“No, you’ve got a badly sprained ankle,” the man replied. “That’s the worst you can claim. You have to stay off it for a while, and the boot will help remind you of that.”

“Take it off,” Stone said sullenly.

“No,” the doctor replied, then turned on his heel and marched away.

Then a beautiful nurse appeared. “The doctor is right, you know,” she said, suppressing a laugh. “He’s a pain in the arse, but he is right. You’re on crutches for the duration.”

“The duration of what?” Stone asked.

“Your pain and inability to walk without crutches. At least a week, maybe a month.”

The colonel, whom Stone had been ignoring, stepped back into the picture. “As to rank,” he said, “you are a trainee in my company, and as such, you will take orders from me and do it respectfully.”

“Colonel,” Stone replied, as gently as he could. “I graduated from your torture chamber this morning—or was it yesterday? That fact puts me outside your command and back into the rank of citizen, though not of this country.”

“Good God!” the colonel thundered. “If you weren’t a cripple, I’d drag you down to the gym and thrash you to within an inch of your life!”

“Threats are unbecoming in an officer of your rank,” Stone replied evenly.

The nurse covered her mouth with a hand, stifling another laugh.

“You will report to me instantly when you are ambulatory,” the colonel said, seething.

“I will not report to you in any circumstance,” Stone said, “ambulatory or not.”

The colonel executed a quick about-face and marched out of the ward.

A ward was what he was in, Stone reflected. There were a half dozen beds, with only one other occupied, by a marine with a leg in a cast, elevated. “That’s givin’ it to the old bastard,” the man said to Stone, admiringly.

“Thank you, sir,” Stone said, then turned back to the nurse. “Now you,” he said. “May I ask your name?”

“I am Rose McGill,” she replied.

“And I am Stone Barrington.”

“I’m aware of that,” she said, pointing at his chart.

“Tell me, Ms. McGill . . .”

“Lieutenant McGill,” she replied.

“Of course. Is there a decent restaurant in the vicinity of this facility?”

“There is, a very good one, just down the road a mile or so.”

“Would you do me the honor of dining there with me this evening?” Stone asked.

“My, you are recovering, aren’t you.”

“I certainly am.”

“Love to,” she said.

5

They sat before a cheerful fire in the cozy dining room of the local inn, Stone with his game ankle resting on a third chair at their table.

“That’s right,” Lieutenant McGill said, “keep it elevated.” A glass of single malt scotch whisky sat before each of them. The Scottish proprietor would not admit to ever having heard of bourbon whiskey.

“May I call you Rose?” he asked.