New
Arrivals
Author-Rachel Martin
Titles
Leave It
Part One
by Rachel Martin
This is an AU story. Rating: A very STRONG R for strong language, adult situations, adult themes. Please be aware of this before reading. No explicit sex. Loads of UST. Permission to archive as long as header information remains intact.
Story criticism welcome, and will not be misinterpreted as flaming.
Author's Note: The song lyrics quoted in this story are from "Come A Little Bit Closer" by Jay and the Americans. No copyright infringement is intended; I'm making no money from this.
Disclaimer: The Sentinel belongs to Viacom, Paramount, UPN and Pet Fly. No copyright infringement is intended. I'm making no money from this.
Ellison sat back against the door of the hut he shared with three other officers.
Evening, and the temperature hovered in the nineties. As usual. The humidity was as close to one-hundred-percent as it could get without actually raining. Still, it was better to bathe in bug juice and sit outside than suffocate inside. The huts had no air-conditioning, of course. No electricity. No running water. Basically, they were for protecting a soldier's body and belongings from the jungle. And, of course, for engaging in sex.
Ellison looked steadily through the murky air, down what was laughingly called Officers' Row, to Irving's hut.
He listened involuntarily to Armed Forces Radio Network. AFRN was a morale thing, mainly. The DJ played the Top 100 and read the entertainment and fashion news. Kept the teenage soldiers in touch with pop culture back home. Ellison rubbed his temples. He cared nothing for pop music and less than nothing for pop culture. He didn't want to hear the music spilling softly from a far-off short-wave radio. He couldn't help it. His hearing was steadily becoming more of a bitch than a blessing.
Ellison made a mighty effort to tune out the latest from Gloria Estefan. He focused on the middle-aged woman who sat cross-legged, meditatively, in front of her own hut.
He felt reasonably sure Irving didn't notice him. So he could while away another evening studying her.
There were not a lot of women in the small, excruciatingly isolated camp. He'd overheard one of them orienting a newcomer: "If we fuck 'em, we're sluts. If we don't, we're lesbians."
Most of the women resolved the dilemma by establishing an interim monogamous relationship with a bruiser, someone who'd keep off the rest of the wolves and uphold her reputation as a heterosexual.
Ellison wasn't surprised to be propositioned by almost all the unattached women in camp. He was a big guy, and a Ranger besides. A lot of women got off on Special Forces shit.
Ellison was conscientiously polite to the women who propositioned him. He turned them down tactfully. He kept himself available. He waited to be approached by the woman who had piqued his interest.
Irving was the only black woman he knew who didn't chemically straighten her hair. He thought the close-cropped hairstyle gave her an edgy New York look, despite the gray she took no trouble to color. Unlike every other woman in camp, she did not use nail polish or attempt to wear makeup. And "attempt" was the word -- in this heat and humidity, makeup slid off almost as fast as it was applied. Not that this deterred the other females. He had never seen Irving wear jewelry. He had never smelled perfume on her. Her off-duty apparel was relatively modest for the climate.
Naturally, Lieutenant Colonel Irving was rumored to be lesbian. A career-killing rumor, for a woman who served as the camp's chief military intelligence officer. Maybe even a life-threatening rumor.
Ellison didn't believe Irving was lesbian. He knew she looked at him, and he thought she looked. . . interested.
He waited for her, the higher-ranking individual, to make the first move. He'd had no doubt she would -- if only to quash the rumors.
And yet Irving never sought him out except on business. Never engaged him in idle chitchat. Never got in his personal space. Never patted his arm or "corrected" his uniform.
Which, of course, could simply mean she paid more attention than he did to those lectures on sexual harassment and fraternization.
Time he quit thinking with his dick. A colonel, for chrissakes. A woman who had to be about ten years older than himself. A black woman, and wouldn't that go over big with the brothers. He could take his pick of the women wherever he went, and here he was wasting his time lusting after Irving.
Ellison knew dispassionately he had to acquire a serious girlfriend soon. Actually, he had to acquire a wife.
He was thirty-one years old and unmarried. The wonder of it was he'd been promoted to captain anyway. Any unmarried soldier over thirty was rumored to be gay. Ellison hadn't met a woman he cared enough about to marry -- but his peers would have hooted down that defense.
Soldiers didn't marry for love. They married because the Army paid married soldiers more. Married soldiers didn't have to live in the barracks. The Army gave them private houses or apartments on post, or paid them housing allowances to live off post. Married soldiers didn't have to eat in the messhall. The Army paid them grocery allowances instead.
But above and beyond all other considerations, a spouse was important evidence of one's heterosexuality. Ellison knew he'd never advance any further in his career without a ring on his finger. It was past time for him to enter into a standard Army marriage of convenience. He should pick up a bride here in Central America. Any Central American woman would marry a GI to get US citizenship for herself and work permits for her relatives. He'd use her, she'd use him. He need not suffer a pang of conscience.
Love was supposed to be nice.
Ellison told himself to get real. Lust was as good as it got.
So he'd sit here and lust after Irving, until she went back inside her hut.
___________
At oh-six-hundred the following day, Ellison walked briskly into camp headquarters. He strode through the common area and down a hall into Xhao's office. Xhao was the camp's personnel officer.
Ellison walked in on him unceremoniously. "Got your message. What's up?"
The other captain swiveled around in his chair. "You've been re-assigned, Ellison. Orders came over the wire this morning. Peru."
Ellison did not indulge in double-takes or fatuous remarks. He said merely, "Any details?"
"Not much. Didn't come over a secure channel. Here's what there is." Xhao pushed a piece of paper across his desk. "You report to Southern Command in three days. You'll have to leave tomorrow morning. 'Cause the next helicopter is a week after that. So you get a couple days' leave in the capital." Xhao grinned. "Want some phone numbers?"
Ellison opened his mouth to curtly decline the offer. He remembered he needed a wife. He said, "Thanks."
Ellison picked up his orders, put them into his pocket, and made a decision. He'd get married before he reported to Southern Command.
"Good time to get outta here," Xhao observed. "The Chanu are upset."
Ellison digested this. "Same ol' same ol'?"
"Yep." Xhao grinned again. "I'm betting it's our buddies from the School of the Americas."
Ellison was too prudent to react in any way to Xhao's remark. The US Army ran the School of the Americas, which trained Latin soldiers in terror tactics designed to repress "Communism," i.e. democracy, in their respective countries.
Months ago, Ellison had disciplined himself to work with School of the Americas graduates. He had to trust his chain of command. He had to have faith in the Army mission. Otherwise he would begin hesitating. And while he hesitated the enemy would kill him. So Ellison refused to think about why he was serving in an Army that ran a School of the Americas. Instead, he decided to ask Xhao to refer him to anyone in camp who had served in Peru.
"Captain Ellison?"
Ellison turned. A sergeant -- Donnelly, according to his nametape -- in the doorway. Ellison didn't recognize the redhead -- must be a recent arrival. Donnelly said, "Lieutenant Colonel Irving would like to speak to you when you're finished here, sir."
Of course, Irving could have just walked down the hall to Xhao's office. But colonels didn't walk to captains. Ellison filed away his question about Peru. He nodded dismissively at the sergeant and looked at Xhao. The personnel officer leaned over his desk and shook Ellison's hand. "Good luck," he said casually.
Xhao was not perturbed about Ellison's imminent departure. Ellison knew no one would be. He had no friends, only acquaintances. And his unrequited lust for Irving.
Ellison walked from Xhao's office to Irving's. He stopped in the open doorway and rapped on the adjoining wall three times. Irving looked up and nodded.
Ellison crossed the room, stopped in front of her desk, got to attention, and saluted. "Ma'am."
"At ease, Captain."
She didn't stand to greet him. A colonel didn't stand when a captain entered the room. Ellison waited for her to finish shuffling papers. It wasn't his place to speak first.
From under lowered eyes, he studied the framed photo propped on top of Irving's filing cabinet. Two teenage boys. In the custody of a civilian ex-husband in Chicago. Half the colonel's income went to child support. Ellison had never met the personnel clerk who couldn't be bought.
His eyes drifted past the photo to Irving herself. She didn't look like a black actress or model. Meaning she didn't look like a Caucasian with a tan. She was the color of chocolate, a comparison that Ellison wished had never occurred to him as it incessantly brought to mind what he normally did with chocolate. She had yellow-brown tiger eyes. A broad nose and prominent cheekbones that made her look vaguely Indian. Big luscious lips that Ellison would die to feel around his cock. The Army probably had a special cell block for captains who whacked off to fantasies involving colonels' lips.
Irving had hung her camouflage jacket over the back of her chair and was working in a regulation short-sleeved brown T-shirt. The loose shirt showed off her sculpted arms and, happily, did not entirely disguise her breasts. Irving's breasts seemed quite pleasantly proportioned to her petite figure. Ellison imagined that small body under his own in bed. Imagined her legs wrapped around his waist. Imagined --
"The Chanu," Irving said, and sighed.
Ellison shut off his libido as efficiently as he did everything else.
"The Chanu are still accusing us of theft. Or kidnapping. Hard to tell which. Things are coming to a boil." She added wryly, "At least they're not accusing us of rape and murder."
Irving did not add, "Thank God." Ellison had never heard her say, "Thank God." Irving did not have religious mottoes like "Onward Christian Soldiers" tacked up in her office, as everyone else did. Irving did not attend the camp's weekly prayer meeting, which was supposedly non-denominational but really fundamentalist Protestant. Ellison himself never missed a prayer meeting. Non-believers were considered untrustworthy and unpatriotic.
Irving picked up a paper from an open folder on her desk. "Our translators can't tell if the Chanu are referring to a man, or a male animal, or an object assigned to the masculine gender. We don't have any unauthorized people in camp, and we certainly don't have any animals, so it's got to be an object." Irving dropped the paper back into the folder. "The Chanu call it a sentry, a sentinel. I think it must be an idol or a ceremonial weapon."
"Ma'am, you think we have something of theirs in camp after all?"
Irving looked resigned. "Maybe one of our troops found something in a shrine. Or traded for it with an unauthorized member of the tribe. And then, I'm afraid, our troop took it with him to his next posting. We'd've found it by now if it was still here. Bottom line. The commander's invited the Chanu leaders into camp today."
Ellison raised his eyebrows.
"To distract them while we retrieve our equipment. It looks like we'll have to abandon this site." Irving sighed again. "Sergeant Donnelly and Specialist Jackson are going after one of the satellite transmission relays. But it's the one positioned closest to a Chanu encampment. I wanted to ask if you'd go with them."
Because he was a Ranger. He had a real job skill there. A promising future in the private sector as a mob enforcer.
"If you're willing, I'll talk to your section leader." Irving hesitated. "I heard at the senior staff meeting that you're leaving tomorrow."
Ellison wondered if he had imagined an altered timber to her voice. He glanced quickly and directly into the tiger eyes. Opaque as the animal's.
Iving continued smoothly, "I'll understand if you want to spend today tying up loose ends."
His work? He could hand that off in a verbal report. Outprocessing? In this small camp, it would take under an hour. Packing? That was a laugh. Would take fifteen minutes, tops. Irving herself was the only loose end he'd like to tie up.
Don't go there, pal.
Aloud he said, "I'll be glad to help you out , ma'am."
"Thanks." She smiled. Irving seldom smiled. Ellison was glad to know he'd been the cause. Christ, he was pitiful. "Jackson and Donnelly are waiting out in the common area. Would you get them?"
Of course, Irving could've just raised her voice and called them. But a colonel did not call people when there was a captain around to do it for her. Ellison turned, walked to the door and gestured the two men into Irving's office.
"Captain Ellison is going to accompany you," she said after the usual formalities. "Fill him in, please. Draw weapons and gear and leave when ready. I'll expect you back no later than sunset." She looked at Ellison. "It's quite a hike. Five miles each way."
Five miles. Two and a half hours, best speed. Five hours at worst. Each way. Depending on vegetation, terrain, weather, and, of course, any encounters with upset people.
"Take care." She waved her hand in a casual gesture of dismissal. No formal leavetaking required, then. Ellison began turning to the door. He quite forgot the ultimate formality.
The red-headed sergeant, Donnelly, did not. Donnelly looked at Irving expectantly and said, "Lead a prayer, ma'am?"
Irving pushed back her chair and stood up. "I'm an atheist," she said evenly. "But you may use my office for a moment." She walked out.
Ellison glanced at Donnelly's flabbergasted face.
Later he wished he'd glanced at his watch instead. So he could have told Irving the exact moment he'd fallen in love with her.
__________________
Water, of course; two full canteens on his belt and two more in his cargo pockets. Salt tablets, well, he'd been carrying a vial of them in one pocket or another since his arrival in Latin America. The dehydrated rations were light enough, and Ellison tossed about 3,000 calories into several pockets. It was scary how many calories he could scarf down in a day. He'd better never take a desk job.
Donnelly took the field medic kit and Jackson took a pair of binoculars. Each man took a map and a Global Positioning System device. The camp had GPSs but still stocked those bulky, heavy field radios that had to be hauled on someone's back. Ellison loaded a radio into a pack and slung it over his own shoulders.
They went from the quartermaster to the armory sergeant and drew M16 rifles and ammunition. They drew a sheathed machete; Jackson buckled it around his waist and made cracks about Zorro.
They dug out compact mirrors and camouflage sticks and painted themselves black and brown and green. They doused themselves with bug juice and rolled down the sleeves of their jackets for extra protection from insects and vegetation. And then they walked single-file out of camp, Ellison in the lead. They checked out with the perimeter guard who opened the west gate for them and plunged into what Ellison still found himself calling "the woods."
They talked a bit, in the first thirty minutes.
Ellison took down the map coordinates of the satellite relay -- a dish eighteen inches in diameter, small enough to be affixed to the limb of a tree, which, in fact, it was. This particular relay turned out to be Jackson's baby; he'd positioned it originally and nursed it since.
Jackson, a black teenager, was an electronic warfare specialist who Ellison had seen around camp for months. Donnelly, who appeared to be in his mid-twenties, volunteered that he shared the same specialty. Other than that, Donnelly contributed little to the conversation. Maybe he wasn't much of a talker.
Or maybe he just wasn't much of a talker around Ellison. Ellison knew he had a dampening effect on many normally friendly men. It had a lot to do with his size, and even more to do with his lousy personality. Fortunately women cared not a whit for his personality. Yeah, real fortunate.
By the end of the hour they were hiking in silence. Relative silence -- the constant hum and click and squawk of insects and frogs and birds no longer registered with Ellison, at least. For the most part the vegetation was not unimpenetrable in this region and by mutual consent they detoured around thickets rather than hack through.
Ellison and Donnelly swapped burdens; Ellison took the medic kit, Donnelly took the radio. Jackson insisted on swapping positions with Ellison. Without comment, the captain let the skinny kid take "point." Jackson broke trail determinedly. It was the sort of macho bullshit Ellison remembered well from his own youth.
Ellison used about half his brain to watch and listen. He used the other half to think about Irving. The Irving situation was out of control. Like a teenage girl, he was confusing lust with love.
If only Irving would fuck him so he could get her out of his system.
He was thirty-one years old and a majors' board was breathing down his neck and he had to get on with getting married. He'd made a plan and he planned to stick to it. Respectable women and the protracted courtships thereof did not fit into his plan.
Furthermore, the purpose of marriage was to advance his career, not bury it under fraternization charges. If they didn't dishonorably discharge him, they'd send him to some hellhole where there weren't any women at all until he got crazed enough to fuck men. Then they'd dishonorably discharge him for homosexual conduct.
Ellison diverted himself from this gloomy vision of the future by taking out a compressed dehydrated oblong that had once been an apple. He glanced up, absentmindedly focusing on the back of Donnelly's jacket. With a jolt, he noticed the white bands that had formed across the camouflage pattern.
"Donnelly, stop. Jackson, hold up there. Donnelly, take off your jacket."
Obediently Donnelly unbuttoned and removed his jacket. He stood in his sweat-soaked brown T-shirt and looked uneasily at Ellison.
"Donnelly, look at the back of your jacket." Ellison leaned forward and caught hold of the canteens on Donnelly's web belt. He bounced the canteens up and down in his hands. Practically full. "What the hell's the matter with you?"
"Sir?"
"How long did you plan on lasting in this climate?"
Donnelly said confusedly, "Sir, I go back to New York City in two weeks. I'm a Reservist."
Ellison exhaled slowly. Silently he savaged himself for thinking about personal issues during a mission.
He said calmly, "That white stuff on your jacket is salt. From your body. Are you dizzy? Nauseated? Feel any cramps?"
Donnelly shook his head to each symptom.
Ellison did not exhibit the relief he felt. He fished out his vial of salt tablets, shook one into his palm and handed it to Donnelly. "Take that and start drinking water. Drink half a canteen. We're not moving till you do."
Donnelly unclipped a canteen from his belt and started drinking as Ellison stood over him. It didn't occur to Ellison that he was intimidating the man until Jackson made an obvious bid to draw some of his attention away from the sergeant.
"Hey, sir. How's my makeup doing?"
Recollecting himself, Ellison stepped out of Donnelly's space and glanced at the kid. "Guess we could all use a touchup."
Donnelly forced down a few more swallows of water. Ellison took the man's canteen, shook it and handed it back. "Okay. Pour some water over your head and neck. And sit down while I do Jackson." Both men guffawed on cue. He took out his paint sticks and beckoned the specialist.
He took his time repairing Jackson's camouflage. He wanted Donnelly to get a good fifteen minutes' rest what with all that water sloshing around in his stomach. When he finished with Jackson, the teenager got up and restlessly wandered off. Ellison squatted in front of Donnelly next, ostensibly applying paint, actually examining the man for external symptoms of heat exhaustion.
He saw none. Enough camouflage had melted from Donnelly's lips for Ellison to see they were pink, not pale. Thankfully, the man's skin was warm and sweaty --not cool and clammy, or, worse yet, dry. Ellison felt another wash of relief.
Donnelly said, "Uh, thanks, sir."
Ellison shrugged uncomfortably.
He stopped mid-motion.
Donnelly looked questioningly at him.
Ellison pivoted. He saw Jackson aimlessly exploring about ten yards ahead. He said uncertainly, "Did you hear --"
And Jackson dropped out of sight, dropped like a rock. Ellison heard a cracking noise and Jackson's short sharp scream.
In an instant Donnelly and Ellison were flat on their bellies. They faced in opposite directions, scanning for assailants, preparing to return fire.
"What?"
"Nothing, sir."
Ellison scanned the vicinity repeatedly. He could neither see nor hear anything untoward. A half-minute passed without incident.
He murmured, "We'll take up positions around Jackson. You go that way. Low-crawl it."
Donnelly nodded.
Ellison slithered off.
He very nearly fell in himself.
Dirt crumbled and began collapsing under his bulk as his right shoulder slid over the edge of a pit. Hastily he backed up. He looked across, spotted Donnelly, and maneuvered the man through hand signals to a safe position on the opposite side of the hole.
Ellison said very quietly, "Keep me covered" and put his weapon down.
With some dread Ellison peered over the edge of the hole. A dozen thoughts collided in his mind. If this were a pit-trap. . . if Jackson had fallen on stakes. . . if the stakes had been smeared with fecal material to infect as well as pierce the victim. . . But the Chanu didn't dig pit-traps, did they? Was the local militia setting traps? For the US soldiers or the Indians?
Jackson was crumpled at the bottom of what appeared to be a deep but otherwise ordinary sink-hole, a relic of the last rainy season. He had his mouth muffled against his arm. The left leg of his uniform was saturated with blood and the shin bulged out unnaturally.
He looked up at Ellison's soft whistle. For better or worse, he was conscious.
Ellison took off his web belt, stripped it of gear and lowered it into the pit. Too short. He looked across at Donnelly. "Give me your web belt."
A moment later he lowered the attached belts over the side of the hole. "Jackson. Clip this to your belt. I'm going to pull you out."
Donnelly glanced over at him doubtfully.
In another minute Jackson was sprawled out on the ground beside the hole.
Ellison removed the pack on Jackson's back, the binoculars slung around his neck and the sheathed machete buckled around his waist. He unslung the field medic kit from his own back and sliced the kid's trousers open. Shit. A compound fracture of the tibia. He rinsed the leg but couldn't identify an entry or exit wound in the flesh. Rapidly he examined Jackson's other leg. Nothing. He pulled off the kid's jacket, rucked up the T-shirt, and rolled Jackson slightly to and fro, examining his torso, arms, neck. He saw nothing but ugly scrapes and cuts down Jackson's left side. He ran his hands over the boy's skull.
Ellison murmured, "Where's it hurt?" He hoped Jackson wouldn't start reeling off the symptoms of internal injuries.
Jackson hissed through clenched teeth, "Left leg. And left ankle."
"Yeah, we'll leave your boot on, if we take it off we may never get it back on." He sat back, looked across at Donnelly and said in a normal speaking voice, "As you were, Sergeant. We're not under fire. Just an accident." He looked down at Jackson. "No Purple Heart for you, kid."
Jackson tried to smile but grimaced.
Donnelly commented, "I never did hear a shot, but hey, when I heard you yell," he smiled, "I figured maybe they went in for blowdarts around here."
Ellison stared at him. Donnelly hadn't heard what Ellison had mistaken for a gunshot and now knew had been the sound of Jackson's bone snapping. Christ, the guy needed a hearing aid.
Ellison put that issue aside to worry about later. He rummaged in the medic kit for an idiot-proof, pre-loaded, self-injecting ampoule of narcotic analgesic.
"Got any allergies to medicine?"
"No, sir."
"Good." He pressed the ampoule against Jackson's thigh. "This is a pain-killer, it's like morphine."
Jackson looked glad to hear it.
Ellison got up, walked around the pit and squatted down by Donnelly. He made a show of giving back the sergeant's belt and murmured, "Keep a lookout for animals. The blood is going to attract them."
Donnelly's eyes widened. He nodded silently.
Ellison stood up and walked back around the pit. He stooped over and caught up Jackson's jacket. He turned one sleeve inside out and wadded it up.
Dropping to his knees next to Jackson, he said in a monotone, "Okay, Jackson, gonna set your leg now, gonna hurt like a motherfucker," and without a second's pause he stuffed the sleeve into Jackson's mouth, caught hold of the kid's leg above and below the break, and pulled in opposite directions.
Ellison ruthlessly tuned out the scream he could hear even through the makeshift gag. He pulled until the bone slid back under the skin and straightened out. By feel and practice and instinct, he guided the broken ends together and released the leg.
"Almost done," he gritted. He jammed on a sterile glove and inserted a finger into the wound, feeling along the shaft of the bone, assuring himself he had aligned the ends properly. He removed his finger and as rapidly as possible irrigated the wound, patted it dry, applied antibiotic ointment and bandaged the leg.
"Okay," he breathed. He tugged the sleeve out of Jackson's mouth. Clumsily, he used another part of the jacket to wipe the kid's eyes and nose. "Okay now. I'm done now." He dropped the jacket and awkwardly patted Jackson's shoulder.
He glanced over at Donnelly. The sergeant's face was carefully neutral.
Ellison looked back down at Jackson. He gently examined the inside of the kid's lower lip -- red. He examined the fingernail beds -- pink. He checked the pulse in the neck, counted the respirations. Both getting back to normal.
Ellison picked up the machete. "I'm going to go look for sticks, for a splint, okay? You're doing good there. Real good."
Jackson managed a nod.
Ellison got up and walked over to Donnelly. He bent down and gently punched the Reservist in the arm. Donnelly glanced up and smiled weakly.
"I'm getting two sticks to splint his leg. You go talk to him. Keep his mind off shit."
Donnelly nodded.
When Ellison returned, he found Donnelly sitting beside Jackson and amiably describing the latest action movies in the States. The New Yorker was loading ammo clips like he expected a visit from Bigfoot. Quickly Ellison splinted Jackson's leg.
Jackson interrupted Donnelly with a pat to the man's knee and said softly, "Glad you came along, sir."
Ellison mumbled an acknowledgment and said briskly, "Donnelly, I want you to finish here." He pulled up Jackson's shirt and pointed to the cuts and scrapes. "And I want you to call for a stretcher party. May not show up for a few hours. Irving'll probably wait for the Chanu to leave camp. They don't exactly know we're sneaking around out here." Ellison touched Jackson's arm. "You stick with him, Donnelly. Get him back to camp. I'm going on."
"Sir!"
"Sir, it's not safe for you to be alone out here."
"Sir, I recommend we scrub the mission."
"Noted and noted. But I'm going on. If things go badly with the Chanu today, we may start evacuating camp tonight. We won't get a second chance to retrieve that relay."
"Sergeant!" Jackson appealed.
Donnelly raised his hands in a helpless gesture. "Ehhh, whaddaya want? He's bigger 'n me."
"Not to mention I outrank you," Ellison said dryly. He scooped up Jackson's backpack and binoculars. "How do I dismantle the dish? Got any instructions?"
Jackson struggled between his unhappiness with Ellison's decision and his conditioned response to obey. Conditioning won out. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small tool kit. He said, "Sir, it's nothing I could tell you quick. Just get it out of there, best you can. If it gets a little broke --" He shrugged and tried to smile. "Lesser of two evils, sir."
Ellison wanted to make tracks before it occurred to the men that he was leaving without the radio or medic kit. Ellison believed both needed to stay by Jackson. Of course, it was not smart for Ellison to be alone in the jungle without either. Lesser of two evils.
"Okay, folks, I'm outta here." He nodded at them and briskly turned away.
"Sir," Jackson said, "how about a prayer first?"
Ellison had a wild impulse to follow Irving's example. Admit his own disbelief in the God-Monster. Maybe recite that little ol' constitutional amendment about separation of church and state.
He looked down at the kid. Jackson was in pain. And chagrined at fucking the mission. And -- worried about Captain Ellison. Who couldn't remember the last time anyone had worried about his six-foot-one, two-hundred-pound self.
He got down on one knee and began, "Lord, we ask your protection as we --"
_________________
Ellison disliked running -- he had a lot of body to haul around -- but he could chew up the miles in a road-march. Or hike, in this case. He moved ahead steadily, tirelessly, like a machine, making far better time than he had in the company of the other two men.
The miles wore away.
The strain of vigilance was more wearing than the physical effort of walking. He scanned his surroundings, watched his footing, listened intently. If he should have an accident, here, alone, he'd have to survive until a search party could be dispatched to retrace his probable route. And if the camp were forced to evacuate, he might even be written off as missing, presumed dead.
And yet it was all too easy to drift into a stupor, to let his legs function mechanically while his brain went on autopilot. It was a danger facing any soldier on the march and Ellison no longer had companions to snap him out of it.
He crunched on dried rations. He sipped water. He talked to himself. He hummed, even sang, quietly. He critically reviewed one of his favorite fantasies, the one which involved fucking someone while standing in the middle of a crowd -- the sort of adventure James Joseph Ellison would never go through with in real life.
He did, however, anticipate a lot of less outlandish sexual encounters in the capital. Like all GIs he was wary of locals looking for a soldier to beat up and he did not plan to stray far from the establishments that welcomed his kind -- brothels, strip joints, massage parlors, lower-class bars and dance clubs. Places where he could certainly find a wife if Xhao didn't come through.
Of course he wasn't fucking any woman without protection. Well, the wife, he supposed, eventually, after a doctor certified her disease-free and. . .
And for the first time it occurred to Ellison that Mother Army would expect him to father a couple of children on whatever stranger he married.
Children who would be at the stranger's mercy in his lengthy absences.
And for the first time in this whole unemotional marriage process Ellison felt a rush of revulsion.
He glanced around, down, up, deliberately seeking distraction. His eye was caught by a small, startling splash of primary colors in a tree, and he stared at it.
A flower? An animal? Some kind of Chanu shrine?
He focused more intently.
Ellison looked around stupidly.
He was standing still, with no recollection of why he'd stopped in the first place.
His feet ached. His calves and thighs and back ached. Abruptly his knees buckled and he fell down.
A crashing noise was fading away into the brush. Reflexively he whipped his rifle off his shoulder.
The heat, the humidity, the relative silence of the mid-day jungle enveloped him.
Mid-day?
He lowered his rifle. Bewilderedly he glanced at his watch and sucked in his breath.
He thought: What's happening to me?
Ellison released his breath, slowly.
He sat up.
For almost a full minute he inhaled and exhaled deeply and deliberately. He took several more minutes to methodically stretch the muscles of his legs and back.
He got out the map and GPS and calculated his position. He was within one hundred yards of the relay.
Ellison pushed himself to his feet and started walking.
________________
He heard the tuneless whistling from about twenty yards.
Ellison stopped and lowered himself to the ground.
The whistling ceased.
Slowly and silently, he low-crawled forward.
The sound of shuffling boots. The sound of fabric scuffing fabric. The sound of rustling paper.
Ellison stopped. He raised his head just enough to peer through a tiny gap in the vegetation.
For a single stunned instant, Ellison thought he was looking at the back of a tall slim brunette whose long curly hair was made for wrapping around a man's cock. Then he realized the hips were too narrow and the shoulders too broad. Sheee-it. Just another damn. . .
. . . white man. Civilian. Tourist. Here. In the heart of Chanu country.
Ellison would have been only slightly more flabbergasted had Nancy Reagan tripped out from behind a tree.
The man was orienting himself with a magnetic compass. An unfolded map lay at his feet next to a backpack. He was the very image of an innocent hiker. An innocent hiker who just happened to be standing under a military relay for top secret transmissions.
Ellison pushed the rifle's safety switch over to the "off" position. He pulled back the bolt and let it snap forward loudly, chambering a round.
The other man froze. He did not dive for cover. He did not draw a weapon.
Warily, Ellison stood up. He tried English first. Somehow he didn't doubt this was a crazy American or mad Brit. "Captain James Ellison, United States Army. State your name and business."
The man turned around carefully. His eyes widened as he caught sight of Ellison's rifle and he put his hands up.
A teenager. A short beard to go with the long hair. Navy-blue eyes, pouty lips and small hoop earrings, all of which belonged on the woman Ellison had first imagined him to be. Shit but this guy was pissing him off.
"State your name and business," Ellison repeated.
"Suh- Suh - Sandburg, Blair Sandburg, I'm a US citizen, I got my passport and visa right here -- " Sandburg reached for the rear pocket of his khaki pants.
Ellison fired. The bullet dug into the dirt about six inches in front of Sandburg's hiking boots.
Ellison said in a deadly voice, "Don't. Move."
Sandburg's eyes got about the size of saucers. He squeaked, "No problem. Not moving."
Ellison walked forward slowly, rifle ready. When he was within arm's length of Sandburg he used his free hand to roughly pat the guy down. No weapons, unless a Swiss Army knife qualified. Ellison found a wallet with traveler's checks and some local currency in Sandburg's front pocket. He found a US passport, a visa, and an international student identity card in Sandburg's rear pockets. He studied the passport intently in a patch of strong sunlight. Genuine, or a better fake than he'd been trained to recognize.
Ellison moved away and knelt by the backpack. He unstrapped and examined the sleeping bag. Nothing rolled up in it but a sheet of mosquito netting and a rain tarp. He spilled the backpack and stirred its contents around. Typical hiker detritus. The only noteworthy items were a dry academic text on Central American Indian cultures and one of those leftist People's Planet guides with the bright red cover.
Ellison stood. He thumbed the rifle's safety switch over to the "on" position and slung the weapon over his right shoulder. Warily, Sandburg lowered his arms.
"What are you doing here, Mr. Sandburg?"
"Why should I have to tell you?" Sandburg snapped.
" 'Cause I got the gun."
"Of all the totalitarian --"
Ellison reached for his rifle.
"The ruins, I was going to see the ruins."
Ellison echoed blankly, "The ruins."
"Yeah, the Chanu temple, the pre-Columbian --"
"I know about the temple, Mr. Sandburg. It's just that I can't believe I'm looking at a white man crazy enough to go there. Alone and unarmed."
"Listen, pal, if I wanted to kill people, I'd join the Army and get paid for it."
Ellison's face tightened. "The Chanu don't like white men poking around that temple, or didn't Chairman Mao's Little Red Guide Book mention that."
"Scuse me, Rambo, I didn't read about it in any guide book. I got the map coordinates from my archeology professor."
"Not to say your timing sucks, Mr. Sandburg, but the Chanu are upset."
"Why, what have you Army guys been doing?"
"Raping and pillaging, Sandburg, what the fuck do you think?"
"Just what I'd expect of a capitalist tool."
"Listen, punk, I'm about two seconds away from giving you a decent haircut."
"Great, so I can look like a Nazi skinhead like you."
Ellison took a deep breath. What the fuck was going on here? He unclenched his teeth and fists and concentrated on getting his heartrate down into the low hundreds. After a long moment he managed to say in a reasonably calm voice, "Why don't we try this again. Captain James Ellison, United States Army."
"Uh, yeah. Blair Sandburg." The kid was looking a bit disconcerted himself.
"And you're heading for the ruins."
"Listen, I'm not usually. Uh." Sandburg edged toward his gear. "Are we finished here?" He knelt and hastily began stuffing his belongings back into his pack.
Ellison hesitated, took a few steps forward and knelt down next to Sandburg. He pretended not to notice how the guy shied away. Quickly and expertly he rolled Sandburg's bulky sleeping bag into a small tight bundle and strapped it to the aluminum frame of the pack.
Sandburg hurriedly swung the pack onto his shoulders and stood up. "I'm going now. Okay?"
Ellison stood as well. "Where do you hook up with your tour group?"
"Tour group? That's for Republicans."
"Where are you meeting your friends?"
"Shit, man, I don't know anyone in this country."
"When's the next time your parents expect to hear from you?"
"Look, pal, I stopped checking in with Mom a long time ago. She'll see me when she sees me. Adios." Sandburg turned and pushed forward into the vegetation. In moments he was invisible. But not inaudible. At least, not to Ellison. Ellison tracked the kid's progress with his ears until he could distinguish nothing more.
He took out Jackson's binoculars and began studying the branches of the surrounding trees.
About thirty seconds later he put away the binoculars. Must have gotten broken when Jackson fell. He could see better without them.
Still another thirty seconds passed. He couldn't locate the dish. He was getting seriously concerned. It should be right here, dammit. Had the Chanu destroyed it? Had the local militia taken it? Had the-not-so-innocent-after-all Sandburg moved it for later retrieval? He should be staring right at it --
He was staring right at it.
He craned his neck and looked up at the superbly camouflaged satellite relay. Damn but Jackson had a future as a Hollywood makeup man.
Not going to be easy retrieving that dish by himself. Ellison shrugged. He took off his belt and flung it around the tree. Grabbing one end of the belt in each hand, he dug the heavily ridged soles of his jungle boots into the trunk and began leveraging himself up. His upper body strength was far above average but he was glad enough to come to rest in a branch of the tree. After a quick break he crawled from branch to branch until he was able to straddle one within reach of the dish. Within twenty minutes he was back on the ground. The dish was stowed in Jackson's pack. No more signals would pass through this relay for a while.
He thought: Irving will know I got this far.
Ellison got out his map and GPS and plotted a course for the ruins.
Well, he couldn't very well let the Chanu tear out Sandburg's beating heart or whatever the fuck they'd do to him for tromping on holy ground. The guy undoubtedly voted Democrat but was still a US citizen. He, Ellison, had a duty to protect US citizens. He would not be swayed from his duty by his personal reaction to the kid.
Ellison cast about for Sandburg's trail and started after him.
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