"Don't sound like the Army to me," Turrin said, smiling.

"Me either," Bolan agreed. "But I'll be up for re-enlistment at the end of the year. And there's this responsibility for the kid brother, see. They're giving me until the end of the year to make some provisions for him. I guess they figure by then I'll either have to return to full duty or just get the hell out of the Army."

"I should think you'd be quite happy with the arrangement," Seymour observed.

"Well, I've got the kid now," Bolan pointed out. "And like I said, not a dime in any bank. I figure I'll take the discharge in December. And I can't see any sense in wasting any time getting phased into civilian life." He smiled broadly. "And then, you've got this vacancy."

"I think the sarge is a conniving opportunist," Seymour said, to nobody in particular.

"We need opportunists-that's what we need, isn't it?" Turrin said.

Seymour sighed. "Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what we need. Well-get those girls over here, Leo. And roll that bar over here. It seems we have a new employee to welcome." He smiled sourly at Bolan. "This is your day of golden opportunity, Sarge. Don't let it turn to brass."

Bolan grinned and picked up his drink It had become tepid and flat. Who cared? Hell, who cared? He gulped it down. He was in. And from the looks of things he was about to get into something else. Her name, somebody told him, was Mara; her function was entirely obvious. She settled into his lap without an invitation, handing him a fresh drink, and wriggled the bikini-clad-or almost-clad-bottom about in an apparent striving for comfort, at the expense of Bolan's own. "I like soldiers," she confided softly, running a hand inside his shirt. The bikini barely topped the swell of her lower abdomen, a thin stretch of elastic traversing the centerline of belled hips and plunging in back well below the pronounced cleft of swollen buttocks. The halter of the bikini was no more than an elasticized scrap of overlaid "now you see it, now you don't" netting.