Chapter 155. Two Hundred Grand Down the Drain

I returned to the P-SWAT compound just in time for dinner. My motorcycle came to a stop in the officers’ parking lot. Under U.S. Army regulations, commissioned officers stationed at a base were entitled to separate living quarters. A second lieutenant was not permitted to share barracks with enlisted personnel. That would constitute a serious breach of the chain of command. Yet either someone had conveniently “forgotten” to inform me of this when I was assigned here, or the fact had been deliberately concealed. Considering that the local commanding officer was a lazy, washed-up alcoholic with years of experience under his belt, either explanation seemed equally plausible.

Incidentally, Dillon’s SUV was still nowhere to be seen, and his office was pitch-black behind the narrow slits of the blinds. Either we had missed each other, or that administrative genius had not bothered to show up for duty today. Another case of neglecting his basic responsibilities, or... Granted, the alternative was almost too ridiculous to contemplate, but what if my little confrontation had actually prompted Dillon to take an official day off? Maybe he had decided to get a shave, sober up, collect his thoughts, and show up first thing tomorrow morning to start cleaning up the mess his years of inaction had created. Honestly, even if this utopian scenario turned out to be true, I couldn't have cared less. These processes should have been streamlined and order restored years ago.

I couldn't find Ted in the barracks, the library, or the gym. My search ended in the recreation room, where I found him sitting in front of a flickering screen on a bulky old CRT monitor, wearing oversized headphones and gleefully mowing down virtual zombies.

The enlisted men standing behind him immediately snapped to attention and saluted in unison the moment they spotted me in the doorway. Ted, thanks to his headphones, didn't notice a thing.

“Die! Just fucking die, you piece of shit!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, frantically hammering the left mouse button with his index finger.

It was... spectacularly childish. I was well aware that P-SWAT's ranks were filled with unstable teenagers who desperately needed regular outlets for their pent-up aggression. Still, from a paramilitary unit operating under the auspices of the Pentagon, I'd expect a greater degree of maturity. I couldn't imagine anyone at Leon's base spending duty hours drooling over a video game while the elite reconnaissance teams were supposed to be working.

I stepped forward and tapped the kid on the shoulder.

“Fuck off, loser.” Without even bothering to turn his head or take his eyes off the screen, Ted irritably brushed my hand away. “I can play as long as I fucking want!”

I yanked the headphones off his head.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Ted's face flushed crimson with rage. He spun around in his chair, winding up for a wide, sweeping punch with his right fist.

The move was aggressive, but with my newly altered biochemistry, the kid moved as though he were wading through thick molasses. Far too slow, far too predictable. I intercepted his punch without the slightest effort, and the teenager's fist slammed squarely into the center of my open palm. The sharp crack of the impact echoed around the recreation room, making everyone present instinctively duck their heads and hunch their shoulders. Ted finally focused on me and realized exactly whom he'd just tried to knock out. The last traces of anger vanished from his face, and his cheeks turned an even deeper shade of scarlet with embarrassment.

“Oh... Hey, Tom. You're back already, huh?” He swallowed hard and began scratching the back of his head with his free hand. “Sorry, bro. I mean... sorry, sir. If I'd known it was you standing behind me, I never would've...”

“Follow me,” I said curtly, releasing his fist before turning toward the exit.

Ted hurried after me, nearly tripping over the cables as he scrambled to keep up. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the openly mocking grins the guys by the walls directed at his retreating back. They were clearly looking forward to watching me give the arrogant little upstart a thorough beating once we got outside. There wasn't a hint of team spirit or solidarity among them. That told me everything I needed to know: Ted had absolutely no standing among his fellow soldiers. They tolerated him solely because he was my shadow.

“Have you figured out what your biggest mistake was?” I asked evenly once we reached the empty athletic field, well away from any curious ears.

“Only a complete idiot wouldn't have figured that out, Tom.” The teenager hung his head and stared miserably at the toes of his boots. “Like I said, I screwed up. Sorry. I honestly didn't realize it was you...”

“Carelessness and failure to maintain perimeter security are certainly mistakes, but I'm talking about something much more fundamental.” I paused, watching the fear in his eyes give way to genuine interest. “You're officially my personal aide, right?”

“Of course, Tom!” The kid perked up immediately, straightening his shoulders. “You can count on me, a hundred percent! I'll make anyone on this base bend over backward for you...”

“Then start acting like it.” I cut off his stream of empty promises with a dismissive gesture. “I'm not expecting you to change your entire personality overnight. Start small. Just do your actual job, and do it properly. You were supposed to meet me in the parking lot when I arrived and give me a clear, immediate briefing on what had happened at the base while I was away.”

“But I... I just didn't know exactly when you'd be back...”

“Then you should've told the duty soldier at the checkpoint to radio you the moment the gates opened,” I interrupted, cutting off his pathetic excuses. “Today, you'll get nothing more than a verbal warning, because I'm partly to blame for this, too. I never explained the procedure to you beforehand. But from now on, I expect you to be available without my having to waste time searching the entire base for my own aide.”

“Yes, sir!” Ted snapped to attention, his face visibly brightening. He'd realized he wasn't going to get chewed out for his disobedience, and the tension finally drained from his shoulders. “Tomorrow, I'll be waiting at the checkpoint myself, ready to open the gates for you!”

“No need to make a production out of it. Just do your job as my aide, and do it well.” I turned toward the kitchen. “And remember this: if anything happens on this base while I'm away, any kind of emergency, you call me immediately.”

“Oh, sure. No problem.” Ted shrugged as casually as if we were discussing a trip to buy soda rather than the security of the entire installation. “Hey, Tom, I caught a glimpse of your new sport bike in the parking lot. What model is it? That thing looks sick!”

“Buell Hammerhead. But before you start begging me for the keys so you can tear around the parade ground, I expect a detailed verbal report on the current state of the base.”

With that, we crossed the threshold into the mess hall together. The guys behind the serving counter were already handing out the reheated individual meals I'd prepared the night before. A fresh wave of enthusiastic chatter about my cooking swept through the room, accompanied by satisfied lip-smacking and the clatter of spoons. I had to admit, the sight warmed my otherwise hardened heart a little.

As the officer in charge and his aide, Ted and I took the isolated table by the window. Until recently, the local “elite” had held that strategic position as their undisputed territory, but after last night's cleanup operation, the gang leaders had wisely decided to keep a low profile and lick their wounds in the infirmary. I'd prepared individual meals for all six of them, too. I'd never been a vindictive bastard, and depriving wounded soldiers of the protein they needed for tissue repair would have made no sense from a basic logistical standpoint. The kitchen staff had delivered their plates to them.

“What’s the news today?” I asked, carefully cutting off a neat piece of juicy meat.

“Nothing much, Tom,” Ted mumbled, listlessly pushing food around his plate with his fork. “Everything’s fine.”

“Let’s say it is. What are people talking about in the smoking area and the barracks?”

“Oh, nothing in particular. Just the usual crap.”

“Any new information, speculation, educated guesses, or even rumors about Lieutenant Dillon’s whereabouts?”

“Nope. Nothing at all.”

“Ted, look at me and tell me the truth.” I calmly set down my utensils and met his eyes. “You spent the entire day holed up in the recreation room playing video games, didn’t you?”

“No, come on...” The teenager flinched and immediately turned toward the window. The tips of his ears turned a deep, unmistakable red. “I... I swear I was running the guys through drills on the parade ground, checking the perimeter, keeping an eye on everything, making sure discipline didn’t slip...”

“If I questioned a few people at random right now, would they back up your story?”

Ted, who could usually talk nonstop for twenty minutes straight, fell silent and hunched his shoulders. His sudden paralysis spoke louder than a thousand words.

“Ted, we established out on the athletic field that you need to live up to your new position.” I laced my fingers together and rested my hands on the edge of the table. “Let’s think this through. If my official aide, my right-hand man on this base, openly skips his duties, neglects security, and hides away playing video games, what do you think the rest of the personnel will make of that?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered, stubbornly keeping his eyes on the tabletop.

“They’ll assume I personally approve of this mess,” I continued evenly, drawing on my experience dealing with difficult teenagers. “Today, I’m letting this slide because I never gave you a clear list of responsibilities. But starting tomorrow, I expect you to get your act together. Otherwise...” I let my gaze sweep meaningfully across the mess hall, packed with teenage boys and girls in uniform. “Otherwise, I’ll have to find someone more mature and responsible to serve as my aide. I need a capable deputy, someone who can get things done. I need a reliable right-hand man. I need someone I can count on without hesitation when things go sideways, not another spoiled kid who needs a babysitter hovering over him around the clock.”

“I’m sixteen, Tom!” Ted jerked his head up, youthful defiance flashing in his eyes. “I’m not a kid anymore!”

“Your behavior in the recreation room today says otherwise, Ted.”

“Fine. Damn it... I’m sorry.” Under the weight of my steady gaze, the kid finally folded. “I get it. I won’t slack off on your assignments or hide from the platoon anymore. I promise.”

“We’ll see. Did you finish the assignment I gave you this morning? Did you collect written requests from the guys for things they want brought in from the civilian world?”

“Of course! Who do you take me for, Tom? Give me a clear, straightforward assignment, and I’ll see it through to the end!”

Ted hurriedly dug into his pants pocket and proudly produced a heavily crumpled sheet of paper covered in greasy stains and sloppy ballpoint scribbles. I braced myself and tried to make sense of the information. Picking out individual names and requests from that mess was a nightmare. The letters ran into one another, there was no organization whatsoever, and the whole thing was an indecipherable jumble. Worst of all, the pathetic list was missing the names of the two enlisted men who had placed their orders first that morning. Ted had solemnly promised he would “just remember them.”

“Who’s this supposed to be?” I demanded, pointing to a smudged ink blot right in the middle of the list.

“That’s...” Ted furrowed his brow, struggling to decipher his own handwriting. “Oh, that’s Arthur! Right, Arthur!”

“Which one? We have exactly three Arthurs on the roster.”

Ted’s face fell, and he went so pale it looked as though I’d just punched him in the gut.

“Uh... I think it was Arthur Johnson...”

“‘I think’ has no place in my reports. It means the information is incomplete. All right, Private Drake, you’re redoing this entire mess, and this time you’re following procedure to the letter. Open a text file on your phone and organize everything into exactly three columns: the date in the first, the customer’s full name in the second, and the specific request in the third. Once you’ve filled everything in, email the completed file to me. Come closer. I’ll show you how.”

For roughly an hour after dinner, I devoted every spare minute to teaching my incompetent aide the basics of bookkeeping and data organization. Yes, it ate into precious time I could have spent working on my own development, but I believed the investment in human capital would pay off down the road. A strict reporting system might help straighten out Ted’s undisciplined character and teach him to approach things more seriously.

Before lights-out, I had a little time to myself, which I initially spent watching a documentary about Bruce Lee on my phone. The narrator spoke in hushed, reverent tones about how the legendary master could strangle a king cobra with one hand, defeat ten armed opponents while blindfolded, and punch straight through a sheet of steel with a single finger. I suspected I could pull off all those stunts myself by now, but it was probably best not to mention that in front of Sam. Otherwise, that fanboy would never leave me alone.

Once I’d finished that little diversion, I turned to some serious studying and accessed the encrypted contents of the P-EAR memory card the colonel had given me.

Inside was a staggering collection of information, nearly a hundred gigabytes of high-resolution video and audio recordings. On-screen, the elite scouts I’d shaken hands with and shared whiskey with on the parade ground just that afternoon demonstrated, step by step, how to operate advanced technologies available exclusively to their unit. Tony walked me through detailed diagrams explaining how to get the most out of a stealth suit’s hidden capabilities and optical systems. Judy, meanwhile, methodically explained the procedures for deactivating sophisticated biochemical traps laid by alien creatures.

But the most astonishing thing about the entire archive was that every speaker addressed me directly. Judging by the file metadata, all these training videos had been edited and uploaded to the card just a week earlier, specifically in preparation for my visit. An enormous amount of painstaking work had gone into making my transition as smooth and efficient as possible. I could be as angry with Leon as I wanted over his unbearable personality, but I had to admit the colonel was a consummate professional and a brilliant commander who genuinely cared about the safety and survival of every member of his unit.

I studied the tactical materials well into the night, then gave my body its allotted three hours to recover before heading to the kitchen as usual. Another round of individual meals for the entire base, followed by high-intensity training for the personnel on the rain-soaked lawn. My routine at P-SWAT was back on schedule, with everything running smoothly.

It was time to move on to the third location covered by my contract: the Federal Bureau of Awakening. I stepped out into the officers’ parking lot beside headquarters and froze.

My brand-new, bright red Buell Hammerhead 1190, which I’d bought just two days earlier for two hundred thousand dollars, had been reduced to a mangled heap of scrap metal.