Arachnosaur. Richard Jeffries

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СКАЧАТЬ excited expectation on his face. Key looked at him like the endlessly patient owner of a naughty puppy, then turned his calm gaze to the Second Louie.

      “I thought I was already debriefed,” he told her. “I wrote a thorough report—”

      “Which I have right here,” she said briskly, holding up the file. “Perhaps debriefing was not a wholly accurate term. Consider this more of a personal follow-up.”

      “Personal follow-up,” they heard Daniels snigger before he leaned in with eager anticipation. “I haven’t been debriefed, ma’am. You can debrief me.”

      There was a moment of silence before Strenkofski slowly looked down and, just as slowly, opened the file. She seemed to be reading, then, without looking up, spoke coolly. “And you are?”

      “Sergeant Morton L. Daniels, ma’am.”

      “Yes. I see you are mentioned in Corporal Key’s report.”

      “Mentioned?” Daniels looked at his bedridden friend with a slight look of hurt on his face.

      “Yes,” Strenkofski said again, same tone as before, without looking up. She didn’t speak until she did look up several moments later. By then the chill of her tone and attitude was just reaching Daniels. “You will be debriefed in good time, Sergeant. Until then, I would appreciate it if you could afford Corporal Key and me a little privacy.

      Daniels nodded, smiling, until he processed her actual words. Then, continuing the canine analogies, straightened like a puppy who had been tapped on the nose by a rolled-up newspaper for the first time.

      “What? Oh, sure. I mean, yes sir, um, I mean ma’am. Sure.” He hastily got up, slid the chair back to the next bed, and started for the door before stopping by the end of the mattress. “I’ll be right outside if you need me, Joe.”

      “Yes,” Key said with humorous pity. “I know, Morty. Thanks. I believe I can handle it from here.”

      Daniels almost got to the door when Strenkofski called out. “Sergeant?”

      Daniels stopped on a dime, and made a sharp turn. “Yes, ma’am,” he said expectedly.

      “What’s the ‘L’ for?”

      Daniels looked at her blankly. “‘L,’ ma’am?”

      “In your name,” she said patiently, giving him a look that would cool soup.

      “My name? Oh. Oh, yeah.” Daniels’ expression fell a little. “Leonard, ma’am.”

      Strenkofski turned her head away, as if in disappointment. “I figured it would be something like that. Thank you Sergeant. We’ll be in touch shortly.”

      Daniels left the room with his figurative tail between his literal legs. When the blonde officer’s satisfied face returned to Key, he was looking at her with amused disapproval. “I appreciate your, no doubt, hard-earned coping skills, ma’am, but watching a top cat play with a trapped mouse isn’t always the most enjoyable thing.”

      Strenkofski looked at him evenly. “No regrets, Corporal.” Her eyes returned to the report. “His kind makes me tired.”

      Key studied her as she read. Dropping this ice princess into the African horn was the opposite of dropping a cockroach on a wedding cake. Either way, no one would miss the contrast.

      “Personal follow-ups can be tiring too, Lieutenant,” he said carefully. “What can I do for you?”

      She didn’t look up, nor react to his mild insubordination—both actions convincing Key that his and her presence here was above and beyond the call of due process. “Your report says something that concerned you about Lieutenant Colonel Goodman’s death.”

      “Yeah,” Key said. “It was the last second before the concussion symptoms began taking over. It was the only thing I could be certain of.” He waited until she looked back up at him before continuing. “I’ve spent my life and career distinguishing between flesh and bone exploding from the force of ordnance, and flesh and bone exploding from…other sources.”

      Suddenly she didn’t feel like reading. Apparently, she didn’t feel like doing anything except staring intensely into his steel-grey eyes. “What are you suggesting, Corporal Key?”

      “I’m not suggesting anything, Lieutenant Strenkofski. Just telling you, or anyone else, what I saw. And what I saw makes me believe that Lieutenant Colonel Goodman’s head exploded from the inside.”

      Chapter 4

      Key really didn’t want to dislike Captain Patrick Logan, but he also really didn’t want to use the wheelchair that Weicholz insisted he have.

      Ultimately, he settled for both as means to an end. Besides, even he had to admit it was worth being ‘incapacitated’ to see the look on Daniels’s face as he went by—being pushed by Second Lieutenant Barbara Strenkofski. It gave him a nice opportunity to appreciate Camp Lemonnier’s facilities, when he wasn’t imagining what the back of Strenkofski looked like pushing him.

      The former, like so many of the military bases in this region, was both impressive and makeshift. Lemonnier was five hundred acres of well-meaning intent; an expansive schematic of what were amusingly called “containerized living units,” plunked down on the southwest side of the Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport—between the runway overflow and a French military munitions storage facility. It had two recreation centers, a wastewater treatment plant, a Navy Exchange Store, a laundry, a fire department, a Disbursing Office, and even an inflated gymnasium.

      Strenkofski wheeled Key into the chapel, a small chamber with six rows of steel pews facing a plain, tan-colored, table before a modest altar. It was empty of people, save for Captain Logan, who sat at the table, seemingly intent on yet another file. Key inwardly smirked at the location and the man.

      “Brought me to confession, did you?” he asked the blonde as she rolled him to the table’s other side. “Do you think I need it?”

      “Do you?”

      The question was probably rhetorical, definitely unanswerable. In his time, Key had shattered many of the Commandments, often in tandem, frequently in multiples.

      There they both waited for Logan to finish reading, acknowledge them in some way, or anything. Key heard Strenkofski’s breathing get shorter and shallower, but he just relaxed, letting Logan’s tightly wired energy roll over him.

      “Do you object to the setting,” Logan finally asked, without looking up.

      “If God doesn’t mind, why should I?”

      “All the other camp facilities are stretched thin trying to sort out the Gate of Tears,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard. Maybe he hadn’t. Or, more likely, he didn’t care to engage in small talk.

      Gate of Tears was the translation of Bab-el-Mandeb, the name of the strait that separated Djibouti and Yemen. But it had come to signify the two-way clusterfuck of refugees fleeing the east’s civil war, and smugglers sailing west to take advantage of the conflict. Key had already witnessed the Kafka-esque pit debaters of the situation fell into after two ward-mates took up the issue.

      Instead СКАЧАТЬ