Texas Nights - Book 13 of the Damned of the 2/19th

Blackrazor

We hit Battalion Avenue and I let off the throttle, letting him idle down the road in second gear.

"All right, we're going to go to the motor pool and PMCS my vehicle," I told him. He looked surprised at how quiet the engine was, and I didn't feel like telling him just how much sound suppression I'd built into my baby.

"This thing?" He asked.

That made me laugh. "No, Humvee-5, the CO gave it to me," I glanced at him. "You're my new driver, radioman, note taker and monkey."

He frowned slightly.

"Got plans for tonight after dinner?" I asked him.

He looked started and flushed a little, but still shook his head.

"Nothing like that, you hammerhead," I snapped, "Your last PT test was over a year ago, and it was piss poor. I was going to take you to the gym and see about putting some meat on your bones."

He looked a little mournful at that as I turned the corner and idled into the parking lot across the from the motorpool. The gate guards were definitely paying attention, and I couldn't resist revving the engine a few times to draw some of 15th FSB to the front of the motor pool to see just who in the hell was driving the car.

I shut her down, counted to ten, and hit the switches.

Blackrazor was an attention whore.

When I got out, putting my hat on, I could tell that I was the last person everyone had expected to get out.

The file is not the man...

"Let's go, Specialist Donovan," I snapped, shutting the door. He shut his gingerly, something I appreciated. I thumbed the lock and alarm button on my fob and hooked my D-ring to my pocket as I walked toward the motorpool, slapping my plastic folder against my leg.

"What are you all standing around for?" I bellowed out. "Haven't you ever seen a car or a Chief Warrant Officer before? If you don't have anything to do, I'm certain I can find all of you something to occupy your time till about twenty hundred hours!"

The crowd broke up quick.

The mechanics were giving me the eye when I went inside the bay, and I knew they were wondering if I'd paid someone to trick out Blackrazor or if a boyfriend/husband had done it, and I doubted any of them thought that I'd done it.

They probably wouldn't believe I'd spent two hours with a tap and die set pulling a snapped bolt out of the block one Saturday afternoon. Or that I could take apart a HMMWV or CUC-V to the frame and rebuild it.

Alfenwehr had turned me into a gear head. Colonel Henry (No Relation) had insisted we all find hobbies and entertainment that didn't come out of a bottle.  I'd mentioned I'd always wanted a Mustang, Stillwater had talked to one of his cousins who was in Germany, and we'd paid to have the rusted sad half-wreck towed to the Alfenwehr body shop. Then I'd learned how to fix and rebuild everything on her over the course of a year.

It had done me good to have hobbies other than getting drunk and trying to punch out a stop sign.

It was pretty easy to navigate to the main office and look around for who was in charge. A large white Master Sergeant by the name of Prager was obviously the man in charge, so I walked up in front of his desk and stood politely at Parade Rest until he looked up. Donovan stayed over by the doorway, leaning against the wall with his hands behind him.

The Master Sergeant seemed a bit startled I was waiting like that.

"Can I help you, Chief, uh, Cromwell?" he asked me.