not in the field, just back in her bed, meaning her bed in the room at Walter Reed that she’d shared with Marci, but no longer would. LeAnne had always had a compass in her head—getting a compass in the head of every girl who came to Camp Roadmaster was high on her list of bullet points—except at that moment she had no idea where east was. Did it matter? Camp Roadmaster, the brochure with its bullet points, the girls: all scratched. Hey, Marci, she wanted to say, where the fuck is east?

  No Marci. Her gaze went to Marci’s empty bed. What was this? Marci, sleeping on her side, back turned to the room, her favorite sleeping position? Could it be? Hadn’t there been some sort of scene about Marci’s demise? Only a nightmare, was that it? In which case the scene, noisy and nasty, hadn’t happened in real life? How far back did the nightmare go? All the way to before? Meaning before that big hairy hand emerged through the folds of the burqa? Of course not. Much too much to ask. LeAnne had seen enough of the world—oh, brother—to know that. But if the nightmare began with Marci alive, and therefore still alive in the right now, that would be good enough.

  “Marci?”

  The woman in the bed turned over. Not Marci. This was a black woman with her hair in neat cornrows. Her skin was smooth and flawless, her features delicate. She looked like a kid. Nothing but her head was visible; the rest of her a series of lumps beneath the covers.

  “Excuse me?” the woman said. She had a small, high voice: looked like a kid and sounded like a kid.

  “I was looking for . . . nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

  “Are you LeAnne?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dr. Machado wants you to call him as soon as you wake up.”

  “That hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Forget it.” The woman was looking at her funny. “Fucking shit.” LeAnne felt around under her pillow, found the patch, put it on. “Was Machado in here?”

  The woman nodded.

  “You know him?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “Was he wearing a polo shirt?”

  “No. A white coat.”

  “Did he mention stolen chocolate?”

  “He just said he wanted you to get in touch.”

  “We all have our little wants, don’t we?”

  The woman took that in, like it had deep meaning. Then her perfect face started to crumple. With an effort of will, an effort LeAnne could feel from across the room, the woman got her face back to normal. As for her own face, LeAnne wanted to punch it. What she didn’t want was to see what was under those covers, not now, not ever. She threw back her own covers and got out of bed.

  “Where’s all my shit?”

  “Maybe in the closet?”

  The closet. LeAnne had been living in this room for . . . she actually didn’t know how long. But in all that time, she’d never once thought to look in the closet. The truth was she might not have even noticed its existence. She was pitiful.

  “What happened to my goddamn compass?”

  “I don’t know,” the woman said. “Mine got blown up.”

  LeAnne looked at her and nodded. Then she went to the closet and opened the door.

  “My stuff’s on the right,” the woman said.

  LeAnne checked out the left side. Two uniforms—MultiCams and dress blues—hung on the rail. On the floor was her camo duffel. She squatted down, opened it, checked the contents: jeans, sweats, two bras, two pairs of panties, socks—all new—plus boots, dopp kit, wallet. She looked in the wallet: driver’s license, red no-fee passport, bank card, four twenties, a ten, two fives.

  Good to go. LeAnne stripped off her pajamas, got dressed, pulled the boots out of her duffel. The smell of goats hit her right away. She did not want to wear those boots, but there was no choice. She bent to put them on and noticed two bright red sneakers at the back of the closet. Marci’s sneaks? Yes. She tried them on. The fit was perfect. LeAnne shouldered her duffel, kicked her boots to the back of the closet, left the uniforms on the rail. She closed the closet door, trapping Afghanistan in there, like a tiny battlefield.

  What else? She moved to the rolling table beside her bed. The box from the ocular prosthetics lady lay on the table; beside it, a small paper cup with three pills inside. She swallowed the pills.

  “For the road.”

  And stuck the ocular box in her duffel.

  “You going somewhere?” said the woman in Marci’s bed.

  “Yup.”

  “Any, like, message, you want me to pass on?”

  “Not a goddamn thing.” Did her words seem to leave a harsh after-sound hanging in the room? What kind of good-bye was that, especially since this woman had to be a sister in arms? LeAnne went over to her and touched the top of her head, very lightly. The woman looked scared. Now was the moment for saying something positive, but nothing came to her, not even the feeblest encouraging word.

  On her way out, LeAnne spotted something on the floor. She bent to examine it: the photo of Bruno, Dr. Machado’s little brown dog, that she’d acquired somehow. LeAnne left it there.

  LeAnne headed down the hall toward the elevators, meaning she had to pass the nurses’ station on the way. But so what? Who was going to stop her? She pushed on and was just reaching the station when an elevator opened and out stepped a man in uniform, a man she thought she might know. Soft face, two silver bars on his lapel, brown briefcase with brass fittings in hand. All that added up to someone she knew, all right, but the name, and what he was about, wouldn’t come. LeAnne wheeled around before he could look her way and walked quickly back down the hall to a door marked Stairs. She shouldered it open and charged down, flight after flight, almost losing her balance several times on account of her half-screen vision, but finally banging through the G door at the bottom. LeAnne crossed a broad, busy lobby, whirled through a revolving door, and stepped outside. The glare was terrible. She fumbled around for her oversized sunglasses, found them perched on top of her head, and put them on.

  Two taxis sat idling by the curb. LeAnne got into the nearest one, shoving her duffel in first.

  The driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Where to?”

  “Phoenix.”

  “What number?”

  “Huh?”

  “Phoenix Drive? Other side of one eighty-seven? What number?”

  “The bus station, then.”

  “The bus station? Like for out of town? No bus station on Phoenix. I could take you to the station in Silver Spring, you want out of town.”

  “Yeah,” LeAnne said. “Out.”

  The taxi pulled away. LeAnne took one glance back, saw the soft-faced captain hurrying outside. He looked this way and that, spotted the taxi. She faced front.

  “Step on it. I’m late.”

  “Not allowed to exceed the speed limit.”

  “Pussy.”

  No more was said. LeAnne felt watched from behind. The taxi merged onto a busy street, made a couple of turns. LeAnne took a deep breath. It came back to her: Captain Stallings, G-2, the man with the photos, of which she remembered two: Katie; and Gulab Yar-Muhammad, the man with the deep-set, examining eyes. The driver hunched over the wheel and didn’t look at her again.

  LeAnne took a window seat on the left-hand side of the bus, perfect for left-eyed viewing, but stormy weather moved in from the west and state after state went by pretty much unseen. She napped; she had headaches; she ate chocolate, refreshing her supply at every pit stop and washing it down with chocolate milk. She kept her oversized sunglasses on at all times and had no seatmates until a stop in Cookeville, Tennessee, or possibly Kentucky.

  “This seat taken?”

  LeAnne turned, had to twist practically all the way around to get this person in her field of view. A smiling man, dressed in clean, pressed clothes, freshly shaved, short hair wet with rain. She shrugged. He took the aisle seat. The bus pulled away from whereve
r they were. Raindrops slid horizontally across the glass and pelted the roof hard, like gunshots. She felt the man shift in his seat, sensed that he was looking down at the floor on her side, where her feet, shod in Marci’s red sneaks, rested on the duffel.

  “You in the army?” he said.

  LeAnne nodded, facing straight ahead.

  “Thank you for your service.”

  She didn’t respond. The bus rolled on. The sliding raindrops sped up and the overhead barrage grew louder. LeAnne tried to sleep, knew that sleep was the best answer at this moment, but she was way too wound up. She twisted around to the man.

  “What would you know?”

  He blinked. “About the army? Nothing. Sorry if I’ve offended. I only—”

  “Don’t want to hear it,” LeAnne said.

  She turned away, but not before noticing the Bible, open on his lap. Was he some kind of missionary? Fuck all missions. Sleep came soon after that. When she awoke, it was night and the aisle seat was empty. She felt better. Partly it was the rain. Somehow she needed rain. At the next pit stop, after stocking up on chocolate and chocolate milk, she stood outside the bus, her face tilted up to the downpour. She took off her sunglasses and her patch and luxuriated.

  “Hey, let’s go,” the driver called through the open door. “Don’t have all—” He got a better view of her—most likely in passing headlight beams—and cut himself off. LeAnne put on her sopping patch and her misty sunglasses and climbed back on the bus, just about soaked through herself. She shivered all night.

  LeAnne awoke in a fog, a double fog, in her head and outside the window. The bus, smelling of cooped-up mammals after a long night, was stopped, but stopped where? Getting her bearings first thing was step one. Impossible: the bus was cocooned in charcoal gray. LeAnne heard the front door squeak open, heard soft footsteps coming down the rubber-padded aisle.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  She twisted around to get this new person in view, maybe grunting with annoyance at the same time. A woman stood in the aisle, her form dim in the charcoal-gray light.