Damage Control. Gordon Kent

      “So what do you do with your days?” Rose asked her as they were dipping lush tomatoes into boiling water and then peeling them.

      “I take classes. Distance learning, you know. Plus Arabic at U. of Bahrain. Plus I do some temping.”

      “I’m impressed.”

      “Michael says I’m an over-achiever.” She put a peeled tomato on the cutting board between them, and Rose cut a cross in the bottom and squeezed seeds and pulp into a blue plastic bowl. “I’m going to be an NCIS special agent, just like him.”

      “What does he say to that?”

      Leslie made an unhappy face. “He says things like, ‘Dream on.’”

      “That’s not fair.”

      “He doesn’t mean it like that. He means—it’s hard, and there aren’t that many jobs for women. And he means it’s me.” She stopped peeling, looked down at the board, knife in one hand, tomato in the other. “Leslie, the trailer-park-trash queen.”

      “Honey.” Rose wiped her hands on a paper towel. “Hey. You’re smarter than he is, that’s the trouble.”

      “No, I’m not.”

      “Leslie, I know Mike. You’re smarter.”

      “He’s in love with you.” Leslie smiled. “It’s okay. But I know he is.” The smile became shaky. “He isn’t in love with me, though.”

      “Honey, you two live together!”

      “Michael likes sex, right?” Leslie passed the back of the tomato-holding hand under her nose and sniffed. “I chase him across the Atlantic Ocean, I show up at his door, he hasn’t got a woman in Bahrain yet—dah-dah! How nice to see you, Leslie, why don’t you lie down and spread your legs.” Tears welled in her eyes. She sniffed again.

      Rose put her arms around her. “Oh, honey, he isn’t like that. He’s, he’s—”

      Leslie let her hands hang at her sides, let herself be hugged. She said, “I’m pregnant.”

      “Oh, Les—!” Rose swayed back, her hands on Leslie’s upper arms. “That’s—” She studied Leslie’s face, thought better of saying it was wonderful. “Does he know?”

      Leslie shook her head. “He’ll think I did it on purpose. You know, to—”

      “You have to tell him!”

      “I’m thinking, maybe—maybe if I, you know, didn’t have it, then he wouldn’t feel—” She shuddered. “Trapped. Whatever.”

      Rose held her arms. “I’ve been praying to get pregnant again. I was going to have our last one here, shore tour, it would be easy. Then I had a miscarriage. Les, it’s hell when you want one and you can’t.”

      “It’s kind of hell when you got one and you figure he doesn’t want it.” She searched Rose’s face. “I’m sorry I dumped my shit on you, and you’re—you got more reason to—”

      “No, no!” Rose laughed a little shakily. “I’m pregnant, too! If I can make it to three months, maybe this time it’ll be okay! Ten more days.”

      “Does Alan know?”

      “He’s been away, so busy, it’s just one more—” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s unlucky to tell him until I’m sure, you know?”

      The two women let their eyes meet, then put their arms around each other, laughing that partly mad laughter that is near tears.

      In a pool of white sunlight, five red tomatoes gleamed beside the bright blue bowl.

       6

      Mahe Naval Base, India

      They found chain-link fences behind the naval base’s buildings. Fences that had to be climbed. And there were five of them. And one was a woman with the upper-body strength of a child.

      Ong had to be helped from behind by Alan or Fidel and pulled to the top by Clavers, who made it in one graceful jump, grab, and swing. Fidel and Alan went over like monkeys. Benvenuto managed to get over by grabs and gasps, but it wasn’t pretty.

      “Whadya think?” Fidel said when the little group had made it over their third fence. They were huddling in a dumpster storage yard that smelled mostly of things that had been in the dumpsters too long.

      “I think the lieutenant’s about had it.”

      Ong was collapsed on a stack of wooden pallets, her head in her hands, saying “I can’t” and weeping.

      “We need some fucking guns.” Fidel said it as if guns would get Ong over the fences faster. The words were not quite out when a man with a gun stepped around a dumpster fifty feet away. He was eighteen or nineteen, thin, in Indian naval working dress. He had an AK-47 and there was no way to tell what side of this strange conflict he was on.

      Fidel raised his right arm and shot him. Just like that. Alan would have sworn Fidel hadn’t had time to aim.

      “Jesus, Fidel—”

      “You wait to ask who he is, you die.” Fidel was already over the body, the AK in one hand, the other ripping through pockets for extra clips. He found one, then another. “That shot’ll bring shit down on us, Jesus—” Other gunshots were still popping out on the street, but nothing close by.

      He tossed Alan the CZ and bent over the boy’s body again, looking for more ammunition, but his head was up to watch the place where the boy had first appeared. Alan went to the corner of the dumpster and looked around it, finding nothing. Above them, the wall of the building was window-less for four storeys; above that, a single row of floor-to-ceiling windows ran the entire width. VIP country, he thought. He supposed the building had something to do with the dumpsters—maintenance, or facilities and grounds. Would those people be involved in a mutiny? Could the building be a safe haven for Americans?

      Fidel backed himself against another dumpster twenty feet away. He pointed at Alan, then at the space that he could see and Alan couldn’t. The finger pointed again at Alan: You—go!

      Alan went around the corner of the iron dumpster, the CZ ready, took in at a glance that they were between two rows of dumpsters, five on each side, and he raced to the next one and sheltered there, looked back and nodded at Fidel, who ran forward. So they made their way up the rows, covering each other, until they reached the third pair. Alan was leaning against the sun-warmed metal, Fidel just signaled to come on, when a brown hand splayed itself against the edge of the dumpster opposite. Fidel was already running.

      Black hair appeared by the hand, then a face, brown eyes like a deer’s, young and feminine. The boy tried to swing a weapon into position; Alan had time to see that it was a bolt-action rifle, and then he fired the CZ, shooting on instinct as he had been taught—index finger along the side of the pistol, third finger on the trigger.

      Point and shoot.

      An astonished expression replaced the fear on the young face, and the kid screamed. He had been hit just below the collarbone on the right side. Then Fidel was there blocking Alan’s view, and the AK was hammering, and it was over.

      Alan found himself looking at two bodies. The smell of blood was sickening, lush, warm. Twitching, the two boys lay on the violated earth, dirt impregnated with broken glass and bolts and hard plastic knobs that stuck out like bones, blood on them now. “Jesus Christ, Fidel!” Alan said. “They’re kids.”

      “You think I’m fucking proud of it?!”

      “We don’t have to kill everybody we see!”

      Fidel’s