Kilo-29 (Damned of the 2/19th, Book 15)

Part 37

Site Kilo-29
Winter, 1993
Day Three-Night

Richardson had been my friend. We'd drank together, fought with other people together, hit on the same girls and sometimes fucked the same girls after the other one was done with her. We both like 'fun girls' and the same type of girl. Well, he liked blondes with thick bodies and I liked women. He'd been part of the crew that had been sent to the barracks to clean it up and repair it after that first winter, and had been trapped there when it turned ugly. He's been there when they'd sent us back after the second winter, and both times he'd stood shoulder to shoulder with us.

The spring of 1990 he'd been PCS'd, left the unit, and both of us had figured he'd escaped Tandy by getting out of the hell hole that was 2/19th. He'd been sent to Johnston Atoll, sunny and warm and not too far from Hawaii, and rumor control said you could grab the weekly mail flight if there was space and hitch a ride to spend the weekend at Pearl Harbor.

He'd been close to Stokes, sent her pictures when he got there, and Stokes had taken a flight to Hawaii out to be there when Richardson had gotten married in June of that year to a pretty blond Navy girl.

All of us, and the crew he'd worked with that was still in 2/19th, had flown out to the States less than 2 weeks later. His wife had been crossing the street when a fucking drunk plowed her with a car. She'd taken six hours to die.

Stokes had held him for hours while he cried. I'd goaded him into punching me in the face, and we'd rolled around fighting as he took out his rage at everything that life had taken from him on me. Afterwards Stokes had held him more, and he and I and the other boys had sat in the darkness after the girls went to bed while he talked quietly in the dark.

It was ritual we'd developed in 2/19th.

Now he was dead, sitting in the driver's seat of my vehicle, dead and looking like he'd gone missing in the winter and we'd just found him in the spring.

He looked like Tandy had when we'd found him.

If he'd been strangled.

And disemboweled.

Nancy was staring silently, muscles rippling along her jaw as she clenched her teeth, her eyes glittered with unshed tears but I could tell how angry she was by her stance.

You don't fuck someone for 4 years and not know them.

Bomber stood there, clenching his fists, his teeth bared in a vicious snarl. He was angry as hell, in a killing mood, staring at his friend sitting dead in the driver's seat of the Gypsy Wagon.

Taggart stood next to Bomber, weeping softly, her hands clenched and up under her chin as she stared at one of her few friends.

"Goddamn it." I snarled, pulling the dogtags free of Richardson's grip and shoving them in my pocket. I reached out, digging in Richardson's shirt, and pulling the dogtags free. The chain broke with a snap, and I pushed them into my pocket with the other dogtags I was carrying.

"Please, be gentle with him, please." Nancy said softly.

Kincaid looked right at Nancy, then shook his head like he was shaking off a punch.

"We need to get him out of there, we can't leave him like that." Kincaid said.

"Shads, in the back right pocket of my ruck there's a poncho, will you get it?" I asked, reaching out and touching Richardson's face.

His wife had had a child before they got married, and now the little blond girl, with sun browned skin, who Stokes had showed me pictures of, was all alone.

Another victim.

I could feel Shads digging my poncho out. He came around in front of me, letting it drop out of the way I'd rolled it up after folding it tightly.

"Kincaid, help me with him." I said.

"You knew him, didn't you?" Donaldson asked softly. He pulled a cravat out of his pocket and stepped forward. "Let me, Sergeant. Let us handle it."

I stepped back, almost falling backwards because of the snow. I was shivering in the cold, but didn't care. Donaldson folded the cravat and tied it across Richardson's face, obscuring the empty eyesockets and missing nose. Shads laid the poncho on the snow, and while I watched it Kincaid and Donaldson gently pulled Richardson out of the Gypsy Wagon and laid him on the poncho.

It was then I saw the bullet wound in his leg, and I knew why I hadn't been able to tell Agent Killain had been lying. Someone had shot him in the leg, and left him where Tandy could get him.

Nancy knelt down next to him, reaching out and touching the cravat. "Oh, Richie." She said, her voice heartbroken. "Oh, Katie." Richardson's daughter.

Taggart knelt in the snow, embracing the dead man. "I'm so sorry, baby." Out of all of us, her voice was the most expressive of us, and the loss and pain in her voice almost drove me to my knees. "I thought you were safe, baby."

Bomber leaned over and touched Richardson's chest, over where the US ARMY was half ripped away. "Goodbye, brother." He straightened up and stared at me. "That's another of you guys." He chuckled, although there was no humor in the sound. "It's starting to get creepy."

Taggart leaned stood up, moving up behind Shads and leaned forward. Her lips were almost touching his ear as she stood on her tiptoes. I could see her lips move as she whispered in the young man's ear, her tear filled eyes holding mine. Shads' nostrils flared and I could see his pupils dilate. She smiled as she stepped back and walked off into the darkness.

Bomber stepped up to Kincaid, reaching out and touching the other man's chest. "You're one of us, now, K-Bar." He turned and walked away, following Taggart.

Nancy moved up to me, leaning up and brushing her lips across mine, then moved to stand in front of Donaldson. "Keep him stable, keep him from going full apeshit on everything." She leaned forward and brushed her lips across his cheek. "Bring him home to us, Donaldson, bring him home to his wife and me." She kissed his other cheek. "Do not let him go overboard, he will use nuclear weapons to decon this site." She moved by him, her shoulder passing through his.

She walked away, looking over her shoulder and smiling at me before she disappeared in the darkness.

"Come home to me, bunny." Heather's voice came from behind me, and I felt her lips brush the flat spot on the back of my skull. "Come home to us."

My headache vanished.

"Do you want to say anything, Sergeant?" Shads asked. I nodded, clenching my fists and struggling to push back the anger far enough to think.