There Will Be Killing (21 page)

Crystal Blue Persuasion
took a long looping diving turn and so did Izzy's stomach. The high cool air was refreshing but only sharpened his senses to the horror show of where he was going and what they were doing, though he wasn't too clear on that much yet.

Rick had not been in the flashy gunship this time to greet them and while J.D. had tried to act as if they were all buddy-buddy since meeting up at the 8th Field's LZ, Izzy and Gregg knew better. They'd had a frank discussion minus J.D. as they packed at the villa.

Izzy:
Can you believe he's taking us out there again, only this time to god knows where Rick has his camp set up?
 

Gregg:
I can believe anything at this point that suits J.D.'s agenda.

Izzy:
Do you think he's a sociopath?

Gregg:
I don't know but if he is then we are completely expendable and if we have to be sacrificed it won't be hard to explain our disappea
r
ance in a war zone. The military will completely back him up. We're just draftees, no different in their eyes from every other grunt they throw out like trash in the field.

Izzy:
It's hardly insurance against the worst possible, but it might be a good idea to take a page from the playbook J.D. could be working from.
 

Gregg:
Agreed.

The agreement being that sociopaths weren't the only ones who could emulate certain behaviors to successfully get what they wanted. In his and Gregg's case it was simple: out of this trip alive. Therefore, if J.D. wanted to act like they were all cool and in this together, that's how he and Gregg would pretend to play it while they watched each other's backs.

J.D., now seated across from Izzy and Gregg, smiled apologetically, as Izzy hugged his stomach. Not only was he queasy, his chest was so tight he felt like he was drowning, but Izzy smiled back as convincingly as possible as the brilliant blue helicopter finished its dive and came down perfectly on the LZ of . . . he had no idea where they were besides a deserted area where the blue shimmer of a river could be seen in the far distance.

“We're about 25 clicks North from Ban Me Thuot,” J.D. explained, raising his voice over the loud bleat of the helicopter blades. “Let's go!”

So out they all jumped with their gear and J.D. waved the pilot off with a thanks and “Good hunting.”

They were met by a fit looking young man in a ranger uniform with dark embroidered LT Bars on his collar.

“Welcome to Firebase Zebra, doctors.”

The LT did not look or sound very welcoming. It felt like they were intruders into a very private club. Which it was. The military's Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols were highly trained and experienced men that could travel light and fast and far and deep to perform important missions. Izzy knew he and Gregg belonged in this club about as much as the LRRPs belonged where they did:

Stateside. California and New York. With private practices, nice coffees, and patients who didn't dismember LRRPs like the lieutenant here for profit, fun, or cult worship, though they had pretty much ruled that last one out.

“Captain Galt is down at the training site and said to come on over,” said the Special Ops LT who proved to be an experienced guide with his monotone patter down as he walked them to their destination.

“We are remote here as you can see, but this is where some of the best LRRP training in the country takes place. We have a lot of volunteers from all over Vietnam who come specifically because of the exceptional training that results in a high kill rate and a very low casualty rate. We have about twelve LRRPs all over the country now. . . . ”

Mr. Congeniality's tutorial was along the same lines as Rick's the last time he had played host in the Highlands, so Izzy was only paying half attention when he nearly bumped into Gregg, who suddenly stopped as they came upon a scene that looked like something out of a corny Hong Kong Chinese martial arts movie.

The area was some kind of an arena. A group of ten men, armed with long wooden knives, circled around a shirtless blindfolded opponent in the middle who held a wooden staff-like sword. The first attacker came silently from behind the blindfolded man who whirled around and even before the attacker hit ground, he took out the next two attackers coming in from his left, then the two on his right were thrashed into one another and the man in the middle just completely wiped out attacker after attacker faster than Izzy's eyes could follow.

The blindfold came off and it was Rick Galt. His body was slick with sweat, every cord and muscle so accented, he looked like an illustration from an anatomy text on perfect muscle development. There was no fat. He was not overdeveloped like a body builder. On the contrary, he reminded Izzy of a jungle cat, built for speed and power.

Rick looked right at Izzy, flashed him a smile and winked.

Izzy whispered to Gregg, “Don't forget to give him Nikki's latest letter.”

Gregg patted his shirt pocket. “Maybe he'll send us back with some flowers and chocolates this time.”

“Your job is to kill!” Rick shouted. “Attack to kill. Do not hesitate.
Ever.
If you are going to kill, you strike hard, and strike first. What did I say?”

The circle of trainees shouted back: “Strike hard! Strike first!”

Rick dropped his staff and pointed to one of the men. “All right, Stone. You're the best of this bunch. What are you going to do? You have one enemy between you and getting home with the intel to save the patrol.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Stone barked. “Strike Hard! Strike first!”

Stone yanked off his shirt and ran forward, whipping it toward Rick's eyes in an attempt to blind him while whipping the sword in a whistling arc at his legs to amputate them at the knees. It was a frighteningly fast attack.

Rick reacted as if it was all in slow motion. He grabbed the shirt at the same time he leapt high in the air and kicked Stone in the solar plexus, dropping him to his knees. Rick's elbow was at his best student's Adams apple, effectively killing him if the blow had been fully executed. Rick stopped there and pulled Stone to his feet, face still contorted as he gasped for breath while Rick threw his arm over Stone's heavily muscled shoulders.

“The shirt idea was a good surprise,” Rick told the group. “Combined with the leg blow it would have been crippling. Well done, Stone, you almost had me. Good work.” Then like a tiger in a circus show, Rick effortlessly leaped to a nearby platform to finish his address.

“Now listen up everybody. As promised, we are going out to get whoever is fucking with us. You've all heard the latest and we are putting a stop to this because someone has come into our territory, our hunting grounds, and there is only one top predator in this territory and it is—who?”

“Cobras!” the men shouted.

“That's right. We are the hunters here, not the hunted, and the bullshit myth of this Ghost Soldier will be done because we will find the gooks doing this, we will kill them, and we will end it. After this is over, count on a party you'll never forget, but tomorrow we pack up and head out. You will be the hunters of a hunter and we will do what?”

“Kill him!”

The rabid shouts ceased when Rick made a silencing motion and commanded, “Sergeant Oakley! You know the drill. Get them ready.”

“Yes, sir!”

Rick leaped off the platform and came directly over, asking, “Well, Doctors, enjoy our version of an intervention procedure?”

Izzy wasn't sure if “enjoy” was the word. What he'd seen was amazing and unnerving. Their thirst for blood was as palpable as Rick's had been when Peck shot the elephants. Gregg gave a little nudge and Izzy remembered their pact to act the part of happy campers while they mentally dissected everyone and everything that stood between them and their safe return.

“That was, I mean, you were wearing a blindfold and they were for real attacking you full speed.”

Rick laughed. “Naw, if it was real. . .”

“There'd be a lot of blood,” Gregg supplied.

“That's right, a lot of blood,” Rick said, laughing again. “Getting real hot, bet you're thirsty. Come on, this way.” Rick led them all over to a small tent that was actually dressed up like a cantina with palm leaves and had a poncho liner over a crate for a table with a group of chairs around it. He opened a cooler and miraculously pulled out four cold beers.

Gregg extended Nikki's envelope and made the exchange.

“Well, look at that. Christmas just came early.” Rick gazed at the envelope like it was the frosting on top of some delicious cake waiting inside just for him.

Izzy knew the feeling. Or, he had. At this point, Rachel could go fuck herself, or her soul mate at Woodstock, because he still had some chocolates to deliver in Nha Trang. He could not get back there soon enough, no matter how cold the beer Rick hoisted.

“Here's to dead motherfuckers and happy endings.”

Everyone clinked bottles to Rick's toast and Izzy wondered if anyone else noticed J.D. was being unusually quiet. Or that Gregg's easy smile was strained even if his compliment had to be sincere.

“You are something else, man. I have never seen anything like that, not even in the movies. Tell the truth, you were eating Wheaties in the womb.”

“Everybody has to keep their secrets—even shrinks, right?” Rick grinned at J.D., making Izzy wonder if Rick suspected J.D.'s doctor status was a sham.

“Especially shrinks,” J.D. agreed. “All the bad things we hear, we have to keep to ourselves. Right, Gregg? Izzy?”

Izzy felt like he'd just been slammed in the solar plexus faster than Rick had decked Stone. Had J.D. planted some kind of bug in the villa to overhear conversations? Did he know that they were mulling potentially bad things about him and were feigning loyalty now? Shit.
Shit.
J.D. was a spy; of course, he probably had the whole damn villa bugged. Izzy swallowed the gulp of beer lodged in his throat. Glanced at Gregg who appeared to have a hard time swallowing, too, before they echoed: “Right. Right.”

J.D. raised a brow, glanced back at Rick who seemed too preoccupied with stroking Nikki's envelope to notice any subtext between the three of them.

To see that he-man press Nikki's envelope like a prayer to his chest before laying it aside assured Izzy there was some gentleness in Rick that perhaps J.D. was incapable of possessing, and if so, they might need Rick to get them back in one piece.

“Is there something we can do to help the men before they go out tomorrow?” Izzy asked, then pointedly added, “Before we leave to go back ourselves.”

“The reason I asked you to come here is because the bastards struck again and took out another patrol that included some men I personally trained. I've started noticing a pattern I'd like to talk to you guys about, how they seem to be going after the newbies, but right now my biggest concern is that everybody here is completely freaked out and pissed off. Pissed off is good,” Rick stated, “But the other, that's just poison. These men look badass and they are badass, but the morale isn't where it should be. We are supposed to be the proverbial meanest motherfuckers in the valley of death and we are.
We are
. But someone's been coming into our own house here and shitting on us and it's really bad for our self-image. The taunting has to stop.”

“Taunting?” Gregg prompted. “What do you mean by that?”

“We never could find our guys' bodies,” Rick answered. “They took them and that's just wrong. They—or ‘he'—left some heads and hands, that's all, not even enough to send them all home in a single body bag. It's like they think they can get by with this because we're not good enough to out-game them. That's taunting. Now we've got some scores to settle.”

“We can help with residual anger management after your guys settle those scores,” Gregg offered. “Meds, no problem either. Right, Izzy?”

“Absolutely. I can dispense meds like nobody's business. And no one is better than Gregg when it comes to talking things out.”

“I do my best.” Gregg was talking fast, too. “In fact, Rick, I could help your guys with some positive self-talk techniques to improve morale and performance in the field before you go out. If you wanted we could get to work on that right away so you can all get a fresh start tomorrow without us around. We know we're just extra baggage and you have a mission to accomplish.”

“I'm on board with that,” Izzy quickly agreed. “Then we could either come back to do our meds and therapy thing after you have your big victory party—or, better yet, the men who really need tending, you could send to the clinic and we could do better work with them there. Sound like a plan?” Izzy finished hopefully.

Rick scratched his head. “Well, ‘actually,' that's not quite what I had in mind.”

“No?” Something strange and prescient stitched up Izzy's spine as he looked from Rick to J.D. “No?” Izzy repeated, hating the higher pitch to his voice yet too afraid to completely care. “Then what did you have in mind?”

“For starters, I have a special surprise lined up to make amends for what happened with the elephants on your last visit. I hope that's okay.”

“Absolutely,” J.D. said before Izzy could react. “Then what?”

“I figured I could leave you shrinks with the Mnong—damn, there goes my surprise—while the new patrol and I finish our hunt. One day, two max. Then when we get back you could be there to help my men with any of that stress or trauma stuff after we have our victory party. So if you'd be so kind as to stick around, I would really appreciate it, and just maybe…” Rick glanced at Nikki's envelope, a dreamy smile playing at his lips. “Maybe I'll go back with you, play hooky for a few days in your nice little section of town and take my chances that Miss America will agree to go out with me.”