Walking Wounded td-74

by Warren Murphy

Christ, this place is going to go on forever. Not all the killing, all the politics, screw-ups and bullshit are ever going to change that. Vietnam is eternal and I feel I'm part of it now.

  When Remo woke up, he was in an unfamiliar room. The walls were upholstered with some dull padded material. He lay on a large but uncomfortable cot.

  Remo sat up on the cot. For some reason, he was having trouble clearing his mind. That hadn't happened to him in a long time. Before CURE, before Sinanju. His whole body felt dull.

  A squeaky voice came from the floor. "Ah, you waken."

  "Chiun?"

  The Master of Sinanju sat in the corner, on the floor, as always. He had changed into a light yellow robe with high skirts and shortened sleeves. An exercise kimono.

  "You remember me? Good," said Chiun, reaching up and tugging on a knotted cord. Outside the heavy, reinforced door, a buzzer blared until Chiun let go of the cord.

  "Of course I remember you," Remo said in an annoyed tone. "Why shouldn't I?"

  Chiun shrugged. "Anything is possible to one in your state."

  "What state is that?"

  "New York," said Chiun. "You are in New York. Heh, heh." But when Remo didn't smile at the Master of Sinanju's little joke, Chiun's parchment face went hard.

  "Where am I? Folcroft?"

  "Yes. Emperor Smith and I decided you belonged here. "

  Remo stood up. "In a rubber room?" he asked. The door clicked and Smith stepped in.

  "Remo. Master of Sinanju," Smith said by way of greeting. "How are you feeling, Remo?"

  "Woozy. What'd you hit me with, Chiun-a brick?" Chiun produced a ball of crumpled paper from one sleeve, tossed it from right hand to left, and then flicked it to Remo. It sailed up, then sank like a pitcher's curve ball. Remo caught it. He looked at it blankly.

  "You're kidding me. It's been years since you were able to tag me with one of your origami beanballs."

  "Yes," Chiun said slowly. "That is the sad part."

  Smith cleared his throat. "Chiun believes that your training has started to erode, Remo. We brought you here so that he could work with you and sharpen your skills until you are at full potential once more."

  "Bulldookey," Remo said. "I'm a full Master now. I'm at my peak. This is just a horseshit scheme to keep me from going off and doing my duty."

  "Your duty is to obey your emperor!" Chiun said sharply.

  Smith stepped over to Remo and put a hand on his shoulder. "Remo, have you ever heard of delayed-stress syndrome?"

  "Flashbacks?"

  "Flashbacks are a symptom, yes. In earlier wars, before we understood the psychology of it, the syndrome was known as shell shock. Chiun and I think that today's incident may have triggered a flashback in your mind."

  "Before today, I hadn't thought of Vietnam in years. I almost never think about it."

  "Some veterans go for years before their first flashback."

  "Bull," Remo said briskly. "Vietnam is behind me. I never give it a thought. I don't dream of it. I don't have nightmares about it, I . . ." Remo's eyes went out of focus.

  Smith stared at him. "What is it, Remo?"

  "Nightmares," Remo said to himself. "Just before I woke up, I was dreaming I was back there. It was real. It was really real. I saw guys I haven't thought about since the sixties."

  "See?" Chiun said sternly. "A backflash. You have just admitted to having one."

  Remo sat down heavily. He stared at his bare feet. "It seemed so real. I could almost reach out and touch it. "

  Chiun came to his feet like a parasol opening.

  "Do not worry, my son. It will pass. We will train here at Folcroft, like in the old days. We will erase this Vietnam from your mind."

  "What about Phong's killer?" Remo asked suddenly. "Did you find him?"

  "No," Smith admitted. "We've left the search for the killer to New York authorities. And speaking of this person, we have been able to verify part of Phong's story."

  "Yeah?"

  Smith drew a grainy photo from a manila folder. "This was FAXed from the Defense Intelligence Agency. It's a photo of a current Vietnamese intelligence officer, Captain Dai Chim Sao. It matches the photo of the man from the Copra Inisfree studio audience."

  Remo took the photo.

  "It's him," Remo said. "It's really him."

  "Come now, Remo," Smith said sharply. "That's a very clear photo. I was certain that once I showed this to you, you would realize your earlier identification was in error. Are you still insisting that this is the man you killed during the war?"

  "We didn't know his name," Remo said. "We called him Captain Spook, because we suspected he was NVA intelligence. He was a legend. Sometimes he was dressed in military issue, other times he wore Vietcong black pajamas. We were never certain if he was VC or an NVA officer. We thought we'd killed him a dozen times. Twice we brought back bodies we were positive were him. But a week or a month later, we'd get a report he was operating in another sector. I'll never forget that vicious face as long as I live."

  "Then when you say you killed him, you can't confirm his death," Smith suggested. "This could be the same man."

  "No," said Remo dully, touching the photo with his fingertips as if doubting its solidity. "I killed him. I was three months from rotating stateside. I was walking point on a six-man patrol. Youngblood was there then. Yeah. We'd received word of VC activity in what had been a friendly village. Youngblood led us in. We found nothing in the huts. But one of the guys, Webb-from Iowa, I think-shoved his rifle barrel into a garbage pile, checking for hidden supplies. He found a grass mat. Webb lifted it, thinking it was the lid of a spider hole. His face was shot into meat."

  Remo's eyes took on a faraway, inward light. He was no longer looking at the photo, though it was right in front of his eyes. He was looking into himself. Smith and Chiun glanced at one another worriedly.

  "It wasn't just a spider hole," Remo went on. "It was a VC tunnel. We pumped rounds into it without effect. I volunteered to go into the hole. A blond kid named Ashton went in with me. We threw down a canister of Foo gas first, let it burn off before going down. It was my first time in a tunnel. I was scared, trying not to let it show. Ashton and I worked our way along, using our flashlights. Ashton must have tripped a wire or something. His arm slammed into my face. When I picked myself up, I saw that it wasn't attached to his shoulder anymore. Ashton was all around me. Ashton was everywhere. But I was okay. I fired down the tunnel. I kept firing as I went deeper. I wanted to pay back whoever was down there."

  Remo stopped talking. A long silence hung in the air. When he resumed his story, Remo's voice was tiny.

  "I had my flashlight in one hand, my M-16 in the other. I shone and shot, shone and shot. I found supplies, food, ammo. But no VC. Then I ran out of tunnel. It just ended. No escape hatch, no people. It was then I knew I was deep in it. I'd seen no branch tunnels along the way. There was no way anyone could have gotten past me. I crouched down, sweating like a pig, and shut off my light to conserve the battery. The air smelled like earthworms. I don't know how long I waited. I didn't know what I was waiting for. I was just getting my courage up when I heard footsteps.

  "I jumped up, turned on the light, but the tunnel twisted so much I couldn't see around the bend. I set my light in the dirt so I could see whatever was coming. I gripped my M-16 so hard my hands ached. I was going to zap whoever came around the corner. The footsteps came closer and closer. I was scared. I'd been in-country nine months and thought I'd gotten over being scared. But I was scared. Christ, I was only nineteen. I was just a kid."

  "It was a terrible war," Smith said sympathetically. Remo went on as if he hadn't heard.

  "I saw the toe of a boot step into the light. I froze. The boot stopped. I didn't know what to do. If it was a VC he would have been wearing rubber sandals. But it might be an NVA regular. I hesitated. I knew whoever was on the other side was hesitating too. My light was shining right where he had to step. I remember I kept flipping my fire-selector switch b
ack and forth, back and forth. I knew my only chance was to shoot first. I'd have no time to hesitate. But I had no way of knowing if the boot belonged to an enemy or a friendly. If he was friendly, I would be better off on single shot. That way, if I did shoot, I might not kill him. But if he was VC or NVA, my only hope would be to cut loose on full automatic. Otherwise I'd take return fire for sure. So I kept switching back and forth, back and forth.

  "I remember deciding I should take a chance. I was going to say something. Something dumb like "Who's there?" I never got the chance. The guy jumped. I squeezed my trigger. I was on single shot. Good thing, too. It was Youngblood. I only grazed him. But he opened up on me. I stumbled back in shock.

  "I thought it was an earthquake at first. The dirt under my feet went soft, and boom! I jumped to one side, not knowing what was happening. Right into the wall. The tunnel gook had dug himself into the soft red earth and just lay there, breathing through a straw, buried with his weapon across his chest. Then I realized what was happening. Youngblood wasn't shooting at me. He was trying to get the gook. I opened up on him too. I went on full automatic. I emptied my clip into him.

  "I'll never forget his face, all covered with dirt, and dead except for these two black eyes that were more alive than any eyes I'd ever seen. We kept pumping rounds at him, but he wouldn't go down. Blood was gushing out of him like he was a fountain. He was a zombie, what we used to call walking wounded. He was dead, but didn't know it. My rifle ran empty. He came toward me like Frankenstein with an AK-47. He was trying to pull the trigger, but he didn't have the strength. Then Youngblood yanked me around the bend and tossed a grenade in his face."

  Remo's eyes refocused on the photo of Captain Dai. "When the dirt finally settled, we went back to check the body, but the tunnel had caved in. When we got out into the air, Youngblood said, 'We got him, man! We got him!'

  "I said, 'Who?' I was starting to tremble all over. I wasn't focusing. 'Didn't you recognize him?' he asked me. 'Captain Spook. That there was Captain Spook. And he's really dead this time.' Those were the exact words he used," Remo said, looking up at Smith and Chiun. " 'He's really dead this time.' "

  Smith looked at Remo with something like pity in his eyes. At length he said, "Whoever he is-" Smith's voice disintegrated into a phlegmy grumble. He cleared his throat and started over. "Whoever he was, he's dead. The man who killed Phong is not. If he hasn't left the country already, we'll get him."

  "No, you won't," Remo said. "He's a ghost. You can't find him, and even if you did, you wouldn't be able to do anything to him because he's already dead."

  "Er, I will leave you with Chiun for now. I'm sure he is anxious to resume your training."

  Remo said nothing.

  Pausing at the door, Smith said, "I hope we can count on your cooperation, Remo."

  "Why shouldn't you?"

  "It's just that if you do decide to go to Vietnam on your own and you succeed in freeing your friend, it will be my responsibility, purely for national-security reasons, to see that he doesn't live to tell the world that Remo Williams is not dead."

  "Sure," Remo said. "Send a kid over to fight for his country, leave him there, and if he gets out, kill him in the name of national security."

  "It's not like that and you know it, Remo. We'll get Youngblood and the others out. Our way. The safe way. No one will have to die. Trust us."

  "I trusted people like you when they said we were in Vietnam to win."

  "History, Remo."

  "Maybe, but it's my history. We should never have pulled out of Vietnam. We should have stayed and finished the job. We could have won. We should have won. Look at all the Vietnamese and Cambodians who've died because we let those butchers overrun Southeast Asia. Millions. Millions."

  "That's another conversation. Let me know how he progresses," Smith told Chiun. "Good-bye, Remo." The door closed gently.

  "We should have won," Remo repeated. "We could have beat them."

  "The French said the same thing," Chiun said, standing over Remo with his hands folded. "And the Japanese before them and the Chinese before them, and before them, others. You cannot beat the Vietnamese. No one has ever beaten the Vietnamese."

  "Don't lecture me about the Vietnamese. I fought them. They weren't so hot."

  "Agreed," Chiun said. "They won because they cheated. They do not fight like soldiers. They ambush and shoot. Then they run away. They are incapable of fighting fair. So they resort to murder and skulk in the night. It is nothing new. They have been doing this for centuries. The Vietnamese are always at war. For thousands of years. In the entire history of Sinanju, only two Masters have ever worked for Vietnam. This was back in the days of the Ammamese kings. I think Vietnam gave us work for two months in 12 B.C. and again for a week three centuries later. The rest of the time, they have been fighting neighboring countries."

  "You'd think they'd get sick of it."

  "No. War is their only industry. They are always fighting because they have nothing else, no art, no culture, no talents. They can barely grow rice."

  "We could have won," Remo said stubbornly.

  "No, you could never have won. You might have beat the Vietnamese of the North on your own, but you were handicapped."

  "Yeah, by the brass hats who wouldn't go all the way."

  "No, by your allies, the Vietnamese of the South. You expected them to fight with you. You expected them to defend themselves. Instead, they hid behind the uniforms of this country and let the bullets intended for them bury themselves in American bodies. Instead of defending the South, you should have taken the South Vietnamese and dropped them into the North by airplane with instructions to murder and rape at will. The war would have been over in a month, the Americans could have gone home, and the ruling Vietnamese could have found themselves other victims to kill. But because you expected the South Vietnamese to fight like soldiers, you lost. It is not in their nature."

  Remo grunted. "We used to have this joke. The only way to end the war would be to put the friendly Vietnamese on boats and bomb the whole country flat. Then torpedo the boats."

  "It would have been a waste of good boats," Chiun said.

  Remo stood up. "I don't agree with you, Chiun. Not all Vietnamese were like that. I knew some I respected. I knew some brave ones. And there was Phong."

  "You did not know him."

  "I know the kind of man he was. He risked his life to come to America to tell the truth about American MIA's."

  Chiun spat on the floor. "He only wanted to come to America. Everyone wants to come to America."

  "He didn't have to go on TV. He knew he was being stalked. He wanted to help his friends, my friends."

  "Enough," said Chiun, slapping his hands. "We can discuss this later. First, we train."

  Remo stopped to pick up the crumpled ball of paper. "You really zapped me with this old trick?"

  "Your mind was not on your center. It is my job to realign your essence with the universe."

  "How can you do that when I feel the world spinning under me?"

  "That is a temporary backflash."

  "You know," Remo said dreamily, "I haven't felt right since Mah-Li died. Everything seems to have fallen apart. The woman I almost married died. I find out I have a daughter I didn't even know about, but because of the work I do, her mother is raising her alone. I don't even know where they are. All my life I've been looking forward to turning the corner to a normal existence. But now I feel like all the good days are in the past. Like the key to my happiness lies in the past. "

  "It does," Chiun said. "It lies in your early training, which I will now attempt to duplicate, although I am not as young as I once was."

  Remo smiled bitterly. "Can we start with bulletdodging?"

  "If you wish. Why?"

  "Because I think it's been my turn for about fifteen years. "

  Chapter 9

  It was the end of a long day and Harold Smith was weary. He left his office feeling his age. Smith was about to ente
r his car when he noticed that the Folcroft gymnasium lights were still on. It'd been a week since Remo Williams had been brought back for retraining, and Smith was still worried about him. He shut the car door and, even though he intended to be gone only a minute or two, took along his ever-present briefcase. He walked up the flagstone path to the gymnasium door.

  Smith found Remo and the Master of Sinanju in the spacious exercise area. Remo was standing at one end of the long court, one leg slightly ahead of the other, his body strained forward like a sprinter about to go. Chiun stood off to one side, his hands bristling with ornamental daggers.

  At the sound of Smith's approach, Chiun turned. He beamed happily.

  "Greetings, Emperor Smith. You are just in time to see Remo ascend the dragon."

  "I'm not familiar with that maneuver," Smith admitted.

  "Oh, it is quite simple. Remo will run from one end of the room to the other while I throw these daggers at him as accurately as possible."

  "Those are rubber daggers, I trust."

  "Of course not. If they were rubber, Remo would know they were rubber and not even try to avoid them. They are real."

  "Can Remo handle this so soon?" Smith wondered.

  "We will find out. He has progressed reasonably."

  "I guess this won't be too difficult for a man who can sidestep bullets."

  "Ah, but the dagger-avoiding is not the true test."

  "No?" Smith shifted his briefcase from one hand to the other. It never occurred to him to set it down.

  "Remo must return to his starting place without his feet touching the floor," Chiun explained.

  "I don't understand."

  "Watch," Chiun raised his voice. "Remo, show Smith your recovering prowess."

  Remo flashed along the varnished pinewood floor. He was a blur whose legs floated as they moved. The backwash as he passed disturbed Smith's sparse white hair and sent his Dartmouth tie fluttering. Smith grabbed the tie to keep it from slapping his face.

  "Any word on the AIM's?" Chiun asked. He made no move to throw the daggers.

  "MIA's. No. In fact, there has been a minor setback. The Vietnamese have toughened their position. They want some economic sanctions lifted as a good-faith gesture before the hard bargaining begins. It's starting to become a replay of the Paris peace talks. It could drag on into next year."