Jay Cummins was a major in the Army and he had an office at the SWTG HQ. He'd had bad acne as a kid and he'd inherited early-onset male-pattern baldness from his parents, whom I'm sure he thanked for it every waking day. The major also looked extremely fit with a broad chest and bazookas for arms.
I knocked on the door frame. The guy was hunched over his keyboard, elbows tucked in, shoulders bunched up like he was squeezed into a box. “Major Cummins? Special Agent Vin Cooper,” I said.
Cummins glanced up from whatever he was concentrating on — losing a few more hairs, maybe — then stood and walked over to greet me with an easy smile. We shook hands and his grip was firm. On the breast pocket of his BDU was the badge of a master paratrooper.
“Cooper. You're early,” he said with a southern drawl so that “you're” sounded like “yower,” full of hospitality and grits. “That's good. We don't have much time with y'all. I was just going over your details. Take a seat.” He stuck his head out his door and called out, “Randy, you want to go get Uncle down here for me. Let him know Major Cooper's in the house.”
From behind the wall of another office, I heard Randy answer, “Yes, sir.”
“Have yourself a good trip down, Major?” Cummins asked.
“Yes, thanks,” I answered.
“You got your orders there?”
I nodded and handed over the thick envelope. He pulled out the paperwork and went through the copies one by one. “Good,” he said. “All six copies. At least we know someone in Washington can count. Also proves D.C. can haul ass when it has to. We were only told ‘bout you yesterday, and here y'all are.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, distracted. On his desk was a photo of his wife and a woman I guessed was his daughter. Both were pretty. The daughter looked like her mom, rather than her father. Lucky for the daughter, I thought. I glanced around the office's gray walls. There were plenty of pictures, highlights from his career. Looked like he'd spent some time in Afghanistan and Iraq. He'd also jumped out of quite a few planes. Willingly, too, by the looks of things.
I tuned out while Cummins brought himself up to speed on a bunch of waivers designed to counter various regulations tripped, in the main, by my lengthy time out of special ops. There were also the physical examinations and qualifications I knew I had, most of which I also knew were out-of-date. My records had been doctored so that the rank and file wouldn't question my fitness and preparedness to train for and undertake the SPECAT part of my orders. The question I still wasn't sure about was, would I? At least in the short term, I'd play along. This MFF refresher was connected to Dr. Spears and, through her, somehow to the murder of Hideo Tanaka. The investigator in me was itching to know how and why.
“Just a little housekeeping, Major, before we get you started here …” He picked out a form from one pile, and put it on another. “So… we've got you staying on post. And the government will also be covering all your meals.”
Gee … All of them?
“Your gear has also been forwarded.”
“Gear?”
“Airborne Battle Uniforms, running shorts, PT uniform…”
“Any idea how long I'll be here, Jay?” I asked.
“Our advice from SOCOM is ten days. And you've got a lot to pack into it.”
SOCOM — Special Operations Command. Cummins had just supplied another piece of the puzzle. SOCOM had been responsible for putting me behind enemy lines on a number of unpleasant occasions in the past. Unpleasantness was SOCOM's specialty.
“Do you know what SOCOM has planned for you here, Vin?” asked Cummins.
Something told me it wasn't beach volleyball lessons. I shook my head.
Cummins rifled through the paperwork again. “Says here you've logged over three hundred jumps, around seventy of them MFF, fifteen of which were into hot combat zones.”
“Sounds about right,” I said.
“I read something in Stars and Stripes about you. Weren't you the guy shot down in a CH-47, rescued in another CH-47, and then shot down again, all in the same action?”
“ Uh-huh.”
“That was a good job you did.”
Except that everyone but me died. “Thanks,” I said.
“Well, with your record, we ain't gonna make you go back to square one here. Our job is to get you fit, and get your head into free-falling again so you're not a danger to either yourself or those around you. We're going to start you in the VWT to get your orientation right, skip the jump phase out at Yuma, and pretty much go straight for daylight jumps here, gear-free, starting at ten thousand feet. Assuming everything goes to plan, we'll get you out of a C-17 at around twenty-eight thousand by day six in a packet, ready to kick ass as you hit the DIP. How does that sound?”
“You got a bathroom somewhere nearby?”
When I returned ten minutes later, a couple of pounds lighter and with color splashed into my face by cold water, I explained away my sudden exit on a bad slice of bacon I'd eaten for breakfast. The truth was that I didn't exactly know whether I was going to be able to pull this off. Cummins's précis of the cur riculum had rattled me. There was a tap on the door behind me.
Cummins glanced past my shoulder. “Come on in, Uncle,” he said.
“Uncle” turned out to be an Army E-8 whose name, according to the patch on his chest, was Fester. Uncle Fester. Figured. Fester was short, dark, and built strong with narrow hips and broad, heavy shoulders that somehow became his head without bothering with a neck. His nose had been broken a couple of times, and put back together with a few pieces missing. He looked the type who could lift a couple of times his body weight — a human flea. The major and the master sergeant appeared to get along well.
“OK, Sarge. This here's Major Vin Cooper. Be nice to him, like we discussed. He's yours for the duration. You might start by showing him where he'll be sleeping.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Y'all need anything, Major Cooper, just let me know.”
A bus ticket out came instantly to mind.
“Kindly change into your running gear, sir,” said Sergeant Fester as he led the way down the hall.
“I thought we were going to see where I'll be sleeping.”
“Yes, sir. But first, we run.”
So the guy wanted to run. Most likely that would be running Fort Bragg-style — over lots of hills and through leech-infested marshes. That was OK. I'd been to this place before, and I was ready for it this time. In fact, I was pretty sure I could show Uncle Fester here a little about running.
Five miles into what was to be ten miles of pure hell, I hated the sergeant as much as any person I'd ever met, on account of he made me run carrying a wounded pilot across my shoulders who very closely resembled a duffel bag full of sand. Every step was a lesson in pain and humility that brought tears to my eyes.
THIRTY-FIVE
I slept the restless sleep of a dead man fighting his way back to the light. I didn't dream, I just wrestled with my adrenal glands, coming half awake with a racing heartbeat and aching muscles, and then falling back into the pit, exhausted. I finally woke in the dark to a voice that said, “Let's go, Major.” It was Sergeant Fester. “We got us some running to do.”
The following three days were a blur of sweat, lactic acid burn, and a desire to drown Master Sergeant Fester. There was no room for talk in the schedule — just running, climbing, swimming, crawling, marching, and swearing.