The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(11)

How could there have been somebody in the plane?

No idea.

Well somebody has got to have the data box. The pilot didnt just throw it out the window.

I dont have an opinion about it. I dont want to have an opinion about it.

Western nodded. It doesnt make any difference. We havent heard the last of it.

Why is that?

You dont think we’re going to be asked about this?

I dont know.

Sure you do. Think about it.

He walked out back to the men’s room on the patio. When he came back Red had already left and Oiler was sitting at one of the little tables.

Where was he going in such a hurry?

Oiler kicked back the chair. Sit your ass down. He’s got a date.

He’s got a date?

That’s what the man said.

A date.

Yeah. I asked him if he meant he was going to pick up some skank he’d met and go get a blowjob in a parkinglot somewhere. You know what he said?

No. What?

He said yeah. A date.

Western picked up the beer Oiler had brought from the bar. He shook his head. Jesus.

Yeah.

Let me ask you something.

Ask away.

You guys talk about Nam. Or maybe it’s Vietnam to an outsider. But when I’m around you shut up. It’s like when you walk into a room and everybody stops talking.

I suppose you get that a lot.

I’m serious.

It’s just the way it is. If you werent there you werent there. It doesnt make you a bad person.

Red told me once that you won a bunch of medals.

Won.

Wrong word.

I dont know anybody that went to Nam that ever won anything. Other than a wooden overcoat.

What did you get the medals for?

For being stupid.

I’d like to hear about it.

About being stupid.

Come on.

What’s the point, Bobby?

You were a gunner on a helicopter.

Yeah. Doorgunner. On a gunship. You cant get much dumber than that. Look, Western. You can make up your own story. You wont be far off.

I doubt that.

You dont even know enough to know what to ask.

What’s the most significant thing that has ever happened to you in your life.

In my life.

Yeah.

Okay. Nam. So?

So what’s the most significant thing that didnt happen to me.

Christ.

Just tell me anything. Or something. Try and pretend that I’m not just some dumb fuck.

I dont want to have to explain stuff.

You wont have to. I’ll pick it up.

All right. Fuck it. We were trying to pick up some guys in an LZ and we took rocket fire and went down and I shot a bunch of gooks but the only guy I got out was me. Well, I got one other guy out but he died anyway. I took a few rounds. That’s all. The other guys are still there. Just some bones scattered around in a triple canopy jungle. They damn sure didnt get any medals. What else?

I guess I’d just like to know what it was I missed.

You didnt miss shit.

You know what I mean.

What’s the point, Bobby? You were the smart one, not me. And I pulled two tours. And a tour was thirteen months for Marines. That’s the sort of thing you do when you’re eighteen or nineteen and dumb as a box of hammers.

He picked up his beer and drank and leaned back in the chair and picked at the label with his thumb. He looked at Western.

Go ahead.

Fuck you, Western.

How many times were you wounded?

Anything can be a fucking wound. I got shot five times. How’s that for dumb? Wouldnt you think two or three would be enough? You ought to be able to figure out by then that it probably wasnt good for you. There were guys that just simply walked out of the war. You never hear about them. I dont know how many of them made it. Some guys walked out through Laos to Thailand. I know one guy walked to Germany.

To Germany?

Yeah. A buddy of mine got a letter from him. He’s still there. As far as I know.

Like I wasnt some dumb fuck. All right?

All right. They had a radar-controlled cannon in the triborder area and we sailed through there like we didnt have a fucking care in the world. The first round came through the front of the gunship and exploded in the pilot’s chest. The second round took out the main rotor. Very quiet all of a sudden. Just some grinding noises. The motor had already shut down. I remember thinking as we started down, well you knew this shit was coming and now here it is and you dont have to worry about it anymore. And then I realized we were taking fire from the side of this hill and I looked over at Williamson and he was just hanging in the straps and about that time an RPG came through the tail of the ship and carried that off and I picked up a bunch of metal fragments and I’m unloading this beltfed M60 with a hundred-round belt but we’re wobbling around and half the time I’m just firing at blue sky. I finally quit because the barrel was getting red and I knew it was about to jam and by now we’re dropping like a fucking rock. The copilot was still alive and I looked over at him he had his sidearm out and was chambering a round. And then we hit the canopy.

As in jungle canopy.

Yeah. We hit pretty hard but we were all right. We broke down through all that shit and finally came to a stop about eight feet off the ground. I pulled myself up to the cockpit and asked the lieutenant if he thought he could walk and he said he was damn sure going to give it a try and for me to get him out of there. So I pushed the release on his belt and dragged him down to the door and rolled him out. He just disappeared through a bunch of grass and I got my ammo vest and my weapon and went out after him. Spooky quiet. When I got to the lieutenant he still had hold of his .45 and he looked a little pissed off but I thought that was probably a good thing. He had a lot of blood on him but I figured most of it probably belonged to the captain and I got him up and we went hobbling off through the jungle. And we did that for three days until we finally got picked up at an LZ. Just dumbassed luck. There were gooks everywhere and we never even fired a shot. We got picked up by this Huey and we got back to base and they loaded the lieutenant onto a stretcher and put a blanket over him. He was a ballsy guy. Probably younger than me. Or as young, anyway. I knew he was in a lot of pain. He looked up at me and he said: You’re one good motherfucker. He got rotated stateside and I never saw him again.