by Tom Abrahams
“The mission is the extraction of fifty-two American citizens held against their will by a violent opposition. We are one of several teams tasked with the operation,” explained Womack. “We’ll get a sitrep and briefing on the ground. I’m told we’ll have a run-through. I don’t yet know what our particular task will be. It’s likely TBD. Questions?”
“We get a full complement of toys?” asked Wilco. “The usual stuff?”
“Roger that,” said Womack. “Full complement. Everybody’s personal tastes taken into consideration, as per usual.”
Ferg raised his hand. “I got a question about timing. We’re in-country today. When is the op?”
“Five, maybe six days,” said Womack. “That’s all I know. I think this op is coming together quick. It’s complex. A lot of politics.”
“Which is why we’re Canadians on a humanitarian mission,” said Ferg.
“Yes.”
“That’s better than the time we were Swiss filmmakers.” Wilco laughed. “Still can’t believe we pulled that off.”
The men chuckled their agreement. Womack ended the trip down memory lane.
“I’ll be straight up honest with you, gentlemen,” he said. “This mission has a lot of moving parts. We don’t know what all of those parts do. I sense a lack of organization here, a ready-made Charlie Foxtrot. We need to be tip-top and ready for anything. Understood?”
The men nodded. They understood.
“Any other questions?” There were none. “Okay then,” Womack said. “Study up.”
Womack flipped his microphone away from his mouth and closed his eyes. He’d already studied the map. He’d memorized the various blueprints of the embassy in Tehran. In his mind, he visualized the mission.
He could see his team roping from the chopper onto the embassy’s roof, taking out hostiles as needed. They moved silently from the top of the building to the interior, sweeping hallways and rooms until they found the hostages.
He imagined a brief but effective firefight. No friendlies harmed. Collateral damage minimal. Hostiles toasted. A quick extraction from the rooftop. A fast flight out of Iranian airspace.
Quick. Silent. Violent.
The plane rumbled and jostled Womack in his seat. He tightened the shoulder harness and sat up straight against the jump seat. His lower back was sore and his neck ached. Military transports weren’t the first-class cabin on Pan Am, that was for sure. It was more like riding Greyhound without air-conditioning, in the back of the bus, next to the bathroom, after stopping for dinner at a Mexican food buffet. Add to the discomfort the lack of alcohol in his system and Womack wanted to strap on a parachute and jump.
But flying sober in a loud, rattling tin can was part of the job. It was free transport. And he was with the only family he knew. Womack opened his eyes, content with the vision, and scanned his men. They were a good team. Wilco and Wolf were children at times. Wolf had a way of lowering the otherwise adult Wilco to his adolescent level. At least they provided some comic relief. There was that.
Ferg was studying the packet, flipping back and forth among the scaled drawings. He was the smart one. Womack had told him long ago he should have his own team. He was a born leader who could easily branch out, work a deal with any of the intelligence agencies who relied on off-the-books operators. There was a glut of work and not enough good men to do it.
But Ferg wasn’t interested in that, he’d explained to Womack. He liked following orders. He enjoyed the mission execution but not its planning.
“I don’t get it, Jack,” Womack had said more than once. “You could be making a mint. Instead you’re letting me do it.”
“I get paid plenty. Tell me where to go, what to save, and who to kill,” he’d said to Womack. “That’s what I like. No need to mess with a good thing.”
Womack was grateful for Ferg’s lack of ambition. It made his job easier to have a right hand at his side.
Shine was studying the map on the front page of the intel packet. His lips were moving as his eyes scanned the page. Womack couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he’d often noticed Shine mouth words as he read. When he wasn’t studying for a mission, he was devouring dime-store Westerns. It was escapism, pure and simple. Better to be in an imaginary world where the good guy always won than in the real one where he didn’t.
Louis L’Amour was his favorite: To the Far Blue Mountains, Bendigo Shafter. L’Amour probably made his fortune off of Shine. From one story to the next, there was almost always a dog-eared paperback in his hands. He’d sit there, mouthing the words, scratching his beard, flipping the pages. Over the years, he’d started holding the book farther away from his eyes. Nobody had the nerve to suggest he wear glasses.
Wilco had his eyes closed. He was smacking his chewing gum, occasionally blowing and popping bubbles. An expert marksman, Wilco was the least serious of the men. He was the first to make light of a situation, however dark it might be. Womack had considered that Wilco was certifiably crazy. He didn’t take anything seriously, it seemed, except for drilling bullets into the enemy from any and all distances. Womack had never seen a shot like Wilco. It was worth the headache that was William Cosgrove to have his valuable deadly aim at his disposal.
Wolf, on the other hand, was an idiot. His youth was no excuse, Womack thought. Wolf was stupid. He asked too many questions. He was foulmouthed and sex addicted.
Womack had considered replacing him repeatedly, but just when he was convinced Wolf was a liability, the kid would redeem himself. He’d single-handedly saved Wilco and Ferg during an ambush in Damascus. Twice, he’d ignored heavy incoming fire to extract targets and salvage missions.
Wilco had joked that Wolf was so fearless because he was stupid and didn’t know better. He was probably right. Regardless, Womack could never bring himself to kick the youngster to the curb no matter how lacking his intellect might be.
He had a good team. They complemented each other. Where one was weak, another was strong. No matter the mission, they moved as a well-oiled machine. As the plane lurched and dipped for its descent, he was confident this mission would be no different. Check that. He was mostly confident. As the plane rattled against another bout of turbulence, Womack chewed the inside of his cheek.
He couldn’t rid his mind of the nagging suspicion Operation Eagle Claw’s architects were missing something. Something was off.
The plane dipped lower and Womack felt the landing gear deploy. They were getting close. Too late to do anything about his misgivings. They were in Iran. They had a job to do. They had people to save and a nation to protect.
— 13 —
Da River, Vietnam
April 19, 1980
Trevor Brett was flat on his stomach on the riverbank. His face was inches from the surface as he drew long slurps from the water. The ripples in the cloudy water dissipated and revealed Brett’s grotesque reflection. He recognized the monster staring back at him as himself, and though he tried as hard as he could, he wasn’t able to remember what he’d looked like before VX-99.
He knew he didn’t have the pouty, sucker lips. His hair was shorter. His skin had more color. His nose was thinner. That he knew. In the back of his mind he knew that.
Brett drew back his lips, revealing his angular, razor-sharp teeth where they met his inflamed gums. He drew a clawed finger to his mouth and touched the teeth, pressing the digit against one of the fangs. He pushed downward as hard as he could until he felt the tooth puncture the skin, poking through and drawing blood. The blood pooled in his mouth, finding its way to his tongue, and he reflexively puckered. His lips closed tightly around the clawless finger and passionately sucked the wound.
The voice purred. Mmmmmm, she said. Don’t stop.
Brett jammed the finger deeper into his mouth, his piranha teeth scraping the skin as he sucked and swallowed. He pushed his way back from the water and knelt in the mud.
That’s so good, moaned the voice. The taste of your own blood.
He
might have bitten off his finger had something else not caught his attention. Someone was close. A human. A child maybe. Brett yanked his finger from his mouth, to the disapproval of the voice in his head, and scanned the riverbank. He rolled his tongue around in his mouth, savoring the last remnants of salty, coppery-tasting blood. His eyes darted back and forth. Back and forth.
He’d caught the odor on a dank breeze. It was gone. Brett jammed his fists into the mud and gnashed his teeth. As quickly as he’d caught a whiff, the scent was gone.
Brett had evolved into an instinctive machine. His emotions were basic and raw. Elevated hormone levels coursed through his body. His sense of smell, sight, hearing, and touch were heightened. His world was as it had been for a dozen years. There were moments of muscle recall when Brett experienced a phantom burning sensation that mimicked the torturous, stinging heat that sparked through his body as the VX-99 swam through his body. His head would flash with pain. His heart would race. Then, much like the scent that had appeared and evaporated into nothing, the pain and heat and jolts of jarring electricity would vanish.
He’d lived a short cycle of hunting, killing, eating, and sleeping since that first day in 1968, that day his platoon had eviscerated itself. The ones who died that day were the lucky ones. Their agony was short lived. It didn’t linger.
Even had it not been for Operation Burn Bright and the ill-fated VX-99 mission, 1968 was a pivotal year for the Marines in Vietnam. Six weeks after Brett became what would be known as the White Ghost, Typhoon Bess put them on the defensive. In Da Nang, winds and rain caused mudslides, collapsed bunkers and trenches, and grounded air support.
In the wake of the storm, the Marines realigned their troops and resumed their aggressive offensive. The enemy, however, inflicted heavy casualties. In one September battle, the North Vietnamese killed forty-two Marines of Second Battalion, Seventh Marines, Company F. Later that month, Companies G and H lost another nineteen Marines. Seventy-three more were wounded.
No doubt, they could have used more men like First Lieutenant Trevor Brett, who’d first set his boots in Vietnam months earlier. As a United States Marine, Trevor Brett had been a natural.
That was what his drill instructor had told superiors at Parris Island during basic training. He’d said Brett had shown exceptional capabilities in a multitude of disciplines. He had been one of forty-two thousand six hundred and thirty-three men drafted into the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. He’d been one of their best. So instead of sending him to the jungle as a noncommissioned jarhead, the Marines had sent him to a fast-tracked officer training program. They’d needed officers. They’d wanted to forge leaders from the best possible crop of recruits. Too many of them had already come home wounded or dead.
The Marines had found that officer, that leader, in Trevor Brett.
He’d never liked the idea of serving in the military, he didn’t enjoy the prospect of killing people, and he wasn’t a fan of spending more than a year in Southeast Asia. It wasn’t any of those things that made him good at his involuntary job.
Instead, it was his focus that made him good. It was his ability to drown out the distractions, to follow orders, and carry out missions that made him good. He was physically superior to many of the other recruits. Tall and lean, he’d run cross-country and track in high school and at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
He’d wished he could have run to Canada when Selective Service drew his number. He’d wished he could have run after Stacey Arbuckle when she’d unceremoniously dumped him and left the sound of her disgust ringing in his ears. Instead, he’d run around his neighborhood one final time, making sure to avoid the Arbuckle house, hugged and kissed his parents goodbye, and boarded a bus for Parris Island.
Maybe it was Stacey’s brutal dismissal that allowed him to pour everything into his training. Maybe it was intelligence and guile that allowed him to excel. Maybe it was patriotism and a youthful, naïve belief he could make a difference.
He wasn’t the best shot among his group of draftees. He was a marksman but not an expert. Where he rose above so many of the others was the speed with which he could disassemble and reassemble his weapon. He was twice as fast as the next fastest man with the M14.
Brett resisted, at first, the idea of becoming an officer. The commission was nice, even if it was paltry compared to what young bankers were making, but the money didn’t really matter. He wasn’t certain he wanted the responsibility of other men’s lives.
He could take point or have the back of the man next to him. It wasn’t a question of bravery or the willingness to self-sacrifice. It was knowing that a platoon of men would rely on his judgment and act on his orders. It was a lot different from being the captain of the track team. Nobody died running around an oval. Nobody lost a limb or an eye from running through an oak-lined course.
Still, he’d accepted the offer, and six months later, he was in Vietnam. The muck, the jungle rot, and the sudden torrential rains were too much for him. He hated every minute of it. Add to that the constant threat of death from the enemy or friendly fire or the rumors about Agent Orange and Brett was convinced he was living in Hell.
The first time he killed an enemy, he’d vomited afterward. It was an NVA sapper who’d used a bamboo reed as a snorkel. The enemy had swum through heavy debris in the Vinh Dien River and had placed an explosive charge underneath a bridge.
Brett’s platoon was guarding the bridge. It was critical for troop and supply movement. He was the first to spot the sapper. He took aim and fired. His shots peppered the river from his spot guarding the bridge and traced a path until they tacked the enemy in the face. He convulsed at the surface before partially sinking into the rain-swollen river.
A Texan named Fern noticed the charge was set and managed to clear the bridge before it exploded and collapsed into the water below. He had his arm on Brett’s back as the doubled-over lieutenant wiped the remnants of his regurgitated C ration from his face.
“Pretty good one-two punch,” Fern said, a wide grin spread across his face.
Brett cleared his throat and spat onto the ground before swigging a pull from his canteen. He swished it around in his mouth and spit it out. “How’s that?”
Fern wiggled his finger back and forth, pointing at himself and then Brett. “You and me,” he said. “A good one-two punch. You saw the sapper. I saw the charge.”
First Lieutenant Brett shrugged. “We didn’t save the bridge,” he said. “That was our job.”
“Yeah.” Fern frowned. “Well, we ain’t dead. I’ll take that. They want to punish us or something for staying alive, have at it.”
That was exactly what Brett thought was going to happen five days later when his commanding officer summoned him to an encampment fifteen kilometers away. Despite another two successful missions since the bridge deployment, he was certain they’d lose their R&R or they’d draw worse duty than was already assigned. Instead, he was surprised at the smile greeting him when he dipped into the tent at a forward operating base in a clearing atop a strategic hill not far from the border.
“Permission to enter, sir,” said Brett.
“C’mon in,” said the full bird colonel leaning on a map table at the back of the tent. “Join me back here, Lieutenant. I want to show you something.”
Brett apprehensively moved to the center of the tent. He stood at attention and Brett snapped a salute. His eyes were straight ahead, but he could see another man standing behind the table. He was Army.
“At ease, Lieutenant,” said the colonel. “Brett, this is Major Rick Gibson. He works with all branches of the service as part of our medical research teams. He’s only here for a couple of days.”
Brett glanced over at Major Gibson. There was something off about him. The man wouldn’t look him in the eyes. He didn’t like it.
“So this isn’t about the bridge?”
The colonel narrowed his eyes. His brow furrowed. “The bridge? No, son. It’s not about the bridge. You did what you
could there, is my understanding.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“This is about Operation Burn Bright,” said the colonel. “It’s a unique and important opportunity for you and your men.”
“Burn Bright is a first-of-its-kind inoculation,” said Gibson. He pulled a vial from his pocket and held it up. “It’s cutting-edge science.”
Brett’s eyes danced between the two men. “What kind of science?”
“It’s biochemistry,” said Gibson. “We believe it lessens or totally eliminates the risks associated with exposure to Agent Orange.”
“I thought the risks were rumors,” said Brett. “I thought they—”
The colonel held up his hand. “Let the major finish.”
Brett nodded silently and clenched his jaw.
“There is a risk,” said Gibson. “That much is true. We can’t define exactly what that risk might be. We’d rather not get that far. Instead, we’d like to mitigate them entirely. To do that, we need to study the pharmacological effects of Burn Bright in the field.”
Brett looked at the colonel and then back at Major Gibson. “On us.”
“Yes.”
“Me and my men.”
“Yes.”
“How many of us?”
“All of you.”
Brett turned his attention squarely to his colonel. “Is this a request, sir, or an order?”
The colonel cleared his throat. “It’s an order.”
Before Brett could respond, the major interjected, “We’d like your cooperation with this critical assignment. If you’d please step closer to the map, we’ll show you where we’ll conduct the trial.”
“Here’s the good part,” said the colonel. “You complete this assignment and we send you home early.”
Brett’s eyes widened. “Early? How early?”
“Six months.” The colonel motioned for Brett to step to the table and then ran his hands across the map as if he were straightening a bedsheet. On the map was a large red circle. It marked a village not far from his team’s current location.