David Morrell - First Blood

'There's no mystery. I ran faster.' The memory of how he had bolted in panic, leaving Shingleton, made him disgusted, bitter.

'That's the point,' Trautman said. 'You shouldn't have been able to run faster. He's younger than you, in better condition, better trained.'

The radioman had been sitting by the table listening to them. Now he turned from one to the other and said, 'I wish I knew what you guys were talking about. What's this reservoir?'

'You weren't in the service?' Trautman said.

'Sure I was. In the navy. Two years.'

'That's why you never heard of it. If you had been a marine, you'd know the details by heart and you'd brag about them. The Choisin Reservoir is one of the most famous marine battles of the Korean war. It was actually a retreat, but it was as fierce as any attack, and it cost the enemy thirty-seven thousand men. Teasle was right in the center of it. Enough to earn a Distinguished Service Cross.'

The way Trautman referred to him by name made Teasle feel strange, as if he were not in the same place with them, as if he were outside the truck listening, while Trautman, unaware he was being overheard, talked about him.

'What I want to know,' Trautman asked Teasle, 'was Rambo aware that you were in that retreat?'

He shrugged. 'The citation and the medal are on my office wall. He saw it. If it meant anything to him.'

'Oh, it meant something to him, all right. That's what saved your life.'

'I don't see how. I just lost my head when Shingleton was shot, and ran like a goddamn scared rat.' Saying it made him feel better, publicly confessing it, out in the open, nobody criticizing him for it when he wasn't near.

'Of course you lost your head and ran,' Trautman said. 'You've been out of that kind of action for years. In your place who wouldn't have run? But you see, he didn't expect you to. He's a professional and he naturally would think that somebody with that medal is a professional too — oh, a little out of practice and certainly not as good as him, but still he would think of you as a professional — and it's my guess he went after you on that basis. Did you ever watch a chess match between an amateur and a pro? The amateur wins more pieces. Because the pro is used to playing with people who have a reason and pattern for every move, and here the amateur is shifting pieces all over the board, not really knowing what he's up to, just trying to do the best he can with the little he understands. Well, the professional becomes so confused trying to see a nonexistent pattern and allow for it, that in no time he's behind. In your case, you were in blind flight, and Rambo was behind you trying to anticipate what somebody like himself would do for protection. He would have expected you to lie in wait for him, to try to ambush him, and that would have slowed him down until he understood, but then it would have been too late.'

The radioman had just slipped on his earphones to listen to a report that was coming through. Now Teasle saw him staring blankly at the floor.

'What's wrong? What's happened?' Teasle said.

'Our man who was shot in the head. He just died.'

Sure, Teasle thought. Dammit, sure.

So what are you letting it bother you for, like it was something you didn't expect? You were already certain he was going to die.

That's the trouble. I was certain. Him and how many others before this is through.

'God help him,' Teasle said. 'I can't think of another way to go after that kid except with all these men, but if I could have anything in the world, I'd want it to be just me and him again.'

The radioman took off his earphones and stood soberly from the table. 'We were on different shifts, but I sometimes used to talk to the guy. If you don't mind, I'd like to go walk around for a while.' He climbed distracted down the open end of the truck to the road, and paused a moment before he spoke again. 'Maybe that supply van is still parked down the road. Maybe I'll get some doughnuts and more coffee. Or something.' He paused a moment longer, then walked off, disappearing into the darkness.

'If it was just you and the kid again,' Trautman said, 'he'd know how to come after you this time. On a straight run. He'd kill you for sure.'

'No. Because I wouldn't run now. Up there I was afraid of him. I'm not anymore.'

'You should be.'

'No, because I'm learning from you. Don't go after a man until you understand him. That's what you said. Well, I know enough about him now that I could take him.'

'That's just stupid. I hardly told you anything about him. Maybe some party-game psychiatrist could build up a theory about his mother dying of cancer when he was young, his father being an alcoholic, about when his father tried to kill him with a knife, and how he ran from the house that night with a bow and arrow that he shot at the old man, nearly killing him. Some theory about frustration and repression and all that. How there wasn't enough money to eat and he had to quit high school to work in a garage. It would sound logical, but it wouldn't mean anything. Because we don't accept crazies. We put him through tests, and he's as well-balanced as you or I.'

'I don't kill for a living.'

'Of course not. You tolerate a system that lets others do it for you. And when they come back from the war, you can't stand the smell of death on them.'

'At the start I didn't know he was in the war.'

'But you saw he wasn't acting normally, and you didn't try very hard to find out why. He was a vagrant, you said. What the hell else could he have been? He gave up three years to enlist in a war that was supposed to help his country, and the only trade he came out with is how to kill. Where was he supposed to get a job that needed experience like that?'

'He didn't need to enlist, and he could have gone back to work in the garage.'

'He enlisted because he figured he was going to be drafted anyhow, and he knew the best trained cadres that gave a man the best chance to stay alive didn't take draftees, only enlisted men. You say he could have gone back to the garage. That's some cold comfort, isn't it? Three years, and he gets a Medal of Honor, a nervous breakdown, and a job greasing cars. Now you talk about fighting him one-to-one, yet you imply there's something diseased about a man who kills for a living. Christ, you haven't fooled me, you're as military as he is, and that's how this mess got started. I hope you do get a one-to-one fight with him. It'll be the last surprise of your life. Because he's something special these days. He's an expert at his business. We forced him into it over there, and now he's bringing it all back home. To second-guess him even once, you'd have to study him for years. You'd have to go through every course he took, every fight he was in.'

'For a captain, the way you're talking, you don't seem to like the military very much.'

'Of course I don't. Who in his right mind would?'

'Then what are you staying in it for, especially doing that job of yours, teaching men to kill?'

'I don't. I teach them to stay alive. As long as we send men anywhere to fight, the most important thing I can do is make damn sure at least some of them come back. My business is saving lives, not taking them.'

'You say I haven't fooled you, that I'm as military as he is. I think you're wrong. I do my job as fair as I know how. But let's leave that for a second. Because you haven't fooled me, either. You talk about coming here to help, but so far that's all you've done — talk about it. You claim you're out to save lives, but you haven't done one thing yet to help prevent him from killing more people.'

'Suppose something,' Trautman said. He slowly lit a cigarette from a package that was on the radio table. 'You're right. I have been holding back. But suppose I did help. Now think about this. Would you really want me to help? He's the best student my school ever turned out. Fighting against him would be like fighting against myself, because I suspect he was pushed into this —'