At the field house, Ted had sat alone in a corner with his copy of the final orders but did not open them. He ran his thumbnail along the creases that Eddie had put in the paper, turning the single, folded sheet over and over in his hands. Between it and the call he’d gotten, he knew exactly what was happening: They were being lost. Forgotten. No more pay, no more supplies, no more communications. The shipment currently on its way in had likely been freightered months ago and was now being dumped on them early to clear it off the corporate books. Their final pay would be banked somewhere so the lawyers could claim that the mission had been officially terminated at any point in the past three or four months—whatever was required if they were ever called to testify.
Ted felt a sick giggle rising up in him but swallowed it. Bit it off and held it behind the palisade of his teeth. He was an employee. A contractor. Mercenary. There were rules governing nearly everything he was supposed to do under circumstances both bizarre and mundane but very little in the handbook to cover this sort of eventuality. This sudden removal of the parental gaze of his distant bosses. His hands were shaking on the table. He smoothed the paper in front of him again—petting it like a cat. He chewed his lip. He knew what was happening now, but he was very unclear on what he was supposed to do next. There were no rules for this. No procedure. He was, as they say, in the dark.
At a certain point, Lefty Berthold from two squadron had ambled over, stood swaying, close to Ted with a drink in his hand, and asked him what he was playing with.
“Love letter, Commander?”
“Something like that,” Ted had said.
“It’s been some time since anyone here got any mail. Must feel nice.”
For a moment, Ted thought Lefty was being sincere, but when he looked up at him, he saw a vacant, dumb smile on the man’s face. Berthold was an idiot and a pig. Ted hated him more than a little and only loved him as much as he loved the most generic of his men—as he imagined a father must a child who is a complete and endearing disappointment. He tolerated him the precise distance that blood required.
“Go fuck with someone else, Lefty,” he’d said. “I’m in no mood.”
Eventually, Ted had stood. He’d spent twenty minutes or more watching men come and go. He had accounted for nearly all of the pilots, so had asked, “Where’s Captain Carter?” and the men in the field house had all shrugged, looked away. Ted had stared at them, or tried to. “Lugs,” he’d said. “Drunk goddamn mothers.” His eyes had been bright. He spit a little when he talked and no one would meet his eye. “There’s work to do. None of you go anywhere.”
Ted had walked out the door. He would send Captain Carter to fly tonight. This was his plan. Carter was not among the revelers, not in the mess or the field house or running around in the cold and dark. Ted knew this because he’d counted. He imagined that Carter was at home, tucked up warm in bed and sleeping like a good soldier. That was the best he could hope for—that Carter wasn’t drunk or sick or out of his head. All he needed was one man.
Outside, Ted had found Fennimore Teague staring daggers at the retreating back of Billy, who was headed out for the flight line with Morris Ross in tow.
“Captain,” he’d said.
“Commander.”
“What’s this all about? You look in a stabbing kind of mood.”
Fenn had shaken his head. “Nonsense is all. Billy’s going up.”
“He does that.” Ted had briefly considered having Billy run the flares but had thought better of it. Billy, he thought, wouldn’t go. Billy, he thought, would just tell him to fuck off to his face, requiring a reaction from Ted that would end in bad feelings, disciplinary action, worse. Billy was a great pilot, the best of the night fliers, but had, at some point, slipped beyond the point where he took orders easily. With another option available, Billy wasn’t worth the trouble. “You seen your boy Carter?”
“Yes,” said Fenn, but nothing more.
“Not drinking with the boys.”
“No.”
“There a problem?”
Fenn had paused, turned his head with a strange, slow deliberation, and looked Ted up and down. “That seems a strange question. I don’t know how to answer it.”
Ted shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Forget it. Look, I need someone to fly. Someone sober, who’s not going to shit himself or crash his fucking machine. Durba called in movement to his front last night, in the hills. Same thing tonight. Monkey noises, trees going down, whatever. There’s something going on, and he wants an illumination mission run so he can stop it before someone has a bad morning.”