Chapter 22

“You could have gone for it and got some last night,” insisted Natalia, not caring if Bruce and Lisa in the front seat heard her. “I might have woken up.”

“Sex with an unconscious woman is not my idea of sexy.” Steve and Natalia were riding in the back of a large SUV that Bruce was driving to Okeechobee a small city 50 miles from Vero Beach, it’s on a huge freshwater lake and it caters to fishing and tourism.

“How do you know? You never tried it,” insisted Natalia.

“Ok you two, put up or shut up,” said Bruce into the rear-view mirror. Natalia stuck out her tongue in reply and went back to apologizing to Steve. “Ok, hang on,” Bruce said as he pulled up to the police station. “We’ll be right back.” Bruce and Lisa entered the police station and presented documents showing that they were investigating a murder in Indian River County and wanted to question a local citizen. “We want to ask Terry Hill a few questions, do you know him?” Bruce showed the Sergeant a picture taken of Terry in Afghanistan.

“Oh yeah, he’s a regular down at the Bass Lounge,” and the captain gave Bruce and Lisa directions to the bar. They found it on the lake front and looked around. It wasn’t a seedy bar, but it looked like it got a fair crowd of regulars.

Steve stepped up to the bar and asked the bartender, “Do you know Terry Hill?”

“Why? You a tax collector?” the bartender asked without looking up, “or a cop?”

“Terry was in Special Ops with us and we heard he was in town,” said Steve, so Bruce didn’t have to answer the question.

The bar tender just tilted his head to the end of the bar and there, hidden behind a few revelers, sat the remains of Terry Hill. He looked like he has had a tough life since he left their unit. He was skin and bones, living on a diet of beer and scraps.

“Terry! Dude! It’s me, Steve Anderson!”

“Oh, hiya Doc, how long has it been?” said Terry blearily. Terry was a good soldier, and it hurt when he left to become a highly paid mercenary. “What choo doin’ here?”

“Bruce and I decided to take our girls on a road trip. You remember Bruce, right?”

“Sergeant Rock!” said Terry. “Captain America and Sergeant Rock ... shit. Dude...” He shook his head as memories of what feeling clean was like filled his head, then he gave Bruce a hug. “Sergeant Rock ... dude!”

“Come sit with us, let’s get you some food to sop up that beer,” said Steve. They found an empty table and ordered burgers and fries. They plied Terry with a couple of beers, and they talked about their life since Terry left the company. “You must have been our good luck charm because the moment you headed off to Kandahar, things went to shit.”

“Didn’t your buddy Shiek Yarbootie let you bunk in the palace?” He was talking about the provincial warlord Naveed Salama Muhammad, who befriended the Green Beret company and almost worshipped Steve and Bruce. Both Steve and Bruce were riding in style because of Naveed. Steve’s truck was well known in Vero Beach, but Bruce’s Mustang rarely sees the light of day.

“Right after you left the captain ... what was his name, Phillips got hit, then so did his lieutenant,” said Bruce. He couldn’t remember the lieutenant’s name. Lieutenants came and went in a blur of manning shifts until one would stick out. Medics like Steve were memorable because they gave a fuck about the guys and the Afghani’s around them.

“Who took over?”

Steve raised his hand and Bruce said, “Who else? Captain America. He ran the unit for nearly a year he was unit CC and top doc at the same time.”

“No shit?” slurred Terry.

“Yeah, he was good, we shoulda started with him, there would have been more of us come home.”