Horse keyed the horn and called out across the range. "This program is terminated, Private. Come to your feet."

The little depression three hundred meters out on heading three-four-zero did not move. Instead, a loose collection of twigs and burlap and dirt slowly rose from the earth off to their right and less than two hundred meters away. Horse's cigar nearly fell out of his jaw, and Aimes burst out laughing. Aimes clapped his old friend on the back. "Three-four-zero, all right."

"I coulda sworn…"

"Lucky that boy wasn't gonna shoot our old asses."

Then the two combat veterans were beyond the laughing, and Aimes nodded. Horse keyed the mike again. "Get in here, Private. Triple time."

Running up to them across the broken ground, Aimes thought that the ghillie suit made the private look like some kind of matted Pekinese dog, all its mats bouncing up and down. Aimes said, "He in good shape?"

"Came here in good shape."

"Farm boy?"

"Lived in the country, but I don't think they farmed." Aimes liked boys who grew up on the land and knew its ways.

"What kind of name is that, Pike? English? Irish?"

"Dunno. He don't talk about his people. He don't talk much at all"

Aimes nodded. Nothing wrong with that. "Maybe he s got nothing to say."

Now Horse was looking a little nervous, like they had come upon something in the road that didn't sit well with him and that maybe he was hoping that they wouldn't come upon. "Yeah, well, just so you know, he don't say much. I don't think he's stupid."

Aimes glanced sharply at his friend. "You know better than to waste my time with an idiot." He glanced back at the running Marine. "Boy ain't stupid who scores as high on his tests as this one." This boy had tested higher than most of the college boys who came through, and he stood first in every class he was required to take.

"Well, some of the DIs find him a little odd, and some of the platoon do, too. Keeps to himself, mostly, and reads. Doesn't grabass during free time, none of that. Don't think I ever seen the boy smile once since he come to me."

That concerned Aimes. "You can tell a lot by a man s laugh."

"Yeah, well."

They watched him come closer, and finally Aimes sighed. "Got no use for a man ain't a team player."

Horse spit. "We wouldn't be standing here if he wasn't. Got a lot of fast twitch in that boy, but out on the course, he'll throttle back to help his mates. Did it without having to be told, either."

Aimes nodded, liking that one just fine. "Then what's all this business about being odd? You say he's the best young man in your training platoon, you show me a file on this boy saying he stands top of his class, then you bring me out here and we both get snaked by a boy seventeen years old same as he had three years as a Scout/Sniper."

Horse made a little shrug. "Just wanted you to know, is all. He ain't your standard recruit."

"Force Recon isn't interested in standard recruits, and you and I both know that better'n anyone. I want moral young men lean turn into professional killers. End of story."

Horse raised his hands. "Just wanted you to know."

"Well, all right." Aimes chomped on the nasty cigar and watched the young Marine. "What is it he reads?"

"Just reads, is all. Anything he can get his hands on. Novels, history. Caught him with some Nietzsche once. Found some Basho in his locker"

"Do tell"

"Knew you'd like that, too."

"Yes, sir. Yes, I do."

Leon Aimes pondered the private with renewed interest, as he believed that all the best warriors were poets. Those old Japanese Samurai proved that, and Aimes had his own theory as to why. Aimes knew that you could fill a young man's head with all the notions of duty, honor, and country you wanted, but when the shit hit the fan and the bullets started flying, even your bravest young man didn't stand there and die for little Sally back home or even for the Stars and Stripes. If he stood at all, he stood for his buddies beside him. His love for them, and his fear of shame in their eyes, is what kept him fighting even after his sphincter let loose, and even when his world turned to hell. It took a special man to stand there all alone, without the weight of his buddies to anchor him in place, and Aimes was looking for young warriors that he could train to move and fight and win alone. Die alone, too, if that's what it took, and not just any man was up to that. But poets were different. You could take a poet and fill his heart with the notions of duty and honor, and sometimes, if you were very lucky, that was enough. Aimes had learned long ago, perhaps even in an earlier life, that a poet would die for a rose.

Horse gestured with the cigar as the private came pounding up and fell in at attention before them, the monstrous ghillie suit making the boy look like a tall, skinny haystack.

Horse said, "Belay that ghillie suit and stand at ease, Private. This here is Gunnery Sergeant Aimes, who is just about the best Marine in this man's Corps outside of Chesty Puller and myself. You will listen up to him. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!" the young Marine shouted.

Private Pike peeled out of the ghillie suit, stowed it in the back of the jeep, and returned to his position. Neither Aimes nor Horse spoke while he was doing this, and, after he was done, Aimes let him stand there a minute, thinking about things. Aimes recalled from the file he had read that the young man's name was Pike, Joseph, no middle initial. He was tall, maybe about six one, all lean and corded and burned tan by the Southern California sun. His face and hands were covered in cammie greasepaint, but he had the damnedest blue eyes Aimes had ever seen, real white-boy ice-people eyes, like maybe his people came from Norway or Sweden or some damn place, which was also okay by Aimes. He had enormous respect for Vikings, and considered them almost as fine a group of warriors as his African ancestors. Aimes looked into the blue eyes and thought that they were calm, holding neither guile nor remorse. Aimes said, "How old are you, son?" Aimes, of course, knew how old the private was, but he wanted to question the boy, get a sense of him.

"Seventeen, Gunnery Sergeant!"

Aimes crossed his arms, and the large muscles there pulled the fabric of his black Marine Corps tee shirt tight. "Your mother sign the papers to get you in early, or you fake'm yourself?"

The boy did not answer. Beads of sweat dripped down from his scalp and etched tracks along his gaunt face. Nothing else about the boy moved.

"I didn't hear you, Marine."

The boy floated there with no response, and Horse drifted around behind his back so the boy couldn't see him smile.

Gunnery Sergeant Leon Aimes stepped very close to the private and whispered into his ear. "I don't like talking to myself, young man. I suggest you answer me."

The young Marine answered. "Don't know it's any of your business, Gunnery Sergeant."

Horse jumped into the young Marine's face faster than an M16 chambering a fresh round, screaming so loud that his face turned purple. "Everything in this world is the sergeant's business, Marine! Are you stupid enough to embarrass me in front of a Marine I know to be a hero in two wars, and who is a finer man than you could ever hope to be on your very best day?"

Aimes waited. The boy didn't look scared, which was good, and he didn't look arrogant, which was also good. He looked thoughtful.

Then the boy said, "My father."

"You in some kinda trouble, that why your old man put you in my Corps? You a car thief or a troublemaker or something like that?"