“In Ray’s case, I might just give you absolution.”
“Yes, but trust me, the next ten folks waiting in line for his job are a whole lot worse.”
“Likely you’re right. See you for dinner, love?”
“I might be a bit late if they want to call me on the carpet and read me the riot act in person.”
“I’ll keep it warm for you.”
“You always keep everything warm for me.”
“You just be sure to come home, you hear?”
“We aren’t likely to hear anything new from Kris until tomorrow morning at the earliest. What could keep me from you, my love?”
“You want me to read you my list? It’s long and growing.”
“Trouble out,” he said.
“Ruth waiting,” she said, ending the call.
The computer asked him who he wanted to talk to next.
He glanced down the long list of incoming calls. The vast majority were from media outlets. No doubt they’d seen him with Winston and figured their expert interviewers could extract more from him or maybe twist him better in the wind.
But there was one from the Royal Chambers. “Answer the royal call,” he told his computer.
“Where are you?” came an unidentified, demanding, and not at all respectful voice.
“Who wants to know?” Trouble shot right back in just as demanding a voice.
“King Raymond wants to see you right now.”
“Okay. I’m walking home from an interview.”
“We know about that interview. We’ve got a car waiting for you right outside the media headquarters.”
“It wasn’t there when I came out,” Trouble snapped. He was developing a definite distaste for this person on the line.
“Well, activate your beeper, and the car will come to you.”
“Computer, give them a homing beacon.”
“Activated, sir.”
“They’ve got it. Stay right there.”
“Who is this? Because if you don’t have four stars on your shoulder, this four-star general is going to eat your ass for lunch.”
Trouble found himself talking to a dead circuit.
“Kids these days. They ought to have to storm a Black Mountain or two. They’d learn some respect. If they lived through it.”
A car pulled up. The Secret Service man riding shotgun quickly dismounted and trotted toward Trouble.
“Are you General Tordon?”
“You see anyone else with a ramrod backbone around here?”
“No sir, I do not. May I ask you to please join us in the car?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” the general said.
As he settled into the backseat, the car was already moving. In the front he heard a whispered, “We have the problem child, and boy is he pissed.”
Well, at least someone is getting the word.
There was a major waiting for Trouble in the basement of the Grand Hotel. He grabbed the general by the elbow and rushed him into a waiting elevator. Trouble had to elbow the guy in the ribs to get him to let go of his arm.
The corporal holding the elevator developed a lovely case of dimples as she took in the scene, but she didn’t turn around enough for the major to notice.
Trouble gave her a smile, and the dimples became even more delightful.
The elevator went straight to the thirty-second floor and disgorged them into the waiting arms of a bird colonel.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” the colonel demanded.
“Mister,” Trouble snapped. “Either you sprout a whole lot more stars on your collar than you got now, or you pass me along to someone who does, because, son, I was ripping colonels’ new assholes before you were even in diapers.”
The colonel looked about to explode, but the cute corporal was back, no dimples in evidence.
“Sir, Field Marshal McMorrison would like to see the general now, Colonel.”
Trouble left the colonel sputtering to himself and followed the corporal to Mac’s office.
“Thank you,” he said, and was rewarded for his gallantry with another attack of dimples as she opened the door for him.
“General Trouble is here for you, sir,” she said.
“And you’re a whole lot of trouble, today, aren’t you, Jarhead.”
Trouble took the offered hand. “While I will dispute that I’ve caused anyone any unnecessary trouble, no doubt, I am in trouble.”
“No doubt,” the newly minted field marshal said, pointing Trouble toward a comfortable chair and taking another one himself, thereby managing to sit with his back to a desk piled high with the jetsam and flotsam of the problems of combining 120 or more planets into a single fighting force.
“Can I placate you with a cup of coffee or tea?”
“Coffee. Black,” Trouble said.
“Corporal Jin, two black coffees.” The dimpled soldier nodded and closed the door as she left.
“You keeping the prettiest for yourself, old man?” Trouble asked.
“I got to put up with a gang of ugly ones.”
“Like that colonel I damn near slugged out there?”
“Colonel Denton is a very good public-relations expert, or so I am assured.”
“I didn’t notice any combat ribbons on his chest.”
“Trouble, there aren’t a lot of folks with combat ribbons to show for their twenty or thirty years. It’s been kind of peaceful for a spell.”
“That may be changing,” Trouble said.
Dimples returned with two coffees that were actually coffee, not froth, and tasted quite good. Trouble told her.
“The field marshal got the office a real coffeepot last Christmas. So long as I clean it every morning, it makes good coffee. Since I also get to drink it, it’s a joy to clean.”
“Practical soldier,” Trouble said, a grin coming out to play. “Now, if you can find a dirty, oily old pot boiler, why don’t you draw a cup for my friend the colonel back there?”
“Sorry, General,” the corporal said, dimples on full parade. “Prune face only drinks the fancy stuff. All froth and foam and sugar.”
“Now, Jin,” the field marshal said.
“Yes, sir, Field Marshal, sir, I’ll clean up my act immediately, but the general met the colonel, and the general doesn’t look like the type to call a fucking spade a shovel, sir.”
And with that, she conducted a very orderly withdrawal. Certainly, not a retreat.
“That young woman,” the field marshal said, shaking his head.
“Well, if you have no use for her, I’m sure my Kris could put her to good use in a fight. It seems to me that a woman like her is wasted on a bunch of toy soldiers like you got here.”
“No doubt, but her dad and mom served under me years ago, and they personally asked me to sit on her request to transfer to Kris’s Marine detachment. I sat on the request just long enough to see the rear jets of the fleet headed out.”
“Mac, the day may be coming that we need to let gals like her get their war paint on.”
The field marshal’s eyes took on a faraway look. Then he shook himself. “You may be right.”
“You heard anything?”
“Nothing more than when you left last night. We’re all just guessing.”
