Chuck Logan - The Price of Blood

Nina squinted and made a face. “Doesn’t look like our numbers have increased during the night.”

Broker busied himself with pouring sand from his filthy socks. He put his busted-up tennis shoes back on and laced them tightly. Amazingly, the pain in his thumb had diminished since Trung Si had applied his gunk.

Trin was nowhere in sight.

Through his stiffness, Broker smelled the blessing of brewing coffee. They were fed steamed rice and dirty glasses of coffee. The coffee was good. Nothing else was.

They sat and shared a cigarette in the cover of the willows, ragamuffins behind a clean sand dune.

Where was the militia?

Somewhere, away from their beach, there were governments and courts of law and the police. All of which Broker had avoided in order to deal directly with Nguyen Van Trin. On the beach there was only their pounding hearts, sweat, the itch of sand fleas, and the stink of betrayal. A fiery salmon sky streaked with lavender started to burn through the mist.

Two hundred yards away they could now see Lola LaPorte wander up and down the beach, picking up driftwood and adding it to the fire. A short compact figure walked the water’s edge and that was Trin. Gradually the mist lifted and then the sun broke the line of the sea like the blazing helmet of an approaching giant. They could see the boat, a white blur on the horizon.

“The Lola ,” said Nina with cold pride at her retention of detail. “She’s a hundred-five footer. Norwegian steel pilothouse research vessel. Built in 1960. She has a fancy yacht interior, heated and air-conditioned cabins for a crew of ten. Caterpillar diesels. Two generators, an emergency backup. She has a seven-thousand-mile range at ten knots. She cost LaPorte seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars five years ago.”

“Subtract Virgil and he could still have a dozen guys counting Bevode,” speculated Broker.

“They drove me down from Hanoi in the Mercedes and I was blitzed. Never saw more than two or three at a time,” said Nina.

“You know,” said Broker, glancing around, “we’re real exposed out here. Where the hell is the militia?”

“I’m not a big fan of AK-47s, but we could use a couple dozen about now,” said Nina, gnawing her cracked lip.

“I don’t think we should stick around to find out.” Broker stubbed out his cigarette and dusted sand from his palms. They stood up and stretched. The silent, walnut-faced cripple with the rifle motioned them toward the beach. Trin stood a hundred yards away. Lola was closer.

She looked up, smiled, and called out, “Good morning, Vietnam.” It was written across his chest.

“Trin’s out of pistol range. I think I can get that rifle. Then we head for the trees. Fast,” said Broker under his breath to Nina.

“Just say when.”

Because Lola had spoken, Broker steered toward her. She watched him approach, hands on her hips, with the wind in her hair, like a tarnished stainless-steel madonna. She had marvelous recuperative powers. The spot under her right eye where he’d hit her was hardly bruised.

Broker stopped ten feet from her. Nina lagged a little behind. The guard labored to keep up on his artificial leg. He came up on Broker’s left side. The rifle hung casually in his hands at arm’s length. Not real alert, this guy.

Lola folded her arms and smiled. “Well, how do you like the big time, Minnesota?” she said with a confident edge to her voice.

“You know, I almost trusted you,” said Broker.

“You didn’t really hope to take down Cyrus and Bevode…with these scarecrows? And that ?” She jerked her head at Trin who stood at the water’s edge regularly checking his wristwatch and shooting impatient looks up the slope at the trees near the three old graves.

“So now what?” said Broker, edging slightly toward the man with the rifle.

She smiled indulgently. “We’re really not bad people once you get to know us. You just caught us in an extreme situation.”

The urgent growl of an approaching motor vehicle carried to the beach. Behind them in the dunes. Broker saw that Trin heard it too. He snapped his head in a self-important gesture. Agreeing with something he had just said to himself.

“Okay,” he yelled to Lola.

She grinned at Broker. “Mr. Trin is about to get the surprise of his life.” She withdrew a compact, solid-state radio from her purse, whipped up the antennae, pushed the transmit button, and said, “Come to Mama.”

Nina had moved beside Broker. Her eyes trailed back toward the dunes. “You think…?”

But Broker was watching the guard, who was momentarily distracted, fascinated with the shiny radio. Broker swept out his foot, hooking the man’s good leg and wrenching the rifle away as he toppled.

He hefted the rifle, covering Trin for a moment. Then they turned and sprinted up the slope. Broker heard Trin’s warning yell, “Don’t do it, Phil…” But they’d gained the crest and pounded past the surprised vets, who knocked over their pot of rice as they struggled to rise from their cookfire.

The trees were thickest a hundred yards away. That’s where they headed. From the corner of his eye Broker spotted the gray van: Vietnam Hue Tours. Parked at the edge of the woods. He shot out his left hand, cautioning Nina, slowed his pace, and shifted the old bolt-action rifle up in his right hand, holding it like a long dueling pistol. His thumb fumbled on the unfamiliar safety. Breath coming in long ragged gasps. Nina not doing much better.

“Broker!” Nina.

Cyrus LaPorte stepped from the shadow of the trees. Red pirate bandanna. Real nonchalant in his pukka sahib desert duds. Another guy appeared. Hard-looking guy. Blue tank-top shirt, lots of muscle, no hat, short-cropped black hair. Had a rifle slung on his shoulder. The guy reached into the trees and pulled Trung Si into the sun-light. Not rough, like, C’mon…

What the fuck …

“Militia my ass. We’ve been had,” Broker panted, lurching to a full stop in the sand, rifle coming up smooth. Blue shirt first. Seventy yards. Couldn’t miss. Casually, Blue Shirt unlimbered his AR-15. Why did they just stand there?

Broker found out why when he squeezed the trigger and the bolt snapped on an empty chamber. He yanked back the bolt and stared into an empty breech.

LaPorte came toward him, smiling, with his hands clasped behind his back. “You’re not having a very good vacation, are you, Phil?”

Broker didn’t think it could get any worse. Then it did.

As they were marched back to the beach they heard more motors, loud, snarling, coming in over the water. Two sturdy rubber cargo dinghies cut through a lingering bank of mist, propelled by huge outboards. Lola jumped up and down on the beach like a cheerleader and waved them in.

Bevode stood in the prow of the lead boat, hatless, his oiled hair streamed in the sun. A mean black AR-15 was balanced casually on his hip and he had one foot up on the gunwale in a conqueror’s pose. Tall, gleaming brown leather boots, jeans tucked in. Safari shirt. A thick braid of leather wrapped his shoulder. LaPorte’s heirloom whip. He was smiling.

Trin’s vets weren’t. Seeing Bevode, they clustered in a group and jabbered among themselves. Trin, the mother-fucking traitor, was trying to calm them.

Intuitively Broker and Nina joined hands.

Before the first boat ran up on the beach, three men rolled out and dashed through the surf with AR-15s at the ready. Not Cajuns. More related to the Blue Shirt. The same cropped hair. They vibrated a pumped-up military narcissism that wouldn’t be tolerated in veteran soldiers.

“Mercenaries,” said Nina in a flat voice.

Their rifles covered Trin. Virgil’s pistol had been his brief marshal’s baton. Now he was forced to drop it. One of the mercs shoved Trung Si into the group of cripples. Trin began to protest at the rough treatment. The merc swiftly butt-stroked him in the stomach and sent him sprawling. Fluent Vietnamese rippled from his lips. Under his direction, Trin and his men spread out and put their hands behind their heads.