Systemic Shock (23 page)

Merry Xmas jurnal I wonder if Ted ever misses me.

If he managed to consume enough beer, thought Quantrill, he might forget other Christmas eves. He refused to look at the decorated cedar that winked its tiny chemlamps in one corner of the enlisted men's club; studied his reflection behind the beer-only bar instead.

The seven weeks of basic training had seemed endless. Now that he'd passed through the python of basic, he was ready to be swallowed by a combat outfit. He couldn't wait to see where it would shit him out. He'd know damned soon; nobody stayed long at San Marcos after basic.

Someone had been trying to talk to him on the next stool but finally gave it up. Someone else eased into the vacancy. The civilian beertender served him immediately, without discussion. It was like the rest of the Army, the choice was beer or no beer.

He wondered suddenly if Cathy Palma was having a beer, then wondered why he'd thought of her. Well, she was nearly a friend. Too near. He wondered if Palma had located the kid, Sandy; thought of the plastic tea set; smiled; found his eyes misting. He thought then of the Heckler & Koch, and wondered if he were crazy for itching to get his hands on one. “So where d 'you think they'll send you, Quantrill?" The soft educated Tex-Mex drawl with its smooth sibilance made him jerk around. Then he looked at the reflection instead. Looking at Rafael Sabado through a distant mirror gave Quantrill a sense of distance that he wanted very much. He shrugged.

"I'm interested," Sabado went on. "Everybody's got a theory, or a rumor. A few even have choices," he said, picking his words carefully.

"Florida. Siberia. Canada. Fuckin' lot I care."

Sabado grunted, swilled half his beer, nodded to himself. “I lost my whole family in Houston—just like that," he said with a fingersnap. "That's why I care a whole
chingada
lot. Why don't you?"

"Why do you hate my guts?" Quantrill said it without thinking it out. It had been flicking at the tip of his mind for days.

"I'll answer that when you've done two things. Have a beer on me—and tell me why you think I hate your guts."

Quantrill had absorbed two beers already; just enough that he felt ready to catalogue all the special little treatments, the physical outrages, he had suffered at the hands of the big Chicano. It took him two minutes, all in a growl. He stared at the bubbles in the fresh beer before him.

"Take a swig," Sabado insisted, nodding at the beer; some intensity went out of his face as he watched Quantrill do it. "First, I never,
never
buy for anyone I hate. A point of honor; in
la raza
we live on those," he grinned ruefully. He glanced back at Quantrill's reflection. "As for hitting on you,—there isn't another man in your squad who gives me a workout. They're
dulces
, fuckin' candy. They lack the killer instinct—and you don't,
cabroncito
. How old are you anyway? No shit now; strictly off the record."

Quantrill shrugged, and told him.

"
Ay de mi
, you remind me of me," Sabado gurgled deep in his throat.

"You trying to say you kicked the shit out of me for seven weeks because you like me?"

A shadow passed across the handsome bronze face. "Close, compadre. But I swore off liking people for the duration. I think you did too. If you played your cards right, you could learn to do everything I do."

Quantrill absorbed this with the beer. "You think I joined up to be an instructor?"

"Not exactly. Something a whole lot worse—or better, if it's killing you like."

A quick darting glance directly at the big man beside him: "Why would I like it?"

The high cheekbones faced him. "Why wouldn't you?" Then, studying Quantrill, he narrowed his eyes and purred, "I think maybe you already know. I'd like to think so, Quantrill. Tell you what; let's go outside and inhale some fresh fallout. Trust me. I just don' want to go the macho route with all these assbreaths looking on."

Quantrill decided he would soon be stoop-shouldered from shrugging, but went outside with Sabado. He considered the possibility that Sabado intended to pick a fight; shelved the idea rather than reject it.

Standing beneath the single fluorescent light on the porch, Sabado faced the youth. "Ever play 'gotcha'? Alias the handslap game. Put your palms against mine." Sabado's hands were out, palms up, fingers together.

Quantrill had played the game a few times, but denied it. He hadn't enjoyed it anyway. No challenge.

But Sabado's right hand was less than a blur as it flicked up and around to slap the back of Quantrill's left hand. One instant he felt a cool callused palm against his, and in what seemed the same instant that palm was elsewhere. "That's a gotcha," Sabado murmured. "I keep on until I miss."

Quantrill saw that Sabado's slaps, nothing more than gentle taps, implied great control. He found very quickly that the game could be steeped in psychological nuance. Those big hands feinted, jittered, crossed over to underline their mastery. Only when the sergeant tried to cross both hands in a tour de force move did he miss with both.

"Your turn," Sabado smiled, and jerked his hands away the instant Quantrill touched them. "No, keep your thumbs in," he said as Quantrill used his left thumb to score.

"You were doing it."

"To spook you," Sabado said easily. "Makes it a cinch. Your opponent gets fluttery guts and then he's lost."

Quantrill looked away with a headshake as if to some onlooker. And scored with a double-crossover. He scored with each hand; sometimes with eyes closed; sometimes crossing. He did not miss once in fifty moves.

"Okay, game's over," Sabado grunted finally, as if troubled. "For awhile I couldn't figure out how you were doing it. Nobody's quicker than I am."

"You think I'm cheating?"

A snort. "No. I was wrong, that's all; somebody
is
quicker,
compadre
. Not because I was spooked. That's easy enough to prove."

Sabado placed his hands atop QuantriU's again, pointed out that neither of them betrayed hypertension with vibratory tremors. "Yeah, I thought so," Sabado said, lowering his hands. "You're a gunsel, all right."

A gunsel, he said, was an old tag. The Army psychomotor test people had culled it from studies on what they termed the 'gunslinger mystique'. The adrenal medulla produced both adrenalin and noradrenalin in response to stress, heightening the speed and strength of muscle response. In nearly all humans were emotional side effects as well as physical, a shakiness that could interfere with coordination, that could even produce panic or unconsciousness.

But in every million humans were a few who made optimum stress-management responses. Those few, said Sabado, got the advantages of their adrenal glands without the disadvantages. "That's me," he added, “and that's you. In the 1880's we'd've been gunslingers. Nowadays there isn't much call for that. But the Army needs a few gunsels, people who can act alone under special hazards. I'm a referral service for those few."

Quantril checked his lapel dosimeter, relieved to find that they were taking only a fraction of a rad per hour outside. "How do they use those guys, Sergeant: Something like a regimental combat team?"

A long slow smiling headshake. "More effective than that, with lower profile. When I said 'alone' I meant it, Quantrill."

"Doesn't sound like the Army to me."

"Doesn't, does it?" Sabado pursed his lips reflectively. "But let's suppose there was a foreign national, someone who did top-level liaison between the President and, ah, another NATO country. Run it on down with me: supposethis bastard was a mole—a deep-cover SinoInd agent—who was pinpointing our key installations to be nuked on cue. Like the Shenandoah Command Center, or the Grand Island Quartermaster complex."

Quantrill's eyes widened. Both of those underground centers had been secret until they'd taken consecutive impact nukes, drilling down into bedrock to atomize a President and a supply center. “I guess the FBI would shoot him on sight," he said.

"The feebies don't ice folks on contract these days. Some CIA people do, but not on US soil. Treasury Department sticks to other duties. That leaves military intelligence,
compadre
." Sabado's eyes were glimmering slits in the half-light. “I hear the Army has such an agency. I would imagine they'd have a few gunsels train able to go anywhere, anytime, to complete an assignment. The question is:
are you interested
!"

"This is crazy, Sergeant. I mean, it can't be this simple—"

"It isn't simple; but this is how it starts. Did you think they'd advertise in the Ft. Worth
Star-Telegram
!"

"No-o-o, but if they did they wouldn't ask for anybody fifteen years old."

"Don't second-guess the Service. They'd be interested in a toddler if he had your reflexes—but it shit-sure isn't an open sesame, they run you through a heavy wringer before they take you. “If they take you. I gave somebody your name a week ago; surely you don' think I'd make this pitch unless somebody higher up gave the word. But I've told you everything I can until I get a commitment.
Yes or no
!"

A
youth came out the door, affixing his headgear, nodding to the pair who stood near. Quantrill smiled, nodded back, waited until they were alone again. "When do you need my answer?"

"Right now. I didn't come here tonight because I like green beer. Something else that should go without saying but I'll say it anyhow: whatever you answer, you don" even hint to anybody about our little talk. I'd have to say I lie a lot. I wouldn' like that."

Quantrill took a long breath; expelled it. "Okay, I'm still not sure I believe it. But I'll do it. It sure isn't what I had in mind when I joined up, Sergeant. You sure I won't wind up with an assignment like yours?"

He had never heard Sabado laugh and was surprised at the musical gurgle deep in his chest. "This isn't an assignment, Quantrill; this is what I ask
for between
assignments. I'm not always a sergeant. It depends," he added vaguely.

This Sabado was subtly different from the big swaggerer on the practice mats. The difference was unsettling until Quantrill realized it lay in the man's speech patterns. Tonight Sabado was relaxing, letting his Tex-Mex accent have its way. Tonight Rafael Sabado was not bothering with bullshit. “If he plays a lot of parts, a gunsel must get a lot of ID's," said Quantrill.

"Sure. But none to link him with 'T' Section. For what it's worth, a gunsel can't flash an ID if he gets in trouble on assignment. And he's up against people who know some tricks—cosmetic work, false prints, martial arts—so he gets the best training Uncle can provide. What he doesn't get is any promise about tomorrow."

"At least you're up front about it. I gather a gunsel doesn't take prisoners."

"If they need the quarry alive, the feebies can handle it. If they don't, somebody in T Section gets the assignment."

"What does 'T' stand for?"

"Terminate."

"I hope they terminated the guy who pinpointed Shenandoah."

"What if I tol' you it was a woman,
compadrel"

"I dunno. I guess it wouldn't make any difference."

"It didn't," Sabado grunted. "A gunsel takes what comes." Pause; flicker of something unsaid in the face. “He has to. You'll see. You have to make up your mind that T Section chose you and your assignment for a good reason.

You may never know how much you've shortened the war, how many lives you save, but," he gave a sly chuckle, "you get to see results first-hand. More gratifying than lugging mortar rounds in fucking Siberia."

"Too bad; in a way I was wondering what Siberia's like."

"You might find out if you flunk. Don't. Now get some sleep. Tomorrow right after rollcall, you make sick call. Take a book with you. Then ask to see Major Lazarus. That's all. Now repeat that."

"Uh,—sleep. Sick call after rollcall, ask for Major Lazarus."

"Take a book,
compadre
."

"Right." Quantrill watched the big man take the stairs two at a time; wondered if Sabado really did lie a lot; wondered if there really was a Major Lazarus.

Perhaps Major Lazarus existed. Quantrill never met him, but the fact that he became the only occupant of an examination room told him something. There were very few empty rooms in San Marcos.

The avuncular white-haired medic who bade him strip was a captain wearing a cool blue smock and a warm pink smile. Quantrill found some of the exam, like the prostate probe, familiar. The elastic straps, fitted as anklet, wristlet, and headband, placed unfamiliar devices next to his skin. Quantrill guessed they were feeding data to the computer terminal on the desk while he did calisthenics.

The medic was polite, anonymous, mildly interested in the bullet wound, more interested in Quantrill's microfiche record. When he asked whether Private Quantrill had ever shot to kill, Quantrill decided that someone had been to considerable trouble to check his recent past.

"They were shooting at me," he said defensively.

"Just answer the question, son."

"Yes, I did. I think I got him."

"I'm not judging you. And I'll only ask one more question along this line." A brief silence before, "Did you ever kill anyone, or try to, before that night at Oak Ridge?"

"No." The question, he thought, had been phrased nicely. There were more questions: childhood disease, sexual experiences, enduring friendships, special fears. Quantrill answered it all truthfully.

The psychomotor and sensory acuity tests seemed simpler than they were because the equipment was highly refined. The helmet adjusted snugly, especially around his eyes and ears so that he became momentarily blind and, except for the medic's voice in his headphones, deaf. The gloves were thin knit fabric with slender instrumentation wafers bonded to each gauntlet. When the animated displays were focused, Quantrill saw a red dot move, and snapped his fingers the instant the dot touched an edge of the maze it traversed. Then he found that he could guide the dot by moving his right index finger, and enjoyed the game. He heard various tones, tapped when he first heard them. He touched his forefingers together blindly, then tried it when the display showed an animated view of his hands before him. He smiled grimly as he learned to ignore the false information on the display. Finally came the red dot again, this time an animated mosquito that appeared and winked out repeatedly as he tried to catch it between thumb and forefinger.