A Private Little War(62)

Eddie had been the one who’d uncovered all the equipment and pushed it into useful alignment. He’d wiped the dust off things with a cloth he’d found and made sure everything was plugged into the generators. On the podium, he had a stack of handwritten notes. He’d slept a little, cleaned himself up, and turned out for the meeting all polished, prim, and proper. He’d fussed because fussing was what he was good at. Meetings were what he was good at. This was his element, where he felt most comfortable, and after years spent fighting very different kinds of battles inside the dark and clubby confines of the company headquarters, he could slip on the aura of calm and competence like putting on a jacket.

Ted had followed him in a few minutes later and had stood off to the side, watching Eddie shove and polish and straighten.

Like a goddamn maid, Ted had thought. Straightening up. Fretting.

“Saw you in your tent last night, Eddie,” he’d called out while Eddie crouched to drag the podium into place at the head of the room. “Crying like a girl.”

Shame had flared in Eddie’s cheeks. He’d felt the heat of it prickling his skin, but hadn’t responded. Instead, he’d shuffled the map projector around until it was sitting just so and made sure the proper information was loaded into it and would be waiting. He liked his meetings to run smoothly, with a minimum of glitches or distractions. There was an art to it. He knew that half of appearing in command was simply controlling the environment. More than half.

Ted leaned against a stack of discarded shipping crates and looked at his hands—making fists, then releasing them, watching the play of the muscles beneath his skin. “Finally hit you, didn’t it? What’s happening here?”

“I am well aware of what’s happening here, Commander,” said Eddie. “More aware than you are right now.”

Ted didn’t rise to the bait. “Nothing to be ashamed of, you know. I’ve seen men break down worse. Not many of them, but still. It’s good you’re so in touch with your”—he spit onto the grating, making a little popping sound with his tongue and his lips—“your feelings.”

“We should discuss our order of speaking,” Eddie suggested. “We have a lot to get through.”

“How do you figure? We’ve got a real fight now. A stand-up fight. Everyone needs to toughen up a little bit, that’s all. Get some things done around here.”

“Like you did this morning? I heard about your little stunt. I’m sure that just impressed the heck out of the natives.”

“Better than lying around in the dirt crying for my mommy.”

Eddie looked up. “Do you see me crying right now, Commander?”

Ted said nothing. He stared at Eddie, eyes hard. Eddie stared back, face a mask of calm, a twitch of a smile jerking at the corner of his mouth. He felt strong here. A decade of boardroom ambushes, career assassinations, back-office street fights, and paperwork sieges had hardened him in ways that a creature like Ted Prinzi would never understand. He’d been unprepared last night, on the relay. Two years on the front lines had left him soft and vulnerable—afraid only of bullets and bombs, the cold, the natives, and dying, which, Eddie knew, was far from the worst thing that could happen to a man. But he was over that now. He had his armor on tight.

“I have notes,” Eddie continued. “We can work from them together if you like. You can talk about the operation and about Mr. Ross. I’ll take care of the rest.” Standing behind the podium, Eddie held out the stack of papers he’d arranged earlier. He rattled them a little. “I have a couple surprises you might be interested in.”

Eventually, more out of curiosity than anything else, Ted came over to take a look. At which point, Eddie squared the papers up and placed them back on the podium. “It’ll have to wait,” he said, jerking the point of his chin in the direction of the door where the first of the officers were starting to filter in. “But try not to fall asleep before the end. I have some news that I know you’ll want to hear.”

He waved Ted off and turned to concentrate on his notes.

Controlling the environment, Eddie knew, was half the battle.





All around Carter, the men settled into seats as though even this simple action was something entirely new to them. They fiddled with the folding arms, scrabbled their chair legs around on the flooring, and shifted their weight uncomfortably. Everything about them was red-meat raw. Everything hurt. Carter was still thinking about Cat and the way it’d sat there, staring, waiting to play again.

Eddie talked. He smiled more than was comfortable, or probably necessary. Ted spoke barely at all. For the most part, no one else had anything to say. Once things got going, it was just a meeting, same as any other, save that those who weren’t still drunk from last night remained terribly hungover and all of them felt more than a little guilty just to be breathing. It was just like a meeting except that their action items, talking points, and memoranda all had to do with bloody death and destruction.