“They own the countryside,” Chapel continued, “and always will, so they’re fighting and willing to die for an idea, a belief that approaches the religious. This is just another stage in their drawn-out independence day, from the French, from an aristocracy and government in bed with every new-style colonizer that doesn’t give a good goddamn about the rice farmer stepping through buffalo shit in the Mekong Delta. We’ll never bomb or shoot that out of them. We’ll have to kill every single North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and ICP sympathizer in the country. The British couldn’t do it to us, so why do we think we can with them?”
“Give us enough time,” the marine said, “and we will.”
“No, you won’t. You can’t. It’s impossible. So the war will never be won, and because of that, without us declaring defeat, it’ll never end. We’ll be throwing our boys into the meat grinder from now until the Rapture.”
“The United States doesn’t lose wars,” said a new voice, an army four star.
“It does now. It is every day. Don’t believe what you read in the papers. I know you have better intel than that. We’re losing this war, and allowing it to happen.”
“That sounds real close to treason,” the army general said.
Chapel jabbed his finger into the table, his blood up. “I love my country. I’d die for my country and I’ll probably get the chance. I love it so much that I don’t want to see it lose any more of its sons on a war that can’t be won, and won’t be won, not the way we’re now doing it. We need to rethink the whole thing, from the top down. Go asymmetrical, fight sideways and upside down, just like they do, but do it our way. Take our tactics from the secret war and institute them country-wide. Get weird, dig down into the myths and gods and spirit realm and fuck with their heads, because we sure as hell aren’t fucking with their hearts. It’s the only way we win.”
There was silence, stunned and otherwise.
“I’m talking a piss.” The four star got up from the table so abruptly that his chair fell backward onto the floor. “Oh,” he added over his shoulder. “And fuck you, Chapel.”
The rest of the group was glaring at him, disgust and something worse breaking through the blear of bloodshot eyes, except for the assistant commandant and the brigadier general.
“Major, I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“You haven’t even heard my idea.”
The brigadier general got to his feet and put his hand on Chapel’s shoulder. It was friendly, but had a little extra heat in the grip. “We’ve heard enough ideas for one day.”
Chapel looked at each face in turn of those who remained at the table. These were the men tasked with managing this war. Not fighting it like the Vikings fought or the Trojans fought or the Zulus fought or the Lakota fought or the Army of North Vietnam fought, but managing it, and they couldn’t even call it what it was, let alone win the goddamn thing. Either all-in, by whatever means, or go the fuck home. No one at this table was all-in anything except their third bottle of Johnnie Walker and fifth trip to the bathroom. It was a travesty. It was an abomination, every bit as much as that fucking Martinique wallpaper. The stand-in jungle for the stand-in leadership, starting with Nixon and Westmoreland and traveling on down, like shit dropped on a dusty red hillside.
He moved his gaze back to the wallpaper, where the four star was talking to an aide, gesturing in his direction.
Chapel dropped his white handkerchief onto his uneaten plate of food and rose from his seat. “Listen up, Little Foxes. There are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it, and other people who just stand around and watch them do it.”
He walked out of the officers’ club, disappearing into the shadows like the spook he was and would always be. Not one pair of eyes watched him go.
12. Poison in the Hangar
Chapel strode across the tarmac, frustrated, furious, cursing the bloodline of each red face at that table in four different languages. Sometimes English just didn’t take you to the right place.
A blaring horn stopped him short, saving him from walking nose-first into a friendly-fire death under the wheels of a convoy. Chapel’s maledictions were drowned out by the chug of engines as transport trucks rumbled by, beds full of barrels stamped MONSANTO and painted with a bright orange band, the agrichemical razor blade sent from a factory in Grand Island, Nebraska, to shave off the hiding spots of the entire North Vietnamese Army and any other creature that dared shrug at the national anthem. They’d been dumping this stuff on the country for years, and they’d keep right on until the entire subcontinent was a desolate wasteland of mud and sticks. And they still wouldn’t have won the war, which would just go deeper underground.
Chapel watched the last truck disappear into a hangar, and the door shut behind it. He stood that way for a long time, taking measure of the building and what was housed inside it. So many barrels. Enough to last a lifetime.
The rage that had been playing with the lines on his face altered, shifting into the more familiar sketches of grim determination, lit by the wonder of possibility that forever played in those shiny gray eyes.
Chapel began to walk again, this time almost jogging, formulating a flow chart of every favor owed to him in every branch of the military and intelligence service from Da Nang to DC. His loose pockets were filled with chits that he’d cash in at a dozen tellers. Nothing was out of reach if you knew who to ask, and how. Thirty years of bootlegging built up quite the black book.
By the time he reached his chartered Beechcraft, the formula was worked out. Chapel was going to end this war.
13. The Nightmare Factory
The inside of the bunker was surprisingly spacious and dry, even comfortable, in the minimalist style of a monastery. The floor was lower than the outside ground, carved out of the stone and squared off in the corners. The furniture was functional but fine, showing strength in complement to taste. A sturdy mahogany table was littered with maps, data sheets, various odd pieces of equipment, and books on Vietnamese history, folklore, and religion. Oil lanterns burned, which cast everything in a warm yellow glow. The room looked more like long-term living quarters for an overly organized eccentric than a temporary field office for the U.S. military.
Chapel stood behind the table and regarded each man in turn, looking them up and down and lingering on their faces, probing their eyes. “It’s good to see you all at last, in the flesh.”
The men glanced at each other. Everyone was at a loss for words.
“My name is Augustus Cornwallis Chapel, but everyone in the outside world calls me Augie. But we aren’t in the outside world, are we? Pretty goddamn far from it, so you can call me Chapel. My rank isn’t important. Hasn’t been important for a long time. So Chapel it is. The man behind me to my right—” He cocked his head in that direction to a tall, lean man wearing headphones adjusting the controls of a reel-to-reel playback device mounted on a wheeled cart. “—is Morganfield.” Morganfield nodded to the men as Chapel continued. “That’s not his real name, so don’t bother looking it up when you get back to Boise or Des Moines, because it doesn’t exist. I did this for his protection, but I am most definitely Augustus Cornwallis Chapel, because I need no protection.” He gestured to the chairs arranged around the table. “Now that introductions are out of the way, please, have a seat.”
The men sat down, joined by Morganfield. Chapel remained standing.
“I’m sure you all have many questions,” Chapel said, “and I will answer all of them in due course. But first, please allow me to explain why you are all here.”