Relentless by Brian Garfield Page B

hundreds of former Green Berets to serve in Laos. That’s just what I read in the papers. I don’t know anything. But if you’re traveling around signing up recruits to fight some ass-hole war out in Laos you can count me out. I’ve had my ass shot at enough.”
    The Major laughed, his eyes closing up to slits. “It’s got nothing to do with Laos.”
    â€œOr the CIA?”
    â€œOr the CIA.” The Major pulled a flat billfold out of his inside pocket and extracted a folded newspaper clipping. “Evidently you didn’t read all the papers.”
    It was eight or nine months old, starting to yellow and get brittle at the folds. It had a one-column head shot of Hargit in his beret at the top. The caption spelled his name and the headline beneath it said: BERET MAJOR DISCHARGED AFTER VIET COURT-MARTIAL.
    Hargit took it back before he’d had time to read more than a paragraph. He folded it carefully and put it back in the billfold. “Some South Vietnamese civilians got killed and they needed a scapegoat. The details don’t matter, it’s all politics. The gooks were VC at night and law-abiding citizens during the day—you know the drill. But it was supposed to be a pacified hamlet and Saigon raised hell.”
    Walker stared at him. “I’ll be damned. So they threw you out.”
    â€œSeventeen years in uniform,” the Major said in a dull low voice. “If I hadn’t had a friend or two they’d have put me in the stockade for murder. Murder, for God’s sake—there’s a war going on.” The Major slipped the billfold into his pocket and adjusted the hang of his jacket. “So you see we’ve got something in common, Captain.”
    â€œYou don’t look like you’re hurting.” He couldn’t help it. The big car and the three-hundred-dollar suit didn’t stimulate his sympathies.
    If it angered Hargit he didn’t show it. “Money? I had a little saved up. It doesn’t amount to anything.” He stood up and turned to stare out the plate-glass front window, talking oyer his shoulder. “I could have hired out to half a dozen armies. South America, Africa—plenty of work around for a mercenary who knows guerrilla work.”
    â€œYou were damn good,” Walker agreed. “Why didn’t you do that?”
    â€œI’m going to. But on my terms, not theirs. It’s always a mistake to get into a position where you’ve got responsibility but not authority. From here on in I don’t take orders from anybody but Leo Hargit.”
    â€œEasy to say. You going to hire yourself?”
    â€œYes.” Hargit turned to face him. There was no reading the expression but the eyes were hard as glass. “There are countries around willing to hire whole armies at a clip.”
    Now it really began to frighten him. “And you’re going to raise an army?”
    â€œI figure to put together the best mobile force of crack guerrilla mercenaries anybody ever saw. And then I figure to hire out to the high bidder and run his war the right way—my way, with no interference from anybody and no Pentagon to court-martial me.”
    It took time to absorb. After a while Walker said, “And you don’t care who you fight for. Which side, I mean.”
    â€œSides don’t mean anything below the Equator.”
    â€œWell I know that. I hate to sound like a hick but I meant what about right and wrong?”
    â€œVirtues make sense when you can afford them, I suppose. I can’t. Anyhow, morality’s a pen for sheep, built by wolves. Take what you want and don’t look back, that’s all that matters.”
    Walker blinked. “Why’d you come to me?”
    â€œI told you. I want a pilot.”
    â€œI never flew a combat plane in my life.”
    â€œI wouldn’t ask you to.”
    It wasn’t making any sense. All he knew was that Hargit was playing