Kilo-61 (Damned of the 2/19th Book 19)- Ongoing

The Engine Still Works...

Stillwater Home
328 Ridgeway Drive
Astoria, Oregon
United States of America
17 Feb, 2002
1000 Hours

The kitchen was quiet as I watched Kincaid eat, shoving forkfull after forkfull of omelet into his mouth, washing it down with ice cold orange juice. Both of us were wearing flannel pajamas, both of us with pistols on the table. Kincaid ate like a starving man, ripping through two omeletes, each of them six eggs, milk, tomato, peppers, bacon, onions, and other condiments, as well as over a dozen pieces of bacon and two thick slices of butter-fried ham.

Heather was still asleep, curled up on her side and covered with the down comforter. I'd taken my morning medication when I woke up, read the newspapers, paying attention to the international affairs section, while sipping coffee. Plenty of cream and sugar, just like I'd liked it. I'd only slept a handful of hours, but that was something the VA was still working on fixing. They'd told me that sleeping only 3-5 hours a night was putting a strain on my system, but I still felt fine.

It's not like men in my family lived past 50 anyhow. The Sergeant Major had been an outlier case.

When Kincaid had taken a shower I'd started making breakfast, now everything was put away, the shushing sound of the dishwasher the only noise in the dining room. Finally he was finished, taking the dish over to the sink and rinsing it off before making a cup of coffee and sitting down.

"This an official visit?" I asked him.

He shrugged and picked up his Zippo, snapping the lid three times rapidly. "I don't know, shit's all fucked up," he admitted. I slid my pack of cigarettes to him and he lit one. Again, he couldn't click the lighter top once, he did it three times.

...interesting...

"OK, why did one of the Big-13 send Alphabet Boys to my house in the middle of the night," I asked him, lighting one of my own then leaning over to crack the window.

He shook his head, "You've got a lot of information in that skull of your's, Sergeant, and right now, it's suddenly important again. I think they were Department of Energy."

I tilted my head slightly and squinted my one good eye at him. "The DoE? What the fuck do they want with me?"

He sipped at his coffee again, gathering his thoughts. "Since nine-eleven all the Big-13 have undergone massive restructuring, including something called Homeland Defense shaking up out of assets and infrastructure of existing agencies."

I nodded at that. "Read about it in the papers. Figured that it's a bunch of monkeys trying to fuck a football while everyone protects their own empires and tries to gain control of a new agency."

"It's supposed to be the central clearing house for all intel, both domestic and overseas," He said.

I laughed at that. "Yeah, that's gonna fucking work. People will goddamn eat the intel if they have to rather than share it even with another section in their own goddamn agency."

He shrugged, "Well, 9-11 happened, and suddenly some powerful people realized that a very big mistake had been made."

I made the go-ahead motion as I got up to make myself another cup of coffee. Out of habit I stared at the strip of LED's set into the wooden frame beside the coffee maker. All green. Nothing had tripped the thermal sensors on the property.

Cold War paranoia. I trusted Kincaid, but didn't trust who might be behind him.

"Turns out that a lot of stuff that was gotten rid of during the Clinton administration might suddenly be important to the people in power."

I knew what he was talking about, and he was my friend, but I was still going to force him to say it.

"So how does that involve me? Everything I was involved in was useless when the Soviet Union went tits up. There was no need for any of that shit any more," I turned and faced him. "I'm surprised that they didn't scrap the entire US nuclear arsenal." I knew I was snarling and didn't care. "They sure as shit decommissioned Black Briar Ridge and all of Special Weapons fast enough."