UNBREAKABLE (Murder on the Mekong, Book 1): Vietnam War Psychological Thriller

by Hart Rivers

  Izzy didn’t wait to hear more. It was blindingly bright and ungodly hot as their team raced toward the huge sound of choppers coming down, their exhaust mixed with shouting and screaming and crying of wounded men coming in directly from a battle. Medics hurried from all directions to the stretchers to get the bloody, wounded, and burned off the helicopters so the next aircraft already hovering overhead could descend and unload more.

  Gregg and JD grabbed a stretcher, headed toward surgery with Kohn. Robert David joined a triage team while Sergeant Washington, built like an NFL linebacker, grabbed the end of yet another stretcher with a soldier close to his own size, and yelled for Bayer and Izzy to grab the other end together.

  Izzy did as instructed, grateful to have someone tell him what to do in this frenzy that had them rushing to the ER with a kid who couldn’t be more than twenty, and so horribly burnt his lips looked like melted puddles of wax that semi-intelligibly moaned, “Please, man, help me, please I can’t see, do I still have my eyes?”

  “Talk to him, Doc, talk to him,” urged Washington.

  Izzy made himself look down at the oozing place where eyes were meant to be and choked back breakfast as he told the young soldier, “I’m here, right here with you, and I’m a doctor so you can trust me. You made it, you are at the hospital, and you are going to be okay.”

  Izzy could only pray the kid believed the lie. If by some cursed miracle he lived, the only visible thing that wasn’t burned or disfigured was the left hand he somehow found the fortitude to lift, begging, “Doc? I’m so scared. I don’t want to die, but I’m more afraid of the news killing my ma if I do.”

  Izzy took the kid’s hand, held it, and the moment slowed for Izzy as he realized they were joined in some sort of tenderness, the young man holding his hand as he’d once held his own father’s as he crossed a street as a young child, full of belief and confidence that whatever was hurtling towards them or swirling around them was halted by the sanctuary of their joined grip.

  “I got the stretcher, Doc.” Hertz suddenly showed up and grabbed the other handle Izzy was still holding onto, allowing him to free up both hands. “You bring him in, keep talking.”

  Izzy moved to the side, never letting go of the hand he covered protectively now with both of his. “We’ve got you. I am right here with you. We are taking you right through this, son. You are going to make it. We have you.”

  And then they were in the receiving area of the hospital. White light and a blast of cool air from real air conditioning, it felt almost like a real hospital, but then the reality of the scene hit Izzy. It was a painting of a white hell splashed with blood and green jungle fatigues being cut off the bodies of mostly young men charred black and oozing red who were screaming and sobbing and crying. The decibel level of suffering so stunned him that Izzy could feel himself splitting off to some safe place of numbness—but then he felt again the hand he was holding, gently squeezed back and leaned over the young soldier and promised:

  “I am right here, right here with you, and you are going to make it.”

  Almost exactly twenty-four hours later the catatonic patient lay on his back staring at the ceiling in the numbness his mind had created to protect him from what he had decided was unspeakable.

  Izzy struggled to focus. He had to keep reminding himself they weren’t in a bloodbath room; that at least he didn’t have to break the news to a heartbroken mother who would never know her son had died holding the hand of a doctor who didn’t even know his name. Or the name of the one after that or after that…

  “Izzy?” It was Gregg, sitting between JD and Colonel Kohn in front of the patient, gently calling Izzy back to the present with that quiet, comforting voice he should be hoarse from using that endless day before.

  Izzy nodded, letting Gregg know he was functional.

  JD gave him a discreet thumb up sign of encouragement.

  Although JD was about as much a real doctor as Betty Crocker was a cook, he had a way of imparting confidence. Izzy appreciated that as a particular kind of gift, even knowing JD’s presence was owed to hoping the catatonic Lt. Wilson might reveal something to assist in the case once the sodium pentothal procedure commenced. As for how things were commencing on JD’s end, who knew? Besides a fleeting mention of bringing them along to an area called the Highlands, thus far he had only asked his two recruits to generate some character sketches for prolific killers into mutilation and slipped Izzy a list of questions since the colonel had forbade JD from speaking during the procedure.

  Izzy was about to look at his hands again from his position of privacy behind the examining table, when the exam room door opened. Robert David, Peck, Margie, and the techs lined up behind the front row to observe. Sergeant Washington came in last and Izzy welcomed the large man’s presence beside him. They had worked side-by-side throughout yesterday’s endless nightmare and Izzy couldn’t imagine anyone he would rather have as a cellmate in hell. Even with the Sergeant holding steady by his side, the room felt crowded and hot and a lot like a make-it-or-break-it test of some kind that Izzy had a gut deep terror of failing.

  He could feel the critical eyes of Peck looking at him. He remembered Margie telling him that Nikki had several bruises she tried to pass off as bumping into a filing cabinet at the Red Cross a few days before. Margie wasn’t buying it. Neither was Izzy.

  Yeah. He was glad Peck wasn’t doing the procedure. He just wished he could get his nerves to settle down so he wasn’t gripping the examination table like a man clinging to a ledge. Maybe he could get amply calm by narrating the steps, verbally remind himself he had the A-B-Cs of the procedure down as he went.

  Sergeant Washington extended surgical gloves and Izzy put them on as best he could while he tried to stay focused on keeping his voice steady, not rushing his words as he typically did when he got nervous.

  “Thank you, Sergeant Washington,” Izzy began, and immediately wondered what puppet master was controlling his vocal chords because he sounded perfectly normal, even pleasant. “And a big welcome to the gallery. Lieutenant Wilson is prepped and ready. Despite appearances to the contrary, we have cause to believe that patients afflicted with this rare condition can hear and understand everything around them, so the Lieutenant and I had a nice little chat about this procedure earlier. Didn’t we, Lieutenant?” Silence. “Now, Lieutenant Wilson, as I said before, I’m Dr. Moskowitz and this morning we are going to try to retrieve some of your memory. What I will do first is inject the medicine…”

  Izzy pointed the needle that seemed huge even to him into the air, careful to keep it out of Wilson’s frozen peripheral vision. Margie nodded. Her silent support was almost enough to believe he truly was capable of controlling the jittering needle long enough to competently find the vein. But what if you miss, what if you stab him with it instead? Just look at your hands—no, no don’t look at your hands.

  Somehow he kept talking in his freakishly conversational voice, buying time. “And we want to very carefully site the needle at the exact point of entry so that the needle is entering the vein and…” And all he could imagine was that if he jabbed now he would be creating a crises of ineptness at Wilson’s expense.

  “I can’t… ”

  Just as he was ready to quit and let Peck take over, Sergeant Washington leaned closer and in his deep voice said, “Let me see just how you do that, Doc.” And without the others able to observe, Washington closed his huge dark hand over Izzy’s and held his hand steady as a rock and guided the needle right in. As the needle popped into the vein right on target, the Sergeant exclaimed, “Wow, perfect shot, Doc, and I actually heard that pop.”

  Izzy glanced over to see the Sergeant smile at him. For the rest of his life Izzy knew he would remember that singular moment of grace and kindness.

  “Yes, and… and thank you, Sarge. And now, Lieutenant, we are going to lower the lights a little in here and make it a little more restful, comfortable place for you while I inject the medicine…” Izzy slowly pre
ssed the plunger into the tube, dispensing the medication with exacting precision as he instructed, “Let’s take just a couple of deep breaths now Lieutenant and… good, that’s right… ”

  Wilson’s face changed as if he had come back to life inside his own body. One moment he was not there and the next he was back from the far place in his mind where he had been safely residing.

  “And now as that medicine takes effect you are going to feel very relaxed and comfortable and yet you will be able to hear my voice clearly and be very clear in your mind. Isn’t that right, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, Dr. Moskowitz, I feel very relaxed and very clear.”

  “Excellent. Okay now, just getting to know each other a bit, remember I told you that I am from New York City. And you come from…?”

  “I’m from Kansas, Doc, a Jayhawk, was in the reserves there until I graduated and got commissioned.”

  “Ok, Kansas, and you don’t mind that I call you Kansas, do you?”

  “Oh no sir, you can call me Kansas or whatever you want, just don’t call me late to dinner. Especially if it’s a nice, juicy steak.”

  The chuckles that joined Wilson’s in the sterile room would have been bizarre if bizarre hadn’t become the new normal. So normal that Izzy continued the conversation like they were just having a nice cook-out in the backyard while the adults enjoyed a good beer and the kids pushed each other into a pool.

  “We are on the same page with that, Kansas. You know I’m a new guy here, only about a week in. What about you?”

  “Oh, I just got back from R&R in Hawaii with my family, and so I am over half done, Doc.”

  “That’s just great, were you in Honolulu?”

  “Yes and then my wife and I were over in Maui for five days and then I had to leave. That part was hard…” Wilson’s voice caught. His mouth trembled. “It was hard to say goodbye.”

  “I know, Kansas, I know how that feels, too. But you got past that hard part, and then you came back. What happened then?”

  “I led a long range patrol out and… and…”

  Wilson’s breathing started to change; he was breathing hard, close to a pant.

  Izzy noticed JD lean closer, draw a question mark with his finger.

  “That’s right, you were leading a long range patrol out,” Izzy said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible, trying to lure Wilson back. “You led a patrol out and you were in the jungle and right now I am going to inject just little more medicine.” Izzy felt Washington’s hand return to steady his again—it had stopped shaking, started again. God this was so scary, never knowing when the tremor would suddenly come on, but he couldn’t think about that now. He just had to do this and get it right.

  The additional medicine successfully injected, Izzy continued, “Go ahead now, Kansas, you were taking the patrol out and… it’s okay, just breathe and let the memory come to you now, it is right there.”

  “Yes, sir, it is almost dark and we—and we have an NVA patrol pinned down in front of us, at least I think we do, and I move us forward and it is an ambush. We are surrounded on three sides and we are getting cut down. Shit, shit, I lost the radioman… Collins, take the radio, dammit, get the radio and call in for air, right now, and it is y15 by 1.2 and… yes, yes right, get the hell here now and—and…”

  Silence in the room, everything silent except for Wilson’s agitated breathing as they all waited and waited until he suddenly cried out.

  “Wait—wait! Here it comes, here comes air! But… oh no. No. NO. NOOO! It is right on top of us, I fucked up, oh God, I fucked up… I must have called in the wrong… They are all dead, all dead, all dead, all dead. Do you see what I have done? I am just walking around and picking up parts of them. Collins’s arm and Petey’s leg and boot and Jerry’s head and hands and—and…”

  Wilson sobbing now, sobbing with a sound that they all wanted to look away from as he wept, “They followed my orders and now they are all in pieces and all dead, all dead because of me.”

  Izzy had never heard such a mournful and terrible voice, not even in yesterday’s hell. It was as if all the dead Wilson blamed himself for were in the room with them.

  Izzy glanced at JD.

  JD shrugged, signaling he understood his questions were no good here. The loss of life—more specifically, Jerry’s severed head and hands—was not the work of a monster, but human error. A dead end for JD. A very dead end for Wilson.

  “You know, Kansas…” Izzy tried to remember what little he had been told about the way things worked on the ground and hoped his knowledge of the mind would compensate for any errors. “The air support people, they make mistakes too. You know it is not precise, not perfect, what they do, so it’s entirely possible that it was their mistake. Remember, your radioman was down and Collins, he could have said the coordinates wrong, or the man on the other end could have heard it wrong. Come on now, Kansas. You know all that. Don’t leave me now.”

  But despite the medication Wilson’s face was changing again and Izzy, all of them in the room, could see him leaving, his mind escaping behind a wall where he was safe and numb and didn’t have to remember or deal with the anguish or the horror of believing he had called artillery in on his own troops. Maybe back home, Izzy told himself, back in a hospital close to his family, Wilson could come back, come back little by little, to live again with the rest of the living.

  “Wilson,” Izzy said quickly, grasping for any remnants of Kansas that would get him back to a place where he could sink his teeth into a well-deserved steak, “Wilson, I am here and I know you can hear me, and I know you will remember what we talked about, that there is a good chance you didn’t do this. You have to let yourself consider that, okay? It could have been Collins or it definitely could have been the Air or it could have been the pilot, any and all of those are real possibilities, Kansas, and you can forgive them and forgive yourself, let yourself come back and go home to your family. They need you and you can be there for them again. I know you can. But for now, Kansas, rest. Just rest.”

  Izzy pulled out the needle.

  There was silence as they all walked out. Behind them Wilson now curled into a fetal position, surrounded by ghosts. His eyes stared, unblinking, from his once again frozen features, pleading forgiveness of dead people only he could see.

  Life and death are one thread,

  The same line viewed from different sides.

  Lao Tzu

  Pink Peony in Sweet Ginger Moonlight

  DARKNESS

  I remember curling up as tight as I could in a little ball, like a baby inside a mother’s belly, because that’s how I tried to protect myself from the snakes and the monsters in the cellar my step-father put me in when I was too afraid yet to kill him.

  Beating and whipping were never enough for my stepdad. I realized it was the torment he somehow enjoyed. Whippings as I say were always delayed, waited upon until he was ready, but I later could see that it was watching you squirm, beg and anticipate what was going to happen to you that he relished watching. The other end of the torment though could be more painful than the actual punishment.

  The creaky old house we lived in was built late in the 1800s and there is a door outside that leads down into a cellar. A cellar is not a basement. Some other kids had basements with pine paneled walls and nice linoleum floors and ping pong tables. No, a cellar is a hole in the ground. This one went down under the house. You walked along old thick wooden planks that were sitting on pounded dirt. Then down five more steps that were creaky and now you were in the bottom of the cellar. In the summer it was chilly and musty and kind of damp smelling. In the winter it was freezing cold and wet and the packed earth felt kind of slimy. The reason I remember it so well is that I was locked up down there a lot. Especially when I was little, or maybe I just remember being more scared when I was 4 and 5 and 6. I would be put down there after punishments until bedtime and anytime when they would leave.

  I guess my mom thought I was safer down there and lock
ing me up was as good as a babysitter as far as my stepfather was concerned. He figured you couldn’t get in as much mischief if it was black dark, after all you wouldn’t want to move around “or the monsters and snakes will hear you and know where you are little man.” Then the light bulb would go out and I would watch the filament stop glowing and then the darkness would be complete. Sometimes he would quietly wait just outside the cellar door and then suddenly bang and yell and scream, “Oh my god, here they come, they are eating me!” and I would scream and start crying for my mom… then he would laugh and say “She’s not here but the monsters are. Shhh. Be quiet or they’ll get you before she hears.”

  So then I would cry real quietly and whimper for a long time. In a way, the crying part was better because at least it felt like something different than when the crying stopped. Because then began the fear and the endless waiting. While I was crying my eyes were closed and I could hear me crying and… and then when I stopped came the quiet. The dead silence of the grave like walls. I would begin to imagine the worms coming out of the walls. The rats and snakes and spiders beginning their slow slithering and creeping towards me in the absolute darkness.

  Then my stomach would growl because I was hungry and I was afraid the slithering things would hear it and know where I was and come eat me. Then I tried to imagine how I would surprise the slithering things and chop them all up into little bits and stir them into one of my mom’s tuna casseroles and feed it to my stepdad while I ate the leftovers he brought back from the restaurant where he had a nice dinner while I was in the cellar.

  Chapter 11

  Izzy wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself after dinner in the officers’ mess. If he had received a new letter he would have gone to the beach and had another picnic instead. No letter, no picnic, but still he changed into some civilian clothes in the hope he would feel like a regular guy—not that he’d ever been a regular guy with nearly perfect recall. But while it had served him extremely well academically, he would be deeply grateful for some selective memory now.