Maybe I have, too, he thought wearily as he stared out the dirty window at the streets of Bangkok. How he used to love this city, loved the days of wandering through the markets, where the colors were so bright they hurt the eyes; loved the nights of prowling the back streets of Pat Pong, where the music and the girls never quit. Nothing bothered him in those daysnot the noise or the heat or the smells.
Not even the bullets. Hed felt immune, immortal. It was always the other guy who caught the bullet, the other guy who got shipped home in a box. And if you thought otherwise, if you worried too long and hard about your own mortality, you made a lousy soldier.
Eventually, hed become a lousy soldier.
He was still astonished that hed survived. It was something hed never fully understand: the simple fact that hed made it back alive.
Especially when he thought of all the other men on that transport plane out of Da Nang. Their ticket home, the magic bird that was supposed to deliver them from all the madness.
He still had the scars from the crash. He still harbored a mortal dread of flying.
He refused to think about that upcoming flight to Saigon. Air travel, unfortunately, was part of his job, and this was just one more plane he couldnt avoid.
He opened his briefcase, took out a stack of folders and lay down on the bed to read. The file he opened first was one of dozens hed brought with him from Honolulu. Each contained a name, rank, serial number, photograph and a detailed historyas detailed as possibleof the circumstances of disappearance. This one was a naval airman, Lieutenant Commander Eugene Stoddard, last seen ejecting from his disabled bomber forty miles west of Hanoi. Included was a dental chart and an old X-ray report of an arm fracture sustained as a teenager. What the file left out were the nonessentials: the wife hed left behind, the children, the questions.
There were always questions when a soldier was missing in action.
Guy skimmed the pages, made a few mental notes and reached for another file. These were the most likely cases, the men whose stories best matched the newest collection of remains. The Vietnamese government was turning over three sets, and Guys job was to confirm the skeletons were non-Vietnamese and to give each one a name, rank and serial number. It wasnt a particularly pleasant job, but one that had to be done.
He set aside the second file and reached for the next.
This one didnt contain a photograph; it was a supple-mentary file, one hed reluctantly added to his briefcase at the last minute. The cover was stamped Confidential, then, a year ago, restamped Declassified. He opened the file and frowned at the first page.
Code Name: Friar Tuck
Status: Open (Current as of 10/85)
File Contains: 1. Summary of Witness Reports
2. Possible Identities
3. Search Status
Friar Tuck. A legend known to every soldier whod fought in Nam. During the war, Guy had assumed those tales of a rogue American pilot flying for the enemy were mere fantasy.
Then, a few weeks ago, hed learned otherwise.
Hed been at his desk at the Army Lab when two men, representatives of an organization called the Ariel Group, had appeared in his office. We have a proposition, theyd said. We know youre visiting Nam soon, and we want you to look for a war criminal. The man they were seeking was Friar Tuck.
Youve got to be kidding. Guy had laughed. Im not a military cop. And theres no such man. Hes a fairy tale.
In answer, theyd handed him a twenty-thousand-dollar checkfor expenses, theyd said. Thered be more to come if he brought
the traitor back to justice.
And if I dont want the job? hed asked.
You can hardly refuse was their answer. Then theyd told Guy exactly what they knew about him, about his past, the thing hed done in the war. A brutal secret that could destroy him, a secret hed kept hidden away behind a wall of fear and self-loathing. They told him exactly what he could expect if it came to light. The hard glare of publicity. The trial. The jail cell.
They had him cornered. He took the check and awaited the next contact.
The day before he left Honolulu, this file had arrived special delivery from Washington. Without looking at it, hed slipped it into his briefcase.
Now he read it for the first time, pausing at the page listing possible identities. Several names he recognized from his stack of MIA files, and it struck him as unfair, this list. These men were missing in action and probably dead; to brand them as possible traitors was an insult to their memories.
One by one, he went over the names of those voiceless pilots suspected of treason. Halfway down the list, he stopped, focusing on the entry William T. Maitland, pilot, Air America. Beside it was an asterisk and, below, the footnote: Refer to File #M-70-4163, Defense Intelligence. (Classified.)
William T. Maitland, he thought, trying to remember where hed heard the name. Maitland, Maitland.
Then he thought of the woman at Kistners villa, the little blonde with the magnificent legs. Im here on family business, shed said. For that shed consulted General Joe Kistner, a man whose connections to Defense Intelligence were indisputable.