"That means half the men won't be able to talk," a mere grinned.
"Mother Fettermann," Lenny whispered to Terry. "I hope Happy Jack don't come through here and see this. He'd have us all shot for insanity."
Bathed and fed—after a fashion—loved, and burped, held in the strong arms of the German, the baby—named Abby by the meres—slept as they marched. That night, ~Abby slept beside Fetterman.
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"No child ever liked me before this," he said. "My scarred face always frightened them."
"Babies don't know what is ugly or beautiful or whatever," Terry said. "They know only gentleness and love. To her, Fettermann, you're a handsome person,"
"Dos'gut," the German smiled, and patted the baby.
"You're quite a philosopher, Team Leader," a mere said. This mere rarely spoke, and no one knew if Charles was his first or last name, or really, any part of his name. He never said, and it wasn't a polite question to ask, since many meres use code names.
"Philosopher?" Terry looked up from his field rations. He shook his head. "I've been called a lot of things, Charles, but never that."
The quiet mere sat down beside Terry and opened a can of field ration. "What's going to happen to Abby, Terry? That is, if we get out of this mess?"
Terry grinned. "Well, if I can get her away from Fettermann, 111 try to turn her over to some church group—maybe the Red Cross. I don't know, really."
"What do you suppose happened to the girl's parents?" Charles looked at the green scrambled eggs in his can, shuddered, then plunged his spoon into the mess and took a bite.
"Killed," Terry chewed his food, "How she got where we found her is anybody's guess.
She's just lucky she wasn't raped by the Rebels."
"They would rape a year old child?"
Lenny laughed. Terry said, "Charles, I've seen four and five year old girls raped—to death. Buggered. You're new to this war; you haven't seen what these Rebels can do—are capable of doing."
"Yeah," Lenny said. "Remember last year, Terry? Or was it two years ago? Whatever. We came up on this farm house just after the Commie-backed Rebels hit it. They had whacked off the head of the youngest boy—"bout twelve years old, I guess. Then they tortured the farmer to death, after making him watch about twenty of them rape his wife and daughter—rape, among other things. They took the young girl—'bout sixteen, I guess—out back, shoved a rat up her pussy, tied the lips of her cunt together, and the rat chewed its way out her belly. In the house, they tied the woman up by her wrists, hanging from rafters. They cut off her husband's pecker and balls, shoved his balls up her cunt and tied the lips; shoved his pecker in her mouth, used twine to tie her lips, then killed a stallion in the barn, cut off its pecker, and shoved that up her asshole. They're real nice people, Charles, these Rebels. To hear the American press tell it, they're just fighting for if independence." He spat on the ground. "Yeah, sure."
Charles put down his can of ration. "What
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happened to the woman?"
"She went nuts. Oh, I forgot: they cut off her tits, too."
The meres rested for a few minutes by the side of the road, under a huge baobab tree, oblivious to the African belief that spirits dwell in the branches. Most of them watched Fetter-mann, amused at his playing with the baby. A veteran of countless battles, sitting with the baby in his lap, mouthing: "Goo, goo—Da, da," and singing German lullabies to the baby.
At first it was only a buzzing in the sky, then buzzing became a high whine. The attack came without warning, the jets screaming from the sky, blasting the area with machine gun and rocket fire. A half dozen men were killed in the first run, chopped to bloody meat by the strafing. The meres ran for the limited cover, Fettermann holding Abby close to his barrel chest.
"Get behind the tree!" Terry yelled at the German. "Watch out for that kid!"
Before the German could make it to the huge tree, a rocket hit some fifty feet to his left, the concussion flipping him like a rag doll, Abby sailing from his arms. Lenny—the sarcastic mere—caught the baby in his arms just as a third jet came roaring past, its guns rattling and pounding. Lenny was'a half step too slow in making the tree, the mere and the kid cut'apart by cannon fire, tossed to the ground in chunks.
The jets screamed away to the East, their
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damage done. The plains were quiet.
Ten dead including Lenny. Half of Terry's team. Three wounded, none seriously. Fetter-man was stunned, but not hurt. Abby was dead.
"Goddamnitl" a mere cursed. "Why her? She never done nothing to hurt nobody."
Terry looked at the now empty sky. "I think it was Freud who said something like: *if I ever meet God, I am going to show Him the bone of a child who died of cancer. I will say: Explain this, Sir.' I think it was Freud."
Charles smiled. "Now, how did you know that, Team Leader?"
"I read a lot," Terry replied.
The meres gathered around what was once Abby. More than one had tears in his eyes. Fettermann picked up the bloody pieces of her and carefully wrapped them in a T-shirt given him by a mere.
"Probably won't do a bit of good," a mere said. "But I'll dig a hole. Maybe if we pack enough rocks around it the dogs won't get her." He walked away, cursing an enemy who would loll a child. As he walked to get an entrenching tool, the mere wondered if, of all the grenades he'd thrown, all the bullets he'd fired, all the bombs he'd set, had he ever killed a child?
The hole dug, Abby placed gently in it by Fettermann, the meres gathered around, not knowing what next to say or do. The silence grew about them.
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"Somebody ought to pray!" a mere blurted, the words odd on his tongue. "Or do something. Don't you-all think?"
Everybody looked at him, astonishment in their war-hardened eyes. Pray! Yeah, sure, that's right, but you do it. All but one mere had a funny look in their eyes.
"I don't know no prayers," a Canadian mere mumbled. "Except the one my momma used to say . . . when I was a kid." He shook his head, embarrassed. "I don't remember all of it."
"Team Leader?" the young mere who first discovered Abby said. "Do you believe God hears the prayers of a mercenary? I mean, well, you know, do you?"
Terry shifted his booted feet and looked at the ground, uncomfortable in this new role. "Hell, I don't ... I don't know! We wouldn't be praying for ourselves—it would be for the baby—right?"
"I'll say a prayer," Charles said quietly, slinging his weapon.
"How come you know a prayer and the rest of us don't?" a mere asked, his tone accusatory, as if being slighted by his lack of a prayer for every occasion,
"Because I used to be a minister," Charles said.
"You used to be a what?" Fettermann blurted.
"What in the hell are you doing out here?" another mere popped. "Good ChristI**
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"I sinned," Charles said. "I broke my vows to my church and to God, and to my congregation."
"What does that mean?" a mere asked.
"Means he probably fucked the piano player after choir practice."
"Crude, but reasonably accurate," Charles said, removing his beret. "Now let us all bow our heads and ask God to let this child enter Heaven."
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SEVENTEEN
1974
Terry looked at his passport; at the word stamped on the inside. REVOKED. The State Department had finally caught up with him.
He had just left the office of the Under Secretary of State. He stood on the sidewalk and looked across the street at first the Navy Dispensary, then the building behind that. CIA people used the second building.
"Justice says they are not going to prosecute, Mr. Kovak," he smiled his words with all the charm of the career diplomat. "Because of your fine record in the Army."
"Bullshitl" Terry returned the smile. "You're not going to prosecute me because I know where the bodies are buried, and you realize that, partner."
The Under Secretary's smile faded. "Don't push your luck, Mr. Kovak."
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Terry laughed at him.
"Stay out of trouble, Kovak, and in four or five years you may reapply for a visa."
"Partner," Terry spoke his words very slowly, clearly, distinctly, as to leave no doubts, "if I ever want to go back to Africa to fight, I'll just go, and you can stick your visa in your ear. Or in or up any other part of your anatomy."
"Good day, Mr. Kovak. You may let yourself out. Turn in your pass to the guard."
Terry decided to go home. It had been years.
When the door closed behind him, the Under Secretary punched a button on his desk and picked up a phone. "Get me ASA," he said.
Twenty minutes later, a young woman from the Army Security Agency walked in, dressed in civilian clothes. "Yes, sir."
"Kovak," he said. "Terrance Samuel." He handed her a folder.
"I know of him. He was part of those Dog Teams some years back."
A quick grimace of distaste passed over the man's face. "Please, Lieutenant, don't speak those words aloud. Don't even think them. God I If the press ever learned of their existence . . . well, the country has enough troubles without dragging . . . people up again."
"Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir. My assignment?"
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"Keep an eye on Kovak. I've already spoken to your CO—you're now with us for a time. Take as many people as you need. Kovak is one of the last of ... those men and women in that . . . thing, that organization. Watch him."
"Yes, sir."
"There can't be more than forty or fifty of those people left alive. God, I wish they would all fall down dead."
"They were doing a job for their country, sir," Lt. Joyce Flexner reminded the man.
"A very odious job, Lieutenant, and one we don't want to see revived. Understood?"
"Perfectly, sir," she said, thinking: You ass-kissing bureaucrat. You wouldn't know a real man if one fell on youl
"Oh, Terry," Momma Kovak kissed her son for the twentieth time in a minute. "Poppa's gone away."
"Gone? Gone where?" Terry disengaged himself from her.
"He's dead, son," the old woman said. "Died almost three years ago. We tried to get in touch with you, but we didn't know where or how. We haven't heard from you in months. You send money we didn't need, but no letters in all that time."
"Deadl" Terry sat down in an over-stuffed chair in the living room of his mother's new home. Their old house was gone; a shopping
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center covered the entire block.
"How . . . did it happen?"
Mother Kovak looked at her youngest son. He was bigger, rougher looking, his tan burned deep into his skin. Terry looked mean, even a little cruel, she thought. She poured them coffee. "Heart attack," she said. "The doctor said it was very fast. Massive, he said. Poppa was gone in seconds."
Terry let the news settle on him. "How's everyone else?"
"Danny's dead, too, son. Died last year—no, two years ago, almost. I'm getting old, son, losing track of time and things."
"Danny? How?"
"Car wreck. A big truck hit him head on in the rain just outside of town."
"Vera?" Despite the situation, his confused feelings, Terry could not help but think of Vera, and those nights and days so long ago, so many years past. The memories shamed him.
"She's gone to Chattanooga. Works in a big department store." She looked at her son closely. "Stay away from her, Terry:"
He met her level gaze. "Vera talked?"
"Oh, Terry! Don't you think your Poppa and me knew what was going on? We're not—weren't—fools!"
Terry shrugged no reply.
"Vera's met a nice man, Terry—a gentleman. They're going to get married. Everyone in the family likes him."
The 'gentleman' took him back in time, to a
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bar in St. Louis. Jill. He sighed. "That's nice, Momma. How is Shirley?"
"She's a doctor now, Terry," she spoke the words softly. "In Atlanta. A baby doctor. You've been gone a long time, son."
"Too long, Momma. Too long. Too many . . . things in my past."
To his surprise, she agreed with her youngest son. "Yes, I think so, too, Terry. You've ... I don't know: changed so. I don't believe you could ever live here in Bishop again."
"I don't plan on living here, Momma. Just be buried here, that's all."
"We still got the plots, son."
He saw his older brother and his family, but Robert did not seem all that pleased to see him. He finally made his feelings known.
"Never thought I'd see the day when a Kovak would be a soldier of fortune. A goddamned mercenary. What a shitty way to make a living, Terry. I think that's what finally killed Poppa. The FBI came around, asking questions about you."
"Does Momma know?"
"She suspects." His tone was cool.
"Brother, if you don't want me to stay, just say the word and I'm gone."
The two brothers stood in the den of the home and looked at one another. The hostility in Robert's eyes was very plain.
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"Maybe that's a good idea, Terry. Maybe you'd better just go."
"See you around ; . . brother."
He went to his sister's law offices, but the building was locked. A note on the door said she was on vacation.
Terry drove back to his mother's house, but Robert's car was in the drive so he did not stop. He drove to Atlanta and checked into a motel. The next week he went to work at a small service station on Peachtree Street. Pumping gas.
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BRANDY
Terry would see her several times a week from where he worked, as he pumped the gas, checked the oil, fixed the flats, and pointed the way to. the restrooms. He would see her when she drove by in the mornings, on her way to work, when she walked to lunch at noon, and when she walked back to her car in the evening. Discreetly, he made inquiries.
"Forget it, Kovak," the manager told him. "That's Louis Cooper's daughter, Brandy. You know, the architect. His lad. She's high class stuff. She wouldn't want to have anything to do with a bum like you. Besides, she's married."
"Right," Terry said, taking no offense at the man's remarks. "A bum like me." Then he pushed any thought of her from his mind.
Terry didn't have to work pumping gas: he could have held out for years with the money he had stuck away in banks around the world,
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but the work ethic was deeply instilled in him. He could have gone to college, but had no desire to do so. He was working at a dead-end job, and didn't really give a damn. The work helped to keep him in shape, paid his rent, and bought his groceries. His car was five years old, but it was paid for and ran well. He drew a check from the government each month, for wounds received in Vietnam, and for holding the Medal of Honor. So Terry got by, even saving a few bucks each week. He was vaguely content, not particularly happy, but more importantly, he was at peace with himself, longing to fight no more wars. He had not had a cross word with any man in months. He avoided bars and people and parties.
Terry Kovak, the highly decorated war hero was now a gas pumper. A nonentity. A zero man. Anonymous. Alone.
He would occasionally see his sister, Shirley, and her husband, but he sensed the husband did not like him, did not approve of him or what he had been, so Terry stayed away as much as possible.
He knew he was being watched by several people. The government, he was sure, kept an eye on him. But a local private investigator was also watching him, and he couldn't understand that. Terry toyed with the idea of taking the local PI out some night, rattling the truth from him, but he never really seriously considered that, concluding the man was only trying to make a living, so what the hell?
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Cold at dusk, two weeks before Christmas. Holiday time in the city.
Ho, ho, ho. Jingle Bells.
A depressing time for those who live alone. The Suicide Season.
&
nbsp; "Merry Christmas, mister," the red-suited Santa with the bell in his hand called out.
"Put it in your ear," Terry muttered, then smiled at his Scrooge-like gruff ness. He dropped a couple of dollars in the huge pot by the man. It was for a good cause.
He walked toward his apartment, several long blocks away. His second Christmas back in the States, and this one was going to be just as bad as the first one. He turned up the collar of his jacket against the cold winds cutting through the streets of Atlanta. He thought about buying a Christmas tree, then rejected the idea. There were only two presents in his apartment, sitting on a table: one from his mother, one from his sister, Shirley. He had not been back to Bishop in over a year.
Passing a parking lot near where he worked, Terry heard the sounds of a car refusing to crank, the starter grinding the battery down to a thin protest, then nothing.
"Oh, damn!" a woman's voice drifted to him as the sky began to drizzle. A cold Georgia rain.
Terry leaned against the side of a building, waiting in the darkness, curious as to what the woman would do next.
The car door banged shut. The woman
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walked around the expensive Cadillac, kicking each tire, punishing the rubber for the engine's failure to start. She spotted the bulk of Terry standing in the darkness, her hand moving to her throat in a gesture of surprise.
"My car won't start," she said. She did not yell the words across the distance, speaking them just loudly enough for Terry to hear.
He recognized her. Brandy.
"What do you want me to do about it?"
At the sound of his voice, the woman laughed, causing Terry to wonder if she was drunk.
"Fix it/' she said.
"You ran the battery down, lady. I can't fix that. Call a garage." Terry moved away from the building, closer to her.
They stood in the darkness, letting the cold drizzle wet them. The ex-Merc turned Gas Pumper and the High Class Stuff.
"I've seen you before," she said.
"Congratulations."
"Are you going to fix my car, or not?"
"I told you, lady: I can't fix your car. Lady, how do you know I'm not a mugger or a mad rapist?"
"You're Terry Kovak."
"How in the hell do you know that?"
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