turn, lined up with the runway, lowered the flaps, and retarded the throttle.
There was the sound of rounds being chambered in weapons, which was unnerving.
Jack touched down smoothly, but the runway was not smooth— crushed rock—and there was a loud roar from the undercarriage.
He kept his hand on the throttle until the point where he would no longer have runway or speed enough to take off again in a hurry, then rolled to the end of the strip and turned around.
He put his hand back on the throttle and picked up a little speed until he’d reached the “no-go” point, then retarded the throttle and taxied slowly to the far end of the strip. There he turned around again and taxied to the burned buildings about halfway down the field.
Everyone saw Sergeant First Class Clarence Withers’s head resting about two feet from his torso. A horde of flies feasted on the pooled, now coagulated, blood in which it lay.
No one said anything.
Jack stopped the airplane.
Father Lunsford opened the door and jumped out, followed by Doubting Thomas. Both were armed with the short version of the M-16 rifle. They ran for twenty feet or so in opposite directions, dropped to their bellies, and waited to return any hostile fire.
The two trackers got out of the Beaver next. They were armed with FN 7-mm automatic rifles, which they carried cradled in their arms like bird hunters.
Last to get out, via the front doors of the Beaver, were Jack Portet and Colonel Supo. Jack was armed with an FN automatic rifle and a .45 ACP in a shoulder holster. He stopped the moment his feet touched the ground and loaded a round in the chamber. Colonel Supo had a Browning 9-mm automatic pistol in a web holster. He didn’t take it from the holster.
After forty seconds—which seemed much longer—Father Lunsford stood up, and then Doubting Thomas. They walked to Withers’s body.
Jack was surprised to see Thomas take an aerosol can of insect spray from the pocket on the calf of his paratrooper’s camouflage trousers. He first sprayed the head of Withers’s corpse, then the body. Jack felt nauseous.
I suppose that’s not the first already-starting-to-decompose body he’s had to deal with.
Father walked to the rear door of the Beaver, climbed inside, and came out with the body bag.
Doubting Thomas was walking around the body, kicking at the grass with his boot. Then he started walking toward the burned buildings. He’d gone ten feet or so when he bent down and came up with a dog-tag chain. Then he looked farther, and finally found the two dog tags Withers had worn around his neck.
Father unfolded the body bag next to Withers’s body and then pulled the zipper down. Thomas trotted up, reached for Withers’s severed leg, and put it—not without effort; Withers had been a large, strong man—into the bag. Then, while he picked up the remaining leg of the torso, Father put his hands under Withers’s armpits and they gently picked the rest of him up and lowered it into the body bag. Then Thomas went to Withers’s head. He first closed the eyes, then gently pried the mouth open. He slid one of the dog tags into the mouth, picked up the head, and put it into the bag.
Then he closed the zipper.
“I deeply regret your sergeant’s death,” Colonel Supo said.
Lunsford met his eyes but said nothing.
Doubting Thomas went to the Beaver and took out backpack radios and other field gear.
The two trackers, Jack saw in surprise, were taking off their camouflage jackets and then their boots. They rolled the trouser legs halfway up their calves, and then they slipped into their web gear, and finally they put their arms through the straps of the backpack radios.
“The decision is of course yours, Major Tomas,” Colonel Supo. “You may go with Sergeant First Jette and track the Simbas, or with Sergeant First Nambibi and try to find the men who were here.”
“I’ll go with Jette,” Thomas said without hesitation.
“Let’s check this place out first,” Lunsford said, and started to walk toward the burned-out buildings. Jack started after him, and then Colonel Supo, and finally Thomas.
The two trackers started to walk, barefoot, back and forth in an ever-expanding circle from Withers’s body bag toward Route Nationale Number 5.
When they reached the burned-out, concrete-block buildings, there was the smell of burned wood, and burned gasoline, and of something sweeter.
Lunsford first peered through the door, then stepped into the building as far as he could. The charred