A USMC Captain Asked Her Call Sign As A Joke At The Bar — "REAPER TEN" Made Every Marine Stand Up
Chapter 10
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
The carved name Kane H. Westmore on the Marine Raider Memorial Wall at Stone Bay holds the bottom of the third panel from the left.The audience knows now what the bar does not.The bar came back: the dust was sodium light again; the shrapnel was the felt of the bar wood under her hand; the wound under her palm was the polished glass.Whitlock had set his green pocket notebook down on the wood and slid it toward Rivera. He turned square to her: he had decided he would physically remove her from the bar before the MPs arrived—that way, the sworn statement would read cleaner; the notebook would help in court; the phone would help in front of the camera; the patrol unit out front would help when the MPs arrived and saw him standing over her with one hand on her elbow."Ma'am, on your feet. You are leaving with me to the patrol unit out front. We are not waiting on a CAC anymore. Get up."She did not move. Sip. Set.He grabbed her left shoulder with his right hand and pulled. Her body moved an inch and a half before she settled weight into the stool legs and stopped moving. He pulled again, harder. Nothing. The shoulder under his hand was not the shoulder of a civilian; the shoulder was a wall."Get up." The second word he lost control of.Hourigan turned her head, looked at him directly for the first time, and smiled—not warmth, not mockery: the smile of a woman who has just decided the trap is closed; the smile of a captain who has counted four hostiles in a courtyard and one in a doorway and decided which door she would breach; the smile of a major who had stood at the memorial wall at Stone Bay every spring for seven springs, read the same name on the third panel from the left, and walked away.Brim read it from 12 feet away; Brim stepped back two full strides toward the door. Bowers in the back booth read it half a second later and stood; Sherid stood. The contract welder reached for his ball cap and took it off. The three regulars in the corner stopped the dominoes mid-tile. The waitress at the kitchen pass set her tray down a second time and did not pick it up. The dishwasher in the kitchen turned off the spray nozzle.Rivera read it last. Rivera did not step back: Rivera was still trying to fit what he was seeing into the story his captain had been narrating; Rivera was still trying to write the caption for the post he had not yet published. Rivera was 25 years old; Rivera was going to lose his career in the next six minutes, and was the only person in the bar who did not yet know it."Sit down, Captain." Three syllables—the same three from earlier. The voice had not changed.