Warlord: Dervish (9 page)

And all I can do
, Shannon Hoon had cried,
is pour some tea for two
…

…I’m so sorry, Jason. I really am…

Sometimes there were not two to drink.

He stood up, walked over to the door, and closed it to the birds. They didn’t deserve to be that happy. Not now. When he turned around she was watching.

Why’d you close the door? He sat back down. Jason?

He’d met her older sister.

He’d met her mom and her mom’s husband.

Jason. I’m sorry.

He was sitting between her and the door. His leg was shaking.

You’re too sweet
, she’d told him.

So let me ask you, Aspen. She had hurt him. He wanted to hurt her, not hurt her. He wanted her to feel what he was feeling. What is it you fear most?

Recognition in her eyes. Was she trembling?

Her beauty had made him gasp.

She’d shut the fuck up. He was glad she’d shut up. His whole world was imploding and she was the cause. He wanted her to know what that was like. And he didn’t, because he loved her, even then.

He would never hurt her. Ever. Only his words…

She stood, hesitantly. It was not his finest hour. She brushed past him to the door. Eleven hours and twenty-four minutes. He made no move to stop her. She left him there on the couch, the door open, the birds. He’d done his best to ignore her, skipping rocks across the ocean’s surface. He listened to her car start outside, listened to her drive away. The birds were so happy.

And now he didn’t have her, but he was not alone.

“Jason. I’m not going to tell you my name…” He didn’t recognize the voice. It was a man’s. “And I’m not going to make up a name either.”

They’d forced him to crouch again, his hands behind his back, his forehead against the wall.
Fuck them
.

“…I respect you enough to not feed you any bullshit. And that’s the truth.”

Kill me already

In Iraq, in Chewville, behind the blast walls and sandbags and Hescos…

“Jason, I’m going to lay out your situation very frankly and present your options.”

…they’d had PCs with internet and email, porn and Facebook…

“You killed a family, Jason.”

…and that’s where the kid had found him…

“…and worse, you executed a little girl. Now, I think I understand why you did it. You didn’t want her to suffer, did you Jason?”

…sitting in front of the computer, on Facebook, looking at a picture of a woman he knew, two little girls with her.

“But that excuse doesn’t fly, Jason, even in the military. Even in wartime.”

She’s gorgeous, old man
, Rudy’d remarked.

“Normally, you’d be facing a court marshal. Disciplinary action. But you’re here. And there’s nothing normal about this place…”

Jason had fumbled with the mouse, navigating away from the page.

“…in case you hadn’t noticed.”

What?
Jason demanded of the kid.

“Your country needs you, Jason. We’re putting together a team…”

It hadn’t been the first time Rudy had found Jason studying her.

“…a team for an especially sensitive mission. Now, I can’t share the details of that mission with you…”

Why don’t you friend her
? The kid asked, but Jason couldn’t do that.

“…all I can tell you is, if you agree to participate—and then, if you survive—you will be given a second chance…”

Who is she
? Rudy had pressed.

“…you’ll be assigned a new identity, given a place to live, a comfortable job. Everything in the past…”

She’s no one
, Jason had told the kid,
she’s a ghost
.

“…will be in the past. Your other option…”

Let me guess
, Rudy so god-damned shrewd,
she’s not your ex-wife, is she?

“…your other option is to stay here, with him.”

“Hello, Jason.” Dr. Kaku.

No. She’s not.

“Well, then, there it is, Jason…”

Shannon Hoon died of a drug overdose in 1995.

“…it’s your choice.”

What you’re doing, old man
…

“Granted, it isn’t much of one.”

…
it just ain’t healthy
…

“But it’s still your choice.”

…
it just ain’t
…

“Your choice…”

…sometimes… you just gotta let go
.

His legs were shaking and cramping.

“Well…?”

…sometimes…

And Rudy must have told Mook all about it, about Jason trolling the internet looking at pictures of a woman who wasn’t his ex-wife, cyber stalking her.

…
you just gotta let go
…

God-dammit.

“I’m in,” he growled.

What do you fear the most
, Aspen had asked him.

Losing you, he’d told her.

Awww, you’re too sweet
. Too sweet, she’d told him, the woman who would break his heart.

They’d held each other. She was warm.

What about you, he asked her, what do you fear the most?

I had a
, she paused between her words,
my cousin,
uncomfortable recounting it.
He closed the door
, she shivered in his arms, remembering it,
wouldn’t let me leave
. Jason held her close and waited, let her tell it the way she wanted.
He tried, I thought he was going to
…

Did he?

…jason…

No
.
Thank god, no
.

Thank god is right, Jason breathed a sigh of relief.

…
Jason
…

That’s what I fear the most
, she’d said,
that someone would do that to me, try to do that
…

Never.

Somewhere in the distance the sound of a metal door protesting as it slid back.

Never, he had promised her.

“Jason!”

He sat up on the cot, alert. “What is it?”

“Listen to me—” the black guy in the cell next to his “—they’re coming for one of us.”

“What do we do?”

The
clap-clap-clap
of heels out in the passageway, drawing closer.

“If you get out of here, find Chandra. Find her and tell her—”

“I will!”

“And you? Jason—you got anyone you want me to?”

“My ex-wife…”

Clap-clap-clap
, echoing nearer.

“…Susanne, her and the kids, she’ll…You know what? Just forget it. Forget it.”

CLAP-CLAP-CLAP

“Wait!” Jason cried out. “Wait! Who’s Chandra. And what do I tell her?”

He’d never seen the two black-clad men standing outside his cell.

“Come with us.”

There was a buzz and the door to his prison opened. Jason looked around his cell one final time. The cot, the sink, the toilet, no more than six by eight. He stepped tentatively out into the passageway. He saw that his cell was the last one before the passage ended abruptly at a rock wall. In the opposite direction, it stretched off into the dark.

“Come,” one of the two men prodded.

Jason turned and followed the man, aware of the second guy behind him. He spied the steel bars of the cell set a yard away from his own, and as he walked past he gazed in, hoping to catch a glimpse of his neighbor, to wave goodbye to the man.

The cell was empty.

“Keep moving.”

The light on the camera mounted to the wall flashed repeatedly.

Excerpt:

SUMMARIZED RECORD OF TRIAL – ARTICLE
SESSION

PROCEEDINGS OF A SPECIAL COURT-MARTIAL

In the case of Carlos Aguilera, xxx-xx-xxxx,

The military judge called the Article
to order at

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY

HEADQUARTERS,

UNITED STATES

COURT-MARTIAL CONVEGING ORDER

NUMBER

DIRECT EXAMINATION

Yeah, I killed them. So what? What don’t you understand? You want to win this war? These wars? How the
you think we gonna do that? You think we’re gonna pump, what, billions of dollars into these countries, and they’re gonna, what? Thank us? President
think that?
think that? Thank us. That’s just not a part of their mentality. Let me tell you about the mind. You want to win, you got to stamp them out. Kill them all. Like roaches. All of them. Cause that’s what they are. They deserve to die.
I’d do it again I had the chance. It’s the only way.