"Now you are shitting me."

Evan held up three fingers. "Scout's honor."

"Jesus," Allstrong said. "So where do you guys stand now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what's your mission? What are you doing tomorrow, for example?"

Evan sipped his scotch, shrugged his shoulders. "No clue. I check in with Colonel Calliston tomorrow morning at oh eight hundred and find out, I suppose. I don't see him sending us back to our unit, although that's what I'm going to request. The men aren't too hot on this convoy duty, maybe wind up getting shot at. That wasn't in the original plan."

A small knowing chuckle came from Allstrong's throat. "Well, Lieutenant, welcome to the war. Plans are what you work with before you get there. They give you the illusion you've got some control, and you don't."

"I'm getting a sense of that," Evan replied. "So the short answer is I don't know what's happening tomorrow, or next week, or anything. We seem to be the lost company."

Allstrong stood up with his drink and walked over to the map. Staring at it for a few seconds, he spoke back over his shoulder. "Maybe I can talk to Bill. Calliston. Get you and your men assigned to us. How'd you like that?"

"Staying on here?"

"Yeah."

"Doing what?"

Allstrong turned. "Well, that's the bad news. We'd want you to support our own convoy trucks, but there's a lot fewer of them and we're not afraid to drive faster if we need to."

"Where to?"

"Mostly Baghdad and back, but we're hoping to open offices at other bases near Fallujah and Mosul too. Wherever we can get work and beat damn Custer Battles to the punch."

"Custer Battles?"

"New guys. Contractors like us and kicking ass at it. They got the other half of this airport gig and they're going for everything else we are.