“No, ma’am.” Goose could see that the young woman was getting frustrated with the interview. He also guessed that the transmission was going out live.
Earlier, Remington had warned that many of the reporters had satellite access again and were broadcasting live interviews with the Turkish army, the U.N. task force, and Rangers. Up till now, Goose had kept himself insulated within the closed perimeter of battlefield ops while the reporters had been kept outside the gates.
“A number of people might see this sudden desire to get baptized as an act of desperation,” Danielle said.
Goose turned and stood his ground so suddenly that the young woman had to back away to keep from colliding with him. He kept a neutral expression on his face. “Is that what you think, Miss Vinchenzo?”
She froze, not knowing what to say.
“Because if that’s what you think,” Goose went on, “if you think that those soldiers out there aren’t going to hold the line when the time comes … well, ma’am, I sure wouldn’t be standing where you’re standing when the train comes through.”
All around them, the men who had been privy to the conversation suddenly erupted in an explosion of applause and shouts of encouragement.
“Hoo-rah!”
“That’s telling her, Sarge!”
The cameraman behind the young reporter swung around to capture the reactions.
Instead of being angry as Goose had expected, Danielle nodded and smiled in acknowledgement. She switched the microphone off. “Very good, Sergeant Gander. I’m not giving up on getting your story, though. Another time?”
Goose swung himself aboard the Hummer and made his injured knee as comfortable as he could. “At my invitation, ma’am, it would be my pleasure.” He touched his helmet respectfully, then waved Tommy into motion.
As they wheeled around, Goose looked at Baker standing in water up to his waist in the middle of the stream, the two lines of men leading up either hillside. At the moment, Goose wasn’t worried about the men or even the Syrians. He had no idea what Cal Remington was going to do when he learned that one of his corporals was baptizing men while being covered by international news networks. Or that his first sergeant, the man who knew what he wanted done, was responsible for leaving the corporal in place.
The strains of the invocation somehow remained clear even over the roar of the Hummer’s engine, ringing in Goose’s ears.
“Just as I am, of that free love,
The breadth, length, depth, and height to prove,
Here for a season, then above,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!”
30
United States of America
Fort Benning, Georgia
Local Time 8:37 A.M.
Voices woke Joey. He tried to retreat from them and drop back into slumber, where he didn’t have to face all the pain that awaited him, but he didn’t have any luck. The voices kept intruding because they were voices he didn’t expect in his house.
He pushed himself up into a sitting position in Chris’s bed. Even after all these years and the nights he’d spent “camping out” with Chris under a sheet while they fought off bears and pirates, he still forgot about the bunk bed above and slammed his forehead into the stout frame. Yelping in pain, Joey rubbed his forehead and ducked under the overhead bed. In a way, that pain felt good. At least there was an understandable reason for that feeling. The pain he’d felt when he woke up was caused by stuff too weird to ever explain. And he knew that the pain in his head would fade in minutes. He didn’t think the other would ever go away.
Despite knowing that he wasn’t going to find Chris there, Joey still looked through both beds. His heart felt cold and leaden inside his chest. Before he could stop himself, he was crying. His fists knotted in the sheets and he wanted to rip them from the bed.
But the rage inside him died stillborn because he knew the defiance would do no good. He’d dreamed over and over of getting to the child-care facilities. He’d arrived late every time. When he hadn’t dreamed about being late, he’d dreamed about leaving the house last night without saying good-bye to Chris. He’d heard Chris in this room, playing with his action figures, doing the voices for all of them. Some of those voices had even been different. And Joey had slithered out the door like a spy in a James Bond film.
Joey closed his eyes and wiped his face.
All he’d had to do last night was step into the room for a minute. “Hey, Squirt. I’m outta here. Catch you later.”
And Chris would have said, “Okay, Joey. Have fun. After while, alligator.”
Now he never would.
Guilt smothered Joey like one of Grandmother Gander’s homemade quilts. He didn’t know if getting to say good-bye to Chris would have changed how he felt now, but he couldn’t get the thought out of his head that he would never have the chance again. He reached down and picked up Chris’s tattered teddy bear, then tucked it tenderly under one of the blankets on a pillow.
The voices continued. He thought he heard someone crying.
Thinking about Jenny and wondering if she was still there, wondering if his mom was going to have anything to say or ask about Jenny and not knowing how he was going to handle that, Joey walked out into the hallway in his socks. Last night his mom hadn’t asked too many questions about Jenny. Learning that Chris had disappeared had blown her away. He’d never seen her cry so much.
And he couldn’t help feeling so much of that was because of him. If he could have told her he was with Chris when he disappeared, maybe it would have helped.
Or maybe he would have disappeared with Chris. At least then Chris wouldn’t be alone, wherever he is. Joey still had no definite ideas about where that would be.
The news programs all had people on them speculating about why the disappearances had occurred. The theories ran the
