Casualties (4 page)

“HR's been hearing from the families of some of our contractors. Apparently, they've got complaints.”

Ruth saw Andrea lift her eyes from her phone and shake her mane of chocolate hair out of her face.

“What kinds of complaints?”

“The usual, insurance claims taking too long, that sort of thing.”

“Isn't that HR's problem to solve?” Ruth said.

Gordon's face cinched into a frown. “That's one way to look at it.” He paused, probably expecting her to bite. Ruth decided to wait him out.

“What was a trickle of claims is suddenly a stream. Legal's gotten letters from a lawyer. Something's up.”

This was ridiculous. Ruth's BlackBerry vibrated against her hip. She started to gather her own laptop and notes.

“Sorry, Gordon, isn't HR your area?”

“Isn't the contractor business yours?”

The edge in his voice sounded like a warning of some kind. Ruth glanced at Andrea. “Thanks, Andrea, you can go. Let's touch base this afternoon to go over the final proposal.”

“Sure,” said Andrea, but Ruth thought she saw her glance at Gordon as if checking with him first. Ruth felt her jaw tighten, but she had no more time to think about it because Gordon was already talking again.

“Do I need to remind you that we all want to make Transglobal happy? They're sending in their team to do due diligence and I don't
want any surprises. That's as much your concern as it is mine, don't you think?”

“Of course, but—”

“Ruth?” Terri poked her head around the corner of the conference room door. There was only one reason she would come down personally to extract her from a meeting. “Robbie?” Without waiting for an answer, Ruth shoved her laptop into her bag.

“He's on the phone right now; you want me to patch him through?”

“No,” Ruth said. She wanted privacy for this call. “I'm coming.”

As she brushed past Gordon, he said, “I want you to take a look, make sure everything's as it should be, that's all.”

Ruth was already thinking about what to say to her son. What not to say. She glanced at Gordon and the words were out of her mouth right on cue.

“I'll take care of it.”

Robbie had waited until the last minute to lie to his mother. He leaned against a car in the barracks parking lot, cell phone in his hand, his pack at his feet. He took a deep breath and hit speed dial for her office.

“Ruth Nolan's office.” Great, it was Terri. Maybe he could just leave a message.

“Hey, Ter. It's Robbie.”

“My God, where are you? It's so good to hear your voice!”

“Thanks. Still in North Carolina.”

“Hold on. I'll get your mom. She's in a meeting.”

“It's okay. You don't have to bother her, I just want—”

“Are you kidding? She'll hand my head to me. Hang on.”

Damn, where was Korder? They had to get to Jacksonville in time to buy his bus ticket north. A couple of grunts rolled out the door of the brick-faced unit and started throwing a football back and forth as they loped across the grass and onto the pavement. If Korder didn't show, he'd grab a ride from one of them.

Then his mother was talking in his ear.

“Robbie? Why haven't you called? It's been days. Where are you?”

“They keep us busy here. The time difference kept screwing me up.” But Ruth was already moving on.

“I can't wait to see you. When's your flight?”

He took a deep breath. “Sorry, Mom. Things aren't going the way I thought. Still working my way through the reentry crap. Leave doesn't kick in for another week or so.” She used to know when he was lying. He tensed, waiting for her to bust him like she did when he was a kid, but she didn't.

“I should have just flown east to meet you like I did last time,” she said.

“Only would have been a couple of days. In another week—”

“I know. I know. I just need to see you.”

Robbie imagined his mother standing with the phone to her ear like he'd seen her so many times. She'd be tilted forward a little, one arm across her middle as if holding herself back. Her body always seemed to be moving even when she was standing still. “Won't be long, now. Did my bag get there?” He'd sent his duffel to San Diego and stuffed what he needed into his backpack.

“Yesterday. We put it in the guest room.” He heard her click her tongue impatiently.

“It won't be long now,” he said. “I'll call you when I know what's up.”

“You sound tired. Are you—”

The sudden softening of her tone ambushed him. If she kept on, he'd cave. “I'm fine, fine. Gotta go, though.”

“We'll get you rested and take care of you; just hurry up and get here.” She was speaking faster now, like she wanted to cram as much as she could into the remaining seconds. He heard the buzzing of phones, voices in the background.

“It's okay. I'm okay. We'll talk soon.”

“I love you.”

“Me too. Bye.”

He heard her draw a breath as if to say more, but he hung up before she could speak again. Almost immediately he felt shitty about it, then angry at her for making him feel shitty. Where the fuck was Korder? He dug some cigarettes out of his pocket. He was just nervous, was all. Leaving the base was hard. Every time he did, he felt naked. No gun. No Kevlar. Nothing between him and civilians walking or driving their fat asses around with cell phones stuck to their ears. He broke into a sweat at intersections watching cars zoom through without stopping, his fingers squeezing a trigger that wasn't there. At night, he and the other grunts stayed awake together in one room until they passed out, head to foot on bunks, the floor, anywhere they could fit, anywhere they didn't have to be alone.

He just had to ignore Ruthie. She was what his old boot camp DI called a “force of nature.” That was how she'd gotten herself from the mountains of New Hampshire to being a corporate big shot. Back in the desert, they kept tripping over people from companies like hers. Once, he recognized the initials of his mother's company on a lanyard worn by the woman who ran the entertainment at Camp Ramadi, a “morale technician,” he'd read in the camp newsletter. Someone had brought a copy back to the outpost. Peterson had thumped the picture with his dirty finger like he was some kind of lawyer and this was his evidence.

“What the fuck is a morale technician? I'll tell you what it is: some bitch who makes more in one year planning parties and writing fucking newsletters than I'll have after four years of putting my ass on the line for my country.” Peterson tossed the newsletter down in disgust.

Robbie stayed out of it. No one knew what his mother did. When someone asked, he just said she was in “business.” He talked with pride about the small town she came from, how she'd raised him singlehandedly; that was something they could understand and respect. In the end no one cared what she or anyone else's parents,
wives, girlfriends, or fathers did. They cared about each other. He wondered if he would care about anyone or anything like that again.

Robbie was on his third cigarette and halfway across the parking lot to the guys with the football when Korder finally showed up in his girlfriend's Chevy. He was going on leave, too. His girl, Chrissy or Misty or something that Robbie never quite caught, leaned forward from the backseat, her arms draped over Korder's neck. A tiny diamond glittered on her left ring finger. Korder told him she'd picked it out while he was in country and he'd paid it off a day or two ago. They were going to drive to her family outside Atlanta, then to his up in Pittsburgh. No one knew anyone; she and Korder met online four months ago. Korder was driving too fast; his left leg was bouncing, his finger tapping like crazy on the steering wheel while Drowning Pool blasted through the speakers. “New Hampshire?” Korder shouted over the music. “What's up there?”

“Best place in the whole world. Gonna stop in D.C. and see Rami too.” Robbie thought about saying,
C'mon, Kords, grab your pack and come with me
. They'd both be all right that way. But when they pulled up to the bus station in Jacksonville, all he did was reach over, his hand open. Korder gripped it and for a moment they stayed like that, unbreakable. Then Korder let go.

“Say hey to Rami. Say hey to whoever the fuck you're bangin' in fucking New Hampshire.”

There was no girl in New Hampshire, only an old farm with his great-grandmother, his uncle, and memories he'd been hoarding for months. The farm out on Lost Nation Road had been his refuge when he was a little kid. He hadn't been back since he was sixteen, yet one night, a month into his second tour, he smelled the brook he'd fished with his uncle. He'd been awake for twenty-one hours straight and was standing in a ditch up to his thighs in icy water, engine oil, and blood. For seconds, the space of time it took to sniff and wipe his nose with the back of his wrist, he picked up the clean mossy smell of the stream that ran through the maples surrounding the sugar house. Then it was gone.

He thought about that stream over the remaining months, recovering the hours he'd spent walking its edges with a rod and line, tramping down the mountain to the farmhouse with his uncle to clean the fish so his great-grandmother could cook them. During the long empty spaces between action or the nights when the pills he used for sleeping didn't work, he conjured himself at age four plunging his arm into the sack of birdseed Big Ruth kept by the back door. He tried to remember the names of the birds that would come to the feeder or pick the seed off the ground. He could almost feel the warmth of his great-grandmother's arm around him when she sat on the back step and pointed each one out. Somehow the farm had once again become his safe place, and now he needed to go there.

He'd never be able to make his mother understand. She hated the place.
Screw it
, Robbie thought as he settled into a window seat on the Greyhound. He'd earned the right to go wherever he wanted. A pimpled kid with no hair and a big belly squinted at him from across the aisle.

“Semper Fi?” The guy shrugged his lumpy shoulders and laughed a little, like he'd made a joke.

Robbie saw a glint of metal on his tongue. He wanted to reach into the kid's mouth and yank out the pin or bolt or whatever the fuck it was, make the kid understand he had no right to even think the words
Semper Fidelis
. He didn't have the right to be on the same bus with a Marine.

Robbie dug through his pack for his iPod and stuck the buds in his ears. The music lit along his nerves until he felt like they were burning right through his skin. His fingers found the prescription bottle that held the only pills he had left. He'd been ashamed at first, when he admitted to the doctor after his first tour that he couldn't sleep. “Normal,” the doctor said. So was the “anxiety,” as she called it. She scribbled a bunch of prescriptions and told him these things resolved on their own. If he saw the doctor now, he'd tell her she was full of shit. He pulled out a pint of bourbon and swallowed one of the pills he'd hoarded. He almost laughed. Taking drugs was supposed to
keep you out of the Marines. Then they handed 'em out to keep you in. Right now he hoped he had enough to keep him in his seat for the next eleven hours until the bus got to D.C.

When it did arrive, though, he wanted to stay on it until the next bus he needed showed up. He forced himself to follow the other passengers down the steps and into the station. He asked how to get to Walter Reed, but the directions involving bus routes and subways got lost in the noise and motion surrounding him. Out on the sidewalk in front of Union Station, people bumped and pushed past him. They were too close. Everything was too close. He retreated. He bought another pint of bourbon, some cola, and a few magazines. Then he found the gate for his next bus. He'd see Rami soon, he told himself. He and Korder would go together next time they were on liberty. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in a text to Korder:
Missin' me yet?
But he deleted it without sending.

Colors and noise rushed at him. A woman draped in brown, her hair covered, jabbered into a cell phone as she wheeled her suitcase toward another woman wearing a shiny pink blouse, a gray skirt, red lipstick, and an earpiece visible beneath a shell of blond hair. She reminded him of Ruthie, the way she walked, like she knew someone was watching. A giant television screen flashed from one giant head to eight smaller ones while words raced across the screen. Over the announcements of trains arriving and departing, Robbie heard the roar of a crowd from a bar.

He couldn't monitor everything; the muscles in his neck and jaw began to ache. Right now the guys who had replaced his unit in Ramadi were going on patrol, studying every bump in the road, every car coming at them, every man, woman, and child with their phones and bundles. Right now Ramirez was lying a few miles away in Walter Reed waiting for a new leg, a new hand, and more surgery to fix the parts of his insides that had been rearranged in the blast. Robbie sank down in his chair, hating that he couldn't move, hating that he was no better than the oblivious crowds around him.