little at first, then more as time goes on. He'll give up all his secrets. He's probably so proud of himself and his little game he's dying to brag about it and show you what a smart boy he is. Get us enough material to move against him before he gives up the unit on May Day. We'll send him to Portsmouth for a very long time. He'll come out an old man.'
Bonson sat back.
There it was, before Donny. What was most palpable was what had not been said. Suppose he didn't do it?
What would happen to him? Where would they send him?
'I don't really--sir, I'm not trained in intelligence work. I'm not sure I could bring this off.'
'Fenn is a very straightforward Marine,' said Captain Dogwood.
'He's a hardworking, gung-ho young man.
He's not a spy.'
Donny could see that the captain's interjection deeply irritated Lieutenant Commander Bonson, but Bonson said nothing, just stared furiously at Donny in the dark office.
'You have two weeks,' he finally said.
'We'll be monitoring you and expect a sitrep every other day. There's a lot at stake, a lot of people counting on you. There's the honor of the service and duty to country to consider.'
Donny swallowed and hated himself for it.
'You know, you have it pretty good here yourself,' said Bonson, to Donny's silence.
'You have a room in the barracks, not in the squad bay, a very pleasant duty station, a very pleasant duty day. You're in Washington, DC.
It's spring. You're going back to college, a decorated hero with all those veteran's benefits, plus a Bronze Star and a nice chunk of rank. I'd say few young men in America have it quite as made as you.'
'Yes, sir,' said Donny.
'What the commander is saying,' said Ensign Weber, 'is that it can all go away. In a flash. Orders can be cut.
You could be back slogging the paddies in Vietnam, the shit flying all around you. It's been known to happen. A guy so short suddenly finds himself in extremely hazardous duty. Well, you know the stories. He had a day to go and he got zapped. Letters to his mother, stories in the paper, the horror of it all. The worst luck in the world, poor guy. But sometimes, that's the way it goes.'
More silence in the room.
Donny did not want to go back to Vietnam. He had done his time there, he'd gotten hit. He remembered the fear he felt, the sheer immense, lung-crushing density of it, the first time incoming began exploding the world around him. He hated the squalor, the waste, the sheer murder of it. He hated having his real life so close and then taken from him. He hated the prospect of not seeing
Julie ever, ever again. He thought of some peace nerd comforting her after he was gone, and knew how that one would play out.
Almost imperceptibly, he nodded.
'Great,' said Bonson.
'You've made the right decision.'
CHAPTER Two.
He stood outside, feeling idiotic. Rock music pumped out from inside. Inside it was loud, bright, crowded, festive. He felt so stupid.
He turned. There was Ensign Weber in the Ford, parked across the way on C Street. Weber nodded encouragingly, gave a little whisking motion with his head as if to say, Go on, get going, goddammit.
So now Donny stood outside the Hawk and Dove, a well-known Capitol Hill watering hole, where the young men and women who ran, opposed or chronicled the war tended to gather after six when official Washington closed down, except for the few old men in isolated offices waiting for the latest news on the air strikes or casualty figures.
It was a beautiful night, temperate and soothing.
Donny was dressed in cutoffs. Jack Purcells, a madras shirt, just like half the kids who'd entered the place since he'd been standing there, except that unlike them, his ears stood out and his head wore only a little topside platter of hair. It said jar head all the way.
But it was the Hawk and Dove where PFC Crowe was known to hang, and so it was at the Hawk and Dove he had been deposited.
Christ, Donny thought again, looking back to Weber and getting another of the whisking motions with the head.
He turned and plunged inside.
The place, as expected, was dark and close and jammed. Rock music pummeled against the walls. It sounded like Buffalo Springfield: There's a man with a gun over there, what it is ain't exactly clear--something like that, vaguely familiar to Donny.
Everybody was smoking and cruising. There seemed to be a sense of sex in the air as people eyed one another in the darkness, the pretty young girls from the Hill, the slim young men from the Hill. Nearly all the guys had big puffs of hair, but now and then he spied the whitewalls or at least the very short haired look of the military. Yet there wasn't much tension, it was as if everybody just put it aside, left it outside for a generous helping of tribal bonding, the young not having to show anything at all in here to the murderous, controlling old.
