Chapter 9

Boot Camp was easy. For the most part. All you had to do was follow every order you were given, as soon as you got them, read and remember all the rules and regulations they told you to, and hustle at all times. Oh yeah, you had to yell a lot. That's where I ran into trouble.

The physical stuff I could do easy, as long as I was well supplied with sun blocker. The mental stuff was so easy it was laughable. I even managed to fake the teamwork part they loved to endlessly talk about.

But I couldn't muster up enough emotion to yell, and that drove the D.I.s absolutely crazy.

So, on top of everything else, I had to undergo a serious barrage of medical and psychological testing. Come to find out I was just fine, except for not being emotional enough to yell on command.

Apparently red flags went flying up all over the damn place.

I had just finished basic training when I received word my mother had died. I was granted emergency leave and I went... home.

Mom was buried in the family plot, next to her parents. They'd died just after Ivan was born of some viral infection they'd contracted in South America while boating down the Amazon.

It was a nice little cemetery, cool and quiet. Granddad was a few feet away, next to his wife and Dad's older brother. When the time came Dad would be between Granddad and Mom.

I realized that there was plenty of room there for those of us who remained. I guess it was as good a place as any, but I'd still be alone. Carlie and the baby would be a couple of thousand miles away. I couldn't go to them and they'd never be coming to me.

Dad was there, with Ivan and Svetlana flanking him. There were a few people from Mom and Dad's work and some friends that I didn't know or remember. And a step away stood Isabeau, looking beautiful and forlorn. I stood on the opposite side of Mom's casket in my dress greens, with my close cropped snowy white hair and emotionless face.

I guess it was a nice service. I wasn't listening. I was remembering all the times my mother had held me as a child, all the hugs and kisses. The times she'd tickled me, tucked me in to bed and read to me. All the times she'd said she loved me.

I looked across into the eyes of my brother. He flinched and looked away.

I looked into the eyes of my father and saw relief and fear. He looked away slowly.

I looked into the eyes of my sister and saw streams of tears.

I looked down at the casket before me and I sagged a little. I was tired.

"I love you Mom." I said tonelessly over the voice of the pastor, turned on my heel and walked away. Out of the family plot and out of the cemetery. I got into my rental car and drove back to the airport and got a flight back to Camp.

I had gotten a guarantee prior to enlistment that my MOS would be Intelligence. But I still had to pass a few interviews and some preliminary training.

So that's what I spent the next couple of years doing. I learned about gathering intelligence, analyzing data and coming to useable conclusions based on that data. It was just puzzle solving. They made it seem more complicated than it had to be, but I've learned that all occupations do the same thing. Self justification and validation. What the fuck, right?

I learned to do ground recon, read satellite photos and plots, how to interview prisoners... I even spent some time with the CID learning how to conduct an investigation.

None of this was normal. Like I said before, red flags had been raised all over the damn place. The recruiters were still after me. Rangers, Green Berets, Delta Force, CID and a few folks who didn't want to tell me what their groups were called or what exactly they did.

I found that I liked the interviewing and the investigating more than any of the rest of the things I'd done, so I decided on CID.

I did my testing and got promoted a few times, and then found myself working like a plain clothes police investigator.

I wasn't happy, I didn't have any friends, no private or social life to speak of and there was still the unending cycle of pain and suffering and death going on inside me. But hey, life goes on, right?

And then one day a couple of random events conspired to take me out of my carefully prepared isolation and put me squarely into the middle of a fucking war.

It was Tuesday morning and I had been ordered out to follow up on an interview we'd done with a first louie accused of child molestation. I pulled up outside his Maryland apartment building to find four police cars blocking the street and cops crouched behind them trying to get as much cover as they could.

I got out of my 'unmarked' military vehicle (they really aren't that hard to spot if you know what to look for) and dashed for what looked to be the ranking cop.

I flashed him my credentials, and asked what was up.

"An army lieutenant went nuts I guess. He's up there in the building with a rifle shooting at passers-by. So far he's wounded two people. There's also the possibility of hostages. His wife and son."

Fuck.

Fuck!

"Do you have a SWAT team on the way?"

The civilian cop, a mid thirties looking sergeant whose name tag said THOMPSON, shook his head. "My captain told me they'd take at least twenty minutes to get here. Something more important came up, I guess."

"Yeah, something always does. Which floor is he on?"

"Seven."

I checked my notes. My guy was in apartment #723. What were the odds it'd be some other Army lieutenant?

I looked up at the building. It was one of those old early sixties apartment blocks, tall and slightly crescent shaped. To get into the apartment you'd have to climb up and assault from the doorway inside. There wasn't even another building in the area tall enough for snipers to get good line of sight to the seventh floor.

The shooter popped out of his open balcony doors and stood at the railing, rifle pointing down in our direction. He fired off two rounds and then ducked back inside. I got a good look at him. He appeared to be strung tighter than a G-string on a four hundred pound stripper. Fortunately no one was hit, but one police vehicle's roof got ventilated.

"Okay, here's what I'd suggest; you and your men keep this entire section of street clear of pedestrians and tourists. I think this guy is probably the one I was sent here to see, so let me take care of him."

"You're going up there after him?" The cop was confused, and he looked it. "He's got hostages maybe. You can't go up there!"

"Don't worry; I'm not planning on it."

He turned aside to call the other officers when our shooter jumped out onto the balcony and started to take aim.