Going After Cacciato (16 page)

Paul Berlin rubbed himself against the cold. He watched the others. Buff was working on his left thumbnail and Eddie Lazzutti played with his pant leg. Pederson was curled inside himself. His eyes were closed and his tongue sometimes fluttered out to lick away sweat. Doc Peret sat next to him, and next to Doc was Buff, and next to Buff was Ben Nystrom. The lieutenant sat on the floor, leaning low and wiping dust from his rifle, his lips moving as if talking to it.

The door gunners leaned into their guns and fired and fired.

It was a bad feeling. The cold wasn’t right, and Paul Berlin wondered if the others felt it too. He couldn’t help watching them—all the faces composed in different ways, some calm and sure, others puzzled-looking. it was hard to tell. None of the faces told much, and the door gunners did not have faces.

The Chinook began to slide eastward, going slower now, then again it dropped sharply. Pederson’s helmet popped up while his
head went down, and the helmet seemed to float high a long time before falling to the floor. Pederson didn’t reach for it. He kept licking his lips. It wasn’t his fault or the church’s fault that he feared heights; it wasn’t a fault of faith.

“Four minutes.” the crew chief shouted. He was a fat man in sunglasses. He moved up the aisle, rolled down the rear ramp, and leaned out for a look. “Four minutes,” he shouted, and held up four fingers, and then took a copy of
Newsweek
from his pocket and sat down to read.

Oscar Johnson lit up a joint.

The gunners kept firing. The Chinook trembled as the engines and blades worked harder now.

Oscar inhaled and closed his eyes and passed the joint down the row. The soldiers focused on it, watching its passage from mouth to mouth. When it reached the end of the far row, Harold Murphy got up and handed it to Vaught, and it came down the second row to Paul Berlin, who pinched the tiny roach and held it close to his lips, not touching, careful not to burn himself.

He drew the smoke deep and held it and tried to think good thoughts. He felt the Chinook falling. Pederson’s face was waxy, and the cold swept in, and the gunners kept firing and firing.

The crew chief held up three fingers.

Immediately there was a new sound. The cords of exposed control wires that ran along the ceiling jerked and whined, and the ship banked hard, and Vaught started giggling. Doc Peret told him to hush up, but Vaught kept giggling, and the ship seemed to roll out from beneath them.

Working their guns left to right to left, the gunners kept firing.

“Two minutes,” the crew chief shouted. Very carefully, he folded the magazine and put it in his pocket and held two fingers over his head.

The gunners leaned into their big guns, fused to them, shoulders twitching, firing with the steady sweeping motions of a machine.

The crew chief was shouting again.

The Chinook turned in a long banking movement, and for a moment Paul Berlin saw the outline of the mountains to the west, then the bland flatness of the paddies below. The ship steadied and the crew chief leaned out for another look. He shouted and held up both thumbs. Across the aisle the men were loading up. Oscar wiped his face and grinned. The lieutenant was still wiping his rifle, leaning close to it and whispering. Cold air shot through the hull and the gunners kept firing. Shivering, Paul Berlin patted along his chest until he found the bandolier. He pulled out a magazine and shoved it into his rifle until it clicked, then he released the bolt and listened to be sure the first round entered the chamber. He just wished it weren’t so cold, that was all. He didn’t like the awful cold.

“Going in,” the chief shouted. The fat under his chin was jiggling. “She’s hot, kiddies. Everybody off fast, no dilly-dally shit.”

He held up his thumbs and the men stood up and began shuffling toward the rear. They grinned and coughed and blinked. Buff balanced the machine gun on his shoulder, chewing on his cuticles now, going systematically over each finger, changing the gun to his other shoulder. It was hard to stand straight. The Chinook was bucking, and the men held to one another as they pressed toward the ramp.

“One minute,” the chief shouted.

Then there were new sounds. Like dog whistles, high-pitched and sharp. Vaught was suddenly shouting, and Eddie and Stink were jumping up and down and pushing toward the rear. Harold Murphy fell. He lay there, a big guy, smiling and shaking his head, but he couldn’t get up. He just lay there, shaking his head. Holes opened in the hull, then more holes, and the wind sucked through the holes, and Vaught was shouting. A long tear opened in the floor, then a corresponding tear in the ceiling above, and the wind howled in all around. Instant white light shot through the holes and exited through opposite holes. Bits of dust played in the light. There was a burning smell—metal and hot machinery and the gunners’ guns. Harold Murphy was still on the floor, smiling and shaking
his head and trying to get up, but he couldn’t do it. He’d get to his knees, and press, and almost make it, but not quite, and he’d fall and shake his head and smile and try again. Pederson’s eyes were closed. He held his stomach and sat still. He was the only one still sitting.

The gunners fired and fired. They fired at everything. They were wrapped around their guns.

“Zero-five-zero,” the crew chief shouted.

Then there was more wind. The chief’s magazine fell and the new wind snatched it away. “Damn!” the chief screamed.

The Chinook bucked hard, throwing the men against the walls, then a gnashing, ripping, tearing, searing noise—hot metal—then blue smoke everywhere, then a force that drove the men against the walls and pinned them there, then a fierce pressure, then new holes and new wind, and the gunners squatted behind their big guns and fired and fired and fired. Murphy was on the floor. Cacciato’s empty Coke can clattered out the open tail section, where it hung for a moment then was yanked away. Pederson sat quietly. A gash opened in the ceiling, and the crew chief was screaming, and Harold Murphy kept smiling and shaking his head and trying to get up, and the gunners kept firing.

The chief’s fat face was green. He pushed the men toward the ramp.

Pederson just sat there. The chief screamed at him, but Pederson was holding himself together, squeezing his stomach tight and pressing.

“Zero-one-zero,” the chief screamed. “Pull that fuckin kid off! Somebody—”

The Chinook touched down softly.

The gunners kept firing. They hunched over their hot guns and fired and fired. They fired blindly and without aim.

“Out!” the chief was screaming, shoving the first soldiers down the ramp, and the gunners went mad with the firing, firing at everything, speechless behind their guns, and the crew chief screamed and shoved.

Stink Harris went first. Then Oscar Johnson and the lieutenant and Doc Peret. They sank in the mush, but the gunners kept firing. Next came Buff, and then Eddie Lazzutti and Vaught. The paddies bubbled with the fire. Wading through the slime, falling, the men bent low and tried to run, and the gunners swayed with their firing, and the paddies were foam. Next came Harold Murphy, stumbling down, and then Ben Nystrom, and then Paul Berlin and Cacciato. The cold was gone. Now there was only the sun and the paddies and the endless firing, and Paul Berlin slipped and went down in the muck, struggled for a moment, and then lay quietly and watched as the gunners kept firing and firing, automatically, firing and firing. They would not stop. They cradled their white guns and fired and fired and fired.

The Chinook hovered, shaking, making froth in the paddies. Screaming, the crew chief dragged Pederson to the ramp and threw him out.

The gunners swung their fire in long brilliant arcs like blown rain. Pederson paused a moment, as if searching for balance, then he began wading with his eyes closed. He’d lost his helmet. Behind him, the gunners strafed the paddies, red tracers and white light, molded to their guns, part of the machinery, firing and firing, and Pederson was shot first in the legs.

But the gunners did not stop. They fired in sweeping, methodical rows; dense white smoke hid the gunners’ faces.

Slowly, calmly, Pederson lay back in the slush.

He did not go crazy at being shot. He was calm. Holding his stomach together, he let himself sink, partly floating and partly sitting. But the gunners kept firing, and he was shot again, and this time it yanked him backward and he splashed down.

The big Chinook roared. It rose and turned, shaking, and began to climb. Clumps of rice bent double in the wind, and still the gunners fired, blind behind their sunglasses, bracing their guns to keep the fire smooth and level and constant. Their arms were black.

Pederson lay on his back. For a time he was rigid, holding himself, but then he relaxed.

Moving slowly, lazily, he raised his rifle.

He aimed carefully. The Chinook climbed and turned, and the gunners kept firing, but Pederson took his time.

He squeezed off a single shot. The sound was different—hard and sharp and emphatic and pointed. He fired again, then again, carefully, and chunks of green plastic jumped off the Chinook’s fat belly.

The gunners went berserk with their firing but Pederson took great care, aiming and firing and tracking the climbing ship. One shot at a time, smoothly and precisely. Bobbing in the slime, he tracked the Chinook and fired into its great underside. He rolled to follow the climbing machine; he was composed and entirely within himself. Suddenly the door gunners were gone, but still the hot guns kept swiveling and firing, automatically, and the Chinook trembled as Pederson calmly aimed and fired into its plastic belly.

The Chinook’s shadow passed right over him.

And the shadow shrank, and soon the Chinook was high and far away and gone, leaving the paddy soapy with waves and froth, but even then Paul Berlin could hear the steady firing of the ship’s guns.

T
wo o’clock on a clear December morning. Paul Berlin sat up, scratched his throat, then moved to a window.

The country was the same. Huge, sunken fields of rice crept by like sleep. There were no lights or towns. The moon hadn’t budged all night. In eight hours the Delhi Express had taken them barely two hundred miles. The old train seemed to wobble along—jerky, random motions followed by quick braking followed by a feeling of suspension. Twice during the night there had been long waits while the engineer and brakemen sat outside drinking tea.

Paul Berlin sighed. For a time he gazed out the window. Then he got up, stretched, and wandered back to where the lieutenant was sleeping. The old man’s face had the color of bruises. He slept belly-up on the seat, legs bent. Paul Berlin reached down and covered him with a poncho liner.

The lieutenant blinked.

“Sorry, sir. Go back to sleep.”

The lieutenant nodded. “Dreaming,” he whispered. “Where … where we at?”

“Almost to Chittagong.”

“Dreaming,” Lieutenant Corson said. He didn’t move. For several moments he was gone. Then again he blinked. “Chittagong?”

“A town, sir. A city. About an hour out.”

“Chittagong,” The old man sighed. “What’s a Chittagong? What’s … I keep thinking I’ll wake up and it’ll all be over. You know? Poof, a bad dream. I remember once in Seoul. Time I first got busted. There was this Seabee, a great big mother named Jack Daniels. Arms like … Jack Daniels, that was his real name. ‘Who?’ I say, and this big mother says, ‘Jack Daniels,’ real serious-like, so I ask him to prove it, and, sure enough, the dude pulls out dog tags and an ID and a flask with his name on it. Jack Daniels. A sorry bastard. But anyhow, I remember he takes me to this—you know—to this B joint. Half hour later I’m ripped, drunk like a skunk. And so’s Jack Daniels. What happens? He starts this brawl, clubs and chairs, the whole thing. Thinks it’s fuckin Hollywood or something. Then the MPs show up an’ there I am, passed out, don’t throw a single punch. Next morning I’m busted. ‘What for?’ I says. ‘I didn’t do nothin’, I was sleeping like a baby.’ But so what? I’m busted, right? Innocent, but I’m busted anyhow, and that’s what started it. And … and, Jesus, that’s how I feel right now. Weird. That’s exactly how I feel.”

“Sure.”

“Jack Daniels! I ever see that mother again, I’ll—”

“Easy, sir. Lie back now.”

Clucking softly, Paul Berlin pulled the poncho liner up to the lieutenant’s chin. The train made its endless rumbling sound.

“You’re a good lad, aren’t you?”

“I’m terrific.”

“No, you are. You’re a fine lad. Better than a whole pallet of Jack Daniel’s. Never drink that shit no more. And if I ever get hold of that … But you’re a straight-shooter, you are.” Pushing himself up, the old man glanced behind him and let his voice drop to a confidential
whisper. “Look, if I give you some inside poop, you think you can keep it quiet?”

“I think you should sleep, sir. Tell me in the morning.”

“Bull. I trust you, kid. The others—screw ’em. You I trust.” Again he looked behind him. Then he licked his lips. “We been kidnapped.”

“Sir?”

“Kidnapped,” the lieutenant said hoarsely. “Snatched. Bagged and nabbed, every one of us.”

“I see.”

“No shit, you see! It’s the straight dope. We been kidnapped.”

Paul Berlin couldn’t help smiling.

“Any suspects, sir?”

“Not yet. Just stay alert.”

“You think Cacciato—?”

“Shit.” The lieutenant wagged his head scornfully. “You’re dreamin’ again. When you gonna stop dreamin’? Cacciato? Hell, he’s small potatoes. There’s bigger fish behind this thing.”

For a time the old man lay quietly, rocking with the motions of the train.

“Chittagong!” He giggled and made fists. “I been a lot of places but I never been to Chittagong. Weird, isn’t it? I mean, I been to Benning and Polk and Seoul and Hong Kong. I seen it all but never … You ever seen
Road to Hong Kong?
”

“Bob Hope.”

“Lordy, they made movies then. Real movies.” The lieutenant lay back. He laughed and then sighed. “But Chittagong? Who the hell’d ever pay to see
Road to Chittagong?
Know what I mean? Times change, I guess. Lord, how times keep changing. Just change and change, don’t they? Things never stop changing.”