Brian Haig - The Night Crew

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

Text copyright 2015 Brian Haig

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

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ISBN-13: 9781477827482

ISBN-10: 147782748X

Cover design by Salamander Hill Design Inc.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014952439

To Lisa, Brian, Pat, Donnie, and Annie

Contents

Chapter One

Do you mind? the attractive lady asked as I sat at a table.

I looked up and answered, somewhat emphatically, Yes, I do.

But youre alone.

No... that seats taken.

She either did not hear or chose to ignore me, and slipped comfortably into the chair across from mine. She sipped quietly from her beer.

Go away, I told her.

She was ignoring me.

My dates powdering her nose, I said, which was true, and, after a moment, I added, less truthfully, She has a gun permit and psychopathic tendencies.

My interloper laughed.

We were in the officers club at Fort Myer, Virginia, in the basement barto be exact, a replica of an old English pub in a stingy, minimalist sort of way. My intruder was dressed in a clingy red pantsuit that went nicely with her long black hair, emerald-green eyes, pale complexion, and lithe, ballerina-like body; I happened to be dressed in natty civilian attireblue wool suit, red-and-blue striped club tie, starched white shirtthat did not fit in well with our current surroundings.

Around us everybody wore uniformsa mixture of mostly senior army officers, a few generals, more than a few colonels and majors. All were men, mostly gray or graying, talking quietly about serious topics and nursing their drinks. But at the next table, drinking more ambitiously, and rambunctiously, were several younger officers: lieutenants and captains with shoulder patches from the Third Infantryaka, the Old Guard.

The younger officers now were carefully observing my guest. I suggested to her, They look horny and interested. I started to stand. Here, Ill introduce

She grabbed my arm and inquired, not quietly, Wait, didnt I give you my phone number? More loudly, she answered her own question. Yes, Im sure... I definitely did.

Did you?

Im certain I left it on your bedside table the last time I saw you.

I dont remember.

You dont remember?

Officers at nearby tables now were also staring in our direction. Katherine Carlson, incidentally, was a civilian attorney, formerly a classmate of yours truly at Georgetown Law, and as indicated by our present circumstance, at times she can be a king-size pain in the ass.

She and I had worked together on a court martial a few years before, in Korea. It was a legal and emotional tar pit, a public relations tinderbox, and, if that werent bad enough, people had tried to kill me.

But Katherine is a crackerjack lawyersmart, ruthless, compulsively ambitiousand when she chooses to be, which is most of the time, pushy and dangerously manipulative. Also, shes a left-wing menace and the aforementioned last time I saw her I was lying in a hospital bed with a bullet in my stomach. Katherine didnt put the bullet there herself; it wouldnt have gotten there without her, though.

I got up and moved to the bar carrying my Scotch on the rocks. The bartender, who had the rugged face and stringent butch cut of a moonlighting sergeant, observed, Looks like you got lady trouble, fella.

What was your first clue?

Two broads at once. He wiped a rag across the bar. Ask me, thats trouble.

To which I replied, man to man, Nothing I cant handle.

He laughed. He then nodded in Katherines direction. Well... ask me, shes purtiern that other one.

In the right light, in fact, Katherine looked not merely pretty, but beautiful in a way that is often described as angelic. I suppose this is why people are so surprised when she kneecaps them. Shes the Antichrist, I informed him. He laughed. Why doesnt anybody take me seriously?

I sipped my Scotch and, through the bar mirror, kept one eye on Katherine at the table and the other on the ladies room door.

The lady in the latrine, Julie DuBois, and I were on our first date after three weeks of shameless flirting. Im about forty, Julies about thirtya PhD in English lit, a professor at American University, learned, tenured, brilliant, blonde, blue-eyedand, not that it matters, also quite attractive.

I had been looking forward to this date for a week; I really wanted to get Julies take on Marcel Prousts persistent use of subordinate clauses, a literary mystery I can never seem to get out of my mindand yes, Julie was having trouble believing that, too. But men who date women for their looks alone are pigs.

But to be sure I mentioned it, Julie hds remarkable legs.

The bartender broke the silence and, with a nod of his chin, informed me, Course that other ones a looker, too. That blonde, I mean.

Shes smart, also, I assured him.

Uh-huh. Well... caint underrate that. Sure got nice legs. Another liberated male.

I was about to ask for a refill before he wandered off, apparently to the jukebox, because a moment later Steven Stills was belting out Love the One Youre With. This song is in every officers club bar Ive ever been in, for some reason, and a pair of baby-faced lieutenants at the next table got into the spirit and began a slurred, off-kilter sing-along before a grumpy senior officer snapped at them and they shut up. Were we having fun, or what?

When I was a younger officer, officers club bars were different: in some ways, better; in other ways, I suppose not. Strippers did the bump-and-grind on small stages and enough cheap rotgut was guzzled to float the fleet, accompanied by enough cigarette and cigar smoke to fuel an artillery duel. Friday nights were command performances, wild bacchanalias with drunken lieutenants launching carrier landings on beer-drenched tables, and tipsy colonels gyrating on stages beside ladies wearing loincloths, nipple pasties, and come-hither smiles.

Upstairs, in the dining rooms, officers acting every inch the gentlemen shared sedate meals and polite conversation with their families; downstairs, in the darkened bars, the barbarians ruled.

No sign over the entrance read Eat, drink, and make merry, for tomorrow you may die; clearly, though, this was the animating spirit and the armys upper ranks, who were too old to share in the festivities, or too stodgy to want to, were surprisingly indifferent, or I suppose, indulgent.

But warrior tribes need their manhood rituals. The Greeks sacrificed animals to their gods. The Mayans tore out human hearts for their gods. The Indians took scalps for their squaws.

All things considered, genuflecting before the porcelain gods in officers club latrines was no big deal.

And in a deadly serious profession where young men were forced to shoulder outsized responsibilities, officers clubs were the last asylum where boys could be boys and more arthritic warriors could revert back to boys, no questions asked.

The order to sexually integrate the force put an end to all that, of course. Female officers were not amused by drooling senior officers stuffing soggy dollar bills into G-strings, or, I suppose, by randy, besotted peers trying to stuff bills into their undies.