The soldiers stepped off the dusty road as evening settled over the Caribbean town. The heat lingered even after sunset, carrying the smell of fried fish and diesel from the harbor.

Someone said they were heading to Rachiem, and no one objected. It was the kind of place men pretended not to know, yet always found without effort.

Music throbbed faintly in the distance—old rub-a-dub rhythms drifting from a bar whose shutters never closed. Jensen paused when he heard it.

“I wish I was back in West India,” he murmured, “living only for rub-a-dub.”

The others laughed softly, not unkindly, and kept walking.

Rachiem waited at the end of a narrow alley, washed in red light and sea haze. The soldiers slipped inside one by one, swallowed by the night, by habit, by whatever it was they came here to forget.

Jensen lingered outside a moment longer, listening to the music, wishing it were enough.

The soldiers are visiting Rachiem