The Last Bridge

Chapter Thirty-one 1140 Hours

J. D. Hooker grumbled, “Is this all we got to do — just sit here and grow whiskers?”

Theodore Saville said, “The difference between you and a smart man, Sergeant, is that a smart man knows when to get tough. Relax.”

“Sure... sure.”

The weak glow of the veteran truck’s parking lights threw a dismal light around the inside of the garage. Saville moved over to stand by David Tyreen at the door; looking back at J. D. Hooker, Saville murmured, “The cat’s always dignified until a dog comes along. I’m sorrier than hell I picked Hooker for this job.”

“He’ll hold up his end, when the time comes for it.”

“And after that, he’s expendable. That it?”

“We’re all expendable, Theodore.”

“Jesus. Haven’t you got anything brighter than that to say?”

Tyreen’s face was dark and scored. He sucked on a quinine capsule, trying to work up enough saliva to swallow it. Saville said, “A smart fellow lives on interest. You’re living on your capital, David. You’re burning yourself up.”

“You seem to know a hell of a lot about what a smart man would do.”

“Maybe I’m just smart enough to know when to lay off. I know — not now, not now. After we get Eddie out, then we sleep. Provided we don’t get a Vietminh regiment on our ass. Provided we don’t get slaughtered down there. Provided we get Eddie out. David, what happens if we can’t?”

“You know the orders.”

Saville said, “If I was in command, that’s one order I wouldn’t carry out.”

“That’s why you’re not in command, Theodore.”

Saville shook his head. “You’re pretty young to be a stubborn old fool. I thought the Army got rid of the last of its mules a few years back.”

Tyreen gave a small, rare smile. “Age does have its privileges.”

His tongue touched the poison tooth. He felt sapped by fevers. His body demanded everything he denied it, and he felt as though festering rashes were eating slowly into his flesh. His eyeballs scraped the sockets when he looked around. “What’s the time?”

“Quarter of.”

“Sergeant Khang’s deadline.”

“Give him a few minutes,” Saville said.

“I told him to be back here at eleven forty-five.” Tyreen pushed away from the wall; he forced his body to obey the command to stand steady.

“Saddle up.”

J. D. Hooker said, “How much stuff we going to carry, Colonel?”

“Leave the packs here. We’ll come back for them.”

“Grenades?”

“Everything that makes noise,” Tyreen said. “But not the machine gun. Don’t forget your—”

“Hold on,” Saville said. He made a sharp turn, flattening his back against the door. His voice was low: “I think that’ll be Khang coming back.”

Saville’s gun was ready. The code was nine; when knuckles rapped the door twice, Saville knocked twice in answer, and outside, the door banged five times.

“Okay,” Saville said, and opened the door.

Sergeant Khang walked in and saluted with a dry expression. Saville skidded the door shut. Tyreen said, “Where’d you get that uniform?”

“Ran into an old buddy,” said Nguyen Khang.

J. D. Hooker said, “You slimy bastard. What’ll you bet he—”

No one was paying any attention to him. Hooker trailed off into a grumble.

Tyreen studied the sardonic twist of Nguyen Khang’s features. “What did you find out?”

“Captain Kreizler’s still in interrogation. The interrogation officer’s Colonel Trung. About the meanest son of a bitch in this part of the country, sir, next to you, maybe.”

Saville said, “You’re asking to get your ass chewed, Sergeant.”

“Go on,” Tyreen said mildly.

“I talked to the transportation officer. Gave him a line of crap, told him to deliver a staff car to headquarters at twenty after twelve. I thought we could use it maybe. Okay, Colonel? I told the guy they sent me down to deliver Captain Kreizler and Colonel Trung to Hanoi for questioning by the big Red brass. He swallowed it. Hell, I ought to be a Goddamn movie actor, the way I pulled it off. Should’ve seen me.”

Theodore Saville said, “Looks like you’ve done a good piece of work.”

“Yes, sir,” Khang said; his voice had gone suddenly dry. He said, “You want to know the truth, Captain, I was all set to conk out. Faint right there. Surprised me I didn’t.” He added absently, “It’s stopped raining.”

Tyreen said, “Over here, everybody. We’ll map this out.”

Tyreen and Saville reached the head of the street and turned into a boulevard, heads bowed under their hats. They walked half a block, and Tyreen said, “This way.”

They turned down a steeply pitched passage. Tyreen heard the quick scratch of running footsteps receding somewhere nearby. That would be J. D. Hooker and Corporal Smith, on their way across the side of the mountain.

Tyreen’s pulse pumped. Saville fell into step beside him. They ran down through the narrow curving street, paused to look back, and turned at a dogtrot into a new passageway, still going downhill. Across a wide intersection stood a high fence overhung by wild foliage. Tyreen stopped on the corner and examined the area with all his charged senses. He detected nothing, but Theodore Saville shook his head and they drifted back into the obscurity of a doorway while footsteps advanced into the intersection. A shape became visible, shuffling across the pavement. Tyreen’s fingers found the hilt of his knife. The pedestrian came close, paused to remove his straw hat and scratch his head — a gray, ragged old man in patched clothes; he replaced the hat and wandered on. Tyreen heard the release of Saville’s breath.

It would be a thirty-yard sprint across open ground. Tyreen felt alert, primed, all his juices under high pressure; he broke into a hard run.

His boots pounded the pavement, and when he brought himself up short below the iron fence, the breath was crashing in and out of him. Saville came swiftly across the intersection, stopped, and said, “You’re in bad shape, David.”

“Give me a boost.”

Saville cupped his hands and lifted Tyreen easily. On top of the fence Tyreen reached down to pull the big man up after him, but he lacked the strength for it; Saville got a grip on the top rail of the fence with one hand and pulled himself up by the strength of one thick arm. They dropped off the fence into a thicket of weeds and thorns.

They pawed through the brush until they could see the garrison motor pool directly below.

“What time is it?”

“Eight minutes of twelve.”

“Better keep moving,” Tyreen said.

Beyond the motor pool, at the foot of the mountain, he could see an officer on the headquarters porch talking to a squad of armed soldiers. The squad leader saluted, and the knot of men broke up, double-timing away by twos toward the perimeter of the camp. “Extra sentries,” Tyreen said. “They figure something’s up.”

“Wouldn’t you? They’re scared — they don’t know who pulled off that stunt at the power station.”

Closer to him, past the truck park at the big garage, Tyreen saw two figures moving along the back wall. “Khang and Sergeant Sun,” Saville said. “Let’s get down there, David.”

Tyreen led off, walking down the hill at a steady pace. He felt a target for a hundred guns. Dressed in the remnants of a North Vietnamese uniform, he moved deliberately, but his legs strained to run. He heard Saville’s boots striding behind him. They achieved the edge of the pavement and moved among orderly rows of trucks and tanks; Saville said, “This is damn thorny.”

The last row of tanks — that was the spot, between the end tank and the beginning of the row of half-tracks. Tyreen stopped behind the bulk of the tank. Up the hill he could see the brows of the big gasoline storage tanks that were due for destruction in less than half an hour.

He said, “All right. We wait here.”

“I feel like a mouse walking into a mousetrap — on purpose.”

“That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Tyreen said.