* * *
A tapas restaurant had opened in the small cluster of Iraqi-owned shops known as Hadji Town that had been established in a eucalyptus grove outside the airport. Fowler found Pulowski at a table near the door. He’d framed the dinner as “official business” to discuss the camera mission. By itself that shouldn’t have been too threatening, since “official business” was the thing that she’d improved the most on since he’d left. A crash course starting with Beale’s rifle-butt incident, ending with Seacourt’s final exam. As far as she could tell, she’d passed. Hadn’t been overly idealistic, hadn’t been naïve, had gotten the best deal she could from Seacourt, hadn’t folded or gone negative. Had remained detached — all strategies that she’d learned from Pulowski. A learning curve that, as she lowered herself cross-legged on a pillow, tucking her unwashed socks protectively beneath her thighs, she felt pleasantly ready to diagram.
It was a long curve. And Pulowski was the only person who’d appreciate it.
“Sorry McKutcheon’s being pissy,” Pulowski said, after they’d stared at their menus for a while. “His wife’s filing for divorce.”
“Your CO?” she said. “How the hell did he get married in the first place?”
“Apparently by mistake,” Pulowski said. “On the other hand, a friendly legal divorce is a hell of a lot more civilized than fucking people over behind their back. Which I didn’t think was your style, but hey.”
It was the first time that she’d ever been on the receiving end of Pulowski’s contempt and she felt its directness like a sting, as if she’d been elbowed in the nose. She picked up her water glass in an attempt to cover her emotion, but she tipped it too far back, the water pouring out in a glob and wetting her shirt and chin. She wiped it off with her hand, before remembering that she should’ve used her napkin.
“I don’t do a lot of fucking over,” she said. “Up, definitely. Or maybe even in a cluster. But over isn’t really me.”
“Yeah? So who filed the complaint about the colonel forgetting to put the T-walls up at the Muthanna intersection?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“That’s funny, because the Muthanna intersection is the first place I’m setting up these cameras. Right where the bombing was. And McKutcheon says the reason I drew this assignment is that somebody filed a report blaming Seacourt for the whole thing.”
Pulowski hadn’t mentioned this in McKutcheon’s office. In fact, when he’d asked for her help, she’d had an old-fashioned Fowler vision that everything would work out — Pulowski was coming back to her. Her platoon would escort him outside the wire, fix what needed fixing, and life would return to normal — which meant that all the other shit had been worth it. Worth it to hold Beale to account. Worth it to fight Seacourt over the intersection. Instead, Seacourt had made good on his promise and come after him. Which meant that Pulowski was right: she had gotten him into this. “Maybe I made a mistake,” she said. “I thought you were asking me to help you with this mission.”
“You’re going to help me?” Pulowski said. “Why do you think I got assigned this mission, huh? You got any ideas? And don’t play dumb about it either. Don’t give me that cow-eyed, ‘Oh jeez, I didn’t mean anything. I’m just trying to do the right thing, sir’ bullshit, because you are fucking smarter than that — I know that for a fact.”
As much as she’d disliked what Colonel Seacourt had done when she’d confronted him about the intersection, she had to admit that his refusal to even deny her charges had been a tactical success. A strategy that Pulowski didn’t have. “I’m sorry you drew the mission, Dix, since it’s clearly pissing you off something fierce. But that doesn’t mean I know why it happened.”
“Nothing at all you might want to share?”
“We almost got the shit blown out of us doing the recovery on an RG,” she said. “Sweet little ambush — so that was amusing.”
She could see, despite Pulowski’s attempt to answer this nonchalantly, that this admission had affected him more than he was willing to let on. But he also didn’t ask for details. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he admitted, “but I don’t think that’s the whole story.”
“Well, you weren’t here, were you?” she said. “And I don’t remember getting any emails from you asking what the story was.”
“Yeah, well, it’s about time.” The voice came from over her shoulder and, while Pulowski glanced up in surprise, Fowler did so only slowly. It was Beale.
“Aw, shit, man,” Pulowski said, throwing down his fork as if he’d lost his appetite. “Once a day is enough with this guy, don’t you think?”
* * *
She’d invited Beale as a hedge, in case Pulowski’s invitation turned out to really be only about official business. After she paid the bill, the three of them strolled across the leaf-strewn paving stones, past the small hadji stores hawking bootleg DVDs and T-shirts. The Morale, Welfare and Recreation Center inhabited a fanciful, marble-floored building at the end of the strip, with a fountain out in front and a green neon sign mounted over the door that read CLUB COBRA — the kind of place that gave her the creeps, due to the intense effort that was being made to distract its patrons from reality. But tonight, as they sat down on a trio of barstools in the back, she’d decided that intense distractions might be necessary to get Pulowski and Beale where they needed to be. If the good they’d had together was going to turn into something other than just ash.
“Beale is still my platoon sergeant,” Fowler said, starting out with the easiest lie. “You may think this particular mission is stupid, but if we help, it’s going to be our stupid. So before we decide anything, I’m going to need him to agree.”
“Yeah, well, good luck with that,” Beale said.
“Why am I not shocked?” Pulowski said.
“I don’t know,” Beale said. “Why am I not shocked that you’d spend the last four months piddling around with some camera system? Then, the minute you figure out that you’ve actually got to set these things up”—Beale made a horrified, effeminate face, touching the flat of his fingers to his open mouth—“you fucking come running straight to me. Or to your girlfriend here, which is about the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You talk to Seacourt about that?” Fowler asked.
She’d worked this one out over dinner. Beale was the only person who had the motive to tell Seacourt about her relationship with Pulowski. A glance in the sergeant’s direction, met with a smirking grin that wilted to a cough, told her that this was the case. So the camera mission was Seacourt’s payback, just as Pulowski claimed.
Which meant that they had all bent each other over in some way. Beale had screwed her by telling Seacourt about her affair. Pulowski had screwed her by leaving. She had also screwed both of them: Beale, by turning in the detainee; and Pulowski, by filing the complaint. But she had a competitive advantage; neither Pulowski nor Beale believed she was capable of doing anything other than shooting straight. If they were going to pull together for this mission, it was the only play. “What I told you, Fowler,” Pulowski said, “was not to be naïve. I told you to go along with Seacourt. Be yourself. Don’t get caught up in macho bullshit when it came to Beale.”
“Be myself? You want to talk about something that’s naïve.”