The Day Before Midnight (27 page)

“I was in a few fights like that,” Dick said.

“I was too,” said Skazy. “As long as his ammo holds out, he’s going to be a motherfucker to kill.”

“Did Bravo do any damage?”

“Evidently someone covered the withdrawal with some fire from one of the M-60s and some of the men think he may have hit people.”

Dick shook his head sadly.

“Where’s, the CO?”

“Over there. Young guy, first lieutenant. Named Dill. The real CO, that Captain Barnard, he didn’t make it off the hill.”

Dick found Dill sitting by himself smoking a cigarette, staring out into the distance in the bright sun.

“Lieutenant?”

Dill looked up slowly at him.

“Yes, sir?”

“Lieutenant, when you’re talking to me, you’ll be on your goddamned feet, if you please. Stand up.”

Dill rose to the unpleasantness in Puller’s voice with the look of a martyr.

“Excuse me, but, sir, we’ve just been through—”

“Lieutenant, you let me do the talking, all right? You just nod your head when I say so.” The young National Guard officer blinked. “This
is
pathetic. This is disgraceful.
Get these people together. Get them out of the open. Do you have security teams out?”

“No, sir, I thought—”

“What happens if the people on the hill send an assault squad down here? They could set up an LMG about four hundred meters up the slope and dust every man here. Or maybe there’s another enemy unit in the vicinity, and they’re going to come out of the trees firing full automatic.”

Dill, a thick-set, athletic-looking man who nevertheless had something of the surly melancholic about him, simply responded by falling into a deeper glumness.

Finally, he said, “We got killed up there while you guys sat down here and did crosswords. That’s not fair. That’s just not fair. I want to know who’s up there and why we have to die to get them and what is—”

“There’s a madman with an ICBM and a launching pad. Lieutenant, if we don’t get up there, all this, everything you see, everything you’ve ever dreamed or hoped for and loved or cherished, it’s all gone in a few seconds. Do you understand?”

“Who?” was all the stunned officer could say.

“We’ll know when we kill him.”

“He’s one of you, isn’t he?” the officer said. “He’s some kind of Delta guy or Green Beret. He’s one of your little club, isn’t he?”

Dick had no answer to this charge.

“Get your men organized, and get them under shelter. Form them up into their squads and platoons, and take roll. Get them fed. You’ve got to make them a unit again, Lieutenant, because we go back tonight. If you can’t do it, I’ll find somebody that can.”

The lieutenant looked at him, sighed, and went to look for his sergeants.

It had to be Delta Three, goddammit, thought Uckley. He knew he had to say something and that time was slipping away. But Delta Three wouldn’t sit still. He was exceedingly agitated and kept repeating himself to the firemen, who milled in jittery excitement around the big red truck in the Burkittsville Volunteer Fire Department.

“You guys go to the house on the right. Only to the right. The one with the smoke coming out of it. Don’t worry about the smoke; it’s just a chemical device in a pail or a pot or something up on the second floor. Get in there, and take cover; we think there’s going to be some shooting next door. No matter what you hear, you keep your heads down, is that understood?”

The firemen nodded and giggled excitedly among themselves. They were amateurs, too, volunteers, townspeople, and this was shaping up like a great adventure to them.

Finally, Delta Three came back, breathing hard. Uckley was aware that he ought to have been more assertive, but Delta Three had one of those flinty, righteous personalities that assumed its own perfection as a basic operating principle.

“You set, sir?” he asked.

Uckley thought he was set. He had on a black fireman’s slicker and helmet, remembering that when he was a kid he wanted to grow up and be a fireman; he had an ax; he also had his own Smith&Wesson 686 .357 Magnum, which he had bought used from a retiring agent and hadn’t fired in eleven months. Delta Three meanwhile took the moment to do a fast check on his own weapons for the upcoming close encounter, an accurized Colt .45 automatic for backup and a H&K MP-5 with the thirty-round mag and the collapsing skeleton stock, which had been jammed shut, hanging on a sling under his slick and shiny coat. Both men had Kevlar bulletproof vests on also.

“Delta Three?”

The soldier didn’t look at him. He was still checking gear. It was getting so close to Co time. He had two smoke grenades on his belt and two stun grenades and two teargas grenades. He had a gas mask in a case. He had a fighting knife.

“The boots,” he said to Uckley. “You think we ought to change our boots?”

The man looked down to point out that he had on Corcoran jump boots.

How could he be thinking about shoes at a time like this?

“I don’t think there’s time,” said Uckley, who was wearing black Florsheim wingtips.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Things are going to happen damned fast.”

“Delta Three?”

The man finally looked at him.

“I just want to make one thing clear to you. They made it very clear to me, it has to be clear to you.”

Delta Three’s eyes were guileless and blue. They were somehow Baptist eyes, Uckley thought. They wouldn’t know sophistication or irony or cynicism; they’d know only duty, honor, country. They’d know mission.

“This is a prisoner mission. Not a hostage-freeing mission, a prisoner-taking mission. We’ve got to stick by our priorities. D-do you understand that?”

Delta Three just looked at him.

“You have to understand what’s important here,” said Uckley, not quite believing it himself.

“She’s smoking!” came the call from one of the firemen at the binoculars. “Boy, she’s really smoking.”

The men climbed aboard the fire engine.

“Whoo-ceeeeee!” some idiot yelled.

Teagarden thought: I am in a jam.

“Sister Phuong?”

“Yes,” came the voice back to him in the dark.

“I think I’d like to rest.”

“Yes.”

He sat down, considering.

He could tell from his dancing beam that the tunnel grew smaller still ahead and began to curl and meander. It looked like an intestine. Teagarden was having trouble breathing. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open and his legs working. He was aware that exceedingly weird things were going on inside his head. He’d never really thought of the dark before, not of this kind of dark anyhow.

It wasn’t night. Teagarden had fought in the night. The night was not a problem. Because in the night there was space. You could put your hand out and feel the air. You
could look up and see the sky, however indistinctly. The night had textures to it, striations in the darkness. One could befriend and ultimately seduce the night, turn it for you.

But not this. It was absolute. It had no gradations, no subtleties, no nuances. It seemed as leached of meaning as of color. It was too stark. He didn’t really think he could go on.

Yet he couldn’t really go back. Teagarden was Delta, top of the pyramid. Delta culture, surprisingly informal in a lot of ways, was also unforgiving in others. It had its own Bushido. The guys got to wear shaggy hair and blue jeans and sweatshirts as long as they kept their rounds in the 9-zone on the range, could crack an occupied 747 in less than thirty seconds, could fieldstrip an AK-47 blindfolded. But there were lots of guys—Berets, Rangers, FBI SWAT, SEALS, Air Commandos—who had those skills. So what Delta had was this other thing, this, uh, spirit: if you were Delta, you never said no. You just went. It really came down to that one thing: if you were Delta, you never said no. That was an absolute as binding as the dark. When it came time to go, you put aside the bullshit, threw your life into the hot frying pan of fate, and you went.

I cannot go, thought Teagarden.

I am thirty-seven years old, a Green Beret, a ’Nam veteran, the holder of several medals, by all credentials one of the bravest professional soldiers in the world. I cannot go.

He began to cry. He hated himself. He wanted to die. He bit his lip, hoping for blood. Searing pain flashed from the wound. He hated himself. He was weak and worthless. There seemed to be no escape at all.

Teagarden pulled his .45 from the holster. There was a shell in the chamber and the piece was cocked and locked. He thumbed the safety down; it unlocked with a little
snik!
that sounded like a door slamming in the dark. He put the muzzle in his mouth. It had an oily taste, and was big, enshrouded as it was in its slide housing. With his thumb he found the trigger.

“Brother Teagarden.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Brother Teagarden, don’t do it,” she said in Vietnamese.
“Go back to the big tunnel. Wait there. I’ll go as far as I can, and if I find something, I’ll come back. Then well call them. We won’t tell them. Nobody will ever have to know.”

“You’re so brave, Sister,” he said. “I’m not brave. Not down here.”

“Brother, nobody will know.”

“I
will know.”

“Learn to forgive yourself. That
is
the lesson of the tunnels. Forgive yourself.”

He couldn’t see her at all. He could almost sense her, though, her heat, her nearness, her living flesh. Next to it he felt a little stupid. The pistol grew heavy. He put it down. He locked it and put it into his holster.

“I’ll just go back a little ways, okay? I just can’t go any farther, Sister Phuong.”

“It’s all right, Brother Teagarden,” said Phuong.

Turning, she went deeper into the tunnel.

“Mommy,” said Poo Hummel, “Mrs. Reed’s house is on fire!”

Herman turned, went to the window. Yes, black smoke poured from the upper floors of the old house next door. He watched it gush and float up to the sky. Then he heard sirens.

Herman licked his lips. He didn’t like this at all. First a man in a sports coat, now this.

“Herman, is Mrs. Reed going to die?” asked Poo.

“No, I don’t think so, little girl.”

“Will the firemen come and save Mrs. Reed?”

“I’m sure the firemen will come,” said Beth Hummel.

They were all gathered in the living room of the Hummel house. Herman looked out the window again. He could see just smoke, and otherwise nothing.

“Does the lady smoke?” Herman wanted to know.

Beth looked away. Then she said, “No, she quit last year.”

Herman nodded. His two men looked at him.

“Get your weapons out,” he said. “I think we’re going to be hit. You go to the kitchen—”

“Oh, God—” said Beth, “Oh, God, the girls, don’t hurt the girls, I tell you, please—”

Bean began to cry. She was older than her sister and may have just understood it all that much better. She didn’t like the guns, because they made people dead on television.

“Herman, I’m scared,” said Poo. “I don’t want to be dead.”

“Please let us go,” said Beth Hummel. “We didn’t do anything to you. We never did anything to anybody.”

Herman looked at the woman and her two terrified children. He tried to think what to do. He hadn’t come all this way to make war on children and women. Little Poo came across the room to him and put her arms out, and Herman swept her up.

“Don’t go away, Herman. Please don’t go away. Don’t let the firemen make you dead.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to Herman,” he said. “You and your sister, you go upstairs, you stay in your rooms no matter what.
No matter what!”
he finished savagely. “Now, run. Run, Poo. Take care of your sister.”

Poo scrambled up the stairs, pulling Bean along. The younger one was the stronger one.

“You, lady, you’re grown-up. You gotta take your risks with the rest of us.”

“Who
are
you? What is this?”

“Here they are,” said the man at the window. He had an FAL, not a house-to-house weapon, with an utterly worthless Trilux night sight. “Should I fire?”

“No, no,” said Herman. “Maybe they are just firemen. Get up on the stair landing, get ready to jump in either direction, depending on which way they come. You”—he pointed to the other—“you get to the rear, in the kitchen. If they come—”

The man cocked his weapon, a Sterling sub-machine gun, in answer.

“Get to the door, lady,” Herman ordered, his voice taut and ugly. He pressed the silenced Uzi against her back. Then he slid the bolt back, locking it. As he held it tightly he felt the safety in the grip yield to the pressure in his palm.

Peering through the window, he saw the firemen racing to unlimber hoses, and others heading into the Reed house with axes and oxygen masks on.

Two firemen in heavy slickers broke from the truck and headed toward the Hummel house.

He could hear them yelling, “Anybody in there? You’ve got to get out!” They were knocking on the door.

Uckley’s heart was pumping like crazy; his knees felt like jelly, loose and slippery. He didn’t see how they’d support him on the run to the house. It bounded in his vision as he and Delta Three careened toward it, though, of course, he was the one doing the actual bounding. Delta Three had a slight lead as they clambered up the porch steps and made it to the door. He saw Delta Three’s slicker open and billow like a cape as the muzzle of the sub-machine gun came out.

“Anybody in there? Goddammit, you’ve got to get out, the flames may spread!” Delta Three screamed, pounding on the door.

Nothing happened for just a second. Delta Three leaned into the door, dropped his ax, his eyes shooting toward Uckley. Uckley now had the Smith in his hand, though he was surprised to find it there, not having remembered reaching for it.

“Mark your target,” muttered Delta Three under his breath, then paused for just a second to hit the speaker button on his belt and talk into the radio mike he had pinned to his collar. “Delta units, this is Delta Three, green light, green light, green light!” the words increasing with energy and urgency.

Delta Three kicked in the door.

Herman heard a burst of gunfire from the kitchen, things breaking, men screaming, everything mixing together in a welter of confusion. “Attack, attack,” yelled the man in the kitchen, firing again. Herman pulled Mrs. Hummel to him and back as the door before him burst open and the two firemen who were police agents plunged through the door. Though the gunfire rose from the kitchen, he stared for just a
second at the bulging eyes and distended faces of the men opposite them. Then he fired, the gun pumping with that terrible noiseless stutter of the silencer, its shells cascading out. He put a burst into them, knocking them back, pushed the woman forward at them, spun, and ran for the steps. A bullet came after him, hit him high in the arm and pushed him down, bloodying his lip. He screamed, spun to see the wretched woman in the crossfire, crawling, her face wild with terror. He fired again, watching the bullets rip up the room. The man upstairs came to the landing to give covering fire, his big FAL jacking out heavy 308s that exploded chairs and set curtains aflame. But Herman could see nothing to fire at, had no idea where the shot had come from that had hit him. He pushed his way up the stairs, slipped once, felt the blood on his arm, and then the pain erupted, freed from its sheath of shock. He’d been hit before, but not like this, in the bone; the pain was awesome, huge, enveloping. He tried to switch the Uzi to his good hand as the blast of covering fire gave him the time, but now he saw shapes in the window. They were firing fast, and the man above him pitched forward and slammed down the steps. Herman turned, dropping his Uzi, and clambered up, clawing for his pistol.