Payback

66

Not only did fresh orders meet Dean and Karr in Iquitos, but Fashona did as well, this time at the helm of a large single-engine amphibious plane. Fashona was in an appreciably better mood than he had been the night before, giving Dean a thumbs-up and even half-smiling at Karr as the two men boarded the plane.

“New airplane, huh?” Dean asked.

“Very pretty beast,” said Fashona. “Cessna Caravan. Straight-at-you, what you see is what you get. With water wings.”

“Water wings,” echoed Karr in the back.

“I hope you haven’t let him eat those jungle leaves,” Fashona told Dean. “I’d hate to see him high.”

“Probably slow him down,” said Dean. “Like taking Ritalin if you’re hyperactive.”

Fashona throttled up. The aircraft felt more like a graceful sailboat than a speedboat, gliding along the river so smoothly that Dean didn’t even realize they were airborne until they started to bank. They flew south for about five miles, then began heading to the west. Their target was a pair of buildings near a military outpost above the Rio Orona.

As the crow flew, it was only about forty miles southeast of where they had been the night before, though by ground the journey would have been close to a hundred over unimproved roads and rickety mountain trails. Once at the installation, they would use a boat and then their feet to hike another ten miles before reaching their destination in the shadow of half-forgotten Inca ruins.

The Art Room wanted to know who, if anyone, was there. Specifically, they were looking for an old Russian satellite phone somehow linked to the warhead they had checked out the night before.

It sounded like a wild-goose chase to Dean. He wouldn’t have minded so much, except for two things: one, Lia was working without backup, and two, he was so tremendously tired now that he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He gazed out the side of the aircraft at the green jungle, teetering on the edge of slumber. His mind wandered back and forth, confusing the thick foliage with Vietnam. They were worlds apart, and he was even further from the kid he’d been thirty-some years before. But they jammed close now in his head, his consciousness giving way to the dreamscape of memory.

Turk was the one who’d deserved the medal for taking out the Vietnamese sniper. Without Turk, Dean would have been another notch on the wooden stock of Fu Manchu’s ancient Russian weapon. Dean followed Turk out of the bunker area and through the hills, learning more in their first day together than he had during the entire year he’d been a Marine.

But Turk wasn’t around to get the medal. So it fell to Dean, who’d been the one to take the shot.

One shot, one kill, one shiny medal, one star in the firmament.

One certificate signifying you are the man.

Paper.

Was that why he was so cynical?

He wasn’t cynical. On the contrary. He valued honor and duty. He believed in them and lived them, did his best to — not for medals, not for anything of that, but because he felt sick, literally queasy, when he realized he’d let down someone who was counting on him.

Like Lia in Korea. Even though it wasn’t his fault — wasn’t even his mission. He’d been thousands of miles away at the time, but he still felt as if he should have been there for her.

Maybe it was medals he didn’t care for. He didn’t hold them against men who felt they were important. On the contrary — if he knew the man, especially if he knew the man, he took the medal as a sign that he’d been through hell and lost something important, trading it for something that couldn’t be explained. That experience set a person apart.

Didn’t make him better, just different.

Offered proof that he had been tested and come through.

That wasn’t cynicism.

Maybe it was just his own medals he didn’t care about, the way smart kids in school were about grades. Dean had been an OK student, but even his B’s came with considerable effort. One of his best friends, Mikey, yeah, good ol’ Mikey, he always got A’s, but just shrugged.

“Ain’t nothing.”

Mikey became an officer in the Army and died in a dumb accident in Panama two years before the invasion.

They didn’t give medals for that.

The shot that had killed Fu Manchu hadn’t been an accident. Skill, a good idea, a lot of patience, training, experience — Turk’s mostly — those made the shot, not luck.

There was luck involved, though. Dean had turned left at the edge of the stream a half hour earlier, when he wasn’t sure which way to go. Turn right, and things would have been different.

Not to mention the luck involved in not being in Fu Manchu’s sights.

“Beautiful country, huh?” said Fashona.

“From a distance, everything’s beautiful,” said Dean, his mind rising back to full consciousness.

“You never saw my first wife. You all right?”

“Just tired.”

“You want to sleep, go ahead.”

“It’s not that easy in a plane.”

Fashona glanced behind him. “Karr’s snorin’ up a storm back there.”

“Yeah.” Dean was surprised to see Karr sleeping, his head thrown back and his mouth wide open. “He’s a piece of work.”

“Yeah, he’s a real asshole.”

Dean hadn’t meant it the way Fashona took it.

“I guess we all are sometimes,” he told the pilot.

The side of Fashona’s face turned bright red. “You aren’t, Charlie. And I hope I’m not.”

“You’re not, Ray. You’re just a damn good pilot.”

Fashona didn’t answer — or rather, if he did, Charlie Dean didn’t hear what he said; he surrendered to fatigue, slumbering against the side of the plane.