Don Pendleton - Council of Kings

He walked in and explained his visit to a fresh-looking kid from Alabama.

Then he waited for someone with authority. On the radio an English voice was singing about sympathy and the Devil.

Bolan resisted the urge to crush the radio under his boot. This was the rear.

This was how it was back here. He wanted out more than ever.

Ten minutes later a man came to the office in a white coat. He looked like a New York cabdriver, but spoke in educated tones.

"Dr. Morgan," he said, reaching out a hand. "What's the problem?"

Bolan explained. He needed to locate a corpse. There might be some vital intel within the body itself. As he talked they entered the depot. Bolan was hit by the coldness of the air. Then he understood — air-conditioning.

He hadn't felt it in... how long? A past life.

"What's the name and serial number?"

Bolan withdrew the slip of paper from his pocket and read the serial number. They were standing in a giant warehouse divided by rack upon rack of dead GI's in plastic bags. The racks went down the length of the room, parallel, chilling. A thousand dead eyes staring through milky plastic at the ceiling. The predominant smell was of disinfectant.

"You see, a piece of canvas and paper like that would ninety-nine times in a hundred be lost. We have to remove the viscera from the body and then stuff the cavity with cotton soaked in formaldehyde. There's no way we could ship them otherwise. And all that junk goes down into the bins for disposal."

Morgan called to another whitecoat talking to a private in uniform. They came over and the grunt was sent to locate Buddy.

The other doctor doubted they would have seen such a piece of paper.

They told Bolan about their careers as coroners back home. Bolan did not respond.

The grunt called them over and stood waiting with cap in hand, pointing to a long bag on a wheeled stretcher. Morgan unzipped the top of the bag.

Bolan looked down at Buddy's face.

"This one's done. You do this one, Mike?"

"I can't remember. Sergeant, this one's already done. I guess you're a little late."

Bolan looked down at the bag.

Buddy's Mohawk was sticking up beyond the folds of the plastic.

"Cut him open again. I have to be sure."

"Are you crazy? We already took his guts out."

"Cut him open again."

"Sergeant, you don't seem to understand..."

"It's you who doesn't understand, doctor. Get your goddamn knife out, or I'll do it myself."

Morgan turned to the grunt. "Get the guards. This crazy asshole needs cooling off."

The grunt keyed the walkie-talkie and called for guards. Bolan fumed.

"Morgan, your ass is on the line for this."

A door flew open at the far end of the room.

Two MP's trotted in, bats at the ready.

"Sergeant," the doctor said to Bolan, "you'd better watch what you say, or you'll go home in a plastic uniform, too."

Bolan waited for the transport to lift off into the night. Then he vaulted the fence. The depot was not exactly a high security area. He crossed the tarmac without seeing anyone.

The doors at the loading bay were still open.

Bolan walked in as if he belonged there. He saw only grunts. This was probably a new shift.

Inside the storage area he felt again the coolness. The song about the Devil would not leave his head. Without hesitation, Bolan climbed into a forklift and motored down the aisles to the spot where Buddy lay. He checked the serial number of the bag's ID tag and lifted the body onto the pallet of the forklift. Then he motored to the side of the room.

Bolan worked hidden by the forklift. He unzipped the bag, bracing himself against the stench of putrefaction. Buddy stared up at him from a drained face. His skin was a dull grayish green, cold and sagging. Dried mud clung to his scalp. Bolan wondered about the person welcoming Buddy home.

They would never understand what was about to happen.

Bolan forced open the jaws and looked inside. It was an ugly purple-black hole that stank. Nothing.

He took the knife from his pocket and held it to Buddy's neck where the crude stitches began. Buddy's sightless eyes stared at him, his Mohawk stark on his scalp. Bolan closed Buddy's eyes.

He sank the knife into the dead throat and pulled. Buddy's eyes popped open.

Quickly Bolan drew the knife downward to the belly and watched the flesh part along the broken stitches. He separated the flesh and stared in shock.

Bags of white powder sat gleaming among the gray-pink cavity of Buddy's corpse.

Bolan broke one open and tasted it. Heroin.

The vulgarity of it made Bolan sick. In a daze he closed the bag, put it back on the shelf and left.

For once in his life Bolan was too sickened to think.

Bolan sat in a Saigon bar, trying to get Buddy's face to go away, but wherever he looked he saw it. The bar radio called mockingly from home. The songs would never sound the same for him. He hated them, now and forever.

Rage was twisting his guts into a knot.

Three GI's sat on beat-up chairs at a table, crushing beer cans. The ceiling fan crisscrossed them with shadows as they talked at one another of their sexual exploits.

Bolan drowned out their boasting. He had to consider his options: the local police, who were in the pay of the VC or the smugglers or both; the American Military Police, who could just about tie their shoes and swing a bat and not much else; the Division command; or the CIA. Bolan chose the most powerful people in the country: the CIA.

He went to the telephone just as two Vietnamese girls entered the room.

Bolan paused momentarily. They were identical twins, both petite and slender and lovely. He heard a whistle from the GI's and watched the girls ignore the whistle. Bolan telephoned.

He waited through the clicks and buzzes, and eventually got through to someone named Barker, who proceeded to question Bolan in a bored but probing way. Bolan was vague; Barker was feeling him out to see if he was a crazy.

Bolan went as far as he would go, then demanded an interview. Barker took down the location and said he would send someone over.

Bolan hung up and turned around, The GI's stood over the girls who stood mutely at the bar. The girls wanted to leave.

The tallest of the GI's leaned down and beery centered his red-rimmed eyes on one of the twins.

"You not like me, baby-san? You understand I want a little tail tonight?" The GI drained his beer and said to the other, "I think I'm seein' double, Frank. Two fuckin' identical pieces of tail. Man oh man."

"Never liked slant-eyed pussy myself," said Frank, burping.

"Got no complaints about it myself," said the tall one. "So long as I'm sure it ain't dead." The girls tried to leave, but he grabbed them by their wrists. "Oh, hey, the party's just starting."

Bolan felt his hands twitch. He'd seen enough. "Let them go," he said, wearily.

The GI's turned to stare at the big bastard in the sergeant's uniform. Did he want these two women for himself? Conversation stopped; only the radio continued its mocking, something about someone was going to the chapel.

"Come on, Sarge," said one of the GI's, pulling out cash from his pocket. "They're only slopes."

Rage ran through Bolan like electricity. His hands snaked apart, one clutching the GI's uniform at the neck, the other drawing back and then lashing him cruelly in the face. The GI dropped his money, his face running with blood, and sank to his knees. His friend held him, tottering and bleeding, and looked up hotly at the big bastard standing over them. "What are you, a Commie or something?"

The bartender had called the MP's. Now he stood wiping nervously at the bar, half watching. The two GI's were busy trying to lift their friend from the dirty floor before the arrival of the pricks with the hats and bats.