Two Songs This Archangel Sings m-5

by George C. Chesbro

  "Nobody knew how to react to me when I came home," Worde said quietly as he sipped at his coffee. "A lot of people were downright hostile, as if they considered me responsible for getting us into the war in the first place, or for losing it. Most of the people were kind; they tried to understand and help. But others asked the strangest questions; one guy wanted to know how many women and children I'd killed. Pretty soon I stopped answering any questions. I never did fill the prescription for lithium, because I knew it wouldn't help. I began to drink heavily, but that didn't help either. During the day, I couldn't forget all the horrors I'd seen, and every night I'd have nightmares and relive them. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, screaming. After a while I started … screaming during the day. I'm sure you were told that I started to believe there were Viet Cong surrounding the town, waiting to come in and get me."

  Without warning, Gary Worde suddenly set down his cup on a corner of the hearth, slipped off his stool, and crouched with his hands over his head. Garth started to go toward him, but he sat back down when I shook my head, signaling danger.

  Slowly, like a cobra rising from a basket, Gary Worde straightened up and began to dance to the deadly music he heard in his head. His eyes glowed in the firelight as he flung one arm out, then the other, spun and kicked high into the air. He continued these graceful but deadly karate moves, a series of kata, for close to fifteen minutes, spinning, lunging, punching, and kicking his way around the cabin as he did battle with the demons in his mind, his imaginary enemies marching out at him from twenty years in the past. When he had finished, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, sighed heavily, and sat back down on his stool.

  '"There was nobody to talk to who could understand," the man continued in an even tone, as if nothing had happened. "Nobody except Veil."

  "You were in touch with Veil back then?" I asked quietly.

  "Yes. The war was over, and Veil had just arrived in New York. Somehow, he'd heard-or guessed-that I was back in Colletville, and he called me. He called a number of times; usually he'd call me from a pay phone, and I'd call him back. We'd talk for hours. He asked me to keep everything a secret-where he was, and even that we were in touch. I did as he asked, even though at the time I didn't understand his reasons."

  "You do now?" Garth asked.

  The question had come too soon, and once again we were treated to a prolonged period of silence. Garth and I looked at each other inquiringly, but neither of us spoke. Gary Worde's strange and violent dance had convinced us that the man was, indeed, dangerous, and could not be pressed. If he was going to tell us anything, it would have to be in his own time, in his own way, at his own pace.

  "Once, I went to New York to visit Veil, without telling anyone where I was going," Worde said at last. "Veil thought that coming to New York and staying with him might be good for me. Fuck, it didn't take me long to see that he was crazier than I was, although for different reasons. Also, he handled his craziness differently; he was always brawling, and he could kind of hold things together in his head as long as he was fighting. I'd had enough fighting and seen enough blood and broken bodies to last me a lifetime. I had no way of freeing myself the way Veil did. I figured there was no sense in my going to hell in his handbasket, so I came back to Colletville. Still, that visit to New York helped me in one way; it helped me to realize that the only time I really ever felt good was when I was by myself, up in these mountains.

  "Still, for some reason I thought I just had to learn to live my life like everyone else-work, and have a family, and be a part of society. I'd come up to these mountains on weekends, but during the week I'd try to be … like them. It didn't work; everything got worse. I was rapidly becoming an alcoholic, and I started to get DT's to go along with my nightmares. Once, I nearly killed a man because I thought he was a VC sneaking up on me; he was just a businessman in a blue suit walking down the sidewalk in the middle of the day.

  "I knew I was going to have to be sent back to the V.A. mental hospital, and I knew I'd die there. Then I realized what I had to do. I made one phone call-to Veil, telling him what I planned to do. Then I walked up into these mountains, and I've been here ever since. It was a good decision; I can only survive where there's solitude."

  Gary Worde refilled our coffee cups, and for a time we sat quietly, watching through a window as a huge moon rose into the night sky.

  Finally Worde continued: "When I walked into the woods, I had nothing but the clothes on my back and a hunting knife. Fortunately, it was summer, so I had time to build a crude shelter for the winter. I'd been in… Special Forces. I was well trained in survival craft, and that helped. But that first winter was rough. I don't know how I survived, but I did, literally living in caves, like an animal. I built snares, ate the flesh of whatever I caught, and used the pelts for warmth. As strange as it may seem, in the middle of all that physical misery I was happy. And I was so exhausted every night just from doing what I had to do to stay alive that I slept without dreams. I didn't miss booze; in fact, I didn't miss anything. For the first time in as long as I could remember, my mind was clear.

  "I moved around a lot in that first year, and I looked pretty ragged, to say the least. I know I scared the shit out of a couple of hunters who came across me. Also, some people may have been caught in large snares I set for deer. After that, I think people became afraid of running into me because the hunters and hikers stayed away.

  "Some time later, Veil-who's one hell of a tracker, in case you didn't know-found me up here. He'd changed, mellowed; he'd found a new way to fight off his own nightmares. I'd found peace in isolation, and he'd begun to find it in art. I think we must have talked for two days straight, without sleeping. He'd brought me things-canned food, tools, medicine, clothing-that he'd lugged all over creation while he was looking for me. He hadn't come to ask me to go back with him, because he understood why I had to be where I was. He just wanted to see me, and do what he could to make things more comfortable for me.

  "He came back four more times that year when he found me, bringing me more things and helping me to build this cabin. After that, his visits became routine things, and I looked forward to them very much. He'd brought me steel traps, and I was able to set up good traplines. I cured the pelts of the animals I caught, gave them to Veil on his visits to sell back in New York to pay for the supplies he brought me. While he was here we'd talk and work on certain martial arts techniques that are difficult to describe, but are best practiced in places like these mountains."

  I thought I had a pretty good idea what Gary Worde was talking about; I remembered the silent walking technique Veil had taught me, and which I had used to sneak up on Loan Ka's sons in Seattle. I wondered what other deadly arts the two men had practiced here, but did not ask.

  Garth and I helped the man wash the dishes and cooking utensils, using water drawn from a spigot in a rain barrel suspended near the open hearth to keep the water from freezing. When we had finished, Worde removed one of four carved pipes from a rack, filled it with a mixture, and lit it. Almost immediately, the air inside the cabin was filled with the sickly-sweet smell of marijuana. He offered the pipe to us, and we declined. And we waited. As Gary Worde had told us, and as he had made abundantly clear, his sense of time was not ours. He would tell us what we wanted to know, assuming he possessed the information, when he was ready, and not before.

  "Veil told me certain things which you'd probably like to know about," the hidden veteran continued at last in a flat, matter-of-fact tone as he stared out the window into the moonlight-washed night. "There were two reasons why he felt he could talk to me about these matters. First, I'm up here where nobody can find me; second, he knew he could trust me to keep my mouth shut even if people could find me. It's very dangerous information-dangerous to Veil, and dangerous to anyone else who shares it."

  "We're well aware of that, Gary," I said quietly. "But now that information may be the only thing that can save Veil, and us. A lot of in
nocent people have already died because of Veil's secrets."

  "Veil's not responsible for that."

  "I didn't say he was, although it's difficult to understand why he's done certain things the way he has. All we want to do is stop the killing, and nail whoever is responsible. Do you know who that is?"

  Now Gary Worde slowly turned toward us; half his face glowed in the flickering orange light from the fireplace, the other half remained hidden in shadow. "Maybe now is the time to talk about those things, maybe it isn't. I hear you when you say Veil's in trouble, and that you need this information to help him. That's heavy. But what I know about Veil is heavy, too, and I'm not at all sure I'm going to share it with you unless you can convince me that you have a very good reason for wanting to know it."

  "We believe Veil wants us to have the information, Gary."

  "Then why didn't he tell you himself?"

  "Because we live in the city, not in the mountains, and that made us too vulnerable. We believe Veil wanted, rightly or wrongly, for us to discover things this way, bit by bit. This is a guess, but I think that in Veil's mind he believed this was the best-maybe the only-way to get the truth out with any chance for his survival, and ours."

  "Convince me of that," Worde said, sitting back down on his stool by the hearth. "We have all the time in the world."

  "Veil doesn't."

  "Tell me what's happened."

  I did, starting at the beginning when I had walked into an unlocked, brightly lighted-and empty-loft.

  16

  Apparently, I was convincing.

  "Lieutenant General Lester Bean," Gary Worde said without hesitation when I had finished talking. "That was the name and rank of the officer in the helicopter that brought Colonel Po into Laos and took Veil out."

  "Not Robert Warren?" I asked. "That was the name of the general that signed Veil's discharge papers."

  Worde shook his head. "No; I never heard of any General Warren.

  Bean was Veil's army C.O. The man in the civilian clothes was a guy by the name of Orville Madison. A real fuck."

  I looked at Garth and even in the dim firelight could see him stiffen on his stool. I felt absolutely no satisfaction over the fact that I had picked Orville Madison's name out of a newspaper five days before. There was nothing for me in Worde's confirmation but a cold, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. There was something almost anticlimactic in hearing Gary Worde link Orville Madison to Veil; now that we virtually knew for certain that Madison was the killer hunting Veil and us, I didn't have the slightest idea what we were going to do with the information. I was afraid-not only for Veil, Garth, and myself, but for the country.

  Kevin Shannon, I thought, must have been on drugs when he dreamed up the nomination of Orville Madison as secretary of state. Or, an even more ominous thought, Madison could have something on Kevin Shannon. It was just what the United States needed; I tried to imagine what the reaction of Americans, and other people and governments around the world, would be when the media began trumpeting the news that the charismatic and dashing newly elected president of the United States had nominated an active, busy-beaver murderer to the top post in his cabinet.

  If the fact became known and was believed.

  Despite everything that had happened, we still had no evidence that Orville Madison had ever even received a parking ticket, much less ordered the murders of men, women, and children from his office in Langley. The only people left alive who had firsthand knowledge of the connection between Veil Kendry and Orville Madison were two certified loonies, one of whom nobody but the other loony had seen in nine years. That left only the two Frederickson brothers to tell what could be described as wild, unsubstantiated tales, and Orville Madison would be doing his best to rectify that situation once he found out about our latest stop.

  "Madison was Veil's C.I.A. controller, wasn't he?" I said.

  "Yes," Worde replied.

  I shook my head in an attempt to clear it. I was getting a contact high from the marijuana smoke, and I assumed Garth was experiencing the same sensation. The firelight and shadow inside the cabin shimmered and danced before my eyes, and I had to hold on to the edge of my stool in order to steady myself. "Why was Veil taken out of Laos?" My voice had a metallic ring to it, and it echoed inside my head.

  "To play toy soldier," Worde answered dryly, sucking on his pipe.

  "I don't understand."

  Worde grunted, set aside his pipe. "It was near the end of the war, when everyone but the generals and a few politicians knew it was lost. Back in the United States, it was all coming apart almost as fast as it was in Southeast Asia. Every day you had demonstrations in a dozen different cities; you had the march on Washington, the revelations about the Pentagon Papers-all of it. You'll recall that a lot of politicians and military people were blaming the fact that we were losing the war on the media. A few of those people decided to do something about it."

  "What did they decide to do about it?" Garth asked quietly. "And who did the deciding?"

  Worde shrugged. "Veil didn't know who made the decisions at the top level, so I don't know. But their reasoning went that, since newspapers and television were responsible for an anti-American, defeatist attitude and our failure to win the war, a way had to be found to manipulate newspapers and television in order to get the people to support the war effort. Just about every military and political spokesman had been discredited; nobody believed anything they said. Then some genius decided that it could all be turned around if only we found the right spokesman-a bona fide hero, like Sergeant York in the First World War, or Audie Murphy in the Second. The genius decided that what was needed was a John Wayne type who'd actually fought in the war, and who could fight what was perceived as a publicity battle on the home front."

  "They wanted to give that job to Veil Kendry?" I asked in disbelief.

  The hidden veteran nodded brusquely. "In fact, at one point the notion had reached a stage where the plan was given a name-Operation Archangel, from Veil's C.I.A. code name."

  "Excuse me, Gary," I said, still holding on to the edge of my stool for fear that I would float away if I didn't, "but I can't quite see Veil Kendry as a likely candidate for media hero; too independent, too unpredictable, and too downright violent. I can see Veil punching out some reporter's lights if he didn't like a question. I'm talking about the way he was back then."

  "You're right, of course-but only the people who'd actually met or dealt with Veil knew that. As a matter of fact, there had to be dozens of candidates better suited for that kind of assignment than Veil. But then, Veil was the highest decorated soldier of that war; Veil was the Sergeant York and Audie Murphy of Viet Nam. The man had a bagful of bronze and silver stars, and had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor twice for bravery in the face of the enemy. This was before he was sent into Laos, and it was how he got promoted to the rank of colonel. Because of his C.I.A. connection and the nature of some of his duties, his awards were kept secret. When Operation Archangel went into effect, everything-or almost everything-he had done would be made public. People might argue about the war, but they wouldn't be able to dispute the fact that Veil was a man of incredible valor, a hero."

  "Damn," Garth said hoarsely, in a tone of respect. "You wouldn't be able to even guess at any of that if you looked at his record now."

  "I don't know what record you've seen," Worde replied, "or what's been put on it. But what I've told you is the truth of the matter. Of course, the reason he'd done all those things and won all those medals was because he was crazy as a loon; Veil would be the first to tell you that. Veil reveled in the sights and sounds and feelings that destroyed me and so many others; he'd be swimming in blood up to his neck, wading through a field of beheaded and castrated corpses, and barely even notice. In this sense, he was a kind of 'ultimate warrior'; he needed the kind of action for which soldiers are decorated. It was this war record that finally swayed what Veil believed was a small Senate select committee, sitting
in secret session, in his favor. Orville Madison, so I'm told, was a master of that kind of political intrigue and maneuvering. It was Madison who'd been pushing hard for Veil's selection, and when the dust finally cleared from all the Washington infighting, Madison had won. The plan became officially known as Operation Archangel."

  I asked, "Why was it so important to Orville Madison that Veil be selected?"

  "There were two reasons. The first, and the most obvious to everyone, was that Veil's selection for so exalted an honor would reflect very favorably on Madison, since Veil was his man; regular army, yes, but also a C.I.A. operative whose most important work had been done under Madison's control and orders. All of the other candidates had men championing their selection for the very same motive. Veil's selection would be a very large feather in Madison's career cap."

  "The second reason?"

  "Orville Madison hated Veil's guts."

  Garth started to ask a question, but I raised my hand to silence him, leaned forward on my stool. "I think I've got it," I said with an eerie feeling of both sickness and growing excitement. "This was an honor virtually any other soldier would have given anything for, what with its honor, glory, and a full pass home, away from the fighting; but it was something Veil would find intolerable, and quite possibly humiliating."

  "That's correct," Worde said. "Combat was something Veil performed as well as-and possibly better than-any soldier who's ever lived, and he desperately needed it, as well, to keep his head straight. He wanted no part of being what he called a 'cardboard hero.' He hated the very idea of the assignment. Madison had known precisely what Veil's reaction would be, and he was probably more than a little concerned that Veil might just say fuck it, tear off Madison's head, and shove it up his ass. It's why Madison brought General Bean along with him into Laos-to back him up, and to make certain that Veil understood that the only alternative to accepting the assignment was a court-martial and the loss of his career. Bean was there to make certain Veil understood he had no choice, and to make him think twice before simply punching out Madison." Worde paused, shrugged. "Veil did what he had to do; he got into the helicopter."