“Phosphorous. Take the seat behind me and go to work.
“All hands, everyone in?”
“This is Ropo. All present and accounted for. Ramp is lifted.”
A horrendous shriek from Marsh as his leg was cut away. For an instant the action diminished, then a resumption.
Quinn pitched the blade angles. He wiggled his feet on the rudder controls, daintily almost, as though he were stepping into the batter’s box. He maneuvered the joystick. It felt solid. We’ll find out.
“Barakat.”
“Sir.”
“How high do we have to go to clear these mountains?”
“About nine thousand meters.”
Fourteen thousand feet! It would be borderline on oxygen use. Oxygen would help them now at any altitude. What the hell. No use saving it.
“All hands! This is Quinn. We’ve got every chance in the world to make it home. Prayers will help. Try to stay off oxygen, but use it if you feel like you’re going under.”
Random gunfire popped around the plane. Quinn checked to see if the rotors were properly engaged and whatever preflight instructions he could get from IV, who was sinking and rallying.
Quinn speeded the rotors to maximum, kicked off the hover brake, and reached for the thrust control on IV’s side. He could not properly reach it.
“Jarvis! Crawl in and push the thrust control forward. Try not to touch IV.”
“Aye, aye.”
The SCARAB shot straight up.
“Oh, God, my leg is gone!”
“Quinn,” gasped IV, “trim the nacelle to forty-five degrees .. . ugh ..
. fool with the blade angle, you’ll hear it when it’s right.”
“Grubb, put my hand on the nacelle or roto-tilt levers.”
“Yeah.”
“This is IV,” he said, with his stomach half opened. “I feel like I’m in good shape.”
The doctor scribbled a note to Quinn. “IV needs morphine.”
The weight of one terrible decision after another fell on Quinn as Jarvis added more bandages to his head. If IV took morphine, IV could go ga-ga and incoherent. On the other hand, IV was going to have to go through excruciating pain without strong medication. Sorry, IV, Quinn said to himself, we need you coherent.
Quinn lifted his hand and gave a thumbs-down to Dr. Wheat.
Fort Urbakkan grew smaller and smaller, its great courtyard filled with survivors, now firing aimlessly.
RHEIN-MAIN MILITARY CLINIC, FRANKFURT
It was a rare non-dank day. A kiss of sunshine flowed over the solarium. Quinn aimed his wheelchair at the warmth and held his face up. Oh, that feels good. I’ll be out of the darkness soon.
The heavy bandage kept him from scratching at the itch across his forehead. How many stitches did the doctor sayr1 More than four hundred invisible stitches to close the underlayers of skin. You lucky bastard, he thought.
The rest of it? Strange stuff, but for shrapnel head wounds, his lasting damage would be minimal. The right eye had escaped injury, the migraine headaches would simmer down in time, and the scar would smooth out to a thin line. He’d even be able to grow hair back over the seven-inch trail from the back of his neck to his temple.
Dr. Llewellyn Comfort, an eminent plastic surgeon, had been flown over from London for the operation. Dr. Comfort’s skills were apparent as he softly hummed arias from La Boheme and Tosca as he worked. Quinn had remained conscious and exchanged banter with the doctor.
Quinn tightened up and emitted a pained wince of remembrance now, under
his wrappings. He could think outside of the raid for a time, but the
cycle always closed: Jeremiah Duncan dead, Novinski dead, Cherokee dead, Marsh dead, their faces and body parts blobbing off him, his vision blinded by his own blood .. .
Nightmare! How in the name of God had he managed to pilot the SCARAB to rendezvous with the tanker plane with Barakat reading coordinates on a map, a pair of field compasses, IV rasping out instructions, and Grubb and Jarvis placing Quinn’s hands on the controls. Rocking and thumping over mountainous desert with a Marine-load of sallow green-skinned men deep in prayer.
“Hey, Gunner.” Someone interrupted his memory chain. It was the nurse, the kindly nurse who rubbed against him whenever the occasion presented itself. She wanted to baptize him in waters of compassion. “It says on your chart that Dr. Comfort is going to remove your bandages today.”
“It’s going to be nice to unglue my eyes.”
“The doctor immobilized them so you wouldn’t inadvertently tug on your stitches.”
She patted his face, old Mandy did, and sighed a companionable sigh, then set his wheelchair into motion.
“Where we going? I don’t have to whittle yet,” Quinn said. “The sun feels good.”
“There’s someone here to see you,” Mandy answered. “There’s a quiet little room off to the side.”
The big door bumped open, and as Quinn drew a breath, he knew. “Greer?” he whispered, barely audible.
“How in the name of—“
“It’s that stuff you’re wearing, aroma of boys’ locker room.”
“It’s Arpege, and you started me off on it. Too bad you can’t see me, I look great.”
After all the bloody years, boom, in she walks, just like that. Hi,
stranger, remember me? “Well, now, let me guess,” Quinn said. “How
did Greer know Quinn was in Frankfurt? What is it that you own? A
radio and TV network, forty-six papers, seven magazines, and
satellites-or ama His heart speeded when her lips found his cheek.
“Well,” he said, “there’s good news. My dick just tingled. It’s still working. How’s Vampira, the media queen?”
“Hey, man, I’m just a salaried employee of Warren Crowder—“
“.. . of We Own the World, Inc.”
“I’m, in fact, the CEO of a medium-large division.”
“I heard you’ve elevated the face of television and radio programming clear up to semiliterate.”
“Did you know that the Great Symphony Orchestras of America series draws more than arena football and women’s fight-night combined? Might I say I’m friggin’ proud of the fact that I can still find a civilization breathing under all the sitcoms and sludge talk shows. How do I do it? I find subjects on the ad nauseam channels and packages culture. Shakespeare sells corn flakes.”
“Yeah,” Quinn said, “Disney makes dirty adult pictures now, too. But here we are talking shop. How did you find me?”
“I never lost you, Quinn. I always had an eye out.”
“What do you know about my recent past?”
“Marine Recreational and Morale team raided and flattened—no, obliterated—an ancient mountaintop Persian fort near the Great Salt Desert, snatched Bandar Barakat, and made a clean escape.”
“So, news of the raid is out?”
“No, not exactly,” Greer answered. “A few rumors, mostly wild guesses.
Barakat’s banker gave me the first tip. I took it from there.”
“Then it’s not out ...”
“The President called me in and asked us not to run with the story,” Greer said. “He realizes he can’t sit on it too much longer. So the White House wants to call a press conference and put Barakat on display. Major anti-terrorist coup.”
“You agreed to give up a scoop like that?”
“Sounds a little corny, but even though I’m in the media, it doesn’t mean that I can’t make an unselfish gesture for the good of my country.”
“Ah, but your colleagues will chastise you. They will squirt you with witch’s bile for denying the public’s right to know.”
“After which we’ll hold panels on all channels about media overkill and media responsibility .. . until the next big story comes up. Yeah, bud, but try to have democracy without us.”
“So, when does the public learn about the Urbakkan raid?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
/> “What’s going to happen to RAM Company?”
“They’re trying to decide whether to disband RAM, integrate it into a larger strike force, or just continue to keep RAM at the ready. There will probably be a congressional investigation. Anyhow, Quinn, you’re above it all. We got us a genuine American hero.”
“Everyone on the raid was a hero.”
“Aw, shucks, gee whiz, ma’am,” she mocked.
“Greer. You were born with a cynical hair up your butt. I couldn’t even try to make you understand.”
“Yeah,” she said, “boys’ bonding stuff.”
“All right, we have established the following: You are a big hitter with Crowder, multi-global double universal, simultaneously broadcasting twenty sporting events, including roller blade cliff jumping. What I want to know is why you returned to me eight months of unopened letters and why you fled New York when I came to see you.”
“You know why, dammit!”
“I’ll tell you what I know. A broken heart is not a metaphor. That whack I got in the back of my head never gave me the pain I had over you.”
“Baby.. .” she whispered, and touched his cheek. He reached out to grab her hand, but she took it way.
“Okay,” Quinn said. “You’ve shown me how clever you are and how you have filled your responsibility to our president by giving up the scoop of the year. Anything else?”
“You son of a bitch,” she snapped.
“That’s more like Greer.”
“You son of a bitch. If I had opened a single letter from you—if I had seen you in New York—Quinn, I opted not to spend my life baking cookies for the St. Patrick’s Day church supper. I’ve done what I set out to do.”
“Why are you so fucking happy, then?”
“I don’t know what happiness is supposed to mean. I love the money, I crave the power, I adore my Fifth Avenue apartment, I sweep in to chauffeured limos. But I don’t know what happy is. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“What is it you don’t know?”
“It ain’t your body that’s in my bed anymore, man, and I pay that bill every day of my life.”
It was getting to be vintage Quinn vs. Greer. Did they adore it or what?
“Did you nail Crowder?” Quinn asked.
“To the cross,” she answered. “He never had a chance. Nor could he dust me off like I was one of his bimbos.”
“Warren Crowder’s moll.”
A God In Ruins
“The one who came to stay, and let me tell you, buddy, he...
“Why, he’s just like a wee little hapless puppy if you peel back that veneer of crusted tycoon. He’s a little lost soul when he hasn’t gobbled up a competitor, closed down a factory. He’s destroyed and pained when the government doesn’t let him pull an end run around a monopoly.”
“He’s no puppy,” Greer said bluntly, “but neither is he some sort of latter-day phenomenon. He was in a toga in Roman times and led a Mongol horde across the steppes. Power men like Warren have been running the show since the beginning of time.”
A God In Ruins
“The two of you must set off volcanos.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s right.”
“And you’ve got control of the monster.”
“I see a future in it.”
“Well, drop by again if you’re in the neighborhood.”
The bell gonged, and he went to his corner and she to hers, and they snarled across the ring at each other.
“It still hurts, baby,” he rasped at last.
“It still hurts,” she whispered. “Quinn, I flew here to talk over another matter with you. It’s about your father.”
Quinn reacted as she knew he would, in tight-lipped, tight jawed, teeth-clenched confusion.
“It’s been five years since you contacted them. Isn’t enough enough?”
“This is weird,” he answered, “Greer speaking on behalf of Dan O’Connell.”
“You haven’t been out of their sight. They read every letter you’ve sent Rita and Mal. They have spent enough tears to re star the universe. When you joined the Corps, I was a basket case. Dan came to New York and pleaded for me to give him forgiveness. He was wasted over the abortion. I forgave him. See? I’m not as stubborn as you. I forgave him.”
“I don’t want to hear any more,” Quinn said.
“Well, you’re in no condition now to impose your wishes, so you’re going to listen. Dan knew that you and I would never end up together, but he was extremely kind. He and your mother insisted on watching over my well-being, as though I was their child. I forgave him and, later, I accepted help. I went to a number of shrinks, but they all turned out to be mind fuckers. It was your dad, Dan O’Connell, who taught Greer to return to being Greer, and that I had to continue playing Greer’s game in life. The man grieves for you with a passion of kings. If there is such a thing as redemption, they have redeemed themselves.”
Quinn turned the wheels of his chair in a sightless circle, stood, and fished for the door.
“Let go of your rage, Quinn! God has punished them enough! Stop this goddamned silence of the Irish! Stop this goddamned Eugene O’Neill play!”
Quinn was unable to speak coherently under a deluge of bursting floodgates. She eased him back into the wheelchair. He attempted to stuff his agony back inside him.
“Quinn,” she said softly, “Dan has had a stroke. He needs you, buddy.”
“Oh, God!” Quinn cried and stuttered and mumbled, more tears coming under his bandaged eyes. Greer attended him until his trembling subsided.
“How bad’s Dan?”
“Half and half. It’s certainly not a full recovery, but he isn’t crippled. He has some trouble walking and talking. The pain is in his chest, just as it was in mine and yours.”
“Mom?”
“She’s also devastated by her sin to her church. And you are the only son she’ll ever have.”
They sat silently for ever so long until day turned to evening. “I have to go now,” she said. “Can I tell your parents to be expecting your call?”
(fr 7)
Yes.
“And thus closes another chapter in the splendid adventure of Quinn and Greer,” she said.
“Baby .. .” he pleaded, “just once.”
“Please don’t ask me,” she cried.
“Baby .. . baby .. .”
Greer lifted her skirt and straddled his lap, facing him. He lifted her top. He knew she would wear her clothes that way. Those little breasts were just the same. One kiss, two. “Baby .. . baby ... go now,” he said.
Quinn O’Connell was empty, but filled. The anger was gone. So was the affair with Greer.
There were people who loved him fiercely, and he could love them again.
Yet can finality truly be final even so? There still lingered the
haunting of his birth mother’s name—and his father. Would this bloody nagging ever come to a close? He was beginning a process which might allow him to spend the rest of his life with the mystery. In doing so, then perhaps he could allow Dan and Siobhan to come in closer and for him to give what was due them.
He sensed the nurse entering to wheel him back to his room, then asked her if she would write a letter for him.
Wanting to be near Quinn as much as she could, Mandy took the letter, which was written to Mal. It didn’t reveal anything of the raid, because he’d have to remain silent until the presidential press conference.
And how was Rita? No lack of letters from her. Every year brought new batches of photographs. How old was she now? Twenty-two, maybe twenty-three. Every photograph lingered in his wallet until it was eventually replaced by a newer one. She was magnificent. Her letters to him were powerful in what was left unsaid.
Later, Dr. Llewellyn Comfort came with a small platoon of lesser physicians and interns trailing behind him. He nodded to Mandy to remove the bandage, and he hummed an unintelligible aria as she did his bidding.
The room was darkened as
she rinsed his eyes with a solution that set them free. Quinn squinted, then saw a half dozen smiling faces arrayed behind Dr. Comfort.
“Bravo,” said one doctor.
“Lovely, lovely, lovely,” agreed Comfort.
Mandy was faint with Quinn’s beauty and power. She realized it was the end of her unrequited love, because he’d see her in daylight soon.
“So, that’s what you look like, doctor,” Quinn said. “Hi, Mandy.”
The doctor examined him, happy with the results.
“I like a man who loves his own handiwork,” Quinn said. “Can I have a look?”
Not much more than a thin line of the path of the shrapnel and a small mark where it had made its exit. “A dueling scar,” Quinn said, allowing his fright to bubble out of him.
“We’ll get most of that cleaned up,” Comfort said. “Keep your shades drawn, just use the dim lamp until you adjust. You’ll be fine in a few days. I’ve done every wound in the book, but you take the gold, Gunner. A one-eighty between your skull and skin and hair.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
“In my line of work we don’t see too many breaks from God. He must have you lined up for something big.”
When they left, Quinn held Mandy’s hand, kissed it, and thanked her for her kindness. What the hell! Mandy wanted some memories. Why not?
“How about dinner when they let me go out?” he asked.
“You don’t have to,” she said, reddening.
“I want to,” Quinn retorted strongly. Once said, he saw a certain loveliness in her. Every woman is beautiful, he had often said to himself.
The phone broke the awkwardness. “It’s for you, Gunner,” Mandy said, and left the room.
“Gunner Quinn,” he said.
“Hi, son,” Dan’s voice rasped.
“Hi, Dad.”
“What the hell are you doing in a German hospital? I thought you were at Pendleton.”
“I got a little messed up on a training exercise. Just some scrapes and bruises. Greer was here. Thank you for taking care of her in New York.”
“She’s a wonderful woman,” Dan said.