CHAPTER THIRTEEN

November 19, 1968

The interpreter, hiding amongst the branches and vines ten feet in the air, was nervous about this plan. So were the five CIDG soldiers who had also been recruited - two on the ground with Cipher and three up in the trees with Face. Nobody said a word as they waited, silent and still. In the small clearing below Face's lookout, the three on the ground had built a small fire. They looked unaware, their guns lying beside them. But Face knew otherwise. Every whisper of the wind was carefully noted, as well as every scent and every shifting shadow. There was no firm guarantee that these bandits wouldn't shoot before even determining what they were shooting at. It provided some comfort that the three on the ground were dressed in the black pajamas that the so-called "KKK" wore, but there was still no guarantee.

A twig broke. It was the only sound Face needed. A quick signal from Cipher - it hadn't come from him or his two men - and Face scanned the trees carefully. He'd already memorized every inch, and it didn't take long to see the hanging vines that were out of place. He shifted just slightly to get a better angle, and aimed the XM-16 sniper rifle at the changed scenery. Looking through the scope, he saw the movement a few seconds later, and aimed to put a bullet into the tree just a half-inch in front of the man's face.

One shot, and instantly, the interpreter called out in the unintelligible language. But Face knew he was saying exactly what he'd been instructed to say: "Move and you're dead."

More rustling, and a few shots from the Yards in the trees with him. An AK returned fire, and almost immediately stopped again with a cry of pain. They were clearly at a disadvantage. They didn't even know what they were shooting at yet, and Face's team had the high ground.

"Put down your weapons and get your hands on your heads or we'll open fire on all of you!" Face yelled in English. The translator repeated him. "You're surrounded and we know exactly where you are!"

Cipher and the two CIDG on the ground had turned and leveled their weapons at the thick undergrowth. But clearly, they hadn't been the ones to fire the first shot. The bandits didn't know where those bullets had come from, and they wisely chose to comply with the mysterious voices.

"We want to talk business," Face called, pausing to let the interpreter translate. "We're Americans and we're willing to negotiate price. It's a simple task. Are you interested?"

A moment's pause, and a voice called back. "They say they talk," the interpreter translated.

Face smiled. "Wise choice."

August 28, 1978

Two feet of slimy, squishy sediment on the bottom of the lake, which bubbled up to the surface and changed the water to a putrid shade of grayish-brown, made the brief swim even less enjoyable than Face had anticipated. Luckily, it also gave him a very good excuse to escape back to the safety of his rock as soon as he had fulfilled the obligatory bit of splashing with the children. Jessica emerged first, and he was only a few steps behind, wondering the whole time how long it would take to rid himself of the smell of decay or, more importantly, if his shorts would be permanently stained by the sludge.

"You want them to call you Face?" Jessica questioned, curious.

He grabbed the towel she offered, since he hadn't thought to bring his own, and quickly towel dried his hair. "I know it's good manners and all," he answered, "but Mr. Peck just makes me feel a little too old coming from a kid."

She shrugged. "I'm just surprised you still use the name. It's - Heather! Don't drown your brother!"

Face glanced out at the water and saw Heather looking very innocent as her brother sputtered and flailed, unable to touch bottom. How Jessica had noticed this while turned in the opposite direction, he couldn't guess, but it was certainly impressive.

"It's just that with all the effort you've gone through to separate yourself from... all of that," Jessica continued, "I didn't think you'd want to be continually reminded of it. "

Face watched until he was sure James wasn't drowning, then looked back at Jessica. "I don't think about it like that," he explained. "It's just my name."

"What about your real name?" she asked, eyeing him with what appeared to be genuine interest. "Isn't that more like who you are now?"

He frowned as he considered it and briefly wondered what she was getting at. "It's not quite that simple," he finally admitted.

"Oh?" she challenged with a flirty smile that worried him more than it probably should have. "Why don't you explain it to me?"

Sensing the opportunity he'd been waiting for, he smiled back. "Alright," he agreed. "Just as soon as you explain why someone is trying to kill you."

With an exasperated sigh and a roll of her eyes, she stood and called for the kids to come back to camp, ignoring him.

"If you plan to stay in LA, you're going to have to deal with it sooner or later," he pointed out. "And even if you don't, you can't just pretend it didn't happen."

"It is my problem, Face," she said firmly. "Not yours."

"And ordinarily, I don't go out of my way to help people who don't want to be helped," he answered with just as much confidence. "But you aren't the only one at risk here."

As the children waded into shallower water, Jessica turned and started up the hill to the tents. Face followed a step behind. "I am trying to be courteous," he continued, "since you claim it's your problem. But to be perfectly honest, if we keep talking in circles, I'll go over your head."

She spun on him, eyes blazing. "Go to who, exactly?"

"Your mother, for one," he answered simply, "who knows as well as you do that regardless of how it happened or whose fault it was that you're in this mess, you need help getting out of it."

With a mocking laugh, Jessica crossed her arms. "And you think you can help," she challenged.

Looking her straight in the eye, Face answered with the authority and confidence of years' worth of experience. "Try me," he dared.

She was quiet for a moment, staring him down. Finally, as two kids in towels bounded past them to the campsite, she swallowed the lump in her throat, ran a hand over her wet hair, and shook her head. "Fine," she growled. "But I am definitely going to need a drink first."

Face was patient. He waited while Jessica downed a plastic cup full of cheap wine, busying herself with all the reasons why she couldn't yet sit down and talk. He was still waiting after making a fire, watching Momma feed Sarah, sending the older kids to find sticks to roast hot dogs, calming Jessica's fears that they might encounter snakes or spiders, setting the table with paper plates, watching her re-set it to her own specifications, collecting all the paper plates and cups and restacking them when the wind blew them away, pouring Jessica another cup of wine, driving to the store to procure more wine, making a special stop at the grocery store to get ketchup for James, rebuilding the fire, and cooking hot dogs while Jessica put the baby to bed and fluttered around trying to look incredibly busy. It was dark, and she was washing plastic forks right out of the packaging by firelight when Momma finally had enough.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, child!" she exclaimed. "Sit down!"

Realizing there was not much left for her to even pretend to be busy with, Jessica reluctantly stumbled to the chair by the fire, poured another cupful, and sat silently.

By the time the kids were fed, marshmallowed, and tucked into their sleeping bags, it was nearly midnight. Jessica, more than slightly intoxicated as she worked on her second bottle, finally opened the conversation with a bomb Face hadn't been expecting.

"Paulie and I were married for a little over a year," she declared.

Recovering from his shock, Face nodded slowly as she continued with barely any pause.

"When we met, he was… charming." She reconsidered, shifting uncomfortably. "Successful. Driven, even. He was a stockbroker. And –" she took a deep, faltering breath "- an undiagnosed manic depressive. I knew, in a way. At least, I knew something wasn't quite right with his high-highs and his low-lows. But he was fun and exciting and the depressions weren't crippling. He had plenty of money, and he enjoyed gambling. I didn't worry about it. We always had more than enough cash on hand between his work and mine. But then he started coming home high. The risks he took got bigger and bigger. He lost his job, all of his savings, then mine. By the time we divorced, he was in a lot of debt."

"How much is 'a lot'?" he asked. Gambling rings didn't tend to run on credit. There was too great a risk that debts wouldn't get paid.

"He was really good at coming up with collateral," Momma said bitterly. "Like the house."

Face glanced at her questioningly. "It was in his name?"

"It was his house," Jessica admitted, scowling at the flames that lapped the burning logs. "He won it, fair and square."

"Won it?" Face repeated, a bit stunned. The stakes of this particular gambling ring were becoming clearer.

"He was on a good streak," Momma said bitterly.

"We didn't even live in it until after the divorce was final," Jessica explained. "He had plenty of assets and during the divorce, I said the only thing I wanted was the kids - well, Sarah, since he couldn't have fought me for the other two - and the house in LA, since I had a job offer here. That's why he'd gambled for the damn thing in the first place. It was his fucked up way of providing for us."

"So this was a recent divorce," Face assumed.

"It was finalized a month before we moved here," Jessica admitted, taking another drink.

"He was on a good streak at the time," Momma added. "Which worked out well for Jessica and the children. He kept a half-dozen or so properties, cars, jewelry. But we all knew as soon as his winning streak was over, it'd all be gone."

"Didn't he sign the deed over to you?" Face asked with a frown.

"Yes, but he had a duplicate," Jessica sighed. "It would never hold up in court but it looked legitimate enough to play with. Some guys brought it to me a few weeks ago and told me to move out."

"We consulted a lawyer," Momma added, "and he told us to go to the police, press charges for fraud."

"But that was useless. Without any evidence..." Jessica trailed off, leaving the obvious outcome of the police report unstated. "It wasn't like these guys were going through the courts to try and force us out. What could the police do? We couldn't even give them the name of whoever was threatening us."

"They said they'd check into it," Momma finished. "Asked us if we knew where to find Paulie. But we never heard anything more from them."

Face nodded slowly. "People don't gamble houses with a few of their closest friends. Any idea who runs this gambling ring?"

"I never asked," Jessica admitted, pausing for another long drink. "We were living in San Francisco then - before we moved here. At first, I thought he was going to Vegas because he'd be gone for days. And maybe he was. But then he stopped going away and everything was good for a while. When he started up again, I actually thought he was cheating on me, so I followed him one night to this little... hole-in-the-wall bar. I thought for sure he was meeting some woman there. But then he came home the next morning with a Cadillac."

"Which he lost again three days later," Momma interjected.

Face's gaze remained steady on Jessica as she hid her eyes with a hand, breathing deep in an attempt to control the urge to cry. Momma was right; she needed help. And Face was at least vaguely aware of the fact that money on a high-stakes gambling table could pay their way for a while. It could be a very lucrative job. He needed to talk to Hannibal.

"When was the last time you heard from him?" Face asked.

Jessica shrugged. "A few weeks, maybe." She sighed. "He still calls, once in a while. Pretends it's to talk to the kids – which he does, but they don't really have much to say to him. Really, I think he's still in denial even now that the divorce is final. It's like he still thinks if he could just win enough money to buy me everything I ever wanted, I couldn't resist going back to him."

Face frowned. The last thing he needed was to drift into the role of relationship counselor. "Know where to find him?" he prodded, redirecting the conversation away from her drunken ramblings of how things might have been.

The look she gave him was both confused and worried. "Why?" she asked. "It's not like you can just talk to him and fix this."

"I know," Face said reassuringly. He wasn't quite that naive. "But that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do, either."

"What do you mean?" Jessica demanded, still watching him warily.

He hesitated a moment, not sure how much she'd understand in her drunken state, even if he wanted to explain himself. He opted for the easier response. "It's late," he pointed out. "Let's get some sleep and tomorrow morning, we'll see what I can do to help."

"Help how?" Jessica asked, even more confused.

"Well, first," Face replied with a comfortable smile, "I'm going to need to make a phone call."

November 19, 1968

"At midnight tonight, you take fifty men between the village and the camp," Hannibal instructed Locke, "backed right up against this river here. When the VC run out of the village, they'll run towards the camp, right out in the open."

"Why will the VC be running out of the village?" Locke asked.

"Because we'll be coming in the other side." Hannibal pointed out the topography. "You'll be on a hill. All you have to do is point and shoot."

"Inside of Cambodia," Locke reminded, eyeing Hannibal skeptically. "How are you planning to do this without causing an international incident? If you have a bunch of shot-up VC on Cambodian soil, they'll know we did it."

"That's why you need a fall guy," Hannibal grinned. "Face?"

Face took a step forward, hands buried in the pockets of his jungle fatigues. "I talked to the leader of this so-called KKK early this morning. I told him that we were in an awkward position because we simply can't send a patrol over into Cambodia to find out what's going on over there, but we needed to know what the VC are planning. They were all too happy to help in exchange for a thousand piastres a piece, five rifles, and five automatic weapons."

"You agreed to give them weapons?" one of Locke's men asked, clearly horrified.

"They'll need them," Hannibal answered.

"For what, exactly?"

Hannibal smiled as he lit his cigar. "For shooting the VC, of course."

Locke was still not entirely comfortable with the plan. Face could see the hesitation written all over his expression. But he didn't argue. One advantage of being the specialized team sent in to clean up messes – if they were desperate enough to call for help, they would do whatever was necessary. Face, however, had a slightly different perspective. As Locke and his men filtered out of the room, Face lingered to study the map.

"What's on your mind, kid?" Hannibal asked once they were alone.

Face bristled slightly at the "kid". Nobody had called him that in his entire life. It had never suited him; even as a child, he'd always thought of himself as so much older than he actually was. "Kids" were reckless and irresponsible. Of course, that probably wasn't far off from Hannibal's actual opinion of him. But that was fine; the feeling was mutual.

"It's fine," he answered coolly. "It's a good plan."

Hannibal seemed a bit taken aback by the approval. He was quiet for a moment, coming up to stand beside Face. "I looked into your four POWs," he finally said unexpectedly. "The Agency file you had a few months back."

Face blinked, startled. He'd never expected to hear about those men again. He doubted they were alive, and they certainly wouldn't be in the same place. Of course, he'd recovered men who'd been locked up a lot longer than two months. An unexpected flicker of hope pulled his mind from the current assignment back to one that felt much more personally important to him. He couldn't help it.

"And?" he prodded when Hannibal didn't continue.

"They sent a team," he explained. "Only a few days after receiving the report. But they didn't find anything."

Face's jaw set hard. "Of course they didn't," he said bitterly. "They waited days. It doesn't take that long to move prisoners."

"They couldn't even confirm the report," Hannibal clarified. "No buildings, no men. No evidence anyone had ever been there."

"You think he made it up?" Face challenged, shocked. He had an easier time believing the VC and their prisoners had disappeared into thin air.

"It would be a hell of a story if he did," Hannibal replied with a shrug. "I'm not sure if he made it up, got it wrong, or was just so traumatized he couldn't remember his own name. The man had clearly been through hell."

"So they never even confirmed who the Americans were?" Face asked.

"No."

Jaw ticking in tight anger, Face could feel his fists clench and forced them open again. "They shouldn't have waited," he said low.

Hannibal peered at him curiously. "You're thinking they cleaned up all evidence of ever having been there in less than a week?" he challenged.

Face realized how ridiculous it sounded. But like Hannibal said, there were a half dozen possible explanations for why the intelligence was faulty. "I think they should've kept looking," he clarified. "The location might have been wrong, but nobody makes up a story like that."

"And when should they have stopped looking?" Hannibal asked. "They searched the entire area and found nothing."

"I would've found them," Face answered icily. "I would've kept searching until I did."

"And in the meantime, you would've tied this team up on a fool's errand for weeks on end," Hannibal pointed out. "And you still might never have found them. Then what?"

"I don't leave men behind," Face said.

"But you'd lead your own team into danger to chase after ghosts."

Face could feel the anger building. Turning away from the map, he faced Hannibal head-on. "They're not ghosts, Hannibal. They're men. Soldiers. Like us." Hannibal glanced sideways at him, calm and impassive, but said nothing. "I hope to God it's not you out there someday," Face continued. "But if it is, you're going to wish you had someone like me who wouldn't give up."

Hannibal flinched slightly, almost imperceptibly. But Face noticed. Worried that if he continued he might actually say something he regretted, Face turned without another word and headed for the door. He wasn't surprised when Hannibal didn't follow.