by Ed Marohn
“Hieu, get out now!” I whispered. I grabbed our backpacks. The door swung open, and we tumbled out together from her passenger side as the first rounds from AK-47s slammed into the front of our Mercedes, shattering parts of the windshield, impacting the front grill. Steam erupted from the radiator and the front tires burst, slamming the front of our SUV hard to the ground. We quickly crawled from our vehicle to the bamboo and elephant grass ten feet from the open passenger door. Hidden in the jungle growth, holding onto our AK-47s we donned our backpacks. Hieu had the foresight to grab the hand mic, stretching its bungee-like cord and contacted Tho about the ambush, whispering into the handset the whole time, she told him that we had met the enemy! Another burst of bullets hit the SUV and sprayed more windshield glass around us. We quickly crawled to the rear and away from the damaged vehicle, its steam and smoke helping to conceal us.
The ambushers were somewhere to our left, firing from the slope above the trail. Hieu and I continued to crawl from our vehicle. Hidden from the shooters by the trees and the curve of the trail, we entered the jungle to the left of our SUV and ascended up the slight slope, while looking for the flashes and listening for the familiar pop, pop, pop of the AK-47s. We had been able to move perpendicular to our ruined Mercedes, looking down at it now and seeing the Hummer as well. Another burst of rounds slammed into our Mercedes, this time igniting something. Dark, oily smoke curled upward as a small fire erupted underneath it. I thought I spotted where the rounds came from and touched Hieu’s left arm, signaling her to follow me further up the slope and away from the burning Mercedes. We crab-walked some fifty feet, amazingly making little noise. I once again felt at home in this ungodly dense jungle, like the insects and monkeys that were chirping and chattering, spooked by the noise and smell of battle that their relatives had experienced so many years ago.
I whispered, “Hieu, stay here and cover me while I climb the slope another twenty feet. I think there are two of them and they might think we’re dead. Let’s catch them in our sights as they attempt to return to the road.”
She nodded, released the safety on her AK-47, got into a prone firing position and pointed her rifle in the general direction of the last fired rounds. Her dark eyes showed no emotion; her face turned deadly serious. I quietly moved further up the slope, well hidden by the jungle. In a few minutes I had reached an even higher position that overlooked both the Hummer and our damaged SUV. I released the safety on the AK-47, sat down into a firing position, and waited. They had to make their move soon.
Another burst by two AK-47s sprayed bullets around our burning vehicle. Those had to be their insurance shots. They must have assumed that they had killed or wounded us, and plus, without our Mercedes they had stopped us from pursuing them.
A twig snapped, and then I saw him as he walked in a slouch from the vegetation down to the Hummer. The Cambodian looked around, staring intently in all directions, then finally stood erect and yelled back up the slope. Standing, cocksure of himself, he went over to the Hummer and slammed its hood down, locking it in place with the hood straps. Leaving the door open, he started the Hummer, its engine running rough but still functioning. He got out, stood by the driver door looking up the incline, and again yelled to his friend. Then I saw the second guy, barely forty feet away from me. He stood up and began a noisy descent through the trees and bushes, branches swinging, brushing him as he rushed to the trail.
I looked to Hieu, who stared at me, waiting, and gave her a hand signal to shoot the driver. She turned from me, pointing her rifle just as the driver looked back at our burning Mercedes. A short burst of five or six rounds emitted from her AK-47, and I watched the driver collapse facedown onto the trail; all bullets hit him chest high.
I swung my AK-47 toward the other man, who stopped, frozen in place. Confused, he started to crouch down; I shot him with a burst of rounds, pointed lower than normal, trying to avoid overshooting on this slope. The Cambodian, his face expressing disbelief, dropped his weapon but still stood, now a few feet from his dead or dying partner on the trail. I emptied the rest of my magazine into him—another twenty rounds. I knew I hit him the first time, but with the trees and bushes deflecting rounds, I had no read on how much damage I had done to him. He jerked forward toward the Hummer, falling facedown, head slamming onto the exposed part of the trail.
Hieu and I rushed from our hiding places in staggered moves, constantly checking the terrain for anyone else, covering each other. When I reached the man that I shot, I turned him over. His stomach and groin areas were pulverized. I had over-killed. Hieu stepped past me and looked down at her kill, who was barely breathing. Turning him onto his back, she saw that her rounds had hit the driver in a tight circle on his chest. He murmured, wanting to live, fighting death. But from my combat days, I knew the battle had ended for him. Still, the guilt nagged at me, and I thought of pulling out my first-aid pouch. Hieu acted before I did. She withdrew her nine millimeter and in one fluid motion pointed and shot the dying man in the head. Flashes of NVA soldiers who finished the kill on dying Americans after an ambush flooded over me.
Hieu shouldered her pistol and waited for me to say something, looking at me intently. It was a mercy killing, but that didn’t make it any easier. I searched her tired face and saw the sad expression; it would have been her first kill. I ached for her. Her life had changed today, forever. I hoped she wouldn’t have nightmares over this, as I did over my war kills. It now became my turn to act human, and I put my arm around her. I felt her slight shudder. She didn’t resist; her hurt was real. The insanity of this operation had reached its peak here in the Laotian jungle. Slowly, I released her.
“Ramsey and Loan must be further ahead. I’m assuming they are the only ones left,” I said, hoping to bring her back to focus on catching the two.
She nodded, glancing one more time at the two dead men near our feet. I collected the remaining magazines of ammunition and the AK-47s from the dead men, throwing them into the Hummer. Hieu reloaded my AK-47 first, then hers, and climbed into the Hummer’s passenger side. The acrid smoke from the smoldering oil, plastic, and electric wiring of our damaged Mercedes stung my eyes. Larger flames erupted. I jumped into the driver seat, with my backpack on and shifted the transmission into low gear. Wary and uncertain of what faced us ahead, our confiscated Hummer crawled down the trail toward what I knew would be the final phase of our manhunt. The end had to be near.
Laos, January 27, 2003
Fifteen minutes later, we had driven three miles when we passed another branch of the Ho Chi Minh Trail headed north, further into Northern Laos and eventually Northern Vietnam and then China. I made a mental note of it since it showed a prominent trail, which could be used as an escape route for us—my own military contingency planning. Hieu, looking at the old war maps, explained that the trail we were following would angle south, and by the fresh tire tracks, we knew Ramsey had taken it. The broken tree branches and torn brush that we passed provided further confirmation. By all indications, they headed toward the main highway in Southern Laos that would lead them to Pakxe and eventual escape.
We ate power bars and drank from our bottles of water as we cautiously followed the trail; we still had reserves for each of us in the backpacks we wore, ready for quick exit from the Hummer. By noon, I felt the physical and mental exertion from doing battle with the Cambodians and chasing Ramsey. Hieu and I agreed that the next confrontation would be as deadly as the last one. Our only hope of surprise depended on using the captured Hummer to fool Ramsey into thinking we were his men returning from ambushing the pursuing Vietnamese police.
Ramsey placed those two men to gain more time and distance for himself and Loan. Since we didn’t hear or see the Hummer as we chugged along on the trail, I worried that the delay had allowed Ramsey to escape. The Hummer’s engine rumbled sluggishly, and I saw the temperature gauge steadily move from the green zone toward red. The coolant had leaked to a dangerous level, a
nd we would have to stop at the first stream or pool of water. As if on cue, I heard a small stream ahead, and then Hieu pointed out the water cascading over boulders and rocks. On the map, her fingers showed me a large open area with a stream in the middle: an old NVA staging area on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
“We are definitely in Laos, John,” Hieu said. She didn’t hide her nervousness.
“Are we in trouble with the Laotian government?”
“Possibly—but there are few border patrols here,” Hieu said, now an accomplice in an international border violation.
“I don’t have a visa for Laos,” I chuckled.
Hieu stared at me, not saying anything, but her face had softened.
The stream flowed ahead and to the right; sunlight emitted from the large open space as the jungle canopy over our trail ended abruptly and we entered the clearing’s edge. I stopped the vehicle, mesmerized by the vast area ahead of us, about three hundred feet long and two hundred feet wide, with destroyed fighting bunkers made of logs and sandbags scattered along the cliff to our left. Overhead, nothing but blue sky welcomed us to this former NVA refuge. Ahead old log poles protruded from the ground at skewed angles, remnants of torn, rotten camouflage nets flapping in the slight breeze, deteriorating since the war’s end. B-52 bomb craters pockmarked the ground and the cliff, reminding me of that old war.
Then I saw the fourth and final Hummer parked at the far end of the clearing, enclosed in the shade of bamboo and banyan trees where the trail continued south through the dense jungle. I braked the hummer to a stop and continued to stare through the windshield. Two trailers were parked side by side, behind the Hummer.
“Ramsey used this location as his staging area,” I said.
Hieu didn’t respond; she focused on the scene in front of us.
At the far edge of this clearing, about three hundred feet from us, an Asian sat on the Hummer’s bumper, with an American standing on the hood above him. Both looked in our direction with binoculars. They saw us!
I grabbed my binoculars and scanned the standing man; Ramsey! He jumped off the hood and yelled to the other man, who stood up and ran back to the rear of their Hummer.
“Hieu, they know we’re not their men. Get out of the Hummer.”
An RPG, smoke streaming behind it, wobbled toward us. Hieu had barley opened her door as I pushed myself out the driver side when the rocket slammed into the ground short of the Hummer’s grill, exploding, lifting the front end of the vehicle into the air. Smoke engulfed me, noise rang in my ears, lights flashed in my eyes. I hit the ground hard, rolling on my left side while the front of the Hummer finally dropped, hitting the ground with a screeching metallic thud. The dying beast settled on its four tires, groaning. A direct hit would have killed us. I scurried away.
“Hieu,” I shouted. She moaned. I crawled madly around the back of the smoking vehicle to the passenger side. She hung upside down from the cab, a limp rag doll, her left foot jammed under the seat and her head barely touching the ground.
Her ashen face told me she was in shock. I touched her left leg and she moaned. Regaining consciousness, she shook her head. “I think . . . is broken,” she said, breathing heavily. I raised my head, looking through the dissipating smoke, and saw both Ramsey and Loan, older now than in Nam, but it was them. They approached, walking spaced apart from each other, Uzis at the ready. They hadn’t crossed the small stream, which flowed about two hundred feet from us. I took my AK-47 and shot one short burst at them, missing them but forcing them to scatter and hit the ground. Taking a deep breath to counter my adrenalin, then releasing it slowly, I pointed my AK-47 at their parked Hummer and squeezed a burst at the front tires. After pausing for a second, I fired another volley. I heard both tires pop and saw the heavy front end sink to the ground, resting on its wheels, tires flat. For good measure, I shot a longer burst at the front grill. At this distance I had no clue as to the real damage I inflicted to their Hummer, but Ramsey and company would not be driving it any time soon due to the flats. Bullets from their Uzis started to clink against our immobilized Hummer.
Ducking lower, I focused on Hieu and said, “Hold your breath—this will hurt.”
I reached under the cushion and found that her left leg had wedged under the metal frame of her seat. It was broken, but thankfully I didn’t find protruding bone from a compound fracture. I firmly held her leg and pulled it out in one motion. She screamed.
“I’m sorry, Hieu.” I looked down at her crumpled body; she had passed out.
Hearing Hieu scream, Ramsey and Loan paused in their flanking attempt. They must have thought they had hit someone with their Uzis, and it had to be obvious to them the RPG explosion made the Hummer inoperable.
I had only one choice—retreat on foot using the smoke around our Hummer to conceal our escape. I slung both our rifles over my back, straps diagonally crossing the chest, lifted Hieu into my arms, and hustled down the trail we had just driven, following it, hoping to reach the northern branch of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that we had passed minutes ago.
Hieu remained unconscious. She weighed slightly over a hundred pounds, and I had to carry her to the other trail before Ramsey discovered we had escaped. My legs moved in a steady jog paced for our combined weight, years of exercise paying off. I needed to find cover and concealment in order to check Hieu’s wound before I could plan my next move. The heat and humidity began to wear on me, but I kept at my pace; it meant life and death now, and I had to save Hieu. The minutes seemed like hours, but I pushed on. I didn’t risk stopping. Then I saw the opening of the northern trail and turned left onto it, jogging for another five minutes, soaked in my sweat. I scanned both sides of the trail and finally found what I needed, barely visible, about thirty feet off the trail: an old NVA bunker cave. I pounded up the slight slope and entered the cave. I set Hieu down and covered the entrance with dead branches I found on the slope. It would have to do for now.
Back in the cave I laid Hieu on her back, pulled my knife from the backpack, and cut the left leg of her jeans along the seams. Her entire leg below the kneecap looked terrible—black and blue and severely swollen. The shin looked deformed; she moaned with pain. I had to get splints in place to support her leg. I worked feverishly. Pulling my extra white T-shirt from my backpack, I ripped it into strips and then set her left leg as straight as possible. Barely conscious, Hieu whimpered in pain as I wrapped the large-sized cotton dressing from the medical kit for additional support. Then quickly I placed several small bamboo stems that I gathered in the cave on top of the dressing and wrapped these splints tightly with the cotton T-shirt strips. The improvised cast would work temporarily.
“Hieu, can you hear me?” I said, coaxing her, lightly shaking her.
She opened her eyes, still wincing from the pain, having endured a lot while I administered my limited first aid. I looked in the medical kit and found morphine syrettes, like we used in the war, and injected one into her left thigh. She glared at me, feeling the prick of the needle. I smiled at her, glad to have her conscious.
“I hate needles—where are . . . ?” She asked, scowling.
I explained our bunker. She shook her head, telling me to leave her and get help.
“Not leaving you, dear. I don’t want those jerks to capture you.”
“I can fight . . . ”
“With one good leg and drugged—forget it.”
Nonsensical chatter emitted from her as the morphine kicked in. I searched in the medical kit, pulled out a packet of penicillin tablets, and had her take one, forcing her to drink slowly from a bottle of water.
“They probably are escaping anyway . . . ” she said incoherently.
“No—I ruined that for them. I shot out their tires,” I said, covering her with the space blanket I found in her backpack. “Now I forced them to fight us.”
Hieu gave a drugged smile, staring off somewhere. Then she faded
into sleep. Outside, afternoon monsoon clouds darkened the sky. Rain now hit the ground and jungle growth, savagely pelting the leaves, a cacophony outside, while Hieu shuddered in her stupor as I held her tight, trying to warm her.
They would be seeking shelter as well, so I had time to let Hieu rest. Ramsey had two choices: repair his Hummer and flee out of Laos or seek and kill us.
The gold no longer existed; his crew had been eliminated; he and Loan were alone. A rational man would try to escape. Could Ramsey be rational? I couldn’t take that chance, not with Hieu wounded. I had to protect her. In order to do that, I knew I had to get to Ramsey and Loan first.
I didn’t like this decision but letting Ramsey bolt would also negate my revenge for Sally’s father. I couldn’t allow that either. My plan counted on him believing that we had retreated, lulling him into a false sense of security to repair his Hummer and then escape the clearing.
The monsoon rain continued to pour outside, the noise growing, a crescendo, echoing in our cave. I dug out the aluminum case from my backpack and retrieved the satellite phone. Thankful that I kept it fully charged, I positioned the case’s lid with the built-in antenna toward the cave’s entrance and dialed Woodruff’s number as I checked on Hieu’s sleeping. It was 2:16 p.m. in Nam, and it would be 2:16 a.m. in Washington, DC; I hoped he would answer quickly. The phone rang several times before his groggy voice came through.
“John, is everything OK?” Woodruff sounded genuinely concerned.
“No! Can you GPS this phone and pass on the location to our friend Colonel Zang so that he can guide a Captain Tho to me and my wounded partner?”
“Shit, John, yes, hell . . . yes, but what is happening? Who is wounded?”