Yes, that was very, very interesting.
39
TEMPLE, TEXAS ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION
The alarm woke Caitlin Monroe at six the next morning, relatively late for her. Tusk Musso had been right, telling her not to set it too early. After a tense start to the evening, the three of them had drunk well into the night. At one point McCutcheon even suggested they pile into a couple of pick-ups - the table had attracted at least a dozen rowdy hangers-on by that point - and all drive over to the Hood for some real eatin’ and drinkin’. That plan went nowhere.
Nobody was sober enough to drive, except for Caitlin, and only she knew that. She’d secretly swapped out her whiskey for iced tea after the second drink. She was tired enough to act drunk, which, in character as the punishing Kate Murdoch, simply meant becoming more taciturn and red-eyed as the night went on. Ty McCutcheon was a natural performer and everybody’s new best friend, encouraging them all to drink up and filling the bar with raucous good vibes and the promise of more to come. Naturally, he made a pass at ‘Katie’ about halfway through the night, but then he made a pass at every woman in the room. Hell, he may even have scored.
When Caitlin excused herself and tottered unsteadily away - a very convincing, if quiet drunk - McCutcheon had two administrative assistants in his lap pouring him tequila lay-backs. The Echelon operator caught Musso’s eye as she was leaving, long enough for him to share a look that told her he thought this might be all for the good. It was a chance for his people to blow off some steam, and maybe to create a little goodwill at the top of the food chain over in Fort Hood. He too switched drinking tactics early in the night, but had resorted to lite beer rather than the complete fake-out she’d pulled. Unless, of course, he’d had ginger ale in those beer cans.
The Polish sergeant, Milosz, who was one of the first to gatecrash the table, had hauled out a stash of Cuban cigars as his calling card. One of the worst hangovers Caitlin could ever recall, from her college years - and she could only dimly recall it - involved whiskey and cigars. It had been her first and last two-day hangover. An experience she was more than happy to avoid repeating by bailing early and taking a shower to wash the smell of alcohol and smoke out of her skin and hair. Tired, not just from work and travel, but from the constant strain of maintaining cover, she fell asleep soon after pulling up the covers, and before her thoughts could turn to home.
Outside now, she could hear a platoon of Rangers going through their morning physical training, shouting cadence without the usual level of enthusiasm. A glance out the window revealed more than a few of last night’s revellers struggling to go through the routine of side-straddle hops, squat thrusts and the hello dolly punctuated by frequent commands to drop into the front leaning rest for another round of push-ups.
‘So glad I didn’t chose the army for my cover,’ she said to herself. It was just the type of pointless, dumb-ass physical training she hated. They’d probably follow it up with a ten-mile run to sober up all the alcoholics. No doubt, out at Fort Hood at this very instant, the same ritual was taking place. Or maybe not. As Musso said, it wasn’t the regular army anymore.
She’d woken up feeling refreshed, at least, but hungry. There had been a promise of dinner with Musso and McCutcheon, she remembered, but after a few drinks that promise turned into an untidy pile of corn chips and peanuts. An orgy of trashy carbs and additives she’d decided to skip.
After changing into exercise clothes and hitting the gym, she logged a long session of high-intensity cardio intervals, strength training and the Tensho and Saiha
‘Impressive effort, Colonel. I wouldn’t have imagined any human being could face poached eggs the morning after besting a bottle of single malt in close-quarter combat.’
Looming over her table, Tusk Musso was holding a plate of sausages and scrambled eggs and waiting for an invitation to sit down. He caught her with a mouthful of food, necessitating some awkward hand gestures as she juggled a knife and fork and her cup of coffee. Musso took the seat opposite.
‘Saw you in the gym this morning, as I shuffled past,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m afraid I don’t practise the combat arts as much as I used to. I’m getting a bit old and brittle for it. Most dangerous cripple in America, that’s me.’
‘You don’t look like you’re about to fall over,’ replied Caitlin, smiling. ‘Unlike some this morning.’
The general grinned with the appreciative malevolence of somebody who hadn’t drunk too much. ‘I don’t imagine Ty McCutcheon will be putting his head in there or here anytime soon,’ he said. ‘Last I saw of him, he was being dragged off to his room by a couple of Rangers.’
‘Well, you know the air force, sir,’ she joked. ‘The hardest drinkingest service of all. Although, I’ll give you your due. For a Leatherneck, you didn’t do too badly last night.’
Musso started in on his scrambled eggs, bulldozing them up with a piece of beef sausage. ‘Do you think it helped?’ he asked, ignoring the troll bait.
It was the sort of question he would ask of his military liaison officer, but of course they both knew that she was nothing of the sort. Caitlin wondered whether he was genuinely curious about her reading of the night, or just playing to her cover.
‘Depends,’ she said. ‘On how straight he was with us. On how much influence he has with Blackstone. Maybe even on whether he wakes up with sailor’s nuts and gets pissed off he didn’t get to have his end away with those two cuties he was bouncing on his knee last night.’
A look appeared on Musso’s face that was a little confused, but mostly inquisitive.
‘Have his end away? You sound like you spent some time in England, Colonel Murdoch.’
Caitlin mopped up some runny yolk with a piece of toast on the end of her fork. The eggs looked to be free range, from the rich, bright orange of the yolk. She wondered where they sourced them. They reminded her of the farm in Wiltshire.
‘That’s how I missed the Wave,’ she said, dropping into the background story of her mission jacket. ‘I was on a posting with the RAF. Only supposed to be there six months. Ended up staying nearly three years in all the confusion. Never developed a taste for warm beer, but I did get some schooling in how to drink whiskey during a stint up in Scotland at RAF Leuchars.’
A few people were beginning to drift into the repurposed bar for their breakfast, but nobody she recognised from last night.
‘That’s good,’ replied Musso. ‘Because you’ll need your wits about you today, even if McCutcheon doesn’t have his. We have a meeting with Governor Blackstone at 0900 hours.’
‘We?’
‘Indeed. We, including my new buddy Tyrone.’
‘Somebody had better go wake him up then. Bags not me.’
‘You have been over the pond a while, haven’t you? Don’t worry about McCutcheon. I’ve already put Sergeant Milosz onto that hazardous duty.’
She cocked her head a little. ‘You know, General, Milosz didn’t look like he was going to be much better off this morning, last time I saw him.’
Musso shrugged. ‘I think they gave Sergeant Milosz potato vodka instead of baby formula at whatever collectivised communist childcare facility he was raised in. He was probably up before you with the rest of the Rangers, giving them a metric ton of shit for their unmanly inability to hold their liquor. Probably worked Melville into his cadence, too. His guys love him, but they hate it when he tries to improve them.’
Caitlin washed down the last of the toast with black coffee, ready to face the day.
‘I ran into him yesterday,’ she said. ‘Seemed a good guy. He was partly why I went in so hard at the start of last night. I wanted to knock McCutcheon off balance, get a concession from him before we even got things under way. I hope you’re okay with that. You looked a little taken aback.’
The former Marine shook his head, dismissing her concerns. ‘You did take me by surprise, but McCutcheon was a lot more surprised. And it worked. Or it seemed to, anyway. I guess we’ll see about that today. I’m going to send a few people over to pick up some basic supplies at the PX. We’ll see whether or not the chickenshit is
