the mud-streaked and battered faces of Bird Dog and Gator peering out at me. They were still in their flight suits, but they looked much the worse for wear.
I walked toward them, almost running now. I grabbed both of them in a tight embrace. Gator howled, and I pulled back abruptly. 'He's injured?' A flash of rage ? had the Cossacks done this? Had the bullet found Gator's arm?
Bird Dog nodded. 'When we punched out ? and his knee. The Vietnamese did something to it, during the interrogation. He's in pretty bad shape, Admiral.' Bird Dog looked up at me appealingly, the sheer shock of the circumstances and what he'd been through in the last week on his face. I reached for Gator more carefully now, working my way around his injuries. 'C'mon ? we have some medical gear.'
I led them back out of the bush and toward the troop of Cossacks. Yuri looked relieved as we approached, although he still scanned the bush around him nervously. 'They are yours,' he said finally. 'But we have a very large problem now, Admiral. That gunfire, it will have alerted the Chinese in the facility. We must leave ? immediately.'
'No,' I said flatly. 'I've come this far, and there's too much at stake. I must see the facility ? I must. Send most of your men back, and have them take Bird Dog and Gator with them. See that this man gets medical treatment ? you can see that he's injured. But you and I, and your Cossack friend, will proceed on. Far enough to at least see this facility, to give me something that I can take back to my people.'
Yuri started to protest, and I cut him off. 'I don't own weapons on that aircraft carrier now, Yuri,' I said. 'There are people I have to convince ? a few, at least. Just how important is this to you, Yuri? Are you willing to go as far as I am to stop this now?'
Yuri looked subdued. Then finally he nodded. He barked out a few, harsh, quiet orders in Ukrainian, then motioned to my Cossack escort. 'We will see how good you are, Admiral Magruder,' he said quietly. 'The odds are that we will not return. If so, your men's lives are forfeit, along with those that you have already lost.'
I nodded. Bird Dog and Gator held hostage against my good behavior. It was a fair enough trade. 'Let's get going then.'
Most of Yuri's men formed up around Gator and Bird Dog. One large, massive Cossack swung Gator over his shoulder, the movement oddly gentle. They may not have been from the same nation, they may have been on different sides of too many conflicts in the past, but one-on-one there is something about one fighting man that another recognizes. They moved off into the brush, disappearing, and leaving us alone.
The Cossack grunted, and muttered something sharp. Yuri nodded. 'We need to clear out of this area immediately,' he said. He pointed off to his right. 'There's another path ? a hard one, up the mountain, but it will be more secure. And we will be able to see people approaching us as well.'
The Cossack took point, I took the middle position, and Yuri brought up the rear. We moved quickly, as quietly as we could, but concentrating on speed at the expense of some noise. I could already hear shouts and cries from somewhere far off floating in the air, and it was evident that my brief burst of gunfire had aroused some interest from the camp.
A harder course this time, sometimes up virtually sheer rock walls and around massive boulders. We threaded our way along animal tracks, ghosts moving through this land that belonged to none of us. Finally we reached the crest of the hill, and Yuri tugged me into position. He handed me a pair of binoculars.
'See ? there it is.' He moved my head slightly in the direction he'd indicated.
I could see a compound, one markedly different from the prison camps I'd inspected earlier. I tweaked the binoculars, bringing the picture into sharper focus. There were men in uniform there, although not the style I recognized as being either Ukrainian or Vietnamese. No, they were different, looser-fitting and darker in color. Many of them carried weapons at the ready, and there was an air of activity and alarm in their movements.
'Hurry,' Yuri murmured. 'I do not know how much time we will have.'
I stared at them again, looking for some indication that this place was what Yuri claimed it was. The faces were undoubtedly Asiatic, probably Chinese. Still, the facial features were well within the range of physiognomy demonstrated by the Vietnamese people. I could not be certain ? not based on their appearance alone.
The sun glinted off something pinned to one man's shirt, and I focused on that, straining to make out the details. It was a badge of Some sort, white and plain. There was no lettering visible on it.
Suddenly, it hit me. I dropped the binoculars, handed them back to Yuri, and said, 'Let's go. You're right, Yuri. Get us out of here.'
Without wasting time for questions, the Cossack led the way. We moved over hills, the sounds of pursuit faintly audible in the jungle behind us. We were running now, crashing through brush as though there were no need for silence, desperately putting distance between us and the weapons behind us.
I panicked, gasping for breath, swearing that I would make this last run if I would do anything in my life. What I had seen was just too vital, of too critical importance for U.S. interests and stability in this region. The knowledge must not die with me, not when so many good men had already sacrificed their lives to get me here.
Finally, we reached the one remaining truck. We jumped into it, fired it up, and were speeding back down the one-lane trail toward Yuri's garrison.
'What did you see?' Yuri asked finally, as he regained control of his breathing. 'All my arguments, all my facts ? what did you see?'
I closed my eyes for a moment, recalling the brief flash of light on that white badge. It seemed odd, out of place in a jungle camp, and that was what had first caught my attention. After looking at it for a moment, some vague memory came back to me, and I remembered the last time I had seen something similar.
It had been on an inspection tour of the engineering spaces on board USS Jefferson. Every engineering technician who works down there is required to have in his or her possession at all times one simple piece of gear. It is their first line of defense, their only indication that something might be going terribly and horribly wrong inside the bowels of the engineering plant.
The Jefferson is a nuclear-powered carrier. And what I had seen on my engineering technicians' coveralls, and on the man on guard duty in the compound, was a dosimeter. A small one, the kind a technician clipped to his clothing to monitor his exposure to radiation.
11
I don't think I've ever been as happy to see anyone as I was to see Admiral Magruder. After days and days in the jungle, at first I figured I was starting to hallucinate. You know, like seeing mirages? But I wouldn't have thought that Admiral Magruder's face would have been that high on my list of hallucinations.
By the time I first heard his voice, I was getting seriously worried about Gator. We'd been making progress slowly, but in the last couple of hours he'd started to look like real shit. His face was an odd, green, pasty color and he'd stopped talking. He groaned occasionally, and made it worse by trying not to. I could tell he was hurting, bad, and we needed to do something right damn quick.
All I knew was we were heading south, toward the part of Vietnam that was supposed to be friendly. How much that counted for, I didn't know. Not given the last air strike on Jefferson. Still, it was better than heading for the ocean and trying to swim home.
By the time I decided that Admiral Magruder's voice wasn't some fever dream or nightmare, the possibility that we might not make it was starting to dawn on me. It's not something I'd ever admit willingly, but it was there. But how could I give up with Gator depending on me? I couldn't. So it was one foot in front of the other, stumble, fall, get up, and move on. If we were gonna die, we were gonna do it on our feet.
If it had just been me, I would have stood up as soon as I heard the admiral's voice. But with Gator barely conscious, depending on me to keep him alive, I wasn't going to take the chance.
It was the gunfire that finally convinced me. Not that I needed much more. There is something about Admiral Magruder that is rock solid. It goes through and through to his very core. He can be a nasty bastard if you cross him
