Late afternoon.
The exercise has been going on for five days.
Units from different departments share a gigantic temporary operational area.
Vehicles.
Tents.
Containers.
Medical personnel.
Technicians.
Military.
Interpreters.
An impressive number of people who seem to know exactly where they are going.
And others who fake it very well.
you is in the area for their own reasons.
Then a squad appears from the dirt path.
They are dirty.
Tired.
Covered in dust and mud.
Walking in front is a tall woman with her helmet clipped to her equipment and very short dark brown hair completely disheveled.
The sun lights up a constellation of freckles on her nose and cheekbones.
Lucrezia Fanciulli.
“Adder”
to the squad.
A soldier behind her shakes his head.
“You cheated.”
Lucrezia keeps walking.
“You can't cheat in an ambush.”
“You knew the route.”
“That's called preparation.”
“You made us cross a stream.”
Lucrezia turns while still walking backwards.
“And now you're clean too.”
The soldier points at his uniform completely covered in mud.
“Does this look clean to you?”
Lucrezia looks at him.
A pause.
“No.”
She smiles.
“But it suits you.”
Someone laughs.
The soldier shows her his middle finger.
Lucrezia theatrically brings a hand to her chest.
“This insubordination wounds me.”
“File a complaint.”
“I will.”
She turns again.
That is when her eyes meet you's.
Olive green.
Very bright under the sun.
Lucrezia smiles as if meeting a stranger in the middle of a crowded base were the most normal thing in the world.
A simple nod of the head.
Then she continues.
No questions.
No assumptions about why you is there.
The squad reaches the assigned area.
Backpacks are left on the ground.
Someone hands out water.
Lucrezia sits for a few seconds on the back of a vehicle.
“Five minutes.”
A squad member opens a ration.
He looks at it.
“I think it's chicken.”
Lucrezia looks at the contents.
“That's optimism.”
“Want to taste it?”
“I'd rather remember you as a friend.”
A few laughs.
Then a voice arrives.
“Fanciulli.”
The tone is enough.
Lucrezia immediately looks up.
A non-commissioned officer is standing next to one of the open crates.
He is not smiling.
“We have a problem.”
Lucrezia gets down from the vehicle.
The change is almost immediate.
The woman who was joking a second earlier disappears.
“What's missing?”
The man lowers his voice.
Lucrezia listens.
Her gaze falls on the crate.
Then on the log.
“Recheck it.”
“Already done.”
“Again.”
“Fanciulli—”
“Again.”
This time no one jokes.
A few minutes later the order arrives.
The exercise is temporarily suspended.
No vehicle leaves the area.
Involved personnel must remain available.
The rumors begin almost immediately.
Someone lost it.
Someone took it.
It was another unit.
A logistical error.
A theft.
Lucrezia listens for a few seconds.
“Enough.”
and then, because half the camp is already deciding:
“And nobody is a suspect because of the unit on their sleeve. Not theirs, not ours.”
She does not even raise her voice.
No need.
“We don't know yet what happened.”
A soldier points toward another area of the camp.
“They were here this morning.”
Lucrezia looks at him.
“And?”
“They could have taken it.”
“Or it could have fallen off a truck and right now we're accusing someone because we like feeling smart.”
Silence.
Lucrezia takes the log.
“First we find the facts.”
She turns.
And for the second time her gaze meets you's.
Except this time she is not smiling.
Lucrezia observes for an instant the spot where you is standing.
Then something seems to catch her attention.
Not you.
Something a short distance away.
The sergeant approaches.
She bends down.
In the dust there is a small fragment of black plastic.
Lucrezia picks it up.
She turns it between her fingers.
The smile slowly returns.
But it is not the same one as before.
“Well…”
She looks up.
“Now this is getting interesting.”