Chasing the Son (8 page)

“Gentlemen,” Preston said, not calling his friends by their names, since he actually didn’t consider them his friends, although they didn’t know that. “My father’s aide informed me that this Dillon fellow comes from Mrs. Jenrette and—“

“Shit,” Chad muttered. “When is that old witch going to let it go?”

“I do not believe,” Preston said, “she will let it go as long as she breathes. Hopefully, that won’t be very much longer. Nevertheless, we are to cooperate with this Dillon chap.” He said that with the slightest of English accents, an affectation he’d started at the Institute and was growing stronger each month, since no one pointed it out to him. It might have been too much
Downton Abbey
; or the fact he was heading off to Oxford for graduate school in a few months and his subconscious was preparing him. Or he might simply be one of those dicks who need affectations like a fake English accent.

“I don’t like it,” Jerrod said, looking nervously around the bar. “We told the investigators everything they needed.”

“There are deeper forces at play,” Preston said. “People are coming after our parents. Our parents, who are finalizing a deal with Mrs. Jenrette concerning Sea Drift on Saturday.” He nodded at Jerrod. “I know your father has a lot of capital tied up in the Sea Drift proposal.”

“My father doesn’t exactly fill me in,” Jerrod said.

Chad snorted in derision. “My family gave up too much on the island, but they still have a slice. An important one.”

“Yes,” Preston said. “And your family will be well paid for that slice.” He looked at one, then the other. “We are the future. We can do much better than our parents have.”

“Your father is a United States Senator,” Jerrod noted. “What more do you want?”

Preston simply smiled back at him, without saying anything.

Chad downed his drink in one quick swallow. “You two might. My family squandered almost everything.”

Preston graced both of them with a smile. “Don’t worry old chaps. I’ve got both
your
interests in mind despite what our parents do. We’re the next generation of the Ring. But we’re going to be bigger than our fathers. We’re going to own everything of importance from here to Savannah. And then we move on to Atlanta and Washington.”

“You sound like Sherman,” Jerrod muttered.

“Fucking Brannigan,” Chad cursed. “Why did he have to show up in the Sinks?”

“It really—“ Preston paused as a figure loomed up to their table. Dillon was wearing a long black overcoat, jeans and a black T-shirt.

“How y’all doing?” Dillon asked, a bit heavy on his own southern accent. He didn’t wait to be invited, but slid in next to Preston, who could not hide his irritation at the close proximity of another human being and scooted away, until he was trapped against the wall.

Dillon pointed. “Jarrod Fabrou, right? Chad Mongin? And you must be Preston Holland Gregory. Your pappy is the Senator, is he not?”

“Did you check our yearbook photos?” Preston said, trying to reclaim some ground. “Or Google us?”

Dillon ignored the question. “I’ve been watching y’all for a little bit. Habit of mine. In Afghanistan, I’d have my platoon set up recon at least twenty-four hours before we were supposed to hit a target. I was never a fan of those midnight swoop-ins with no advance eyeballs on the target. Those can go to shit in a heartbeat. At first my company commander wasn’t thrilled with, having to detail a chopper to send the recon element in. But it worked so well, eventually every platoon in the company was doing it.”

“You were in combat?” Jerrod asked.

“No,” Dillon said. “I’m making it up because I’m a liar.”

An awkward silence followed, one that Dillon allowed to last.

Preston finally stepped into the breach. “We’re here as requested. Is this in reference to the unfortunate incident with Greer Jenrette?”

“No,” Dillon said. “I want to conduct a survey on how much you enjoyed your time at the Institute. Whether you would recommend the experience to other high school seniors seeking to better their lives.”

“Listen,” Chad began, leaning forward, his gut pushing the table toward the other side, but Dillon’s palm on the wooden top halted it. “We agreed—“

“To come here and answer questions,” Dillon said. “Not ask them.”

“So ask,” Preston said.

“The Quick and the Dead,” Dillon said.

The three exchanged glances.

“That’s what you were doing that night, wasn’t it?” Dillon asked, not quite a complete question, almost a statement. “With Wing? And Greer Jenrette?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I used to think bayonet training was over-rated and out of date. But then I was with a squad that got trapped inside a hut. In the middle of Bum-fuck Nowhere Afghanistan. It’s actually a pretty country if you don’t have to fight in it. Fantastic snow-covered mountains. Sweeping vistas. And hard-ass fighters who will gut you in a heartbeat. Speaking of gutting, that brings us back to bayonet fighting. The Quick and the Dead. That’s what the cadre screamed at us rats when we did bayonet training. Remember?”

He looked at Chad. “You must have been on the bayonet committee, right? All the football players were. I was. Easy duty. Scream at rats. Make them practice all that parry, thrust, recover crap. Then the fun part. Put helmets and pads on them and make them beat the shit out each other with pugil sticks. Of course, sometimes we forgot the helmet and the padding.

“Funny thing is, the last recorded bayonet charge by the U.S. Army was in Korea in 1951. But the Brits, they actually did one in Iraq in 2004. Low on ammo, a unit of Brits charged some ragheads and scared the living piss out of them. Still, there are a lot of other martial skills the time could be better spent on than using the bayonet, which is why the U.S. Army has actually done away with the training. But we keep it at the Institute, like we keep a lot of things at the Institute that have outlived their actual usefulness. Like close-order drill. No use for that in combat. Not like we’re redcoats facing Napoleon at Waterloo.

“But that’s not the point of bayonet drill. It’s actually designed to reverse what we were taught growing up—you know the Christian thing: love each other, blah, blah, blah. Most people are actually kind of reluctant to kill another person. Any of you fellows ever kill anyone?” Dillon stared at each one in turn. Jerrod didn’t meet his gaze; Chad did, but said nothing and Preston simply stared back.

“Anyway, the goal of bayonet drill is to get soldiers to drop that reverence for life, other people’s lives that is, and get them wrapped up in the chaos and emotion and adrenaline-pumping insanity that is combat. And I assure you, it’s pretty much that. Kipling’s unforgiving minute. Got to keep your head, yada, yada. So that’s why there’s all the screaming and yelling and getting in your face during bayonet drill; besides the fact we liked screaming and yelling and getting in rats’ faces as upperclassmen, didn’t we? Not like you can do that in the regular army with real troops or in a law office or a board meeting. Real soldiers and real people don’t put up with that kind of bullshit.”

“Do you have a question in all of that?” Preston asked.

“Patience Grasshopper,” Dillon said, drawing blank looks from the others. “No Kung Fu for you, eh? Probably never watched Monty Python either. I like the oldies. Anyway. Back to the Quick and the Dead. I vaguely remember hearing rumors while I was a cadet that there was this group called the Ring.” He held up his hand, showing his Institute ring. “You know, ring-knockers. I got one.” He rapped the top of the table. “But a special group of cadets were invited into this secret group called the Ring; me I wasn’t invited ‘cause I don’t have the lineage. Got to be born into it apparently. Is that correct?”

None of them said anything.

“Anyway,” Dillon said, “I’m digressing. I heard rumors that some members of this Ring group would take rats and make them fight each other, just like with pugil sticks, but with their M-14s and their chrome-covered bayonets and using body armor to protect the vitals.” He reached into a pocket on his long coat then pulled out the weapon Mrs. Jenrette had given him. He slapped it down on the table with a solid thud. “Like this one. So tell me. Is that true?”

Chad’s mouth was open, his brain trying to process the long string of words in which Dillon had wrapped them. Jerrod was staring at the bayonet as if it were dripping blood. Which left Preston.

Preston clapped once, then twice, then several more times, mockingly and slowly, until he stopped. “Bravo. Bravo. A command performance. But which part of ‘is that true’ do you want the answer to? You implied quite a few things. Most of them incorrect.”

“Was Greer Jenrette killed interrupting a forced Quick and the Dead?” Dillon asked.

“You know he wasn’t,” Preston said. “You’ve read the investigation.”

“I don’t know anything for certain.” Dillon leaned back in the booth and looked at all three, a sweeping gaze. “I didn’t finish my story about the hut. Me and six other Rangers were trapped there. We had one man badly wounded, but medevac couldn’t get to us. Dust storm down in the lowlands where the choppers were based. And things were getting mighty grim. Ammo was running low. And the enemy was gathering, building up for one last rush. By the way, if you ever get into combat, you’ll learn quickly you can never carry enough ammunition.” Dillon smiled without humor. “But I don’t foresee that in any of you-all’s futures. Not a one of you signed an ROTC contract. Anyway. We ended up fixing bayonets. I mean, I gave the order. Just like they do before a parade. Except these bayonets weren’t chrome plated—“ he pulled the blade out of the scabbard—“ but cold steel. Razor sharp. Had a fellow in the platoon that loved sharpening ‘em for everyone and he was good at it so we all let him. Some backwoods good old boy, or should that be good young boy, from Arkansas. Good man.

“So there we were, bayonets at the ready, some of us down to a couple of rounds, some of us out. And the rest of my platoon, they came running. Three miles, gentlemen. Full gear. The gunners carrying the pigs, the M-60 machineguns, which weigh twenty-two pounds and each also had a basic load of ammo. Some of them were carrying over a hundred and fifty pounds of gear. And those sons-a-bitches ran three miles and rescued us.”

He fell silent. As Preston opened his mouth to speak, Dillon cut him off.

“And that, gentlemen is true loyalty. That is the bond that can never be broken. So I don’t know what little bullshit ceremony you all just did fist-bumping rings together, but I guarantee you, it can be broken, and I
will
break it if I have to.”

“It appears you will not leave until we repeat what we’ve already said.” Preston folded his arms across his chest. “We had Wing and Jenrette in the Sinks. A sweat party. You remember those?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Raincoats in the showers in the summer. Water turned full hot. Making them spout off rat poop. You remember, don’t you?”

Dillon didn’t respond.

“Everything would have been all right, except Brannigan showed up,” Preston said.

“With a bayonet,” Dillon said.

“No.” Preston shook his head. “We had the bayonets. It was Wing’s. We had him bring it. Along with his M-14. Jenrette had his too. We had them do close-order drill before turning on the showers. A warm-up, so to speak.”

“Speaking of speaking.” Dillon gestured at the two men on the other side of the booth. “Either of you do any?”

“Let me finish,” Preston said. He didn’t wait for permission. “Wing had gone to the infirmary earlier that day. But he didn’t rat out. Just got bed rest. Still, going to the infirmary is what a loser would do. We were giving him a chance to man up.”

“And Jenrette?” Dillon asked. “Why was he there?”

Preston looked across at Jerrod, who finally spoke: “You saw us ‘bumping rings’ as you call it. We belong to a special, uh, club, that—“

“The Ring,” Dillon said.

“The Ring,” Preston confirmed.

Jerrod continued. “Jenrette is old Charleston. His mother runs St. Cecilia. A very powerful woman.”

Dillon gave a cold smile. “I’ve met her.”

“Exactly,” Jerrod said, growing a little more animated and confident. “So Greer Jenrette would eventually become part of the Ring. His birthright. But we do have to make it a bit of an ordeal.”

“You went through this ordeal?” Dillon said, staring at Jerrod.

“I did.”

“Right,” Dillon said. “Musta been tough.”

“Hey,” Chad said. “We got to talk to you, but we don’t have to take crap off of you.”

“Please continue your tale,” Dillon said.

Preston picked up the thread. “We had Wing and Jenrette down in the Sinks. Have you talked to Wing yet?”

Dillon shook his head. “But I plan on it.”

“You’ll see what I mean when you do,” Preston said. “We figured we’d make it easy on Jenrette. Wing isn’t exactly a devastating physical specimen. We planned to have them sweat for a while. Then maybe let them go at it against each other a smidge. Gentlemanly stuff. Do some boxing.”

He fell silent.

“And then?” Dillon prompted.

“Then that dickhead Brannigan showed up,” Chad said. “All fired up. Telling us to fuck off. To leave his classmates alone. He grabbed Wing’s bayonet and—“

“It wasn’t on his rifle?” Dillon asked.

“Negative,” Preston said. “It was on a bench in the showers. Sheathed. Along with Wing’s rifle. And Jenrette’s rifle and bayonet.”

“So you big bad three ring-knockers were scared of a single rat waving a chrome bayonet around?” Dillon asked.

“It was steaming down there,” Preston said.

“Because you’d turned the showers on full hot,” Dillon said.

“It was steaming down there,” Preston continued. “We were all hot and sweaty. We’d been bracing those rats for over an hour. Brannigan just busted in and everything got a little crazy. Next thing we know, Jenrette’s got the blade in his chest. And Brannigan’s gone. Ran away like the shitty coward he is.”

“Were you drunk?” Dillon asked.

Chad and Jerrod exchange glances, but Preston answered.

“Unfortunately, we’d had some drinks. Honestly, that’s why we feel so bad about it. If we’d been completely sober, perhaps we’d have reacted quicker and handled it better.”