Free Day of the Delphi by Jon Land

immoral, brutal, and ruthless. He convinced the hierarchy who approved the scheme that he could control them, that their expendable nature made them perfect for missions deemed unsurvivable.
    And to some extent he was right. Gash’s “Salvage Company,” as it became known, did prove quite effective on several occasions. The problem was it got started too close to the war’s end. By the time it was fully up and running, the cease-fire agreement was signed and Nixon was claiming peace with honor. The members of Salvage Company, though, knew little about peace and even less about honor. The ones who survived encounters in Laos and Cambodia were given amnesty and let loose back in the real world.
    Traggeo was one of them. The war paint and braids became his trademark. The tale that a great Indian warrior had been reborn within his soul left the war with him, even though he lacked any true Indian heritage. After Vietnam he
had bounced around several mercenary groups before returning to the States. Five years ago he had beaten four men to death in a fight and had scalped them all, then escaped from jail before his trial. There’d been a number of other killings over the years, all with the same pattern.
    Three nurses on a single night in Chicago.
    An entire family in Idaho.
    Two unfortunate off-duty policemen outside of Los Angeles.
    The list went on. All the victims had been scalped. And each time that trademark act linked Traggeo to a killing, his fabricated Indian heritage came back to haunt the people he claimed to be a part of. It had become a question of honor for the Sioux tribe Chief Silver Cloud presided over. Traggeo had to be found, had to be stopped. But just over a year before, the old man explained, he had disappeared.
    “Another of our tribe thought he had finally located him. Will Shortfeather.” Chief Silver Cloud produced a dog-eared color snapshot of a tall man with stringy, straw-colored hair that neatly rimmed his scalp. “He disappeared. We never heard from him again. That was two weeks ago.”
    Wareagle nodded. “And this other killing?”
    “The night before last. I came out here by bus on the morning after the dream came. I knew it had started again. But worse now. Somehow worse.”
    Silver Cloud’s eyes pleaded with Johnny, and Wareagle felt a pang of affection for the man who had been one of his spirit guides. The thought of this old warrior spending more than twenty-four hours on a bus ride east to ask for his help was humbling. And if Johnny refused his overtures, Silver Cloud would be on the next bus without question or rebuke, thinking no less of him.
    But Johnny wasn’t going to say no. And neither was he going to let the old man return west on anything but an airplane.
    “Will you help us, Wanblee-Isnala?”
    Wareagle held the picture of the Indian with the straw-colored
hair at arm’s distance. “Where was Shortfeather when you heard from him last?”
    The lines on Silver Cloud’s ancient face seemed to ease. His shoulders straightened from their slump as if a great weight had been lifted from them.
    “Gainesville,” he replied. “Gainseville, Texas.”

CHAPTER 7
    The President swam his laps in the White House pool while his chief aide, Charlie Byrne, walked back and forth alongside.
    “I don’t want to talk about the polls, Charlie. The polls give me gas.”
    “You can take a pill for gas, Mr. President.” Even though they’d been friends since high school, Byrne insisted on addressing him formally at all times. “There’s no pill I know of that can take care of our problem in the polls.”
    The President switched to the breast stroke. “The good news is I’ve still got two and a half years to set things right.”
    Byrne continued to walk along the pool’s rim. “And the bad news is it’s taken only one and a half for things to get this bad.”
    The President dunked his head and came back up, squinting the chlorine from his eyes and starting toward the ladder. “Is