Ghost was looking at his own gun. It had color after color on it. Bright. A green cross on a red background, a sign that the Army of God had been the last owner.

Ocho squatted beside Ghost, nodded at the gun. “You should paint it,” he said. “Make it your own.”

“With what?”

“Romey’s got some colors; he does the pictures of the Colonel sometimes.”

“Like that one?” Ghost jerked his head at the huge image across the canal.

Ocho grinned. “Not quite. But he can get some supply. You can put your mark on it. Put a Fates Eye on it, or something. Get yourself some protection. Make it yours, right? All that AOG crap’s got to go, though. No cross-kisser stuff. Fates Eye, or else UPF blue and white, you want to get all patriotic.”

“How’d they even get him up there?” Ghost wondered.

Slim looked over at the image. “Patriotic fury, right? They scaled that sucker.”

“Ropes,” Ocho said. “They dropped ropes over the side, and lowered themselves off the top. Worked for weeks on it. For Colonel Stern’s birthday. Bunch of Alpha Company put the civvies on it.”

“I still say they climbed.”

“You weren’t there,” Ocho said. “It was before you even got your half-bars.”

“Why you want to run down a good legend? Where’s your patriotic fire?”

“I’m all for patriotic fire,” Ocho said. “Especially if it’s a bonfire.” He tossed a cracked chair leg into the blaze, sending up sparks.

Ghost stared across the gap between the buildings. The people who had painted Glenn Stern had done a good job. The man looked like some kind of god. Hard and angular and his green eyes that did the same thing that Ocho’s did. Sort of green with gold flecks.

A god, or at least a patron saint. They all toasted the Colonel with their bottles, and then they all toasted Ghost, the hero of the day.

Reggie had bought three bottles of Triple Cross off the boys over in Charlie Company. They had a still that they worked, smuggling food downriver off their territory grant, and then distilling it. No one knew what went into the brew. For all they knew, Charlie Company was distilling fingernails and dogs, but they said it was all real grain. Things like ShenMi HiYield Rice, TopGro Wheat, whatever they could burn out of the fields and get away with before Army of God or Freedom Militia figured out that they’d gone raiding.

Ghost’s squad boys kept giving him shots, getting him drunker. He stared up at the image of Glenn Stern.

“You should hear him speak,” Ocho said. “He’s got fire in him. Make you believe you can walk through a wall of bullets for the cause.”

“You got the same eyes,” Ghost said.