They both understood why the Corps had forsaken its usual practice of having marines do a job long before being awarded the job's rank-indeed, too often without ever being awarded the job's rank. But they scrupulously avoided the A-word. Seven months into Operation Palawan Liberation, the match-up of billet and rank helped morale from tanking further in the face of a grave command vacuum that virgin leaders couldn't seem to fill, no matter how thorough their formal training or experience elsewhere. The A-word hovered over all.

Once Jamie even heard it said by Captain Pinsof, the battalion's intelligence officer who was Koenig's boss. Well, overheard it. But she heard it, no question: Attrition.

She didn't tell Rhys about what she heard, but Rhys's sources * 118 *

had also been whispering essentially the same thing. Because this war of attrition featured enemy sniper attacks on officers and even senior NCOs, whom PIA fighters had learned to recognize despite hard-to-see rank insignia.

"The PIA're reading deference, not rank insignia," Jamie kept saying to anyone who'd listen. "Just watch. It's not an accident that the guys who demand the most deference get whacked the quickest." So by default, because nothing else worked, most replacement leaders were culled from within a Palawan unit's own lower ranks or from other units in the Palawan. Unit strength then underwent a "virgin resurrection" from the bottom up, since pulling newbies into the lowest possible ranks gave them a chance to learn from the NDYs.

Of course, it was all quite ad hoc and unofficial. So were the extended deployments.

Snipers were the first ones locked into their units and told they were staying. Then everyone got an additional six months in the Palawan.

For those doing the fighting, home seemed to be receding further and further, but Staff Sergeant Gwynmorgan didn't give that any thought.

Instead, she counted days as a platoon leader, just once each morning.

And she cogitated about how to do the platoon's missions sufficiently well that no mission had to be done twice. "Hard enough to get everyone back alive the first time," she'd say.

Jamie had lost two snipes and one spotter to go-home wounds in the barangays at the edge of Puerto Princesa. But no KIAs. Twenty-three days as platoon staff sergeant and no KIAs.

Then the battle for the little city ruptured into climax. Along the edges of Third Battalion's push, its snipe platoon worked Puerto Princesa's narrow streets toward the capitol building. Jamie had just hooked up with second squad, which now tentacled out from the Three-Eight's right flank, traversing narrow alleys and closely packed rooftops.

The damage to civilian structures in the immediate area surprised her. Until this final, desperate fight for Puerto Princesa, the PIA had adhered to a key rule of engagement in this conflict-as little harm as possible to civilians or civilian property. Now, as Eighth Regiment claimed the town building by building, street by street, PIA snipers and grenade launch teams targeted Marine infantry and military vehicles without care for the fate of nearby civilians.

* 119 *

This made the combat especially vicious, but after six hours, none of Jamie's people had been wounded, none killed. She harbored a cautious optimism she was trying not to think about when, up ahead on a rooftop, Rhys signaled.

Trouble. Jamie made it to Rhys's position, listened to the exploding grenades and small-weapons fire, then told Rhys she'd take one of second squad's fire teams with her toward the ruckus.

"I'll let you know when to move up."

Rhys nodded and Jamie crawled and ducked with four others toward the intensifying din. Soon they came upon an intersection where guys from Second Battalion had gotten themselves lost and then trapped. They were pinned down and several were lying exposed in the street, probably dead. PIA fire had created a large, fierce kill zone.

Moving into it was a death sentence.

Jamie picked a couple of rooftops from which the two snipes with her could return effective fire and deployed them with their spotters.

Then she comlinked Rhys. "Come in cautious, Marty. And bring Doc with you." We're all going to be walking out of here today. No body bags today.

In her peripheral vision, she saw one of the marines in the street move. The man floundered, unable to save himself but in too much pain to lie still so he wouldn't attract more enemy fire.

That's when she heard the sound-like a piece of cloth being torn so slowly she could discern every one of its threads exploding. She stared at the marine, frantic for the sound to stop. But it didn't, and she knew if one more thread snapped he'd be dead. And in a body bag.

She dropped from the low roof, ran to the man, dragged him off the street and out of the kill zone. When she noticed a civilian, hurt but not dead, she ran into the kill zone again. Around her she saw more wounded and helped them, thinking only, No body bags today.

Afterward, a fog shrouded the whole experience. The enemy must have fired at her-the sounds of weapons fire surrounded her, windows shattered, wood snapped, small chunks of the street blew away at aberrant angles-but none of that concerned her. No, all that was background, like a video she scarcely noticed. She didn't remember the bullet sc.r.a.ping her arm or the orders they said she gave.

But she recalled the relief of risking for the sake of saving a life, * 120 *

not ending one. Jamie wouldn't let Rhys talk about it in her presence and brushed away the pa.s.sing comments about a citation, which in her view required an officer with either a hard-on or something to hide.

No doubt the bra.s.s at the a.s.sorted combat operations centers had more important events to focus on.

Three days later, she found out that plenty of officers had seen the whole thing. They'd watched enthralled from the regimental FOB's combat operations center-meticulously referred to as "the FOB Cee-Oh-Cee" by the bra.s.s but called "the fobc.o.c.k" by the grunts. Here, for the first time, ops center technicians used a new communications upgrade to track the trajectories of every high-velocity projectile within range of the lenses of the recently launched Trajsat satellite. Now during a mission even the bullets got to be on Candid f.u.c.king Camera.

One of the ops center techs added up the number of F3Os-fatally fast-flying objects-that had zipped through the kill zone around Jamie during what turned out to be seven runs into the street to rescue the wounded. The tech made big bucks off the betting pool set up to guess how many times Gwynmorgan dodged a bullet that afternoon.

Jamie refused to let anyone tell her the number. Just as she refused to count how many sniper kills she had. It was much easier not to think about what you didn't know. Then Rhys brought back the scuttleb.u.t.t that she'd been put in for a Navy Cross and another Purple Heart.

"Oh great," Jamie grumbled. "More fruit salad for the neatly ironed service uniform I've worn three f.u.c.king times since I joined up.

I don't like it, Marty. And I sure as h.e.l.l don't want it."

"Why not? You d.a.m.n well earned it."

"Yeah, and so did plenty of other people who never got anything 'cuz there were no f.u.c.king officers to f.u.c.king see it 'cuz their commissioned f.u.c.king heads were way too far up their commissioned f.u.c.king a.s.ses."

"I buy that," Rhys said. "But it's not just about you and all those guys who got nothing. It's also about the guys in the platoon. They had your back the whole time. And they're d.a.m.n proud of you. Some of that Navy Cross is theirs, staff sergeant."

"They can have all of it." Jamie hurled her boonie hat across the hooch. "They can have all my rotten fruit salad and every one of these s.h.i.tty little stripes." She clawed at the stubborn supervelcro bonding * 121 *

her rank insignia to the collar of her cammie blouse and had it ripped halfway off before Rhys stepped in front of her and stilled her hand.

Their eyes locked. Perhaps Rhys would've said something.

Perhaps Rhys would've dared the illicit kiss Jamie yearned for. But before she had a chance, Jamie stomped out of the hooch.

v The Three-Eight's new FOB in Puerto Princesa occupied a dreary s.p.a.ce at the airport north of the sole runway. Enclosed by the usual sandbag and razor-wire perimeter, it included a few key support containers-the battalion FOBCOC, a dining facility, several sanny boxes with long lines of filthy marines waiting to s.h.i.t, shower, and shave-as well as a sea of closely packed hooches and too many grunts who needed some liberty but weren't going to be getting any for a while yet.

The FOB also had a recycling unit, already surrounded by a pile of junk and debris four meters high. Here Jamie finally came to a halt before a battered fifty-five-gallon steel drum. "f.u.c.k!" She swung the toe of her boot into it. Hard. Its small metallic thunder echoed back at her, an invitation. She kicked it again. "Ow!" And stumbled. "f.u.c.k!" Her bruised foot landed on a three-foot length of copper pipe. She kicked it, too, and it clamored against the steel drum. The sound of metal on metal became another invitation. Jamie picked up the pipe and raised it high before whacking the drum with it. "f.u.c.k!" She swung again. "f.u.c.k!" And again. "f.u.c.k!"

She moved to a neighboring drum and used the pipe on it. A different sound bounced back at her, lower but harmonious with the earlier one. Worth comparing. In quick succession, she pounded the pipe on the first drum, then the other, and liked the effect-a high-low "f.u.c.k you!" clang.

A second length of copper pipe made producing the two tones easier. More variety, she thought, and stepped through the junk, rapping on various pieces of debris to hear what sounds they offered up. When she approved, she dragged the piece nearer the two drums. She arranged, then rearranged a dozen objects and began to drum on them in earnest, producing a rattletrap, melodic percussion.

Jamie released herself to the sound of it, the beat of it, the effort of * 122 *

it. She began to dance as she drummed, she yelled and squealed as she tried new combinations of clangs, new rhythms.

"Hey, Gwynnie. Hey! How about this?" A grinning Ramirez stood nearby holding a crumpled chunk of water heater. He hammered it with his own piece of pipe.

"Yeah!" Jamie shouted without stopping. "Why the f.u.c.k not? Try over there." She tilted her head. "Bet it'll work fine near that humvee door panel."

More snipes appeared and added "instruments" to the melange.

As the sun set, someone hollered something about a bonfire, and soon a wooden pyre flared into the night while a dozen snipes drummed. A hooting, cheering audience formed around them, and Jamie became a conductor of sorts, still dancing, leaping on and off what had evolved into two rows of percussive trash.

When she started to weary, a lithe, caramel-complexioned woman stepped up. "I can do it, Gwynnie."

"It's all yours, Avery. Get everyone as tired as I am." They danced side by side for a bit so the drummers would grasp that Jamie was handing over the lead, and then she edged away.

"Feeling better?"

Jamie inhaled Rhys's scent and turned slowly toward it. Reflections of the bonfire cavorted in Rhys's eyes, but Jamie saw another flame there, too. She shook her head and walked away from the crowd, from Rhys.

After a couple minutes, Rhys caught up with her. "Jamie."

"I'd give it to you if I could," Jamie said without slowing down or turning to face Rhys. "But it just doesn't work that way."

"Maybe it does. For me."

"Yeah? Some kind of contagious magic?"

"Who knows?"

Jamie stopped, her back to Rhys. "And my o.r.g.a.s.m makes you what? A better snipe?" Jamie's voice descended to a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"What if I'm in love with you, Marty?"

"Well, maybe I'm in love with you."

"You're not." Jamie resumed walking. "Don't f.u.c.k with me." Rhys stepped alongside her. "I want to f.u.c.k with you. Being in love with you sounds okay, too."

"Why? Because you think you'll-?"

* 123 *

"Because you're a turn-on, Gwynmorgan."

They had reached their hooch. Jamie stood next to it and peered at Rhys. "So are you, G.o.ddammit."

v Jeeeezus...

"Shh!"

Whereupon Rhys recommenced nibbling, sucking, while two of her fingers went spelunking.

Sprawled sideways on her hammock, Jamie lost sight of Rhys's head between her legs as she convexed into Rhys's mouth. Rhys kept her there until her o.r.g.a.s.m burst out-one crest, then another and another and another...

Will you touch me like this when you nail a target twenty-six hundred meters away? When, G.o.d help you, some general pins a Navy Cross on your chest? When you outrank me?

* 124 *

Chapter thirteen.

no lonGer a sCout/sniper The explosion rocked the ground, causing Jamie and the people around her to seek cover. "s.h.i.t," Rhys said, "fifth time today.

This is getting downright disagreeable."

Now that it had been moved out of Puerto Princesa to the other side of Caramuran Bay, the Three-Eight's FOB made an especially easy target for mortar sh.e.l.ls fired from the Beaufort Range foothills above it to the west. The overstretched Marines had become far too vulnerable to PIA ping-and-run attacks.

But not for long.

"On me, Staff Sergeant," Lieutenant Koenig said once the dust cleared. "And prepare to take detailed notes." Lieutenant Koenig commanded by notes. And checklists. In the beginning, Jamie hated it, and Squad Leader Gwynmorgan got lambasted more than once for what Koenig called "inadequate leadership accountability." Her view changed the day Koenig said, "Staff Sergeant, there's more to warfighting than instinct. Instinct won't make sure you've got ammo when you need it or teach your people how to call for fire."

He was right, of course, and after that Jamie paid more attention to admin and logistics. Koenig responded by eliciting her input about missions and then claiming her ideas-those "detailed notes"-as his own.

This latest mission, Koenig informed Jamie, would ultimately involve moving all three of the Eighth Regiment's infantry battalions inland; they would inch into every ravine, over every ridge, onto * 125 *

every summit to push out an enemy now virtually invisible to Marine surveillance technology.

The highest mountain in the area-the 1,300-meter Thumb Peak-needed to be secured early on. And that was where some mission planners urged a momentous change in the rules of engagement: Air support and plenty of it-including use of rockets and missiles launched from attack helos as well as fixed-wing aircraft.

Which was why the Brigade's new commanding officer-a major general named Embry who had a reputation for being astute and rambunctious-was taking to the field. Any decision he'd make to uptick the conflict must, he insisted, be made "out there." And from rather high ground, too. Embry wanted to go to the top of Thumb Peak. On foot. And the Three-Eight's scout/snipers would get him there. Elements of Second Battalion, simultaneously approaching Thumb Peak from the opposite direction, would help keep Embry up there for as long as he wanted.

"It's a frigging cloud forest," groused Ramirez, now first squad's sergeant, upon learning his people would be Embry's escorts. "What's he think he'll see? That using rockets and missiles on the PIA is a no-brainer? Du-uh!"

Jamie suspected the general had an itch. Embry commanded snipes once, and he's famous for getting down and dirty with the grunts. He's been here long enough to want to know what "out there" is really like.

However, she said only, "Mmm, dunno, Ram." That's because more recent news had thoroughly rattled her.

Koenig, too, would go to Thumb Peak. In truth, he had little choice: The first lieutenant's job was tactical. Theoretically, he had to be in the field, "out there," at least once in a while-and now theory had careened headlong into practice. If he fobbited this one, his career would be shot to h.e.l.l. So for the first time in his five months as platoon CO, Koenig would lead a mission "in the frigging flesh," as Jamie b.i.t.c.hed to Rhys.

Koenig had been a solid guy once, according to the scuttleb.u.t.t Rhys dug up-willing to face down the scary stuff. What happened to him? The stories shared only something about a shrapnel wound and the Three-Eight snipes being his comeback.

Initially, he embraced Jamie's suggestion that first squad carve its way up to Thumb Peak along the highest of several ridges extending * 126 *

southeast from the summit nearly down to the coast. Then he spent anxious hours making changes and changing his changes before coming full circle. So Jamie's plan stood. Two fire teams would scout along the ridge slopes-one on each side of the ridge. A third fire team would accompany the big shots, First Lieutenant Koenig, and a corpsman.

Jamie and Ramirez would roam, trading off tip and tail.

To reach the top of Thumb Peak before Eighth Regiment widely engaged the enemy, first squad and the big shots would need to begin their journey two days ahead of Eighth Regiment's movement. A unit from Second Battalion would likewise depart ahead of the main force, approaching from the northwest to meet them on the summit.

Koenig's excuse for a final briefing didn't take long, so Jamie and Rhys had one more chance to huddle. Over maps and topographic animations and the latest intel, they reviewed again how the platoon's second and third squads would ply various ravines and ridges in support of the Three-Eight's push inland.

"You gotta hit the rack," Rhys said finally.

"Yeah." But Jamie continued to frown at the Three-Eight sector topo animation.