Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

Jack and Billy both laughed.

“I’ve only ever heard you say one profanity, sir.” Billy-C broke up. “Motherfucker! That’s your one cussword for everything that pisses you off. Motherfucker.”

“Only rarely. When I’m truly mad, much to my chagrin. It slips out. I manage to keep all the others off my tongue, though, but that one choice blister agent leaps out of my mouth when I trip off the emotional cliff.” Elmore laughed.

“You are the consummate officer and gentleman, sir, our poet warrior and scholar,” Jack said, and a light came on in his mind. “Oh, and speaking of poet warriors, did you hear from our old pard from fun times in South America, Black Bart Roberts?”

A smile crossed Elmore’s face at mention of his old Force Recon running mate who claimed direct descendancy from the original Welsh pirate of the 1720s, Captain Bartholomew Black Bart Roberts.

“I did get word that he is here,” the colonel said. “Out west in the Denver operations area, based near Al Asad Air Base, near Hit, I believe, commanding one-five. We’ll have to catch up and partake a thimble or two of Jameson’s Irish elixir with him when I get back from Lejeune. I’ve got a bottle of eighteen-year-old Limited Reserve stocked away in my stash of contraband.”

“I’ll keep that in mind while you’re gone.” Jack grinned. “I like it, too. I can’t afford it, but I like it.”

“I know, Jack.” Elmore grinned. “Lots of things you like but can’t afford and yet seem to manage somehow. Like that pretty girl of yours, Liberty Cruz. You ever going to make an honest woman of her?”

Jack shook his head. “We’re still working on that question.”

“Lot of years to be pondering such an idea,” Snow said. “She’s still at Lejeune, you know. Finished SERE school in flying fashion, I hear, and now she’s training on various high-power rifles. Strange one, that girl. She’d fit in around our club quite nicely. You ought to propose.”

“I think that’s what she’s gunning for.” Jack sighed.

“The wife, you know, June, invited her for dinner with us one night while I’m home this trip. She and Liberty are thick as thieves. Our little girl Kathy, now graduating from training bras and middle school, sees Miz Cruz as the person she wants to be. I don’t know if that’s such a good thing or not, given Liberty’s career choices, and her taste in having you as her man. I think they planned this dinner because the ladies want to check up on you. She apparently tells June you’re pretty brief in your few emails,” Elmore said.

“Naw, we’re good. Don’t worry about it. I keep it short and dry because I’ve got a lot of assholes around this shop eyeballing my laptop, and email and pictures,” Jack said, looking straight at Billy-C, who smiled big.

“Oh, okay,” Elmore said, then wrinkled his forehead. “What about Black Bart? You sounded like you had something working in your craw.”

“Right,” Jack said. And then, as if it were no big deal, “He gave me a blast on the horn yesterday. Wants us to run a little thing with him and his boys out in the Anbar for a day or so. Nothing to worry about, sir, but something good to do. Helps him out. He was supposed to send you over the plan and everything, so you could approve us going along.”

“Captain Burkehart can look at it and give it my okay,” Elmore said.

“Well, sir, Skipper’s up at the puzzle palace stuck in operations all the time, and we hardly see him,” Jack said. “Colonel Roberts has this thing going down pretty darned quick, and we need to jump if we ride with his boys.”

“Bart’s got it set up? Transport, planning, all that?” Snow asked.

“Yes, sir. Top to bottom,” Jack answered. “He takes good care of folks. You know him.”

“Yes he does,” Snow agreed. “Fine Marine, Lieutenant Colonel Roberts. Great combat leader. A bit rough around the edges, and a mouth that matches his Black Bart name. But a good man.”

Elmore Snow checked his watch, looked at the boxes, then at Jack. “Go ahead. You’ve got my blessing. Just make sure that Colonel Roberts sends me a copy of his after-action write-up. And if you manage to capture any intel on Zarqawi, or his henchmen, make sure we get exclusive first rights to it. Don’t go sharing that with SEALs or Delta Force before we can swing in the saddle ahead of them.”

“You read my mind, sir.” Jack smiled.

“Oh, and keep the doors closed to those private-contract security mongrels I see lurking around more and more these days,” the colonel added. “I don’t like them, and I do not trust them.”

“Couple of our boys hooked up with them now,” Jack said. “Hacksaw, Kermit, and Habu work at Malone-Leyva. Hacksaw’s been trying to get hold of me the past few days.”

“I know,” the colonel said. “He reached out to me, too. I’m still thinking about it. Mercenaries. That’s all they are, you know. Hired guns with no law over their heads.”

“Roger that, sir,” Jack agreed.

Staff Sergeant Claybaugh remembered the letter from the colonel’s wife and grabbed it off the stack he brought back to the hooch after holding mail call for the team.

“You got this from your wife,” Billy said, handing the letter to his boss.

Snow smiled as he took it. “Thank you. A nice fat one. I’ll read it while I wait to board the plane.”

“Stay frosty, sir,” Jack said.

Elmore headed to the door and looked back at the boxes. “Make sure that whatever unholy raiment and bunting you may hold in those boxes remains inside this hooch. Do not decorate the outside with black draperies, skulls, or any other hideous ornaments. Please. Not this close to the flagpole. I remember what you did for graduation at the instructor school at Quantico, building that monument of bones and skulls under the yard sign.”

“The commandant loved it, sir,” Valentine retorted.

“Oh, it amused him,” Elmore said, “but had the school not been way off the beaten path, out there at Marksmanship Training Unit, he would have ordered those bones buried.”

“Sir, they were just hog bones from our cookouts and a few plastic human skulls mixed with the roasted pig heads,” Jack said. “No pork to pick around these parts, and nobody’s collecting any skulls except maybe the bad guys’.”

“Just keep our exterior orderly. We don’t need negative attention,” Elmore said, and departed to catch his flight.

Billy-C looked at Jack. “Wonder why we can’t find a pig to roast around these parts? I could sure go for some barbecued ribs.”

Jack looked at the Southern-fried staff sergeant, started to say something but instead blew out a big breath.

“Eleven hundred, Guns,” Claybaugh said, checking the big white-faced government clock Jack had had mounted over the entrance. That way when he looked up to see who came through the door, he could note the time. Bronco and Jaws hated it because they always showed up at the last minute. Never on Lombardi time.

“That’s right, you’ve got security duty on that wagon train headed down Fallujah Road,” Jack said. “You boys roll out of the chocks at what, thirteen hundred?”

“Straight up,” Billy said.

Jack went to the wall map and took a look at the route.

“Lots of nasties on that trail,” Jack said.

“Guaranteed one of those KBR semis hauling bacon and beans going to pop an IED, big as shit,” the staff sergeant said. The tone of his voice told Jack that Billy-C had a little honest worry going on.

Gunny Valentine put his hand over his boy’s shoulder and gave it a good squeeze. “You got this, dude. Right?”

“Cotton’s got a team in the other Hummer one truck behind me.” Claybaugh nodded but bit his lip.