by Glen Carter
Kallum took the corkscrew from the coffee table and made quick work of opening their second red. Two fresh glasses were poured, and then they cozied up on the couch.
Sarah stared for a moment. The loafers and sexy blue jeans, his cream-coloured crewneck shirt that clung to his muscular physique, and a dark grey sports jacket. His eyes were like the bluest Murano glass. Warm, full lips and tousled blond hair. Sarah wouldn’t compare Kallum to the rich European boys she had spent time with. They were airy and narcissistic, with a predictable smoothness that made them bland. Edgeless.
“What?” Kallum said.
“Just looking.”
“We’re both guilty of that, but I’m more discreet about it, obviously.”
Sarah watched him get up and move to the centre of the room. Hands on his hips, jacket pulled back to reveal his flat stomach. Now he was posing, which she didn’t have a problem with.
“I remember when your family was building this place,” Kallum said. “Half the men in town had hobbles of one kind or another here.”
“Hobbles?”
“Small jobs,” he said, smiling. “Even me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Me and Rutter.”
Sarah frowned.
“It’s the only time I’ll mention his name tonight,” said Kallum. “Promise. Anyway, it was a scorcher of a summer, and we’d buy a bunch of ice-cold sodas and ride them up here on our bikes and unload them at twice the price with the carpenters and trades. Made a fortune.”
“Sounds like the start of something great,” Sarah said.
“Not really. The house was finished, and our business went kaput.”
“Sorry about that.”
“No worries.”
Kallum grabbed his glass. He walked to a set of broad glass doors that led to a huge stone patio and magnificent gardens. Farther on, a wide lawn sloped gently to a log guest house and dock, where the Vandersons’ boat was normally tied up. “Dad and mom out for a spin?”
Sarah joined him. “For the night, actually. There’s this spot they love at Keepings Point. They anchor off, and Dad barbeques steaks, and they hunker down for a movie.”
“I know the place. Nice spot.”
“And speaking of dinner. I’ve got a roast to check.” Kallum offered help, which she politely declined. Then she was gone.
Standing there, feeling great, he sipped his wine and took the measure of his luck. They were hitting it off. By all appearances, she was into it. A life of privilege did ugly things to people, made them high and mighty. Kallum was thankful there were none of those ruinous qualities in the woman fussing over dinner. He’d see where it went from here.
Ten minutes later, thick slices of prime rib roast were forked onto their plates. While Kallum poured more wine, Sarah scooped vegetables and poured gravy.
“Heaven,” he said.
“You look like a meat and potatoes kind of man.”
“Does that bother you?”
Sarah lifted her glass. “Not a bit.”
They were both hungry, and while they talked, the food quickly disappeared. Sarah cradled her glass and watched him as he finished his plate. “There’s plenty left.”
Kallum told her no thanks.
With dinner over, they cleared the table, refilled their glasses, and walked to the patio. Cool sea air brought goosebumps to her arms, and when Kallum noticed, he removed his jacket and gently placed it on her shoulders. He breathed the salt air in his stoic, manly way. Sarah locked her eyes onto his with an invitation he would never have missed.
Kallum dispensed with their glasses and wrapped his arms around her. Squeezing tightly, he lowered his face and kissed her. His lips and tongue explored deeply. The taste of him, his smell. She was ready for more.
He lowered a hand to her rear end. “Is it okay?” he asked thickly.
Sarah moaned softly.
After another moment, she took his hand and tugged him toward the house.
To her surprise, Kallum stopped, dead. He nodded toward the guest house. “More my style. I’ll bet it has a big fireplace.”
Sarah nodded impishly.
Once inside the guest house, Kallum quickly lit a fire. Within a minute, the flame took hold, casting amber light around the bedroom. He pulled Sarah to the edge of the bed and slowly undressed her, kissing, fondling, until she collapsed onto the thick duvet. Kallum hovered over her, stripping off his shirt and unlatching his belt. With a tremor in her hands, she found him. Fingers squeezing gently, she stroked, moaning while he kissed her.
Kallum took control then, at first tenderly. Until he was fully inside.
Sarah gasped.
His thrusts were steady. Deep. She wrapped her arms around his neck and matched his rhythm. Their breathing became faster, louder. She made sweet little noises against his chest while the thrusting continued in the soft firelight. Two young lovers. Pushing oblivious toward an unstoppable quaking moment.
Afterwards, Sarah placed her face on his chest. Lightly swept her fingers across his stomach.
It had happened so fast. Had it been too fast? She was having trouble reading him at that moment.
“You’re so quiet,” she said. “Was it something I said?”
Straight up, he told her. “I’ve been hurt before. It took a while to get my ass back in gear.”
Sarah caressed his face. “I’ll understand if you need to slow down, but I’m ready to let nature take its course.”
“It already has.” Kallum grinned.
“Once and counting,”
The second time was slower, with more time for exploration, and then they fell asleep in each other’s arms, the fire a bed of spent embers.
Sarah dreamt of Switzerland. Walking a long serpentine road through alpine meadows. In the distance her parents were waving and calling her name. They wanted her to catch up. To be with them. Sarah tried, but something was holding her back. She wanted to break free, but every time she tried to run, her parents got farther away. She was calling out to them, pleading for them to wait. The road then became a black sea as still as death. Her parents were gone; she was alone.
Sarah came awake with a gasp. She lay there a moment, taking in slow mouthfuls of air. She opened her eyes and then blinked through the darkness at the face staring from outside the window. She screamed at the top of her lungs.
Kallum jerked up before the shriek died. Hands balled into fists and one foot already on the floor. “What happened,” he said groggily.
Sarah pointed a shaking finger at the window. “Someone’s out there.”
He jumped up and threw on his pants and was out the door.
While Sarah clutched the duvet, Kallum pounded across the deck. Then up and down the dock. She was sure she’d seen the face. A man in the shadows outside the window, staring at her. He’d vanished when she screamed. It was no dream.
Kallum returned. Stood at the foot of the bed, shaking his head. “Nothing,” he said. “You sure?”
“Yes, Kallum. I’m sure.”
“Put some clothes on. We’re going to the house.”
The video intercom suddenly squawked, making them both jump. Kallum dashed to it. A car was at the gate. Flashing lights filled the tiny black and white screen. “Did you call the cops?”
Sarah shook her head, dressed quickly, and they raced out. They reached the house with someone pounding on the front door.
With Sarah clinging to him, Kallum pulled it open.
The sheriff stood there, hands at his sides, his squad car a light show in the driveway. He looked past Kallum to Sarah, with a look of the haunted.
“There’s been an accident,” the sheriff said.
6
The drill instructor at Parris Island paid extra attention to Bil
ly Rutter. It started on the first day, before they were completely broken down, to be reconstructed as Marines.
“What the fuck kinda name is Rutter?”
“It’s German, Drill Sergeant.”
Big mistake, so soon off the bus and with thirteen weeks left to go.
“My grandfather took out a bunch of your people with his Ka-Bar. Omaha Beach. Softened them up with a grenade first. So, after the war, the krauts went back to fucking? Shitting out kids.”
“Yes, Drill Sergeant.”
“That why they called your clan Rutter? The rut, right?”
“It means veteran soldier, Drill Sergeant.”
“Get the fuck outta here.”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Slap your balls on the floor, Rutter. Give me fifty.”
A while after, during their “square away” time, Billy looked Kallum straight in the eye.
“You know what, Doody?”
“Shoot.”
“I would never have left her.”
“Left who?”
“Sarah,” Rutter replied. “You don’t say goodbye to a woman like her.”
“Is that right?”
“But, I tell you what,” Rutter said earnestly. “Anything happens to you, I’ll take care of her. Seriously.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Just saying.”
Not a goddamn chance. Sarah had already kicked him to the curb. But it didn’t mean he’d stopped trying. Not by a long shot. Sometimes it was obvious, most times not. Sarah was pleasant about it, but Kallum wanted to punch Rutter’s lights out.
“Don’t overreact,” Sarah told him.
“He touches you, he’ll be sorry.”
Bygones were bygones on the whole Rory Prichard thing. The half-story Rutter had fed Sarah. “Buddies watch each other’s back,” Rutter said after walking in to the recruiting office. They shook on it. “Are we good?”
“Right as rain.” There were bigger things to worry about than Billy’s stupid play for Sarah.
* * * * *
Doody sat on the Humvee, in the middle of nowhere. Tense as shit. He wiped his face and then had another look around. He slapped the turret, shouted, “Figure it out, Billy. Let’s get moving.”
No reply.
Doody ducked down to get a look at him. Rutter was sitting there, staring through the windshield. “That thing on your lap is called a GPS.”
Rutter sneered. “Damn equipment’s glitching.”
Being lost was a clusterfuck. No way to tell if they were in enemy territory. Right now, some mortar crew could be getting a fix on their position. Doody pressed the binoculars tight to his face. He scoped out a long finger of elevated terrain at his four o’clock, a great place for enemy cover. Maybe even armoured vehicles. It was a few hundred yards away, but Doody couldn’t tell for sure because the sun was coming straight at him.
“Come on, Billy Boy.”
Rutter punched the dash. “Fuck you.”
Stressing Rutter out was counterproductive. Doody ratcheted it back a notch. Dipped his helmet into the cab and said as calmly as he could, “Look up, Billy. There’s an Orion just waiting for your call. They can point us home.”
“Get outta my face.”
“Just saying.”
They all caught on now. Morgan gave the vehicle a boot and shouted at Rutter to get his shit together. Oakley’s zipper caught with a curse. Chongo stubbed his smoke and was reaching for the door handle.
Doody squinted into the blinding sun. What was that? Silhouettes in the distance. Hunkering the way soldiers did when they were positioning to attack. A dozen or more on the crest of a hill.
Holy shit. Doody shouted. “Down! Down!”
The flash of small arms. Bullets suddenly sliced the air next to Doody’s head.
Everyone went down, but no one was returning fire.
The goddamn weapons were in the vehicle with Rutter. Doody charged the .50-cal, expecting to hear Rutter’s carbine. Shit. What in hell was Rutter doing? He was out of the Humvee and on the run. A good clip, too. Bullets slapping all around him.
Doody cursed the fool. The .50-cal came to life with a roar. The big gun rumbled through his bones. Hot shells burned his hands and face.
Suddenly. A streak of smoke and fire.
“Incoming,” Doody yelled.
Then the world exploded.
* * * * *
Someone was moaning. It was the first thing Doody was aware of. Then the splitting headache and the pain in his ribs. He pried open his eyes. Darkness. Naked against wet concrete. The stink of urine. Doody realized he was the one moaning. He uncurled from his fetal blackout and lay still. A long moment later: eyes latched on a sliver of light beneath the door. It was all coming back. The Humvee. The explosion. Being tossed onto the hot metal of a truck bed. Rutter had run, but no one outran a shoulder-fired missile. Goddamn team leader doing the hundred-yard dash with the weapons still racked in the Humvee.
Doody shuffled on his stomach to the door. Dipped an ear to the cold concrete. A jumble of shouts and boots as someone was being dragged past the door.
“Untie me, buttercup. See how you do man to man.” It was Morgan.
Doody shouted through the crack, but it was nothing he recognized.
Morgan didn’t respond. He was too busy resisting.
That was the drill. Segregation, interrogation. The code of conduct. Name and rank. Morgan would shit broken glass before he gave them anything. Same for Oakley and Chongo. He wasn’t sure about Rutter.
Doody rolled away from the door and shut his eyes. He needed to sleep, which he did, fitfully. He didn’t know how long he was out when he was awakened by the clang of metal. The door swung open and a hunk of cloth was tossed in. The soldier grunted a command of some sort. Doody dressed and was marched to a door at the end of a long, narrow corridor. He was shoved into a large, windowless room. A single bulb burned overhead. A man stood stiffly at attention on the other side of a metal table. He said nothing. Just stared while Doody gripped his side and tried to breathe. He wore a drab green uniform with star-filled shoulder boards. The red triangle branded him as Republican Guard. He was tall, with a long, thin face and deep-set black eyes. Like the bad guy in some spaghetti western.
“Colonel Jahmir Al-Saadi,” he said. A hand was offered, which Doody wouldn’t have taken even if he could have.
Meaty hands gripped his shoulders and forced him onto the chair. Doody coughed and couldn’t stop. Flecks of blood appeared on his thin, striped prisoner’s garb. He was sure a lung was punctured, maybe worse. Doody waited for the hacking to stop.
“I have a number of questions,” the colonel said. “Nothing too difficult. My friend is here to punish you if you don’t co-operate.”
The ape grabbed Doody’s hands and cuffed them painfully behind his back, then he retreated to the shadows.
“Name?”
“First Lieutenant Kallum Doody. Service number 073858.”
The colonel nodded. “Good. You see how it works. Your age?”
No breach of the code. Doody spit it out.
“From where?”
Keep this son of a bitch happy. His ape keeps his fists to himself. He answered, woozily.
“Beautiful New England. Clam chowder. Fresh sea air. You must miss it.” The colonel paused for only a second. “How many troops are garrisoned at your FOB?”
“First Lieutenant Kallum Doody . . .”
“Yada, yada, yada. You’re wasting my time now. Your friends were just as silly.” A grim smile crossed the colonel’s face. “For a while.”
Doody braced for another sucker punch. Instead, the mouth-breather at his back kept his hands to himself. Doody’s half-shut eyes moved about the room. More a bu
nker than a room. A bloodstained gurney was parked in one corner.
“You must miss your family,” the colonel said, in his thick accent. “It can be the hardest part of soldiering. Don’t you think?”
“I’ll see them soon enough.” It was spoken with a strength that surprised him.
“And I as well,” Al-Saadi said. “My son is no older than you. A liberator of Kuwait. Praise be to Allah for his bravery.”
Doody already knew as much about the interrogator as the interrogator knew about him. It was an old game. “We’ll send your boy home to you,” he coughed. Hopefully, in a box.
The colonel stopped for a moment. Shot his cuffs. “Kuwait is none of America’s business,” he said. “The son of a dog Bush is sticking his snout where it doesn’t belong.”
A fist struck him, driving him to the floor. After a few seconds, the ape pulled him up. Doody shook it off but wanted to pummel the bastard into a good New England fog.
Al-Saadi delivered his bullshit for a while more, allowing Doody to regain some strength. The guy was enjoying his sick little lecture, skipping over the murder of babies. The gassing of Kurds. Doody had been sickened by the news coverage. The bodies of children were laid out row by row. Old men and women in their tattered peasant clothes. Doody declined to remind him of the atrocities, since there was nothing to be gained from it.
“Iraq has a right to protect itself from its enemies.” Al-Saadi was goading him.
Teeth clenched.
“What is the timing of your daily patrols?”
Name and rank.
“When will the ground attack begin?”
Doody stared defiantly. “Ask Norman.”
The colonel slapped him. “Don’t speak your general’s name with such disrespect.”
Doody spit blood. “073858.”
The colonel nodded. “We could go on. But, frankly, I have no patience. As you Americans say, I have bigger fish to fry.”
Doody shuddered at what was coming. A bullet to the back of the head. He braced. Said a silent prayer. Instead, the ape swung a thick arm around his neck. Muscles pressed into his windpipe, allowing not enough air to even cough. White flecks flashed on the back of Doody’s eyelids. Suddenly, there was a jab at the side of his neck. No pain now. As if he were floating. Into another room, where the light hurt his eyes. His head felt like cement. A fuzzy moment skimmed by and there were fingers at his temples, something being attached to his scalp. He tried to raise a hand, and it was slammed down. Something tightened around his arms. An eyelid was pulled open and a light swept across his cheek. Al-Saadi’s face was close, his words a jumble of nothing. Something hard was forced between his teeth. The room went quiet. The light dimmed, and suddenly, every muscle in Doody’s body turned to rock. He let loose a long, pathetic growl as the buzzing of a million bees filled his brain.
