Created, the Destroyer

CHAPTER SIX

The air in the ambulance tasted shot through with oral laxatives as the ambulance rolled along. «Probably the high oxygen content,» MacCleary thought to himself.

He concentrated on the man on the raised stretcher in the middle of the ambulance and rejoiced at every up-and-down motion of the large chest covered by the sheet. This was the man. He might be the answer.

«Turn on the lights,» MacCleary said.

«You sure, Conn? I was told no lights.»

«The lights,» MacCleary repeated. «Just for a minute.»

The dark-haired man moved an arm and suddenly the confinement was bathed in a bright yellow glow. MacCleary blinked and then focussed on the face, the high cheekbones, the closed eyes, the lids that hid the deep brown orbs, the smooth white skin, marked by only a faint scar on the chin.

MacCleary blinked and MacCleary stared. He stared at the biggest pot he had ever been in on. It had violated every rule he had ever been taught about all the eggs in one basket. It was the wrong solution, but it was the only solution.

And, if the breathing human body on the stretcher worked, a lot more would work. A lot more people would live in a land they loved. The greatest nation on earth might survive as it has been intended to survive. And it might all rest with the slumbering body with the closed eyelids, glinting a shade darker in the bright light than the man's normal skin. Those eyelids. MacCleary had seen them before. And the light had shone on them then, too.

Only, it had been the sunlight, the hot Vietnam sun and the Marine had been sleeping underneath the wooden skeleton of a gray tree.

MacCleary had been in the CIA then. Dressed in Army fatigues, he had hiked up a hill with two Marines as escorts.

It was a back and forth stalemate time of the war. In a few months, he would be home. But right now, MacCleary had an assignment.

In a small village within American lines, a Viet Cong had set up headquarters. CIA's objective: enter main communications house and capture records, a list of major Viet Cong sympathizers in Saigon.

If the farmhouse, pinpointed as communications center for the VC, were attacked in normal fashion with men inching forward, the Commies could burn their lists of contacts. CIA wanted the lists.

MacCleary had worked out a plan to have a full company of Marines stage a charge on the building, with no one seeking cover, almost a Kamikaze attack. This, MacCleary hoped, would be fast enough to deny the time for record burning or anything else.

The Marines gave him a company. But when he approached the captain in command of the unit, the captain just nodded to a tarpaulin-covered pile on which two Marines sat, their M-l's cradled in their arms.

«What's that?» MacCleary asked.

«Your records,» the captain said casually. He was a small, thin man who managed to keep his uniform pressed even in combat conditions.

«But the assault? You weren't supposed to start it before I got here.»

«We didn't need you,» the captain said. «Take your records and get your ass out of here. We've done our job.»

MacCleary started to say something, then turned and walked to the tarpaulin. After 20 minutes of leafing through heavy parchments with Chinese lettering, MacCleary smiled and nodded his respects to the Marine captain.

«I will make a report expressing CIA gratitude,» he said.

«You do that,» the captain said sullenly.

MacCleary glanced at the farmhouse. Its dried mud walls were free of bullet pockmarks.

«How'd you go in? With bayonets?»

The captain pushed up his helmet with his right hand and scratched the hair over his temple. «Yes and no.»

«What do you mean?»

«We got this guy. He does these things.»

«What things?»

«Like this farmhouse deal. He does them.»

«What?»

«He goes in and he kills the people. We use him for single-man assaults on positions, night-time work. He, uh, just produces, that's all. It's a lot easier than running up casually lists.»

«How does he do it?»

The captain shrugged. «I don't know. I never asked him. He just does it.»

«I think he should get the Congressional Medal of Honor for this,» MacCleary said.

«For what?» the captain asked. He looked confused.

«For getting these damn records by himself. For killing… how many men?»

«I think it was five in there.» The captain still looked confused.

«For this and for killing five men.»

«For that?»

«Certainly.»

The captain shrugged his shoulders. «Williams does it all the time. I don't know what's so special about this time. If we make a big deal now, he'll be transferred out. Anyway, he doesn't like medals.»

MacCleary stared at the captain, looking for the traces of a lie. There was none.

«Where is he?» MacCleary asked.

The captain nodded. «By that tree.»

MacCleary saw that barrel chest in the crotch of the tree, a helmet pulled over a head. He glanced at the farmhouse, the bored captain and then back at the man under the tree.

«Keep a guard on those records,» he said, then he walked slowly to the tree and stood over the sleeping Marine.

He kicked the helmet from the head with enough dexterity not to cause injury.

The Marine blinked, then lazily opened those eyelids.

«What's your name?» MacCleary asked.

«Who are you?»

«A major,» MacCleary answered. He wore the leaves on his shoulders for convenience. He saw the Marine look at them.

«My name, sir, is Remo Williams,» the Marine said, starting to rise.

«Stay there,» MacCleary said. «You get the records?»

«Yes sir. Did I do anything wrong?»

«No. You thinking of making a career out of the Marines?»

«No, sir. My hitch is up in two months.»

«What are you going to do when you get out?»

«Go back to the Newark Police Department and get fat behind a desk.»

«It's a waste of a good man.»

«Yes, sir.»

«Ever think of joining the CIA?»

«No.»

«Would you like to?»

«No.»

«Won't change your mind?»

«No sir.» The Marine was respectful with a sullenness that let MacCleary know the sirs were short convenient words just to avoid complication or involvement.

«That's Newark, New Jersey,» MacCleary questioned. «Not Newark, Ohio?»

«Yes sir.»

«Good job.»

«Thank you, sir,» the Marine had said and closed his eyes without bothering to reach for the helmet as a shade.

That had been the last time MacCleary had seen those lids shut. It was a long time ago. And it had been a long time since MacCleary had been with the CIA.

Williams slept just as peacefully under drugs. MacCleary nodded to the dark-haired man. «Okay, switch off the lights.»

The sudden blackness was just as blinding as the brightness.

«Expensive son of a bitch, wasn't he?» MacCleary asked. «You did a good job.»

«Thanks.»

«Got a cigarette?»

«Don't you ever carry them?»

«Not when I'm with you,» MacCleary said.

The two men laughed. And Remo Williams emitted a low groan.

«We got a winner,» the dark-haired man said again.

«Yeah,» MacCleary said. «His pain's just beginning.» The two men laughed again. Then MacCleary sat quietly smoking, watching the cigarette glow orange red every time he inhaled.

In a few minutes, the ambulance turned off the simple two-lane road onto the New Jersey Turnpike, a masterpiece of highway engineering and driving boredom. Several years before, it had had the best safety record in the United States, but the growing control of the road, its staff and the state police by politicians had turned it into one of the most dangerous high-speed highways in the world.

The ambulance roared on into the night. MacCleary bummed five more cigarettes before the driver slowed down and tapped on the window behind him,

«Yes?» MacCleary asked.

«Only a few more miles to Folcroft.»

«Okay, keep going,» MacCleary said. A lot of big shots were waiting for this package to arrive at Folcroft.

The journey was one hundred minutes old when the ambulance rolled off the paved road and its wheels began kicking up gravel. The ambulance stopped and the man with the hook jumped from the rear door of the ambulance. He looked around quickly. No one in sight. He faced toward the front of the big Buick. A high iron gate loomed overhead, the only entrance through high stone walls. Over the gate, a bronze sign glinted in the October moon. Its somber letters read: Folcroft.

Inside the ambulance, another groan.

And back at the prison, Harold Haines realized what had been wrong. The lights had not dimmed when Remo Williams had died.

At that moment, Remo Williams' «corpse» was rolling through the gates of Folcroft and Conrad MacCleary was thinking to himself: «We should put up a sign that says 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.'»