Page 87 of Head Room
I followed the new thread.“Is your brother—?”
“Here?No.He’s...right.”
My chest felt like a big hand squeezed my heart.
His brother wasright.What did that make him?
Sometimes you can show your reactions.This wasn’t one of those times.He’d shy away from sympathy.The older man might, too, even vicariously.
I backtracked to ask a safer question, “What is FMT?”
“Financial Management Technologist.”
“What’s that?”
“MOS 36B.”
“What’s that?”
“Military Occupational Specialty — MOS.”
I was not askingWhat’s that?again.I applied silence.
The older man gave way, though not right away.
“Thirty-six B is an Army designation — we’re all Army here now.Used to have a couple Navy guys.They’re gone.Nance, he worked with the financial side.Payments and such.Moved around some.Worked on soldiers’ pay, compensating vendors, computers and tech stuff,” he said.
That didn’t sound hugely dangerous.
As if he’d heard my thought, the second guy said, “Deployed.”
His more talkative elder said, “Yeah.And where he was, it was all hands-on-deck, if you’ll excuse the expression—”
Took a beat to realize he meant its naval origins required an apology.
“—said it messed with him that he could be helping a local in their currency one minute and facing them over a gun on security patrol the next.”
“Did he and Sergeant Jardos talk about financial matters?”
“In a way, they did.”
“In what way?”I kept most of the impatience out of that.
“We’re putting together a deal for land we can share.The sergeant’s been working on it.When Nance came back, he was real curious about how the sergeant’s approaching it.”
“Curious about what aspects?”
“Didn’t say.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“Figured we’d find out what he had in mind if anything came of it.Still had the sergeant working on it.”
The younger one didn’t say anything, but shifted his feet.He recognized that with Jardos gone, their plan had sprung a leak.
“How did the sergeant react to Nance’s curiosity?”
“Don’t know.Between them,” the older man said.
