by Mel Odom
“Just from around Qui Nhon. He was outgoing and obnoxious. Didn’t have a shy bone in his body. They said he was a killer out in the jungle, a good shot and cold enough to get it done. But he didn’t glory in it like some did. He was just taking care of his country.”
Shel felt a little more saddened. It would have been better if Hinton had been like Victor Gant, a bad man in a bad place. But if Hinton was a good soldier, his loss was even harder to take. And his murder less understandable.
“Hinton wasn’t in your unit?” Shel asked.
“No sir. Just a guy I knew from the bars and the football games.” Tyrel looked at Shel. “We played a lot of football over there. A lot of us played in high school before we joined up.”
Shel was surprised. He didn’t know his daddy had played high school sports. No one had ever talked about it.
“I played quarterback,” Tyrel said. “In high school. I had an arm. Still had it over there. Denny-that’s what everybody called him that knew him-had played wide receiver. They didn’t like us playing together. He could get loose, and I could find him.”
“You were friends?”
Tyrel paused, then nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then why did you kill him?”
Tyrel took a breath and let it out. He licked his lips. “Lemme tell it the way I need to. You got any questions after that, you ask ’em. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Over in Qui Nhon, we didn’t think too much about the future,” Tyrel said. “It didn’t pay much to do it, because every day you’d see guys evac’d out of the jungle. Sometimes they were wounded, but most of the time they were dead. Kinda reminded us all we might be on short time.”
Shel knew what his daddy was talking about. Things hadn’t been as severe in the places he’d served, but the losses that had occurred made everyone sit up and take notice.
“So we did what young soldiers do when they’re away from home and facing death on a daily basis,” Tyrel said. “We went numb to it. We told ourselves that it wouldn’t happen to us. We kept our heads low during firefights and worked to keep our butts together. You know what that’s like.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just took things one breath at a time when we were in the field. But back in Qui Nhon, it was different. Soldiers drank, and they spent time with the working girls. I didn’t have nothing to do with the women. Your mom and I were exchanging letters, and I guess I knew I had something waiting on me when I got back home even though we hadn’t talked about it.”
As he listened to his daddy, Shel couldn’t help realizing that the Tyrel McHenry he was hearing about was a different man, a twenty-one-year-old who’d never been far from Fort Davis. He hadn’t been worldly, and he hadn’t seen the horrors of war. Shel remembered what his own loss of innocence had been like, and that wasn’t as bad as Vietnam.
“That night I killed Denny, I was with Victor Gant and his team,” Tyrel said.
“I can’t see you and him together.”
Tyrel laughed hollowly. “That’s ’cause you only know Victor Gant as a bad man. But back then in Vietnam, Victor Gant was everything we wanted to be. Soldiers told stories about him. The brass deferred to him during military action. He knew Charlie like nobody knew Charlie. They said if you got signed onto Victor Gant’s penetration team and went hunting targets out in the brush, he could keep you from getting killed. The way they talked, you’d have thought bullets bounced off of him.”
Shel listened to his daddy speak and knew that he wasn’t in that hospital room anymore. Tyrel was back in Vietnam.
“We all wanted to be with him,” Tyrel said. “Because we all wanted to go back home. They said he was the man that could get you there.”
›› Atwater Apartment Building
›› Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
›› 0833 Hours
“Victor Gant was the most evil man I ever knew over there. There was nothin’ he wouldn’t do. Nobody he wouldn’t kill.” Richard McGovern took a drag on his cigarette, then blew smoke at the stained ceiling.
Maggie watched McGovern and locked into the man’s body language. The wheelchair threw some things off, but there were always tells she could read as a profiler-the eyes, the shoulders, and what he did with his hands.
Remy lounged at the window behind McGovern, just out of the man’s sight. Maggie knew Remy had chosen the position on purpose. No matter what he did, McGovern would know Remy was there just out of sight, and he’d have to wonder what he was doing. McGovern also had to wonder how Remy took everything he said.
“For somebody that didn’t like him much, seems you sure stayed around him a long time,” Remy said.
McGovern tried to look back over his shoulder but couldn’t. That frustrated him-Maggie read that in his eyes.
“There was nobody like Victor Gant in the jungle,” McGovern said. “The man could keep you alive, that’s for sure. We’d be in firefights, nobody knowing who was who, and Victor Gant could keep things straight. Like he had radar in his head or something. Never seen anything like it before. Never since, either.” He gave up trying to look over his shoulder and concentrated on Maggie. “I wasn’t hooked up with Victor Gant ’cause I liked the dude. I was just looking out for my own self.”
“Nobody can blame you for that,” Maggie agreed.
“That’s what I’m talking about.” McGovern nodded and took another hit off the cigarette.
“Do you think you owe Victor Gant anything?”
“You mean, would I lie to protect him?”
“Yes,” Maggie replied.
“No.” McGovern shook his head. “I haven’t seen him in thirty years. Not since I come back with no legs. That day I went down in the jungle, Victor didn’t even come after me. If it hadn’t been for the PJs, I wouldn’t have come back at all.”
PJs were pararescue jumpers, Maggie knew, specially trained military forces who went in behind enemy lines or in battle zones to rescue wounded.
“I owe anybody anything, it was them,” McGovern said.
“Do you still keep in touch with the men who rescued you?”
McGovern hesitated. “No. I was so hurt, I don’t even know who they were. Never found out.”
Which means you don’t really feel like you owe anybody anything, Maggie thought. It was an interesting insight, but she didn’t let anything show on her face.
“How did you know Dennis Hinton?” she asked.
“Man was just around, you know? I played football against him. Pickup games we had during downtime in Qui Nhon. Man had magic. There was another guy we played football with. A skinny country kid with a bad accent and a bad temper. He could throw that pigskin now, I’m telling you. But Country-that’s what we called him-he’s the one that killed Dennis Hinton.”
“‘Country’?”
McGovern nodded. “Don’t remember his name. We just called him Country on account of the way he talked.”
Maggie reached into her file and pulled out a six-pack of pictures she’d prepared. She’d put Tyrel McHenry’s service picture in with five other similar headshots.
“Is he one of these men?” she asked as she handed the six-pack over.
McGovern took the card, then twisted in his wheelchair so the light from the window behind him could hit it. He studied the faces for a minute. “You know, it’s been a long time. Over forty years. You’re not even old enough to remember back that far.”
Maggie sat quietly and waited. McGovern was just putting on a show and she knew it.
“But I still remember,” McGovern said. “It was this man right here. Top row. Third man from the left. That’s Country.” He tapped his finger on the image to confirm it. “That’s the man that killed Dennis Hinton.”
Maggie knew without checking that McGovern had just identified Tyrel McHenry.
52
›› Intensive Care Unit
›› Las Palmas Medical Center
›› El Paso, Texas
›› 074
8 Hours (Central Time Zone)
“I’d met Victor Gant several times before,” Tyrel said. He focused on the ceiling and tried not to give in to all the pain and self-loathing that filled him. The medication circulating in his system helped keep him calm and quiet when all he wanted to do was get up and start running.
The biggest hurt was knowing Shel sat there, watching him and passing judgment on him. Tyrel had never wanted to face that.
“Tell me about the night Hinton died,” Shel said.
Tyrel listened to the calm professionalism in Shel’s voice. He’d never seen this side of his son. Over the years, he’d seen Shel hurt and mad, confused and restless, but he’d never known what it would be like to face his son as a potential enemy. Even the night they’d fought in the barn hadn’t felt like this. In the barn, they’d both been mad and scared and not really in control.
Shel was in control now.
Tyrel steeled himself to be just as strong, but it was hard. He was working from a weak position and they both knew it.
“It started at the cantina,” Tyrel said. “I went there to drink. It had gotten to be a habit. Not falling-down drunk. I hardly ever got falling-down drunk. I grew up around too many people where that was a way of life, and the pastor back at our church preached against the wickedness of whiskey.”
“You went to the cantina because Victor Gant was there?”
For a moment, Tyrel thought about just saying yes and being done with that part of the conversation. Except he knew that would be a lie. Here, in this moment, he needed to tell the truth.
“No, I went there to get drunk enough not to be afraid anymore.” Tyrel made himself not look at Shel. He’d never admitted to being afraid in front of either of his sons before. “I was tired of being afraid. I got up in the morning afraid. I went to bed afraid. I had nightmares from hell itself.” He paused and let out a breath. “And every waking moment between, I was afraid.”
The silence in the room was punctuated only by the undercurrent of voices outside the room and by the monitoring equipment.
“I’ve never been more afraid in my life. I got to tell you that. I couldn’t take drugs the way some others could. Couldn’t deny that death might happen to me the way some managed. So every now and again, I drank till I was numb enough to go to bed and get a decent night’s sleep.” Tyrel paused. “That’s what I’d planned that night.”
“But that’s not what happened?” Shel’s voice was gentle.
“No, sir,” Tyrel answered. “That’s not what happened. What happened was Victor Gant come up in the cantina and started carrying on the way he always did. There wasn’t another man I ever met that was like him. I swear to God on that.
“He come in from being out in the jungle for three weeks. Him and all his crew. Victor Gant bagged him two targets that were on the list the CIA had given the penetration teams. They’d killed other Charlie too. We knew ’cause they had the stink of death on them. And that stink was coming from the fingers and ears they’d chopped off men they’d killed to prove it.”
“They weren’t supposed to do that.”
Tyrel laughed bitterly. “That what they tell you in the Marines? Not to take trophies?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, they told them not to in the Army too. But those men did. They did it to show that they were different, that death couldn’t come for them so casual-like, the way it did for everybody else.” Tyrel paused, surprised at how easy it was to remember some parts of that night and how other parts had eluded him for forty years. “I was pretty tanked up by then. So I went over to Victor Gant and offered to buy him a drink.
“He took me up on it. And I was drunk enough to tell him I wanted to be like him. Fearless and more dangerous than Charlie ever thought about being. He just laughed at me and told me I wasn’t killer enough yet. He said it was gonna take me a while longer ’cause he could see that I hadn’t yet got a taste for it.” Tyrel stared at the ceiling. “Do you believe that, Shel? that some men just get them a taste for killing? a craving so strong they can’t turn away from it?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve seen it.”
“Like them serial killers you hear about?”
“And others.”
“What about servicemen? You hear about them getting a taste for it too?”
“Yes, sir.”
Tyrel hesitated, not knowing where he was going next. “You’ve killed a lot of men.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They teach you not to talk about it and not to dwell on it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you?”
Shel hesitated. Tyrel heard his son’s boot scrape across the floor.
“From time to time,” Shel said, “you can’t help but think about it.”
“Do you ever wish that it didn’t touch you? that the killings you were part of weren’t part of you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s worse,” Tyrel said, “when you kill a man close-up. When you can taste his breath and feel the warmth of his blood on your face.”
Shel didn’t say anything.
That didn’t matter to Tyrel. He wasn’t in the hospital room anymore. He was back in that cantina.
›› Cantina
›› Qui Nhon, Vietnam
›› 2031 Hours
›› October 15, 1967
“I want to be like you,” Tyrel repeated, looking into Victor Gant’s cold, dead eyes. Tyrel knew he was drunk enough that he should keep his mouth shut. But he couldn’t, because if he did, the fear would get to him again. “Just like you.”
The cantina was hopping. Everybody had drawn pay and was spending part of it on hooch. And all of them had their eyes on Victor Gant and his team of hard cases.
“Careful what you wish for, Country,” Victor Gant said.
Getting called by that nickname still bothered Tyrel, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He couldn’t remember when it had started or who had given it to him-one of the sergeants, he thought-but it had stuck like road tar.
“I’m serious,” Tyrel said. He knew he was standing too close to Victor, but he couldn’t help himself. With the rock-and-roll music blasting in the background, it was hard to hear anybody in the cantina.
“Outta the man’s face,” Fat Mike said. Grizzled and thickly muscled, he stepped between Tyrel and Victor, then put a hand on Tyrel’s chest and shoved just hard enough to back him off a couple steps.
Tyrel was embarrassed, but he knew he’d been in the wrong. Still, back home he’d have come back swinging on Fat Mike for touching him. Several of the soldiers and a few of the Kit Carson scouts were watching to see what developed. Tyrel had a reputation for fighting over slights and name-calling that most men simply ignored.
Gathering himself, Tyrel pulled himself up straight. “I apologize. Didn’t mean to offend. Let me buy you a drink.”
Victor stared hard at him with those dead eyes. “I don’t drink unless my men drink with me.”
Tyrel looked at all of them. “All right then.” He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and took out a twenty-dollar bill. He pushed aside a fleeting concern that he was going to be broke by the end of the night. “I’ll buy for all of y’all.”
A slow smile spread across Victor’s face. “Much obliged, Country,” he said in that drawl that told Tyrel he wasn’t far from small towns and backwoods himself. “You can even drink that beer with us.”
A few minutes later, they were all settled at one of the back tables. Tyrel thought that every man in the cantina was envious of him.
Although Victor didn’t talk much, Fat Mike and other members of his group kept the stories flying. Tyrel hadn’t been around much, but he knew he couldn’t believe everything that was being told. Still, if even half of it was true…
During a lull in the conversation, Dennis Hinton walked into the cantina.
Tyrel was a little surprised. Denny wasn’t one to go and hang out in the bars, and he sure stayed away from the women
. Some said it was because of his raising, that his daddy was a preacher out of Alabama. There were others who said Denny preferred reefer to alcohol. Tyrel wasn’t sure who had the right of it, but he did know that Denny hadn’t ever come into the cantina with him.
“Denny,” Tyrel said, pushing up from the table. “Denny. Over here.”
Fat Mike snagged the front of Tyrel’s shirt and yanked him back down into his chair.
“That ain’t cool, man,” Fat Mike said. “If you’re gonna sit at this table, you’re gonna sit here by our rules. And one of them rules is that you don’t act like an idiot.”
“But that’s my friend,” Tyrel protested.
“Maybe you want to go be with your friend,” Fat Mike suggested.
Tyrel was debating on that. He’d bought the first round and two more besides. He really was going to be broke by the end of the night. He honestly didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to afford to sit in that chair.
“No,” Victor said in that quiet voice of his, “let it alone, Fat Mike. Let him invite his friend over if he wants.”
“But that-” At a glance from Victor, Fat Mike shut his mouth and sat there silently.
Victor shifted his attention to Tyrel. “Invite your friend over, Country. I’ll buy the next round.”
Tyrel stood again. “Hey, Denny. Come on over. Victor said he’s buyin’.”
Denny hesitated a moment, then walked over. One of the other men hooked a chair over with his foot. Denny sat, but he didn’t look comfortable.
Proud of himself and his new friends, Tyrel just grinned and ordered another beer when Victor offered.
›› Atwater Apartment Building
›› Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
›› 0911 Hours
“Why did Victor Gant want Dennis Hinton to sit with them?” Maggie asked.
Richard McGovern shook his head. “Lady, I didn’t know everything Victor was doin’ back then. How’m I supposed to know now?”
The man was lying. Maggie knew that with certainty. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was lying about, but she knew the deception was there all the same.
“We all thought it was a joke,” McGovern said. “Most of us knew Hinton didn’t drink. He had him a good dose of religion. That and a good attitude. The way he acted, you’d have thought he could walk on water.”
