by Tom Clancy
“He told you?” Maxwell chuckled. “James, I knew the boy was good from what he did with Sonny, but it’s different when you’re there to see it—hell, to not see or hear it. He shut Marty Young up, and that’s no small feat. Embarrassed a lot of Marines, too.”
“Give me a timeline on getting mission approval,” Greer said. It was serious now. He’d always thought the operation had merit, and watching it develop had been a lesson in many things that he’d need to know at CIA. Now he believed it possible. BOXWOOD GREEN might well succeed if allowed to go.
“You’re sure Mr. Ritter won’t waffle on us?”
“I don’t think he will. He’s one of us, really.”
“Not until all the pieces are in place,” Podulski said.
“He’ll want to see a rehearsal,” Greer warned. “Before you ask a guy to stick it on the line, he has to have confidence in the job.”
“That’s fair. We have a full-up live-fire rehearsal tomorrow night.”
“We’ll be there, Dutch,” Greer promised.
The team was in an old barracks designed for at least sixty men, and there was plenty of room for everyone, enough that no one had a top bunk. Kelly had a private room set aside, one of those designed into the standard barracks for squad sergeants to sleep in. He’d decided not to live on his boat. One could not be part of the team and yet be totally separate from it.
They were enjoying their first night off since arriving at Quantico, and some kind soul had arranged for three cases of beer. That made for exactly three bottles each, since one of their number only drank Dr Pepper, and Master Gunnery Sergeant Irvin made sure that none of their number exceeded the limit.
“Mr. Clark,” one of the grenadiers asked, “what’s this all about?”
It wasn’t fair, Kelly thought, to make them train without letting them know. They prepared for danger without knowing why, without knowing what purpose occasioned the risk of their lives and their future. It wasn’t fair at all, but it wasn’t unusual either. He looked straight in the man’s eyes.
“I can’t tell you, Corp. All I can say is, it’s something you’ll be mighty proud of. You have my word on that, Marine.”
The corporal, at twenty-one the youngest and most junior man of the group, hadn’t expected an answer, but he’d had to ask. He accepted the reply with a raise-can salute.
“I know that tattoo,” a more senior man said.
Kelly smiled, finishing his second. “Oh, I got drunk one night, and I guess I got mistook for somebody else.”
“All SEALs are good for is balancing a ball on their nose,” a buck sergeant said, following it with a belch.
“Want me to demonstrate with one of yours?” Kelly asked quickly.
“Good one!” The sergeant tossed Kelly another beer.
“Mr. Clark?” Irvin gestured to the door. It was just as sticky-hot out there as inside, with a gentle breeze coming through the long-needled pines and the flapping of bats, invisibly chasing insects.
“What is it?” Kelly asked, taking a long pull.
“That’s my question, Mr. Clark, sir,” Irvin said lightly. Then his voice changed. “I know you.”
“Oh?”
“Third Special Operations Group. My team backed you guys up on ERMINE COAT. You’ve come far for an E-6,” Irvin observed.
“Don’t spread it around, but I made chief before I left. Does anybody else know?”
Irvin chuckled. “No, I expect Captain Albie would sure as hell get his nose outa joint if he found out, and General Young might have a conniption. We’ll just keep it ‘tween us, Mr. Clark,” Irvin said, establishing his position in oblique but uncertain terms.
“This wasn’t my idea—being here, I mean. Admirals are easy to impress, I suppose.”
“I’m not, Mr. Clark. You almost gave me a fucking heart attack with that rubber knife of yours. I don’t remember your name, your real one, I mean, but you’re the guy they called Snake, aren’t you? You’re the guy did PLASTIC FLOWER.”
“That wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did,” Kelly pointed out.
“We were your backup on that, too. The goddamned chopper died—engine quit ten feet off the ground—thump. That’s why we didn’t make it. Nearest alternate was from First Cav. That’s why it took so long.”
Kelly turned. Irvin’s face was as black as the night. “I didn’t know.”
The master gunnery sergeant shrugged in the darkness. “I seen the pictures of what happened. The skipper told us that you were a fool to break the rules like that. But that was our fault. We should have been there twenty minutes after your call. If’n we got there on time, maybe one or two of those little girls might have made it. Anyway, reason we didn’t was a bad seal on the engine, just a little goddamn piece of rubber that cracked.”
Kelly grunted. On such events the fates of nations turned. “Could have been worse—it could have let go at altitude and you woulda really been in the shitter.”
“True. Miserable fuckin’ reason for a child to die, isn’t it?” Irvin paused, gazing into the darkness of the piney woods as men of his profession did, always looking and listening. “I understand why you did it. I wanted you to know. Probably woulda done the same myself. Maybe not as good as you, but sure as hell, I would have tried, and I wouldn’t have let that motherfucker live, orders or no orders.”
“Thanks, Guns,” Kelly said quietly, dropping back into Navyspeak.
“It’s Song Tay, isn’t it?” Irvin observed next, knowing that he’d get his answer now.
“Something close to that, yes. They should be telling you soon.”
“You have to tell me more, Mr. Clark. I have Marines to worry about.”
“The site is set up just right, perfect match. Hey, I’m going in, too, remember?”
“Keep talking,” Irvin ordered gently.
“I helped plan the insertion. With the right people, we can do it. Those are good boys you have in there. I won’t say it’s easy or any dumb shit like that, but it’s not all that hard. I’ve done harder. So have you. The training is going right. It looks pretty good to me, really.”
“You sure it’s worth it?”
That was a question with meaning so deep that few would have understood it. Irvin had done two combat tours, and though Kelly hadn’t seen his official “salad bar” of decorations, he was clearly a man who had circled the block many times. Now Irvin was watching what might well be the destruction of his Marine Corps. Men were dying for hills that were given back as soon as they were taken and the casualties cleared, then to return in six months to repeat the exercise. There was just something in the professional soldier that hated repetition. Although training was just that—they had “assaulted” the site numerous times—the reality of war was supposed to be one battle for one place. In that way a man could tell what progress was. Before looking forward to a new objective, you could look back to see how far you had come and measure your chance for success by what you had learned before. But the third time you watched men die for the same piece of ground, then you knew. You just knew how things were going to end. Their country was still sending men to that place, asking them to risk their lives for dirt already watered in American blood. The truth was that Irvin would not have voluntarily gone back for a third combat tour. It wasn’t a question of courage or dedication or love of country. It was that he knew his life was too valuable to be risked for nothing. Sworn to defend his country, he had a right to ask for something in return—a real mission to fight for, not an abstraction, something real. And yet Irvin felt guilt, felt that he had broken faith, had betrayed the motto of The Corps, Semper Fidelis: Always Faithful. The guilt had compelled him to volunteer for one last mission despite his doubts and questions. Like a man whose beloved wife has slept with another man, Irvin could not stop loving, could not stop caring, and he would accept to himself the guilt unacknowledged by those who had earned it.
“Guns, I can’t tell you this, but I will anyway. The place we’re hitting, it’s
a prison camp, like you think, okay?”
Irvin nodded. “More to it. There has to be.”
“It’s not a regular camp. The men there, they’re all dead. Guns.” Kelly crushed the beer can. “I’ve seen the photos. One guy we identified for sure, Air Force colonel, the NVA said he was killed, and so we think these guys, they’ll never come home unless we go get ’em. I don’t want to go back either, man. I’m scared, okay? Oh, yeah, I’m good, I’m real good at this stuff. Good training, maybe I have a knack for it.” Kelly shrugged, not wanting to say the next part.
“Yeah. But you can only do it so long.” Irvin handed over another beer.
“I thought three was the limit.”
“I’m a Methodist, not supposed to drink at all.” Irvin chuckled. “People like us, Mr. Clark.”
“Dumb sunzabitches, aren’t we? There’s Russians in the camp, probably interrogating our people. They’re all high-rank, and we think they’re all officially dead. They’re probably being grilled real hard for what they know, because of who they are. We know they’re there, and if we don’t do anything . . . what’s that make us?” Kelly stopped himself, suddenly needing to go further, to tell what else he was doing, because he had found someone who might truly understand, and for all his obsession with avenging Pam his soul was becoming heavy with its burden.
“Thank you, Mr. Clark. That’s a fuckin’ mission,” Master Gunnery Sergeant Paul Irvin told the pine trees and the bats. “So you’re first in and last out?”
“I’ve worked alone before.”
23
Altruism
“Where am I?” Doris Brown asked in a barely understandable voice.
“Well, you’re in my house,” Sandy answered. She sat in the corner of the guest bedroom, switching off the reading light and setting down the paperback she’d been reading for the past few hours.
“How did I get here?”
“A friend brought you here. I’m a nurse. The doctor is downstairs fixing breakfast. How are you feeling?”
“Terrible.” Her eyes closed. “My head . . . ”
“That’s normal, but I know it’s bad.” Sandy stood and came over, touching the girl’s forehead. No fever, which was good news. Next she felt for a pulse. Strong, regular, though still a touch fast. From the way her eyes were screwed shut, Sandy guessed that the extended barbiturate hangover must have been awful, but that too was normal. The girl smelled from sweating and vomiting. They’d tried to keep her clean, but that had been a losing battle, if a not terribly important one compared to the rest. Until now, perhaps. Doris’s skin was sallow and slack, as though the person inside had shrunk. She must have lost ten or fifteen pounds since arriving, and while that wasn’t an entirely bad thing, she was so weak that she’d not yet noticed the restraints holding her hands, feet, and waist in place.
“How long?”
“Almost a week.” Sandy took a sponge and wiped her face. “You gave us quite a scare.” Which was an understatement. No less than seven convulsions, the second of which had almost panicked both nurse and physician, but number seven—a mild one—was eighteen hours behind them now, and the patient’s vital signs were stabilized. With luck that phase of her recovery was behind them. Sandy let Doris have some water.
“Thank you,” Doris said in a very small voice. “Where’s Billy and Rick?”
“I don’t know who they are,” Sandy replied. It was technically correct. She’d read the articles in the local papers, always stopping short of reading any names. Nurse O’Toole was telling herself that she didn’t really know anything. It was a useful internal defense against feelings so mixed that even had she taken the time to figure things out, she knew she would have only confused herself all the more. It was not a time for bare facts. Sarah had convinced her of that. It was a time for riding with the shape of events, not the substance. “Are they the ones who hurt you?”
Doris was nude except for the restraints and the oversized diapers used on patients unable to manage their bodily functions. It was easier to treat her that way. The horrid marks on her breasts and torso were fading now. What had been ugly, discrete marks of blue and black and purple and red were fading to poorly defined areas of yellow-brown as her body struggled to heal itself. She was young, Sandy told herself, and while not yet healthy, she could become so. Enough to heal, perhaps, inside and outside. Already her systemic infections were responding to the massive doses of antibiotics. The fever was gone, and her body could now turn to the more mundane repair tasks.
Doris turned her head and opened her eyes. “Why are you doing this for me?”
That answer was an easy one: “I’m a nurse, Miss Brown. It’s my job to take care of sick people.”
“Billy and Rick,” she said next, remembering again. Memory for Doris was a variable and spotty thing, mainly the recollection of pain.
“They’re not here,” O’Toole assured her. She paused before going on, and to her surprise found satisfaction in the words: “I don’t think they’ll be bothering you again.” There was almost comprehension in the patient’s eyes, Sandy thought. Almost. And that was encouraging.
“I have to go. Please—” She started to move and then noticed the restraints.
“Okay, wait a minute.” Sandy removed the straps. “You think you can stand today?”
“ . . . try,” she groaned. Doris rose perhaps thirty degrees before her body betrayed her. Sandy got her sitting up, but the girl couldn’t quite make her head sit straight on her neck. Standing her up was even harder, but it wasn’t that far to the bathroom, and the dignity of making it there was worth the pain and the effort for her patient. Sandy sat her down there, holding her hand. She took the time to dampen a washcloth and do her face.
“That’s a step forward,” Sarah Rosen observed from the door. Sandy turned and smiled by way of communicating the patient’s condition. They put a robe on her before bringing her back to the bedroom. Sandy changed the linen first, while Sarah got a cup of tea into the patient.
“You’re looking much better today, Doris,” the physician said, watching her drink.
“I feel awful.”
“That’s okay, Doris. You have to feel awful before you can start to feel better. Yesterday you weren’t feeling much of anything. Think you can try some toast?”
“So hungry.”
“Another good sign,” Sandy noted. The look in her eyes was so bad that both doctor and nurse could feel the skull-rending headache which today would be treated only with an ice pack. They’d spent a week leaching the drugs from her system, and this wasn’t the time for adding new ones. “Lean your head back.”
Doris did that, resting her head on the back of the overstuffed chair Sandy had once bought at a garage sale. Her eyes were closed and her limbs so weak that her arms merely rested on the fabric while Sarah handled the individual slices of dry toast. The nurse took a brush and started working on her patient’s hair. It was filthy and needed washing, but just getting it straightened out would help, she thought. Medical patients put an amazing amount of stock in their physical appearance, and however odd or illogical it might seem to be, it was real, and therefore something which Sandy recognized as important. She was a little surprised by Doris’s shudder a minute or so after she started.
“Am I alive?” The alarm in the question was startling.
“Very much so,” Sarah answered, almost smiling at the exaggeration. She checked her blood pressure. “One twenty-two over seventy-eight.”
“Excellent!” Sandy noted. It was the best reading all week.
“Pam. . .”
“What’s that?” Sarah asked.
It took Doris a moment to go on, still wondering if this were life or death, and if the latter, what part of eternity she had found. “Hair . . . when she was dead . . . brushed her hair.”
Dear God, Sarah thought. Sam had related that one part of the postmortem report to her, morosely sipping a highball at their home in Green Spring Valley. He hadn’t gone further
than that. It hadn’t been necessary. The photo on the front page of the paper had been quite sufficient. Dr. Rosen touched her patient’s face as gently as she could.
“Doris, who killed Pam?” She thought that she could ask this without increasing the patient’s pain. She was wrong.
“Rick and Billy and Burt and Henry . . . killed her . . . watching . . . ” The girl started crying, and the racking sobs only magnified the shuddering waves of pain in her head. Sarah held back on the toast. Nausea might soon follow.
“They made you watch?”
“Yes . . . ” Doris’s voice was like one from the grave.
“Let’s not think about that now.” Sarah’s body shuddered with the kind of chill she associated with death itself as she stroked the girl’s cheek.
“There!” Sandy said brightly, hoping to distract her. “That’s much better.”
“Tired.”
“Okay, let’s get you back to bed, dear.” Both women helped her up. Sandy left the robe on her, setting an ice bag on her forehead. Doris faded off into sleep almost at once.
“Breakfast is on,” Sarah told the nurse. “Leave the restraints off for now.”
“Brushed her hair? What?” Sandy asked, heading down the stairs.
“I didn’t read the report—”
“I saw the photo, Sarah—what they did to her—Pam, her name was, right?” Sandy was almost too tired to remember things herself.
“Yes. She was my patient, too,” Dr. Rosen confirmed. “Sam said it was pretty bad. The odd thing, somebody brushed her hair out after she was dead, he told me that. I guess it was Doris who did it.”
“Oh.” Sandy opened the refrigerator and got milk for the morning coffee. “I see.”
“I don’t,” Dr. Rosen said angrily. “I don’t see how people can do that. Another few months and Doris would have died. As it was, any closer—”
“I’m surprised you didn’t admit her under a Jane Doe,” Sandy observed.
“After what happened to Pam, taking a chance like that—and it would have meant—”