“Chapman,” Packard said.
“You need anything, sir?”
“What are you gonna do, Chapman?”
Chapman frowned, looking confused. He entered and closed the door behind him, cutting off the sounds of celebrating, drunken men. Maybe he’d seen some weakness in his colonel’s face and didn’t want the men to see that.
“Sir?”
“When you get back. What are your plans?”
“I’m all set up at Eastern Airlines. Grace and Billy are already moved-in in Atlanta. Ready and waiting for me.” Chapman smiled, and it suited him. But Packard’s stern mood drained the major’s smile quickly.
“What about you, sir?”
“I don’t know,” Packard said, quieter than he’d intended.
“Home?” Chapman asked, moving from foot to foot. He seemed embarrassed and awkward, and Packard knew why. None of his men knew him. He was an enigma to them, and he liked it that way. They’d even been running a book on whether his wedding ring was real or not.
“Look at this place,” Packard said, ignoring the word and pointing at the walls. “When these walls were covered in maps I’d think of myself as some sort of king, lording over all the lands around me. I could reach out with one hand and then the other, and touch places a hundred miles apart. Then sometimes, on those bad days… you know the days I mean, when someone came home in a body bag, or didn’t come home at all… sometimes, I was a devil. So, home? I’m not sure where that is.”
Chapman said nothing.
“Hell, I’m sorry,” Packard said. “Get out there. Enjoy yourself.”
“You’re sure everything’s okay, sir?” Chapman asked, and this time it was a friend asking a friend.
“Go on.” Packard smiled and waved at the door, and Chapman turned and left. As he closed the door behind him, the smile fell from Packard’s face.
Okay? he thought, and he had to really think about that. He had no real answer. There was no one waiting for him back in the States. Soon, there would be no one relying on him here. Sure, maybe he’d end up with a desk job somewhere, if he wasn’t one of those destined to be thrown to the wolves for the way this war had played out. Heads were going to roll, he knew that for sure. He was old enough to remember the joy at soldiers’ homecoming from the Second World War, and wise enough to know there was going to be nothing like that for this one.
Maybe the lucky ones were going home in a box. Maybe the luckiest ones, or the wisest, would decide to not go home at all.
Packard closed his eyes and listened to his men outside. He liked his own company, but he’d never felt so alone.
It was best to just go, and figure out where he was going when he got there.
With his kit bag slung over his shoulder, Packard stalked through the darkness, making his way across the base and towards the gate. He had no idea what might lay beyond. That would trouble some people, but not him. All he knew was that he needed to find a purpose in life once more, and the one place without purpose was here. The sight of choppers being decommissioned and taken apart broke his heart.
A dozen trucks were parked behind the guard shack, all loaded up and ready to leave. More would arrive tomorrow, ready to take his troops to the bigger airport seventeen miles away, and from there back to the USA. They’d still be together then, joshing and joking about what they’d do as soon as they got home—a beer, a burger, a woman. They’d soon learn. The joking would end pretty soon when they found themselves alone, and the time would come when they’d yearn once more for rain, thunder and bullets.
Packard knew that feeling so well.
He paused by the trucks, sighed, shrugged the pack higher on his shoulder, and took one more step towards his future.
“Sir?”
Packard turned to see a guard jogging towards him. He sighed, relieved. He’d thought it might be one of the Sky Devils coming to ask why he was leaving without saying his goodbyes.
“Colonel, there’s a call for you.”
“Thank you, Private.” They swapped salutes, and as the guard left Packard stood wondering just who the hell might be calling at this time of night. The idea of ignoring the call and continuing on the beginning of this aimless journey crossed his mind, but he could not bring himself to do that. Duty called, and he was first and foremost a soldier.
He went to the nearest camp phone, set on a pole with a simple metal cover protecting it from the worst of the weather.
“Packard,” he said into the receiver.
“Packard, it’s General Ward.”
“Sir,” Packard said. It was the last person he’d expected, but he always felt a buzz talking to the General. He was a true military man as well, married to the army, a lifer who had told Packard that he hoped to die on duty rather than retire and wither away in some residential home for forces personnel. A soldier too old or feeble to fight is no longer a soldier, he’d once said.
“Word has it you’re looking for a mission?” the General said. Packard froze with the phone pressed to his ear, staring out across the rain-dampened airfield towards the gate he had been readying to walk through. Perhaps the General had just offered a solution to passing through that gate.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to one, Sir,” he said.
“Why? Your orders to head home are already processed. I’m sure your men are anxious to get back to the real world.”
This is the real world, Packard thought, but he said, “They are, sir.”
“But you’re not?” He was testing, pushing, probing. He already knew the answer.
“You want me to lie to you, General?”
“You’re sure about this, Packard?” General Ward said quieter, as if afraid his voice might carry.
Packard looked towards the gate once more. He tried to put himself in his men’s place, walking away from camp with packs slung over their shoulders and diverse mementos of Vietnam tucked away in hidden places, ready to meet their worlds again—wives and girlfriends, families and jobs, friends and neighbourhoods where they’d grown up and to which they might now return, scarred and tired, to eventually wither and die.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m sure.”
“Okay. Here it is. NASA has a gang of eggheads called Landsat. They need chopper transport to an island. Survey job. They need a half-dozen slicks plus pilots and support to get them in and out. A few days in paradise. I’ll send the details, but you’ll need to brief and prep your men immediately.”
Packard smiled. It sounded fine. Non-combative, but that was okay, that was cool. He could spend another few days in the air with his men. The gate could wait.
“Sir?”
“Packard?”
“Thank you.” Packard hung up and listened to the storm increasing in strength.
THREE
Where others would see the results of war, Bill Randa saw only opportunity.
The Saigon streets were buzzing. Motorbikes and scooters wove in and out of slower traffic, leaving behind clouds of exhaust fumes and the echoes of horns. Larger vehicles trundled along in chaotic queues, passengers blank-faced as if already resigned to never getting where they were going. Headlights splashed building facades with darting lights. Raised voices added to the hubbub, and although some of them sounded angry, Randa knew that was not the case. He’d heard such voices raised in anger. This was simply a typical street scene, and however out of place he and his companion Houston Brooks might look, they did not seem to be unwelcome here.
Randa led the way. He was more than twice Brooks’s age, and with those years came confidence. All his confidence was born of knowledge. He knew that to walk these streets would be relatively safe this evening because he’d researched the area to ensure that was the case. He knew where he was going, because he’d taken time to discover where the man he sought hung out. He was a man who came prepared, and that had always stood him in good stead. Now, more than ever, such preparedness would make what came next the success he had always desired.