Winter Soldier

Your kind. The emphasis on the words was so slight most people wouldn’t have noticed, but he did. He almost smiled. She was a fighter. Good. They would need that kind of grit and stamina where they were going. “I apologize,” he said. “B.J. told me he always gets the best people for these jaunts. He was right. What I should have asked you was if you’d had experience operating under...less-than-ideal conditions.”

He’d almost said battlefield conditions. What had made those words pop into his head? Was it because, below a sleeveless white tank top that molded itself nicely to her breasts, she wore desert-patterned utilities, fatigues to everyone but an ex-Marine, and combat boots—a look that was decidedly military. Or because the past was growing stronger with every mile they flew, bringing long-guarded memories dangerously close to the surface?

She glanced down at the U.S. Marine Corps emblem tattoo on his left forearm, partially visible below the rolled-back cuff of his shirt, a souvenir of his first liberty after boot camp at Parris Island all those years ago. “I’ve been around the block a few times, Marine. I won’t bug out on you.” She gave him a mocking little salute and headed down the aisle toward the front of the plane.

He closed his eyes but could still see the proud tilt of her head, the sway of her hips in the baggy utilities that tried hard but couldn’t completely hide the fact she was all woman. Three weeks in close proximity to Leah Gentry was going to be very interesting. And maybe, just maybe, it would be interesting enough to keep him from losing what was left of his mind.

“MAY I JOIN YOU?” Leah asked Kaylene Smiley, the mission’s head nurse, as she came abreast of the older woman’s seat. She and Kaylene had met for the first time in the lounge at O’Hare the evening before. Dr. Roger Crenshaw, the anesthesiologist Leah would be working with in Dalat, and Kaylene were playing gin rummy on a folded-down tray.

“Of course. Roger just won my last nickel. You’ve saved me from losing another hand and being in his debt,” Kaylene said.

“It’s a good time for a break,” Roger agreed. “I’m going to use the lavatory before the plane lands. If you ladies will excuse me.” The elderly physician stood up, pocketed his small pile of winnings and with a courtly gesture offered Leah his seat.

“What do you suppose it will be like there? Saigon, I mean. The only pictures I’ve ever seen are from the war. And in the movies.” Kaylene was looking out the window as she spoke.

“They make most of the movies in Bangkok, you know. There are parts of it that look like Saigon did during the war.” Shielded by the high back of the airplane seat, Leah tried to shake the feeling that Adam Sauder’s eyes were boring burr holes into the back of her head in preparation for taking it off her shoulders.

“Really? I didn’t know.”

“I have three brothers, all making a career of the military, and my dad just retired after thirty years in the army. So I know about war movies.” Leah also leaned forward and looked out the window at the green tangle of jungle and rice paddies visible below.

“You’re wearing dog tags,” Kaylene observed. “Were you in the service, too?”

“Yes, I’m an army reservist now.”

“My brother was here in 1967. He was stationed near Dalat, where we’ll be staying. I never thought I’d come here.” Kaylene returned to looking out the plane window. “According to the travel books, Dalat’s supposed to be a beautiful place. The brass from both sides vacationed there during the war, but my brother can’t imagine why I wanted to come on this mission. He said he’d never come back—never in a million years.”

THE PLANE ROLLED to a standstill, the stairs were drawn up and the door opened. Brilliant sunlight poured into the cabin as Adam walked out to meet his past. Much had changed. Oh, yes, there was still the same heat, the same stifling humidity, the smell of hot oil, metal and concrete baking in the sun, and the guard posts between the runways he’d manned as a nineteen-year-old Marine corporal still stood. But the sandbags were gone. And the skeletons of crashed and burned aircraft that had made takeoffs and landings so dangerous toward the end of the war had been hauled away. Most of the other buildings he might have recognized were gone, destroyed in the final hours before the airport had been abandoned to the conquering Vietcong.

But it was the sounds that were the most different. In fact, it was the lack of noise that marked the biggest change. There wasn’t another aircraft in sight. Their chartered Air Vietnam jet was the only plane landing or taking off. It was quiet, eerily so. Absent from the scene was the drone of helicopter blades, the whine of fighter jets taking off and landing, the roar of cargo planes evacuating load after load of civilians....

Adam shut down his recollections with an efficiency that was the result of long years of practice, retreating behind the buffer zone of reserve most doctors learned to erect around themselves early on in their careers, or else they risked losing their sanity. From that perspective he could view Than Son Nhut from a place outside himself where he observed, but didn’t participate in, what was going on. He spent a lot of time in that limbolike state these days, and every time he went there he found it harder and harder to come back.

“Damn, Adam. Did you ever think we’d be back?”

It was B.J. at his elbow, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, a wondering look on his face. B.J. was a millionaire fifty times over, but you’d never know it from the way he looked or dressed, or from the luggage he carried.

“No,” Adam said truthfully. “I never expected to come back.”

“It’s friggin’ spooky. I half expect a MIG to come screaming out of the sky the way it did that day and strafe the runway, or a sniper to start taking potshots at us when we unload the plane.” His expression darkened as he looked around him, but a moment later his usual good-natured smile returned. He mopped at his red face with a blue bandanna he pulled out of the back pocket of his jeans. Then he tied the four corns of the bandanna into knots and put the makeshift hat on his balding head. “I’m going to have to get myself a cover. I forgot how friggin’ hot the sun is here.” He looked sourly at Adam’s full head of hair. “Some guys have all the luck.”

Adam and B.J. had gone through boot camp and infantry training together, and ended up with the same duty assignment, attached to the embassy in Saigon. A cushy assignment anyplace else on earth. In Saigon in 1975 it was the stuff of nightmares. They’d arrived in country just before Christmas in 1974 and left in April of ’75. B.J. on an Evac flight after a sniper’s bullet hit the tire of a jeep he was driving, causing it to flip over on him, and Adam aboard one of the last helicopters off the airfield. But at least they’d gotten out alive; many hadn’t.

“Yeah, all the luck in the world,” Adam said.

“Mr. Walton?” It was Leah Gentry again. She was wearing a boonie cap in the same shades of brown as her utilities and mirrored sunglasses. She had a decidedly unmilitary, traffic-stopping, lime-green backpack with a picture of Minnie Mouse emblazoned on it slung over one shoulder, and in her other hand she carried a large, locked, fire-engine-red toolbox. “Sir, I was wondering if I could speak to you for a moment.”

“Hey, don’t go calling me sir.” B.J. grinned.

“Yes, sir, B.J.” Her lips tightened momentarily, then curved into a heart-stopping smile.

“Never made it past PFC, myself. Adam here was a corporal, though. No wait. You ended up with sergeant’s stripes before you got out, didn’t you, Marine?”

Adam ignored his friend’s question. “I think she’s deferring to your age, not your rank.”

B.J. laughed loudly enough to turn heads in their direction. “That’s a low blow, buddy.” He turned to Leah. “And even more of a reason for you to cease and desist, Captain, ma’am.”

“Captain?” Adam repeated.

“Officer on deck, old pal,” B.J. said, slapping Adam on the back as he made his little joke. “Ms. Gentry here’s an officer in the United States Army.”

“You’re active duty?” He hadn’t expected that. He’d noticed the utilities, but had her pegged for a military wanna-be or maybe a weekend warrior, not regular army.

“Reserves since ’94.”

“Desert Storm?”

B.J. answered first. “And Somalia and Bosnia. I told you I only get the best. Leah knows the ropes. And she’s not going to go into a screaming panic if the lights go out or some ex-Charlie bureaucrat with delusions of grandeur starts hasslin’ us about our paperwork. We’re damned lucky to have her, so don’t go giving her a hard time.”

“It’s too late,” Leah said mildly. “Mr. Walton, could you spare me one of the interpreters to run interference with the customs officer?” She lifted the big metal case a few inches. “I’ve got everything I need to work in here. I don’t want any of it confiscated by some round-butt desk jockey with an overactive sense of duty or a quick eye for a bribe. If I don’t work, Dr. Sauder doesn’t, either. Or anyone else, for that matter,” she concluded with a grin.

“I’ll walk you through myself,” B.J. said, suddenly all business. “It’s liable to take some time to get us all through the red tape, so we might as well start with you. The commies may have lost the cold war, but they won the paperwork one. Then I’m coming back to ask for volunteers to stay with the plane. I don’t intend to see any of our stuff get ‘liberated’ . by any of those desk jockeys you mentioned and end up on the black market. Can I count on you, Captain?”

“Certainly. Just tell me when.”

“I’d like to get everyone squared away at the hotel ASAP. Would you be willing to take the first shift with the plane? I’ll leave Adam here with you. Got a problem with that, Marine?” B.J. asked in a softly challenging tone. He had made his peace with the past. He knew Adam had not.

“No,” Adam said. “No problem.”

“Great. It’s settled, then. I’ll make sure the government liaison guy they promised to have waiting for us gets us some guards. Once they’re stationed around the plane all you have to do is stick around a while to make sure they stay honest. Piece of cake.”

Adam wasn’t so sure of that, but maybe with Leah Gentry to keep him company, he could fill the silence of the present with the sound of her voice and keep the horror of the past at bay.

CHAPTER TWO

ADAM WALKED OUT onto the balcony of his hotel room to greet the sunrise in a country he’d hoped never to see again.

“Good morning, Doctor. You’re up early.”

He swung around. Leah Gentry was standing on another postage-stamp-size balcony next to his. She looked fresh and rested, even though they hadn’t gotten to their hotel rooms until after midnight the night before. “Good morning. Is that coffee you’re drinking?” He’d given up alcohol years ago, cut down on his red meat and smoked only the occasional cigar, but he’d refused to give up coffee.

“Yep. I made it myself.” She laughed, the wonderful, lilting laugh he’d found himself beginning to crave as though it were...coffee. “I’m not fit for human company if I don’t get my fix in the morning, so Mom sent along one of those little coffeemakers and every conceivable electrical adapter. Luckily one of them worked. The wiring in this hotel is... eccentric,” she finished diplomatically. “Would you like a cup? The door’s unlocked. Help yourself.”

“Thanks, I’ll be right over,” he heard himself say, and wasn’t as surprised as he would have been only twenty-four hours earlier.

The time they’d spent together at Than Son Nhut hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected. True to his word, B.J. had gotten Leah and her tackle box full of anesthetic drugs and instruments through customs in under an hour, some kind of record in Vietnam. And true to his word, the Vietnamese official had shown up with his armed guards—sober young men dressed in dull green fatigues and pith helmets that sported a red star. With AK-47s slung over their shoulders, they took their places on each side of the hangar door.

Left alone in the vast echoing space, he and Leah had made small talk, played gin rummy on Leah’s tackle box and listened to the drumming of rain on the metal roof. It was November, the tail end of the rainy season, so the downpour lasted for less than an hour, instead of half the day.