Deployment

DEPLOYMENT

AUGUST 2021

About fourteen hours after the Marines were mobilized in early May, John, Roni, and about seven hundred other soldiers in their Army battalion shouldered packs and shambled onto no-frills, private charter Boeings. Their orders were hurry-up last-minute: fly to a staging base in Germany, refuel, and then immediately move on to Qatar where they would board a troop transport for the final leg into Afghanistan.

No one cared where anyone sat on the private charters. Being captains by then, John and Roni were near the front of the line, though the majors and a couple of lieutenant colonels beat them to the exit rows. That was when the trouble started.

"Come on." He jerked his head toward the rear. "Back here."

"What?" Roni frowned. "No. "

"Why not?"

"Because it's near the bathrooms."

"So?"

"So, I don't like the smell."

"Yeah, but we're more likely to survive a crash if we sit in the back near a bulkhead. We'll be much closer to a decent exit, too."

"Who said anything about crashing?"

"I'm just thinking ahead," he said. "Being prepared."

Roni rolled her eyes. "You're in the Army now, not the Boy Scouts."

"Same diff, except we have nicer guns." In a perfect world, as doctors, they shouldn't. Except, modern combat being what it was, doctors and medics were often targeted first. (Dogs were a close second, which John thought totally sucked.)

The Geneva Convention said that if a doctor popped off a shot, even in defense of a patient, the doc forfeited the right not to get shot. Which was a losing proposition in John's book. Honestly, having a weapon was way better than waving a Geneva Convention card. That thing was only in English anyway.

"True." Narrowing her deep, jade-green eyes, Roni cocked an eyebrow, Spock-style, which she did exceedingly well. (Roni had become a sucker for anything Star Trek .) After DCC, she'd shed her long hair for a very hot Sharon Stone pixie. With those eyes and that smooth tapered oval of a face, she often looked like a sexy elf with attitude. "Tell me something, Doctor," Roni drawled, dropping her voice an octave, that eyebrow still arched. "Are you afraid of flying?"

"What? Me? No ," he lied. Flying drove him nuts, a reason he never considered the Air Force as a way of paying for medical school. (Though he looked terrific in navy blue.) Boats sank, so the Navy was out. Which left the Army, a service that he thought principally kept its soldiers on the ground. So, ending up in an airborne division was some kind of cosmic joke. Right this very moment, the universe was laughing behind his back. "I don't like taking risks, that's all."

"You're a soldier."

"No, I'm a doctor."

"Going to a war zone."

"Yeah, but not really. We're evacuating people. Like almost right away."

"Won't be done until the end of August."

"That's still leaving."

"Yes, but from a war zone."

"You keep saying that." Next, she would say they might get shot in the back. "I just like playing it safe."

"By joining the Army?"

This was an excellent point. He was sure he'd have dredged up some snappy reply, but a staff sergeant at the cabin door called, "If you two are done picking out the curtains, the rest of us would like to board. I've aged about ten years here."

Embarrassing. But that was the two of them then: John Worthy and Roni Keller. John...and his beloved.

If he'd only had the courage, he even might have said that out loud.

After all the windup, the flight was spectacularly normal. Nice-enough stewardesses. Plenty of water and soda and peanuts and pretzels. Indifferent sandwiches for lunch. Screwing in noise-canceling AirPods, John listened to a jazz mix—Coltrane, Mingus, Cyrus Chestnut—while Roni worked on a new needlepoint for her brother's fiancée. (The guy had apparently proposed as the couple hiked the Himalayas. After the proposal, they went down the Indian side into a village and picked out rings from a local bazaar. 22K gold , Roni said, letting out a long sigh. I think it's very romantic. John didn't point out that oxygen deprivation might have impaired the guy's judgment.)

Things on their flight were going pretty okay until John looked out the window, saw they were over the Atlantic, and thought, Uh-oh .

Because everyone knows, if a plane has to ditch in water, bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.

They survived the flight to Ramstein. Refueling took two hours, which was just long enough for everyone to disembark and wash up a bit before piling back onboard for the flight to Qatar.

At the last minute, four bearded, rough jocks in civvies hustled onboard and took seats in the center and a row up from him and Roni. From the puzzled looks, no one in the battalion knew who they were, and the jocks didn't bother introducing themselves around. Once in the air, though, he caught Roni eye-checking the group. "Problem?"

"No, it's nothing." She worked another few stitches: spikes of purple monkshood, smaller daisy-lookalikes with bright yellow centers, and other flowers native to the Himalayas. "It's nothing."

"Baloney." Anyone who had to reiterate twice was telling you: that nothing was something . He snatched a quick peek at the guys and was surprised to find a tall muscular dude with a flop of black hair and equally dark eyes in an aisle seat studying them . Or, more likely, eyeing Roni. "You know that guy? The one on the aisle? "

"I…" She flashed a quick look then dodged her eyes away. "No."

"You know, for a shrink, you are a terrible liar."

"Thanks, I'll take that up with my psychoanalyst." She stabbed the canvas. "It's nothing."

Three nothings. "You're torturing an innocent flower there."

"Funny."

"Not to the flower."

"That guy," she murmured, slipping John a sidelong glance. "He's…familiar."

"From?"

"That's just it. I can't place him. Might have seen him around Mountain Warfare, but that bunch looks paramilitary. If I were putting down money..." She thought about it. "I'd say CIA."

"Seriously? What could the CIA be doing at this point? The war's over. We're evacuating."

"Yeah, but I bet they have assets and paramilitary in-country to evacuate."

"Ah." The CIA had tried this same kind of "third option" many times before in places like Vietnam, Tibet, Nicaragua, Somalia; in Pakistan with the Mujaheddin which had given birth to Bin Laden…the list just went on and on. John never could figure how the CIA kept getting funding considering how many of their covert armies never worked out to anyone's benefit. "What are they ca lling them this time around?" he asked. "The CIA's Afghan paramilitary guys?"

"Zeroes."

"As in zero-probability of success?"

"Very funny." She nibbled her lower lip. "I've heard that some units have been a problem."

Oh, what he would give to be that lip. "Settling scores, you mean. Tribe against tribe."

She nodded. "Weird that these guys are on our transport. CIA and paramilitaries usually have their own."

"Go say hi and get the lowdown. What's the worst that can happen?"

"It's the wrong guy or it is someone I've met, but he doesn't tell me anything. That would be awkward."

"Or you make a new friend. Or you guys catch up." When she didn't move, he said, "So, you're just going to toss not-so-surreptitious glances all the way to Qatar."

"I guess so."

"Maybe I'll wander over when we land." When he looked again, the guy seemed absorbed in a thick paperback, though he couldn't read the title. "Chat him up. See what's what."

"Well, John, you do that, and he has to kill you afterward," she said, working another stitch, "don't blame me."

He didn't talk to the guy.

Instead, he sweated the flight to Qatar and braced for disaster on approach. But the wings stayed on, the pilot didn't have a heart attack, and none of the engines exploded. Once the Boeing taxied to a stop, the jocks were motioned off first. They went without a word or backward glance. The last John saw of them there, the men were crossing the tarmac and heading for a group of similarly outfitted buff guys. As they shook hands all around, a Humvee rolled up, came to a halt, and another man—thinner, a bit weedy, clean-shaven, kitted out in NATO cammies—unfolded from the passenger seat and waded into the middle of the group.

"Ten to one that office-type is chief of station," Roni said as, after a brief exchange, the thin guy waved the group toward the Humvee.

"Still thinking CIA?"

"Oh, yeah," she said as the dark-haired jock she'd scoped out climbed into the vehicle. "I just wish I knew who that guy was. I feel like I should know him."

"Maybe we'll see him again in Kabul," he said, standing and grabbing his gear from the overhead. "If they're getting assets out like you say."

"I sincerely hope not." Tugging out her own gear, she joined him in the aisle. "If you believe my dad, CIA almost always means trouble. Me, I like soldiers who operate in daylight."

"They're not vampires."

"Maybe," she said as they headed for cabin door. "At least with a vampire, you know what it's after."

They were on the ground just long enough to pee before the battalion boarded a C-17 for their final leg from Qatar into Afghanistan.

During his time in the Army, John discovered soldiers had a nickname for the C-17 Globemaster: Moose. Why? Because, during refueling, when pressure relief vents opened to expel air, the sound was like a moose's bellow. Never having hunted or run away from a moose, he took all that on faith.

There is also absolutely nothing glamorous about a Moose. A C-17 has no windows or exit rows. Packs and other cargo are loaded onto pallets secured to the deck under cargo nets to the rear of the plane. There is one full bathroom at the front and a urinal behind a curtain at the rear which the loadmaster normally uses. If the bathroom is out of order, there are always buckets.

In other words, they were flying into Afghanistan in the equivalent of an airborne metal tube. This meant that anything could be happening outside, anything …and John would never see it coming. There would be no time to prepare, sort options, decide on next steps.

They were so doomed.

Right before takeoff, a member of the flight crew came around, doling out foam earplugs held together on a single string. Roni waved the corporal away then frowned when John accepted a pair. "Where are your buds?" Then she saw his face. "Oh, John, you didn't. You lost them?"

"I just put them down for a second." Actually, more like thirty seconds. Okay, two minutes, but he wasn't going to quibble. He'd gone to the men's room and, before entering a stall, put the earbuds down on a shelf over a sink. Habit, something he did in his apartment because wear those suckers when you were taking a leak and then look into the bowl—because all guys looked, it's just what they did—and all of a sudden, you were flushing your buds before you realized what you'd done. (He was speaking from experience here.) Anyway, he'd hurried to get out of the john and back to the plane and so forgot all about the earbuds until it was too late to go back. That was also assuming no one had already pocketed them. "I'll be okay."

"Except those foam things are useless. "

"Don't mince words, Doctor. Tell me what you really think." Had their instructors ever gone over this stuff in DCC? Was there a specific section in the manual: Bring noise-canceling earbuds because Army kit is crap? "How do you know they're useless?"

"My dad. He reads a lot of books, and he'll pitch the ones that aren't accurate."

"And he read about earplugs?"

"I guess so. His favorites are thrillers about this ex-Army guy who wanders the country and makes like Simon Templar." At his blank look: " The Saint? A character in novels by a British writer? I forget his name, but there was a TV series."

"Did we ever see it?" When they were both on-call, they booted up an old show or movie to watch while he practiced one-handed surgical knots and Roni knitted or embroidered. He frankly didn't care what they watched. Any time stolen with Roni was well-spent. "Don't remember that show," he said.

"Because we never watched it. Roger Moore starred."

"Wasn't he one of the Bonds?"

"Yup, but before that he was Simon Templar. Nice suit, debonaire. Ran around helping people, taking care of bad guys. Anyway, the Army guy in the books my dad likes is the American equivalent only with muscles and jeans. Tom Cruise played the character in a couple movies, but he's too short. Not my kind of guy."

"Oh." Was he taller than Tom Cruise? He thought so. They had never talked about her kind of guy. Yeah, they kidded around—and he sensed a sizzle , something hot and steamy, a flame that needed only a tiny bit of coaxing. One night she'd dozed off in the on-call lounge and, before he knew it, her head rested on his chest, just below his collarbone. One hand cupping the back of her head, he'd gently slid his free arm around her waist. They stayed like that for the rest of the movie. Bogart and Bacall in To Have and Have Not , as he remembered, and when Bacall drew back from that second, steamy kiss, he mouthed the line: It's even better when you help. The temptation to kiss Roni awake—nuzzle her neck, that perfect shell of her right ear—was so strong, it was almost a relief when his pager shrilled, and she startled awake. Although she did say he looked a little pained as he got up from the couch. He couldn't tell her that it was very hard to walk with a hard-on.

Now, he said, "Books any good?"

"If you like that kind of thriller. I once heard an interview where someone asked the writer how he knew all about our military, even the classified stuff, because he's British, right? He said whatever he doesn't know, he makes up."

"Seriously? "

She nodded. "He claims that if you want people to believe you, write with enough authority, and they will.'"

"You mean, bluff."

"Or outright lie. That's what novelists do for a living. They make stuff up."

If he was any good, this writer could probably make the Joint Chiefs, no sweat. Maybe even the presidency. "I'll have to read him," he said, trying to squish a foam plug into his right eat. A hopeless task, like trying to ram in a Nerf ball.

Dragging on a wool watch cap, Roni watched him struggle. "We can share."

"No use us both going deaf in one ear. It's fine." It wasn't, but he didn't want to feel more foolish than he already did because he'd also forgotten his watch cap. He even knew where it was: right next to his bug-out bag where he would be sure not to forget it. If the rumors were true about just how cold the transport was going to get, he'd be cryo-preserved by the time they landed.

Roni cocked her left eyebrow. "Uh-huh."

"One might suggest you lack faith in my abilities."

She arched the opposite eyebrow. "Color me skeptical."

"You know, you're very good at that eyebrow thing."

"I practice a lot when I'm alone. "

"Wait," he said, as the C-17's engines spluttered to life. "That's a line from Love and Death . You know something I don't?"

She grinned then leaned in as the engine noise swelled. "Seriously, John, we really can share earbuds and trade off. I don't mind."

"No, it's fine !" he bellowed over the transport's shudder and shake. His teeth were vibrating. "Besides, I don't think you want us sharing precious bodily fluids!"

Which was a total lie. Doing precisely this with Roni was something about which he often daydreamed.

"Eww." When she wrinkled her nose, her features took on a puckish look: an elf with attitude. Leaning in so closely that her lips brushed his ear, she said, "Although I might be up for that, Dr. Strangelove."

What, what ? A small thrill finger-walked the knobs of his spine. Was this an invitation? Couldn't be. She was nervous, that was all. They were soldiers heading off into the unknown. This was about fear, not desire, not his need to cup her face in his hands and let his lips drift down her neck and over the notch of her collarbone as he slid a hand under her blouse and then her bra until his fingers found the hard nub of her nipple and gave that a playful?—

What are you doing? Crossing his legs, he pinned down his erection with his thighs. You have to work together.

"John?" Her voice somehow penetrated both the growl of engines and the roar of blood in his ears. "Are you okay?"

"Who? Me? What?" He flashed back to that night on call. Now, as then, it was very difficult to look casual when a guy's hard-on was, well, hard . "No, I'm good. Really. Seriously. Good, I'm good."

"Awful lot of goodness there," she said, waggling an earbud. "Not too late."

"Naw." He flapped a hand. "Saving you from your own worst impulses." And mine.

At that, something flitted over her features, there and gone: a swift sparrow of emotion too fleeting to be read.

"Maybe I don't want saving," she said.