KIA

by Thomas Holland

  “Doctor Dang, with all due respect, sir, I think that this is a case that I’m going to have to insist upon. You may be correct, but the available evidence shows that this may be associated with the loss of Master Sergeant Jimmy Tenkiller, and…well…we formally request to repatriate these remains to the CILHI for analysis. This is the official U.S. position on this case. We have to err on the side of caution in a situation like this. You appreciate that.”

  “This is of concern not to your country.”

  Davis Smart looked again at Ken Shiroma for help.

  “You more afraid of Kel or Dang?” Ken whispered.

  “Who signs my time sheet?” D.S. whispered back. He turned back to Dang Minh. “Perhaps, sir. Still, the U.S. position is repate.”

  Dang Hoang Minh looked at D.S. His eyes were dark and reflected no highlights. The gristle in his jaw worked and flexed. There was a look in his features that D.S. had not seen in their decade-long working relationship. A glimpse of unscabbed hostility. Dang Minh had lost a wife, two young daughters, and a brother during the war, he himself still carried an almond-sized piece of shrapnel near his spine—or so the story was told—but he had always dealt professionally with the Americans. But now there was a look. And there was something else as well. Usually when there had been disagreement about whether remains would be returned to the United States, Dang Minh had chided the American team for wanting to burden their lab with what he thought were pig bones or the remains of old Vietnamese men and women—but he’d never shown any real opposition, never tried to stop it from happening. The look had always been more like amused resignation—like that of a teacher who has failed to lead a student to the right answer and smiles knowing that he must ultimately learn from his own mistakes. But this was different. Dang Minh clearly didn’t want the remains repatriated to the United States. But he also had no choice—not when the U.S. representative made it an official request. To deny the request would be to suggest that the Vietnamese government was not being cooperative.

  With a quick, definitive motion he stood up, his wooden chair screeching back on the ceramic tile floor. He rapped his paper notes on the tabletop twice to align the edges and then abruptly turned and walked from the room. “Prepare the documents,” he said to the translator in Vietnamese as he disappeared through the door.

  CHAPTER 10

  Thanh Lay Hamlet, East of Saigon, Republic of Vietnam

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1970

  Jimmy Lee Tenkiller was a man of modest proportions. His father had been tall and big-boned, as Choctaw men often are, but Jimmy Lee more closely reflected the physical image of his mother, a small, quiet, full-blood Cherokee whose great-great-grandfather had walked the Trail of Tears from his boyhood home in Alabama. What features Jimmy Lee did take from his father were a broad forehead covered with the thick brown leather of a childhood spent under an unclouded yellow Oklahoma sun and sharp cheekbones that arched and strained at his skin as if they’d push their way through any minute. The effect was to set his dark, blue-black eyes deeply into his face as if he was in a perpetual glower against the sun, a look that was accentuated by his mouth. His lips were meaty and well defined, and they curled unconsciously into a self-satisfied smile that the Methodist spinsters and dried-up husks of old men who’d run the Indian Boys School outside Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, had never seemed to be able to correct no matter how long the switch or how regular the application.

  He was also a born runner. As a child he would sneak away from school to run the baked-clay fields of eastern Oklahoma. He would run, fast and long. He would run all day long. He would run until they caught him and made him return. And the next day, the welts still burning from the caning, he’d sneak away and run again.

  When he was seventeen he ran, and they didn’t catch him.

  He checked his watch again. It was late. They were late again. Rolling the dice. He hated these people. Even more, he hated what he’d allowed himself to become.

  He was looking forward to breaking clean. For the last fourteen months he’d been sending his brother money, buying a working share of a bait-and-tackle business near Checotah. Couple more weeks, couple more weeks, he thought over and over, a couple more days and he’d never have to see these sonsofbitches ever again. He looked at his watch and then at the tree line.

  They were late. They usually were, and Jimmy Lee Tenkiller found himself scotching the ground like a corralled horse; resisting the urge to run. It was all bad, everywhere was bad, but meeting here in this abandoned village month after month was plain asking for trouble. The area had never been made safe, and it was getting worse by the day. If the VC didn’t sniff them out, a U.S. patrol would eventually stumble onto them—and he didn’t know which would be worse.

  Rolling the dice.

  Jimmy Lee hugged the inner rim of the village. It was abandoned, its inhabitants having been relocated to a more-secure location twenty klicks down the road. Even so, Jimmy Lee felt eyes on him. He stayed near the sagging bamboo and thatch huts, staying out of easy sight but keeping an unsettled eye on the exposed dirt common in the center. As he waited, his skin filmed over with a sticky layer of sweat that refused to evaporate in the hundred-degree heat, and he swatted constantly at the ever-present mosquitoes and biting flies. The heat he was comfortable with—it had been the same, or worse, growing up in the skillet pan of eastern Oklahoma—but he would never adjust to the mosquitoes and the flies.

  He looked at his watch again and had decided to clear out when he heard the fluttery whine of the jeep. He stepped quietly behind the edge of one of the huts and peered around a support pole at the dirt road that snaked into the village.

  It was them—only three of them by his count. That was common now. As the area had heated up in recent months, with more and more enemy raids, and more and more U.S. retaliations, these meetings had become considerably more hazardous to everyone’s health. He seldom saw them all in one place anymore. Not all five, just two or three at a time. The minimum needed to conduct business.

  The Brothers.

  Jimmy Lee Tenkiller moved out from behind the hut, showing himself as the jeep rolled to a stop. General Ngo Van Thu of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam said something to the other two in clipped, efficient-sounding Vietnamese, and then he stepped out from the passenger side. Always very efficient. The driver, ARVN Colonel Pham Van Minh, remained seated, staring straight ahead, both hands gripping the wheel. He was a wide-built muscular man, too big for a common Vietnamese. He looked to be ethnically Chinese. The third man was a small, muscular Vietnamese air force major with weak eyes and an even weaker chin, Doan Minh Tuyen.

  It had all started simply enough. The Brothers had wanted some specific items and didn’t want bureaucracy. That’s what they’d said. Jimmy Lee was the man in a position at the depot to accommodate. That’s what they’d said. In the beginning it had been a case or two of cigarettes, a case or two of American hard liquor, a few electronic items such as cameras or transistor radios or stainless-steel Seiko watches shipped in from Tokyo. They always said it was gifts for loyal supporters; for hardworking, unsung enlisted Vietnamese step-ons like him. Jimmy Lee Tenkiller could sympathize with that—he’d been a step-on his whole life. He kept telling himself it was all for a good cause. It was for the hardworking drones who made the machinery turn. That it was all right. And if he made some money in the process—money to send to his brother—well, he was owed.

  But then the requests began to escalate. The General Electric radios and Leica cameras gave way to weapons. A few small arms and automatics in the beginning. Some .45s and M-16s. And ammunition, of course. They said that the weapons were for protection. They said that as high-ranking South Vietnamese military officers, they needed well-armed bodyguards. Praetorian Guards.

  That’s what they’d said.

  It was too easy back then to hunker his head into a hole, to believe them even while he didn’t believe them. To go along to get along. Hell, ammunition and weapons were
so plentiful in the Republic of Vietnam that they were like door prizes. But then the requests became demands—demands enforced through hinted blackmail and implied threats. And the demands got greedier, too. Medical supplies—lots of medical supplies. And more armament. Grenades gave way to rockets; rockets to small mortars.

  It was after some Joes from the Twenty-fifth Infantry Division had been shredded by a bank of antipersonnel mines that he’d really begun to wonder. He’d delivered a crate of claymores to the Brothers a week or so earlier. He’d known their story didn’t wash at the time. Bodyguards didn’t need antipersonnel mines—not a whole case of them anyway. It didn’t make sense. But he hunkered. He went along. And then the guys from the Twenty-fifth ID walked into a sausage grinder. It didn’t wash. He’d heard they were still picking body parts out of the trees a week and a half later. All the intelligence guys said it was a fluke for the VC to capture that many claymores. An unfortunate fluke, but a fluke nonetheless.

  But Jimmy Lee Tenkiller was beginning to wonder.

  He was still wondering as General Ngo Thu began removing his soft calf-leather gloves as he walked around the nose of the jeep. He was a small man, even for a Vietnamese, and his hands were even smaller. They looked feminine. His shirts were always tailored and hugged his torso like a wetsuit.

  “Master Sergeant Tenkiller, good day,” Ngo Thu smiled. He pronounced Jimmy Lee’s name as if it were Teen-KHEE-la. “I trust that you are fine this morning. I hope you have not been waiting long for us this day.”

  Jimmy Lee hated the general the most. The others were flunkies, but the general always left Jimmy Lee feeling as if he’d been covered with a film of motor oil. “Been waiting long enough, General. For all of us, I hope not too long. Did you see anyone on the road as you came in?” He looked past the general to the road. They were rolling the dice. His legs hummed. He wanted to run.

  “No, my friend,” Ngo Thu said. The dark-green lenses of his aviator-style glasses hid his eyes, but the flicker of his thin mustache betrayed a shadow of his persistent disdain. He made a show of looking around the abandoned village. “You are always so…tense. You act like a gentleman with something to conceal.” He looked back at Tenkiller. “Do you have something to hide, my friend?”

  “You would do well to be tense, General. I believe we all have something to hide—I hope we all understand that. All of us have something to be tense about—you should remember that. I hope all of you remember that.”

  Ngo Van Thu continued smiling as he placed his gloves on the hood of the jeep. There was an irregular ticking sound as the engine cooled, and out of the corner of his vision, Jimmy Lee could see ripples of heat rise from the green metal. Both men paused as they took each other’s meaning. Ngo Thu spoke first. “Master Sergeant Tenkiller, I believe you have some items for me. Supplies. Am I correct on this matter?”

  Jimmy Lee was not entirely sure how to answer. His plan had been to bury his head once more and deliver the goods one last time. Soon he’d be long gone and far away. All he had to do was buy a couple of weeks. But as he looked at the general, he noticed something for the first time. Always before he’d concentrated on trying to see beyond the dark lenses of Ngo Thu’s sunglasses, to see where his eyes were focused, what they revealed. This time he didn’t look beyond the glass. This time he noticed the reflection in the lenses, and he didn’t like what he saw.

  He saw himself.

  It was a galvanizing moment in his life, and he suddenly realized that he had his answer.

  “I’m afraid there’s a problem, General,” he said. “I don’t have the items, and I’m not sure when I can get them…if ever. I think we’ve pushed the system about as far as we dare.”

  The general stiffened visibly. He said nothing for what seemed a long time. “I see,” he finally replied. “And what, Sergeant Tenkiller, would this problem be?”

  Jimmy Lee Tenkiller adjusted his stance so that his weight was balanced over both feet. He crossed his arms. “Maybe a number of things, General. Does it really matter?”

  “Yes, my sergeant. I believe to me this does matter. My…colleagues…my comrades…are quite in need of these items. They are expecting them. If it is a matter of money, perhaps we may negotiate these things.”

  “It’s not a matter of money. I think you understand. You and your associates won’t be getting any more items from me. Not from me or anyone else at my depot.”

  Ngo Thu had taken Jimmy Lee’s measure long before. He hadn’t risen through the Byzantine world of South Vietnamese politics without acquiring the ability to probe a man’s mind and feel for the softest spot. “Ahh,” he said as he reached out and began pulling on his gloves, “I see. That is too unfortunate, I believe. Do you not agree?” He slowly walked over to the driver’s side of the jeep. “Do you not? Master sergeant?”

  Jimmy Lee Tenkiller didn’t answer.

  “Yes…I think so. I think it is too unfortunate.” Ngo Thu held a gloved hand palm up in front of Colonel Pham Minh, still sitting quietly behind the wheel. “Colonel—the pistol, please,” he said in English.

  Pham Minh looked up at the general for the first time. He seemed to hesitate momentarily before withdrawing a U.S.-issued Colt .45 from between the seats and placing it into the general’s hand.

  Ngo Thu fisted the automatic, adjusting his grip, squeezing and relaxing. Feeling its weight and balance and power. With his left hand he worked the slide, chambering one of the fat, brass rounds, and clicking off the safety. “Recognize this pistol, Master Sergeant Tenkiller? No? I believe it is an item you obtained for us…is it not? Ahh, but you have obtained so many of these things that I think you may not remember.”

  Jimmy Lee’s eyes briefly went to the pistol and then back to Ngo Thu’s face. It had been one of the first items he’d supplied to the general.

  “It is a curious fact about Americans, Master Sergeant, a most curious fact, that you are a most talkative people. Americans talk like many chickens. Yes. You cluck like so many chickens, yet you do not have an answer for me now when I am asking you a question. Do you not find this curious?”

  It happened so quickly it hardly registered in Jimmy Lee Tenkiller’s mind. The general’s hand rose in one smooth, fluid movement. Jimmy Lee reached for the general’s arm. His mouth opened to scream but produced no sound. The cold muzzle of the Colt .45 made contact with skin.

  Jimmy Lee Tenkiller closed his eyes involuntarily.

  The general fired a single round. And then he smiled.

  CHAPTER 11

  Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2008

  It had rained overnight and the dark tarmac was puddled irregularly. The trade winds had gusted up since sunrise and dried up most of the water, but in the shallow dips and swales of the taxiway apron, water was still standing, reflecting the soft clear blue of the midmorning Hawaiian sky. Robert Dean McKelvey stood on the grass yard to the side of the Hickam Air Force Base Operations building, shifting from one foot to another, listening to the flags snap in the breeze, anxious to get on with the day. It was already ten-fifteen, and the ceremony hadn’t begun. There was a lot yet to get done, and the day wasn’t waiting for him.

  He wasn’t alone. There was a good turnout for the repatriation ceremony. There usually was, but for some reason today’s attendance was beter than most. The usual representatives from the Central Identification Laboratory were there; the military in a vague, organic formation yet to be called into order; the civilians clumped into two or three clusters depending on which section of the organization they worked in. There were the old vets there as well, in their salted beards and ripe bellies and worn leather motorcycle jackets with numerous unit and POW/MIA patches. The press was milling about, not as many as had once shown up, as repatriations and identifications were too frequent these days to warrant more than filler status on the local news, but some were there with their cameras and microphones and spiral-topped notebooks. Fortunately, Botch-It was nowhere in sig
ht, but Les Neep was standing near the corner of the Operations building talking with a tall, angular vice admiral whom Kel didn’t recognize but knew he should. Les had a nose for seeking out rank.

  At ten-twenty-five someone, somewhere out of Kel’s sight, gave the appropriate signal, and the droop-winged Air Mobility Command C-17 taxied to its assigned spot seventy-five yards from the front of the Base Operations building. The engines throttled down as the plane braked to a stop and began its long, whining shutdown. There was a brief pause, and then an army major in blue dress uniform and white gloves called the honor guard and the spectators to attention, and three dark-blue buses slowly filed out onto the apron. Each would carry remains to the lab.

  Davis Smart quietly took up a place at Kel’s right elbow as the ramp of the huge sky-gray plane began to hum and lower. The repat bird had actually landed two hours earlier and had parked discreetly at the margin of the black tarmac out of sight from Base Ops. D.S. and the other passengers—Ken Shiroma, the dentist, and members of the Joint Forensic Review team and the military escort that had flown over to Hanoi to receive the remains—had been able to unload their luggage and clear immigration and customs. Often they would go straight home to begin unraveling their jet lag. It was a two-day flight from Hanoi, if you counted the short overnight stay at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam that was required for crew rest, and that amount of time in the red, webbed cargo seating of the C-17 could seriously interfere with your beauty rest—not to mention REM sleep. For that reason alone, Kel was surprised to see D.S. fall in for the ceremony. Ordinarily he’d be home sleeping by this point.

  The first of four honor guards—one navy, one marine, and two army—were slowly lock-stepping up the ramp at the rear of the aircraft. Kel, locked at attention, glanced out of the corner of his eye, acknowledging the arrival of his deputy.

  “Just in time,” Kel whispered. “Welcome back.”