Gordon Kent - Peacemaker

He clipped the dog’s leash to the ring on the collar and started for home. The dog’s pissing had now become purely symbolic—lifting a leg to show what he would do if he could.

“You remind me of some guys I know,” Alan said. The dog grinned. “You ready to eat?” Alan said. The dog surged forward. “Let’s go!” They ran.

Rose was up. When she saw him, her face opened into a lovely smile, a smile you could dream about at sea. He wondered if he did that for her. Rose did her time at sea, too—exec of a helo squadron, a lieutenant-commander who ranked her husband. They kissed. It went on a while; he wondered if they had time to—They did not; she had a meeting at 0830.

“Maybe come home early?”

“We’ve got company, remember?”

He groaned.

“Feed the dog; it’ll take your mind off your troubles. Your idea, having old friends over for a last get-together with O’Neill—remember? I have to shop; it’s Mike and Harry and the Peretzes, that means no red meat, jeez, I dearly love Bea Peretz, but what the hell does she have to go vegetarian for? Can you eat chicken?”

“How about soy burgers?”

“Fuck you and stop that, there isn’t time. Boy, do I come back from sea duty like this? Mike’s bringing somebody. I don’t think it’s serious.”

Something he had been dreaming about. Mike, the hunter— Mike was in love with Rose; everybody knew it, and everybody knew it was hopeless. “Mike’s serious about you,” Alan said. He put down the dog’s water bowl, and the dog made sounds in it as if a duck was trying to take off.

“He’s doing Greek salad and hors d’oeuvres and I’m doing the main stuff, and yes, I think he’s in love with me and I guess that after you he’s the next one I’d want to be that way. That okay?”

Alan grinned. “So long as I’m first.”

“You’re always first.” She cocked her head, listened. “Mikey’s awake.” She started out, turned back to him. “If it’s any comfort to you, just having you in the house makes me so horny I want to scream.” She started out again, swung back. “Correction—moan, not scream. ‘Bye.”

In the Serbian zone, Bosnia.

Zulu nodded, and Radic swung his fist and it hit the bound man with a sound like a ball hitting a glove. Zulu remembered that sound, the old catcher’s mitt heavy on his hand, his father’s throw making it ache even through the thick, old leather.

Radic looked at him. Zulu nodded again. Radic swung; the bound man screamed as the same sound struck. And again. And again. And again.

And now the Americans were here. The first ones had come in March to replace the UN. Zulu hadn’t fought them yet, perhaps never would, but he wished to. He remembered that American voice shouting in the house at Pustarla, then the running through the snow, naked, that voice and the gun booming behind him. Humiliating.

The bound man looked like raw meat. He was stripped to the waist. So was Radic, from whose sleek muscles steam rose in little wisps, like ground mist. It was still cold up here.

“Is he still alive?” Zulu said.

Radic lifted the man’s drooping head and felt in the bloody mess of his throat. He nodded.

“Cut him down.”

The men from the little pigsty of a village watched Radic. Zulu could smell somebody’s shit. They were terrified. That was the idea.

The bound man lay on the ground. Blood soaked into the dirty snow. Zulu handed Radic a sledgehammer. He nodded.

Radic swung the sledge and blood and brains spattered, and the village men began to wail.

Zulu decided that Radic was all right. He would add him to the Special Unit for Africa.

That evening. Norfolk.

As it turned out, Mike Dukas’s date had canceled and he came alone, a little sheepish that he had been stood up but probably glad, really, that he had more time in the kitchen with Rose. Alan could imagine Mike’s mental pictures of himself in their house, a kind of uncle to their child (who had been named after him), a kind of protective presence to Rose. Alan was not sure that those pictures had much to do with reality, except that Mike was a very good friend and they had been through a very tough time together and almost got themselves killed. Now, he listened to Mike and Rose chattering in the kitchen about food, and they made him happy.

Then O’Neill came, and he and Alan made a lot of noise because they hadn’t seen each other in eight months or so. O’Neill was hardly in the door before Alan lunged toward him; O’Neill swayed back and said, “Oh, I say, old chap!” and shook Alan’s hand. Then they boogied for three seconds, then gave each other high fives, and then fell on each other, squeezing and whacking and saying, “Hey, that’s fat, man, you put on fat !” and “Muscle, that’s muscle!” and each told the other he looked great, and they held on to each other and just grinned. Rose came in and smiled at them and kissed O’Neill, and Dukas asked him how the Ranch had been. O’Neill made a face and they all laughed.

“Can you eat vegetarian lasagna?” she said. She sounded worried. O’Neill was big and looked as if he ate whole cows or roadkill or something.

“If I could eat grits, I can eat anything. They gave me grits every goddam morning. I think it was a test !” He and Alan began to remind each other of horrible food they had eaten on the boat. They did a lot more happy shouting. Dukas and Rose looked at each other and shrugged and went back to the kitchen.

The Peretzes were late. The Peretzes were always late. Abe Peretz had been a kind of mentor to Alan, even though his own Naval career had ended when he hadn’t made the cut for commander. Now he worked in the J. Edgar Hoover Building and made sad jokes about being a G-Man.

“How’s the G-Man?” Alan said as he took their coats a few minutes later. They were embracing O’Neill and asking him how the Ranch had been. Alan grinned at Bea. “How’s Mrs G-Man?”

“He got a promotion!” Bea shouted. Bea shouted everything. She was handsome and noisy. “Tell them about your new job!” Bea was wearing black pants and a pale yellow, shiny blouse with a huge saxophone on it in green—the saxophone was a bizarre touch, some kind of joke? Some reference he didn’t get?—and enough buttons left unbuttoned so her very attractive cleavage showed to good advantage. She seemed very up, maybe too much so.

Abe shrugged. “So I got a promotion.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know; it’s classified.”

Bea bounced into a chair, bounced right out again. “You make me so damn mad, Abe, I could kill you! He’s been made department head. I hate false modesty!”

Abe kissed her. “Nobody would ever dare accuse you of it.” He began to explain the organizational structure of FBI headquarters, which was so complex that Alan wondered if he’d finish before the evening ended. Then he realized that O’Neill was chuckling and that what Abe was saying was an elaborate shaggy-dog story, an invention. He began to laugh, too, and Abe, seeing he’d got the joke, roared.

Then Mike and Rose came in with wine, and they all got noisier, and the dog made his rounds, poking his big nose into everybody’s crotch and spilling a wineglass, and there was a lot of loud talk. Dukas told a couple of his Clinton jokes, and Alan glanced over at Rose and saw her face shining, and she gave him a wink and he was glad that Mike’s girl or woman or whatever she was hadn’t come, because these were the people he most liked to be with. He and O’Neill sat next to each other and started saying, “Hey, remember when—” and the others tuned them out. When Alan started listening to them again, Rose was trying to talk Abe Peretz into doing his two weeks of Reserve duty at her new station, someplace called Interservice Virtual Intelligence.