It took hours, but in one way that was good in that there was plenty of time for Brutus, with Sabby’s help, to set up a buffet line for all of the Charlie Company soldiers. He’d bought everything the barbecue place had or could put together in an hour, and he was happy to see soldiers with sauce smeared on their faces or chewing on a large Rice Krispy treat, or putting together a pulled pork sandwich while he waited. Cleanup was even easy, as there were literally no leftovers.
Linda didn’t eat anything though, and as he watched her do her job, he grew increasingly worried. Eventually though the company was released, and she came out of the barracks, changed into a large sweatshirt and some casual pants. He was glad, because this was about her.
It was dark by the time they got to the resort, a ‘log cabin’ place just outside of town that Hollywood had told him about when Linda was inside the company offices making sure the rest of the fire team was getting their gear hung up properly to dry. Their cabin was quiet, with dinner waiting for them as Brutus ran a hot bath for Linda.
“So what can you tell me?” he asked as he measured out the bath oils. “About how you got that?”
“Just a little bit.” Linda came in wearing a bathrobe. She was so beautiful, and while his body surged with desire upon seeing her shrug off the robe, the huge dark splotch above her heart tempered his want as he took her hand. “We went down south, a drug interdiction mission.”
“That’s… that’s all you can say?” Brutus said.
Linda nodded.
He took a deep breath, trying to understand. Dr. Caster had warned him about this at the end of their session, about setting aside his need for comforting knowledge in the face of Linda’s job requirements.
“Is this one of those missions I might read about on the news?”
“Doubtful.” Linda took his hand and let him help her into the bath.
It was rustic, a ‘horse trough’ that had clearly been adjusted to become a bathtub. But in that regard it was absolutely perfect for their current needs. The deep corrugated aluminum container nearly came up to Linda’s chin though, which was just what Brutus wanted as she sank into the fragrant depths.
“It wasn’t as successful as the DEA wanted. The big bad guy got away.”
Brutus sighed again, and sat down on a stool next to the tub to keep talking with her. Picking up a washcloth, he lifted her right arm, slowly cleansing the skin.
“And how’d you get shot?”
“Guard with a nine mil pistol, we were taking a building just like you and I did the week you were with us.” Linda squirmed slightly in the hot water as she adjusted. “It was just one of those things.”
“Just one of those things,” Brutus repeated, the cloth stopping as he felt a surge of anger inside him. “What else?”
“Not much else I can say,” Linda added, leaning back against the slightly sloped back insert of the tub. “Just that in the end, what Takeshi told Dawks is probably true. We got out with nothing but a bruise today. But we’ll be back, sooner or later. It’s pretty much inevitable.”
“What? Why?”
“Because we can’t change the larger cultural and socio-economic factors in play, really,” Linda said. “As long as drugs are so damn profitable, the cartels are going to be able to buy or intimidate the locals into silence if not outright support. I mean, the country we went to, Brutus, the average rural worker makes about three hundred dollars a month or less. You can buy your local chief of police for about two thousand bucks. Five thousand will get you your own police department for a couple of months. And that’s if you’re playing nice and not just intimidating them into helping you. Meanwhile, the United States spends roughly a hundred and fifty billion dollars a year on illegal drugs. That’s bigger than the economies of all but six Latin American countries. That’s before you figure in sales to other countries, and the other little corruption businesses these cartels run on the side. Those guys can literally buy a whole country, and there’s not much we can do about it.”
Brutus got up, walking across the bathroom to try and calm down before thumping his fist against the log wall of the cabin.
“Then why? Why are you doing it, risking your life like you did if it’s just going to be… irrelevant?”
“You think it’s irrelevant what I did?” Linda asked, her voice tight. She sat up in the tub, lifting her knees to give her a more stable sitting position. “Why?”
“Because I know what your people were talking about. God Linda, I’ve lost count of the number of parties, or even locker rooms, I’ve been to where someone offered me some marching powder, or any other street name for drugs you might know. And that’s not counting the number of guys who simply toke up. That’s just a huge gray area, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” Linda said. “You think I didn’t grow up surrounded by that shit? I saw lives ruined by drugs, remember? Brutus, yesterday I ruined at least a ton of pure coke on this mission. That’s something. Something you should think about.”
“I-” Brutus growled before taking a deep breath.
He wanted to go back and sit down next to her again, but he could feel the anger inside him. He wasn’t going to be good company right now.
“You’re right. I’m going to do what my therapist keeps telling me to do, and take a walk. I need to process my feelings right now, because I don’t want to fight with you over this. This argument isn’t worth hurting your feelings over. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He left the cabin, walking through the darkness along the softly lit path to the main resort building. He didn’t have any real goal in mind, just to breathe and let his anger be. It was the key, Dr. Caster said. Not to reject his anger, and not to embrace it… but just to acknowledge it. By acknowledging it, he took away its power to control his actions.
As his feet crunched on the gravel, he thought about what Linda had been through. He wondered if drugs had touched her sister’s life, the one who’d gone to Bayamon for a few years, or maybe her friends growing up. Had it played a role in the assault she’d endured as a girl?
What drove her to be willing to get shot in order to get the mission done?
