Ballistic (13 page)

She shrugged. “To me, to the other family members here, it is a memorial. We will speak out for our dead loved ones. But Capitán Chuck thinks it will turn into a rally against Los Trajes Negros.” She looked at the older American. “He does not want me to go.”

Cullen said, “They are expecting a big crowd. I just don't see it as a great idea for a woman seven months pregnant to be down in all that rabble. There is a lot of anger, a lot of tension after . . .” His voice trailed off.

“After Eduardo died fighting against them. I know that, Chuck. That's why I should go.”

Court could not help but take sides. “I agree with the captain. You are pregnant; you don't need to be in the middle of a riot. Pushing and shoving—”

“It's not a riot, and I will be on the dais, not down in the crowd. I will be fine.”

Cullen shook his head. “I don't like it. Eddie wouldn't want you to get in the middle of that.”

“Eduardo would have gone, and you know it.”

“Yes,” Cullen said, “Eddie would have been there with a tactical team and an assault rifle, and he would have protected the protest from all threats from the monsters who support DLR. But he would not want
you
to be there, his family to be there, his unborn son to be there. It's too dangerous.”

Elena smiled at the older man for a long time. “You worry too much about me, Capitán Chuck.” Then she smiled. “You have been a good friend to the family.”

Cullen sat up straighter in the chair. “And I will be as long as I live. Eddie's death did not change that.”

Court liked the old man, even if the old man wasn't as crazy about him. Court wished there was something he could do for Elena and the Gamboas, but he couldn't think of a thing. He said good night to Cullen as the old man headed out front to his car; Court followed Elena inside, past at least a dozen others finding little corners with blankets and pillows to bed down for the night. She took him upstairs to a small bedroom, where she'd laid out a mattress with a blanket and a pillow for him.

The walls of the room were a fresh coat of baby blue. Court imagined Eddie had painted it himself for the son that he would never get to see.

LAOS

 

2000

 

 

The afternoon humidity clung to his skin like barnacles on a ship's hull. Gentry drifted in and out of consciousness for the rest of the afternoon. The fever from his malaria caused him to shake some of the banana leaves off his hide, but he managed to shield himself from the sun by pulling the foliage back over his exposed skin.

Night brought relief from the sun. It also brought out a breeze that was strong enough to blow away his protective covering but somehow not strong enough to keep away the mosquitoes. With a weary hand he scooped mud off the ground next to him, wiped it thickly across his face and neck to try and cover as much skin as possible, but it didn't really work.

The bug bites kept him awake all night, spiders scurried across his body, and he had nothing left in the tank to kill them or even flick them off. He just lay there like a fallen log as creatures made trails all over him.

The fever caused his brain to swell inside his skull, and with the swelling he lost touch with reality and began seeing visions. Several times he believed he had died; he felt no more pain or heat or hunger or weakness, only a lightness and a peace. But the visions were cruel, like a desert mirage they teased him with their tranquility, and just like in the desert, when they dissipated, they brought about renewed despair.

He saw a big Chevy pickup truck pull up next to the pond. From it stepped his father and Chase, his younger brother. They beckoned him to get up and jump in the cab; they told him they were heading into town for pancakes, and they wanted him to come along.

Court spoke back to them, and with the movement of his scratchy vocal chords, the vision dissipated, leaving him right where he'd lain for fourteen hours.

Dammit.

He wanted to die. He did not want to be alive when the sun rose the next morning.

In the bright moonlight a helicopter hovered just overhead, landed next to the pond, and from it leapt Maurice, his CIA principle trainer and long-time mentor.

“Get your lazy ass up, Violator!” the old Vietnam vet shouted, calling Court by his code name.

Court did not reply at first. He just shook his head. He thought to himself,
I'm too damn tired.

“Charlie don't care if you're tired!”

“I can't, sir,” replied Court aloud. “I can't.”

But when he spoke, when he brought true noise to the night, the vision disappeared. He was alone. Frail, hurting.

Dying.

But he did not die that night; he lived to see morning. The three hours of daylight before the storms came were the worst of his ordeal. He prayed for rain, and when it came, it cooled him and quenched him, but the mud all around his body caused the water to pool, and it became deeper. A few times he even felt his body move slightly, he was floating in the downpour over the saturated earth. He wondered if he would be pulled into the pond, and he was horrified at the thought of drowning in the murky water.

But mercifully, the rain lulled him to sleep.

He awoke to the sound of birds, then voices, human voices. He knew it was day, the rain had stopped, and the sun singed through the humid air and burned his skin.

He heard voices once again; this time he assumed the voices to be nothing more than the beginning of another vision. He did not feel elation or fear; he only lay there, barely alive but drifting away.

The voices were soft at first, but they became louder, as if the speakers were getting closer. Court began to realize he was not dreaming, was not imagining this, and he felt a faint sense of concern. He had no weapon, not like it mattered—he wouldn't have been able to thumb a safety catch or pull a trigger, much less identify a threat and point a weapon towards a target.

The voices were all around him now, and they were speaking Laotian. They had found him, and as far as he was concerned, they could have him. They could shoot him right here; that would surely be preferable to them dragging him up the hill and hoisting him into a vehicle only to bounce around on the shitty roads on his way back to a cell in which he would certainly die within hours.

Fuck it,
he thought, his mind incredibly lucid on this one subject. He'd fight them. These little bastards weren't taking him anywhere.

Two men knelt over him, peeled off the few banana leaves that were left covering his body. He reached up to punch one, but his arm just sort of wiggled a little next to his body. There was no swing, no punch.

More men came, and he was lifted off the ground and into the air; he screamed in protest and then in pain as his left arm was yanked in a different direction from the rest of his body. He felt himself being hauled up the hill; he heard the men's guns clanking against metal on their belts as the weapons swung free; his legs were dropped once, and men fell along with them, yelled and barked at one another until he was lifted up again.

The steady
slap
,
slap
of boots in mud as they left the muddy pond behind.

Their clipped and impenetrable language felt like ice picks into his ears.

They hoisted him onto the road finally and hauled him towards a black van. Gentry was carried headfirst and faceup, but his head hung upside down and bounced with the strides of the soldiers. The back of the black van opened, and it was dark inside. The men spoke quickly and gruffly amongst themselves, as if they were arguing with one another. Their uniforms meant nothing to him, but their weapons were AKs and long SKSs, the same as the local cops and the prison guards.

They slid him into the back of the van, and the doors shut. The van lurched and sped off, bouncing on the gravel alongside the paved road. Court tried to lift his head but gave up, rolled it from side to side. It took a moment, but he soon realized none of the soldiers had gotten in with him.

He was alone.

Huh?

No, he was
not
alone. A figure moved into the back from the front passenger seat; Court's weak neck muscles had dropped his head back on the hard surface of the van, and it rolled towards the wall.

A hand went to his forehead as if taking his temperature. “Bad news, Sally, no luck on the root beer. I brought you some Beerlao. It's the local brew. That work?”

Court smiled and even that hurt; it stung his sunburned face. But a painkilling wave of relief began in his heart and shot out across his body in all directions. A new energy forced his neck muscles to fire one more time. He turned towards Eddie. He felt tears welling in his eyes, and he fought them. His voice was faint and rough. “Is it cold, at least?”

Eddie shook his head. His eyes were wide and relaxed. That big Eddie Gamble smile widened as he spoke. “Hot as hell, amigo. Tastes a bit like yak piss. Sorry.”

“The soldiers. Are they from Thailand?”

“I didn't leave the country. You didn't have time for me to get out and for some other group to come back and find you, so I went to Vientiane. Called in some favors I'd earned with an insurgent force. They aren't half as badass as they think they are, but I figured they were good enough to help me scoop a guy out of the mud and toss him into a van.”

Court hoisted an arm up with all his might, and Gamble grabbed it and shook it. Court said, “Thanks for coming back.”

Gamble grinned, pulled a large backpack from between the front seats, opened it, began pulling out bags of fluid and syringes and medicines. “You start crying, and I'm gonna tell your buddies in the CIA. You'll never hear the end of it.” He prepped an IV and jabbed it into Gentry's arm. “Let's get you home, amigo.”

At eleven o'clock in the morning Court stood in a slow-moving line to buy a bus ticket at the Central Camionera de Puerto Vallarta, the city's main bus terminal. His green canvas bag lay on the floor in front of him. Every minute or two he'd kick it forwards and take a step along with it.

He'd awoken early, folded his bedding, descended the stairs silently, stepped over guests sleeping on the floor, and then left alone through the kitchen door. He'd taken the first bus of the morning from San Blas, and he'd stared out the window at the Pacific Ocean for much of the three-hour journey. Thinking of Eddie. Eddie's family. Eddie's sister. Court tried to shake the thoughts from his head a number of times but found it hard. Long-dormant emotions tugged at him. Longing. Loneliness. Lust.

He
so
needed to get the fuck out of here.

To that end, he had a plan. He'd buy a ticket to Guadalajara, and once there, after a day or two, he'd catch a bus to Mexico City. From there he would make his way to Tampico. He imagined it taking him a week or more to cross the country at the pace he planned on traveling.

The station was busy, but the pace of the line picked up a bit. He was only four from the counter when a security scan of the room caused his shoulders to pull back and alarm bells to go off in his head.

Entering the station with the charging, purposeful gait of a military officer was Captain Chuck Cullen.

Cullen scanned the room himself; Court had no doubt the old man was looking for him, trying to pick him out of the mass of travelers. Gentry turned away out of force of habit; he knew he could duck the man and remain invisible until he left.

But there was something about Cullen's walk, his intense, seeking expression.

Court knew something was wrong.

The Gray Man came out of the shadows, hefted his backpack, stepped out of the line, and walked towards the only other American in the crowded hall.

“What's up?” he asked, warily.

Cullen did not hide his surprise. He'd been hopelessly searching for a man who had just somehow materialized in front of him. He recovered. “Elena said you didn't wait around to say good-bye.”

Court shrugged. “Tell her I said good-bye.”

Cullen glared at Gentry for a while. He clearly wanted to say something, but twice stopped himself from speaking. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Young man. I don't quite have a handle on who or
what
you are, but I have the impression that you may be helpful right now. And, whoever the hell you are, I
do
believe you want to do right by Eddie's family.”

Court cocked his head slightly but nodded. Said slowly, “Absolutely.”

The captain nodded. Continued. “Elena and most of her family are going to the rally downtown.”

Court wasn't surprised. “Yeah, that's what she said last night.”