Lost Lake

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Did you rescue the MIAs?” Ami asked.

Carl laughed. “The mission was a setup, and I was so naive that I didn’t see it coming.”

“What happened?”

“There were ten of us. I’d seen their pictures when I looked through the records I took from Congressman Glass’s safe, so I knew that everyone was there. Paul Molineaux, who led my first combat mission, was the only man I recognized. He was the team leader this time, too. He showed us pictures of the camp and briefed us. We had to take a boat in-country but Molineaux said that there were copters waiting to take us out. He had pictures of the MIAs. It looked real. We all believed him.”

“But it wasn’t true? There were no MIAs?”

Carl shrugged. “There might have been, but I doubt it. I think the General phonied up some pictures to fire us up. There wasn’t a man in the Unit who wouldn’t have died willingly to bring an MIA home. But we never got the chance to find out if there were MIAs.

“Molineaux stayed on board the boat that took us in-country, which was strange. He gave me command. He said that there were a lot of soldiers in the area because of the prison camp and he had to make sure that the boat, which was our alternative escape route, was protected. We accepted his word blindly. We were so stupid.”

“What happened?”

“The Vietnamese knew we were coming. They ambushed us. The place we were headed was at the end of a valley. We were caught at the base of these hills. An eighty-deuce-uh, eighty-two-millimeter round — exploded about fifteen feet from me. There was shooting all around. I tried to get out of the clearing where they trapped us and into the forest to apply first aid.”

“You were wounded?”

“In the stomach, but not bad. It burned. You know, like if you were jabbed with a hot poker, and my leg was numb and I was nauseated, but after a while the pain became steady, a sharp, burning sensation I could handle. Besides, when it happened I was just moving and I was scared because there was so much shooting.

“I crawled along a washout and into the jungle. I could hear the men fighting and dying. Then I heard one of the Vietnamese soldiers order some of his men to hunt me down and the others to check the bodies to make sure they were dead. I managed to slip past my pursuers and head for the boat. When I got to the river the boat was gone. If it had been there, I would have escaped, but I wasted so much time getting to the river that the soldiers caught up to me. By that time I was too weak from my wound to put up a fight.”

“What happened after they got you?”

“They cleaned the wound and removed a lot of the shrapnel. They took most of my clothes. I had to walk barefoot and they would go in circles to make the trip longer.”

“How long was the march?”

“I have no idea. I just know it took a long time to get to the prison.”

“What did they do to you?”

“It wasn’t Club Med.” He laughed harshly. “The Vietnamese had a penchant for torturing my feet. Once they tied my arms behind me with wet leather strips so my shoulders were pulled clear back around. At one point I was put in a steel box in the sun and left.”

“What did they want from you?”

“That was the funny thing. They didn’t question me. They just tortured me. It was like they didn’t need the information because they knew everything I knew.”

“How did you get out?”

“We were in a village. They didn’t have cells. I was in a hut with guards out front. At night, my hands were placed in front and shackled to a post. They shackled my feet, too. I managed to dig under the post to the hard packed earth. I’d replace what I’d dug up and smooth it out when I saw daylight. Eventually I got under the pole and worked the chains out from under it. When the guard made his rounds I used the chain like a garrote and broke his windpipe. He had a knife in his boot. I used it to kill the guard who was outside the hut. Then I found what looked like a roller skate key that fit the locks on my chains. I got out of the camp and started running. I had a general idea where I was and I know how to live off the land.”

“How did you get back to the states?”

“I headed for Thailand. When I crossed the border I stole some money, bought a fake ID, and sailed back as a deckhand. It was almost a year before I landed in San Francisco. I figured I was owed, so I went looking for Peter Rivera. Only Rivera was dead, murdered the same way I had killed Eric Glass. And there was evidence that pointed to me as his murderer. That’s when I figured out what must have happened. Wingate shut down the Unit and stole the money from the secret fund. He framed me for Rivera’s murder and the theft. Everyone bought it because Vanessa had seen me kill the congressman.

“A few months after Rivera was murdered the General retired from the army and moved to his estate. He lived quietly for five years. Then he made a very large investment in Computex, Simeon Brown’s software company. I think he used money from the secret fund. With his contacts in the military, Wingate was able to get contracts for Computex. He was living off his dead wife’s money until Computex took off. Once the company got hot, Simeon Brown died. A lucky break for the General, no?”

“Did you ever try to get even?”

Carl shook his head. “I was tired, Ami. I was sick of it. Living in the jungle all those months changed me. I didn’t want revenge. I wanted peace. I went underground and I was happy living off society’s radar screen. Hell,” he said with a smile, “I haven’t paid taxes for years, and solicitors never call me. What more can you ask?”