Dead Six

door. Someone had also drawn a rough picture of a heart with an arrow through it. Grumbling something unpleasant, I opened the door and stepped into the dark room.

A dusty smell filled my nose, and it took me a moment to find the light switch. As the old fluorescent light above my head flickered to life, it revealed a Spartan little room. It couldn’t have been more than twelve foot by twelve. It looked like a college dorm room that had been abandoned years before. The walls were bare white cinder block, with no decorations. A simple bed with a thin mattress was shoved into one corner. A military-surplus wool blanket and a small pillow had been tossed onto it. Against one wall was a set of metal shelving. A small closet was situated on the other wall.

I set my bag down and began to explore my new room. On the far wall was a window and a door. The window was darkly tinted, and didn’t open. The door opened outward to reveal a small balcony. From my balcony, in the cool, dry night air, I could see over the wall of the compound. The amber glow of Zubara City could be seen to the east. The wind was gusty and cold, so I went back into my room.

The other door in the room led to the bathroom. I crossed my room and pulled that door open. “Hey!” someone yelled, startling me enough that I stumbled back into my room. It had been a woman’s voice. A second later, Sarah McAllister appeared in the doorway.

“Hey!” I said as she stepped around me, walking into my room like she owned the place. “What the hell?”

“Are you stalking me or something?” she asked.

I felt my face flush. “You’re in my room!”

“I guess we share a bathroom,” she said.

“I guess,” I said. “Weird that they didn’t separate males and females.”

“This isn’t summer camp,” Sarah said, grinning.

“Do we have a shower, then?” I asked, poking my head back into the bathroom.

“Sort of,” Sarah replied. To my right, at the very end of the room, was a square section that looked like the base of a shower. At about knee high, there was a spigot and two knobs. The spigot led to a hose, which in turn led to a shower head, clipped to the wall just above the spigot.

“Huh? So . . . what are you supposed to do, sit down in this thing?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “You could use the spray-hose to wash yourself, I guess. There’s nowhere on the wall above to clamp it, so we can’t use it like a regular shower. Also, there’s no curtain.”

“And what the hell is that?” I asked, indicating another spray-hose. This one came out of the wall next to the toilet.

“It’s for washing your feet,” Sarah explained. “Most toilets over here have them. Local custom is you wash your feet after using the bathroom.”

“What about your hands?” I asked.

“That’s optional,” she said, smiling.

“So this is it, huh? A shower, um, thing with no curtain, a toilet with a spray-hose on it, and a bare tile floor with a drain. Zubaran bathroom technology is a bit wanting.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” Sarah said. “Or I’m going to try. So get out of here. The door doesn’t lock, so don’t open it until I’m gone. Stalker.”

“I’m not stalking you!” I protested as Sarah shoved me out of the bathroom and slammed the door in my face. “Psycho,” I muttered to myself as she turned the water on.

Exhausted, I kicked my boots off and climbed into bed. Pulling the rough wool blanket over me, I rolled over and was asleep in minutes.

I was abruptly woken a short while later. I sat up in bed, startled, not entirely sure where I was at first. Sarah stood over me, wearing nothing but a short pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt. Her hair was wet. She smelled nice; she looked good.

“Hey, Valentine,” she said. “Do you have any toilet paper?”

“Huh? What’re you doing in my room again?” I mumbled.

“Toilet paper. There isn’t any. Did you bring some?”

“Actually, I did.” I sat up. “I always bring toilet paper.” I reached over and dug into my duffel bag. I handed her a roll that was wrapped in a plastic bag. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s everything,” she said, stepping back into the bathroom. “Nice try, though.” She flashed me a smile before closing the door again.

“You’re welcome!” I yelled at the door before laying back down. I had a smile on my face as I rolled over to go back to sleep.

VALENTINE

February 28

For the rest of the month of February, we remained cooped up in Fort Saradia. We had classes every day on topics ranging from fieldcraft to local history. Gordon Willis made several appearances to tell us what a great job we were doing and remind us of the importance of operational security. He seemed pretty useless, actually.

There was a lot of physical fitness training, too. It had been less than a year since I’d left Vanguard, but I’d gotten pretty out of shape. The first morning they had us running laps around the inside of the compound I thought my heart was going to explode. Tailor was even worse off than I was, since he was a smoker.

What we weren’t getting was any firearms training, which bothered me, but I understood why. Fort Saradia didn’t have a range of any kind, and was only a few miles outside of the city. There was no way to do a lot of shooting without drawing attention.

At least we did have weapons. I’d been inside the main building a few times and had caught a glimpse of the arms room. It was stocked with some of the most modern equipment I’d ever seen, and it was all brand new. Our armorer was a jovial guy named Frank Mann. He sported curly black hair and a bushy black mustache, and was eminently proud of his arms room. He’d been around the block a few times himself, so he, Tailor, and I became friends. In any case it’s always a good idea to make friends with the armorer.

Tailor and I didn’t tell him about the handguns we’d smuggled. Even though they’d prohibited cellular phones and some other items, they’d never bothered to search our belongings. I suspected Frank wouldn’t care. He was as big a gun nut as Tailor and I, and I’d seen him packing what I assumed was a personally owned Glock .45 several times.

Toward the end of the month, things began to pick up. Every day it seemed that there were fewer and fewer of us. The word was that we were being divided up into small groups and sent off to safe houses to begin conducting operations. Sarah hinted that they’d been watching us to see whom we got along with, and who we’d work well with. Frank told me that he’d been issuing weapons to the people that were leaving. It seemed like things were finally going to begin. I was excited; sitting around in the compound had grown tiresome.

On the very last day of the month, I was told to report to the small briefing room in the admin building. It was mid-afternoon as I made my way across Fort Saradia. The sun was high in the sky; it was warm but not hot. A strong wind blew from the north. Every time it would gust, it’d kick up another huge cloud of dust. Other than the howling wind, the compound was quiet.

I was apparently the last one to arrive in the small briefing room. Colonel Hunter and Sarah were standing at the front of the room, talking quietly. A laptop was set up on a table, hooked up to a projector. A portable screen stood at the head of the darkened room.

“About time,” Tailor said, sitting at one of the desks with a notebook.

“Are we taking a test or something?” I asked, sitting next to him. I briefly wondered if this was one of those crazy dreams where you’re back in school and have to take an exam you haven’t studied for.

“They’re shipping us off,” Hudson said from across the room. Sitting next to him was Wheeler, the guy who kept asking questions on the plane. He and Hudson had both been in the Rangers together. Wheeler was a slim, freckled redhead. Despite being from New York, he was a country boy. Wheeler had grown up hunting in the woods of upstate New York, or as he always pointed out, the “unpaved” part of the state.

“To where?” I asked.