For the next hour, they discussed the photos of Brutus and Linda that had surfaced online. The pictures themselves were innocent enough—the two of them walking together in Central Park, sharing coffee at a small café—but they had sparked a flurry of speculation.
Brutus picked up the tablet, his gut dropping as he saw what Pamela was talking about. It was pictures of him, at the resort after Linda’s mission. Most of the pics were polite, taken from a distance as they walked along the paths, or sat out grabbing some sun.
But there were three pictures that weren’t so polite. One was the two of them kissing outside, while the other two were blurry photos that had obviously been zoomed in… through the window of the cabin.
“Fuck,” he muttered, sliding the tablet back across the table. His stomach roiled, and whatever good feeling he had evaporated in the light from the tablet. “How much do you guys know, and how much is in the dirt sheets already?”
“You might want to give this… Linda… a call,” Pamela replied. “While the reports we’ve seen haven’t named names, there’s enough out there that someone’s going to figure it out soon enough.”
Brutus leaned back in his chair, sighing. His first instinct was to tell Zelus to shove their contract up their ass, he didn’t need or want to be part of a company that was willing to dig into his private life. Exploit him as a football player? Fine. That came with putting on the uniform.
Exploit him as a person because he’s fallen in love? That was totally wrong.
But… this wasn’t the time to make a decision.
Instead, Brutus looked to his right, where Keith had a grave expression on his face. Keith could see Brutus’s feelings, and knew that a big check was on the line. “What do you want to do, Brutus?”
“Keith, after this, I’m going to need to make a phone call.”
19
LINDA
Linda was nervous as she walked into the company offices. Normally, she avoided the administrative hub of Charlie Company as much as possible, with the First Sergeant, the XO, and the Company Commander located there. And then there was Tyrone Crews, who loved to hear himself talk.
But when Sergeant Lincoln told her to report to the company commander's office, she had to do it.
What freaked her out more than anything though was the fact that Crews made himself noticeably absent when she came in. Even though it was officially lunch time, Crews was never the kind to miss overhearing some gossip unless doing so could get him in trouble.
Lieutenant Parker was waiting for her though, his freshly cut hair sticking up slightly more than usual and making him look more like 'Iceman' than normal.
"Hey Sergeant... you look worried."
"No offense sir, but no Crews, and lunch hour? That's normally a recipe for at least a bit of skittishness," Linda said. She took a deep breath, and lifted an eyebrow. "I hope there isn't a problem."
"Well, there shouldn't be," Parker said, "but Major Kirk wanted to have a chat with you. I'm pretty much in the dark as well. Come with me, we're in the conference room."
Linda followed Parker, surprised slightly to see her entire chain of command outside of Sergeant Orkin gathered in the conference room. What was shocking and turned her concern up to full nervousness was seeing Lieutenant Colonel Remsburg sitting at the head of the table. The Battalion Commander didn't come down to the company offices, the company came to the battalion.
"Sergeant Castellanos, thank you for coming in on your lunch break," Remsburg said, indicating a seat on his left. "Please have a seat."
"Uhm... okay, sir." Linda walked over and stood behind the chair. "Sorry, is this a reporting situation?"
"No, no," Major Kirk said.
He was seated on the other side of the table and looked rather relaxed. That helped, but didn't totally allay her fears.
"We're having a chat outside of duty right now, hopefully to prevent having to do it later on duty."
Linda nodded in understanding. There were plenty of ways that the military handled things. Sometimes, things had to have paperwork. Sometimes though, things got handled through unofficial channels.
"Thank you. So what's going on, sir?" she asked, sitting down carefully in the chair.
She might be in the conference room unofficially, but she was surrounded by the most powerful officers in her chain of command. There was no way she was going to fully relax in front of the battalion commander.
After all, she was just an E-5 sergeant.
"So, I got a call from the Pentagon this morning," Remsburg said as way of introduction. "A friend of mine has a wife who happens to like certain gossip websites. She noticed a story, told her husband... long story short, you're in the gossip sites."
