Bayou Brigade (13 page)

Crashing into the shack, practically demolishing the rickety door in the process, Slayton was eating dust on the floor. This
had once been a tool shed; now it had just a dozen or so empty shelves, filled with layers of settled dirt and grime.

A deep, accented voice told the nervous gunman to remain outside the door. Slayton raised himself up. One man stood leaning
against the rear wall, chewing gum. The other, motioning the gunman away and closing the door, was young, blond, with high-cheeked
European features. Both of them wore commando uniforms.

“Mr. Slayton,” the European said, “you have been invited to stay a day or two in the bayou.”

“Do I reserve the right to cancel my reservation?” Slayton balanced on one leg, knee bent.

“Don’t be foolish. You were planning to visit anyway.” “I’d rather have my travel agent take care of it.” “Come now, Slayton,
you’re much too droll.”

The gum-chewer snickered. Slayton’s eye darted, panning the room, looking for something to aid in his defense.

“My name is Karl Baal,” said the European. “My friend is Merriott. Ever heard of us?”

“Are you listed with Dun and Bradstreet?”

“Take him.” Baal signaled to Merriott, who twisted Slayton’s arms around back. “We’ve heard of you, Mr. Slayton. We know you’ve
been looking for us.” Then to his partner, “Step on his feet; hold them down.”

Slayton was unable to move; Merriott’s grip pinned him standing up.

Baal swung a punch into Slayton’s gut. “You screw around with us, Slayton, you might not come out in one piece.”

Five more minutes of brutalizing left Slayton rolling and suffering on the baseboard. Baal had finished early—his orders were
to take Slayton alive. He and Merriott bundled Slayton into a station wagon parked behind the shack. The occupants of the
Ford Cortina were told to return downtown. Slayton later recalled Baal having told them to “tell Lucius and Alan to burn the
reporter.”
Who, Wilma?
Slayton was too numb from pain even to consider what it meant.

The station wagon, driven by Merriott, stopped on a dirt road at the edge of a swamp. Baal loaded Slayton into a small dinghy,
and all three headed deeper into the cypress-covered tributaries of the bayou. Slayton was barely awake, although he understood
that Baal had saved him for whatever horrors were waiting until the end of the river journey.

A breeze shifted through the green timber, sunlight dancing on Slayton’s exposed face. Water rippled in the boat’s wake. Migratory
birds settled in the leaves. Feigning sleep, Ben Slayton turned his attention inward, to his battered, knotted body. As Merriott
silently rowed and Baal steered, the T-man’s concentration overcame the pain in gradual stages, motionlessly preparing for
whatever physical agility and cunning would be needed later.

After a while, he smiled. The pain was almost completely gone from his mind.

An airplane had been chartered, all the preparations made, and Wilma was nowhere to be found. The hotel confirmed that she
hadn’t checked out early; a call placed to the
Post
in Washington turned up nothing (except a worried editor—Daughton insisted he be informed as soon as she was found). Eddie
Crosby carried on the daily business as usual, occasionally phoning La Grange to see whether she’d shown up yet. Wilma had
a mind of her own, he conceded, which opened the possibility that another lead was being checked out and that he’d surely
hear from her by day’s end.

“A good excuse to stay late,” he muttered, looking on as Elva June wiggled out of her dress.

Their on-the-job sex life had become more frantic in the last few days. Elva June’s husband had jetted to Miami for the annual
vacuum cleaner salesman convention, so her insatiable appetite required frequent attention. Eddie was eager every time, angrily
pumping and thrusting into her quivering, sensuous body, while she tensed with each forward motion.

Entwined, legs and arms flailing and tightening in alternate rhythms, they made love standing up, lying down, or sitting,
her legs beating against his back, their voices begging for release, climax after climax.

Elva June found Eddie to be a tireless sexual athlete, giving her more just at the time hubby usually broke off after one
of his daily wham-barn specials. Her torso un-’ dulated beneath Eddie’s, rotating to the beat of free, loving passion.

The ’57 Chevy blew past the news service parking lot, charging onto the sidewalk and terrifying people standing in line at
a nearby bus stop. A heavy object launched from inside the speeding auto shattered the office window glass; the car bumped
over the curb again and rounded the curve at the next intersection.

“Come on baby, don’t stop.” Elva June sighed as Eddie responded to the noise of glass spraying.

“Wait a minute,” he said, pulling off her and putting on his pants.

“I’m not a robot,” she whined. “I can’t just start up whenever you want to!”

“Keep your fits on,” he teased.

Before he turned the doorknob, there was a white flash, and both of them vaporized. The bomb took the roof and sent it spiraling
thirty feet in the air, dislodging the A-frame ceiling support so it collapsed inward as it fell to earth. Pedestrians ran
for cover in a rain of debris.

When the rubble settled, all that remained of Eddie and Elva June were a forged iron belt buckle and a few charred bones.

The Brigade compound spread over what had been a sugar cane farm, bordered on all sides by a thick-packed circle of bayou
waterways. Only two navigable arteries fed into the camp: one snaked two miles under low-hanging vegetation to an airstrip;
the other led to a dirt road which, in turn, fed into the main highway to Morgan City.

Its wooden frame jutted dramatically from marshy pools and brief, islandlike ground surfaces. Full logs were stood on end,
as in the design of many nineteenth-century Army fortresses in the prairie states, topped with overhanging foliage and large
planks. It was composed of three separate buildings, housing just over a hundred and fifty men, all active terrorist revolutionaries.

Half the camp’s population had built the structures over a six-month period. The training ground and tactical range covered
five-sixths of the open area—the mildly rolling delta land was infinitely preferable to the original headquarters in the Chaidamupendi
region of western China.

Baal’s boat arrived at the south dock, welcomed by two sentries guarding the water entrance. Merriott slapped Slayton on the
face, splashing him with water, and all three disembarked.

Baal walked the groggy but functional Slayton to a small building wedged between larger dormitories and offices. He locked
Slayton into a dimly lit room, remarking, “Here you will be interrogated.”

“Karl, you may go.” The voice came from the dark, a large shadow in one corner. It was stern, forceful, and Baal left Slayton’s
side, exiting through another entrance on the opposite wall.

The voice continued, “Mr. Slayton, we have met before.”

Slayton bent a little at the knees; he was weak, and had been without water for hours. “Can’t see you,” he said.

“Everything in this room is pitch black except for you, Slayton. The light is directly above you. From where I stand, all
I can see is you. There could be ten others in here with me, and you’d never know, as long as the lights were out.”

“Is there some significance to what you’re saying?”

“Of course, of course. It’s a matter of opening your mind and turning on the light. You are looking right at me, or us,
as
the case may be, yet you cannot see us.”

“The light isn’t on. How
can
I see?”

“Your world is as you are now. It asks questions—`Can I see if I turn on the light?’ but does not wish to find the light switch.
It sees nothing but darkness all around it; however, there are others standing all about, which it cannot see.”

“I fail to see—”

The voice cut him off. “You must find the light switch.” Shuffling in the dark, bumping against a wall, Slayton groped for
the switch. It was a circular dimming control, and the lights went up slowly.

A single man stood in full commando regalia, including a few U.S. Army medals pinned to the jacket lapel.

Slayton strained his eyes, staring at the face. It was familiar. “You’re Bathurst. David Bathurst.”

“Slayton,” Bathurst said, “don’t be so shocked. You must have had some idea.”

“I was sure I’d be meeting a
different
Bathurst. You were reported missing in action.”

“So were twenty or thirty others here at camp. It was not easy to amass the resources to come home, as it were, to the great
United States. But here we are, and here I am.”

“Are you in… charge?”

“I am an officer of some high ranking. Not all executive personnel have arrived from the Orient. But within a few months we
shall all be assembled.”

“The Brigade
was
real!”

“The Brigade
is
a reality, Ben. You saw the magnificence of this swamp preserve. You’ve no doubt witnessed our incredible abilities.”

“The ability to maim and destroy; yes, I’ve seen and felt it.”

“To restructure a society always first involves tearing down the old, antiquated structure. Throughout mankind’s history,
violence has been the only way to accomplish change.”

“And to bring me here you had to have me beaten?”

Bathurst shrugged and paced the floor, removing a cigarette from a laminated gold case. “Want a smoke? No? Suit yourself.”
A match touched tobacco; its smell permeated the air. “I ask one of my men to pick you up, I do not instruct them on how to
accomplish their task. You must remember, a few of these soldiers are…”

“Psychos?”

Shifting his sturdy five-foot-five frame, Bathurst cracked his knuckles. “It is necessary to train combat troops for the revolution.”

“And you are the king of the insurrection? David, whatever happened to the idealistic law student who wanted to finish school
when the war was over?”

“That was too long ago for me to remember. I vaguely recall my naivete, suffering, and boredom. My life was destined to failure.
I would have been swallowed up by the American dream and found no happiness, as I didn’t understand or appreciate true freedom.”

“True freedom is an illusion.”

“That is a realization only few of us surmount. I understand, as you do, that the systems do not serve us; the debacle of
justice called free enterprise has failed. America is not containing the corruption within its borders. Other countries, peoples,
cultures, cry out for recognition and rights and dignity. The American government suppresses and refuses dignity to hundreds
of thousands of persons. If this country were indeed run
by the people,
its government wouldn’t be allowed to violate other peoples in the name of the almighty buck or military supremacy.”

“At the same time, terrorists cannot kill innocent people in the name of freedom.”

“We are not terrorists; terrorists are confused. We have a plan. Most guerrilla rebels throw bombs without aim, without purpose.
We do not plan to hold the United States people hostage.”

Slayton had to buy time. “What is your plan?”

“I’m glad you show an interest. I hoped you would. By your actions over the past week, you measure up as a strong, capable
soldier. That strength might serve other ideologies besides imperialist capitalism, if you think so.”

“Every man has his price, if that’s what you mean.”

Bathurst raised his brow. “Spoken like a true American.”

“But what would I have to gain by ’altering’ my ideology to fit yours?”

“The comforts of true freedom.”

“How’s that?”

“The Brigade exists to offer the American people an alternative to capitalist slavery. We will show them how the so-called
elected representatives have no real power over them. Capitalism is an abstraction, just as is Marxism . or Communism. There
are no true systems; the people must be given a chance to initiate their own future and destiny. No government power can judge
the individual’s value of freedom.

“The Brigade has watched America drown in its liberalism. It has uprooted all concepts of individual freedom. The government
grows stronger, the bureaucratic bullshit and hierarchy bf the rich engulf’s the common man. I envision a land of equality—that
is the future of the United States.”

Slayton turned the other cheek. “I admit there are some inequities.”

“The power structure is warped; history shows us that much. Look to the Romans for a lesson in liberalism and its consequences.”

“Do you suggest anarchy or a police state?”

“There are no labels for our cause. After the misguided bureaucracy collapses, the people will find their own destiny.”

“With The Brigade leading the way.”

Bathurst extended his hand to Slayton.
“Guiding
the way. We are advisors, not dictators.”

“Can there be no other way to change?”

“Ben, you and I were both in Vietnam. We saw through the injustices of American imperialism. The war was nothing more than
sanctioned terrorism. Nowadays look at the lies being peddled: the war in Vietnam was an ’honorable conflict,’
a
’noble failure.’ Mass-scale brainwashing. The people are being jerked around; they’ve always been, and always will be.

“We were buddies in the war. We united in a false cause. May we unite in a true one this time?”

“But all this wealth, these weapons, the men. Who pays for this?”

“We have sympathizers. You must wish a drink, Ben?”

Opening a cabinet door behind him, Bathurst set white wine on the table centering the room. Slayton downed two glasses, stifling
his excruciating thirst. They drank from exquisite crystal goblets.

“And who paid for these?” asked Slayton, holding up the glass.

“My own personal collection. Cheers.” They swigged a third full swallow.

“How did you survive after the war?”

“Do you remember the raid on An-Loc, December, 1965? Four planes went down, ambushed by Cong fire. Yours was the only one
to get away. Myself and three other men were about to be taken prisoner by the enemy. As the Cong approached each plane, guerrilla
troops, Green Berets, appeared out of nowhere to wipe out the Communist detachments. The Brigade was nothing more than a rumor
to the other American troops—these were Army deserters fighting the war the way they wanted.”