Time to Hunt

by Stephen Hunter

  “Howdy, Vern. They ain’t kicked you out yet?”

  “Tried many a time. It’s them pictures I got of a general and his goat.”

  “Those’ll git a man a long way.”

  “In Washington, they’ll git you all the way.”

  The two old sergeants laughed.

  “So anyhow, Bob Lee, what you got cooking? You ain’t written a book yet?”

  “Not yet. Maybe one of these years. Look, I need a favor. You’re the only man that could do it.”

  “So? Name it.”

  “I’m flying to DC this afternoon. I need to look at some paperwork. It would be the service jacket of my spotter, a kid that got killed in May 1972.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Fenn, Donny. Lance corporal, formerly corporal. I have to see what happened to him over his career.”

  “What for? What’re you looking for?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. I got something to check out involving him. What it is, I don’t know. It’s come up, though.”

  “Didn’t you end up marrying his widow?”

  “I did, yeah. A terrific lady. We’re sort of on the outs now.”

  “Well, I hope you get it straightened out. This may take me a day or so. Or maybe not. I can probably get it, if not from here, from our archives, out in Virginia.”

  “Real fine, Sergeant Major. I appreciate it much.”

  “You call me when you get in.”

  “I will.”

  Bob hung up, hesitated, thought about the booze he did not drink and then dialed the Boise General Hospital and eventually was connected to his wife’s room.

  “Hi,” he said. “It’s me. How are you? Did I wake you?”

  “No, no. I’m fine. Sally took Nikki to school. There’s nobody around. How are you?”

  “Oh, fine. I wish you’d reconsider.”

  “I can’t.”

  He was silent for a while.

  “All right,” he finally said, “just think about it.”

  “All right.”

  “Now I have something else to ask.”

  “What?”

  “I need your help. This last little thing. Just a question or two. Something you would know that I don’t.”

  “What?”

  “It’s about Donny.”

  “Oh, God, Bob.”

  “I think this may have something to do with Donny. I’m not sure, it’s just a possibility. I have to check it out.”

  “Please. You know how I hate to go back there. I’m over that now. It took a long time.”

  “It’s a nothing question. A Marine question, that’s all.”

  “Bob.”

  “Please.”

  She sighed and said nothing.

  “Why was he sent to Vietnam? He had less than thirteen months to serve. But he had just lost his rating. He was a full corporal and he showed up in ’Nam just a lance corporal. So he had to be sent there for punitive reasons. They did that in those days.”

  “It was punitive.”

  “I thought it was. But that doesn’t sound like Donny.”

  “I only caught bits and pieces of it. I was only there at the end. It was some crisis. They wanted him to spy on some other Marines who they thought were slipping information to the peace marchers. There was this big screwup at a demonstration, a girl got killed, it was a mess. He was ordered to spy on these other boys and he got to know them, but in the end, he wouldn’t. He refused. They told him they’d ship him to Vietnam, and he said, Go ahead, ship me to Vietnam. So they did. Then he met you, became a hero and got killed on his last day. You didn’t know that?”

  “I knew there was something. I just didn’t know what.”

  “Is that a help?”

  “Yes, it is. Do you know who sent him?”

  “No. Or if I did, I forgot. It was so long ago.”

  “Okay. I’m going back to DC.”

  “What? Bob—”

  “I’ll only be gone a few days. I’m flying out there. I’ve got to find out what happened to Donny. You listen to Sally; you be careful. I’ll call you in a few days.”

  “Oh, Bob—”

  “I’ve got some money, some cash. Don’t worry.”

  “Don’t get in trouble.”

  “I’m not getting in any trouble. I promise. I’ll call you soon.”

  There it was: WES PAC.

  He remembered the first time he had seen it, that magic, frightening phrase, when the orders came through for that first tour in 1965: WES PAC. Western Pacific, which was Marine for Vietnam. He remembered sitting outside the company office at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and thinking, Oh, brother, I am in the shit.

  “That’s it,” said the sergeant major’s aide.

  “That’s it,” said Bob.

  He sat in the anteroom in Henderson Hall, with the tall, thin young man with hair so short it hardly existed and movements so crisp they seemed freshly dry-cleaned.

  “We got it this morning from Naval Records Storage Facility, Annandale. Sergeant Major used lots of smoke. He served with the CO’s chief petty officer on the old Iowa City.”

  “You’ll tell him I appreciate it.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sniper-rated, by the way. Great school, out at Quantico. They still talk about you. Understand you fought a hell of a fight at Kham Duc.”

  “Long time ago, son. I can hardly remember it.”

  “I heard of it a hundred times,” said the young sergeant. “I won’t ever forget it.”

  “Well, son, that’s kind of you.”

  “I’ll be in my office next door. You let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Thank you, son.”

  The jacket was thick, all that remained of FENN, DONNY J.’s almost, but not quite four years in the Marine Corps. It was full of various orders, records of his first tour in the Nam with a line unit, his Bronze Star citation, his Silver Star nomination for Kham Duc, travel vouchers, shot records, medical reports, evaluations going back to Parris Island in the far-off land of 1968 when he enlisted, GCT results, the paper trail any military career, good, bad or indifferent, inevitably accumulates over the passage of time. There was even a copy of the Death in Battle report, filled out by the long-dead Captain Feamster, who only survived Donny a few weeks until the sappers took out Dodge City. But this one sheet, now faded and fragile, was the one that mattered; this was the one that sent him to the Nam.

  HEADQUARTERS, USMC, 1C-MLT: 111

  1320.1

  15 MAY 1971

  SPECIAL ORDER: TRANSFER

  NUMBER 1640–71

  REF: (A) CMC LTR DFB1/1 13 MAY 70

  (B) MCO 1050.8F

  1. IN ACCORDANCE WITH REFERENCE (A), EFFECTIVE 22 AUGUST 70, THE PERSONNEL LISTED ON THE REVERSE HEREOF ARE TRANSFERRED FROM THIS COMMAND TO WES PAC (III MAF) FOR DUTIES SPECIFIED BY CO WES PAC (III MAF).

  2. PRIOR TO TRANSFER, THE COMMANDING OFFICER WILL ASSIGN AS PRIMARY THE MOS SHOWN FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE AUTHORITY CONTAINED IN EXISTING REGULATIONS.

  3. TRAVEL VIA GOVERNMENT PROCURED TRANSPORTATION IS DIRECTED FOR ALL TRAVEL PERFORMED BETWEEN THIS COMMAND AND WES PAC (III MAF) IN ACCORDANCE WITH PARAGRAPH 4100, JOINT TRAVEL REGULATIONS.

  4. EACH INDIVIDUAL LISTED ON THE REVERSE HEREOF IS DIRECTED TO REPORT TO THE DISBURSING OFFICER WITHIN THREE WORKING DAYS AFTER COMPLETION OF TRAVEL INVOLVED IN THE EXECUTION OF THESE ORDERS FOR AN AUDIT OF REFUNDS.

  It was signed OF Peatross, Major General, U.S. Marine Corps, Commanding, and below that bore the simple designation DIST: ‘N’ (and WNY, TEMPO C, RM 4598).

  Bob had received just such a document three times, and three times he’d come back from it, at least breathing. Not Donny: it got him a name inscription on a long black wall with bunches of other boys who’d much rather have been working in factories or playing golf than inscribed on a long black wall.

  Bob turned it over, not to find the usual computerized list of lucky names but only one: FENN, DONNY, J., L/CPL 264 38 85 037 36
68 01 0311, COMPANY B, MARINE BARRACKS WASHINGTON DC MOS 0311.

  The rest of the copy was junk, citations of applicable regulations, travel information, a list of required items all neatly checked off (SRB, HEALTH RECORD, DENTAL RECORD, ORIG ORDERS, ID CARD and so on), and the last, melancholy list of destinations on the travel sub-voucher, from Norton AFB in California to Kadena AFB on Okinawa to Camp Hansen on Okinawa and on to Camp Schwab before final deployment to WES PAC (III MAF), meaning Western Pacific, III Marine Amphibious Force. Donny’s own penmanship, known so well to Bob from their months together, seemed to scream of familiarity as he looked at it.

  Now what? he thought. What’s this supposed to mean?

  He tried to remember his own documents and scanned this one for deviations. But his memory had faded over the years and nothing seemed at all different or strange. It was just orders to the Land of Bad Things; thousands and thousands of Marines had gotten them between 1965 and 1972.

  There seemed to be nothing: no taint of scandal, no hint of punitive action, nothing at all. In Donny’s evals, particularly those filed in his company at the Marine Barracks, there were no indications of difficulty. In fact, those recordings were uniformly brilliant in content, suggesting an exemplary young man. A SSGT Ray Case had observed, as late as March 1971, “Cpl. Fenn shows outstanding professional dedication to his duties and is well-respected by personnel both above and below him in the ranks. He performs his duties with thoroughness, enthusiasm and great enterprise. It is hoped that the Corporal will consider making the Marine Corps a career; he is outstanding officer material.”

  Bob knew the secret language of these things: where praise is the standard vocabulary, Case’s belief in Donny clearly went beyond that into the eloquent.

  Even Donny’s loss of rating order, which demoted him from corporal to lance corporal, dated 12 May 71, was empty of information. It carried no meaning whatsoever: it simply stated the fact that a reduction in rank had occurred. It was signed by his commanding officer, M. C. Dogwood, Captain, USMC.

  No Article 15s, no Captain’s Masts, nothing in the record suggesting any disciplinary problems.

  Whatever had happened to him, it had left no records at all.

  He stood up and went to the door of the sergeant major’s aide.

  “Is there a personnel specialist around? I’d like to run something by him.”

  “I can get Mr. Ross. He worked personnel for six years before coming to headquarters.”

  “That’d be great.”

  In time the warrant officer arrived, and he too knew of Bob and treated him like a movie star. But he scanned the documents and could find nothing at all unusual except—

  “Now this is strange, Gunny.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Can’t say I ever saw it before.”

  “And what is that, Mr. Ross?”

  “Well, sir, on this last order, the one that sent Fenn to Vietnam. See here”—he pointed—“it says ‘DIST: “N.”’ That means, distribution to normal sources, i.e. the duty jacket, the new duty station, Pentagon personnel, MDW personnel and so forth, the usual grinding wheels of our great bureaucracy in action.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But what I see here is odd. In parentheses ‘(and WNY TEMPO C, RM 4598).’”

  “What would that mean?”

  “Well, I’d guess Washington Naval Yard, Temporary Building C, Room 4598.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know. I was twelve in 1971.”

  “Any idea how I could find out?”

  “Well, the only sure way is to go to the Pentagon, get an authorization, and try and dig up a Washington Naval Personnel logbook or phone book or at least an MDW phone book from the year 1971. They might have one over there. Then you’d just have to go through it entry by entry—it would take hours—until you came across that designation.”

  “Oh, brother,” said Bob.

  The next night, Bob drove his rented car out to a pleasant suburban house in the suburbs of America and there had dinner with his old pal the Command Sergeant Major of the United States Marine Corps, his wife and three of his four sons.

  The sergeant major grilled steaks out on the patio while the two younger boys swam in the pool and the sergeant major’s wife, Marge, threw together a salad, some South Carolina recipe for baked beans and stewed tomatoes. She was an old campaigner herself and Bob had met her twice before, at a reception after he had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for Kham Duc—1976, four years after the incident itself, a year after he finally left the physical therapy program and the year he decided he could no longer cut it as a Marine—and the next year, when he did retire.

  “How’s Suzy?” she asked, and Bob remembered that she and his first wife had had something of an acquaintanceship; at that point, he’d been higher in rank than the man who was hosting him.

  “Oh, we don’t talk too much. You heard, I went through some bad times, had a drinking problem. She left me, and was smart to do it. She’s married to a Cadillac dealer now. I hope she’s happy.”

  “I actually ran into her last year,” Marge said. “She seemed fine. She asked after you. You’ve had an adventurous few years.”

  “I seem to have a knack for trouble.”

  “Bob, you won’t get Vern’s career in any trouble? He retires this year after thirty-five years. I’d hate to see anything happen.”

  “No, ma’am. I’ll be leaving very shortly. My time here is done, I think.”

  They had a nice dinner and Bob tried to hide the melancholy that seeped into him; here was the life he would have had if he hadn’t gotten hit, if Donny hadn’t gotten killed, if it all hadn’t gone so sour on him. He yearned now for a drink, a soothing blur of bourbon to blunt the edge he felt, and he recalled a dozen times on active duty when he and this man or a man just like this man had spent the night recalling sergeants and officers and squids and ships and battles the world over, and enjoying immensely their lives in the place where they’d been born hard-wired to spend it, the United States Marine Corps.

  But that was gone now. Face it, he thought. It’s gone, it’s finished, it’s over.

  That night they went to a baseball game, Legion Ball, where the youngest boy, a scholarship athlete at the University of Virginia, got three hits while giving up only two as pitcher over the game’s seven innings. Again: a wonderful America, the best America—the suburbs on a spring evening, the weather warm, the night hazy, baseball, family and beer.

  “Do you miss your wife?” asked the sergeant major’s wife.

  “I do, a lot. I miss my daughter.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Oh,” said Bob, “she’s a rider. She’s a great horsewoman. Her mother has her riding English in case she decides to come east for college.”

  And off he went, for twenty uncontrollable minutes, missing his daughter and his wife and the whole thing even more. Black is black, he thought, I want my baby back.

  The game was over and in triumph everybody went back to the sergeant major’s house. Beer was opened, though Bob had Coke; some other senior NCOs came over and Bob knew a few, and all had heard of him. It was a good time; cigars came out, the men moved outside, the night was lovely and unthreatening. Then finally a young man showed up, trim, about thirty, with hard eyes and a crew cut, in slacks and a polo shirt. Bob understood that he was the sergeant major’s oldest boy, a major at Quantico, in the training command, back recently from a rough year in Bosnia and before that an even nastier one in the desert.

  Bob was introduced and they chatted and once again he encountered a young man who loved him. What good did it do if his own family didn’t? But it was nice, all the same, and eventually the talk turned to his own day. He’d spent it in the DOD library in the Pentagon, where the sergeant major’s pass had got him admitted, going painfully through old phone books, trying to find out what this office was.

  “Any luck?” asked the sergeant major.

 
“Yeah, finally. Room 4598 in Tempo C in the Washington Navy Yard, it was the location of an office of the Naval Investigative Service.”

  “Those squid bastards,” said the Command Sergeant Major.

  “At least now I’ve got a name to go on,” Bob said. “The CO was some lieutenant commander named Bonson. W. S. Bonson. I wonder what became of him.”

  “Bonson?” said the gunny’s son. “Ward Bonson?”

  “I guess,” said Bob.

  “Well,” said the young officer, “he shouldn’t be too hard to find. I served a tour with the Defense Intelligence Agency in ninety-one. He was in and out of that shop.”

  “You knew him?”

  “I was just a staff officer,” he said. “He wouldn’t notice or remember me.”

  “Who is he?” asked Bob.

  “He’s now the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  He watched through binoculars as the car, a black Ford sedan, arrived at 6:30 A.M. and picked up the occupant of 1455 Briarwood, Reston, Virginia. Bob followed at a distance. The lone passenger sat in the back, reading the morning papers as the car wound its way through the nearly empty streets. It progressed toward the Beltway, then followed that road north, toward Maryland; at the George Washington Parkway it surged off, westward, until it reached Langley, and then took that otherwise unremarkable exit. Bob languished back, then broke contact as the car disappeared down the unmarked road that led to the large installation that was unnamed from the road but which he knew to be the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  Instead, he drove back to Reston and relocated the house. He parked on the next court over—it was in a prosperous unit of connected townhouses—and slid low into the seat. It took almost two hours before he figured the pattern. There were two security vehicles, one a black Chevy Nova and the other a Ford Econoline van. Each had two men in them, and one or the other showed up every forty minutes, pausing on the street in front of the house and on the street in back. At that point, one of the men walked around back, bent in the weeds and checked something, presumably some sort of trembler switch that indicated if any kind of entry had been made.