Courier

by Terry Irving

  Without conscious thought, Rick dodged to the side, jerked the heavy Motorola radio off his belt, and threw it hard at the man’s head. Without even looking to see if he hit his target, he turned and ran.

  When it came down to it, he didn’t care if this was real or a flashback. If he got away, he could always figure that out later.

  And if it wasn’t a dream, who the hell was this guy?

  He raced toward the back of the station, where hundreds of passengers were lined up, patiently waiting for the attendant to unhook the velvet rope and allow them to board their train. Concentrating on keeping his footing – motorcycle boots weren’t made for running – Rick heard the sound of his assailant’s soft shoes coming up fast behind him and realized he wasn’t going to win in a footrace. Not after all those damn Winstons.

  He rammed past the passengers, knocking two businessmen at the front of the line flying, their briefcases exploding in a shower of paper. Then he cut sharply to the left, stopped by slamming into the wall beside the open door. He grabbed the brass pole that held the velvet rope and – without looking – swung it behind him as hard as he could.

  The Vietnamese caught it right in the stomach, grunted, and went down. Rick dropped the pole’s heavy metal base on the man’s head and took off again. He thought, I don’t want to kill, but I don’t mind slowing him down.

  He shot through the open door to the train platforms. He looked left and saw forklifts and freight and, behind them, a solid stone wall. No escape there, so he headed down the concrete deck to his right, looking for a street and a way back to the motorcycle parked out front. After he passed the front of two trains, he heard the slam as his attacker came through the door behind him and then a bang and the simultaneous zip-whistle sound of a bullet going by his head.

  Damn, that son of a bitch is serious!

  Instantly, he went left, between the trains, weaving around the green iron columns that ran down the center.

  A bullet chipped thick paint off a column he’d just passed.

  The last car of the train was on his right, so he dodged left, and then went right; throwing himself off the platform and down onto the rails and loose stones of the rail bed. He almost lost his footing but managed to stay upright through sheer momentum. On the other side of the railbed, he scrambled up onto the next platform and started running again.

  There was no train on his right this time, only a short iron fence and a drop-off to more tracks. Suddenly, he realized where those tracks went. He turned to the fence and paused, looking down at about a ten-foot drop to more damn loose rocks.

  Behind him, he could hear the gunman’s running footsteps, so he swung his legs over the fence, climbed down to the concrete ledge, hung by his hands as far as he could, and dropped, bracing for the shock.

  He was amazed when he didn’t sprain an ankle, but he wasn’t going to question his luck. He couldn’t keep running out into the open rail yard – he would be an easy target – so he reversed course and headed back toward the station. He hopped over the rails and jumped up on another platform. This one had a roof that gave him cover – a good thing, since there was another shot and a round smacked into the wood above his head. After pounding down to the end of the platform where the stairs led back to the station, he jumped back on the tracks and followed them into a tunnel.

  He knew that this tunnel went right under the Capitol and was the only way through DC for southbound trains. The tunnel was old and dark, with only occasional metal-caged bulbs casting orange pools of light. It curved to the right, so there was no light at the end, and he knew he wouldn’t be backlit for an easy shot once he got out of the light spill from the entrance.

  He slowed to a fast walk, worried that he’d twist an ankle on the rough and unstable footing.

  He looked back and saw his pursuer. The bastard was still coming. Well, let him come. He was tired of running.

  He realized that he wanted a cigarette and was amused that not being able to satisfy his nicotine habit made him angrier than being shot at.

  As he expected they would, the two tracks soon merged into a single line. He’d seen from the Southeast Freeway that only one track led out on the other side, heading for the railroad bridge over the Potomac. He kept up a fast pace, looking for something to use as a weapon.

  Almost simultaneously, he heard the sound of a northbound train in front of him and saw a two-foot length of metal pipe in the trash alongside the track. He used the pipe to destroy the next two overhead lights and pressed himself up behind a support beam right where the gloom gave way to the next pool of light.

  He thought: This guy will be cautious in the dark, but he’ll start feeling better with the light, and his attention will be focused up ahead.

  He snuggled in close to the wall, hidden by the beam, and waited, forcing his breathing to slow. His body ached from the abuse he’d just put it through, but the core strength from his nightly workouts had protected him from any serious damage.

  Then he could hear cautious steps on the other side of the beam. The Vietnamese man took only one step too far, but it was enough – the pipe slammed down on his wrist, and the pistol went skittering off into the darkness.

  The man immediately attacked with the knife in his other hand.

  Rick held the pipe across his chest and blocked the first thrust. Then the light from the coming train filled the tunnel with actinic fury. The Vietnamese man shot a glance at the train and moved in – away from the tracks. Rick caught his opponent’s knife hand in his right fist and rammed the pipe into his chest with the left.

  Years of patient squeezing of that rubber ball had served him well. The knife stayed locked in place even when his attacker tried to put his hip behind it and push with his legs. The train’s whistle began a frantic series of warning blasts – painful in the small tunnel.

  For a second, the two men remained locked together, immobile as they strained against each other. Then, slowly, Rick began to push the other man back – back into the path of the oncoming locomotive. His attacker jerked his head toward the train, becoming frantic as the slow-moving train came steadily closer. Finally, he tried to jerk backward, making a desperate plunge to the safety of the other side of the tunnel.

  His knife hand remained locked in Rick’s grip, and the courier was slowly pushing the metal bar forward, pushing the Vietnamese man directly in front of the oncoming locomotive.

  Rick stared into the other man’s eyes.

  He shoves his rifle into the angry face only inches away and pulls the trigger. The lever is set to full rock and roll, and a stream of bullets shred the face into a mist that merges into the smoke of battle.

  Rick shook his head to clear it. He was damned if he was going to see this bastard’s eyes every time he went to sleep.

  He reversed his effort and pulled his attacker close to his chest just as the train shot past with shrieking brakes and that damn whistle screaming. An engineer up in the cab was frozen in an instant of shocked surprise.

  Using the momentum of the pull, he twisted and slammed the back of the man’s head into the tunnel wall. Then, he spun the pipe and rammed it viciously into the other man’s crotch. As the Vietnamese crumpled forward, Rick released his knife hand and, grabbing his opponent by his pony tail, spun him around again and slammed his face into the steel support beam – once, twice, three times – until the man’s body went limp. The knife rattled on the rocks underfoot.

  The train was still pounding and swaying only inches away. Rick jammed the pipe between the I-beam and an electrical conduit that ran down the tunnel wall, pinning his assailant solidly. He exerted an extra burst of strength to shove it down another inch, ensuring the pipe wouldn’t move.

  He stood rigid until the picture of what he had almost done was packed carefully away in a corner of his mind along with the mud and blood of war. He knew it wasn’t gone, and he was sure to see it replayed many nights, but it was safe for the moment, and the moment was the small place where he cou
ld still remain alive – and relatively sane.

  At least this time he hadn’t killed anyone.

  When his attention returned to the tunnel, the train had almost stopped, but he guessed it wouldn’t take long for one of the crew to work their way back to investigate. More likely, they were radioing DC Metro to close off both ends of the tunnel – train crews weren’t paid to investigate things like this.

  The cars were beginning to slow, so he began to make his way along the tunnel wall – heading south because there sure as hell would be cops coming in from the station after all that noise they’d made. He came out of the tunnel on the other side of the Mall, jumped the fence into the parking lot of the Market Inn, and walked back across the Mall to the station, looking like a rather smudged tourist.

  He even felt like a tourist as he gazed with a new appreciation at the white glory of the glowing Capitol dome and the long expanse of grass that ran down to the Washington Monument.

  When he got back to the train station, he took off his leather jacket and stashed it behind a bush near his bike. At the front of the station, the only redcap was patiently waiting for an elderly woman to work out how much to tip him for putting her in a cab. He didn’t see Rick take a small suitcase from the pile behind him.

  Rick carried it through the doors and past the transit police. No one grabbed him, so he dropped the suitcase next to the locked door marked "Lost Luggage" and headed for the baggage counter.

  This time, he didn’t wait on the attendant. He pointed out the ABN sacks, signed for them, quickly picked up his radio from the dark corner of the floor where it had gone unnoticed, and left. He smiled as he thought that this might have been the first time that the damn radio had been useful.

  CHAPTER 15

  As the adrenaline washed out of his system, Rick felt as if everything around him was closed off behind a wall of thick plastic, and he had to pay close attention to be sure that he did everything correctly as he finished up at the office.

  "Correctly" in this instance meant acting like a person who hadn’t just come very close to being killed. When he reached the group house, he saw that all the lights were out, so he came in quietly and began to look for something to eat.

  He’d cut off a chunk of Jarlsberg cheese and was leaning against the sink, eating it, when he suddenly stopped in mid-bite. After a pause, he went back outside, unlocked his motorcycle from its usual parking place in the backyard and rolled it down and into the alley behind the house. He pushed it along until he found a gap between two garages and backed it in. He rechained the front wheel around the handle of a metal trashcan, figuring that it would serve as a burglar alarm if not as much of a real theft deterrent.

  He walked to the front of the alley and stood in the shadows thrown by the big tree in the backyard. He looked and listened. Situational awareness was vital – it had kept him alive in combat, and now it appeared that he would need it here at home. There were no pedestrians and few cars at this hour, and all of the cars drove by without changing speed. He scanned all the parked cars from which someone could watch the house. After a time, he took a slow walk around the block.

  When he no longer felt the itch of anxiety, he returned to the house, where he finished the cheese and then went through his nightly routine – the weights, the bath, and bed – and fell asleep.

  His friends’ blood flows across his face. He is hiding under their bodies – silent and still as the Cong move around him. They throw more dead GIs on the pile and then a machine gun – using the bodies as sandbags.

  He feels the bodies above him shudder as return fire slams in.

  My God. His own unit is going to kill him!

  He’s going to get up and fight. To throw himself on the machine gunner. Tensing to push off the body that covers him, his hand sinks deep into a gut wound. It feels like raw hamburger, and the smell of shit is suddenly everywhere.

  He settles back.

  He plays dead. He doesn’t even move when the grenade shrapnel pierces his side.

  He clenches his jaw and holds his breath to keep the screams in.

  He plays dead.

  He is dead.

  CHAPTER 16

  Thursday, December 21, 1972

  Rick woke to the sweats, the shakes, and all the rest. He looked at the clock. Three hours again. Well, if he couldn’t change it, he would just have to continue living through it.

  He got up, dressed, and headed out into the predawn darkness. He decided against taking out the bike. Walking just felt better for some reason. It also just felt better to go up a block and down D Street, his boots loud on the wooden walkways over the subway construction.

  He could see what Eve had been talking about. One of the town houses had three I-beams driven into the ground to hold up the front. She hadn’t given him the whole picture, though. There were cracks in the brick large enough to put your fist in and massive cables and turnbuckles were woven between the beams.

  "You’re up early."

  He spun around with his fist raised and only barely stopped himself from going on the attack. Eve was standing right behind him. He could see her whole body brace against the blow, but she stood her ground, raising her chin as she looked into his eyes.

  He lowered his fist, took a deep breath, and relaxed. "You never know; I could be up late."

  She looked at him closely. "Nope. I can still see the dreams in your eyes. Bad?"

  "No worse than usual."

  She brushed past him on the narrow walkway and said over her shoulder, "I’m heading down to the Washington Monument."

  He could see that they both were going to pretend that nothing had happened – that he hadn’t almost assaulted her. He turned and walked behind her.

  And observed.

  She stopped at the end of the block. "I hope everything back there met with your approval."

  He grinned and then pointed with a thumb to the construction. "I was checking everything closely, and Metro seems to have everything well in hand."

  She just looked at him without expression for a moment, then gave a snort of laughter and resumed her walk. Once they’d gotten off the wooden catwalk, Rick pulled up alongside and they walked in silence up First Street toward the Capitol, passing the dark windows of the Rayburn Building.

  At the base of the Capitol steps, she stopped to look down the Mall. "It reminds me a little of home," she said. "Well, very little, to be honest, but at least there is a bit of ground without trees. I really miss open sky." She looked back up at the Capitol and asked, "What’s all that?"

  Looking up at the construction that was beginning to cover the West Front, Rick said, "They’re starting to build the platform for Nixon’s inauguration." He pointed over to the right. "See that semitrailer? That’s the TV pool truck. They’ve been working to get that ready for about three weeks."

  "So, the bastard gets to stand up there and pretend that nothing’s wrong?" She turned her back on the scene. "What a waste of time and money."

  Rick didn’t see that her statement required any response. She glanced at his face and then set off across the Mall. Rick caught up, and they walked in silence the rest of the way to the monument, moving fast enough to put a burn into his leg muscles.

  Standing beneath the snapping flags at the base of the monument, he offered her a cigarette and lit it with the usual up-down snap of the Zippo on his leg. She caught his wrist with her free hand and stared at the lighter.

  "Garryowen?" she read.

  "It’s the nickname of my old regiment – after a song they used to play going into battle."

  She began to whistle the old bagpipe tune, and then stopped. "That’s the song that Yellowhair’s soldiers played on their way to the Battle of the Greasy Grass. That’s General Custer and the Little Bighorn to you."

  "We both went to college. Let’s just take as a given that we remembered most of American History 101."

  "Sorry, I’ve been told that I get defensive a bit too quickly." She smiled and cha
nged the subject. "I’m named after one of the women at the battle. Women were warriors then."

  They started back toward the Capitol.

  "Are you a warrior?" Rick asked.

  "I don’t know." She was silent for a moment. "I think I have to be. They’re killing us."

  "Who?"

  "The CIA, the FBI, the Tribal Police, the sellouts on the tribal councils. We’re making trouble for them, and so they’re going to kill us – or put us in prison. Last year, my half brother was killed organizing for the Movement in South Dakota. I’m pretty sure that it was the government, but I can’t prove it."

  She shook her head as if trying to shake off a thought, and then continued. "That’s why I’m studying law. We need to adopt the weapons used against us. Just like the rifle replaced the bow."

  "Makes sense."

  "OK, new subject. That one isn’t right for a morning walk." She pointed to his pocket. "So, what is Ia Drang? It’s on your lighter."

  "Yeah, that’s definitely a better topic." He looked at her and then decided to keep going. "I suppose it was another Little Bighorn. We weren’t wiped out, but it came damn close. We came in on waves of slicks. They were calling it ‘air cavalry’ for the first time, and when the first units landed next to the Ia Drang River, they were hit hard by North Vietnamese regulars. It was also the first time that real North Vietnamese soldiers had entered the war in battalion strength. I got there a day or so into the battle, when the Seventh Cavalry was sent in as reinforcements."

  He walked in silence for a moment. "I guess we won. I don’t know that I did."

  "Is that what the dreams are about?"

  He took a deep breath and let it out. "Yeah, I lived through it. I had to watch almost everyone else die, and I don’t know why I didn’t die, but I didn’t, and so… now I get to live through it again every night. I didn’t enjoy it then, and I’d be quite happy to forget it now, but… it’s just buried in too deep."