When at last they lifted off, the sky was turning a darker shade of purple. Rick waved from below. J.D. waved back.
Izzy didn't feel capable of even that much. He wondered if he looked as bad as Greggâwho looked as fucked and fried as the wiped out grunts at the firebase.
Lungs still burning from doing everything possible not to inhale the rotting stench of decomposition, Izzy sucked in a big breath of fresh, cool mountain air filling the chopper. For a while he didn't move or say anything while he tried to cleanse his mind. When that became as likely as pulling a genie out of a bottle, he decided a more direct approach may better serve his own mental health, just put it on the table and purge his system with the old go-to remedy of intellectual discourse.
“Gregg? Gregg, did you ever see anything,
anything,
like we just saw in your post-doc work?”
“No, man, nothing even close. I put in my hours in a mental institution, did my rotation inside a locked ward with the criminally insane⦔
Gregg trailed off. His lips visibly shook. Izzy's hands were shaking really bad but he figured after this they were entitled to chatter away so he didn't even try to hide them.
“I never liked working with the criminally insane,” Izzy picked up. “I did my intern time in the hospital, right? Saw my share of bad accidents, shootings, knifings, domestic violence in the ER, you name it. But none of it comes remotely close to. . .to. . .what we saw back there was the work of a monster. A whole pack of them. Body after body after bodyâ¦it was
fiendish.
”
“Evil,” Gregg agreed. “Like, what kind of animal could do something like that?”
“I don't know. But it has to be more than one to carve up that many. Not even Jack the Ripper could pull that off without an assist from Albert Fish.”
“The Werewolf of Wisteria?” Gregg grimaced.
“One of many names. As you'll recall he was known as `The Boogeyman,' too.”
“What I mostly remember is that he liked to eat children.”
They let that sit between them, the sick pathology of the mind that could be so deeply disturbing yet fascinatingly macabre. Izzy was reminded of how naïve he had been when he went into child psychiatry, as if treating kids meant a gentler, kinder type of mental hell. He had been so wrong. It was just the opposite.
“Children are the most victimized, you know,” he said, and didn't know why he was even talking about it. Children had nothing to do with the mutilated remains in the body bags, but he felt so unclean it was like he had to verbally wash some of the filth out of his own mental system. “They're helpless and they're weaker. That's why the predators and most twisted seem to single them out for the worst crimes.”
“I don't know how anything could be worse than the body of work we saw.”
“From what we saw I wouldn't put anything past that kind of beast, demon, whatever you want to call it. Maybe heâor they eat children, too.”
“Yeah.”
Maybe they eat children, too.
“I'm not a forensic pathologist butâ¦judging from the bruising, blood, and swelling around the eye sockets of the first head, I suspect the eyes were taken out while the victim was still alive. Dead bodies don't respond to injuries like that.”
“Why remove the eyes first?”
Gregg and Izzy looked at J.D. as if he had just walked into a room.
“For the joy of it?” Izzy guessed. “Fulfillment? A sense of power?”
“Or maybe for entertainment purposes,” Gregg added. “The same way some people get off on snuff films or cock fighting.”
“But why?” J.D.'s brow furrowed. “What can you tell me that I don't know? Come on, guys, I need your help here.”
Izzy considered the source of the request. J.D. had pumped Derek full of bullets with the fluid precision of a professional killer. But he had done it without emotion, without glee, more like an accountant balancing the books. Killing was just part of the job for him, not a passion.
“We all have a dark side,” Gregg explained. “There's a part of the mind that is immensely stimulated by the dark and the violentâit's not a conscious choice, it's how we're hardwired as humans. That's why sadism makes great entertainment. The gladiators in Rome, they weren't warriors. They were mostly prisoners forced to fight to their death with animals or other prisoners, and the gorier the better for the crowds. Popcorn, peanuts, Crackerjacks anyone?”
“I'm afraid Gregg is right. It's part of the human psyche, even if we don't like to admit it or think about what sort of cruelties we're capable of. Though after today, there's not a lot of guess work left about that, is there?”
“If you mean the elephants, agreed. But if you're referring to what we saw at the morgue?” J.D. shrugged. “At first I wondered if it could be some good old payback, which is all about revenge, not just shits and giggles.”
“Payback?” asked Gregg.
“Yes, it's a thing that happens in wars, each side escalating on their kills to terrorize the other side, but in this case, as you say, pretty creepy and over the top. Actually, after seeing the extent of the evidence, I think it's pretty clear to all of us that there is more at work here than anything as simple as payback. Or pleasure seeking.”
It struck Izzy that J.D. was immune to the impact of the mutilations. Maybe that made him well suited to his job. Maybe one reason J.D. needed them was because a lack of immunity is what made him and Gregg good at theirs. Yet the difference between them was thinning and Izzy had to wonder if he would ever reclaim the sweetness of life that was as untainted as picking berries with his grandmother on a summer morning and watching them swirl into the taste of ice cream just made with his dad. Now, the images of those body bags opening squirmed around in his mind, and he remembered something his mentor, Dr. Haride, had not that long ago said:
We have a wonderful capacity to make little rooms that we can car
e
fully set aside inside our heads and we know well before we approach those rooms that it best not to even start to go down the hallway lest we start nightmares. I warn you all that if you can avoid those rooms do so. I was once involved in a case of a man who abducted and tortured chi
l
dren; I will not say to you anything of what he did, only that with all of my heart I wish for the time before I saw the images of what he had done. For now I cannot rid my mind of them and I tell you it is a kind of hell to know.
Dr. Haride had warned Izzy and his small, hand-picked group of young specialists about to graduate, what the minds of both clinicians and MDs in the practice of psychiatry could hold. Even the best and strongest minds could only tolerate so much of the soul poisoning quality of the horrific work that often came within the field of child abuse, which, as it turned out, often crossed paths with the criminally insane, which was the very field he had tried to avoid.
Izzy now knew what Dr. Haride meant. He thought he did when he thanked him for such a compelling lecture. He thought he did when he worked with children who had survived unthinkable atrocities. But now that he had gazed upon the chilling hell unleashed upon those poor men in the morgueâ
they were someone's children
âIzzy knew too well and he knew too much, because he knew the depth of his own capacity for cruelty.
As with the elephants, he wanted revenge on the perpetrators of those mutilated bodies. He wanted Rick to find them and send them home in body bags, too. Just clean kills, nothing too cruel or sordid, nothing like what they had seen, but whoever was capable of that was unsalvageable and the world was a better, safer place without their poisoned presence.
Listen to myself,
he thought, “
clean kills.” My head is starting to twist stuff just like Gregg said it would. I
n
stead of wishing we could cure the predator, now I want “clean kills.”
At first Izzy wasn't aware he had spoken aloud, but then J.D. asked, “What did you say?”
And Izzy knew. He might have lost his innocence but he had been instilled with guiding principles and at least he hadn't lost those yet. There was a difference between being forced into something against your will and funneling that will into a worthy cause. He had crossed that line.
“I said I want to help you.” Izzy looked over at Gregg. Apparently they had been raised on some of the same “do the right thing” stuff. Gregg, maybe even more, all things considered.
“Yeah.” Gregg nodded. “Me, too.”
*
Upon landing at the LZ, where they had been picked up earlier that day, Gregg nearly dropped to his knees and kissed the ground. He had never been so grateful to live in Nha Trang, to sleep in an old villa and work at the 99KO, Camp McDermott included.
J.D. had arranged a waiting jeep. He threw his gear into the back and got behind the wheel.
“I could use a walk,” Gregg told him. His insides were still vibrating.
“Same here.” Izzy shouldered his gear.
“Then I'll see you guys. Listen, thanks a lot. I'll try to make this up to you someday.” J.D. actually saluted them. “Okay, time for me to get to work.”
As the jeep sped off, Gregg wondered if J.D. was really on his way to the mission to see Kate. But after the elephants and the firebase and the morgue, he was simply too numb to think beyond some immediate means of self-comfort.
“Grilled cheese sandwich,” Gregg said to Izzy.
“Chicken soup,” Izzy said back. Then, “Do you ever wonder what J.D. does to relax?”
“No,” Gregg said. “I don't think guys like him ever really relax.”
“Even Hitler liked to paint and Fish liked to write messed up stuff when he wasn't eating kids. Everyone needs some form of sanctuary, Gregg.”
“Maybe.” Before Gregg could stop it, he was thrust back into the room where Rick was opening a body bag and extracting its contents with his pronouncement of, “Maybe not.”
Izzy suddenly stopped on the cat tracks. “This isn't really my area of expertise, but. . .”
“What?”
“I'm just thinking of that whole awful thing with the eyes being cut out before killing the victimâI'm pretty positive about thatâbut it just makes me wonder if that kind of torture could be more than just for fun, or to maximize the psyops value Rick was talking about. Like, could it be the Ghost Soldier's own kind of sanctuary, or if it's a group, even some kind of cult worshipâespecially if the killings involve some type of ritual mutilation?”
“There's a thought,” Gregg agreed.
“I know it sounds strange but. . . ” Izzy held out his hands; they were no longer shaking. “For some reason it helps me to analyze. As disturbing and gruesome as all this is, laying the pieces out and trying to put everything together gives me a sense of control over the situation, even if I realize I'm feeding myself a load of crap for a false sense of security.”
“Whatever works, man, I'm all for it.”
They were still discussing the various possibilities while savoring a late night grilled cheese sandwich, a can of Campbell's, and a bottle of Jack when Robert David appeared in the villa's kitchen. If he noticed they immediately fell silent upon his arrival, he gave no indication, saying without preamble, “Kate called to invite us all to a little get together she's hosting at the mission come next weekend. I told her I would pass the word to Nikki and Margie since she hoped they could come, too. Oh, and Izzy, my good man, this is for you.”
As Izzy did a Jack-in-the-Box to latch onto the letter Robert David extended, Gregg made a mental note NOT to forget Rick's letter to Nikki.
Robert David sniffed the air, wrinkled his patrician nose, and took a closer look at them both. “Good Lord, you two look like hell and don't smell much bettah. What happened in the Highlands today?”
“Oh, you know the usual routine,” Gregg said. “Murder, mayhem, slaughter in a muddy hellhole. It is a great place the Highlands, a fun get away for anyone and everyone. Right, Izzy?”
Izzy was pressing the letter to his chest as if it might resuscitate him from the shock overload of the day. Gregg knew Izzy had a little ritual of taking his letters to the beach to open them; not so strange really since most guys considered them holier than manna from heaven. But under the circumstances, Gregg figured this was one letter that would be ripped into the second Izzy got it alone in his room.
“If I had to choose between the Highlands and this upcoming Woodstock festival Rachel's been writing me about, I'm heading back to the Highlands, no question.”
“Yep,” Gregg agreed, “Give me the Highlands over the Summer of Love any time, any year because I'd rather smell burning shit than those damn hippies.” Gregg touched his hair and silently promised Top to get a haircut.
“Might I presume that Peck was not on his best behavior?”
“He killed some elephants,” said Izzy.
“He killed some elephants, what the hell?” Robert David looked from Izzy's ravaged face to Gregg biting down hard on his lip.
“Yeah,” Gregg said, sounding far away even to himself, “It was the elephants. A mother and her baby, right after we watched them play.”