Abandoned: MIA in Vietnam (5 page)

CHAPTER 6

Wolfe thought he had found Amit Gadhavi, MD, on the third floor of the patient tower, in the Medical Intensive Care Unit. An older man, obviously the resident’s mentor and cardiologist, dictated to the doctor-in-training as the young man took notes on his cell phone, swiping on the face of his phone as quickly as the older man spoke.

The two wore long white coats and stood at the counter in front of the nurses’ station. Wolfe observed that the resident’s pockets held only a stethoscope, not the bundle of books, papers, and 3x5 cards that Wolfe remembered from his residency. Everything he had carried in his pockets during internship and residency in the 1970s, this resident had on his phone. Plus, access to almost all knowledge, medical and otherwise, accumulated by the human race over the last 10,000 years. Wolfe waited quietly for the two to finish their discussion.

One of the nurses looked up from her paperwork and spoke to Wolfe, “May I help you, sir?”

Wolfe nodded and spoke in a whisper. “I’m Dr. Wolfe. Is that young man Dr. Gadhavi?” He nodded at the dark skinned man talking with the white haired physician.

“No, that’s Dr. Guerrero,” she said. “Dr. Gadhavi just left for a medical conference at Shands. Not two minutes ago. If you hurry, you can probably catch him in the physicians’ parking lot. It’s to the right as you exit…Oh, you’d already know that.”

By the time she finished speaking, Wolfe was opening the door to the emergency stairway. “Thanks,” he said before the door closed behind him, muting the sound of Wolfe scampering down the stairwell.

A handsome, well-tanned young man with a long white coat slung over one shoulder stopped at the volunteer’s desk before leaving the building. Wolfe strode up behind him, hoping this time he had the correct physician. He heard the man say, “Dr. Roberts will be fielding all calls for me until I come back tomorrow, but if you can’t get a response from him, please text me.”

“Yes, Doctor,” a petite black woman said. She wore the standard pink volunteer’s jacket.

“Doctor Gadhavi?” Wolfe asked quietly from behind the man.

The physician turned and examined Wolfe closely. Seeing nothing to denote Wolfe was a hospital employee or physician, the young man assumed Wolfe to be a patient and responded curtly, “Sorry. I can’t talk right now. I’m late for a conference. Make an appointment in clinic. These ladies can help you.” He spun around and headed toward the revolving door.

“Sorry,” Wolfe said, grasping the young physician’s arm. Gadhavi turned his head and stared at Wolfe while continuing to move in the direction of the parking lot. “I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Dr. Wolfe.”

Not knowing Wolfe’s role at Flagler Hospital, Gadhavi stopped walking. He turned to face Wolfe. It would not behoove him to irritate someone who might have input about his rotation. “I’m sorry, Dr. Wolfe,” he said. “I will be late for medical rounds if I don’t leave right now. Can this wait? I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Wolfe beamed. “No problem,” he said. “We can talk while you drive. I did an internship at Shands about thirty years ago. They called it University Hospital then. I’d like to see how your instructors do medical rounds these days.”

Gadhavi continued to walk toward his car. “I’m not coming back until tomorrow. How will you get back here?”

“Well, let me worry about that. Okay? Sweet ride,” Wolfe said. He pulled open the passenger door to the doctor’s red Audi A5.

“So, Dr. Wolfe, where do you practice? I haven’t seen you around Flagler,” Gadhavi said. The little Audi accelerated through a yellow light at 312 and US 1, switching lanes at the same time.

Wolfe knew the ride to Shands Jacksonville wouldn’t take long if the resident continued to drive like Danica Patrick. He needed to ask his questions about the attempted murder. First, however, he had to make Gadhavi receptive to an interrogation. “I’m retired,” he said. “Did family practice and urgent care stuff until two years ago. What year are you?”

“Third year. I start a pulmonary fellowship in July, in Miami.”

“Looking forward to that, I bet,” Wolfe said.

“Most of my family lives in Ft. Lauderdale. Mother is a lawyer. Father practices Oncology.”

“When did they leave India?” Wolfe asked.

“In the ‘70s. They weren’t fans of Indira Ghandi’s politics,” Gadhavi said. He steered the Audi onto I-95 north, merging between two semis and accelerating into the middle lane. Seconds later he had transitioned to the left lane. To Wolfe it looked like they were going about five miles an hour faster than the other traffic, which he knew generally traveled between 75 and 80 mph. I-95 had the highest accident rate of all roads in St. Johns County. Another vehicle, a purple Porsche 911 whipped past them on their right as if they were at the Burger King drive through. Wolfe noted the wet pavement, a rain shower having apparently ended minutes before. A few thunderstorms hovered over the beach several miles to their right.

Startled, Wolfe said, “I’d like to ask you some questions before someone kills us on this racetrack. That okay with you?”

Gadhavi turned his head toward Wolfe. He grinned. Even, white teeth filled his mouth. “The answers will do you no good if you are dead,” he said.

“Peace of mind is what I’m after,” Wolfe said.

“Okay,” Gadhavi said. “Shoot.”

“The man who died yesterday and then was found to have received a bolus of potassium –”

“I can’t discuss that,” Gadhavi said, taking a quick glance at Wolfe. The Audi continued to purr along, weaving into the middle lane to pass slower vehicles in the left lane as needed. “The police and the hospital administrator were pretty specific about not talking to anyone but them.”

“I understand that,” Wolfe said nodding. “I don’t want information about the attempted murder investigation, or anything that HIPAA might find inappropriate.”

Confused Gadhavi asked, “What else is there that you could want to know?”

“The man mentioned in the note, Jimmy Byrnes,” Wolfe said. “He might –”

“Beats me,” Gadhavi said, interrupting.

“Alright, try this,” Wolfe said. “I don’t need to know your patient’s name, his diagnosis, his medical condition, or his chart number, phone number, or any of the other dozen identifiers that get administrators’ knickers in a twist. I do need to know if your patient ever mentioned being on an aircraft carrier in Vietnam.”

Silently, the resident stared through the windshield. Wolfe noted the backup of traffic headed in the opposite direction and wished traffic were slow in his direction also. Gadhavi slowed, temporarily stymied by tractor-trailers in every lane. 65 mph seemed slow after the rush to the Duval County line. The smell of diesel exhaust from the three trucks filtered into the Audi.

“I don’t believe that question would upset the Sheriff, or HIPAA,” Wolfe said, prodding the resident.

“Oh, Sorry,” Gadhavi said. “I agree. I was replaying my initial history and physical with the patient in my head. He was a retired chief in the navy. Supply services, if I remember. He did spend time on an aircraft carrier in Vietnam. Enlisted in 1953, right after the Korean War, I believe. From southern Georgia. Stationed several times out of Mayport. After retiring from the navy, he took a job with a boat building company, Luhrs, in St. Augustine. Retired from that months before the great recession.”

Amazed, Wolfe said, “Do you know all your patients’ background histories that well?”

Gadhavi shrugged. “I guess,” he said.

“I don’t suppose you remember the name of the aircraft carrier?” Wolfe asked. “I can give you a list of names to choose from.”

“I remember he said it came back to the States for a complete overhaul after a serious fire.” Gadhavi slowed and cut across three lanes of traffic to exit from I-95 at 8th Street in Jacksonville.

“That narrows it down. Only three aircraft carriers had major fires during Vietnam:
Oriskany
,
Forrestal
, and
Enterprise
,” Wolfe explained. “
Forrestal
came back to the Newport News shipyard in Virginia.
Oriskany
went to Alameda, California. And I would guess
Enterprise
went to Pearl Harbor, since her fire happened off Hawaii. Do you know if he went to the East Coast?”

“Definitely not,” Gadhavi said. “He told me all about taking part in the sexual revolution in San Francisco during the overhaul.
Humping the hippies
, he called it.”

Stunned, Wolfe sat back in his seat, silent.
The Jimmy Byrnes I knew may have known this man. But how were they related? And what did the note mean?
Gadhavi pulled his Audi into the Shands parking deck and into an empty space. “We’re here,” he said. “Sorry, Dr. Wolfe, but I have to rush along.”

Wolfe climbed out of the vehicle, reached across the convertible top and shook the young man’s hand. He said, “Call me Addy, short for Addison. I’ll be in touch later after the police release his name. I’ll want you to contact the family for me to see if they’ll talk to me.”

“Sure thing,” Gadhavi said. He turned and walked briskly to the nearest hospital entrance.

Wolfe trundled slowly behind him, hands in pockets, mind in 1967.

CHAPTER 7

“Hey Wolfe, wake up.” Wolfe opened his eyes. A chunky sailor in dungarees and chambray shirt stood at the foot of his hospital bed. Next to him stood a mop-haired civilian, Robert Martin, a grin on his face. With his hair in his eyes, Martin reminded Wolfe of John Lennon.

“Oh, Crespi,” Wolfe said, peering through swollen eyelids. The words were difficult for Martin and Crespi to understand. Wolfe’s face was so edematous he found it hard to breathe at times. He looked at his hands. They were still bright red and about twice-normal size. “What’s up, Mike? Hey, Bobby,” Wolfe acknowledged the civilian. The steady drumbeat of rain on the window drew Wolfe’s gaze from his friends.

“Yeah,” Crespi said, “monsoon again. They say there will be four more months of this stuff. I’ve never seen rain like this. You guys?”

“Yeah. It was like this last year, too,” Martin said. “Every year from May until October it pours. I think the navy base averages a hundred inches of rain per year.” Days before Martin had finished his freshman year in college at Washington State University. His father, a civilian, ran the Subic Naval Station engineering division. During World War II, the elder Martin had served as an enlisted driver with Patton’s 3rd Army in Europe. He and two other men had driven the general’s jeep all over France and Germany in the last year of the war. After the war ended, Martin found a pretty French woman to be his war bride and brought her home with him. Once home, he returned to college and earned an electrical engineering degree. He wanted Bobby to study engineering, but the younger Martin wanted to teach, like his mother.

Crespi scanned Wolfe’s face, then his hands. “We got orders, Addy. And we got an east coast carrier, buddy. One cruise and we return to Norfolk. Maybe a Med cruise after that,” he said, excitedly. Crespi grinned, white teeth in sharp contrast to his dark, Middle Eastern skin, made shades darker by working in the Philippine sun the previous two weeks. His orthodox Jewish ancestors had left Palestine in the 1920s and settled in Maryland.

Crespi had met Wolfe in the US Navy transit barracks on Bolling AFB, in Washington, DC. An unemployed reservist, married with a baby on the way, he had volunteered to go on active duty to keep his family fed. He had suspected the navy would send him to Vietnam, since he had no extra navy apprentice schooling. Although his wife cried torrents when he left, he promised to be home before the baby was born. He also explained to her that nothing bad ever happened to sailors. They didn’t participate in combat, as far as he knew. In two years of reserve service, he had managed to finish basic training and earn a promotion to E-3, airman. He outranked Wolfe, who was still an airman apprentice, E-2. The only reason Crespi was an airman was the navy had a reserve squadron of aircraft stationed on Bolling AFB close to his home in suburban Maryland. Otherwise, he would have been a seaman.

Wolfe, on the other hand, had chosen to be an airman in boot camp. He had an uncle who flew fighters in the air force. With his eyesight, Wolfe would never fly as pilot-in-command, but he could be near the jets he loved to watch. Maybe, if the navy sent him to electronics school, he could work on aircraft one day or be a crewman. His uncle’s death from cancer led to meeting Crespi. The navy allowed Wolfe to go home on bereavement leave at the end of boot camp. After the funeral, he found himself in the transit barracks, along with Crespi and two hundred other sailors, including Maryland Lt. Governor Raphael Pisenecki’s son, Raymond.

“Hey, Pisenecki,” Wolfe shouted one day while they toiled on a work detail. The navy wanted the transients to earn their keep. That morning they spit-polished the Chiefs’ Club. Wolfe ran the buffer, while third-class petty officer Pisenecki sat in a chair supervising. “Are you really related to the lieutenant governor?”

“How many Piseneckis do
you
know?” the sailor shot back.

“Okay,” Wolfe granted, “not many. So why are you here? Couldn’t your father get you out of active duty?”

“Yeah. He probably could have,” Pisenecki admitted, “but I wanted to be here. Actually, I want to serve in Vietnam, kill some commie gooks.”

“Will you get to do that as a Seabee?”

“Probably,” Pisenecki said. He went back to reading the paper he had pulled from the trash can, feet on the desk.

Crespi, Wolfe, and a hundred other sailors left the transit barracks in a bus. The bus took them to National Airport, where they boarded a passenger jet to San Francisco. The two-hour layover at SFO turned into an eighteen-hour delay while mechanics swapped out an engine on the jetliner. Crespi and Wolfe sat on either side of Martin on the long flight from San Francisco to Clark AFB. Unable to leave the terminal during the repair, and unable to sleep sitting upright on the jet, the three had had minimal sleep over the previous 36 hours by the time they arrived. The punch-drunk trio were best buddies.

Crespi and Wolfe rode in the navy bus from Clark to Subic Bay Naval Station. The 42 mile ride took three hours. On display all along the so-called highway, Wolfe saw some of the most abject poverty the world knew. Peasants lived in plywood and corrugated plastic-roofed houses covered with nylon sheeting, no windows. The smell of raw sewage wafted through the windows. The bus had no air conditioning.

Adult and child Filipinos climbed over the piles of trash discarded from the colossal American bases at Clark AFB and the US Naval Base at Subic Bay, searching for food and other treasures. Naked kids stood at the side of the road begging for anything the sailors might discard.

Having a friend in Subic meant that Crespi and Wolfe had someone to visit when not participating in work details at the transit barracks. There were so many sailors awaiting ships their overseers had a hard time dreaming up work to keep the men occupied.

After a short workday, many men, especially the old salts, put on their whites and headed to Olongapo City, the whore-infested bar-crammed camp outside the gates of Subic. Drunk, bloody, injured sailors returned nightly to the barracks to wallow in their own vomit and piss. The Tijuana of the Philippines sounded more and more like a Wild West cesspool to Wolfe. Crespi refused to go to Olongapo on liberty, having promised his wife he wouldn’t drink or chase women. Wolfe never felt an urge to explore the local environment, happy to pal around with Crespi, Bobby, and his family, even if Mr. Martin force-fed them on the need to get an education after their enlistments ended. The Martins kept the two sailors fed and entertained for two weeks while they awaited their assigned ship.

Then the navy sent Wolfe and Crespi on a gardening detail: mow the lawn and trim the hedges around the BOQ, Bachelor Officers Quarters. That would have been an easy six-hour workday. The two had made plans to walk to the Martins and escort Bobby to the station theater.
For A Few Dollars More
, the spaghetti western with Clint Eastwood, had arrived at Clark and Subic on the same plane as the sailors. Fifty cents got a sailor, a dependent, or a civilian contractor, a ticket, a small Coke, and a medium sized bag of popcorn.

The sudden burning in Wolfe’s right hand stopped him from trimming the hedges. Within minutes he had a shooting pain that ran to his right shoulder. Before he could yell for help, he found it difficult to breathe. If Crespi hadn’t been close by, he would have died from the anaphylactic reaction to an insect sting. The chunky airman called for help on the BOQ telephone. An ambulance from the dispensary arrived and a corpsman injected Wolfe with Benadryl and epinephrine.

Lifting his head from the pillow, Wolfe asked Crespi, “So, what ship did we get?”

“USS
Forrestal
. The first supercarrier,” Crespi said.

Wolfe had never heard of the ship. “I thought the navy christened ships after famous battles, or famous ships. I never heard of a battle named
Forrestal
.”

“Navy heroes, too. He was Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of Defense,” Crespi said. “He fought for the funds for the navy to buy the supercarriers. Committed suicide at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Won the battle, lost the war.”

“Oh,” Wolfe said, properly chastised for not knowing his navy history. “When do we leave?”

“I sign on tonight. They said you will be better in the morning. Ship goes on line in three days.”

Martin’s smile never diminished. “We’re going to miss you guys,” he said. “But, the carriers return to port every month or so. Frequently they come back to Subic. Occasionally they go to Japan or Hong Kong. In fact, my parents and I are going to Hong Kong in August, before I go back to college. Maybe I’ll see you guys there.”

Wolfe never made it onboard
Forrestal
. The navy didn’t clear him for duty for another two weeks. By then,
Forrestal
was on Yankee Station, in the middle of the Gulf of Tonkin. USN aircraft pounded the North Vietnamese so severely that the carriers had run out of the 1000-pound bombs favored for the A-4 Skyhawks. Someone thought it would be a good idea to use up the old 1000-pound bombs stored in the Philippines. These weapons were of an older design and at least ten years-old. They had been improperly stored in Okinawa and Subic Bay and exposed to salt spray. The formulation of explosive in these 1000-pound bombs could not withstand the heat of a fire as well as the newer explosives could. When the USS
Diamond Head
unloaded its cargo of older bombs onto the
Forrestal
, the stage was set for a tragedy.