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Authors: Ralph Peters
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shifted.
“I’m told you were at VMI with Montfort,” Morris said. “All those secret handshakes. Any insights?”
“The noble and pious MOBIC corps commander . . .” A fly the size of a bomber brushed Harris’s nose. He waved it away. Behind the scent of the evergreens, the odor of death teased. “Fact is, Sim’s an extremely talented officer. Truly gifted. Always was. And he just may be the most ruthless human being I’ve ever met.”
“I’d have to measure him against an old girlfriend or two,” Morris, a lifelong bachelor, said.
“Well, Marines do have peculiar tastes. But don’t ever sell Sim Montfort short. Behind all the Bible verses and the Crusader rhetoric, he’s smarter than a billionaire televangelist cross-bred with an entire faculty of Jesuits. Write him off as a nut, and you’ll get blindsided. And you won’t get back up on your feet again.”
“But
is
he nuts? I’ve known my share of men who were brilliant and utterly crazy at the same time. Not least, in this neck of the woods.”
“I’d call him ‘obsessive’.”
“To the point of being nuts?”
“Monk, did anybody ever tell you that you even
look
like a bulldog? You make Chesty Puller look like a beauty queen. No, Montfort’s not nuts. He can project a quality of madness. But you never know how much of it’s calculated.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a drinking buddy.”
“He was a model cadet, Sim was. Monk, I realize you think
I’m
nuts for dragging you up here like this. When we’ve both got plenty to do. But our staffs can handle things for an hour. Commanders need to step back. Talk a bit. Catch their breath.” He grunted. “If I wouldn’t be setting a poor example, I’d take off this goddamned body armor.”
The path steepened just as Harris finished speaking.
“Hell of a way to catch your breath,” Monk said. Then he grinned. “You did
not
just hear a Marine complain. It was your imagination. Anything else? On Montfort?”
Harris thought about the absent figure for a few steps. He didn’twant to put devils in Monk’s head. But he owed Monk honesty. As much as the moment would bear.
“Sim was one class behind me at VMI. By his second year, upper-classmen had learned to fear him, and even the faculty handled him carefully. Which didn’t stop him from being elected to every office he wanted. Or from being the faculty’s darling.” Harris smiled, not fondly, at the memory. “Sim had one big advantage over the rest of us. We were teenagers, with all that goes with the package, barracks discipline or not. But Sim was born with the mind of a forty-year-old. From day one, he knew what he wanted and concentrated on getting it.” Harris snorted. “It’s probably an exaggeration to say he
never
let anything distract him from his goals. He was an infuriatingly handsome man. Women chased him from one end of the Shenandoah Valley to the other, then followed him back home at Christmas. We were all jealous as hell.”
“That mean he took your girl?”
Harris laughed. “No woman on Earth could’ve been attracted to both Sim and me. That may have been the
only
thing that wasn’t a point of contention.”
The smell of death strengthened. Harris glimpsed a break in the trees. He could feel the high ground waiting.
“So . . . You’d categorize him as pure ambition?”
Harris smiled. “No ambition’s pure, Monk. It’s always muddled up with something.”
“And that should tell me?”
“There’s a kind of ambition . . . a form of ambition that needs something to believe in. It’s incomplete, unfulfilled, without a cause.” The corner of Harris’s mouth twisted into his cheek. “I don’t mean that Sim Montfort can’t be cynical, when cynicism works. Just that he found his cause, and his cause found him. One feeds off the other, empowering the other. Men like Sim
need
a great cause to allow their ambition to unfold, to bloom. Their ambition has to have a rationale greater than
“I’m told you were at VMI with Montfort,” Morris said. “All those secret handshakes. Any insights?”
“The noble and pious MOBIC corps commander . . .” A fly the size of a bomber brushed Harris’s nose. He waved it away. Behind the scent of the evergreens, the odor of death teased. “Fact is, Sim’s an extremely talented officer. Truly gifted. Always was. And he just may be the most ruthless human being I’ve ever met.”
“I’d have to measure him against an old girlfriend or two,” Morris, a lifelong bachelor, said.
“Well, Marines do have peculiar tastes. But don’t ever sell Sim Montfort short. Behind all the Bible verses and the Crusader rhetoric, he’s smarter than a billionaire televangelist cross-bred with an entire faculty of Jesuits. Write him off as a nut, and you’ll get blindsided. And you won’t get back up on your feet again.”
“But
is
he nuts? I’ve known my share of men who were brilliant and utterly crazy at the same time. Not least, in this neck of the woods.”
“I’d call him ‘obsessive’.”
“To the point of being nuts?”
“Monk, did anybody ever tell you that you even
look
like a bulldog? You make Chesty Puller look like a beauty queen. No, Montfort’s not nuts. He can project a quality of madness. But you never know how much of it’s calculated.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a drinking buddy.”
“He was a model cadet, Sim was. Monk, I realize you think
I’m
nuts for dragging you up here like this. When we’ve both got plenty to do. But our staffs can handle things for an hour. Commanders need to step back. Talk a bit. Catch their breath.” He grunted. “If I wouldn’t be setting a poor example, I’d take off this goddamned body armor.”
The path steepened just as Harris finished speaking.
“Hell of a way to catch your breath,” Monk said. Then he grinned. “You did
not
just hear a Marine complain. It was your imagination. Anything else? On Montfort?”
Harris thought about the absent figure for a few steps. He didn’twant to put devils in Monk’s head. But he owed Monk honesty. As much as the moment would bear.
“Sim was one class behind me at VMI. By his second year, upper-classmen had learned to fear him, and even the faculty handled him carefully. Which didn’t stop him from being elected to every office he wanted. Or from being the faculty’s darling.” Harris smiled, not fondly, at the memory. “Sim had one big advantage over the rest of us. We were teenagers, with all that goes with the package, barracks discipline or not. But Sim was born with the mind of a forty-year-old. From day one, he knew what he wanted and concentrated on getting it.” Harris snorted. “It’s probably an exaggeration to say he
never
let anything distract him from his goals. He was an infuriatingly handsome man. Women chased him from one end of the Shenandoah Valley to the other, then followed him back home at Christmas. We were all jealous as hell.”
“That mean he took your girl?”
Harris laughed. “No woman on Earth could’ve been attracted to both Sim and me. That may have been the
only
thing that wasn’t a point of contention.”
The smell of death strengthened. Harris glimpsed a break in the trees. He could feel the high ground waiting.
“So . . . You’d categorize him as pure ambition?”
Harris smiled. “No ambition’s pure, Monk. It’s always muddled up with something.”
“And that should tell me?”
“There’s a kind of ambition . . . a form of ambition that needs something to believe in. It’s incomplete, unfulfilled, without a cause.” The corner of Harris’s mouth twisted into his cheek. “I don’t mean that Sim Montfort can’t be cynical, when cynicism works. Just that he found his cause, and his cause found him. One feeds off the other, empowering the other. Men like Sim
need
a great cause to allow their ambition to unfold, to bloom. Their ambition has to have a rationale greater than
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