The Last of the Dogteam Read online

  So there it was. He would have to stick to that if he was questioned.

  "Well," Mother Kovak said, "all this talk won't bring Ed back. If anyone wants him back." She crossed herself for saying and thinking such a thing. "I'm getting cold and

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  we have dishes to do/' She went back into the house.

  Vera put her arm around Terry's waist, her touch brazen in the darkness of winter. "Shirley's taking the kids to her little friend's house next door and Mavis will be at the church tonight. Well have the house to ourselv« for two or three hours. Think we can find something to do, Terry-boy?"

  "Yeah, Vera," Terry felt a cold /hot /strange rush of desire flood his groin. "Yeah, I think we can find something to do tonight."

  She winked at him on the dark porch. "You being careful with Clarissa?"

  He did not reply and she giggled softly. "Sixteen years old and gettin* it from at least three women. I'd really like to see your track record when you're thirty, Terry. Come on," she tugged at his arm. "It's your birthday and Momma Kovak baked you a cake. I've got a little present for you, too—later."

  "Oh, baby I" Vera kissed his mouth, his neck, and his face. "Stay with it."

  Terry tightened his arms around her. The memory of that bloody afternoon was, for the moment, forgotten, lost in the sweetness of woman and the heat of sex.

  Vera shuddered under him. "That's number three for me," she panted.

  A car drove down the street, tires crunching on the half-frozen snow. Upstairs, in the

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  second level of the old home, with Danny's picture turned face down on the dresser, the young man and his brother's wife would not have noticed had a tank rumbled past.

  Unfaithfulness, passion, and youth exploded on the old bed. The springs ceased their tortured groaning as hot flesh began to cool, hearts and lungs slowed.

  On the street below the lovers, Sergeant Tate drove by once more, slowly, gazing up at the run-down house. The Kovak kid fascinated the military mind of the man. He had talked with Colonel Ferret and the Colonel had said to check him out. The boy might have a good—if not long—future with the Dog Teams.

  "Damn!" the Sergeant swore softly. "The boy's a natural killer. I've never seen any better, any calmer."

  Tate drove down the street, toward his rooming house. He didn't want to do a thing out of the ordinary; the cops were keyed up and tense over the killing.

  With breasts pushing against his naked chest, Terry kissed his brother's wife, gently, and she responded. "What's going to happen when Danny comes back home?" he asked.

  "We act like nothing happened," Vera murmured, mouth on his. "You're my kid brother-ht-law, that's all."

  Terry chuckled as she moaned, his hands moving on her body,

  "You're a real bastard, Terry Kovak." Vera

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  laughed in his mouth. "You're going to make out okay, I think. But I worry about you for some reason. You're . . . different somehow."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I don't know, Terry. It's not something I can put into words. You're not yet a man—but then, you are, too. There is a part of you that I can't touch. I don't know if anyone will ever be able to."

  The young man lay beside the woman, knowing what she said was true, and wondering why tht knowledge suddenly frightened him.

  "You don't love me," Clarissa sobbed accusingly. "Not really, you don't. You just go with me for sex, that's all. Why don't you admit it, Terry? You don't love me at all,"

  "I don't know whether I love you or not," Terry tried to be honest with her. He may have been a sixteen year old rogue, but he was an honest scamp—most of the time. "You want to stop seeing me?"

  The first week in April, 1954, and the teenagers were parked by the lake, several miles out of town. For the first time since that snowy winter's night, in front of her parent's fireplace, with Nat King Cole crooning in the background, Terry could not get Clarissa's panties off. He was almost desperate.

  Robert and Danny had returned home, and Vera and Mavis had cut him off cold.

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  "My darling, darling Terry," Mavis had said. "I fear out little interlude must end. You're such a dear boy, and you've been so good for Mavis."

  "Pussy factory's closed," Vera was much more blunt.

  "Jesusl" was all Terry could say.

  Ed Farago's case had been, for all practical purposes, closed. No one charged in the murder. Really, no one had tried very hard to find his killer or killers. The opinion was: one hood bumped off another hood. Good riddance.

  The lake rippled under the moonlight, soft in early spring, and a bird called out in the night. The pint of whiskey Terry had brought was gone, Clarissa was half drunk and on a crying jag, and Terry had a hard-on.

  "You want to stop seeing me?" he repeated.

  "No," she said, her reply so softly spoken Terry had to strain to catch the word. "Because I love you."

  Terry slid out from under the steering wheel of Vera's car and over to Clarissa's side. He put his arm around her. "You want me to tell you I love you—whether I mean it or not?"

  "Yes. Because you do love me. I know you do. You just don't realize it yet, that's all."

  Terry pondered over this peculiar logic for a moment. "All right, I love you, then." The lie was foreign to his tongue, and he did not like the way it tasted.

  "We'll be happy together, Terry." Her

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  mood lifted and she was happy. She began unbuttoning her blouse. "We'll be happy, you'll see." She stopped at the third button. "Won't we, Terry? Be happy, I mean."

  His patience was wearing thin. "If you say, so, Clarissa."

  She kissed him while he shoved his hand inside her blouse to cup a breast. "Did you bring a blanket?" she asked.

  "Two of them. In the trunk."

  "Get them, and we'll make sweet love under the stars. Leave the radio on."

  Later, tangled in each other's arms, Terry asked, "Clarissa, what did you mean when you said well be happy together?"

  She snuggled closer. "When we get married,

  silly."

  "That's what I thought you meant." he said dryly.

  ."Mom and dad like you, Terry. They really, really do. They say you're a good, hardworking young man. Daddy's going to offer you a job at one of his stations this summer."

  Wonderful! the young man gazed at the Big Dipper.

  "Did you hear me?"

  "Yeah, I heard you." That's just great, he thought. Working for the father, screwing the daughter. He wondered if the mother put out, too? ,

  And the radio played The Bunny Hop.

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  After school, an Army Sergeant met Terry just off the campus. Tate. Master Sergeant Tate. He shook hands with Terry. "I'm from the Armory. I was wondering if you'd like to come on down and look around the place. I heard you were interested in making the Army a career."

  "Yes, sir," Terry said, excitement welling up. "That's what I'd like to do."

  Tate jerked his thumb toward a Jeep. "Hop in, then," he smiled, adding, "Don't call a Sergeant, sir. We're non-commissioned officers."

  "Yes, sir. I mean . . . Sergeant."

  "There you go," Tate said with a grin.

  A Colonel Ferret was waiting for them in the Sergeant's office. He nodded at Tate, smiled at Terry. He seemed a nice enough guy, in a rough-looking way. His face was tanned and his eyes were hard and flat, smoke-colored.

  "Coffee, Terry?" he asked. "Maybe a Coke?"

  "Coffee would be fine, sir." v The Colonel poured him a cup while Terry looked around the office. Tate had disappeared.

  "First time I've ever been in here," Terry said. "The other Sergeant—I guess the one Sergeant Tate replaced—kept running me out whenever I'd look around."

  "Ward was a shit-head," Ferret acknowledged. "A Leg to boot."

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  "I beg your pardon?" Terry said. "What's a Leg?"

  "SFC Ward was straight-leg infantry, A non-jumper." He s
miled at Terry's look of puzzlement. "Ward was not a Paratrooper like Tate and me."

  "Oh, I see," Terry sipped his coffee. "Well, I'll still be in school when I'm seventeen—old enough to join up—and I'm sure going to sign up."

  "I'll tell you what, Terry," Colonel Ferret smiled. He was anxious to get Terry into the Guard, while his mind was still young enough to be molded. Then, too, he had spent a good deal of his lifetime studying the Terry Kovak types, quietly pulling them into his Dog Teams. It took a special breed of man to work the Dog Teams, and Terry was the type. "If you tell me you're seventeen, I sure won't doubt your word. We'll enlist you—in the Guard, I mean. How 'bout it?"

  "Okay," Terry smiled, not certain just exactly what was going on here; if this was some sort of game. "I'm seventeen."

  "You see, Terry," Ferret sat on the edge of the desk, "we're way below strength in the Guard. All of us got hit pretty hard during the Korean Conflict. A lot of guys got wounded, got killed, got out. We need some good men, young enthusiasts, to build it back up." He leaned forward. "Does getting killed or wounded bother you, Terry? Scare you?"

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  "Naw," Terry shrugged it off with the arrogant bravado of youth.

  "No sir," Ferret gently reminded the young man.

  "I mean, no, sir," Terry reddened just a bit.

  "Does the thought of having to kill someone scare you or bother you?"

  This time, Terry's answer was quick and very honest, as Ferret knew it would be. "No, sir. I don't believe it does." The memory of Ed Farago flashed through his brain. Terry dismissed the bloody picture with a blink and thought no more of it. He was too excited, really going to join the Army. Well—the Guard, at least. That was better than nothing, he supposed.

  The Colonel pushed some papers across the desk. Terry looked at them, not stopping to think why his full name, birthdate, and all the other particulars of his life were already typed in. Or how the Colonel had managed to find out so much about him—or why he had done so. Ferret's investigation had been quick, but very thorough.

  OSS during the Second World War, Paratrooper, Ranger, British Commando trained, Ferret now headed the most secret of all U.S. government groups: the Dog Teams. The President did not even know of their existence; only a handful of men cftd. The mission of the Dog Teams was simple: they were killers.

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  "Have one of your parents sign these, Terry. I'll be back in a week. If they're signed, we'll ' enlist you, and you'll be on your way." If I don't get you, son, he thought, the law will. YouTI be better off with me—for as long as you live, that is. "See you, Terry."

  Terry looked up from the papers: the Colonel was gone. Tate stood in the doorway, a strange expression on his face. "I'd do my best to get them signed, Terry."

  "The Captain here knows I'm not seventeen." Terry spoke of the local Company Commander.

  "The Captain will do what the Colonel tells him to do."

  "I will not sign those papers!" his mother said, hands on her hips, determination unyielding on her face. "You're just barely sixteen, Terry. A boy. What a crazy idea."

  "Oh, what the heck, Mamma," Robert said. "Danny joined the Guard when he was sixteen, didn't he? Go ahead and sign them. The war's over, and it's not likely to kick up again. This will give the kid some extra money and hell like it to boot."

  The woman looked at her husband and he smiled at her, remembering his own haste to join up in '17, and also remembering what it was like to be a boy, full of piss and vinegar. "Momma, you know the boy wants to be a soldier. That's all he's ever wanted to be—all

  his life. This might give him that little extra push up the ladder."

  She held out the papers to her husband. "Then you sign them, Karl. Let whatever happens be on your head, not mine. I want no part of this."

  Karl Kovak nodded, then slowly, laboriously with his big callused hand, he signed the enlistment papers, looking up only once as his wife of many years walked out of the room and into the kitchen: her safe place, sanctuary, her domain. When the father had signed the papers, he rose from his chair, to follow his wife, to make peace with her.

  Danny put his arm around Terry's shoulders. "Well, lad, you're in the Army, now, on your way to being a man. All you need now is some pussy and you'll be walking tall." Robert joined in the laughter, but there was a cool look in the older brother's eyes.

  Terry thought of Vera, Mavis, Clarissa, and the girl he'd talked with at school just that day. "Well, don't give up on me, Danny," he said.

  This time, Robert did not join the laughter. He sat looking at his younger brother with a strange expression on his face, as if seeing him for the first time; as if this veteran of two bloody wars could see something in the young man no one else had noticed. Terry met his gaze, saying nothing.

  The boy's eyes hold no feeling, Robert thought. Except perhaps a little cruelty. Rut

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  maybe I'm wrong? Maybe he's just grown up while I've been gone? I hope that's it. But his eyes are as cold as a snake's. Where have I seen that look before? Then he remembered: a few guys on a Marine Raider Team had that same look. And a few British Commandoes and American Rangers had that look in their eyes. Robert finally cut his gaze, turned away, and left the room. Danny had failed to notice the silent exchange.

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  THREE

  June, 1954

  Hot and dusty at the National Guard Summer Camp, but Pvt. Terry Kovak didn't mind at all. He was probably the only member of the entire 319th Military Police Unit having fun that summer. Terry attended few classes; he was officially listed on the roster as part of the Special Weapons Team, spending his days on the rifle range, usually behind a Springfield 03 or an MIC sniper rifle. This day, he had been firing at 750 yards, knocking the center out of the target with boring regularity. The weapons he fired seemed to be a part of the young man's body: and extension of himself.

  In a range tower, General Matt Wade put down his binoculars, smiled, and turned to Colonel Ferret and M/Sergeant Tate. "Beautiful," the General said. "If everything

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  else goes right, we'll have ourselves another shooter. What about Kovak's psychological profile?"

  "We've only just begun that phase, sir," Per-ret was still watching Terry through glasses. The boy fascinated Ferret. There was never any change of expression as he fired. "But as Tate said, Kovak killed that Farago redneck with no more emotion than swatting a fly. He's a natural."

  "Keep him in high school; let him get his diploma. Bring him along slowly, carefully. When does your next class begin?"

  "Next summer. Mine, personally, that is, General."

  "I want you to handle Kovak, Bill."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And I'm anxious to read his personality profile."

  "We'll get on that first thing in the morning."

  "Terry," the special Army psychiatrist said, "what would you do or think if you were ordered to kill for your country?"

  "An enemy of America?"

  "Yes."

  "I wouldn't think anything, sir. I'd just do it."

  "Disregarding the moral application of right or wrong?"

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  "If the man was a enemy, how could there be wrong?"

  The psychiatrist arched an eyebrow; that was not the answer he had expected. He knew this was another candidate for Colonel Ferret's Dog Teams, and like most of the men and women Ferret recruited, this one had a very high IQ. The psychiatrist wondered about that, pondered over it. What was it about these people that pushed them into dangerous and clandestine fields? (Although he knew Terry did not, as yet, know about the work he was being groomed for.) He knew some of the people had run afoul of the law, but most just volunteered for the work. Someday, perhaps, when he had retired from the military, and Dog Teams no longer existed—as such, for there would always be Dog Teams, in one name or the other—and what they had done had been de-classified as much as possible: then, perhaps, he would, after carefully changing nam
es, dates, and places, write a paper on his work with these men and women. If he could get away with it, that would certainly open the eyes of his colleagues. He suppressed a chuckle,

  "Terry, haven't you wondered at all why Colonel Ferret was so anxious to get you in the National Guard?"

  "I've thought about it some, yes, sir."

  "And?"

  The young man turned his cold eyes on the

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  doctor. "I think . . . it's because I'm . . . different, sir."

  He knows more than Ferret thinks he knows, the psychiatrist smiled inwardly. "And how are you different, Terry?"

  "Do I have to answer all your questions, sir?"

  "Of course not, Terry. Do you like the military?"

  "Oh, yes, sir. I'd like to make a career of it. Stay in for the full thirty, if I can."

  "In what particular field, Terry?"

  "Wherever I can best serve, sir."

  "Doing whatever the Army tells you to do?"

  <«v • *'

  Yes, sir.

  "Blind obedience, Terry? Come now, you're much too intelligent for that."

  Terry cut his eyes, gazing at the psychiatrist for a moment, without speaking.

  Strange eyes, the doctor thought. Cold. The eyes of a killer? Not necessarily, he reprimanded himself, but what if that is true? What made him so? Why? A twist of the genes?

  Terry said, "It's not blind obedience, sir."

  "What would you call it?"

  "Serving my country."

  "I see. Well, let's pursue that, Terry. Suppose, say, a person had some ... ah ... secrets in his or her possession and that person was going to sell them to the Russians. Now ..."

  "What kind of secrets?" Terry interrupted.

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  "Ah, the psychiatrist's face brightened. "You mean that might make a difference?"

  "Sure. If they sold them the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, so what? But if the secret was something that could get ah American citizen killed, or a lot of Americans killed, then that person would have to be stopped."

  "Killed?"

  "If that was the only way, yes."

  "Suppose you were asked to loll them, Terry," the doctor said softly. "Would you do that for your country?"