Valentine's Rising (24 page)

At last, a chance at honesty. “I'm ready to fight,” Valentine said. Some of the warmth returned to his stomach. “Give us the guns. We'll show you what we can do.”

“Consul Solon will deliver the Trans-Mississippi as promised, my lord. This isn't a riot, or a collective farm that's grabbed a truckload of rifles. Those are trained soldiers in those mountains, and damn tough ones, man-for-man. If you want those troops alive and functional at the end of this, we have to go about it properly.”

 

Valentine wanted nothing more than to return to his cot and sleep. Sleep would bring oblivion. No more memories of the wriggling infant in his arms, or the blood being flicked from the tongue of the Reaper as it returned to its mouth.

Xray-Tango wouldn't let him out of the office. The general stood, holding himself up on his trophy sideboard, fish-mouthing as though he were about to vomit on his awards.

“I swear to you, Knox, on my mother's grave, I didn't know he was going to do that to the baby. We thought it up as just a test. See if you'd do it. If I'd known he really wanted it, I would have taken it myself. I can't let someone else do something like that. God, I've served them for twenty-three years. That's the worst thing I've ever seen.”

Valentine looked out the window and saw Solon's banner on the pole in front of the entrance. In the distance, across the graded rubble, the bone white Kurian Tower shone in the glare of spotlights.

“Then you haven't seen much, sir.”

“Well, maybe it was the worst thing I'd seen happen. We came across some bodies once—jeez, that's no conversation for a night like this. C'mon and have a drink. Steady our nerves.”

“I've got to go see the parents. Want to come along and explain how it was all a mistake, sir?”

Valentine's icy tone stiffened the general. “You don't have to say anything to them. If they start anything, the MPs can—”

“No, I've got to do it myself.”

“You're the opposite of my other officers, Le Sain. You avoid the pleasurable, and you take on the worst jobs yourself.”

“ ‘If you want to prosper, do the difficult.' ”

“Who said that?”

“My father.”

He left Xray-Tango, passed through the wooden Indians in the headquarters manning late-night communications desks, and walked back to the battalion's camp. Dogs barked at each other in the distance as he crossed the scored scab on the old earth that was Little Rock.

He entered his “battalion” camp. He took no pride in the condition of the tents, the cleanliness and order, or even the painted river rocks along the pathway, markers his old marine contingent had made.

Candles still glowed within the tent. Valentine heard the regular breathing of Hank, and Mr. Smalls' soft snores.

“Ahem. Mrs. Smalls, may I come in?”

“How is she? That wasn't too long,” the mother's voice answered. “Please come in.”

Valentine let her absence from his arms speak as he entered.

“Mr. and Mrs. Smalls, I'm sorry. It's Caroline. There was a terrible accident. I was going down some stairs to the . . .”

The scream from Mrs. Smalls woke Hank and brought Mr. Smalls to his feet.

“It's a lie! It's a lie! Where is she?” Mrs. Smalls cried.

“God's sake, what happened? Tell us the truth,” her husband said, while she still spoke.

Valentine had to turn his face partly away, as if he were facing a strong wind. “It's as I said. I slipped, it's my fault. You can't know how sorry—she never felt anything, her neck broke—”

Mrs. Smalls broke into wracking sobs. Hank looked from his grief-stricken parents to Valentine, and back again.

“Where's the body?” Mr. Smalls said. Valentine wished he'd get up and take a swing at him, anything was preferable to the bitterness in his voice.

“It's at the infirmary. Rules. Cholera because of the flooding . . . won't get it,” Valentine muttered.

“Should've known. It didn't sound right,” Tondi Smalls sobbed, clutching at her husband as though dangling from a precipice. Valentine met her gaze, begged her to stop with his eyes. There were no more lies willing to come out of his mouth.

“It was planned!” she went on. “What did you get for it? What did they give you? I hope it was worth it. I hope it was worth my baby! My baby!”

Valentine backed out of the tent, but her words pursued him.

“What was it? What was in it for you? What's my baby gone for? What for?” Her voice broke up against her grief and sank into hysterical sobs.

 

Twenty-four hours later. Dawn was far away. Empty hours until he had an excuse to do something stretched before him. He should be asleep. God knew he was tired . . . He'd spent the day on a borrowed horse, in a long fruitless ride along old state route 10, looking for Finner and the Wolves, and hadn't returned until dark. The lonely hours alone on horseback had given him too much time alone with his conscience. He'd eaten a few bites of food before retiring to his tent, but sleep was impossible. Eventually he just sat up and went to work with his pistol.

By the light of a single bulb—the Kurians were efficient at getting the camp electrified—Valentine sat cross-legged on his cot and looked into the open action of his .45. The classic gun was a fine weapon, in the right hands, and Valentine took care of it. He'd taken it apart, cleaned the action, lubricated the slide, then put it back together and wiped it down, rubbing the protective oil into the gun like a masseur.

He picked up a bullet and rolled it around between his fingers. The brass was pitted here and there, scratched. A reload. But the Texas outfitter who'd given him the box of ammunition knew his business with the lead. The nose was a perfect oval, like the narrower end of an egg. Valentine took a tiny file he kept with his gun-cleaning bag and made a tiny
X
across the tip of the bullet. The shell was a man-stopper, but the channels would help the lead flatten out, or even fragment, and churn through flesh like a buzz saw. When he was satisfied with the modification, it joined the others next to his leg.

The last was trickier. A private joke between him and his conscience. He went to work on it. It took him almost fifteen minutes to do it to his satisfaction, but in the end there was a little horseshoe. A symbol of luck. He regarded it for a moment, smelling the lead filings on the tips of his fingers. He took the horseshoe and added little lines on the ends of the arms of the horseshoe. Now it was an omega. The last letter of the Greek alphabet. The End. Also, oddly enough, an electrical icon indicating resistance. Perfect.

He picked up the empty pistol magazine, examined it, and set it firmly between his legs, open end up.

The eight completed bullets felt good in his hand.

Of course, a piece of him would live on, barring complications with Malia's pregnancy. Valentine couldn't decide if this made ending it easier or harder.

“The Valentine family,” he said, feeding the one with the omega on it against the spring. First in would be last out.

“Dorian Helm, Gil, Selby, Poulos, Gator . . . Caroline Smalls,” he finished, as reverently as if he'd been saying the rosary, kneeling in his room next to Father Max. He put the magazine in the gun and worked the slide, chambering Caroline. He extracted the magazine again, and took the last bullet. There was space for it now.

“Gabriella Cho,” he said. “Thought I'd forgotten you, didn't you?” He blinked the moisture out of his eyes. The magazine slid back into the gun and he checked the safety. Handling the automatic with a shell chambered could be dangerous. He set the weapon down, admiring its simple lines. Then he placed it back in his holster. The holster was an ugly thing: canvas-covered something that felt like plastic within, TMCC stenciled on the exterior.

Valentine put out the light. Time passed, then Ahn-Kha was at the door.

“My David. The men are waking up. The review is in two hours. It would be best if we ate now.”

“Coming.”

Valentine put on the pistol belt. Ahn-Kha's ears went up in surprise when Valentine opened the tent flap.

“You still haven't shaved, my David? It's not like you.”

“You're right, old horse. Let's hit the sink before breakfast.”

Post was up already, shaving in a basin. Valentine took one just like it, filled it at the spigot and went to one of the shards of some greater mirror that the men looked into when cleaning their teeth or shaving. Valentine soaked his head for a moment to clear the cobwebs, and then shaved his face and skull.

“My David, is all well?”

“Right as rain, my friend.”

“You've nothing to regret,” Ahn-Kha said. “What happened was out of your control. Narcisse has spoken to the Smalls. They understood.”

Post watched them for a moment before abandoning the officers' washroom. Valentine was glad of it; he was in no mood for his pity.

Ahn-Kha checked to see the room was empty before continuing. “You haven't been sleeping well. You're hardly eating.”

“We have a review this morning. Let's look the part, old horse. Put a tent or something around you. I don't want to present one of my best men in just a loincloth.”

“Tell me what holds your mind in such a grip.”

“Hell, Ahn-Kha, things are looking up. The men are armed. Clean clothes, good food, they're getting healthier every day. All courtesy of Consul Solon. There's talk that in a few weeks we'll be transferred across the river. Once we're in the front lines . . .” He left the rest unvoiced.

“You have another agenda.”

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

 

He brought Styachowski her breakfast as the men turned out, sergeants checking the polish on their weapons and the state of their shoes. She'd been making herself useful in her tent with paperwork, since she could not move without aid of her crutch for weeks yet. Her cast was one blue-black smear of signatures and well wishes.

“Think you can hobble out for the review?” Valentine asked.

“I suppose.”

“I want to introduce you as my second in command.”

She frowned. “I've never been a line officer. The only command action I've ever seen was on the big bugout.”

“Technically, you outrank Post and you're known better around here. You're familiar with the Ozarks. He isn't.”

“Does he know you've decided this?”

“He's the one who suggested it. He wanted you in front of the troops, too.”

“Well, the number-one uniform they gave me has never been worn. I didn't want to spoil the pant leg with the cast. Want to get busy with a scissors?”

Getting Styachowski dressed was something of a comic opera. Valentine tried to ignore the graceful shape of her small breasts under the white cotton T-shirt as he forced the leg of her pants up and over her cast. All at once the material slid over in a rush; he stopped himself from pitching head-first into her belly by grabbing her thigh.

“Sorry,” he said.

“That's all right. Thanks, sir, I can finish the rest.”

He turned his back as she hiked her buttocks off the cot to pull her pants up the rest of the way, and tuck her shirt in.

“The review is at nine-thirty. Looks like it's going to be nice spring weather. After it the men have a free day. See if the scroungers can set up a bar and some music. I have to go to a meeting.”

“Xray-Tango going to have yet another bull session on finding a new crane and a road grader?”

“Solon's brought down some other Combat Command generals. There's going to be a discussion of the endgame for the Ozarks.”

“You're invited?”

“Xray-Tango got me in. Our brigade figures in on the plans, somehow, so it's important enough for me to be there.”

“Lucky you.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

 

The men were laid out before their tents along one of the cleared roads, six neat companies dressed according to height, in the wood-bark camouflage of AOT Combat Corps Light Infantry. Then there was Ahn-Kha's scout-sniper platoon in boonie hats, scoped rifles slung. The other men wore coal-scuttle Kevlar helmets and trousers bloused into new boots. Finally, the headquarters and support company, larger than any of the others, badges on their shoulders indicating each soldier's specialty. Nail's Bears were among them in a hulking cluster, assault engineer patches on their shoulders.

He had to hand it to the men running the AOT. What was requisitioned showed up, promptly and in the correct quantity. Very different from Southern Command, where if one put in a request for thirty assault rifles, in a month or two you might get a dozen rebuilt M-16s sharing space with a collection of deer rifles and Mini-14s with folding stocks.

Valentine had already been trained on the guns they'd be issued. The cases of rifles were now waiting to have the Cosmoline cleaned from them. The arms-smith who'd briefed him and his senior NCOs on the long blue-black guns introduced them as “Atlanta Gunworks Type Three Battle Rifles.” The principal virtue of the “three-in-one” was its simplicity, but two features intrigued Valentine. With the addition of a bipod and a box magazine to replace the thirty-round magazine, they could do duty as a light machine gun. The interchangeable air-cooled barrel was a little nose-heavy, but the arms-smith showed him how veterans would balance it by adding a sandbag sleeve to the stock that also cushioned the shooter's shoulder against the weapon's kick. By swapping the regular barrel out for a match-grade version with flare suppressor, and adding a telescopic sight and adjustable stock, it made a formidable sniping rifle, throwing its 7.62mm bullet 1200 meters or more. He watched the arms-smith knock three 155mm shell casings off three posts at a thousand meters with three shots as a way of proving his point.