Cooch Read online

  Jackson stood nose to nose with him for a second, then realized that he was looking up. The recruit stood at least six feet four, with a neck nearly the size of Jackson’s head. Each of the muscles in his neck was visible, but partially obscured by the enormous trapezius muscles running up each side. Veins were visible above the collar of his T-shirt, as thick cords wrapping themselves up and around his neck. Jackson again put his hands behind his back, and strode off for two steps, then spun, glaring at the new recruit. “What is your name, shit bird?”

  “Magnusson, Eric J, Sergeant,” the young man yelled, looking straight ahead.

  Jackson snuck a look at Magnusson, Eric J. His T-shirt was stretched by a massive chest, and his lats pushed his veined and distended biceps away from his body. His thighs stretched the legs of his shorts, the definition of the quadriceps apparent. He weighed at least two hundred twenty pounds, perhaps much more. No fat.

  “And just why do you think you can whip my ass, shit bird Magnusson?” Jackson asked loudly.

  Magnusson looked uncomfortable.

  “WHY, SHIT BIRD MAGNUSSON?” Jackson roared.

  Looking straight ahead, Magnusson said loudly, “Sergeant, I have a third-degree black belt in judo, a second-degree black belt in karate, and I was All-American as a heavyweight wrestler at the University of Iowa.”

  “SHIT BIRD MAGNUSSON, HABOUUT HACE,” Jackson yelled.

  Magnusson, his face a spectacular shade of magenta, spun and faced the platoon.

  Jackson walked up to stand beside him, broke into a wicked grin, and roared at the platoon, “IS THERE ANYONE HERE THAT THINKS HE CAN WHIP BOTH ME AND MY NEW PLATOON SERGEANT MAGNUSSON?”

  Alex smiled to himself and decided he was going to stick with the corps was adaptable; they could take a joke!

  Parris

  Island

  TWELVE weeks later, MacMillan drove his rental car to the gate, still unable, after some twenty-odd years, to avoid an inspection look at the marine guard. He was flawless. His trousers fell without a wrinkle around the knife-edge crease, and his shoes showed the results of quiet hours spent working black Kiwi into leather with a dampened, discarded T-shirt. MacMillan’s distorted image was reflected in the gleaming brass buckle that showed no trace of the misty oxidation that drives drill instructors into fits of profane rage. Mac handed his credentials to the marine, who looked briefly at the papers, checked a notation on the clipboard hanging from the whitewashed wall of the guard shack, and picked up the phone.

  “Mr. MacMillan is here, Gunny,” he said, then listened for a second. “Right, Gunny,” and hung up.

  “Gunnery Sergeant Crouch is in Building T-21, Mr. MacMillan. He is expecting you and says you know the way. Is that correct, sir?”

  MacMillan smiled tiredly. “Son, you and I know that gunnery sergeants are always right. Especially master gunnery sergeants.”

  The guard showed a blazing, recruiting poster smile. “Yes, sir, Mr. MacMillan! I thought you were one of us. Semper fi!”

  As Mac slipped the car into drive and eased away from the gate, he remembered wistfully a young Lance Corporal MacMillan with the same enthusiasm and zest for life. The passing years had somehow eroded his enthusiasm and corroded his perspective.

  In front of Building T-21, Mac parked the rental car in the space marked “Visitor,” eased himself out of the seat, and walked toward the door. A young marine recruit burst from the door, slowed suddenly at the sight of Mac’s face, then sped up when he realized Mac was in civilian clothes and required no military greeting. As he ran by, he shouted “Semper fi, sir!” just in case, because the guy had a face as beat-up and mean as the gunny’s.

  Mac opened the door. The reflected sun on the shined brass doorknob contrasted with countless layers of paint on the old pine door, its grain long since buried beneath a compulsion for order and neatness.

  A tall, thick marine stood grinning at him. He was wearing khakis, with the three upper chevrons and three lower rockers of master gunnery sergeant’s stripes on the sleeve, and five rows of ribbons running above the left shirt pocket. Most of them were “I was there” ribbons, signifying he had been in a particular combat theater or war zone when the ribbons were awarded to all who served there. The top two rows were different; the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart with oak leaf clusters were in one row, and the dark-blue ribbon with the single, centered, vertical white bar of the nation’s second highest award for bravery under fire, the Navy Cross, stood alone in the middle of the top row. They shook hands, and each threw his left arm over the shoulder of the other and gripped.

  “It’s great to see you, Jerry! You look well,” Mac said. “I might even let you buy me a cup of coffee.”

  They moved into Crouch’s office and sat in two armless steel chairs with olive-drab padded seats and backs.

  They talked for a short while about which of their mutual friends they had seen recently, then Mac asked him, “How’s the Cuchulain kid doing, Jerry?”

  “He’s going to be a good marine, Mac. I had Jackson leaning on him hard the first couple of weeks like you asked. Jackson was starting to bitch about it, and he’s not much of a bitcher. He likes the kid. I think he’s right. The kid’s got big potential as a marine.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I suspect you know most of it, but I’ll go back. He’s freaky strong for his size, and he ain’t small. You remember that little kid Jimenez back in Lejeune? The one they took for the power-lifting team? Cuchulain is like him, except he hides it. He is also no little kid anymore; I’d guess he’s up to one hundred and ninety or so.”

  MacMillan thought for a second. “The kid isn’t even seventeen yet. What else? He show any balls, Jerry?”

  Gunny grinned, and then chuckled. “The word is that he’s got a lot of balls. Jackson says he’s the envy of Parris Island, since he’s supposedly hung like Secretariat, with balls to match. He was taking a fair amount of shit about it from a guy in his platoon, a big New Yorker named Steiner, and you know how obnoxious New Yorkers can be when they work at it. This guy was calling him ox-nuts, donkey dick and shit like that, sometimes yelling it across the chow hall. He said he was going to sell tickets to see Cuchulain in the shower. A few of the other guys started to pick it up.

  “A couple of weeks ago, Cuchulain told the guy from New York that his name was Alex, or Cuchulain, and he didn’t want to hear any other names or any more shit coming at him. One thing led to another and they went behind the barracks with a crowd to watch. The big guy took a swing, and as far as Jackson can figure it from the barracks talk, Cuchulain broke his left forearm while he was taking him down. Then Cuchulain got a shoulder under the big guy’s right arm from behind and just drove the arm up until he had separated his right shoulder. He also took his fucking time about it to make a point. The word Jackson got was that he was looking at the crowd while he hauled that arm up from behind and ruined it.”

  Gunny sighed. “Anyway, the New Yorker is screaming like a gut-shot Comanche for three or four seconds, then ‘pop,’ and the guy passes out. The kid stands up and says, ‘My name is Cuchulain, but you guys are my friends, so you can call me Alex if you want, or Cooch.’ The whole thing lasts maybe thirty seconds. And he walks into the barracks. I’ll tell you, sixteen or not, Mac, that boy is one cold sonofabitch. And everyone is careful to call him Cooch now.”

  “Jesus Christ, Jerry,” Mac said. “I didn’t ask you to teach him that shit.”

  “We didn’t. He’s buddied up with some fucking Mormon giant named Magnusson. Our animals in hand-to-hand combat instruction say that he may be the baddest dude in the whole world. The good news is that our guys are learning a lot from Magnusson—and so is Cuchulain. Cuchulain is too young to drink and the Mormon doesn’t, so they spend all their liberty time in the gym, wrestling and working out. We already have orders to detail Magnusson to the training squad to get ready to compete in the next Olympics. His old man is a judo instructor back in Bumfuck, Iowa, or s
omewhere, plus he made All-American as a wrestler at Iowa as a sophomore. He just got back from his two-year Mormon mission in Okinawa, and seems to have learned a bit there as well.”

  MacMillan leaned back. “About Cuchulain. What else? Weapons? Team player?”

  “He’s a terrific rifle shot; he can run okay—great stamina. He’s pretty good in the woods, and better in open terrain; somehow the kid learned to fucking vanish in the open. Great team player, always willing to help someone out. He’s a good marine. He’s so under control, it’s scary—for a kid that age. Jackson, when he was leaning on him hard in the early days, said he could never get a flicker of emotion out of him. He’d have him knee deep in a trench at two o’clock in the morning, digging a hole or filling it back in, wearing nothing but skivvies in the pouring rain. He’d dig just fast enough to keep Jackson off his ass. Jackson said he had him digging for three hours one night, trying to get him to say he’d quit, and never even got an inkling the kid was thinking about it. Oh yeah, he speaks fluent Spanish and Arabic, but you probably already knew that.”

  “I guess I should have known that, but I didn’t think of it,” Mac mused. “Could be a handy set of skills.”

  “His IQ is off the charts too. The corps could use him and a lot more like him, Mac.” Gunny sighed, with his big, scarred hands wrapped around his hot coffee mug. He waited.

  Mac was silent for a second, deciding, then said, “By the way, he’s Mick Cuchulain’s kid.”

  Gunny’s eyes widened. “No shit?” I sure as hell am glad I didn’t know that when I had Jackson giving him all that crap. I’m not sure I could have lived with myself. Jesus—Mick Cuchulain’s kid!”

  “Yeah, that’s why I didn’t tell you, plus Mick asked me not to involve his name. His mom is that Arab schoolteacher from Algeciras, near Rota, that Mick married. Remember, she was the mayor’s girlfriend, and the Spanish police were thinking about lynching Mick?”

  “Goddammit, Mac! Steiner was on his way to being a good marine. Now he’s messed up, maybe for good. Jackson was working on his smart mouth and he was coming around. He would have stayed in the corps, I think.”

  Jerry sat for a while, thinking. Mac took a sip or two of his coffee, and watched a platoon of recruits shuffle by, singing a Jody chant. Mac couldn’t make out the words, but he knew the song. Just as they were passing out of sight, he heard the drill sergeant, who was running easily beside, with a T-shirt as blackened by sweat as any of them. “HUT, TWO, THREE, FOUR,” he sang out. The assembled platoon sang back with gusto, “HUT, TWO, THREE, FOUR.” The other chants sang of Jody and of his fortunes and misfortunes with women and life. I’ve always liked that high, Mac thought. Your heart is pumping hard, your buddies are all beside you, unhurt, and life is good for now. Most of the time, that’s enough.

  The voices faded and just a whiff of dust drifted after the platoon, when Jerry said, “Mac, I wish you had told me he was Mick’s kid. I knew Mick; he was a warrior. I could maybe have saved Steiner for the corps if I had known I had Mick’s kid. Mick was slow to anger, but God, when he went for it, it was zipper down, balls out, and forget about tomorrow. So—I think I lost the corps a pretty good recruit in Steiner. You should have told me.”

  “Ah, shit,” Mac said quietly. “You’re right, Jerry. I didn’t connect the dots. Sorry. Cuchulain as nasty as his old man was?”

  “You never know nasties until they have been under fire. But Jackson said the kid is spooky when he is stoked; his face gets all weird and you can hear him breathe through his nose. He said Cuchulain looked at Steiner like he was prey.”

  Mac sighed, and said, “Just like Mick. Remember what they called Mick’s nose breathing—‘The Wind of Death’? If he turned on a civilian, someone else had to take the fight before Mickreally hurt him. Jeez, I’m sorry, Jerry; I really screwed this one up.”

  “That you did,” Crouch said, nodding. “It was putting a pit bull in with a bunch of Dobermans and Rottweilers in training. Steiner had no idea what was coming.”

  “Yeah. I’m going to take Cuchulain, Jerry. You’ll have the orders by graduation. I think I’ll keep him busier than you will. If he can’t cut it, I’ll send him back to you.”

  “Oh, he’ll cut it, Mac. He’ll cut it just fine. He reminds me a lot of you before you got old and frail,” Crouch said with a little grin. “But you wouldn’t have been in his league physically, as strong as you were; he’s a bit of a freak that way. On the other hand, you were probably everyday meaner. Did you think about OCS for him? Or one of the service academies? Mick’s medal will get him in.”

  Mac nodded. “Maybe later. They make round pegs to fit round holes in the service academies—with a hammer if they need it. I’m not sure that’s right for him yet.”

  Jerry shrugged. It was no longer his business. “I’ll tell him,” he said.

  Mac sighed. “Let’s go get dinner and talk about young women and old scotch. I’m buying. I’ll tell you about Mick.”

  South

  Carolina

  MACMILLAN drove north on Interstate 95 with Alex in the passenger seat. It was the morning after Alex’s graduation from basic training.

  They were silent for a while, then MacMillan said, “I heard you fucked up that guy pretty good behind the barracks. Why didn’t you just discourage him, instead of practically tearing his arm off?”

  “I didn’t know how to discourage him, and no one at Parris Island is afraid of a sixteen-year-old kid. I did what I knew how to do.”

  Mac looked at him. “At least they knew you were a badass.”

  “I don’t want to be known as a badass. I just don’t want anyone ridiculing me. I particularly don’t want anyone drawing attention to me.”

  Mac considered the word “ridiculing” and smiled to himself. He would have said “fucking with me” because that’s the way marines said things. Ridiculing sounded better, somewhat to his surprise. Cuchulain had grown up a lot in a short time; Mick would be proud of him.

  “If you use the martial arts or physical skills that others don’t have, you are going to draw attention to yourself,” Mac said. “Why spend all that time with that Mormon guy, if you don’t like that stuff?’”

  “His name is Eric Magnusson, and he’s a good guy,” Alex said a little coldly. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I just said I don’t want to draw attention to myself. In fact, I like it a lot.”

  Mac smiled. “How did you feel after you separated that guy’s shoulder and broke his arm? Did you feel a little sick to your stomach? Were your hands shaking?”

  Cuchulain was quiet for a few seconds. “I didn’t feel anything, except that I felt pretty sure he’d watch his mouth in the future. He’d been riding me a lot. I didn’t like him. I knew I was hurting him. I wanted to hurt him. I liked hurting him, at the time. My hands didn’t shake ‘til later.”

  It was a quiet ride for a while through the North Carolina countryside. Mac decided he liked this kid, and he wondered if that was a feeling he could indulge.

  They talked about the marine corps, and a little about the new training that was coming up at the Farm near Williamsburg, where Mac and the rest of the CIA’s management prepared their new recruits for fieldwork. Mac had offered to get him some leave—to go back home and show off his marine uniform a bit—to be proud for the hometown folks and his parents. Cuchulain’s only response was that he’d go back sometime later.

  “I’m a little scared you’re putting me into something I can’t handle,” Alex said after awhile. “I’m only sixteen. What do I need to know that I don’t know now, Mr. MacMillan? Something that will give me the kind of edge Eric Magnusson gave me?”

  Mac was silent for a while, thinking back over his years as a marine and as a covert operator—recalling his years as a specialist in mayhem and violence, and about Gunny Crouch’s comments.

  Mac turned a little in his seat. He lifted his right hand toward Alex and said, “Hold your hand against mine.”

  Cuchulain hesitated, th
en turned in his seat and held his hand against Mac’s, palm to palm, with fingers pointed at the sky. His young fingers were long and thick, extending a full joint beyond the thick, scarred digits of the aging warrior. Alex’s skin was smooth and unwrinkled, looking almost childlike but for its expanse.

  “Now grip my hand in a shake, and increase the pressure to resist me. If it starts to hurt, tell me to stop. If I tell you to stop, stop.” They clasped hands, and Mac, still watching the road, steadily increased his pressure. The tendons running up his wrist began to distend and his fingers began to hump and bulge with the pressure. The small ridge on his hand between his forefinger and thumb swelled like a tiny bicep. He could feel the kid responding, the long fingers wrapping down around his, the muscles in his palm and hand keeping pace.

  When Mac had reached the limit of his pressure, he told Alex to squeeze harder. There was a little more pressure from Alex, and then it leveled. Mac let him hold it for a few seconds, tiring as Cuchulain strained for more pressure, and then told him to stop.

  “Hand strength,” Mac said. “I knew a guy once who had unbelievably strong hands, and they were quite a formidable asset. It helped his climbing, his rappelling, and his fighting. He knew that anything he grabbed, he could hold. He got out of fights by grabbing people—their hands, their elbows, the back of their necks, their balls—most of all, their balls—and squeezing.

  “He killed a sentry near the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos one night by squeezing the back of his neck somehow, when we got surprised—I knew for sure that the four of us would be dead if he yelled. The sentry had just opened his mouth when this guy just reached out and grabbed the sentry’s trigger hand with one hand and the back of his neck with the other and squeezed. I could hear bones breaking in both places. It was spooky. Not a sound—and it only took about ten seconds. The guy was dead when he hit the ground like a sack of rice. Then we got on with business.” He was quiet for a few seconds. “And nobody ridiculed him.