Into the Treeline Read online

  Jim agreed. It made eminent good sense, and it seemed nothing more than a logical extension of what they had been doing against the Viet Cong military units. Ambushes, sniping operations, mines and booby traps; nobody cared when you used such tools against a VC squad. Why should this be any different? Besides, there were a lot of people out there who needed to be stopped; the tacticians behind the scenes who sent out those squads to assassinate government officials and Americans, to burn down Montagnard villages, directing flamethrowers down into the pitiful bunkers where the women and children tried to take refuge. The ones who buried alive the families of Vietnamese soldiers in the sand dunes outside Hue. For too long they had been able to do these things with relative impunity, hiding in their jungle redoubts or right under the noses of those who searched for them by acting as harmless villagers or even as government officials.

  “How good are the actual lists?” he asked. “Do they really identify people or is it some more of the nebulous bullshit we used to get from MACV J-2?”

  “Some places better than others, from what I hear. Depends on the quality of the people working on it. I hear that Eye Corps has the best. That’s where I’m going to try to go. Mark says the regional officer in charge in Danang is an old operational type from the Agency, clandestine services branch, and runs a tight ship. Not like some of the others, who were desk officers for the Soviet bureau and God knows what else before the Agency decided it would be ‘career enhancing’ for them to serve a tour in Vietnam.”

  “Sounds interesting. I’ll listen to what they have to say. You leave anything behind in the States, Al?”

  “You mean besides bad debts, traffic tickets, and an ex-wife who gets half my paycheck every month? Not much. You were lucky you didn’t have to go back to Fort Bragg. You’d be pissed if you saw the way they’re flushing the young troops through Smoke Bomb Hill now. Seventh Special Forces Group is just a replacement detachment. Only people there are the ones who just came back and the ones getting ready to go. Hardly any training gets done at all so the average guy who joins up and gets in Group gets MOS qualified and goes through Qualification Course and gets just about nothing else before he gets shipped out. How would you have liked that before your first tour?”

  “Probably wouldn’t have survived.”

  “And neither do a lot of them. Those that do, most of them, become pretty good soldiers. Some don’t. The selection process has gone to shit, so some real losers get through. Christ, we had an image problem before this, now it’s getting worse. We’ve actually got people coming back and becoming criminals, robbing banks and the like, for Christ’s sake! And of course every newspaper in the country picks up on it: ‘Crazed Green Beret Holds Up Bank,’ that kind of shit. How come we never hear about crazed plumbers holding up banks? I tell you, it’s bad enough I wouldn’t wear a uniform even when I was on leave in Tennessee, and you know how redneck that place is.”

  “I know the feeling. You don’t even have to wear a uniform.” Jim told the story of his encounter in the bar in San Francisco.

  “Shit, I would have loved to have seen that. This Lisa must have been quite a girl.”

  “That she was.” Jim smiled for a moment, thinking of her for the first time since boarding the aircraft. The pang of missing her tightened his chest.

  “Pretty serious about her, are you?”

  Jim’s shrug was eloquent. “How serious can one of us be?” he asked. “That doesn’t work. You of all people should know that.”

  “Yeah, I do.” Al smiled. “My ex did the most foolish of all things. Said I had a choice between her and what I was doing.”

  “Ever feel sorry for yourself?”

  “Fucking nearly every day. You?”

  “Yeah. Ain’t it great?” Jim was silent for a few moments. “You ever think about what you’re going to do when you grow up?”

  “You seriously think we’re ever going to have to worry about it?”

  “Probably not. Scary thought if we’re wrong, though.”

  “Ah, hell, if that ever happens there’s bound to be someplace in the world that can use us. Africa, Latin America, someplace else in Southeast Asia. Any luck at all we can live to a ripe old age and never have to grow up at all. Fuck it, anyway. Suppose they’ll let us get off this thing in Honolulu so’s we can get a drink?”

  To their great good fortune the aircraft developed mechanical problems in Honolulu. They were informed that it would be at least twenty-four hours before it could be fixed. The cheers were deafening.

  “How about it, Mark,” Jim bantered, “how much did you have to pay the pilot?”

  “Don’t be so crude. Do you think I’d do such a thing? An officer and gentleman and scion of a fine old Mafia family? Besides, you don’t pay the pilot, you pay the crew chief.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “I thought you’d never ask. My family maintains a place in the city; it’s empty except for the staff right now. We go there, get changed out of our war suits, I make a couple of phone calls, get a party started, then you assholes are on your own. Face it, if you can’t get laid here, you can’t get laid.”

  “Yee-hah,” said Al. “Show us the way, oh fearless leader. We who are your humble disciples will follow your example, yea, even unto the very jaws of hell itself.”

  “A defrocked Catholic bishop, a redneck failed Baptist, and Al, I don’t know what the fuck you are,” Mark said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. “I must have been a very bad person in my last life. You guys ready to go?”

  Jim was amazed at the sumptuous “winter home” of the Petrillos, and overwhelmed by the party that, seemingly on a moment’s notice, sprang up. Everyone, it seemed, had been waiting for Mark’s arrival; had been preparing for this big blowout for weeks. The pungent smell of good Maui wafted here and there. Within just a few seconds after arriving they had been offered tokes. As graciously as possible Jim refused. There was plenty of booze, and that was his drug of choice.

  It did not take long to get into the spirit of things. He found out very quickly that this was a happy group, and nonjudgmental, just as he would have expected of Mark’s friends. His haircut caused no untoward comments, nor did his clothes. Slowly he relaxed and let his guard down. He wished Lisa were there. He got a drink, drained it, then another. Shit, he thought. This stuff has about as much effect as Kool-Aid tonight. Wonder what she’s doing? Wonder if she’s with someone else? Probably, he thought. Not the kind to spend very much time by herself. Not that I blame her. Right now I don’t feel too much like being by myself either.

  “You look sad,” someone said. “This is a party, or hadn’t you noticed? You’re supposed to be happy at a party.”

  He looked up quickly, aware that he had been staring at the floor for some time. He was awed by the girl standing there. Cinnamon. All he could think of was cinnamon. Skin of that shade, breath sweet and spicy, hair shining and burnished with shades of red. Forgive me, Lisa, he thought.

  The evening passed in a series of flashes. At one point he remembered watching as Al and Finn performed mock baptisms on three very-well-endowed young ladies. At another point he was sitting on a bench in the garden with his cinnamon-colored friend, discussing philosophy and the possibility of eternal life and the fact that he didn’t really care if it existed or not. Later they were in a cab going to a restaurant that stayed open all night; still later in a spare bedroom in Mark’s house.

  He woke the next morning wondering how much he actually remembered and how much had been a dream. Realized as he passed the boundary between sleep and consciousness that his arm was around someone. He moved slightly and felt her stir, turn around, look at him through beautiful brown eyes, and smile.

  Much later they got up and showered together. Later yet they wandered downstairs, saw Mark, Al, Finn, and several unidentified people fortifying themselves with Bloody Marys.

  “Damn,” said Mark. “Thought there for a minute we were going to have to send in a Spike team after you
. Told you you’d like my friends, didn’t I?” he asked the girl. “Better than those wimp asshole lawyers your dad is always trying to fix you up with.”

  She made a face at him. “You started out as a lawyer,” she pointed out.

  Mark clutched his chest in mock pain. “Christ, did you have to tell them that? They all thought I was a piano player in a whorehouse. Now nobody will trust me.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mark,” Jim said. “We didn’t trust you in the first place. Any word on the aircraft?”

  “Unfortunately, it seems that they are going to have to fly the part out here from the States. We won’t get out of here before tomorrow at the earliest.” He took a bow, acknowledging the spontaneous burst of cheers and applause. “Now, shall we get down to some serious partying? Last night was a good prep, but now it’s time for some industrial-strength debauchery.”

  Later that evening Jim was talking with a serious-looking young woman. She wore glasses. He’d always had a weakness for girls in glasses, ever since high school and an unfulfilled crush on the prettiest girl in the class. She’d gone on, he heard, to marry a construction worker and have four kids. But he had nothing else to do at the moment. His friend from the evening before was at that moment away dancing with someone else.

  “Do you believe in life after death?” she asked.

  Jesus, he thought, where did that one come from? “I’m not even sure I believe in life before death,” he said.

  She thought for a moment. “That’s very profound,” she finally replied.

  It is? he wondered. He had intended to be flippant.

  “What you’re saying,” she continued, “is that this may all be an illusion, that we may not be living at all, may only be the products of the imagination of some cosmic force.”

  “But can an imagination, which is an arbitrary image, have creatures within it who are aware of their own existence?” he asked, deciding to get into the spirit of things. “Or does this cosmic being have to imagine itself being one of those creatures so that it can have an awareness of itself? And in so doing, doesn’t that creature become an extension of itself and thus have an existence, since the cosmic force exists?”

  “I think, therefore I am?”

  “I think, therefore I think,” he answered. “And what I think is that it really doesn’t matter what I think. So I avoid thinking at almost any cost.”

  “That’s very fatalistic,” she said. She bit her full lower lip, waiting for his response. Her teeth were white, small and even. The effect was extremely erotic. He felt ashamed of himself for thinking such thoughts. You leave one woman behind, the next day you’re in bed with another, and now you’re thinking lustful thoughts about a third. You have the morals of a billy-goat. Her eyes behind the thick glasses were a bright cornflower blue.

  Back to the conversation, he decided. This was getting entirely too intense. He resisted the glib answer. “The only istic I try to be is realistic. Are we tired of Philosophy 101 now? Didn’t you come with someone, and won’t he be looking for you?”

  “Only a friend,” she said. “He’s off somewhere trying to get laid. Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Would you like to dance?”

  “I’d far prefer to sit here and talk. You’re interesting. Far more intelligent than you let on. Does it bother you to be perceived as such?”

  “Only inasmuch as you’d rather have my brain than my body.”

  “Doesn’t Eileen have first claims to the body?”

  “Eileen? Oh, you mean Cin.”

  “Sin? As in mortal?”

  “No, Cin. As in cinnamon. And no, she doesn’t have first claim. Actually, at present I think she’s laying claim to a friend of mine. Probably laying him, too.”

  “Are you always this flippant?”

  “Flippant? This is my serious side. Ladies in glasses always bring that out.”

  “You object to glasses?”

  “No way. I object to clothes. Let’s take ours off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think it would be funny as hell to sit here discussing the meaning of life in the nude. And what is the meaning of life in the nude? she asks. Easy, he replies, making a small smile that indicates his superior wisdom. The meaning of life in the nude is the same as the meaning of life in clothes, except that eye-to-eye contact is more difficult.”

  She laughed, deep and throaty. He’d always had a weakness for throaty laughs, too.

  She grasped his hand and turned it palm up. Her touch as she traced the lines was feather-light, teasing. “Strong character line,” she said. “But I already knew that. A very long life line.”

  “Tell that to the VC.”

  “The hand doesn’t lie. I’m a witch, and we know these things.”

  “I’ve known a few of those, but they spelled it differently.”

  “You really do find it most difficult to be serious, don’t you? Do you want me to tell you your future?”

  “Think you can do that? I don’t. The future is a perhaps, a plethora of possibilities. Et, je m’en vais chercher le grand peut-être. I’m going to search for the great perhaps.”

  “Rabelais,” she said approvingly. “And are you a true Rabelaisian?”

  “I’m not much of a true anything. Except a soldier. And you didn’t answer my question. Do you think you can predict the future?”

  “Only the immediate one. The one in which a woman in glasses shows you that all those repressed librarian jokes aren’t necessarily untrue. If you’d like.” She smiled a long, lazy, sensuous smile.

  “I’d like that very much.”

  “Then shall we get out of here and leave these lovely people to their revels?”

  “On one condition. Tell me your name. I can’t very well go around referring to you as the librarian.”

  “Why not? The people with whom I work do.”

  “And with whom do you work?”

  “The government.”

  “U.S.?”

  “Yes. And my name is Moira Culpepper. And I already know yours. Mark told me.”

  “You’re a friend of Mark’s?”

  “Not exactly a friend. More of an associate. I’ve known him for a year or so. Now, have I satisfied your insatiable curiosity? Or would you prefer to sit around here and wait for Cin, as you so quaintly call her?”

  “I’d prefer to go sin. And if it’s mortal, so be it.”

  Mark watched them go, a speculative look in his eye. That worked out well enough, he thought. Too bad all operations didn’t go that way. Perhaps they would have, had all her compatriots been as good as the librarian.

  In the early morning hours Moira again wanted to talk. Jim was feeling particularly mellow—a function of complete sexual satisfaction and the brandy he had been sipping.

  “I’m curious,” she started. “Are you ever afraid of dying?”

  “Ce qu’il fait noter tout d’abord, c’est le caractère absurde de la mort.”

  “What one must realize first, is the absurd character of death,” she translated. “Amazing. A man who can quote Rabelais and Sartre, to all appearances an intelligent fellow, and yet you follow the profession of arms. What makes you stay in it? Surely you can’t believe in what they make you do?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” he replied. “But I do. I believe in freedom, and resisting aggression, and fighting against those people who, because of their elitist attitudes, think they know the answer to all problems and are willing by force of arms to impose those solutions on others.”

  “And you think that’s what’s happening in Vietnam?”

  “Absolutely. You have a group of people whose aim is to establish an entirely new social order; an imported product, a revolution from the outside, an insurgency in which the grievances are artificially created, in which the goal of liberation is a deception,” he quoted from memory something he had read and admired.

  “And do you think you’re doing any good?”
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  “Very little,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t stop me. Let’s face it, the biggest problem we have as a nation right now is that people like me have been so brainwashed that we’re ashamed to admit in public that we have feelings of patriotism. It’s like admitting to some dirty secret. You’re immediately labeled a political naif, or a crazed warmonger, or worse. And wars are won or lost with words; the ideas that words express. We’ve already lost the war of words. The bad guys have taken the high ground, and John Wayne and the cavalry aren’t going to show up. There isn’t going to be a happy ending. End of story.”

  “So why do you keep it up? Some sort of Don Quixote complex? Tilt at windmills because they’re there?”

  “Perhaps partly,” he admitted. “There’s a sort of romance to lost causes.”

  “What about the fact that by fighting for that cause a lot more lives are lost? Including perhaps your own. Long life line or not.”

  “Lives are lost all the time, and for less reason than this. This is a war. People die in wars. To follow your logic, if there were any chance that you were going to lose a fight, you wouldn’t get into it. You’d give it up, save all those lives that would have been lost, right?”

  “Then there wouldn’t be any wars at all. Is that so bad?”

  “Aside from the fact that I’d have to find a real job, no. The problem is that your solution doesn’t take into account human nature. There will always be aggressors. And you’ve got to stand up to them. If you don’t, they won’t stop. Unbridled aggression and individual freedom cannot coexist. So you end up in the long run by losing even more lives, because sooner or later someone is going to resist. And the wars will be bloodier and more pitiless because you have two completely antithetical forces. You have a war where no act, however inhuman, is foreign. A war where cruelty and atrocity are commonplace.”

  “Isn’t that pretty well what war is now? We read about the atrocities, see them on the evening news.”

  “Not really,” he said. “They happen, of course. Rather inevitable that they do, but all in all I don’t see that it happens a lot more than in any other war I’ve studied. There are a hell of a lot more people in the news media covering this war, though, or so it seems. Everything that happens is studied under a microscope, and slanted to fit the particular bias of this or that reporter. But your average soldier is over there doing the best he can, being humane when possible, which is a hell of a lot more often than it could be, given the situation.”