Cut and Run

Twenty-Four

A braham Stein wasn’t much bigger than his sister and looked twice as old. “I called some friends,” he was telling Juliana as he led her with surprising agility through a glass door, “and they know someone who knows someone who knows someone who was friends with the father, the first Senator Ryder, who was killed, you know, in Vietnam. They’ve been to the fishing camp, which is more for entertainment than for fish, and it has a helicopter pad. Isn’t that beautiful?”

Juliana looked at him, baffled. The old man spoke very rapidly, his accent more noticeable than his sister’s, and she wondered if she’d misunderstood. “The father was in Vietnam? But I thought it was the son who’d gone.”

“Yes, yes, as a soldier. The father was a senator then. Of course, I forget how young you are, you might not remember. He was killed during a fact-finding mission to Vietnam, when his helicopter was caught in a battle of some sort. It was a terrible thing. Quite a scandal. The son was with him and himself was nearly killed.” Abraham Stein looked at Juliana, his lively dark eyes suddenly grave and filled with sorrow. “It’s a terrible thing for a son to have to watch his father die. From cancer and old age, yes, then there can be no regrets, but at the hands of others-” he shook his head “-that never leaves you. No matter how we pretend, it’s always there.”

“You speak from experience?” Juliana asked, not sure she should.

He smiled sadly. “Do I need to? But enough of this. Come. I have a helicopter waiting for you. The pilot knows how to get to Senator Ryder’s camp. I told him there might be some danger involved and he said good, he hasn’t had any excitement in a while. Helicopter pilots tend to be this way, I think.”

Juliana thought so, too. She could just bet who’d been piloting the helicopter in which the senior Senator Ryder had been killed. During the flight to Tallahassee, the thought of Matthew had never left her; she wondered where he was, what he was doing. She hadn’t stayed put in Vermont as he’d obviously intended her to. She wasn’t sure how that would sit with him. But he’d let her know.

She’d thrown her parka over her arm and now reached into the inside pocket and pulled out the paper bag in which she’d placed the Minstrel’s Rough, inside its faded velvet. “I have another favor,” she said, embarrassed.

Abraham Stein was delighted. “Yes, what is it?”

She thrust the bag at him. “Take this. I can’t tell you what’s inside, and I’d like to ask you not to look-for your own sake, no other reason. If you don’t hear from me within twenty-four hours, take a boat out into the ocean where the water’s very, very deep and throw the bag into it. Then call in the National Guard and tell them to come get me. Will you do that?”

“Of course.” He tucked the bag into his suitcoat pocket, with no indication whatsoever of curiosity.

“You don’t have any questions?”

“No,” he said. “I have no questions.”

They were outside now, and Juliana couldn’t suppress a rush of excitement liberally mingled with fear as she saw the helicopter standing out on the landing pad, warmed up and ready to go. “Aunt Willie, Mother,” she whispered, “hang in there.”

Then she heard a familiar rough, deep voice. “What the hell do you mean this is the last goddamn helicopter and it’s unavailable?”

She looked around and saw him. Matthew. Samuel Ryder was standing next to him, Matthew’s intense dark looks, black leather jacket, and Gokey boots in contrast to the fair, patrician handsomeness of the senator. Juliana took a sharp breath, wondering if there was some way she could just sneak into the helicopter.

The unhappy official tried to explain there was nothing whatever he could do, the helicopter was already spoken for, but Matthew wasn’t listening. His gaze had fallen on Juliana. He ignored the official and Ryder and the little old man standing next to her and walked up to her.

“I should have tied you to the goddamn bedpost,” he said. “My mistake.”

“What are you doing here?” She could see plainly enough he wanted to ask her the same question. Abraham Stein was watching the proceedings with interest.

“Damn it,” Stark said.

“If you don’t behave,” she said, “I won’t let you ride in my helicopter.”

“I ought to steal the thing right out from under you.”

But she grabbed his wrist and held him back. “Don’t, Matthew. Neanderthal tactics aren’t going to work with me. I’ll just find another way there.”

“You know, lady, you may be generally uninformed about life in the twentieth century, but-” he paused, grinning. “You’ve got guts. Let’s go.”

Juliana and Ryder rode in back, Matthew up front with the pilot, who’d also flown in Vietnam and had heard of Steelman Stark-and sympathized with his feelings toward the junior senator from Florida. Matthew had told the pilot Ryder wasn’t going to enjoy the trip: “He won’t know if I’ll try to toss his butt out of the chopper or not.”

“Wouldn’t blame you if you did,” the pilot had replied. “The way I hear it, he was responsible for what happened back in ’Nam.”

“Matthew,” Ryder croaked, his face ashen, “don’t do it.”

“Why not, Sam? I’ve been waiting twenty years to get back into a helicopter with you-”

“For God’s sake, that’s over and done with! It wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t my fault. It was just one of those terrible things that happens in war.”

“No, it wasn’t. It never should have happened, Sam. Your father, Jake, and Chuck could all be alive today if you hadn’t lied about that LZ-or maybe if I’d been a better pilot or just smart enough to know you were lying.”

“Matt, don’t. Jake and Chuck were good soldiers; they knew the risks. And my father-he would have forgiven you. I forgive you.”

“Jesus Christ, Sam, it just might be worth the consequences to toss your goddamn dumb ass out of here. But it’s not.” Matthew saw the confusion in Juliana’s eyes and grinned at her. “More history for you to learn, sweet cheeks. We’ll talk later, okay?” She nodded, and he turned back to the pilot. “How far to the Dead Lakes?”

“Maybe twenty minutes.”

Behind them, Ryder said, “Bloch will kill you the minute you land.”

“He can try.”

“Dammit, Stark, I wish you wouldn’t talk like that! We need to consider alternatives to violence.”

Matthew looked over at the Golden Boy senator with the wide, terrified baby blue eyes. “I’d love to, Sam. Got any ideas? You think Bloch’s going to want to deal? The sonofabitch killed the Weaze, and he probably killed Rachel Stein, and he’s going to kill those women-unless old Aunt Willie gets loose first and kills him.”

Ryder licked his lips. “You could at least try to make a deal-”

“Jesus, you’re a card, Sam. Don’t you remember ’Nam? Phil Bloch doesn’t deal. He’s very good at killing people, and he’s very good at taking care of himself. Look, if it helps, I have no interest in killing the man. I just want to stop him, which is what you should have done to begin with. Of all people, Sam, you know what he is.”

“How could I have stopped him? He was threatening to tell people I was the one who told you to fly into a hot LZ, that I got my own father killed! How could I function with that kind of rumor hanging over my head?”

“Not rumor,” Stark said. “Fact.”

“That’s not true! The LZ was secure as far as we knew, but there was a war going on, for God’s sake. There were VC and NVA all over that valley.”

“Sam,” Matthew said without emotion, “that LZ was never secure, but the information I got was that it was cold-safe for a goddamn United States senator to have a visit with his son the lieutenant. But you wanted your daddy to see you in action, and what should have been a routine resupply mission turned into a firefight.”

The young senator stared straight ahead as they flew over the Dead Lakes region. It was almost nightfall. “If that’s what you want to believe, Matthew, go right ahead. I suppose we all have to have our delusions.”

And none is bigger than yours, Sam, Matthew thought. But he didn’t pursue the subject. In a way, it was his own fault Ryder had never owned up to what he’d done. The commission that investigated the death of Senator Samuel Ryder, Sr., during a fact-finding mission to Vietnam had pinned the blame squarely on the shoulders of the helicopter pilot who had “stumbled” into the hot LZ, resulting in the deaths of the senator and one copilot, Jake MacIntyre, and one crew chief, and the wounding of one door gunner, Otis Raymond, and of himself. What should have been a routine VIP tour, a cushy mission for a top-notch pilot like Stark, had turned into a disaster.

Stark, Otis Raymond, and Phil Bloch had all kept their mouths shut about what they knew: that the senator’s son and namesake had wanted to impress his father so much he’d deliberately lied about the area where his company was on patrol. Nothing bad was supposed to have happened. Matt Stark was supposed to be a good enough pilot to pull them out in case they were fired on. For his part, the senior Ryder had demanded that Stark go into his son’s landing zone if at all possible, telling the young pilot he’d fought in the Pacific during World War II, which had been a real war, and he wasn’t afraid.

At the time, Matthew had tried to spare the green lieutenant any further suffering. His father was dead. It seemed like enough. But by taking the blame himself, Matthew had helped Sam Ryder, Jr., convince himself that he hadn’t been in any way responsible.

“Okay, Sam,” he said, “have it your way. Just tell me one more thing: do you know how she-” he nodded to Juliana “-found her way down here?”

“Well, I…” Ryder sputtered, lifting his shoulders helplessly.

“You told her.” Matthew didn’t raise his voice; there was no point. “You figured you could throw her to Bloch, which he would see as a gesture of good faith on your part-and the hell with what happened to her?”

“That’s not true. I don’t want anything to happen to her!”

“Let’s put it this way, Sam,” Stark said, turning around and looking not at Ryder, but at Juliana. He’d never known anyone like her. Never. “Nothing had better happen to her.”

The one part of him that had never failed Hendrik de Geer were his eyes, and yet now he could not believe them. From his position in the fishing boat, he saw two things happen almost simultaneously. One, a helicopter kicked up dust and wind as it came down for a landing behind the lodge, creating a good deal of excitement among Bloch’s men. Two, Wilhelmina and Catharina had surprised their guard as he went in to check on them while the helicopter was landing and had battled him out onto the porch with what even from a distance looked suspiciously like kitchen knives.

Hendrik quickly started the engine of the boat. It would have been simple-and very wise-for him just to get out of there as quickly as possible. In all the chaos, no one would even notice.

You’re a coward, he told himself silently.

Yes, and cowards often died fools’ deaths.

He gunned the engine and sped toward the dock. Another man had seen the difficulties the guard was in and was moving toward his aid. Hendrik leaped from the boat with the assault rifle he’d stashed outside the camp, when he’d first started dealing with Bloch. He’d picked it up after stealing the boat.

“Good evening, Michael,” he said calmly. “I wouldn’t go any further if I were you.”

“De Geer.” The boy eyed the rifle. He was no more than twenty-one, lured into this life by false tales of adventure and romance. All he’d experienced so far, Hendrik knew, were the bites of insects and the discipline of a man he could neither respect nor admire. “What’re you doing?”

“If you’re going to stay in this business and live, you’re going to have to learn to cut your losses, Michael. Bloch has tread where he never should have. He’s abandoning camp, but it’ll be too late. He’s not a hero, Michael. He’s a murderer.”

“You’re crazy, de Geer. Bloch’ll kill you.”

The Dutchman shrugged, impassive. “In this life, death is always a possibility. Drop your weapon, Michael-or we can begin the evening’s body count with yours.”

Michael paled, eyeing the rifle, and nodded, slowly dropping his automatic.

“Get out,” Hendrik said. “This isn’t your fight. If you have a buddy, take him with you. Take as many as you can.”

The boy just swallowed and began to run, and Hendrik picked up the automatic and moved quickly toward the shack. Catharina had been thrown to the ground and was awkwardly climbing to her feet, holding her injured arm, her color terrible. Wilhelmina held a paring knife to the throat of the now very still, very terrified guard. She was bleeding and winded, but undaunted.

“Ahh, Willie,” Hendrik said, laughing in spite of himself. He took Catharina by the shoulder, steadying her. She smelled of sweat and dirt and a light, fading perfume, none of which, he thought, he would ever forget. “Are you all right, Catharina?”

She nodded. “Hendrik-I didn’t think…”

“You didn’t think I’d come? Neither did I, I suppose. Forty years ago I wouldn’t have. Make no mistake about that, my sweet Catharina.” But he didn’t waste time on sentiment. Pointing his rifle at the man on the porch, whose name he’d forgotten, he said, “Come, Willie, you and Catharina have done your job. He won’t move-will you, my friend?”

The guard seemed almost pleased to be held off by an FN NATO assault rifle rather than an old woman’s kitchen knife. A man’s pride, Hendrik thought, disgusted and amused.

Wilhelmina climbed stiffly down from the porch, ruing the loss of her youth. When one reached the age of seventy, she thought, one should plant begonias. She gave Hendrik de Geer a stony look. “Did you forget something? Is that why you returned?”

“Yes,” he said. “I forgot how much I care about you two. Now come, both of you. There’s a fishing boat down at the dock. It’s a simple engine, you can manage it. I’ll get you to it. Then take it and get out of here. Look for another fishing camp; get help.”

“What about you?” Catharina asked.

Hendrik let his gaze linger on her soft green eyes. “I have always been good at taking care of myself, Catharina.”

“No question of that,” Wilhelmina muttered.

He gave her a thin smile, remembering how they’d always sparred with each other, even when they were teenagers and Catharina was still but a baby. “Mind the alligators, Willie.”

“I’m not afraid of alligators.”

“No,” he said, “but they may be afraid of you.”