Collateral Damage A Matt Royal Mystery - By H. Terrell Griffin Page 0,10

of coffee. That is not as unusual as it sounds. It’s part of the island rhythm that we have adapted to, friends visiting at odd hours, knowing that if you didn’t want to be disturbed you’d simply ignore the doorbell. Feelings would not be hurt.

I left my coffee and paper on the table and walked barefoot to the front door. I was wearing a white T-shirt with the Grady-White boat logo on the breast pocket. The back of the shirt featured a picture of a twenty-eight-foot boat and the name of the dealer, Cannon’s Marina, owned by my friends David and Lucille Miller. Khaki cargo shorts completed my skimpy summer attire.

I opened the door to find a stranger fidgeting uncomfortably on my front stoop. He was about six feet tall, lean and fit, a head of gray hair, the planes of his face sharp and creased by years of tension, bright blue eyes, good teeth showing when he smiled. He was wearing a pair of taupe slacks, white golf shirt with the logo of an Atlanta country club on the pocket, cordovan loafers. I could tell by the contours of his body that he was younger than his face and hair made him appear.

He smiled, and held out his hand. “Long time, L.T.”

L.T. The universal appellation given by soldiers to the young lieutenants with whom they serve. I’d once been a nineteen-year-old lieutenant, back at the tail end of the Vietnam War, back when I wore a green beret and killed people who were trying to kill me. I’d led some of the toughest men on earth, an A team of U.S. Army Special Forces, the storied Green Berets, as we prowled the jungles seeking our human prey. We became closer than family, closer than anyone who hasn’t been part of a small group of young men engaged in mortal combat can understand. It has often been said that soldiers do not fight wars for honor, or country, or policies dictated by governments in faraway capitals, but for their buddies, the ones who share their danger and their fear and their disgust, who understand the emotional damage done to one who kills another human being whose only crime was wearing the uniform of the opposing army, who identifies with the necessity of the kill, because that other soldier would have killed you or your buddy for the same reason.

My mind flashed back to a time when flies buzzed in the heat of a quiet day, the high sun baking the plain on which I lay, the sound of gunshots in the distance giving substance to the combat that was about to come. I lay in the tall grass near a line of trees that marked the beginning of another jungle-like expanse of Southeast Asia. My left leg was afire, the result of the bullet that had gone through my calf, fired by some scared kid in the Viet Cong unit ensconced in the trees.

My men had moved on, attacking, going forward to clear the area of the enemy. Our medic had stayed with me, wrapped my leg, and told me not to try to stand. He thought the slug had nicked one or both of the bones in the lower leg. I ignored him, tried to stand, and fell back when the pain struck, a sapling taken down by one stroke of a good ax. Blood was running down my leg, warm and bright in the harsh sun.

“Goddamnit, L.T., you don’t listen good.”

“Okay, Doc. I’ll stay here. You go on. The guys might need you.”

“They’ll be fine. I’m getting you back to the LZ.”

The landing zone was three miles away, and I didn’t think I’d make it back without a stretcher. We’d improvise that when the team reassembled. And Doc was right. The men would be fine without him. Most had been cross-trained as medics and could handle things. All of them, including Doc, were Rangers and infantrymen. Doc had taken extra training in medical matters back at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, so he was designated the team’s medic. But at heart, he was an infantryman, and in the end, he would act as one.

We sat quietly, neither of us saying anything. The pain was getting worse, but I didn’t want morphine. I needed to stay coherent. When I took the bullet, command of the unit had fallen to Master Sergeant Jimbo Merryman, the most capable soldier I’d ever known. My men were in good hands. I had a walkie-talkie,