“Yeah, all the luck in the world,” Adam said.
“Mr. Walton?” It was Leah Gentry again. She was wearing a boonie cap in the same shades of brown as her utilities and mirrored sunglasses. She had a decidedly unmilitary, traffic-stopping, lime-green backpack with a picture of Minnie Mouse emblazoned on it slung over one shoulder, and in her other hand she carried a large, locked, fire-engine-red toolbox. “Sir, I was wondering if I could speak to you for a moment.”
“Hey, don’t go calling me sir.” B.J. grinned.
“Yes, sir, B.J.” Her lips tightened momentarily, then curved into a heart-stopping smile.
“Never made it past PFC, myself. Adam here was a corporal, though. No wait. You ended up with sergeant’s stripes before you got out, didn’t you, Marine?”
Adam ignored his friend’s question. “I think she’s deferring to your age, not your rank.”
B.J. laughed loudly enough to turn heads in their direction. “That’s a low blow, buddy.” He turned to Leah. “And even more of a reason for you to cease and desist, Captain, ma’am.”
“Captain?” Adam repeated.
“Officer on deck, old pal,” B.J. said, slapping Adam on the back as he made his little joke. “Ms. Gentry here’s an officer in the United States Army.”
“You’re active duty?” He hadn’t expected that. He’d noticed the utilities, but had her pegged for a military wanna-be or maybe a weekend warrior, not regular army.
“Reserves since ’94.”
“Desert Storm?”
B.J. answered first. “And Somalia and Bosnia. I told you I only get the best. Leah knows the ropes. And she’s not going to go into a screaming panic if the lights go out or some ex-Charlie bureaucrat with delusions of grandeur starts hasslin’ us about our paperwork. We’re damned lucky to have her, so don’t go giving her a hard time.”
“It’s too late,” Leah said mildly. “Mr. Walton, could you spare me one of the interpreters to run interference with the customs officer?” She lifted the big metal case a few inches. “I’ve got everything I need to work in here. I don’t want any of it confiscated by some round-butt desk jockey with an overactive sense of duty or a quick eye for a bribe. If I don’t work, Dr. Sauder doesn’t, either. Or anyone else, for that matter,” she concluded with a grin.
“I’ll walk you through myself,” B.J. said, suddenly all business. “It’s liable to take some time to get us all through the red tape, so we might as well start with you. The commies may have lost the cold war, but they won the paperwork one. Then I’m coming back to ask for volunteers to stay with the plane. I don’t intend to see any of our stuff get ‘liberated’ . by any of those desk jockeys you mentioned and end up on the black market. Can I count on you, Captain?”
“Certainly. Just tell me when.”
“I’d like to get everyone squared away at the hotel ASAP. Would you be willing to take the first shift with the plane? I’ll leave Adam here with you. Got a problem with that, Marine?” B.J. asked in a softly challenging tone. He had made his peace with the past. He knew Adam had not.
“No,” Adam said. “No problem.”
“Great. It’s settled, then. I’ll make sure the government liaison guy they promised to have waiting for us gets us some guards. Once they’re stationed around the plane all you have to do is stick around a while to make sure they stay honest. Piece of cake.”
Adam wasn’t so sure of that, but maybe with Leah Gentry to keep him company, he could fill the silence of the present with the sound of her voice and keep the horror of the past at bay.
CHAPTER TWO
ADAM WALKED OUT onto the balcony of his hotel room to greet the sunrise in a country he’d hoped never to see again.
“Good morning, Doctor. You’re up early.”
He swung around. Leah Gentry was standing on another postage-stamp-size balcony next to his. She looked fresh and rested, even though they hadn’t gotten to their hotel rooms until after midnight the night before. “Good morning. Is that coffee you’re drinking?” He’d given up alcohol years ago, cut down on his red meat and smoked only the occasional cigar, but he’d refused to give up coffee.
“Yep. I made it myself.” She laughed, the wonderful, lilting laugh he’d found himself beginning to crave as though it were...coffee. “I’m not fit for human company if I don’t get my fix in the morning, so Mom sent along one of those little coffeemakers and every conceivable electrical adapter. Luckily one of them worked. The wiring in this hotel is... eccentric,” she finished diplomatically. “Would you like a cup? The door’s unlocked. Help yourself.”
“Thanks, I’ll be right over,” he heard himself say, and wasn’t as surprised as he would have been only twenty-four hours earlier.
The time they’d spent together at Than Son Nhut hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected. True to his word, B.J. had gotten Leah and her tackle box full of anesthetic drugs and instruments through customs in under an hour, some kind of record in Vietnam. And true to his word, the Vietnamese official had shown up with his armed guards—sober young men dressed in dull green fatigues and pith helmets that sported a red star. With AK-47s slung over their shoulders, they took their places on each side of the hangar door.
Left alone in the vast echoing space, he and Leah had made small talk, played gin rummy on Leah’s tackle box and listened to the drumming of rain on the metal roof. It was November, the tail end of the rainy season, so the downpour lasted for less than an hour, instead of half the day.
The sun was setting when the rain stopped. The air had cooled ever so slightly. Leah produced apples and oranges, peanut butter and cheese crackers and bottled water from her backpack. They shared their makeshift meal with the guards, who spoke English far better than Adam spoke Vietnamese. As darkness fell, a little battery-powered lantern materialized from yet another pocket of Leah’s backpack. It fought the darkness to a standstill in a small circle around them.
As the hours slowly passed, he’d kept her talking about her work, about growing up an army brat and about her family. He’d learned her parents were retired, her father after thirty years in the military, her mother after a career as a teacher. One brother was a U.S. Navy SEAL, one a navy chaplain, the third an army Green Beret.
And in return he had given up a few details of his own life during the dark minutes before midnight—broken home, one brother, who lived in California, he saw only now and then. Both parents dead. They’d lived hard and died young, he’d told her. She hadn’t asked for more details and he hadn’t offered them. He told her about the judge who’d given him the choice of joining the U.S. Marine Corps, or going to jail for a joyride that had resulted in a totaled car. He’d taken advantage of college courses the Corps offered, found he was a good student and went on to medical school. And then the unrelenting grind of a neurosurgical internship and residency, followed by one marriage, one son, one divorce and all the nightmares he could handle. This last he hadn’t spoken aloud.
Than Son Nhut he’d faced and survived. This morning it was Saigon. The city had fallen to the victorious enemy only one day after his helicopter had lifted off the airfield. He wondered if Leah’s company might be as potent a talisman against the past today as it had been yesterday.
He walked the few feet down the hallway to her room and pushed