Noncombat-Oriented Basic Training. c.u.n.t camp. For the duds, the washouts. The thought ruled her, coursed through her body, oozed into her jagged breathing.

"How stupid are you, Gwyn-moron?" The kill hat's tone kept her burning, doddering arms from surrender. "Only way you get outta here is through me. No n.o.b for you." She squinched her eyes shut against the implacable noise of him, against the tears flooding her eyes. "Please," Jamie wheezed. I... can't...

do... this.

"Oh yeah, sweet cheeks, we're keeping you," the kill hat crooned.

"I'll be working you real good 'til you learn that. And if thirteen weeks ain't enough time for your pea brain to embrace your future, Gwyn-moron, we'll be real happy to cycle you through thirteen more."

* 23 *

She believed him so unreservedly that her arms held. But how could she push again?

Then, from right behind her, where her neck met the base of her skull, she heard a faint voice, a woman's voice, and she thought it said, "You can do it. Push!"

Her eyes snapped open, her c.l.i.t pounded into high alert, like somebody had pinched it.

"No!" Jamie sobbed, pushing. "Holds!" She dropped. "Barred!" She stayed her enflamed arms so her t.i.ts tempted the fleas while her tears tumbled into the sand.

All of her hummed, a scorching vibration that demanded her scream.

Resisting the scream felt like suicide, like she would disintegrate. She squeezed her eyes shut once more so she wouldn't have to hate the kill hat's boot, so her pushing would be for her, for her alone.

"No!" Pu-ush! "Holds!" Drop. "Barred!" Tap t.i.ts. "Sir! Six' six 'shups, sir!"

When she got to seventy-four, she opened her eyes. The kill hat's boot had disappeared. Her c.l.i.t whirred wildly, pitching higher, faster.

At eighty-three, she realized her aching arms and shoulders no longer threatened failure. She lilted-an invisible hand lifted her crotch, soothed her electrified c.l.i.t, relieved her of caring about what happened next.

"Sir! Eigh' eigh' 'shups, sir!"

At one hundred, the kill hat interrupted his off-key improvisation of a new jody call that featured "No Holds Barred" to order her out of the sandpit.

As she double-timed into the squadbay, the senior drill instructor sent her to the F-head for a shower. And she heard him tell the scribe to remove Recruit Gwynmorgan's name from that night's firewatch list.

v Training day thirty. Fifty-three training days to go.

"Jeez, stinks, huh?" Arnoldt scrunched his nose. "What's that smell?"

CS gas and eau de vomit, Jamie concluded, but said nothing.

"f.u.c.king stinging my skin," said Diller. "And my eyes!"

"So, maggot!" Having snuck up behind Diller, the kill hat now * 24 *

trumpeted in his ear. "Guess you won't be needing that mask in my gas chamber."

Diller jumped. "Sir! No, sir! Uh, yes-No!" His face paled. "Sir!

Please, sir, this recruit needs a gas mask, sir!" The kill hat ordered them to don their masks and make sure the seal was unbroken-all except Diller, who was ordered to wait long enough before the kill hat yielded that Jamie forgot her own apprehension and actually felt sorry for him.

Once inside, instructors clad head to toe in chemical warfare suits taunted them as the doors slammed shut and the tear gas activated. The room quickly filled with a noxious fog. "Side-straddle hops, boys and girls," yelled one of the instructors, and they did jumping jacks until their sweat intensified the sting of the gas on their arms and necks.

"Now bend over like you like it, boys and girls, and shake your skulls. C'mon. Back and forth. Good and fast." It was a surprise. The seals on their masks held.

"Heads up! Eyes shut!" Everyone had to break the seals, allow in gas. With the order to don and clear, they repositioned their masks to reseal them and then blew hard to force out the gas inside the masks.

Not so bad since they'd been able to hold their breath the whole time.

But the real test was yet to come.

"Now you will remove your masks entirely and hold them at arm's length until instructed otherwise. And remember your knowledge." They held their breath again, pulled off the masks, and waited for the order to don and clear. And waited.

Knowledge. He said knowledge. Jamie struggled for recall.

Around her, recruits coughed and choked. A few whimpered. Somebody screamed. She heard more than a few throw up.

Finally, Jamie remembered. Supposed to relax. Relax and inhale just a bit during a CS attack. She tried it, got some air. It wasn't pleasant, but it worked. Eyes still closed, she signaled the instructor with a thumbs-up. Then somebody b.u.mped into her.

Through stinging tears, she beheld Arnoldt. He hadn't yet taken a breath and had lost his balance. Several others were already on their knees. And the instructors' tactics had become obvious. None of the recruits would be allowed to don their masks again until all of them exhibited sufficient self-control and presence of mind. Teamwork would be the quickest way out of the gas chamber.

* 25 *

"Gotta breathe just a little, Arnoldt," Jamie panted.

Arnoldt peeked at her. "f.u.c.king A. You nuts?"

"Just a little, like they told us." Jamie's lungs burned, her eyes burned, tears streamed down her face. But she inhaled again, then blew thick mucus out of her nose. "See?"

The fear in Arnoldt's eyes abated with his tentative breaths. Jamie grabbed the next squaddie's arm. "C'mon, man, breathe. Do it." Soon they followed her lead, straightened, and signaled the instructor.

All except Diller. The panicked leader of the blanket party made a dash for the door.

Jamie caught his arm as he stumbled by her and got dragged several feet before she could trip him, sending them both to their knees on the vomit-slimed concrete deck. She yanked on his cammie blouse and rasped into his ear, "Diller! You're okay. Just gotta take small breaths."

He looked at her like she was a lunatic, then tried to put on his mask. Jamie stopped him.

"You want to spend the rest of your life in here, man? Small breaths!" This time it was a command, and it sank in. But he couldn't obey. He stared at her, desperate, and she realized he was stuck, frozen.

"C'mon, shallow breaths-in-out. C'mon, dammit! In-out.

In-out."

At last, Diller allowed his breathing to imitate hers. Soon he and Jamie stood together and Diller turned up his thumb.

"Don and clear!" ordered the instructor.

v "You know the drill, recruit."

Jamie had already practiced this for a week, but the patient coaching helped. "You'll load the ammo stack with your left hand and flip the safety switch with your left hand, too," the instructor said. "That way your right hand's always positioned at the trigger."

"Aye aye, sir." Jamie planted her feet shoulder wide, pointed her toes toward the target, and followed instructions. In seconds, she had the rifle snugged into her right shoulder and gazed through its smartscope.

"Lower your elbow some. Good. You'll ID your target and calc it * 26 *

by pushing the b.u.t.ton at the top of the trigger. The laser in the scope will show you range first, followed by wind speeds and air density between you and your target. Then it'll automatically adjust for elevation and atmospherics. Remember, the scope only does the math and shows you where you want to aim- you do the aiming and the shooting. A miss is your bad, recruit-not the scope's, not the rifle's. To nail your target, you have to find that zone in your head while you're sighting." The chance to shoot an E19X4 a.s.sault rifle would have seduced Jamie into enlisting even if the Marines hadn't abolished the female bucket-style hat so that everyone wore exactly the same uniform.

Nevertheless, the prospect of popping off live rounds with it had her nerved up. All her f.u.c.king Annie f.u.c.king Oakley experience had been just guessing about how to hit a bunch of beer cans with an old nine-mil pistol and a nearly antique bolt-action twenty-two.

The instructor's voice became softly hypnotic. "You want to breathe slow, smooth, calm. You get into your zone and the rest is easy.

Once you're in your zone, you want to keep the calc b.u.t.ton depressed while you match up the crosshairs with the center of the concentric circles in your scope. Nice and steady. Soon as those crosshairs light up green, you'll squeeze the trigger."

The challenge, of course, came in lining up everything fast enough, smooth enough. Jiggle the weapon or wait too long and the calcs had to refresh, so the shot was lost.

Squinting through the smartscope, Jamie exhaled and let her breathing cease while she pushed the calc b.u.t.ton. That's when she saw it: A phantasm that looked exactly like Bob Baines.

Bloated, brutish Bob Baines. That f.u.c.ker who was the reason she joined the Marine Corps in the first place. Because if she'd stayed there, he'd be dead now. She'd have killed him.

Before the crosshairs went green, her finger twitched hard on the trigger and she nailed him. She also bull's-eyed the target, which she figured had to be dumb luck since she couldn't remember moving her scope's crosshairs where they were supposed to go.

But when his image filled her scope the next time she took aim, she nailed him-and the target-again. She nailed him from every firing position-standing, kneeling, p.r.o.ne, sitting. She nailed him with slow fire, with rapid fire. She nailed him at every distance, known and unknown.

* 27 *

During Combat Firing, oblivious of the clumsy gas mask and outdated night-vision gear, she saw multiples of Bob Baines running and nailed him. You're dead, you f.u.c.ker! Dead!

After that, the ghost of Bob Baines disappeared from her scope, but Jamie had already found her zone-a kind of bubble of effortless, instinct-driven acuity in which she knew exactly what to do, when to do it. She bull's-eyed again and again and again-and every time, she did it before her scope's crosshairs lit up green.

Jamie's scores earned her an expert marksman badge. And a nod from the senior drill instructor. "Getting there, girl." Girl? Not maggot?

"Sir!" Jamie shouted. "This recruit is extremely grateful for the senior drill instructor's help, sir!"

He glared at her, ramrod straight just a centimeter from her nose, and Jamie prepared for yet another smoking, contemplating how many pushups she could do today before she crumpled into the Carolina mud.

Instead, the senior DI winked and walked away without another word.

She gaped into the s.p.a.ce the man occupied only a second before, suddenly breathless and slightly dizzy. Oh G.o.d, this is gonna be really bad. The Parris Island Mindf.u.c.k, Phase Nineteen.

Later, the senior DI called her to the DI hut, where she stood at rigid attention three feet from the desk, her eyes fixed on the wall behind it.

"Know what it means to be impeccable, recruit?" the senior DI asked.

"Sir?" Here it comes.

"Being impeccable means you always do the very best you are capable of, every moment of your life, no matter how mundane the task, no matter how pointless your efforts may seem-even when no one's watching you. Especially when no one's watching you."

"Sir! Yes! Sir!" Jamie hoped her bewilderment didn't show.

"Recruiter signed you up for infantry, right?"

"Sir! Yes! Sir!"

"Your marksmanship scores are way up there, Gwynmorgan.

Which is saying something, since we're now qualifying on mobility and speed of fire as well as much greater kill accuracy. Means you got * 28 *

a solid chance to go straight from here to Scout/Sniper School. But you will have to be impeccable."

"Sir?"

"Scout/Sniper School, recruit," the senior DI barked while Jamie repelled a powerful desire to look at him. "Just what part of that don't you understand?"

The man's grin showed. Jamie could see it hovering just above the tip of her nose. What the h.e.l.l is happening here? She opened her mouth to speak, since she was supposed to say something, but how did one talk to a grinning senior DI?

Speak, dammit! "Sir! Th-this recruit-" Jamie sucked air as fast as she could. He said Scout/Sniper School, right? "This recruit understands and...and this recruit wants to go to Scout/Sniper School, sir!"

"Good." Grin extinguished, the senior DI shoved a piece of paper across the desk without another glance at her. "Here's what you're gonna need to do to get your a.s.s in. Impeccably. Pick it up and go to work, recruit. Dismissed."

"Sir! Aye-aye, sir!" Jamie's heart slammed against her chest as she whisked the paper off the desk, whirled into a crisp about-face, and marched out of the DI hut. Jeezus, he did say Scout/Sniper School!

v "...And his leg's in a fugging cast, so it's your squad now, Gwynmorgan," said the kill hat.

Training day sixty-two, less than twenty-four hours before the Company Commander's Inspection, and now she had charge of fourteen men.

The squaddies called her "t.w.a.t leader" and the DIs were seriously tensed out. The Company Commander's Inspection tested instructors as much as recruits, and the DIs made clear that they expected perfection.

"Any of you meatheads fugger this up and all of you will sleep in the pit for the duration," declared the kill hat. "In your fugging skivvies."

"They can't do that!" Arnoldt said when the kill hat was out of earshot. "Can they?"

No one wanted to find out. But after sixty-two days of training and * 29 *

several clandestine study nights in the M-head, neither Elias nor Arnoldt could yet recite all eleven general orders and the code of conduct.

On training day sixty-three, the captain who served as the company commander marched down the middle of Platoon 2128's squadbay. Too many recruits to stop and examine each one, but the captain made sure to poke at each squad. Jamie wanted him to pa.s.s her by, but she, like the rest, truly dreaded that he might decide to query Elias-or, worse, Arnoldt.

In front of Jamie, the captain halted and executed a neat left-face.

"Recruit Gwynmorgan, sir," said the J hat, who was scribing for the stern-faced captain.

"Ah yes." The captain examined every inch of her. "You're the one with those marksmanship scores. What do you know about the fifth general order, recruit?"

"Sir! The Fifth General Order of a Sentry is to quit my post only when properly relieved, sir!"

"And what does the second article of the United States Marine Corps Code of Conduct state?"

"Sir! When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country or its allies or harmful to their cause, sir!"