Chapter Sixteen
Emily walked into her office exactly one hour and thirty-six minutes late for work. Which meant the official start of her duty day was going to kick off with an ass chewing by her boss.
The secretary, Ms. Walters, looked down her nose at her as Emily walked by. She was late. She knew she was late. So why did Ms. Walters act like she was the avenging angel of the time clock? If Colonel Zavisca didn’t care that Emily was a few minutes late, why the hell should Ms. Walters?
She needed to rewind the entire week and start over. Preferably without Sloban’s death.
She walked into her office, dropping her tote into the chair near the door, and logged in to her computer. The absolute normality of the morning was contrasted by the utter chaos inside her. Hoping she still had a few minutes before Ms. Walters started the line of patients parading through her office, Emily headed to the break room to microwave some water for tea.
She needed just a few minutes to prepare for the day. She was not yet put back together enough to deal with what had happened yesterday. Her stomach flipped as the memory flashed through her brain for the thousandth time.
“Emily?”
She stopped on the other side of Colonel Zavisca’s doorway. His office was open, which was unusual. The man did most of his work behind closed doors. Emily suspected he had some control issues about people walking in on him, but left it alone.
It was not good form to psychoanalyze one’s boss.
She took a single step backward, pressing the tea bag to the inside of the mug. “Yes, sir?” “Emily, do you have the notes on yesterday’s victim?”
Emily said nothing for a long moment. All the euphemisms in the world. Anything to avoid calling Sloban by his name. As though somehow, in passing from this life to the next, he somehow became less than a person. More of a memory. A statistic.
Anything but a person. A son. A brother. No, he was just the victim now.
Her lungs refused to expand to hold the deep breath she’d inhaled. Releasing it, she smiled faintly. “Yes, sir. I’m sure I do.”
Colonel Zavisca leaned back in his chair, resting his fingers on the top of his head. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
“Coping okay? No nightmares or self-destructive thoughts?”
She fought the urge to frown. “No, sir.”
He didn’t really want to know what she’d done for therapy last night. He wouldn’t approve of her seeking out a man like Reza Iaconelli, and not just because Reza was enlisted.
No, he’d warn her against a man like him.
It was a warning she didn’t want to hear.
Because she didn’t care that Reza was enlisted or broken or damaged. She cared about him. Felt alive around him.
Zavisca frowned and leaned forward. “You’re a terrible liar. What happened?”
She lifted the mug to her lips, sipping the tea gently. Mostly just to buy herself some time before she answered. “Nothing, sir. I just slept…poorly.”
In Reza’s house, in Reza’s arms. Hello, therapy.
“Okay, then. I need you to update his information in the medical system. Big Army medicine conducts a formal review of all active duty suicides.”
Emily frowned. It made sense. Still, the rational answer didn’t chase away the lingering discomfort about the privacy of the dead. It felt somehow, wrong, to open up his medical records to an investigation by Big Army medicine. “If it helps us identify any trends…”
She left her words hanging and Colonel Zavisca nodded. “Exactly. We’ve got a massive problem on our hands across the Army and we’ve got to figure out how to identify those high-risk soldiers earlier and get them the help they need.”
Ms. Walters took that moment to stick her head around the corner at the end of the hall. “Captain Lindberg, your first patient is here.” Her voice had the thick rasp of a thirty-year smoker but her face was smooth and flawless, as though she’d never spent a day in the sun.
“Okay then.” She turned her attention back to Colonel Zavisca. “I’ve got to get going, sir. I’m already fifteen minutes behind.”
“Thanks, Emily.” Colonel Zavisca looked down at his desk, then back up at her, opening his mouth, then snapping it shut. “Oh, Emily?”
“Sir?” Her stomach dropped.
“One of the nurses said she thought you looked a little too comfortable with the victim’s first sergeant after the shooting.”
She turned slowly, sure there was a huge scarlet letter on her chest and baffled that her boss would make something out of her seeking comfort after a tragedy. “Sir?”
Colonel Zavisca cleared his throat. “Personally, I don’t care where you spend your nights. But keep it out of the office,” he said mildly.
Emily swallowed. “Roger, sir.” A hoarse whisper. Her skin, cold. And beneath that, an odd sense of relief. Her boss didn’t care if she was involved with an enlisted man.
She padded down the hallway to her own office, where her first patient of the day was waiting.
Wisniak sat in the plain white plastic chair outside her office. He looked tired but his eyes were alert. He stood and she rested her hand on his shoulder. “You look well,” she said, barely masking her surprise.
He licked his lips and nodded nervously. “Sarn’t Ike moved me out of the unit.”
He took his normal seat on the small couch in her office and she slid around to sit in front of her desk. “This is a good thing?”
He nodded eagerly. “They don’t know where I am. I can take a piss—I mean, I can go to the bathroom—without worrying if they’re going to break into my room. I slept, ma’am. For the first time in months, I really slept.”
“That explains why you look so much better.” Relief was hot and prickled across her skin.
Wisniak looked down at his clenched hands. “I can’t stay in the Army,” he said softly. “I don’t fit here.” He looked up at her, his eyes filled with disappointment. “I’ll never get to deploy.”
Emily glanced at her own right shoulder, bereft of the honored combat patch. She shouldn’t judge but she also knew she was going to get her time in the desert. For her, it wasn’t a question of if; it was a question of when. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” she said softly. “Deployments break the strongest of us. Maybe you need to go figure out what’s going to make you happy.”
“I thought being a soldier would do that,” he admitted. “Guess I got that wrong, huh?”
She smiled at him. “There’s nothing wrong with figuring out that you want to do something different with your life.”
She wondered how Reza had felt on his first deployment. Had he been scared? Emily was terrified of stepping foot into Iraq. She remembered how it felt to step into that hallway of the shoot house. The pure terror and adrenaline all mixed together. Absently, she stroked the mostly healed bruise on her hip. That day had been terrifying even though she’d known she wasn’t going to die.
The squeeze of a trigger. A splattering of blood.
Memories rose unbidden and unbound. She was determined to shove them aside, to focus on the young private in front of her. She didn’t have time to fall apart.
She’d failed yesterday. Today, she had to find the energy to fight the good fight and damn it, that meant focusing on Wisniak.
She’d find time to deal with her own stuff later. In the meantime, she had patients to see.
***
“Sergeant Iaconelli, my office. Now.”
“Good morning to you, too, sir,” Reza said, following Captain Annoying into his office.
“Is there a reason why you’re just showing up at nine thirty? And before you say anything, it needs to be a really good reason.” Marshall’s head looked like it was about to explode. Reza supposed he should be glad that Marshall wasn’t screaming yet but it wouldn’t be the first time that Reza had had to deal with an officer that cracked under the pressure. Combat, a dickhead battalion commander—the source of the pressure didn’t matter and the reactions were legion.
Marshall, for example, was a screamer. Reza had worked for a lieutenant once who’d turned vicious when he was stressed out, calling subordinates names. Abuse was so much more than just fists and belts, he thought, standing at the position of attention. Someone like Teague was a relentless smart-ass. He’d never seen Teague lose his temper. Of course, Ben Teague avoided all things involving leadership positions, too. It was easy to stay unflustered when he was content to ride the staff as an assistant to the assistant operations officer. Then again, Teague might have low ambitions but he was hell in a fight.
Reza chafed under Marshall and men like him. Men who thought that the rank on their chest automatically made them right. “Stomach flu, sir. Couldn’t get out of the bathroom to get to the phone.” Couldn’t have him asking about Wisniak. If he was pissed at Reza, he’d forget about the soldier out of ranks.
It had happened too many times before for it not to work today. Marshall had no idea how to lead men.
“Do you have a sick call slip? A note from the doctor?”
Reza raised both eyebrows. “Guess you missed the part about me not making it out of the bathroom?” Marshall’s jaw pulsed. Reza almost smirked. “No, sir, I don’t have a sick call slip.”
“Sergeant Iaconelli, if I make Sergeant Wisniak turn in a sick call slip for his appointments, what makes you any different?” Marshall’s eyelid twitched. He was that close to really screaming. A little more and Reza would see one of the full-blown, epic tantrums that Marshall was known for.
Reza counted to ten and restrained his inner smart-ass. Channeling Teague right now didn’t seem like the best idea. “I’m not going to wait in line for half a day to get a little piece of paper to tell you I was sick.” The lie didn’t bother him in the least. Marshall didn’t deserve the truth. He didn’t deserve Reza’s loyalty or his trust and that had been the case even before Wisniak’s allegations had come to light.
“You have stomach bugs a lot,” Marshall said.
Reza couldn’t resist any longer. “What can I say, sir? I have a sensitive tummy.”
Marshall snapped, slamming his palm on his desk. “God damn it, Iaconelli, I am tired of your smart mouth! You’re one step away from being relieved for cause. One more formation. One more missed work call and I will have your ass.”
Reza lifted his chin. “Do it now. Don’t wait and don’t fucking threaten me. Sir.”
“You think I won’t? The sergeant major won’t always be around to protect you.”
Reza laughed bitterly. “Is that what you think? You’re stupider than you look. Sir.”
“I am tired of your disrespect, Sergeant!”
“And I’m tired of you threatening people.” Reza leaned across the desk, getting back in Marshall’s face. “I don’t know what happened between you and Wisniak, but I’m going to find out.” He straightened. “You can count on that. Sir.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Marshall’s expression didn’t change. Not a flicker. Interesting. Marshall continued, ignoring Reza’s veiled threat. “You’re too busy drinking yourself sick every night to be able to lead soldiers. The only thing protecting you is the sergeant major. And I’m tired of it.”
“Nice try, dickhead, but I quit drinking, remember?” Reza sniffed and lifted his chin, grinding his teeth. Last night didn’t count. “And I’m reasonably certain that what I do at night is none of your business.”
“It becomes my business when you can’t make it to work on time.”
“Do you want me to go get a goddamn sick call slip?” Reza snarled.
“I want you to get to work on time. I want you to keep your soldiers from killing themselves.” The vein in Marshall’s forehead pulsed wickedly.
Reza scoffed. “That would be a hell of a lot easier if you weren’t putting them in a pressure cooker and letting them go off. How often did you harass the clinic to get the mental health evaluations sped up?”
“That’s my fucking job,” Marshall said. “We need to get rid of the ash and trash so we can focus on the real warriors.”
Echoes of Reza’s own words slapped him in the face. Cold prickled over his skin. “Sloban was a real warrior,” Reza said quietly.
Marshall stopped whatever he’d been about to say. For a brief moment, Reza considered that Marshall might actually have a heart attack and die on the desk.
The officer corps would be better for it. He wondered what that said about him, that the thought of Marshall dead didn’t bother him in the least.
Reza swallowed. “Well, since it looks like we’re done here, I guess I’ll get to work.” “Everything isn’t a joke, Iaconelli.”
“Sir, if you think I’m joking after having Sloban’s blood splattered all over my uniform yesterday, you’ve got a pretty fucked-up idea of a joke.”
Marshall’s nostrils flared and he jammed a finger in Reza’s direction. “One more time, Sergeant. One more fucking time and that’s your ass.”
Reza saluted sharply, essentially turning what should have been a rendering of honors into a giant fuck you the way only a senior NCO could. “Yes, sir. I won’t let you down.”
“Get out!” Marshall broke down and finally screamed.
And he’d never once asked about Wisniak.
Reza shut the door quietly behind him, as the operations folks all around him pretended they hadn’t heard every word.
***
The day just wouldn’t quit. For once, though, Teague wasn’t cracking any jokes as he plopped down in the chair across from Reza’s desk and propped his feet up. He pulled a bag of sunflower seeds from his cargo pocket and palmed a handful before tossing them in his mouth.
“Get the blood out of your uniform?” Sadly, Teague’s question wasn’t a joke.
“Dropped it in the trash on my way in to work.” Because he hadn’t wanted to look at the stains. “I suppose I should have had it disposed of by the medics.”
“Probably, but no one is going to check so there’s that.” Teague spit some of the shells into an empty Gatorade bottle. “Seen Foster today?”
“No. You?”
“We went out drinking last night but I haven’t seen him this morning.”
Normally, a sergeant and a captain wouldn’t hang out together but Foster and Teague had been through a particularly nasty battle in 04. Some bonds were stronger than any prohibition the Army could decree.
“He’s not answering texts or phone calls?” Reza asked.
“Nope. I wanted to see if he’d shown up here before I head to his apartment.” Teague didn’t sound worried, which went a long way toward easing Reza’s mind. Foster was a rock. The kid had never let him down.
“Let me know when you find him.” Reza’s phone buzzed. I’m too fucked up to drive. I’ll be in after lunch. He held the phone up. “Speak of the devil and he appears. Foster’s alive and kicking and apparently still drunk.”
“I’m sure Marshall would love to hear that,” Teague said dryly. “I think he gets a hard-on every time he gets to throw a soldier out of the Army.”
Reza tipped back in his chair, resting his hands on the top of his head. “You’ve known Marshall a long time, right?”
“Sadly, I have to claim that fuckstick as a member of my officer basic corps class. Why?”
“Did he ever…” Hell. How exactly did one ask if Marshall… “Did he ever get in trouble?”
“He got told to chill out a couple of times by the instructors. He was big on being part of the team and man, if you weren’t on his team, watch out. He was fucking intense.” Teague glanced over his shoulder toward the door. “Still is. He’s worse now because he’s a commander. He’s such a sanctimonious prick.” Teague spit more seeds into the bottle. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“I can’t, man. This is one of those things that I really wish I could get your thoughts on the whole thing.”
“Wait. There’s a scandal involving Captain Asshole and you didn’t tell me?”
Reza shook his head. “This is actually serious.”
“So am I. I’ve been waiting for this day.”
“Why?”
“You ever get the sense that someone is just not right in the head?” Teague wasn’t joking. Reza straightened. “So what’s it going to take to get you to tell me what’s going on?”
“Can’t, dude.”
“Beer? Alcohol? A bottle of Johnny Walker Black?”
Reza shot him a deadpan look. “I’m pretty sure what you’re doing right now is called enabling the alcoholic.”
“Which it would be if you were an alcoholic,” Teague said, waggling his Gatorade bottle at Reza. “You’re a recovering alcoholic.”
Except for last night. He took a deep breath. “Sure. Look, just keep an eye on things around here and let me know if you hear anything funny.”
“You know I’m in a better position to deal with this stuff than you are, right?” Teague said, suddenly serious.
“How’s that?”
“Officer. Enlisted. The chain of command is going to be a hell of a lot more reticent to send me up the river than they will you. Especially with your history.”
Reza ran his tongue over his teeth, the truth of Teague’s words hitting below the belt. “This isn’t about me.” And yet it was, because Reza had set up conditions that put Wisniak on the outside of the circle of trust.
“You know I’m right. What the hell is going on?”
“Shut the door.” Reza sighed and leaned forward. “Wisniak told Captain Lindberg that he was being hazed by a bunch of Marshall’s guys. With Marshall’s permission.”
Teague frowned. “That shit happens all the time.”
“This got out of hand and Wisniak is pressing charges now.”
“Define ‘out of hand’. What, like assault charges?” Teague’s expression hardened as Reza nodded.
“Yeah. The investigators are talking to Wisniak today.”
Teague sank back into his chair with a heavy sigh. Slowly, a grin spread across his face.
“This isn’t actually funny,” Reza said quietly.
“I know. But I’ve got to tell you, I’ve waited a long, long time for Jimmy Marshall to get what’s coming to him.” He popped a sunflower seed in his mouth. “That probably makes me a bad person, doesn’t it?”
Reza rocked back in his own chair. “I wouldn’t tempt karma like that if I were you,” he said after a while.
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