Colour Sergeant Smoot, whose rank was the English equivalent of Johnson’s gunnery sergeant stripes, had served as a troop leader during Desert Storm and afterwards had been through the USMC Scout Sniper School at Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia, USA, a course Marcus had taught shortly before his deployment to Bosnia the previous year.
Smoot was thirty-eight years old and divorced with eighteen-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, who were just starting their first year of university studies. He had been in the Corps for twenty years already and was up for regimental sergeant major in the next selection phase. It was a promotion he half-hoped not to get, fearing it would only serve to give his ex-wife more money to waste on her boyfriends.
“She was a bit of a tart to begin with,” he said. “I should’ve seen it. I mean, she slept with me the very night we met. I got her preggers within the first month we were dating, and we were wed a week later, me on a Marine 1st Class bankroll. We were always broke and I was always gone off on this or that duty. Every time I was home, it was as if I was a nuisance, like I was interrupting something. It was fifteen years of pure marital hell with her. I do love my kids, though, and they love me—at least, they act like it. My son says he wants to be a Naval officer. Can you believe that? The son of a Marine sergeant, becoming a bloody admiral!”
Barclay smiled at his superior and said, “Well, Colours, thanks for the lesson. Watching you these past five years has blessed me with the foresight to not even try. I love‘em and leave‘em as needed, but always use protection…that’s the key, you see…leave no trace.” He grinned mischievously. “Didn’t they teach you that in sniper school?”
All three men laughed aloud and sipped their large, foam-topped glasses of thick, black Guinness.
“What about you, Marcus?” Smoot asked. “Any love life?”
“Almost, once.” His smile faded briefly, but he covered his immediate tension by taking another swig of his beer. When he put it down, there was a smile on his face again. “She said it was her or the Corps, and well…here I am.”
“Oorah!” Barclay replied. “That’s the way! Here’s to Marcus. SemperFidelis.”
Allison, the pub proprietor, walked across the mostly empty room to their table. “Well, Gunnery Sergeant Johnson,” she said with a stern look on her face, “it looks like you have quite a bill to take care of. How do you plan to pay, love?”
Allison was tall, nearly six feet. A slender athletic build accentuated her height. She had a narrow face that ended in a pointed nose and chin. Tight, small bundles of wrinkles graced the corners of her eyes. Her long, nut-brown hair was pulled back into a thickly woven braid that ran to below her shoulder blades.
Allison’s age was hard to tell. The life of a barmaid often ripened a person prematurely. Marcus’s best guess was that she was somewhere between thirty-five and forty-five. Whatever her age, she filled her blue jeans and T-shirt out very well, displaying the body of a woman who had taken fitness seriously since she was young. There were no rings on any of her long, slim fingers, which extended from smooth hands that seemed well cared-for.
Her lips were full, even youthful-looking. There were few lines or wrinkles at their edges. This led Marcus to believe that although the smell of tobacco smoke hung in the air of the pub, she was not a smoker herself. She probably inhaled enough smoke in her job every night to get a more-than-ample nicotine fix.
“Do you take VISA?” Marcus asked as he reached for his wallet.
She raised an eyebrow. A frown pulled down the edges of her lips. After a second of silence, she broke into a smile, which quickly grew into a laugh as she put a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t you worry about it none, love—I was only playing with you. I heard you’d be here for a while yet, so I’ll just keep your tab running as long as you need. These jacks like to bully a fella into buying all their beer so they can save their shillings for their girlfriends.”
“Poker’s more like it.” Barclay laughed. “Those blokes ain’t got time for girls. We make sure of that, don’t we, Colours?”
“That’s right, Sergeant,” Smoot said. He rose from the table, stamping his hand on the hard wooden surface with a resounding thud. “Thanks again, Miss Allison. As usual, you were a most gracious hostess to me and my men. The company thanks you, the troop thanks you, and the Queen thanks you.” He bowed courteously as he uttered the last words.
“That niceness with the Yank about his tab doesn’t apply to you, Reggie,” she replied, one eyebrow cocked back up.
“Oh, come on now, Allie, my love, you know I pay up every month. Whatever the ex-wife’s lawyers let me keep back, that is.”
“I know you do, but I also have been getting a feeling that you boys may be shipping out again soon, and so I’m just letting you know you’ve nearly gotten to your five-hundred-quid limit.”
“As always,” Smoot said, his face blushing slightly, “you are truly oblique about your approach to dealing discreetly with your most trusted clients.”
“It’s the German in my blood. My grandfather was a tax collector.”
“Gestapo, you mean?” mumbled the colour sergeant.
“Say that with a smile, Marine,” she threatened jokingly.
“Payout is this Friday, tomorrow, I promise.”
“Thanks, Reggie.” She smiled.
“Five hundred quid?” Barclay questioned. “Hey, I want a tab like that!”
“You’ll have to wait until you grow up there, little Billie. Reggie’s been lining my purse for most of a decade now, so
