Hard as Nails

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Rigby came to when they were somewhere near Kissing Bridge.

The take-off had been interesting. Coming down from Buffalo, the interior of the Long Ranger had been neat enough, even with all the ordnance. Everyone had been strapped in. Taking off, it was pure confusion—most of the people crouching on the floor, the little Yemeni doctor jumping back and forth as he worked on Rigby King and Colonel Trinh, the interior of the chopper smelling of smoke and sweat and blood and cordite and shit—Kurtz guessed that Campbell had voided his bowels when he died.

"We're too fucking heavy," Baby Doc cried from the pilot's seat. "Throw someone out."

"Campbell goes home with us," yelled Angelina. She was mopping blood off her face with her sleeve, but the sleeve was so bloody that it just moved the gore around in swirls.

"Don't blame me if we end up in the side of some goddamned hill," shouted Baby Doc Skrzypczyk. But the turbines screamed, the rotors blurred, they bounced once on skids, and the overladen chopper lifted off.

No one closed the side door. Kurtz hung on and looked below as they rose, banked left away from the burning house, and flew down the valley toward Neola.

The road below was still filled with vehicles and lights, but except for the two burning vehicles at the top of the hill, the driveway was empty. No one had tried to assault the guardpost from where Baby Doc had fired his first RPG and then rained automatic rifle fire on the fleeing rescuers. Just as they banked and dropped over the edge, the Huey's gas tank exploded behind them, sending a second ball of flame into the air. The whole top of the hill seemed to be on fire.

No one from the valley shot at them. Or at least Kurtz saw no muzzle flashes. Maybe, he thought, they believed the Long Ranger was the Major's private Huey.

When Rigby awoke a few minutes later, they were flying a thousand feet or so over the dark hills, the air rushing in the open rear door. Dr. Tafer had covered her with a blanket, and now Kurtz tucked it in. She was shaking.

"Joe?"

"Yeah." He put a hand on her shoulder.

"I knew you'd come for me."

He had nothing to say to that. "Rigby," he shouted over the wind and turbine roar, "you need some morphine?"

The woman's teeth were chattering, but not from the cold, Kurtz guessed. He suspected that she was on the verge of going into shock because of the pain and blood loss. "Oh, yeah, that'd be good," she said. "They didn't give me anything for the pain all day. Just that goddamned IV. And they couldn't get the bleeding to stop."

"Did they do anything else to you?"

She shook her head. "Just asked stupid questions. About you. About who we were working for. If I'd known the answers, I would've told 'em, Joe. But I didn't know anything, so I couldn't."

He squeezed her shoulder again. Dr. Tafer leaned closer, but Kurtz pushed him back. "Rigby, the doc's going to give you a shot, but you have to listen to me a minute. Can you hear me?"

"Yeah." Her teeth were chattering wildly now.

"You're going to be out of it," said Kurtz. "Probably wake up in the hospital. But it's important you don't tell them who shot you. Don't tell anyone—not even Kemper. Do you understand that?"

She shook her head 'no' but said, "Yeah."

"It's important, Rigby. Don't tell anyone about coming down to Neola, the Major… none of that. You don't remember what happened. You don't remember where you were or who shot you or why. Tell them that. Can you do that?"

"I don't… remember," gasped Rigby, gritting her teeth against the waves of pain.

"Good," said Kurtz. "I'll see you later." He nodded to the doctor, who scooted forward on his knees and gave the woman a shot of morphine.

The helicopter bucked and pitched. "We're too heavy!" called Baby Doc. "The Ranger's supposed to haul no more than seven people. We've got nine in here. At least come up front again, Kurtz. Help trim it."

"In a minute," shouted Kurtz. He crawled farther back, to where Gonzaga and Angelina were grilling Colonel Trinh near the open door.

The older Vietnamese man's visibly broken arm was twisted behind him, his wrists still flexcuffed. Gonzaga had also cuffed the man's ankles and he was propped precariously against the frame of the open door. The air roared past at over a hundred and thirty miles an hour.

"Tell us what we want to know," shouted Toma Gonzaga, "or out you go."

Trinh looked out at the darkness rushing by and smiled. "Yes," he said so softly that his voice was barely audible over the noise. "It is very familiar."

"I bet," said Angelina. Her face and hair were a mask of blood. "Why did you kill our junkies and dealers?"

Trinh shrugged and then winced from his arm and wounds. "It was a war."

"It's no goddamned war," shouted Gonzaga. "We didn't even know you existed until today. We never touched you. Why kill our people?"

The old colonel looked Gonzaga in the eye and shook his head.

"What's the connection?" shouted Kurtz. He was on his knees, straddling Campbell's sprawled legs. Blood sloshed back and forth on the plastic that covered the floor as the overladen chopper banked and rose and fell. "Who's been protecting your operation all these years, Trinh? CIA? FBI? Why?"

"There were three of us in Vietnam," said the old man. "We worked together very well. We have worked together very well since."

"Three?" said Gonzaga. He looked at Kurtz.

"The Major for the army," shouted Kurtz over the wind roar. "Trinh for the Vietnamese. And somebody in U.S. intelligence. Probably CIA. Right, Colonel?"

Trinh shrugged again.

"But why cover for you?" shouted Angelina. "Why would some federal agency keep your heroin ring a secret?"

"We brought in much more than heroin," said Trinh. He leaned back against the pitching door frame almost casually, as if he were in his own living room. "Our people in Syria, the Bekkah Valley, Afghanistan, Turkey… all very useful."

"To who?" shouted Gonzaga.

"What are you going to do with me?" asked the Colonel. He had to repeat the question because of the noise. His voice was calm.

"We're going to throw you out the goddamned door if you don't answer our questions better," shouted Gonzaga.

"We'll take you to a hospital with Rigby," said Kurtz. "Just tell us who the federal connections were and why they…"

"Do you know the irony?" interrupted Colonel Trinh, smiling suddenly. "The irony was that Major O'Toole and I are retired… we only came back to New York because of the SEATCO stockholders' meeting and because Michael wanted to see his niece."

The colonel shook his head, still smiling, and then deliberately pitched over to his left.

Gonzaga and Angelina grabbed at the man's legs and boots, but before they could get a grip, he was gone, out the black door, whipped away and down by wind and gravity.

"Oh, fuck," said Angelina Farino Ferrara.

"That's better!" shouted Baby Doc from the front. "Now someone get up here in the copilot's seat and help me trim this pig."