Hatcher had come to the party filled with anticipation and excitement. He had not seen Murph since his friend’s marriage almost a year earlier. He arrived expecting a rowdy reunion.
Instead, he was humiliated and disgraced by the unpredictable Cody in a manner that in other times would have called for a gloved slap across the face and satisfaction with a choice of weapons at dawn. Hatcher would never forget the cold sneer, the harshness of the words, spoken loud enough to stop every conversation in the room. Cody had handed Hatcher a glass of champagne, and holding it up in what was to become a mock toast, he said, ‘Here’s to a maggot who is still a maggot. Here’s to a maggot who was fed and clothed and housed by the service and taught by her and who now has turned his back on her. Here’s to a maggot I once called friend who’s running out because there’s a war on. Here’s to a coward .‘ And had poured his glass of wine on the bar and turned and walked away. Pledged to the secrecy of the Shadow Brigade, Hatcher had no response. Every eye in the room had followed Cody out the door.
A harsh memory for a room where heroes normally frolicked.
‘I’m Commander Schwartz, you looking — for me?’
Hatcher turned to face the pilot. In person, Schwartz seemed even smaller than he had from a distance. He spoke very quickly and with a peculiar kind of staccato rhythm, pausing in the wrong places and accenting his words on the wrong syllables, like a man avoiding a chronic stutter. His helmet and goggles had left ridges under his eyes and his short-cropped hair was matted like an ink-blot to his skull. He did not look like the head of flight training at one of the Navy’s major bases. He looked more like a college whiz kid.
‘Commander Hatcher,’ Hatcher lied, offering his hand, ‘Navy Review Board.’
‘What did — I do now?’ Schwartz asked with a relaxed grin. He struck Hatcher as just the opposite of Simmons. Other than being an apparent case of permanent hypertension, Schwartz didn’t seem to have a care in the world.
‘We’re just wrapping up some hangnails,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘You know how the Navy is.’
‘After eighteen years I ought to, Schwartz answered. ‘Can we do this over a sandwich? I’m starving.’
After they had ordered hamburgers and beer, Schwartz asked ‘This about An Khe, Hanoi or Cody?’
‘That’s quite a selection,’ Hatcher growled.
‘I was shot down near An Khe,’ Schwartz said, ‘I was a prisoner for almost four years in Hanoi, and I was one of Cody’s wingmen. I’ve been asked a lot about all three.’
‘This is about Cody,’ Hatcher whispered.
‘Look,’ the little man said, ‘I know you’re not with the board. Hugh Fraser called me last night. He checked Washington right after you talked to him. Far as the Navy’s concerned, the Cody affair is closed. They never heard of you.’
Before Hatcher could say anything, Schwartz held up his hand. ‘I don’t see there’s any security involved here,’ he said. ‘Anything I could tell you is in the record anyway. What’s this all about?’
Hatcher decided to tell Schwartz just enough to keep him interested and talking.
‘I’d like you to keep part of this confidential,’ Hatcher said, stalling a little to get his thoughts regrouped.
‘That depends,’ Schwartz said warily.
‘You know his father was General Cody?’
‘Of course.’
‘Cody’s dying of cancer. It’s not public knowledge at this point and he’d like to keep it that way until it leaks to the media.’
‘How much time does he have?’ Schwartz asked, obviously stunned and genuinely sorry at hearing the news.
‘Maybe six months.’
‘Shit!’
‘The thing is, the old man’s never been satisfied that Cody was killed,’ Hatcher croaked. ‘So they asked me to do one last check, just for the old man. I worked intelligence for him in Nam.’
‘What is it you want to know?’ he asked.
‘I’m kind of interested in the man. Did you like Cody?’ Hatcher asked.
Whereas Harley Simmons and Hugh Fraser had been reluctant to talk, Hatcher couldn’t stop Schwartz. The little man babbled away as though Hatcher had pushed his talk button.
‘Sure, I like him okay,’ Schwartz started, then he paused a moment, rethinking the question. ‘Well, look, it wasn’t a question of did you like him, Murph wasn’t the buddy-buddy type, y’know. He was uh . .
‘Standoffish?’ Hatcher offered.
‘Standoffish. That’s good,’ Schwartz said.
‘When I talked to Hugh Fraser,. he gave me the idea Cody was some kind of suicidal war lover leading his men to certain death.’
‘See, Fraser was always a pretty bitter guy,’ said Schwartz. ‘His accident didn’t help any.’
‘What happened, exactly?’ Hatcher asked.
‘He was making his approach to the Forrestal, flamed out on his final, had to ditch. Broke his back. That’s a real irony, y’know, all he ever wanted was carrier duty. Glamour city.’
‘Yeah, but the Cody thing was bug before that.’
‘Y’see, Fraser was a jet jockey, lie dreamed the carrier dream,’ said Schwartz. ‘The Brown Water Navy definitely wasn’t his idea of big-time war duty.
‘Brown Water Navy?’ Hatcher asked. It was a term with which he was not familiar.
‘That’s what they called our outfit,’ Schwartz explained. ‘We were the only inland squadron in the Navy. We were there mostly to support the Riverine Patrol Forces, covering river convoys, that kind of diddy-bopping shit, but what we really did was support ground movements. It was rotten duty. I suppose there’s an element of truth in what Fraser says. We had big losses. But suicidal? Never. That’s bullshit.’ Schwartz thought for a minute then went on, ‘I’ll tell you, it was like he didn’t want to get too close to anybody, Cody I mean. No favorites. What we were doing, that was the worst, and Cody’s outfit had — a reputation for doing the meanest jobs and working the longest hours. Nobody wanted to go to his outfit.’
‘Did you fear going there?’
‘Yeah, sure. But it was, uh, because of the unexpected, so much talk, y’know. Apprehension.’
‘Okay.’
‘Anyway, Murph really pushed hard, man, like seven days a week, day, night, around the clock, bad weather, night stuff, you name it. He was like, uh, crazy to get the war over with. Don’t get me wrong, he went out there just like everybody else. I’d guess Murph flew more individual sorties than any other man in the outfit..’
Hatcher’s mind wandered back to the night before and his meeting in Seattle with Hugh Fraser, Cody’s other wingman, who had quite a different impression of Cody. At first, Fraser had refused to talk to Hatcher. His crash had left him a pitiful cripple. He walked in a crouch, like an old man, and breath spray could not hide the sickening, end-of-the-day smell of vodka, nor could Visine wash away the broken blood vessels in his eyes. Because Fraser had refused to take Hatcher’s calls, Hatcher had waited for him in the parking lot of one of the small satellite buildings clustered around Seattle-Tacoma International where Fraser was vice president of a small charter airline. Hatcher felt sorry for the man. He had obviously aged considerably since his accident. He was vitriolic, like a grouchy old man, and in the conversation that was occasionally interrupted by one of the big commercial jets taking off, he lashed out with each question.
‘Would you like to hear what Fraser had to say?’ Hatcher asked Schwartz. He took a s nal1 recorder from his pocket and pressed the play button.
Fraser: I’m a busy man. You have five minutes.