Rainfall

fanatically loyal private army.

    MACV knew about Jimmy and me; they had the personnel files. They brought me in one day. “You’re going to have to go in there and get him,” they told me. “He’s selling drugs now, he’s going unauthorized into Cambodia, he’s out of control. This is a public-relations fiasco if it gets out.”

    “I don’t think I can get him out. He’s not listening to anyone,” I said.

    “We didn’t say, ‘get him out.’ We just said, ‘get him,’ ” they told me.

    There were three of them. Two MACV, one CIA. I was shaking my head. The guy from the agency spoke up.

    “Do what we’re asking, and you’ve got a ticket home.”

    “I’ll get home when I get home,” I said, but I wondered.

    He shrugged. “We’ve got two choices here. One is, we carpet-bomb every hamlet in Bu Dop. That’s about a thousand friendlies, plus Calhoun. We’ll just emulsify everyone. It’s not a problem.

    “Two is, you do what’s right and save all those people, and you’re on a plane the next day. Personally, I don’t give a shit.” He turned and walked out.

    I told them I would do it. They were going to grease him anyway. Even if they didn’t, I saw what he had become. I had seen it happen to a lot of guys, although Jimmy was the worst. They went over there, and found out that killing was what they were best at. Do you tell people? Do you put on your resume, “Ninety confirmed kills. Large collection of human ears. Ran private army”? C’mon, you’re never going to fit in the real world again. You’re marked forever, you can’t go back.

    I went in, told the Yards that I wanted to see Crazy Jake. I was known from the missions we had run together, so they took me to him. I didn’t have a weapon; it was okay.

    “Hey, Jimmy,” I said when I saw him. “Long time no see.”

    “John John,” he greeted me. He had always called me that. “You come in here to join me? It’s about time. We’re the only outfit in this fucking war that the V.C. is actually afraid of. We don’t have to fight with one arm tied behind our balls by a bunch of no-load politicians.”

    We spent some time catching up. By the time I told him they were going to bomb him it was already night.

    “I figured they would, sooner or later,” he said. “I can’t fight that. Yeah, I figured this was coming.”

    “What are you going to do?”

    “Don’t know. But I can’t make the Yards my hostages. Even if I could, fuckers’d bomb them anyway.”

    “Why don’t you just walk out?”

    He gave me a sly look. “I don’t fancy going to jail, John John. Not after leading the good life here in the Central Highlands.”

    “Well, you’re in a tight spot. I don’t know what to tell you.”

    He nodded his head, then said, “You supposed to kill me, man?”

    “Yeah,” I told him.

    “So do it.”

    I didn’t say anything.

    “I’ve got no way out. They’re going to vaporize my people otherwise, I know that. And I’d rather it be you than some guy I don’t know, dropping a seven hundred and fifty-pound bomb from thirty-thousand feet up. You’re my blood brother, man.”

    I still didn’t say anything.

    “I love these people,” he said. “I really love them. Do you know how many of them have died for me? Because they know I would die for them.”

    These were not just words. It’s hard for a civilian to understand the depth of trust, the depth of love, that can develop between men in combat.

    “My Yards won’t be happy with you. They really love me, the crazy fucks. Think I’m a magic man. But you’re pretty slippery. You’ll get away.”

    “I just want to go home,” I said.

    He laughed. “There’s no home for us, John. Not after what we’ve done. It doesn’t work that way. Here.” He handed me a side arm. “Don’t worry about me. Save my Yards.”

    I thought of the recruiter, the one who’d given us twenty bucks to pay some woman to sign us into the army as our mother.

    “Save my Yards,” Jimmy said again.

    I thought of Deirdre saying,
Watch out for Jimmy, okay
?

    He picked up a CAR-15, a submachine gun version of the ubiquitous M-16 with a folding stock and shortened barrel, and popped in a magazine. Clicked off the safety so I could see him do it.

    “C’mon, John John. I’m not going to keep asking so nicely.”

    I remembered him putting out his hand after I had fought him to a standstill, saying
You’re all right. What’s your name
?

    John Rain,