‘Didn’t ask.’
Simmons worried about it all the way back. He had problems with paranoia anyway. If Lee back at the base didn’t know who it was, then who the hell was it? He was out of the chopper and running toward the office while the chopper blades were still spinning. Who was this guy, anyway?
Simmons knew Rufus Eskew, so it had to be the other guy. He was standing over the floor heater, drinking coffee from a cup he held with both hands — six, six one, dark hair streaked with gray, built like a boxer. Lookit that tan, Simmons thought. That guy’s from someplace south. L.A. or Florida. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater, tan corduroy pants tucked into fleece-lined boots and a heavy fleece jacket. And sunglasses. L.A., Simmons decided. Then he took off the glasses and Simmons was staring into the coldest gray eyes he’d ever seen.
Washington, Simmons said to himself.
‘Mr. Simmons, my name’s Hatcher,’ his grinding whisper said.
Jesus, Simmons thought, listen to that. The guy whispers.
‘Let’s go someplace and talk for a minute. This is kind of personal,’ Hatcher suggested.
Personal? Personal? What the hell could be personal. He didn’t owe a dollar. His alimony ‘was paid up. Even his jeep was paid for.
‘You got twenty minutes to warm your asses,’ the pilot said as the rest of the crew piled into the shack behind him. ‘They’re loading us up again.’
‘We can go in the director’s office,’ Simmons said. ‘He’s down in Helena for a couple days.’
He led Hatcher into a small room with a desk that was barren except for the phone. The room contained the desk, an old-fashioned glass-front bookcase with several government publications scattered in it, and a hat tree. The calendar on the wall was from the Haygood Seed and Feed Company in Shelby. Hatcher looked around the office and thought, The director is either incredibly well organized or incredibly underworked. He sat down on the corner of the desk.
‘Grab a chair,’ he said.
Simmons sat. He looked scared to ‘death.
‘What’s goin’ on?’ he asked.
‘I’m with the MIA Commission. “We’re wrapping up the Cody case,’ Hatcher said.
‘Oh Jesus, I knew it. I knew it was that. Damn it, how many times I got to go through that thing? I been outa the fuckin’ Army for almost fifteen years and they been wrappin’ up the Cody case ever since.’
Hatcher was shocked at Simmons’s reaction. But it was also revealing. It was as if Simmons’s worst fear had risen up and grabbed him by the throat. Hatcher knew the signs and at that moment knew his hunch was correct. All he had to do was keep pressing. Simmons was looking to crack.
‘It’s just a routine thing,’ Hatcher said. ‘No reason to get crazy on me.’
‘I been out here for ten years,’ Simmons said. ‘Trying to forget all that. I don’t need . . .‘ He didn’t finish the sentence.
‘Just a few loose ends,’ said Hatcher. ‘Won’t take but a minute.’
‘Anyway, I heard Cody was officially dead.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Then what the hell. .
‘What it is, there are one or two things we need to clarify.’
‘I can’t remember that far back, man,’ Simmons said. ‘That’s fifteen years ago. I saw a lot of people die in Nam. They all just kind of run together.’
‘This was the wing leader, Cody. His father was commanding general of the whole theater. I’m sure you remember that one, Simmons.’
Simmons started to get angry, but it was a defensive kind of anger. ‘Look, Mr. whatever-your-name-is,’ Simmons snapped. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember. I’ve spent fifteen years trying to forget all that.’
‘All what?’
‘Everything that happened over there. Twelve months in my life that I want to . . . try to make believe never happened. It’s hard enough. . . . Anyway, they all looked alike that far away.’
‘Who?’
‘The flyboys that went down.’
‘How far away?’
‘Across the river. You know, we were flying Hueys in Sea-Air Rescue. When you’re doin’ SAR, you’re never just . . . right on top of them.’
‘Yeah, that’s one of the things I wanted to run by you,’ Hatcher said, taking a file folder oat of his briefcase and flipping through it. He let the comment hang, watching Simmons get edgier. A lot of guilt here, he thought, this guy is fragile, he’s broken and the pieces haven’t fallen yet. He waited a little longer, then whispered, ‘What it is, we got a little discrepancy in the reports.’
‘Discrepancy?’
‘Yeah, just a little thing. In your debriefing just after the incident you said that the plane hit the trees and blew up immediately. Wait a minute, here it is. “We were about half a mile away and he went in upside down and the whole forest seemed to explode. I don’t see how anybody could have survived.”
Simmons nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he said.
‘But in this transcription of the review-board tape in 1981 you say you were close enough to feel the heat when it blew and you could see that nobody got out. Then you started taking heavy ground fire and had to abandon the rescue attempt.’
‘Happened all the time. So?’
‘So which is right? Were you do se enough to feel the heat or half a mile away when he augured in?’
He turned away from Hatcher arid started toward the door. ‘I gotta get going. Deer to feed_’
‘You’ve still got fifteen minutes,.’ Hatcher whispered softly. He decided to fire long shot. Look, Simmons,’ his voice rasped, ‘I don’t give a damn whether you lied to the review board. I just want to know the truth now. You tell me, it stops right here.’
Simmons turned abruptly, his face reddening with anger. ‘What the hell would I have t lie about?’
‘The debriefing officer noted in his report back in ‘72 that you were scared. In fact, he wrote that you were stuttering. It was all over and you were back on the ground, but you were still that scared.’
‘I was three weeks in-country, man,’ Simmons said brusquely. ‘That was only my third trip out. Sure, I was scared. I was scared the last day I was over there, too. I was nineteen. I was scared all the time.’
‘Being scared isn’t being a coward,’ Hatcher said softly.
‘Coward? That what you think?’
Hatcher shook his head. ‘That’s not what I think. But maybe it’s what you think.’
Simmons kneaded his wool cap in his hands and shook his head. ‘You just never get away from it. Damn Vietnam, God damn Vietnam,’ he cried out with such passion that it surprised Hatcher. He felt sorry for Simmons but not sorry enough to stop.
‘You swear to me you didn’t see anyone coming away from that plane, and I’m gone,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘But if you lie, I’ll know it.’
‘Such a long time ago . .
‘You weren’t under oath, Simmons. So maybe you made a mistake . .
‘I’m not under oath now.’
‘Simmons, is it possible that Cody escaped from that plane?’
‘Anything’s possible.’
‘What do you think?’
A voice from outside yelled, ‘Five minutes, Simmons.’
‘Right away,’ Simmons yelled back. He looked back at Hatcher. ‘Why are they checking into this again, anyhow. It’s all over?’
‘There’s a chance Cody could be in an MIA camp in Cambodia,’ Hatcher lied. ‘Before we make a stink about it, I’ve got to be sure he didn’t die that day.’
‘It’s all in the reports. I told them all of it. They were always going down. It was a suicide outfit, everybody knew that.’
‘You mean Cody’s outfit?’
‘He was crazy, man. First thing I heard when I joined the SAR, “You’re Cody’s backup,” they’d say, “you’re gonna stay busy. Better keep your head down. . .
The vision began flashing in Simmons’s head. He rubbed his eyes, but it persisted, as it always did. The figure limping frantically toward the river’s edge, waving futilely at him, then the explosion, the great awning of fire spreading out over the treetops. And still the pilot kept coming, waving, a specter silhouetted against fire until the image burned out in Simmons’s head.