Уильям Дитц: Battle Hymn

You’re battle happy, Mac told herself as she made her way up the street. A good night’s sleep will put you right.

Once she was back in her room, Mac took a long shower and reveled in the seemingly limitless supply of hot water. Then it was time to don a tee shirt with ARMY emblazoned across the front and a pair of pink socks.

Mac brushed her teeth, removed the baby Glock from her AWOL bag, and checked to ensure that it was loaded. The habit of sleeping with a pistol had begun shortly after the meteor strikes turned everything upside down and wasn’t likely to go away anytime soon.

Mac turned the lights off and crawled into bed. It was not only huge, but soft, in marked contrast to the surfaces she’d slept on for months. Mac enjoyed the feeling at first.

But, after tossing and turning for fifteen minutes, she realized that the mattress was too soft. For her, anyway. So Mac got up and pulled the coverlet off the bed. After laying that and a pillow on the floor, she lay down and pulled the comforter up around her shoulders. She fell asleep three minutes later.

Mac was somewhere pleasant, with someone she liked, when the noise awoke her. It didn’t take much. Not for a soldier who’d been on the front line for months. Her hand went to the Glock as she heard the creaking sound again. It was coming from the direction of the door that opened onto the balcony. Or was it? Maybe she was hearing noise from the street or the room next door. You’re wound tight, Mac told herself. Get a grip.

There was a streetlamp outside. And as the door swung open, a silhouette appeared. He, or she, paused as if to look around. Then the intruder raised a long-barreled pistol and fired. The reports were muffled. A suppressor? Yes! All of those thoughts flashed through Mac’s mind as she fired the Glock three times. It was loud by comparison, and as muzzle flashes strobed the room, the figure slumped forward.

Mac rolled free of the comforter and stood with the pistol pointed at the balcony door. Were more gunmen about to enter? Mac backed up to the point where she could access a wall switch. Light flooded the room.

The would-be assassin had fallen forward over the foot of her rumpled bed. Black-edged holes marked the bullet holes in one of the pillows. It appeared that the jumble of bedclothes had been enough to give him the impression that she was in bed. Shit! What the hell was going on? Was she looking at a thief? Someone banged on the door. “Security! Are you all right? Open the door.”

Mac went over to stand next to the door. Her training kicked in. Never assume. Was it security? Or was a backup team trying to get in? “A man tried to kill me,” she said through the door. “I shot him. He’s dead. If you are who you say you are, you have a master key. Use it… And come in with your hands on your head.”

Mac heard a click, saw the door open, and stood ready to fire as a man entered. Then she remembered how she was dressed. Or wasn’t dressed. But it was too late. “I’m Enrique,” the man said. “Please point the pistol somewhere else.”

Mac lowered the Glock. “Okay, sorry about that. But it pays to be careful.”

Enrique was thirtysomething and wearing a blue blazer with khaki slacks. Just like all the other security guys she’d met. He looked from the body and back to her. “What happened?”

“It’s like I told you. That bozo came in off the balcony and tried to kill me. Look at the pillow. You can see the bullet holes. His nine mil is on the floor.”

Enrique frowned. “Why are you still alive?”

“I was sleeping on the floor.”

Enrique eyed Mac as if to make sure she was serious, looked at the comforter, and nodded. “You’re military?”

“Army.”

He nodded. “I am going to reach inside my coat and remove my cell phone. Then I’m going to call the military police.”

Mac smiled thinly. “Go for it.”

As Enrique made the call, Mac took the opportunity to enter the bathroom and put a uniform on. For the sake of modesty, yes, but for another reason as well. If Mac was going to deal with some MPs, she wanted to do so as a major, rather than a girl wearing a tee shirt and panties. So she was fully dressed by the time the MPs arrived.

“I’m Sergeant Kirby,” the lead investigator said. “This is Corporal Kinney, and that’s Private Nagata.” Kirby had dark skin, a round face, a slim body. He looked from the body to Mac. “So, Major… What happened?”

Mac told the story again as Nagata pulled a pair of latex gloves on and began to search the body. Light strobed the walls as Kinney took photos. “Here’s something interesting,” Nagata said, as Mac’s narrative came to an end. “Check it out.”

“It” was a piece of much-creased paper, which Kirby handled with great care. He scanned it, did a double take, and turned to Mac. “Look, Major, you’re famous!”

Mac could hardly believe her eyes. The flyer said, “WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE!” across the top. And there, immediately under the header, were the words: “Major Robin Macintyre, Commanding Officer Mac’s Marauders, for war crimes.”

That was followed by a photo which, surprisingly enough, was quite current. And no wonder. She’d seen it in the New York Times a month earlier. What the hell? After scanning the flyer, Mac read it again. The description was accurate. She had been born in ’93, she was twenty-seven, and her mop of hair was brown.

As for the text under the heading “Criminal Record,” some of that was true and some wasn’t. Mac had been court-martialed, found guilty, and sentenced to four years in prison. President Sloan had pardoned her as part of a plan to return low-level offenders to military service and the battlefield. Had favoritism been involved? Yes, most certainly, since she had saved Sloan’s life—and he’d been forthright about his interest in her.

But the rest was grade-A bullshit. Especially the line that read: “After being pardoned by Union president Samuel T. Sloan, Macintyre and her band of criminals committed numerous crimes, including kidnapping and the murder of her sister, Confederate major Victoria Macintyre.”

The truth was that Victoria had been killed by a crazed Confederate deserter two weeks earlier. As for kidnapping, Mac had been involved in snatching the Confederacy’s Secretary of Energy, but that was a legit thing to do during a war.

Then there was the reward. “Upon delivery of Major Robin Macintyre to the proper authorities, or DNA evidence proving her death, the government of the New Confederacy will pay a reward equivalent to $100,000 in gold or silver.”

That was bad enough. But the real shocker was down in the left-hand corner of the page in small font. “By order of General Bo Macintyre, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Confederate Army.” Bo was her father! Her estranged father, yes, but the wanted poster still came as a shock.

Bo and Victoria had always been close. To some extent, that was the result of a natural affinity based on two similar personalities. But there was something more going on as well, and that was Victoria’s determination to secure all of her father’s affection, by any means necessary. It was a need that put Victoria at odds with both her mother and her sister. And Mac’s insistence on going her own way had done nothing to close the gap with Bo.

But a death sentence? That represented a new level of hostility where Bo was concerned. Did he actually believe that his youngest daughter was responsible for his oldest daughter’s death? Communications weren’t perfect due to the war, and Mac had been present when her sister died. So maybe he did.

There was another possibility, too… Bo was Chairman of the Confederacy’s Joint Chiefs. Maybe he was under pressure to disown the daughter who not only fought for the North but had gained a considerable amount of notoriety for saving President Sloan’s life? Would Bo Macintyre sacrifice Mac for his career? She couldn’t rule it out. That realization triggered a flood of sorrow. The kind of grief she might have felt had her father been killed. And, in a way, he was dead to her. Or maybe he always had been. “So what do you think?” Kirby demanded.