“I’m nervous about the Marines being here,” she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I’m nervous about what’ll happen to my island, even with that silly contract, but…Prig said there’s a worse enemy coming. Maybe we’ll be damn glad the Marines are here by the end.”
“Maybe,” he replied, kissing her on top of the head, “but let’s get through this mission before we worry about that.”
7
Anger was a dangerous thing when it lingered because it started to fester, turning into something far uglier and more insufferable. Rod Smith had paced from corner to corner in his tent for roughly half an hour, trying to exhaust himself before he went back to the interrogation tent. It didn’t seem to be working, so finally he gave up, walked over to the desk in the corner, and picked up his sidearm. He slid it into the holster, then grabbed an auto-baton from the top drawer and tucked that under a loop of his belt. The auto-baton was good for intimidating prisoners because the loud snap when he extended it was like a gunshot—a threat of violence that didn’t waste a bullet.
As he turned toward the tent flap, he saw one of his lieutenants standing there. Craig Thornton was a tough little guy with an ugly scar on his forehead and about four missing teeth from a fistfight with a biker gang near Redding. As he approached, Rod could make out the vast number of scars on his knuckles.
“Take me back to the prisoner,” Rod said. “The Marine. I’m going to try questioning him again. Maybe we softened him up last time.”
“Yes, sir,” Craig replied. The man’s only flaw was his high, nasally voice, which was about as intimidating as a wet fart on a warm night. “We put him back in his cage.”
“Move him to the interrogation tent,” Rod said. “Take at least three men with you. Go.”
He brushed his hands at Craig, and the little man dashed out of the tent as fast as his stumpy legs would take him. Rod followed him at a leisurely pace. As soon as he stepped out of the tent, all of the guards and workers in the immediate vicinity turned to note his presence. The guards nodded, and the civilians shuffled frantically out of his way.
Good, he thought. Let them see the rage in my eyes and break way before me. Failures, all of them. Absolute failures.
As he strode through the camp, two of his guards fell in beside him. He scarcely knew their names, but then he spotted someone whose name he knew all too well. It was lodged in his brain forever. Nathan Spitler, big as an ox and dumb as dirt.
Nathan was doing his rounds, walking through camp with his rifle in his hands. When he made brief eye contact with Rod, he quickly turned away, pretending he hadn’t noticed him.
“Nathan, get over here,” Rod said. “Right now.”
Though he was nearly the same size as Rod, over six feet tall, with a muscular build that strained his uniform, Nathan came to his commander like a whipped dog, lowering the rifle and staring at his own feet.
“I don’t know if you heard the good news,” Rod said, signaling for Nathan to follow him. “Two of our guys that were injured on the bridge yesterday have died.”
“I…I heard,” Nathan replied, barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry, sir. You said you wanted the Marines alive so you could question them. Otherwise, we would have just shot them all right there in front of the bridge. We tried to knock them out, tie them up, throw them in the water—they were just too much for us.”
“Soldiers die in battle,” Rod said. “I’m less concerned about the casualties than I am about the Marines getting away from us. They’re all on the island now, planning who knows what? The blame is entirely yours. Entirely yours. You were in charge of that squad.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
When Nathan’s simpering didn’t quite satisfy, Rod reached over and smacked him hard on the back of the head. He stumbled forward, grabbing the back of his head with his free hand.
“I had that coming, sir,” he said.
“And worse, if you don’t shape up,” Rod said.
Nearby, an older man and woman, gray-haired civilians dressed in filthy rags, were working on repairing an old camp stove. Rod recognized them as well. They’d been working on the motorcycles at the edge of camp the day before, and the Marines had slipped right past them. Indeed, the old man had confessed to seeing the group, but instead of calling out an immediate alarm, he’d simply gone looking for someone. Consequently, by the time the guards found out about the infiltration, the Marines had already gone halfway down the slope to the causeway.
Rod diverted toward them. The woman glanced up but resumed working. Trying to keep her head down, mind her own business, the way all good civilians did.
“From now on, keep your eyes open,” Rod barked at them. As he said it, he kicked the shell of the camp stove out of the old man’s hands and sent it tumbling.
Without bothering to see their reaction, he marched past them and headed for the interrogation tent. It was a small, sturdy tent, double-layered canvas with an iron framework underneath and a heavy door.
Craig Thornton was already there, standing in the open flap, saluting as the commander approached.
“He’s inside, Commander,” he said. “Secured and ready for questioning.”
Rod brushed him aside and stepped through the door. The Marine, who claimed to go by the name “Golf,” was seated on a metal chair, his wrists and ankles bound to the frame. The chair, in turn, was bolted to the tent’s sturdy framework. He was young, Latino, slender, but his face was lumped and misshapen from the beatings, none of which had
