“Parrr-ade… rest.”
In a less formal tone, the Senior resumed: “The usual final parade and celebration are canceled. With the exception of those turned back for medical reasons, recruit training is over. You will proceed from here to the mess hall for the Warriors’ Breakfast. In two hours you will ship out for advanced training, or direct to units. You will have your seabags packed and be ready to embark by 0800.
“Dismissed.” Without looking, he handed the microphone off, stepped down, and strode away.
But “Booger Squad, stand fast,” Brady’s tenor sang out, before any of them could move a muscle. Around Hector, men and women froze. “Stand fast, boneheads! Before I see assholes and elbows. Single line!”
The rain started again as the DI stalked back and forth in front of them. “All right, you’re Marines. The Senior says so. So I guess that makes it true.
“But I’ll tell you a secret. A lot of you baa-baas wouldn’t have made it through in peacetime. We’d have flushed you, day one. You’re good enough to hold down a seat in the head. And that’s about all. A lot of you weak, slow, trusting fuckheads are gonna die out there.”
Ramos swayed. The words seemed to travel around his brain without making contact with anything, like a bullet circling the inside of his skull.
Brady snarled, “Look at fucking Bleckford here. He’s not smart. But you don’t need a degree in rocket science to be a combat Marine. It just takes two things. Discipline, and hate. So… Bleckford. You hate me, retard?”
The fat marine hesitated. Then growled, “Sir, yes, sir. I hate you, sir.”
Brady nodded and clapped his shoulder. “Good man.” Then moved on, to stop again in front of Hector. “But you know what? Ramos here, he’s different. He doesn’t hate Chinese. He doesn’t hate anybody.
“I don’t want to see you simple assholes coming home in body bags.” When Brady put a hand to his eyes it seemed to tremble slightly. Hector frowned, squinting, not believing what he was seeing. No. It had to be the rain.
“Forget your fucking religion,” Brady grated. “Forget your fucking families. Forget your fucking girlfriends, or boyfriends, or whatever you gay fuckers call your sweeties. Learn to hate. That don’t mean contempt. Don’t think the other guy’s stupid. Respect your fucking enemy, or he’ll win. Blind hate blinds you. But you’re gonna have to learn to kill.
“And you’re gonna stick together. Bring your buddies back. Don’t worry about anything else. Make sense of it later.” He raised his voice, to a scream. “Do you assholes understand? Excuse me: Do you Marines UNDERSTAND ME?”
“Yes, Drill Instructor!” they shouted, together, confused, cold, hungry, scared.
“Now get the fuck out of here!” Brady screamed.
Hector looked back over his shoulder as they scattered. The DI had turned away and was bent over, hands on his knees. Shuddering. Sucking slow deep breaths. Staring down as if at something beyond this world entirely. Maybe, at the rain, carving its endless rivers into the all-encompassing mud.
5
Striding across West Executive Drive on a cool windy day, trying her best not to limp, Blair Titus tapped her phone to take a call. “Titus.”
“Blair, Jessica. Got a sec?”
Jessica Kirschorn was her campaign manager. She was punk, pierced, and twentyish, her hair color changed by the week, but she understood the social media that drove campaigning these days. Especially when you were trying to win while holding down a job and a half advising on a war. Swerving to miss a cart laden with cleaning supplies, Blair caught an admiring glance from the man pushing it. “Yeah, whatcha got? Any news on the recount?”
“I’m in Annapolis, talking to the people about the state code, election law. The benchmark’s one-tenth of one percent of the turnout, to demand a recount. We’re within that. But there’s a question about the counting methods on optical scanners, if we’re the initiator.”
Blair clutched her coat against a gust that blew trash across the asphalt. Above her, elms whipped in the wind. The sky was an unfriendly gray. “Any advantage to getting Beiderbaum’s people to demand the recount?”
“Unfortunately, he’s the one who’s that inch ahead. If anybody’s going to request one, it’s got to be us. Are you—?”
“Hell yeah.” She headed for a white awning flanked by creepy dwarfed pines and blasted-looking, shriveled flowers in cast concrete planters. The West Wing entrance. “Um… what’s the tab? We’re getting pretty deep into my credit line here.”
“There’s a small enough margin you won’t have to pay. But there’s something else we’d better—”
“You think we can pick up enough votes to—?”
“Oh, there’s a chance, Blair. Just be aware, even if you come out ahead, there might be a legal challenge. But there’s also a—”
“Okay, whatever, we’ll deal with that down the road. Get on it.”
“Blair, wait. You have to—”
“What is it, Jessica? Please be quick. We’ve got a major crisis. I’m going into a meeting in the West Wing.”
Her manager seemed to be nerving herself. “Actually, Blair, you have to make a decision, pretty soon, about… when to concede.”
“About when to—? Why would I want to do that?”
”I mean, at some point, you’ll just look desperate. You know? And that could hurt you two years down the road, when this guy gets caught with his male intern or something, and it’s time to run again.”
“You’re saying I need to concede now, Jessica?”
“No! No, not right this minute. But”—the girl sounded close to weeping—“like, if the recount’s a fail—”
“Fuck,” Blair muttered. She tapped End Call, slipped the phone into her purse, and flashed her old Department of Defense ID to a Secret Service woman at the entrance. The card was out of date, but matched against the admission list for that morning, it got her in.
“We’ll need you to leave that phone at the desk, ma’am,” the agent called after her, and she turned back, cursing herself for forgetting protocol.
Inside the carpeted, low-ceilinged, quiet corridors, she hung her wrap and scarf, submitted to a briefcase check, and found a restroom. She reapplied powder and lipstick, then brushed her hair, pinning it to make sure the left side covered her ruined ear.
The woman in the mirror looked chalky. Worn. No longer as stunning as at thirty. But still, all in all, presentable enough.
She bent closer, staring into her own eyes. If she wasn’t going to be Congresswoman Titus… who the hell was she going to be?
Mrs. Admiral Dan Lenson?
“Concede, hell,” she told her reflection. “Fuck that.”
They’d have to drag her out of this race kicking and screaming.
The meeting convened in the windowless, too-small Situation Room. There were six other principals, with their seconds seated along the walls, hugging briefcases. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Ricardo Petrarca Vincenzo, gave her a warm smile; they knew each other from her undersecretary days in the previous administration. Actually, she knew everyone around the table. A professor from Stanford, Dr. Dean Glancey. The current undersecretary of defense for plans and policy; another polite nod. A three-star general, Randall Faulcon: Ashaara, Afghanistan, Iraq, now deputy Pacific Command under Jim Yangerhans. And the new president’s press secretary.