In the early morning hours, Taylor and Tucker Williams found themselves alone over disposable cups of coffee that really held only heated, disinfected water with a bit of brown color added.
"George," Williams said, "you need to catch a little rest. Those dark circles are going to be getting caught under your boots."
Taylor nodded. "I just have to go back over the ammo up-load figures." He sighed as though the years had finally overtaken him. "Christ, I feel like a brand-new butterbar locked in a supply room that just failed the IG. Old Manny picked a hell of a time to get himself killed."
"I'm sure he feels bad about it too," Williams said. "Listen, George — where am I riding? With you in the command bird? Or do you want me in another ship, just in case?"
"You're not going, Tucker."
Williams blustered like a character from an old cartoon. "What do you mean, you sorry sonofabitch? Whose goddamned idea was all this, anyway?"
"You're not going."
"The hell I'm not. You're going to need me, George."
"No," Taylor said matter-of-factly, "I'm not going to need you. One more shriveled-up bird colonel won't make a lick of difference tomorrow." He glanced automatically at his watch. "Today, I mean. Nope, I don't need you, Tucker. But the Army needs you. And the Army's going to need you more than ever after all this is over. You're going to have to finish what you started. Cleaning up all the shit."
"Don't give me one of your speeches, George."
Taylor waved a hand at his old comrade. "No speeches. I just hate to think of the U.S. Army having to do without both of us. Wouldn't be a decent scandal for at least ten years."
The two men sat quietly for a moment. The words between them had not been as important as the absolutely clear but unarticulated understanding that left no room for further argument: Taylor was the mission commander, and he had decided that Williams was not going. Therefore, Williams knew that he was not going. The rest was merely a ritual.
Williams knocked back a slug of the bad water masquerading as coffee. "George," he said seriously, "you don't sound like you think this one's going to be very clean."
Taylor twisted up his dead lips as though he were chewing a cud of tobacco. "Truth be told, I don't know what the hell to expect. Too many variables." Then he grinned. "So I'm just doing what comes naturally. And we'll see what happens."
The old intelligence colonel laid a hand on his friend's forearm.
"George," he said, "you take care. I'd miss you, you know." He chuckled. "I haven't seen all that much of you over the years. But I always knew you were out there. I always said to myself, 'Tucker, they may call you crazy. But you ain't half as crazy as that sonofabitch Georgie Taylor.' It was always reassuring." He fretted his hand on the cloth of Taylor's uniform. "I'm just not ready to assume the mantle of the U.S. Army's number one damned-fool lunatic."
"Don't underestimate yourself," Taylor said with a dead man's smile.
Williams shook his head and casually withdrew his hand.
"Well, do me one favor," he told Taylor. "Just don't fuck it all up, okay?"
Taylor looked at the worn face beside him. Veteran of so many mutual disappointments, of so much trying.
"Not if I can help it," Taylor said.
For the first time in days, Noburu's dreams did not wake him. This time it was a bomb.
At first, everything was unclear. He woke from haunted sleep as if his bed had convulsed and coughed him up. Unsure of his state, he sat upright in a waking trance, gripping the darkness as if falling. Was he dreaming this too?
The last echo of the blast receded, leaving an emptiness quickly filled by the noise of automatic weapons and the muffled but unmistakable sound of human cries from the far edge of reason.
Noburu reached toward the light just as the intercom beeped. The message began without the usual ceremonious greeting.
"They're coming over the wall," the voice warned. Volume turned down, the intercom had shrunken the voice and it sounded oddly comic: a midget in terror.
Noburu hurried into his trousers.
"— a bomb—" the voice went on.
Noburu grasped his tunic, shooting an arm down its sleeve.
"— the gate—"
Conditioned by an eternity of mornings, Noburu took up his pistol belt, strapping it on over his open uniform blouse.
Machine guns sputtered beyond the headquarters walls. Storm tides of voices swept forward. The floor pulsed underfoot as dozens of men hurried along nearby corridors.
"— local guards deserted—"
Another blast. But this one was distinctly less powerful.
Akiro burst into the room. The aide's brown eyes burned.
"Sir," Akiro barked. But the younger man could think of nothing further to say. He had been sleeping. Noburu noted that his normally precise aide had neglected to do up the fly of his trousers. It struck Noburu as odd that he still had the capacity to notice such details with death already brushing its cold fur up against him.
Noburu crossed to the wall where heavy draperies covered a window of bulletproof glass. He touched a button offset from the meaty fabric and the curtain parted.
Nothing to be seen. The fighting was around the other side of the compound, and despite the bluster of automatic weaponry, from Noburu's bedroom a man could see only the nighttime peace of the city cuddled around the bay. Beyond the moraine of buildings, the sea lay naked under voluptuous moonlight. It was a powerful and romantic view, and the background noise of combat seemed grotesquely inappropriate, as though the wrong sound track had been supplied for a film.
It occurred to Noburu that Tokyo would much prefer this view of things, but before he could smile a firebomb traced across the dark sky, tail on fire. It struck a balustrade a bit below Noburu's lookout point and flames spilled backward over a terraced roof.
"Come on," Noburu told his aide. "And pull up your zipper."
Noburu jogged out through his office and into the corridor, with Akiro close behind, trying to reason with the older man.
"Sir," Akiro pleaded, "you must stay here. You must remain where we can guarantee your safety."
Only when the closed elevator doors temporarily blocked his path did Noburu turn any serious attention to the younger man.
"Nothing is guaranteed," he said calmly. "Least of all, my safety."
The sliding doors opened with a delicate warning chime. Inside stood Colonel Piet Kloete, the senior South African representative on the staff. Two of his NCOs stood beside him. All three of the men were heavily armed. Kloete himself looked ferocious with a light machine gun cradled in his arms, while the other two soldiers had loaded themselves down with autorifles, grenade belts, a light radio, and ammunition tins for Kloete's machine gun. Noburu could not help admiring the appearance of the South Africans. He knew that he had reached an age where he would frighten no one, where a pose behind a machine gun would most likely amuse an enemy. But the South African colonel was at a perfect point in his life, his body still hard. The gray along Kloete's temples resembled reinforcing wires of steel.