Evan tamped down a smile. "Nobody better stand in their way, sir."
"Nobody's gonna." Allstrong cocked his head. "Well, get 'em started, then."
It had come to darkness outside through the windows, but even inside, the noise never seemed to end. Planes took off and landed at all times. Beyond that constant barrage of white noise, Evan was aware of the hum of generators and the barking of dogs.
He'd gotten his men fed and settled and now he sat in a canvas-backed director's chair in the spacious double-wide room at the end of a trailer that served as one of Allstrong's personal offices. His gaze went to the walls, one of which was filled with a large map. On the other, commendation and service plaques, along with half a dozen photographs with recognizable politicians, attested to what must have been Allstrong's illustrious military career-his host had been Delta Force, finally mustering out as a full-bird colonel in the Army. He'd received two Purple Hearts and the Distinguished Service Cross. No sign of marriage or family.
Evan, taking Allstrong's measure as he pulled a bottle of Glenfiddich from what appeared to be a full case of the stuff behind his desk, put his age as late thirties. He had an open face and smiled easily, although the mouth and eyes didn't seem in perfect sync with one another. The eyes tended to dart, as though Allstrong was assessing his surroundings at all times. Which, now that Evan thought of it, probably made sense after a lifetime in theaters of war. Allstrong wore what he'd been wearing when they'd met outside-combat boots, camo pants, a black turtleneck. He free-poured a stiff shot into a clear plastic cup, handed it over to Evan, and splashed a couple of inches into a cup of his own. Pulling another director's chair over, he sat down. "Don't bullshit a bullshitter," he said.
"It's not bullshit," Evan said. "They weren't expecting us."
"Two hundred and ninety-seven men and they didn't know you were coming?"
"That's correct."
"So what did you do? What did they do?"
"They had us camp just about on the tarmac at a holding station in Kuwait. We had all our gear with us. They put us on the ground until they figured out what we were here for."
Allstrong shook his head, either in admiration or disbelief. "I love this glorious Army," he said. "Who's the commander down there? Still Bingham?"
"That was the name."
"So you're telling me they had you weekend warriors running your asses off stateside-hustling you out of your day jobs, rushing you through training-then packed you up in a 737, flew nonstop for twenty-two hours, Travis to Kuwait-and it's all hurry up! move it! we need you over here!-and you get here and nobody knows you're coming?"
"That's right."
"So what'd they do?"
"You know Camp Victory?" This was a sand-swept safe zone five miles north of Kuwait City where the Army had erected five enormous tents to hold overflow troops.
" Camp Victory!" Allstrong barked a laugh. "That kills me!" He drank off some scotch, coughed, shook his head. "And I thought I'd heard it all. How long before they found out who you were?"
"We camped there for a week."
"Christ. A week. So how'd you wind up here? What happened to the rest of your unit?"
Evan took a good hit of his own drink. For a few months after he'd graduated from college, he'd put away a lot of beer, but since joining the police force a few years ago, he'd been at most a light social drinker. Here and now, though, his first sip of real alcohol, though technically forbidden while he was on duty (always), seemed appropriate and even earned. "I don't know," he said. "Most of 'em are probably still back in Kuwait, working on the HETs they eventually found." These were the heavy-equipment transporters that hauled 21/2-to 5-ton cargo trucks and other massive ordnance and equipment from the Iraqi or Kuwaiti air bases where they'd been delivered to where they were supposed to get used in the field. Evan's National Guard unit, the 2632d Transportation Company out of San Bruno, California, was actually a medium transportation unit that had been trained to move troops and equipment.
"So what happened to you guys? The nine of you."
The drink was kicking in quickly. Evan felt his body relaxing and leaned back into his chair, crossing one leg over the other. "Well, that was just dumb or bad luck, one of the two. Once Bingham found the fleet of HETs, it turned out most of 'em didn't work. Heat, sand, four months without maintenance, you name it. So about half the guys got assigned to repair-and-rebuild work, and Bingham farmed out the rest of us wherever he needed somebody. I was a cop back home, and prior service enlisted with the infantry, plus I was the only guy with any crew-served-weapons experience, so Bingham had a convoy going to Baghdad and me and my men got assigned gun-truck support."
"So your other guys, they're cops too?"
"No. I'm the only cop, and the only one trained on the M60, if you don't count the forty-five minutes of instruction we all got before they sent us out."
"Now you are shitting me."
Evan held up three fingers. "Scout's honor."
"Jesus," Allstrong said. "So where do you guys stand now?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what's your mission? What are you doing tomorrow, for example?"
Evan sipped his scotch, shrugged his shoulders. "No clue. I check in with Colonel Calliston tomorrow morning at oh eight hundred and find out, I suppose. I don't see him sending us back to our unit, although that's what I'm going to request. The men aren't too hot on this convoy duty, maybe wind up getting shot at. That wasn't in the original plan."
A small knowing chuckle came from Allstrong's throat. "Well, Lieutenant, welcome to the war. Plans are what you work with before you get there. They give you the illusion you've got some control, and you don't."
"I'm getting a sense of that," Evan replied. "So the short answer is I don't know what's happening tomorrow, or next week, or anything. We seem to be the lost company."
Allstrong stood up with his drink and walked over to the map. Staring at it for a few seconds, he spoke back over his shoulder. "Maybe I can talk to Bill. Calliston. Get you and your men assigned to us. How'd you like that?"
"Staying on here?"
"Yeah."
"Doing what?"
Allstrong turned. "Well, that's the bad news. We'd want you to support our own convoy trucks, but there's a lot fewer of them and we're not afraid to drive faster if we need to."
"Where to?"
"Mostly Baghdad and back, but we're hoping to open offices at other bases near Fallujah and Mosul too. Wherever we can get work and beat damn Custer Battles to the punch."
"Custer Battles?"
"New guys. Contractors like us and kicking ass at it. They got the other half of this airport gig and they're going for everything else we are. I'm thinking of having their people killed." Evan nearly choked on his drink as Allstrong came forward with a laugh. "That's a joke, Lieutenant, or mostly a joke. Anyway, as you might have noticed, we're staffing up here. In a couple of months, this place will be hopping. Calliston's going to want to assign us some protection in any event. I figured you guys are already here. It's a good fit. Besides, over time, it's only going to get safer here, I mean the road between Baghdad and BIAP."
"You mean, the one known as RPG Alley?"
Allstrong smiled. "You heard that one already, huh?"
"Rocket-propelled-grenade alley just doesn't sound all that safe."
"It's going to get better."
Evan wasn't about to argue with his host. "You guys don't do your own security?" he asked. "I thought guys like you were guarding Bremer." This was L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA, who had set up headquarters to administrate infrastructure and the economy and all nonmilitary aspects of the occupation in Hussein's Republican Palace in Baghdad a couple of weeks before.