We were sitting in the cramped crew compartment. The Hind had originally been used to move Russian infantry, though this particular specimen had been tweaked and customized extensively by MHI. It was still tight, but I was given to understand that it was downright plush compared to what it had once been.
Almost all of the other Hunters had immediately gone to sleep. They understood the basic principle of sleep when you can because you don't know when you are going to get to do it again. I couldn't do it, so I passed the time by picking silver buckshot pellets out of my armor. I made a mental note to add Milo Anderson to my Christmas card list.
I held up one of the silver pellets, now deformed from the impact, and studied it, deep in thought. I had almost died today. Now that the adrenaline had left my system, I found my exhausted brain once again pondering just what the hell I was doing, and truthfully, I didn't have an answer.
Julie's head was rolled to the side and she was snoring. She had hardly spoken to me since she had found out about my little altercation with Grant. I was not about to apologize. He had left me to get eaten, and I did not like that one bit.
Harbinger opened his eyes. He had been awake. He checked to make sure Julie was out, and then unbuckled his seatbelt and moved next to me, flopping solidly into the uncomfortable chair. He turned and shouted in my ear.
"I wanted to talk to you about Grant."
"Okay," I shouted back.
"I know about what happened."
"He left me behind to save his own skin."
"I know," he yelled. It was hard to have a conversation by shouting. "Grant says that he didn't think he could save you… That you would both have been killed."
Perhaps. I did not respond, not knowing what to say, and not wanting to admit that Grant very well might have been right, and honestly not really knowing what I would have done if our situations had been reversed.
"Don't ever let something like that happen again. I'm the boss. I take care of discipline. You undermined my authority."
"That's it? You aren't mad at me for hitting him?"
"Oh, if I was mad, you'd be swimming home."
"Serious?" I asked.
Earl sighed and rubbed his face.
"What are you going to do with him?" I asked.
"Huh?"
"What are you going to do with Grant?" I said, turning up the volume.
"I don't know yet. Maybe Grant's right, and he would've died keeping that door open, and I don't believe in committing suicide to prove a point."
"Sam said something about it being easier to be brave when others are watching you. Maybe Grant isn't so tough when there aren't any witnesses," I insisted.
"Yeah, Sam's a regular philosopher," Earl responded. "You can face some really scary shit, and be just fine, as long as you're doing it for your team." He grew suddenly serious, and I had to look away from those cold eyes. "Either way, it ain't none of your business now. Don't ever do something like that again. Hunters can't lose control. Got that? You never lose control. Do you have a problem with that?"
"No, sir."
We sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the rotors beat the air, and some amazing guitar playing by my brother. From the expression on Harbinger's face, I don't think that he cared for metal. I refrained from banging my head in deference to his tender sensibilities.
"What about Julie?" I asked.
"What about her?"
"Does she believe that Grant abandoned me?"
"None of my business. She's a grown-up." The look he gave me told me to shut it. He quickly changed the subject. "Let me ask you this, Pitt. You've been with us for a few months. You've gone on exactly one mission. Could you leave now and go back to your spreadsheets and your tax forms?"
I did not answer. Did Earl know how much I was doubting the path that I was on? He was the experienced one, maybe he could see what I could not.
"Well, you'll probably need to."
My heart sank. So this was it. Was he going to let me go because of my rash actions? If he felt he could not trust me then I would be out. Did he think that I was too hotheaded and impulsive to be a member of the team?
"I got a letter yesterday. The IRS is going to audit us. I'm gonna need your help; our books are a mess. Once we handle this little vampire problem, of course."
I grinned. That I could handle.
"I can deal with the IRS. They're a little easier than vampires. Not much, but a little."
"Will sunlight banish them?"
"Maybe. I haven't tried that before."
"That's just the tip of the iceberg though. OSHA is crawling all over us for-I kid you not-workplace safety violations. As if there is anything safe about what we do at all. The EPA is angry about some of the pollution we have caused by burning certain kinds of monsters. Fish and Wildlife wants to fine us for killing a giant mutant Tennessee River catfish because it was endangered. Sure it had just crawled up on land and eaten some teenagers, but it was still an endangered species. We're in trouble with the BATF for some missing compliance paperwork for the machine guns and explosives-paperwork which they lost. And Immigration is investigating us for employing some illegal aliens."
"Are we?"
"Sure, but who doesn't? Do you think you just put an ad in the paper for people who can fly Russian attack helicopters?"
"Why are the Feds hammering us?"
"We've pissed a lot of people off in Washington. Our company was shut down for a long time. PUFF was only reactivated by the slimmest of margins. There are a lot of bureaucrats who are itching for us to fail. They're making it damn near impossible to get our jobs done."
"So what are we going to do?"
Harbinger grinned savagely. "From the amount of money we made on this job, I'm going to buy me some congressmen, maybe even a senator."
I was shocked. "Are you talking about bribery?"
"Why? Does that offend you?" he asked.
"Oh hell no. I'm a libertarian at heart. Screw 'em."
Chapter 11
That night I dreamed again. But it was not about my apparent friend, the Old Man with the poor English. Nor was it about the Cursed One and his gang of abominations. This was something different.
A lone mountain rose out of a bleak, dead forest. The side of the peak had been torn asunder in some sort of huge explosion. Trees had been shattered, stripped of their bark, or bent to the earth. Rock was charred and broken, the very foundations of the mountain had been cracked, and the face of the mighty peak had collapsed in an avalanche.
Amongst the shale and gravel was a low spot where the rubble had settled into what had once been a natural cavern or perhaps an underground structure. In the deepest depression, small bits of gravel and dust began to stir as something pushed against them from underneath, gradually and laboriously moving the weight of the earth above. Finally a dirt-encrusted hand thrust its way into the air, followed by a massively muscled arm. The torn and bloodied fingers clenched into an angry fist.
It was covered in black, swirling tattoos.
I woke up the next morning, groggy, sore, and cranky. We were staying at the bug-infested Radio City Motor Lodge in some little Georgia town that made Cazador look like a thriving metropolis. It had been the closest lodging to the dirt strip that passed for the local airport. It is hard to sleep when roaches keep skittering across your body. My understanding is that since roaches can't shift into reverse, if one of them crawls into your ear canal it can get really nasty and potentially kill you. Sleep on that.
The injured Hunters had been dispersed to seek medical care. The cargo plane had dropped off Boone's two injured men at their home city of Atlanta. Roberts' body had gone with them. The plane had then continued west, delivering Albert Lee and his fractured rib back to Alabama. Grant Jefferson had flown the plane. He had been sent back to the compound supposedly to take over and continue the Newbies' training. I figured that I probably needed some medical care as well, but Harbinger wanted to keep me around because of my dreams, and also possibly because he worried that I might murder Grant once I was left unsupervised.