DARE: A Bad Boy Romance (11 page)

“Son of a bitch. I’ll never badmouth the California desert again.” Finn poured some water onto his neck and rubbed it around. “This shit’s science fiction. You ever read
Dune
?”

Dare thought he might have seen a movie by that name, but he couldn’t remember much about it apart from Sting being in it—yeah, and the old priest from
The Exorcist.
“The planet with the giant worms?”

“That’s the one. A total desert planet. The inhabitants wear these special suits that recycle the fluids from their own bodies, so they always have enough to drink.”

“They drink their own sweat and piss? Nice.”

Grant and Valdez, the next pair to take point, nudged Dare mid-drink, making him spill a little. “You ladies want an umbrella or something?” remarked Valdez. Dare and Finn both flipped him off.

Then Grant, the tallest member of the unit at six foot five, suddenly bent over as if he was about to puke. But he didn’t. Instead, he tugged at his collar, stumbled forward a few steps, and then started stripping out of his gear in front of everyone. He’d always been a bit of an oddball, and was prone to delivering the odd practical joke in camp, but everyone knew that anytime he slapped on his gear and stepped out into the field, Grant was one of the best, most diligent Marines in the unit. He was an example for others to follow, partly because he was one of the longest-serving members of the Corps.

“I guess that’s one way to scare the natives,” quipped Finn.

One or two of the others wolf-whistled Grant, who finally stopped stripping near a skeletal-looking camel thorn tree. All he had on were his boxers and his boots. Valdez asked him what the fuck he was doing.

“You guys…ain’t feeling it?” Grant rummaged through his gear and retrieved his sidearm. Eyes closed, facing the sun, he pretended to fire off a couple of rounds. “This is what toasty feels like, bitches. Boo-yah!” He seemed to be aiming his pretend shots
at
the sun.

Dare and Finn looked at each other. There was something very wrong with Sergeant Grant. Dare’s first thought was heatstroke. That had been known to send even the toughest hombres sliding off their crackers.

“You working on that tan there, Grant?” someone shouted ahead. “You always were a pasty motherfucker.”

“Grant!”

Dare, Finn, and Valdez stepped aside for the unmistakable arrival of Captain Vose, a West Point lifer who’d never achieved the rank he’d probably deserved on account of being too much at home in the field, on patrol. The guy loved this shit, lived for it. No way was he ever going to trade it in for a damned satrapy desk job, stuck indoors while he sent others out to have all the fun.

“Grant! What in the blue fucking flames of damnation are you doing? Get dressed. Right now, Marine! There are hostiles crawling all over this region. You
want
them to use your pasty-white ass for target practice, is that it?”

Grant leapt out from behind the trunk of the camel thorn tree, tried a sort of half-assed commando roll that left him in a heap. Then he crouched on all fours in the sand, holding his head high as though he was Tarzan. It was either the funniest thing Dare had ever seen or the scariest. How a guy as experienced and “together” as Grant could just flip out like this.

When Vose went after him, Grant got to his feet and took off at lightning speed, bellowing and howling. The rest of the unit ran to try to keep up. They were laughing and egging him on. They didn’t want to miss a thing.

But everyone stopped dead at the cry of “Hostiles! Eleven o’clock!”

Dare froze, scanned the desert ahead for signs of Grant and Captain Vose. They’d disappeared down a dusty incline ahead, not exactly in the minefield but close enough to it to be of concern. The next thing he saw was a black, robed figure approaching the two wayward Marines from their left. He appeared to be carrying something heavy.

The next thing he heard was the crack of an explosion.

Dare snapped upright in his seat at the conference table. He was shivering. He’d started to sweat all over, but not like he did during the worst flashbacks. No, this one had been less about the bangs and bullets and more about a sane man suddenly flipping his lid. Grant’s behavior had seemingly come from nowhere. But Dare now wondered, if he or the others had been paying closer attention, whether they might have spotted the warning signs. Could they have predicted Grant’s snapping like that, maybe done something about it
before
it happened? Told their C.O.?

It was all academic now. Only it wasn’t…not really. Something similar was happening right here in front of him. Another man was getting ready to snap. And instead of waiting for it to happen, there had to be
something
Dare could do to prevent it going off so…explosively.

He realized he’d missed the start of Trey Oregon’s account, but he quickly got the gist of what the guy was aiming for. Once again, Oregon was keeping his rage buttoned down, his mind on track. It was a pretty decent performance, and the stiffs seemed to be buying it…so far.

“So yeah, there’s a big difference between trying to recover after taking a few big hits, and Bowden’s assessment of my performance. We all have off days, especially when we’ve taken a few knocks. Bowden reckons the showboating was proof of some sort of mental breakdown, right? Just because I don’t normally do it? Well, that’s just dumb. I’d have tried
anything
to get myself back in gear. You heard the crowd’s reaction. They loved that shit. And it pumped me up, too. Unfortunately not enough, because I couldn’t get any momentum. Boyega just wouldn’t let me; dude really dug in, made it tough. By the end, I was out on my feet, swinging and missing, yeah. But if you think that’s anything more than exhaustion, you’re seeing things. No, more than that, you’re seeing what you want to see.”

Oregon pointed at Dare. “That asshole hates me. Anyone can see that. Look at him: getting ready to tell y’all another pack of lies.
He’s
the one who needs
his
head examined!”

Yardley leaned forward, clasped his hands on the tabletop. “Let me see if I’ve got this clear. You’re saying Mr. Bowden interrupted the fight because he has a personal beef with you?” He unclasped his hands, laid the palms flat. “I don’t follow, Mr. Oregon. Why would he stop the fight, with you in a probable losing position, if he was so much against you?”

Oregon narrowed his eyes at Dare. “To humiliate me. You heard everything he’s said. He wants the whole world to think he saved my life, that I actually needed saving.
That’s
how you stick it to a fighter you hate when you don’t have the guts to get in the ring and fight him yourself. You asked before: what did Bowden have to gain by jumping in like that? And I’m telling you: he’s got that hero complex so bad he has to
invent
scenarios to make himself look good. It’s fucking delusional. And at the same time, it makes me look bad. So, for a prick like that, it’s two birds with one stone. He makes out I had a mental breakdown, comes to my rescue all-chivalrous-like—yeah, whatever—and convinces y’all he’s this hoo-rah war hero saving the helpless. Like I said, if anyone needs a brain exam here it’s that asshole right there. You know I’m right.”

Each of the committee members scribbled a few notes on paper, while the stenographer glanced up at Trey. She stuck out her bottom lip just a fraction, perhaps unconsciously. Dare interpreted it as either incredulity or dislike—or maybe he just wanted another person in the room to have the same reaction as him. Oregon had spun his yarn in a surprising way. Not convincingly, but the guy had earned points for at least trying to be clever. Throwing Dare’s charge of mental incompetence back at him was a novel approach.

And no, the committee members wouldn’t swallow it. It didn’t stack up against the truth on any level. In suggesting
Dare
was delusional, with such feeble evidence to back up the claim, surely that in itself was further evidence that Trey Oregon was the delusional one here.

Or maybe, just maybe, they prepped him to say that…

Dare sat up, straightened his tie. He scanned the inscrutable faces of the IMMAF officials.

What if they’ve framed this whole thing as some sort of stalemate? I call him nuts; he calls me nuts. It’s my word against his, and they don’t take it any further.

Jesus, that makes sense. And it would be just like them.

With rumors of corruption hanging over them like a sword of Damocles, no way could they ever let this go further than this room. An official investigation? Maybe even a trial? With lawyers and witnesses and all sorts of accusations flying about—all going viral in the media? They couldn’t risk it, any of it.

They are under orders to bury this right here! Interesting.

“So it’s my word against his, right?” said Dare. “You’re obviously not looking at the fight footage. How about we both submit ourselves for a full psych evaluation, then? Oregon and me. If we’re both A-One, I’ll accept whatever decision the IMMAF makes. If not, then the IMMAF has to promise to take the appropriate action. If one of us is deemed unfit to fight, his license must be revoked and he must receive whatever medical treatment he needs. Oh, and one last thing, the evaluations have to be conducted by an impartial, independent party. Not that I don’t trust your organization, but…okay, I don’t trust your organization. I don’t trust your referees, ring officials, drug tests, doctors, fight managers, or your fighters.
Especially
not
your fighters. Take that asshole over there. He’s a freaking poster child for all the juicers in professional sports because he’s been doing it for so long, he’s gotten away with it for so long. And how has he gotten away with it? Because your organization is so fucking corrupt it would topple like a house of cards if the bribes suddenly stopped being paid.”

He addressed the stenographer: “Did you get all that, sweetheart? You did? Good.” And to Yardley: “All that can go viral. Trust me, I don’t give a shit. Or here’s a better scenario: you do the right thing and arrange for those tests. Then you investigate the ring official from that night, find out who forced him to keep the fight going for a KO or a tap out. Either I’m mistaken, or your guy was bought that night and I’m not mistaken.”

“I see where you’re coming from, Mr. Bowden,” replied Yardley. “And believe me, we take all those sorts of accusations seriously. There
is
corruption in our sport, and we’re doing our best to eradicate it. But I won’t beat about the bush. My colleagues and I
have
watched the fight footage closely; we’ve also interviewed the ring officials, as well as some members of the press commentary teams who were ringside that night…”

“Which ones?” Dare retrieved a tiny black notebook with a pencil from his shirt pocket. “What are their names?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to give that information. It wasn’t a formal investigation; it was more of a…preliminary inquiry, to give us a better idea of what those spectators with professional knowledge—like yourself, Mr. Bowden—saw during the fight. What
they
perceived, based on Mr. Oregon’s performance, his conduct in the ring. And I’ll be frank: not one of them corroborated your version of what happened. Now, we’re not saying you were wrong, or that you didn’t have cause to do what you did, but so far, based on our initial inquiry, there doesn’t appear to be enough evidence to support a formal investigation into the conduct of our ring officials.”

“So you’re not giving me any
names? I just have to take your word for everything you’ve just said?”

“Having heard from you both, it’s clear we’re at an impasse here,” said Yardley. “And we would never force anyone to undertake psychological testing without their consent. So, gentlemen, is that something you’d both agree to? Mr. Bowden’s suggestion is problematic in that we can never know someone’s state of mind at a specific time in the past, but if you’re both willing to consent to an exam carried out by an independent third party, that might be the only way to address these allegations you’re both putting forward. Mr. Bowden?”

“Agreed.”

But he knew full well it was an empty promise. Oregon would never consent, and they knew it. So it was a way of making them appear impartial, even accommodating, while at the same time giving them license to do absolutely nothing. No tests. No formal investigation. They weren’t going to give Dare a goddamn thing.