She was now filling in the life of COL. BEN BRICE: West Point… Vietnam… Green Beret… Colonel… Medal of Honor… classified duty… Viper tattoo. Why would someone take Colonel Brice’s grandchild?
Why would someone commit this crime?
What were possible motives?
She sat back down at her desk, which was covered with information Research had gathered about Colonel Brice from public sources, copies of newspaper and magazine articles, arranged in reverse chronological order. Research had highlighted in yellow each place the colonel’s name was mentioned in the articles. She thumbed through several. One was dated 30 April 1975, about the fall of Saigon, with a photograph of a U.S. helicopter rising from the roof of the American Embassy; a soldier was standing on the skid like a fireman on a fire truck and cradling a small object in his arm.
Another article was dated 7 August 1972, with a photo of President Nixon placing the Medal of Honor around Colonel Brice’s neck in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, awarded because Brice had single-handedly rescued one hundred American pilots from a POW camp; the colonel’s wife stood beside him.
Jan scanned several articles from Stars amp; Stripes, the military newspaper, then came to a front-page article from the Washington Herald dated 12 November 1969. The accompanying photograph showed reporters crowding a grim Colonel Brice outside an Army building, only he wasn’t a colonel back then, but a young lieutenant. Her eyes ran over the article: something about a court-martial over a massacre in Vietnam. Jan Jorgenson was not born until 1980; consequently, the Vietnam War meant no more to her than the Civil War. She was about to move on to the next article when her eyes caught a word in the fifth paragraph of the story: viper.
A shot of adrenaline ricocheted through Jan’s veins: Colonel Brice has a Viper tattoo. The unidentified male at the park had a Viper tattoo. The court-martialed soldiers had been in a special operations unit code-named Viper. She read on.
SOG team Viper, led by Major Charles Woodrow Walker, massacred forty-two Vietnamese civilians on 17 December 1968 in a small hamlet in the Quang Tri province of South Vietnam. Lieutenant Ben Brice reported the massacre. Once the media got wind, Quang Tri became a political cause. Members of Congress opposed to the war demanded that Major Walker be court-martialed. The Army resisted: Charles Woodrow Walker was a living legend. But when a group of senators threatened to hold up military funding, the Army surrendered and charged Walker and his soldiers under Article 118 of the Code of Military Justice: murder.
Lieutenant Ben Brice was the sole witness for the prosecution at the court-martial; he testified that Walker incited the massacre and murdered a young girl in cold blood. Major Walker had only to take the stand and deny the massacre. Case closed. A living legend trumps a lieutenant every time.
The crowded courtroom was silent with anticipation when the thirty-eight-year-old Army major, a strikingly handsome figure from the photo Jan was looking at, stepped to the witness stand in his uniform, his chest covered with medals, and stood erect as he addressed the members of the military tribunal.
“Dying, gentlemen, is a big part of war. People die in war. Men, women, and children. Soldiers and civilians. Enemies and allies. And Americans. Communist forces have killed forty thousand U.S. soldiers in Vietnam- forty thousand, gentlemen! And the Army is court-martialing me over forty-two dead gooks?”
The major sniffs the air like a bloodhound getting a scent.
“I smell the corrupt stench of politics in this courtroom.”
His accuser gazes upon the major, the very image of a Green Beret commando: six foot four, two-hundred-twenty-pound body hard as a side of beef, blond flattop, bronze face, and a voice that sounds like thunder. And he has those eyes, eyes like blue crystal that can see straight into your soul; when he locks those eyes on you, it’s as if you’re looking at Jesus Christ himself, his men say. They call themselves his disciples.
The major locks his eyes on the court-martial panel.
“When we bombed Germany into rubble in World War Two, we killed thirty-five thousand German civilians in Dresden alone. When we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we killed three hundred thousand Japanese civilians. But we did not cry over their deaths. We did not court-martial the pilots who dropped the bombs or the generals who ordered the bombing. We honored them as heroes. We gave them medals and parades. We put a general in the White House.
“But this war, I am told, is different. This war is unpopular with the people. To which I say, so fucking what! Since when did this man’s Army give a good goddamn what civilians think? Do you care what that lawless mob of malcontents protesting outside the gates to this Army base, burning the American flag you and I swore to defend, thinks? The soldiers fighting and dying at this very moment in Vietnam are not defending those civilians. They are defending this country! And I’m not about to let a buncha draft-dodging dopers tell me when and where and who I can kill to defend this country!
“And, I’m also told, this war is immoral, ugly, brutal, and evil. To which I say, yes, it is. Just like every other war this country has ever fought. War, gentlemen, is not pretty or neat or nice or humane fare fit for the evening news. War is ugly. Brutal. Inhumane. Evil. And necessary for the survival of the Free World!”
He points at the window.
“That mob wants America to lose in Vietnam. That mob wants to bring down the American military. We-you and I and this Army-cannot let that happen! We must not let that happen! For if we do, if we let that mob destroy this Army, the world will no longer fear America. Now, we can live in a world that does not love America. We can even live in a world that hates America. But, gentlemen, we cannot live in a world that does not fear America. We cannot live in a world that thinks it can fuck with America. Because once every piss-ant dictator, rebel, warlord, and terrorist thinks he can fuck with America, he will! Gentlemen, I am on trial, but it is not the future of Major Charles Woodrow Walker that is at stake today. It is the future of the United States Army. It is the future of America.
“I stand accused of murder by an Army that cowers before politicians, politicians who have never fought a war but who enjoy the freedom war brings- the freedom we give them! — politicians trying to win an election by appeasing that mob. I, gentlemen, am trying to win a war! To defeat Communism and preserve peace and prosperity for the United States of America!”
The major removes his coat. He unbuttons his left sleeve. He rolls the sleeve up. He shows the panel the Viper tattoo imprinted on his bicep. And he translates the Vietnamese words for them: “ ‘We kill for peace.’ By God, if this country is going to enjoy peace and prosperity, we damn well better be ready to kill for it!”
The major now points at his accuser.
“Since Truman betrayed MacArthur, every soldier at West Point knows that politicians will always betray the military. We expect that. But we don’t expect betrayal by one of our own, by a fellow member of the Corps. Just as Jesus Christ had Judas Iscariot, so too do I have Lieutenant Ben Brice. He betrayed me. He betrayed you. He betrayed his Army. He betrayed his country.
“Did we kill those gooks? You goddamn right we did! And I will kill every gook in Vietnam if that’s what it takes to win that war! To defeat Communism! As God is my witness, I don’t regret killing those forty-two gooks! My only regret is that I didn’t put a bullet in Lieutenant Brice’s head, too!”
Ben’s thoughts were jolted back to the present when the Land Rover bounced hard.
“Now there’s a motive-revenge.”
Agent Jan Jorgenson turned to the last page of the article. Major Walker and the nine other Green Berets were acquitted of murder but found guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer, stripped of their rank, and dishonorably discharged from the Army.