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There was the sound of raised voices and everyone turned to the examination room. Dr. Quinn stormed out with Zorro on her heels. “I don’t know what I even said to set you off. I swear you’re pricklier than a prickly pear.” Then he said something in rapid Spanish.
Dr. Quinn turned and glared at him. “I would ask you to talk to my husband…oh, wait. You can’t. He’s dead!”
She folded her arms across her chest.
“What the hell does that—”
“Move out,” Joker said, interrupting Zorro and walking by showing no signs of stopping.
“That was an LT drive-by,” D-Day said.
Without turning around, Joker did a double-finger salute.
Buck looked at Zorro. “I’d watch out, pardner. She’s in a horn-tossing mood.”
Blitz looked at Bree and she had a slight smile on her face. “Alpha males,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” Blitz agreed with a laugh. “We are all a bit cranky, including our commander. Here’s to hope we’re going to get some rack time.”
She crossed her fingers and smiled. “It springs eternal.”
Zorro stood there for a moment, then he started to back up away from Dr. Quinn. He walked backward for a few yards, then gave her a two-finger salute to his temple. “See you around, Dr. Sunshine.”
Her face contorted, and the prickly Dr. Quinn turned away.
Back in the helo, it was quiet all the way back to the embassy. As soon as they exited the bird and it disappeared toward the dark horizon, Joker said, “We’re going to stand down for the next seventy-two hours. Get some chow, rack time and for God’s sake shower, clean your gear.” He pulled at the strap of his helmet. “You’ve got the afternoon for all of that because tonight we’re expected at the kick-off reception for the G5 Sahel Conference.”
There were groans all through the group, including Blitz.
“LT, do we have to?” Buck said, a definite whine in his voice.
“Yes, Buck, we have to. It’s a request from the ambassador, which means it’s an order from me.”
“Do we have to wear monkey suits?” Professor groused.
“No, thank God. It’s casual formal.”
He heard Bear murmur, “What the fuck is that?”
“I’ve got you, Bear,” Blitz said, used to exactly those types of functions when he was being wooed for the NFL. Bear nodded, relieved he didn’t have to use his brain cells to think that far in advance.
“Now, go clean that gear, stow it, shower immediately afterward, get some grub, rack out until 1800, then report to the embassy. We’ll be going over to the Trasker Gold Hotel downtown.”
They all wearily trudged to the gear room, each of them cleaning all their sidearms and semi-automatic weapons, along with a couple of shotguns in record time. It was rote work.
Blitz turned to his vest. He had different setups for different missions. This was his close-quarters setup, but he had one for ship boarding, desert warfare, jungle warfare, and a set for diving. He stripped everything out of his vest and put it into his personal container: the main mags he wore in three pouches on the front of his vest, extra mags, two tourniquets, and a seat belt cutter he stored in side pouches along with chem lights, and a carabiner. Between his mags and chest plate, he carried his med kit. He preferred to only carry the mags on the front, the camelback in the rear with the drinking tube over his right shoulder. He stored his radio on the left side, and his gun always stayed on his hip.
After wiping down his plates and storing the container and them into his gear locker, he took the vest with him back to the barracks. In the laundry room, he stripped down, emptied his duffel of dirty clothes that had accumulated over the course of the past week, and threw everything, including his vest, into the machine.
Unabashedly walking down the hall, he entered the room where his cot was, grabbed his shower kit, and went inside. Slipping into a stall, he set the temperature to tepid and let the water flow over him. He groaned softly at the relief from the sweltering heat.
He washed himself three times, his hair twice. It was getting overly long and a week’s worth of beard needed trimming.
He joined the guys for chow, and they filled up their trays, some like Bear and Gator going back for seconds. Blitz held off, knowing there was going to be a reception and he didn’t like a full gut when he slept. Almost comatose after the meal, he stripped down to his skivvies and fell onto his rack.
It was the first time he thought about Bree, the revelation that she was the only woman to breach his walls, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to handle that. But as sleep overtook him, he could only think about her courage, the fierce beauty of her, and the way her touch had burned his arm before he slipped into la-la land.
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