Bill was doing curls, cooling down after his workout. The door to the weightroom opened to admit his fifteen year old daughter. She glanced back over her shoulder. She knew she wasn't supposed to be in the room when Elmore was there but she had grown up with the boy… boy? He was close to fifty, Bill reminded himself… and she rarely let it stop her. Bill saw no harm in it but the Punk went orbital so he supposed he should remind her.
Bill: Rosey, ya know better.
Rose: Mom can take a pill.
Bill thought he heard the girl mutter 'and choke on it' but chose to ignore it if he did. Rose and the Punk had been locking horns for two or three years now. The Punk assured him it would get better, but not before it got worse.
Bill: Maybe she should, but that ain't for you to say, girl.
Elmore passed behind the child and hugged her briefly.
Elmore: I'm outa here, Rose-petal. What your Momma don't know won't hurtcha.
Elmore finished with a hard squeeze and let himself out of the weightroom. Rosey cast an adoring look after him and it brought Bill up short. Maybe there was something to the Punk… maybe… no! Christ, even if Rosey wanted to cut her teeth on Elmore, the boy wouldn't think of letting her. He'd changed her pants, taught her to swim, sat up with her when her parents were too exhausted. He'd helped raise her.
Bill continued to lift the weights as Rose settled opposite him, dropping gracefully to the floor. She wore a t-shirt featuring the scruffy visage of Zac Hanson, who fronted her favorite band, Evil Bastards. The Punk hated the shirt. Rose wore it a lot. The Punk had plans for it if the girl was ever foolish enough to send it to the laundry, but she also stated, out of Rosey's hearing, that she doubted they has raised a fool.
Rosey was staring at him, black/brown hair handing over her fair-skinned face and in her black eyes.
Bill: Getcher hair outa your eyes, little girl. I can't see ya.
Rose pushed the hair aside.
Rose: Daddy…
Bill: Uh-oh.
He changed arms, continued with his curls. He was still solid as hell for sixty-eight, and sharper than he had any reason to be.
Rose: Come on, Dad! You sound just like Mom!
One eyebrow shot up and he gave her a short grin.
Bill: Well, little girl, when ya start that shit with me you're usually lookin' for a way 'round somethin' your Ma said. Why dontcha just tell me whatcha want an' we'll see.
Rosey returned his grin, and looked just like her mother.
Rose: Okay, Daddy, okay. Can I go to Adam's party Saturday night?
Bill: I don't think that one's negotiable, baby girl.
Rosey flopped onto her back. Clinically Bill noted the curves on the young body. No parties… well, not that one, anyway. She honestly had no idea how she looked.
Rose: But everybody's gonna be there, Daddy!
Bill was unperturbed. He had managed tougher than Rose Strannix in his time.
Bill: Everybody but you, pipsqueak.
Rose: It's just because Mom doesn't like Adam. Mom can be such a--
Bill pinned her with a look.
Bill: You are walking on some very thin ice, young woman. Your mother does not like Adam, and more to the point, I don't like Adam.
Annapolis, with a voice like a whipcrack. Bill continued, in the voice he used with his people when he wanted their attention.
Bill: Mick warned me about him and my own investigation bears out what I was told. Your mother isn't the only one who makes decisions, but she does take a lot of the heat because I don't have time. You will not attend this party, you will not whine, or pout, or attempt any sort of an end run around us. If you do, you'll deal with me and there won't be anything your mother can do to help you..
Rose: But Daddy…
Bill: Out, pipsqueak. Go. I'm done talkin' about it. No party an' if y'don't dry up, won't be anything else for a week or two, either. Capische?
Rosey sagged in her place.
Rose: Yes, Dad.
She slouched out of the room. Bill heard something savage and the name 'Mick' and he decided that the mouth had been undisciplined long enough. He jumped after her…
… and found himself walking down a thickly carpeted hallway. He was wearing the fucking Armani and fussing with a tight collar. Two other suits walked at his side.
Bill: Hope that fuckwit shows.
Suit One: He'll be here, Uncle Bill. He uses the PHAT Protocol once in a while to get in to see Uncle Sam… er… The President.
They walked briskly, their feet sinking into blue plush. A radio crackled and One thumbed it.
Suit One: Cleared straight through. Send him on up, please, the Big Dawg and the Bad Boy are expecting him. You see that race Saturday?
Bill: How could I've got outa it? Damn! That boy's lucky he walked outa that shit.
Suit One: Elmore takes care of the Catwipe. I couldn't believe it myself…
An elevator door hidden in the wall slid noiselessly open and a big man in black denim and leather stepped out.
Big Boy: You don't understand. You're phat.
Suit One: Hey, butthole.
Big Boy: Whazz up, mah…
The crackle of the radio and One's response cut the Boy off.
Suit One: He wants to see you alone first, Uncle Bill. How's Rosey.
Bill: Same old shit. She wantsta kill your mother, your mother wantsta kill her. She's fine.
Suit One: And Nuala? How's she?
Bill: She's 19 and Ryan's still gonna bust your ass. Says you're too old.
Suit One was hurt and looked it.
Suit One: There's the same difference between Nuala and me as there is between you and Ma.
Bill: Your ma ain't Nuala.
The Boy was laughing and Bill supposed it was because he hadn't been bitten yet. His time would come.
Bill stepped into the office, shown through by Cooper… or was it Poole, he could never be sure. It had been One's idea to put the sharpshooter in the outer office, ostensibly as the Dawg's secretary. Bill had been positive the boy would be a hopeless fuckwit, but he made a hell of a security head. Part of it was probably being devoted to Sam.
Speaking of the Dawg, he didn't look up when Bill came in. He was busy at the old read and sigh, right below the 'Respectfully yours' of his letters. Bill let his eyes rest of the Frederic Remington that had probably been following Sam around since before the dawn of recorded time.
Sam: Siddown, Bill. And take that damn tie off, you look unnatural.
Bill dragged the knot down and undid the top collarbutton. the tie was a Countess Mara that Rosey had given him and he knew if he took it off he'd never see it again. Easier just to loosen it.
The Dawg was in one of his cotton sportshirt and ugly tie combinations. A blue-wool support jacket had been flung across a chair. The most powerful man in the world would be working in jeans and black crosstrainers.
Finally Sam raised his head and raked the reading glasses off the end of his nose.
Sam: Why in hell d'you bother to wear that fucking suit?
Bill: Little shits at th'gate won't let me in.
Sam: Hell!
He pressed a button under the top of his desk and within moments, One poked his head inside.
One: Sir?
Sam: One more time, young man--tell those jarheads downstairs t'clear the man without a suit or I'll get myself an army guars. G'wan. Look, Bill… you don't have any time to waste and neither do I so I'll get right to the point. I need you for somethin'.
Bill was excited about the thought of going into the field again. It seemed Sam was reading his mind.
Sam: I don't need ya in the field you'd get your old ass killed and then Deb'd have my head. But you'll wish that's all it was when y'hear what I want.
Bill: So what is it?
Sam: It's like this. Jesse Ventura needs to step down--illness in the family--I need someone to serve out the term. There's nobody on the Hill I trust--not the Kennedys, not the Bushes, not the goddamn Osmonds, and sure as hell not the fuckwad Warren Beatty. So I put out some feelers and I got a fairly positive response to the name I had in mind.
Bill had an awful feeling about the direction this was headed.
Bill: Oh, no fuckin' way.
Sam: For twenty years we've known each other. I don't like you, you don't like me, I don't trust you, you don't trust me, but damnit, Strannix, it comes down to the fact that I can trust you not to be trustworthy, to disagree with me and try to kick my ass.
Bill: You don't trust me, so you can trust me? What the hell are you on?
Sam: You won't lie to me. And when ya did decide t'back me up, ya backed me all the way. Even if ya don't think like I do, I can trust ya t'be up front. I need somebody I can trust that way at my back.
Bill: There's no goddamn way in the world. I never did like bein' number two.
Sam: Number two here beats bein' any other kind of number one, boy.
Bill: I almost feel like I hafta help ya out, Dawg. Ya owe me.
Sam: If you do this for me, man, it's a debt, I'd be glad to repay. But if ya do, we got a problem.
Bill: Now what?
Sam: You'll need to marry the girl.
Bill came up out of his chair.
Bill: Are you out of your ever-fucking mind, Dawg? Seventeen years, I ain't fuckin' up somethin' that works.
Sam: They'll know.
Bill: Who'll know? Fuck 'em.
Sam: Not that easy. The average guy can live with as many women as he wants but they hold their public servants to a higher standard.
Bill: The hell with that!
One stuck his head in the room again.
One: Everything okay, sir?
Bill: Everything's fine, junior, now get the goddamn hell out!
Sam: You've been living with her, you're nearly done raising a daughter, what difference does it make?
Bill: I said no!
… it was a shout loud enough to wake the dead or even Bill sleeping the way he was. He sat up, a wild expression on his face.
Deb: Bill? You okay? You've been twitching like a horse.
Bill: How old am I?
Deb: What is your problem?
Bill: I was dreaming…
He launched into a description of the dream and when he got to the part about marrying her, she burst into laughter.
Bill: You don't wanna get married?
Deb: Hell, no! What for? You ever leave me and I'll hunt you down like a dog. I've got Sam down the hall, how far do you think you'll get? That's it. No more Taco Bell before you go to bed, I don't care how much you threaten.
Bill: I'll eat any damn think I want any damn time I want.
Deb: You'll eat that chihuahua before you get another gordita after ten o'clock, that's all I can tell ya.
She put her back to him and and le him pull her into his chest.
Bill: Hell, baby, I've eaten chihuahua…
Deb: don't go there.
Bill: …tastes like…
Deb: Bill!
Bill: …chicken.
He had trained himself to be able to relax at will and to sleep on what amounted to command. He closed his eyes and was instantly...
Jesse: … out are we?
Bill waved the young man silent, motioned them sharply to stillness. Something in the hot darkness was wrong.
Hell, Bill reflected sourly, the whole fuckin' mission had been wrong since the outset. Ryback had saddled him with a bunch of hotheaded fuckwits and given him two weeks to complete a mission that would have taken half the time if he'd been alone. Upon reaching the contact point they discovered the mission had gone sour. Bill had instantly aborted, but upon attempting to radio his people to arrange for an extraction, he found that the commlink was dead. The only thing left was to trek back to their original extraction point, which took another week.
Dan: X-O?
Bill: Will you shut the fuck up?
Bill's words were barely audible, but the youngster felt the crack and bit back anything else he might have been trying to say. Bill had heard a sound, and the others hand heard it as well. They instantly spread out, finding cover. Bill crouched down and waited.
Bill: Goddamnit!
They were American. The weapons were Kalashnikovs, he could tell by the sound, but the people firing them were no more Afghan than he was. Bill examined their formation, noted each muzzleflash and where it came from. Fighting forces were taught to do certain things certain ways and a trained eye could identify the teacher by the end result. Covert operatives received more training. They were encouraged to forget everything they'd learned, then they were shown everyone else's tactics and schooled in the art of imitation. What Bill had learned, over time, was that nobody ever truly forgot anything and that the best imitation always gave its origins away. This was trying to look Soviet but the people shooting at them were as American as he was. They'd been set up.
Bill: Fall back, you fuckers, draw 'em in.
It was kill or be killed, here, and Bill had entirely too many reasons to want to leave Afghanistan under his own power. But the idiots he'd been sent in country with were too goddamn gung-ho for words. They probably thought they were John Rambo or that asshole in True Lies, indestructible. Nobody was standing up and shooting from the hip, yet, but then Bill could see that two of his idiots were down. This was going to hell in a hurry.
Bill threw himself flat on his face and began to crab backwards across the loose stones. these dumbshits, what was left of them, anyway, could take their own fucking chances.
The nine-millimeter slug ricocheted off a boulder and smashed into the heavy muscle at the front of Bill's thigh. He made no sound, never even stopped moving through he realized that if he'd been moving backward any faster the slug would have found his chest, or possible his head.
There was no more return fire coming from his boys. He stopped crawling and concentrated on making his breathing shallow and silent. His life could depend on making people think he'd lost it.
He could hear the sounds of bodies being kicked, rolled. Once there was a groan and a muffled curse. Four times these sound were followed by a single shot. Damn, the finishing touch.
Voice I: This's the one we were after.
What the holy fuck? Andy! You little bastard! I trained you, motherfucker!
A combat boot thudded into his belly, and through he'd been expecting it he hadn't completely prepared. It was all he could do to hold in a groan.
Voice II: Mais oui. But we should be sure, should we not, mon frere?
Marcel, you sonofabitch!
Bill waited. This was the part the Frenchman liked best, administering the coup de gras. It was dirtier than Bill's own signature move, the quick sideways snap of the neck. But it did the job.
Voice I: No, damnit. If Bill ain't fightin', there's no fight in 'im.
Andy, you shithead, I trained ya better than that. I told ya not to take anything for grated, least of all, me.
Voice II: Merde!
Bill listened as Andy dragged Marcel away. He lay for an additional hour, keeping his breathing shallow, and was finally rewarded by the wound of the sniper who'd been left behind to pick him off finally moving out.
But by that point, crawling had become non-negotiable. He knew, because he wasn't dead, that the bullet had missed his femoral artery. What he wasn't sure about was whether the leg would bear his weight. So he stayed off of it and moved as far away from the scene as he could before his strength gave out entirely. He wedged himself into a crevice in the rocks. His bandanna came off his head and went around his leg. Once he was squared away, he allowed himself to sleep.
The sound of squabbling birds woke him. He knew what it meant. For a moment, he stared at the scene of his failure, took in the sight of carrion eaters crouched over the remains of his team. He would like to be able to do better by them than to leave them to the buzzards and the crows, but there were two good reasons not to. The first had to do with his strength. It was going to take everything he had to get out of Afghanistan without using up his reserves in a futile attempt to protect these boys. More importantly, if Andy and the Asshole Brigade decided to check the scene, neat little burial cairns would inform them that they hadn't done their job. They would know that just by discovering his carcass was missing, but Andy might assume his mercy had put off the inevitable only by an hour or three and that he had crawled off to die in the shadows like an animal. In any event, he had to move. he had taught Andy to check, whenever possible and he had to assume it would be. he had to assume the hunt would be on, and that he was the prey. the idea made him shake. He wasn't at all sure he was strong enough to evade the hunters…
… The big body was shaking, and the unfamiliarity of it frightened me. The worst part was knowing there was nothing I could do about it, that the drugs they had given him in concert with his extreme fatigue had knocked him flatter than I had ever seen him. Whatever it was that was going on in his head was bigger than I would be able to handle, anyway. Would he talk about it? Probably not with anyone I knew, and definitely never with me. There were things I wasn’t allowed to know, and those were usually the things that would have scared me spitless if I’d had an understanding of them. Finally I did the only thing I could, under the circumstances. I reached through the bars of the hospital bed and lightly stroked his hand. Eventually the trembling stopped. Whether the dreams did as well I couldn’t say.