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Ethan inserted the M1911 Colt Forty Five's new recoil spring as he finished reassembling the weapon, and then rubbed his hot, itchy eyes with the knuckles of his free hand. He had also replaced the barrel bushing to increase the weapon's accuracy. The large wall clock showed three in the morning. He needed sleep, but there was too much to do. Lance Corporal Wilson was an expert at avoiding his job and seldom kept up with a day's work.
Sensing movement behind him, Ethan reached for one of the twelve-inch throwing knives he kept on a shelf under the bench near his workstation. He glanced in a small steel mirror on the wall and looked at the face reflected in the polished metal.
"Shit!" He hissed. Putting the knife back, he picked up a rag and wiped his hands. "What do you want?" He faced Victor Ortega.
"We're about to become fucking partners, man," Ortega said.
"What the hell are you talking about?" There was something strange about Ortega's voice. It sounded as though he had just smoked dope. Natasha, one of several girlfriends he had collected during his year in community college, had sounded that way after a few joints—something he never liked about her and one reason he dumped her before shipping out for his third tour in Vietnam.
Ortega spread half-a-dozen requisitions on the counter. "Take a good look at your name. These are fucking weapons you signed for, man."
Ethan reached out, hesitating when the hill trembled from several artillery rounds going out. The roar of the mobile, armored one-hundred and fifty-five millimeter howitzers shook the hill and everything on it causing a thin haze of dust to rise from every surface.
When the battery stopped firing, Ethan took one of the papers and studied it. It was for two M-60 machine guns and the date was yesterday. "I never ordered these."
"Of course you did. It's your fucking signature. Look closer, man."
The howitzers started firing again, and Ortega spoke louder. "I know for a fact that those weapons are in the hands of Viet Cong, and that there's a bank account in Okinawa with your name on it. Check the fucking receipts in your file cabinet. They go back months. Some of those receipts are for weapons that have been found in the hands of dead Viet Cong.
A cold shiver of disbelief invaded Ethan's gut. His submachine gun was in reach, but the throwing knife was closer. "What the hell is this about?"
"These receipts say you're going to fucking work for me, man. My customers want what you can supply. You are going to feed that demand. After all, the United States is a demand and supply economy. Anything for money. Say no, and I will hand these papers and others like them to Army intelligence. With your history as a member of a Chicago street gang, you'll spend the next twenty years to life in a federal pen."
Ethan couldn't believe what he was hearing. He reached for his Greaser. "Wilson is mixed up in this, isn't he?"
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§ “Running with the Enemy” was awarded an Honorable Mention in General Fiction at the 2103 San Francisco Book Festival
§ Discover a new world of Publishing–-the 2013 San Francisco Book Festival Event held on May 18.
