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“Ms. Julia Duffy,” he finished for her. “And you’re hardly just a reporter, ma’am. You’d probably be as famous as Mr. Davidson here, at a guess. Almost as rich, too.”
“Hardly,” she snorted.
“Yeah. I’m pretty fucking wealthy,” Davidson said with a twinkle in his eye. Ke
“Well, you wouldn’t be here if my dad didn’t think much of your money,” Ke
“But your father couldn’t care less about my breeding, right?”
“Not much, no. And you, Ms. Duffy, I’ve seen a couple of newspaper owners here tonight, but no reporters, other than you. Are you working, or is this just a bit of sightseeing for you?”
She cocked an eyebrow at him, one of the most sexually suggestive gestures he’d ever seen. He suddenly felt a little guilty, although for what reason, he had no idea. He threw a furtive glance over her bare shoulders, looking for Ali.
“Well, I haven’t pumped you about your plans for the future, so I guess I must be here for the pleasure of the company,” she said.
Ke
“Yeah,” he deadpa
Off on the horizon, shooting stars zipped across the sky.
“Cap’n, boat’s away, sir.”
“Thanks, Chief. Let’s hold our position for now.”
“Aye.”
Ke
The deck hardly moved beneath his feet, so calm was the sea that night. He could hear the muted putter of the marines’ little boat as it carried them away from the bulk of the Arma
And this particular piece of real estate needed checking out.
The water jets were so incredibly quiet compared with an old-fashioned outboard motor that less disciplined troops might have been tempted to ride them much closer in to shore. But Gu
The island bobbed very gently up and down in their night vision goggles as they drew closer.
De
Jones’s people had some great toys in the Zone. Better even than the AT stuff his Force Recon company had been issued at the start of the year. And their stuff was way better than the new gear the rest of the corps was packing nowadays. You’d think everyone would be able to just get along, rather than wasting time and energy that could be more profitably spent killing Japs, but no. Being a simple noncom, De
De
What a buncha fucking baloney.
Did he give a rat’s ass if General Jones was as black as a fucking eggplant?
Nope. All he cared about was getting his guys onto this island, and off again in one piece with whatever information they might find there. And in his opinion-even though it was just the opinion of a lowly noncom-they were that much more likely to get out of this with their asses intact because of the week he’d spent in the Zone, playing with those amazing holobloc machines. Without ever having set foot on the island, he already knew it intimately.
And if there did turn out to be Japs hiding there, for sure they woulda built a bunch of stuff like tu
As De
Not in backwaters like this, at any rate.
There’d been some other stuff he’d seen out there, too. Stuff that woulda turned his shit white a few years earlier, before he got into the corps and saw a bit of the world. The little coal-mining town where he grew up didn’t run to strip joints or porno houses or “dope cafйs.” And you never ever saw white folks mixing with anyone other than their own kind. Or ladies walking around with their asses hanging out of such short skirts and their tits bursting out of such tight tops.
He’d really wanted to write his brother about it, but he knew the old man would rip up the letter as soon as he saw it. His dad was a much more formidable censor than the corps. Small-town preachers tended to be a little judgmental and censorious like that.
A slight breeze picked up, bringing with it the unmistakable smell of landfall ahead of them. His nostrils twitched at the stench of rotting vegetation, of smoke, and-he was certain-of cooking.
De
He turned around to face his men and used a series of hand signals to tell them that the island was occupied.