Duty and Dishonor Page 6

  “Claire said you couldn’t make the party tonight, so I decided to bring it to you.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks, Hunter. As you might have noticed, I’m on duty.”

  His mustache tipped. “I’m not.”

  Julia tilted her chair back, away from his dominating presence. Suddenly, the office that had seemed so empty just moments before seemed cramped and crowded.

  Too crowded.

  If she swung her chair around, her knees would knock Hunter’s. Unlike hers, his legs were bare. Bare and muscular and covered with gold fuzz. Casually, Julia let her gaze drift to the gaudy tropical shirt that hung unbuttoned over equally garish Bermuda shorts. He’d wrapped a string of love beads around one ankle, she noted. Blue rubber shower clogs completed the ensemble.

  “Is that the best you could do for a costume?”

  “Costume?” He assumed a wounded expression. “This shirt cost me ten bucks during my R&R in Hawaii.”

  “You got taken.”

  Laughter glinted in his blue eyes. “You didn’t see the little wahinie who was selling it.”

  Julia wasn’t buying his brand of rakish charm. Not this time. Folding her arms, she regarded him steadily. “Just out of curiosity, did you take your R&R with this little wahinie before or after you staked your public claim to Claire?”

  The lazy laughter didn’t leave his face, but his voice took on a mocking edge that scraped against her nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard

  “Does it matter?”

  “It matters,” she snapped. “To me, anyway.”

  “It shouldn’t, Endicott. I haven’t made Claire any promises. I never make promises I can’t keep.”

  Julia couldn’t miss the warning...or the challenge. To her disgust, an insidious desire to rise to that challenge licked at her veins. God, she’d love to take him down a peg or two!

  The only problem was, she suspected Gabe Hunter would take her down with him.

  Chapter Five

  Richmond, VA

  "I trusted you."

  Claire didn't try to contain the pain in her voice. She couldn't, even if she'd wanted to. She closed her eyes to the soothing colors of her living room and saw only the blacks and browns and greens of a long ago war. Swallowing the rawness in her throat, she lifted her lids and let her visitor glimpse the agony she'd caused.

  "Damn you, Julia. I trusted you."

  The woman sitting across from her flinched. In stark contrast to the rich wine-colored wingback chair, Julia's face appeared pale, almost bloodless. She leaned forward, every line in her body taut. "You loved Gabe, but you trusted me. Think about that."

  This time it was Claire who winced. The words struck home. "I can't think about anything except my husband," she said bitterly. "And your betrayal."

  "I didn't betray your trust or our friendship."

  "Didn't you?"

  "No."

  The two women stared at each other for long, agonizing moments, unable to breach the chasm that yawned between them.

  Once, they'd been closer than sisters, Claire recalled on another shaft of pain. Once, they'd shared laughter and tears and precious CARE packages from home. How many times had she and Julia gathered in each other's tiny sweatbox of a room to talk about the war, the events happening stateside, the damned heat and humidity? How many evenings had they munched on stale crackers spread with processed cheese and washed them down with Lancer's vin rose purchased at less than two dollars a bottle at the Class VI store?

  Most evenings, Claire recalled with a clarity so sharp it cut like a razor through her searing hurt. Every evening they weren't working and Gabe hadn't claimed her attention.

  After Vietnam...after Gabe...the ties forged between the two women had stretched but had never broken. Julia's subsequent assignments had taken her all over the world. She'd spent a tour in Korea and served on General Schwartzkopf's staff during Desert Storm. Across the years, across the miles, she'd kept in touch and Claire had treasured their friendship.

  Now it lay like a living thing between them, mortally wounded. Dying before their eyes.

  Claire gripped her hands together so tightly that her wedding band cut into the skin at the base of her palm. She glanced down, her eyes glazed with unshed tears. The plain gold band glinted dully in the light from the lamps scattered around the living room.

  Years ago, when she'd bought this house for herself and her son...Gabe's son...Claire had furnished this room around David's boyhood needs. Now, with David married and raising a son of his own, she'd filled it with the Queen Anne style furnishings she loved. The room was all jewel tones, framed colonial prints, and rose-scented potpourri that balanced the sharp, woodsy tang of the pine fire that usually crackled in the fireplace.

  The hearth stood empty tonight, though. As empty and cold as Claire's voice as she forced herself to admit the truth she'd kept locked inside her heart for more than two decades.

  "I wasn't blind, Julia. Or stupid. I watched Gabe's fascination with you grow every day."

  "I didn't encourage it. You know I didn't."

  "No, you didn't," Claire said slowly, painfully. "That's what challenged him. He was determined to break through the barriers you kept erecting."

  Julia didn't have to acknowledge what both women knew was true.

  "Funny, I can see it all so clearly now. Why didn't I see it then, Jules? Why?"

  She closed her eyes, wracked by her own incredible stupidity. How could she have been so naive? So damned trusting?

  Gabe and Julia.

  Fire and ice.

  The determined predator and the stubborn prey.

  Julia's low, strained voice barely penetrated the mists swirling in Claire's mind. "You didn't see it because you were so much in love."

  "I was," she whispered. "I was."

  Memories lit like starbursts on her mind.

  The first time she'd met Gabe, when he'd whisked her away from the major who'd offered her a ride back to the women's quarters from the chow hall, then insisted on a detour to his own hootch.

  Her silent joy at the casual mantle of protection Gabe threw over her after that incident.

  Julia's arrival in Vietnam some months later.

  The wild Halloween party, when Gabe had touched down after his flight with a burning need in his eyes that almost frightened her in its intensity.

  The long hours she'd spent at the Zoo that night, the air heavy with the scent of the grass his hootch-mates had smoked earlier and her body convulsed with a passion she'd never experienced before. Or since.

  And Christmas. That bittersweet Christmas when...

  Oh, God! Christmas!

  Slowly, so slowly, Claire raised her lids and met the shimmering emerald intensity of Julia's gaze.

  "What, Claire? What are you thinking?"

  "I... I was just remember Christmas Eve."

  For the first time, Julia couldn't look at her. Her gaze dropped. Her lashes swept down, hiding all thoughts, all emotions, from view.

  Suddenly, the hurt that had lodged like a heavy weight just under Claire's heart for weeks splintered into a thousand needle pointed shards. She hadn't believed the colonel who'd knocked on her door two weeks ago and informed her that Gabe's remains had been recovered. In the years since Vietnam, she'd experienced too many false hopes and too many heart-breaking disappointments to accept that he had finally been found. For days after the notification, she'd struggled with the inescapable fact that Gabe was really dead.

  A week later, Special Agent Ted Marsh had asked to see her. He'd presented irrefutable proof that implicated Julia in Gabe's disappearance.

  Stunned, Claire had refused to believe the evidence he presented. Even when he'd shown her the St. Christopher medal, she'd denied the staggering possibility that her best friend could have killed the man she'd loved more than life itself. Still reeling, she'd let the OSI agent convince her that she had to refrain from contacting the woman identified as the prime suspect in the case.

 
; Then Julia had contacted her.

  And now... Now Claire understood the significance of that long ago night when both the North Vietnamese and the two people she loved had violated the fragile Christmas truce.

  "It happened Christmas Eve, didn't it?" Her voice hoarse, she forced out the words. "Whatever ended with Gabe's death first happened on Christmas Eve. Didn't it?"

  Her eyes bleak, Julia acknowledged what Claire now knew with soul-shattering certainty. "Yes.”

  Tan Son Nhut AB, Vietnam

  December 24th, 1971

  "I don't like it."

  Claire frowned at the huge black and white sector map pinned to one wall of the Infiltration Surveillance Center. A line of small white circles tracked from Tchepone in southern Laos, down the eastern border of Cambodia, and into South Vietnam.

  "What's not to like?" the captain who'd put in the long shift with her asked. "As usual, Charlie's using this so-called Christmas truce to move supplies south. As usual, we're going after him with everything we've got. The truck count's up. So are our kills."

  "Yes, they are."

  Claire's gaze remained fixed on the white circles. Each represented enemy movement as detected by seismic and acoustic sensors strung along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Dropped along known routes by low-flying aircraft in strings of six to eight, the self-destructing sensors relayed signals to orbiting aircraft, which in turn transmitted it real time to the Infiltration Center.

  Along with a cadre of other intelligence officers, Claire had spend more hours than she could count these past months analyzing the electronic data to identify enemy truck convoys. The results of their analyzes were then fed to fighters and gunships tasked to take out the moving targets. It was grueling work, requiring intense concentration and careful coordination.

  Only now, after this particularly long shift, did she have time to focus on the larger composite picture. Trends over the past few weeks showed a disturbing increase in estimated enemy tonnage moved, truck storage areas uncovered, and new roads hacked through the jungle. While everyone expected an offensive with the coming of the Lunar New Year at the end of January, Claire was beginning to have the uneasy feeling that the North was planning to mount a larger thrust than previously predicted.

  What was more, she knew from the other Intel sections that all military regions were reporting an increase in contacts with North Vietnamese regular army units. Earlier today a patrol had discovered a NVA troop concentration just forty miles northwest of Saigon. In a separate incident, the Communists shelled a firebase a few miles from Pleiku in the Central Highlands. Even now, two hours into the truce, she'd heard reports of firefights erupting in areas previously thought secure.

  "I don't like it," she repeated, eyeing the sector map. "I'm going over to the Tactical Control Center. I want to see what's going on."

  As usual, the Control Center hummed with activity. The pulsing nerve center for all allied air operations in the Vietnam theater, it was manned around the clock by USAF and VNAF personnel. Phones rang constantly. Radios crackled as pilots called in coordinates. Trackers grease-penciled call signs and flight data on floor-to-ceiling Plexiglas panels.

  Claire's boss had mandated that all of his subordinates spend at least four hours a week at the Control Center. He wanted them to see and hear and experience the immediacy of the intelligence they provided. Claire usually spent far more time at the center -- particularly when she knew Gabe was flying."

  "What's up?" she asked the communications tech manning one of the radio consoles.

  "Tango India Charlie," he replied succinctly.

  TIC. Troops in contact.

  Some Christmas truce, Claire thought wearily.

  "Where?"

  "Thirty-five miles northwest of Saigon. We've pulled one of our Shadows from his box. He's enroute now."

  Claire's heart thumped. The Shadows were gunships. Heavily armed AC-119s flown by Special Ops. Equipped with flares and searchlights, they could light up the sky.

  Gabe flew a Shadow. He was in the air tonight, she knew, training a VNAF crew in gunship operations over their designated operational "box." She'd planned to join him later, after he got down, at the Christmas party he and his hootch mates were throwing.

  Her gaze zinged to the grease-penciled call sign on the status board. Shadow seven-seven. Gabe's call sign.

  The tech noted her sudden, intense interest. "I can pull them up on the UHF. Want to listen in?"

  Nodding, she reached for a headset. Static buzzed over the earphones as the radio operator searched for the right frequency. Then Gabe's voice leaped across the airwaves. Her heart hammering, she heard him identify himself to the forward air controller directing air support.

  "...Dancer seven-four, this is Shadow seven-seven."

  "This is Happy Dancer seven-four. Glad you're here, Shadow."

  "What have you got?"

  "Troops under attack by a reinforced company of NVA. They're about to overrun the base camp. We need more candlepower. How far out are you?"

  "Ten minutes."

  "Can you make it any quicker? We need help fast?"

  "Roger that, FAC. We'll go to max power. Tell the good guys to hang in there."

  Claire had spent enough time with Gabe and the other gunship crews to understand the risk. He was pushing the AC119's reciprocating engines to max power. Keeping the engines at that level for a sustained period could tear them right off their mounts or blow their cylinders, but it would cut precious minutes off the time to target.

  Her chest tight, she watched the sweep of the second hand on the clock above the status board. Three minutes. Four. Five.

  "Happy Dancer, this is Shadow seven-seven. We're approaching your coordinates. I've got Trong Son village and the river right below me. Where do you want us?"

  "About 10 klicks up river. I'm talking to the ground troops now."

  "I can see the tracers," Gabe radioed a few moments later. "Looks like things are pretty hot down there.

  ""You said it. Light 'er up, Shadow."

  "Roger that, FAC. Get ready for some sunshine."

  With its night observation sight, 1.5 million candlepower illuminator, and on-board supply of flares, the AC119 put teeth in its motto "Deny them the dark." Claire had flown aboard the gunship several times and seen it turn night into day. Her fists clenched, she waited for the brilliant illumination she knew would presage the gunship's direct combat role.

  Mere seconds later the forward air controller gave a shout of glee. "Way to go, Shadow! It's high noon down here. I can see the buttons on the fuckers' uniforms."

  "We aim to please, FAC. Put us in orbit and we'll give 'em a taste of the seven-six-two's."

  "Roger, Shadow. Just keep your eyes open. Charlie might have brought some anti-air with him.

  ""We'll find out soon enough."

  Claire could detect the change in Gabe's voice. He words came faster. Jerkier. Colored by the high that came with the nearness of death. So many of the fliers she'd gotten to know in Vietnam were like that. Grunts, too. Adrenaline junkies, the docs called them. They pumped pure bravado. Operated on sheer nerves. They had to, to get themselves up to face death every day.

  Some became addicted to the rush that came with the constant pressure and action. A growing number, Claire knew from the statistics briefed at weekly staff meetings, turned to drugs when the rush couldn't be sustained.

  Her heart pounding, she held her breath while Gabe banked his aircraft to point its side-mounted guns downward and put the plane in a tight orbit over the target. Then the FAC said the words every pilot waited to hear.

  "You're cleared in hot, Shadow."

  "Merry Christmas, you bastards."

  Gabe's snarl came through the earphones. Seconds later, the 119's guns spit a deafening, rapid-fire thunder.

  The firefight was over in less than fifteen minutes. Gabe's circling gunship rained down a hail of devastating fire on the attackers before dropping more flares to allow the defenders to launch a
counterattack. The NVA withdrew into the jungle. Gabe and his crew illuminated their retreat for the F-4 fighters that swooped in with bombs and napalm.

  "Thanks, Shadow," the FAC radioed. "I'll get with the good guys tomorrow and count coup for your BDA."

  Claire closed her eyes. The forward air controller would spend his Christmas morning counting bodies for the required Battle Damage Assessment. More numbers for Julia to feed into her press releases.

  "Roger that, FAC. Let's go home, guys. Time to sing some carols."

  Her hand shaking, Claire pulled off the headset and handed it to the grinning communications tech.

  "Helluva truce, huh, lieutenant?"

  She nodded, swiping sweaty palms down the sides of her green fatigue pants. "Would you call me when Shadow seven-seven touches down?"

  "Will do."

  The call came a half hour later. Knowing Gabe would have to conduct an extensive mission debrief, Claire decided to stay at her desk a while yet.

  The numbers still bothered her.

  Every intelligence data collection source, both active and passive, indicated that the North was moving its regular troops and supplies in preparation for another offensive. MACV knew it was coming. The South Vietnamese knew it was coming. The media traded speculation daily about when it would happen.

  Just yesterday, Julia had told Claire, a reporter for Reuters had quizzed a government spokesman about it at the daily media briefing. Dubbed the five o'clock follies by the press, the briefing constituted an exercise in hostility and frustration for all participants. According to Jules, this session had turned more acerbic than usual. The South Vietnamese colonel who doled out his government's version of the war had denied all signs of an impending storm and warned against rumor-mongering. Flatly, he'd refused to confirm information reporters could pick up from any grunt or bar girl.

  Like everyone else, Claire knew it was coming. But now she worried that when the storm broke, it would prove more ferocious than anyone had expected. The firefight Gabe had just participated in involved uniformed regulars operating in an area thought to be occupied only by the VC. Just how many NVA regulars had slipped south? How big an offensive did they intend to launch? And when?