by Mark Gimenez
“I want to come home. I want my daughter to come home. I want God to give us a second chance.”
It was not easy being a Catholic priest these days. With so many priests being convicted of sexual assault on children and the Catholic Church becoming the favorite whipping boy of plaintiffs’ lawyers, he had often thought of quitting. What good was he doing? He was spending more time testifying in depositions than spreading the word of God via Masses and his website and the CDs and audiotapes and tee shirts. And did anyone really believe in God anymore? In Satan? That there truly was a daily battle between good and evil waged within our souls and for our souls? Had he saved even one soul in fifteen years? Now an odd sensation came over him and he knew: God was giving him his chance.
“Evil took me ten years ago,” Mrs. Brice said. “It won’t let go of my life.”
“Because you don’t possess the power to fight evil. Faith is our only defense to evil—we fight evil with faith.”
“But why my daughter?”
Father Randy now said words he did not understand: “Because there is a bond you and Gracie share, a bond with evil that must be broken.”
“Yes, there is. Father, how do I break this bond?”
“You don’t. Someone must die for the bond to be broken.”
“No! Don’t take her!”
The woman jumped up and barged out the door and opened the door to his side of the confessional. She lunged at him and grabbed the big silver crucifix hanging down the front of his vestment. Her eyes were wild.
“God, take me instead!”
“Patty, can you hear me?”
No answer.
Junior’s mouth was at the opening of the air vent and his hands were cupped around both, so she could damn well hear him. She was just being stubborn.
“You learn your lesson?”
Still no answer.
“Giving me the silent treatment, huh? I used to try that on the major when he put me down there, but he didn’t buy it then and I ain’t buying it now. You hear me?”
Silence from below.
“Okay, we’ll see how stubborn you are after another night down there.”
Junior stood and walked back to the cabin.
8:29 P.M.
FBI Special Agent Jan Jorgenson walked into her apartment to a ringing phone. She answered; it was Sheriff J. D. Johnson from Boundary County, Idaho. He confirmed that the colonel and John Brice were in Bonners Ferry.
“They think the girl’s up on a mountain. Place called Red Ridge.”
“I think she’s up there, too.”
“Thought the FBI closed the case when the abductor hanged himself?”
“We were wrong. Sheriff, you ever heard of Major Charles Woodrow Walker.”
“Hell, yes, I heard of him. You people arrested him over at the hospital what, ten years back? Don’t know what happened to him after that.”
“He died in Mexico. Do you know about his court-martial?”
“Vaguely, something about a massacre in Vietnam?”
“Yes. Place called Quang Tri. Colonel Brice testified against him.”
“Don’t tell me this major was part of a team code-named Viper?”
“He commanded it.”
“Damn. Colonel Brice found their camp all right. Said this was about an old score. Guess that’s what he meant.”
“Major Walker’s son abducted the girl, but not because of Colonel Brice. Because the mother was one of his father’s prosecutors. The others are all dead, except Mrs. Brice and the president.”
“The president?”
“Yes, President McCoy. He was the FBI Director back then.”
“Well, Colonel Brice done found your boy and that’s probably a good thing.”
“Why's that?”
“Because he don’t have to play by our rules.”
“In Indian territory, Lieutenant, we make our own rules. First rule, we don’t follow command’s bullshit rules, particularly the rules of engagement that say we can’t fire on the enemy unless we’re fired upon first. No one gets a free shot at Viper team. We kill them before they kill us.
“Second rule, they all look the same, the enemy we’re supposed to kill and the civilians we’re supposed to save. NVA regulars, they’ll be in uniform. But not VC. They’re guerrillas, fathers and sons of the peasant class. Out in the bush, you won’t know whether a peasant is going to welcome you or shoot you until he does. When in doubt, shoot the gook.
“Third rule, a conscience is a dangerous thing in a shooting war. Your conscience can get you killed—that’s your business. But your conscience can get your team members killed—that’s my business. Leave your conscience right here in Saigon. Don’t take it out in the bush. Out there, ain’t no right or wrong. There’s killing the enemy or going home in a body bag.”
The major finishes his meal and pushes his plate aside.
“Fourth rule, and the most important rule to remember: you’re not fighting this war for the American people. They don’t give a damn about you or this war or these people or the Communist threat to the world. They’re back home smoking dope and making love not war and enjoying the peace and prosperity we provide them. Don’t ever expect support from civilians.
“You’re fighting this war for your Army. The West Point Army. Because your Army does give a damn about fighting this war and stopping Communism at the Seventeenth Parallel. Your Army understands the threat of Communism. Your Army knows that American civilians won’t get behind the fight against Communism in the world until Russian atomic bombs detonate over New York. Then they’ll come crying to us to save them and preserve their peace and prosperity and fight for their freedom. And we will—we are now, they just don’t know it. But your Army does. Your Army will stand in the door for you, your Army won’t abandon you when the going gets tough, your Army will never betray you.”
The major’s crystal blue eyes are boring into Ben’s.
“And you, Lieutenant Ben Brice, must never betray your Army.”
“Yes, sir.”
1 Dec 68. The American Bar on Tu Do Street in Saigon, South Vietnam, is noisy with the sounds of rock-and-roll music and giggling Asian dolls and drunken American officers. Lieutenant Ben Brice is in awe of the man sitting across the table. Charles Woodrow Walker graduated from the Academy fifteen years before Ben, but Ben knows all about him, as does every cadet who attended West Point after the major. Charles Woodrow Walker, they say, is the next MacArthur.
“I wanted you on my team,” the major says, “because your commanding officer at Fort Bragg says you’re the best damn sniper he’s ever seen. You got your Viper tattoo, now you get this.” The major pushes a long flat package across the table to Ben. “Welcome to SOG team Viper.”
Ben opens the package. Inside is a shiny Bowie knife with VIPER etched into the wide eleven-inch-long blade.
“Every man on Viper team carries a Bowie. Stick that in a gook’s gut, guaranteed to ruin his whole fucking day.”
“Yes, sir.”
The major hands Ben a small ID card with Ben’s photo, name, rank, blood type, and serial number—and words in bold type:
MILITARY ASSISTANCE COMMAND VIETNAM
STUDIES AND OBSERVATION GROUP
THE PERSON WHO IS IDENTIFIED BY THIS DOCUMENT
IS ACTING UNDER THE DIRECT ORDERS OF THE
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!
DO NOT DETAIN OR QUESTION HIM!
“Your ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card,” the major says. “We report directly to the president. No one fucks with SOG.”
“Yes, sir.”
The major drinks his beer then says, “The Academy, Brice, is a great school. But forget every damn thing you learned there. The wars they taught you about, World War One, Two, Korea, they’re not this war. Everything you learned over there don’t mean dick over here. In this war, napalm is your best friend.”
A middle-aged American officer with a Viet bargirl under each arm stops at their table. Ben sees three silver stars and ju
mps up and salutes the lieutenant general. The major barely lifts his eyes then returns to his beer.
“The great Major Charles Woodrow Walker,” the general says with slurred speech. “A legend in his own mind.”
The major drinks his beer then says to Ben, “Last time a Saigon commando interrupted my dinner, I slapped his butt into the next lunar new year.”
The girls giggle and the general’s face turns red: “You stand and salute me, goddamn it! I outrank you!”
The major turns his full attention on the general, who recoils slightly.
“First of all, General, I don’t salute rear-echelon officers who ain’t gonna get any closer to a Communist in this war than fucking these Viet Minh girls. And second, as long as I’m in-country, only the president outranks me. You got a problem, call him.”
The general appears as if he’s about to explode, but he says nothing as he storms off.
“American soldiers are dying this very minute fighting the Communists. The general, he sits here in Saigon, lying about body counts to the press, more worried about Walter Cronkite than Ho Chi Minh.”
He shakes his head with disdain.
“We move out at dawn, hop a slick to Dak To, meet the team. Then up to Lang Vei, get our gear together, hike into Laos the next day. Tchepone, thirty klicks into Indian territory. Intelligence says there’s a major convoy moving down the trail. We’re gonna stop it.”
Ben is too excited to eat. The major has over one hundred missions into enemy territory under his belt. One hundred! And Ben Brice will be on the next one. The great adventure begins.
“That’s the war you’ve come ten thousand miles to fight.” He smiles, as if he’s made a joke. “What do you say, Lieutenant—last chance to change your mind, stay here in Saigon and enjoy the amenities?”
The major reaches out and grabs a beautiful young Viet girl as she walks by their table and pulls her onto his lap.
“Like Ling here. Most beautiful women in the world, Viets. You want one? I’m buying.”
The bar’s proprietress, Madame Le, elegantly dressed and beautiful and preceded by perfume more intoxicating than the bourbon, arrives at their table for the second time that evening, rests her dainty hand with its manicured red fingernails on Ben’s shoulder, and says in the English she learned at the finest finishing schools in France:
“Ain’t never seen you cowboys in here before.”
Ben blinked hard several times to clear his head of the major and the American Bar and Asian dolls and Saigon; when his eyes focused again, he was looking at a woman’s hand on his shoulder, anything but dainty with fingernails that had been chewed down to the nub. He turned his eyes up to the woman’s face; she had an alcoholic’s complexion with a wrinkle for every year of her life. She reeked of tobacco and cheap whiskey. She was no Madame Le.
“You boys want some company?” She jutted a hefty hip their way—“I got a Saturday night two-fer special”—and smiled as demurely as one could without a front tooth.
“No thanks,” Ben said. The woman seemed offended. So he forced a smile and added, “Nothing personal.”
Her eyes narrowed and moved from Ben to John and back.
“We’re gay,” John blurted out. “Yeah, we’re, uh, we’re in the movie business.”
“Oh,” the woman said. She seemed satisfied and left.
Ben turned to John. “We’re gay?”
John shrugged. “Hey, it got rid of her.”
They had been sitting on bar stools in Rusty’s for more than an hour. The place was a dive. Country music played on the juke box. The floors were wood and sprinkled with sawdust. Neon lights glowed above the bar and a small TV played silently behind the bar. Pool tables crowded one corner. A few hard looking men and harder looking women populated the place.
Ben saw in the mirror behind the bar that the woman had tried her luck with a table of four brutes. She gestured back at Ben and John and said something to the men. They laughed. His eyes moved to the front door. A burly man, white, maybe a few years younger than Ben, wearing fatigues, boots, and an old green military jacket, entered, stumbled over to the bar, and sat down hard two stools away from Ben. His face was battered.
“The hell happened to you, Bubba?” the bartender asked him.
“Junior hit me with a goddamn shovel.”
Bubba spoke in a Southern accent. He removed his jacket. He was wearing a short-sleeve tee shirt, exposing part of a tattoo you could only get in Saigon. The bartender placed a beer and three shots of tequila in front of Bubba without being asked.
Bubba downed the first shot, shuddered as the tequila hit his system, and said, “Al, Junior done kicked me outta camp.”
Al the bartender laughed. “What’d you do this time?”
Bubba swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “The Viet dolls wasn’t no older, don’t see why he’s so pissed off. She’s on the rag, she’s old enough to fuck.”
Ben grabbed John’s knee to keep him from reacting. Bubba swallowed the second shot.
“The hell I’m supposed to sleep tonight?”
“Go on back out there,” Al said.
The third shot and a shake of his head. “Can’t. Mountain is booby trapped.”
“Okay, Bubba,” Al the bartender said, “you can sleep here, but not on the goddamned pool table like last time.” Al turned and walked away, shaking his head. “Booby traps.” As he passed Ben and John he said, “Those boys don’t know the war’s been over thirty years.”
Ben was plotting out a strategy with Bubba when he heard a drunken voice: “Hey, girlfriend, how about a blow job?”
Ben turned. One of the brutes, the biggest of the bunch, was standing there; his hand was resting on John’s shoulder. John’s face was frozen.
Little Johnny Brice had gotten the crap beat out of him at least once a week, sometimes twice. But the closest John R. Brice had ever come to a fistfight was a couple of years ago after a brain-damaged bagbiter driving a black Beemer had rear-ended him on the tollway, trashing John’s new Corvette, then offloaded his big self and called John a moron. Without considering the possible consequences, John had retorted: “I’m a moron? I’ve got a 190 IQ, a Ph.D. from MIT, and my own Internet company I’m gonna take public! What advanced degrees do you have, dude?” That had shut the dude up.
But it occurred to John now that informing this oversized meatbot standing over him of his IQ, advanced degrees, and highly successful IPO might not have the same effect in rural Idaho as it did in suburban Dallas. As a result, he was suddenly paralyzed by the familiar feeling of masculine inferiority. Little Johnny Brice looked to Ben.
“Walk away,” Ben said to the man.
John saw none of his fear in Ben’s eyes. But the cretin was too drunk to notice. He took a single step toward Ben; John knew that was a mistake. The man’s eyes suddenly bugged and he let out a guttural groan. John looked down. Ben’s boot was embedded in the man’s groin. The man crouched over, like an old man with a bad back, his hands cupped his genitals, and his face contorted with that particularly excruciating pain associated with having your balls busted. Ben stood, grabbed him by the shoulders, turned him around, and gently pushed him toward his table. The man stumbled over; his giggling buddies helped him sit down.
Little Johnny Brice wanted to be a man like Ben.
Ben sat down and nodded at Bubba. “Can’t abide a rude drunk,” he said.
Bubba drained his beer, belched, and said, “Me either.”
“Your tattoo,” Ben said. “Highlands or Delta?”
“Delta. You?”
“Highlands,” Ben said.
“Green Beret?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, kiss my ass. How long was you in-country?”
“Seven years.”
Bubba shook his head. “I only got two tours. Would’ve stayed the whole damn war, but I got into a little trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Killing the wrong people kind of trou
ble.” Bubba paused. “Seventy-one, night op south of Cao Lanh, free-fire zone. We rocked ‘n’ rolled.”
Free-fire zone meant anything that moved was fair game, man, woman, or beast. Rock ‘n’ roll meant putting your weapon on full auto and firing indiscriminately.
“Sun come up, we see we didn’t kill no VC, only women and kids.” He shrugged. “Shit happens, man, it was a shooting war. Army discharged my ass ’cause of all the bad publicity over Quang Tri and My Lai.” Bubba sighed heavily and said, “Best years of my life.”
“What’d you do after the Army?” Ben asked.
“Went back home to Mississippi, but it weren’t the same, all that civil rights bullshit, niggers acting like they owned the goddamned place, Feds fuckin’ with us. So I come out west, hooked up with these boys, been here ever since. We got us a camp out on Red Ridge. Full squad. All Green Beret except Junior.”
Twelve men. “That the Junior kicked you out of the camp?”
Bubba frowned and nodded. “Asshole. He ain’t never even been in the Army. But it’s his mountain.”
“So what are you boys doing bunkered up in the mountains?”
Bubba leaned in close; his breath was hot with the tequila.
“We’re fixin’ to change the world, podna. Big time.” Bubba looked past Ben and said, “Your friend wants more.”
Ben glanced at the mirror behind the bar and saw the big brute approaching almost at a sprint; he was wielding a beer bottle like a club. When he raised the bottle above his head, Ben spun to his right. The bottle smashed on the bar instead of Ben’s head. Ben drove the heel of his boot into the outside of the man’s right knee; a sharp pop signaled the snapping of ligaments. The man collapsed, hit the floor hard, and writhed in pain. Ben sat back down next to Bubba, who snorted at the drunk on the floor.
“He won’t be running track no more.” He held out a meaty hand. “I’m Bubba.”
Ben shook Bubba’s hand. “I’m Buddy.”
Bubba’s face brightened. “My daddy’s name was Buddy, how ’bout that? What brings you to Idaho, Buddy?”
“Hunting.”
“Well, Buddy, we got some damn good huntin’—deer, mountain lion, bear. Killed me a fine buck yesterday. Junior, he’ll let me come back in a day or two, once he calms down about his little bitch. You wanna come out, do some huntin’, meet the boys?”
