The Last War: Chapter 43, Part 1

Tricia Marsden nearly spat her gin out all over the hotel suite.

"You what?" she exclaimed, gulping it down instead.

"I have joined the army, my dear," said Aubrey Dansworth on the other end of the phone, "I am going to fight for righteousness and all that lovely sort of thing."

Oh dear, oh dear.

"Surely you are not serious, Aubrey, dear," Tricia said, calming down and sipping her drink again, "What do you know about fighting?"

"A lot, actually. I fought at Bayonne with Arrington."

"Look, Aubrey," she said, smiling, "You are a reporter. I understand you've gotten a big old testosterone injection from reporting out on the front. But that doesn't mean..."

"I'm sorry, Trish," he cut in sharply, "But I drove a tank, and I've developed myself a taste for war. It's a fantastic thing."

"You'd serve Britain much, much better reporting on GRTH," she said grinding her teeth, "You're just another piece of cannon fodder out on the front, but if you're reporting, you're rallying the people around you."

Tricia gripped her towel closely around herself. She had just gotten out of the shower, and even though she knew Dansworth was thousands of miles away, her modesty got the better of herself. She had went to get a quick drink before getting changed, but this phone call had changed all of that.

"I'm sorry, Trish," he repeated stalwartly, "But I'm doing this. I can understand if you want to break up, but I'm doing this no matter what."

"Fine," she said, sighing heavily, "Do it. But I'm not breaking up with you. Oh, no, that would be just too easy on you. You're going to have to face my full wrath next time we're together, you understand, and you're not going to weasel your way off the hook with a breakup. I'm now going to hang up on you huffily."

"Understood."

She punched the END button on her cell phone. This was quite annoying. Who else but her idiot boyfriend would throw away a perfectly promising career in journalism to get shot at? No one, that's who.

She muttered a few things to that effect and flung herself out on the bed. She'd somehow managed to leg it out of Mongolia. She was now in Washington D.C., getting ready for an interview with Lars Metzger. She'd been planning to go back to Shepherd's Bush and spend some time with Aubrey next chance she got, but the idiot had canceled. Why? To become an army man.

Tricia laughed. It was the kind of thing that little kids said, wasn't it? "I'm going to be an army man when I grow up." Oh well.

What an idiot. But she had a job to do, and she was going to do it. She picked an outfit and started to get changed. When she was finished she headed out the door to meet the Butcher of Bavaria.