“You can make this easy on yourself… Maggie… or you can entertain the troops tonight.”
Taylor glanced at Brodie, then looked at Mercer and nodded. “All right… Your friend… General Gomez. He works for American Intel.” She looked at Brodie. “Sorry, Scott…”
The Master Bullshitter Award goes to… Warrant Officer Maggie Taylor. Congratulations.
Brodie gave his partner a look that he hoped conveyed to Mercer that he was disappointed in her—though, of course, he understood that ratting out Gomez as an American agent was preferable to a night with the troops.
Mercer stayed silent, then said, “I don’t believe that.” Of course he did. This was Venezuela.
Mercer looked at Taylor, but he apparently decided not to pursue that line of questioning. He did say, however, “If I find out you’re lying to me about anything, Ms. Taylor, you’ll wish you’d spent the night pleasuring my men—which would be less painful than me dangling you over the side of this platform in a fishnet so the piranha can eat you alive. Do you understand?”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“I’ll find out if you are.”
“You’ll also find out that Gomez was trained by the U.S. Army.”
Mercer probably already knew that, and he might already have some suspicions about General Gomez, who might wind up as fish food. And he probably deserved it.
Mercer addressed Brodie. “If you hold back information again, you’ll be sharing a cage with howler monkeys, who like to bite dicks and balls.”
Sounded like a staff meeting at Quantico. “I’m here to be honest with you.”
“Good.”
Well, Señor Kyle had taken over Captain Mercer’s head, and it was a little scary. But Captain Mercer—man on the run—needed more information from them than they needed from him. And as long as that was true, they wouldn’t be part of the food chain. But eventually this game had to end. A happy ending would be Kyle Mercer being persuaded to come home with them and face the consequences of his actions. But that didn’t seem likely at this point. Another happy ending would be the sound of helicopters and the sight of Delta Force guys rappelling into the camp. Hellfire missiles could be a happy ending, but only if they hit everything except him and Taylor. He wondered if the Pentagon planners would use high explosives if they suspected that friendlies—he and Taylor—were in the camp. Maybe they would if Brendan Worley had any input into that decision. Meanwhile, they had to buy time.
Mercer finished his water, and Brodie said, “We need water, Kyle.”
Mercer didn’t seem to hear, and he looked as though the info on General Gomez had put him off his game.
Brodie pulled his half-full bottle of water from his pocket and gave it to Taylor, who drank and passed it back to him. He finished it and held up the empty bottle. “Agua?”
Mercer came out of his dark thoughts and looked at Brodie. “What?”
“Clean water. We need it. Minimum standards of detention as defined by the Geneva Conventions. Speaking of which, your camp’s field sanitation seems good overall, but the stockade could use some work.”
Mercer turned to him. “What the hell do you know about living in the field?”
Glad you asked. Brodie informed him, “Before CID, I was a grunt. Second Infantry Division, Iraq. Maggie was Civil Affairs. Two years in the ’Stan.”
Mercer looked at both of them, but didn’t respond.
Brodie continued, “I was at Fallujah. Got a purple and bronze. Maggie got a purple and silver.”
Mercer seemed unsure if he should believe any of that.
Brodie said, “Your thug saw her wounds.”
Mercer looked at Taylor. “How’d you get hit?”
“IED. Maybe a piece of an RPG.”
“Show me.”
She stood, walked to Mercer’s table, turned, and pulled her pants down to reveal her thigh.
Mercer stared at the white and purple scars. “You lose people?”
“Six.”
“How many did they lose?”
“Hard to say. More than six.”
Mercer nodded, seeming to approve of that. Brodie watched the man as he stared at Taylor’s scars, and he looked like he was about to reach out and touch them. Instead he sat back and motioned her to sit.
Taylor hiked up her pants and took her seat.
Mercer didn’t seem interested in seeing Brodie’s wounds, which, all things considered, were not interesting—a half-dozen pockmarks on his back from an RPG round that missed him, but hit a wall behind him. It wasn’t his time that day. Today, however, could be the day.
Mercer looked at Taylor. “When were you there?”
“About the same time you were. I deployed in spring of