Black Market by Donald E. Zlotnik

I might have the
     opportunity while I’m out there on patrol with the captain to tell him about your infantry background.” Arnason let the screen
     door slam shut behind him and added, “We always need good infantry team leaders on the teams, and seeing that there are three
     extra supply sergeants—”
    “Shut the fuck up, Arnason!” Shaw’s face was bright red.
    “I’ll see you in the morning, Supply Sergeant!” Arnason walked down the narrow hallway and could see Captain Gouch sitting
     behind his desk looking into a small cardboard box. The captain wore a look of confusion and fear on his face and glanced
     up just as Arnason passed his open doorway.
    “Hello sir! Has Shaw talked to you yet?”
    “Shaw?”
    Arnason could see that mentioning the supply sergeant’s name increased the fearful look on the officer’s face and the captain
     slammed the top of the cardboard box closed. “Yes sir. I talked to him about”—Arnason looked both ways down the hall before
     continuing—“those checks you wrote and he told me that he would work something out with you.”
    “Oh! Yes! We’ve worked something out. Thank you for your help … Excuse me, but I’m real busy right now.” Captain Gouch reached
     for a single piece of paper that was in his IN box.
    “Sure, no problem sir, I’m just glad that you worked out a solution.” Arnason left feeling that there was something going
     on that he couldn’t quite put his finger on—yet.
    The S-3 operations sergeant was sitting behind his desk making an overlay of the new First Brigade’s operations area when
     Arnason stopped in front of his desk. He looked up and smiled. “Hello Dwight, are you ready to take your new team out in the
     field?”
    “Yeah, they’re looking pretty good in training. I think I’ve got something with the new replacements.”
    “That Polish kid looks like a damn mountain!” The sergeant continued moving the grease pencil in his hand as he talked. “I
     definitely wouldn’t want to have him mad at me!”
    “Actually, Sanchez is the tough one.” Arnason picked up a comer of the map the sergeant was working on and tried identifying
     the terrain without looking for a city.
    “Really? The Mexican kid?”
    “He’s a karate expert
and
one hell of a good street fighter.”
    “Now you’re going to tell me that skinny boy is an assassin?” The NCO laid his grease pencil down and picked up a small tab
     to glue to the map. “I’ve got to get the battalion commander’s map ready for tomorrow.”
    “No, but I’ll tell you one thing about little Warner: you let him glance at that map you’re holding and he’ll memorize it
     almost instantly!”
    “Shit, no wonder you don’t want to break up that team!” He folded the map and slipped it back into the canvas case.
    “Who told you that they were going to break up my team?” Arnason instantly became alarmed.
    “Easy! That was the talk before your new CO laid into the operations officer and stopped that shit cold.”
    “That’s nice to know.” Arnason looked over at the operations board. “Do you know where we’re going in at?”
    “Yes.” The operations sergeant fumbled through a stack of messages on his desk and found what he was looking for near the
     bottom. “You’ll be inserted north of Highway 19, just outside of Due Co. Let’s look at the big map.” He led the way over to
     the 1:50,000 scale map on the wall and pointed to a narrow passage between two rises in the ground. “Twenty-three hundred
     meters … hmmm … you’re going to have a little rough going back in there.”
    Arnason leaned forward so that he could study the contour lines on the map. There were a number of places where the brown
     lines touched, forming steep cliffs with very rugged climbing. “They don’t call them the highlands for nothing, I guess.”
    “Your AO is going to be ten square clicks.” The senior sergeant tapped the map. “By the way, have you heard anything about