Page 23 of My Forbidden Commander

“Yes, sir,” she says.

“Questions.”

“One, sir.” Callahan again. “The observer your element made. He broke contact clean, left almost nothing behind. That read to anyone else like he wanted the card found?”

Everyone’s watching Callahan. It’s a good question. It’s a question I had but haven’t said it out loud to anyone but Okafor.

“It read to me,” I say, “like a man who’s never had to worry about being made before, because nobody on this base had ever caught one of them at it. Whether the card was a mistake or a message, the answer changes what they do next. That’s why the windows are random and why you’re all standing in this hut instead of somewhere warm.” I look over them again. “Anything else?”

Nothing. Even overeager Walker keeps his mouth shut, which I’ll take as a promising sign and expect to be disappointed about later. Once he runs into Hayes, there will be no goddamn peace left in this base.

“Sergeant Okafor will show you to your quarters,” I say into the silence. “Four huts, cleaned yesterday by my first element, which means Corporal Hayes no doubt will tell you about the mouse. Chow at 1730, and I suggest you sleep early, because I meant what I said about 0300.”

“You heard the Colonel,” Okafor says, and gets them moving with a jerk of his chin.

They file out into the drizzle. Through the window I watch Okafor lead them down the row—Callahan’s four peeling off at the huts by the ops line, Maddox’s four continuing toward supply. Wilder stops once on the way and looks up at the ridge again. Good. Let the Wolves look down at this base tonight and count eight new heads and wonder which one is the problem.

Then I see him.

Reyes walks out of supply with a crate of stove parts on his shoulder, and his path bends right past the new arrivals. I see him take their measure, then Walker says something to him in passing that makes Reyes throw his head back and laugh.

My jaw tightens before I know it’s happening.

Last night I told myself these are eight new witnesses, eight new reasons to bury this thing so deep it never surfaces. And that’s what I should be thinking about.

Instead, I’m standing at the window with my fists clenched at my side, because a corporal I met eleven minutes ago made Noah Reyes laugh in the rain.

12

NOAH

Iwake up with a hand on my shoulder. The watch on the wrist says 0217, and I follow the arm up to Okafor’s face.

“Patrol,” he murmurs. “Wire in fifteen.”

We dress in the dark because the Colonel said we need to be able to find our kit like this, and we take his orders seriously. I pull my boots and vest on just as Hayes starts muttering about ghosting his morning coffee.

Outside, the cold is a slap to the face. There’s no fog tonight, and the sky is clear for a change, the stars brighter and clearer than most people ever get to experience.

“Huh,” Petrillo says from beside me. “Who knew this place could be beautiful.”

“Cold, though. I miss the desert sometimes,” Spencer says. As always, that’s all that Spencer says.

As we form up at the gate, I notice a seventh silhouette waiting, rifle slung over his shoulder, breath misting in the cold.

Wolfe.

“Order of march,” Okafor says quietly. “I’ve got point. Reyes, two. Delgado, Spencer, Petrillo, Hayes. Colonel walks trail.”

I try to keep the surprise off my face. He put himself in the rear, exactly where he put me two weeks ago, and now he’s giving me the spot I grease-penciled onto his board my second night here.

I look at him across the dark. He looks at the ridge.

“Move,” he says.

We move through the wire, leaving the base behind. I wonder why he joined patrol again. Most colonels would be sleeping in their warm huts, expecting team leaders to report in when the mission’s over. I resist the urge to look over my shoulder to see if I can read it on his face.

Night patrol is a different animal. With the goggles on, the world goes green and grainy, everything picking up a soft glow. The route tonight loops north of Hill 604, along a stream we didn’t bother to name, and we move in bounds, stopping to listen, to watch. The mountains are so quiet at night, sometimes my own pulse sounds like footsteps.