Duty and Dishonor Read online

  Julia sank back against the seat. “Yes, he was.”

  “Which is why I figure I owe you dinner.”

  It took a few seconds for his comment to sink in. “What?”

  “I’m taking you to dinner, Lieutenant. Like in thick, sizzling steaks and fine old cognac. To celebrate your first night in Vietnam.”

  Julia glanced up pointedly at the low-hanging morning sun. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, Captain, but it’s a long time until dinner.”

  “No sweat. I’ll give you a guided tour of the territory first.”

  Julia’s lips twitched. Evidently it didn’t seem to occur to Gabe Hunter that after twenty hours strapped into a cramped airline seat, her knees jammed almost to her chin, she might prefer a hot shower and a clean bed to a day spent in his company.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’m... Watch out!”

  With a colorful oath, her self-appointed driver swerved to avoid a three-wheeled vehicle. It's roofed rear compartment held two side benches and several uniformed personnel. The whole contraption was decorated with gaudy, colored streamers and strings of paper rosettes that fluttered with it putt-putted past them, trailing a plume of black exhaust.

  “What’s that?” Julia asked.

  “A hop-tac. The local version of a cab. It also doubles as a hearse when necessary. A few piasters--Vietnamese dollars--will get you anywhere you need to go on Tan Son Nhut. A few more will take you to the raunchiest bars on Tu Do Street, in downtown Saigon.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  At her deadpan expression, Hunter’s mustache tipped upward. “Sorry, I forgot about ol' Dennis. You never did answer my question. Who is he?”

  “My fiancé.”

  The pilot glanced pointedly at her ringless left hand. Julia shrugged, not exactly sure why she felt the need to explain.

  “We decided it would be better to put the engagement on hold for a while. A year is a long time to spend apart.”

  A hell of a long time, Dennis had said angrily when she returned his ring. People change in the course of a year. Especially in 'Nam. He hadn't wanted her to go, had made no pretense of sympathizing with her reasons for volunteering. She couldn’t avenge her father’s death, any more than she could change the course of the war.

  Maybe not, Julia had agreed quietly. But maybe she could understand both by going to Vietnam.

  “A year is only as long as you want it to be,” Hunter tossed out, pulling her attention back to him. “Most people start counting backward from three hundred and sixty five the day they get here.”

  “Did you?”

  “Nope.” His white teeth gleamed under that ridiculous mustache. “I live every day as hard as I can. And I intend to live today with you, Lieutenant Endicott.”

  Julia thought of all the reasons why she should insist that he take her to the room her sponsor had waiting for her in the women officers’ quarters. She was tired. She was sweaty and wrinkled and slightly overwhelmed by the mere fact that she’d finally arrived in Vietnam. She needed sleep, badly. She needed to iron a fresh uniform to wear when reporting in for duty tomorrow. She had to find out where to report in for duty. That much at least Captain Hunter could do for her, she decided.

  “Can you show me where Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, is?”

  “MACV? Can do easy, Lieutenant. We’ll make it the first point of interest on your tour of the base. Hang on to your seat.”

  Julia wasn’t surprised that Hunter knew MACV’s location, or that he proved to be such an entertaining guide. She suspected that he treated most of the women who stepped off the plane from America to one of his private tours. She had to admit he made a lively companion as he wheeled her around the sprawling base.

  Everywhere they went, she saw evidence of the war. Quonset huts and mobile, relocatable facilities the Americans had thrown up to accommodate their presence in-country crowded next to flimsy wooden buildings and crumbling stucco structures left from the French colonial days. Sandbags surrounded the lower half of most buildings. They protected the occupants and helped contain the debris if the structure took a direct hit from incoming rockets, Hunter explained casually.

  MACV, headquarters for all U.S. military operations in Vietnam, occupied a huge, hangar-like building on the far side of the base. Julia craned her neck as they drove past its fenced complex. That was where she would work for the next twelve months...unless Dr. Kissinger's negotiations achieved peace before she completed her tour of duty.

  She was still trying to memorize the layout of the sprawling base when Hunter made a right turn and swept past a gate. Armed sentries waved them through, then the high walls of stucco topped with jagged glass and concertina wire were behind them. Ahead stretched a hundred or more yards of ruthlessly cleared no-man’s land.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Julia protested, cringing in her seat. A feeling of naked vulnerability swept over her at the sight of that cratered stretch. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

  “This is the best time to see Vietnam,” Hunter assured her. “Before your job and your American prejudices have had time to set. While your mind is still fresh.”

  “My mind feels anything but fresh right now.”

  She glanced around the open space nervously. She half expected to hear the crack of sniper fire at any moment. The war might be winding down, but American troops still came home in body bags every day.

  “Look, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Trust me, Endicott.”

  “Give me one good reason why I should. I don’t even know you!”

  “You will, sweet thing. You will.”

  Julia swallowed her retort as he swung into the opposite lane to pass a string of motorbikes. Horns tooted raucously. Drivers shook their fists and shouted insults. Hunter cut back into his lane a half second away from a collision with an on-coming truck.

  “Lord, I hope you fly better than you drive!"

  “Honey, I fly better than I do just about everything." He threw her the slashing grin she was beginning to recognize as his personal trademark. "Except kiss, maybe.”

  “I'll take your word for that."

  Within moments, the cleared zone gave way to a tumble of shacks and thatched huts that formed the outskirts of Saigon. As they neared what had once been the shimmering pearl of the French colonial empire, Julia saw the devastation that more than twenty years of warfare had left. Many of the city’s outlying buildings were in rubble, victims of rocket or sapper attacks. Those that still stood carried scars in the form of broken windows or cratered walls.

  Despite its wounds, however, downtown Saigon teemed with life. Narrow streets crowded with tawdry bars and tattoo parlors soon gave way to wider, tree-lined avenues. Hondas carrying anywhere from two to five people darted around buses and cars and the occasional bullock cart. The stench of diesel fuel mixed with the heady scent of flowers and burning joss sticks from small, street-side temples.

  Eyes wide, Julia drank in the startling contrasts that Saigon presented. Broad boulevards and curved-roofed temples. French street signs and American cars. Western style mini-skirts and flowing, high-necked silk tunics worn over black pajama pants.

  Having trained as a journalist, she tried to catalogue the images that filled her mind but they were too contradictory, too illusory to process coherently. She wasn’t sure whether she was seeing an Asian city with a surface patina of European paint, or something caught between the old and the new, belonging to neither.

  “That's the Continental Palace,” Hunter informed her, sweeping a hand toward a ten-story building on the corner of the main, flower-filled square. “It's headquarters for those bo chi who are still in country. They can charge the bar girls as well as the drinks to their expense accounts at the terrace bar.”

  "Okay, I'll bite. Who are the bo chi?"

  Hunter swerved around a corner, cutting off a heavily laden bicycle. The two-wheeled vehicle tipped to one side and dumped a toweri
ng basket of produce into the street. A pajama-clad cyclist shook her fist as the Jeep swept past.

  "Number Ten American! You for sure one fuck-fuck driver!"

  Ignoring the shrill insult, Hunter wheeled through the streaming traffic. "Bo chi are foreign correspondents, Endicott. The esteemed journalists you’ll be dealing with for the next year, if we stay in the war that long."

  Julia flicked him a quick look, but saw no sign of the animosity most military personnel felt toward the press corps these days. In that respect, Gabe Hunter stood apart from the many of the other officers Julia knew. By now, she had a sneaking suspicion he stood apart in more ways than that. She’d never met anyone with quite his measure of sheer brass.

  It was only when he finally left the crowded streets behind and drove south, out of the city, that Julia finally experienced the country her father had described in his letters. Here were the endless rice paddies. The water buffalo harnessed two in tandem, pulling heavily laden wooden carts. The pajama-clad women in conical straw hats and thin, wide-eyed children.

  This was Vietnam, once the rice bowl of the orient. A land of thick, impenetrable jungles and sweeping mountains, of lush vegetation and industrious people. The war seemed far away from this quiet, peaceful scene...until the Jeep rounded a bend and the scorched remains of a farmhouse loomed directly ahead. Grim-faced Vietnamese picked through the blackened rubble.

  "The Viet Cong laid a rocket on it last night," Gabe explained in answer to her query. "They were after a truck convoy enroute to Chu Bai, and missed."

  "A rocket attack? This close to the city?”

  His mustache lifted at the squeak in her voice. "Not to worry. You’re safe enough. Charlie usually only operates at night.”

  His breezy assurances didn’t calm Julia’s jumping nerves. She couldn’t quite believe she was in an open Jeep, riding through countryside that had sustained a rocket attack mere hours ago. Her scalp tingling, she was about to insist Hunter turn the vehicle around and take her back to the base when he pulled up at a roadside stand. Two Vietnamese women squatted beside a low fire, patiently rolling a mixture of rice and what looked like vegetables in cabbage leaves. Hunter swung out of the Jeep and strolled around to the passenger side.

  “Come on, Lieutenant.” He held out his hand to help her out of the Jeep. “You’re about to experience your first Vietnamese meal. Kemshi, rice, and cold green tea. That’s all a body needs to ward off hunger, disease, and diarrhea...or bring them on, depending on the strength of your stomach.”

  Julia hesitated, reluctant to leave the illusory safety of the vehicle and even more reluctant to put her hand in Gabe’s. Some deep, ill-defined instinct warned her that once his fingers closed over hers, he might never let go.

  “You only go around once, kid.”

  His eyes glinted with a challenge she couldn’t refuse.

  “That's true for most of us,” Julia muttered, slipping her hand into his. “I’m beginning to wonder about you.”

  By the time Gabe delivered Julia to the two-storied wooden building that housed the women officers, she was limp from exhaustion, yet strangely exhilarated. Her mind whirled with her first impressions of Vietnam, and her stomach grumbled from a combination of highly spiced kemshi and a steak grilled to perfection. Fine, aged cognac curled in her veins, adding to her near stupor. She stumbled getting out of the Jeep, too tired to even lift her legs over the low side panel. Hunter caught her before she tumbled to the ground and swept her into his arms.

  “I love it when women fall all over me,” he murmured, his breath a warm shock in her ear.

  “I’ll just bet you do.”

  Dipping, he reached for her overnight case. Julia clutched his neck for balance. Her body slid into his, damp heat fused to heat.

  “Hunter, put me down.”

  “Relax, Lieutenant." He strode toward the opening in the white wooden fence that surrounded the women’s compound. "I know the way.”

  “Why doesn't that surprise me?”

  Bone tired, she let herself relax against him. Seconds later, she jerked upright as a series of catcalls and whistles filled the night air.

  “Way to go, Hunter!”

  “Attaway, Ace.”

  Her face heating, Julia made out a group of men and women clustered around a rickety picnic table. The table sat on a cement slab bounded on three sides by two-story barracks buildings and a long, low building Julia guessed housed the latrines. A string of light bulbs, most of them burnt out, draped from balcony to balcony and provided dim illumination for the patio area.

  A tall, lanky officer in tiger-striped fatigues lifted a beer in salute. “That’s a new record, Gabe, even for you. Less than ten hours in-country and she’s already in your arms.”

  At Julia’s hissed instructions, her escort let her slide out of his arms. Embarrassed, she tugged at her uniform jacket to straighten it.

  A woman stepped out of the shadows. Dark-haired and doe-eyed, she wore baggy green fatigues that still managed to display a lush, well-rounded figure. A silver bar glinted on each collar.

  “Hello, Julia,” she said with a smile. “I’m Claire Simmons. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Dismayed by her unintentional rudeness to the woman who had written her several helpful, advice-filled letters about what to bring and not bring, Julia extended her hand and apologized sincerely.

  "I'm so sorry. I didn't know you were waiting.”

  The lieutenant’s smile softened into one of genuine warmth. “That's okay. When Gabe said he was picking you up at the air terminal, I knew you were in good hands.”

  “You got that right,” Hunter concurred with a lazy grin. Wrapping an arm around Claire’s waist, he pulled against his side. "The best hands this side of the Pacific."

  With careless grace, he bent and brushed her lips with his.

  Surprise held Julia still. It was followed swiftly by disgust that she’d made herself such an easy mark. She should have known better than to fall for the pilot’s cocky grin and smooth line. Obviously, Gabe Hunter lived up to his name.

  Claire disengaged from his embrace a moment later, her face flushed. Digging into the pocket of her fatigues, she pulled out a small box.

  “I got you a welcome gift.”

  Hesitantly, Julia opened the box. Inside was a tiny silver medal strung on a delicate chain. She lifted the oblong disc, trying to identify the engraved image in the fading light.

  “It’s a St. Christopher medal,” Claire explained with a shy smile. “He’s the patron saint of travelers. We Catholics pray to him to keep us safe while we’re away from home.”

  Julia wasn’t Catholic, nor was she particularly superstitious. But she wasn’t about to turn down any offer of safekeeping. Slipping the chain over her head, she tucked the small disc inside her uniform. The medal felt cool and smooth against her sticky skin.

  “I hope St. Christopher watches over you while you’re here.”

  Claire Simmons' sincerity and warmth touched Julia’s heart. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Hey, you must be exhausted. Your duffel bag’s already in your room. Come on, I’ll show you to your super deluxe suite.” Ignoring the hoots of laughter her comment engendered, Claire took the overnight case from Hunter’s hand. “It’s not much, but it’s all yours... except for the rice bugs and the geckos, of course.”

  Julia followed her up a flight of stairs, then along the narrow balcony to a corner room. Glancing down into the courtyard while her sponsor jimmied a key into a flimsy, slatted wooden door, she caught the casual salute that Hunter tipped to her.

  She turned her back on him. A moment later the wooden door creaked open, and she stepped into the eight by ten room that would be her home for the next twelve months.

  Chapter Three

  With the intensity of a hawk marking its prey, Special Agent Ted Marsh surveyed his suspect.

  “So you knew from the first day you arrived in Vietnam that Captain Hunter was involved with Lie
utenant Simmons?”

  Colonel Endicott seemed unaware of his scrutiny or his prompting. Her eyes stared at the small window behind him. They were distinctive eyes, the investigator noted dispassionately. A deep, shadowy green, with a network of lines radiating from their corners, imperceptible to any but the closest observer.

  Those tiny lines gave Marsh the mental edge he needed with this suspect. They made her more human to him, less perfect than her smooth sweep of silvery blond hair, flawless skin, and high cheekbones would indicate. As he studied the face across from him, Marsh began to understand Captain Hunter’s fatal fascination with this woman.

  “Colonel Endicott?” he prompted.

  She blinked. A frown drew her brows together. “Sorry. What did you say?”

  “I was just confirming that you knew Captain Hunter was involved with Lieutenant Simmons from the first day you met him.”

  “Yes, I knew.”

  Marsh tapped his pencil on the table, measuring the cool, clipped response. This woman was tougher than she looked. A hell of a lot tougher.

  They’d been at it for over an hour now. He’d listened intently as she described her first meeting with Hunter, had drawn her out when she faltered in her narrative. With a skill mastered during his twenty years in the investigative business, Marsh had subtly encouraged the subject to reveal far more of herself than she realized. The picture she’d painted of a determined, idealistic second lieutenant’s arrival in Vietnam fit the detailed profile Marsh had put together on Julia Endicott the day after he took over this case.

  The only child of a career Air Force officer, she’d graduated from college with honors two years early. At a time when many of her classmates were shouting protests and burning draft cards, she’d accepted a commission upon graduation and volunteered for Vietnam right out of Officer Training School. After her year in ‘Nam, she’d served at a number of bases and risen rapidly through the officer ranks. She’d held some very impressive command and staff billets, and excelled in them all according to her efficiency reports.

  Despite the wealth of detail Marsh had extracted from her personnel files, he still didn’t have a feel for the woman behind the officer. Why hadn’t she ever married? Where was the passion behind those cool, enigmatic green eyes? She’d unleashed that passion once, if even half the details Marsh had uncovered about her and the deceased were true. Trying to understand her, he picked up the questioning where he’d left off.