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We both knew that was a lie because he had just proved it. Countering his statement of pure fiction was less interesting than striding to the side of his monstrosity of a desk built of real teakwood. I crouched to grip the bottom, heaving it over. A sonic boom reverberated through the small office as the desk cartwheeled on its side. The overturned top of it collided with the two windows, breaking them into mere shards that rained down with the hailstorm of paperwork swirling about the room.
With the furniture out the way, my next mark for putting hands on was Garrett himself. He knew it. As I turned to him, he turned to run. Attempt to run anyway. He was capable of a brisk walk for a few seconds at the most. He hadn’t got a full foot away when I lunged forward to reach for him.
Andre rushing the room snagged my concentration from my mission. “Tobin! Stop goddamnit! If you do this, you won’t get to go home period!”
I hawk-eyed Lindon shuffling over to the standing desk for protection. “That’s how it’s going to be anyway, Andre. This overseer won’t let his slave go home to bury his brother, but you can bet your ass I won’t be going anywhere else he wants me to either. If I have to p
unch this tub of lard into oblivion to keep both of us from getting what we want, I will.”
In true fear for his safety, Lindon’s eyes bugged out of his head. “Get him out of here, Underwood! Take him to the brig!”
Andre had the authority to do just that. I would forgive him for doing his job if I got my hands on Lindon first. Our friendship was null and voided if I didn’t. Andre didn’t know that when he stretched long arms out to grab for me moving in Lindon’s direction anyway. Because hitting Andre would be like hitting Greg, I let him grab me by the arms, hauling me out of the office. We exited the barracks, crossing the parking lot to the jail with him barking in my ear all the way.
“Making me do my fucking job. Motherfucker, I’m not supposed to arrest you for trying to assault a superior. That’s for the other Marines.” Oh, he was pissed if spitting mad and cursing. Andre thought getting emotional enough to blaspheme was a waste of his energy when there were so many women who could benefit from his heightened emotions and dirty language more. “I swear to God, Tobin, if you leave me here with these weak-willed generals by myself, I’m going to hunt your ass down in New York the next time I go on leave.”
I chuckled. “Well, you better start planning a flight because I most certainly am trying to get fired. I will not fight for a country that won’t let me go to my brother. Lindon’s so stuck up the generals’ asses, he’d find a way to kiss them all at the same time if they told him to.”
Andre escorted me past officers staring slack-jawed from their desks to one of the mostly empty cells lining the wall. “If you had kept your damn cool, I could have found someone to speak to some of those generals on your behalf or did it myself. You just had to be hot-tempered and not ask for help.”
After walking off some steam, I entered my cell calmly to lie back on the neatly-made cot with one arm folded under my head as he slammed the door shut behind me in a fit of anger. “You and I both know, Andre, that my infiltration team is one of the best. No amount of chatting on your behalf or anyone else’s at a boring dinner with boring people talking shop would have changed their minds. Being the best has come back to bite me in the ass, but my ass will be right here and not on foreign soil doing their dirty work.”
Andre palmed his hips. “So everybody loses? Is that your answer?”
“Better than it being just me and Greg losing. If my brother has to be buried in a pauper’s grave because I can’t be there to make sure he’s laid to rest right the first time, then the generals and their flunkies will not get one iota of assistance from me to break into a country they’re scared of. This is their choice, and they’ll have to make compromises just like I have to because I am done fighting for them. Let me know when they’ve decided what to do with me.”
In for the long haul, I rolled over on my side to face the gray wall, intending to get some sleep. I could always have my brother’s body exhumed from wherever the state buried him, saying my goodbyes whenever I got out of here. The Generals couldn’t undo losing wars. Those losses would follow them throughout their careers. They would be mentioned every time Korea was brought up in conversation by soldiers, Marines, and civilians alike. The Generals would learn today that I fought harder and longer for my blood than for them.
It wasn’t a long waiting game for their decision. The next day, the presence of the highest-ranking official at my base, four-star General Ellis, standing outside my cage, woke me. A wrinkly, shrunken but powerful old man at seventy-one, his dark glower from behind bifocals tried to penetrate my skull when I eased up to a sitting position to gape back rather than standing and saluting him. Fuck him. Fuck all he stood for. Fuck his efforts to cower me down with just his will.
When he realized I wasn’t going to give him his due, he got to the point of his visit. “What’s it going to be, boy? Defend your country and apologize to Lindon or throw your oath of enlistment in the trash and lose your pension?”
“I’ll take the last option. I can always get another job, another pension. You know, the FBI is always looking for good men. This whole outfit has lost my respect by putting your wants above my pain and needs, so being here is pointless for me. Fire me already.”
Appalled that I’d say such a thing, General Ellis wrapped frail hands around the bars. “You’ll throw away your career, retirement money you’ve earned to go home for a month? You probably won’t even be over in Korea three days at the most.”
If I was crazy, I’d think he was pleading with me, but Marines didn’t plead. We pushed through until we got what we wanted or death.
“I’ll give up my life for my brother right this instance. You and I both know how long I’ll be gone is never a certainty. Coming back isn’t either, so yes, I’ll throw away all I’ve worked for with the Corps to bury my brother and watch his killer lose his freedom, maybe his life, forever. Some things matter more than yours and the others’ ambitions.”
Ellis swiped a hand down his face wearily. “We are sorry for your loss, son, but your brother’s gone, his body just a shell.” Whether he meant for that to sound callous or not, that was how I took it and flipped out.
Actually, I flipped the cot over and raced to the bars to scream in the General’s face. “I’m not your son either! If I were, you’d let me go home to honor my brother’s memory! If it was your brother, would you risk dying on foreign soil first to lay him to rest last?”
General Ellis favored putting distance between us more than answering me.
“That’s what I thought!” I hollered after his retreating back, beginning to bend under the burden of its long years on this earth. “You want to go to war so bad, go your damn self!”
Andre raced past the General with a quick salute given so fast he might as well had saved the gesture for another time when the General cared to salute back. “Tobin, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Well, I’ll need another job after I get out of here,” I threw out there just for the sake of it. “How many contacts do you have in the New York FBI offices?”
“Dude, you just got up in the face of the highest-ranking officer you could ever hope to meet at thirty-six, and you’re in the brig for almost beating the shit out of your superior. You’re worried about my contacts? You have no hope in hell right now of passing an FBI mental evaluation and proving you have respect for authority.”
I thought about that. “What if I went to anger management classes before putting in an application?”
Andre face-palmed himself and groaned loudly as a response.
Cherise
