The Last Bridge

by Brian Garfield

  Mister Shannon had gone stiff in cold death. McKuen’s gaze was expressionless when it fell on the body; he had put the presence of death out of his conscious lexicon.

  He found a cigarette in his pocket. It was bent at the middle. He straightened it with great care before he put it between his lips and stretched back in the seat to get his lighter out of a pocket. The lighter flame burst at him like an explosion, batted fiercely around by the crosscurrents of wind buffeting through the cockpit. He inhaled deeply and blew smoke toward the instruments. His face was wholly without feeling, numbed by cold. The plane chattered and smoothed out; the sky seemed subterranean, like a womb. McKuen flew alone through an alien world, his emotions suspended by shock. A sudden grin split his face when he said, “To hell with it. Kicks.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  1140 Hours

  J. D. HOOKER grumbled, “Is this all we got to do—just sit here and grow whiskers?”

  Theodore Saville said, “The difference between you and a smart man, Sergeant, is that a smart man knows when to get tough. Relax.”

  “Sure—sure.”

  The weak glow of the veteran truck’s parking lights threw a dismal light around the inside of the garage. Saville moved over to stand by David Tyreen at the door; looking back at J. D. Hooker, Saville murmured, “The cat’s always dignified until a dog comes along. I’m sorrier than hell I picked Hooker for this job.”

  “He’ll hold up his end, when the time comes for it.”

  “And after that, he’s expendable. That it?”

  “We’re all expendable, Theodore.”

  “Jesus. Haven’t you got anything brighter than that to say?”

  Tyreen’s face was dark and scored. He sucked on a quinine capsule, trying to work up enough saliva to swallow it. Saville said, “A smart fellow lives on interest. You’re living on your capital, David. You’re burning yourself up.”

  “You seem to know a hell of a lot about what a smart man would do.”

  “Maybe I’m just smart enough to know when to lay off. I know—not now, not now. After we get Eddie out, then we sleep. Provided we don’t get a Vietminh regiment on our ass. Provided we don’t get slaughtered down there. Provided we get Eddie out. David, what happens if we can’t?”

  “You know the orders.”

  Saville said, “If I was in command, that’s one order I wouldn’t carry out.”

  “That’s why you’re not in command, Theodore.”

  Saville shook his head. “You’re pretty young to be a stubborn old fool. I thought the Army got rid of the last of its mules a few years back.”

  Tyreen gave a small, rare smile. “Age does have its privileges.”

  His tongue touched the poison tooth. He felt sapped by fevers. His body demanded everything he denied it, and he felt as though festering rashes were eating slowly into his flesh. His eyeballs scraped the sockets when he looked around. “What’s the time?”

  “Quarter of.”

  “Sergeant Khang’s deadline.”

  “Give him a few minutes,” Saville said.

  “I told him to be back here at eleven forty-five.” Tyreen pushed away from the wall; he forced his body to obey the command to stand steady.

  “Saddle up.”

  J. D. Hooker said, “How much stuff we going to carry, Colonel?”

  “Leave the packs here. We’ll come back for them.”

  “Grenades?”

  “Everything that makes noise,” Tyreen said. “But not the machine gun. Don’t forget your—”

  “Hold on,” Saville said. He made a sharp turn, flattening his back against the door. His voice was low: “I think that’ll be Khang coming back.”

  Saville’s gun was ready. The code was nine; when knuckles rapped the door twice, Saville knocked twice in answer, and outside, the door banged five times.

  “Okay,” Saville said, and opened the door.

  Sergeant Khang walked in and saluted with a dry expression. Saville skidded the door shut. Tyreen said, “Where’d you get that uniform?”

  “Ran into an old buddy,” said Nguyen Khang.

  J. D. Hooker said, “You slimy bastard. What’ll you bet he—”

  No one was paying any attention to him. Hooker trailed off into a grumble.

  Tyreen studied the sardonic twist of Nguyen Khang’s features. “What did you find out?”

  “Captain Kreizler’s still in interrogation. The interrogation officer’s Colonel Trung. About the meanest son of a bitch in this part of the country, sir, next to you, maybe.”

  Saville said, “You’re asking to get your ass chewed, Sergeant.”

  “Go on,” Tyreen said mildly.

  “I talked to the transportation officer. Gave him a line of crap, told him to deliver a staff car to headquarters at twenty after twelve. I thought we could use it maybe. Okay, Colonel? I told the guy they sent me down to deliver Captain Kreizler and Colonel Trung to Hanoi for questioning by the big Red brass. He swallowed it. Hell, I ought to be a Goddamn movie actor, the way I pulled it off. Should’ve seen me.”

  Theodore Saville said, “Looks like you’ve done a good piece of work.”

  “Yes, sir,” Khang said; his voice had gone suddenly dry. He said, “You want to know the truth, Captain, I was all set to conk out. Faint right there. Surprised me I didn’t.” He added absently, “It’s stopped raining.”

  Tyreen said, “Over here, everybody. We’ll map this out.”

  Tyreen and Saville reached the head of the street and turned into a boulevard, heads bowed under their hats. They walked half a block, and Tyreen said, “This way.”

  They turned down a steeply pitched passage. Tyreen heard the quick scratch of running footsteps receding somewhere nearby. That would be J. D. Hooker and Corporal Smith, on their way across the side of the mountain.

  Tyreen’s pulse pumped. Saville fell into step beside him. They ran down through the narrow curving street, paused to look back, and turned at a dogtrot into a new passageway, still going downhill. Across a wide intersection stood a high fence overhung by wild foliage. Tyreen stopped on the corner and examined the area with all his charged senses. He detected nothing, but Theodore Saville shook his head and they drifted back into the obscurity of a doorway while footsteps advanced into the intersection. A shape became visible, shuffling across the pavement. Tyreen’s fingers found the hilt of his knife. The pedestrian came close, paused to remove his straw hat and scratch his head—a gray, ragged old man in patched clothes; he replaced the hat and wandered on. Tyreen heard the release of Saville’s breath.

  It would be a thirty-yard sprint across open ground. Tyreen felt alert, primed, all his juices under high pressure; he broke into a hard run.

  His boots pounded the pavement, and when he brought himself up short below the iron fence, the breath was crashing in and out of him. Saville came swiftly across the intersection, stopped, and said, “You’re in bad shape, David.”

  “Give me a boost.”

  Saville cupped his hands and lifted Tyreen easily. On top of the fence Tyreen reached down to pull the big man up after him, but he lacked the strength for it; Saville got a grip on the top rail of the fence with one hand and pulled himself up by the strength of one thick arm. They dropped off the fence into a thicket of weeds and thorns.

  They pawed through the brush until they could see the garrison motor pool directly below.

  “What time is it?”

  “Eight minutes of twelve.”

  “Better keep moving,” Tyreen said.

  Beyond the motor pool, at the foot of the mountain, he could see an officer on the headquarters porch talking to a squad of armed soldiers. The squad leader saluted, and the knot of men broke up, double-timing away by twos toward the perimeter of the camp. “Extra sentries,” Tyreen said. “They figure something’s up.”

  “Wouldn’t you? They’re scared—they don’t know who pulled off that stunt at the power station.”

  Closer to him, past the truck park at the b
ig garage, Tyreen saw two figures moving along the back wall. “Khang and Sergeant Sun,” Saville said. “Let’s get down there, David.”

  Tyreen led off, walking down the hill at a steady pace. He felt a target for a hundred guns. Dressed in the remnants of a North Vietnamese uniform, he moved deliberately, but his legs strained to run. He heard Saville’s boots striding behind him. They achieved the edge of the pavement and moved among orderly rows of trucks and tanks; Saville said, “This is damn thorny.”

  The last row of tanks—that was the spot, between the end tank and the beginning of the row of half-tracks. Tyreen stopped behind the bulk of the tank. Up the hill he could see the brows of the big gasoline storage tanks that were due for destruction in less than half an hour.

  He said, “All right. We wait here.”

  “I feel like a mouse walking into a mousetrap—on purpose.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Tyreen said.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  1155 Hours

  ON the sky, ponderous clouds moved slowly, but the rain held off, and the premonition of sunlight was strong. Corporal Smith huddled in the shadow of the big storage tank. His eyes moved fitfully. When he turned his head, his chin trembled. “You about done with that?”

  “Relax,” said J. D. Hooker. “Plenty of time, kid.”

  “I wonder if they made it. What if we get cut off?”

  “For Christ’s sake shut up,” Hooker said. He was bent over, measuring out fuse by inches. He checked his watch and clipped off a precise length of fuse. He tamped it into the set charge with care and scooped gravel over the charge, burying it from sight. “Pick up them ammo boxes.” He popped a wooden match alight on his thumbnail and made sure the fuse was burning properly. It burned smokelessly; in a moment the spark receded into the plastic sheath. There was no odor, no sound.

  He turned and lifted the machine gun. “Come on.”

  Not far away on a hillside road there was the clatter of a buffalo-drawn cart. The noon chill cut through Corporal Smith’s clothes and stung the tip of his nose. He crabbed along behind Hooker’s crouched running figure; they slipped out through a fresh cut in the fence. Smith fought a moment’s alarm when his pants snagged on the wire. He plunged through, tearing off a patch of cloth. Somewhere on the windless slope an engine chattered into life and roared. Patches of fog covered the higher reaches of the mountain. Smith said, “Wait up.”

  “Keep up,” Hooker answered. They ran through a grove of stunted trees and came in sight of a crumbling temple half overgrown by a garden gone wild. Hooker ran across the road and trampled a path choked with creepers. Smith followed him into the temple, and Hooker turned to his right. “Up there.”

  “Jesus.”

  They went up a precarious curling staircase of wood. The steps sagged low under Hooker’s weight. Smith put his shoulders to the wall and crept up the steps wordlessly, fearfully. Splinters of rotted wood dug into his back. Mildew and dust lay thick in the dark temple. Hooker battered a path through thick cobwebs with the machine gun. “Come on—come on.” They climbed past tier after tier of open pagoda—style windows. Smith felt choked by dust and the smell of rot. The building seemed ready to collapse on him. A thick vine crawled in through an opening; he was sure it was reaching for his ankle. He listened to the hollow sound of his own voice: “You think this is a Cao Dai temple?”

  “How in hell do I know? Quit draggin’ your ass.”

  They climbed to the top landing, forty feet above ground. Hooker planted the machine gun in the center of the open arc. “Lay out them grenades over here where I can reach them.” He bellied down behind the gun and fed ammunition into it.

  Corporal Smith’s lips sagged with pale bitterness. Below in the road a pair of soldiers came in sight, walking unhurriedly, talking. They stopped in front of the temple and exchanged words, and then one of them went on his way. The other turned toward the temple and walked forward until he was out of their sight. Smith held his breath, but the soldier did not come inside the temple. “What’s he doing down there?”

  “Taking a post, I guess. Don’t sweat it.”

  “He’s right under us!”

  “Keep your puking voice down, kid.”

  Smith rubbed his face. His cheeks were stained by the tracks of drying sweat. He glanced at Hooker; Hooker’s brutal face was lifted to one side, his features unstirred. Smith watched those cruel, impassive cheeks and wanted to cry out; he wanted the sight of another man’s nerves raw and quivering like his own. A sluggish current of air chilled his skin. His eyes were hot and round. A piece of sky suddenly broke open, shining blue through the clouds. Beyond the looming storage tanks, the mountains buckled up in crooked sawteeth. Smith’s breath bubbled in his throat; he cleared his throat as quietly as he could and tried not to remember where he was. Dust lay in a fine grit on his lips; he licked it off. The slow tramp of heels sounded below—the sentry walking to and fro. Cars and wagons made faint noises in the city, not far away. A jeep’s fog lights stabbed around the bend and rushed forward along the road, turned another bend, and were gone. The sentry became a dark suggestion moving through the foliage. Smith’s heart pounded in his ears. “How long now?” he whispered.

  “Ten, fifteen minutes. Will you for Christ’s sake shut up?”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  1205 Hours

  TYREEN saw himself as he was: too gaunted, too afraid, half consumed by disease and disappointment. But he had the capacity to recall himself as he had been in the fancies of his adolescence—a tall man, lean, saturnine, quiet, brave, wise, and supremely sure of himself. He tried to understand why it had not turned out that way. Sick with pain and exhaustion, he sat in the shadow of the big tank and gave very little attention to the sound of the car driving slowly through the truck park. Then Saville kicked him gently. “That’s our boys. Come on, David—come on.”

  Tyreen pushed himself up onto his feet. Awareness of the present rushed back to him. He turned to face down the row of half-tracks.

  A small command car, a Moskvitch, turned into the aisle of pavement and drove slowly forward. Tyreen recognized Sergeant Khang, in his captain’s uniform, at the wheel. Sergeant Sun sat beside him. When the car drew up, Sun opened the door and stepped out.

  Khang said, “Are we late? The bastards made me sign a requisition for the car.”

  “There’s time,” Tyreen said.

  “Okay, Colonel. How’re we going to work this?”

  Tyreen said, “You get in back with me. Captain Saville and I are your prisoners. Sergeant Sun will drive us up to headquarters, and you’ll take us into the building at gunp—oint. If anybody tries to stop you, tell them your orders are to deliver us personally to Colonel Trung.”

  Sergeant Sun tugged his cap down and licked his lips. Khang said, “What about your pistols, Colonel?”

  “You’ll have to take those.” Tyreen handed his sidearm to Khang. Sergeant Sun held out his hand and accepted Theodore Saville’s pistol. Khang waved the automatic at Tyreen and grinned. “Okay, Colonel. I got to admit there’s been times today when I wanted a chance to wave a gun at you.”

  “Careful where you point that thing,” Saville growled.

  Sergeant Khang turned to walk around the car; Saville opened the front door to slide in; and Sergeant Sun, lifting Saville’s pistol in his fist, said sharply, “Stop now.”

  Saville had his head bowed in the car doorway. He backed out. “What the hell?”

  Sun had his pistol trained on Nguyen Khang. He barked rapidly at Khang in Vietnamese, and slowly Khang let the gun fall from his hand. On Sun’s command, he kicked it away from him. Sun’s face was broken out in sweat. Tyreen said, “So that’s the way it is.”

  Nhu Van Sun said in Vietnamese, “It is a fine coup for me to bring all of you to Colonel Trung. It is a fine coup. You will get in the front of the car now, all three. I will ride in the back. The fat Captain will drive.” Sun showed his teeth. “It would have been wise to listen
to the Sergeant Hooker, no?”

  Saville said, “Why’d you wait so long before you jumped us?”

  “It was most easy to allow you to deliver yourselves to Chutrang, Captain. Now please do not delay me more. Get in the car.”

  Sun backed into the open rear door of the car and held his pistol across the window sash. “Slowly, please. And please remember that the sound of one shot from here will bring many soldiers. You cannot escape now. You—the traitor to the people—you will get in first. Di di!”

  Khang got into the car and slid across the seat. Tyreen squeezed in beside him. He felt the nearness of Sun’s pistol to the back of his neck. The back door stood open. Saville started to get into the driver’s seat, but as he turned, his hand came up from waist level and suddenly the great slab of his palm was jammed against the muzzle of Sun’s pistol. Sun’s finger contracted on the trigger, but the pressure of Saville’s powerful grip against the recoil spring kept the weapon from exploding. Saville’s left hand whipped across to crack Sun’s wrist. Sun struggled grimly, his hand caught in the door. Saville’s hand turned white against the pistol; and Tyreen, reaching across the back of the seat, lodged both thumbs against the Vietnamese’s throat.

  Saville hooked back the pistol’s hammer with his left hand and wrenched it out of Sun’s flailing grip. Sergeant Khang was twisting in his seat, reaching for Sun’s free arm that tugged at Tyreen’s hand. It was not needed. The pressure of Tyreen’s hands killed the man in a few silent seconds.

  Tyreen pulled his hands away and sagged in the seat, staring. Theodore Saville said something, a sour grunt. Saville tugged Nhu Van Sun out of the car. He looked both ways and rolled the body beneath the belly of the big tank.

  Sweat poured from Tyreen’s face. “Sweet, sweet Jesus.”

  Saville had hands like hams. They trembled, and Saville squeezed them together, licking his lips and not looking at anyone. Tyreen slid across behind the wheel, drained and sick. “Sergeant Khang.”