KIA

by Thomas Holland

  “Hey, bubba. What’s a family?”

  “With all the travelin’ that I’ve been doin’, I’m not really sure anymore. I think it’s somethin’ kinda like Bigfoot; you know, lots of unverified sightings. There’s usually a big one with curves and a couple smaller ones that are noisy and sticky.”

  “That’s right.” Pierce’s Old Dominion drawl flowed through the phone line like thin corn syrup. “Now that you mention it, I remember seein’ a story about them in one of those newspapers at the checkout line. What in the world can I do for you, Dr. McKelvey? You must be in big need of somethin’ if you’re usin’ a telephone. That twelve-step program must be payin’ off.”

  “How ’bout that? I even dialed this myself. Actually, it’s not what you can do for me, it’s more like what I can do for you.”

  “How so?”

  “You remember the Tenkiller case I mentioned to you a few weeks back? Soldier named Jimmy Tenkiller. Vietnam case.”

  “The deserter?”

  “You got it. We sent y’all some bone samples—three, I think it was. Two bone and one from a tooth.”

  “Sure do. We got sequence data from all three, but we don’t have a family reference sample in yet so there’s nothin’ to compare it to. No livin’ relatives is what I hear.”

  “Except his brother,” Kel corrected. He heard a chair spring creak and he envisioned Pierce leaning back and propping his feet up onto his full, but orderly, desktop. By contrast, Kel couldn’t even see the top of his desk, let alone find room to prop his feet up. “I’ve been ridin’ the genealogist pretty hard, but she tells me that we shouldn’t hold our breaths.”

  “Right,” Pierce said quickly. “And the brother won’t give a blood sample for love or money. Do we need to put this one in the inactive category? Lord knows we’re shorthanded right now and no one will complain if we back-burner this one for a while.”

  “Well, that’s sorta why I’m callin’. It ain’t Tenkiller.”

  “What ain’t Tenkiller?”

  “The skeleton we recovered. The one we cut the samples from.”

  “How’d you figure it out?”

  “The old fashioned way, believe it or not. Some old newspaper clippings from 1954. From what they say, Tenkiller was a serious track talent. Even had a fair shot at the Olympics in Melboune.”

  “Really? Cool.”

  “Yeah, at least until he broke his foot. They had to reconstruct his ankle with a box of screws and a spool of baling wire…”

  “Which don’t show up in the skeleton you all recovered,” Pierce completed the thought. “Good detective work.”

  “Yeah. Anyhow, we know now that whomever we got, it isn’t our man Jimmy Tenkiller.”

  “Well, that’s progress of a sort.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So, you’re back to the drawin’ board?”

  “We never got up from it. The problem was that we got so damn fixated on DNA that we forgot the old ways.”

  “Use them while you can. The old ways. If you listen to my analysts talk, pretty soon, we’ll have a little box you can put the bones in and get an instant DNA result.”

  “Yeah, and I bet that the box won’t have a doorknob on it, will it?”

  “Ahh…”

  “Never mind, just my Neanderthal sense of humor.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Stillwater, Oklahoma

  FRIDAY, JULY 9, 1954

  “Jimmy Lee, you just c’mon in here, son,” Red Coil said as he rose from his desk. He swept grandly with his freckled arm to suggest that Jimmy Lee should take a seat. “How’s that there leg coming along? Healin’ up there okay, is it?”

  It had been almost three weeks since the cast had come off, and although Jimmy Lee was still riding a single crutch, it was now used more for balance than support. He took a seat and settled his weight heavily, leaning the crutch up against the front of the desk. “Healing up well, Coach,” he responded quickly. He made a show of turning his ankle in shallow rotations, biting back a wince the whole time. “Soon it’ll be good as new. You just wait. Soon.”

  Red Coil moved to the front of his desk and perched on the corner, one leg dangling off the front edge. He fingered the wooden crutch, avoiding prolonged eye contact with Tenkiller. “Good, good; that’s real good, son. You seem to be getting around just fine.”

  “Yes, sir, Coach. I hope to start working out soon. Got some catching up to do,” Jimmy Lee said. He liked Coach Coil. The coach had recruited him and helped him fulfill the school’s entrance requirements. He’d supported him and had confidence in him—something no one else ever had. Coach Coil thought that Jimmy Lee had a legitimate shot at the upcoming Olympic Games in Australia; that he could be the next Jim Thorpe. The Running Redskin was what the papers had recently taken to calling him. “Got to get ready for next season. I want to be ready for the Olympic trials. You and me, Coach Coil. We’re going to Australia.”

  Coil looked down at his shoe; he’d been bobbing his toe nervously and wished he could stop it. He ran his hands through his thinning gray hair and stood up. He walked over to the window, shoved his hands in his hip pockets, and kept his back to Jimmy Lee as he spoke. “That was about as bad a fracture as I’ve seen in my thirty-odd years of coaching. Awful bad. The doctors, they aren’t as confident as you are, Jimmy Lee. They say you’ll never run competitively again.”

  “Doctors don’t know so much, right, Coach? Like you always say, you run with your heart, not your feet. I didn’t break my heart. Doctors, they don’t understand that.”

  Red Coil didn’t answer.

  “Coach?” Jimmy Lee prompted.

  “Doctors are smart people, Jimmy Lee. Smart people. They get paid to be smart. Maybe we should listen to them.”

  “Coach?”

  “They’re right, Jimmy Lee; you won’t run again.”

  “But Coach Coil, I can run now. I can. I can do it right now, I’ve just been taking it easy; letting it heal, like you told me, like you said I should do, but I can run right now.”

  “Look, Jimmy Lee,” Red Coil said, turning away from the window to face the young runner for the first time, “I don’t doubt that for a minute. I don’t doubt that if we went over to Lewis Field right this very goddamn minute, that you could run laps around the rest of the team, but…”

  “But, Coach, I can run faster than anyone in this conference. You’ve seen me do it.”

  “Yes, yes you can, Jimmy Lee. That’s a fact. If you hadn’t been a freshman, if you’d been on the varsity instead of the JV, it’d be a conference record, that’s a fact, but that was…Goddamn it, Jimmy Lee, that was before. Don’t you get it?”

  “But I can still run. You’ll see.”

  “No, Jimmy Lee. No. Try and point your toe. Go on, now.” He paused, but when Tenkiller didn’t respond, he continued. “You can’t. You’ll never be able to. Not like before. Them bones is all froze up. Yes, with some work you can probably beat your teammates; hell, you can probably beat most of them right now carrying that crutch. Hell, with some time you might even have gotten competitive in the conference again, but you’ll never make the Olympics. It’s over, Jimmy Lee. It’s all over, son.”

  “I don’t understand. What do you mean, Coach Red?”

  “I mean the school’s pulling your scholarship; that’s what I mean. I mean it’s over.”

  Jimmy Lee sat stunned.

  “Hey, you’re a bright boy, Jimmy Lee. This isn’t the end of the world for you. You’ll find a job; something you’re good at; something you can do.”

  Jimmy Lee Tenkiller looked up at Red Coil. His eyes had clouded, and he blinked hard to clear them, but they wouldn’t clear. He blinked again, but all he saw were the faces of the old men at the boarding school and the spinsters with their cane switches. “Like what, Coach Coil, like what can I do?”

  Red Coil was quiet for a moment, and he looked at the floor before responding. “The Korean conflict has simmered down, Jimmy Lee. It’s safe now.”
r />   Jimmy Lee Tenkiller looked at the old man in confusion.

  “Ever think about joining the army?” the coach asked.

  CHAPTER 37

  Rolla, Missouri

  FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2008

  Michelle Catherine Thu had been born on a sunlit morning, six years and thirty-two days after her parents and two sisters had arrived in the United States—a fact that she had always given great thanks for. As a high-ranking officer of the South Vietnamese Army, her father, General Ngo Van Thu, had been welcomed openly, even if not always warmly, by the Americans, and opportunity had abounded for a man of his energy. He had done well in his adopted country. Very well. But for Michelle, the United States was not adopted, it was home, and while she took pride in her ethnic heritage, she never for a moment thought of herself as anything but an American. Now at age twenty-eight, with a medical degree from the University of Illinois, she was preparing to start her own American family. Tomorrow, in fact, and there were so many last-minute details to get sorted out.

  “I’ll get it,” Michelle yelled as she ran down the stairs and into the den where the nearest phone extension was located. Greg was driving down from St. Louis with his best man, and they were already late. He’d gotten stuck covering a friend’s shift at Barnes Hospital where he was completing his residency, and her stomach knotted with the concern that he was going to be delayed even further. She knew how easily that could happen. For the last two months he’d been trading assignments with a half dozen other residents to clear up enough time for a real honeymoon, and the resulting schedule resembled a house of cards waiting for a gust of wind. She grabbed the receiver as she skidded past the end table, her white socks not catching a purchase on the polished wood floor, and looked up to see her two older sisters standing in the kitchen doorway giggling at her. She stuck her tongue out at them before answering. “Greg?”

  There was a long silence before a soft voice, which rose and fell in its modulation, responded. “No. Perhaps I have the wrong number; I’m trying to reach Ngo Van Thu. Would this, by any chance, be his residence?”

  “Oh, yes,” Michelle answered, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “Excuse me, I was expecting someone else. Yes, this is the Thu residence.” General Ngo Van Thu had long ago conceded to his adopted neighbors’ inability to understand the order of Vietnamese family names and had accepted the inevitability of being called the Thu family. Michelle, in fact, had never known any different.

  “Ngo Van Thu? General Ngo Van Thu?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do I have the honor of speaking to Mrs. Ngo?”

  Michelle laughed, as much at being mistaken for her mother as at the use of the old family name. “No, not hardly. I’m one of his daughters. Can I help you? Not many people call him general, though. Were you a friend of his during the war?” The reality was that no one called him general. Her father seldom spoke of the war, and Michelle seldom asked. She had been raised in an America that didn’t have any interest in discussing Vietnam or the past.

  “Why yes, I guess you could say that, but I doubt you can help me out,” the voice replied. It rose and fell and was hard to listen to, and Michelle wondered if it was the fault of the person or the connection. “I was simply hoping to pay my respects. Touch the bases, as it were. By any chance is the general home?”

  Michelle looked over at her two sisters. They were looking at her with questions in their eyes, since it obviously wasn’t Dr. Wonderful on the phone. Ordinarily Michelle would have been excited by the prospect of an old friend of her father’s calling out of the blue to reminisce—a diversion like that was what he needed—but right now she couldn’t think of anything but the phone’s being tied up indefinitely. “Ahh,” she hesitated, not wanting to sound impolite, but not wanting to prolong the conversation any longer than necessary, “actually, he’s running some errands with my mother. I’m getting married tomorrow, and we’re all sort of running around here with our heads cut off.”

  “You are? Well, my congratulations. I’m sure the general is quite proud. You must be a very lovely young woman.”

  Michelle laughed self-consciously. “You wouldn’t say that if you could see me right this minute. I’m really a mess. I’m sorry my father isn’t here. Can I take a message for him?”

  “Well now,” the voice said, “can’t say I’ve got a message as such; I was passing through the area, and I’d heard tell that the general had settled down here. Sort of thought I should make some contact. Old time’s sake and all. No message, but maybe you could have your father call me when he gets a chance?”

  “Of course. I’m sure he’ll be very excited. He could probably use another man to talk to; I’m afraid all the women in this house are driving him quite crazy. Were you close? You and my father. Were you close friends?”

  Now it was the roller coaster voice that hesitated. “You might say that,” the voice finally answered. “In fact, well yes, you could say we were almost like brothers.”

  CHAPTER 38

  U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii

  FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2008

  Kel was already late—intentionally—for a meeting with Botch-It when the telephone rang. He’d just hung up with Thomas Pierce, and he grabbed the receiver reflexively without time to work up a typical case of the sweating dreads. He assumed that it was Pierce calling back to say he’d remembered something. It wasn’t.

  “I’m tryin’ to reach Dr. McKelvey,” the voice drawled the name out slowly and added a few sleepy syllables that weren’t entirely necessary.

  “You’ve got him,” Kel answered. He felt his bowels tighten when he realized it wasn’t Pierce. God, he thought, I hate telephones.

  “Hey, Kel, it’s Shuck Deveroux.”

  “Shuck.” Kel relaxed a little. “I thought it was a guy from the DNA lab callin’ me back about somethin’—actually it’s that case I called you about a while back. Master Sergeant Tenkiller and the five dwarves. Anyhow, what’s up? You at Campbell?”

  “Yeah,” Deveroux replied. “I am. And as a matter of fact, your Tenkiller’s what’s up. Got some information to share.”

  “Really? Great. Can’t believe you made the time.”

  “Wish I could say that I did. More accident than intent on my part. Actually, I was runnin’ down another loose end, and I wound up with some information that I thought might interest you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Ever hear of an army general by the name of Fick? One each, Paul Fick. Retired now.”

  “Sure,” Kel said. “Brigadier type. Ahh…Vietnam vet, I think. Couple three of the army folks here worked under him way back when. Supposed to be a real ball-buster.”

  “That’s the one. BG retired Paul Fick. He’s a friend, or at least an old war buddy, of the commander here at Campbell. I met with him yesterday over near Memphis. Seems he has some interestin’ information—if you can pry it out of him—he’s not much for talkin’, but he did give me a thick folder full of stuff that he’d compiled back in Saigon some thirty-forty years ago.”

  “On what?”

  “Your man Tenkiller, among others.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kel replied.

  “Not sure I do either. From what I can tell, and I haven’t read the whole file yet—must be three inches thick—but from what I can piece together, Fick was sent back to Vietnam in 1970 on a special assignment for the CID. Very special; definitely not the normal channels. In fact, from what I can tell, there’s no official record of what he was doin’ there. The file he gave me is the only copy. Guess what he was investigatin’?”

  “Given that you’re callin’, I’d have to guess a black market ring operatin’ near Saigon.”

  “Bingo,” Deveroux responded. “And more. Fick spent the better part of a year pokin’ around and came up empty-handed, at least in terms of what he could prove, but he has a whole lot of speculations. Accordin’ to his file, there was a ring of five high-rankin’ Vietname
se officers who were referred to as the Brothers…”

  “The Five Brothers,” Kel added.

  “That’s right. Tenkiller actually made six—at least from what Fick pieced together. His informant was some French guy, and Fick clearly wasn’t all that comfortable with his credibility. Anyhow, there were these five Vietnamese and Tenkiller; total of six. Tenkiller was the inside man at one of the big supply depots in-country, and Fick thinks his involvement was purely monetary; he got paid, he supplied goods—that simple. The Vietnamese, however, well, Fick has them tied into some opium smugglin’ business out of the hills of Laos and Burma.”

  “The Golden Triangle,” Kel replied. “That little wedge formed by the borders of Thailand, Burma, and Laos. Lots of heavy-duty opium grown up there. The local governments look the other way, at least until it’s time to take their cut. We have to work around the harvest season sometimes when we do recoveries in Laos. Too dangerous for our teams.”

  “Yeah, that sounds ’bout right. Well, accordin’ to Fick, the stuff Tenkiller was supplyin’ was tied somehow into smugglin’ the opium into South Vietnam. Haven’ fully digested all that yet, but he’s got some mysterious Cajun fella named Bergeron who may, or may not, have worked for Uncle Sam, involved in the whole thing; actin’ like a broker of some kind.”

  “Interestin’. Shades of Iran Contra?”

  “Showin’ your age. Now, here’s what’s really interestin’—and actually the reason I called, the five Vietnamese? Well, it took a while, but I got all their names, and guess what…two of them are stiff as kiln-dried boards.”

  “Yeah?” Kel acknowledged as much as asked.

  “Yeah. The homicides that I’m workin’. One at the Louisville ME’s office and the other in Nashville. Both of them were part of the Brotherhood. Two of the five. And then of course there’s Tenkiller. I still don’t see what the connection is, but what are the odds?”

  “Well, I’m with you; I don’t see the connection between Vietnam in 1970 and now, but at the same time, it’s a helluva coincidence.”