Which absolutely endeared her to Victor.
D-83, en route to Assembly Area Alpha-Base Camp, Amazonia, Brazil
'Well didn't you at least get the girl's number, Sergeant?' Trim asked, over the roar of the Porter's single engine.
The two Brits were the only passengers on this flight. Still, the compartment was crowded. At this point, with the personnel mostly transferred and too much food required to buy it all in Manaus without raising suspicions, Air Gordo was having to fly in a ton and a quarter of comestibles daily. Thus Trim and Babcock found themselves sitting, approximately, upon several sides of beef, a good-sized crate of canned vegetables, and who knew what else.
'She's obviously not that kind of girl, sir,' Babcock-Moore replied.
'How do you know if you didn't ask for her number?'
'A gentleman just knows, sir.'
Trim looked very intently at his sergeant. 'You're actually taken with her, aren't you?'
Vic sighed. 'She seems very nice,' he admitted, and wouldn't say more on the subject.
The two stiffened as they felt the plane shudder slightly and veer left.
'Base camp coming up on the left,' the pilot announced over one shoulder.
D-83, Base Camp, Amazonia, Brazil
The drone of an airplane filtered through the thick jungle cover above. Beneath it, one hundred and twenty- nine men, including some of the attachments and minus a couple on duty or sick call, marched on rather less than twice that number of good knees. Reilly, personally, was marching on two bad ones.
I'd forgotten, he mentally groaned, just how goddamned painful this is. And I never really considered how much worse it would be at my age now. Fuck me to tears. I thought I had all the character building anyone could ever need.
Behind him, in two long lines snaking through the trees, with leaders spaced out between them, marched Alpha Company. Sergeant Major Joshua took up the rear, just behind the stretcher-borne mortars, with First Sergeant George beside him. On one shoulder the sergeant major carried a machine gun that he'd borrowed for the occasion from the armory. He just liked the heft of the thing.
The heavy guns had been rotated among the platoons several times by now and were now back with the mortar section. The men lugging them groaned-and not just mentally-with the effort. Nor were they the only ones with some cause for complaint.
'Quit bitching, George,' Joshua said, sotto voce.
'I wasn't bitching, Sergeant Major,' George replied. 'I was observing that we are all pretty much getting too old for this shit. My knees are killing me. And it's hot.'
'Stop quibbling, George. And stop bitching.'
'Doesn't that asshole officer know it's hot?' complained one of the larger former tankers, Adkinson by name. He was tall enough that there'd been some question as to whether he'd fit inside the turrets of the armored cars. The man made an effort to look intelligent, though there was some question about that, too. 'And besides, what the hell purpose is there in us marching? We fight from vehicles. Typical, dumb as shit officer! If he'd ever been enlisted he'd have more sense.'
Adkinson marched at the tail end of the armored gun platoon. Just behind him a small infantryman named Schiebel carefully stepped on the tanker's heel, causing him to twist his ankle and fall to the jungle floor.
'Sorry, Adkinson,' Schiebel said. He didn't sound very sorry. As he stepped over Adkinson's prostrate form, he added, 'And just FYI, the CO was enlisted for four years.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Eros mocks Mars.
-Brian Mitchell, Weak Link
D-82, Camp Stephenson,
Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Guyana
Gordo poured sweat as from a fountain. It didn't do anything too very good for his disposition, either.
It was sweltering in the hangar housing two of the five Guyanan Short Skyvans and one large container holding three partially disassembled armored car turrets on cradles. For various reasons, looming large among them the fact that Gordo thought the chief pilot, Samuel Perreira, to be a pure weasel, he had brought along Major Konstantin and two of his sergeants, Musin and Litvinov, for a little added muscle. True, the Russians (and Tatar) were unarmed. They gave the impression of men who didn't need to be armed to execute murder and mayhem.
Because he was fat, and often looked altogether too jolly, people sometimes underestimated Harry Gordon's innate ruthlessness. They likewise tended to overestimate his need to be liked.
'Yes, Major,' Gordo said to Perreira, in a very unjolly tone, 'we are both ‘officers and gentlemen.' Notwithstanding that, you get not a penny from the escrow account until these three items are safely landed at the location I've given you.'
'But how do I know-'
'How do you know you'll be paid?' Gordo interrupted. 'Because the money is safely in escrow and I can't get it back for myself, even if I try. I can only keep you from getting at it and that I would have no interest in doing unless you piss me off. Which you will, unless my . . . machinery is loaded on your planes and moved to where I want it before daybreak.'
'But . . . '
Gordo turned around, huffily. 'Konstantin, get the container back on the flatbed. We're taking it back to the
