Mike tipped his Coke can to the unlit Golden Gate Bridge and the black void separating San Francisco and Marin.
“The greedy bastards could have just bought the Golden Gate,” said Mike.
“I thought they already did, four years back,” said Jamie.
“No, that was the Carquinez Bridge, some toll-road crap,” said Mike.
“Well, this isn’t over. Hawaii’s not giving up either. Resistance is heating up there. A lot of the troops who made it out fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. They saw insurgency up close, and I hear they’re trying it themselves now,” said Jamie.
“Payback is a bitch,” said Mike.
Both men paused to listen to the chorus of kids’ laughter as they ran by in the dark.
“Lindsey’s been really good through all this,” said Mike. “Some people, they literally forgot how to drive, so they’ve been paralyzed since the Chinese knocked out our GPS. No more auto-drives, and they’re just stuck without anyone at the wheel. Like America. Not your wife, though; I wish there were more like her in this country,” said Mike.
Jamie paused mid-sip and gazed silently at his dad. How was it possible that he was here? How was it possible that he knew better than Jamie how his own wife was doing?
“Just look at this party,” Mike continued. “You’d never think her husband’s ship had been shot to pieces and assumed lost just a little while ago. You will not find a stronger or better woman. You know how I know that?”
“How?” said Jamie.
“She let me in the front door,” said Big Mike.
“That’s because she doesn’t know you,” said Jamie.
“James, I made the effort. It’s been fourteen years since you saw me. I’m different now, because of your mom, because of your sister’s death, because of a lot of things,” said Big Mike.
“And here you are. Like I should just forget it all,” Jamie said.
The two men stared at each other in silence.
“All right, then, have it your way. I tried. I should get going anyway,” said Mike. “I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”
“Aren’t they all now?” said Jamie. “Mentor Crew job, eh?”
The initial wave of losses had whittled down not just the frontline fleet but also its human capital. The Mentor program was started as a way to tap into the expertise that still remained among those too old to be drafted back into service. The old, retired noncommissioned officers had been spread out among the fleet, the idea being that they would help guide the transition for all the new crews that had to be trained up.
“I damn well wasn’t going to fight this war as a contractor,” said Mike.
“So, where do they have you working?”
“I can’t get into it right now,” said Mike. “Not even with you.”
“Some things don’t change,” said Jamie, with a bitter edge in his voice.
“You’ll see. They really do,” said Mike, turning and walking down to say goodbye to the kids.
Directorate Command, Honolulu, Hawaii Special Administrative Zone
I live in lonely desolation, / And wonder when my end will come.
Pushkin should have joined military intelligence, thought Colonel Vladimir Andreyevich Markov. The Russian Spetsnaz officer poured himself another glass of hot tea and continued to read, the world of poetry his one escape from the stack of memos from General Yu Xilai’s office. The collection of Pushkin poetry was well traveled, having accompanied him to Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Sudan, and Venezuela. And now another war zone’s humidity and grime was working its way into the book’s spine, softening it, loosening its grip on the pages one by one.
His office door slammed open, shaking the flimsy desk and making tea spill all over. He used his sleeve to sop up the liquid before it soaked more of the book.
“What!” he shouted in English, the one language they shared.
His aide, Lieutenant Jian Qintong, stood at attention in front of the desk.
“A Directorate marine is dead, sir,” said Jian. “A young private from the Hundred and Sixty-Fourth Brigade.”
“It’s a war; you should expect people to die,” said Markov.
It had been three weeks since he’d arrived at this former vacation paradise. The assignment was part of the alliance deaclass="underline" he was to liaise with the Directorate to provide a Russian presence and, supposedly, to pass on his hard-won expertise in counterinsurgency. But so far, no one other than Jian was listening to him, and Jian listened only because he’d been tasked to spy on him, Markov was sure.
At his first briefing for General Yu, Markov had led with the overriding lesson that defeating an insurgency was accomplished not by crushing one’s foes but by understanding them.
Maybe it was a translation error, or maybe the general was just too thickheaded to get it, but Yu had taken his recommendation for empathy as a sign of weakness, and the meeting had gone south from there. Yu clearly resented the idea of an adviser being sent into his command, as it required one to admit the possibility that one was in error. At the end of the meeting, General Yu was polite in his thanks but said he had more than enough counterinsurgency experience in “population-supervision techniques” from his time stamping out the last rebellion in Tibet. Markov then wondered aloud how long it would take the general to realize they were dealing with something different than holdout adherents of the last Dalai Lama.
After that exchange, the Russian had been kept busy, sent off base on various missions, but he was never again part of the actual command sessions. And for every trip outside the wire, Jian would be by his side, his around-the-clock shadow, not so much to keep him out of trouble but to make sure he didn’t cause any.
“The local commander reports it as an assassination by insurgents,” said Jian now.
Markov raised his eyebrows. “Assassinating an enlisted man? The only thing less effective would be assassinating staff lieutenants.” Markov had turned the burden Yu had placed on him into a gift; teasing Jian was one of the rare joys he had during this deployment.
“Some marines likely got rid of a weak link,” said Markov. “There’s a runt in every litter, and they don’t tend to fare well on tough deployments like this.”
“His unit claims it is not the case, and the screenings back them up,” said Jian.
“Hooking some sergeant up to a brain scan isn’t going to tell you what actually happened. Sergeants spend their whole careers learning how to lie to officers,” said Markov. “Let’s go.”
The aide blustered that there was no reason for them to leave unless ordered. Markov brushed Jian aside as he stormed out of the room.
They were onsite at Duke’s Bar in less than five minutes, driving there in one of the Wolf armored fighting vehicles that General Yu insisted his senior officers use every time they ventured into Honolulu. If Yu had bothered to listen, Markov would have told him that this was a classic mistake, choosing force protection over situational awareness.
Markov strode past the Directorate sentries and walked through the empty bar, Jian following a few paces behind. He closed his eyes once he got to the stairwell and let his other senses absorb all they could. It was dank and humid, the salty-sweet smell of almost-dry blood mixing with that of old beer. He opened his eyes and took in the scene. The body sat against the wall, almost as if taking a drunk’s rest. A river of dark red caked the young marine’s neck, his face now forever locked in an expression of shock.
Markov smiled at the thought of what Jian would make of this and slowly and intently examined the body. No penetration points other than the neck, no obvious struggle. No sign of sexual trauma.