The Last Hour (31 page)

“Perhaps we can get started,” Doctor Moore said. “If all of you are finished socializing.”

Lori said, “Richard, it’s hardly socializing to welcome a new member to the team. Especially someone with such an unusual specialty.”

Richard raised his eyes. “You’re all familiar with Doctor Thompson’s work?”

Everyone at the table nodded. And I’ll admit, I was intimidated. This wasn’t a group of graduate students playing around in a lab in Central Texas. This was the primary team working on MRSA at one of the nation’s premier medical research labs.
 

Zheng, one of the two epidemiologists at the table, said, “I’m quite familiar with your conclusions, Doctor Thompson, but I’m afraid I’m doubtful.”
 

“Carrie, please,” I said. “And ... why?”

“First of all, I’m curious what led you to believe that the cats were transmitting the pathogens in the first place.”

I sat back in my seat. “Initially it was just curiosity. We were looking into the dislocation of habitats in the Sierra Nevada, and trying to track the mountain lions to figure out where they were settling. And it turned out they were moving not far off from major highways, going east, which in some cases brought them into contact with major population centers.”

“Aren’t mountain lions solitary animals?”

“They are. This was an overall population study.”

“I see. So it’s ... correlation. You observed outbreaks of community acquired MRSA at the starting point and end points of your lion’s migration paths?”

I shook my head. “No. The evidence is pretty definitive. Doctor Beckley’s work was what made that possible, actually ... the strain she studied from the recalled meat in New York last year had the same mutations as the Sierra Nevada strain we were looking at. So last summer we went hunting some of the animals we’d already placed tracking devices on, and found the same strain living symbiotically in their fur. One of the lions actually got an infection and was dying by the time we got to her. The research will be published next month.”

“Oh, I see,” Zheng said. “I’m intrigued. And you were one of the authors of the paper?”

Moore interjected, “She was the primary author.”

 
Zheng raised his eyebrows. “I’m impressed.”

From there, the conversation veered off of me and my research, for the time being. The Renfields, Lila and Warren, bickered for nearly thirty minutes about the significance of variations of MRSA found in Atlanta area hospitals versus Chicago, and my eyes were starting to glaze over by the time Moore shifted the conversation. Finally, after nearly three hours, Moore broke up the meeting. It was well after two in the afternoon by that time, and I was getting so hungry I was lightheaded.
 

As I stepped away from the table, Lori Beckley said to me, “If you aren’t busy this evening, why don’t you join me for a drink? It’s always good to have an ally in this bunch.” Her eyes swept across the other members of the team as she said the words.

Ray had already told me he was expecting to be on duty all night, so it was easy to answer, “Sure, I’d like that.”

Four hours later, the two of us were sitting down for drinks at Rock Bottom in Bethesda, and she said, “I’ll be honest with you. When you first walked in ... twenty something, tall, beautiful ... I misjudged you.”

“Really?” I asked, half sarcastically.
 

She smirked. “Moore has an unfortunate history of ... touching inappropriately. Though as far as I know it hasn’t happened in a long time. But he sees himself as a dashing celebrity in the world of epidemiology.”

“Is there such a thing?” I asked, incredulously.

She chuckled, her laugh a low, catlike purr.

“Touché,” she responded. “In any event ... I was afraid that you were brought on the team as um ... eye candy. I apologize.”

I smiled bitterly. “I’ve been accused of that before.”

“Well, you certainly fended that off. I enjoyed your tangle with Zheng.”

“I didn’t expect it to be quite so ... combative.”

“That’s the culture Moore fosters. He believes competition brings out the best in all of us.”

“Sometimes it brings out the worst,” I replied. At that point the waitress arrived, and we ordered our drinks, a gin and tonic for me, and something disgustingly sweet for her.
 

She told me a little bit about her own history with the team. She’d been at NIH for nine years, working on antibiotic resistant strains the entire time.
 

“You enjoy the work?” I asked.

“I do. Though for the last two years it’s more paperwork than anything. I’m coordinating large grants at half a dozen institutions, and I don’t get to do much real science any more. I envy you with your story of going out and tagging mountain lions.”

“And are you married? Kids?”

She shook her head, giving me a tiny smile. “No. I actually chopped my husband up into little bits and threw him into Rock Creek.” Then she slapped her forehead and grinned. “No ... sorry ... that was just what I
wanted
to do. In fact, my ex is alive and well and married to a blonde with no more brains than a paperweight.”

I laughed, hard, and she said, “What about you? I don’t see a ring.”

“I’m ... very serious about a guy. I think we’re edging close to being engaged.”

“Oh? What does he do?”

I looked at the table, and for just a second I thought, what
does
Ray do? He used to be a soldier. And ... I guess he was again. “He’s a soldier, actually. He just came home from a tour in Afghanistan a few months ago.”

“Wow!” Lori said. Then she took a big drink. “That’ll shake up the pencil-necks at NIH when they try to chase you down. What does he do? Army? Marines?”

“He’s Army infantry. But he’s planning on finishing his undergraduate at Georgetown next year.”

“A soldier and
smart.
I like that,” she said. “You should introduce me to his friends.” She had a wicked expression in her face as she said it.

“We’re going to get along just fine,” I said.

It was only my third night back in the Army, and somehow I managed to draw the short stick and end up on CQ duty. CQ means Charge of Quarters. Army headquarters don’t shut down at night, even for a command in the Criminal Investigation Division. So when everyone goes home at night, one Sergeant and one enlisted man sticks around to answer the phones, check for fires and unlocked doors, and be ready for the next war to start.

I’d done CQ duty as a private before Afghanistan, but this was my first time in charge, and my crappy attitude wasn’t really helping matters. My parents had overnighted my laptop and a few other things, so at least I had something to occupy me. But the truth was, I didn’t want to be there. Up until New Year’s Day, I’d been sure I was done with the Army. It had only been a couple months since I’d gotten out, and it disturbed me how normal the uniform felt.

Even though it was involuntary, I suppose I might have felt differently if I’d had something to
do.
Some responsibilities. Anything. As it was, I spent my first day in-processing back into the Army, getting issued new uniforms and a spot in the barracks. The second, third and fourth day? I spent those sitting in a chair in the company headquarters. I didn’t have a role in this unit: they were simply housing and feeding me until ... whenever. By the end of the second day I was so tense from inactivity I didn’t know what to do with myself. I brought my laptop with me to the headquarters on the third day, and spent the entire day on that. No one said a word to me. I was essentially invisible, unnecessary, completely superfluous to the function of what was, after all, a criminal investigation unit.
 

At five minutes after eleven, the front door of the headquarters opened, and PFC Bowers came in, carrying a pizza. He was a scrawny soldier, about five foot four, and looked like a strong wind would have blown him away. I tried to imagine him on a twenty-mile road march with a rucksack and rifle out in the boonies, and I just couldn’t see it happening.

“Pizza’s here, Sarge,” he said.
 

“Did you find a Starbucks?”

“Nah,” he replied.

Damn. I was stuck here all night, and the coffee coming out of the percolator tasted like it had been brewed fourteen years before. Amazing how quickly you get used to luxuries. I was worried about getting a decent cup of coffee. Three months ago I was worried about not getting shot by either the Taliban or my fellow soldiers.

Screw it. I popped on to Facebook and sent a message to Carrie.
You awake?

Her reply was quick:
Yes. Call me.

She didn’t have to ask me twice. I grabbed a slice of pizza and called her on my cell.

“Hey, soldier,” she said, her voice sleepy.

“You don’t sound that awake,” I said.

“If you must know, I’m a little drunk.”

“Shit. Without me?”

“We’re still going out tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“Good.”

“So tell me about your first day.”

We chatted, and she recounted the story. “You’ll like Lori,” she said. “She’s a funny lady.”

“You think it’s funny she chopped up her husband?” I asked. That raised an alarmed look from PFC Bowers, who was sitting across the room from me.

Carrie laughed. “I told you, she was joking. Besides, you wouldn’t ever have to worry about that.”

“So what you’re saying is, I couldn’t possibly piss you off that much?”

“Oh, I’m sure you could. But remember, I know how to handle mountain lions.”

I laughed out loud. “All right. I’ll be very careful then. See you tomorrow night.”

“I love you, Ray,” she said. I never got tired of hearing that.

“Love you,” I replied then hung up.

Crap. Seven hours and forty-five more minutes to kill. It was going to be a long, long night.

“So, uh, Sarge,” Bowers said. “I hadn’t seen you around before. You new to the unit?”

“Yeah,” I said.
 

“Where’d you come from?”

“The block,” I answered.
The block
was a generic term for where I wished I was: not in the military.

“I don’t get it,” Bowers said.

I shook my head. “I got out a few months ago. They called me back up and assigned me here.”

“That sucks. Or did you want to come back?”

I shook my head. “I thought I was done. I’m a witness in an investigation, and apparently they figured it’d be more convenient to have me close-by.”

“Oh, that sucks. What kind of investigation?”

“Can’t talk about it. So what’s your story? What do you do around here?”

“Battalion personnel clerk.”

Paper shuffler. Which the Army had plenty of, and needed plenty of in order to keep things going, I guess.
 

Being back in the Army had brought back a rush of emotions and memories that I didn’t want to deal with. It was close to the surface, closer than it had been since the day I’d been discharged. All I had to do was close my eyes and I was there, breathing in the air of Afghanistan.

The thing was, it had all gone bad so fast. Less than forty-eight hours after Kowalski was killed, we were back out on patrol. Roberts got blown up, and Dylan was injured. I remember Colton calling over the radio, his voice frantic, “Sherman, get your fire team on line!” and I’d called back, “I don’t have a fire team!”

The next day we met in the shack Colton called his office. Lieutenant Eggers, Colton and Martin, our platoon’s leadership, and me and Hicks.
 

“We’ve got three new FNGs coming in next week,” Colton said. FNG means
fucking new guy.

“I don’t want ‘em,” Hicks said. “My fire team is set.”

Martin grimaced. “That’s gonna leave us seriously unbalanced if Sherman takes all three. We know anything about these guys?”

Eggers said, “They’re all straight out of Benning.”

“Fuck,” muttered Colton.

In the end, they decided I was going to take all the new replacements. And to be honest, I was too exhausted to care. I’d seen the guys I depended on, the guys I was supposed to take care of, decimated in a matter of two days.
 

I wasn’t the only one in bad shape. Two weeks later I’d walked by Hicks’ fire team’s room and found the door conspicuously closed. The unmistakable smell of marijuana drifted out of the door. I just kept walking. It was my responsibility to do something about it. The Army had zero tolerance for drug use. On the other hand, what were they going to do to those guys? Send them to Afghanistan? Our squad was in such bad shape, and the new guys were such fumbling idiots, if the experienced soldiers in our squad needed to blow off some steam, who the hell was I to say anything?

I did say something to Hicks. That was going to be the limit of my involvement. His guys were out on the wire that day, so I found him in one of the guard towers, leaning against the wall, his rifle cradled in his arms. He was staring off into space, his blue eyes gazing off at the landscape, not really paying attention.

“Sherman,” he said as I got to the top.

“Hicks,” I replied. “You got a minute?”

“What brings you up here?” he asked.

I leaned against the wall, looking out into the distance. It didn’t look like there was a live human being for a thousand miles except us.

“Just wanted to give you a heads up. Not really my place to get involved, I guess. Your guys are smoking pot in their room.”

He shrugged and frowned. “Yeah. I know.”

I didn’t say anything, and after a minute he said, “You gotta do something to stay sane. If that’s the worst they do, I’m all for it.”

“Pretty much what I figured,” I said.

“You know what they saw,” he said.

I did. Dylan’s pale face, as he bled out on the snow, me praying the chopper would show up in time. Roberts, as we carefully took the remaining body parts we could find and stuffed them in a bag. Kowalski and his crazy trail of kids.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. I’m not judging. Just figured you needed to know.”

I lit a cigarette, cupping my hand around the coal.