Alex's Point of View
Stumbling into their Arlington apartment, Alex crashed on the couch with a recursive "are we there yet?" loop playing in his head on infinite repeat.
"Just a little nap," he muttered. The cushions received him like an old lover and exhaustion tugged at his eyelids. But his brain would just not shut up.
It could've been five minutes, it could've been an hour, but eventually the work day released its grip on his consciousness and Alex Wagner was able to drift off.
Like no time had passed at all, the smell of pizza drew him back to the land of the living.
"I didn't want to wake you," Alice said guiltily.
He didn't particularly want to be woken, but any longer of a nap and his circadian rhythm would be entirely fucked. "Don't worry about it, babe. I was hungry anyway."
She was wearing one of her "covert" outfits today, no cleavage, no leg, even her gorgeous blonde hair was up and de-emphasized. Without being asked, she went to get plates and brought him a beer, Tecate, of course. They ate in silence, the cheese and salt and grease reviving him from the bitch of a day he'd had.
"Already have a new job?" he asked conversationally. From time to time they discussed his girlfriend's work. She wasn't ashamed of what she did.
Alice nodded. "Yep, a big one. I might actually need your help on this one. Know much about the Army?"
"It's not a fucking general, is it?" Alex asked worriedly. For one thing, generals were hardly ever alone. Taking one out would be dangerous as hell. Her boss didn't usually send Alice out on suicide missions.
She shook her head. "No, no, a journalist investigating the Army. I need to pretend to be a pissed-off Army ex wife to lure him into an exclusive interview."
Alex breathed a sigh of relief and thought for a minute. "A lot of outlaw shit goes down on Army bases, things that wouldn't fly in the Marines. I've heard bases in Texas have actual gangs, like crips and bloods in uniform. They sell drugs, pimp female Soldiers, and there are 'disappearances' all the time. It's wild."
Alice leaned in, eyes sparkling with interest. "Tell me more, especially differences with the Marines. Just by being with you I've absorbed some lingo over the years. It would be bad if this guy thought my story was fake because I slipped and said a Marine word."
"Let me think...okay. It's a lot of little things. Marines say 'oorah' or just 'rah' while Soldiers say 'hooah'."
His girlfriend didn't look amused. "Are you fucking with me right now?"
Alex smiled in spite of himself. "No, I swear I'm being serious. It's like, I don't know, a dumb grunt of affirmation. Like this:"
He imitated a particularly annoying NCO he remembered. "Lance Corporal! Go police call the parking lot!"
"Then you'd reply, 'oorah, Staff Sergeant'," he continued.
Wait, I'm actually causing more problems with this explanation. "It gets dumber than that. They used to say 'kill bodies', meaning 'yes I'll get right on that'. Maybe some still do. The military is a very silly place, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The Army doesn't have lance corporals. Also, they don't call you by your exact rank. Everybody at sergeant and above is addressed as 'sarnt'. In fact, it would probably be better to email you a list. Marines say 'head'; Soldiers say 'latrine'. Marines say 'skating'; Soldiers say 'shamming', and many more."
He looked up and saw Alice had a physical notebook out and was actually writing all this down. "Honey, honey, relax. I don't think an Army wife would need to know all this stuff. Maybe it would be better to know what kind of story you need to feed this guy."
Her pen stopped writing and she put it down. "You're right," she agreed. "The guy's name is Gareth Hart. He's investigating murder and drug smuggling in the Special Forces at Fort Benavidez."
Alex wiped off his greasy fingers with a napkin and rocked back on the couch. "Oh shit, that's entirely different. Special Forces and big Army are like separate worlds. I'll be honest, I don't know that much. 'Special Forces' can also mean a lot of things. Technically it's supposed to only mean the Green Berets, but if we're talking Fort Benavidez it could also be Gamma Force. There's also Rangers, MARSOC, Navy SEALs..." He paused after realizing what he was saying. "I'm not mansplaining too much, am I, Alice?"
She smirked. "No, dear. Please continue."
He searched his mind for the right words. "If you say so. Anyway, there is one big distinction that matters. 'Special Forces' means Green Berets, the guys that go overseas, learn the local language, and train them to fight with us. 'Special Operations Forces' or SOF are a broader category that includes all the elite units. Gamma Force is also at Fort Benavidez. Those guys are the elite of the elite, America's number one killers."
"Killers, huh," Alice seemed to like the sound of that.
"Yeah," he confirmed. "They do all of Uncle Sam's dirty work. Killing people, running drugs, that all seems to be in their wheelhouse. I'm not sure what kind of story you could cook up that would interest this journalist guy that he hasn't heard a dozen times."
Man, he hadn't thought about all this stuff since he went through that Navy SEAL book phase in high school. Like a lot of teenage boys at that time, Alex swallowed the propaganda and was on fire to join, until he found out that, statistically, big muscular guys didn't make it through SEAL training. Ultimately he'd settled on the Marines as a consolation prize. That was hard enough.
Alice put the leftover pizza in the fridge and settled in next to him on the couch. "Do you want to go to bed?"
Unlike most people, eating didn't make Alex sleepy. In fact, it woke him up. "I don't think I can, Alice."
She leaned in closer. "Then do you want to go to bed?"
Her sultry whisper gently wafted into his ear and massaged his brain. Oh god...
"Just let me check one thing." He searched for this "Gareth Hart" guy on his phone.
Well, what do you know? "Babe, look at this." He handed the phone to her.
"My target is going to be on Aaron Hacker's late night Tweak stream in fifteen minutes! This is perfect!" She kissed him. "Don't worry, Alex, we can make love after. This is too perfect to miss."
Alex opened the Tweak app on their smart tv and the couple cuddled up in anticipation.
"You know, I've never actually watched this Hacker guy live, just seen clips here and there," he said.
Alice rested her head on his shoulder. "Same. NikNak kind of has a love/hate relationship with him. Anything negative about Hacker gets views, but really, anything with Hacker gets views period."
An ad for a tacticool rifle accessory company played and then the stream started. The chat window exploded with posts of eagle emojis, American flags, and salute gifs, moving too fast to read any single message.
"My fellow Americans, good evening. This is Downrange with Aaron Hacker."
Not much to look at, Alex thought, but maybe he was just being a hater. Hacker was a middle aged white guy wearing a white collared shirt with a blazer and jeans, kind of aggressively normal. Or was he just trying to appear normal? Alex had heard him say really out of pocket shit in clips before. The set was two chairs in front of a green screen, not particularly high production values for a show with millions of viewers.
"My guest tonight is journalist Gareth Hart, author of the upcoming book TheFort Benavidez Cartel."
Alex felt Alice stir next to him, her posture tensing like the predator she was.
The lioness senses her prey. It was kind of sexy, honestly. This guy didn't know it yet, but he was toast.
"It's good to be here, Aaron."
The two actually looked alike. Hart's hairline was higher and his build was slighter, giving off the impression that he was Hacker's dorky little brother.
"We're happy to have you, Gareth. To start us off, would you care to give my viewers some background information on Fort Benavidez, the Special Forces, and Gamma Force?"
"Gladly, Aaron. Fort Benavidez is the headquarters of..." He went on for a while.
"You getting this, Alice? Just remember, Special Forces/Green Berets are talkers first. Learning foreign languages is a big part of their training. Gamma Force are shooters first," Alex said while they watched the interview.
"Yeah, that's easy to remember," his girlfriend replied. "It seems like a lot of shady shit goes down at Fort Benavidez."
Shit, that was an understatement. Marines could never...
"...And that's why I want to focus on this murder in particular. Jason Lagrange was a whistleblower and known political opponent of the Clayton administration," Hart said on the stream.
Something in Hacker shifted. His gaze became more intense. His voice deepened by half an octave. "We've been over the shortcomings of Harriet Clayton many times over the years on this show, but you're alleging that she murders her political opponents?" From the tone of his voice it was obvious he was only pretending to be skeptical as a rhetorical device.
"We're on separate sides of the political isle, Aaron, you know that. We've had it out on Natter more than once over the years."
Hacker smiled with easy grace. "Dozens of times," he said fondly. Alex noticed he had really nice teeth.
"Dozens of times," Hart agreed. "But the simple fact is the Democratic party has been in power for the last sixteen years. This happened on their watch, at a minimum. I allege nothing. I merely observe that individuals with damning information about Harriet Clayton tend to turn up dead."
Hacker sipped from a bottle of water and let the silence hang, pregnant with implication. "So many dead," he spoke up suddenly. "In Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, all on her watch. The opioid epidemic ravaged America, Afghani heroin playing a major part, all on her watch. Social media censorship has massively increased, to the point that this very show has been banned not one, not twice, but three times! Three times, Gareth! All on her watch!"
Aaron Hacker wasn't talking to Gareth Hart anymore. It felt like he was reaching out, right through their screen, and addressing them personally in their living room.
I get it, Alex realized. The guy could really make love to the camera. His energy was electric. Knowing it was all bullshit was no defense. Alex only just managed to avoid getting caught up in it. Less discerning normies had no chance at all. Is this guy going to be the next president?
"That man is dangerous," Alice commented.
A stab of something like insecurity left a hollow feeling in Alex's stomach. "In a good way or a bad way?"
Through the corner of his eye he saw Alice smile slightly. "There's no need for jealousy, honey. I'm just saying I wouldn't willingly be in the same room with that guy without a gun in my purse, and preferably not at all. He's a killer. I can tell."
"So are you," he pointed out. And you fuck the guys you kill, he thought bitterly. "Think you can take him?"
What's with me tonight? Is it the lack of sleep?
"He's the absolute worst for my MO," Alice said. "Aaron Hacker doesn't like women. Maybe he fucks them, but he doesn't like them. A man like that is dangerous, likes hurting girls to..." she trailed off.
Alex squeezed her hand. They both got real quiet.
"If you look at legal proceedings in the state of North Carolina, there is a definite pattern of Special Forces soldiers appearing in court only to have the charges dropped immediately, for little or no reason," said Hart on the show.
"The same North Carolina that Clayton narrowly won in 2020, amidst allegations of ballot stuffing during the pandemic," Hacker pointed out.
"I don't believe I can comment on that," Hart replied.
Hacker smiled. "Of course. That's not your area of expertise. Now, back to the source of all these drugs flooding into American communities..."
Listening to this gave Alex an idea. "You know, if they are trafficking in drugs, why not humans?" he wondered aloud.
Alice stilled next to him. "Human..."
"Yeah, human trafficking. Maybe the Special Forces are bringing people into the country, maybe kids. That could be your angle, a story to cook up that Gareth Hart would want to hear. Alice, are you listening?"
He looked over at his girlfriend. She was completely still, eyes wide, pupils dilated, her breath short and shallow.
"Alice, are you okay?"
Who was he kidding, she was definitely not okay!
"Alice, talk to me! Alice!"