by John Hart
“That’s right,” Nikki agreed, even though she was there of her own volition.
K.O. whimpered and dropped the Frisbee at Margie’s feet like an offering, which only made her choke on a sob.
Izzy patted Margie’s shoulder, then dumbly, but sweetly, extended his beer.
“I wish I could say something to make you feel better, but I can’t think of anything at all, not one thing to make me feel any better either, so here, Margie. You can have my beer.”
Margie blinked, stared at him blankly a few moments. Then, she laughed. Her eyes were still a little watery, but clear and a brighter shade of hazel as she warmed them on Izzy.
“Thanks, Dr. Moskowitz, now I feel better—or at least I will when I’m in that water. Come on, let’s go!”
“Uh, well, I usually don’t swim or. . .”
Margie took the beer Izzy still held out and promptly shook it, playfully sprayed him with the brew.
“Come on, Nikki, tag team! Izzy’s gotta get clean!” Then each of them grabbed one of Izzy’s hands and took off toward the little waves, only for Izzy to kick in some speed and pull them both along with him, the three of them laughing as they plunged into the shallow end, K.O. giving chase.
Gregg watched them go. He had never seen Margie come apart like that, but if anything her mini-meltdown was overdue. Gregg knew her job was hell. She had been there about nine months, a month longer than him, and many of the patients on the unit, the psych techs too, hell, just about all of them, ended up talking to her about their personal problems. But you just couldn’t listen to everyone’s shit all the time and not have it take a toll, especially if you were the only female nurse at a unit, getting hit on every day by whoever was new.
And, they were always new, just like it only happened once, because you were not the oldest child of a Marine Commandant and not know how to handle presumptuous assholes. Margie could hold her own with the fresh stuff; it was seeing the suffering that she had no control over that was grinding her down.
Just then she plowed a big gush of water at Izzy, who threw it right back. Hopefully, he didn’t have the letters he was always carrying in his pocket; he’d be crying worse than Margie if the pages got wet. While Gregg figured Izzy for a straight arrow kind of guy who wouldn’t mess around on his fiancé, a little outside interest was a good distraction—particularly with Monday’s upcoming trip to the Highlands on the pretext of routine evals at the base in Ban Me Thuot.
The med dispensing business as usual was total bullshit of course, the real purpose being to check out the troops where the Ghost Soldier story got started—and had continued to spread faster than relay runners with jungle drums.
“Monsieur, have you any new leads in zee investigation?”
Startled, Gregg spun around and shoved J.D. away. Maybe it was because he didn’t have time to mentally prepare, or maybe he’d just had enough, but the gloves came off and Mister Nice Guy finally clocked out.
“What, you think that’s funny?”
J.D. shrugged and for a blink he seemed slightly off-balance. Like a new comic giving stand-up a try and getting booed off-stage.
Fuck him. Gregg put it in his face. “You broke the code, man.”
“Code?” J.D. stepped back, narrowed his eyes. “What code?”
“The one that says you don’t mess with another guy’s girl.”
“But Kate says she isn’t your girl.”
“I don’t give a damn what she says. You knew we were together when you showed up at the restaurant, and you still went after her.”
“Yes,” he readily admitted. “I did.”
Gregg grudgingly gave J.D. points for not pushing Kate in front of the train they both knew she was equally responsible for driving, but that didn’t stop him.
“Since we’re clearing the air, I don’t even believe there’s a real investigation, it’s probably just some bullshit excuse for you do some kind of drug bust on these poor freaked out kids who are getting crazy ideas—like it’s a crazy idea to be here! The only ‘evidence’ is a bunch of gossip that feeds off fear like termites on wood, and that’s all we are to the machine you work for. Termites getting dusted with Agent Orange. Admit it, Mikel. There is no psycho killer, there is just you and the government you work for fucking around with the rest of us who can’t wait to get the hell out, right? Am I right?”
J.D. held up his hands, backed off. “Okay, okay, maybe there is no killer, no Boogeyman, and it’s all just crap, a crazy made-up story. And you know what? I hope you’re that much right. So let’s just get up to the Highlands on Monday and check things out as planned, and if you’re right, then I’ll disappear from your radar. Okay? C’mon, let’s be friends. Show me and Kate around the island.” J.D. glanced down the beach and waved. Apparently some kind of signal since Kate waved back and picked up her pace. “See? Here she comes.”
Gregg glared at J.D. “Let’s be friends? You draft me into some kind of CIA spook show and then steal my girl, and now we are friends? Come on, you have got to be kidding.”
“But she says she isn’t your girl,” J.D. reiterated, making him either the most obtuse guy Gregg had ever met or maybe he just thought being a CIA agent exempted him from the same rules regular guys like Gregg Kelly abided by. “Kate wants us to be friends. I’m trying.”
“Kate knows I would give her both kidneys and my liver if she needed them, but you and me, friends?” Gregg snorted at the very idea. “My generosity does not extend that far. And by the way, if you really care about Kate, you will get off her radar, too.”
Moving past Kate as she arrived, Gregg ordered himself to get some distance and his cool while he was at it—only to kick the sand, hard, when J.D. called after him, “But all I said was the Dodgers suck!”
*
Gregg was considerably calmer after tipping a beer with some pals and toasting a few times to Hertz turning twenty-one. Blowing off some of the accumulated steam felt good but it disturbed him to have so completely gotten in J.D.’s face. That wasn’t like him at all. Never in Gregg’s life had he spurned an offer of friendship. Not to mention it wasn’t real bright to all but insist on a duel at dawn when you didn’t even know how to load a gun and the guy you slapped with a gauntlet owned the whole damn Winchester factory.
A flash of J.D. whipping Terry’s pistol from his holster and taking Derek down in the split second before Derek could do the same to the rest of them had Gregg taking another long draw off his beer. Damn. Why did he always have to think of that when he’d rather hang onto his perfectly justified rage at all the messed up shit J.D. had unpacked along with his gear upon moving into the villa where he rarely stayed? Not that Gregg gave a crap as long as it wasn’t with Kate. The whole getting off his radar thing was the surest sign Gregg had that this trip to the jungle Highlands promised the kind of outcome that would ensure J.D. stuck around.
A hypersonic blast of sound with the opening chords of “Crystal Blue Persuasion” shook the towering Ironwood pines above Gregg’s head where a metallic purple and black attack helicopter hovered, then rocketed out to sea, turned, and lowered to just above the water.
The shore party went wild as the chopper slowly approached the beach, and then the crowd really went crazy as a case of Jack Daniels was thrown into the water, followed closely by what had to be over 200 pounds of rippling muscle in green shorts and a Green Bay Packers football jersey. He lifted the case and plowed into shore to a round of applause and whistles and shouted greetings as the chopper circled, then blasted away.
Gregg ran out with the cheering crowd and Nikki caught up with him, asking, “Who is that? He sure knows how to make an entrance.”
“Richard Galt. Come on, I’ll introduce you.” Not only was Rick the coolest Special Ops Gregg had ever met, Peck wouldn’t even think about messing with someone that could snap him like a twig with two fingers. He was definitely getting Nikki introduced.
Rick handed over the case to lot
s of eager hands and then promptly slapped Gregg on the arm, which almost knocked Gregg over.
“Hey, Rick, glad you could make it.”
“Thanks for the invite, Doc. I got your message up in the Highlands and hitched a ride and here I am. And wow what a party. . .and wow who is this?”
“This is Nikki.” Gregg discreetly rubbed his arm as he got Nikki signed up for some health insurance. “Nikki is the Red Cross and everything you miss about America. And Nikki, this is Captain Richard Galt, Special Ops, Lord of the Jungle.”
“Just Rick, ma’am.” Rick doffed his cap, revealing thick cropped black hair, cheekbones any American Indian would be proud of, and good looks straight out of Hollywood central casting set on top of a USC tailback’s body. Anybody would think he was a body double for Burt Lancaster in Apache. “And I have to say that I’d be crazy to miss America when I’m looking at Miss America right here.”
“Well, aren’t you the charmer?” Nikki flirted back.
“I am trying, ma’am, I am trying.”
And it was apparently working since Nikki suggested, “How about you join me and Gregg and some of our friends under the shade over there?”
“Yeah, Rick, after we grab a beer and a steak, and before you start talking about how easy we’ve got it and how tough you guys are that don’t.”
“Don’t you know it,” Rick ribbed him back, throwing his arm around Gregg’s shoulder. “But I am not insulting my hosts, you can bet on that—and look who’s here! Margie, how you doing girl? Still making sure this war is safe and sane?” Grinning broadly, Rick let go of Gregg to give Margie a little hug as she eagerly greeted him, then Rick took notice of Izzy, beside her. “And this must be the famous new guy.”
“I, well. . .how did you know?”
“Your press secretary told me.”
“I knew I should have changed my name before word got out I was here.”
That got a good laugh, especially from Margie.
“Okay, Rowan and Martin,” she said, promptly pointing them in the direction of Buckley’s grill. “The good stuff’s this way.”
And that’s where Rick hailed the King for a Day. Snagging a bottle from the case he had brought, Rick held it out to Hertz like a precious offering.
“This is just for you, kid, and let us all drink to this birthday and especially to your next one back home.”
Everyone was eager to toast to that.
Like any good party this one had the rhythm of the ocean, swelling in and out with easy times, lively chatter, punctuated by bursts of laughter. Then later, as the sun dipped lower and the colors on the water deepened, things were quieting down, groups shifting, splitting off, couples necking.
Kate and J.D. had thus far kept their own touching discreet, as long as Gregg didn’t count eye contact. After his little showdown with J.D., he had straightened up and acted like a big boy, didn’t make anyone uncomfortable or exclude the apparent new couple from his inner circle, just kept telling himself that the cream always rose to the top and Kate would surely see he was still the crème de la crème of class acts.
He’d had lots of practice at this. He could wait J.D. out. Be there when Bond took a powder. And, just maybe it would be sooner rather than later considering the way J.D. was glad-handing Rick, clearly intent on attacking this Boogeyman case, bogus or not, by asking Rick if it would be too much of an imposition to steal some of his time in the Highlands during the evals they were coming up Monday to do at Ban Me Thuot—where Gregg was showing him and Izzy the ropes.
“Tell you what,” said Rick, “you docs are putting yourselves out to make a trip to my side of the world so the least I can do is arrange the ride, something a little nicer than the usual. I’ll even throw in a visit to our Special Ops camp since there’s been some messed up shit I’d like to get your take on. 1100 hours at the 8th Field’s LZ sound okay?”
Apparently satisfied with his latest maneuvering of a situation to his benefit, J.D. faded into the background and by the time Gregg noted his absence, he was gone and so was Kate, who had actually spent quite a bit of time hanging out with Margie and Nikki.
The two roommates were off walking the beach now.
Despite his own Heartbreak Hotel refrain, Gregg considered it a day well spent because Nikki had a big admirer in the bad ass Special Ops trainer and commando that Peck would not want to mess with.
“No way, man,” Rick was saying to the group that had dwindled to Izzy, Robert David, Washington, and Gregg. “No way would I trade jobs with anybody here. Course, first of all, I love the Ops and I love my job, but you guys have one of the most heavy shit jobs around.”
“That’s some heavy shit coming from Special Ops,” said Washington, tipping back straight from the bottle of Jack.
“No really, I thought like everybody else you were another group of REMFs, but it is one thing to go hand to hand with Charlie and a whole other thing to go at it hand to hand with our own guys turned crazy motherfucks—and have to be kind and gentle while you do it?” Rick shook his head and took a long draw on the bottle Washington handed him. “I won’t ever forget when you came out last spring and helped us with Jennings.”
Gregg would never forget it either. He appreciated Rick acknowledging they weren’t just a bunch of REMFs—Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers—because that was a big deal coming from someone like him. A big enough deal that Gregg was suitably humble.
“No, no, no,” he insisted, patting the air as Colonel Kohn did to settle things down and winning big laughs, along with a chorus of “Yes, yes, yes’s” from the group, before he could finish with, “It’s just what we do and you don’t, Rick. Same way we could never do your job.”
Rick good naturedly punched Gregg in the arm and almost knocked him over. “No, no, no yourself, Doc. Let me tell it to Izzy. I’m gonna tell it because it’s a fucking legend in our unit—The day Gregg Kelly took down Jungle Man Jennings and saved him while he was at it.”
And as Rick set about telling his version, Gregg sized it up next to his own. . .
13
It was a fresh day after a rain when Gregg, Robert David, Colonel Kohn, and Washington were asked to come out to the Special Ops training camp. Hertz volunteered as back up. It was unusual for any of them to get out there. Like the Special Forces, the Special Ops groups liked to take care of their own with as little outside intervention as possible; but Colonel Kohn was an old friend of the very tense major in charge, who briefed them with the assistance of his next in command, Captain Richard Galt.
“He is highly dangerous,” Galt told them. “I repeat, highly dangerous. He came in last night from patrol. Seemed to be just a little messed up after he got mail and we thought oh shit, something from home, he’s been here back-to-back, stayed an extra six months, mostly out on patrol and running ops. He’s a good one, but he paced all night talking and yelling about his wife. Guess he got Dear Johned or something.” Galt paused, shaking his head. “Anyway, just about dawn he got out his weapon and fired off a burst and then sprayed the room and cleared it out. He’s still in the hootch and yelling about how he knows he’s surrounded and they will not take him alive, says he will kill himself before they get him. Crazy shit like that.”
“OK, got it.” Colonel Kohn then assured Galt and the major, “We can handle this. Gregg’s the best. He’ll talk your man down and we’ll back him up. Let’s go now. Where is he?”
“Go?” Galt repeated. “Go? Are you kidding? This guy is fully armed, he’s lethal. We’re going to gas him and wanted you here to help calm him down after we get him restrained.”
“If you try to gas him then he knows he is being attacked,” Gregg reasoned. “And what if he gets out? The way you describe him, if he’s as lethal as you say, he likely is going to take out somebody before he goes down. Give us a chance at him first, okay?”
The two Special Ops officers exchanged uncertain looks.
“He is such a good man, Major,” G
alt told his commander. “One of my best. And he’s short. Only a few weeks left in-country. I hate to see him leave like this, but—”
“Then let us go in,” Robert David insisted. “Let us take care of him if we can. Nothing on his record. Just TLTM.”
Galt asked, “What’s TLTM?”
“Too Long and Too Much,” Gregg filled in. “Come on, just stand behind us. He knows you, right, Captain Galt?”
“Well, he did last night. But really, we should go in with weapons. Doing it your way is too risky. He could take us all out.”
“No.” Robert David shook his head. “No weapons.”
Gregg to Galt then, “Tell him it is you and you’ve got friends and let us go in. Have your guys cover us just in case, but stay out of sight.”
Galt looked dubiously at the major, who hesitated, then gave a curt nod.
Minutes later, they were outside a hootch and Galt was shouting, “Jennings! Jennings, it’s me, Galt. I got friends with me and we are coming in. Don’t shoot.”
And in they went. Jennings, tall and lanky with looped cords of muscle standing out all over his body, had no shirt on, and his face, a bright red, was so contorted and agitated it looked like snakes raced under his skin. He held an M16 rifle.
“Stop it!” he screamed, waving the M16 in the air. “Stop, damn it, it is all fucked up. Everything is all fucked up!”
That’s when Gregg did what he always did in this kind of situation, just slowly started walking forward, right at the person, because whether they were twenty, thirty years old, or five, he could always see that they were really just scared and hurting and the hurt is what drew him, what was drawing him now to Jennings.
“Hey,” he said to him softly, “Hey, hey Sarge, slow down now, stand down, okay? We came to help. We cleared the area. It is all clear out there now, they’re all gone. Nobody is out there now.” Gregg had his attention, Jennings was looking at him. Gregg kept talking.