For Love or Country
Page 37
“What?” I ask, pissed. “What the fuck happened to Duty, Honor, Country? What the fuck happened to No Man Left Behind?”
I turn, angry, and kick a small tree, the heel of my boot crashing into the thin sapling and cracking the wood, I'm so angry. “The man I love, the father of my child is being held in some North Korean hell hole, and you're telling me that the country I swore to defend is going to let him rot?”
“The South Koreans would love for us to go in, give Kim a black eye. Hell, they have units whose whole job are these sort of cross border raids and fuckery, although they don't advertise about them. But the Chinese have said in no particular terms that if we send units after Simon, and the North Koreans kick back, they'll have the North Korean's back,” Dad growls, angry at the situation. “The Administration fears that if we go in after Simon, we trigger World War III.”
“This is fucking bullshit!” I fume, shaking my head. “Christ, give me an M-16 and some gear, I'll go in there myself after him.”
“What you need to do is stay where you are and take care of that baby in your belly,” Dad replies, pulling me in for another hug. “I'm doing what I can, Ashley. I can't tell you everything, but I'm doing what I can. You're not alone in this, honey. I promise you.”
I nod, hugging Dad fiercely. The tears start, and I don't feel any shame hugging my father and crying, there are so many things that I have to cry about right now. But his advice touches me, and I gather strength from that. “You're right,” I say, stepping back. “This is Simon's baby, and my baby. I need to take care of him.”
“Hoping for a boy, huh?” Dad says, smiling. “Well, boy or girl, I hope they have your eyes. I never told you, but that green that you get from your mother was one of the first things that caused me to work up the nerve to ask her out.”
I laugh, I like my eyes. “Gingers. We have no souls, remember?”
Dad laughs and puts an arm around my shoulders, leading me back towards the house. “You have plenty of soul, Ashley. Plenty of soul indeed.”
Simon
“Wake up, imperialist dog!”
The freezing cold water splashes onto my body, and I'm immediately soaked, jolting me from what I can't call sleep but instead unconsciousness. I've been in North Korean custody for what I think is ten days now, at least my slit window’s changed from dark to light to dark ten times.
I sit up, sputtering on the rough concrete floor of the cell, my body crying out. Maybe it's by design, maybe it's just that North Korea is broke as hell and can't afford better, but there's no furniture in my cell, and the bare concrete is cracked and rough, making comfortable rest impossible.
The guard, I call him Moby because of his bald head, laughs and walks off, leaving the bucket behind like a little trophy. I sniff, and realize why. He threw a bucket of cold piss on me, and what he left behind is my latrine for the day.
I should probably be complaining to someone that I need to have the bucket inside my cell in order to take a shit, but the pure fact is that nobody here cares. I'm fed so little that I've had to only crap once in the entire time I've been awake, and what came out looked more like something a rabbit would do, not human. The day that happened, I was able to edge the mess out of the cell with the toe of my boot.
They've left me my uniform at least, probably because even with the extreme diet that I'm on, I'm a good six inches taller and fifty pounds bigger than any of my guards. I sigh, and sniff my flight suit again, and I wonder if I'm losing it already. Probably not, I can still think relatively clearly, must just be my nose is getting desensitized.
Time passes, I don't know how much, I just go into fantasy world. It's a nice place, and in it Ashley's there, the two of us hanging out on a beach together. She's wearing a green swimsuit, the same color as her eyes, and as she and I talk, she tells me about her day.
“So after Tammy and I got done talking, I decided to take the boys over to their house, you know how much they love playing with their aunts,” Ashley says, laughing softly. “They think I don't know, but Cara's already teaching them how to wrestle some.”
“I'll keep my arms ready,” I tease, turning onto my side and looking at her. She's radiant, her hair long and wavy, perfectly auburn in the light, and as I lean in her lips spread into a little smile. “What?”
“You don't want to start something on this beach that you're not able to finish, dear husband,” Ashley purrs. “You really want to make love on a beach?”
“I want to make love with you every day, every place we go,” I retort, kissing her softly, our tongues wrapping around each other. I bring a hand up to cup her breast through the nylon of her suit, and we both moan as her nipple grows hard under my fingers. “I love you, Ashley.”
“Show me,” she half moans, pulling me on top of her. “Be the man I know you can be....”
“Get up!”
There's a crack of a stick against the bars of my cell, and I come back to the real world to see Moby standing there with a few more of his helpers, one of whom has a gun with him.
“Fine, fine. Fuck, does anyone else in this shithole speak English besides you?” I groan, rolling over to my knees and then using the wall to get to my feet. I sway with lack of food and water, but I won't let these fucks see me on my knees yet today. “What does it take to get some room service, by the way? I would love a good steak.”
Not that the room's all that impressive. The floor's smoother, but there are stains that I suspect aren't old dried paint, and the only chair in the room isn't for me. Moby shoves me inside, his two lackeys going to the corners of the room while he sits down. My ankles are shackled, but at least my arms are free. They haven't pulled out the interesting toys yet.
“Tell me your radio scrambler codes,” Moby says, starting with no prologue today. Damn, I was hoping to get him ranting about Yankee Imperialists or something similar today. Three days ago I was able to save myself hours of pain by getting him going on an epic rant about how the glorious people of the DPRK were going to sweep over the hedonistic dogs of the South and cleanse the Korean peninsula in a sea of fire that'll burn away any and all American sympathizers or cultural impurities. “We know your frequencies.”
“Lancaster, Simon. First Lieutenant, United States Army. Serial Number Seven Five Three....”
“Shut up!” Moby yells, cracking his club on the floor. One of the guards kicks me in the back of my right leg, and my knee buckles, the hamstring a line of fire. “Give us code!”
“The code? Ah yes, the code, the code, the code....” I hiss, trying to support my weight with just my left leg. “Now where did I leave that code? Oh yes, I remember. I left it with your mother, right after she got done sucking my cock.”
It's one of the lessons that they taught us in SERE, and it comes so easily to me. The classic lines of name, rank, and serial number don't do shit. I'm in a country that doesn't care about the Geneva Conventions anyway. I already know that they haven't told the Americans or the South Koreans that I'm alive, or that Chief Jensen's dead. That one hit me hard, he was a good guy.
So instead of playing by the rules when you're captured nowadays, you take a page from the Vietnam Vets, and you fuck with your captors. The thing is, they're either going to kill me or they're not. As long as I don't give up information or
make statements against the United States, giving North Korea what they want, I'm either going to be killed or kept alive. That's it.
Moby I think is clueing in to this state of mind, and this time, when the guard kicks me in my other leg and I drop to my knees, he chuckles. “You think you funny, Lieutenant. That fine. No more beatings today. My orders are clear on that. But should not be happy, this is our last time to spend time together.”
“Really? You numb fucks finally giving me the limo to Panmunjom?” I say wryly. “Kimmie's gonna drive it himself, the fat fuck? You know, for a country full of starving skinny guys like yourselves, he's just getting fatter and fatter. What's he doing, eating children or something?”
Moby turns red, and I wonder if he's going to let his guards work me over a little more, but instead he takes a deep breath and lets it out. “You will find out, American. Take him back to his cell.”
The guards help me to my feet and half drag, half walk me back to my cell, where they throw me in and shut the door. I'm thirsty, hungry, and exhausted from bad sleep, but I won this round. Bring it the fuck on.
“Hey Simon, wake up. I got dinner for you.”
The voice is somehow familiar, and the accent isn't Moby's, so I open my eyes. It's evening, and the single forty watt bulb in the hallway isn't exactly LED floodlights, so it takes me a minute for my eyes to adjust. “Wha...? Who?”
“Long time no see,” the voice says again, squatting down. They slide something through the bars, and I crawl over, smelling the food. It's not much, maybe a quarter cup of rice, something that might be vegetables, and who the fuck knows where the protein came from, but it's the biggest meal I've eaten since getting captured, and I eat it hungrily, forcing myself to take small bites so that I don't throw it back up. Survive, survive.
When the food is gone, my eyes have adjusted, and I look up, sure I've lost my mind. The person on the other side of the bars is a ghost from the past, and it takes me a minute to put a name to the face. He's lost weight, but that face is still familiar enough. “Cade Edwards?”
“Yeah, it's me,” Cade says, holding his hand out for the tray. “Need that back if they're going to give you any more. I've got a little bit of swing with these rice monkeys, but I'm not high man on the totem pole around here.”
I hand the tray back, and Cade passes through a soup cup, which smells delicious. “Careful, it's salty as fuck, but I can get you some fresh water later,” he says, and I sip at the tepid soup. It's probably not much tastier than week old oceanic dishwater, but I drink it down gratefully, handing the cup back. “Good. You know, Yung's pissed at you.”
“You mean Moby?” I ask, leaning against the concrete wall. “The bald one?”
Cade laughs, nodding. “He does look like Moby, doesn't he? I'll remember that. But yeah, he's lost a lot of cred with his higher ups, he swore he'd have you singing by now.”
“He overestimates his skills. They haven't even broken anything yet. Hey, what the fuck are you doing on the other side of the bars, anyway?” I ask, too tired to get angry but still feeling a hint of it. “You turn?”
“After I got kicked out of the Academy, that sort of black flag doesn't go away,” Cade says with a sigh, sitting down in the hallway. “I tried, but was approached by some men for what they called overseas protection work. I knew what they were, mercs, but hell, I always wanted to be a soldier. So I signed up.”
“And that led you here how?” I ask.
“The group that hired me supposedly represented the families of the Japanese the North Koreans kidnapped a couple decades back. The Japanese government keeps saying they're doing something, but they're just jacking off more than anything else, they don't give a fuck. Our job was to get in, find evidence that the kidnapped Japanese were still here and alive, and get out. My employers figured that with hard evidence, they could get someone to take some action,” Cade says, giving me a half grin. “Unfortunately for me, the merc that was supposed to be this hotshot boat pilot couldn't outrun the rifle fire from the Coast Guard boats who jumped our asses before we even got within a mile of shore. The boat was damaged, and instead of dealing with the Coast Guard, I grabbed a lifejacket and jumped, figuring that I could float my way down to South Korea. Got close, but not quite.”
“The NK's got you. And how'd you end up here?”
Cade shrugs. “Once the NK's figured out that I wasn't actually active military, that I was just some merc, I figured I was a dead man. I mean, I'm a disgraced cadet, nobody's going to stick my face on the nightly news like they're doing with you. Oh, you were the cover story for Fox last night just to let you know, they've got a TV with satellite around here. Anyway, I figured I was dead. That was two years ago, right about when you graduated, right?”
“Close enough. So you've been a prisoner the whole time too?” I ask, and Cade shakes his head. “What's the deal, then?”
“I'm kinda in limbo. There's no way in hell they'll let me go. I’m like a trustee in a prison. They let me have a real room, a real bed, at least what passes for one around here. I get to eat closer to my fill, for this place at least. They even have a rough gym that I get to work out in three times a week. My life isn't exactly sweet, but I get by.”
“So they sent you to me to get me to talk,” I reply, shaking my head. “Jesus Cade, if you think that's going to work, either they fucked with your head more than I thought possible for two years, or else that Honor Board did the right damn thing. Fuck off if they think I'm going to be broken by a handful of rice and an American face.”
Cade sighs and shakes his head. “I tried, man. Don't you get it? Dear Leader's not fucking around, even if they send the entire Third Army and a couple of carrier groups in here. He knows the Chinks will back him up in the face of American guns, and he's just cocky enough that he'll put a bullet in you and piss on your corpse before handing you over. You play along, you'll at least live.”
“Living how, without honor? Isn't that what got you in trouble last time?” I ask, and Cade gets up.
“Like I said, I tried. Word is that there's a new interrogator coming in, someone special. Name's Song, from what the guards are chatting. There was fear when they said it, too. Consider that.”
Cade leaves, and I scoot back into the corner of my cell, closing my eyes. Before I do, I look up at the slit window, and say a quick prayer. Wherever you are, Ashley.... I love you.
Ashley
Looking at the schedule for next week, I know I can't keep it a secret any longer. I am worried about Friday, where we're going to the gas chamber. Apparently, the heads of Training and Doctrine Command, TRADOC, have decided that Transportation Corps training needs to fit that real Army spirit. But exposing my body and potentially my baby to chemical agents, even if it is just military grade tear gas? Fuck that.
As class ends for the day, I gather up my things and go up to Captain Bali's desk, where he's shutting down the last of his computer stuff for the day. “Sir?”
He's small for a man, barely over five five, but he's a good teacher, and I've liked his classes. He's been kind as the weeks have passed, and my hormones have finally stabilized enough that I'm not feeling like alternatively crying and raging on people. “What can I do for you, Carlyle?”
“Sir... can we speak privately?” I ask, looking around. “Like, just hang around a few minutes?”
“Sure,” Captain Bali says, leaning against his instructor's desk while everyone else files out. Once the door closes, he gives me a supportive look. I'm glad he's Transpo, he's too damn nice to be combat arms. “How're you holding up?”
“As best I can, sir. Almost everyone put two and two together once Simon's situation hit the nightly news. He and I were one of the longer term couples at the Academy. But that's not what I wanted to talk to about. At least, not directly,” I say, shouldering my bag. “Sir, before Simon left for Korea, him and I were... well, I'm pregnant. It's Simon's baby.”
I gotta give it to the Captain, he takes my news in stride.
“I see. Well, that explains some things. Does Captain Simson know about this?”
“No sir. When I passed out, he took me to the clinic, but left before the test. I just told him the doctor cleared me to return to duty, and to take it easy,” I say, sighing. “Maybe not the most honest statement, but I wasn't sure how to handle it.”
“Okay,” Captain Bali says, chuckling. “Well, first off, congrats. I take it that if you haven't told Captain Simson, that you want to keep this private as long as you can. What changed your mind on telling me and the chain of command?”
“The gas chamber sir. No offense, but I don't trust the military with chemicals and my baby's health. I barely trust them with my own.”
Captain Bali laughs hard and stands up from where he's been leaning against his desk, patting me on the shoulder. “I totally understand. Okay, that's fine. I'll talk with Captain Simson, but I think this won't be a problem. This is Transpo, not MPs or Engineers. Most of the course is classroom based, which you can do for as long as you want. As for the gas chamber, it's not a graduation requirement, just something someone at TRADOC thought would make us look tougher.”
I shake my head. “You know sir, my Dad's a retired combat arms officer, did some stuff I'm still not too sure of. I remember his opinion of when people tried to look tougher than they really were. His comment to me was that he couldn't do what the Finance people do, and he can't do heart surgery, so it's kinda stupid for accountants and doctors to be playing Ranger just to look tough.”
Captain Bali nods in understanding and opens the classroom door for me. “That sort of wisdom is rare in a Lieutenant, although it is second hand. Careful, you just might common sense yourself either into a General's star or into an early retirement. For now, relax, you'll probably have to talk with Captain Simson next week in order to get things squared away on prenatal care as well as school work, but relax for tonight. I'll see you Monday at six for the APFT. You can still run it, right?”