A helicopter, a Chinook from the sound of it, chattered its way over the low roof. The building had originally been a Soviet administration building in another war. What had once been sturdy concrete walls, poured by Afghan workers under the careful eyes of Russian overseers, had taken a beating after the Soviets had pulled out. The place had seen major fighting in the Taliban takeover, and then again as they were driven out of Bagram Air Base and its environs.
Battered as the walls were, pocked with bullet strikes and shrapnel, the place had been given to the medical corps for office space. Fake wood paneling had been fixed to the cracked concrete and new lighting installed. White acoustical paneling had been hung from the already low ceiling. Gray industrial-grade carpeting covered the floors, and standard-issue desks and chairs finished the small rooms.
All the comforts of home, Karla thought as the fresh-faced second lieutenant stepped through the door. His uniform was immaculate, pressed. The caduceus on his lapels gleamed in the light. He carried her folder in both hands, which was odd, and she could see the tension in his watery blue eyes as he closed the door behind her.
“So,” she greeted sharply. “Been a pleasure answering all of your questions, Lieutenant, but I’ve gotta beat feet. I’ve got a new AOIC to break in and—”
“A what?” he asked, looking confused as he ran a finger under his collar.
“Assistant Officer in Charge. And I’ve got replacements, a lot of them, to integrate into my platoon.” The IED had taken so many . . . so very many.
And I didn’t see it.
She swallowed hard. “So stamp me fit and let me get back to work.”
He just stared at her, looking nervous, reddening, which darkened the spots of acne on his cheeks. “Uh, Chief? You’re not going anywhere. Not after last night when you woke up screaming.” He lifted the folder as if it explained everything. “You lost most of Bravo Platoon, Chief. After the psych evaluation, we, um, have concerns. It’ll just be a short rotation back to the States, and then, in a couple of months, I’m sure they’ll give you a new platoon.”
She froze, staring at him as if he’d spoken an alien language. Then her body moved of its own accord, rising from the chair, reaching out. Panic, in a crystalline reality, filled the lieutenant’s eyes, and he broke and ran, nearly ripping the door off its hinges in the process.
“You little weasel! Get your ass back here and I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” But she’d stopped short, seeing the MPs who came clumping down the hall in their polished boots.
One scrawny lieutenant had done what three roll-backs in BUD/S classes, what SEAL Tactical Training, what Sniper School, and Green Team training couldn’t. What the endless hazing, testing, and abuse at the hands of her male teammates hadn’t been able to do, the little prick had accomplished in but an instant. He’d destroyed her reputation of being solid, of “Having her shit wired tight.” A good reputation was the highest honor a SEAL could confer on a teammate. With a simple psych evaluation it was gone forever.
Karla threw her head back and screamed.
“Hey! Damn it!” A voice intruded. “Wake up!”
Karla jolted, the dream shattering. Her eyes flew open as her body jerked into position to strike, her limbic system primed for combat. Tense and perspiring she half-crouched in the helicopter seat, sunshine glaring through the plexiglass bubble. The controls and instrument panel seemed to mock her.
“You were trying to kick my damn bird apart!” Winny Swink bellowed. She was leaned in the open door, red face blazing. “You want to scream and throw a fit? Go have the Skipper shoot you up with Valium or something.”
“Bad dream.”
“Flashback?” Swink seemed to relent the slightest bit.
“Yeah.” Karla rubbed her sweat-dampened face. “Guess I dozed off.”
“Too much play last night.” Swink gave her a lopsided grin. “But, I gotta tell you, that was a lot of fun. I’d have loved to have seen his face when he woke up and saw his little sausage done up in bright red.”
Karla knotted her muscles in an isometric exercise to stimulate circulation and burn the adrenaline and lipids still charging her system. She still wanted to kill that little puke of a psych intern, but remembering Bill Minor’s limp body on his hotel room bed was a good antidote for her rage.
“That stuff Cat gave us really put him out.” She winked at Winny. “If she’s right, he’s going to wake up thinking he had the night of his life.”
“Wish I’d had a bottle of that stuff years ago. There are guys I wouldn’t have touched—even if I was wearing welding gloves—that I’d have loved to have left believing I’d screwed their brains out.”
Karla chuckled. “Given some of the men I woke up with? I’d have used a bottle of that stuff on myself. Some things in life, a woman really shouldn’t have to remember.”
“Like that flashback you just had? Combat?”
“No. I was just getting ready to make the little pimply-faced lieutenant who took me down feel a whole lot of pain. The guy wasn’t even a psychiatrist. Just an intern with a questionnaire.” Karla knotted her fist, staring at the scars on her knuckles.
Winny pursed her lips, nodded. “They gave you your second Silver Star for what you did that day. Even before the pieces stopped falling out of the sky, a horde of fighters came charging out of those crummy little houses. You were shooting at them with one hand while you pulled the living and dead out of their burning vehicles. You and four guys fought off nearly two hundred Taliban, Karla.”
“Didn’t matter after that fawning, skinny REMF labeled me crazy.”
Swink gave her a thumbs up. “I surrender to your superior ability and competence. I had to steal an airplane and turn Washington upside down.” She turned at the sound of a truck engine. “How about that? Here comes your mirror thingee.”
Shaken and uneasy, Karla climbed out of the cockpit and jumped to the ground as a battered white Ford F-250 with New Mexico plates drove slowly into the compound. In the pickup’s bed stood what looked like a small two-person gazebo, its outside covered with mirrors.
“God bless Santa Fe,” she said as she tucked her thumbs in her belt. “The city of artisans. They can build anything here.”
Winny stood, hips canted. “Okay, Chief. Looks like your last piece is here.”
“If we can get this thing unloaded without shattering it, I’m good to go.”
“You know, if Bill Minor catches you inside that lab? What he’ll do to you before he finally puts a bullet in your head? It ain’t gonna be pretty.”