A Hero By Any Other Name

by Stackpole, Michael A.

  When his father woke him in the wee hours of the morning, Grant thought that was exactly what had happened. He’d have blurted out a question, but Hank had clapped a hand over his mouth. Grant stared up at his father, his ability to see infrared light giving him a clear picture despite the darkness.

  Hank kept his voice low. “Get dressed, quickly. Don’t wake your sister or mother. I’ll be in the yard.”

  Grant did as he was told, holding his boots in his hand as he descended the stairs. Hank had rolled the rusty old pick-up from the side yard and waved Grant to join him. Grant pulled his boots on, loosely lacing them, and helped push the truck further from the house in the dark.

  Hank tossed him the keys. “You’re driving. No lights.”

  Grant plucked the keys from the air. As he came around the back of the truck, he noticed a long flat case in the bed. He slid in behind the wheel and waited for his father to get in before turning over the engine. “Lone Tree Hill?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Hank looked at him. “If you’re lucky, life gives you choices. You got to make a choice. I am responsible for the decision you made, because you are my family. Lemuel has also made a choice. It doesn’t matter if his family has given him permission to do what he’s going to do. As an adult, I have a responsibility to him, too. Park at the base of the hill. We’ll be a third of a mile off the road.”

  Grant drove the truck east along a tractor track. The twin ruts showed up as clearly as double-yellow lines would on a highway. Grant knew the road well—for three years he’d driven a tractor or the truck down it, and he’d walked it more times than he could count. He couldn’t have made the trip blindfolded, but close enough.

  “Is there a rifle in that case?”

  “Did you try to look?”

  “No.” Grant suddenly knew the case had heavily padded lining, which meant his father intended for the weapon’s heat signature to remain hidden from him. “Why didn’t you ever say anything about being in Korea?”

  “My father was in France in World War I. He never talked about it. On Armistice Day, however, he’d get out his old uniform, he’d put it on, and he’d visit fallen friends in the cemetery. Only time I ever saw him cry. I never understood until I returned from Korea. That year I joined him, in my uniform. I cried, too. And we both knew we understood things that we both hoped our children would never have to understand.”

  “So you just wanted to forget?”

  Hank patted Grant’s thigh. “Partly. I also remember growing up, hearing kids brag on how tough their fathers were because of what they did in the war. Those arguments usually led to pushing and shoving and someone getting a bloody nose. I didn’t want to give you any reason to be involved.”

  Grant didn’t say anything for the rest of the drive, and his father seemed content with the silence. Grant was glad his father couldn’t see in the infrared. Grant’s cheeks fairly glowed in the rearview mirror. He’d never even suspected his father had secrets. Lemuel had pointed out that it was important for Grant to have confidants, and Grant wondered who his father had to share burdens with.

  As they stopped at the base of Lone Tree Hill, Grant turned to his father. “You can trust me, you know.”

  “I always have, son.”

  The two men got out and Hank grabbed the case. Grant led and they reached the summit easily. Hank went to a knee behind the big oak and opened the case. There, in the dark, he assembled a sniper rifle with practiced and economic motion. He screwed a flash suppressor to the end of the barrel, fitted a bipod to the gun, then pressed a clip of bullets into it.

  He handed Grant a pair of binoculars. “Look for heat signatures. There should be at least two. Straight south to the road will be twelve o’clock. I need to know where they are. The rangefinder on the binoculars will tell you how far when you’re focused. It’s in meters.”

  Grant studied the darkness to the south. Furthest away lay a spot of brightness on the road. “A car on the road, about 11:30.”

  “That’s the blocking car.”

  Grant played with the focusing knob. Two hundred meters from here, about 9:30, I see two men. And at 12:30, four hundred meters there are six men, spaced out.”

  “Right where they should be.”

  Though Hank spoke out loud, Grant decided the words were meant for his father alone. “What do we do now?”

  “Wait, quietly.”

  “But I could…”

  “Do what? Speed down there and somehow take them out? You may be able to see in the dark, but I can’t, so I can’t cover you. You’re not bullet-proof. They likely have radios and are checking with each other. You hit one team, the other knows. And there’s the chase vehicle at the gravel quarry, if Merlin was right. Maybe more guys over there. So we wait. We wait for dawn so we can see. We wait for them to move, and we do what we have to do to stop them.”

  Grant nodded and fell silent. Every so often he raised the binoculars to check on what, he suddenly realized, would become a battlefield. The NVA members waiting below sparkled like stars. Come dawn, chances were they’d wink out.

  He studied his father. Hank Stone just sat there, staring south, the rifle resting on the ground beside him. Hank didn’t move. Barely breathed. If he could feel time passing or pressure building, he gave no sign whatsoever. It clearly wasn’t the first time his father had faced that sort of situation. The fact that he bore no physical scars told Grant how his father had fared in the past.

  The eastern sky lightened, but before the sun’s disk could crack the horizon, a dark panel van came down the road. The headlights brightened and darkened as the vehicle went over a bump, then it began to slow as the blocking car came into view. The van rolled right up to the block, and the half-dozen NVA shooters moved forward.

  Halfway to the van, they opened up with AK-47s firing full auto. Bullet holes tracked over the body. Windows exploded. Steam started to pour from the engine.

  “Dad, shouldn’t we do something?”

  “This was Merlin’s plan.” Hank brought the rifle up. “Do you see anything in the van? Heat?”

  “The engine. And in the back, a dark rectangle.”

  “The armored shell he mentioned. He’s in there, biding his time.”

  “Look, Dad, there.” Grant pointed at the second team. “What do they have?”

  Hank swung his rifle around and pressed his eye to the scope. “Rocket propelled grenade.”

  One of the two men had popped up with a shoulder-mounted tube—sort of a bazooka with a cone in the forward end. He took aim at the van and hit a trigger. Smoke blossomed from the muzzle and lanced from the back as a big, conical projectile shot free. The backblast ignited grass. Brilliant golden flames jetted from the tube grafted to the warhead’s base and fins snapped out to stabilize it in flight.

  Fired only three hundred meters from the van, it would need less than three seconds to reach its target.

  Without thinking, without being ordered, Grant launched himself forward. He had no idea if he could catch the rocket in flight, but he was going to try. I have to. If I fail, Merlin dies.

  Long grasses tore at his legs, with as much chance of stopping him as they had of resisting a scythe. Leaves and stems shot up in his wake. He all but flew from the top of one hillock to the next.

  Before the binoculars he dropped could hit the ground, he’d caught up with the RPG. The flames singed his sleeve, but he didn’t care. Grant swatted the tail fins. The rocket skewed around west, missing the van by inches. The warhead raced off along the road, back toward Lyttleton, while Grant came around the opposite way, smoke swirling around him.

  Smoke thickened around the van, billowing from below. It was different smoke, not smelling oily but antiseptic. Grant turned, ready to get Merlin out before fire could get to the gas tank, but there was no need. Metal snapped and clacked from within the fog. Something moved within the smoke.

  He’s alive.

  As the gunmen reloaded and the RP
G exploded further down the road, Merlin darted from the mist. Small, silver spheres flew from his hands, bursting with flashes and bangs that startled the gunmen and knocked a couple down.

  Then Merlin was among them, a hawk among pigeons. A spin kick blasted one man into the arms of a blinded compatriot. Merlin’s stick swept the legs from beneath another, then clipped him hard on the head. Punches and more kicks dropped another pair in time for the first man to struggle to his feet and draw a knife.

  Merlin must have heard the sound of knife slipping from scabbard. He turned toward the metallic rasp, never seeing the last gunman rise to a knee and aim.

  Grant’s mind raced. If Merlin spun to deal with the gunman, he’d get stabbed. If he didn’t, he’d get shot. A warning won’t help.

  Grant launched himself at the gunman. Though he crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, the NVA gunman swung the muzzle toward him. He wasn’t aiming at anything concrete, just reacting to motion. Grant reached for the muzzle, hoping to knock it wide or high.

  He missed.

  The rifle lipped flame three times. Each smoking cartridge arced up and out slowly, spinning, sunlight glinting from the polished brass. The first bullet hit Grant in the chest with a tremendous sledgehammer blow. Something snapped. Grant heard it. He felt it. He could smell the gunpowder burning sharp and acrid in his nose.

  The second and third bullets hit. One caught his shoulder, starting him spinning. The other nailed his stomach, right below his ribs. His legs buckled. Unburned powder sizzled against his eyes and face. His arms flew wide, limp, muscles contorting and releasing as pain raced through him. His feet caught on something—a body, a tuft of grass—and he tumbled down, cocooning himself in long summer grasses.

  Grant gasped for breath. Nothing. Pain seized his chest. He coughed, injecting more pain and expelling precious air. He thought he tasted blood on his lips. He tried to bring his hands up to check, knowing he’d find blood and shattered ribs. They resisted his commands. Even though his lungs burned, he was happy he didn’t know the truth.

  Then Merlin appeared above him, coming from the direction of the gunman. Grant could read nothing from behind the mask, but took Merlin’s hesitation as a sign that the worst had happened. Grant wanted to tell him to tell his family that he loved them, but he couldn’t make a sound.

  Merlin dropped to a knee and ripped Grant’s shirt open. “Oh my God.”

  Grant made a weak attempt at clutching Merlin’s arm.

  “Easy, my friend.” Merlin grabbed Grant’s belt and lifted, forcing him to arch his back. “Just breathe easy.”

  Cool air flooded his lungs. Merlin lowered him and raised again. Grant coughed more, pain erupting again, but diminished. Must be shock. My chest has to be a ruin. There has to blood everywhere. And bone fragments in my lungs.

  Merlin stared at him intently. “How are you feeling?”

  Grant shook his head. “Dying.”

  Merlin ran a hand over Grant’s chest. “I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t lie.”

  He raised his hand and it came away unstained. “I didn’t know bullets would bounce off.”

  Grant’s breath caught in this throat. “Neither did I.”

  Merlin looked back over his shoulder, then nodded. “You saved my life. Thank you.”

  Grant sat up and looked at his chest. There was no missing the three red welts. The colors rising around them suggested he’d bruise badly. He was also convinced that he’d cracked a rib. He coughed into his hand and didn’t see any blood, which he took as a good sign.

  “Get me up.”

  Merlin helped him to his feet. “I’ll take care of wrapping them up.”

  “Good.” Grant waved encouragingly toward the top of the hill. “There are two over there who fired the rocket.”

  “If they’re still there, I’ll get them.” Merlin patted him on the back. “You should have let me know you changed your mind.”

  “I don’t know that I have.” Grant bent over with both hands on his knees. “But I do know that you weren’t supposed to be out here alone. I’m glad I was here to help.”

  As Lemuel later reconstructed things, Grant had actually been more help than anyone could have imagined. The deflected RPG exploded further down the road as the chase vehicle was coming up to seal the trap. The explosion didn’t hurt anyone, but it did cause the driver to swerve. The truck flew off the road and rolled, leaving the driver, his navigator and the three men in the back much worse for the wear.

  The team that had shot the rocket propelled grenade had vanished. From all appearances they’d been reloading the launcher when a bullet ripped through the device’s receiver. Merlin reported that the scene showed evidence that they’d crawled a ways before getting up to run.

  “I had no idea they had that sort of firepower. There have been rumors, however, of domestic terrorist groups getting Soviet style weapons like that from the PLO and IRA.” Merlin shrugged his shoulders. “Either Commander Seven wasn’t there, or was with the RPG crew and escaped. Still, we got eleven.”

  Merlin had gathered the NVA members he could find and cuffed them together in the van well before Chief Peck and the Lyttleton police force arrived. Once he had everyone secure, he made his escape, accompanying Grant on the long trek to the hill. Grant didn’t say anything, but he was pretty certain that Merlin would have spotted signs of a truck having traveled back to the farm recently.

  Melody Stone took Grant’s return better than Grant would have expected. The glint in her eye betokened anger, but concern and fascination kept it in the background. She pulled out the family’s Polaroid camera and took shots of Grant’s bruises so she could make her future work more realistic. Then she produced a bag of ice and insisted on bandaging it over Grant’s injury.

  Polly, obviously coached by her parents, watched everything and said nothing. She was clearly formulating a story about how her clumsy brother had fallen down the root cellar stairs again. Grant knew he’d have to pay her back in the future and was pleased that Merlin seemed to trust her as much as he did Grant.

  Once Melody had treated Grant, and Lemuel insisted he had escaped unscathed, the two young men retreated to the barn. They found Hank up in the hayloft, moving bales around, with a folded blanket beneath a pillow nearby.

  “Dad, I can explain to mom.”

  Hank shook his head. “Don’t. If I’ve ever seen her this angry, I can’t remember when. But the thing about your mother is that her head can rule her heart. She’s known, as I’ve known, that this day might come. I think we were both hoping it might be later, but we both know it still would have been torture. She’ll let me back in the house eventually.”

  “Mr. Stone, I can’t thank you enough…”

  Grant looked at his father. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “I figured things out from the tracks, the probable trajectory of the shots that drove the RPG operators off. I, ah…”

  Hank Stone pointed both young men to hay bales. “You didn’t see anything in your files about me to suggest I could or would take a shot like that?”

  “Exactly, sir.”

  “So you have a bunch of questions.” Hank folded his arms. “I’m not going to answer them. Not all of them. But the big one you want to know is why we were out there after I told you Grant had said no.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Two reasons, son. I needed to watch you in action. I want to know about all of my children’s friends. Especially Grant’s. No matter what he can do, he’s still a young man. He will make mistakes. I want to be sure his friends won’t lead him into trouble.”

  Lemuel looked down at his gloved hands. “I failed that test.”

  “Not as badly as you think. I don’t have a problem with the two of you being pals. I still have reservations about heroing, but I am open to reason.” Hank nodded. “At least Grant can alibi you as his sister often does him.”

  Lemuel glance at Grant and smiled—happiness mixed wit
h relief. “And the second reason, sir?”

  “As I told Grant, circumstances don’t always give you choices. You’re protecting the people of Lyttleton, but you don’t have a monopoly on wanting to keep them safe. You don’t get to shoulder all the responsibility.” Hank seated himself on a hay bale and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “You may have had the best training in the world for what you’re doing, but there are going to be times when the voice of experience will be helpful. I want you to know you can trust me as much as I’m trusting you.”

  Lemuel looked up and Grant couldn’t read all the emotions flickering over his face. He caught a hint of shock and a little disbelief, but that faded as Lemuel smiled and offered Hank his hand. “Thank you, sir. Very much.”

  “You’re more than welcome, son.”

  Lemuel stood. “Could I trouble you for a change of clothes and a lift into town? I need to get back to work. I need to figure out who is leaking information to the NVA.”

  “Grant will get you some clothes, Mr. Lyttle; and drive you into town.” Hank rose to his feet. “As for the last bit of your work, it’s done. Chief Peck knows who the leak is.”

  “What? How?” Utter disbelief froze Lemuel’s expression. “I couldn’t figure…”

  Hank threw an arm around Lemuel’s shoulders. “Son, this is a small town. Six months ago, Mrs. Anderson mentioned to my wife that it was ironic that a certain deputy was too stupid to know that his wife’s sister had been keeping company with a young man at Capitol City University, who had since dropped out to join one of those revolutionary groups. Now, the wife was from away—upstate somewhere—and the sister had her name legally changed to her mother’s maiden name for feminist reasons, so chances of finding her in the sort of records you search were slender. Gossip may be vicious and cruel, but dig down and you find kernels of the truth, at least in these parts.”

  Grant laughed. “Mrs. Anderson has a black belt in gossip.”