Free An Unlawful Order (The Chase Anderson Series) by Carver Greene Page B

what can I do for you this morning?”
    Chase explained that the base newspaper had been proofed and was off to the printer. She provided a short brief about the front-page material that would include a news story about the crash and an obituary for Major White and the others. Then she lied about having an afternoon appointment with Molly’s teacher. “So I’m afraid I’ll be gone most of the afternoon, sir.”
    “Family comes first, Anderson.” The tone was warm, fatherly. “Don’t ever forget that.”
    “No, sir. I won’t.”
    A few hours later, she was whizzing along the H-3 in Stone’s old Jeep, facing the curvy road and its steep climb. The H-3 connected the base to Kaneohe and Pearl Harbor and had taken twenty-seven years to build, not because of construction delays or funding problems, but because the highway was being constructed over ancient burial grounds. For years, Hawaiians protested, but lost another battle to America’s Manifest Destiny.
    Ahead was the Harano Tunnel that bore through the mountain. She switched on her headlights, emerging a mile or so later into full sunlight. She cautiously glanced over her right shoulder at the mind-blowing view ofthe island. Her ears cleared from the altitude adjustment. If not for the road beneath her, she could have tricked herself into believing she was looking back at the base on Mokapu Peninsula from the air, from a helicopter. She could make out the oil tanks, the five hangars, the air traffic control tower, the turquoise water of Kaneohe Bay, even the tiny white triangles of sails. Ahead, the road curved along a stretch of mountainous jungle of palms and vines through the Halawa Valley. She was daring to drive over sacred ground. Hawaiians would scold her for driving over the graves of their ancestors: “Kapu, kapu,” forbidden , they would say, to cross over the sacred site of Papahanamoku, Mother Earth, who had given birth to the Hawaiian Islands.
    Forbidden or not, she continued towardher meeting with Shapiro, glancing at the beauty around her. There’s an old Marine saying that there’s no worse duty station than the one where you currently are and no better duty station than the one you just left. How else to explain why so many asked for second and third tours back to Iraq? Hadn’t she found the transition to this so-called paradise a difficult one? A selfish one? Some people, she thought, herself include, apparently had to suffer extra doses of hell before they could recognize paradise.
    Topographically, Hawaii was paradise, for Chase anyway. She loved palm trees, loved the music of wind in the palm fronds, loved the exotic birdcalls, the bright green geckos that darted through her house, even if she was forced to clean up what they left onher walls and upholstery. Still, there was also something mysterious, perhaps even sinister, about Hawaii. The jungle could make her feel almost claustrophobic. And the mountains? Jagged and fluted and aching for a benevolent hand to level and smooth them. They were intimidating and intensely green against the blue sky and jewel-toned water. Hawaii was beauty derived of chaos.
    War had been a little like that. One night in Iraq while embedded with the NBC crew outside Fallujah, she’d been compelled to man an M-60 machine gun in a bunker when North had shoved the weapon in her hands so that she could cover his run to the rear for more ammo. It was a suicide run, and she’d shouted at him not to go. But he had gone anyway. She called him every dirty namein the book while she squeezed off rounds, gingerly at first, then steadily as her OCS training came back to her, the red tracer rounds intersecting with those of nearby weapons. So this was combat, she thought, marveling at the beauty of the red sea of tracers. Her mind had flashed to Stone. How had he, how had anyone, ever faced this red scissoring of incoming fire? She’d never faced anything like it, and when she glanced over her shoulder at the NBC crew