A cry went up within the tunnels the instant that Buddy returned silently to Bolan's position. Someone had found the dead commander and radioman.
Adrenaline coursed through the two Americans as they ran away from the trail, into the brush. A claymore blew, sending a flash and a bizarre shadow through the foliage. Then another, and a scream, and then the AR's opened up. The VC were shooting at one another and the Americans were escaping through the perimeter. The firefight reared its head around them, cutting the jungle to tatters. Bolan jumped, doubled over, across a thicket, then heard Buddy grunt. He turned back, saw something that looked like Buddy on the ground, and then the VC rained heavy machine-gun fire across the distance that separated them.
Bolan crawled under the fire and grabbed Buddy's elbow, dragging him through a pool of viscous muck, part of which was Buddy's own vomit. The enemy were firing from two directions now; a crisscross of angry slugs whined hotly past in bright flashes.
Bolan picked up Buddy and ran as fast as his legs could pump. There was too much confusion to hear anything. He crashed through the brush with Buddy's guts leaking down his back.
"The dirty bastards," Buddy was chanting. "This dirty fucking war!" Finally he sank to his knees by the radio.
Bolan had circled to find the radio, and was breathless. He keyed the set quickly. He could hear the VC following the trail of Buddy's blood. They would be on top of him soon. With one hand over Buddy's mouth, Bolan gave the coordinates for an artillery hit, followed by another set for the Med-evac. Then he lifted the radio and Buddy and staggered away.
On the next ridge Bolan sat with the radio calling the coordinates again.
From far off he heard the booming of the big guns, then the blasts that shook his stomach as the big shells staggered up the ridge.
"East fifty... north thirty..." Bolan was waiting for the big one. The shell that would blow that ammo. "North another thirty," he said, and then it went. The sky cracked open. Bolan and Buddy lay side by side as the ground bucked beneath the roiling fireball. In the reflection of Buddy's glazed eyes Bolan saw the flames blossom.
"Buddy didn't make it, Mack," said Crawford. The lieutenant colonel was Bolan's commanding officer, but every man in Penetration Team Able was the CO's equal as far as Crawford was concerned. "He caught too many slugs. Too damn many."
The sun had risen, turning the shack into a steam bath. A portable fan blew fetid air at them. Bolan's eyes burned like coals.
"Where is he?"
"They shipped him out. He's going back to the States in a bag. Still has a father alive, I think."
Bolan said nothing. Crawford offered him a cigarette and then lit it for him.
"I'm not going on the next mission."
"Mack, we've all lost friends."
"I don't mean that. Buddy went in after a map he saw the commander drawing on. I bet he's still got it."
"No way. I emptied his pockets myself. Nothing. Except the letter from home."
"Then he swallowed it."
"Mack, come on now..."
"No way. Buddy knew he was going home in a bag... A field map is made of canvas and paper. The part of it that Buddy swallowed could still be undissolved in his stomach right now."
Crawford was about to reply, but said nothing. It was true about Buddy knowing he was going to die, of course. Everyone had seen the Mohawk. He tapped a pencil nervously on the desk.
"Let me call down to Saigon. I have a friend who works..."
Bolan cut him off. "I'm doing this personally. No more depending on someone else who doesn't care."
Crawford sighed wearily. "All right. This is going to take a lot of Vaseline. A lot." Crawford picked up the telephone and said to Mack, "Get a fresh uniform." Then, "Get me Colonel Winters."
The chopper landed with a lurch. That was what Nam felt like to Bolan, just as the lurch of a pickup was what New England felt like. He stepped out and looked across the tarmac at the depot, an immense corrugated metal structure shining in the bright sun like an airplane hangar.
Beyond it a transport lifted off, the heat of its exhaust turning the surrounding jungle into a shimmering blob of green. The depot was temporary; the jungle would win it back. Bolan never looked at the jungle without thinking about its inevitable victory.
The office jutted out from the side of the depot like an unwanted appendage. Everyone wore clean crisp uniforms. The place was calm, but eerie in its calmness; Bolan wanted out, though he did not give himself that choice.
He walked in and explained his visit to a fresh-looking kid from Alabama.
Then he waited for someone with authority. On the radio an English voice was singing about sympathy and the Devil.
Bolan resisted the urge to crush the radio under his boot. This was the rear.
This was how it was back here. He wanted out more than ever.
Ten minutes later a man came to the office in a white coat. He looked like a New York cabdriver, but spoke in educated tones.
"Dr. Morgan," he said, reaching out a hand. "What's the problem?"
Bolan explained. He needed to locate a corpse. There might be some vital intel within the body itself. As he talked they entered the depot. Bolan was hit by the coldness of the air. Then he understood air-conditioning.
He hadn't felt it in... how long? A past life.
"What's the name and serial number?"
Bolan withdrew the slip of paper from his pocket and read the serial number. They were standing in a giant warehouse divided by rack upon rack of dead GI's in plastic bags. The racks went down the length of the room, parallel, chilling. A thousand dead eyes staring through milky plastic at the ceiling. The predominant smell was of disinfectant.
"You see, a piece of canvas and paper like that would ninety-nine times in a hundred be lost. We have to remove the viscera from the body and then stuff the cavity with cotton soaked in formaldehyde. There's no way we could ship them otherwise. And all that junk goes down into the bins for disposal."
Morgan called to another whitecoat talking to a private in uniform. They came over and the grunt was sent to locate Buddy.
The other doctor doubted they would have seen such a piece of paper.
They told Bolan about their careers as coroners back home. Bolan did not respond.
The grunt called them over and stood waiting with cap in hand, pointing to a long bag on a wheeled stretcher. Morgan unzipped the top of the bag.
Bolan looked down at Buddy's face.
"This one's done. You do this one, Mike?"
"I can't remember. Sergeant, this one's already done. I guess you're a little late."
Bolan looked down at the bag.
Buddy's Mohawk was sticking up beyond the folds of the plastic.
"Cut him open again. I have to be sure."
"Are you crazy? We already took his guts out."
"Cut him open again."
"Sergeant, you don't seem to understand..."
"It's you who doesn't understand, doctor. Get your goddamn knife out, or I'll do it myself."
Morgan turned to the grunt. "Get the guards. This crazy asshole needs cooling off."
The grunt keyed the walkie-talkie and called for guards. Bolan fumed.
"Morgan, your ass is on the line for this."
A door flew open at the far end of the room.
Two MP's trotted in, bats at the ready.
"Sergeant," the doctor said to Bolan, "you'd better watch what you say, or you'll go home in a plastic uniform, too."
Bolan waited for the transport to lift off into the night. Then he vaulted the fence. The depot was not exactly a high security area. He crossed the tarmac without seeing anyone.
The doors at the loading bay were still open.
Bolan walked in as if he belonged there. He saw only grunts. This was probably a new shift.