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

by Hart Rivers

  When he lingered, so did Gregg.

  JD bowed respectfully then spoke to the professor in Vietnamese, their conversation short but cordial, before JD said in English, “The wise man bends like the bamboo in the wind.”

  “Yes,” agreed Professor Nguyen. “As you know, war changes all.”

  JD nodded. “I hope your family is well and that your recovery here is speedy. Please extend my greetings to your eldest son.”

  “I will.” The professor then concluded their little chat by saying, “Dr. Kelly, perhaps you will tell me more about yourself over our coffee, after dinner.”

  Their pleasantries done, Gregg asked JD after they left the room, “Do you know his family?”

  “Yes. His son and I were classmates.” JD paused, then added, “It’s a good thing the mission does here, turning no one away.”

  And that’s when Gregg realized. “His extended research in the field…?”

  “We should all be as civilized as Colonel Nguyen. By the way, I never saw him here and neither did you.”

  Lounging on the veranda under a lazy fan made Izzy feel as if he was on a southern plantation in a distant time. He felt so dreamlike that Dr. Donnelly’s collection of Jungian works had induced him to relax back on the rattan couch and leisurely thumb through the semi-autobiographical, Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

  He knew she was there before he looked up. Even in her fatigues Margie always smelled like honeysuckle and lemon; wearing a dress the same color, she smelled closer to heaven, which presently landed Izzy in a pleasant sort of hell.

  “Jung, huh,” she said, sitting right beside him, even though they had the whole couch. “And here I thought you classical guys wrote him off as a voodoo man.”

  “Well, uh, I… uh… ” It was really hard to focus with her sitting so close and smelling so good, and if he didn’t know better he’d think she might be flirting with him. Glamorous women like Margie never flirted with guys like him. Actually, he hadn’t dated much beyond Rachel who was brilliant and opinionated and pretty in a Joan Baez kind of way—especially with her new straight hair and Indian headband picture—so Margie was way outside his realm of experience. Izzy could even feel himself blushing, which made him even more self-conscious and that seemed to make him start sweating all over the newest letter he had stuffed inside his shirt and—“Hey!”

  Izzy rubbed the warm spot on his arm, where Margie had playfully punched him. She grinned and he found himself grinning back, then she laughed and he laughed, too.

  “That was an excellent intervention. I’ll have to remember that technique.” Izzy commanded himself to focus on Jung, the subject at hand, and not on the urge to touch Margie’s face, her neck, just anywhere he could make a tactile connection. “And yes, most of my professors would have thought him a voodoo man but personally, now that I am actually in a world of good and evil and synchronicity and waking dreams—like dream girls sitting next to me in exotic tropical settings—I think Jung may have more than a little credibility. What about you?”

  “Jung totally works for me here. I’ve seriously thought about going over to Switzerland for a training course at the Institute once my tour of duty is up.”

  Izzy couldn’t get over how many colors were in her hazel eyes, the brown and gold flecks competing with the most amazing shade of green. He also couldn’t get over the fact he had successfully managed to get in a smooth line with a gorgeous girl who wasn’t anything like Rachel. Rachel. Now how would he feel if she was flirting with another guy, the way he was flirting with Margie? He wouldn’t like it. So no more flirting; but it was a really good feeling to talk to a beautiful woman who spoke his language and he could indulge himself that much.

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Switzerland,” he confessed, “Well, after Spain. Though I suppose choosing between the two is like ‘the pendulum of the mind operating between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.’”

  Margie threw back her head and laughed, and oh man, did she have a great neck. “You did not make that up! Jung said that.”

  “I know. I was just testing you.”

  Margie put her hand out. “Let’s shake on that. You and me. Before or after Spain. Switzerland, Jungian Institute. ”

  Even if it was pretend Izzy knew he should say something about checking with Rachel or bringing her along, but that would spoil the moment and he had become acutely aware of how priceless an unspoiled moment like this was, and so he gripped her extended hand.

  He could feel a fine tremor in his but this was different; he was enjoying the rush.

  “Agreed, but only if there’s snow.”

  “And skiing,” Margie said, upping the ante.

  “Ice skating,” Izzy shot back.

  “Snowmen,” she said softly.

  Izzy realized he still had her hand and his thumb had found her palm. And like a snow man he was melting because she was so close he could smell her breath, the lingering hint of lime from the cocktail they had earlier consumed. For an endless moment he thought of kissing her. She wanted him to, her eyes said so. Every instinct he possessed demanded he act on the invitation. Just a kiss, it would only be a kiss, and Rachel would never know….

  But he would. Maybe it was a good thing Margie was leaving in eighty-two days. She was here and Rachel was not, and that simply wasn’t fair to the fiancé who had sent him letters almost daily since he left for training camp, filled with clippings, even apartment ads, and would someday have their babies. Babies she would nurture with love and art and music; babies that wouldn’t be fried from Napalm bombs or have their faces disfigured or stumps for arms and legs. Their children would play in ball fields, not killing fields, and no matter how tempting to put his hands and his mouth all over Margie, his intellect was getting the say over his emotions. Because that’s who Israel Moskowitz was raised to be, and he could not lose sight of his moral compass even if his sense of direction had never been less clear.

  Izzy quickly let go of Margie’s hand and tried to cover the awkward pause with a feigned cough. Margie was the first to speak.

  “You know Jung also said, ‘Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.’ Methinks you think too much, Dr. Moskowitz.”

  “Hey, do I hear people talking about ice skating and skiing out here?” Kate’s timing was either as good or as bad as it got as she appeared with a tray of glasses and the rest of the gang on her heels. “It just so happens I have some nice hot chocolate—oh, wait, looks like someone switched trays. Any objections to champagne before dinner instead?”

  A chorus of whoops went up as Kate headed for the table that had been set for their special occasion on the veranda, a lazy rattan fan overhead subtly cooling the air as the crystal flutes were lined up and the crystal liquid flowed into the glasses, bubbles rising like tiny prisms in the shafts of sunset light, piercing the cool shade.

  Shirley tapped her glass, bringing Izzy back to the present and everyone into the moment. “Please, everyone.” Shirley raised her glass. “May all your joys be pure joys. And all your pain champagne.”

  It was the perfect toast for a perfect evening that unfolded like a beautiful play in which they all had a part. Dinner was perfect. The company and coffee they shared with Professor Nguyen was perfect. The path they strolled across illuminated by the candles in paper bags that created a soft warm orange light under the stars was perfect.

  And the fireworks were like the perfect exclamation point on the night as across the bay flares suddenly shot up into the sky. Perhaps it was the dreaminess of it all that made them first think it was fireworks. But then the concuss of an explosion came across the water. There were more explosions before a huge fountain of flames lit the clouds and brightened the whole night yellow and orange.

  “That’s the jet fuel storage at the airbase!” Robert David shouted over the whistling explosion. “Dammit. Dr. Donnelly, Shirley, thank you—”

  “Nikki, you stay,” Margie instruct
ed, the Captain checking back in. “It’s safer here.”

  “Margie, you should stay too,” Kate hastily insisted.

  “Can’t. I have to go back with the guys.” Margie grabbed Izzy’s hand and they started running with Gregg and Robert David and JD, all of them racing for the Chevy and whatever awaited them at the 99KO.

  Chapter 20

  Inside the unit was bedlam. Patients were screaming and crying while corpsmen and specialists got everybody out of bed and onto the floor. Gregg rushed over to help wrestle a patient out of his restraints and down to the ground. Margie immediately jumped in to help Kohn prepare extra med shots to sedate the patients. The emergency lighting kept going on and off from parachute flares, creating a weird strobe light effect augmented by waving flashlights and bursts of yellow and red from explosion after explosion.

  They were under a major rocket attack. In the midst of the screams Margie shouted, “JD, Izzy, somebody, help us!”

  Izzy was in mid-injection and saw Margie and Hertz being overpowered by the patient they were trying to wrest to the floor. Quicker than he could pull out the needle Izzy saw Margie’s head rock back as she took a fist in the face. Blood gushed from her nose and upper lip but she still managed to yell, “Benadryl here stat! Stat! Come on, we are losing him—he’s going to get away!”

  Suddenly it was all dark, the lights completely gone. No explosions, just Margie crying, “Shit, shit, shit where is he? Where’s Berrigan?” while Hertz panted, “I can’t see him. I lost him. Shit, shit…”

  Then Robert David’s calm voice called out in the dark, “Corporal Berrigan, come on son, call out. I will come over to you, no one will hurt you.” Silence. Robert David again, “Come on out son, call out.”

  More rockets exploded in answer, the momentary respite just that, a moment, and all hell broke loose again while Colonel Kohn ordered, “Down, down, get down! More incoming, get down now!”

  In the dark, Izzy tried crawling over to Margie only for a flailing leg to knock his glasses off while he felt a hand grasp his foot and pull. He wanted to get the hand off of him but he didn’t kick just in case it was Berrigan, the one who got loose, which would at least keep him away from Margie.

  Patients were crying and screaming inside; outside there were more screams as medics and soldiers who were running for cover got hit.

  And just like that, silence outside. Even the patients quieted down. The emergency lights flickered back on. Dim, but ample to see what and who was where.

  “Margie?” Colonel Kohn said gently, “Margie, are you okay? I think you are going to need stitches.”

  There was no response. Izzy felt around for his glasses. The hand let go of his foot. He didn’t look to see who had held it, just started crawling on all fours in Margie’s direction, where she was on the floor and leaning up against the wall. She stared straight ahead, unblinking in the pretty lemonade yellow dress splattered red, and for a horrifying moment Izzy thought she might be dead, she was so unnaturally still.

  Sergeant Washington was already there with a blanket, saying, “Cap’n? Come on girl, you okay, Sarge is right here.” Still no response. Izzy crawled faster.

  “She’s in shock,” Sergeant Washington said, lifting her up in his arms, “Stay with us here girl, you goin’ to be okay.”

  “Sergeant, you and Bayer get her on a bed,” Colonel Kohn directed. “Robert David you cut and stitch. Right away now.”

  “I’ll do it,” Izzy insisted, then adjusted his tone. “That is, I’d appreciate you letting me take care of her. If you and Robert David don’t mind.”

  “Fine, fine,” Kohn agreed. “Okay, the all clear is blowing. Let’s get everybody up and in bed and settled back in and—goddamn it, now where the hell is Corporal Berrigan? Did he get out?”

  Gregg and JD stood guard by the exit doors. “Nobody got by here,” Gregg answered. He stopped. “Oh no.”

  Noises were coming out of the bathroom. Hertz, the nearest, got to his feet and slowly opened the door, wide enough for everyone to see Berrigan standing in the toilet. He had a fork poised near a bare light socket. The bulb that had been in it still rolled on the floor. In Berrigan’s other hand was another fork. Hertz rushed in, calling over his shoulder, “I’ve got him—”

  “NOOO!” Gregg shouted as Hertz grabbed Berrigan to pull him out of the toilet. Berrigan violently raised and lowered his right arm, stabbing right down into Hertz’s skull while he jabbed the other fork into the socket, just as the juice to the whole hospital came back on, all the lights brighter than bright and all the electricity coming right down through the fork in the socket and relayed through Berrigan standing in the toilet water. Both men were shaking and dancing while blood sprayed from the fork prongs in Hertz’s skull, until they both collapsed.

  “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Gregg cried, racing alongside JD to pull out Hertz, his body still smoking on the floor. Robert David and Bayer were right behind them, grabbing Berrigan, slumped over the sink, his legs burned black.

  Their attempts at CPR were futile but Gregg was still trying to resuscitate Hertz when JD gripped his pumping fist.

  “He’s gone, Gregg. Let him go.”

  Gregg’s head fell forward and his shoulders shook.

  Izzy couldn’t tear his gaze away from the whole macabre tableau. He gripped Margie to him, wrapped in a blanket with blood running from her lip and nose and tears running out of her eyes and onto her party dress. Sergeant Washington gently stroked her hair, started whispering again, “You be okay, girl, you be okay….”

  As if from a great distance, Izzy noticed most of the other corpsmen and specialists were all staring too in a stunned silence, while some of the patients made pitiful sounds and others drew into the fetal position and covered their heads.

  Bayer was openly weeping. Robert David put his arm around him and bowed his head. Colonel Kohn pulled up a chair right behind them and for a while just let his palms rest on their backs, his own head bowed, just shaking and shaking it.

  When the Colonel looked up his face was weary but his voice steady.

  “All right, all right now, 99KO, we have patients here, we have people to take care of—”

  The door flew open and Peck just then showed up, huffing and puffing, eyes bugging out and shirt torn like he’d broken through enemy lines and dodged mortar fire to belatedly get to the unit.

  “Uh, Colonel, we… Holy fucking Christ in hell, are they dead?” Peck backed up against the wall, his eyes riveted on the electrocuted remains.

  Colonel Kohn stood up. “Take it easy, Major. We are holding on here; what is happening out there?”

  “The OG grabbed me on the way in, said we might have a ground attack and HQ wants everybody not critical out and armed on the perimeter. I told him I’d deliver the orders to our unit.”

  Colonel Kohn shut his eyes and took a moment, then resolutely issued orders.

  “Okay then, Gregg, Izzy, Bayer, and JD, take off and get your weapons. Specialist Jackson, alert the rest of the unit in the hootch. Sergeant Washington, you and Robert David and I will secure the immediate premises and see to the patients. Peck, you call the morgue and tell them we have casualties, then get your weapon and go wherever you’re needed on the perimeter, too. Let’s just get through the night and pray to God we do not have a ground attack. Hold together people, hold together and get moving.”

  When Kohn saw Izzy hesitate, he came over and privately whispered, “I’m sorry, Izzy, but orders are orders. I have mine and now you have yours. I promise we’ll take good care of her.”

  Reluctantly Izzy nodded. And then he did what he’d never forgive himself for not doing if there was a ground attack and there was no tomorrow: He kissed Margie. It was just beside her temple where he could taste the wet salt on her skin. He could smell the tinny scent of the blood still running from her lip and nose but what he inhaled was the memory of honeysuckle and lemons.

  The night was clear and calm now. No wind. The stars shone brightly, onl
y to suddenly be obliterated by the burning orange glow of flares illuminating the whole hospital compound and casting sharp edged shadows everywhere.

  Bayer was too much of a mess to be much help so JD paired off with him and Gregg had to admit if anyone could keep him safe it would be JD. He and Izzy most definitely were not the guys you wanted to be with for safekeeping in the event of a ground attack.

  Still dressed in their Aloha shirts they sat together side-by-side holding M16s and wearing web belts and holsters with pistols they had no idea what to do with either except for some minimal training at Fort Sam Houston. More flares lit up their faces and as if by common accord, they looked at each other again. It was like they were all they had and Gregg supposed that much was true. As true as the haunted memory they now shared of what happened in the hospital unit that had seemed like a haven after the firebase and the morgue. Not anymore. They were both wearing helmets to go with all their artillery, their party attire now covered in Hertz’s and Margie’s blood and dusted with the dirt from the bunker they were cowering in together.

  K.O. lay next to Izzy, her head in his lap.

  “She always seems to know who is the most scared and who to comfort,” Izzy whispered as if the VC might hear.

  And who knew? Maybe the Ghost Soldier himself was close enough to take off both their heads faster than Berrigan had stabbed a fork into Hertz’s skull.

  “Then she is making her first missed diagnosis of the whole war,” Gregg whispered back, “because you cannot be more scared or freaked out than I am right now.”

  “Wanna bet? Dinner at Henri’s on the loser if we make it to morning. K.O., who is most scared, me or Gregg?”

  She lifted her head to lick Izzy’s hand.

  “See? She knows, and I will start with the white wine shrimp…” A whistling mortar made a shrill landing just outside the compound perimeter they had been sent out to guard. “I never thought, never ever, ever thought I would be doing this.”