if we have air support.
'So I'm stuck. I wish to hell that Stauer had ordered the high velocity 60's.'
'Oh, sure,' Lana said. 'Those can penetrate a T-55 right through the front glacis. At pretty fair range, too.'
'Mmm . . . yeah.' Reilly made it almost a curse. 'But we don't have them. What we've got is 90mm soft recoil guns that can-'
'They can kill a T-55,' Viljoen said. 'I've done it . . . well, with help. But it helps if you can get them from the flanks. I remember the first time we ran into them . . . '
Reilly, Mendes, George, and the rest all stood bent closely over the map. Trim watched, too, but it wasn't really an engineering problem. Babcock-Moore seemed distant and distracted, staring up at the tent ceiling when he wasn't staring at the door flap.
Reilly's right index finger drummed the map at a particular spot. 'I'll have to clear it with Stauer,' he said. 'It's a major change to his plan. Major.'
'But you can believe in this?' George asked.
'Yes,' Reilly answered.
'Then tell the troops.'
'As soon as I talk to Stauer.' He thought for a moment, then said, 'Formation on the airfield, tomorrow morning. Call it eleven hundred hours. And pass the word to Gordo that I want at least two of his Porters waiting on the airfield at that time. Plus I need him to make a deal with his Guyanan contacts to hold a few people more or less indefinitely.
'Also, Top?'
'Yessir?'
'Identify the dozen or fifteen of the most reliable non-coms and troops we have. Issue them arms and ammunition. Also give me a list of the least reliable people we have.'
'Schiebel in charge?' George asked.
'Good choice, yes,' Reilly replied.
Trim gave a tight smile and added, 'And there I was going to volunteer my sergeant.'
Reilly raised an eyebrow and asked, 'Why's that?'
D-72, Assembly Area Alpha-Airfield, Amazonia, Brazil
Stauer and Phillie stood off to one side, along with the Sergeant Major. Stauer looked, if anything, jolly, in stark contrast to Joshua's scowl. Phillie was beginning to believe that the sergeant major had been scowling so long it had become his natural facial expression.
On the other side of the field two Pilatus Porters thrummed softly, their engines idling. Behind the Porters Reilly stood, centered on the airstrip's perforated steel surface. Mendes stood beside Reilly, along with the two South Africans, and what looked to be about a dozen armed men, close behind.
Stauer asked of Joshua, 'Is he fucking her, do you think?'
Phillie blushed, just slightly. The Sergeant Major's scowl simply deepened. 'Nope,' he said, shaking his head. 'He might have, before she signed on with us. Now? Not a chance.'
Stauer nodded and agreed, 'Yeah, you're most likely right.'
'It's not like she wouldn't say ‘yes' in a heartbeat,' Phillie said, softly.
'What's that?' Stauer asked.
'Oh . . . it's written all over her face. She wants him bad. A woman can tell these things, you know.'
'But he wears a wedding ring,' Stauer objected.
'You might be surprised how little that can matter,' Phillie said. She didn't offer to elaborate.
Before Stauer could enquire-which is to say, pry-further, they heard George's voice through the trees, counting off the simple cadence: 'One, two, three, four . . . left, right, left . . . left, right, a-left.' Some of the troops began to sing the company song before the first sergeant cut them off with, 'Shut the fuck up, goddammit. It's not a singing occasion.'
'Is he going to shoot somebody?' Phillie asked. 'I mean he's got those armed men . . . ' Her voice trailed off. It was pretty horrible even to think about.
'Only if necessary,' Joshua answered, completely tonelessly. Phillie looked over at his face and saw that, remarkably, his scowl had disappeared, replaced by something that was almost a smile. She asked about that.
'I love to see a master at work,' Joshua answered. The sergeant major went quiet then, watching through narrowed eyes as George gave the commands to maneuver the company into a position centered on Reilly. He was no more capable of failing to evaluate even the simplest military evolution than a politician was capable of keeping his word or speaking the truth when a lie would serve better.
Phillie noticed that the engines of the Porters began to cut out as the company approached the runway. She asked about that.
'He considers it ‘poor art' to actually have to raise his voice to a shout,' Joshua explained.
'Do you know what the problem is?' Stauer asked Phillie. 'I mean the real problem?'
She just shook her head.
'In any company, in any army in the world,' he began to explain, 'there are about, oh, anywhere from half a dozen to at most a dozen people who really make things work. I mean the real go getters, the ones you can completely rely on. Those guys, and girls sometimes, make up the real chain of command.'
'The difference between a good company and a bad one is often how closely that real chain of command mirrors the legal and official chain of command. If all the real movers and shakers are, say, privates or junior noncoms, it can put a company into a state of unofficial civil war in a heartbeat.
'I've seen a company where the real commander, the man everyone turned to for guidance, was a staff sergeant on crutches.'
'Yes,' Joshua said, 'but Sergeant Ortiz made that company.'
'Oh, I agree, Top. No argument. He was even able to mitigate the damage that red headed bastard, McPherson, did. But he could have just as easily unmade that company.'
Stauer sighed, realizing even as he did that I find myself doing a lot of that, lately. 'Our problem, and Reilly's problem, is that we don't have half a dozen to a dozen really great guys per company. We've got about three dozen in each company.'
'Post!' Reilly ordered. Unusual for the command, not only did George walk around to the back, along with the platoon sergeants, while the officers moved to stand in front, but the armed men behind Reilly also fanned out to both sides, half boxing the company in.
Reilly smiled, looking directly at Adkinson and saying, 'I understand that some of you are a little unhappy over the opposition we'll allegedly be facing . . . '
'But that should be a good thing, shouldn't it?' Phillie asked.
'No, Ma'am,' Joshua said, shaking his head. 'When you've got that many superb people there just isn't enough to keep them all busy doing great things.'
'With some folks, it doesn't matter,' Stauer continued. 'They'll do the job they're assigned, even if it's beneath them, and await opportunities. Some people, however, can't do that. Some, too, are natural troublemakers whom you could get good use from if you had the time to plan how keep them busy, but otherwise, they just create discord.'
'But Reilly doesn't have the time,' the sergeant major said. 'He'd really prefer, deep down, to win people like that over. I imagine it hurts him inside that, in this case, he can't.'
Adkinson wasn't sure why Reilly looked directly at him. Sure, he'd been complaining about the prospect of taking on tanks in armored cars, but that was professional, the obligation, as he saw it, of a noncom to keep
