Rambo: First Blood Part II, page 1
part #2 of Rambo Series
To Stirling Silliphant,
for October 7, 1960, and the first episode of "Route 66"
for teaching me to love a story
To Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant, who lived there and survived
Author's Note
In my novel First Blood, Rambo died. In the films, he lives.
Thanks to Andrew Vajna, Mario Kassar, and Robert Brenner at Carolco productions (and a special nod to Jeanne Joe) for expediting my research on this project.
To Dara Marks at the Westgate Group...
To Sylvester Stallone and James Cameron, also thanks.
The weapons described in this book (and used in the film Rambo) exist. They are functional. More, they are works of art.
The knife was created by Jimmy Lile, "the Arkansas Knifesmith," Route 1, Russellville, Arkansas 72801. Mr. Lile also made the now famous knife that was used in the movie First Blood. The present knife is somewhat different, though equally dramatic. As with the First Blood knife, one hundred marked and serial-numbered Rambo copies have been sold to collectors. An unnumbered slightly different version of both knives is available to the public. A six-inch Rambo throwing knife is also available.
The bow was created by Hoyt/Easton Archery, 7800 Haskell Ave., Van Nuys, California 91406. It, too, is available. Thanks to Joe Johnston for teaching me about its intricacy. Kathy Velardi supplied me with helpful information. Bob Rhode answered my questions about the history of archery.
The arrows were developed by Pony Express Sport Shop, 16606 Schoenborn St., Sepulveda, California 91343. Thanks to Joe Ellithorpe for explaining their unique capabilities.
1
THE QUARRY
-1-
With profound contentment, immersed in the purity of a perfect timeless Zen moment, Rambo swung the heavy sledgehammer up from behind him. He ignored its weight, however, and instead enjoyed its satisfying arc as it passed the zenith above his shoulder. Pushing the total force of his spirit behind his thrust, he walloped the hammer down as hard as he could upon the iron wedge sunk into the fascinating, beautiful (because it existed) white rock. Every crag and pock mark on its overwhelming surface magnified before his gaze. And with the ringing impact of metal on metal, the rock disintegrated, fragments exploding like shrapnel, the wedge at last falling . ..
Free. As the word occurred to him, he stiffened, thrusting it from his mind.
No.
He shook his head.
He mustn't think of being free.
He mustn't think at all.
Just do.
A drop of sweat, one of many oozing from his forehead, broke loose, glinting as it fell, disintegrating upon the wedge, exploding as the stone had. Its sunlight-reflecting fragments reminded him again . ..
Of shrapnel. Rockets from gun ships. Booby traps. Claymore mines. Grenades. The jungle erupting. Soldiers
screaming. Blood. . .
Don't think.
If you want to survive, just do.
He jammed the wedge into another rock, raised the hammer again, and swung it down with fierce concentration.
Again!
And again!
And...!
Around him, the same heavy ear-piercing clang of metal striking metal echoed through the wide deep quarry. Heat waves shimmered off the sun-baked rocks. Men in tattered prison work clothes, their sweat-stained tanktops stenciled with P on the back, raised sledgehammers of their own, inhaling, listing from exhaustion, and again ... and again! struck a metal wedge to rupture a rock.
But they didn't know the secret, Rambo thought. They grumbled at night, pissed and moaned about their fate, complained about their hardship.
They didn't know that nothing mattered. Nothing.
Except survival.
Existence itself.
Even pain could be wonderful. If you put your mind in the right perspective. If you shut out the past and future and forced yourself to concentrate on the vividness of the present, even if now was filled with pain.
His muscles aching, he glanced toward the square-faced sullen guards who studied every movement of every prisoner, carefully, from a distance, holding twelve-gauge shotguns or .30/06 Springfield rifles equipped with telescopic sights.
Don't let the bastards get you down.
Sometimes, when he swung his hammer, feeling his taut bulging muscles absorb the impact against the wedge, he thought back to the violence that had brought him here. The town. The cop. Yes, Teasle. Why wouldn't that son-of-a-bitch back off?
A corner of his mind replied, And why wouldn't you?
I had a right.
To do?
What I wanted in the country I sacrificed my soul to fight for.
You have to admit you looked strange to him.
Because I'd been sleeping in the woods? Because I hadn't shaved and needed a haircut? I wasn't hurting anybody. He didn't have a reason to roust me.
But you could have explained. You have to admit you looked like a vagrant. Admit it. You didn't have a job.
Doing what? Who'd hire me? There's only one thing I was trained for. In Nam, they trusted me with million-dollar equipment. I flew a gunship. Over here, I can't get a job parking cars. Jesus!
He struck his hammer against the wedge in fury.
Teasle. He kept pushing me. Arrested me. Told his men to shave me. Like that bastard North Vietnamese who took his knife to me and gave me these souvenirs on my chest and back.
So you lost control.
No. Defended myself!
Broke from jail and played hell with that posse in the mountains. They didn't have a chance. You shot up — blew away — that town. And think of what you did to that cop. And now ...
Rambo nodded, seething. His Zen moment totally destroyed, he raised the sledge in blinding rage, determined to destroy, annihilate, another rock.
And now he was paying for the war he'd fought. Oh, sure, they trained me. They were pleased as hell to send me over there.
But why did they figure I'd just forget? Why didn't they take as much trouble detraining me?
Or maybe that isrit possible. Maybe you just don't belong.
After six months in a North Vietnam prison camp? Don't belong? You'd better believe it. After that, the only place you think you belong is in hell.
Like now. One prison replaced by another.
But this time in America. The home of the brave. The land of the free.
If only that cop had...
What?
Just asked me how I was doing.
- 2 -
He set down his hammer and wiped his muscular forearm across his brow, though that gesture wasn't any help—both his arm and brow were equally drenched with sweat. He glanced at the nearest guard, then toward the water bucket on a shelf of rock ten feet up the slope.
The guard responded to his upraised eyebrows by nodding slightly, stern-lipped.
Rambo trudged up the path. A thin black convict was there ahead of him. Too thin, Rambo thought, watching him drink from the ladle attached to the bucket. Their eyes met briefly.
Shit, I don't think I can stand this, the black man seemed to say.
Keep thinking that way and you won't, a part of Rambo's mind decided. But all he allowed his eyes to say was, Yeah, it's tough, all right. Hang loose.
The black man nodded, descending wearily to his spot in the quarry.
Rambo dipped the ladle into the dust-filmed water, drinking. It tasted rusty and hot. But in Nam he'd tasted worse, he decided, and poured a ladleful over his back. It didn't cool him.
"Rambo!" a gruff voice commanded.
Turning sharply, he faced two guards, their features and
bodies almost indistinguishable in the blinding sun behind their heads.
He didn't speak. To do so was, of course, forbidden. If he did, he risked reprisal, the jab of a rifle butt, the wallop of a club.
"This way," the gruff voice said—the guard on the left, pointing up the slope. "Walk ahead of us." They held their weapons ready.
Rambo forced himself to show no reaction.
But his stomach contracted, curiosity mixing with suspicion, as he did what he was told.
His misgivings intensified when he heard the guard behind growl, "Yeah, whatever the Christ is going on, they told me to bring you, pal. A command appearance, you might say. From the top. You've got a visitor."
- 3 -
His name was Trautman, Samuel. Colonel. Special Forces. U.S. Army. A tall, lean, ferret-faced man in colorful full-dress uniform, his Green Beret worn proudly. Of his fifty years, almost half had been spent in the military. He'd learned (and later taught) how to kill with every weapon from an AK-47 to a ballpoint pen. He'd fought in jungles, deserts, and mountain ranges, watched men whom he'd thought of as sons blown apart, their bloody fragments pelting him, been wounded three times...
But what he did now made all of that insignificant. Everything else had been like boot camp. He faced the hardest task of his career.
His thick-soled military boots echoed harshly down the corridor. Metal doors-with small barred openings lined each side. Overhead lights glared, making him squint. He smelled sweat, stale air, and something else, deeper, more nostril-flaring, the stench of desperation.
Despair.
Flanked by a guard, he reached the end. "... This one?" He nodded toward the final door.
"You'd better step back." The guard drew a .45 pistol, tugged a ring of keys from a clip on his belt, and fitted one into the lock. It turned with a scrape. "I'll
"No."
The guard sighed. "Look, I know what my orders are. To let you talk to him alone. But this guy isn't.. .Let's put it this way. There are convicts, and there are convicts. This guy's as dangerous as they get. And I'm responsible for him, for you. He might take a notion to—"
"No."
The guard shook his head. "Okay, but you can't say I didn't warn you. If you're that determined, here, you'd better take this." He offered the pistol. "In case he—"
"Give me a break."
Trautman passed the guard and shoved at the unlocked door. It squeaked on its hinges, revealing a shadowy cramped compartment.
Tlie guard flicked the light switch outside. It didn't work. "Sure. I might have figured."
"What?"
"Thinks he's the fucking Prince of Darkness."
Trautman ignored him. Stepping in—"Be careful," the guard said—he reached for the light bulb in the ceiling, turning it till it illuminated.
He glanced around. Concrete walls. A metal bunk bed bolted to the floor. A three-inch circular opening that served as a toilet in one corner in the floor. A tiny barred window directly across, too high to peer out of. Not that the view would have mattered—an adjacent wall shut out the sun.
He continued turning.
And in the corner to his left, crouched on his haunches as if at rest or about to spring, his eyes fierce, muscles tensed— Was Rambo.
Jesus! Trautman thought. He remembered a panther that he'd once seen caged. It had paced for days, back and forth, back and forth, finally stopping, crouching, its eyes like black suns, waiting.
Frowning again at the narrow compartment, Trautman suddenly understood how Rambo must have felt when the walls started shrinking toward him in the basement of that police station where all of this had started.
No, that's wrong, Trautman thought. It started long before then.
But he understood something else, a sickening wave of pity—sorrow? grief?—sweeping over him. This was going to be a whole lot harder than he'd imagined.
"At ease." Trautman turned to shut the door, catching a glimpse of the apprehensive guard just before the barrier was shut and metal banged against metal, echoing off the walls.
"I'll wait," the guard said outside, his voice coming through the barred face-high opening.
"No, what you'll do is follow your orders," Trautman said. "You'll walk down that corridor. Leave us alone."
"I have to lock the door."
"Then what are you waiting for?"
The key scraped in the door. Trautman listened to the footsteps receding hollowly down the hallway and shifted his gaze toward Rambo, who hadn't moved, though Trautman had made a point of showing his back, a signal, a gesture of trust, of reassurance.
"At ease?" Trautman made it a question this time.
The compartment became terribly still.
Slowly, his muscles like springs unwinding under pres-
sure, careful lest they suddenly snap into motion, Rambo stood.
The silence lengthened.
"John."
"Colonel." Rambo's eyes narrowed, searing.
Well, he was never much for small talk, Trautman thought.
And maybe I'm not, either. "... You mind if I sit down?"
Squinting, Rambo might have nodded—it was hard to tell.
Trautman eased down onto the bunk. Its blanket felt scratchy, its mattress thin. The springs creaked. "Well... so this is home, huh?" He hoped it sounded like a joke.
It didn't.
Rambo squinted harder, shaking his head. "Out there. In the quarry. In the open. Maybe. Home? I don't know what ... In here. These walls. They..."
"Hey, I know, John. Relax. I'm here to try to help. For what it's worth, I did everything I could to keep you from being sent to this hellhole."
Rambo bristled. "I've seen worse."
"Yes, you have..." —Trautman imagined the prison camp in North Vietnam where Rambo had been tortured— "... haven't you?" He peered down, distressed, noticing an object under the bed.
A battered shoebox. It surprised him. Nothing else in the cell seemed personal.
"May I?"
Rambo didn't answer.
Taking a chance, assuming he had permission, Trautman pulled out the shoebox.
But when he opened it and saw the contents, he had trouble speaking. "... This your stuff?"
"That's it."
Trautman swallowed sickly and sorted through.
Wrinkled ghostly snapshots. The men from Rambo's Special Forces unit. Individuals or in groups. Horsing around, sometimes not. In and out of uniform.
But one in particular made Trautman stare.
Rambo—younger, clean-shaven. Innocent. Grinning broadly.
Distressed, Trautman peered up toward the savaged man who stood across from him, the man who more than anyone he'd trained had been like his son. He cleared his throat and tried to sound casual. "Hardcore outfit. Best I ever worked with."
"Those men are all dead."
"But you're not."
"I might as well be."
Avoiding Rambo's blazing eyes, Trautman glanced again at the box. His throat felt swollen. "The Congressional Medal of Honor."
"Oh, yeah, the big time. That and a quarter'll get you a cup of coffee out there."
"Plus...?" But it didn't get any easier. "Two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars, two Soldier's Crosses, four Vietnamese Crosses of Gallantry, and"—Trautman swallowed painfully—"a handful of Purple Hearts."
"Five. They let me keep that stuff. I never asked for it. I never wanted it."
"What did you want?"
"Wanted? I just ... I don't know... after all that ... I guess I just wanted one person, one person, to come up to me and shake my hand and say, 'You did good, John.' And mean it. Really mean it... after all that."
"You picked the wrong war to be a hero in."
"I didn't pick anything. And I never asked to be a so-called hero. All I did was..."
Trautman waited. "What you were trained to do."
"What someone else asked me to do. And what I was forced to do ... to stay alive." He gestured toward the walls. "Alive."
The cell seemed to shrink. Trautman couldn't put it off any longer. "John, I..." —standing, he took a step forward—"... I promised I'd help you if I could."
Rambo stared.
"To get you out of here."
No reaction.
You interested?"
No answer.
"You can't possibly want to stay in here."
"But what do I have to do to get out? In here, at least I
know where I stand. I hate these walls. But when I'm in
the quarry, in the sun, in the open, it's not so bad. You
might even say it's peaceful."
"Just hear me out first." Trautman shook his head. "No,
that's wrong. Hear both of us."
"Both?"
"Let's take a walk."
Trautman banged on the door. "Out there, I know you're
listening! Open this damned thing up!"
- 4 -
As if he faced a mirage, Rambo stared in wonderment at the lush wide lawn in front of the prison. Sprinklers watered it. They smelled like rain. Inhaling their sweetness, flanked by Trautman, he crossed a knoll, approaching a heavy man in a gray conservative suit.
Behind, two guards watched at a distance. He'd heard them snick their rifle bolts. The cuffs on his wrists had been shut extra tight.
They reached the man.
"This is Murdock," Trautman said. "And Murdock,
Rambo."
Murdock extended his hand.
All Rambo could do was lift his wrists, showing the cuffs.
And Murdock grinned, then lit a cigarette. "Yeah, I see how they'd inconvenience you. Anyway, hello. It's good to meet you."
Rambo studied his face. There was something about the nondescript features, the cold glint in the eyes despite the heartless varsity smile. He glanced, troubled, at Trautman, then back at Murdock. "You a spook?"
Murdock lost his smile. He squinted. "Yeah, they told me you were quick on the uptake. That's right. I'm CIA. Special Operations Division."
"I don't work with spooks."
"We're not so bad. Once you get to know us."
