Blood & Tacos #3 (7 page)

Tara caught up with him. She was seven years his junior, a redhead with intelligent green eyes that glittered like those of a mischievous cat. The GI fatigues she wore did nothing to conceal a trim, shapely figure. She chose not to respond to McCall’s sarcasm because, McCall knew, she well understood and appreciated its source.

He was not overjoyed in the first place about being assigned the dual task of performing his duties in addition to nurse-maiding an embedded journalist. But there was another, more significant reason for his displeasure with the presence of Tara “Carpenter” in Vietnam, and she and he were the only two people in country or anywhere else who could appreciate the undercurrent of tension that crackled between them.

They were husband and wife.

Therein lay one hell of a tale, somehow as simple as it was complex. She’d been his wife for three years before he volunteered for Nam. Tara had never been your average military base wife. She’d been freelancing her photographs to wire services and news magazines before they met. During their separation while Cord was in Vietnam, she had continued to rise through the ranks of professional news photographers.

But he had been dumbstruck when he showed up that morning at the Saigon airport, not having the slightest idea that the photojournalist assigned to him was his own wife.

Tara had brazenly confided in him, with only a trace of smugness, that it had taken considerable finagling on her part, including coming up with a cockamamie story for her editor about the need for a cover name, but she pulled it off. Wars were the stuff Pulitzer Prizes were made of but ambition and self-interest were not the only reasons she’d hustled up this assignment. She’d grown impatient, sitting on the sidelines in the States. She wanted to learn for herself what was going on in Vietnam. Her voice softened when she explained to McCall that she wanted to experience his world. She would not have interfered under normal circumstances but this war was hardly normal. As his wife, she well knew his strength, his self-confidence. Now, she explained that morning at the airport, she yearned to know the source of that strength that she had decided could only be forged in sharing the fires of war with him.

Well, hell.

He had agreed to maintain the secret that she was his spouse as much to avoid complications as to avoid appearing the fool, but he’d made no secret of his displeasure during the drive to CID HQ and had protested adamantly, in her presence, to his commanding officer. Colonel Conglose had proceeded to not-so-patiently re-explain to McCall how this was part of an important PR campaign being waged on the home front by the Pentagon. McCall would obey orders and allow Miss Carpenter to accompany him during duty hours until further notice. That said, McCall was handed his assignment to Firebase Tiger.

He and Tara crossed from the Huey to the trio of waiting soldiers.

The ranking man stepped forward. He had the build and the leathery features of a farmer, thirtyish, with a sunburned crew cut and flinty eyes. He did not salute. Enemy snipers loved to disrupt the chain of command, and seeing who was saluted made selecting targets easy. Saluting was avoided in the field.

“Major, I’m Captain Larson, Executive Officer in Charge. Welcome to Firebase Tiger, though I imagine you’d rather be someplace else.”

The man next to Larson was a strapping man with a caffè latte complexion and E-6 stripes on his sleeve. “That goes for every mother’s son in this hell hole, sir.”

Larson said, “Easy, Top. Major, this is Sergeant Hines. He’s my top shirt.”

“I know,” said McCall. “I studied your personnel files on the flight in.”

Hines kept shifting his attention between them and scanning the darkening jungle beyond the perimeter.

The third man was a first lieutenant named Grey and everything about him matched his name. Blond-haired, in his late twenties, there was paleness to the junior officer that was almost albino-like except for the empurpled, swollen area around a bandage at his right temple.

Grey said, “Sergeant Hines speaks the truth. I wish I’d never heard of Firebase Tiger.”

McCall said, “You have a colonel who was fragged.”

Larson nodded. “Lieutenant Colonel Emmett, 13th Infantry Battalion. Someone tossed a hand grenade into his hooch just before dawn and splashed the walls with his guts.”

“Hooch” was GI slang for makeshift living quarters. “Fragging” was another recently coined term. Bad command decisions by an officer too often got good soldiers killed. Sometimes an officer’s own men—considering it more an act of survival than murder—would toss a grenade into the officer’s hooch, blowing the officer into itty bitty officer parts—“frag” him, in other words—before the officer got anyone else killed.

“Where’s the body now?”

Larson said, “What was left of it was tagged and bagged and sent to Saigon on the daily chopper run.”

Grey cleared his throat and nodded at Tara. “Uh, if you don’t mind, Major, who is she?”

“Her? Name’s Carpenter. Pretend she’s not here. Okay, Captain, show me where the fragging took place.”

Larson led them toward a squalid, dust covered pile of sandbags that was somewhat bigger than the other hooches.

“The colonel’s hooch was next to the main bunker.”

Tara commenced taking pictures.

Activity swirled around them; a world of coarse language, exhaust fumes and the clicking and clanking of engines, equipment, and weaponry. Nearly every soldier in sight was toting an M-16 and a wary attitude. The shadows of encroaching night deepened by the minute.

The colonel’s hooch was a low, ten-by-twelve, makeshift structure of timber and plywood beneath a shell of sandbags. Its entrance was charred, misshapen from the outward force of the murderous blast. McCall stooped and entered while the others grouped behind him outside.

Walls were splashed with gore. Flies buzzed, thick and loud. The sickly sweet smell of death was almost overpowering in the enclosed space.

“Did anyone see anything?”

Larson shook his head, negative. “Everyone heard the blast but Security was paying attention to outside the perimeter. The nearest personnel when it happened were me and Sergeant Hines and the lieutenant.”

Grey indicated his bandage. “I caught this when my patrol was ambushed the other night. I was laid up in my hooch, woozy on pain pills the medic gave me. But we compared notes. No one saw anything. It wasn’t the VC. They’d never breach our perimeter.”

Hines indicated the Tactical Operations command bunker.

“The captain and I were sprucing up the files for the Inspector General’s visit day after tomorrow. If it hadn’t been for a couple of walls between the colonel’s hooch and the TOC, we’d have been hamburger too.”

“Any ideas about who’d want the colonel dead bad enough to frag him?”

Larson said, “Suspects?” The flint was cold in his eyes. “Yeah, I could think of a few.”

Grey cleared his throat. “You might as well go ahead and tell him, Cap.”

Tara said, “Tell us what, Captain Larson?”

This got McCall’s goat.

“Not us, ma’am. Me.” He spoke to the men. “I take it the colonel was not well liked.”

Hines chuckled. “I’ll bet you’re saying that just because someone fragged his ass to hell.”

McCall said, “Emmett was assigned here just last month. A new CO always shakes up a command to put his own brand on it. The troops never like it, but it usually settles into a mutual respect.”

Hines regarded the damaged hooch with no visible sign of emotion.

“You want a list of suspects, Major? You could start with every man on this base.”

Grey stared at the ground as if looking at something far, far away. “Eight men who were stationed here went home yesterday in body bags.”

“A platoon from Bravo company,” said Larson. “Ambushed. Heavy casualties.”

“Wiped out by one of our own bombs,” said Hines. His eyes kept shifting back to the jungle tree line. “The VC find our dud shells, rig them up and use them against us.”

“Let me guess,” said McCall. “Saigon promised replacements today but they’re not here.”

Larson nodded. “The green machine. Efficient as hell, ain’t it? And until those new men get here, I’m way short of manpower. I’m hoping Charlie hasn’t figured that out yet.”

“Issue me an M-l6,” said McCall. “You’ve got one replacement.”

“Two, actually,” Tara volunteered.

They ignored her.

McCall didn’t miss the flash of anger that made Tara’s eyes turn a deeper shade of green.

He went around to the entrance of the command center and glanced inside. Tactical maps were spread out upon folding tables. Ammo crates served as chairs. A clerk was busy at a typewriter. A radio man monitored mostly static from a small receiver.

Grey said, “Colonel Emmett should never have ordered me and my men out on that patrol.”

Larson told McCall, “The firebase is assigned two companies of light infantry. One supports the other. The line company conducts recon patrols around the base, and it was Bravo Company’s turn on the rotation schedule. The other company provides mortar and artillery support from here.”

“The colonel should have never ordered my platoon into that area after dark,” said Grey. “I’m not some wet-behind-the-ears cherry. That ambush wasn’t my fault. Me and Sergeant Williams always brought our guys home. Right, Captain?

Larson nodded. “Right, Lieutenant.”

Hines said, not unkindly, “You need to relax, Lieutenant, if you don’t mind my saying so, sir. You, uh, haven’t been right since, well, since it happened. Maybe you ought to lay down in your hooch, sir. I’ll have a medic check in with you.”

A sideways glance told McCall that an impulse within Tara was trying to dissuade her from capturing on film, for posterity, Lieutenant Grey’s vulnerability and emotional unbalance; a poignant portrait of the ravages of war on a trained, competent man. She grimaced, lifted her camera and snapped the picture.

Grey said, “The sergeant who died in the ambush, Sergeant Williams, he served way back in the Korean War and until two nights ago he was keeping alive a good bunch of guys who should have been back home drinking beer. Every man on the base respected him. The sarge was our teacher, our preacher, the one we looked up to. And I owed him a personal debt. That’s why I wish to God that
I’d
been one of the dead in that VC ambush, not him.”

“Lieutenant,” said Larson, “you are not responsible for what happened.”

McCall said, “What sort of personal debt?”

“My dad served with Sergeant Williams in Korea,” said Grey. “He saved Dad’s life. Sarge greased a Red Chinese who was about to run Dad through with a bayonet. They stayed in touch after the war. They were both lifers. I must have heard the story a hundred times growing up. I never got tired of it. Cancer got Dad last year. I was raised to be a soldier. I couldn’t believe my luck when I got assigned to Sergeant Williams. I was supposed to be the platoon leader, but we all knew who kept us alive.” Grey’s lower lip trembled.

Tara stepped forward. She rested a hand gently on Grey’s shoulder.

“Lieutenant, listen to your captain and to Sergeant Hines. There is a thing called survivor’s guilt. You must maintain. That is what you owe Sergeant Williams and your dad and yourself.”

Grey’s lower lip stopped trembling.

“Yes ma’am. You’re right.” He drew himself to his full height, his shoulders back. “I’m not doing anybody any good, pissing and whining, am I? I’ve got to regroup and be ready for whatever’s coming next.”

Tara nodded with a smile. “1 couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Grey turned to Larson. “Captain, uh, I guess maybe I should try and get some rest.”

“I think you’re right, Lieutenant. You’re dismissed.”

“Thank you, sir.” Grey added to Tara, “And thank you, ma’am.” He lowered his eyes from theirs and walked away.

When Grey was out of earshot, Larson said, “There goes a fine soldier, wearing a hair shirt from hell.”

“He’ll make it,” said Hines. “That kid’s got a lot to offer this man’s army, but he was on the razor’s edge of losing it. Miss Carpenter, I believe you helped steer that soldier back in the right direction.”

Tara started to say something.

McCall spoke before she could.

“Yes, ma’am. That was a humane and noble gesture. But now I must ask you to allow me to proceed without distraction. You’re a non-participating observer, Miss Carpenter. Captain, I’d like to take a look as Sergeant Williams’ hooch.”

“This way,” said Larson. He started them toward a line of hooches near a row of mortar placements. “Mind if I ask, Major, what are we looking for in Williams’ hooch?”

Striding apace with them, Tara said, “The lieutenant said the men on the base looked up to Sergeant Williams like a hero.”

Hines nodded. “That’s as good a word as any, ma’am, and that’s why everyone hated the colonel after Sergeant Williams died on a patrol that never should have been sent out.” A bleak smile creased his coffee latte features. “And that’s the connection. I get it. Lady, you’re a Sherlock Holmes.”

McCall tried hard not to yield to his building irritation.

He said, “She’s a civilian.” This wasn’t going to work, having Tara tagging along every step of the way. He would just lay it all out for Conglose when they got back to HQ. They had a war to win. He had a murder to solve. What the hell was Tara thinking? What the hell was she doing here? Cool it, he told himself. He said, “And I’ll thank you, Miss Carpenter, to just zip it and take your pictures, okay?”

“Understood, General.”

McCall sighed. “Sarcasm yet. I’ll be lucky to stay a major with you bird-dogging me.” He barely caught the man-to-man grin that passed between Larson and the first sergeant at this verbal sparring. Damn. The electricity between him and this sassy redhead was so obvious that anyone who witnessed it would catch on even if they didn’t know exactly what they were seeing. To change the subject, he nodded to the row of mortars near Williams’ hooch. “Not the quietest neighborhood.”

“No such thing as a quiet neighborhood in this sector,” said Hines. “We’re surrounded by bogey land. It’s a free fire zone beyond that perimeter.”