Final impact

Duffy shrugged. When she spoke it was in a disconnected monotone. “I was working with a Ranger squad on deep recon up near the Ardennes. We got tumbled, got the shit shot out of us. Then we got captured. They took all my equipment. Cuffed us. Put us into a truck. Next thing, we’re hopping out in some field full of SS guys, and I’ve got a bad fucking feeling. Sure enough, there’s about a platoon’s worth of American prisoners there. Long story short, they line us up and cut us down.”

Her eyes welled up again.

Halabi took a wadded-up tissue from her pocket and dabbed away the tears. “Well, they couldn’t have taken all your equipment. File tag says you took a bullet on the plating of your body armor. Saved your life.”

Duffy nodded. “Yeah. I was wearing a Bodyglove nanotube weave. With inserts. I guess the krauts don’t recognize quality when they shoot it.”

“Krauts, is it? You sound like a local, Jules.”

“Sorry. Going native is kind of an occupational hazard. I’ve been smoking Camels and thinking about fucking Betty Grable, too.”

She tried to shift herself up in the bed and winced, turning a little gray in the face. Halabi leaned down and helped settle her against a pillow.

“Thanks,” Duffy whispered. She took a few seconds to steady herself before nodding at the engagement and wedding rings Halabi was wearing. “I heard about you and the Texan,” she said, smiling weakly. “So what are you calling yourself nowadays? Captain Mrs. Michael Judge?”

“I’d smack you, but I might kill you,” Halabi said around a smirk. “But no. I kept my name. It’s quite the in-thing now, you know, for a young lady to keep her name. And I’m such a slave to fashion.”

Duffy closed her eyes as another wave of pain washed through her. “S’cool,” she croaked. “Just gimme a second.”

After a few moments she had it back under control again.

“Well, I’m glad for you, Karen. I interviewed your husband once. Out in the Zone. He was a good guy.”

“That Texan charm of his does work wonders on the ladies.”

Duffy seemed to set herself, like somebody about to lift a heavy weight. “It didn’t work out between Dan and me.”

“I heard.”

“Yeah. It was my fault-”

“Now, Jules, don’t-”

“No. It was. He was a great guy and I totally fucked it up with him. Jesus. What a fucking mess I’ve made.” She started to cry again.

Halabi perched on the edge of the bed. Despite the circumstances she appreciated having a contemporary-a true contemporary, not a ’temp-to talk with. She could relax with someone like Duffy in a way that just wasn’t possible even with a member of her crew. The closest thing she had to a female friend was Jane Willet on the Havoc, all the way off on the other side of the world. And they could only manage a personal e-mail every couple of weeks at best. Sometimes months went by without any contact.

She didn’t know Duffy nearly as well. Didn’t know her at all, really. They’d shared a pleasant enough evening at dinner a couple of years ago in Hawaii before the Trident left for home. Apart from that, she’d followed Duffy’s work for the Times, and once she’d done an e-mail interview with her for a brief profile in a series on “women warriors.” Given the isolation all the uptimers felt, however, that was enough to make them more than just acquaintances. It was a little like meeting a countryman in a strange foreign land.

“Look around, Jules. The whole world’s a fucking mess. An even bigger mess in some ways because we turned up. Our personal problems don’t really count, measured up against all that, do they? And at any rate, it’s not like you haven’t achieved anything since you arrived. Your readers love you. And in my opinion, off the record, you did your country a huge favor exposing Hoover the way you did.”

Duffy repaid her with a tentative look. It didn’t seem to sit comfortably on her face, and Halabi guessed that it was an unfamiliar expression for the reporter.

“You think?” she asked. “I took a lot of shit for that series. People saying I killed him. You had to read some of the fucking hate mail to believe it. I thought whack jobs like that were all a product of talk radio and Fox. Apparently not.”

“I hope you don’t blame yourself. You didn’t put the gun in his mouth, Julia. He did that, and pulled the trigger all on his own. My first commander used to call that sort of thing natural selection at work. As I read it, Hoover’s incompetence and sheer lunacy was largely to blame for the trouble the Yanks had catching those bombers who hit New York. If he’d been on the job like he was supposed to…”

Duffy’s eyelids fluttered with exhaustion and the heavy drug load she was carrying. “You seem very informed,” she said with a soft, cracked voice.