Brodie lay on his bed, wearing cargo pants and a black T-shirt, unable to sleep, waiting for his 2A.M. wakeup call.
Starting your day at zero dark thirty was a time-honored tradition in the U.S. Army, but if you lived off base, as he did, at least you weren’t awakened by the bugle sound of reveille blasting out of pole-mounted speakers. But even off base, or on assignment, you still had to get up with the birds to get a jump on the worms.
But to put things into perspective, what sucked even more was being in a combat unit in hostile territory in the dead of night, unable to sleep because there were people out there who wanted to kill you.
Even worse was when you’d gotten the word that your unit was going to mount a dawn attack—the two worst words in the English language for an infantryman.Dawn attack.Bad enough that you slept on the ground with your boots on in scorpion-infested dirt, and breathed desert dust all night. But to add insult to injury, some officer or NCO was going to come around and wake you up at zero dark so you wouldn’t be late for your dawn attack. Which, by the way, you’d been thinking about all night: You were going to attack an enemy position, assault rifles and machine guns blazing, grenade launchers firing, mortar and artillery exploding while the infantry moved forward, trying to keep up with the armored vehicles that were firing everything they had at some poor bastards who a few seconds before had been jerking off, dreaming about their seventy-two virgins in paradise whom they were about to meet.
We attack at dawn, men.Before breakfast, for God’s sake. You were going to kill someone before you even had coffee. Or it was you who was going to get killed. And the last thing you’d see was the rising sun.Shoulda gone to grad school.
Well, if he could handle that, there was little he couldn’t handle. The shoot-out at the whorehouse would barely make the Battle Update Brief in Iraq.
Brodie canceled his wake-up call and got out of bed. He put on his running shoes, took his overnight bag, and went into the sitting room, hoping to find Maggie Taylor there.
Over the years he’d become adept at navigating any morning-after awkwardness with the women he’d slept with. It was situations like this—a swing and a miss—that were awkward. And annoying. As the boys used to say at NYU, “Getting laid is no big deal, but not getting laid is a very big deal.”
Taylor wasn’t there, so Brodie sat on the couch and looked closely at the map by the light of the table lamp. What the hell was Kyle Mercer doing in the jungle? And why hadn’t the asshole gone someplace nice, like Barcelona, where he could practice his Spanish in a tapas bar? It occurred to Brodie that most of his world travels had taken him to shitholes. It also occurred to him that his mood might be better if he was now in a postcoital sleep in Maggie Taylor’s bed. He deserved a thirty-day leave after this assignment. He pictured himself on a nude beach in the Caribbean, walking hand in hand with someone who looked like Maggie Taylor.
“Scott. Time to go.”
Dawn attack?
Maggie Taylor had her hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. “You ready?”
He looked at her, hoping she was naked, but she was wearing cargo pants and a T-shirt, same as him, except her shirt said: “Georgetown.”
She said, “I’ve called for a taxi.”
He stood, yawned, and stretched.
The overnight bag they’d bought at the CVS was on the coffee table, and she said, “I emptied the safe. Cash, ID, Glock, mags, Taser, zip ties, and sat phone. I also took the map, and I downloaded a bird-watcher guide onto my tablet.”
He wondered if she’d also made a pair of binoculars out of toilet paper rolls.
He walked to the bar, opened two bottles of orange juice, and handed one to her.
They sipped the OJ in silence; then she said, “I’m sorry.”
Sorry for what? For lying to him about her knowledge of the Flagstaff Program? Or for not giving in to his reasonable carnal desires?
“I’m sorry if I led you on.”
Brodie had that feeling that he’d gotten fucked without getting laid. “Okay. Drop it.”
But she didn’t. “Let’s get this assignment behind us, then… I’ll have you over for a nice dinner at my place.”
He’d never been invited to her apartment, and he hadn’t invited her to his—even when he had friends over for drinks. In fact, they’d kept their distance when off-duty, which was a bit odd considering how much time they spent together in the office and on assignment. Or maybe not so odd. Maybe it was smart.
“Scott?”
“No catfish, no rabbits, no possum, and no grits.”
She smiled. “Promise.” She asked, “Ready?”
“Did you leave anything behind that could be compromising?”
“Just my new bikini.” She said seriously, “I’ve shredded and flushed our photos of Kyle Mercer. We won’t need them where we’re going.”
“Right.” They were not going to be showing Mercer’s photo around Kavak, and they wouldn’t want to have it on them if they were stopped and searched somewhere along their travels. Maggie Taylor thought of everything. He hoped she hadn’t forgotten whatever contraception she used.
