Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

Claybaugh grinned at Ray-Dean Blevins. “So long, Cootie.” And got a middle finger shot back at him.

After they left, Billy-C wheeled the Hummer toward their MARSOC set of white hard-walled homes that looked more like ship containers than living quarters and offices. Jack sat on the right seat, and Bronco and Jaws settled in back. Cotton Martin and his crew followed in their truck.

“You know,” the staff sergeant said to Jack, “Corporal Blevins weren’t a bad sort, as a Marine. I’d give him a 3.8 out of 4.0, if you asked me to write a pro-con on the dude.”

“He’s a pure zero in my book,” Jack said.

“Cooder didn’t break his leg at Basic Recon, either. I was there,” Bronco chimed in. “He faked that sprain. He’s all kinds of big talk. Wore a Recon T-shirt but never earned the 0321 to go with it.”

It was just past nine in the morning when they parked their two trucks, and everyone headed to his air-conditioned quarters to check email and clean guns.

Just as Bronco and Jaws headed out, Gunny Valentine called to them, “I want that piss smell out of my Hummer before you guys sky out.”

They both wheeled in their tracks and tried sad faces on their gunny. It didn’t work. Then Bronco bucked up.

“How about Cochise and Randy, Guns?” Bronco said. “They just walk?”

“Cotton wants his truck cleaned, that’s his call,” Jack said. “I own you two Spartans, and I want my Hummer decontaminated. Spring lilacs or new leather needs to greet my nose next time I sit down in that truck. I do not want to smell any faint whiff of contractor. Got me?”

“Right, Guns,” Jaws said, and headed toward the Humvee, grumbling. “You running your mouth did this, Jesse. Always got to have shit to say.”

“He was going to do it anyway,” Cortez whined. “Bro, it ain’t because of what I say.”

Bronco turned for help from Gunny V, but got his back.

Elmore Snow stepped in the MARSOC headquarters hooch and swatted the dust off his pixel-patterned Marine Corps desert-camouflage utility uniform with his flop hat. A sign made of wood from an ammunition crate and black words that read, HOG WALLOW, hung above the door outside. Jack had hand painted the sign and stylized Marine Scout-Sniper emblems, upward-pointed arrow with overlaid SS, at both ends of it.

“Sir, you mind doing that outside?” Jack said, looking up from a book propped on his leg. He had his feet cocked on his desk and a cup of hot decaf green tea tipped against his lips.

“You look relaxed after a hard start of a day,” Elmore said, and pulled up the metal chair by Valentine’s desk. “What you reading?”

“ Riding the Rap ,” Jack said, and closed the book. He put his feet on the floor and took another sip of hot tea.

Elmore nodded. “You already read Pronto , I guess.”

Between sips, Jack said, “Yup.”

“What about this gunfight?” Lieutenant Colonel Snow asked.

Jack grinned. “What gunfight?”

“Oh, I don’t know. How about the one that destroyed a three-hundred-thousand-dollar armored Cadillac. That one sound familiar?” Elmore said.

“Like I said, Elmore, what gunfight?” Jack answered, his eyebrows raised at his boss.

“This report that Malone-Leyva’s chief of security submitted to the United States Department of State two hours ago, asking for reimbursement of the cost for their lost vehicle, says there was a gunfight, Jack,” Snow said, and laid the stack of stapled papers on Valentine’s desk.

“Boy, that’s fast,” Jack said, picking up the handful of bullshit witness statements and cover-sheet claim. “Not even four o’clock, and they’ve already submitted paperwork. I guess that’s the difference between private enterprise and government. It’d take our boys a week just to collect statements.”

Elmore looked down his nose as Gunny Valentine leaned back in his chair and cocked his feet back on his desk.

“Funny thing, Jack,” the colonel said. “Army guys in the Cougar said they were too far back, but their man in the turret definitely heard gunfire. So, why haven’t you or Staff Sergeant Martin signed off on these claims? Those soldiers aren’t lying.”

“Oh, I never said there wasn’t gunfire, sir,” Valentine answered, and took a sip of tea. “We had lots of shooting. My Hummer’s dinged with bullet creases. We just never had a gunfight. No ambush. No enemy.”

“So you’re saying that the Malone-Leyva vehicle never took fire but fired at nothing?” Elmore asked.

“That’s about the size of it,” Jack said.

“What about the rocket attack?” Snow asked.

Jack laughed hard. “My ass! Nobody shot any RPG, and no Hajis on the road ambushed that Escalade. That half-drunk, steroided-out fool, Ray-Dean Blevins, went psycho as we sped along the boulevard, and I guess his PTSD must have kicked in. I don’t know. Just giving him any benefit-of-the-doubt reason for stopping in the middle of the fucking expressway and opening fire on nobody.”

“What about the lost armored car? Burned to smithereens,” Colonel Snow asked.

“You’ve got two nitwits with no experience led by a drug-induced fool who starts screaming that they’re under attack,” Jack said. “They start shooting, scared shitless. Hell, that poor child Gary Frank wet his pants! They pulled pins on incendiaries, bailed out of the car behind crazy Cooder-with-a-D Blevins, beating face against pavement, and blazing guns at zero bad guys. Colonel Snow, that’s it in a nutshell. No gunfight. Just stupid.”

“You and your team in our two vehicles are the only real eyes and ears on the event,” Snow said, and jotted notes on the face of the report. “Your statement in total is what you just told me?”

“In total, sir,” Jack said. “Cotton and his boys will say the same thing. No gunfight.”

“You know, Malone-Leyva will not like this one bit,” Elmore said. “Maybe you and the boys just sign off on this and let it slide?”

“No way, sir!” Jack said, sitting straight up and stamping both boots on the floor. “I’m surprised at you, sir, asking me such a thing.”

Snow smiled. “I had to ask. Just in case.”

“Why?” Jack frowned. “That’s not me, sir. I don’t care what the fuck is expedient or avoids trouble. As far as I can see, Malone-Leyva or any of the other bloodsucking mercenary outfits shouldn’t even be suited up here.”

“I can’t help but agree. But we don’t run things do we?” The colonel sighed, and Jack did, too.

“You know, they could be a problem,” Elmore added. “State Department will not approve this claim without your signing off. That asshole who runs the show over here for Malone-Leyva will be none too happy. He’s a real head of steam, I hear. Friends in high places, like that US senator from Nevada, Cooper Carlson. Always ragging our asses. Could be trouble.”

“Fuck them, sir,” Jack answered, and looked at the book he’d been reading.

Elmore followed, “And the horse he rode in on. I know.”

Jack blinked deadpan. “Just like Raylan Givens told Dale Crowe Junior, I don’t take it personal. Malone-Leyva can piss up a rope. Ray-Dean Blevins is not my problem. He’s his own problem. What old Cooder-with-a-D will have to do now is ride the rap. It’s all anybody can do.”

Jack opened his book back up, and Elmore Snow picked up his paperwork, put on his hat, and left.

“Fucking Jack Valentine!” Cesare Alosi yelled as he threw the twenty pages of denied claim for the three-hundred-thousand-dollar fully armored Cadillac Escalade across his office.

As it smacked the wall and fell dead on the floor, Walter Gillespie, who had just entered the office, ducked.