Reilly glanced quickly and guiltily at George, who said, "His record was clean and even pretty good. And he was available. There wasn't any obvious reason for the boss not to take him on. And, yes, I knew he's been a source-okay, okay, the source-of trouble for the last few days."
"Well," Viljoen said, "you would have been better off if he'd been unavailable."
"What's his beef?" Reilly asked.
Viljoen shook his head, not with confusion or doubt but with disgust. "He'll claim he's only concerned about the tanks and the implicit violation of the contract here. It's bullshit; if it hadn't been tanks, it would have been something else. He's just that type."
"Dani is understating the man's abilities," Dumisani said. "He's actually not stupid. He wouldn't be so dangerous if he were. He's fairly clever, in fact, clever enough to hide what he's doing behind care and concern and a sort of bizarre notion of professionalism."
Reilly looked at George. "Why hasn't the sergeants' mess taken care of it?"
The first sergeant chewed at his lip a moment before answering. Rocking his head from side to side, he said, "They're waiting to hear from you. Frankly, they're scared, Boss, scared enough that they're not sure whether to beat Adkinson's ass or join him in a mutiny. You have to talk to them."
Reilly sighed, then brushed fingers through somewhat thinning hair. "Among my many other military failings, Top," he admitted, "is a vast inability to bullshit people. I haven't talked to them about it because I don't have an answer to the problem yet." His finger indicated the map. "None of the options are good. The more I think about them the less good they seem.
"Suppose we hit the tank compound first. Okay we can probably wreck that tank formation. But the more I think about it, the more certain I am that everyone in that village will scatter to the bush and we'll fail the mission. They're going to hear the shooting, after all; the compound's not that far from the village.
"Stauer's already said we can't just take the town and evac everybody by air. He doesn't think we can do it in time even if he gave us the air. Again, the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to agree.
"I don't think a few light aircraft can do it alone and I don't think I can afford to split our force up either, even if we have air support.
"So I'm stuck. I wish to hell that Stauer had ordered the high velocity 60's."
"Oh, sure," Lana said. "Those can penetrate a T-55 right through the front glacis. At pretty fair range, too."
"Mmm . . . yeah." Reilly made it almost a curse. "But we don't have them. What we've got is 90mm soft recoil guns that can-"
"They can kill a T-55," Viljoen said. "I've done it . . . well, with help. But it helps if you can get them from the flanks. I remember the first time we ran into them . . . "
Reilly, Mendes, George, and the rest all stood bent closely over the map. Trim watched, too, but it wasn't really an engineering problem. Babcock-Moore seemed distant and distracted, staring up at the tent ceiling when he wasn't staring at the door flap.
Reilly's right index finger drummed the map at a particular spot. "I'll have to clear it with Stauer," he said. "It's a major change to his plan. Major."
"But you can believe in this?" George asked.
"Yes," Reilly answered.
"Then tell the troops."
"As soon as I talk to Stauer." He thought for a moment, then said, "Formation on the airfield, tomorrow morning. Call it eleven hundred hours. And pass the word to Gordo that I want at least two of his Porters waiting on the airfield at that time. Plus I need him to make a deal with his Guyanan contacts to hold a few people more or less indefinitely.
"Also, Top?"
"Yessir?"
"Identify the dozen or fifteen of the most reliable non-coms and troops we have. Issue them arms and ammunition. Also give me a list of the least reliable people we have."
"Schiebel in charge?" George asked.
"Good choice, yes," Reilly replied.
Trim gave a tight smile and added, "And there I was going to volunteer my sergeant."
Reilly raised an eyebrow and asked, "Why's that?"
D-72, Assembly Area Alpha-Airfield, Amazonia, Brazil
Stauer and Phillie stood off to one side, along with the Sergeant Major. Stauer looked, if anything, jolly, in stark contrast to Joshua's scowl. Phillie was beginning to believe that the sergeant major had been scowling so long it had become his natural facial expression.
On the other side of the field two Pilatus Porters thrummed softly, their engines idling. Behind the Porters Reilly stood, centered on the airstrip's perforated steel surface. Mendes stood beside Reilly, along with the two South Africans, and what looked to be about a dozen armed men, close behind.
Stauer asked of Joshua, "Is he fucking her, do you think?"
Phillie blushed, just slightly. The Sergeant Major's scowl simply deepened. "Nope," he said, shaking his head. "He might have, before she signed on with us. Now? Not a chance."
Stauer nodded and agreed, "Yeah, you're most likely right."
"It's not like she wouldn't say ‘yes' in a heartbeat," Phillie said, softly.
"What's that?" Stauer asked.
"Oh . . . it's written all over her face. She wants him bad. A woman can tell these things, you know."
"But he wears a wedding ring," Stauer objected.
"You might be surprised how little that can matter," Phillie said. She didn't offer to elaborate.
Before Stauer could enquire-which is to say, pry-further, they heard George's voice through the trees, counting off the simple cadence: "One, two, three, four . . . left, right, left . . . left, right, a-left." Some of the troops began to sing the company song before the first sergeant cut them off with, "Shut the fuck up, goddammit. It's not a singing occasion."
"Is he going to shoot somebody?" Phillie asked. "I mean he's got those armed men . . . " Her voice trailed off. It was pretty horrible even to think about.
"Only if necessary," Joshua answered, completely tonelessly. Phillie looked over at his face and saw that, remarkably, his scowl had disappeared, replaced by something that was almost a smile. She asked about that.
"I love to see a master at work," Joshua answered. The sergeant major went quiet then, watching through narrowed eyes as George gave the commands to maneuver the company into a position centered on Reilly. He was no more capable of failing to evaluate even the simplest military evolution than a politician was capable of keeping his word or speaking the truth when a lie would serve better.
Phillie noticed that the engines of the Porters began to cut out as the company approached the runway. She asked about that.
"He considers it ‘poor art' to actually have to raise his voice to a shout," Joshua explained.
"Do you know what the problem is?" Stauer asked Phillie. "I mean the real problem?"
She just shook her head.
"In any company, in any army in the world," he began to explain, "there are about, oh, anywhere from half a dozen to at most a dozen people who really make things work. I mean the real go getters, the ones you can completely rely on. Those guys, and girls sometimes, make up the real chain of command."
"The difference between a good company and a bad one is often how closely that real chain of command mirrors the legal and official chain of command. If all the real movers and shakers are, say, privates or junior noncoms, it can put a company into a state of unofficial civil war in a heartbeat.
"I've seen a company where the real commander, the man everyone turned to for guidance, was a staff sergeant on crutches."
"Yes," Joshua said, "but Sergeant Ortiz made that company."
"Oh, I agree, Top. No argument. He was even able to mitigate the damage that red headed bastard, McPherson, did. But he could have just as easily unmade that company."