Seven.
Nice of Malita to write. The letter was mostly of Amalee's do ings and development and included a clipping from the Kings-ton Current, describing the exploits of Jamaica's "Corsairs" off the coast of Cuba.
Nothing from Hank in school-Valentine had made a call to make sure he still was in school. He was just getting to be that age where a boy notices all the interesting ways nature arranges for girls to be put together.
Molly wrote him as well. He had three letters from her, increasingly worried as the months of last summer went by.
He found a dry piece of bar and penned her a reassuring reply.
There was one more letter to write. It had to be carefully phrased. Narcisse up in St. Louis would have to tell Blake that there wouldn't be a visit this year. He'd have to see about sending a Christmas present.
It was hard to read Blake. Valentine still didn't know if Blake had strong feelings about him one way or another. Blake was always interested in new stuff. Was a visit from "Papa" a break from his usual routine and therefore a source of happiness, or was it more?
Valentine shouldn't have been this tired. Maybe he was slowing down with age. He hadn't bounced back from the beating he took outside Ladyfair's little cooperative. Served him right for continuing to wander from office to office and warehouse to warehouse, hunting up help for Kentucky and his old stored gear and their resident ghosts and memories.
David Valentine even had the dubious honor of a trip back to Southern Command's new GHQ at Consul Solon's old executive mansion atop Big Rock Hill to plead Kentucky's case with the outgoing commander in chief. One way or another, much of Solon's late-model communications gear survived or could be easily repaired, and old "Post One" didn't lack for office space and conference rooms.
The southern half of the hilltop, the old final trenches and dugouts, had filled in and greened over since being churned to mud by big-caliber rounds. The consular golf course was back in operation, and the red brick of the former college a beehive of clerks and radio techs. New, giant radio masts had sprouted both on Big Rock Hill.
They had stared at his cuts and bruises and listened politely but briefly. A few made noises about thanking him for his efforts in Kentucky. He endured another quick debriefing where he told the same story he told in Jonesboro with the same outcome.
It was time to take them back to Kentucky.
His efforts in Jonesboro and Little Rock hadn't been completely in vain. They'd given him the hatchet man team of "replacement" NCOs and a shipping manifest of materiel being loaded on a barge, though how Southern Command thought he'd get a barge all the way up the Ohio to Evansville was the sort of detail they had been vague on. When he asked, they said someone was "working the problem" and he could meet the barge at Backwater Pete's.
The manifest looked promising. Uniforms, or at least fabric to make uniforms. Cases of weapons. Explosives. Even recreational and educational materials for the new recruits.
Even more reassuring was the vessel and captain listed on the manifest. Whichever logistics officer they'd put in charge of "working the problem" knew his or her business.
Valentine had last seen the barge tied up on the Arkansas when Consul Solon was still running the Trans-Mississippi from his network of numbered posts. Valentine led his six new charges to the foot of the gangway and called up to the anchor watch.
"Permission to book a travel warrant?" Valentine asked the rumpled deckhand on watch, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The deckhand sauntered off to get the captain.
Captain Mantilla may have changed since Valentine last met him during Solon's brief hold on the Ozarks and Ouachitas. Valentine's memory of the man had diffused like a rewetted watercolor. But as the captain approached, Valentine noted the mat of hair and the quick, flashing glances that weren't suspicious, just indicative of a busy man with a lot on his mind-yes, it was him.
He stood there in gray overalls bearing a camouflage moire of grease stains and a formerly white but now weather-beaten ivory skipper hat riding the back of his head as though bored with the job. Thick bodied with a bit of a pot, he still looked like a fireplug with a seven-day beard and a couple arms hanging off it.
"Have to ask my passenger," Mantilla said. "I expect she won't mind."
"Passenger? Since when do passengers give orders to captains?"
"Her charter." Mantilla jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
Valentine was shocked to see Dots-Colonel Lambert, officially-looking lost in a big patrol coat and a hat with the earflaps turned down, and fiddling with her dunnage as if deciding what to have handy and what to store below.
Valentine wondered if she was traveling not so much incognito as low-key, a simple officer looking for transport. Probably on her way to meet a Cat and a Bear team looking to raise hell in Mississippi.
"Sir," Valentine said, saluting. "I'm told this boat's headed for the Mississippi."
"Valentine!" Lambert said, brightening. "Not going back already?"
"Afraid so. Javelin needs these replacements. You'll take priority, of course. I'll go on once he's dropped you downriver."
Lambert cocked her head. Her usual brisk manner was gone; she looked like a traveler who'd missed a bus. Little fissures explored her formerly vital, cheerleader-smooth skin from the corners of her eyes and mouth.
"I think we're at cross purposes, Major. I'm joining your command. I'm headed to Evansville as well."
"Is there a new . . . operation?" Stupid words-she no doubt had to keep quiet.