by John Hart
“What?” Izzy just started shaking his head no, no, no. “Uh-uh, no way. I am not going back to the Highlands, not after that last trip to see Rick and our nice little tour of the morgue.”
“You and Gregg said you would help.” J.D.’s voice was firm. “I took you at your word and I’m asking you to step up to the plate now.”
“I’m not going back on my word J.D., but we seem to have a little difference of opinion as to what ‘help’ means. I can understand your need to make sense of why some psychopathic monsters might be carving up our troops. I can even understand why you possibly felt the need to drag us to a firebase in an attack helicopter to look at mutilated dead bodies to help figure that out. But Gregg and I don’t need any other visible evidence to assist you in a consulting capacity.”
“A consulting capacity?” J.D. repeated. “Oh, you mean like sitting around the table the other morning and discussing theories and throwing out some ideas about psychological profiles, I believe you called them.”
“Exactly.”
J.D. tapped his chin as if deep in thought. “Hmm. Okay, then if you don’t mind humoring me, could you describe how you went about your previous consulting experience?”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, back home, maybe you had a nice office to use, a comfortable chair, possibly even an impressive desk?”
“Yes. It was typically a pleasant academic or clinical setting. That’s how most assessments are offered, or discussions conducted on whatever psychopathology is being presented by, or to, a psychiatrist.”
“While you enjoy a fine coffee, perhaps.”
Izzy closed his eyes and sighed deeply, imagining himself in the office overlooking Central Park with a beautiful cup of cappuccino on a beautiful modern Eames table, and sighed again, “Yes.”
“Then you need to wake the fuck up, Dr. Moskowitz, because this is not a pleasant academic or clinical setting. This is not a situation that is conducive to a nice cushy chair with coffee served while you discuss or assess or psycho-whatever in a typical consulting capacity. What this is, is a top of the very top hierarchy of needs from the military brass that doesn’t give two shits about what you or Dr. Kelly consider ‘helping.’ If they wanted assistance in the kind of ‘consulting capacity’ you’re so generously offering, don’t you think they’d hire Einstein if they wanted to?”
“Einstein was a physicist,” Izzy muttered, toeing the sand. “And he died in 1955.”
“That’s not the point!” J.D. paused, lowered his voice. “Listen, I don’t know what you think I’m doing when I’m not around but I can assure you that it involves getting information potentially pertinent to this case from resources less savory than your own.”
Izzy suddenly felt a little belligerent. “Oh? And here I thought you were sipping Soixante Quinzes with Kate during happy hour. I’m sure Gregg will be relieved to know all of your time is being wisely invested elsewhere.”
A muscle ticked in J.D.’s cheek. He took a deep breath and appeared to be exercising an enormous amount of control. “If I’m calling you in it’s because I’ve exhausted all other possibilities and I have no choice but to go with what I’ve got to work with and right now that means responding to a request Rick made via the right channels that we pay another visit to discuss a plan he has in the works.”
“Fine, he can come here and we will plan to your heart’s content.”
“He’s training some new troops, so we go to him, not the other way around.”
“Then Rick is calling the shots now, is that it?” Izzy didn’t know why he was deliberately pushing J.D.’s buttons except he didn’t feel like he had anything left to lose, except maybe another friend he thought he had but was no more a friend than Rachel had turned out to be if he was willing to subject him and Gregg to more trauma.
“This is why guys like me don’t get to have friends like you, Moskowitz. Because then you start to think we’re equals, that I owe you some kind of explanation. But that’s not the way it works, it’s not how I get the job done, and as to who is calling the shots, let’s get it straight for sure that you and Greggy boy are not calling any.”
J.D. folded his arms across his chest. Izzy knew what that defensive body language signaled. J.D. was closing out the friend he said he couldn’t have.
Maybe they had never been friends. Maybe Gregg was right and J.D. was possibly a sociopath since he clearly displayed enough hallmarks for one:
Charming when necessary, even seductive.
Successful, often at the expense of others.
A natural aptitude to manipulate people and situations to his advantage.
A lack of remorse when others paid for his personal gain.
And he could be a stone cold killer as Izzy had witnessed their first day.
Despite the ax Gregg had to grind over Kate, Gregg had not wanted to assign J.D. to that particularly disturbing personality category—especially because of J.D.’s involvement with Kate. Izzy thought of how J.D. had been good to him in his own way, and he didn’t want to go to that dark place of suspicion either. But neither did he want to delude himself into the possibility of friendship with someone capable of strategically using others to their benefit while emulating expressions and emotions often learned at a young age from normal people because they were usually highly intelligent and became highly accomplished actors in order to fit in when, in reality, they were not capable of real feeling or carrying the burden of a conscience.
Hell, who knew? Maybe J.D. was the Ghost Soldier by night to keep his day job safe and had no qualms about using him and Gregg as the equivalent of imprisoned gladiators to keep the top brass entertained. Izzy had never thought himself the paranoid type, but anyone who didn’t have a degree of paranoia in this crazy place would be less than normal. Yay. He was paranoid. That made him normal. Amazing how the mind worked to justify just about anything.
Izzy crossed his own arms. “Did you know about this trip being set up when you found me the other night?”
“It didn’t seem the best time to bring it up.”
“So were you being nice to me, just to get me to agree to this?”
J.D. stared at him, hard, his eyes sharp yet dull like flint. Izzy stared straight back, refusing to give up ground. “Well?” he demanded.
“I don’t have to be nice to anyone to get them to do what I need them to do,” J.D. said flatly. “I expect to see you and Gregg at the LZ at 1100 hours. I’m not sure how long we’ll be gone so pack accordingly.”
“Anything else? Sir?”
“No. That will be all.”
Izzy had gone several steps when he heard J.D. say, “Wait.”
Izzy kept walking. Acknowledging any excuses or apologies from J.D. was not how it worked; not when the fury Izzy nursed had nothing on the fear already rolling like thunder through his guts.
J.D. had been right at the get-go. He needed to wake the fuck up.
There is nothing more fearful than fear. It has its own life, its own way of growing. It becomes stronger, ever more powerful and irresistible. Like water dripping on stone, it weakens the mind and body, insidiously eroding the spirit.
The patrol starts out well before sunset. They seem in good spirits but the too loud joking and bravado belies the underlying dread from the stories they all have heard at the base camp. The patrol has barely started their long trek toward the place where they want to set their ambush when the last sun dappled light of the evening is suddenly replaced with a wraith like mist. The night fog slithers down through the trees and the leaves begin to drip as the jungle darkens around them.
“Fuck this shit,” Clay, the point man, whispers to the radioman.
“Double fuck,” says the radioman. “This is goddamn Ghost Soldier weather if I ever have seen it.”
“Who said Ghost Soldier, who said Ghost Soldier? Shut up, shut the fuck up.”
All the way back the whole patrol is now stopped, frozen ev
ery one of them, looking blindly out into the white mist which writhes through and around the trees. Clay sees the mist move and fires and everyone opens up completely freaked.
An AK47 bursts behind them and the now fear-frenzied patrol runs forward. Clay hits the thin sharp wire strung across at neck level and is nearly beheaded, the jugular artery pumping out his life with each final beat of his heart.
His two buddies behind him see the blood spraying; see a beckoning opening in the jungle to the right, and speed up, shouting, “This way!”
The opening is too wide, too clear, but they can’t think of that with that thing chasing them, no it’s too beckoning, and the whole patrol is running nearly abreast when the three in the middle impale themselves into the angled razor sharp bamboo stakes set at groin level. Their agonized screams make the two men on the outside turn their heads to see and they hit the bamboo stakes angled low at ankle level and fall hard, full speed, into the sharpened stakes on the ground in front of them.
Their whimpering cries attract the Nightbird. It sits and cocks its head, watching as another bird alights and begins to feed on the point man’s bloodless face while the impaled ones finish their slow dance of death on the stakes.
24
Crystal Blue Persuasion took a long looping diving turn and so did Izzy’s stomach. The high cool air was refreshing but only sharpened his senses to the horror show of where he was going and what they were doing, though he wasn’t too clear on that much yet.
Rick had not been in the flashy gunship this time to greet them and while J.D. had tried to act as if they were all buddy-buddy since meeting up at the 8th Field’s LZ, Izzy and Gregg knew better. They’d had a frank discussion minus J.D. as they packed at the villa.
Izzy: Can you believe he’s taking us out there again, only this time to god knows where Rick has his camp set up?
Gregg: I can believe anything at this point that suits J.D.’s agenda.
Izzy: Do you think he’s a sociopath?
Gregg: I don’t know but if he is then we are completely expendable and if we have to be sacrificed it won’t be hard to explain our disappearance in a war zone. The military will completely back him up. We’re just draftees, no different in their eyes from every other grunt they throw out like trash in the field.
Izzy: It’s hardly insurance against the worst possible, but it might be a good idea to take a page from the playbook J.D. could be working from.
Gregg: Agreed.
The agreement being that sociopaths weren’t the only ones who could emulate certain behaviors to successfully get what they wanted. In his and Gregg’s case it was simple: out of this trip alive. Therefore, if J.D. wanted to act like they were all cool and in this together, that’s how he and Gregg would pretend to play it while they watched each other’s backs.
J.D., now seated across from Izzy and Gregg, smiled apologetically, as Izzy hugged his stomach. Not only was he queasy, his chest was so tight he felt like he was drowning, but Izzy smiled back as convincingly as possible as the brilliant blue helicopter finished its dive and came down perfectly on the LZ of . . . he had no idea where they were besides a deserted area where the blue shimmer of a river could be seen in the far distance.
“We’re about 25 clicks North from Ban Me Thuot,” J.D. explained, raising his voice over the loud bleat of the helicopter blades. “Let’s go!”
So out they all jumped with their gear and J.D. waved the pilot off with a thanks and “Good hunting.”
They were met by a fit looking young man in a ranger uniform with dark embroidered LT Bars on his collar.
“Welcome to Firebase Zebra, doctors.”
The LT did not look or sound very welcoming. It felt like they were intruders into a very private club. Which it was. The military’s Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols were highly trained and experienced men that could travel light and fast and far and deep to perform important missions. Izzy knew he and Gregg belonged in this club about as much as the LRRPs belonged where they did:
Stateside. California and New York. With private practices, nice coffees, and patients who didn’t dismember LRRPs like the lieutenant here for profit, fun, or cult worship, though they had pretty much ruled that last one out.
“Captain Galt is down at the training site and said to come on over,” said the Special Ops LT who proved to be an experienced guide with his monotone patter down as he walked them to their destination.
“We are remote here as you can see, but this is where some of the best LRRP training in the country takes place. We have a lot of volunteers from all over Vietnam who come specifically because of the exceptional training that results in a high kill rate and a very low casualty rate. We have about twelve LRRPs all over the country now. . . . ”
Mr. Congeniality’s tutorial was along the same lines as Rick’s the last time he had played host in the Highlands, so Izzy was only paying half attention when he nearly bumped into Gregg, who suddenly stopped as they came upon a scene that looked like something out of a corny Hong Kong Chinese martial arts movie.
The area was some kind of an arena. A group of ten men, armed with long wooden knives, circled around a shirtless blindfolded opponent in the middle who held a wooden staff-like sword. The first attacker came silently from behind the blindfolded man who whirled around and even before the attacker hit ground, he took out the next two attackers coming in from his left, then the two on his right were thrashed into one another and the man in the middle just completely wiped out attacker after attacker faster than Izzy’s eyes could follow.
The blindfold came off and it was Rick Galt. His body was slick with sweat, every cord and muscle so accented, he looked like an illustration from an anatomy text on perfect muscle development. There was no fat. He was not overdeveloped like a body builder. On the contrary, he reminded Izzy of a jungle cat, built for speed and power.
Rick looked right at Izzy, flashed him a smile and winked.
Izzy whispered to Gregg, “Don’t forget to give him Nikki’s latest letter.”
Gregg patted his shirt pocket. “Maybe he’ll send us back with some flowers and chocolates this time.”
“Your job is to kill!” Rick shouted. “Attack to kill. Do not hesitate. Ever. If you are going to kill, you strike hard, and strike first. What did I say?”
The circle of trainees shouted back: “Strike hard! Strike first!”
Rick dropped his staff and pointed to one of the men. “All right, Stone. You’re the best of this bunch. What are you going to do? You have one enemy between you and getting home with the intel to save the patrol.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Stone barked. “Strike Hard! Strike first!”
Stone yanked off his shirt and ran forward, whipping it toward Rick’s eyes in an attempt to blind him while whipping the sword in a whistling arc at his legs to amputate them at the knees. It was a frighteningly fast attack.
Rick reacted as if it was all in slow motion. He grabbed the shirt at the same time he leapt high in the air and kicked Stone in the solar plexus, dropping him to his knees. Rick’s elbow was at his best student’s Adams apple, effectively killing him if the blow had been fully executed. Rick stopped there and pulled Stone to his feet, face still contorted as he gasped for breath while Rick threw his arm over Stone’s heavily muscled shoulders.
“The shirt idea was a good surprise,” Rick told the group. “Combined with the leg blow it would have been crippling. Well done, Stone, you almost had me. Good work.” Then like a tiger in a circus show, Rick effortlessly leaped to a nearby platform to finish his address.
“Now listen up everybody. As promised, we are going out to get whoever is fucking with us. You’ve all heard the latest and we are putting a stop to this because someone has come into our territory, our hunting grounds, and there is only one top predator in this territory and it is—who?”
“Cobras!” the men shouted.
“Kill him!”
The rabid shouts ceased when Rick made a silencing motion and commanded, “Sergeant Oakley! You know the drill. Get them ready.”
“Yes, sir!”
Rick leaped off the platform and came directly over, asking, “Well, Doctors, enjoy our version of an intervention procedure?”
Izzy wasn’t sure if “enjoy” was the word. What he’d seen was amazing and unnerving. Their thirst for blood was as palpable as Rick’s had been when Peck shot the elephants. Gregg gave a little nudge and Izzy remembered their pact to act the part of happy campers while they mentally dissected everyone and everything that stood between them and their safe return.
“That was, I mean, you were wearing a blindfold and they were for real attacking you full speed.”
Rick laughed. “Naw, if it was real. . .”
“There’d be a lot of blood,” Gregg supplied.
“That’s right, a lot of blood,” Rick said, laughing again. “Getting real hot, bet you’re thirsty. Come on, this way.” Rick led them all over to a small tent that was actually dressed up like a cantina with palm leaves and had a poncho liner over a crate for a table with a group of chairs around it. He opened a cooler and miraculously pulled out four cold beers.
Gregg extended Nikki’s envelope and made the exchange.
“Well, look at that. Christmas just came early.” Rick gazed at the envelope like it was the frosting on top of some delicious cake waiting inside just for him.
Izzy knew the feeling. Or, he had. At this point, Rachel could go fuck herself, or her soul mate at Woodstock, because he still had some chocolates to deliver in Nha Trang. He could not get back there soon enough, no matter how cold the beer Rick hoisted.
