There Will Be Killing by John Hart Page B

standing and the 99KO hadn’t been blown to bits with the freaked out head cases strapped to their beds, what the shrinks called “morning rounds” would be over before he could get there.
    Fine, he’d rather avoid the psych unit anyway, see what they had going at the Camp McDermott clinic instead. And, if Kelly and Moskowitz weren’t there due to some early deployment in body bags, compliments of last night’s fireworks from the VC?
    Such was the way of the Tao. Death, like life, was the natural order of the universe. And, even if he discounted the ancient Chinese philosophy he’d studied for years in confines fit for a priest, The Byrds said as much in the lyrics they lifted from a biblical passage that his mother had read to him once.
    J.D. let himself remember her for a moment. Then he let her go, free as the owls they had hooted back at one hot summer night.
    Turn. Turn. Turn.
    That’s how it worked no matter where you came from, no matter when you went.

6

    The sun threw glitter off the crystal blue sea and the asphalt shimmied up heat waves as Gregg steered the jeep down Highway One towards the out-patient clinic at Camp McDermott.
    Izzy glanced over at Gregg. “You doing okay?”
    â€œHanging in there, thanks. How about you?”
    â€œI ate breakfast and didn’t throw it up.”
    â€œThat’s good, Izzy. Real good.”
    â€œSo was not seeing J.D. this morning. Maybe he decided he didn’t need us.”
    â€œThat would be even better than waking up between Raquel Welch and Ann Margret.”
    â€œThrow all the Bond girls in there, too.”
    The normalcy of their conversation seemed so bizarre after the horrors of the past twenty-four hours Izzy wondered if they were both having some kind of delayed reaction to trauma.
    Even if delayed, he would take it. Besides keeping breakfast down his hands had only acted up once all morning, and that was owed to a certain head nurse—the stunning Captain Margie Kennedy—who had made it her business to take him aside before morning rounds. Her quick visual inspection felt like a strip search and her voice slid over him like hot honey saying, “Don’t bullshit me, I’ll know if you do. I heard what happened at HQ yesterday. Are you all right?”
    Despite near perfect recall, he didn’t specifically remember what he said to Margie, mostly because his attention was on the sensory domino fall from her palms to his shoulders to south of that, but his response made her smile, and her smile—just this beautiful, transcendent smile she had—made him think of sex and thinking about sex made him feel better about life in general. At least until he thought of Rachel and her precious letters, and then the guilt kicked in. He probably should have felt even guiltier but he was just so damn grateful to still be alive with all his essential body parts intact and a hard-on to prove it.
    It went away soon enough, though. All it took was a single introduction to Major Donald Peck, the other psychiatrist Gregg had warned him about.
    Gregg turned the wheel and what must be Camp McDermott came into sight down the road.
    â€œYou said that Nikki is Margie’s roommate, and Peck is seeing Nikki?” Izzy just wanted the Nikki-Peck thing confirmed again. Uh-huh .
    â€œYeah, who needs General Hospital back home when we have our own soap here?”
    â€œWe had plenty of drama going on behind the scenes at Columbia, too. Peck actually reminds me of one of the doctors on the Board of Directors.” Izzy never thought he would miss that prima donna bastard but. . . nah, he still didn’t. “Really nice guy,” he deadpanned.
    â€œA paragon of compassion, just like our dear Doctor Peck, huh?”
    â€œOh, absolutely, though I have to say today was the first time I ever saw a doctor try not to snicker while a patient was being strapped down. What is he, some kind of