Valentine saw some soldiers, probably out of Rally Base, signal with a portable electric lantern and wave them in. By the time anchors had fixed their drift, a little red-and-white rowboat set out from a backwash, fighting its way through some riverside growth.
Two men were in it, a big muscular fellow at the oars who had the look of a river drifter who made a little spare money watching for enemy activity, and a magazine cover of a man with slicked-back hair.
"Permission to come aboard, Captain?" slicked-back hair called.
"Granted."
The baggage came first. A big military-issue duffel hit the deck with a whump, tossed up by the muscular man in the rowboat. It was followed by the would-be passenger. On closer inspection Valentine saw that he had a pencil-thin mustache, precisely trimmed to the edges of his mouth.
Which was smiling, at the moment.
"Good God, I was afraid I'd missed you. My river rat swore to me that your tug had passed yesterday. I thought a very bumpy ride had been in vain. Broke records getting to Rally Base.
"Let's see. Transport warrant. Letter of introduction, and permission to be on Southern Command military property. That's the lot. I was hoping to hitch a ride."
"This trip is chartered by Colonel Lambert," Mantilla said. "You'll have to ask her."
"Who are you?" Lambert asked from her spot at the rail.
"Rollo A. Boelnitz, but my friends call me Pencil. I'm a free-lancer with The Bulletin. My specialty is actually Missouri but I'm eager to learn about Kentucky."
The Bulletin was a minor paper published near the skeleton of the old Wal-Mart complex in Arkansas. It was new-post Archangel and the UFR anyway. Valentine had never read it.
"Why Pencil, Mr. Boelnitz? Because of the mustache?" Lambert asked.
"No, at school. I always lost my pencil and had to borrow. It just stuck."
Lambert glanced at Valentine. "You wanted reinforcements. One pen a mighty army makes."
Valentine disliked him, maybe simply because of the way Lambert had perked up and thrown her chest out since this young icon came aboard.
"General Lehman suggested I join you," Boelnitz offered. "I was talking to him to get a retrospective on his tenure. He said a bit of publicity might help your cause in Kentucky, and the Cause on top of it."
Lambert examined his paperwork. "That's Lehman's signature. The permission to be on Southern Command property might have been overkill. Kentucky's neither fish nor fowl at the moment."
"Do you know what you're getting yourself into?" Valentine asked. "There's no regular mails between Kentucky and the UFR. No banks to cash expense vouchers."
"I was hoping for the traditional hospitality of Southern Command to members of the press. As to my stories, one of your men can transmit via radio. General Lehman said you are in radio contact twice daily."
That settled any issue about this being a put-up job. Radio security was about as tight as Southern Command could make it, involving scramblers and rotating frequencies. Lehman must have passed that tidbit on. Standard Southern Command procedure for brigades in the field was three radio checks a day. As theirs had to be relayed through Rally Base, they found it easier to do just two.
Valentine shrugged and gave Lambert a hint of a nod.
"Welcome aboard, Pencil. I hope you find the situation in Kentucky interesting," she said.
"But not too interesting," Valentine said. "We all had enough interesting this summer to last us till pension draw."
Boelnitz shook hands all around. It was hard to say which version of Pencil Boelnitz was more handsome: serious, expletive Boelnitz or grinning, eager-to-befriend Boelnitz. Valentine couldn't tell whether Lambert had a preference, either.
The bottle their patrol boat had given them contained some seven-year-old bourbon. Mantilla shared a glass with Valentine that night.
They sat in the captain's day cabin. Valentine supposed it was meant to be an office too, but the ship's records seemed to take up one thick sheaf of paper in various sizes, stains, and colors attached to a rusty clipboard.
A single bulb cast yellow light on the cabin deal table. Mantilla and Valentine sat with their legs projecting out into the center of the cabin as the captain poured.
"This is even better for your cold than honey," Mantilla said.
"It makes being sick a little more relaxing. The inspection today-what was that about?"