Renegade (2013) (18 page)

The sadness of the moment stole through Pike’s defenses, surprising him. But he knew it was because the boy was so close to Hector’s age and wore the same innocence on his face. Pike couldn’t help thinking that the two boys could have been friends if they’d known each other. Children didn’t carry the same kind of baggage adults did, unless their parents forced it on them.

And then he couldn’t help thinking that maybe Hector could be this boy. The part of Tulsa where Hector lived was dangerous too. Step off the wrong street corner at the wrong time, Hector could catch a no-name bullet from a drive-by and end up just as dead.

The thought left Pike cold. He didn’t want that vision of Hector lying dead on the street mixing with what he was seeing now. That would make it too real, too permanent. There was a reason soldiers kept their lives in battle separate from the world back home.

The boy’s eyes popped open and he looked right at Pike.

For the first time, Pike realized they hadn’t been open the way so
many of the dead’s eyes were. He hadn’t even thought about it until he was looking into the boy’s eyes.

The boy spoke in a thin, dry voice. Pike had just enough of a command of Pashto to understand that the boy was asking for help, for water.

“Gunney!” Pike shoved the dead woman away and scrambled under the van. “I need a corpsman over here. This boy’s alive.” He reached for the boy, managing to shove one hand under the back of his neck and one under his thighs. Gently Pike began extracting the wounded boy.

Towers bawled for a corpsman in his best voice, and the command rang between the buildings.

By the time Pike had the boy resting in his arms and was getting to his feet, two Navy corpsmen had joined him. Pike looked around and spotted the triage truck that had been set up half a block away. He started walking toward it, holding the boy tightly against his chest, reminding himself again and again that it wasn’t Hector—and trying to forget how easily it could have been.

“TAKE A MINUTE, PRIVATE.”

Pike handed off a dead man to two Marines loading the back of a pickup. Turning, he spotted Towers standing only a couple feet away. The sun had crept down in the west, stretching cooler shadows across the urban battleground. Clouds of flies had descended upon the scene as well and flitted from place to place. Pike wore his scarf over his mouth and nose to keep from sucking flies up when he breathed.

“Sure.” Pike pinched his scarf to hike it higher on his nose. His back and shoulders burned from all the lifting. “You heard anything about the kid?”

“Last I heard, it was still touch and go. Let’s grab some space.” Towers strode through the street. He kept his M4A1 in his fist and his gaze moving as he watched over his people. He’d worked alongside the Marines, pitching in and offering moral support to some of the guys who were still green and needed a break from the horror around them. “Kids have a way of pulling through stuff that would kill an adult.”

Pike didn’t say anything to that. He didn’t know why Towers had singled him out. Pike had worked steadily, even skipping some of the
breaks the other Marines had taken. There was no reason for Towers to pull him aside.

Towers halted at the opening to an alley. He took out a pack of spearmint gum, offered it to Pike, who took a stick, then took one himself. “Gotta admit, I’m kinda worried about you. Surprises me ’cause that’s something I’d never thought I would be.”

Unflinching, still cold and hard, Pike met the gunney’s gaze full-on. Pike unwrapped the gum and put it into his mouth. Out of habit, he folded the paper and shoved it into a pocket. He spent a lot of time on recon, and training to not leave a trail stayed with him. Of course, he’d first learned that when he and Petey had gone into business for themselves.

“Aren’t you even going to ask why I’m worried about you?” Towers chewed thoughtfully.

“No. You decide to worry, you’ll worry. You want, I’ll tell you you’re wasting your time.”

Towers grinned and shook his head. “This is what? My second tour with you?”

“Yeah.”

“When I saw you in Somalia, you had all kinds of bark on you. Never let nothing or nobody in. Never hung with other Marines by design. Drifted in some, but you didn’t let anybody close. Except maybe Bekah Shaw.”

Pike chewed his gum and kept his gaze roving as well.

“How are you sleeping?”

“Horizontal, when I can.”

Towers frowned. “I’m trying to help here, son.”

“I ain’t your son.” Pike spoke before he knew he was going to. The quick, hard response came out of the past, out of those days he’d spent in foster homes listening to men who acted like they wanted to be his dad but were really only taking him and the other kids in
for the money. The women had been just as bad, but Pike hadn’t been able to stomach the guys who thought he somehow owed them thanks and respect for taking him in. Everybody had their own agendas. Even Petey had concentrated on his own there at the end, which had been a surprise and had taught Pike that final lesson. It was just how people were.

Towers’s eyes narrowed somewhat, burned a little with anger, but he nodded in understanding. “Got daddy issues too, Marine? On top of everything else?”

For just a moment, Pike thought about punching Towers. It would have meant spending some time in the brig, but he was willing to do that. He’d done it before. Except that it might also have meant the end of his career in the Marines, which he wasn’t ready to let go of. And he liked Towers for the most part. Admittedly, he liked the man more when he was yelling at him to get something done instead of trying to get into his head.

Towers had shifted as well, and Pike realized that the man had gotten prepared for a punch to be thrown. In fact, Towers seemed more surprised that Pike
hadn’t
reacted violently. A trace of disappointment showed on Towers’s face, then was gone just as fast as it had manifested.

“I got a lot of issues, Gunney. I think we both know that from the way I’ve been busted in rank.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess we both know that.” Towers adjusted the strap of his assault rifle over his shoulder. “But this isn’t about a lack of respect for authority. This is about what I seen in you this tour and what I seen in your eyes when you hauled that boy out from under the van.”

“Wasn’t nothing to see.”

“There was something there. For just about a minute.”

“You didn’t see nothing except fatigue.”

Towers studied Pike for a quiet moment. “What’d you leave undone back home, Pike? ’Cause you sure didn’t show up with the Marine mind-set here and your past back there.”

“I’m fine.”

“Who you got waiting on you?”

Pike was silent for a moment. “If you’re expecting some kind of warm fuzzy to come out of this, you got another think coming.”

“I’m not expecting that.” Towers’s dark eyes bored into Pike. “I’m just trying to figure out the name of that devil that’s riding your shoulder.”

“Ain’t no devil on my shoulder. If you think you’re seeing devils, you should consider checking in with the chaplain. Or the corpsmen. Bet they got something to fix that.” Even as he spoke, though, Pike knew Towers didn’t believe him.

For a time, Towers held Pike’s gaze; then he finally nodded, more to himself. “Contrary to your rank and the way you handle authority, you’re a good Marine, Pike. I seen some of that back in Somalia. Seen me some of the bad, too. Ain’t gonna say I didn’t. I figured there was something in you worth saving in Somalia, but could be I was wrong. If I find out I was, that’ll go in the after-action reports I file on you.”

Pike didn’t like getting threatened, but he bit back a hostile reply.

“You got two men inside you, Marine. One’s a man I could call a friend, but the other one?” Towers shook his head. “I don’t wanna know that one. Don’t wanna see him showing up out here neither. Hutchison, he just about got to see that side of you up close and personal.”

Pike kept chewing the gum and watching the street. “Whatever you say, Gunney.”

“Yeah, it is what I say.” Towers’s nostrils flared and Pike thought maybe it was out of anger, but he figured it might have been out of frustration, too. “Like I said, you got two men in you. And a devil riding your shoulder. You figure out which one of them men you wanna be and let me know.”

That hit too close to what Hector had said, and the memory ghosted through Pike’s mind before he could shut it down.

“Am I dismissed, Gunney?” Pike hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “The dead ain’t gonna bury themselves.”

“Not just yet, Marine. I been in the corps for a lotta years. I’m just about old enough to be your daddy. I seen a lotta things during that time.” Towers nodded at the carnage in the street. “Seen things that was worse than this, believe it or not. Back home in Alabama, growing up in them swamp towns where my momma raised her kids, I seen a lotta bad things too. This war ain’t got no monopoly on grief and evil. There’s plenty of that in them small towns. A whole lotta bad people that’s got bad ways. They carry scars, and some of them scars they ain’t even got names for.

“You ask me—and I know you ain’t, but I’m gonna tell you anyway—you got a pain in you that you ain’t let go of yet. Something that’s anchoring them two men inside you. Kinda the way twins share their momma’s womb until they’re born. That’s what pulled that devil to your shoulder. It’s just sitting there, feeding on everything that’s festering inside you. You figure out how to deal with that pain, maybe you can let go of the evil inside you and hang on to the good.”

Pike just stood there the way he had when he was a kid listening to foster parents that he knew weren’t going to be more than a speed bump in his life. He held everything in tight, letting Towers see nothing.

Despite that, though, Mulvaney’s words echoed inside his head.
“I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Pike pushed the thought away, angry at himself for even being able to remember what Mulvaney had told him. What made Mulvaney think God would ever start something in Pike’s life, especially when Pike didn’t want any part of it? How he felt, whatever
Towers thought he saw in him, none of that had anything to do with any God Mulvaney claimed existed.

Towers sighed. “This was supposed to be a positive talk, not a rag session. I apologize for that.” His dark eyes flashed. “But make no mistakes: I meant what I said. You get your head screwed on straight before you get one of my people killed.” He nodded toward the street. “Get on back to what you were doing, Marine.”

Pike turned and went, but he didn’t like the way he felt bad leaving Towers standing there. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything. That was when he handled things the best.

Hours later, Pike stood under a lukewarm shower in the barracks. Soap stung the cuts and abrasions he’d picked up during the day. Blood sluiced down the drain. He lathered up twice, enjoying the smell of the soap, shaved by touch, then reluctantly turned the shower over to the next man in line.

He dried off outside the showers, dressed in fresh camos he’d brought from his kit, and bagged his dirty clothing. He stood, relishing the feel of fresh socks inside the boots he’d scrubbed as clean as he could of dirt and blood.

Hefting his duffel and his M4A1, Pike headed for the door.

Outside, one of the regular Marines stood guard, leaning against a Humvee while he watched the grounds. Night had fallen, and Kandahar had grown quiet with it. Earlier, the loudspeakers had called Muslims out for final prayers, and their voices had sounded everywhere. Now the city seemed at peace, which was as far from the truth as it could be.

“Hey, Marine. Pike.” A Navy corpsman walked toward the facility. She was young and lean, close-cut and clean, wearing tidy camos.

Pike waited but said nothing. The woman came to a stop in front
of him. She smelled like a hospital, strong whiffs of Betadine clinging to her, but there was something else, too. A floral fragrance that carried a hint of lemon. She was pretty, dark-blonde hair and green eyes, five and a half feet tall. Her nose had a slight bump in it, like it had been broken at some point and hadn’t healed correctly, but it gave her character and Pike liked the look on her.

“It is Pike, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Things get crazy like they did today, I don’t always remember names. But I remembered you because you brought that boy in.” She shrugged. “Mostly I remember we had a hard time prying him away from you.” She smiled. “Kind of hard to do our job while you were hanging on to him.”

Pike didn’t remember it that way, but it wasn’t worth the argument. “How’s the boy?”

“Doing good. I saw him earlier. Bullet went through his abdomen and missed everything vital. God was watching over him.”

Pike resisted the impulse to point out that if God had truly been watching over the boy, he wouldn’t have gotten hurt and his mother wouldn’t be dead. “Good to know.”

The woman offered her hand. “I’m Julie. Julie Meadows.”

Pike took the proffered hand and felt the smooth strength of her grip. “You know me.”

Julie smiled at him. “You just go by Pike? Just one name? Like Cher?”

“Most everybody just calls me Pike.”

“All right, Pike.” She nodded. “You’re one of the new arrivals for Charlie Company.”

“Yeah.” Pike was conscious of the Marine by the Humvee watching him.

“Big wake-up call today. You guys barely got on the ground.”

Pike shifted his kit over his shoulder and wished the woman would get to whatever it was she had on her mind.

“I’ve got a confession to make.” Her green eyes sparkled. “I didn’t just happen by. Your gunney told me where to find you.”

“He sent you?”

“No. I came looking for you.”

“Why?”

“To tell you about the boy, for one, and for another, I thought you might like company for dinner.”

“Why me?” It wasn’t unusual for women to hit on Pike. He knew part of it was he never intended to be stopped by one. They were just diversions as he rolled along.

The question gave her pause, but only for a moment. “I need to have a reason?”

“Yeah.”

She placed her hands on her hips and gazed steadily up at him, a slight smile on her lips. “I have to say, your gunney warned me away from you. Told me you were antisocial. I know I’m not a supermodel, but generally when I offer to spend time with a guy because I want to know him a little more, I get a better reaction.” She shrugged. “No foul. I guess I’ll see you around, Private.” She turned and started to walk away.

Pike watched her leave. Turning a girl down wasn’t a big deal. Over the years when he’d been running with Petey, there had been a lot of girls.

But he thought of how the woman had taken the boy from his arms, the professional way she’d started taking care of him, and the way she’d checked Pike over when she had the chance. She was good at her job. She’d had a rough day too.

So maybe her attention was nothing more than somebody looking for something new so she wouldn’t have to rehash the horror of
the day. She just wanted a distraction from earlier events. Pike didn’t owe her that. He didn’t owe anybody anything.