Cut and Run

Twenty-Two

S am Ryder settled back in the leather chair at his desk, with his back to the half-smiling, half-knowing face of his father. He had come to his office because it seemed the right place to be-cushioned from men like Phillip Bloch, Hendrik de Geer, Matthew Stark. Here process was important. The rule of law. There wasn’t just power here, but tradition, and when his footsteps echoed in the wide corridors, he felt himself a part of that tradition, not just of his father, but of the men before him. The United States Senate. This, he thought, is where I belong.

But Phil Bloch and Matthew Stark were trying to pull him back to the central highlands of Vietnam, to a time and place where he didn’t belong. Had never belonged. He had done his duty, and more. It was over. Finished. If Bloch and Stark couldn’t accept that, then so be it.

Bloch would eliminate Hendrik de Geer. Then he and Stark would eliminate each other. It was the only way, and it had to work. Otherwise they would all be there forever, hovering in the shadows with their accusing eyes, their knowledge, and their threats.

One of his aides, also working on this chilly December Saturday, announced that Juliana Fall was there to see him.

Ryder shot forward in his chair. Juliana! But how? Why? She had the diamond, Bloch had said. Find out where she went.

She’s come here, Bloch, you stinking slob, he thought. She’s come here to me. I didn’t have to go looking.

He told his aide to send her in at once.

Juliana rushed in, pushing back her hair as she said breathlessly, “Senator Ryder, thank you for seeing me.”

He nodded, unable to speak. If possible, she was even more beautiful now. He was stricken by her look of vulnerability; her pale face made her eyes seem even darker, more hauntingly beautiful.

“I hope you’ll be willing to help me,” she went on, obviously agitated. “I-I need to find Phillip Bloch.”

“Juliana…” Her name came out as a whisper, a breath, and he was on his feet, unsteadily moving toward her. No, not her! She can’t be involved in this! He took her arm. “Here, sit down.”

She pulled away, more assertively than he would have anticipated from someone of her background. Her dark, beautiful eyes riveted on his. “Please don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about because I know you do.”

“Don’t be silly. But, of course, if I can help you-”

“Tell me where Bloch is!”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he said, cool and patrician, wanting desperately to touch her and kiss away her fears, but disturbed by the aggressiveness she was exhibiting. Had he misjudged her? There was no reason for her to be involved-why was she? “Sergeant Bloch was my platoon sergeant in Vietnam, but that was twenty years ago.”

“You were at Lincoln Center with Rachel Stein. She’d learned of your involvement with de Geer and was trying to get you to bring him to justice for his betrayal of her and her family and my family to the Nazis during World War Two.” Juliana paused, no longer gulping for air but regarding him with a cold, determined eye. “That alone, Senator Ryder, ought to interest the Post of the Gazette or any number of news organizations. Once they start to dig-”

“Don’t threaten me,” he said icily, despising the willfulness he now saw in her delicate face. Beautiful, yes, and vulnerable too, but also tough. Inappropriately tough, in his judgment.

She choked back her frustration. “Do you want me to plead? Help me, for God’s sake!”

“You’re not the woman I thought.”

His words were simple and pained, but Juliana seemed unmoved by the sadness and disillusionment he felt. She’d destroyed his image of her, the woman he’d thought he could love. They’d spent only minutes together, but he’d sensed she possessed the level of sensitivity and femininity he’d found lacking in most women. She’d failed him.

“We hardly know each other, Senator, but that’s not the issue. Please help me.”

“What do you plan to do once you locate Bloch?” he asked, trying to sound disinterested. Did she have the Minstrel?

“I can’t explain.”

She did. Dear God, she did!

“Senator, where is he? I mean what I say. I’ll take everything to the press if you don’t help me. Don’t you see? I don’t know what else to do!”

Ryder shuddered with indecisiveness. From long, terrible experience he knew Bloch didn’t make deals. If Juliana tried to exchange the Minstrel for her mother and her aunt, he would take it and get rid of all of them. He’ll kill them-say it. But not necessarily. There was no reason she should be hurt, provided Stark and Bloch got to each other first.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said.

“Thank you, I don’t either, but some things you just have to do.”

Yes, he thought, that’s right. If he sent Juliana down, Bloch would look upon Ryder favorably, and, should things not work out by some chance, that would be helpful. But why shouldn’t things work out? Telling her Bloch’s location wasn’t putting her into any more danger than she was already in. No matter what he did or didn’t do, Bloch would catch up with her. This way, he was giving her the advantage. That was how he had to look at it.

“He’s taken over my fishing camp on the western edge of the Dead Lakes. It wasn’t my idea. I had no knowledge of what he was doing-he presented me with a fait accompli.”

Juliana obviously didn’t care about his problems. “Where are the Dead Lakes?”

He hesitated.

“Tell me, dammit!”

“Fly into Tallahassee,” he said stiffly, pretending it was someone else doing the talking, as he did when he had to leak information to the press about confidential Senate matters, as he had twenty years ago when he’d told Bloch that he wanted Matthew Stark and his crew to fly into their LZ. “You can rent a car and drive out there. Stop at a gas station or a grocery. Anyone can tell you where the camp is.”

Bloch’s men had shoved Wilhelmina and Catharina into a one-room shack with a small three-quarter bath and kitchen facilities that consisted of a sink, a two-burner heating unit, and a small portable refrigerator, which was empty. The shower was mildewed. The walls were rough boards, uninsulated, and the damp, chilly wind off the lake blew in through the cracks. There was no heat. For furniture there was a studio bed, a couch that pulled out into a bed, a vinyl-covered La-Z-Boy, a small table covered with a red-checkered vinyl cloth and two folding wooden chairs. The back exit was securely locked. The front entrance was guarded by a man in a khaki shirt and trousers who’d told the women to get some sleep.

They’d taken turns dozing on the studio bed, only because they were older than they’d once been. Forty or fifty years ago, Wilhelmina thought, nothing could have made her sleep. At ten o’clock, the guard had brought them a repulsive meal of plain yogurt, granola, and grapefruit juice. Wilhelmina had reminded herself of the days of eating tulip bulbs and fodder beets; she was surprised to see that her sister didn’t seem to mind the food. They’d done what they could to splint her arm, binding it with a handtowel, but it needed proper tending. Catharina never complained, although she had to be in agony.

Now they were both up, Catharina posted at the front window overlooking the strange, dark lake, Wilhelmina posted at the side window looking out at the cypress trees laden with what her sister told her was Spanish moss. Beyond was a handsome rustic lodge made of rough uncut pine. A screened porch ran its entire length, and a well-kept gravel walkway led to a boathouse and dock. The helicopter pad where they’d landed was a good distance behind the lodge, but exactly how far was difficult to say. Wilhelmina had still been so preoccupied with the terrible ride and her sister’s pain that she didn’t trust her sense of distance.

“Our sergeant lives well,” Wilhelmina said, speaking still in Dutch. It was natural for her, and Catharina had made no objections.

“I don’t think this camp belongs to him,” Catharina replied, not looking from the window. Her color wasn’t good; Wilhelmina was worried. Neither woman was as resilient as they’d been forty years ago. “My guess is it belongs to Senator Ryder.”

“And Bloch has his fingers in his pocket-a nasty business.”

“He’s called my bluff,” Catharina said despairingly.

“So it would seem,” Wilhelmina said, solemn but not dispirited. “I’m sorry, Catharina. But I don’t think we should underestimate Juliana. She has a good mind and courage. She’ll do what’s necessary.”

“What’s necessary to her will be saving us, Willie.”

“Then so be it.”

Catharina made no answer, sinking into the silence that had overtaken her since arriving at the camp. Wilhelmina was worried about her sister and wished she could do something to take away her pain, to ease her sense of despair.

“I know how desperately you want Juliana just to hide herself away,” Wilhelmina said quietly. “I understand. But Catharina, she must make the decision herself.”

“I don’t want her to suffer!”

“Of course you don’t. You want to protect her, just as all of us wanted to protect you during the war. But tell me, Catharina, haven’t you always wished we hadn’t? You’ve tortured yourself for years because we all did everything within our power so that you wouldn’t be taken by the Nazis, too.”

“You and Johannes sent me to Hendrik with the Minstrel because you knew he would never hurt me,” Catharina said suddenly, half to herself. “If he were to betray us, as he did, you knew he would keep me safe.”

“No, you were the logical choice-”

“Don’t lie to me, Willie. Please.”

Wilhelmina sighed. “None of us wanted anything to happen to you. If you survived, a part of us would survive.”

“Mamma and Papa didn’t survive. They died for me.”

“No, Catharina. They would have died for you, make no mistake about that, but they didn’t. They died because they were knowledgeable, active members of the Dutch Underground Resistance. They knew names and places. They were filled to the tops of their heads with information the Germans wanted. The Nazis weren’t interested in you. You were safe in hiding, but they didn’t torture Mamma and Papa to find out where you were. That’s youthful self-centeredness, Catharina. They died because of their convictions.”

Tears had spilled from Catharina’s soft eyes, and she pushed them away angrily. “I’ve always wanted to be as strong and unshakable as you, Willie-and look at me! Did you…were you there when Mamma and Papa died?”

It was a question she’d never asked, and one Wilhelmina, although she’d known her sister must have thought it, had never tried to answer. She nodded, feeling so tired, so alone. “I was brought out to watch while they were executed-shot. Papa was nearly dead from the torture.”

“Mamma?”

“She was tortured as well, but not as much. They made me watch to weaken my resolve.”

“They didn’t know you very well, did they?”

“No,” Wilhelmina said. Her resolve had been strengthened. After that moment, she’d never feared pain or death.

Catharina was sobbing openly now, her entire body shaking uncontrollably. “All my life I’ve thought I should have been there.”

Wilhelmina shook her head. “I’m so glad you weren’t-and that was the best gift you could ever have given Mamma and Papa, not to have been there. Think if it had been you and Adrian, Catharina. Isn’t that what you’d have wanted for Juliana?”

“Yes.” There was no doubt in her tone. “Yes, it’s what I’d have wanted.”

“Then let us put the past aside for now, shall we? We must concentrate on the problem at hand.”

Catharina smiled through her tears. “You’re a tough old bird, Willie,” she said in English. “I’m glad we’re together.”

Wilhelmina nodded, deeply moved. “I, too, Catharina.”

“His body turned up on a beach in Florida,” Alice Feldon said, giving Matthew the straight facts on what had come over the wire on Otis Raymond. “Apparent suicide. He was shot in the head. Usual burned-out Vietnam vet crap. Only reason it hit the wires is because he was found by a socialite on a fancy private beach on the Gulf of Mexico near Apalachicola. She promptly fainted. Anyway, that’s it.”

Stark nodded slowly, his thoughts drifting back twenty years.

“Beg pardon, sir,” Otis Raymond had said, sidling up to him with that deceptive ambling gait the first day they’d met, “but I want to tell you, you and me, we’re getting out of this shit alive. I ain’t planning to get aced in no goddamn jungle.”

He’d given Lieutenant Matthew Stark a crooked, yellowed grin that strangely lit up his face, made him look almost innocent. He was skinny and ugly, and he still had pimples.

“Hate snakes, you know?”

But it was bullshit, and they both knew it. Otis Raymond hadn’t expected to live.”

“I’m making sure the Gazette carries the story,” Alice Feldon said.

“Thanks.” There was no emotion in Stark’s voice. “Weaze would appreciate that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“Ziegler’s seeing what more he can find out.”

“He doesn’t have to. I know what happened.”

“Matt-”

He looked at her, his eyes unfocused. “Weasel had an instinct for survival that he couldn’t suppress, but it didn’t make him cowardly. In fact, he’d do the craziest damn things and still live. But when Jake and Chuck got aced, Weaze figured it should have been him.”

He stopped, and for once, Feldon didn’t press him for more. She just stood there and waited for him to go on-or not.

“Jake MacIntyre and Chuck Fisher,” Stark said. Saying their names still hurt. “Jake was a pilot and Chuck was our crew chief. They died when a chopper I was flying went down. Chuck took three bullets and died on the ground, before the search and rescue team could get us out. Jake lived a while longer. Weasel held onto him all the way back, and he screamed the whole time, there wasn’t anything anybody could have done, but Weaze felt he should have been able to do something, that it was his fault, that because he didn’t mind dying he should have.”

“Maybe it wasn’t anybody’s fault,” Feldie said.

“No, it was somebody’s fault all right. It was Sergeant Phillip Bloch’s fault and Lieutenant Sam Ryder, Jr.’s-and mine.”

“Stark-”

But he didn’t listen, walking over to his desk. He pushed back the memories and picked up the telephone and dialed his attorney. “Dave, Stark here. I want you to do something for me.”

“You don’t sound too good, Matt. Everything all right?”

“Just listen. A man named Otis Raymond was found dead this morning on a beach on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. They say he committed suicide.” Bullshit, Stark thought. Bloch had killed him, and Bloch had put him there because he knew it’d hit the wires and Stark would find out and come after him. Finally. “He was a Vietnam vet. There won’t be an investigation. I want you to arrange for his body to be brought back to his family in Valdosta, Georgia. Wire them the money for funeral expenses. Got that?”

“Raymond, the Gulf, Valdosta.”

“You know my iron box? Inside are some medals.” You keep ’em for me, Matt, okay, ’case one day I feel like wearing them again, like maybe I deserve ’em. “Get them to Valdosta, too. They go to his parents.”

“Matthew, Jesus-”

“Do it, Dave.”

“If it’s what you want, but, Matt, are you sure his family can handle it?”

Matthew had met the Raymonds once, when he’d delivered Otis to them half-dead from drugs and alcohol and nightmares. They were hard people, weather-beaten and uneducated, and to this day they wouldn’t be able to find Montana on a map, much less Vietnam. But they’d loved their son. They hadn’t known what to do with him when he was a restless kid, and they hadn’t known what to do with him when Stark had dumped him on their front steps. But their impotence and his weaknesses didn’t matter anymore. Otis was dead.

“Yeah,” Matthew said, “they’ll handle it.”