“Contact. Come in, Vets Five.” Colonel David Hudson spoke in the firm, charismatic tones that had characterized his commands through the late war years in Southeast Asia. It was a voice that had always elicited loyalty and obedience in the men whose lives he controlled.
“This is Vets One… Come in Vets Five. Over.”
A reply immediately crackled back through heavy static over the transmitter-receiver. “Hello, sir. How are you, sir? This is Vets Five. Over.”
“Vets Five. Green Band is now affirmative. I will repeat-Green Band is now affirmative… Blow it all up… and God help us all.”
3
Brooklyn
“Yougotaquarter, sir? Please! It's real cold out here, sir. You got two bits?… Awhh, thank you. Thanks a lot, sir. You just saved my life.”
Around seven-thirty that evening, on Brooklyn 's Atlantic Avenue, a familiar bag man called Crusader Rabbit was expertly soliciting loose change and cigarettes. The bag man begged while he sat huddled like a pile of soiled rags against the crumbling red brick facade of the Atlantic House Yemen and Middle East restaurant. The money came to him as if he were a magnet.
After a successful hit, forty-eight cents from a trendy-looking Brooklyn Heights teacher type and his date, the street bum allowed himself a short pull on a dwindling halfpint of Four Roses.
Drinking while begging change was counterproductive, he knew, but sometimes necessary against the raw cold wintertime. Besides, it was his image.
The deep slack cough that followed the sip of whiskey sounded convincingly tubercular. The bag man's lips, bloated and pale, were corpse white and cracked, and they looked as if they'd bled recently.
For this year's winter wardrobe, he'd carefully selected a sleeveless navy parka over several layers of assorted, colored lumberman's shirts. He'd picked out open-toed high-topped black sneakers, basketball player snow bird socks, and painter's pants that were now thickly caked with mud, vomit, and spit.