There Will Be Killing (3 page)

“Oh yeah, it's hot at first, but then…” Gregg gave him a sympathetic look, “…it can get even worse if you're not careful. You're not wearing underwear are you?”

“Uh. . .”

“Because you can get a bad rash if you do.”

“Yeah, crotch rot is bad,” agreed Mikel, who must not be human because he was not sweating, panting, or showing any signs of physical distress. “Guys bleed down there if it gets bad and if they get infected, it's worse than bad. You hanging in there, Izzy?”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine, fine,” he lied, knowing if this cool cat Mikel in his aviator shades was showing concern, he must look like road kill. Izzy half expected to see buzzards circling overhead while they continued to traipse across the metal tracks that covered the sand and mud stretching to the headquarters it was taking them forever to reach.

The many different buildings serving various hospital functions that Gregg pointed out en route had a temporary yet somehow established feel—like the Red Cross building that looked a bit like a tropical lounge with a bunch of soldiers hanging around on a thatched roof porch where a stunning brunette suddenly emerged.

Spying Gregg, she gave a whistle and waved.

“Hey, Nikki!” Gregg stopped in mid-step and motioned her over. “Got a couple of new docs in town for you to meet.”

As the prettier than pretty Red Cross girl
in a dress
bounded their way, every eyeball still on the porch ate up her tracks. With a dazzling smile spiked with a twang, Nikki said, “Well, welcome to Vietnam, Doctors. Come on over and get some cold lemonade. Make a phone call while you're at it.”

“That's a very kind offer,” responded Mikel. “But Gregg's taking us to headquarters.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot, Nikki,” Gregg agreed before Izzy could protest, “but I promised Colonel Kohn I'd get them introduced to Colonel Kellogg, then out to the Camp McDermott clinic. Maybe later?”

“You just come when you can, Gregg, and I'll make y'all some fresh lemonade. And remember, I've got the phone if you want to call home. Even if it's not Wednesday.” A wink and Nikki was gone.

Gregg and Mikel were already several paces ahead when Gregg stopped and pointed to the space between them. “Hey, Iz, if you want to know all there is to know about Nikki, ya gotta come and get it.”

Izzy caught up in the hope there might be some cold air at headquarters to compensate for the phone call he was dying to make to his fiancé. The letters Rachel had sent to officer's training were already falling apart from his constant folding and unfolding to read and re-read what he had already committed to memory.

“Nikki is Margie's roommate.” Gregg's voice had some kind of soothing magic to it, like they were chumming around the water cooler for some hospital gossip. “Nikki is a really fine woman—they both are—but while Margie's available, Nikki has something going with a strange one that was fortunately elsewhere this morning. Peck, you'll meet him soon enough. He's the other psychiatrist besides Robert David.”

“What makes Peck so strange?” Mikel sounded curious. Izzy didn't care if this Peck ate lab rats for breakfast as long as he could get his hands on that phone and chug a gallon of the lemonade Nikki had offered.

“Well … I don't like to badmouth anyone, but let's just say he's a real piece of work. One day he's Mr. Nice Guy, the next he's filing a report because some captain passed him on the highway.
Oops.
Guess I did cut that one a little close. He left some candy out on the table at our quarters, and then got all pissed off because Robert David ate a piece while he was gone. Petty things like that, plus some other stuff you'll hear about that gets a little disturbing. Peck has a room at the villa, doesn't use it much, which suits the rest of us fine.” Gregg shrugged. “You can draw your own conclusions when you meet him, but beats me what Nikki sees in the man. Especially, because she's a ‘Dolly.'”

“A what?”

“He means a Red Cross Dolly,” Mikel explained. “They got the nickname Donut Dollies because of all the donuts they gave out to the troops in World War II.”

“Donuts sound good.” Izzy wondered if he could keep one down if Nikki offered one along with the lemonade. How he had loved the donuts that were always around the hospital break room. A little too much perhaps, though no one would guess it now. He had already dropped twenty pounds and was on track to lose another five in water weight before they made it to the stupid headquarters.

“They do a lot of other work to support our men. Like having a shoulder to spare when ‘Dear Johns' get delivered, and that's a huge help for sure with morale,” Gregg said. “Except for the nurses, the Dollies are the only round eyes around here.”

“Round eyes?”

“The women who aren't Asian.” Mikel again.

“She, uh…she said something about a call?”

“Sure, let's come back after lunch. It is Big Wednesday, phone call day.” Gregg thumbed back at the line of soldiers on the porch that was now behind them. “You can call home, back to the world. It's a big deal.”

Home.
Izzy nodded, unable to get another word past the lump in his throat. Calling home would be a very big deal right now, bigger than any deal he could think of. Because he felt like an eight year old sent off to camp—

A camp so far away it was no longer considered to be in the world.

They continued to walk on, passing some surgical units, a mess hall, the officer's mess. Gregg knew Colonel Kohn was worried about Izzy and there was ample cause for that. Everything about their new Dr. Israel Moskowitz suggested a classic intellectual who'd get shell-shocked by stumbling into a strip joint. His bottom lip gnawing, probably to stop it from quivering, did not bode well. The erratic tremor in his hands bode even worse. Doctors were scarce and the 99KO needed him. Just like they needed their other new psychiatrist, Dr. J.D. Mikel.

Gregg wasn't yet sure what to make of him. While most everyone was not there voluntarily—him included with the ink barely dry on his PhD from USC when he got served—Mikel came across as an organic anomaly in his element, owning every room he walked into. Fine, let him have the whole continent of Asia if he wanted it. Guys like Gregg Kelly were perfectly content with a surfboard, a tenure-track professorship, and a little bungalow off the Ventura Highway—especially if it came with the dream girl next door he hadn't given up on yet.

“So, what can you tell me about the CO you're taking us to meet?” Mikel asked, as if he was just making small talk. Gregg knew better. This was not a personality type to make small talk about anything or anyone. Everything that came out of his mouth had some purpose behind it. Even if it was to distract a colleague like Izzy from the urge to go crazy or start crying for mommy.

“The CO's not a bad guy. He's a career medical officer, and that's cool, but we call him The Emperor because Colonel Kellogg really,
really
wants to be ‘General Kellogg' and rumor has it he was recently passed over for his promotion again
which might explain why he's been dressing like Patton lately. I think the idea is to make sure everyone sees him as the true warrior he is. . . .” Gregg negated that with a loud cough into his fist as they finally reached the building known as headquarters, “But the unfortunate outcome is that he looks more like—”

“Motherfuck, goddamn motherfuck!” coincided with the hard
BANG
of the entry door that flew open and hit the exterior wall. An enlisted man stormed out, his face contorted with rage.

“Hey, hey, Derek, slow down man.” Gregg stepped in the path Derek was cutting, did the job he was here to do. “Cool down, buddy.”

“A motherfuckin haircut my ass!” Derek shouted in Gregg's face. “No shit, no shit, Doc. I am done with this shit. I do not fuckin' care!”

Gregg ignored the spittle that hit his skin and just tried harder, voice calm. “Come on now, Derek. Come on man, be cool. You got less than thirty and you'll be home, all done. This will be a bad dream, and you'll be back in the world in a month.”

Derek pushed Gregg's hand off his arm, then pushed past Izzy and Mikel, furiously waving his arms in the air, yelling, “Fuck, y'all!”

Gregg stared after Derek. He didn't have a good feeling about this. Derek had always been quiet and restrained, but things had a way of building up when suppressed.

“What was that about?” Mikel asked.

“I saw him at the clinic a couple of times. His wife is real sick at home. We tried to get him a compassionate, and it was turned down. We wrote his unit and told them to get him out of here, but that was turned down, too. He is ready to blow.”

Izzy made a sound of distress. Now that Derek had stalked off there was nothing Gregg could immediately do to get the soldier's head in a better place, but at least he could get poor Izzy out of this ungodly heat.

“C'mon, let's help ourselves to some air.” He didn't have to make the invitation twice. Izzy made a bee-line to the window unit blowing marvelously cold air into the reception area that was standard military, clean and unfussy, but with nice decor in a 60s Winnebago kind of way.

While Izzy draped himself over the vents, Mikel stood off to the side, allowing Gregg to approach the desk of Master Sergeant Reginald Jackson. The Top Sergeant was a professional soldier; everything about the desk and his uniform and the way he held his body said so. He was by the book. But he was also fair and good humored and Gregg admired him for all that, but chiefly for being a devoted family man, as evidenced on his desk by the framed photos of his wife and five children he would gaze at with pride.

“Good morning, Top. What's up with Derek? He looked like hell coming out of here.”

The Sergeant came to his feet, bringing his full 6'4” to attention. “Morning yourself, Doctah Kelly, sir. Damn kid, all I told him was to get himself a damn haircut. His ass and his hair belong to the US Army for thirty more days and he is not going to have any damn afro on my grounds. By the way you need a haircut yourself, Captain.”

“Okay, Top, right away.”

“The sooner the better. I do not want any goddamn surfer hippies on my grounds. You got me? You are an example.”

“Right away, Top.”

“No, you won't.” Top called him on it every time and as usual he sighed a grudging defeat. “You just all talk, no walk, Gregg. I hate to see you in a uniform.”

“I know, Top, I feel just the same as you do.”

The Sergeant looked over at Izzy.

“Who the hell you got with you? He think he own that air conditioner? That is
my
air coming out of there, Captain.” At Top's claim of ownership Izzy jumped to the side, eyes big as Jiffy Pop pans. Top chuckled. “He kind of jumpy, ain't he, Gregg? My god, Captain, I have not seen a newer new guy since you got here.”

Gregg gestured Izzy over to join them. “Top, this is Dr. Moskowitz. Just in this morning. Izzy, this is Master Sergeant Jackson. He runs everything here, and as long as he is here, everything is fine.”

“Pile it on Gregg, you still should go get that haircut.” The Master Sergeant engulfed Izzy's hand in his own. “My pleasure, Doctah Moskowitz, and it is certainly a treat to have a man like yourself who clearly loves the climate and knows how to wear the uniform.”

“Nice to—” a visible swallow. “Meet you.” Izzy looked as lost as Gregg had felt when he was the newest new guy around. Top had given him some much needed grounding while he found his inner compass, and Top would do the same for Izzy.

As for Mikel, the way he stood completely still in the room, aviators hiding whatever his eyes took in, agreed with the vibe that he
was
the compass and just maybe the whole damn ship he was guiding, too. Still, introductions were in order.

“And, this is Dr. J.D. Mikel, our other new psychiatrist just moved down from Da Nang.”

Top looked Mikel over for several long seconds. “Welcome to the 8th, Doctah.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. And please, just J.D.”

“Hey, is the CO in?” Gregg pretended not to notice Kellogg posturing just inside his office at the farthest end of the corridor.

“Captain, do I look like the secretary?” Top signaled them to another desk about ten paces away from the CO's office.

First Lieutenant Terry Carver, fresh out of West Point, had the bad luck to be assigned desk duty for the 8th but it hadn't dampened the enthusiasm with which he greeted them.

“Hi Gregg, what's up?”

“Got some new guys to meet the CO. Is he available?”

“Yes, but only briefly. He's flying up to Cam Rahn.”

“Glad to be brief,” Gregg assured Terry, then made the intros all over again.

“This is a really great place,” Terry told them. “You are lucky to be here.”

Izzy gave Gregg a look that said,
how can anyone be enthusiastic about anything here except leaving?

Gregg gave Izzy an encouraging smile. One that grew broader at the sight of Colonel Alistair Kellogg. Posing beside a bookcase, dressed in full combat regalia and wearing a double holstered gun belt, he looked more like Hopalong Cassidy in the jungle than General George Patton.

Gregg rapped sharply on the open door. “Excuse us, sir, do you have a minute?”

“Hello. . .” The Colonel paused to artificially deepen his voice. “Well, hello there soldiers, of course I do. You shrinks saving the war for us?”

“Sir, we are trying, and the good news is that we have reinforcements.” Gregg nodded to his companions. “I'd like you to meet the good news that arrived this morning.”

Kellogg threw his arms open wide. “Welcome, welcome gentlemen. Do a good job, as I expect you will and no less. You both are new to the military, I presume?”

Izzy found his voice again, stronger now. “Yes, sir.”

“Good, good. There is no greater service for the country than being men in arms.” Kellogg adjusted his gun belt. “I'm heading up to Cam Rahn, inspecting the troops, keeping the morale up, you know. The men need to see me there.”

Casually Gregg asked, “Are you golfing, sir?”

“Well. . .” Kellogg gave a little shrug. “I may be taking the clubs in case the General is there, of course. But this is essentially a combat mission.” Acknowledging Mikel for the first time he asked, “Do you golf?”

Mikel closed the door. He then deposited himself in the closest chair facing Kellogg's desk and extended an invitational hand to the other side of the polished oak.

“Sit down, Colonel.” When the ranking officer didn't immediately respond to his directive, Mikel reiterated, “Please, have a seat. You have golf, I have work. Time is short.”

“Have you gone nuts?” Gregg wasn't too high on ranking systems in or out of the military, but you could get in a lot of trouble for insubordination, especially in uniform. “I'm sorry Colonel, he just got here and must be a little disoriented. You know the heat and all. I'm sure no disrespect is intended.”

“I should say so,” blustered the Colonel, his voice rising to its higher pitch. “Get out of my chair. You are in my army now, soldier!”

Mikel tossed an envelope marked TOP SECRET onto the clear, flat surface of his desk.

“No, not really, Colonel,” he said evenly. “These documents are for your eyes only. It's an official introduction, but I believe that General Glen Claiborne at MACV headquarters has contacted you already—and you in turn must have prepared Col. Kohn given his appropriate response to my arrival.”

“Then you're CIA? The spook?”

“Boo.”

Kellogg made tracks in the direction Mikel had indicated and eagerly tore open the envelope. Mumbling as we went, he devoured more than read the contents. Eyes alight, Kellogg possessively gripped the official documents, flashed a gleeful smile that was at odds with his suitable chagrin.

“My apologies Agent Mikel, I wasn't expecting you just yet.”

“Given the severity of the situation, I expedited my arrival prior to speaking with the General again. Do you mind telling him I'm here when you see him later today?”

“Of course, my pleasure, and. . .did the General mention me to you by name?”

Gregg was wondering what shifty mental calculations were going on behind the cool shades that gave Mikel the unfair advantage of looking out without others looking in, when he removed the aviators and hung them from his shirt front, just like a regular guy. His face was an open book, pleasant as his reassurance.

“Of course he did, Colonel.” Just J.D.—oh yeah, he was definitely playing that good buddy calling card now—clasped his hands on the desk, leaned forward. So earnest, no one could doubt it, especially an ambitious officer whose time to make general was running out. “In fact,
Glen
suggested we choose this hospital because you are in charge.”

Kellogg's beaming smile said he'd just had his highest hopes confirmed.

“All right, all right, very good then. Now, what is our
mission?”

“It seems, Colonel, that someone out there is killing our soldiers.”

Gregg nearly choked on a laugh. At least the guy had an appreciation for the absurd. “Excuse me, but wouldn't that be the enemy, the VC?”

Mikel cut his attention to Gregg. “Not exactly.”

“Boogeyman,” Izzy blurted. “The Ghost Soldier.”

“Very good, Dr. Moskowitz. No wonder you were top of your class.”

“I don't believe this,” was all Gregg could say. The whole thing was just too crazy. And boy, did he know crazy. “This is not for real.”

“I can assure you, Dr. Kelly, it is indeed for real. Otherwise, I would not be here. The government does not assign me to bogus missions.”

Gregg pressed a hand over his eyes. He removed it and Mikel was still there.

“In that case. . .this is going to make a big difference in how we”—he pointed to Izzy, clearly leaving the bogus amongst them out—“and the other doctors handle our previously considered delusional patients.”

Mikel stood. He was a little taller than Gregg but not by much, and yet he projected a Jolly Green Giant stature, only not nearly so jolly or green. “You will
not
be telling anyone about any of this. None of you will. We can't risk anything getting back to the nightly news back home.”

The sound of a second hand on a clock somewhere in the silent room measured off several
ticks
before Kellogg got up to speed.

“Actually, I think being on TV might be just the ticket, I could put out some interviews and—” Kellogg suddenly stopped as Mikel stared him down with those emerald eyes that could slice diamonds.

“Of course,” Kellogg mumbled, “not a word leaves this room.” He gazed at the top secret documents as if his hopes for an exclusive with Walter Cronkite had just kissed a landmine goodbye—then pushed the papers back into the envelope.

Kellogg wore the look of a man who had lost some of his pride and felt naked without it. “Why are you here?” he asked briskly, then quickly followed up with a disdainful sweep of his hand toward Gregg and Izzy. “And what are you doing with these people?”

“The thinking is Colonel, as you probably would have concluded yourself with the appropriate information, is that this ‘Ghost Soldier' is either part of a successful Russian or Chinese psyops maneuver, or one of our own gone rogue. Unfortunately, there is the possibility the killer belongs to us due to a disturbingly similar pattern of violence that previously occurred.”