But it was fair enough, Shanley thought, because they were hardest of all on themselves. And that was hard to take.
Shanley looked like everyone's image of the ultimate professional soldier. His bearing was military. His black hair was cropped short. He was fit and lean, with high cheekbones and a firm jaw. His eyes were blue and piercing and laughter lines showed he could take stress. He was deeply tanned. His demeanor was both confident and encouraging. He had a natural air of command. His voice was a pleasure to listen to, both crisp and authoritative and persuasive. Clothes fitted him as if tailored. He was a man's man and a woman's man. Both sexes automatically warmed to him.
Unprompted, enlisted men automatically called him ‘Sir.’ Officers called him ‘Sir’ also, or ‘Mister’ with respect. He had eyeballed Death and he had not blinked. He was ex-Special Forces or some such elite unit. He was ranger and airborne qualified. He was a warrior.
But he had never served. He had come close, but then Lydia had showed up and civilian life had seemed the better option. But he had always wondered.
The irony of Don Shanley was that none of his military traits or mannerisms was affected. All were natural and were innate to the man. Shanley was just ordained by nature to look the part.
It went deeper than mere looks. Shanley also was a crack shot and had a deep understanding of the military art. He knew weapons and tactics and military history, and how the whole terrible business worked, in very considerable detail.
By nature he was conscientious and thorough, and in his value system you should thoroughly understand the needs of your customer. It went with doing the job right.
Shanley was a decent man. Doing the job as well as it could be done was important to him. Work was how he supported his family, and they were everything to him. Lydia and the twins. They were why he did what he did and why he was proud to do it. He also thought it was necessary. The U.S. military were entitled to have the best weapons that money and technology could provide, and he, Donald Shanley, would see that they had them. On that issue he slept easy.
But when he trained men who were about to put their lives on the line, he felt guilty. He felt the need to pay his dues. To serve in a combat unit in defense of his country.
He was an old-fashioned man with simple values. He had a conscience and he cared.
He picked up the phone and called Lydia in New Jersey. This was something he had done virtually every night he had been away since they had gotten married eight years ago. She was asleep, but she responded to his voice with drowsy warmth.
The twins were fine. Sam adored the new pancake recipe. Samantha wanted to play the guitar instead of the piano. The air conditioner had been fixed. All was well with the world. She missed him and loved him.
Shanley replaced the receiver. He had a good job with a fine company, and he had a wife and children he adored. He should be entirely content. And yet something was missing.
He wanted to – needed to – serve.
He swung his legs off the bed and began checking the equipment. Toward the end, he stripped and cleaned the M16A2 and the Barrett. The Magnavox MAG-600, which he was going to demonstrate to the 82 ^ nd tomorrow, was an interesting piece of equipment.
It was a thermal-imager sight, which meant it responded to heat emanations. With it, you could shoot in complete darkness or through smoke or fog at quite considerable ranges. Variations of it could accomplish the same task when fitted to a Stinger antiaircraft missile.
One of the most interesting applications of all was the application of the Magnavox thermal imaging technology to driving. Using a thermal viewer fed through to a miniature TV monitor mounted on or in the dashboard, you could drive without lights in the absolute dead of night. Image intensifiers required some light. Thermal imagers required none at all.
Shanley finished the weapons cleaning and consulted his appointment schedule.
A Colonel Hugo Fitzduane of the Irish Rangers and party were due at 3:00 P.M. for a personal demonstration. They had some particular problems they wanted to resolve that sounded as if they were right up Magnavox's street. They wanted to equip a FAV – a fast-attack vehicle – with full thermal capability and wondered if the equipment could take the pounding.
Don Shanley smiled to himself. The Shanleys had come to America from famine-stricken Ireland in the middle of the nineteenth century. Who would have thought then that Ireland would become independent and thrive and prosper?
He was looking forward to meeting this Colonel Fitzduane.
He looked at his watch. It was after one in the morning. He had given the company an eighteen-hour day. A little personal time did not seem unreasonable.
He put on swim trunks and then slid on a terry-cloth robe and headed for the pool.
The corridors were empty, and when he got outside he could see that most of the rooms were in darkness. For all practical purposes he had the hotel to himself. It was not true, of course, because there was still a night staff on duty, but the illusion was there and he savored it. An exhibition was the unrelenting pressure of people day after day. Well, mostly he liked people, but sometimes he craved some personal space.
Silent in his bare feet, he walked slowly down the path that led through landscaped vegetation to the pool. The vegetation was normally floodlit, but at this late hour the lights had been turned off and only the pool in the center was still illuminated.
The water glowed like the entrance to a magical world. When he dived in, he thought, he would keep on swimming down and the waters would part and mysteries beyond compare would be revealed.
He was just about to leave the darkness to enter the pool area when he saw ripples on the surface of the water. He paused, and seconds later a nearly naked woman emerged from the pool. She did not use the ladder but instead levered herself up effortlessly onto the poolside. Her body was long and lithe and glowed in the soft light.
She was not just fit. She was in perfect condition. Muscles rippled under golden skin, and her figure was showed off to perfection by the minimal black fabric of her costume.
She ran her hands back over her head, squeezing water from her close-cropped blond hair. Her carriage was erect, and something about her posture suggested formal training. If she had been a man, he would have thought military. Ballet? Modeling? No, she had the discipline, but there was too much hard muscle there in the upper body. In this case, functionality ran ahead of appearance.
This woman did not just want to be fit. She needed the strength and stamina.
As he watched, she leaned down casually and picked up a towel. She dried her face, and as she did so she turned quite naturally to face in his direction.
'Come on in,' she said. 'It really would be a cool idea. Don't be shy. It makes me nervous.'
Her hands were outstretched. They were not empty.
Shanley looked down at the front of his robe. The red dot of the laser sight rested neatly on his torso. It was not quite central but sat slightly to the left. The red dot was steady.
Rib cage, heart, lungs, and all kinds of other useful bits he was quite attached to in one burst. It looked like a mini-Uzi. Neat trick, that, with the towel.
He stepped into the light. It seemed like a remarkably good idea.
'Ah, Mr. Magnavox,' she said slowly. 'I saw you on the stand. You were playing with a Stinger missile. Thermal sights, if I recall.'
Shanley nodded. She looked at him carefully as if checking, and then the outstretched arms relaxed. He looked at his torso. The red dot was gone. He could feel his heart pounding.
'You don't seem to need them,' he said.
He swam hard for fifteen minutes, notching up the lengths in a fast crawl. He was a strong swimmer. The luminous water was as he had thought. It was another world.
Finally he slowed and turned onto his back to float. Stars glittered in the night sky above him.
She had left earlier. Now she stood there with two glasses in her hands. She was wearing a white djellaba
