Once a Warrior

by Fran Baker

  “Sure did,” he admitted, and took another bite.

  “But they’re supposed to go to our front-line troops.”

  “Not if rear-echelon bastards like Howard can divert ’em.”

  She gazed at him in mute astonishment for several seconds. “Are you telling me that our officers are stealing food from—”

  “And they call me a thief.” He tossed the core of he apple he’d scarfed down into an overflowing trashcan, then passed the one he’d taken for her under her nose, tempting her with its sweet-tart scent. “Think of it as the one that Howard won’t get.”

  In a complete reversal of the transaction in the Garden of Eden, Cat took the apple from Cain. Then she bit into it. And found that it was as delicious as it looked.

  “Hey, you one-eyed river rat!” a voice boomed from behind her.

  She wheeled, wondering who could be so cruel as to mention Cain’s affliction, and saw a mahogany version of Mr. Clean leaving a messy desk with a transistor radio sitting on it to lumber toward them. The man wore khaki swim trunks and thongs and the sweat of hard physical labor. A gold front tooth glittered in his wide, friendly smile but those massive shoulders and that sawed-off pump shotgun he carried gave fair warning that he wasn’t a man to be messed with.

  Instead of taking offense at the epithet, as Cat had expected, Cain stepped past her and stuck out his hand. “How ya doin’, Tiny?”

  Tiny’s ham-sized hand engulfed his. “Everyone I can, man.”

  “Is the boat loaded?”

  “To the gills.”

  Cat stifled a scream as a distant explosion shook the warehouse from the floor to the rafters. If she’d had a choice at that moment, she might have given up her objective and gone home. But it was too late and she was in too deep. She just prayed she wasn’t in over her head.

  Tiny scowled toward the open doors. “What’s Charlie up to now?”

  Cain raked a hand through his windblown hair. “Looks like Tet all over again.”

  “Oh, man, why don’t they just give it up?”

  “Maybe it’s us who ought to give it up.”

  “Then I wouldn’t have a job,” Tiny countered. “And you’d be up sh”—he glanced at Cat, then cleaned up his language—“the river without—”

  Cain snapped his fingers. “Extra ammo?”

  “You got it.”

  Another earth-shaking roar, this one closer than the last, caused the floodlights to flicker.

  “Yeah,” Cain murmured, “but have I got enough?”

  Cat, tired of being treated as if she weren’t even there and scared out of her wits by the encroaching explosions, tossed her half-eaten apple in the trash can, stepped between the two men and glared up at Cain.

  “Is this the ‘safe’ place you were taking me to?” she snapped. “Because if it is, I have to tell you that I don’t feel very safe.”

  The skin across his cheeks tightened as he met her seething gaze. He hadn’t forgotten her, if that was what she was worried about. Quite the opposite, in fact. He remembered only too well how right it had felt to have her sitting behind him on the motorcycle. To have her breasts pressed against his back, her arms wrapped around his waist and her thighs cradling his hips. For the duration of their wild ride through the rebellious streets of Saigon, they’d been as close as a man and a woman could be without—

  He pulled a frown. And his mind out of the big soft bed he’d like to get her in. “No, Mrs. Brown—”

  “Cat,” she reminded him shortly.

  “No, Cat,” he conceded, thinking that she looked like she was ready to sink her claws into him. “We’ve still got a ways to go—”

  “Well then, what are we waiting for?”

  “Good question.” He flashed the peace sign, minus his index finger, at a grinning Tiny, who gave him the black power salute in return, then took her arm and steered her out the back door of the warehouse.

  His doughty but aging French gunboat sat broadside to the wood-planked dock.

  She was a beauty—and he always thought of boats, with their fluid lines, as females—if he did say so himself. He’d found her at an abandoned French junk base down near Vinh Binh. After giving her a whirl to make sure she was still seaworthy, he’d picked her up for a song. Then he’d spent a small fortune and cashed in every favor he’d ever extended fixing her up.

  He’d filled her hull with foam, plexiglassed the wheelhouse, plated her engine area with ceramic and customized the muffler so it exhausted silently underwater. In addition to the turret-mounted .50-caliber machine gun she already carried, he’d added some extra firepower. He’d also devised a way to man his defenses from the helm. James Bond never had it so good. Because if necessary, Cain could control the speed of the boat with his right hand, steer with his left, and fire the bore-sighted .30-calibers or .106 recoilless rifles with a foot lever.

  When he’d finished, he’d thought about painting her a pristine white. She would have stood out too starkly, though, on those dark nights that he needed to slip up or down the river after curfew, so he’d left her a weathered gray color, draped her guns with fishing nets for camouflage purposes and concentrated on fixing up the main cabin. He’d torn out the tiers of bunks the French colonials had used and replaced them with a small but efficient living area. And below that, in the hold—

  “Permission to come aboard,” Cat said in a saucy voice as they crossed the dock.

  “Granted,” Cain replied in that same teasing vein, and offered her a helping hand.

  She caught the lines he tossed her as he jumped aboard. Then she just stood there, not knowing what to do with them. He coiled and stowed them before heading into the wheelhouse. The engines came on with a grumble she felt through the soles of her sandals as she stepped in behind him.

  The moon was almost full and the stars were out in spades. He left off all the lights except the muted red ones on the instrument panel, not wanting to attract the attention of the Navy river patrols that were sure to come racing in to try and restore order. Frantic voices crackled over the radio net. He squelched them, wanting to maintain silence for safety’s sake.

  Using the built-in starlight scope, which sucked in all available moon- and starlight and painted the world the eerie green of penicillin mold, he scanned the waterway. Soon, he knew there’d be an entire flotilla of sampans and junks and house barges clogging it as they fled the chaos of Saigon. For now, though, it was clear sailing ahead.

  A charge blew in a terrible, ear-splitting roar.

  Cat stared at the orange fireball rising above the warehouse through the bulletproof glass that enclosed the wheelhouse, then turned back to him anxiously. “Will Tiny be all right?”

  His gaze intent on the water, his profile backlit by fire glow, Cain nodded. “Pity poor Charlie if—”

  “Who exactly is Charlie?”

  “It’s slang for Viet Cong.”

  “Johnny called them gooks. Or slants.”

  “I know.” His voice was dry, and more than a little bitter.

  Thinking of Kim and Loc, she sighed. “I kept telling him that they’re people, just like us, but—”

  Automatic weapons fire burst out to the right, along the bank of the river, and she could see several men, small in the distance, shooting at their boat.

  Cain steered left and sent her stumbling against him.

  Cat suffered a slight vertigo when her breast bumped his arm. Attributing it to frayed nerves and lack of sleep, she righted herself and started backpedaling. “What should I do now?”

  “Stay low. Go below.” He glanced at her over his shoulder, carefully schooling his expression so it wouldn’t reflect his own churning reaction to their brief encounter. “Brush your hair.”

  “Oh, Lord.” She raised a self-conscious hand to the wind-snarled hair tangled around her face. “I must look like a witch.”

  Cain turned his attention back to the water before he could tell her how beautiful she looked against the backglow of fire. Or how
much he admired her fortitude. He studied her reflection in the glass. Saw her bite her lip when a string of floating claymore mines blew along the bank. The coup must’ve scared the hell out of her—it had him—but she hadn’t screamed or cried or fainted. Brass act that she was, she’d just hopped on, hung on and gone along for the ride.

  Still standing behind him, she cleared her throat. “How do I go below?”

  “The hatch is on deck.”

  “Hatch?”

  “Two doors. A right and a left. Built into the deck.” He met her hazel eyes in her reflection. “There’s a head and a bed in the cabin.”

  “A head?”

  “Bathroom.”

  Her eyes gleamed with relief. “Is there a kitchen?”

  He nodded. “The galley, such as it is, is part of the main cabin.”

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “How about a beer instead?”

  Remembering how he’d wolfed down that apple, Cat smiled. “Is there stuff for sandwiches?”

  Cain reached into a crevice of the instrument panel for the soapbox he stashed his cigarillos in to keep them dry and got one out. He wasn’t going to light it, not now, but just having it parked in the corner of his mouth would help take the edge off. “Knowing Tiny, there’re enough bologna and cheese slices in the refrigerator to feed the Big Red One.”

  “A beer and a bologna and cheese sandwich, coming up.” She threw him a saucy salute, turned and dropped down on all fours.

  He spun when she disappeared from his sight. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Staying low,” she called over her shoulder as she crawled across the deck.

  Good thing, too, because the concussion from the B-40 rocket that went throoming over their heads could have blown her overboard. Which reminded him . . .

  “Hey,” he hollered, “put these on while you’re down there!”

  Cat looked back. And got a face full of pantyhose. “What?”

  “I said put ’em on.”

  “Why?”

  Facing forward again, he noticed a little blip on the radar screen and bent his head to scope it out. “They’ll keep the leeches off if you fall in the water.”

  “Leeches?”

  “And there’s mosquito repellent in the medicine cabinet.”

  Fruitlessly, she checked the pantyhose for size and some clue of their origin. “Where’d you get these?”

  “Out of your drawer.” Spotting a ferryboat cutting toward the east coast of Saigon about a hundred meters ahead, he eased his foot toward the firing lever just in case that sucker was loaded with Cong. And if the recoilless didn’t sink ’em, he had a minigun he’d literally stolen out from under a navy commander’s nose that would.

  “My drawer?”

  “While you were getting dressed.” After getting a closer look at the passengers crammed onto the ferryboat, he retracted his foot, idled the motor and let it pass unassailed. Even if everyone on board had suckled at the breast of Ho Chi Minh himself, he didn’t get off on killing women and children. “I stuck them in my pocket and forgot I had them until just now.”

  Scalding color rushed to Cat’s cheeks at the thought of Cain’s hands on her lingerie. Which was ridiculous. Her room had been dark, so he couldn’t have actually seen anything. Still, just knowing he’d touched the lacy bras and silky panties that had lain atop the pantyhose made her go hot all over.

  Another flash of bright light, followed by a thunderous BOOM, had her groping frantically around on deck for the hatch doors. She found them, flung them open, then took a quick, backward look at the fireball in the sky over Saigon before slamming them closed. A lantern and matches on a beveled ledge lit her way down the metal stairs and into the cabin.

  To her surprise, it was all spit and polish and shine.

  The small galley sink and two-burner stove were spotless, the brass on the wall lamps at the head and foot of a bunk that appeared to double as a sofa shone in the lantern’s light, and there wasn’t a speck of mold in the shower.

  Cat used the cramped bathroom to brush her hair, put on the pantyhose she hadn’t planned to wear again until she got home and spray herself liberally with mosquito repellent, then headed back to the galley to make Cain a sandwich.

  Halfway across the cabin, she stumbled over a woven bamboo throw rug that lay in the middle of the floor, kicking it askew. Bending to straighten it, she found another hatch—one that appeared to lead down to a lower level—beneath it. Curious, she tried to open it. And discovered that it was locked.

  Colonel Howard’s words—Smuggling drugs, running guns—came back to her with such a sudden haunting clarity that she glanced up to be sure he wasn’t standing over her wearing an I-told-you-so smirk.

  A chill raced up Cat’s spine as she hastily straightened the rug and stood, wondering what she should do next. She had literally placed her life in Cain’s hands. Without him, she had no chance of surviving the coup. No hope of ever finding out what his connection to Johnny was, either. So like it or not, they were essentially comrades in arms. What she hadn’t planned on, though, was becoming his partner in crime.

  She crossed to the sink and peered out the galley porthole. Fire still rained down on Saigon from American planes and gunships. The Viet Cong continued to reply with machine guns, mortars and rockets. She saw a great flash, and then she saw a helicopter spinning, spinning, spinning toward the ground.

  And where was she while it was all going down? Trapped on a river of terror with some rogue warrior who was wanted for treason! Worse, she had nobody to blame for her current predicament but herself.

  “When will she ever learn? When will she e-ver learn?” As she paraphrased the refrain of the popular folk song that Johnny had considered little more than antiwar propaganda, Cat hung the lantern from a hook over the sink and set about the business of making Cain a sandwich.

  True to his prediction, the compact refrigerator held two packages each of bologna and cheese slices. An unopened carton of milk lay on its side, next to a container of eggs that she trusted weren’t of the thousand-year variety. The tiny pantry boasted bread and mustard along with a whole host of cellophane-wrapped chocolate cupcakes with white squiggles of icing on top. Plastic silverware and paper plates sat on the bottom shelf. Under the sink was a wooden ice chest with an opener hanging from one handle by a string and, inside, at least a dozen bottles of beer.

  Leaving the lantern on the ledge at the top of the stairs, she carried the beer and the meal she’d slapped together into the wheelhouse. The worst of the flames from demolished buildings and the smoke from white phosphorous shells appeared to be behind them now. But God only knew what lay ahead.

  “Here you go.” She set the plate on the instrument panel.

  He took the beer. “Got your sea legs already, huh?”

  “Growing up, I used to water ski at the Lake of the Ozarks every weekend.”

  “Your parents have a sport boat?”

  “And a lake house.” She smiled with remembrances of golden times. Before they were tarnished by war. “That’s where we were when Johnny . . .” A pang that was becoming all too familiar tightened her throat. She looked down, wishing she’d never brought the subject up.

  “When Johnny what?” he prompted softly.

  She raised her head and met his gaze. “Proposed to me.”

  A strand of hair had blown across her lips. Cain gripped the wheel hard with both hands to keep from reaching over and brushing it aside. “Sounds like a real nice memory.”

  “Yes.” Cat hadn’t thought of it in quite that way before. She smiled a secret little smile that told him she’d temporarily left him and this whole helllacious scene behind. “Yes, it is.” Then she tucked that tempting strand of hair behind her ear and widened her smile to include him. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  What the hell was going on? he asked himself. He should be focused on the mission, and the mission alone. Instead, he felt himself being pulled, tugged at, by
the woman standing beside him. A woman who no more belonged in his world than he did in hers.

  “You’re welcome.” Disgusted at himself for letting her get to him, he scoped the water again, almost wishing Charlie would pull out of one of the myriad canals that fed into the river and pick a fight with him.

  “And for rescuing me.” She was still amazed at how instinctively she trusted him. With that raven hair and black eye patch, he looked like a pirate, a man who not only attracted danger but also actively courted it. Yet she felt completely safe with him.

  He gave her that half-smile again, the one that just barely curled his lips. “It was either take you with me or leave you there to talk the Viet Cong to death.”

  Ignoring his gibe, she squinted at the riverbank and saw nothing but unrelieved blackness. “Where are we, anyway?”

  “We just passed Shanty Town.”

  “Wherever that is.”

  “The last and largest slum on the outskirts of Cholon.”

  “We’re going south.” It wasn’t a guess; she’d glanced at the compass.

  “Very good.” His plan was to tool a few miles down river, then find a safe berth in some little canal off the beaten path. Since Charlie favored the night, he figured they were better off traveling by day.

  “I got an A in Geography,” she said smugly.

  He bit back a smile at the sudden image of her in a parochial school pinafore, starched white blouse and saddle shoes. “Then you can navigate.”

  Cat yawned and looked over at Cain sheepishly. “Sorry. It’s been a long night.”

  “And it’s not over yet,” he said, watching white tracers arc across the sky.

  She glanced at her wrist and realized she’d left her watch on her bedside table. “What time is it, anyway?”

  He checked the clock on the instrument panel. “Almost three.”

  “And we left the hotel—”

  “A little after midnight.”

  She yawned again. “It seems like days ago.”

  He took a drink of beer. “Why don’t you go below and get some shuteye?”

  “You believe Johnny is dead, don’t you?”

  Her question caught him off-guard, like a Surface-to-Air missile at ten thousand feet. For a moment he was dumbstruck. He studied her in profile. She was the picture of calm, staring out the glass. But like the river, he knew, she was roiling beneath.