Catch Her If You Can by Merline Lovelace

shower and get dressed. I’ll make coffee.”
    When he emerged I shoved a travel mug and a toasted bagel at him. “You’ll have to eat it on the way.”
    I crammed on my patrol cap and slung my purse strap over my shoulder. Charlie’s brows lifted as his gaze skimmed from my cap to my combat boots.
    “That’s some change from your last work uniform, babe.”
    “No kidding.”
    My previous duty uniform consisted of fishnet stockings, a flounced miniskirt, ruffled panties, and an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse. Way off the shoulder. Some male’s fantasized vision of what a Parisian cocktail waitress should sashay around in. Now I clump around in boots and ABUs. That kind of uniform change takes a considerable psychological adjustment.
    “So how do you like being a soldier?” Charlie asked as I shooed him out the door.
    “Soldiers are Army. I’m Air Force.”
    “So how do you like it?”
    Tough question. To tell the truth, officer training school was a severe shock to my psyche. Convinced I’d made the worst mistake in a life already riddled with errors in judgment, I almost quit several times. Each time, the stubborn streak my mother claims I was born with would kick in.
    Same with my first months in uniform. Talk about your fish out of water! If Dr. J hadn’t been as new to DARPA as I was myself, I’m sure I would have been shown the door. But he suffered through the first year with me as I slowly got the hang of things.
    FST-3 is the real reason I’ve stuck it out this long. I don’t want to get all mushy here but . . . Well . . . There’s really something to this brotherhood-of-arms business. Even among REMFs. That’s the short version of a less-than-polite term for rear echelon mother f . . . Er, you get the picture. My team and I don’t tote sub-machine guns or strap ourselves into the cockpit of an F-22. But each of us believes deep down in our hearts that we’re actually contributing to the safety and security of our nation by testing items that might someday improve the capability of our troops in combat. Why the heck else would we spend weeks out at Dry Springs, with only each other for company?
    Sounds corny, I know. Definitely not something I wanted to articulate to Charlie at this ungodly hour of the morning. Instead, I shrugged and hooked on my seat belt.
    “The Air Force and I have our occasional differences,” I said with magnificent understatement. “I like being in charge, though.”
    Grinning, Charlie folded a stick of Big Red into his mouth. “You always did, babe.”
     
    I was still trying to decide how to take that when we drove through the gates of Fort Bliss.
    Don’t be fooled by the name. Bliss refers to the individual the fort was named for, not necessarily the activities that take place here every day. At various points in its history Fort Bliss served as an infantry outpost, a cavalry post, and an airfield for the Army’s early aviation efforts. It’s since grown into a major training, mobilization, and deployment center, with more than a million acres of test range straddling the Texas/New Mexico border. That makes it bigger than the state of Rhode Island.
    And twice as busy! At any hour of the day or night there are live-fire exercises going on out on the range, troops assembling in the mobilization center, and thousands of military and civilian personnel going about their business—including my team of dedicated professionals.
    FST-3 occupies a suite of offices in the historic section of the post. Our ’30s-era building looks old and interesting on the outside. Inside it’s just old. Various post commanders have eked out precious maintenance dollars for upkeep and renovation over the years. The overhead pipes are now concealed by acoustical tile and the johns flush on a more or less regular basis, but the wooden floors still creak and the HVAC system can’t take the strain of a hot summer day in West Texas. I’ve brought this to the deputy post commander’s