DOIN' THE VIETNAM RAG (Sequel to "Heart of Darkness" 2nd in "Secrets and Lies" Trilogy)

Chapter One: Welcome to the Jungle

Prelude: Eddie

It was a real nice tombstone.

Eddie had bought it in 1945, and had it set up in place of the cheap markers that had previously marked his parents' graves.

He'd also bought new headstones for his siblings.

For his older brother Paul, who Pop had thrown down the stairs when Paul was 10.

One for Laura, who he let die of the flu when she was four.

For Jimmy, who was retarded, who he drowned in the sink a little before he was two.

And a special one for Pat and Eric, who were buried together in the same tiny coffin.

They were stillborn at seven months after Pop beat them out of Ma's belly.

But Ma wanted to be buried right next to him, and with his dying breaths Pop had, among other things, asked to be buried with his children.

There they all were, in the little Blake family plot.

Eddie visited them all more often than people thought he would, but today, the day he was going off to Vietnam, he had come specifically to see his father.

He sat down on the ground, a few feet from Pop's headstone.

"Well, Pop, it looks like Uncle Sam needs me to pull the fat outa the fire, again. It's not so bad as it was the last time. My kid's a grown woman, an' I know she's got the Doc to look after her. All your kids are grown up, too, with kids of their own, if that's what they wanted. I just gotta ask you ta to this one favour for me, alright? I mean, I never asked you for shit in most of my fuckin' life when you was around, and I never asked youse for a goddamn thing after ya died. But, an' maybe I should be inna church prayin' ta God, but I don't think there's angels for this job. I wantcha ta look after the kid for me. Till me an' Nick can get her safe an' sound in uniform. I know that sounds fuckin' crazy, but I'm tellin' you. Pop, she's better off in that jungle with me than this one without me. I dunno what the fuck's gonna become of her, with me gone. An' if there's any mean, evil, no good-dirty two tone motherfucker of a sunnuvabitch who can do it, it's you, Pop. Alright. I gotta get goin', now. If the gooks get me, which I seriously fuckin' doubt, I'll be seein' youse real soon. Stoke those kettles for me, Pop. Make 'em real hot. Someday, we'll be burnin' the no good sonsabitches together, you'n me."

Colonel Blake got up, and tidied up the other graves a little, replaced the dead flowers with fresh ones, and taking the dead flowers with him, went down over the hill, to his next rendezvous with destiny.

New York City, Late 1968

I: Liv

Now, don't get to thinking I'm an idiot, shit, I work for the G, I knew goddamn well that if Vietnam escalated to a certain point, Eddie was going to get called up.

And, after the official bilgeful about us being in it to win it, and just about to wrap up the whole shootin' match went up in smoke after the Tet offensive, I kind of figured it was about time for that cocksucker Johnson to send Eddie in to clean up the mess.

Just like a lot of people with brains did by 1968, I thought we were crazy to be in Vietnam. Especially after the whole Korea thing turned out the way it did.

As a citizen and a student of history, I wasn't buying the Domino Theory, I knew what it was about.

It was all a big land grab; we wanted to beat the Russians to the punch everywhere we could, and get in there to all the former colonies and suck up as much cheap labour and resources as we could, and the Russians and the Chinese, they had the same idea.

All that shit about Communism and Democracy, it was a red herring.

Not to mention good old fashioned nationalism, and all that other USA All the Way jingoistic horse shit.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I love my country.

I've almost died for it enough fucking times.

But, when it starts sending people over to die in jungle hell so that we can beat our chests, beat the Russians to the punch, and strut around the international scene, as a good American, I gotta exercise my right to free speech and free expression and ask:

Hey, Uncle Sam?

What the fuck?

Now, I'm a big girl, and like I said, I work for the G, so I know how the world works.

The only thing that pissed me off about it was that we had to have a war over it, where lots of Americans were getting killed and wounded for nothing.

And you know what?

It's a free country, so if you don't like something, you're allowed to say so, and I said so, publicly, and whenever I could.

That led to some big fights between me and Eddie, but even he had to admit it was a free country and I could think what I wanted to.

He just thought I should think it to myself.

The funny thing is, it wasn't like I was a dove and Eddie was a hawk.

He never said so, but Eddie's not an idiot, so I figure he thought the same thing about Vietnam as I did.

The difference is, the way Eddie saw it, if he could get in there to do the voodoo that he does so well, then we could get this shit wrapped up in a year, two years, tops, have a nice victory to erase the sour memory of stalemate in Korea, and save American lives by bringing a swift end to the conflict.

Not to mention the beating the Russians, beating our chests, and looking good on the international scene.

Eddie also pointed out to me that it was all very well and good for me to have a bullshit opinion about Vietnam, because I had no real stake in it and it was all abstract to me.

As a woman, I wasn't getting drafted and, as of yet, none of my close friends were over there.

Yeah.

Until they were.

Paulie was in college, Skinny had lost his hearing in one ear on a construction site a few years back, so he was 4-F, and that was the year Sophie sent Benny off to do a tour with the Israeli army.

But, now it's real personal.

Four of my best friends in the world and Eddie are going off to fight this dirty fucking war, and what am I supposed to do?

Now if I was your average cream puff broad, I wouldn't have had a choice, no matter how I felt about 'Nam, as a concept.

But, me being me, I wasn't about to sit home safe on my ponderous ivory tower academic ass while Eddie and Pat and Joe Mac and Frankie were in danger of getting their asses blown off in jungle hell.

My place was right beside them, come hell or high water, no matter what I thought about American foreign policy, or 'Nam.

So I took Eddie's advice and I started training.

I was doing my grad work with Jon, but it wasn't like regular school, so when I wasn't at the lab, I wasn't busy.

I quit boozing, you fucking bet I did.

I quit cold fucking turkey.

And I laid off screwing, even jacking off.

You know what?

It sure wasn't the booze I missed the most.

I used the edge I got from it to pound myself into shape.

I got up every morning at five and I did one hundred one handed push ups, and ran at least two miles, with my knapsack on.

Rain or shine.

I hit the shooting range twice a day, and I went to the gym down the street from Trivelino Mac's and sparred with every tough guy I could find.

I quit taking nights off and started doing hard jobs, crazy jobs, suicidal jobs, and I pretty much lived on red meat and hard knocks for the next two months, until I was meaner and harder and tougher than even I could have ever imagined I could be.

Then, I went to see Director Fury, to tell him I was ready to go.

He took one look at me, and I was off to the races.

And its 1-2-3, what are we fightin' for?

Don't ask me, I don't give a damn.

Next stop is Vietnam!

And it's 5-6-7, open up those pearly gates!

Ain't no time to wonder why.

Yippeee!

We're all gonna die.

An Undisclosed US Miltary Compound, Bolivia, December 1968

I: Victor

The biggest problem with Major Creed's job was that it was shit.

Oh, Uncle Sam had promised him the sun, the moon, the stars, and that promotion to Colonel that he had deserved since about 1950 if he would kindly attend this Vietnam shindig.

At first blush, being the CO of a top secret black ops boot camp seemed like a pretty good gig.

That was until he realised that he was going to be stuck in a Third World toilet, on a shit base with a lot of shit recruits who thought they were real hard-asses, but usually turned out not to be worth a shit.

Not to mention he was in the middle of the fucking Amazon and there wasn't a broad for hundreds of miles that didn't have a bone in her nose, and on the rare occasions his facility was empty and he could get back to civilisation, these little shit towns didn't have a whole lot in the way of local talent.

It was a shit job, and they offered it to Jimmy, first, but he decided to go into the field with the Sarge, and Victor laughed at him.

Who's laughing now?

Jimmy and Eddie, that's who.

Laughing at him.

The whole thing put Sabretooth in an incredibly black mood, which he was glad to take out on his recruits.

That, after all, was his job.

Drill Sargeant From Hell.

In the six months he'd been at it, among the recruits, he had twenty deaths, a hundred physical breakdowns, about as many mental breakdowns, five hundred failures and a grand total of ten dogfaces who passed the program.

Or grunts, whichever you called them, they were all fucked, and so was he.

After the last batch, Major Creed had spent two weeks in some God-forsaken town concentrating on getting drunk enough to screw these ugly little chicks that seemed to grow out of the ground in this filthy fucking jungle.

It made him wonder if maybe the pure Indian broads with bones through their noses living in the fucking trees might have been a better bet.

Major Creed returned to the base convinced that the new batch of fifty recruits for the next 13 week stretch were going to be, as usual, shit, when he got a surprise.

There were two familiar faces in the crowd.

One with a short scar on the cheek, the other with a long grooved scar down the jawline to the chin.

Lance Corporal Frank Marcano, late of the National Guard, and Corporal Trivelino J. Napier, whose rank was based on her position as a high level agent with S.H.I.E.L.D. Covert.

The Sarge's crazy mutie nephew looked shipshape, but Corporal Napier's fatigue shirt was half-undone and spattered with blood, and her right eye was rapidly swelling shut.

"You! Napier!"

Crisply, she stepped forward.

"SIR, YES SIR!" she bellowed.

"What the hell happened to your face and your uniform, dogface?"

"SIR! I had a disagreement with one of my fellow recuits, Major Creed, SIR!"

"And where is he?"

"In the Infirmary, Major Creed, sir!"

"In the Infirmary? The fucking infirmary? Already?"

Sabretooth bent over in order to get right into Corporal Napier's face.

"YOU'RE HERE TO TRAIN TO FIGHT THE CONGS, NAPIER, NOT YOUR FELLOW GRUNTS AND DOGFACES! MAYBE THAT SHIT FLIES IN CIVILIAN LIFE, BUT IT DOESN'T FUCKIN' STICK IN THIS MAN'S ARMY! AND YOU BETTER GET USED TO BEING TREATED LIKE A MAN, BECAUSE THERE'S NO SPECIAL FAVORS HERE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, DOGFACE?"

He was less than an inch from her nose, fangs and all, and Napalm didn't so much as blink.

Victor was impressed.

"SIR! YES SIR!" she said, saluting smartly.

Another soldier stepped smartly out of line, and saluted.

"SIR! Permission to speak, Major Creed, SIR?"

"Permission granted, dogface."

"I saw the whole thing, Major Creed, SIR! Private First Class Clark started the fight and threw the first punch, SIR! Corporal Napier was only defending herself, SIR!"

"Was she, now? And who are you, grunt? Her father? Her fairy godmother?"

"No, SIR! I'm Lance Corporal Dougal MacLeod, SIR!"

The dogface clicked his heels, smartly, and saluted.

"What about you, Lance Corporal Marcano? What's your story?"

"SIR! MacLeod's telling the truth, SIR!"

"I see. Some reason Clark hit you and you're standing here, and you hit him and he's in the Infirmary, Corporal Napier?"

"I hit a lot harder than he does, SIR!"

That almost made Sabretooth laugh out loud.

"Well that's great. JUST GREAT! What I got here is a bunch of piece of shit dogfaces who don't even have any respect for the chain of command! I've got a private who thinks he can smack a corporal around! And I've only got two grunts who are man enough to stand up and make sure the corporal doesn't take the blame for it! Jeee-zus Kee-reist! I've got Uncle Sam sending me broads, now, and she's tougher than the rest of you! What the hell is this fucking army coming to! All of you, on the ground and give me one hundred push-ups! And if I see two hands on the cement, you can make that two hundred, ladies! Let's go…"

Just like Victor thought, Napalm was the toughest nut in the bunch, with Frankie Bear and, that outspoken Lance Corporal, Slim MacLeod, tied for second.

They had to be.

In Victor Creed's boot camp, you didn't have luxuries like a barracks, showers, or a latrine.

You lived in tents, three men to a tent, ate MRE's, pissed and shit in the jungle, and as for baths, it rains a lot in the jungle.

The three of them bunked together in the same tent, a very busy tent, considering word got around fast that Corporal Napier had something like basic medical training.

Her most popular remedy was a very stinky plant-based bug repellent that was thick, oily and smelly, but that really did the trick.

She started mixing it up in a barrel, over the fire pit outside her tent.

As it turned out, the New York City girl was taking to the jungle like Islam in the desert; she was something of a natural born hunter and tracker, and she often went out with MacLeod, who hunted deer in rural Ohio, where he was from, to get fresh game to complement their diet.

She knew a lot about plants and herbs, so she'd pick the ones that were medicinal or edible.

They ate well at her tent, but if another of the recruits was ill, or worn out, Corporal Napier made sure he got some fresh meat and fresh vegetables.

That is, anyone but PFC Robert Clark.

He was a real tough guy in a chickenshit sort of way.

He was a bully and a two-bit thug, the kind of dipshit shitwit that Crazy Jack or Erik might use for a disposable henchman.

He was also a fucking troublemaker.

A big fucking troublemaker, almost as tall as Victor Creed was, with dirty blond hair that stuck out of his razor cut like the bristles on a boar, and he had it in for Napalm, Frankie Bear, and Slim.

Also, Major Creed got the idea that if he thought he could have gotten away with it, he would have been all over Corporal Napier, whether she liked it or not.

Which Major Creed wasn't too fond of.

For the following reasons.

The first was that it's very rare you meet a genuine alpha bitch, but Trivelino J. Napier was one.

She was both a born leader and a born killer, with a mind like a steel trap. She was cunning, brutal, ruthless and quick, and if there was such a thing as a feral human, she was it.

The Sarge was grooming her to be at his right hand in wartime just like in peacetime and Major Creed could see why.

But...

If anything happened to her under his watch, Sabretooth knew that the Comedian would hold him personally responsible.

Which wouldn't be good.

He'd had a fight with the Sarge in the last war over something a lot more minor that resulted in him almost losing an arm.

Among other things.

The second reason had more to do with the fact that if Creed himself thought he could have gotten away with it, he would have been all over Corporal Napier, and he was pretty sure she would like it just fine.

There was only one man on site who was the calibre of two-tone sunnuvabitch that a woman like her would go for, and it was him.

Of course, considering the woman was an alcoholic and a nymphomaniac who hadn't had a drink or a screw for a few months, she was wound so fucking tight she was ready to snap.

She hit Clark hard enough that first day at camp to break his nose and shatter his cheekbone, and the park Sabretooth heard about through the grapevine was where Frankie Bear had to hold her back from pounding Clark into a bloody pulp.

Creed figured that Clark had done a little more than just hit her; he'd bet the SOB tried to get on the train without buying a ticket, and when he tried again, Sabretooth was pretty sure Napalm was going to be out for blood, and no one was going to stop her from having it.

He certainly wasn't.

Law of the Jungle.

Survival of the Fittest.

Real good idea not to get in between Napalm Napier and the poor bastard she wanted to kill with her bare hands.

Especially now.

Living in a tent in the jungle was doing something to Little Miss Napalm, something nasty.

You could see it plainly in her feral, paranoid green eyes, shifting all around while the rest of the camp slept and she sat on a rock sharpening her adamantium machete in preparation to go out into the jungle and go hunting.

Snicker-snack, snicker-snack, like Madame Defarge's knitting needles at the foot of the bloody guillotine.

A blade that sharp could slice your head right off, and Vic Creed was pretty sure that decapitation would kill him just as well as it would kill anything else.

So, the way he saw it, let the law of the jungle take care of it.

Let Clark make his move, and let it be his blood she spills all over the ground, not mine.

Then, after she's had her kill, I can move right in with a sympathetic ear and a bottle of tequila.

Hey, war is Hell, and what the Sarge didn't know couldn't hurt Vic Creed.

Excerpt from Blood, Sweat and Tears of Laughter: The True Story of Harlequin & the Comedian

I could tell you my story, about how I was a green kid from Ohio, and I joined the Marines when I was 17.

I could tell you how I ended up in Major Creed's boot camp, when I wasn't so green, anymore.

I could tell you what it was that led me to 13 weeks of Hell with the toughest sons of bitches Uncle Sam could get to volunteer for the dirtiest of all dirty black ops missions, but you don't want to know about me.

Like I said, I'm nobody.

Just another cliché of a 'Nam vet out of a bad Dennis Hopper flick.

We were all nobodies, a bunch of young, patriotic tough guys who wanted the hardest mission possible, for guts and glory and country.

We had no fucking idea what we were getting ourselves into.

Trivelino J. Napier, she was a different story.

She had more tattoos and more marks of violence on her body than anyone I had ever seen, and she didn't have any red white and blue stars in her eyes.

She wanted into this mission because it was personal.

Deeply personal.

The first time I saw her, with the one red braid going down her back, smoking, holding the cigarette in her intricately tattooed hand, I didn't know what she was.

Another guy in the outfit, all he saw was a woman in a world of men.

We were all in a big makeshift tent, waiting for our CO to give us orders, and this guy, let's call him Blondie, because he was a big blond bastard with around face, and two little squinty blue eyes, with a yellow crew cut stiff as the bristles on a pig, he started on her right away

"What the fuck are you doin' here? If they're sendin' us a whore, they did a shitty job."

She just laughed.

"I been called a whore before, chief. And a drunk. But, they like to put other words with them, before they get to 'em. Like crazy, an' thug, an' killer. I've had men look at me like you're lookin' at me, asshole. An' I've killed 'em, too. Back the fuck off, shitstain. I'm not in a forgivin' mood."

Blondie took that as an invitation.

I don't think she expected him to throw her on the ground, in front of all of us.

"Hey, you fuckin' asshole! Leave that woman a-"

That was me.

I was ready to pull him off, and so were a few other guys.

But they guy who was standing with her, he stopped us.

"Give her a minute. She can take him."

Before he was done talking, she was on her feet, and Blondie was on his back.

There was a smear of fresh blood on her face, and her eye was blackening, but she didn't seem fazed in the least.

"C'mon, motherfucker, on your feet! On your feet or I'll kill you where you're lying." She was yelling.

Blondie got up, and threw a sloppy punch at her.

She kicked at his arm, and you could hear a crunch.

Then, she punched him in the face, slammed him with the heel of her hand, right where his cheekbone met his eye socket, and you could hear another crunch.

Blondie fell down.

"Gimme a hand, willya?" the guy beside me asks.

It takes both of us to keep her from kicking Blondie to death.

Some other guy, he's yelling at us to let her go.

"Let her go! Let her kill the motherfucker! We don't need a piecea shit like him around!" this guy was yelling.

I still don't know who the fuck he was, but he was right, and me and Frankie, we were wrong.

That was how I met Liv.

How I saw with my own eyes she was ready for anything.

She was even ready for Victor Creed.

What you want to know is everything I know about Corporal Trivelino J. Napier, USMC Special Forces who had arrived as Agent Napier, of S.H.I.E.L.D, Covert Level 7, Corporal in the USMC, but who had been and always would be, the Harlequin.

We were all tough.

We wouldn't have been sent to Hell's Boot Camp to be ground under the iron heel of Sgt. Mjr. Victor Creed if we weren't tough.

What we weren't, though, was tough like Trivelino J. "Napalm" Napier.

The daughter of the Devil incarnate, Dr. John O' Rourke "Crazy Jack" Napier, AKA the Joker, Clown Prince of Crime, throwing her into Hell was like tossing Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch.

We all broke bones, we suffered from hunger and pain and thirst.

Liv didn't suffer.

She was like some kind of hellbound yogi; she rose above it all, because something greater drove her, something more than nationalism, or the desire to be the toughest, the biggest, the baddest, or, in the case of some of our fellow recruits, sadism and meanness.

If it's true she was the Harlequin, then she was already tempered in bitter blood, and either way her body bore the scars and an intricate network of tattoos that told the story of her life.

Like she always told me, she never saw anything in Vietnam she hadn't seen in the South Bronx.

New York, New York, it's a helluva town.

And she took to the jungle like Islam in the desert.

Back home in a sleepy corner of southeastern Ohio, I used to do a lot of hunting, for food more than sport, and I taught Napalm what I knew about it.

She put what she knew about tracking humans in the city with what I knew about tracking animals in the jungle, and we had meat in out tent every night.

There was something in the concrete jungle that kept her out all night, and she found the same thing in the tropical jungle.

I was going to spend the next two years finding out just what that was, and so was Napalm.

Neither one of us would like what we found.

III: Liv

If you want to know the truth, when I was in Basic, with Vic Creed, I never liked camp.

There was something about it that really bothered me, and made me feel uneasy as hell.

This atmosphere like something was about to blow.

I spent all the time I could either in my tent with Slim and Bear, or in the bush.

See, most of what Creed was teaching us, I already knew.

I spent days at a time in the jungle, and he never sent anyone in after me, but Sabretooth, he came after me, himself, once.

I knew some animal was tracking me, but I didn't know what, so I made an attempt to cover my tracks and disguise my scent, and climbed up a tree.

I was hiding in that tree when he came through the woods, like an animal, himself, only wearing a pair of OD boxers, looking for something.

Looking for me.

"I know you're around here, someplace, Red!" he yelled.

"I'm in the tree right above you." I said.

I came down, and Major Creed congratulated me on my ability to almost throw him off my scent.

"Did you come to drag me back to camp?"

"Hell, no. At least, not for why you think. They never should have sent you to me, Red. You're tough enough. So is the Sarge's nephew. And that MacLeod grunt. I just want to warn you about something. Shit, something I never thought I'd have to tell anybody who wasn't a feral mutant. The bush can do something to you. Something to the part of your mind that's not quite human. You stay out here long enough, it'll be five years before you wake up in a cave surrounded by gnawed bones wondering what the fuck is going on. You'd better come in every morning, Red. And quit sleeping out here. The jungle wants you. But you're not a feral. You better come in."

I know what he was talking about.

It has the same effect on me as the street, this jungle.

But when I hit the street, it hits me back.

When I hit the jungle, it just draws me in.

Deeper.

Like it's got some secret to tell me.

Something I been looking for all my life.

Maybe Eddie was right about this war.

But I don't think this is what he was talking about.

So, I come in every morning.

But all I can think of, all day, is when I can get the hell out of that pressure cooker of a camp, and get back into the bush.

See, I guess everybody thinks there's something in the jungle I'm running to, but there's also something I'm running from.

Ol' Vic Creed, devil that he is, he's giving these boys something that he and I have and that they shouldn't have to get.

An education in what really makes the world go round.

They might be a bunch of tough nuts, soldiers all of them, but what do they really know?

Raised on sci-fi epics and westerns just busting out with PIONEER SPIRIT, with red, white and blue stars in their eyes, all full up of John Wayne war movies and Randolph Scott westerns, they're here to fight the Red Menace.

For Truth, Justice and the American Way.

America, Love It or Leave It.

Well, don't get me wrong, hell yeah, I'm an American.

I'm independent, opinionated, brave, violent, and completely fucking nuts.

BUT.

But this Vietnam thing is a pretty nasty war.

It's not like Eddie's Big One, there's no big bad guy wanting to take over the world and invade your country breathing down your neck, so you kinda have to stick the Russians and the Chinese in there and hope it fits.

But it's a dirty little war, the kind of war where your average grunt is gonna see shit that only a commando would have seen in WWII, and a commando, well, what he's gonna see is the kind of shit that lands guys on top of buildings with rifles, or doped up with Thorazine sitting in the corner bar or, if they're lucky, in their parent's extra bedroom or garage for the rest of their life.

And sure, these guys, they're tough guys, military guys, they know what war really is, but the thing they still have, the thing that might keep them sane, no matter what they have to do, or who they have to do it to, is the certainty that their hands will be clean, because they're doing this for AMERICA, and their country's hands are clean.

Even if they know that's shit, it's what they have to hang onto.

What they believe in.

Why they're here.

Me, I know better.

But I know that shit doesn't work in real life the way it does in those movies. I know a whole helluva lot about the military-industrial complex and their dirty little secrets and nasty little lies. Now I'm more along the lines of America, Change It or Lose It, but despite having seen Uncle Sam with his pants down, I'm alright with it. I know that people like me, and Eddie, and Pop, we have to do the things we do, and people like us have to do those things, and worse so that everybody else can keep dreaming.

I also know that there's no sponge big enough to wipe human greed, violence and corruption out of any government.

That's why the guys who designed our government took that into consideration. Every branch of government has it's eye on every other branch, and every two to four years some corrupt bastard and his cronies have to pick up and leave, because there's a bunch more hogs behind him who want a chance to get their noses in the trough.

But, you don't find a lot of people like Pop and Eddie and me.

Creed already knows out of the rest of the fifty of us, me and Slim and Frankie are probably it, and when this places takes away that last shining hope of a clean country with clean hands from the rest of these guys, it's gonna destroy them, one way or the other.

That's what this war does, to these guys even before these poor slobs get to 'Nam.

Destroys people.

One way, or the other.

I would include PFC Clark in that number, but Clark, he's a sadistic fucking psychopath, and I'm sure he's a hell of a rapo.

He's here to killkillkill first and laugh about it later.

I mean, you talk about burning villages and cutting up babies, you can see that gleam in his eye that says he wants to know where and when he gets to start.

A guy like that you wouldn't want sitting behind you on the subway, let alone supposedly watching your back with a gun in his hand.

He's just the type to forget which direction he's supposed to be firing in.

So, for the good of the country, and for the sake of my own neck, so I won't wake up one morning with my whole unit murdered in their beds and Clark standing there with a machine gun to my head and a knife at my throat ready to use his unit on me, I'm going to do my job.

I'm the Harlequin, everywhere, you know.

I'm taking the motherfucker out.

But, so I don't find myself court-martialed, I have to wait for him to make his move, whatever that is.

All in all, then, I gotta steer clear of camp.

I like it out here, anyway.

This jungle, or the one like it I'm about to go to, it's gonna take me into the Heart of Darkness, and, when I come out on the other side, maybe I'll have a chance at something like a normal life.

You know, normal for a mask.

And, if I die trying?

Well, I died for my country, and I sure as fuck hope Eddie told his old man in Hell about me, because I'm gonna need a friend in a low place.

God save me I make it through.

III: Victor

It took a lot to make Victor Creed edgy.

One morning, the tent in which MacLeod, Marcano, and Napier bivouacked was gone, and so was a M151 from the motor pool that had a .50 calibre machine gun mounted to it, along with two of three crates of ammo, a brick of C-4, a crate of dynamite, and a crate of K-rations.

That just made him curious.

Abroad as he was travelling in the jungle, one evening, though, something rustled in the trees, and, as softly as a snake coming down from a branch, Corporal Napier came down behind him.

"Watch your ass, Vic. Somethin's comin'. But we've got your back. We'll be in the bush. And we'll be ready. Don't sleep in your bed. Not tonight." She said

By the time he turned around, all that was left of her was the smell of camouflage face-paint, sweat, a red hair clinging to the branches behind him, and a rustling in the brush.

That made him edgy as shit.

What the fuck was she talking about?

Why the fuck did she and MacLeod and Marcano go to the bush?

And why the fuck was she in such a hurry to get away?

Thinking about it, Victor decided to trust Napalm's instincts.

He was above the street, in this game, but Napalm was at street level, just like she was in the States, and when you work in the street and you live in the street, you get a 6th sense for when the shit is going to hit the fan.

That night, instead of going to bed, as usual, Sabretooth put on his combat uniform, got his pack together, and, after making up his bunk to look like he was in it, retired to the bush about ten yards away.

He crouched there, claws out, fangs bared, sidearm and gunbelt on, M-16 slung across his back.

Helmet on.

He was ready for Freddy.

Around midnight, he was reminding himself that Napalm was also a paranoid alcoholic who hadn't had a drink for months, and he was about to go get some shut-eye when the sounds of booted feet trying to move quietly made him flatten his body against the ground, and growl in his throat.

"OKAY, NOW! FRAG HIM! FRAG THE MOTHERFUCKER!"

That was PFC Robert Clark.

He heard the door to his bunker splinter, and then the staccato sound of several loud bursts of machine gun fire, from several machine guns.

"BLOW IT!" Clark continued.

The booted feet, making no more effort to be quiet, ran, and Sabretooth pressed his face into the wet jungle Earth and put his hands over his helmeted head.

The sound of the explosion blew out one of his eardrums, in a blinding white flash of pain and blood.

Something bounced off his back and hit next to his arm, and he lifted his head and saw it was a charred chunk of the cinderblock his walls had been made of.

What was left of his bunker that wasn't scattered was in flaming ruins.

Not possessing an adamantium skeleton, Sabretooth was pretty sure that had Old Black Tom Logan's sonny boy Victor been in his bed, knocked cold by about a hundred rounds of thirty aught six slugs at close range, that he would not have survived the explosion, and would currently be in enough bits that all his healing factor would not be able to put together, again.

Instinct told Creed to rush them; he was completely capable of killing forty-seven people in short order.

Common sense told him that he had both the advantage of them thinking he was dead and a team of hard-nosed sons of bitches at his disposal.

He would rendezvous with his troops in the brush, formulate a plan, and, at first light, when Clark and his insubordinate mutineers would probably be drunk and asleep after their night of celebrations, re-take the camp.

With, as they liked to say in this man's army, extreme prejudice.

Without waiting for his shattered eardrum to heal, completely, Sabretooth escaped into the brush.

He could track Napalm, for two reasons.

One, he was a feral mutant.

Two, she had left a special trail for him that only a feral mutant could follow.

When he reached the bivouac of the troops loyal to him, Corporal MacLeod was on patrol.

"Napalm! It's the Major, and he's wounded. Bad!"

Napalm came barrelling out of the tent.

"I'm alright. My eardrum's been blown out. It's almost healed. When it does, I'll be walking straight."

"That's not what bothers me, Vic. The thing that bothers me is that piece of rebar sticking out of your back. Slim, get my medical bag. Bear, do you think you're as strong as the Major is?"

"Close."

"Good. Vic, I need youse to hug that tree like your life depends on it. When Slim comes out with the medical bag, Bear, I need youse to pull that rebar out of our CO. Try not to pull any internal organs out with it. If you do, it'll take him a whole day to heal, and we will all be fucked."

As it turned out, the Sarge's nephew got the rebar out, clean, and Napalm got him sewed up, bandaged, and cleaned up.

In the tent, they had fresh meat and whiskey, and after about an hour or two of sleep, and a meal, Sabretooth was good as new.

He briefed his troops on the details of the mutiny, and his plan.

"We're gonna hit them in the morning. Hard. Marcano, I want you behind the wheel. If the Sarge taught you to drive, that's where you belong. MacLeod, I want you on the .50 calibre. Shoot to kill. These guys aren't your buddies. They tried to blow me up, and if you're with me, they won't be merciful to you. Napier, you and me are gonna go in, and take Clark. Alive. Those grunts ain't shit without him, and once he's out of the picture, they won't know whether to shit, or wind their watches.

Then, once we've got him, we take him to the middle of the camp, where they can all see, and execute him."

"How? I mean, how, SIR?"

"At ease, Slim. This is an informal meeting. Let's do it the old fashioned way. I'll disembowel the son of a bitch with these babies, and Napier here can use that nice, sharp, expensive adamantium alloy machete to chop off his fucking head."

"It's not an alloy, Vic. Wayne Enterprises developed, and patented, a special process for adamantium forging and electroplating."

"Your idea, Einstein?"

"Well, mine and Pop's. Both our names are on the patent."

"Even and Wayne are two eggheads I can trust. Alright, troops, the light is comin' fast. Let's get ready to move out."

Clark wasn't a complete idiot; he had sentries posted.

They weren't complete idiots, either.

When they saw the CO and the three meanest bastards in camp barrelling towards them, they threw down their weapons and threw up their hands.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! We ain't with Clark! He threatened to shoot us!" one guy yelled.

"SIR, what do you want me to do, SIR?" MacLeod asked.

"Get those guns, Corporal MacLeod. And escort these grunts to the stockade. They're smart boys. They know when they're licked."

Marcano drove on, into the tent city that comprised camp.

Nobody was ready for the resurrection of Major Creed; there was a whole lot of guns down and hands raised.

About twenty different guys made with the "Sir, Major Creed, Sir!" and explained that they had no part in the mutiny, but Clark and his five guys threatened to kill anybody and everybody who opened their mouths about the fragging.

He killed four guys who just said they were going to do something about it.

And last night, he and his guys had killed four more who refused to be his sentries.

The bodies were hanging up, upside down, all around the camp.

It was a pretty grisly sight.

"Lance Corporal Marcano, get those soldiers cut down, and lay them out on the tables in the infirmary. Then take these men to the stockade. There's a radio and a sat phone in there. Get me either Colonel Fury or Colonel Blake. Advise them of the situation. Tell them I have eight dead men who deserve decorations for valor, 39 grunts who need to go back to their former duties, 10 mutineers, whose bodies are gonna be left out for the animals, and three recruits for Colonel Blake's team. Three recruits who deserve a decoration and a promotion. And we all need to get the fuck out of here, pronto."

"Sir, yes sir!"

Frankie seemed a little disappointed about not getting into the act, but Sabretooth needed a hardened killer, not a would-be avenger busting his first nut.

"Alright, Napalm. Let's you and me go and do what you and me do best?"

"Well, okay, Vic, but shouldn't we get drunk and screw after we kill the badguys?"

Sabretooth laughed.

"Ya know, Red, I hope Eddie knows what a lucky son of a bitch he is, havin' a broad like you, around."

Clark's first two goons guarding the tent opened fire, immediately, but Napalm was wearing top-secret high-tech S.H.I.E.L.D bulletproof body armor, and Sabretooth was too fucking pissed off to let a few rounds slow him down.

He stuck his claws through both their throats with a terrible savage roar, lifted the dying bodies into the air, and threw them into the tent.

"Die, you motherfu-"

That was all the third goon got out before Napalm shot him in the head with her sidearm, at point-blank range.

The two flanking Clark went for their guns, and she picked them off, too.

Right between the eyes.

Three shots in rapid succession.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

"That is some impressive fuckin' shootin'." Sabretooth commented.

Harlequin wiped some of the blood off of her face with the hand she didn't have her gun in.

"I practise every day. And these mugs are in the army? Shit, the badguys shoot a lot better than that. And they don't talk to you, first. Hands on the table, Clark."

Major Creed and Lance Corporal Napier marched PFC Robert Clark to the stockade, with his hands tied behind his back.

"Company! Faaaaaal out!"

The remaining men, flanked by Marcano and MacLeod, came out of the stockade, and assembled, at attention, at their CO's command.

"Is the prisoner secure, Corporal Napier?"

"SIR, yes SIR, Major Creed, SIR!"

Major Creed unsheathed his claws and slit Clark's belly open in such a way that his guts began to shoot out.

He screamed, quite loudly.

Major Creed pushed him to his knees, and then kicked him forward, so that his head rested on a piece of the ciderblock from the destroyed barracks.

"Corporal Napier, preeee-seeeent...arms!"

Corporal Napier unsheathed the gleaming, razor sharp adamantium machete, so shiny and silvery that Major Creed could see his reflection in it.

"Finish the execution!"

"SIR, YES, SIR!"

She held the blade over her head, and brought it down in a sharp swooping strike that severed Clark's head, and cut the concrete block in half.

As Corporal Napier cleaned her blade, sheathed it, and stood again at attention, Major Creed picked up PFC Robert Clark's head.

The eyes were still blinking.

"Gentlemen! This...is...WAR!"

He let that sink in.

Then, he dropped the head.

"Alright you dogfaces, you're all going back where you came from. There will be no court-martial, and no dishonourable discharge. Maybe you did nothin' wrong, but you didn't do much right, either. So, it's plain you grunts ain't ready for Special. Pack up your shit and assemble on the landing strip. Diiiiis-misssed!"

Marcano and MacLeod departed, escorting the rest of the troops.

Leaving Harlequin and Sabretooth alone.

She tossed him the rag she used to clean her machete to clean his claws.

"So, what was that you were sayin', Red, about drinkin', an' screwin'?" he asked.

"They're gonna send me to Tokyo for R & R. Look me up, Vic."

Excerpt from Blood, Sweat and Tears of Laughter: The True Story of Harlequin & the Comedian continued.

I don't know what happened to those men who were flown out of the ruins of Major Creed's camp, that bloody afternoon.

They all, like Sabretooth said, went back where they came from, which was most likely not just Vietnam, but assignments at different military bases all around the world.

With a story to tell about escaping by the skin of their teeth.

I know that Major Creed was given a commendation, and recalled to duty, stateside.

I know that Bear, Napalm and I were all promoted.

Bear and I to Corporal, Napalm to Sergeant.

We were flown to Tokyo, where we got a week of R and R, most of which we all spent sleeping and eating, two things we hadn't done a lot of at Creed's camp.

At least, that's what Bear and I did.

Napalm disappeared for the whole week; we didn't see her again until Major Creed escorted her to our transport.

We were shipping out, directly to our assignment in Vietnam, with Operation Wrath of God.

It was all completely horrifying, really, and I was thinking about how horrifying it was as we were en-route to our assignment, when Liv asked me a strange question.

"You raised with religion, Slim?" she asked me, helping me bind my sprung ribs with her heavily tattooed hands.

On her right hand, there's an eye tattooed into her palm, some kind of mystical symbol.

On the back of that hand she has the word "Fire" tattooed over her knuckles.

On the back of her left hand she has a tattoo of a skull and crossbones, and on the knuckles the word "Hell".

Hellfire.

"Scots Presbyterian. You?"

"Lapsed Irish Catholic. You remember the part in the Bible where God tells Cain that Abel's blood is calling out to Him from the ground?"

"Sure. Why?"

She pointed to the scar on her throat, the scar covered over with an intricate and beautiful Celtic knotwork tattoo that merged with the tattoos on her chest, across her collarbone.

"I've known Colonel Blake literally all my life, and he was a friend of my parents before I was born. When I got this, I needed massive blood transfusions. I got a real rare blood type. They got my father out of Arkham, and took all they could without harming him, but I needed more. Colonel Blake and I happen to have the same extremely rare blood type. He donated the rest. It's blood between us, Slim. I didn't want to come to this war. I protested it for years, and I still don't believe in it. But, the Comedian's blood calls out to me, from in my veins. I can feel it burn me, and I know what I have to do. I swore an oath to him. What you have done, I have done. Where you have been, I have been. What you must do, I will do. And where you go, I will follow."

Think about that.

Now, keep in mind that if you scratch Dr. Trivelino J. Napier, Ph.D, deeply enough, you will find an old-time Celtic witch, deeply steeped in a tradition that came down the generations.

Where he has been, I have been.

The Celts believed in sin-eaters; special shamen that had the power to take on the sins and guilt of others, and to absorb and destroy them.

Where he goes, I will follow.

As my grandmother used to tell me, a witch has a third eye that other people don't, an eye that's wide open all the time that sees things other people don't see. And since a witch can see what's coming in the Lord's Plan, although she can't change it, she can change what's around it; bend it and shape it, and prepare for what's to come. A witch can see into the future and into the past, and she sees the place where they go so far apart from each other that they come together.

I didn't think about all that, then.

I knew Liv was smarter than me, I knew she was better read, I knew she was some mad scientist combination of a materialist and a mystic, a stalwart fighter for justice and an avatar of entropy.

More to the point, I figured that everything that happened in South America, which had been the single most traumatic experience of my life, and this was before I even got to Vietnam was just la-de-da, business as usual for Napalm.

Terror, mutinies, gunplay, explosions, executions, beheadings.

Just another week in the life of a street-level dirty jobs mask from Gotham City.

Just something to pass the time before she returned to the Comedian, about whom she often declared:

"That big, bad, mean, beautiful son-of-a-bitch is my fate."

I was about to find out that she wasn't kidding.

The hard way.

Saigon, Vietnam, 1969

IV: Logan

Another day, another day parked at the bar in Eddie's favourite dive.

Drink today, because in this Hell, even Wolverine might be dead, tomorrow.

Eddie, however, was in an unusually good mood; the best mood Logan had seen him in in the months they'd been in Vietnam.

"Today's the day, Jimmy. The day we really get this fuckin' team together. The kid's coming. And Frankie Bear."

Wolverine knew who Frankie Bear was.

Not to mention Trivelino J. Napier, the Harlequin.

They'd met.

He had heard a lot of stories about the Harlequin, the great majority of them from Jean Grey, who had roomed with her at NYU a few years back.

Also a great many from Frankie Bear, as Logan ate at Boots Marcano's pizzeria every time he was in the city.

From the stories, he got the idea that "Napalm" was a super-smart and, as Jean put it "extremely eccentric" version of your typical brawling Irish drunk, for whom the only thing more fun than a drink and a fight was a good screw.

The rest of the stories were street stories, mask stories, usually of the And-You-Don't-Hafta-Believe-Me-But-I-Saw-It-With-My-Own-Eyes variety.

Even if it was all true, and Harlequin was the roughest, dirtiest, get-em-firstiest avenger to hit the mean streets since the Comedian hit town in 1938, Logan still couldn't see where that made her a candidate for a Special Forces Black Ops commando unit.

And he had personally seen her at work, earlier that year, with him and Eddie and the C of H scumbag, at the Fountain Avenue dump, in Brooklyn.

But still, she was 19 years old, five foot one, maybe, and went about a buck forty five, maybe a buck fifty.

Logan knew well you didn't have to be big to be bad, but still, this was a teenage girl.

"Eddie, I hate to ask you this question, because I know Naplam's good. I've seen her work. But, is she ready for this? Is it a good idea to bring her to an elite commando unit in a war zone in the 9th circle of Hell?" he asked.

Eddie laughed so hard that tears came out of his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Jimmy. But you don't know the kid like you think you do. She was born ready for this. But it aint about bein' ready. It's about her future. You remember when I was her age, kinda, when we were in the Invaders, together, dontcha?"

Logan smiled.

"I remember you were a crazy, violent young pup, all full of piss, wind and excitement."

"Yeah, I was. And back in the States, that's how everybody saw me. My reputation was in the shitter. I was a minor nobody with a good left hook in a cheap yellow suit. But, the war made me, Jimmy. Straightened my shit right out and showed me what doin' my fuckin' job really was. An' when I came home a decorated war hero, it paved my way to make a place for myself in the mask game. The kid, she's in that same boat. I mean it, Jimmy. That crazy little broad, she's every bit as tough and as crazy as I was when I was her age. So, that's what this war's gonna do for the kid. Straighten her ass out."

Logan thought about it.

Liv Napier was one of three of 50 recruits to pass through Sabretooth's brutal black ops boot camp, and pretty much in one piece.

The other new member of the unit, a Corporal MacLeod, though, still sounded more promising.

He had been a Marine since 1963, and with Special Forces since 1965.

He went about six two and one eighty.

This would be his first tour in Vietnam.

But, on their arrival at said dive, the rendezvous point, Corporal MacLeod came in leaning on the Harlequin for support.

He looked thinner, grey in the face, and exhausted by his experience.

Whereas she looked in top form, tanned, toned and glowing with good health, and merry red-haired Irish girl impish good nature.

She saluted, smartly, clicking the rubber heels of her combat boots together.

Her hands were more heavily tattooed, she had a few new ones on the joints of her fingers above the knuckles, and still the tattoo across her chest between the straps of her undershirt .

You can die today—I'll die tomorrow.

With a pentacle in-between the phrases, tattooed at the top of her sternum.

She pulled MacLeod up a little and when her undershirt flipped up, and the waistband of her fatigues sagged down Logan could see the scar left by a very big bullet she'd taken to the guts two or three years ago.

"Sergeant Napier reporting for duty, Colonel Blake, Colonel Howlett, sirs! Permission to borrow your M151, Colonel Blake, and take Corporal MacLeod to the base to see a medic. Slim got hurt pretty bad in the mutiny at Vic Creed's camp, and he's not healed up, yet."

"And you?" the Comedian asked.

"Shit, it was small time, Eddie. Most of the guys were so scared shitless by Clark, and more scared shitless that Vic wasn't dead, it was all a give up. Clark's men were for shit, they actually tried to talk to Vic before he skewered them, and they wanted to hold a conversation with me before they went for their guns. He ventilated two, and I skewered three while they were still making with the insults. As for Clark, he was a lousy mutineer. After his guys shot up Creed's bed, they never checked to see he was in it. And after they blew up his bunker, they never looked for pieces of him. Real amateur shit. Hell, the bastard couldn't even die well. He killed ten innocent guys, and talked five more into buying it from me and Vic with his bullshit. But, when it came time for him to go, he was blubbering and screaming. I mean, I took a bullet in the guts, that had to hurt as much as a claw or five, and I never screamed that loud. He didn't shut the fuck up till I sliced his head off. Goddamn adamantium machete went through his murdering piece of shit treasonous neck like a hot knife through butter. That's what I call a successful prototype. Hell, that son of a bitch, Clark tried to rape me the first day we were there, before we even had our first assembly. I busted him up that day, and I told him while Frankie an' Slim pulled me off him that I'd give him what he deserved. And I did, too. Another one for Mick the Merciless in Hell, Eddie."

"I'll drink to that, kid. Have a drink. You deserve it."

He poured her a shot and she downed it.

"That goddamn Vic Creed, though, he is one crazy fuck. Told me to look him up when I get back to New York. Some dudes, ya know. Anybody ever tell you, Logan, you and him, you look alike? You got the same smile, and your eyes are different colors, but they're time same eyes. They wrinkle up the same way when you smile, in that kinda lopsided way. An' you an Vic, you have the same kinda way of talkin'. Use the same expressions. Kinda, yunno, like John Wayne or Gary Cooper, inna Western, or somethin'. Shit, you kinda even smell like him. Oh well. Guess you boys musta picked up on each other's lingo or somethin' when you worked together for the G, a few years back. But me, I don't know nothin' about that. Still don't explain the resemblance. Oh well. None of my business, so I'll just shut my Mick mouth, about you two Micks. You got those keys for me, boss? Frankie's waitin'."

Eddie handed her the keys.

Logan goggled in shock.

"Take it over to the motor pool. Ask for Sergeant McClatchey."

"How's Joe Mac doin?"

"Alright. I told you and Mac I'd look after his kid. Joe'll be glad to see youse, but not that goddamn piece of shit truck. Maybe you can work your magic on it."

"I'll try. C'mon, Slim. We're almost there. I gotcha."

She opened the door.

"Hey, Frankie, gimme a hand, here, Slim's a big guy..."

Logan watched her and Frankie bear help the other soldier to the truck, and drive off.

"Eddie, did you tell her Creed and I worked together, for Weapon X?"

"Nope. And I didn't tell her about him bein' your brother, either. Kid's smart. She watches. An' she thinks. Picks up shit. Don't worry, she's with us. She'll keep her yap shut."

"What was that shit about us smellin' alike? I'd know that, an' a dog would, and a feral would, but how does Liv?"

The Comedian shrugged.

"Kid's funny like that. She's forever sniffin'. Sniffs her food before she eats it. Sniffs the air when she's outside. Sniffs a room before she walks in it. Hell, she sniffs people. She says she knows everyubody she knows, just on their smell. Tells me she can smell fear, too, or if somebody's horny. Shit like that. Maybe she can. She's been trainin' her nose for years."

She was back at the bar about a half hour later, and showed up in one of the camp jeeps.

"Just like I thought. Broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, bruised kidney. But Slim'll do fine. He just needs a little more time on his back. As for your truck, it's fuckin' close to terminal. I looked under the hood, Jesus, it's a crime what the army does to a good Ford V-8 engine. Then, you take into account those shitty tires, and the shocks, if I didn't know better I'd say they were cheap Japanese shocks. Tranny's not lookin' too healthy either. But, I can fix 'er up for ya. I figure I'll have this drink an' get to work. It'll take me the rest of the day, and I called supply on the sat phone and gave 'em hell. The tires will be here in an hour or so. If I work straight through, I'll get that fucker runnin' like Clyde Barrow's dream machine by late tonight. I figue though, I might do a couple mods to it. Vic had this M151, the way he had it trcked out, fuck taht was somethin'. I can do that. Especially with Joe to help me. Boy, do I need a fuckin' drink! You know I didn't have a drink for, like, five months? Maybe I'll go on the S.H.I.E.L.D Moderation Program. All that four drinks a day shit. It beats none. How about that shit? Hey, how about a Newcastle Brown and a shot of Jack, down here?"

"You can work on the truck, tomorrow. I wanna take youse back to the base camp, show ya around."

"Is that what they're callin' it, now, Eddie?"

"Finish your drink, ya little wiseass."
She downed the rest of her beer, then the shot, and made for the door.

"Well, I guess I'm goin'. Good seein' ya again, Logan. If I gotta do this dumb shit in this fuckin' hellhole because Mr. Stars-and-Stripes Forever over here hasta be in every goddamn war there is, it's good knowin' I got some serious motherfuckers watchin' my back."

Logan was somewhat dumbfounded, but he had the presence of mind to shake the hand she extended to him.

"Likewise, I'm sure." He said.

She laughed, and Eddie laughed.

"Hey, kid, you didn't give Vic Creed any reason to want to look you up when youse gets back to New York, didja?"

"Honestly, Eddie, I can't remember. I had the Troubles when I was in Tokyo. I went on a helluva bender. I mean, I'd been stone cold sober for like, four or five months. First three days, I went crazy. I remember wakin' up in the back of a taxi with blood on my hands, an' all over my clothes, with my nose just pourin' the shit, an Vic was there, screamin' somethin' in Japanese at the driver. He was callin' me Red, the way he does an' tellin' me things were gonna be alright. I remember feelin' real bad, and bein' real panicked. I'm pretty sure Vic was lookin' after me the rest of the time, but I was still pretty loaded. Maybe I did, Eddie, and maybe I didn't. Ask him. The sunnuvabitch don't care what people think of him enough to lie." Napalm replied.

That she admitted something like that so casually, and that Eddie accepted her explanation so readily helped Logan understand why the Comedian would rather have Harlequin where he could keep an eye on her, even if it was in a war zone.

Military discipline might do her good, as well.

And she had Sabretooth, cold.

"She's right about that, Eddie." Logan said.

"Yeah, well, I'll just have to talk to old Vic Creed. C'mon kid, that's three drinks, which leaves you with only one for the rest of the day. Let's go."

V: Victor

"Christ, Eddie, you're callin' me on a goddamn sat phone from Vietnam just to ask me that?"

"Yeah, I am, Vic. I just got the kid settled into her tent, and she looks like she;s been through the ringer. If you know what's good for your fuckin' promotion, an' your future as an employee of Uncle Sam, you won't gimme no bullshit."

"I didn't put those marks on her, Sarge, And I didn't put it to her, either. Believe me, I had plans. But as soon as they took the kid out of the loving arms of the USMC and put her down, free range, she went AWOL from her own damn self. MacLeod and Frankie Bear, they barely had the energy to do anything but sleep for a week. Not Red. She hit the town, running. It took me three days to follow her trail of destruction to some dive in a part of town I wouldn't go to for fun, where I found Red higher than Mount Everest, in a cage fight with some big Australian bastard. She beat the fuck out of him, too, and won, but he pounded her, and she looked like she'd got in a few scrapes before that. I got her and the cash and shoved them both in a cab, and took her to my penthouse, and kept her there until it was time to stick her on a plane. I got a doctor in camp to patch her up, and she slept for the better part of two days. I went out to get some food, and when I came back she was drunk again, full of whatever I had in the house, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to knock my teeth down my throat or rip my pants off, or both. I put her back to bed, locked her in the room, and she nearly ripped the door off, but then she passed out. Woke up hungry the next morning, and acted normal, well, normal for her, for the next two days. I put her on the plane to you, and then flew back to New York. To tell you the truth, Sarge, I was afraid to lie down with her, because she might wake up with a wild hair lyin' across her ass the wrong way and cut my head off with one stroke of that shiny patented adamantium machete. Was that shit what you call the Troubles?"

"That's it, Vic."

"What are you gonna do when she gets like that, over in 'Nam."

"Brass gave me a special one-man prison to keep Jimmy in, if he goes nuts. He won;t, the dumb motherfuckers. But I think I'll hafta use if for the kid."

"Yeah, well, other'n that, Red's alright, yunno?"

"Yeah, I know, Vic. I know all about it. And I don't want you to. You get me?"

"Yeah, Sarge, I get you."

"Good. Seeya."

The Comedian hung up.

"Yeah, well, she might get home before you do, Sarge. An' I'll sniff her out when she's not havin' those troubles. An' what you don't know, can't hurt me."

VI: Eddie

Camp was a series of good old US Army temporary buildings, somewhere between tents and trailers, all of them on wheels.

Command tent, barracks tent, weapons and ammo dump, mess tent, medical tent, hospital tent.

And, on the other side of camp, the shower and latrines.

It was pretty rough, but the way Frankie and the kid were acting, you would have thought it was the Ritz.

It made the Comedian wonder what Creed's hellhole was like.

At dinner time, when Pat got the food going, in the mess tent, it was like a stampede.

The kid and Frankie were jammed in, right in front, trays in hand, and MacLeod, Slim, they called him, he dragged his ass in from the Infirmary, and all three of them were just about killing themselves to get some of Uncle Sam's fine cuisine.

Then, they shovelled that food in like there wasn't going to be any, tomorrow, and went back for more.

After that performance, the kid went back to work on the truck.

She reeled into the barracks tent, dragging her duffel behind her with her knapsack on, right as Jimmy was going out to take the ten o clock watch.

"Where do I flop?" she asked.

"This way, kid."

He showed her where her tent was.

"Eddie, ain't this supposed to be your tent, cause you're the CO?"

"Yeah. But I never use it. Me an' Jimmy, we'd both rather bunk in the barracks tent with the rest of the guys. An, I know it kills youse to think of it, but you ain't one of the guys. So youse gets your own tent."

"But..."

"No buts. Nick and I got a lot of shit from the brass, havin' you in this camp, and if I had you mucked in with the men, I'd be in a world of shit. That, and there's shit your broads gotta deal with that no man wants any part of. Ever. I'm gonna go take my watch. Get some sleep, kid. You look like you need it."

When the Comedian returned from his watch, he checked on her.

She was sound asleep, but she woke up when he came in, though, and there was panic in her eyes and her gun came out from under the cot, before she woke up enough to realise it was him.

"At ease, kid! What the fuck did that sunnuvabitch Creed do to you at Boot Camp? Frankie's on pins and fuckin' needles, and we had to put that MacLeod guy right in the infirmary."

He sat beside her, on the bed.

"Well?"

"It was pretty godddamn bad, Eddie. Alla time, every day, you didn't know what was comin' next, ya didn't feel for a minute like the next minute wasn't gonna be the end of your life. We had no decent food, no medical, no latrines, no showers. Mutiny was always in the air. Then, finally, me an' Slim an' Frankie hadda take to the bush. There, we didn't even have the other guys or the MRE's, and all we had was our regulation gear, no jungle survival shit. Now, me, I'd been escapin' to the bush the whole time, but I gotta tellya, even though, we were all scared shitless. We thought about leavin' Victo twist in the wind, an' gettin' to civilisation and reportin' it there, but, Hell, I couldn't just leave the SOB there, like that. Not even him. It was bad, Eddie. It was all bad. That's why the Troubles were so bad. I actually fuckin' scared myself. If Creed hadn't stuck around, for whatever reason, I don't even fuckin' know what woulda happened to me. Shit, it was so bad, there, I feel safer here. At least Pat an Joe Mac are here, an we got a real camp. An' you're here. I feel like maybe I can get a little sleep without lookin' over my shoulder. I mean, maybe this is the 7th or 8th circle of Hell, but I was right in the Devil's mouth, yunno?"

"That was the idea, kid. Except nobody planned on there bein' a mutiny. You're gonna be alright. You're gonna have your four drinks a day, an' you're gonna keep your little ass and this tent shipshape, an' follow orders, and I'm gonna be here to see that youse does. Jimmy, too. We're gonna straighten you out, kid, and you, you're gonna show the world what I already know. That you're a damn good mask. One of the best. And, in another 12 months, you'll be goin' home a hero. How's that sound?"

"Kinda like bullshit, Eddie. But some of it may be true. Especially the part about me bein' alright, with you around. And, as long as I'm here, nothin's gonna happen to you, or my friends. I'm gonna make sure of that."

"That's the spirit, kid. I don't need the Doc when they sent me you."

"Now that's bullshit, Eddie."

"Yeah, so what? Sometimes ya gotta believe your own bullshit. Especially in a place like this."

The Comedian got up to leave.

"Hey, where the fuck do you think you're goin? Ya know what else I ain't had for a few months?"

"What the fuck made you do that?"

"I dunno. I figured it would gimme that extra edge. All it did was make me crazier."

"Months, huh? Maybe I better go get Jimmy, tell him to be on call, in case I need reinforcements."

The kid hugged him hard, like she never wanted to let him go.

It made Eddie realise that she was in this jungle hell for one reason and one reason alone.

Maybe for Pat, and Joe Mac, and Frankie Bear.

But, definitely and totally, for him.

What you have done, I have done. Where you have been, I have been. What you must do, I will do.

And where you go, I will follow.

"It's alright, now, Liv. You're with me. As long as you're with me, nobody's gonna hurt youse. I promise."

In Vietnam, that wasn't a promise most men could keep.

But, the Comedian wasn't most men.

He would keep it.

(Author's Note: Well, Slim and Liv and Frankie might feel like they've dodged the bullet, but they've gone from the frying pan into the fire. Who's going to hold up, and who's going to crack? Sure, Eddie seems to think a little war and military discipline might knock the kinks out of the Harlequin, but what if he's wrong and Logan's right? And, what about the Troubles? I don't know about you, but I think the Comedian better get on building that holding cell. Fast.)