Trial By Fire

“I bet you do. Any mitigating factors before I pass judgment, Cadet?”

The teenaged cadet considered his résumé. “Well, I am captain of the rifle team at the academy.”

Bolan perked an eyebrow. “NRA Whistler Boy High-Power Junior Team Match?”

The sack of chicken bones Cadet Rudipu called a chest swelled with pride. “This will be my second year, Sergeant.”

Bolan nodded. “Never met a rifleman I didn’t like, Rude.”

Rudipu beamed. “Yes, Sergeant! Thank you, Sergeant! I’ll make you proud of me, Sergeant! I promise I will!”

“No one likes the squad cocksucker, Rude.”

Rudipu snapped back to attention. “No, Sergeant!”

Bolan turned back to face the line. “All right, I want—”

“Hey!” Metard’s outrage boiled over. “How come everyone else gets cool names and me and Jovich’s suck?”

King held his peace on that one. Jovich stepped away from Metard like he was radioactive.

Bolan rounded on Metard. “Because they know when to have themselves a tall frosty STFU when certain others I can name ran their mouths.”

Metard’s face flushed scarlet.

Bolan regarded the cadet like something he had just scraped off his shoe. “You want another nickname, Meatwad? You earn it. You read me?”

Metard shook with impotent rage.

“I asked you a question!” Bolan bellowed.

“Yes, Sergeant!”

“Yes, what?”

“I read you, Sergeant!”

Bolan took a few steps back and eyed his squad. “You have questions. Let me answer ninety percent of them right now. I am the angry god of your universe. You will do what I say when I say it. You are cadets, in training to become officers in the United States Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. I expect you to act like it. Do those two things, and you might just live through this. I hope that clears things up.”

The eight cadets stared at Bolan in a mixture of shock and awe.

Bolan glanced up at the sinking sun. “We need to do distance, but given the nature of the situation, I am going to allow each of you to ask me one question, once. After that, every last question had better be pertinent and about survival. Now. Go.”

The cadets glanced around at one another. Johnson raised his hand.

“This isn’t the classroom, Hammer. We’re in the jungle. We don’t raise our hands. We don’t have the time.”

Johnson nodded. “Sorry, Sarge, I just—” Johnson suddenly balked at his own temerity. “I mean, may I call you Sarge, Sergeant?”

“If it’ll speed things up.”

Johnson gazed on Metard with cold pleasure. “Well, I don’t want a new nickname or anything, Sarge, but I’m with Meatwad. I mean, what’s going on? Don’t get me wrong, you are super-bad, but, like, where are the choppers and Navy SEALs and shit?”

“There are no choppers. There are no Navy SEALs and shit. There are no carriers or special operations teams currently in range. Don’t hold your breath waiting for them. All you have is each other and me.”

Jovich eyed Bolan warily.

“You got something to say Jock-itch?” Bolan asked.

“We’re American citizens. Our plane got shot down. I mean, why isn’t anyone coming?”

Bolan looked around the squad. “Anyone know why not?”

It was Johnson who spoke. “Because all modern U.S. administrations have had a reluctance to have American soldiers shooting black Africans.”

Bolan nodded. “And?”

“And neither the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Sudan or anyone else has authorized the United States to send military flights over their airspace, much less Egypt, Libya or any other North African countries, and the DRC sure as hell hasn’t given Uncle Sam permission to mount a military rescue mission within its borders.”

“You just made squad leader, Hammer.”

Johnson seemed to have mixed emotions about the promotion. “Thanks, Sarge.”

Eischen gave Bolan an appraising look. “So, who are you?”

“I don’t know, Ace, you tell me.”

Cadet Eischen continued to maintain his positive attitude. “Expendable, deniable and…super-bad?”

“Something like that.”

The truth was dawning on Metard. “So who sent you?”

“You tell me.”

Cadet Shelby addressed the five-hundred-pound gorilla in the camp. “He’s here because you’re the son of a United States senator, Meatwad.”

Metard reappraised Bolan. “My father sent you?”

Bolan locked eyes with the prize. “I wasn’t sent. I was begged.”

Metard flinched.

“Your father is a senior United States senator and a war hero. When you went missing, he called in every marker he had. Then he begged the President of the United States—your soon-to-be commander in chief, assuming you live that long—for his son’s life. The powers that be begged me. I said yes.”

Metard cast his eyes down.

Hudjak frowned. “So if there are no carriers in range, where did you come from?”