We Were Soldiers

133. Involves Sprinkles

It wasn't a bad morning, as far as mornings went. Danny only had to threaten to punch two people before breakfast, and none during. Grant hadn't shown up to eat, but that wasn't a surprise; guy was a workaholic. Probably spent the whole night dotting the I's and crossing the T's on the report for the General. That, or stayed awake worrying about how to ask Nancy out on a date. What was the guy even worried about? It wasn't as if he was bad lookin', or short, or smelled of BO. Career officer like him ought to have dames lining up outside his tent. Well, this was something Grant was gonna have to do for himself.

He polished off his breakfast—no eggs today, unfortunately—and downed what was left of his coffee. Seemed supplies of the stuff were finally running empty, because the coffee was tasting more and more like boiled water with sugar in it every day. Pfc. Franklin would not have been impressed. Very likely he would've had a nervous breakdown about it by now, if he'd still been alive.

Reminiscing done for the day, he left the mess and headed towards the quartermaster's tent. In his new role as a desk monkey, he shared a communal office tent with three other army administrators, while Grant got a tent to himself. And that was part of the problem, at least in this camp. Too much separation between officers and enlisted men. The officers couldn't always see what their men were doing. Sure, some of the quartermasters were in the Syndicate, but half of them weren't. They just had staff who were, and they were too unaware of what those staff were actually doing to be able to control it.

It really was a mess. And it wasn't just the organisation of the Syndicate that was sloppy; it was the lack of accountability. Take the 107th, for example. Davies had run the Syndicate, and everyone knew it. Though he was only a lowly Private First-class, he knew how to make things happen. Everyone knew who they needed to go to for favours, and everyone knew to protect Davies from being discovered.

But this Syndicate… half the members didn't seem to know the other half. Some of them were just plain clueless about how the system was even supposed to work. They didn't know who to protect. Many of them took too much and put too little back in. The whole point of a Syndicate was that it worked on a system of balances. Just as energy could not be created or destroyed, only changed in form, so it was with the Syndicate. Anything taken had to be balanced by something of equal value, thereby conforming to the laws of physics. General Grant was right in his assessment—this really was like trying to plug a leak without any idea of where the holes were. Part of him was starting to believe it might not even be possible to find the holes. That the only way to stop it was to tear the whole thing down, implement strict oversight measures, and build the Syndicate again from the ground up. Smaller. Quieter. With somebody in charge who knew what he was doing. Maybe somebody just like Danny. After all, he'd watched Davies work to build it throughout Winter Training, and it had continued the moment he arrived at Last Stop. Plus, Gusty had taken over the 107th's Syndicate. How hard could it be?

The flap of Grant's tent was down. Odd. He was normally a big fan of leaving it open to let the light in. Was it possible he was still in bed? Maybe. Perhaps he really had lain awake half the night worrying about Nancy. Or… hadn't he said he was gonna go give blood this morning, and speak to her? Maybe that was it. He was probably still over there, eating his biscuit and sipping a cup of actual real coffee, and gettin' a date for the night. Lucky guy. Still, only one way to find out.

"Knock knock," he said, and pushed his way through the flap into the dim interior of the tent.

Grant was at his desk, head held in his hands like he had the world's worst hangover, his eyes bloodshot, and all the records from their division's stores laid open in front of him. Either he'd worked real hard on that report for the General, or this did not bode well.

"Don't tell me you worked all night," he said, hovering by the entrance.

"Take a seat, Sergeant," said Grant. He pointed to the chair in front of the desk. So Danny did, and as he settled, Grant asked, "Did you think I wouldn't find out?"

Uh-oh. What exactly had he found out? The list of things he'd done that could get him into trouble was as long as his arm, and it was headed by one pesky letter he never should'a written. Stupid Barnes, talking him into writing it in the first place. But maybe that wasn't it. Maybe he'd found out that Danny hadn't actually asked Nancy out, and just made that up to make the guy think the nurse had no interest in him. Which she didn't; he didn't need her rejection to be able to tell that he wasn't her type.

"You've been stealing from the stores. I've been back through all the logs you've made, and found a number of discrepancies. The first couple I thought may have been errors, but after a while they became too regular to be erroneous."

He very nearly heaved a sigh of relief. "Everyone steals from the stores," he said.

"Not on my watch."

"Hah." The scoff was out of his lips before he could even think about stopping it. "You take a look at your books from before I arrived here? Your other three members of staff were taking way more. I put a stop to it and made them go through me, so that I could minimise it. But you can't stop it completely. It's how the Army works, pal. Men need stuff."

"The requisition system—"

"Is too slow, sometimes," he countered. "Trust me. I know. I've been on the wrong end of it. To this day, I still owe Barnes a pair of socks because it would'a taken too long to requisition a pair before my last mission."

"I see. So I'm just some clueless officer who doesn't understand because he's never been in combat." There was a sort of misplaced petulance to Grant's words, like he was trying to pick a fight despite there being nothing and nobody to fight against.

"Clueless, yes," he said. "Most officers are, in my opinion, regardless of how much combat they've seen."

"I guess that makes it easier for enlisted men to suck up to us." There was genuine hurt in the guy's voice now. "That is what you've been telling some of the men to do, right? Play buddy with their COs so they don't come under as much scrutiny. Is that what this was? Inviting me to darts games, or the movies, trying to set me up with a pretty nurse… was that you buttering me up so I wouldn't look at your work? Keep me distracted and out of your way? Is that all our friendship was to you? I guess you are a decent actor, after all."

He teetered with indecision for a moment. Call Grant names and tell him to man up and start acting like his rank instead of a little girl, or try to knock some cold, hard sense into him? In the end, he chose the latter. Grant wasn't the kinda guy you could help with name-calling. Too much of a patsy.

"First of all," he said, "I never claimed we were friends. In fact, just yesterday I literally told you that I didn't know you well enough to go on a double-date with you. Second, do you think I need to fake a friendship to get anything that I want? You've seen how I work. I see something I want, I make it happen. Have you ever seen me pretend to be somebody's friend to do that? Third, if you remove the word 'CO' from that advice and replace it with 'boss', you've got a solid nugget of wisdom that'll serve you as well on Civvie Street as it does in the army. I hope the men upon whom I've bestowed these wisdom-nuggets will remember that after the war. Assuming they survive, of course. Fourth, I actually do enjoy your company, when you're not being a whiny fuckin' crybaby." Oops. Sometimes it was really hard to not slip back in to insulting people. Still, he'd made it to point number four before doing it, so that was an improvement. "You're one of the few people in this camp who doesn't annoy the shit out of me. So, y'know, sorry if you feel personally insulted or whatever. That was never my intention."

Grant was silent for a very long time, and Danny made a point of not fidgeting. Only guilty people fidgeted. Or people who had chiggers. Currently, he had neither. If Grant wanted to think his need to have at least one semi-casual acquaintance who wasn't a complete pain in the ass was Danny trying to butter him up, then that was his problem. Guy had some serious confidence issues.

"I'm going to have to report this to the General," Grant said at last. "And officially request that you be reassigned to the motor pool. That's if he chooses not to have you dishonourably discharged."

That could be… problematic. General Grant had assured him that any such reports would be duly shredded in quick order, but if the report came from his own son, and Grant Junior made a loud fuss about it… there would definitely be questions raised about why the General was lettin' Danny, a known and proven thief, keep working in the same role. It might spook whichever officer was hiding the Syndicate's activities and make him go even deeper underground. That's even assuming it was a 'him'. Maybe this camp had its own version of Agent Carter. Or perhaps one of the nurses was really, really business-minded. A lotta men wouldn't think women capable of something like this. Danny was under no such illusions.

Of course, he could stop the report from reaching the General if he just told Grant his true purpose in being here. The work he was doing to infiltrate and expose the Syndicate leaders. He was ninety-nine percent sure his lieutenant wasn't involved in any way, shape or form. The guy was just too clean-cut for it. If he were an icecream flavour, he would'a been vanilla. Sweet and dependable, but a tad boring. Nobody sane ate vanilla without adding a generous dose of chocolate sprinkles and a dollop of raspberry sauce. Maybe even one of those little wafer things, too…

"Are you even listening to me?" Grant asked, snapping his fingers in front of Danny's face. "You could be court-martialed. Don't you have anything to say for yourself?"

"Sorry. Got distracted thinking about chocolate sprinkles. You know, the kind you put on icecream?" Grant looked at him as if he was mad, and Danny swiftly decided he had to salvage the situation before it could come crashing down and ruin his whole mission. If that happened, he'd never be able to talk the General into lettin' him run the camp's Syndicate as a reward for making his problem go away. "You can't tell the General anything about this."

"I think you'll find that I can." Great. The guy chose this moment to flex his rank. Dumb-ass.

"What I mean is, you can tell him, but it won't change anything. He already knows."

Grant scoffed quietly. "He already knows that you're stealing from the stores?"

"S'right. See, I'm on a secret mission."

"Right. From Captain America, I suppose?"

"Don't roll your eyes at me," Danny warned. "This has nothing to do with Captain America. You see, the day I arrived here, the General told me that the top brass back home are concerned about how many supplies are going missing from the camp. It's starting to cost them, and there's only so much those defense bonds can buy. When I told him of my work back in civvie life, he asked me to discreetly investigate matters to see if I could find what was happening to the equipment."

"I don't understand. If equipment is going missing, why didn't he come to me about this? I could've investigated it for him." Reality suddenly hit Grant hard and fast. His face went carefully blank as he leant back in his char. "He thinks I'm involved."

"He doesn't think you're involved," Danny said quickly. Jeez, was he gonna start cryin'? "He asked me to keep an open mind, but I don't think he truly believes you have anything to do with this. I think that's probably why he assigned me to you in the first place. The General… your dad… he didn't have a lot of options. There wasn't anybody he could fully trust. Anything he asked of you might not be viewed as entirely impartial. And I was new here, so he knew I didn't have anything to do with the Syndicate."

"Syndicate?"

He really was clueless. "Every division has a Syndicate. Hell, even a lot of regiments have their own. It's a system of unofficial supply distribution based on the time-honoured tradition of barter, by which—"

"I know what barter is, Sergeant. Are you saying that's what's been happening here? That this Syndicate is an organisation of criminals within the army itself?"

"They're not criminals. They're just soldiers, like you and me. Most Syndicates work discreetly, and the men who run them make sure that anything taken is replaced with something of like value. That way, the value of a camp's equipment never changes, it merely gets moved around to enable men to get easier access to what they need to do their jobs. But in this camp, something has gone wrong. Too many fingers in the pie, I suspect, and not enough oversight to keep it in balance. Over the past few weeks, I've been slogging my way through the paperwork—the General managed to have some of the other quartermaster's books made available to me—whilst slowly establishing a circle of trust with key members of the Syndicate here."

"This is all… very hard to believe," Grant said. He wouldn't have survived a week with the 107th. Probably wouldn't even have made it outta Last Stop. "What part have I played in your charade, exactly?"

"No part. None at all."

A puzzled frown slid across his face. "Then why the insistence on dragging me out to watch movies? Why ask me to play darts? Why try to set me up on a date with Nancy?"

"Because I needed somebody sensible to help keep me sane, and you needed to lighten up and have some fun. Besides, as a good Samaritan, I feel it is my duty to help out the patsies of the world."

"Why?"

He sighed. "Because I very much fear I'm turning into one of you. And somewhere down the line, I may need someone like me to swoop in and pull me out of it."

"Well… thanks. But I'm not a patsy."

"You are. A little bit," Danny countered. "You haven't even asked Nancy out yet."

"Forget about Nancy! What have your investigations into the Syndicate yielded?"

"Stalled, for the moment." It might take weeks to get it moving again. Stupid investigation.

Grant was silent for a moment, clearly chewing on everything Danny had told him. Had to leave a sour after-taste, knowing his dad had come to a stranger about this over his own son. But finally, he asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Nah, you're way too vanilla for this." He studied Grant's face. It was difficult to imagine him being involved in the Syndicate. And if it was difficult for Danny to imagine it, it would be difficult for everyone else to imagine it, too. So maybe that was something he could use. "How do you feel about chocolate sprinkles?"

"I'm not even sure what this conversation is about anymore," Grant admitted. "But if I can do anything to help, I will. Even if it involves sprinkles."

"Alright." A second set of eyes on the problem could be useful. A second mind, that thought in more straightforward ways, to help figure things out. "My investigation is stalled because I've followed the paper trail as far as it will go. Yesterday I tried to get something big, but it didn't even get past the first gatekeeper. I'm convinced there's a command-level officer running the Syndicate, trying to keep it all from falling apart, but nobody knows who it is, and I don't know how to get to him without having a ladder to climb."

"Maybe you don't need a ladder to climb," said Grant, his gaze turned inward as he mulled over the issue. "Maybe you need a rope to descend. If you can't get any further up, then start at the top and work down. Make a list of all command officers within the camp and investigate them individually. As you start crossing names off that list, it'll narrow your suspects down considerably. I can help. I see all the officers at our weekly staff meetings. I can let you know if anybody's acting strangely. Making odd requests. Looking overly tired due to clandestine night-time activities."

"Let's not jump the gun on clandestine night-time activities. There could be a lotta reasons a guy's out late at night."

"Such as?"

"Giving blood."

"Who in their right mind would give blood at—"

"It was a euphemism." Danny pinched the bridge of his nose as his brain started to throb dully. Been a long time since he had an actual, honest-to-god headache. Grant was so square it was painful. "We don't wanna get anyone in trouble for giving things to nurses. But the rest of it sounds good. Can I borrow your pen? You can give me all the officer names and we can see if there's any we can scratch off right now. I don't know them all yet, so you'll have to fill in the gaps for me."

So they went through the camp, regiment by regiment. Every captain, major and colonel got added to the list, and it was a very long list. Still probably easier than tackling the Syndicate from the lower levels. And now that he had an ally to help, he might be able to cut the list down more quickly.

"That everyone?" he asked, when he'd finished writing the name of Colonel Kirby at the bottom of the list. "We have to make sure we get everyone."

Grant stared at the list in silence, a light frown drawn across his brows. "Actually… there is one command-level name we've overlooked." He lifted his eyes to Danny's face, and they were troubled. "My father."

"Your father is the one who instructed me to investigate this," he said. "Do you really think he's the type of man who would be involved?"

I started out as an enlisted man myself. I know how the army works… everything runs more smoothly when the men have what they need, and sometimes what they need takes too long to get when going through official channels… I wish this sort of investigation wasn't required at all…

"A few months ago," Grant said, "I overheard my father talking to one of the Colonels after a staff meeting. He was complaining that he'd just had a request for more medical supplies and ammunition denied by the brass. That they were expecting his men to fight an enemy but not giving them what they needed to survive every battle. That he wished he could drag them into this war and make them see exactly how tough conditions are out here. And he sounded very angry when he said it. Then he said something quiet, and I didn't catch most of it. But what I did hear was, I'll have to find a way to do it myself."

"Well… your father did start out as an enlisted man," Danny agreed. "And he knows about the Syndicate, which means he was probably in it at one point. Hell, maybe he was even running it…"

"And maybe he never stopped running it," added Grant. "He's been looking very strained, of late. I can understand that if we were on the front line, seeing combat every day, digging holes all over Italy to bury our dead. But since the Allied invasion of France, we haven't seen a single Nazi. It hasn't been this quiet in a long time. If anything, my father should look more relaxed and rested, not more stressed and tired."

A tingle of excitement danced up Danny's spine. Could this be it? Was this the answer he had been looking for all along? Was the reason he hadn't been able to climb the ladder because it was the General himself at the top of it? Whoever commanded the army had almost unrestricted power within it, and anyone who might be at an appropriate level to watch over him was either back home in a comfy seat playing warfare from a distance, or serving on the front in France.

"I don't understand why he'd ask you to investigate when he knew exactly what was happening, though."

Danny offered a shrug. "Plausible deniability, probably. How could he possibly be the one running the Syndicate? He was the one who ordered the investigation, after all. Maybe he planted evidence to frame someone else. Maybe I'm just the dumb patsy who's supposed to have the wrong guy arrested. After all, anyone in the Syndicate is supposed to take a hit to protect the guy who runs it. I'm not sure everyone in this Syndicate knows that, but it's the way it's supposed to be."

"If we accuse him, he'll deny everything," Grant said. "My father is very clever. But… he's not a bad man. If it really is him, I don't think he ever meant for anyone to be hurt, or for this much equipment to go missing. And if it is him, we're going to need proof. A lot of it. And it will have to be irrefutable. I can't imagine that he'd leave that sort of evidence just sitting around to be found."

It made sense. The paper trail had already gone cold, which was why Danny had resorted to trying to get a jeep. Desperate times, and all that. Could he flush the General out some other way? If he was willing to do anything to get the men what they needed, then he clearly cared about them more than most officers did. Could he use that? His concern for his troops was a weakness, and Danny just needed to find a way to stick a wedge in it and crack it open.

"Maybe we don't need to find any evidence. Maybe we just need to manufacture it," he mused.

"That doesn't sound entirely ethical. Or legal," said Grant.

"Oh, it's not. But it's essential to the plan I just now made up inside my head.

"Tell me."

So he did. He walked the guy through it from A to Z, stopping at every point along the way to field questions. And at the end of it, Grant gave him a look that suggested he was mad, and said, "I dunno. It all sounds very… convoluted."

"Convoluted? Pal, this plan is so simple that I'm worried it might actually be too simple!"

"Half of it is based on supposition, and the other half on conjecture. Plus, the bribing. I'm not entirely comfortable with that."

"It's for a good cause. Don't worry, it'll work! Most strategies are based on supposition and conjecture. That's why playing is so much fun. If you already knew the outcome was assured, it would be boring." Another thought danced across his mind. "Huh."

"What is it?"

"Y'know, all this time, I thought I was playin' poker. Turns out we're actually playing chess. All we need is to put the right pieces into motion, and hope your dad doesn't see us move to check-mate before we're ready."

Grant gave him a very doubtful look. It was like the guy didn't even know him at all! "It's a big risk. My dad is the King in this game."

"And you're our Knight," he pointed out. Because everybody who willingly watched Captain America movies liked to think of themselves as Knight material. "And Nancy is our Queen."

"What about pawns?"

Danny smiled. "I have three of them in mind. Just leave that to me."

"And what's your role in all of this? Bishop? Castle?"

"Me? I'm the player. The hand that moves the pieces around the board." For once, he could control not only the pieces in the game, but the playing field itself. This must be how God felt, that time he created the world. Right before he screwed it up by giving people a bunch of stupid and pointless rules to live by, anyway.

"You're a decent poker player," Grant conceded. "But how well can you play chess?"

He offered the lieutenant a shrug. Probably best not to mention his track record there. "I dunno. Let's find out."

Author's note: Merry Christmas, everyone! And seasons greetings to 'Eagles', all the way in Nigeria! Hope your December is going splendidly!

A re-explanation of the characters in the fic is certainly feasible, so I hope you find this useful. Not sure how far back you want me to go, or how relevant you want the characters to be to the actual story. So, looking at things since Our Heroes arrived in London, at the beginning of 'book two'…

The Canon Characters

• Howling Commandos: Jacques Dernier, Private James Morita, Major James 'Monty' Montgomery Falsworth, Sergeant Timothy 'Dum Dum' Dugan, and Private Gabe Jones. Plus Bucky and Captain Steve Rogers Himself!

• Agent Peggy Carter: Not Just A Love Interest. Totally kick-ass SSR Agent, and Captain America's liaison. She has to put up with Colonel Phillips and Howard Stark on a near-daily basis, and is a hero in her own right.

• Howard Stark: Billionaire. Inventor. Lover. Creator of the world's first Electric Toothbrush (or the world's last Electronic Brain Scrambling Device - depending on your point of view).

• Hodge: A guy from Project Rebirth. One might assume his part in this story is over.

• Colonel Phillips: Still waiting for that perfect cup of coffee from Private Lorraine. The SSR's head honcho. Super annoyed that he's not allowed to leave London.

• Michael Carter: I guess he's *technically* canon, but in Earth 616 world (or whatever) he's the Monster At The End Of This Book of Agent Carter's season 2. I want him to have a happy ending, so I rescued him from those mean, mean Marvel people.

• Johann Schmidt: The Red Skull. Aka The Main Villain.

• Dr Arnim Zola: The second villain.

• Captain James 'Logan' Howlett: The Wolverine. Pre-adamantium skeleton days. Just having a bit of fun at the Nazis' expense. It's canon that he and Cap fought together on several occasions during WW2, but I thought it would be more fun for Bucky to meet him.

• Nurse Elizabeth 'Betsy' Braddock: Psylocke, before she body-swapped with a ninja. She's not actually a nurse, she just made everyone think she is so she wouldn't be left behind during the war.

• Brian Braddock (not pictured): Betsy's twin, Captain Britain.

• Private Benjamin Parker: Will later go on to have several children, the youngest of whom will be a son called Ben.

The Non-Canon Characters

• Sergeant Danny Wells: Still Bucky's foil, but slowly starting to outrank him. Chess Grandmaster.

• Captain Stone: The Commandos' long-suffering personal sky-chauffeur, aka Royal Air Force pilot. Super annoyed that he's currently grounded. More super annoyed that he's currently grounded in France.

• Miles: One of Howard's lab assistants.

• General Ernst Kaufmann: Former head of Sturmabteilung, blames Schmidt for turning Hitler against him. Currently heading up Project Lazarus.

• Agent Francis Pollard: Former member of MI5, currently on loan to the Special Operations Executive, and keeping an eye on Kaufmann and his staff. Good friend and unrequited love of Peggy Carter.

• Antje Moens: The One That Got Away. Currently engaged (? Status unconfirmed ?) to Michael Carter.

• Blue: A puppy that Bucky saved from being thrown in the Thames. Sent back home to live with the Barnes family.

• Lizzie: The real hero of this story.

• Mr Chipperton: The Strand's concierge. Responsible for monitoring all comings and goings at the Commandos' temporary abode. You would not believe how many blind eyes he has turned during the course of this story.

• Lab Rats: Without whose sacrifice neither Project Rebirth nor Project Lazarus would ever have come to fruition.

• General Grant, Lieutenant Joe Grant, Sergeant Forrest, Nurse Nancy, The Three Stooges: Some of the folk from the 3rd Infantry. I've had super fun writing them… but don't get attached :-X