Richard Lemington, Part 4

Diyala Province, Iraq November 2010

The heat didn't break when the sun dropped. It simply settled, heavy and stale, baking off the concrete barriers and parched earth until the night air felt like breathing through a wet wool blanket.

Richard shifted on the camp cot, the metal frame groaning beneath his weight, and rubbed the back of his neck.

His shoulder felt normal. No throbbing pain, no stiffness, nothing to suggest that a few hours earlier an AK-47 had been fired at him from barely three feet away. He could still remember the impact, the brutal concussion of the muzzle blast, the sudden tearing of fabric, and that split-second drop in his stomach when the world had seemed to stop.

He'd been lucky.

That was the only explanation that made any sense.

He must have twisted at the last possible moment. A fraction of an inch, perhaps. Enough to turn what should have been a serious wound into a graze. Pure instinct, a fortunate angle, and a generous helping of the ridiculous luck Tom never stopped taking the piss out of him for.

Richard rubbed his shoulder once more before letting his hand fall.

Whatever had happened, he was alive. There was no point sitting around wondering about it.

He swung his legs over the side of the cot, the grit of desert sand grinding beneath his boots. The CHU was quiet, save for the low, rhythmic hum of the air-conditioning unit struggling against the furnace outside and the muffled, alcoholic snoring of Tom two bunks down.

Ling was probably still out checking maintenance logs or finding some other task that needed doing before anyone else had thought to ask. Richard could almost hear her telling him that keeping busy was preferable to sitting around feeling sorry for himself.

He wasn't feeling sorry for himself.

Just restless.

He reached up and switched on the small battery-powered lantern hanging from the ceiling beam. Its sickly yellow glow illuminated the cramped container, picking out the scuffed metal lockers, discarded boots and tangled mess of equipment that four men and women had somehow managed to squeeze into a space barely fit for two.

Richard sat at the wobbly plywood desk and pulled a dog-eared notepad and a faded blue pen from his rucksack.

Then he stopped.

Mama.

A faint, tired smile touched his mouth.

He could picture her back in Monona, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of black tea, the local paper spread before her. She would pretend to read it, but every time the telephone rang or a car door slammed outside, her attention would snap towards the sound.

She'd been relentless about his letters from the moment he'd left for training.

Send me everything, Richard. Every scrap. Every silly little thing.

At eighteen, he'd put it down to ordinary maternal paranoia, mixed with the old-country superstitions she'd carried across the Atlantic. Her boy had traded a Wisconsin backyard for an Army uniform, and she wanted proof that the world hadn't swallowed him whole.

She wanted to know about the food, the weather, his fellow soldiers, and whether he was sleeping properly. If he scraped a knee, she wanted to hear about it. If he fell off a wall, she wanted to hear about that, too.

And if the universe decided to smile on him in some absurd, inexplicable way, she wanted that story as well.

To her, it was something to talk about at the salon.

To him, it was a tether. A small, familiar connection to the woman who still saw the boy who used to chase dragonflies beside the garden pond.

He clicked the pen. The sharp plastic sound seemed ridiculously loud in the quiet container.

Then he began to write.

Mama,

The heat here is still ridiculous, even after dark. We got back from a quick operation a few hours ago, a standard clearing job out near Baqubah. Everything went smoothly, although things got a little tight inside the target building for a hot second.

He paused, the pen hovering above the paper.

He didn't tell her about the real close calls. Not the mortars that had bracketed their position the previous month, not the ambush in the alleyway, and certainly not the moment an insurgent had opened fire at point-blank range.

There were some things a mother didn't need to know.

Besides, he could hardly write that he'd been shot at close range, emerged with little more than a graze, and had no idea how he'd managed it.

She'd never sleep again.

He leaned back, considered the page, then continued.

I had a clumsy moment during a building clearance. Caught my sleeve on a jagged bit of metal and tore the bloody thing open. Tom made a right fuss, convinced I'd done some serious damage, but it turned out to be little more than a graze. Nothing worth worrying about.

Richard snorted softly.

Tom would have a fit if he ever read that. The man had seen the whole thing and would insist Richard was leaving out the important bits.

Which, technically, he was.

Between the dust storms wrecking my kit and Tom drinking himself stupid whenever we get time off, I'm beginning to think my guardian angel is working overtime. Either that or someone upstairs owes me a favour.

Ling and I are keeping the team in line, more or less. Tom is doing his best to lower the standard of military professionalism, and Wilcox remains Wilcox. Nothing new there.

He paused again, thinking of home.

Tell me everything is quiet back in Monona. How's the house? Has that oak tree in the front yard finally dropped all its leaves, or is it still making a mess for you to clean up?

I miss home, Mama. More than I probably say.

He stared at that last sentence for a moment before adding the words he'd written at the end of every letter since leaving Wisconsin.

Love you,

Richard.

He set the pen down and read the letter from beginning to end. It sounded ordinary enough. A little heat, a little work, a few complaints about Tom, and the usual nonsense about his apparently supernatural talent for avoiding trouble.

Nothing to worry her.

Nothing that would make her sit awake at three in the morning, staring at the telephone and wondering whether the next call would bring news she couldn't bear to hear.

Richard folded the page neatly and slipped it into an envelope. He licked the seal, pressed it closed and placed it beside his rucksack. He'd drop it into the unit's mail pouch at headquarters in the morning, before the sun climbed high enough to turn the whole base into an oven.

Then he leaned back in the chair and rubbed his eyes against the sting of the lantern light.

Thousands of miles separated him from the little kitchen where his mother would probably be sitting when the letter arrived, a cup of tea cooling beside her, reading his words more carefully than he could imagine.

He hoped the letter would make her smile.

He hoped she'd believe him when he said he was fine and, most of all, he hoped she wouldn't read between the lines. Because the truth was, Richard didn't know why he kept walking away from things that should have left him broken.

He only knew that, somehow, he always did and as far as he was concerned, that was just luck.

----------‐----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The harsh buzz of the fluorescent lights tore Richard out of a heavy sleep.

For a disorienting second, the concrete walls and the stale stink of sulphur and old bleach felt entirely wrong. Not a barracks. Not a CHU. Not home.

Then the memories came crashing back in a brutal, jagged wave: Pai-Bridge, the arched iron framework of the bridge, Ling's cold warning, the smashed furniture, and the frantic flash of red and blue lights as the local police closed in.

He rubbed the grit from his eyes, his muscles instinctively tensing.

"Urrh." He pushed himself upright on the thin, stained mattress.

"You." A sharp voice barked from the corridor.

Richard looked up to see the duty officer standing beyond the rusted bars, keys jangling impatiently against an iron ring.

"You've posted bail."

Richard frowned, wiping a hand over his face. "Bail? But that magistrate set it sky-high. Wasn't he trying to make an example of me?"

The officer rapped his knuckles against the bars.

"I don't know, and I don't care. The money's been paid, the paperwork's done, and my shift ended twenty minutes ago. Up. Come on. I haven't got all night."

Richard swung his legs over the edge of the mattress, his boots hitting the cold concrete with a dull thud. The transition from the suffocating desert heat of Diyala to the damp, fluorescent glare of an American jail cell felt like a fractured jump between two different lives.

His instincts didn't miss a beat. His muscles remained tense, ready to move, even as the heavy iron gate clanked open with a long, protesting screech.

Richard half-shuffled towards the corridor, the officer following close behind. They stopped at the intake counter, where another officer waited with a stack of paperwork.

"Name?"

"Richard Lemington."

"Lemington?" The booking officer checked the screen. "I've got a Richard Sokolov here."

"Sorry. Richard Sokolov."

"Date of birth?"

"October twentieth, nineteen eighty-nine."

The officer nodded and placed a manila envelope on the scarred laminate counter. Loose change, a cinema stub, a toll ticket and Richard's faithful Casio watch spilled across the surface.

"Check it. Make sure everything's there."

Richard counted the items before looking up. "What about my sword?"

"Sword?" The officer flipped through the intake log, running a finger down the page. "One sword, silver-hilted, retained as evidence."

"Evidence?"

"That's what the paperwork says."

Richard considered arguing. Then he looked at the officer's expression and decided his sword could wait.

"Sign here," the booking officer said, pushing the paperwork towards him.

Richard signed.

"You're free to go," the officer continued. "You'll receive notice of your hearing date. You must attend. If you don't, the court can issue a warrant for your arrest. You're also subject to the release conditions listed here. Read them before you leave, and make sure you understand them."

Richard took the papers. "That's it?"

The officer stared at him. "That's it. You're free to go."

Richard gathered his belongings, slid his watch onto his wrist and tucked the envelope under his arm. He'd faced worse things than a jail cell. He just had a feeling this wasn't over.

---

Richard pushed through the heavy glass door and stepped out into the blinding glare of the Indiana morning sun, squinting against the heat that was already rising off the pavement.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Leaning casually against the hood of a faded blue Prius parked right at the curb was Ling. Her arms were folded tight over her chest, her jaw locked, and the look in her eyes suggested she had spent the last three hours figuring out where to hide his body.

"You..." She pushed off the car, her boots snapping against the concrete as she marched straight up to him

"You absolute fucking idiot..." She didn't hesitate her hand came flying up in a sharp, open-palm strike aimed right for his chin.

Richard's military reflexes kicked in out of pure muscle memory; he leaned back half an inch, letting the slap whistle harmlessly past his cheek.

"What?" he asked, raising his hands.

"The house, you prick!"

"Oh, right. Look, about your-"

SMACK.

Her backhand swept back around before he could clear his stance, crackling against his jaw with enough force to turn his head.

"Ow!" Richard grunted, wincing as a dull sting spread across his face.

Ling stood there in the humid morning light, hand still raised, her chest heaving with cold rage. "That was for my house."

Richard rubbed his cheek, staring at her with genuine disbelief. "You know... a simple 'glad to see you out' would've worked."

"The house, Richard... my home. Ruby's home."

The sharp drop in her voice when she said Ruby's name cut through his sarcasm instantly. The faint smirk vanished from Richard's face, leaving him with nothing clever to say.

"Sorry," he muttered softly, looking down for a second. "I had to improvise."

"This isn't the time for your bloody jokes, Sokolov. Not the time." Ling shook her head, her breath hitching slightly before she locked her emotions back down. "If it weren't for the fact that Penny put up your bail money, you'd still be rotting in that concrete tank."

Richard's eyebrows shot up. "Penny posted my bail?"

"Yes, Richard. Penny. The nineteen-year-old girl you're supposed to be training."

He glanced back over his shoulder toward the precinct's tinted front windows, rubbing his jaw again as the gravity of it settled in.

"Right," he said quietly. "I'll pay her back. I'll thank her."

"You'll do a lot more than thank her," Ling snapped, pointing a finger straight at his chest.

Richard opened his mouth to offer a defense, thought about the smashed frame of her living room, and snapped his jaw shut.

Ling narrowed her eyes, watching him closely. "Did you just decide not to argue with me?"

"Trying something new."

"Try it more often. Now get in the car."