Eli placed controlled bursts on the steel targets arrayed before him from 350 to 750 meters out.  His templated primary firing position, when they initiated on targets within the objective area would be from just shy of 400 meters to maybe 700 meters, max, if for some reason the cartel gunsels went to the far end of the box canyon.  

As he put rounds on target, Eli wondered at the smoothness of the bronze colored gun.  Maybe it was the superalloy comprising the active pieces of the gun.  Maybe it was the fact that the gun was individually crafted, instead of mass produced by the lowest bidder.  Either way, the gun had an unearthly smoothness, hiding underneath the loud percussion of the rounds he was putting out.  The accuracy was scary precise, and the recoil was lighter than any 240 he had ever fired.  The gun was a work of art.

Eli transitioned between targets, plastering each with 6-to-9 round bursts.  He metered the duration of each burst with the age old gunner’s mental mantra, “A burst of six.  A burst of six.”  The gun had seemed to cycle faster than a standard M240, so Eli adjusted the gas cap to keep the cycle in the realm of 750-850 rounds per minute.  This was not only because this was the cyclic rate at which Eli was most comfortable, but also because the higher the cyclic rate, the more damn ammo you had to hump in.

The SLAP ammunition that Coker had provided was also impressive.  Its ballistic arc was much flatter than standard ball ammunition.  The M240G was an area weapon, but between the gun and the ammo, Eli was firing with almost surgical precision.

After thoroughly familiarizing himself with the superalloy-made gun (Eli had begun just mentally referring to it as the supergun), Eli mounted and dialed in each of the optics he had for the gun. Once each was perfectly calibrated, he marked all the settings with a thin line of fingernail polish from a bottle he had borrowed from Mable.  That way, if the shooting conditions necessitated a switch in sights, he had a quick visual reference point to ensure the sight was set and mounted properly.

Finally, Eli was ready to proof the so-called superalloy.  He opened four 200-round ammo cans and lined them up with the feed tray of the gun.  Then he carefully pulled the terminal ends of the linked belts s-coiled in each can and married them together.  He’d be firing cyclic, non-stop for at or about a minute.  That would be the ruination of a standard barrel.  The SLAP rounds fired at that volume were going to devastate his steel targets.  Eli had talked to the impassive Mr. Smith at the security building and procured Smith’s approval to do so.

Eli had choreographed his cyclic fire plan to the most efficient pattern possible.  Just for thriftiness’ sake, he wanted to put as many rounds as possible onto targets and minimize those that would go screaming uselessly across the desert to impact on the small mountain backstopping the range.

Eli noticed that Smith had left the range control building and started walking over to Eli’s firing position to see the show.  The show would not be as pyrotechnic as it otherwise might; there were no tracer rounds in the ammo.  Eli would know where his rounds were impacting, and tracers work both ways.  The cartel soldiers would figure out pretty darn quick where Eli’s firing position was, but there was no utility in using the virtual laser pointer tracers would create to speed their awareness along.

Eli got behind the gun, grabbed its charging handle, and then locked the bolt to the rear.  He safed the weapon, raised the feed tray cover, and slotted the first round of the first belt into position.  He slapped the feed tray cover closed and silently ran through his firing pattern twice.  Eli pushed up the brim of his baseball cap to provide the maximum field of view while still providing some shade from the savage desert sun, even though he was wearing high-end sunglasses as eye pro.

Ready, he rotated the flange of the safety to fire, and depressed the trigger.  The report of the shots thrummed heavy out of the gun, sounding like a supersized version of a sledgehammer hitting a railroad tie, over and over again.  The cyclic rate was high, but the gunner could still hear each individual round.  Eli carefully ran through his shot pattern quickly and efficiently addressing each target.  Then he ran it again.  And again.  Three quarters of the way through the fourth iteration, the gun finally ran dry.  57.9 seconds of firing.  Eli raised the feed tray cover, swept the last few empty links out of the gun, then raised the feed tray to ensure the gun was clear.  He slammed the cover closed, jumped to his feet, and arms raised, yelled an ecstatic “Whooooooooo!”  He whipped off his ball cap and his ear pro and ran a hand through his hair.  He turned to Smith and hollered, “Did you see that?”

The matchstick in the corner of Smith’s mouth barely twitched as he said, “Impressive.”

“I kind of ate up your targetry, Mr. Smith.  Sorry about that.”

The matchstick came close to almost moving again at Smith’s “Replaceable.”  Smith turned and started walking back to his building.

Eli picked up the nine cans that had previously held all the ammo he had expended that morning and stacked them carefully on the edge of the cement pad of the range shed.  There was no need to police up all the brass and links; a contracted clean-up crew came out every other day and scoured the range.

That thought gave Eli pause.  If someone placed an asset in the clean-up crew, could they tell by the volume and type of brass that the composition of the people firing on the range had changed?  Would they notice that the brass, 7.62mm, 5.56mm, and 9mm up ’til now, was now of only one caliber—and that of a very specialized round?  Was this a potential OPSEC violation?

Eli set one of the work tables from the range shack outside, in the sun.  He removed his shirt to feel the sun on his back as he disassembled the weapon and laid out its components to clean them.  Eli was amazed that there was very little carbon attached to the components of the weapon.  Despite the egregious number of rounds he had pushed through the gun, the components only needed a quick wipe down.  Eli also rode a cleaning swab through the barrel.  There was a slight black carbon residue, but Eli could tell that he could have shot ten times the amount he had, and not fouled the barrel enough to interfere with its operation.

Eli loaded everything up in his pick-‘em-up truck and headed back to Oscar Base.

***

Eli went back to the quonset hut he’d shared with the boys, showered and headed to Mable’s cafe.  Coker, too, was headed to chow.  They bumped fists and Coker said, “I got your mortar, and a couple dozen of each of the rounds you wanted.”

“Outstanding,” said Eli, “Ima need some range time with the tube, but I’m pretty proficient with that mortar.”

“Copy.”

They entered Mable’s to find Leo already loading up at the buffet.  He had his leather bike chaps on over his jeans, and his leather jacket was slung over the back of one of the chairs at their habitual table.  The other two men loaded up with chow and sat the table with Leo.  

“So,” asked Leo, “How’s the gun?”

“Unbelievable,” replied Eli, “And I mean that literally.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  I’m a fan.”

“Art and science,” said Coker, “coming together to make beautiful, ballistic music.”

“I got a question, though,” said Eli, not sure how to broach the subject.  He took a deep breath, not really sure how to forge ahead.  “So, for two weeks, you had four of us out there banging away on the range.  Four guys, three different weapons systems, lots of expended brass.”

Coker rolled his wrist, as if to say, c’mon, spit it out.

“So, we don’t have to police the brass because range cleanup is contracted out.  Does the change in the residue left on the range, and the reduction of three calibers to one, and the only brass on the range now being of a pretty high-end, low density round establish a signature we need to be worried about?  I mean, we are always told how much the adversary can pick up just from pocket litter.  Isn’t the range just a big old pocket?  That someone squared away could draw some pretty good conclusions from?  Do we have an OPSEC problem?”

Coker shrugged.  “Nah.  Before we brought you guys in, we had the contractor stagger his personnel and cleanup rosters.  No same person comes to the range more than one time out of four.”

“Eli,” rumbled Leo, “this is the second time you’ve had OPSEC concerns about issues we’ve already handled.  First Mable, now the range.”

Eli felt a little chagrined.  “Yeah.”

“Keep doing it.” said Leo, “In this job, the day you get fat and happy, feeling sassy because you’ve got all the bases covered, is the day you establish the predicate for your own dirt nap.  You pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down?”

Establish the predicate for your own dirt nap? Who talks like that? Eli thought. “Yeah,” said Eli.  “Thanks, I feel better.”

“Good.  This afternoon, Coker is going to introduce you to the RLST, then you’ll spend the rest of the day getting familiarized with it.”

“RLST?”

“You don’t know what an RLST is?  Really?  They don’t teach that anymore?” asked Coker.

Leo sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. He shook his head gravely and said, “It’s a sad, sad day.”

“Heh.  You guys are funny,” said Eli.  “See this face?” he asked, pointing to his own face, “this is my bust-a-gut, I-can’t-hardly-stand-it  laughing face.  Now, are you guys gonna tell me what a dang RLST is, or we gonna just keep playing reindeer games?”

“Better if you see it for yourself, Rudolf.  But trust me, you gonna like it.”

Coker asked, “So what are you doing today while me ’n Eli are slaving away—” Coker flashed a grin Eli’s way “—over the vaunted RLST?”

“I’m riding into Vegas, meet up with my HSI contact.  Want to check on the status of the Pima Lamona Sheriff’s department, and since we’re going to have an eye in the sky from a Predator drone when we hit the objective, I want to see if we can get one here for a couple of days to support our rehearsals.”

They all got that: train as you fight.  And, while good, solid planning was important, realistic rehearsals that reflected what they would see during actions on the objective were critical.  

“Great,” said Coker, “what’s your movement plan?”

“I’m checking in with the site support engineering section before I go, make sure the fighting position they’re digging in for me will be ready no later than tomorrow after lunch.  I figure we can use the morning to set up the range and you and I can dust off the rust on our own shooting while Eli brushes up on the mortar,” Leo looked over at Eli, “I know you’re supposed to be a humdinger on a mortar, but I went ahead and told them to give me 18 inches of overhead cover on the fighting position.  No offense.”

“None taken,” said Eli. “So, when are you going to get back from Vegas?” he asked.  He had zero enthusiasm for sitting around the fire pit chuffing cigars and swilling whisky late into the night before a day of hard labor and live-fire rehearsals.

“Depends.  My meet with HSI gets over soon enough, I’ll be back late this evening.  If it goes long, I’ll hootch up in Vegas and head out at first light.  Should be here in time for breakfast.”

Eli turned to look at Coker as he heard Coker’s dropped fork rattle on his now empty plate.

“She’s a chick, isn’t she?” said Coker, accusingly.

Leo asked, “Why, to whom are you referring, Brother Coker?”

“Your HSI contact.  She’s a chick.”

“What would it matter if she were, in fact, a female of the species?”

“And she’s hot isn’t she?”

Leo grinned at Coker.  “Smokin’.  Straight up Hammerzon.”

“And you’re going to sleep with her, aren’t you?”

“If the past is a predictor of the future, probably.”

“I knew it!” hollered Coker.  “I been locked up out here with four muttonhead gunners—no offense, Eli—”

“None taken,” smirked Eli.

“—And you been cruising around sightseeing on your bike, sleeping with random Special Agents.”

“I would definitely not refer to this rather hot and lethal lady as random, brah.”

“This guy,” seethed Coker.  “Y’know, Eli, we could parachute him naked into the arctic tundra, and a week later he’d have a cave set up like a bachelor’s pad, he’d be wearing polar bear skin robes, and he’d be shacked up with Nanook of the North’s little sister, who would just happen to be the Eskimo beauty queen.”

Leo looked at Eli and shrugged.  “Some people are lovers, some people are fighters.  I happen to be both.”

Mable came out of the back, probably due to hearing Coker’s ruckus.  “Is everything okay?”

“No, it’s not.  Leo’s running around playing Mr. Gigolo again.”

Mable patted Leo on the shoulder.  “You poor boy.  Don’t worry, someday you’ll find a girl who loves you for your mind, too.”

“Thanks, Mable.  I’ll muscle through this affliction.  Somehow.”

***

After lunch, Leo departed on his bike.  Coker and Eli headed for the break room building.

As they entered and the automatic fluorescent lights flickered on, Eli saw a big boulder sitting in the middle of the room.  The boulder was about five feet at the base, about 4 feet tall, and tapered to a rounded point at the top.

“That’s it?” queried Eli. “The ‘vaunted RLST’ is a big rock?  Wow, you’re right.  I can’t believe they didn’t teach me about this in the school house.”

“Not a rock,” said Coker, kicking the boulder.  It slid about three feet. “A Rock Lookin’ Styrofoam Thing.”

Coker walked around the RLST and undid six hidden quick latches around its circumference.  When he was done, he lifted the top half of the RLST and set it aside.

“Now, let’s look at what goes inside the vaunted RLST.”

Coker went to a couple of large, cubical hard plastic containers.  He snapped both of them open.  “We’ll kind of go in order, bottom to top.  The installation order doesn’t really matter, but it’ll help me explain.  First the batteries.”

Coker took out to boxy black plastic bricks.  They looked in size and apparent heft like the BA 5590 lithium/sulfur dioxide batteries that the Army uses for just about everything, but especially radios.  Eli groaned internally.  The biggest weight/cube component of about everyone who lives and moves with a rucksack on his back is the BA 5590.  Every team splits up the different pieces of heavy stuff, but everyone carries the 5590s.  Also, Eli felt a small whisper of concern.  The 5590s are notoriously unreliable in austere environment conditions, like extreme cold—or extreme heat.

“Now,” said Coker, “I can see you thinking that your ruck just got bigger and heavier.  Not so, young warrior.  These are not the BA 5590s that your team sergeant grew up with.  The limits on our batteries’ quality and longevity are not, believe it or not, technological.  Instead, they are environmental.”

Eli shot an eyebrow at Coker.

“Remember when the gubmint screwed us and got rid of high wattage incandescent light bulbs, and we had to go to those curly-cue fluorescent lights?”

Eli nodded.

“Remember how the disposal process went from just chucking it in the trash to taking it to a hazmat disposal facility, and you had a 147 step process if, heaven forbid, you broke one?”

Eli nodded again.  Coker was painting with a pretty broad brush, but yeah, he got the idea.

“These are like that.  These two batteries will run the RLST for two weeks, at least.  Actually, just one will.  The other won’t come on line unless the first runs low.

“But these batteries cost three times more to decommission than they do to manufacture.  Not a good idea for big Army, great idea for point-to-point operations like this.”

Coker slipped both batteries into the RLST, instead of a receptacle for prongs, like a standard BA 5590 had to fit onto the power leads for most military equipment that used them, the batteries just had a small insert slot on their face.  Coker took two thin lozenges, leads for power cords, and slid them into the slot. 

“Next up is our comms.  This is the radio system we’ll be using,” said Coker, holding up another sleek black box.  Eli noticed that all the various components in the black cases were colored black.

“Our mission phones are going to be synched in with this.  This will let us talk to each other on an open circuit.  It’ll also talk to the Predator above us and push out that signal.  Before you ask, yes, the cartels do have a direction finding capability.  Don’t know if they’ll bring it to the fight, but they do have it.  So, this little baby here doesn’t just push radio waves into the air and the atmosphere and space.  Instead, it uses a modified ground wave that renders all our comms and data LPD/LPI.

Eli perked up, ready to get angry.  More acronym reindeer games?  He was gonna…

But Coker was in training mode, not jaw-jack during chow mode, without a beat he continued, “That’s ‘low probability of detection, low probability of intercept.’”

“How low?” asked Eli, curiously.

“If you’re a trained technician, with state of the art equipment, you might detect it if you get within two meters of the module.”

Eli whistled softly.  Coker slid it into it’s slot on the RLST and attached a power cord to it.

He picked up the next piece, bigger than the others.  “This is equivalent to a commercially available Stingray.  You know what that is?”

“Yeah, a device that slurps up cell phone data.  Sorta slurps up any cellphone around it and stores the data.”

Coker nodded.  “Little bit more than that, though.  The standard Stingray will confuse the phone into thinking that the Stingray is a cell tower.  Then the Stingray gathers the unique IMSI—or International Mobile Subscriber Identity associated with the SIM card in the phone.  Now, we, military guys usually use this capability for counterintelligence purposes, law enforcement uses the Stingray for intelligence gathering purposes.  So, in order to stay hidden, covert, whatever, the Stingray releases the phone after its collected all the data, ‘cause the phone can’t send or receive any calls until the Stingray releases it.

“Our little beauty here isn’t going to do that.  Instead, once the cartel dudes are in the target area, this device is going to lock them down.  No phone comms.  No texts.  Any geolocation capability is going to be spoofed.  Our targets are going to know where they are of course, but if they’ve set their phones to share their location—let’s say they’ve got a reserve force or an immediate reaction cell that they’ve held back—those guys are going to be directed to a location about 4 klicks away.  Oh, and if these guys are relying on a walkie-talkie feature on their phone to help their command and control, they lose that, too.”

“Copy all, Coker.”

“Good.  Now this next piece is comparable to a CPU,” he said, lifting an item that looked a lot like a matte black CPU out of its storage container.  It’s nicknamed ‘the brainstem.’  It collates and expresses all the data sucked up by the not-Stingray-Stingray, and the comms unit, like data from the predator feed, and it squashes it into the data we want to see.  For example, it’ll take the location of all the cell phones that are scarfed up and put it in a topographic map setting, or on video taken by the Predator, or on just a two dimensional plane so that you can get a feel for what’s what before toggling it over to a map that puts the spread in perspective with terrain.  Then it pumps all the info we want—and if we’re smart, what we want is what we need—and moves that data in almost real time to our mission phones.”

Coker held up a phone and tossed it to Eli.  “We use the mission phone to manage and package all the data we want, and can move back and forth between feeds and presentations pretty much at the swipe of a finger.  Generally, we wear the mission phone on a gauntlet with a clear plastic face so that we can see its data as needed.”  Coker then tossed Eli a gauntlet.

“Yeah, Coker, that’s all cool and whatnot, but I’m feeling like—”

“Stand by,” said Coker.  “I know you’ve got questions and concerns.  Lets work through the mission phone first, get you comfortable with navigating it, then we’ll deal with the questions I know you have.”

“Awright, let’s go.”

Eli spent the next two hours getting up on the mission phone. The different panels he could call up on demand, the way to nudge the phone toward presenting data in exactly the way he wanted to see it packaged.  Eli figured he got it.  He maybe wasn’t as fast and fluid as Coker, and he knew he’d have to spend copious amounts of his own time to reinforce the skills Coker had taught him, but he had the nut of employing the phone in support of the mission.

“You know,” said Eli, “This whole RLST is a great multiplier for both disrupting the enemy and enhancing our own situational awareness, but I’m going to be laying down too much fire to be fiddle-fingering with a phone.  Not sure how much it’s going to help.”

Coker grinned. “You know, I was—“

“—just waiting to hear those exact words come out of my mouth.  I get it,”  groused Eli.

“Patience, young warrior.  It’s better if you take this a piece at a time, and it’s good for us if you question each piece, in case there’s a potential problem we haven’t thought of.”

“You mean aside from getting swarmed by the Sinaloa Rod and Gun Club?”

“Yeah.  Aside from that.”

Coker went back to one of the big plastic boxes and pulled out two matte gray boxes.  He handed one to Eli, then said, “You’re right eye dominant and right hand dominant, so I went with left and left with you.  Don’t crack yours open yet.  Let me go first, talk you through the fit and wear.  Then you don yours, then I’ll talk you through operating this little technical wonder.  Check it out.”

He opened his box, then took out a shiny silver apparatus.  Pointing to one part of the device, he said, “This is the eyepiece.” Sliding his finger down the long axis of the tech, he said, “This is the earphone.”  He held the piece up to his face, “Hold the device firm to your face until the material lining the edges warms up from your body heat.  Then, the whole thing will adhere to your face.  It’s not like super glue, but it’ll stick during pretty rigorous movement.  Taking it off is a little uncomfortable, but not painful.  We’ll get into the use of the eyepiece later, but it gives you a pretty phenomenal field of view.  The earphone has got active noise enhancement/active noise defeat.  This,” he said, pulling a cable from the top of the device, “is the microphone.”  Instead of pulling the tab on the end of the cable down to his mouth, he pulled up into his hair, and held it fast for a long few seconds.  “The mic is based off the mic used on the SR-71 aircraft and SEAL delivery vehicles.  It picks up the reverberations your speech sends through your sinus cavities, as opposed through the vibrations of your vocal chords.  Good news is that it won’t pick up ambient noise, so the happy sounds of a firefight won’t interfere.  Also, it’s voice-activated, so you won’t have to use a push-to-talk mechanism, which would also interrupt your fires.  Now, go ahead and put yours on, I’ll coach you up if you can’t remember the sequence.”

     Eli donned the equipment with no issues.  Once the hardware adhered to his face, it was surprisingly comfortable.  Even the mic up against his scalp.  The eyepiece optic provided extremely sharp vision and, as Coker said, a great field of view.

“Resistance is futile,” said Eli to Coker.

“Uh-huh.  Never heard that before. Now,” Coker reached into the gray container of his device and pulled out what looked like a a mesh version of the rubber wedding bands that a lot of military guys wear on deployment, as they wouldn’t be a safety issue but would still show that they were wed.  “Put this on the pinky finger of your left hand.”  Eli did so.  “Now, place your hand on the device like this,” said Coker, his four fingers on the device between his eye and ear.  “Ensure that your super cool mafia pinkie ring is in contact with the device.” Eli did so.  He felt/heard a snap.  The earpiece immediately began communicating to him the enhanced sounds that the active noise enhancement proffered.  

“Got it,” said Eli.

“Okay, so now the phone is tethered to the device, your pinkie ring is tethered to the device and the phone.”

“Uh, great?”

“Now, you know how Apache helicopter pilots aim their 20mm, hurt-bringing Gatling guns just by looking at their target?”

“One of the coolest things ever,” said Eli.

“Amen.  Now we’re going to calibrate the mafia pinkie ring to the headset, while both are linked to the phone.”

“Am I supposed to have any idea what that means?”

“Nope.  But it’ll be important later, so pay attention.”

Eli copied Coker’s movements, moving his left hand from left-to-right, and back; up-and-down and back through each border of his field of view.

“Now,” said Coker, “open up the mapping software on your phone.” 

Eli did so, and a map view sprang up in his left eye.  It was a heads-up display, the map seemingly three or four feet away, filling the vision of his left eye.

“You got the map view in your eye?” asked Coker.

“Affirmative.”

“Okay, now just like you would on a smart phone, use your thumb and forefinger to pinch down the size of the map.”

Eli did so.  “Now, put your forefinger in the center of the map, and move it up and out to his left, so that it was still visible up top, but he could see the rest of the of the room and Coker sitting across from him, looking like some kind of homicidal cyborg, instead of his regular look as a homicidal maniac. Homicidal maniac cyborg?  That worked. 

“Have your phone put up the cell phone tracking view.  Got it? Good.  The three blue dots are me, you and Mable.  You’ll note that they’re in blue—“

“—So good guys.  BLUFOR.”

“Exactly.  When we get ready to go live, all phones other than ours will have red icons.  The objective area is so remote, only people looking for trouble are going to be in range of the RLST.  Also, once the shooting starts, anybody who isn’t there with intent, they should be hauling ass out of the AO, and that vector will be tracked and fed to us on the RLST.  Bottom line, once we start shooting, there is no chance of collateral damage.”

“Copy.  Now, while this whole headpiece component thingie is pretty cool, I still have issues.”

“First, the ‘headpiece component thingie’ is the exsmad 17.  That is X-M-S-A-E-D-17.  That’s the Experimental Military Situational Awareness Device, version 17.”

“Awesome, so we’re going to be hanging it out in the breeze and counting on something ‘experimental’ to improve our survivability.  Thanks, Coker, you so know how to motivate at troop.”

“Awright, check it out then, ‘troop.’ There’s experimental and there’s experimental.  Remember those ‘environmental’ restrictions on batteries I talked about earlier?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You can get waivers for experimental devices and batteries.  The fact that I’m sitting here in front of you, alive and well, should tell you all you need to know.”

“Got it.  Now, cool as all this stuff is—”

“—You’ve still got to take a hand off the gun to manipulate the phone for the heads up displays.”

“Nailed it in one.”

“So, that mic that’s locked in on your scalp, defying dandruff, will allow you to make verbal commands.  Your homework is to train your exsmad to understand the verbal commands telling it do what you did with your fingers.  Shrink, zoom, move display, bring up another display.  I’ll give you a list of the pre-loaded commands, but the device needs to hear your voice giving those commands.  We start live-fire rehearsals tomorrow, so get the system tailored to you.”

“Awesome.  Thanks for the homework.”

“You’re welcome, Eli.  Now, let’s go get some chow.”

Mable was just finishing up loading up the buffet when Coker and Eli walked in with their exsmads in place.  Mable took one look at them and said, “You will be assimilated.”

“I know, right?” replied Eli.

***

Leo waited for the beginnings of the pre-dawn light.  Gabriela, the Amazon, lay upon his side.  Leo could’ve slept, but he enjoyed the feeling of her voluptuous body twined bonelessly against him too much to surrender to sleep and miss a single moment.  He was good; he knew he could go a coupla days without sleep before suffering a decrement in performance or mental acuity.  He slightly leaned over, and kissed Gabriela lightly on the forehead.  Then he gently slid out of bed and began donning his clothes and riding leathers.

Gabriela sat up.  The sheet fell away from her torso, which she seemed to mind not at all.  Through the burgeoning light coming through the window, Leo thought she looked glorious.

“So, you’re really going through with this,” she stated flatly.

“Yep.”

“You know you’re insane, right?”

Leo sighed.  “People keep telling me that.  Look…it’s what I do, okay?”

 “My SSA, Dan Harper, who is usually wrapped pretty tight, seems to have total faith and confidence in you, which I find totally weird, knowing him.”

“Dan Harper.  West Point guy?” asked Leo.

Gabriela nodded her assent.

“I know Dan,” said Leo with a wry smile as he hitched up his pants and started pulling on his boots.  “Known him for years.”

“For years?  How long is ‘for years?’” asked Gabriela curiously.

“Shoot.  Since he was a cadet at West Point.  He was roommates with my brother.”

“You have a brother?” queried Gabriella, pulling a pillow to her breast and leaning forward with interest—and, to Leo’s mind, cutting off an epic view.

“Sure.  When time allowed I used to take leave and go up to West Point for sporting events, and it was my mission, in the pre-game tailgating, to get those to young pups drunker ’n skunks.  They needed an occasional break from sobriety.”

Gabriela seemed fascinated.  “You have a brother.  That went to West Point.  And roomed with Dan Harper.”

“Sure,” said Leo.  “And we had a coupla tours in Iraq and the ’Stan that overlapped.  He got himself commissioned in the Engineers.  So whenever we were in the same place at the same time, I’d go over to where he was at, grab him and his senior NCO, and bring them over to my compound.  Used a cover about needing a consult on obstacle plans.  Or obstacle clearing plans.  Didn’t matter.  I just wanted to get them drunked up.  Help them get their heads on straight.  Then when they were sober enough to not embarrass themselves, I’d drive them back to their compound.  Figured it was a good sanity enhancer.”

Gabriela considered that for a moment.  “So, your brother, Dan’s roommate.  Older, younger, what?”

“Twin.”

“Fraternal?”

“Identical.  Mostly.” Leo ran a hand over his mustaches, braids, and beard.  “Not so much right now.  He’s still in, and since he’s not deployed, not under relaxed grooming standards.  But, yeah, identical.  Again, mostly.  My broken nose leans slightly left, his was pushed slightly right.  His wife says that’s how she tells us apart.  And we got different sets of scars.”

Gabriela didn’t know why, but this conversation both delighted and fascinated her.  As Leo struggled his bulk into his t-shirt, she asked,”So, you’re so not married, and he so is.  Kids?”

“Yeah, four or five or something.”

“Something?  So you don’t know?”

“Sure,” Leo grinned at her.  “I know.  But I find that when talking to beautiful women about kids, it’s best to assume an air of..insouciance.  Lest I give them the wrong idea.”

Gabriela giggled.  “Okay, stud.  So how many kids does your identical twin Schwarzenegger-looking brother have, exactly?”

“Five.”

“Wow.  He sounds pretty domestic, and you’re footloose and fancy free.  You afraid to commit?  You have a fear of intimacy?”

“You, with, by the way, many others, just called me insane for what I’m about to do.  What would you think or feel if you were my wife?”

Gabriela leaned back against the headboard, her clutched pillow falling away.  Which Leo was happy with.

“I think I’d probably lose my ever-lovin’ mind.”

“Uh-huh.  And if we had kids?”

“It’d be a deal breaker.”

“Right.  And if I actually loved you, loved my kids, could I do this in good conscience?  No way, my beautiful Gabriela.  So, no permanent commitments until I have a job with less permanent outcomes.”

“I’m not sure if that makes me angry or turns me on.”

“Well, if it turns you on…” said Leo, gripping his t-shirt as though to take it off.

“Nope.  Not happening.  I’ma walk funny for a week as it is.  You’ve got the Predator feed for 52 hours starting at noon.  I believe you’ve got some work to do before noon, and I like trying to keep the insane safe and alive to the greatest extent possible.”

Leo bent down and kissed her softly on the lips.  “When all this is over, think about taking some leave.  Maybe doing a ride, coast to coast.”

“With a guy who’s footloose and fancy free?  With no desire for a committed relationship?”

“Yeah,” said Leo.

Gabriela reached up and pulled his head down, kissing him hard.  “I’ll think about it.  Just survive this, okay?”

“Inshah’allah,” said Leo, as he walked toward the door.