The Reckoning by Jeff Long Page A

Thunder, too low to hear, vibrated the window in the frame. The glass buzzed like locusts.
    The typhoon qualified for a name, an Asian name for a change, Mekkhala, Thai for Angel of Thunder. It was only the coming monsoon’s daily grumble, but everyone tied to it the angel’s thunder. The restaurant owner had sheets of wood ready to protect his expensive windows. The glass vibrated again. It would come soon.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Molly said.
    Kleat wasn’t prepared for that. His eyes seemed to crouch. “Tell it to the captain.”
    â€œI mean about your brother,” she said.
    The stub of cigar flared.
    â€œI hope you find him someday.”
    â€œBecause you know how it feels?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œNot your orphan story,” he said. “Again.”
    This was a mistake. “Forget it,” she said.
    â€œNo, really. Sharing losses while you gave them haircuts? You think that made you part of the team? We came to locate soldiers.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œMolly,” he said. “Your mother was just some hippie chick.”
    â€œEnough,” Duncan muttered.
    â€œWhy?” said Kleat. “I’m curious. You make me wonder, both of you. We didn’t come together by accident. We draw up the dead for a reason. It was a rough, dirty, hot toilet of a month. You suffered for this.”
    â€œWe all suffered,” said Duncan.
    â€œBut the thing is, you didn’t have to. I need to be here. And the captain and his team, we have a duty to perform. Not you, though.”
    Duncan shrugged. “Just lending a hand.”
    â€œThe boys have waited long enough.”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œYou talk like it was your war.”
    â€œWrong address, friend.” Duncan flashed a peace sign.
    â€œTell me, sitting on your campus back then, were they all just fools to you?”
    â€œNot a single one of them. I’m only saying that it wasn’t my war. I wasn’t here.”
    â€œAnd yet here you are,” said Kleat.
    â€œIn the flesh.”
    â€œOf all places.”
    Duncan gestured at the glorious river. He took a deep lungful of the air, and Molly smelled it, too, the scent of bougainvillea as thick as hash smoke. “It grows on you,” he said.
    â€œI didn’t mean the territory in general. I was talking about our little dig. Where you had no real business. Professionally speaking.”
    â€œProfessionally speaking,” Duncan agreed, “no business at all.”
    â€œGetting right with God? The old pacifist burying old warriors?”
    â€œThat must be it,” said Duncan.
    â€œAnd you?” Kleat said, turning to Molly. Duncan wouldn’t fight him, maybe she would. “Do you mind me asking?”
    How could she mind? She was an inquisitor herself. “Go ahead.”
    â€œJust to connect the dots, you know. We’ve got a soldier, my brother,” he opened one hand, then the other, “and your mother. A suicide.”
    She blinked at his malice. “I never used that word.”
    Kleat considered his cigar, one of the captain’s Havanas. “She parks her baby with a friend, leaves twelve bucks and a week’s worth of cat food. Then takes a hit of LSD and wanders off into a blizzard. That is what you told us.”
    â€œNot like that, I didn’t.”
    Not until it came time to fill out her college application forms had Molly learned that she was adopted. She had taken it hard. She’d actually made her parents—her stepparents—apologize. Then she’d run off to hunt for her birth mother. Over the coming years, she had changed to her mother’s maiden name, and her sleuthing skills led to journalism. That was her point in telling the soldiers on the recovery team, to identify where she came from, not to infiltrate them with a sob story.
    â€œSo you found her, and it made you whole,” Kleat said. He wanted blood.
    â€œIt took me