Black Market (20 page)

“Yes, Captain—” Cutter tried gaining a position of superiority by addressing the officer by his rank rather than calling him
“sir.”

Youngbloode was an expert at the one-upmanship game and picked up the agent’s nervousness. “And how is that?” He cut the agent
off in mid-sentence.

“I’d like to interview one of your men concerning a recent murder.” Cutter spoke the last word like an ace being played in
a high stakes five-stud poker game.

“Murder? My,
my
.” Youngbloode played down the issue.

“Yes sir,
murder
. A master sergeant was murdered yesterday in Qui Nhon and we think one of your sergeants might have some information we could
use.”

“I don’t think Sergeant David Woods has anything that you can use, Sergeant.” Youngbloode played an ace of his own by mentioning
Woods’s name first.

“He was in Qui Nhon yesterday?”

“Yes, and so were a lot of other people. You are running a supply depot, aren’t you?” Youngbloode was maneuvering from a position
of power. Woods had briefed him on what he had suspected when Daryl Masters had reported the black-market scam to the CID
and then was mysteriously found floating in the bay without a head.

Cutter hooded his eyes. He sensed that something was going on and he was being outmaneuvered at his own game. He decided to
withdraw and regroup. “I’d like to take Sergeant Woods back with me to Qui Nhon for questioning.”

“I’m afraid that will be impossible.”

“Captain, I have the authority to detain
anyone
I deem necessary in this
murder
investigation.” Cutter drew out his CID badge and showed it to Youngbloode.

“I’m impressed, but Sergeant Woods is scheduled to meet with the South Vietnamese Army Commander for this military zone this
morning, and after that we are due to fly up to our division headquarters for a meeting with our commanding general.”

Cutter saw that he had been completely outmaneuvered. “I would like for him to be delivered to my office as soon after that
as you can.”

“I assure you, he’ll be there accompanied by an
armed
guard.” Youngbloode smiled. He knew that the CID sergeant would be surprised when he returned and was greeted by an MACV
special investigation team.

“Well, while I’m here I might as well check through Sergeant Shaw’s personal items for a long-shot clue.” Cutter tried acting
casual, but the ends of his long mustache twitched nervously.

Youngbloode took a step toward his orderly room door and paused on the top step. “Sorry again,
Agent
Cutter, but a special investigations team from MACV Headquarters in Saigon has already been here and have taken everything
that belonged to the three men killed in An Khe.”

Cutter felt the muscles in his throat tighten and his vocal cords become dry. “Thank you.” He had lost all of his cockiness,
and walked away toward the helipad where the depot commander’s helicopter waited for him.

Captain Youngbloode watched the CID agent leave and noticed that the man’s shoulders had slumped slightly under his short-sleeved
walking-suit jacket.

Cutter was the only passenger on the chopper. He had borrowed it from the commander at Qui Nhon to impress the infantry hicks
out at the fire support base and it had failed to impress even the guards at the helipad. He flew back to Qui Nhon in a very
bad mood. The captain at the recon company obviously knew a great deal more about what was going on than he had let on. Cutter
frowned, putting deep creases across his forehead. He had to figure out a way to protect the black-market operation from being
exposed and at the same time design a plan to protect himself if it was discovered.

The helicopter had barely touched down on the depot commander’s private helipad behind the headquarters building when a young
soldier ran up to the open side door and leaned inside.

“Sergeant Cutter?”

“What in the hell do you want, Teddy?” Cutter caught himself too late to correct calling the obvious homosexual by a nickname
and glared at the smiling door-gunner.

“It’s important! I’ve been waiting for you to get back here from An Khe!” The excitement in the young spec five’s voice made
him sound even more effeminate and brought both of the door-gunners around the shut-down aircraft, laughing at him. Teddy
ignored the two soldiers and continued talking to the CID agent. “There are all kinds of investigators from MACV, checking
out
everything
!” He slapped his hand on his hip and shifted his body weight to one leg.

Cutter felt his face turning red and grabbed the clerk by his arm. He spoke in a loud voice so the chopper crew could hear
him clearly. “This is a
classified
investigation, Specialist! If you want to give a statement, wait until we get back to my office!” He tried to make it look
as if his relationship with the soldier was purely professional.

One of the door-gunners called after the disappearing agent and clerk, ‘Teddy! Would you stop by my hooch tonight and give
me a
statement
too?”

Cutter felt like putting a bullet through the soldier’s head but decided against making a scene and escorted the clerk over
to his office. As soon as they had entered the building, Cutter grabbed Teddy’s arm and swung him around.

“What in the fuck is so damn important that you have to meet me at the helipad!”

“Let go of me—you’re hurting my arm!” the clerk whined, and tried feebly to break free from the fat sergeant’s grip.

“You dumb faggot!” Cutter squeezed harder and brought tears to the skinny soldier’s eyes. He was very angry over being humiliated
in front of the door-gunners and pilots. So far, his day had started out bad and was getting worse by the hour. “What in the
fuck do you have to tell me!”

Teddy started crying.

Cutter shook him and curled his lip before letting him go. “Sit down and tell me what’s so damn important!”

The clerk dropped down in a chair and started sobbing. “No! If you’re going to treat me like this … I can just as well be
beaten up by the guys in the barracks!” Teddy tried getting back at the agent for hurting him. “Find out yourself!”

Cutter felt the rage that had been building up all day break loose. He backhanded the clerk, bringing blood from the corner
of the young man’s mouth. “Listen faggot! You had better tell me what’s going on, or I’m going to pound your ass!”

“You’re like all the rest of them.” The clerk rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “You act so damn nice when you’re
horny … but in front of other people you have to play all that macho shit!”

Cutter raised his hand again.

“You want to know … fine! There’s a special investigating team here from MACV and they’ve been asking some very direct questions!”

Cutter’s whole attitude changed. “Like what, Teddy?”

The clerk grinned, showing the blood that had filled the spaces between his perfect set of teeth. He was a homosexual, not
a fool. Cutter had his chance and had blown it. If the agent would have treated him decently in front of the helicopter crew,
he might have cooperated now; getting hit was no big thing to him, but being rejected in front of people really hurt him.
“They asked me to extract some data from the computer…”

Cutter’s face showed the worry he was feeling inside. “What kind of data?”

“Nothing very important … Stuff like how much meat had been declared unfit for human consumption, dates and ship names … Like
I said, it was nothing important, like who drew those five starlight scopes from the warehouse without any paperwork.”

Cutter realized that the game was up for him in the black-market meat operation, but he knew that if the investigators could
tie in the starlight scopes and a lot of other new special equipment disappearances from the warehouses to him, he would go
to prison for treason. The NVA had hooked him on young Eurasian and Amerasian boys and then had put the squeeze on him for
small items of equipment, until the list grew into almost anything in the depot.

“Listen, Teddy … I need you to do a favor for me … a big favor.” Cutter gently patted the clerk’s cheek and smiled at him.

Teddy smiled back.

“I want you to go right over to the computer center and erase some data for me…”

Teddy kept on smiling.

Captain Youngbloode stood to the side of the small parade field and felt as if he was going to burst with pride as the Vietnamese
general slipped his nation’s second highest award for valor over Sergeant Woods’s neck. The Vietnamese had never given one
of the awards to an American before, and the major general had had to go all the way to the President of South Vietnam for
a telephonic approval. Normally, that award was given for exceptional valor on the battlefield, but the general had convinced
the political chain of command that an example had to be made to all of the American commanders against killing innocent civilians
on their search-and-destroy missions.

The brief ceremony was conducted in front of a gathering composed mostly of American war correspondents. Woods looked sheepishly
over at his team before saluting the South Vietnamese major general. The Vietnamese band played their national anthem, followed
by a very good rendition of
The Star-Spangled Banner
. Woods felt a chill traverse his spine and tickle his neck.

Warner was the first one to reach Woods after the ceremony had finished and reached out to shake his hand. “Congratulations!
Man! That is a pretty medal!”

Sergeant Arnason nodded his head in approval. The high award was worn around one’s neck like the American Medal of Honor,
and it looked very good. Woods would have to wait until the Department of the Army had officially approved his winning of
the award before he could wear it back in the States, but the medal was his regardless of what the Pentagon decided.

“Come on, Hero! We’ve got a chopper to catch and some business to attend to in Qui Nhon before the day’s over!” Captain Youngbloode
shook Woods’s hand, then leaned forward and whispered something in his ear that only Woods could hear. The sergeant’s face
turned red.

Arnason and his whole team accompanied the captain and Woods to the depot. Youngbloode wasn’t going to take any chances with
the young sergeant’s life. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence that Daryl Masters had been murdered because he had
tried to report a black-market operation to the CID at Qui Nhon, and that meant CID agents were involved.

The clerk operated the computer with a vengeance. His fingers hit the keyboard so hard that the tips were turning white and
numb. Teddy was sick of being toyed with and then beaten up because some damn
pervert
used him and then felt guilty over what he had done. He knew what
his
problem was, but most of those men who would sneak to see him at night wouldn’t even recognize him during the day. Sergeant
Cutter had hit him for the last time.

Teddy hit the
PRINT
button and leaned back in his chair to watch the computer output the data. A small smile spread wider over his teeth as each
line appeared. Cutter would never get out of jail when the authorities read the list of items the agent had drawn from the
warehouses. The black-market operation was nothing compared to what the list of missing special equipment would do to him.

Cutter and LeMoine had made a couple of major errors in their operation, but the biggest was to use Teddy and then ignore
him. He had followed them down to the docks one night when they had been with a young soldier. Teddy had thought that they
were going to have sex with the soldier and he was jealous. He saw them get into the boat and leave for one of the ships in
the bay, but when they had returned the soldier wasn’t with them. He had waited for hours on the dock for the soldier to return
but he never did, and even after he had called all the ships in the harbor, none of them had heard of the missing man until
the body washed up on shore and then he knew.

Teddy folded the computer printout neatly and slipped it into an envelope. He had to be careful because the package was so
thick it made his side pocket bulge out. The MACV investigators were using the colonel’s conference room for their operations
center. Teddy figured that there would always be someone there who could take the printout as evidence.

The walk from the nonperishable warehouse to the administrative buildings was shortest if you cut across the open quadrangle,
and Teddy was in a hurry to deliver his data to the team before he got cold feet. He failed to see the door to the CID office
open slightly and Cutter look out. Teddy’s short-stepped fast walk brought a smile to the face of the agent even though the
man had nothing to smile about. He frowned and smiled at the same time. There was no reason why the clerk should be hurrying
over to the depot commander’s office, especially in the middle of the afternoon. Cutter’s intuition was fully operative and
was being augmented by his paranoia.

Cutter stepped out of his office. “HEY! TED!”

The clerk stopped walking and turned in the middle of his step, nearly falling down.

Cutter’s instincts sensed that the clerk was scared silly and was trying to hide something. “Come here.”

“Sorry, Sergeant … I’ve got some important papers the Colonel wants, right now!” Teddy tried leaving but Cutter took the couple
of steps that separated them faster than an attacking tiger.

“Now what could be so
important
?” Cutter sneered. “Let me have a little look.”

“Let me go!”

“Get your ass over to my office—now!”

The clerk tried escaping from the fat agent, but Cutter saw the bulge in his pocket and removed the thick envelope before
he could get away. “Give that back to me!” The tone in Teddy’s voice gave him away.

“Oh, you want this back?” Cutter sensed that he had something that concerned him. “Teddy … you weren’t going to screw me over,
were you?”

The fear in the clerk’s eyes answered the agent.

“Well, Teddy. You and I are going to have to go for a little boat ride…”