Sloan had spent his life studying faces, learning to recognize the slightest nuances: the vague shift in a muscle, the almost imperceptible twitch of an eyelid, the slightest tightening of the mouth, the subtle shift of focus in the eyes. They were all signals to him that in an instant something had changed. Then it was like having a fish on a line. Time to reel in. Hatcher was good about concealing his emotions, but it was there, Sloan sensed it. I’ve got him, he thought. We’re past the real touchy part. He leaned toward Hatcher and his eyes glittered as he put in the fix. ‘I’m here on a mission of mercy, pal.’
And Hatcher thought, Shit, here it comes. Now he’s got that tongue of his going full speed, now he’s on the con.
‘Let’s stop horsing each other around, okay?’ Sloan said. ‘So you’re tough and I’m tough, we don’t have to prove that to each other anymore. I know you, Hatch. I know you know I’m not here to get a tan, so you’ve got to be real curious. Why don’t you put that thing down and listen to me before you do something real crazy?’
Hatcher sighed. He leaned his gun arm on his leg. The pistol dangled loosely in his hand, pointed at the deck somewhere between Sloan’s feet.
‘Okay, let’s hear the part about the mission of mercy,’ he snickered. ‘That ought to be a classic.’
CODY
Sloan gathered up his file folders from the deck and put them back in order. He dropped one in Hatcher’s lap.
‘Read this,’ he said.
It was the service record of Lieutenant Murphy Roger Cody, USN. Murph Cody. Hatcher hadn’t heard that name since Cody died in Vietnam a long time ago.
‘What’s this all about?’ Hatcher asked. ‘Cody’s been history for fifteen years.’
‘Fourteen actually.’
‘Fourteen, fifteen, what’s the difference.’
‘Read the file, then we’ll talk.’
Hatcher leafed through the 0—1 file. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the record. It began when Cody entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1962, and ended abruptly when his twin-engine OV- 10 crashed and burned while flying a routine search-and-destroy mission near Binh Thuy in the Mekong Delta, April 13, 1972. Cody had been assigned to Light Attack Squadron 6, Naval Riverine Patrol Forces, and had gone ‘in-country’ in July 1971, nine months before he was lost. There were two commendations for outstanding service and a recommendation for the Navy Cross, which had been approved and awarded posthumously.
Supplementary reports included a tape of the debriefing interrogation of two of Cody’s wingmen and the gunner of an SAR Huey crew that had tried to rescue Cody and his radioman; a confidential report by the MIA commission dated January 1978, confirming that no trace of Cody had been found;. a tape of the review board and the official certification of death in 1979; and another commission report filed when the crash site was located in 1981, reporting that charred bones had been found on-site but were unidentifiable — they could have been the remains of either Cody or his crewman, Gunner’s Mate John Rossiter, or parts of both.
The only mention of Cody’s father was on the service form under ‘next of kin.’ It said merely, ‘William John Cody, General, U.S. Army.’ Not
There were two photographs, a drab black-and-white that was Cody’s last official Navy photo and a five-by- seven color shot of him with his wife and two small children in front of a Christmas tree. The date on the back was Christmas, 1971, his last Christmas home. There were also some news clippings, including the announcement in the San Francisco
Hatcher studied the two photographs. He remembered Cody as being tall and hard with a quick laugh, a man who loved a good time almost as much as he loved the ladies.
The photographs prodded Hatcher’s memory, but twenty years had dulled it. Hazy incidents flirted with his brain — the good times, oddly, seemed the most vague — then there were other incidents, juxtaposed visions of Murph Cody, that were crystal clear. In one, Cody was the brutish sophomore, a hulking shape in the boxing ring, pummeling his opponent relentlessly, driving a youngster into the ropes, slamming punches in a flurry to the chest and face of the kid until Hatcher and another member of the team jumped in the ring and pulled him off. In the other, Cody was the penitent, showing up at the hospital later that evening, apologizing in tears for hurting the young freshman, who had two broken ribs and a shattered cheekbone, and sitting beside him all night.
He remembered, too, his own fear as a freshman of Cody, who had a reputation among the new frogs as a mean hazer.
‘When did you meet him?’ Sloan asked.
Hatcher thought for a moment as memories bombarded him. Opaque memories like the shape of a room but not the furnishings in it and faces without voices. Then slowly the memories began to materialize as his mind sorted through fragments of his life.
‘The first day at Annapolis,’ he answered. ‘I’ll never forget it. .
August 1963. A bright, hot day. Hatcher and a half- dozen other frogs were lined up ramrod-straight, their backs flat against the wall in the dormitory hallway. It was their first day at Annapolis, and they were all confused and scared. Two upperclassmen had them braced and were giving them their first introduction to the cruelties inflicted on a frog, a new freshman at the academy.
The worse of the two was a burly midshipman with a permanent sneer named Snyder. Snyder hated all lowerclassmen. Because he had almost busted out himself, he had no tolerance for them.
The other second-year man merely watched. He was tall, muscular and handsome despite features that were triangular and hawkish and made him appear older than he was. He stood at parade rest, never taking his eyes off Hatcher.
