The Good Lieutenant by Whitney Terrell

Fowler said.
    â€œYeah,” Pulowski said. “Well, you know, hey, I’m just saying I shouldn’t have blamed you for this mission. I’m sorry. It’s taking me a while to get back in the groove.”
    Speaking of easy takes. This, he understood, was where he was having problems adjusting, where he felt out of step and quavery, like some newborn colt, in the face of Fowler’s perkiness. Hadn’t he dumped this woman four weeks ago, right before he’d gone on leave? And now, five days after he’d come back, he’d asked her to help him install his cameras at the Muthanna intersection. The old Fowler would’ve had a take on that kind of hypocrisy. And if that wasn’t enough, what had he called her? A “cow-eyed innocent.” Because here’s the thing he hadn’t said about the women at the mall: fucking beautiful creatures. Coeds, with nails done and dainty flip-flops on their feet. Legs as trim and taut as an airplane fuselage. Are you single? If you’re asking, I am. Oh, yes, I am free. And also not stupid, not chained down to a war that you could already tell was about as popular as a canceled Lifetime series—and so his honesty with Fowler had been a form of fairness, as he’d seen it. If he was totally direct and honest that he still wouldn’t be getting back with her even if she helped him bring the cameras out to Muthanna, well, then it was on her if she was stupid enough to take the mission anyway.
    But this Fowler, the Fowler whom he’d expected to be angry and bitter with him, instead turned in her seat and chortled. “There it is! You hear that, Beale? You two are the worst! The worst motherfucking malcontents I’ve ever seen!”
    â€œMalcontent?” Beale said. “Is that show still on TV?”
    â€œFox, I think,” Pulowski said.
    â€œMalcontent in the Middle pretty much describes every soldier in all of Iraq, if you’re talking about how people think this place ain’t worth a shit.”
    â€œAw, fuck!” Fowler said, beating the roof of the Humvee with her fist. “Here we go. I can see it now: one compliment to these guys, and they shit the bed immediately. Come on, Beale, bring it on!”
    â€œMaybe this McKutcheon’s the first reasonable dude we met,” Beale said.
    â€œOh, shit! Yes! That’s right!” Fowler shouted. Though it seemed as if Beale was directly contradicting her, she took a surprising pleasure in this. “I’m sorry, Pulowski, I am completely wrong about this thing. We are fucked. We are undeniably fucked. We got no chance. We’re losing. All the dead people are dead now for no reason at all and every fucking lick of work we’ve done in this place is total crap. Let’s all be McKutcheon. Let’s all sit on our ass and complain about how shit is broken. Life sucks, war is bad—what a genius concept! What an incredible insight!”
    It was, maybe, possibly the closest thing he’d ever heard from her in the way of a semi-decent speech, a rallying cry—surprising only in that it was delivered in the negative, a mockery of what not to be, rather than a statement of belief. Even so, as he listened to Fowler’s voice, he felt a burbling in his throat, a buzzing clot of emotion that stuck there uncomfortably. “What about the Iraqi you took down?” Pulowski said, trying to resist this. “In the war-is-bad category?”
    Fowler checked her mirror in silence. This too was different.
    â€œYou know what the colonel did to the Muthanna intersection after it got hit?” Fowler said, pivoting around again in her seat. “Nothing. Totally abandoned. Go on, Beale, take us through Muthanna. Let’s go in the front door like we own the place.”
    He’d seen the bombed Muthanna intersection twice: once on a flat-screen television beside the Camp Tolerance chow line, which normally showed poker