Kelly was halfway there before his mind remarked on the fact, crawling as rapidly as he could in silence, helped by the moist ground. A low crawl, his body as flat as he could manage, closer, closer, both driven and drawn by the whine that emanated from near the fire. Should have done it sooner, Johnnie-boy.
It wasn’t possible then.
Well, fuck, it isn’t possible now!
It was then that fate intervened in the sound of a Huey, probably more than one, off to the southeast. Kelly heard it first, rising carefully behind the soldier, his knife drawn. They still hadn’t heard it when he struck, driving his knife into the base of the man’s skull, where the spinal cord meets the base of the brain – the medulla, someone had told him in a lecture. He twisted it, almost like a screwdriver, his other hand across the soldier’s mouth, and, sure enough, it worked. The body went instantly limp, and he lowered it gently, not from any feelings of humanity, but to limit noise.
But there was noise. The choppers were too close now. The Major’s head went up, turning southeast, recognizing the danger. He shouted an order for his men to assemble, then turned and shot the child in the head just as soon as one of his privates moved off of her and out of the way.
It only took a few seconds for the squad to assemble. The Major did a quick and automatic head count, coming up one short, and he looked in Kelly’s direction, but his eyes and his vision had been long since compromised by the fire, and the only thing he did see was some spectral movement in the air.
‘One, two, three,’ Kelly whispered to himself after pulling the cotter pin out of one of his frags. The boys in 3rd SOG cut their own fuses. You never knew what the little old lady in the factory might do. Theirs burned for exactly five seconds, and on ‘three,’ the grenade left his hand. It was just metallic enough to glint with the orange firelight. A nearly perfect toss, it landed in the exact center of the ring of soldiers. Kelly was already prone in the dirt when it landed. He heard the shout of alarm that was just a second too late to help anyone.
The grenade killed or wounded seven of the ten men. He stood with his carbine and dropped the first one with three rounds to the head. His eyes didn’t even pause to see the flying red cloud, for this was his profession, and not a hobby. The Major was still alive, lying on the ground but trying to aim his pistol until his chest took five more. His death made the night a success. Now all Kelly had to do was survive. He had committed himself to a foolish act, and caution was his enemy.
Kelly ran to the right, his carbine held high. There were at least two NVA moving, armed and angry and confused enough that they weren’t running away as they should. The first chopper overhead was an illum bird, dropping flares that Kelly cursed, because the darkness was his best friend right now. He spotted and hosed down one of the NVA, emptying his magazine into the running figure. Moving right still, he switched magazines, circling around, hoping to find the other one, but his eyes lingered on the center of the ville. People scurrying around, some of them probably hurt by his grenade, but he couldn’t worry himself about that. His eyes froze on the victims – worse, they stayed too long on the fire, and when he turned away, the shape of it stayed in his eyes, alternating between orange and blue ghost images that wrecked his night vision. He could hear the roar of a Huey flared for landing close to the ville, and that was loud enough to mask even the screams of the villagers. Kelly hid behind the wall of a hooch, eyes looking outward, away from the fire as he tried to blink them clear. At least one more unhurt NVA was moving, and he wouldn’t be running toward the sound of the chopper, Kelly kept heading right, more slowly now. There was a ten-meter gap from this hooch to the next, like a corridor of light in the glow of the fire. He looked around the corner before making the run, then took off fast, his head low for once. His eyes caught a moving shadow, and when he turned to look, he stumbled over something and went down.
Dust flew up around him, but he couldn’t find the source of the noise quickly enough. Kelly rolled left to avoid the shots, but that took him towards the light. He half stood and pushed himself backwards, hitting the wall of a hooch, eyes scanning frantically for the muzzle flashes. There! He brought his CAR-15 to bear and fired just as two 7.62 rounds caught him in the chest. The impact spun him around, and two more hits destroyed the carbine in his hands. When next he looked up he was on his back, and it was quiet in the vill?. His first attempt to move achieved nothing but pain. Then the muzzle of a rifle pressed to his chest.
‘Over here. Lieutenant!’ Followed by: ‘Medic!’
The world moved as they dragged him closer to the fire. Kelly’s head hung limply to the left, watching the soldiers sweep through the ville, two of them disarming and examining the NVA.
‘This fucker’s alive,’ one of them said.
‘Oh, yeah?’ The other walked over from the body of the eight-year-old, touched his muzzle to the NVA’s forehead, and fired once.
‘Fuck, Harry!’
‘Knock that shit off!’ the Lieutenant screamed.
‘Look at what they done, sir!’ Harry screamed back, falling to his knees to vomit.
‘What’s your problem?’ the medical corpsman asked Kelly, who was. quite unable to reply. ‘Oh, shit,’ he observed further. ‘Ell-Tee, this must be the guy who called in!’
One more face appeared, probably the Lieutenant commanding the Blue Team, and the oversized patch on his shoulder was that of the 1st Cavalry Division.
‘Lieutenant, looks all clear, sweeping the perimeter again now!’ an older voice called.
‘All dead?’
‘That’s affirm, sir!’
‘Who the hell are you?’ the Lieutenant said, looking back down. ‘Crazy fucking Marines!’
‘Navy!’ Kelly gasped, spraying a little blood on the medic.
‘What?’ Nurse O’Toole asked.
Kelly’s eyes opened wide. His right arm moved rapidly across his chest as his head swiveled to survey the room. Sandy O’Toole was in the corner, reading a book under a single light.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Listening to your nightmare,’ she answered. ‘Second time. You know, you really ought to -‘
‘Yeah, I know.’
CHAPTER 10
Pathology
‘Your gun’s in the back of the car,’ Sergeant Douglas told him. ‘Unloaded. Keep it that way from now on.’
‘What about Pam?’ Kelly asked from his wheelchair.
‘We’ve got some leads,’ Douglas replied, not troubling himself to conceal the lie.
And that said it all, Kelly thought. Someone had leaked it to the papers that Pam had an arrest record for prostitution, and with that revelation, the case had lost its immediacy.
Sam brought the Scout up to the Wolfe Street entrance himself. The bodywork was all fixed, and there was a new window on the driver’s side. Kelly got out of the wheelchair and gave the Scout a long look. The door-frame and adjacent pillar had broken up the incoming shot column and saved his life. Bad aim on someone’s part, really, after a careful and effective stalk – helped by the fact that he hadn’t troubled himself to check his mirrors, Kelly told himself behind a blank expression. How had he managed to forget that? he asked himself for the thousandth time. Such a simple thing, something he’d stressed for every new arrival in 3rd SOG: always check your back, because there might be somebody hunting you. Simple thing to remember, wasn’t it?
But that was history. And history could not be changed.
‘Back to your island, John?’ Rosen asked.
Kelly nodded. ‘Yeah. I have work waiting, and I have to get myself back into shape.’
‘I want to see you back here in, oh, two weeks, for a follow-up.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll be back,’ Kelly promised. He thanked Sandy O’Toole for her care, and was rewarded with a smile. She’d almost become a friend in the preceding eighteen days. Almost? Perhaps she already was, if only he would allow himself to think in such terms. Kelly got into his car and fixed the seat belt in place. Goodbyes had never been his strong suit. He nodded and smiled at them and drove off, turning right towards Mulberry Street, alone for the first time since his arrival at the hospital.
Finally. Next to him, on the passenger seat where he’d last seen Pam alive, was a manila envelope marked Patient Records/Bills in Sam Rosen’s coarse handwriting.