Never Say Die (30 page)

"Are you nuts?" he yelled.

"I can't leave him there!"

"Wait till we're clear!"

"He's hurt!"

"There's nothing you can do!"

She was sobbing now, trying to wrench free, but her protests were drowned out by the
whomp-whomp
of the helicopters moving in. An army chopper hovered just above them. The pilot lowered the craft through a slot in the trees. Gently, the skids settled to the ground.

The instant it touched down, a half-dozen Vietnamese soldiers jumped out, followed by their commanding officer. He pointed at Maitland and barked out orders. Two soldiers hurried to the wounded man.

"Let me go," Willy said and she broke free of Guy's grasp.

He watched her run to her father's side. The soldiers had already opened their medical field kit, and a stretcher was on the way. Guy's gaze shifted back to the chopper as one last passenger stepped slowly to the ground. Head bowed beneath the spinning blades, the old man made his way toward Guy.

For a long time, they stood together, both of them silent as they regarded the rising cloud of smoke. The flames seemed to engulf the mountain itself as the last of the village men scrambled down the cliff path to safety.

"A most impressive signal fire," said Minister Tranh. He looked at Guy. "You are unhurt?"

Guy nodded. "We lost some people… up on the mountain. And the children—I don't know if they're all right. But I guess… I think…"

He turned and watched as Willy followed her father's stretcher toward the chopper. At the doorway, she stopped and looked back at Guy.

He started toward her, his arms aching to embrace her. He wanted to tell her all the things he'd been afraid to say, the things he'd never said to any woman. He had to tell her now, while he still had the chance, while she was still there for him to touch, to hold.

A soldier suddenly blocked Guy's way and commanded, "Stay back!"

Dust stung Guy's eyes as the chopper's rotor began to spin. Through the tornadolike wash of whirling leaves and branches, Guy saw a soldier in the chopper shout at Willy to climb aboard. With one last backward glance, she obeyed. Time had run out.

Through the open doorway, Guy could still see her face gazing out at him. With a sense of desolation, he watched the helicopter rise into the sky, taking with it the woman he loved. Long after the roar of the blades had faded to silence, he was staring up at that cloudless field of blue.

Sighing, he turned back to Minister Tranh. That's when he noticed that someone else, just as desolate, had watched the chopper's departure. At the forest edge stood Lan, her gaze turned to the sky. At least she, too, had survived.

"We are glad to find you alive," Minister Tranh said.

"How
did
you find us?" Guy asked.

"One of the men from the village reached Na Khoang early this morning. We'd been concerned about you. And when you vanished…" Minister Tranh shook his head. "You have a talent for making things difficult, Mr. Barnard. For us, at least."

"I had to. I didn't know who to trust." Guy looked at the other man. "I still don't know who to trust."

Minister Tranh considered this statement for a moment. Then he said quietly, "Do we ever really know?"

"A toast," said Dodge Hamilton, leaning against the hotel bar. "To the good fight!"

Guy stared down moodily at his whiskey glass and said, "There's no such thing as a good fight, Hamilton. There are only fights you can't avoid."

"Well—" grinning, Hamilton raised his drink "—then let's drink to the unavoidable."

That made Guy laugh, though it was the last thing he felt like doing. He supposed he
ought
to be celebrating. The ordeal was over, and for the first time in days, he felt human again. After a good night's sleep, a shower and a shave, he could once again stand the sight of his own face in the mirror.
For all the difference it makes,
he thought bleakly.
She's not here to notice.

He was having a hell of a time adjusting to Willy's absence. Over and over he replayed that last image of her sad backward glance as she'd climbed into the chopper. No last words, no goodbyes, just that look. He wished he could erase the image from his memory.

No, no, that wasn't what he wanted.

What he wanted was another chance.

He set the whiskey glass down and forced a smile to his lips. "Anyway, Hamilton," he said, "looks like you got your story, after all."

"Not quite the one I expected."

"Think it's front-page material?"

"Indeed! It has everything. Old war ghosts come to life. Ex-enemies joining sides.
And
a happy ending! A story that ought to be heard. But…" He sighed. "It'll probably get shoved to the back page to make room for some juicy royal scandal. As if the fate of the world depends on who does what to whom in Buckingham."

Guy shook bis head and chuckled. Some things, it seemed, never changed.

"He'll be all right, won't he? Maitland?"

Guy looked up. "I think so. Willy called me from Bangkok a few hours ago. Maitland's stable enough to be transferred."

"They're flying him to the States?"

"Tonight."

Hamilton cocked his head. "Aren't you joining them?"

"I don't know. I've got a job to wrap up, a few last minute details. And she'll be busy with other things… "

He looked down at his whiskey and thought of that last phone conversation. They'd had a lousy connection, lots of static on the line, and they'd both been forced to shout. She'd been standing at a hospital telephone; he'd been on his way out to meet Vietnamese officials. It had hardly been the time for romantic conversation. Yet he'd been ready to say anything, if only she'd given him some hint that she wanted to hear it. But there'd been only awkward how-are-yous and is-your-arm-all-right and yes-it's-fine-I'm-all-patched-up-now and then, in the end, a hasty goodbye.

When he'd hung up the receiver, he'd known she was gone.
Maybe it's for the best,
he thought. Every idiot knew wartime romances never lasted. When you were huddled together in the trenches and the bullets were whizzing overhead, it was easy to fall in love.

But now they were back in the real world. She didn't need him any longer, and he liked to think he didn't need
her
either. After all, he'd never needed anyone before.

He drained his whiskey glass. "Anyway, Hamilton," he said, "I guess I'll have a hell of a story to tell the guys back home. How I fought in Nam all over again—this time with the other side."

"No one'll believe you."

"Probably not." Guy looked off at a painting on the wall—Ho Chi Minh smiling like someone's merry uncle. "You know, I have a confession to make." He looked back at his drinking partner. "At one point, I was so paranoid that I thought
you
were the CIA."

Hamilton burst out laughing.

"Can you believe it?" Guy said, laughing as well. "You of all people!"

Hamilton, still grinning, set his glass down on the counter. "Actually," he said after a pause, "I am."

There was a long silence. "What?" said Guy.

Hamilton gazed back, his expression blandly pleasant and utterly unrevealing. "General Kistner sends his regards. He's happy to hear you're alive and well."

"Kistner sent you?"

"No, he sent you."

Guy stiffened. "You got it wrong. I don't work for those people. I was on my own the whole—"

"Were you, now?" Hamilton's smile was maddening. "Quite a stroke of luck, wouldn't you say, that meeting between you and Miss Maitland at Kistner's villa? Damned odd about her driver vanishing like that, just as you were heading back to town."

Guy looked down at his glass, swirled the whiskey. "I
was
set up," he muttered. "That mysterious appointment with Kistner—"

"Was to get you and Miss Maitland together. She was in dangerous waters, already floundering. We knew she'd need help. But it had to be someone completely unconnected with the Company, someone the Vietnamese wouldn't suspect. As it turned out,
you
were it."

Guy's fists tightened on the countertop. "I did your dirty work—"

"You did Uncle Sam a favor. We knew you were slated to go to Saigon. That you knew the country. A bit of the language. We also knew you had a… shall we say,
vulnerable
aspect to your past." He gave Guy a significant look.

They know,
Guy thought.
They've probably always known.
Slowly, he said, "That visit from the Ariel Group…"

"Ah, yes. Ariel. Lovely ring to it, don't you think? It happens to be the name of General Kistner's youngest granddaughter." Hamilton smiled. "You needn't worry, Guy. We can be discreet. Especially when we feel we've been well served."

"What if you'd been wrong about me? What if I was working for Toby Wolff? I could have killed her."

"You wouldn't."

"I had a 'vulnerable' aspect to my past, remember?"

"You're clean, Guy. Even with your past, you're cleaner than any flag-waving patriot in Washington."

"How would you know?"

Hamilton shrugged. "You'd be amazed at the things we know about you. About everyone."

"But you couldn't predict what I'd do! What Willy would do. What if she'd told me to go to hell?"

"It was a gamble. But she's an attractive woman. And you're a resourceful man. We took a chance on chemistry."

And it worked,
thought Guy.
Damn you, Hamilton, the chemistry worked just fine.

"At any rate," said Hamilton, sliding a few bills onto the bar, "you'll be rewarded with the silence you crave. I'm afraid the bounty's out of the question, though—budget deficit and all. But you'll have the distinct pleasure of knowing you served your country well."

That's when Guy burst into unstoppable laughter. He laughed so hard, tears came to his eyes; so loud, a dozen heads turned to look at him.

"Have I missed the joke?" Hamilton inquired politely. "The joke," said Guy, "is on me." He laughed all the way out the door.

Her father, once again, was leaving.

Early on a rainy morning, Willy stood in the bedroom doorway and watched him pack his suitcase, the way she'd watched him pack it long ago. She'd had him home such a short time, only a few days since his release from the hospital. And he'd spent every moment pining for his family—his other family. Oh, he hadn't complained or been unkind, but she'd seen the sadness in his gaze, heard his sighs as he'd wandered about the house. She'd known it was inevitable: that he'd be walking out of her life again.

He took one last look in the closet, then turned to the dresser.

She glanced down at a pair of brand-new loafers that he'd set aside in the closet. "Dad, aren't you taking your shoes?" she asked.

"At home, I don't wear shoes."

"Oh."
This used to be your home,
she thought.

She wandered into the living room, sat down by the window and stared out at the rain. It seemed as if a lifetime of sorrow had been crammed into these past two weeks she'd been home. While her father had recuperated in a military hospital, in a civilian hospital a few miles away, her mother had lain dying. It had been wrenching to drive back and forth between them, to shift from seeing her father regain his strength to seeing her mother fade. Ann's death had come more quickly than the doctors had predicted; it was almost as if she'd held on just long enough to see her husband one last time, then had allowed herself to quietly slip away.

She'd forgiven him, of course.

Just as Willy had forgiven him.

Why was it always women who had to do the forgiving? she'd wondered.

"I'm all packed," her father said, carrying his suitcase into the living room. "I've called a cab."

"Are you sure you've got everything? The kids' toys? The books?"

"It's all in here. What a delivery! They're going to think I'm Santa Claus.'' He set the suitcase down and sat on the couch. They didn't speak for a moment.

"You won't be coming back, will you?" she said at last.

"It may not be easy."