Black Sword (Decker's War, #5)

by Eric Thomson

  He locked eyes with Zack.

  “You will relearn all military skills deemed useful for a private in this regiment, and you will do so per the regimental standards. Those among you with a modicum of brains will notice how rule number two ties back into rule number one. Every member of a team works to the same processes and protocols. Otherwise, team members die.”

  Windom resumed his pacing.

  “I will explain my other rules in good time. Right now, I intend to interview each of you in private, starting with William B. Whate.” That unnerving grin reappeared. “You may place the platoon at the parade rest position, Corporal Radzell. Whate, follow me.”

  Windom led Decker to the heads and slammed the door shut before leaning against it with his arms crossed.

  “You know, I actually prayed I’d have a chance at revenge someday, Decker. Seeing your ugly mug just now reinforced my faith in God.”

  “Glory Hallelujah,” Zack replied in a mock-somber tone. “Is that how it’s going to be, Earle? You’ll be taking it out on me? Do I have to remind you that you dug your own hole back then, or are you just talking smack for shits and giggles? I’d have thought time in a penal battalion was enough to show a man the errors of his ways and encourage him to develop a greater sense of professionalism.”

  A snarl twisted Windom’s lips.

  “You screwed me over. Sure, I went a little too far that time, but there was no reason to make it a court-martial offense. You should have flown top cover for a jump buddy instead of ending his career.”

  Zack shook his head and sighed.

  “Earle, you didn’t belong in the Pathfinders to begin with. I wasn’t the only one who figured that out. After a while, most of Third Troop if not half of the 902nd knew. The incident that had you up on charges was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. No way could I have swept it under the rug. Too many witnesses. Court-martial or no court-martial, you were out of the 902nd after that. No one in your section was going to trust you with anything more than a piece of string. The fact that a dozen civilians were badly hurt when you used what passed for initiative in your quest to get a slot on the command sergeant course... Well, you earned the sentence fair and square.”

  “You’re calling me a fuckup, Decker? Aren’t you the man who earned himself a sentence of exile? And after they made you an officer?” Windom’s nostrils flared. “What did you do? Carpet-bomb a whole village?”

  “What I did isn’t for the staff to know, nor is my name Zack Decker. It’s nice to have your own personal rules for the trainees, but you really should respect the regimental rules as well.”

  With a suddenness and a fury that would have astonished any onlooker, Windom aimed a meaty fist at Decker’s midriff. It hit a solid wall of abdominal muscle and didn’t elicit so much as a grunt. Zack had read the move in Windom’s eyes and tensed up a fraction of a second earlier.

  “You’re still telegraphing your punches, Earle.” Decker fought to keep a grimace from his face. The blow hadn’t been entirely harmless, but Windom didn’t need to know. “And your delivery hasn’t improved, but congratulations on getting not only your stripes back but earning two rockers as well. It proves that anything is possible in our beloved Corps.”

  The other man’s breathing sounded like the snorts of a raging bull as he fought to restrain his fury.

  “That’s ‘Staff’ or ‘Sergeant Windom’ to you, Recruit. I’ll be riding your ass hard, make no mistake about that. And I will make sure every little mistake on your part causes the entire platoon to suffer, just as your knife in the back caused me to suffer in the penal battalion. We’ll see if you make it to graduation alive and in one piece.”

  “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, Staff, dig two graves.”

  “Is that a threat?” Windom’s tone held a dangerous edge.

  “No, it’s Confucius. Try reading something other than cheap thrillers one of these days. You might catch a bit of education. Now was that everything, Staff? Or would you like to take another swing at me? Maybe this time I could reciprocate and see what you’re made of.”

  Windom gave him a look of pure loathing.

  “You’ve been warned. Now get out of here.”

  Twenty-Four

  “Do you know Windom from before, Bill?” Udo Trieste whispered at Decker as they picked up food trays in the chow line shortly after the sergeant finished interviewing his last trainee. “Because he seems to have something against you.”

  Zack shrugged.

  “Apparently my twin still owes him for a lost bet. Don’t worry about it.”

  Radzell’s cane struck him on the shoulder from behind.

  “Recruits are to stay silent in the mess hall unless spoken to by staff.”

  The ten men of the accelerated course sat apart from the rest of the trainees. But they were still only given the standard fifteen minutes to eat, dispose of their trays and fall in outside.

  There, Sergeant Windom met them, this time carrying his own cane of office and wearing a beret with the Marine Light Infantry’s flaming grenade and crossed muskets insignia.

  “Corporal Radzell tells me,” he said once they stood at attention in two ranks of five, “that Recruit Whate decided the silent mealtimes rule wasn’t for him. We will, therefore, enjoy ninety minutes of close-order drill tonight as a reminder that rules are to be obeyed.”

  Decker groaned inwardly, knowing this was the first shot in Windom’s private war against him. If the sergeant imposed collective punishment on the platoon because of Decker often enough, his supposed buddies might turn on him. It would allow Windom to exact his revenge without having to dirty his own fists.

  But no one so much as twitched, let alone made a sound.

  That night, after lights out, Decker wondered whether remaining undercover was such a good idea. Maybe calling for Talyn so he could leave Earle Windom’s private revenge fantasy before things spun out of control might be the wiser course of action.

  They could always extract Redmon in a more official manner, and then go to ground again. Of course, it would be better to find out first whether she was at Fort Erfoud.

  They might have put her on the accelerated retraining regimen as well. It was a reasonable supposition considering her service record. And if so, the regiment might already have assigned her to one of the line units, under a name neither he nor Talyn knew. In fact, Redmon might not even be on Parth anymore. The regiment’s 1st Battalion was in action on Marengo, hunting guerrillas, now that the revolt he’d prophesied a few years earlier had erupted.

  Much as he might have wanted to resume his life as an intelligence operative, he was stuck playing convict-recruit until he had a better idea of where they could find Ariane Redmon.

  *

  The first week passed in a blur of exhaustion as Windom, Radzell and a third trainer, a sergeant by the name Jaya, drove them mercilessly. They alternated close-order drill with increasingly complex physical exercises, designed to reinforce teamwork while breaking their resistance.

  No matter how hard Decker tried to conform, Windom would find him guilty of something or other at least once a day, leading to the inevitable collective punishment. However, to Zack’s relief, his fellow trainees quickly understood Windom was running a personal vendetta and refused to play along.

  All except Surly Hank Harris, but after a few days, Decker and the rest of the platoon, ignored his complaints about anything. Until that is, he took matters into his own hands.

  On the evening of the seventh day, shortly before lights out, Hank cornered Zack in the heads. The others had already slipped into bed, drained by another day of physical exertion that verged on torture.

  If they never had to carry a one-ton log through a waist-deep swamp again, it wouldn’t be too soon. And with only one change of battle dress, what little time they had was taken up by rinsing and drying their clothes.

  “Is something eating you?” Decker asked when he looked up from the sink where he�
�d been soaking his underwear. Hank’s permanent scowl seemed grimmer than usual.

  “I’m sick and tired of taking extra training because of your fucking stupidity, Pops. This needs to end.”

  Zack chuckled.

  “How did you end up in the accelerated platoon if you’ve never been through a course where punishment is part of the syllabus, no matter how hard we try to avoid it? I could walk on water and Windom would ding me for the unauthorized performance of a miracle. And if I weren’t his whipping boy, someone else would be. The extra training is part of the game until they figure we’ve learned the lesson.”

  “What lesson would that be, wise guy?”

  “The one that teaches every member of the platoon to avoid blaming each other about extra training and simply roll with it. Once Windom’s convinced we’ll hang together, he’ll move on to other forms of torture. Five gets you ten that by morning, he’ll have heard you and I had a conversation, and that means the collective punishment will continue.”

  “Bullshit. You’re just ducking the real issue, and that’s about being a liability for the rest of us.”

  Decker smiled at Hank, thinking, if only you had a clue.

  “Believe what you want.”

  He shook the last bit of water from his undershirt and made to leave the heads, but Hank put a meaty hand on Zack’s chest, barring his way.

  “I mean it, Pops. Smarten up, or I’ll make sure we go into the next phase of training one man short.”

  “Why? Are you leaving us?” Decker smirked. He glanced at Hank’s arm. “Friendly suggestion — don’t lay your hands on me again. It’s not how you make friends and influence people.”

  “Oh?”

  Hank withdrew the offending extremity, turned it into a fist, and held it under Zack’s chin.

  “Is this better, Pops? Keep in mind I’m bigger, meaner and stronger than you are. If I decide to sort you out, it’ll hurt.”

  “Point taken, because I’m old enough to know being stupid is the same as being dead. You’re not aware of it, but everyone else is.”

  When Hank gave him a look of incomprehension, Decker shrugged.

  “And point proven. On that note, we should hit the rack. The lights will be out in a minute or two, and the last thing we want is staff finding us still up. I’m sure the others wouldn’t be pleased with extra drill under the stars.”

  An alarmed look crossed Hank’s flat features, and without a further word, he opened the door and hustled to his bunk. Decker followed at a more leisurely pace, knowing he had plenty of time to hang up the fast-drying garment.

  His internal clock had gained an unexpected degree of precision in this highly regimented environment.

  *

  Talyn, after days of delicate probing, had finally hacked her way into the Marine Light Infantry’s trainee database and saw that William Whate belonged to Delta Company - Accelerated and Special Training.

  She assumed it meant the regiment streamed recruits based on background. When she examined the service records of the other nine members of his platoon, she saw they each had ten or more years in the Marine Corps. Most also held several high-value military qualifications, although Decker was the sole Pathfinder, if not the only master gunner.

  She stared at her screen, oblivious to the now familiar sounds of yet another late night street party. If they had streamed Decker into accelerated training, they would have done the same with Redmon.

  It shouldn’t be terribly difficult to investigate every convict-recruit that had passed through Delta Company in the last year. Perhaps one of them had points of similarity with their missing ex-Special Forces major.

  With any luck, Talyn might figure out Redmon’s nom de guerre and from there, track her movements, potentially saving Zack from the agony of a full retraining regimen.

  Based on the instructors’ notes in his trainee file, Decker wasn’t a model recruit by any stretch of the imagination, which surprised her. If his aim was to continue the undercover mission, he’d surely try to be as inconspicuous as possible.

  A thought occurred to her unbidden, and she called up the names of his platoon staff. None struck a familiar chord. And so, starting with Sergeant First Class Earle Windom, she reached into the Fleet’s personnel database to retrieve their service records, in case any of them had crossed paths with Zack before.

  It didn’t take long to determine that Windom had once been a member of Third Troop, 902nd Pathfinder Squadron, under one Command Sergeant Zachary T. Decker, before a suspension from active service.

  Windom then reappeared on the active list as a member of the Marine Light Infantry half a year later, minus the three stripes of a buck sergeant on his sleeves. It had remained his home ever since.

  With a sealed disciplinary record, it wasn’t hard to figure out that this Windom’s career path had taken a hard turn via the penal system. Was it thanks to Zack? If so, with the regiment’s reputation as a deadly meat grinder for convict-recruits, he might face a situation beyond his control.

  “What have you stepped into this time, big boy?” She asked in a whisper. “Please do me a favor and remember that there’s no shame in putting a damper on your damn Marine pride. Call for an extraction if it becomes too much. You’re not eighteen anymore.”

  But even as the words left her lips, she knew Decker wouldn’t give up without a fight. It simply wasn’t in his nature.

  Besides, he was the most stubborn, mulish sonofabitch she had ever met. Perhaps she should pay Fort Erfoud a visit at some point and remind him he wasn’t alone, that his partner had been on Parth, ready and waiting from day one.

  Until then, she intended to gnaw away at the matter of Ariane Redmon’s new identity as a member of the Marine Light Infantry.

  Or confirm that no one with her particulars had ever made it through the recruiting pipeline, in which case this operation had failed. Then, she could put an end to Zack reliving his youth by going through boot camp again.

  Twenty-Five

  Decker knew he would lose his footing a fraction of a second before it happened. He’d seen Windom move in on him with evil intent shining in his eyes.

  For almost a week now, the accelerated course had carried out daily road marches that alternated a quick walking pace with short runs while wearing armor and carrying a weighted pack. Their battle suits had no temperature regulation mechanisms, and the muggy heat was taking its toll.

  Zack tripped over the sergeant’s latest affectation, a quarterstaff-style walking stick deliberately stuck between his moving feet. He tumbled forward, trying for a jumper’s tuck and roll, something his pack made almost impossible.

  “Get your ass off the ground, Whate,” Windom shouted as Corporal Radzell and Sergeant Jaya kept the others moving along a dirt road hemmed in by jungle on both sides. “Or are you too fucking old to keep up? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, an ancient, washed-up failure like you shouldn’t be here. You’re dragging the others down. If you can’t hack it, give up and go back to Desolation Island, where you belong.”

  Once Windom had realized, during the second week of training, that collective punishment wasn’t turning Decker into a pariah, his tactics had shifted to direct persecution. He’d been using any means short of outright harassment. This, tripping Decker in full sight of the others, however, was a new escalation of his vendetta.

  Decker, lying at Windom’s feet, locked eyes with him and then grabbed the offending stick, giving it a hard yank. The sergeant almost lost his balance. While he recovered, Zack stood up with surprising nimbleness and stuck his face into Windom’s.

  “At this rate, Earle,” he murmured, “you’ll repeat the past and once again take it a step too far. Best you watch yourself. Instructors have suffered injuries and even died during training.”

  “Are you threatening me, Recruit?” Windom replied in a growl seething with anger.

  “I’m telling you how it is. You want to keep this cushy assignment, find a new hobby. Keep
on my ass, and I will hand you yours. And they’ll give me a medal for doing it.”

  When he saw a glint of fear break through the fury in Windom’s eyes, Decker stepped to one side. Then, he blew a kiss at his tormentor and broke into a ground-eating lope, catching up with the rest of his platoon in the space of a few moments.

  “Sergeant Jaya,” Windom shouted when he rejoined them, “Recruit Whate needs extra toughening. We’ll tack another two kilometers on this run since I’m sure his course mates are keen to help him.”

  *

  “What the fuck is Windom thinking?” Gary Retief, another of Decker’s fellow trainees asked as the recruits stowed their gear. “That was a deliberate attempt to injure you. He keeps it up and next thing we know, he’ll be taking a knife to your back during a night patrol.”

  Decker shrugged.

  “Earle’s trying to break me, and it’s not working, so instead of letting it go, he doubles down.”

  “Then fucking break, will you?” Hank gave Zack a nasty sneer. “This bullshit of us paying for something that happened between the two of you years ago is getting really old.”

  “For God’s sake, Harris, how is it,” Udo Trieste asked in an aggrieved tone, “that you still haven’t figured out it’s us — all of us — against the staff?”

  “All for one and one for all, or something like that,” another of the men, Yohann Singar added. “But maybe it would be right if Bill gives us an explanation for why he’s been singled out and why we’re getting sideswiped along with him.”

  “No questions about the past in this regiment,” a sixth recruit chimed in.

  Zack finished hanging up his armor in the approved fashion and turned to face the nine men now watching him with intense curiosity.