Free Double Impact: Never Say Die & No Way Back by Tess Gerritsen, Debra Webb Page B

andgulping down whiskey. Airplanes did that to him. Even nice big 747s with nice French stewardesses. It never failed to astonish him that the wings didn’t fall off.
    At the other end of the garden, the trio of Russians had started to sing. Not, unfortunately, in the same key. Maybe not even the same song. It was hard to tell.
    â€œNever would’ve guessed it,” the Englishman said, glancing over at the Russians. “I still remember the Yanks drinking at that very table. Never would’ve guessed there’d be Russians sitting there one day.”
    â€œWhen were you here?”
    â€œSixty-eight to ’75.” He held out a pudgy hand in greeting. “Dodge Hamilton, London Post. ”
    â€œGuy Barnard. Ex-draftee.” He shook the man’s hand. “Reporter, huh? You here on a story?”
    â€œI was.” Hamilton looked mournfully at his Scotch. “But it’s fallen through.”
    â€œWhat has? Your interviews?”
    â€œNo, the concept. I called it a sentimental journey. Visit to old friends in Saigon. Or, rather, to one friend in particular.” He took a swallow of Scotch. “But she’s gone.”
    â€œOh. A woman.”
    â€œThat’s right, a woman. Half the human race, but they might as well be from Mars for all I understand the sex.” He slapped down the glass and motioned for another refill. The bartender resignedly shoved the whole bottle of Scotch over to Hamilton. “See, the story I had in mind was the search for a lost love. You know, the sort of copy that sells papers. My editor went wild about it.” He poured the Scotch, recklessly filling the glass to the brim. “Ha! Lost love! I stopped by her old house today, over on Rue Catinat. Or what used to be Rue Catinat. Found her brother still living there. But it seems my old love ran away with some new love. A sergeant. From Memphis, no less.”
    Guy shook his head in sympathy. “A woman has a right to change her mind.”
    â€œOne day after I left the country?”
    There wasn’t much a man could say to that. But Guy couldn’t blame the woman. He knew how it was in Saigon—the fear, the uncertainty. No one knowing if there’d be a slaughter and everyone expecting the worst. He’d seen the news photos of the city’s fall, recognized the look of desperation on the faces of the Vietnamese scrambling aboard the last choppers out. No, he couldn’t blame a woman for wanting to get out of the country, any way she could.
    â€œYou could still write about it,” Guy pointed out. “Try a different angle. How one woman escaped the madness. The price of survival.”
    â€œMy heart’s not in it any longer.” Hamilton gazed sadly around the rooftop. “Or in this town. I used to love it here! The noise, the smells. Even the whomp of the mortar rounds. But Saigon’s changed. The spirit’s flown out of it. The funny part is, this hotel looks exactly the same. I used to stand at this very bar and hear your generals whisper to each other, ‘What the hell are we doing here?’ I don’t think they ever quite figured it out.” He laughed and took another gulp of Scotch. “Memphis. Why would she want to go to Memphis?”
    He was muttering to himself now, some private monologue about women causing all the world’s miseries. An opinion with which Guy could almost agree. All he had to do was think about his own miserable love life and he, too, would get the sudden, blinding urge to get thoroughly soused.
    Women. All the same. Yet, somehow, all different.
    He thought about Willy Maitland. She talked tough, buthe could tell it was an act, that there was something soft, something vulnerable beneath that hard-as-nails surface. Hell, she was just a kid trying to live up to her old man’s name, pretending she didn’t need a man when she did. He had to admire her for that: her pride.
    She was smart to turn