by Robert Greer
“Ket,” he said, walking toward her, uncertain whether to shake hands, bow, or embrace her.
“It’s been a long time, Langston.” Ket stepped forward, her hand extended, her words still laden with the French accent of her youth.
Blue held her hand momentarily as if it were a highway back to the past and then let go. They stared at one another in silence, teetering at the edge of a thirty-five-year gulf, until Carmen gently tugged at Blue’s arm and said, “I’d like you to meet a friend of ours. CJ Floyd. I hired him to help find you.”
Blue eyed CJ suspiciously before shaking hands. “Pleasure.”
“The same,” said CJ.
“CJ served in Vietnam, too,” said Carmen, wishing she could retract the statement as soon as she’d made it.
The look on Blue’s face turned defensive.
“Forty-second River Patrol group,” CJ said boldly.
“Navy,” said Blue, wondering if he’d been set up. He glanced back toward the entryway, measuring the distance to the front door in his head. Slipping his hand into his pocket and thumbing the .32’s hammer, he said, “I’d sure like a glass of water.”
“Certainly,” said Ket, sensing the sudden tension between the two war veterans. “I’ve prepared a snack as well. I’ll go get it. Meanwhile, why doesn’t everybody take a seat?”
Carmen sat down, leaving CJ and Blue standing. Silence filled the room until Ket returned with a pot of tea and a tray of Vietnamese ginger cookies. Blue recognized the fare and smiled. He’d shared it with Mimm scores of times, decades earlier.
Arranging the teacups on their delicate hand-glazed saucers, Ket filled the cups with tea, smiling briefly at Blue as she did. It was a smile that bridged three decades and seemed to finally put a damper on the tension in the room.
The teapot was empty and the dozen ginger cookies that Ket had baked were gone by the time any of the four broached the subject of Vietnam again. Instead, Blue recounted the highlights of his drive across the country, barely mentioning how he’d made it back home after the war and very little about his cabin having been torched by Cortez. They had been surprised by Blue’s stories of being mesmerized by gas pumps that talked to you, puzzled by fast-food mania that he’d thought was only regional, and fascinated by the waves of hotels, motels, gadgets, theme parks, and sports stadiums that blanketed the land.
When Carmen asked him if he felt out of touch with the world, he said, “No, just not interested.”
After clearing their dishes, Ket was the one to return the discussion to the war. “Why did you desert, Langston?” she asked with the straightforwardness of a child.
Unhesitatingly, Blue said, “I had to,” as if he’d been preparing for the question for years. “It was that or get fragged.”
“By who?” asked CJ.
“My captain.”
“Peter Margolin?”
Blue reacted with a start. Ket would have known who Margolin was, but why would Floyd? Blue inched up in his chair, making certain he had easy access to the .32 in his pocket.
“We all know part of the story, Langston. We’re just searching for the rest,” said CJ.
Blue stood, right hand in his pants pocket, and began pacing the floor.
“We need to put an end to your hiding, shed some light on the truth,” said Carmen, rising and grasping Blue’s left hand in hers.
Blue stopped short, fingering the butt of the .32. “Maybe you’re all in with Margolin.”
Again it was Ket who restored calm. “Come on, Langston. You know better. Besides, Margolin’s dead.”
“I know that. It was on the news.”
“That’s all the more reason we need to know what happened on that mission that caused you to desert,” said Ket. “If we’re ever going to put an end to your running, we’ll have to know the truth.”
Blue’s emphatic response was uttered like the denial of a child. “I didn’t desert. I’ve got proof. A citation—an official one. It’s in a lockbox in my trunk.”
CJ rose from his seat. Realizing that the situation was fluid enough to escalate out of control, and concerned that Blue hadn’t removed his right hand from his pants pocket since Ket had first mentioned Margolin, CJ said, “Good. Proof’s a great thing to have.” He nodded for Carmen to take a seat. “Maybe we should all sit back down and try and sort everything out.”
Carmen slipped her hand out of Blue’s and took a seat. CJ followed.
Looking confused, Blue swayed back and forth before finally slipping his hand out of his pocket and taking a seat.
There was a half minute of silence before slowly, starting at the end of a long tale as if trying to accurately piece its fragments together, Langston Blue began the story of what had happened at Song Ve. “It started with one of our team’s missions. A simple one, if you looked at the kinda things we got assigned. But only three of the eight team members lived through it. Margolin, another sergeant named Lincoln Cortez, and me. Everyone else in our unit was killed. Margolin and Cortez shot ’em all.”
Ket and Carmen reacted with shock, but the expression on CJ’s face remained unchanged.
“Go on,” said CJ, glancing at Carmen and Ket, who both looked as if they didn’t want Blue to continue.
“We were a Star 1 unit, which meant we had carte blanche to do anything necessary to accomplish our mission. Kill or assassinate anyone, go anywhere, trash the rules of engagement, and cover our tracks. We started from a base camp at Duc Pho in the heat of the day and headed west. Our target was just outside a village in the Song Ve Valley south of Quang Ngai.” Blue hesitated and swallowed hard before continuing. “Our mission was to take out the target and anyone within a quarter-mile perimeter. Our intelligence said we’d have no resistance.”
“Big target?” asked CJ.
Ignoring CJ, Blue continued, “We reached the perimeter zone about 5:30 in the mornin’. Turned out the target was sittin’ on a spit of land south of the Song Ve River in the middle of a swamp. Wasn’t but one way in and one way out. A two-hundred-yard-long land bridge of mud, fallen timber, and bamboo stretched between the target and us. Captain Margolin posted two men at the end of the land bridge, and the rest of us followed him through knee-deep oatmeal muck over fallen tree limbs and through rice grass toward the target. He left two more of our guys stationed halfway up the land bridge, and four of us continued on.”
CJ said, “What was the target?”
Blue looked around the room as if he expected to spot an eavesdropper. Once again he swallowed hard. The sound of the swallow could be heard across the room. “A school,” he said in a near whisper.
Too stunned to respond, Carmen and Ket sat dumbfounded until CJ said, “What?”
“A school,” Blue repeated as if a second response were necessary to provide him absolution. Continuing, this time talking a little faster, he said, “Captain Margolin posted me at the end of the land bridge ’bout forty yards from the thatched-roof building that was the school, and he, Cortez, and a private named Ricky Wells headed for the buildin’. The school was sittin’ on a football-field-sized knot of sandy soil. The sun was comin’ up when I spotted a strange-lookin’ wooden contraption just ten or fifteen yards from the building’s entrance that reminded me of a set of monkey bars. Pretty close to daylight a Vietnamese man, maybe twenty-five or so, and dressed in civilian clothes appeared in the school’s doorway and walked out to meet Margolin. Seemed strange that someone would come walkin’ outta our target to speak with our captain. Like they was about to have coffee or tea. So I spotted up on him with my binocs while he and Margolin stood talkin’. Biggest thing about him was he had a streak of silver runnin’ straight down the middle of his hair. And he was dark, no more than a shade or so lighter than me. I was too far away to hear what they was sayin’, but when they quit talkin’ Margolin motioned for Cortez and Wells to go to opposite ends of the buildin’.”
Blue took a breath. The muscles in his face stiffened and his eyes lost their focus. “All of a su
dden outta nowhere I heard singin’ comin’ from inside the buildin’. As the singin’ got louder, Margolin started walkin’ toward me, and the man he’d been talkin’ to disappeared into the swamp. It took me a while to realize that the singin’ was all mixed up with laughter. Even longer to realize the singin’ was comin’ from kids. I asked Margolin what was goin’ on when he got back to me. He nodded toward Wells and Cortez, who’d pulled a couple of handheld rocket launchers from the tall grass at the edges of the schoolyard.
“‘We’re going to torch the place,’ Margolin said. He didn’t look the least bit bothered.
“‘But there’re kids inside!’ I said.
“‘Orders,’ was all he said.
“Next thing I knew, the buildin’ was on fire and streams of kids, all of ’em screamin’, come rushin’ out the front door. Margolin leveled his M16 on a boy who couldn’ta been more than ten. Took his legs right out from under him.”
Carmen gasped, and Ket began weeping. CJ remained silent, gnawing at the fleshy part of his lower lip.
“I reached out and pushed the nozzle of Margolin’s M16 into the ground. Sand ricocheted back up into our faces from the backspray. Wells and Cortez, who’d retrieved their own weapons, were firin’ at the children. By then the men Margolin had posted along the land bridge came runnin’ outta the muck. ‘Captain’s lost it,’ I screamed, grabbin’ Margolin in a bear hug. He elbowed me in the gut. His M16 was wedged between us, and half a clip went whizzin’ past our heads. There was gunfire everywhere. So much of it I couldn’t tell who was shootin’ at who. I choked Margolin ’til he was half out, then got up on one knee to see Cortez open fire on Wells and two of my best friends. All three of ’em dropped in their tracks, and Cortez took aim at me. I grabbed my weapon, began firin’ back, and started crawlin’ for the marsh at the edge of the schoolyard. I could hear kids cryin’ and screamin’ as the gunfire continued. Then I heard Margolin holler, ‘Get Blue!’ Toby Featherwood, a North Dakota Rosebud Sioux, and the other sentry Margolin had posted were standin’ at the edge of the schoolyard when I reached it. I screamed, ‘Get down!’ but Featherwood took a bullet to the head. Cookie Vance, the guy with him, realized his own men were shootin’ at him and tossed a grenade. I heard Cortez scream, ‘Captain, I’m hit!’ Margolin rose to both knees, sighted in his M16, and took Vance out. I could hear Cortez screamin’, ‘Captain, Captain!’ as I began my run through the gumbo. Bullets was singin’ through the trees and slammin’ into their trunks. I continued surfin’ my way through the gumbo and never looked back once until the gunfire and the voices and the cries of children comin’ from behind me began to fade. To this day I still hear the cries in my sleep.”
CJ’s eyes misted over as Carmen and Ket sobbed uncontrollably.
The pleading look of a man seeking forgiveness engulfed Langston Blue as he slowly lowered his head. “That’s it. Now you know why I ran.”
Chapter 13
By the time Carmen, ket, and CJ had regained their composure and heard the rest of Blue’s story, Carmen’s condo was awash in the glow of the sun’s final lingering rays. CJ and Blue had changed seats and now sat across from one another.
Still jittery from her father’s account of how after the schoolyard incident he had hidden for months in shacks, tunnels, rice paddies, and huts, chaperoned and protected by other deserters, peasants, and acquaintances of Mimm’s, surviving on a diet of rice milk, bamboo shoots, and rats, Carmen had left the room half a dozen times in an attempt to get a handle on her emotions. CJ and Ket had each left the room once, Ket for a bathroom break and CJ in a failed attempt to get in touch with Flora Jean.
Blue had wound down his tale, explaining that six months after making his run from the schoolyard and settling in with a small band of U.S. and South Vietnamese army deserters camped out in a subterranean dug-out near a once functional sewer plant in the central highlands, he’d gone to try and find food for the week. Noting that food and supplies were hard to come by and deserters paid the black marketeers a stiff premium for both, and for their silence, Blue explained that while on his food hunt he’d been plucked from a dirt road on the outskirts of Saigon by two men, a Vietnamese man who spoke near perfect English and an American with a noticeable Southern drawl.
Within twenty-four hours of being blindfolded, drugged, and interrogated, he’d found himself alone on a twin-engine, twelve-seat turboprop on his way to Guam. Once there, he’d been taken to a ten-by-ten-foot cinderblock bunker, given an official-looking document stamped with what looked like a U.S. State Department seal, told that he’d be living for the rest of his life in West Virginia on an allotment that would be delivered annually, and warned that if he ever found it necessary to tell the story of what had happened in the schoolyard at Song Ve, he would be provided with a script that he would be required to memorize and deliver verbatim. The alternative was to be killed on the spot. He’d chosen life and the isolated backwoods cabin that days earlier, with the help of Lincoln Cortez, had gone up in flames.
The room was silent, but the despondency was less palpable than when he’d finished the first part of his tale.
Rising from his chair, CJ broke the lingering silence. “And you’re sure Cortez torched your place?”
Blue only nodded.
“Do you know what happened back in the schoolyard after you made your run?”
“Only what I told you earlier.”
CJ shook his head. “Sounds like something out of Tales from the Crypt.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I’m not doubting you. Just trying to figure out what the hell this is all about. Sounds like somebody trying to cover up something ugly.”
“CIA?” asked Ket, directing the question to CJ.
CJ stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe. But it still doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why not just eliminate your troublesome eyewitness? No, there’s more to this whole Star 1 team thing than your run-of-the-mill New York Times ‘American Troops Shoot Unarmed Civilians and Kids’ headline.”
“I never saw anybody but children that day,” said Blue, his tone low pitched and doleful.
Ket shuddered.
CJ said, “Bottom line is, we really don’t know what happened in that schoolyard after you made your run for it or why your unit was assigned that mission in the first place.”
“Right.” Blue nodded in agreement. “All I know is that we were told to take out a target. I never knew the target was a school full of kids.”
“But I’m betting our late would-be-senator Peter Margolin did. And that’s what ratchets this whole sordid thing up another notch and probably why Margolin’s dead. What we need to do is take a look up and down the chain of command,” said CJ, watching Blue’s eyes light up.
“I been thinkin’ the same thing for years,” said Blue. “But right now the buck stops with me and Cortez. Margolin’s dead.”
“And just when you happen to pay a visit to Denver. If I were a cop, you’d make top dog on my suspects list.”
“I didn’t kill him!”
“Then we need to find out who did,” said CJ, delighted by Blue’s forceful denial.
“How?”
“We start by taking a long, hard look into the past. We’ll have to piece together the why behind what actually happened in that schoolyard and who set it up.”
“And find out who had something to gain,” interjected Carmen.
“That too,” said CJ. “In the meantime, your father’s gonna have to fade into a hole in the sky.”
“He can stay here,” said Carmen, looking at Ket for support.
Ket’s answer was silence and a quizzical stare. She wasn’t giddy over the fact that Blue had suddenly turned up, even though she’d given Carmen Blue’s address. Now Carmen, normally a methodical analytical thinker, appeared momentarily blinded by finding something she’d been searching for all of her life, but Ket wasn’t about to let someone Carmen had known less than two hours take up residence.
Reading th
e tea leaves, CJ spoke up. “Won’t work. You can be certain the cops are doing their own investigation into the life of our late would-be senator, and by now they’ve even touched base with the army and the FBI. It’s a safe bet they’ll unearth information on Margolin’s Vietnam service record that’ll lead them back to the Star 1 team he commanded, and you.”
Carmen protested, “But they don’t anything about me.”
“Don’t be so sure,” said CJ, uncertain why Carmen was lobbying so hard to keep Blue there with her. “This whole Song Ve thing has an intelligence stench smeared all over it. You can never be certain of what ‘the Company’ knows. Our patrol boat ferried more than a few ‘Company’ types up and down the Mekong during the war, and the one thing that struck me about every CIA type our skipper ever let aboard was that they were never quite what they seemed.” CJ eyed Blue. “Those dregs you lived with when you went underground, did any of them know about Mimm?”
Blue stared at the ceiling, his face screwed up in thought. “Yes.”
“Then you left a trail to Carmen, and that gives anyone with a nose for it a trail back to you.”
“Then where do I go? I don’t want nobody comin’ within a hundred miles of my daughter.” It was the first time he’d used the word daughter in front of Carmen. The word hung on his lips.
“You can stay with a couple of my friends. The accommodations aren’t five star, but you’ll be safe.”
“Here in Denver?”
CJ nodded. “Let me make a phone call to my office and get my partner to set things up.”
“What should I do?” asked Carmen, feeling left out.
“Sit tight. Do what you normally do. Cure cancer. Save lives. But whatever you do, don’t say one word to anyone about your father.”
Carmen nodded, still feeling excluded.
CJ headed for the kitchen, a phone, and privacy, formulating the things he needed to tell Flora Jean. First off, they’d need to find out exactly what Margolin’s Star 1 team had done during Vietnam besides sacking schools, and there was no better place to start than with Flora Jean’s friend General Alden Grace. She was also going to have to locate Morgan Williams and Dittier Atkins, CJ’s two down-and-out friends who’d once been rodeo stars, and round up a place for Blue to stay.
