Two days later, J.D. had not yet resurfaced. Neither had Peck. A phone call after Wednesday morning rounds, however, had Margie waving Gregg and Izzy over to the nurse's station. Her tone was serious, hushed.
“You're both supposed to report to the HQ immediately. Apparently there is a CID colonel over there.”
“What do you mean CID?” Gregg's pulse up-ticked like there was a flashing red light in the rearview mirror.
“You know, military police. Investigative unit.”
“I know that, I mean what the hell do they want with me and Izzy?”
“I have no idea, but promise you won't get arrested. At least not until after the party Saturday since Nikki and I are counting on you two being our escorts to the mission.”
Izzy was still smiling back at Margie when Gregg grabbed his arm. “We better see what's up.”
Walking down the cat tracks, the same path they had taken Izzy's first day to meet The Emperor, Gregg noticed Izzy was not the same guy who arrived here. His walk was taller, his skin darker, his face more hard than bewildered. And, “Hey, you're not sweating as much.”
“I'm not wearing any underwear either. Crotch rot is bad, you know.”
“May not be as bad as what's waiting for us at HQ. Military police, that sounds serious. And Peck's not here. Maybe Rick went back and killed him.”
“Or maybe something better. Maybe Rick found the killer and this whole Ghost Soldier nightmare is over.”
Just the thought was enough for Gregg to feel his body slightly release inside. If this awful thing would go away and J.D. along with it, he could just count the days while convincing Kate to go home with him. Add in a good night's sleep and then he could call it perfect.
Upon entering HQ, Gregg was struck by the freshly painted walls and he wondered how Terry felt sitting at the desk that Top had commandeered. Terry raised the arm that wasn't bandaged in greeting and Gregg plowed a hand through the hippy surfer hair that still needed that damn haircut he'd promised Top to get.
“How're you doing, Terry?”
“Still working on the load of cookies Nikki brought me and I'm still around to eat them, so no complaints here.” Voices rose in the direction of the CO's office. “The two of you better go on in. You're expected.” Terry's smile bore little resemblance to the effusive young West Point officer the last time he allowed them past Colonel Kellogg's door.
Moments later, Gregg and Izzy entered the domain of their commanding officer.
“Shut the door,” ordered Kellogg.
If a room could boil with tension, Gregg figured he and Izzy would be cooked faster than a couple of lobsters in a bubbling cauldron.
In one chair sat Peck with a smug look on his face. In another chair was a full bird colonel, his assistant standing behind him, all of them facing Kellogg who rose from his desk in a clear fury as Gregg and Izzy gingerly stepped closer.
Peck decided to stand up too. “I want to press full charges, sir, andâ”
“Sit down Major and shut up. You will speak when either I or Colonel Johnson ask you to, and not before. Captain Kelly, Captain Moskowitz, thank you for coming. As for
you
â
”
Kellogg jabbed a finger in Peck's quickly seated direction. “This is what you have done so far. You came back from the field with some pissant complaint to your COâthat would be
meâ
that you had been assaulted and threatened by a fellow officer and when your COâagain that would be
meâ
told you to knock it off, you went over your CO's head to contact military police headquarters in Saigon, which has caused the head of the CIDâthat would be Colonel Johnson hereâto come all the way to our division to find out why I cannot manage my own people which makes me look. . .well, do you see where I am going with this?”
“I do, sir,” Peck responded. “But you have to understand that these people were in the company of those who were threatening me and as the ranking officerâ”
Kellogg guillotined the air and politely turned his attention to Izzy and Gregg. “Doctors, do you care to weigh in here? To your knowledge was Major Peck inappropriately dealt with by either Major Mikel or Captain Galt under whatever the circumstances might have been?”
Gregg and Izzy exchanged glances. In unison they responded, “No sir.”
At that point Colonel Johnson leaned close to Peck and thumped him once, squarely in the chest. “You are not the ranking anything except idiot and fuckup, Major. If I get one more call from you, or about you, I will personally see that the rest of your tour here makes a firebase look like cooking up brownies in an Easy-Bake Oven. Do you understand what I am saying?”
Peck blanched. He looked from Johnson to Kellogg, darted a furtive glance at Gregg that reminded him of, “
I'll get you my pretty and your little dog, too!”
before contritely nodding, nodding. “Yes sir, my apologies, sir, I understand. I see I have made a terrible mistake. You won't hear from me again.”
Kellogg pointed to the door. “You are dismissed Peck. Just remember, if I hear one more thing about you myself from Doctors Kelly, Moskowitz, or Mikel that doesn't make me want to invite you to my daughter's wedding, you are goner than gone to wherever Colonel Johnson wishes to send you and that includes Hell.”
“Thank you, sir, yes sir. Thank you.” Peck all but bowed his way out.
Upon his departure Colonel Johnson beamed at Gregg and Izzy. “Doctors, Mikel tells me he is more than pleased with your performance so whatever it is that you are doing to assist him, carry on.”
“Me too, sir?” interjected Kellogg.
“Yes, you carry on, too, Colonel.” Johnson passed Gregg and Izzy on his way to the door where he paused to say, “Sorry to have bothered you with this.”
A salute, and before they could return it, Johnson was gone.
Kellogg was still holding his salute pose when Gregg and Izzy haphazardly saluted him back and made their own exit.
Terry was taking a swig from a Milk of Magnesia bottle at Top's desk.
“Let me know if you need any meds,” Izzy offered.
“Thanks, Doc Moskowitz, I'll let you know.” Then to Gregg he said, “Looks like you guys have connections. That's always a good thing, right?”
Gregg had once thought so, but now? “Maybe. Maybe not.”
J.D. showed up Friday, butt-crack-of-dawn, at the villa. At this point he had basically dropped the ruse of coming in for rounds at the hospital and only slid in an appearance if there was something case-specific. Gregg thought it might be good news that no new reports of Ghost Soldier mangling had surfaced; their beds were just constantly occupied by damaged and deranged soldiers brought in from the field under typical circumstances.
Gregg found himself thinking about his thinking again: What did it say about his own mental health when he considered damaged and deranged young men a welcome reprieve and classified war in terms of “typical circumstances?”
He wished to God he had never walked through the door of that morgue. Sleep had once been a respite from the unrelenting suffering he witnessed daily; now he dreaded crossing the line from consciousness into the unguarded territory of sleep. The first nightmare shook him, but he passed it off as a singular event. The next night when he woke himself up shouting, he let it go too, nothing chronic to worry about.
The body needed rest but the brain needed sleep and the deprivation of it, now four nights in a row, was not pretty.
“What happened to you?” The alarm on J.D.'s usually inscrutable features made Gregg wonder if he looked even worse than the mirror had indicated before following the aroma of freshly brewed coffee into the kitchen.
“None of your damn business.” Gregg knew he sounded grumpy because he was grumpy, and he completely did not care. J.D., on the other hand, apparently cared enough to pour a cup from the percolator he was manningâand fix it just right with a splash of milk and two sugars before handing it to Gregg, whose mother would have been horrified that instead of a polite “thank you” he snapped, “How do you know how I take my coffee?”
“Because I pay attention.” J.D. tapped the top button of Gregg's mis-buttoned shirt. “You may want to try this again. And tie your boot strings while you're at it.”
Gregg refrained from muttering “screw you” as he clomped over to the kitchen table, plunked down the mug harder than intended, and bent down to tie his boots. He was so damn tired he was ready to crawl on top of the table and go to sleep right there.
J.D. pulled up a chair next to him and tapped his fingertips together. “So, how bad are the nightmares?”
Gregg shrugged. “Bad enough.”
“Can you take something to help?”
“I'm thinking about it.” And he had. What Gregg hadn't expected was his own resistance to signing up for the very medication he was so liberal in dispensing. Not that he prescribed the Rxs., that end of the job went to the MDs, but as for why he was so reluctant to dip into the medicine cabinet himselfâ¦
On some level some part of him had decided that it would be like admitting the war had won. And he did not want this miserable mess of a war to beat Gregg Kelly.
“Look, Gregg, I've been thinking, too. I know we have this thing between usâ”
“Kate is not a
thing
. She's a wild child with an incredibly intelligent mind and she's a woman with a sweet and generous heart that's not always so wise. I know what she looks like now, but I still see a girl with braces and a bad perm that earned her the nickname Bozo and when some bully down the street called me her little clown she knocked that bastard flat and told me to take my best shot. Tag-team, me and Kate. I loved her then. And I love her now. I will
always
love Kate. Even if she doesn't always love me back the same.”
Gregg quickly put the mug to his mouth before he said more. Worse, before he choked up in front of J.D., who genuinely looked sympathetic.
God, what was the matter with him?
Everything he'd said about Kate was true but his emotions and his nerves were so raw he was saying shit he would normally keep to himself, or maybe after a few beers confess to a trusted friend like Robert David or Izzy too now. But not to J.D. Telling him this, letting him in on personal territory, was like giving Intel to the enemy.
“But she does love you, Gregg.” J.D.'s voice was quiet, thoughtful. Gregg half expected him to pull out a box of tissues and start taking notes, like he was the therapist sympathizing with the wreck on the couch. “She even told me she didn't deserve you. Maybe that's why she thinks I deserve a chance with her. I probably don't. Actually, I'm quite positive that I don't. But even guys like me need something good every now and then, something to remind us that certain things in life are worth living for. Whether we deserve it or not.”
Even Hitler liked to paint and Fish liked to write when he wasn't ea
t
ing kids. Everyone needs some form of sanctuary, Gregg.
As if the echo of Izzy's observation had summoned him, there he was, stumbling half-asleep to the coffee pot and scratching his nuts en route.
“If you look in the refrigerator there's some stuff mom sent; baloney, good cheese, grapes, and some fresh bread on the counter. Maybe you'll share with Gregg?”
Izzy spun around to their corner of the room, blinking furiously behind his horn rimmed frames.
“You scared the crap out of me! Where did you come from?”
“Hell?”
J.D. laughed like the devil that Gregg really wanted him to be. It would make things so much easier to keep him consigned to a neat little box marked with a big fat X. But no, it wasn't that easy and such complications weren't helping him keep all the snakes and worms slithering out of the gray matter lately.
“Actually, Gregg and I were just discussing Rick's opinion that our little morgue visit came compliments of the Chinese doing a psyops overachiever thingâyou know, because those short guys have to compensate somehow, Napoleon complex or whatever you call it. But if it's not them, and we're dealing instead with some whacko of our ownâ”
“I'd say more like an entire lock down unit from what we saw.” Gregg was glad to pick up the thread and switch from personal to professional dealings. “Izzy and I did consider the possibility of a cult or religious sect being the perpetrators but discounted that theory as being the least likely in this particular scenario.”
Izzy schlepped to the table with his coffee and a hastily prepared tray of eats.
“Thanks for the food, J.D. That was thoughtful.”
“I have no idea what came over me.”
Izzy put together a sandwich and handed it to Gregg. J.D. waved away a similar offering and got down to business.
“Okay, let's hear your theories. Izzy, you start. Educate me.”
“Very well.” Izzy touched his temple with his forefinger, reminding Gregg of the Scarecrow launching into the Pythagorean Theorem upon receiving his brain. “As you probably know from your own training, profiling has been in order for a long time, at least since the days of Jack the Ripper in the 1880s, when the good doctors George Phillips and Thomas Bond used the crime scene evidence to make predictions about who the killer might be. The whole process about assembling crime scene evidence from victims or witnesses and survivors then results in a description or profile like age, race, sex, and physical traits such as being big or small, strong, left handed, right handed. Then there is the method and manner of killing, frequency, body mutilation or not, or staging the victims' bodies and so forth, and so Gregg and I put together something that also indicates a certain kind of personality and pathology.”
“Like the Matesky case,” added Gregg.
“Exactly,” Izzy said. “Matesky, also known as the Mad Bomber of New York, was profiled by Dr. James Brussel, then New York's Assistant Commissioner of Mental Hygiene. He created a description that said the bomber would be a male in his 50s living in Connecticut, unmarried, foreign, self-educated, and paranoid and that he would have had a vendetta against Con Ed, the initial target in over thirty bombings between 1940 and 1956. Using that profile, the police found him. So, basically, the idea is to create a description of our killer. Personally I like Gregg's perspective over anything classical theory can come up with.”