Fowler said.
âYeah,â Pulowski said. âWell, you know, hey, Iâm just saying I shouldnât have blamed you for this mission. Iâm sorry. Itâs taking me a while to get back in the groove.â
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 Fowlerâs perkiness. Hadnât he dumped this woman four weeks ago, right before heâd gone on leave? And now, five days after heâd come back, heâd asked her to help him install his cameras at the Muthanna intersection. The old Fowler wouldâve had a take on that kind of hypocrisy. And if that wasnât enough, what had he called her? A âcow-eyed innocent.â Because hereâs the thing he hadnât 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 youâre 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 seriesâand so his honesty with Fowler had been a form of fairness, as heâd seen it. If he was totally direct and honest that he still wouldnât 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 heâd expected to be angry and bitter with him, instead turned in her seat and chortled. âThere it is! You hear that, Beale? You two are the worst! The worst motherfucking malcontents Iâve ever seen!â
âMalcontent?â Beale said. âIs that show still on TV?â
âFox, I think,â Pulowski said.
âMalcontent in the Middle pretty much describes every soldier in all of Iraq, if youâre talking about how people think this place ainât worth a shit.â
âAw, fuck!â Fowler said, beating the roof of the Humvee with her fist. âHere 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
âMaybe this McKutcheonâs the first reasonable dude we met,â Beale said.
âOh, shit! Yes! Thatâs right!â Fowler shouted. Though it seemed as if Beale was directly contradicting her, she took a surprising pleasure in this. âIâm sorry, Pulowski, I am completely wrong about this thing. We are fucked. We are undeniably fucked. We got no chance. Weâre losing. All the dead people are dead now for no reason at all and every fucking lick of work weâve done in this place is total crap. Letâs all be McKutcheon. Letâs all sit on our ass and complain about how shit is broken. Life sucks, war is badâwhat a genius concept! What an incredible insight!â
It was, maybe, possibly the closest thing heâd ever heard from her in the way of a semi-decent speech, a rallying cryâsurprising 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 Fowlerâs voice, he felt a burbling in his throat, a buzzing clot of emotion that stuck there uncomfortably. âWhat about the Iraqi you took down?â Pulowski said, trying to resist this. âIn the war-is-bad category?â
Fowler checked her mirror in silence. This too was different.
âYou know what the colonel did to the Muthanna intersection after it got hit?â Fowler said, pivoting around again in her seat. âNothing. Totally abandoned. Go on, Beale, take us through Muthanna. Letâs go in the front door like we own the place.â
Heâd seen the bombed Muthanna intersection twice: once on a flat-screen television beside the Camp Tolerance chow line, which normally showed poker
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