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The armory had old-fashioned bars around it, linking cement columns. Valentine wondered if something more ostentatious had once stood on the other side of the fence. This was like garlanding a turd.
"No, sir. Well, none that I know about. Never went into the harpy woods, though, or met any Reapers on the river road that way. Is that what I think it is, Major?"
"Yes."
"You take it off a-"
"It's a long story."
A dog barked as they approached, a mud-splattered, hungry-looking thing that seemed to be a mix of a German shepherd and a long-haired camel. It jumped atop its shelter to better sound the alarm.
Behind its house was a line of trucks and a wrecker. The trucks looked rusted and worn, though they had hedge-cutting blades fixed below the front bumper and iron bars welded across the windshield and windows.
Valentine approached the buzz box on the post outside the gate and opened the dirty glass door covering the buttons.
"Anything here indicate there's more men here than usual?" Valentine asked.
"No, sir."
Rollings nodded and Valentine hit the button marked "call."
When Valentine didn't get a response in ten seconds, he pressed again, long and hard, the way an impatient Quisling ringwearer would when he wasn't getting service to his liking.
It took a full minute for a crackly voice to answer.
"Yes?" the voice crackled through the tarnished, oil-smeared speaker.
"This is Colonel Sanity Marks, Combat Tech Service. I've got a wiring team broken down three miles west of here and I need transport. I'll require one of your trucks and a motorcycle for at least forty-eight hours."
"Tell it to the Coastal Marines, sapper."
Valentine raised his eyebrows to Rollings.
"Is Sergeant Nelson in there?" Rollings said.
"Who wants to know?"
"Tell him it's Rollings, late of the River Road Light. This colonel is steamed, I shit you not, and he's got a brass ring and a crapped-out truck full of guys with computers and fiberoptic line."
"Someone will be out in a moment."
Valentine snapped: "I had a harpy swoop overhead not five minutes ago. Get out here before the damn thing comes back and shits on me. I hate those fucking things."
A corporal and a private appeared, looking like they'd just yanked their uniform shirts off of hangers: The shoulders were riding ridged and high.
"Sir," the corporal said. "I'm going to need to see some orders and identification."
Valentine shoved his ring fist through the bars. "I've got a broken-down truck and a wiring team that's six hours late now. Get us the hell inside."
The corporal bussed the ring with his lips. Valentine had made the obeisance often enough during his sojourn as a Coastal Marine in the Gulf. On a ring belonging to the proper wearer, it gave off a slight tingle.
"Not the Grog," the corporal protested.
If he folded once, he'd fold again. Valentine turned his gaze to the silent armsman.
"Private, you want to speed things up for me? You can have this corporal's stripes. I think by the time I've written my evaluation, he won't need them anymore."
"Sir, no disrespect, but I'll get into more trouble by not following procedures than you could ever bring down."
