Gator sported a bandage around his neck, which he’d already tried to take off twice since Kono had picked him up at the Parris Island dock. But Kono was having none of it, waving his machete and ordering his friend to, for once, listen to some advice. One night was all Gator could take in the hospital before sneaking out.
This was on top of the problem that some of the hospital staff at Parris Island were beginning to ask questions about their new patient, noting that while Gator had dogtags, they couldn’t find him in the Tricare system. This was one case where discretion, and disappearing, were the smarter part of valor.
They made the rest of the journey in silence, negotiating the waters of the lowlands until they arrived at Gullah Island. Gator disarmed all the warning devices and they docked. They walked into the woods, directly to the newest headstone. This time it was Kono who held back as the big Ranger stood in front of the marker. Slowly, he knelt, head bowed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the expended casing for a .50 caliber round, one of the two high-explosive rounds he’d fired into the bunker.
“I made payback, babe. They won’t take no one else. No one like you.”
And then he hung his head, trying to cover up the sounds of crying.
Kono walked up behind his friend and put his arm over Gator’s massive shoulder. “It all right, fr’un. Her roots, your baby roots, they now part of the Earth. Part of it all. It okay to grieve.” He repeated it, as much for himself as for his sister and her unborn baby. “It okay to grieve.”
* * * * *
Riley stood on Bloody Point. The golf cart was parked behind him. He had a six-pack in the sand, three already empty, the fourth in his hand. He knelt down and stuck the beer in the sand, making sure it was secure.
The day after was always a time for reckoning, for tallying the costs and determining what had been achieved, if anything. In the Army, it had meant debriefings and after action reports. Here, everyone had just gone their own way yesterday, their shoulders slumped in defeat.
Riley dug a hole in the same sand where blood had flowed centuries ago, earning the spot its name. When he got down to where seawater was seeping back into it, he reached into his pocket and pulled out Mikey’s dogtags.
Riley dropped them into the hole and scooped the sand back in.
Riley stood up and saluted, before leaning over and picking the beer back up. “Not much of a funeral for a Marine, Mikey, and I have no idea if you were a good soldier or not. But it’s a beach, and many Marines have died on a beach.” Riley then poured his beer on top of the disturbed sand. “Semper Fi, Mikey.”
But he was really saying good-bye to many soldiers he’d known over the years.
* * * * *
Chase sat on the end of his dock, feet dangling in the water. The last twenty-four hours had been a blur, especially after the violent forty-eight that had preceded it.
Upon docking, Erin had had a friend from the coroner’s office waiting for Sarah’s body. Chase had said goodbye, as best one can to a corpse, but it made him realize how many corpses he’d had to say farewell to. In the field, in combat. At airstrips around the world as the dead were brought back home.
But this one was different.
And, being Chase, that line of thinking had him ruminating on the dead he’d never had a chance to say goodbye to. On the dock next to him was the old picture of his father and the letter from his mother. And in the water in front of him, his mother’s ashes still held their place.
And next to those two pieces of his past was all he had of his present. Chelsea whined, her huge chest swathed in bandages. He’d picked up Chelsea earlier that morning, at the same time he said goodbye to Erin. She had been planning on leaving Hilton Head anyway, off to the desert of the Southwest—where, exactly, she wasn’t sure yet, but it was time for change. Especially now. She’d told him that some distant relation of Sarah was claiming the body, and Chase figured forty-eight hours wasn’t enough time to know someone to have a claim on their remains.
It was for the best.
The best that could be built out of such failure.
“Easy, girl,” Chase said, reaching over and running his hands through Chelsea’s long hair.
Then he picked up his phone.
It was answered on the second ring.
“Horace. I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
“I’m coming for you, Cardena.”
“Now what did I do?” Cardena sounded genuinely mystified. “Seems like you ought to be grateful I took care of your Russian problem like you asked me to.”
“Not like I asked you to,” Chase said. “There was a kid on that boat. The kid we were trying to get back.”
“Horace. Tsk. Tsk. You never could see the bigger picture.”
“That kid’s mother killed herself yesterday, right after you pulled your stunt.”
“A shame,” Cardena said, without a shred of remorse in his voice.
Chase gripped the phone tight. “I’m coming for you, Cardena. I’m going to make you pay for this.”
“Oh, Horace. You’ll never, ever find me. And if you did, it wouldn’t be pretty.”
And the phone went dead.