by John Hart
“This is delicious!” Izzy took another deep sip. “Thanks, Gregg.”
“Hey it’s tradition, as long as we keep bribing mess hall with sleeping pills,” said Gregg, clinking his glass with Izzy’s. “Here’s to 125 and a wakeup.”
“Hell yeah!” Hertz and the rest all clinked their glasses in a toast to Gregg’s one-day-closer to home, then Hertz and Bayer added in their numbers, with group clinks to their own days remaining.
When Izzy announced: “Three hundred and sixty-three and a wake-up,” the tapping of glasses was drowned out by loud hoots and groans over Izzy’s misfortune.
J.D. took his turn last and shrugged. “Oh, who’s counting?”
Bayer heartily toasted the jokester. “Good one, Doc, good one!”
“Yeah, we should keep him around.” Hertz quickly fixed a second glass with the works as time was just about up. “By the way, sir, what is your specialty?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know. Your area of expertise?”
“Dr. Mikel specializes in delusion and hysteria,” Gregg quickly answered on behalf of J.D.
“Yes, that is it exactly,” J.D. agreed. “This is a nice iced coffee, thank you Hertz.”
“Okay, we’ve got our customers lining up out there,” said Gregg, hurrying things along. “Let’s get going.”
The techs took off and Gregg told Izzy, “Okay, you’ve got your first customer coming. Pretend this is a patient like anyone you’d treat back home, just dealing with an out of body experience on another planet, and you’ll be fine. I’ll be in my office and like I said, yell if you need me.”
7
“Thanks, man.” J.D. tapped his glass to Gregg’s. “I owe you for covering my ass.”
“We’re hardly even since I’m still here to say as much.”
“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind if I sat in on any cases where my specialty with delusions and hysteria might suggest a good match? At least until I get my office, too.”
Rather than savor another swallow of his iced coffee, Gregg put down his glass. He liked J.D., but he didn’t trust him, and if you couldn’t trust the person who saved your life, then who could you trust? He was caught in the same damned if you do/damned if you don’t dilemma of knowing if something twisted was going after the troops it had to be stopped, but his responsibility as a psychologist was to treat these messed up soldiers with kindness, dignity, compassion, while J.D. was there to get answers by any means necessary, even if it meant messing the poor guys up even more than they already were.
Before Gregg could respond, and the hell if he knew what to say, Hertz reappeared and in an urgent whisper reported, “Dr. Kelly, we’ve got an escorted Special Ops NCO out there who’s not in good shape at all. I pushed him to the front, and you’ll want this one, Sir. You know we usually never get Special Forces, even less Special Ops, but your friend Captain Galt sent him over.”
That’s all Gregg needed to hear. Rick Galt was tough as nails but he would do anything for his soldiers, and to be sure, they would do anything for a commanding officer like him. Galt was like a larger-than-life Special Ops version of. . . .
Gregg wished he hadn’t thought of Top. His throat got really tight and the coffee didn’t sit well on his stomach. But since Top would be the first to tell him to get his shit together and a haircut while he was at it, Gregg took a deep breath and said, “Sure, get him to my office.”
J.D. quickly followed up with, “And be sure to bring anything he came in with, Hertz.”
“That would be his gun, sir, and his buddy. He’s not letting the first one go and the second is propping him up.”
Gregg no sooner got into his office, reluctantly bringing J.D. along, than Hertz escorted the staff sergeant and a corporal in, and immediately left to get something cold that tasted of home.
The obvious new patient slumped against the other soldier who’d brought him in from the field on Galt’s orders. They both looked worse than hell—haggard and worn out, dirty with red mud caked all over them—but the similarities ended there. While the corporal was amply functional to bring his buddy in for help, the other man was closer to an unblinking zombie.
Gregg quickly stepped forward to greet them. “I’m Dr. Kelly. I appreciate Captain Galt sending you here with . . .” Reading the name tag, “Romero.” Then to the escort, “Okay, now you want to take his weapon and hold it for him.”
At first touch, Romero seized the gun closer. The corporal persisted and one-by-one pried Romero’s fingers off the M16 while he filled Gregg in. “We were up near Dalat. Out on the wire all night and when we came back in Lieutenant Jones—he was Romero’s long time LT—was sitting there at our meet-up point with his own head cut off and sitting in his lap. Romero freaked out about the Boogeyman story that’s been making the rounds and…and we just didn’t know what to do.” Finally, the corporal extricated the weapon from Romero’s possession. Gregg exhaled the breath he’d been holding as the corporal set the gun a safe distance aside and put a supportive arm around his comrade.
“You did the right thing coming here.” Even though Romero showed no signs of comprehension or ability to engage in conversation, Gregg hoped on some level he still had the ability to respond. Gently, Gregg assured him, “You are okay and safe with us. I’m Dr. Kelly, let me talk with you for a little bit while your friend waits outside.”
The friend took his cue to exit, Romero’s M16 in hand.
“All right Sergeant Romero,” Gregg said gently, “come on over here and have a seat in this chair . . . right there, that’s good. Make yourself comfortable. How about a cold can of Coke?”
Romero, having mechanically followed instructions to sit in a chair beside the desk, looked up at Gregg. “Coke?”
“Got one on the way,” Gregg assured him, keeping his voice real nice, soft, easy like the calm lap of a wave. “So, Romero, could you tell me your first name?”
“Mike?”
“Mike, good to meet you. And where do you come from?”
Hertz appeared with soda in hand. He held out the can but Romero’s gaze didn’t move.
“The Coke is here whenever you want it, Mike.” In the few seconds Gregg took to reframe his question, J.D. pulled up the extra chair and jumped in.
“Hey Mike, it’s Dr. Mikel, and I’m just here to help Dr. Kelly, and you know, Dr. Kelly is here to help you. But we can’t help you much without knowing more about your situation. Did you get a ‘Dear John?’”
Romero slightly shook his head.
“That’s good, glad to hear. Have you got someone waiting back home?”
Romero nodded, just barely. “New baby.”
“Congratulations! What’s your baby’s name?”
Romero stared blankly ahead, suddenly blinked. For a moment his eyes seemed to come into focus. He almost smiled. “Judy.”
“Judy will be really happy to see her daddy come home. But you have to help us by answering a few questions.” Gregg cut J.D. with a censoring glare but J.D. ignored him, continued to hijack the session. “Mike, can you remember being out in the field and seeing or hearing anything strange or unusual? Think hard and—”
“That’s enough,” Gregg sharply whispered when Romero’s inhale/exhale became so rapid he was panting like a dog that had chased down a rabbit—no, more like the rabbit being chased.
“Take it easy, Mike,” Gregg told him in the gentle, quieter voice he used when a situation was getting dicey. “You don’t have to remember anything right now. Mike look right at me now, focus on me and know that you are safe here and—”
“NOOO!” Romero surged from the chair, his eyes bulging at something in some other place that only he could see. He started to run and Gregg leaped in front of him, arms splayed to block the exit.
“IM STAT! STAT!” While Gregg yelled for the sedative, J.D. calmly stood, applied some fo
rm of pressure to Romero’s throat with a single hand, and within seconds Romero’s eyes rolled up and he collapsed in J.D.’s arms.
“Sleep tight, sweetheart,” J.D. muttered, and laid him on the floor.
“What the hell did you just do to my patient?”
“Nothing that will last as long as the sedative you should probably give him before he comes to.” As if J.D. had the authority to issue the instruction, Hertz saw to the injection as J.D. explained, “It’s just an acupunctural technique with the carotid artery. Dim Mak.”
“Dim what?”
“Touch of death. Just a touch, though. He’ll be fine.”
“Wow,” Hertz exclaimed. “What med school did you go to?”
“I’m here!” It was Izzy, racing into the room with Bayer. “I heard yelling so I came the way you told me to. . . Gregg? What happened?”
Gregg could only shake his head. “Later. Let’s carry this guy out and have him taken over to the 99th. We’ll ask the buddy who brought him in to let Captain Galt know what’s up.”
“I’ll talk to the corporal now.” J.D. stepped over Romero. “See if he has some information that might be useful—for diagnostic purposes, of course.” He slapped a high five to both techs. “Fine work, Bayer. Hertz? Right on.”
“Wow,” Hertz said again with something akin to awe as J.D. strode out the door. “Dr. Mikel is cool.”
“Hell yeah,” Bayer agreed. “We sure are lucky to have him.”
After a lunch break, more hot sweaty hours, and more than a few patients later, it was time to end the day. Everyone except J.D. sat in the front office while they put away files and locked cabinets. Bayer and Hertz had their shirts off it was so hot. Gregg was glad J.D. was still gone, and yet he felt like he needed to keep an eye on him so he didn’t improperly mess with any of their patients. Everything about J.D. seemed to challenge his inner equilibrium, like this see-saw between gratitude and resentment that the episode with Romero had ratcheted up another notch.
“So what’s with all this Ghost Soldier stuff that’s floating around, Dr. Kelly? The stories are getting really creepy.” Hertz gave a slight shiver and Gregg knew it wasn’t from the 100-plus degree air blowing dust through the windows.
“Well, what it comes down to is fear,” Gregg ad-libbed in his best clinical voice, hoping to downplay the situation he wasn’t at liberty to discuss. “You know bad things happen up there, it’s scary and stories get started, so the mind thinks it’s better to come up with a story to explain the bad stuff away rather than just accept how awful the war is.”
“I don’t know, Doc,” Bayer interjected. “These guys this morning were Special Ops steel balls guys. They don’t get afraid of the dark, or anything else. Everybody is afraid of them.”
“True,” Gregg agreed while shooting a quick glance at Izzy. “But you have to remember these guys are patrolling long range for days, they’re isolated and stressed with their buddies getting shot, sometimes friendly fire. Nobody wants to admit to that, shooting someone in front of them by accident, but it happens and it’s easier to believe it was some monster or ghost than deal with the guilt. Right, Dr. Moskowitz?”
“Right. Absolutely.”
“But that still doesn’t explain everything.” Hertz made a slice at his throat with his finger. “What about the beheadings? Even if you accidentally shoot someone, you don’t turn around and cut off his head.”
“Of course not,” Gregg quickly agreed and silently damned J.D. for putting them in this position. “Look, that’s the rumor going around, but it’s just a rumor. Have you seen any of these guys with their heads cut off?”
“Hands, too,” Bayer reminded him before admitting, “But, no, we haven’t seen any of that. Sure don’t want to either.”
“None of us do.” Izzy got up to the plate, took a load off Gregg. “And none of us wants to be responsible for contributing to any kind of mass hysteria. This is a natural breeding ground for fear. Fear breeds hysteria, and the problem with hysteria is that it’s infectious—especially where everyone’s afraid at some level, no matter how well they may hide it. Wouldn’t you agree, Dr. Kelly?”
“Completely. It’s like Colonel Kohn was just telling me, that once a ghost story like this gets started, it spreads like measles, and if it keeps spreading, you think this morning was busy? It will look like Disneyland lines out there. The Colonel said we needed to put the kibosh on any rumors and I couldn’t agree more.”
“So what are we supposed to say?” Hertz asked Gregg. “I mean, when other guys ask us about it, because they know we hear things.”
“The reason we are seeing more blow outs is that we have been here longer, and that means they have been out there longer and had more time and opportunity to lose it. And that’s what you tell anyone who asks, then go back to reading your Batman comics or change the subject. Okay? We don’t want to spread rumors or have people thinking the men in the field are seeing things that are not there.”
Suddenly, Hertz and Bayer stood up so fast they nearly knocked over their chairs. They were both staring at the door maybe ten feet away, their mouths slack.
“I don’t believe what I see,” whispered Bayer.
“Me either,” echoed Hertz.
Gregg turned. And just like that he was the one who must be hallucinating and delusional.
Backlit from the open door stood a drop-dead gorgeous blonde that belonged in a wet dream wrapped in a centerfold and you’d still want to take her home to mom. A sky blue sundress showcased creamy bare shoulders, all the right curves, and a shapely pair of legs that were made for walking all over a man’s heart as she strapped them around his waist.
“Kate?” Gregg got up slowly because his own legs felt like rubber. And he felt a little dizzy, the way he always had, always would, with no more than a glimpse of, “Kate!”
8
Katherine Lynn Morningside knew she was beautiful and she knew what it meant. Her mother, who was also beautiful, had told her: It means honey that you can get what you want from them when you want it, at least while you have it; then, it’s gone. But being smart and being tough means you have a chance to get it for yourself and keep it. . . Be beautiful honey, and work it, but be my smart girl.
And just how smart was she to be sitting on the patio of a scrumptious French restaurant on a beachside oasis half the globe away from where she once played a little “beach blanket bingo” with Gregg?
How smart she was to have taken the bait that landed her here remained to be seen. As for working it, Gregg deserved better than all the little torture treatments she had so generously dished out on a deserted sand dune once in high school. She had felt safe enough to practice on him and poor Gregg, always the deep thinker, thought it meant more than it really did.
Here, Gregg, put a little of this baby oil on my back? Oh yes, that’s nice. Uh huh, get under the strap, that’s good. Would you mind doing my legs, too? Hey, you must have had some practice at that. Now the other side. Mmm, that feels soo good. Want me to rub some on your chest? No? But why not? Come on, my turn. Just lay on your back and. . .Wow. That’s amazing. Can I look at it? Please? I mean, I’ve never seen one before. . . .
She still remembered the snap of his grip to her wrist, stopping her in mid-exploratory plunge beneath his swim trunks, the way he was almost gasping for air while he squeezed out a pitiful, “wait.” But like everything else, there was no stopping her once she knew what she wanted and she wanted to see what she could do to the boy next door who was the closest thing she had to a brother.
It should have felt incestuous. It didn’t. It felt like raw, intoxicating power erupting in her hands. Like Charlton Heston throwing down his rod that turned into a snake at Pharaoh’s feet, only this was her staff to command. And still was, judging from Gregg’s glazed expression as he continued to stare at her the way he had the day she “took his virginity,”
as he insisted she had.
“What are you doing here, Kate?” The white dress shirt accentuated his deep blue eyes, golden skin, golden hair. If Dr. Kildare ever needed a stand-in, all Gregg needed were some scrubs and a screenplay. Even their voices were similar. No wonder he made all the other girls melt.
“Would you believe me if I said I was a spy?”
“Ha. Ha.”
Gregg’s besotted gaze migrated into a grimace. He masked it with a sip of the wine he had ordered. A very nice Bordeaux that he remembered was her favorite. He was always doing thoughtful things like that. If there was a perfect guy to settle down with it would be Gregg, and in a perfect world she would be in love with him.
The world simply was not perfect.
“Okay then, let’s try this.” Kate took a sip from her glass. The Bordeaux was perfect at least. “I’m a missionary.”
Gregg practically spewed the wine out of his nose.
“It’s true!” she insisted, glad this much of her well-rehearsed story was honest. Kate knew she should be a better liar considering how much she loved to bend the rules. “Mom’s church put out a call to help staff their Vietnamese hospital ministry so I signed up for a year as a surgical nurse. It’s not like I’m going door-to-door delivering Bibles, more like the Peace Corps, only with the Peace Mission Hospital, just down the road.”
Gregg didn’t look any happier than her mother had about the news. And both of them would be unhappier still if they knew Phillip was involved. Call it karmic justice: what she had done to Gregg in high school, and on some level continued to do to him now, Phillip had performed with fluent grace and charm on her in one fateful college semester studying abroad.