More Deaths Than One (16 page)

“What kind of stories? No, wait a second.”
Kerry gathered the empty Styrofoam containers, threw them in the
trash, then retrieved her pillow. She took Bob by the hand and led
him over to the bed where they’d slept. When they had curled up
together, she said, “Now you can tell me one of his stories.”

Bob touched her shoulder-length hair, letting
it slide through his fingers. The sunlight shafting through the
window made it glow like smoldering charcoal.

“You can begin anytime,” she said.

“You’ll fall asleep like you did when I told
you Hsiang-li’s story.”

“So? I can use the rest. You kept me awake
most of the night.”

“Sure. Blame it on me.”

“Well, it is your fault. Pete’s Porches
always finished in ten minutes and fell asleep a minute later.”

Bob trailed a hand down her arm, then back up
again. “You didn’t mention how you two met.”

“At a party. Boring. End of story. Now your
turn. Tell me about you and Harrison.”

“I was lounging in one of the NCO clubs when
he came to me and said, ‘If I could have been assured of a duty
like yours, moving from base to base, drinking beer, I would
happily have joined the army.’”

“I know,” Kerry murmured. “I read it in the
book.”

“Shush. Who’s telling the story, me or
you?”

She snuggled closer, her breath warm on his
neck. “You are.”

“‘I’ve been watching you,’ Harrison told me.
‘You’re good at making yourself invisible, but some guys are so
great at it, they seem supernatural. I heard about a guy they call
The Sweeper.’”

Kerry let out a gentle snore, then lifted her
head and grinned at him. “Just kidding.”

Bob couldn’t help returning her smile. All of
a sudden he felt good, too good to be telling an unsettling story
like The Sweeper’s. “How about if I tell you about the Prince of
Darkness instead? He made sure that during the day not the tiniest
bit of light hit his eyes. Over a period of time, his visual purple
built up, giving him an advantage when he went out on patrol with
his unit.”

“I’d rather hear the other story,” Kerry
said. “Tyler told Noone about the Prince of Darkness, but he never
told him about The Sweeper.”

“Harrison probably left it out since he
planned to write a separate book about him. It was one of the many
legends that came out of the war, but it seemed to capture his
imagination more than the others. I heard it so many times over the
years, I know it by memory.”

“Don’t you mean ‘by heart’?”

“No. I know you by heart. I know the story by
memory.”

Kerry got very still, then let out a small
sigh that spoke of contentment.

Bob drew her closer and kissed her. Her lips
parted under his. His whole body seemed to hum with electricity as
if he were a robot and she his power source. After a minute, she
pulled away and looked at him with dancing eyes.

“You’re not getting off that easy.”

He smiled at her. “It was worth a try.”

She raised her brows expectantly.

“All right,” he said. “I’ve always found this
to be a disquieting story, but if you want to hear it . . .” He
paused to gather his scattered thoughts. “Up country where the Laos
and Cambodia borders meet and abut South Vietnam, a large base camp
had been set up in a bowl surrounded by jungled mountains. The
troops might have appreciated the beauty if not for the Viet Cong
snipers swarming over those dark green hills. Some of the snipers
shot so poorly they were a joke. Others were deadly accurate.

“While most of the U.S. soldiers at the camp
went about their duty of patrolling the borders, trying to control
the VC and NVA infiltration into South Viet-nam, The Sweeper went
up into the hills to eliminate the accurate snipers. He was told to
leave the rest alone since they were more of a nuisance than
anything else, and if they got killed, they might be replaced by
snipers who could hit what they aimed at.

“By all accounts, The Sweeper wasn’t anything
special, a typical grunt who got by the best he could, but he had
one talent—an ability to blend. Because he melted into the jungle
and became the jungle, he could go anywhere without detection.”

“Like a chameleon,” Kerry said.

“To a certain extent, all soldiers are
chameleons. That’s the whole purpose of camouflage. Harrison said
this particular soldier seemed more like a shadow or a ghost mist.
Supposedly The Sweeper could fade into the background so completely
that sometimes those standing right next to him were unable to see
him . . .”

“Bob? Bob?”

Bob gave his head a shake and looked into
Kerry’s concerned eyes. “What?”

“You drifted away.”

“Oh . . . I was thinking about The Sweeper
slipping into the jungle, hunting and eliminating his quarry.
Harrison always wondered what it would have been like for the
sniper. One minute he’s going about his business picking off U.S.
soldiers, and the next minute the jungle itself reaches out and
kills him. But I was wondering what it would have been like for The
Sweeper. A shadow, lost in the darker shadows of the jungle, he
must have felt terribly alone.”

Kerry reached out and touched his cheek. He
tilted his head toward her hand, welcoming the warmth.

“No one knows how The Sweeper did his job,”
he said. “Rifle? Bayonet? K-bar? Garrote? They weren’t even sure
how many he took out since he refused to bring back trophies—ears,
fingers, what-ever—as proof of his kills. They did know he
eliminated the snipers because they’d stop taking fire from a
quadrant for a while. It would start again when a replacement
arrived.

“One day an extraordinarily good sniper came
to take the place of one who had been eradicated. This new guy was
not VC but NVA, which were well-trained, well-equipped
professionals. Normally, of course, a man of his caliber would have
been reserved for much more important targets than those American
GIs. Apparently, the North Vietnamese officers didn’t like their
snipers getting killed instead of the U.S. soldiers and had
dispatched one of their master snipers to rectify the
situation.

“The Sweeper set out to get rid of the NVA
sniper, but the sniper continued to do his work. At first, no one
realized something had happened to The Sweeper. He often stayed in
the jungle for days at a time. All good snipers shoot once or twice
then move on, and The Sweeper had to track them, following a subtle
but noticeable trail deeper and deeper into the jungle.”

Bob fell silent, the fecund stench of the
jungle in his nostrils.

“What happened to him?” Kerry asked.

Bob inhaled her clean scent. “Supposedly he
triggered a booby trap—possibly some kind of grenade, or perhaps
shrapnel embedded in plastique—that had been set by the NVA sniper.
Despite grievous wounds and a tremendous loss of blood, he did not
die. He had a little water but no food, and since no one would ever
find him so deep in the jungle, he had to save himself.

“Unable to walk, he began the long, desperate
crawl back to base camp. It must have taken days. Can you imagine?
Every insect in the place would have converged on him. They’d get
in his eyes, his nose, his ears. Even his privates. They’d sting
and nibble and drink his blood, and they’d never shut up. Leeches
would cover his body. And then there’d be the jungle rats, bit as
cats.”

Kerry sucked in a breath. “Jeez, Bob.”

He gave her a sad smile. “I told you I found
this to be a disquieting story.”

“I can see why.”

“Do you want me to stop?

“No. You’d better finish it, or I’ll have
night-mares for a week.”

“There’s no real ending. The Sweeper was
found by a graves detail dispatched to collect the bodies of a
patrol that had been ambushed the previous night by the Viet Cong.
They assumed he was dead, but when they heard him groan, they sent
for the doc.

“The Sweeper lay on his belly. Except for
scratches, abrasions, leeches, insect and rat bites, there appeared
to be no major damage, but when they turned him over onto his back,
the doc, an experienced medic who thought he had seen everything,
almost lost his breakfast—The Sweeper looked like one pulsating
mass of bloated maggots.

“He was medevaced to Qui Nhon, where he died,
some say. Others say he survived and is living in a stateside
mental hospital. An orderly at the hospital in Qui Nhon told
Harrison he thought he heard that The Sweeper had been flown to
Okinawa or some other place with a major army hospital where they
managed to save him.

“If so, the maggots saved him by eating his
putrefying flesh and keeping his wound from becoming
gangrenous.”

Kerry wrinkled her nose. “I hope you’re not
expecting sex any time soon. This story didn’t exactly put me in a
romantic mood.”

He gave her a lazy smile. “Let me see what I
can do about that.”

***

Bob sat propped against the headboard,
squeezing the pink rubber ball, first with one hand and then the
other. In the dim light filtering through the closed drapes, he
could see Kerry asleep next to him, her black hair fanned out on
the pillowcase. At least ten inches separated them, but he felt
their bodies touching. He listened to the slow rhythm of her
breathing and wondered how she could have become so dear to him.
He’d never felt this way about anyone; in truth, he hadn’t known he
could.

Fear iced through his heart. How could he
keep her safe? He’d known all along he ought to stay away from her,
but that seemed to be the one thing he could not do. Then what?
Run? But he doubted they’d be able to find a place beyond ISI’s
grasp. He would have to find out why they wanted him and somehow
neutralize the threat.

He squeezed the pink ball until his hands
ached. If anyone could help him discover the truth, it would be
Harrison with all his connections, but Harrison was halfway into a
six-month world tour promoting his latest best-seller.

“You’re thinking so hard I can hear the gears
grinding,” Kerry said, opening her eyes.

He set the ball on the bedside table.

She sat up and yawned. “What are you
thinking?”

“Trying to figure out how to contact
Harrison.”

Her eyes gleamed. “A séance?”

He drew his head back and studied her. What
game was she playing now?

“His agent should know where he is,” he
said.

“You mean like where he’s buried?”

“What are you talking about?”

Her eyes widened. “You don’t know.”

He frowned. “Know what?”

She put a hand to her mouth. “Harrison’s
dead.”

“No.”

“Yes. I saw it in the paper about six weeks
ago. He died of cancer.”

“That’s not possible.” He felt his throat
tighten, and the words came out sounding strangled. “He looked okay
when I saw him three and a half months ago.”

“All I know is what the papers said.”

He closed his eyes against the sympathy he
saw in her face. “Papers don’t always tell the truth.”

“But what would they gain by lying?”

He jumped out of bed and yanked on his
clothes. “I have to go make a call.”

“There’s a phone here.”

“I’d feel safer at a payphone.”

She nodded. “If you can wait a few minutes,
I’ll drive you.”

While she dressed, he packed his gym bag.

“We’re not coming back?” she asked.

“We’ve been here too long. I’ll get another
place tonight.”

***

Kerry drove Bob to a phone outside a
convenience store.

Armed with a handful of change gleaned from
the bottom of her purse, he made the call to O’Riley’s, a bar
Harrison frequented whenever he stayed in Bangkok.

The owner, Hamburger Dan, answered on the
third ring. “O’Riley’s.”

“This is Bob Stark. I—”

“Bob? Is that you? Where the hell have you
been? Everyone’s looking for you.”

Bob nodded to himself. So it was a mistake
after all. Harrison must still be alive.

“The Lotus Room is closed,” Hamburger Dan
said, “and you haven’t been around for a while. No one knows where
you are.”

“Denver.”

“Denver? What are you doing in Denver?”

“Visiting. Who’s been looking for me?”

“Two Americans who look like spooks. They say
they’re friends of yours, but I’ve never seen you with them.”

“They’re not friends.”

“That’s what I thought. Harrison’s lawyer is
also looking for you. He needs you to get in touch with him. He has
papers for you to sign. Something about Harrison’s will.”

“His will? So he really is . . .” Bob could
not continue.

“Harrison is dead,” Hamburger Dan said
quietly. “He died from cancer.”

“He never told me he had cancer.”

“He didn’t know. He got sick shortly after
returning to New York to get ready for his tour.” A brief pause. “I
thought I told you.”

“This is the first I heard of it. I don’t
understand. If he just got cancer, how can he be dead already?”

A young man with spiked hair and a pair of
miniature handcuffs dangling from one ear crowded Bob. “I need to
use the phone.”

Bob turned his back and strained to hear
Hamburger Dan’s words.

“The cancer was so extensive, he had to have
had it awhile. Even if he had been feeling no pain, he must have
known something was wrong. In the early stages of brain cancer,
people often get paranoid and see elaborate conspiracies where none
exist.”

“Brain cancer?”

“Yes. But the lung cancer killed him.”

Bob swallowed. “He had both lung and brain
cancer?”

“Hey, dude,” the young man said loudly. “You
deaf or something? I told you I need to use the phone.”

Hamburger Dan sighed. “It was a terrible
thing. Before I forget, let me give you the lawyer’s phone numbers.
His main office is here, but he also has one in New York.”

Bob wrote the information on the back of his
motel receipt.