Tiger the Lurp Dog: A Novel (20 page)

The whole team went on the overflight, crowded into the chopper with the lieutenant and Sergeant Johnson, who was to fly bellyman on the insertion and wanted a look at the landing zones. Mopar sat in the right door with Gonzales, Schultz, and the lieutenant looking over his shoulders, but he couldn’t see much of RZ Zulme, for the low ground was souped over, and only the two high ridgelines stuck up, like islands in the fog.

Once again, Wolverine selected a high-ground landing zone, but Mopar didn’t question his judgment this time. The insertion LZ was on a steep, defoliated hillside on the eastern edge of the Recon Zone, and while it was far from ideal, the air approaches were good, and it didn’t look like the sort of place where the enemy would expect anyone to land. Everyone agreed that as long as no one broke a leg or twisted an ankle unassing the insertion ship, it would be a good place to go in. Most of the enemy would probably be in the western part of the Recon Zone anyway, in the valley or next to the river. Some of them were probably on the ridgeline between the valley and the river, for it was there that J.D. had found his last high-speed trail.

A warm rain fell that night, and the next day was drizzly and gray. Wolverine marched the team out to the firing range next to the dump, and all morning they ran through their immediate action drills, practicing fire and movement until they were working as a team. Mopar had been a little rusty at first, clumsy changing magazines and slow in switching from the silenced Swedish K he’d be walking point with on this mission to the CAR-15 he’d have to use for any sustained fighting. But he was still sharp on point contact—good pointmen never forget that one—and it only took him an hour or so of fire and movement to fall back into the natural rhythm of the other drills. He hadn’t forgotten any of them—in fact he’d rehearsed them mentally every day of his leave. All he really needed was a little practice to bring him back to his peak form, and Wolverine made sure he got that.

After returning from the firing range, Wolverine and Mopar prepared the premission briefback presentation in which they’d explain their plans for the mission and coordinate them with the Two Shop, the pilots, and the artillery. Mopar asked a few questions, but for once he kept his opinions to himself and didn’t quibble with Wolverine’s choice of landing zones and rally points.

Wolverine seemed to think it would be an easy mission. The enemy might still have a few men in the area, but they’d be along the high-speed trails or next to the riverbed. There was no way to be sure about such a thing, but he figured the LZ and the swath of grassy lowland they’d have to cross to get to the ridge where J. D. had found his last high-speed trail were probably not under constant observation.

“It’s gonna be a piece of cake, Mopar,” he said on the way down to the operations bunker to give the briefback. “As long as nobody breaks a leg on the LZ, we’ll slide in like a greasy knife. There ain’t nothing to crossing lowland, not if you do it at night. And if the major decides at the last minute that he wants us to plant some Black Boxes, well, that’s no sweat either. One time, back a year or two ago, I had to plant a series of eighteen relays, with five sensor devices per relay—just me and this young lieutenant, and six Nungs for security. I can’t tell you just where it was we planted them damn things, but we sure broke a few immigration laws getting there. This RZ Zulme ain’t all everyone’s got it psyched up to be since J. D. went under. Now, I’m not one given to extravagant promises, but if there’s any sign of Lurp Team Two-One left out there, we’ll find it. Then all them mothers and widows can trade in their false hopes for the insurance money due them. A piece of cake, Mopar, it’s gonna be a piece of cake.”

Mopar wasn’t so sure the mission itself would be a piece of cake, but the briefback presentation went smoothly. Wolverine started off with an old joke about Tuffy the Airborne Soldier getting clap, and when he was sure he had everyone’s attention, he stepped over next to the large wall-sized copy of the Aloe Valley map-sheet, paused for dramatic effect, then pulled down a transparent overlay sheet and pointed to a red-bordered square in the upper left corner. “This,” he announced, “is RZ Zulme. And this,” he tapped his finger against a swirl of contour lines near the right border of the RZ, “is our Primary Insertion Landing Zone.”

Marvel, Gonzales, and Schultz all sat tall in their folding chairs and tried their best to look like junior lifers, for that was the only sort of pride most of the officers gathered there understood, and they wanted everyone to know how proud they were to be on Wolverine’s team. Mopar was just as proud as the others, but he sat slumped in his chair, unwilling to put on the lifer act just to make Wolverine look good.

“Lurp Team Two-Four will insert here at first light tomorrow and conduct a four-day area reconnaissance, with a possible secondary mission of planting sensor devices along this high-speed trail previously reported by Team Two-One of this platoon.”

Wolverine glanced over at the Two Shop Major to see if he’d made up his mind whether or not to burden a five-man team with the additional responsibility of planting Black Boxes, but the major’s face was without expression, and the Leg artillery captain whose battery would be on call in support of the team didn’t seem to know either. If the team did end up planting sensing devices in RZ Zulme, the devices would have a direct radio link to the artillery’s Fire Direction Center so that any troop movemerit they picked up could be disrupted with almost immediate shelling. But the artillery captain just sat there stupidly, as if he were attending the briefback as an Official Presence only and had nothing to do with the work at hand.

Wolverine turned back to his map and continued his briefing. When he was done, he asked for questions, but he’d satisfied the pilots, and the Two Shop major and artillery captain were both so impressed with the way he’d kept backing and turning and stabbing the map with his finger that they didn’t feel like speaking up or adding anything. Wolverine hadn’t grown up on the Gospel Bus for nothing. He was a good speaker, and he’d made the mission sound like a piece of cake.

It was only when the briefback was over and the pilots and the other men on the team had left the bunker that the major made up his mind and told Wolverine to stop by the Two Shop in an hour to sign for one relay of two sensing devices. This should have been decided earlier, but Wolverine didn’t really mind. He’d assumed that the major would finally decide for the boxes, and during his briefback he’d pointed out what he felt was the best place to plant them.

“Right here,” he’d said, tapping the map with his finger. “Right here on the trail, by Two-One’s last reported position.”

Later that night, after preparing his equipment and studying his map until he was sure he’d memorized every contour line, Mopar went off to sit by himself on the roof of the operations bunker. Now more than ever, he missed Tiger.

Maybe J. D. had been right when he said Marvel was more superstitious than a swamp witch and more full of shit than a cholera submarine. It certainly looked that way, now that he’d blown his credibility by winning the Recondo dagger. But Marvel had been right about one thing all along, and Mopar had to admit it. Brushing Tiger had always brought him good luck.

The brush Sybill Street had sent him many months before was in his pocket, but Tiger was gone, and Sybill Street had turned into a snotty college kid, so the brush wasn’t worth much anymore. Maybe Marvel was right, maybe a bad-luck talisman like the Recondo dagger could bring the right man good luck. But if that was true, then Mopar figured the reverse must also be true, and a good-luck piece could turn on a man and curse him, so he tossed the brush over his shoulder in the direction of the Slop Shop mess tent, hoping that it would land in the garbage dumpster, or at least near enough to fall sure victim to the morning police call.

The sky was dark and low, but a little breeze was stirring, and it brought the smells of rain and diesel fuel, of smoke, shit, mud, and bug spray. Mopar’s nostrils flared, but his throat felt tight and heavy, and it was only his drive-on Airborne spirit that kept the tears from welling up in his eyes.

A trip flare lit up the concertina wire beyond the bunker line and burned very slowly in the wet, misty air, but Mopar couldn’t see anything, and neither could the men on watch. He lit a cigarette and watched the flare burn out. Even if there was a gook coming through the wire, he’d be too busy to snipe at the glow of a distant cigarette. But the odds that one lone sapper was trying to sneak into the base camp were very slim indeed. Mopar figured it was probably just a rabbit. Or maybe the wind was kicking up out there on the bunker line and had blown a loose concertina roll into a trip wire. Whatever it was, Mopar knew, it wasn’t Tiger the Lurp Dog coming home. But he spent the next two hours sitting on the operations bunker, waiting, just to make sure.

T
HE SKY WAS STILL
dark and low when Team Two-Four trooped down to the chopper pad, but the smell of rain was gone, and though the clouds remained, shapeless and heavy, a warm, dry ground wind was blowing down the berm and across the pad. It was an ominous wind, an unseasonal wind, and the doorgunners and crew chiefs who had been sleeping with their ships were all up earlier than usual, for it was not a wind to sleep in. They were huddled between their ships and the berm, boiling water for coffee over heat tabs and bitching about the weather. Even the pilots had said they were due for a storm, and there’d be no flying today. Wolverine glowered at the air crews until they lowered their voices, and after the Lurps sat down to rest on their rucksacks, only Marvel continued to glance in their direction.

“I don’t like that one crew chief, but even more, I don’t like the insertion ship.” Marvel sounded like he was talking to himself, but the whole team listened anyway. “I’d just as soon walk all the way to the RZ as fly out in that thing.”

The pilot of the insertion ship was a captain, not a warrant officer, and he had an aviator moustache, which was a sure sign he was a dipshit. But that wasn’t what bothered Marvel. He didn’t like the ship itself. “Did you see the design on the pilot’s door?” He nodded toward the helicopters. “Did you see that? It’s enough to give a man the premission shivers!”

Schultz, as always, was quick with the correction. “It’s ‘premission jitters,’” he said. “‘Jitters,’ Marvel, not ‘shivers.’ A true Lurp don’t even shiver in the freezer.”

Marvel didn’t mind being corrected, but he didn’t like this talk about the freezer. The freezer was far back in the rear, and no man who went there ever returned to his unit. The freezer belonged to the Graves Registration section, and it was unwise to joke about such a place before a mission. Marvel frowned at Schultz and turned to Wolverine, hoping he’d keep the conversation serious. “What do you think, Sarge? Did you see that door design, and the name on the front?”

Wolverine unscrewed the red filter and shone his penlight on the helicopter door, but the beam was thin and weak, and he couldn’t see more than a black cat, arching its back in front of a dull orange moon.

“It looks like Halloween, Kim.” Growing up on the Gospel Bus, Wolverine had never been allowed to trick or treat, or even to paste bats and black cat cutouts on the bus window. So it was only natural that Halloween was now his favorite holiday. “You must have had Halloween in Hawaii, Kim. You were still a kid when you all got statehood and took on our American holidays. Now, what’s so bad about that ship? It’s only a Halloween picture, for chrissake.”

Marvel shook his head. “But did you see the ship’s name, Sarge? You want that thing taking us out to RZ Zulme? A name like that?”

Wolverine knew he’d have to stop encouraging Marvel’s maudlin bullshit, but first he had to see what all the fuss was about. He shone his penlight on the nose of the helicopter, and then he had to smile. “Why that’s a fine name, Kim! Couldn’t be much better if I was naming it myself.”

Now Mopar was curious. He sat up and turned his head for a better look, then sank back on his rucksack, sighing with exasperation. Marvel could be such a dip sometimes.

“Bad Moon Rising—
that’s a great name, Marvel, you dork!”

Schultz agreed. “As good as
Free Huey!”
he said, referring to another troop slick that sometimes flew for the platoon.

“As good as
Slack Dragon,”
said Gonzales, referring to the helicopter that had brought him back from radio relay a few days before.

“I kinda like
Swing Low Chariot,”
said Wolverine, but even Marvel protested that choice because
Swing Low Chariot
was a medevac ship, and medevac ships didn’t count. Nobody wanted to ride a medevac ship, not even as a crewman.

The conversation drifted from helicopters to women, to weapons and explosives, then back again to helicopters—to helicopters and weather. It was now obvious that the ceiling wouldn’t lift much before noon, but they still stood by, on alert and ready to go.

Since it was already obvious they wouldn’t be going out today, Marvel decided to make the disappointment more bearable by introducing a new topic of conversation. He asked Gonzales what he planned to do when he got out of the Army, just to find out what he’d say, just to see if he’d say anything at all. Wolverine had never heard Gonzales carry on about the anti-Castro partisans who raided Cuba from Miami, and Marvel figured that if he could get Gonzales going, he could steer him around to talk about the raiders for Wolverine’s benefit. But Marvel had figured without Schultz, who just had to cut in and say that he didn’t know about anybody else, but
he
was going back to Maryland, where his brother-in-law ran a parts store and speed shop. Mopar scoffed at the thought of Schultz—who claimed his 390 Ford blew the doors off hot Dodges and GTOs—working in a speed shop, but for once Schultz didn’t take offense, seeing as how Mopar was probably only jealous. After bragging about his future for five minutes, Schultz asked around to see if anyone else had such splendid plans. No one did. Gonzales and Marvel mumbled something about going to school, buying a car, getting a job, and Wolverine said he was thinking about putting in for a tour in Thailand, or maybe Okinawa. But Mopar said it was all bullshit, said it was a waste of time to talk about anything beyond the mission at hand, and so the conversation died.