Jamie kept staring at me. I couldn't believe how calmly it all came out. Even with the profanity, I found myself speaking in an almost conversational tone about burning a house to the ground and killing everyone inside. No one at any of the nearby tables even glanced my way, although I was glad for a moment that I was speaking English.
Our waitress walked by, and Jamie turned to catch her attention. I heard him ask for a bottle of cognac in passable French.
"I didn't know you spoke French."
"There's a lot you don't know."
"When did you learn it?"
"I was in Vietnam for almost four years, William. Before they kicked our asses, they beat up on these poor fuckers for a decade. Along with learning Vietnamese, we were encouraged to pick up a little French as well; it was easier for some of the guys, especially the college kids or the guys who went to good high schools; some of them had a little classroom French before they joined up."
The waitress brought us a bottle of Remy Martin XO and portioned out a fair measure into a pair of balloon snifters. Jamie picked his up, gave it a slow swirl, breathed in the aromas, and then imbibed half the glass in one long swallow.
"I think we're going to need the whole bottle, William."
I took a sip from my own snifter. It was like drinking smooth liquid flame. Fitting for our topic of conversation.
"So you agree with me."
"In principle, yes."
"What do you mean, 'in principle'? I would figure you'd be all over this idea. Hell, I'm amazed you aren't the one proposing it to me. Double hell, I'm actually amazed you aren't there right now, doing the deed, instead of here talking to me."
"Why is that?"
"You know why. You were in Vietnam. You've killed people before."
Jamie's face grew hard.
"Vietnam was war. I was eighteen when I signed up, and the world seemed a much simpler place when viewed through those eyes. I'm not the same guy I was back then, and I know the world isn't a simple place. In fact, it never was. You don't just go and burn people out of their own homes, not if you want to still think of yourself as the good guy."
"So you never did anything like that? Never burned ‘Charlie’ out of his hut and shot them dead as they tried to escape the flames?"
I realized I was beginning to sound like an asshole, but I didn't care. My blood was up and I was really beginning to feel the wine. The cognac wasn't helping matters.
Jamie finished his snifter, refilled it with a healthy pour. He picked the glass up, balloon cupped in his hand, and stared into the golden depths of the liquid like it was a crystal ball.
"The VC and NVA were experts at using the natural environment to their advantage. They would dig tunnel systems underground, vast networks, whole bases. You could walk a recon team right over their fucking heads and not have the foggiest clue there were two hundred guys right under your feet.
"Back in 1970, one of our recon teams provided us the location of this little hideaway, supposedly a whole company-sized body of NVA were entrenched in one of these underground bases, just over the Laotian border. My hatchet force, perhaps a hundred guys divvied up into a dozen Kingbee helicopters, we go out there, and sure enough, we find signs of these little fuckers buried in deep; ventilation tubes disguised as hollow tree trunks, hidden hatches, the works.
"So we all spread out, make sure we've got as many exits covered as we can, and we decide to tear gas these assholes out of their nest. Pop a dozen CS canisters down their ventilation tubes. Follow those with a couple of smokers, even a white phosphorous grenade or two. Those are incendiaries, burn so hot they can turn a tank to slag in minutes. We spent a good two hours just dumping grenades down those holes and waiting to see a whole mess of dinks boiling out of those hatches so we could cut them down; had a couple of M-60's set up to cover the most likely exits and everything.
"Problem was, none of those little fuckers came out. We waited, and waited, and finally the hatchet force leader, this lieutenant of ours, he gets all impatient and orders one of the Nung mercenaries we fought with to go on in and scout around. Gives him a Tokarev pistol and a flashlight and sends him in, tells him to be back out in ten minutes. Time passes, we don't see the guy. Ten turns to twenty, no show. We wait a whole half hour, then the LT sends in three more guys, down into different tunnel entrances. Same deal, no one comes back. The Nungs are starting to spook, and even us Berets are getting nervous.
"So I ask my best tunnel guy, little Hispanic fellow from Tuscon, Javier. He's got his .45 auto, fighting knife, couple of frags if it's desperate, his flashlight. He's a stone-cold motherfucker, that little dude. I'd personally seen him kill two dozen men. I can see he's thinking the Nungs are pussies, they're lost or got caught by a booby trap, or ran into each other in the dark and bam bam bam, party's over. He's thinking this is going to be a piece of cake.
"So down into the hole Javier goes, pistol in one hand, flashlight in the other, and I'm at the entrance, got the hatch propped open, a flashlight on his ass in one hand, and my CAR-15 tucked into the crook of my elbow in the other, set to full-auto, ready to cover him if he comes squirming out of there in a hurry. I see his boots disappear around a corner, maybe fifteen feet in, and by now I'm halfway into the hole myself, so I can see in the dark better. I see his feet go around the bend, and not ten seconds later, I hear that .45 go wild, hear Javier empty those seven rounds so fast you think he'd had a submachine gun, not a pistol. I hear all those shots, and I give him a holler, ask if he's okay.
"I get no response. Nothing. Seconds go by. Minutes. I'm contemplating throwing a frag in there, but on the off chance that Javier is still alive, I hold back. But after twenty minutes, I know he's not coming out again. None of us have any idea how they were doing it, but those assholes down there; all the gas and smoke and fire we dumped down those holes, didn't stir them up one bit. They just waited it out, knew eventually we'd send someone in to take a look, and started making those guys disappear."
I sat there, almost numb. It was the most Jamie had ever revealed to me about Vietnam. I don't even know if he'd told that much to my dad before.
"So what did you do?" I asked.
Jamie smiled at me, gazed back into his glass. "Lieutenant called in a couple of our Kingbee helicopters. Had them chopper in as many artillery shells as they could get their hands on, a whole mess of demo charges, whole shit-ton of thermite incendiary charges. All in all probably a good five tons of explosives. We spent the rest of the day packing every entrance we could find with shells and explosives and thermite, and everything we had left, we just went around, dug a few feet into the ground, dropped a charge in, packed it down with earth. Wired the whole fucking place up like Bill Murray in Caddyshack, going after the gopher.
"Once we had all that in place, we pulled back, good two hundred meters or so, maintaining our perimeter best we could, and then we set that shit off. It was like seeing a football field just disappear in a shower of grass and dirt and trees. Once everything settled back to earth, it looked like one of those pictures you see of a newly-tilled field, just dark moist churned earth. But no bodies. No fragments of bodies, no bones or blood. There was some broken gear, some wooden supports, a few feet of electrical cable here or there, but no bodies at all, not even Javier or the Nungs."
"So what then?" I asked.
Jamie shrugged. "We said fuck it. Packed up, headed home. Wrote up in a report that we lost four Nungs and one SOG member and killed a hundred entrenched NVA, destroyed all their weapons and communications equipment, and sterilized their underground base of operations. That lieutenant of ours got a medal for it, too. As the highest-ranking man on the scene, it was technically his gig. We never did find out what was going on down in those tunnels though."
Jamie went quiet then, and took another long sip from his glass.
"Thank you for sharing that with me," I said. "I'd never heard anything like that from you before."
"William, there's a reason I don't talk a
bout the war," Jamie replied. "I didn't spend all those years in another country; I was on another goddamn planet. In another solar system. Shit, another galaxy. Whole other fucking universe, even. There was a different kind of reality at work over there, so alien in how you thought about everything that when you come back to the Real World, this is the place that doesn't seem real anymore. It took me years, decades to work it out of my system enough that I felt I was fit to be around normal people again, and even now I don't feel quite right about it."
We were both silent for a few long minutes. I wondered what Jamie was trying to say, how I should ask him about his decision. Jamie refilled both our snifters, the bottle of cognac now half gone, and kept staring into his glass, possibly reliving the moment he saw Javier's boots go around that corner, seeing him for the last time over and over again. Maybe that's how he saw me, how I thought it was going to be a simple task, and Jamie knowing it'd be the end of me.
Finally I couldn't hold back any longer.
"Well, what's your answer?" I asked.
Jamie shook his head, the movement so small as to be almost unnoticeable.
"Doing what you ask, I'd be going back to that place, living in that alternate reality once more. I think it'd kill me to live like that a second time and then have to come back and readjust all over again. I'm too old, and finally at peace with myself. I'm sorry, I just can't do it."
I looked off into the distance, out to the edge of the horizon, west towards the States and the Paggianos and their shoreside mansion. I imagined I had a telescope that could look over the curvature of the earth and see their great house sitting up on its cliff, see the waves breaking white down below.
"I understand, Jamie,” I said, not looking back at him. "But if you're not going to help me, I'm going to do it on my own. I owe it to mom and dad and Danielle."
I could hear Jamie let out a long breath, similar to the sound he made on the phone when he told me the news of what happened.
"Maybe I won't help you, William..."
I turned back and looked at my uncle, a small, sad smile on his face.
"But I know someone who can."
FOUR
We spent the rest of our time in Calais speaking of nothing consequential, and we were similarly quiet on the flight back to the States the next day. I spent most of it sleeping, and the few times I awoke Jamie was just staring out the window. When we landed in Bangor, the drive back to Jamie's cabin along Moosehead Lake was similarly silent. Only a few brief and meaningless comments were traded between the two of us, the ride interrupted just once by a quick stop at a small grocery store along the way.
I had never seen Jamie's cabin. It was tucked into a grove of large evergreens right on the edge of the water, a small natural cove with a short wooden dock leading out into deep water, an 18-foot Boston Whaler tied alongside. Jamie drove us back from the airport in his Jeep Cherokee, but there was a battered Ford Ranger pickup parked next to the cabin, probably used for hauling firewood or similarly rugged chores. The cabin was single-story with an enclosed porch facing the water, a carport for the Cherokee, and a large shed nearby.
Inside, the cabin was surprisingly light on all the stereotypical macho man woodsy bullshit I would have imagined; there were no trophy animal heads hanging from the walls, no paintings of wolves or snow-capped mountains, no bearskin rugs or chandeliers made of antlers. The inner walls were paneled, the floors hardwood, the ceiling low and open to the rafters, with a low sloping roof. There was a brick fireplace with a large pile of firewood taking up most of one living room wall.
There were a couple of small paintings hung here and there, but nothing garish or tacky. Instead, most of the wall decorations were photos set in small collections of two or four to a frame. Looking closer, I saw that they were all of young, lean men in fatigues with weapons, photos Jamie must have taken during the war. I found my uncle in a couple of photos, and his appearance was a little shocking, the way the war had made him so feral-looking. I’d seen photos of Jamie in high school, and you could have mistaken us for brothers. We had the same straight black hair, the bright blue eyes, fair skin, straight nose and boyish smile. Just a few years later, the same features were there, but the boy had been replaced by a two-legged predator in jungle fatigues.
There were other items framed and hung around the cabin, including a faded bit of unit insignia and a uniform patch, as well as a tattered military-style contour map. There were even a couple of what I assumed to be propaganda leaflets printed by the North Vietnamese, in broken and barely understandable English. The leaflets attempted to convince the American G.I.s that their government was throwing their lives away on a cause their families and loved ones would never approve. Guess the joke's on us, I figured, since those propaganda leaflets were just about spot-on.
I noticed that Jamie didn't have a television set, but he did have a very retro-70's high-fidelity stereo system with a turntable, 8-track deck and AM/FM tuner, big silver dials and all. In the corner next to the stereo there was a bookshelf filled top to bottom with dozens upon dozens of vinyl records.
"No television?" I asked.
"Television never tells me anything I want to hear anymore. 'Sides, the reception up here is shit, and I don't feel like paying for cable. I want news, I tune into the right station, or just pick up a paper on my way to the shop."
There were a few concessions to more modern living. I saw the bulbs in most of the lights were fluorescent, and although Jamie didn't have a microwave, his refrigerator and gas range were both very nice and very modern. A toaster oven and a little espresso machine occupied the polished granite counter top. I looked at Jamie with a raised eyebrow and gestured to the espresso maker.
"Vietnamese coffee gets brewed really strong, and I got used to it. Espresso machine makes it the way I like it,” he replied.
"I might join you, then. I loved the coffee in France. Americans can't brew a cup of beans to save their lives."
"The French introduced the Vietnamese to coffee."
"Cool."
Jamie didn't have a guest room, but one of his couches was long and comfy enough to suit me just fine. I didn't have much luggage to begin with. I just tucked my suitcase in a corner and threw my bookbag onto the couch.
I turned to Jamie. "It's weird. This is the only place left for me that I could technically call home anymore, and I've never seen it before today."
Jamie let out an indiscernible grunt. "Want a beer?"
"Thought you'd never ask."
Jamie produced a pair of bottles from the fridge, a couple of Sam Adams lagers. I took one from him gratefully and flopped down onto the couch. Jamie collapsed into a chair nearby. We both sat for a moment, staring off into space. Jamie raised his beer into the air.
"To family."
I raised mine. "To family."
I took a long pull off the bottle, then another. There is something strangely comforting in the simple act of two guys sitting and having a beer together, no need for idle chitchat, no attitude or posturing, just enjoying a cold beer and some friendly quiet.
Finally I turned to Jamie. "How long ago did you build this place?"
"Right around the time you were born. I don't think it had been finished when Michael called to tell me you had been delivered."
"I like it, it's simple and comfortable."
"That's all I want, and all I need."
"We pile a lot of unnecessary crap onto our plates these days, don't we?"
"Truer words, kid, were never spoken."
We sat for a few more minutes in quiet reverie, finishing our beers. Finally Jamie looked down at his empty bottle, over at mine, and stood up.
"You've never used a handgun before, have you?"
"I've never even held a gun, never mind used one."
"Wait here a minute."
Jamie set his bottle on the kitchen counter and walked off into another room. I heard him some distance away, moving things around. A quiet current began to hum thro
ugh me, like the sound of a refrigerator running in the background that you noticed only when it turned on or off.
Jamie emerged a few minutes later with a cardboard shoebox in his hands. "Bring your beer bottle. Actually, throw yours and mine in the bottle bin next to the fridge, and bring 'em all with you."
I did as instructed and followed Jamie as he went out the front door. I saw him put the shoebox in the back of his Jeep. We drove for about five minutes, and then turned down a gravel road, heading away from the lake and off into the wilderness. I noticed there weren't any cabins or signs of habitation along the road, and after another two or three minutes of bumpy driving, we pulled into a horseshoe-shaped pit of earth and gravel.
"Although nothing would have come of us going into the backyard and shooting there, the sound would carry a little too well over the water. Easier to come back here so I don't annoy my neighbors."
We got out of the car. I went for the bin in the back seat, while Jamie picked up the shoebox. He dragged a bullet-riddled stump over and put it in the middle of the gravel pit. I could see this was a popular place for people to come and target shoot; there were spent casings all over the ground, in all shapes and sizes.
"Put three or four bottles on the stump," Jamie instructed.
When I walked back to the hood of the car, Jamie was taking a handgun out of the shoebox. It was a revolver of blued steel, not particularly large, with polished wooden grips.
"Watch what I do," he said.
Jamie pressed a button on the side and hinged out the cylinder. From inside the box he plucked six bullets, and one by one, slipped them into the cylinder, closing the revolver back up once it was loaded. He held the pistol up in front of me so I could see it clearly.
Killer Instincts v5 Page 5
