When St. John closes the door behind himself, Strange looks away from the text and snaps his head toward him with a welcoming smile.
Removing his Syndicate, St. John wraps it in his cap and places it on the desk. He’d discovered a while ago that if the Syndicates were wrapped in fabric it muffled the microphone without messing with the GPS locater. Enough protection from Sgt. Maxwell’s not so-secret-secret-tracking bugs.
The meager private quarters for the second-in-commands were barely the size of a closet, but it was levels above the bunk style barracks their other corporals were forced into.
“I can’t take too much more of this. I may put in a transfer,” St. John says leaning against the wall. “His job should be fucking mine.”
“Have faith. We can still do this,” Strange reassures him. “We can still get rid of Maxwell.”
“I don't think we can.”
Strange and he had been the envy of the men in their own boot camp. They’d been the strongest, smartest and most liked. Strange always had an almost depraved since of right and wrong and the moment they’d reconnected at Camp Harmony Strange was convinced Maxwell should go and St. John should take his place.
St. John had felt the same way, but to him it was complicated. He knew nothing ever stuck to Sgt. Kenneth Maxwell.
“He does his job under the influence, he drinks, two boys died under his watch,” Strange lists. “Trust me, we can still take him down--”
“It will be Maxwell’s word against mine,” St. John countered. “I’ve got nothing without that fucking kid or Audrina to back me up. Everyone else is either new here or scared shitless of the bastard.”
A patronizing look comes across Strange’s face.
“Listen, we don’t actually need Maxwell’s fuckboy to talk,” Strange tells him.
“What do you mean-,”
Strange cuts him off with a finger to his lips
“What--”
“Listen,” Strange says pointing to the far wall of the room.
St. John moves closer to the wall and he hears a rhythmic thumping against the wall and low voices. It’s so quiet he can barely hear it even with his ear up to the wall.
The rhythm speeds up and then slows down before speeding up again. It takes him a few moments to understand the sound; It’s the headboard meeting the opposite wall.
The wall of Maxwell’s quarters was right against the opposite wall in Strange's.
“The fucking bastard,” St. John says backing away from the wall. “That’s vile. How old is that kid ?”
“He’s old enough,” Strange said. “Come on. They’re always together. You never fucking suspected?”
“I’d heard stories of Maxwell turning down subordinates who came to his bed,” St. John says. “I assumed Maxwell was…above that”
“Well, he’s not,” St. John said. “Technically the kid is still a prisoner and Maxwell is a commanding officers-- this is an open and shut case.”
St. John shifts. The RLA had a zero tolerance sexual assault policy. Even accusing Maxwell would strip him off his title and position and place him in federal prison for years.
“I just wanted to get him taken down a peg,” St. John says quietly. ”I’m not trying to send him to prison.”
Strange stands suddenly and puts his arm around St. John’s shoulders.
“Look,
those POWs are the first ones the RLA has captured,” Strange starts. “They’ll
be more POWs here. One day this camp could be a historic site. Years from now people will be coming here to
see where it all happened. Do you really want Maxwell getting credit for this place ?”