CHAPTER SIXTEEN
June 17, 1971
Learning to be a part of IA drills had sounded like a good idea at the time. It seemed elementary - one person stepped left, the other stepped right, and they fired in succession. Murdock had not anticipated the hours and hours of practice for the seemingly simple maneuver, or how much the repetitive motions would hurt after the hundredth time.
Training for recon in the relatively safe areas immediately surrounding the base had also sounded like a good idea, back when Murdock could still feel his legs and it didn't hurt to breathe. Facedown on the floor - he hadn't even made it to the bed - in the team room at Tay Ninh, he was only vaguely aware of his surroundings. The humidity stuck to his neck and his fatigues were soaked with sweat. A rock jabbed into his ribs. It hurt. He had no intention of moving.
He heard laughter - women's laughter - but knew that couldn't be right. There were no women on this base. Exhausted and delirious, and apparently having auditory hallucinations again, he should have been concerned but was instead amused. He wondered if any of them could sing...
"Come on, Murdock. Up and at 'em."
Separated from himself by the blurred line between painful reality and harmless fantasy, he groaned loudly as a man on either side dragged him up. "Nooo..."
A vaguely familiar laugh forced his eyes open, but he couldn't immediately focus. "Come on," the voice ordered. "Start walking. Your feet will figure it out."
It took a moment to place the young voice. Warrant Officer Charles "Snap" Pelt had been called upon to fill his shoes while he was away, but he was clearly more comfortable on the right side of the cockpit. What little time they'd spent in the air lately - when Murdock wasn't being subjected to all forms of endurance testing and repetitious torture - had been remarkably cohesive. They worked well together, and if the kid was a bit idealistic, well, that wasn't always a bad thing.
As a hand on his back shoved forward, Murdock moved robot-like toward the door instead of falling on his face. "Where are we going?" he mumbled. All he wanted to do was sleep, right there on the floor.
"You survived a whole week of recon training," Cipher pointed out. Wow, when had he gotten here? Trying to figure that out took Murdock's attention off of his next step, and he almost crashed to the ground. Muscles in full rebellion, screaming in protest, he pushed onward.
"Now it's about time for us to buy you a drink," Snap finished. Clearly, the young peter pilot had no idea the trauma suffered by every muscle in Murdock's body over the past few days. But Cipher should have had more pity...
Murdock groaned again. "I don't want a drink," he slurred. At the moment, he could think of very few things he wanted less. "I want a nice comfortable bed. And a fan. Maybe even air conditioning."
"The officer's club is air conditioned," Snap bribed.
"Ugh..." Even the promise of cooler air couldn't compare with the need for sleep. "Noooo..."
"Look at it this way," Cipher said with a sickeningly smug tone. "Next week, you'll have some endurance built up."
"Next week?" Murdock repeated shakily.
"We're going into the An Lao Valley in the morning," Snap announced. From the way he walked, it was pretty evident he'd already consumed a few drinks. "Bright Light."
"Gotta celebrate your victory while you have time," Cipher finished.
Murdock stopped, finding a moment of coherence as the thought of an actual mission in a few hours sent a shot of adrenaline through him and filled his voice with determination. "Alright, guys, going somewhere means I have to fly and that means I have to sleep."
He turned around and headed back to the hootch, but the two men grabbed him on either side. With a pathetic cry of, "Guys, I need sleeeeeeep..." he considered crumpling into a heap right there in the mud.
"One drink," Snap bargained.
"And just remember, Murdock..." He turned to look at Cipher, who was smiling with amusement. "This whole training thing was your bright idea."
"Don't remind me," Murdock groaned, finally resigning himself to his fate with a heavy sigh. The women in his head laughed a little louder.
April 20, 1985
Face smiled as he approached the guard shack at the entrance to the police impound. Surrounded by chain link fence and covered over with a badly rusted, corrugated tin roof, the parking lot wasn't the kind of place anyone would've expected to find a priceless car awaiting pickup by the higher-ups of the Ford Motor Company. But this was the right place, Alan was sure. When the deadline hit, he'd driven the car hell bent for leather all the way from Minnesota without being pulled over until he was just inside the county line. With blue lights flashing in the rearview mirror, he bailed, knowing they would confiscate the exotic car and not prepared to answer questions. It was only a matter of a few phone calls to find the impound once they knew the jurisdiction.
"I'm Roy Brewski," Face greeted the uniformed guard with the confused look, "executive director of recovery operations for Ford. This is James Prower." Murdock gave a tight but unconvincing smile, tapping his fingers anxiously against his briefcase as Face continued. "I believe we spoke on the phone."
The guard eyed them warily and shook his head. "Sorry, it wasn't me you talked to. What's this about?"
"Ah, well." Face didn't let the bump in the road slow him down in the least. "That's okay. I'm here to pick up the 1984 Saleen Mustang."
The guard's eyes narrowed in skepticism. "I was told there wouldn't be someone here for that until tomorrow," he challenged.
Face shrugged. "Well, after I spoke to the division head, I decided it would be best if I came right away." He smiled and leaned in a little, lowering his voice. "You know how it is. Everybody's just so uptight about all this and there will be hell to pay if it doesn't get resolved pretty quickly. I figured it was worth the red-eye flight to get it taken care of. I'm supposed to have this thing back in Detroit -" he checked his watch "- before start of business Friday. Now, between you and me, I don't think that's going to happen, what with the regulations on drive time the truckers face. I mean, it's not like we just have to drive it down the street..."
The guard studied him as he rambled. Murdock kept a tight smile on his face and one eye on the man. The other was watching the figure on the security camera in the booth. Silhouetted by the lights blasting from behind him, Alan cut the links in the car lot fence with speed and precision that evidenced years of practice. A second later, he slit the tarp wide open and stepped into full view of the camera with only two black bandanas to hide his face and hair - one above and one below his eyes.
"I called the tow company and told them to meet us here," Face continued, never pausing to take a breath. "We've got to put it on a bed, see, so we don't rack up the miles on the engine. This is a very particular model, I don't know if you realize. And we had to work out a special arrangement with the tow company to have them travel so far. We would've used our own, you see, but with the time factor we had to rely on the locals."
With a sort of nodding shake of his head, the guard acknowledged the stream of chatter and Alan made his way quickly over to the car Murdock had already picked out amongst the others, all rather plain-looking in comparison.
"I mean, don't get me wrong," Face rambled on. "I'm sure you all do fine work here in Hollywood, but we like to do things more concretely where I come from. So when my boss says I have to -"
"I'm sorry," the guard finally interrupted, holding up a hand in a pitiful attempt to shut Face up. "But I can't let you in here without talking to my supervisor first."
Taking his cue, Murdock stepped forward, nearly pushing Face out of the way. "Then get him on the phone," Murdock ordered, his tone distinctly more irritable and ten times as forceful as Face's. "Or are we just going to stand here staring at each other all night!"
Face shot him a glare and a whispered, "Will you please just let me handle this?", then smiled again at the guard. "Sorry. He's tired and it was kind of a rough flight. The airline lost our luggage, you know."
"Which they wouldn't have done if we'd just carried it on with us like I told you!" Murdock snapped.
The guard watched, dumbfounded, as the two of them shared a brief argument. It was enough to keep his attention firmly fixed while Alan carefully unlocked and pulled open the door of a white car.
Finally, Murdock turned and paced a few anxious, irritated steps away. "Sorry about that," Face offered, giving the guard his best smile. "Your supervisor? If you don't mind? We're kind of in a hurry to get back with this car before anything else goes wrong."
Murdock let out a sigh of relief as he saw the car pull out of its designated space. Turning away, he leaned in closer to Face while the guard was distracted with the call to the night supervisor. "How long do you wanna milk this?" he asked quietly.
"As long as we can," Face replied discreetly, pausing for a smile in the guard's direction before he finished in a whisper. "The longer we keep these guys entertained, the further away Alan gets with that car before anyone's chasing him."
*X*X*X*
Over the years, Face had run through a shocking number of scams with Murdock, playing off of each other and reading silent cues like it was second nature. He could tell when Murdock was off his game. And this time, too quiet and a little too fake and definitely too distracted, he definitely had other things on his mind.
As the irritable assistant - or whoever he was supposed to be, since he'd never really specified - failed to make a lasting impression of irritability, it fell to the "executive director of recovery operations" to put on a show for both the security guard and his manager when they realized the car was missing.
"This is crazy!" Face yelled. "You mean to tell me that while we were standing right here talking to your security guard - the security guard, of all people! - that someone broke into the police impound and stole the car that we flew a thousand miles - in the middle of the night! - to recover?"
The security guard was noticeably silent as his supervisor stood beside him, trying to calm Face down. "I'm sure he won't get far," he reassured, a bit too patronizing to be effective. Not to mention Alan was probably halfway to Mexico by now.
"He'd better not!" Face continued angrily, nearly shaking with prefabricated frustrations. He was at least confident in his ability to sell the act to the two guilty-looking, confused, and apologetic employees. "I want the name of your supervisor! Your highest authority! I'll sue!"
"Roy, let's just get out of here." Murdock sounded way too tired for his role. It filled Face with some genuine irritation he used to fuel the elaborate show. "Let Mr. Prentice handle it."
"Oh, Mr. Prentice will hear about it alright!" Face yelled. "So will my lawyer! And my senator! I'll have you all fired! I'll see to it!"
Murdock was already leading him away as Face called his last few insults over his shoulder. As they walked back to the rental car, Murdock got into the driver's seat. Still muttering curses loud enough for the two men to hear, Face got in the other side of the car and slammed the door.
"What the hell was that?" Face asked as Murdock started the car.
Blinking in confusion, Murdock glanced at him as if he'd just asked why the sky was green. "Huh?"
Face's annoyance turned quite suddenly to concern as he saw the bewildered look and realized just how far Murdock had receded into his thoughts to not even realize how it was affecting him. "You okay?" Face asked sincerely.
"Yeah," Murdock answered unconvincingly, pulling out of the parking space and heading for the road. "Sure. Why?"
"You seem -" Face paused to choose his words carefully. "- distracted."
Murdock shrugged.
Realizing he'd get no definitive answer and frankly too tired to care, Face loosened his tie, rolled down the window to let in the warm night air, and rested his head back on the seat. They would be driving through the night to get back to Hannibal and BA and Corrolini's Mexican mansion. A few minutes of sleep now would mean Face could take the wheel later.
He was just starting to doze off when Murdock's voice unexpectedly cut into his rest. "Hey, Face?"
"Hmm?" he replied lazily.
"You remember when I crashed that chopper into the Bong Son River?"
Startled by the last question he'd ever expected to hear, Face sat up and stared in confusion. "What?" he clipped. "Where the hell did that come from?"
Murdock shrugged again, keeping his eyes on the road. "Just wondering."
Face frowned. That had to be the most random thing Murdock had brought up in a very long time. It wasn't terribly significant in the grander scheme of things. The first few choppers Murdock had crashed held a lot more consequence, to say nothing of the final one before leaving Vietnam. The Bong Son River incident was just a blip in Face's memory of the many antics and trouble they'd gotten into back then.
"How did you ever get that cleared up?" Murdock wondered out loud, clearly lost in thought.
Frown deepening, Face studied him. "You're asking me to remember my lines from - what? - twelve years ago? Thirteen?"
"Just wondering," Murdock said again with the same impassive shrug.
"Why?" Face looked away, shifting uncomfortably. He didn't like talking about Vietnam on a good day, much less on a day when Murdock seemed distracted and broody. God knew what kind of memories could be dragged to the surface.
Murdock didn't answer, didn't justify the question or its need to be answered. Finally, Face sighed and leaned back again, closing his eyes. "I don't remember," he lied, answering safely as they pulled onto the near empty freeway. "It was a long time ago."
Murdock nodded slowly. Thankfully, he didn't ask again.
June 18, 1971
The details of the team's current mission were somewhat lost on Murdock. He woke up at the controls of a Huey like he'd just been startled out of a dream, blinking in confusion and struggling to figure out how the hell he'd gotten... wherever he was. Although it wasn't the first time he'd lost track of his surroundings, this was certainly more disorienting than normal. In fact, the last time it had happened, he'd woken up in wreckage...
A moment of panic at the memory filled the next few seconds. But no, he was still in the air and everything seemed fine. Fumbling through procedures and relying heavily on the peter pilot as he tried to figure out what the hell he was doing, he frantically put the pieces together as he gleaned them. Two small squads were engaged with an entire company of NVA, somewhere below. One of those squads was Murdock's team.
He set aside the blackout's confusion in the way he'd grown so accustomed to doing lately. If his team was in danger, he knew precisely how he'd ended up here. Raining fire from heaven could not have stopped him from commandeering the med-evac Huey sent out after them, much less a little exhaustion. Especially considering the FAC reported every single one of the men were wounded...
"It's too hot," Snap protested. "There's no way we'll make it down there."
"I have it," Murdock answered, taking control of the chopper.
The younger pilot took his hands and feet obediently away from the controls, but his protests didn't die down. "Sir, we can't go -"
He was cut off by a cry that sounded like something out of a "cowboys and Indians" movie. Too stunned and horrified to respond, he braced himself as Murdock lowered the aircraft into the combat zone, still moving forward as he dropped down into the open field. There was a group of men huddled and waiting on the opposite side. Among them, Murdock had already identified Face - and he was still standing. Armed with that bit of information, he was taking this chopper down if it killed him.
The bullets pinging on the sides of the Huey didn't escape unnoticed. The gunners - one on either side - let out a holler to match the pilot's as they opened fire on the enemy below. Murdock heard the copilot cry out. He didn't have time to see why. Suddenly, as if all at once, the control arm stopped responding at the same moment that the back of the chopper burst into flames.
The copilot let out a cry of alarm. Murdock didn't have a chance. At least they weren't far off the ground; he knew they would survive the impact of six thousand pounds falling from a height of ten feet. The bigger concern was whether the chopper would catch fire. Although there was nothing he could've done to prevent it - at least, nothing that didn't also involve abandoning his team - Murdock felt the briefest flicker of self-anger as they hit the ground with such impact it nearly broke his teeth.
Run away! Run away! A thousand tiny voices echoed in chorus as he sprang instinctively out of the harness, out of the side of the chopper, onto the ground. It took him a few seconds to come to his senses and realize what had happened. Almost simultaneously, he realized the anger had turned to hysterical laughter somewhere along the way. Forget whose fault it was, this was too much fun to be real. Maybe he was just dreaming.
Ignoring the still-real danger of fire, he sprang back up into the cockpit and reached across, grabbing the shoulders of the unconscious copilot. Dragging him out and onto the grass, he looked up briefly as a soldier dove into the back of the chopper. Only a few seconds later, the man re-emerged with one of the gunners draped over his shoulders. Hard to tell if he was dead or alive, but he was bleeding.
More immediately recognizable to Murdock was the man who was carrying him. "Face!" he called out with glee.
Face dropped to a crouch beside him, looking out across the open field. It was at least two hundred yards to the tree line. "How many of these choppers are you going to crash, you crazy bastard?" Face demanded, out of breath and drenched with sweat.
"Well, that was number three," Murdock yelled back with a brilliant smile. "But the first one doesn't count."
He didn't hear Face's reply, if he even bothered with one. Still a bit disoriented and dizzy with the euphoria of danger, the exhaustion of the past week and a half vanished in the adrenaline burning hot in his veins. Only vaguely aware of the threat posed by the bullets pinging around them, he threw Snap over his shoulders in the same carry Face used for the gunner.
"Stay down and right behind me!" Face ordered.
Using one arm to hold the man across his shoulders, Murdock grabbed his pistol with the other. Then he took off after Face as fast as his legs could carry him. They ran a few yards, fell into the tall grass, caught their breath, then ran again.
By the time they reached the edge of the clearing, under the covering fire of the SOG Yards, Murdock had emptied his revolver. He tossed it aside at the first sight of a bigger gun, in the grip of a dead Yard. Wrenching it out of the body's arms, he returned to the front line and dropped to the dirt next to Face with a huge grin on his lips and a crazed look in his eyes.
"Let's kill these motherfuckers!" he yelled enthusiastically as he wondered how long it would take another extraction team to come get them out.
Only vaguely, in a remote corner of his mind, did he realize it really wasn't normal to enjoy danger quite so much. And, for that matter, he knew he was the only one who could hear the chorus of upbeat gospel songs being sung to the tune of AK fire. But he didn't care. A bit of crazy was just what he needed right now to stay sane.
*X*X*X*
"What the hell is the matter with you?" Face demanded angrily, grabbing Murdock's shirt and shoving him back against the sandbag wall of the medical treatment room. "This isn't a goddamn game!"
Putting up his hands in surrender, Murdock stared back at him with wide eyes, as if not entirely sure why anyone would take offense to a summary of what they'd just lived through as "good fun".
"People died out there, flyboy!" Face snapped. "O'Reilly's entire fucking team got wiped out. There's still bodies we haven't recovered!"
Murdock smiled, tactlessly, as though none of this fazed him.
"Yeah, that's true," he admitted, quickly covering over the brief moment of seriousness with a lighter tone. "But we did good!"
Face gave him a good shove, concerned that if he remained so close, he might just put a fist through the crazy pilot's nose.
"You might never dance the Tango again," Murdock continued with a flimsy gesture toward Face's bare leg and the fresh stitches the nurse had just finished moments before. "But then again, you might. Doesn't look half bad for a leg wound."
It was true the bullet would've done a lot more damage if it had been a little further to the left. Of course, it would've done no damage at all if it had been a half inch to the right. More than a graze but less than a wound, it had made a path clean through his thigh muscle.
"You were just saying you needed some time off, anyways," Murdock said.
Face growled. He wasn't sure why the pilot failed to grasp what had just transpired, but his anger grew with every new, stupidly happy line from the man's mouth. "Your copilot has a concussion," he reminded.
"He'll be up and doing everything by the book and in triplicate in no time," Murdock replied with a smile and a shrug. "He's awake and feels fine."
"They're digging shrapnel out of BA's back," Face continued, "and Nun's face. He's lost an eye. One of your gunners died at the crash and the other one has three bullet wounds and two broken ribs. We completely failed our mission objective. Just how the hell did we do 'good'?"
Murdock's ecstatic smile faded just a bit into one more patient and knowing. "'Cause, Face," he said, "what we did out there today... it matters."
There was an odd, almost amazed tone to his voice. Face shook his head, suppressing his anger and turning away. Something was distinctly wrong with the pilot. He'd known it from the moment Murdock showed up again, reenlisted after discharge and sporting Army patches now. The something in his eyes was more and more visible every day in the way he acted and the way he thought. He was damaged, and the longer it dragged on, the more visible and extreme his irrationality became. Sooner or later, Face thought with mounting anger he simply didn't have the energy for, it was likely to cost their lives.