Captain Mercer and Señor Kyle seemed to be inhabiting the same body, and it was hard to know who was in control, so Brodie had to be careful not to push the wrong button, and not to push any button too hard. He kept thinking of that video of Mercer dangling a Taliban head in front of the camera.
Mercer asked, “Are you actually married?”
Brodie replied, “Ms. Taylor and I have only a professional relationship.”
“I see… so…?”
So we have no emotional attachment, Kyle, and you can’t use that to your advantage. Brodie said, “We are not intimate.” But almost.
Mercer nodded. “So your concern for Ms. Taylor is only professional.”
“I would call it human.”
“I would call it chivalry. Ms. Taylor might call it male chauvinism.”
Taylor suggested, “Can we move on?”
He looked at her. “All right.” He eyed her T-shirt. “Georgetown.”
She nodded.
“Raised in an upper-middle-class DC suburb, poli-sci major, daddy’s a diplomat or upper echelon bureaucrat, and you joined the Army to go slumming for awhile, and you went CID because you thought it was safe and would look good on your law school application.”
Taylor replied, “My daddy was an auto mechanic when he was sober enough to work. I went to Georgetown on a scholarship, and the Army is my career path out of poverty.” She added, “Profiling isn’t your strong suit.”
“Maybe not. But I can usually tell who’s lying to me.” He looked at Brodie. “Where’d you go?”
“NYU.”
Mercer nodded. “I hear the East Coast accent.”
“Upstate New York farm boy.”
He looked at Taylor, who said, “Tennessee.”
“I don’t catch that in your accent.”
“You will if I get really pissed.”
Mercer smiled. “I’m from San Diego. But you know all about me from my file. Except what was redacted.”
Brodie had a growing sense that none of this was real. The jungle was real, but no one in it was real. He looked at Kyle Mercer, and they made eye contact. The man was still smiling, but his eyes were… empty.
Kyle Mercer was crazy. Not pleasantly crazy—just crazy. But highly functional. And highly aware that he was off the rails. Or else he enjoyed acting the part. Maybe a combination of both. In any case, if Captain Mercer ever did go home, an Army shrink would take one look at him and one look at that decapitation video, and pronounce him mentally unfit to stand trial. Which was actually a moot point, because Brodie didn’t think anyone on this fishing platform was going home.
But Kyle Mercer seemed to be enjoying the conversation, and maybe he was homesick—if a psycho can be homesick. So Brodie said, “Sorry about your mother.”
Mercer didn’t react to that.
Brodie said, “I’m sure your father misses you.” He told him, “It’s time to come home, soldier.”
“I am home.”
“No you’re not.”
“Then I’d rather be here than in Leavenworth.” He asked, “Wouldn’t you?”
“Well, tell you the truth, Captain, this place sucks.” He added, “No offense.”
