"She must have presented some case of charges for them to hunt me down so fast."
"She didn't file them. They talked to every woman who survived that camp and the battle. All the others couldn't remember a thing."
"Then who's behind this?" Valentine asked.
"Your former commander, General Martinez. I should say General Commanding, Interior, I suppose. He got promoted."
Valentine's head swam for a moment. When he could see the tired brown eyes of his counsel again he spoke. "He's got a grudge against me. I gave evidence at a trial-not sure if it can even be called that."
"Interesting. Tell me more."
Valentine tried to sum the story up as concisely as he could. He had come out of Texas with his vital column of Quickwood and was ambushed by "redhands"-Quisling soldiers who wore captured uniforms from Southern Command stockpiles. He had a pair of Grog scouts-they were smarter than dogs, horses, or dolphins and were far more capable fighters. The Grogs survived with a handful of others, and with a single wagonload of Quickwood made it to General Martinez, more by accident than design, at his refuge in the Ouachitas. Martinez had two of his Grogs shot at once, and it was only by putting a pistol to the general's head and arresting him for murder that Ahn-Kha survived.
The trial ended in a debacle and Martinez's camp was divided; many of the best soldiers decided to quit the place with Valentine. Ultimately they made it to Little Rock where the rising took place.
Captain Luecke remained poker-faced throughout the story, and only moved to set her pen down. "I don't know much about General Martinez, or what happened during the Kurian occupation," she said. "I spent it aspirating mosquitoes in a bayou. I'm going to ask for a delay in your trial date so I can prepare a defense, if you agree. Fair warning: It'll mean a lot more time for you in here."
She was a cold fish, but she was a very smart cold fish. As she packed up Valentine was already missing the smell of tobacco and coffee.
"Captain?" Valentine said.
"Yes, Major?"
"I'm not sure I want to fight this. I let prisoners get tortured and murdered right under my nose."
She sat back down. "I see. Guilty, then?"
"I . . ." The words wouldn't come. Coward. You're quick to condemn others.
"You don't have to decide this second. Can you do something for my satisfaction?" Yes.
"Give me the names of some of those women. And no, we're not going to point fingers and say 'they did it.' I just want to hear from all sides about what happened that night."
Valentine thought back to the too-familiar faces of the siege, especially those stilled in death. And not always faces: Petra Yao was only identified by the jewelry on the arm they found; Yolanda, who had to wear diapers thanks to the mutilation; Gwenn Cobb who walked around with her collar turned up and her shirt tightly buttoned afterward-rumor had it they'd written something on her chest with a knifepoint; the Weir sisters, who never talked about it except for their resulting pregnancies; Marta Ruiz, who hung her head and grew her hair out so it covered her eyes. . . .
Christ, those cocksuckers should have gotten worse.
Valentine felt the old, awful hurts and the heat of that night come back. The thing, the shadow, the demon that sometimes wore the body of "the Ghost" flooded into his bloodstream like vodka until his face went red and his knuckles white.
There were things a decent man did, whatever the regulations said, and let any man who hadn't been there be damned.
"Still want to plead guilty?" she asked.
Valentine tried lowering his lifesign. That mental ritual always helped, even when there weren't Reapers prowling. "Prepare your case."
* * * *
The men in the exercise yard kicked up little rooster tails of fine Arkansas dust-Valentine hadn't seen its like even in Texas; soft as baby powder and able to work its way through the most tightly laced boot-as they walked or threw a pie-tin Frisbee back and forth.
He got to know his three fellow "shooters" there. They took their sourdough bread and soup out as far from the prison as possible and sat next to the six-inch-high warning wire that kept them ten feet from the double roll of fence.
Colonel Alan Thrush was the highest-ranking, not distinguished-looking or brimming with the dash one expects from a cavalry leader. He had short legs and the deft, gentle hands of a fruit seller. "Caught a company of Quislings doing scorched earth-with the families inside-on a little village called McMichael." McMichael had risen against the Kurians in response to the governor's famous "smash them" broadcast shortly after Valentine's move on Little Rock. "Left them for the crows in a ditch."
Unfortunately, his men left the customary set of spurs on the forehead of the Quisling officer in charge, and the commander of a column of infantry following made the mistake of pointing out his handiwork to a pink-cheeked reporter who neglected to mention the charred corpses in McMichael.
Colonel Thrush intended to fight out his court-martial. He said so, slurping a little beet soup from his pannikin.
Valentine was the only major.