by Eric Meyer
“I need every man, and they’ll be staying here until further notice. If you want to reach Quang Tri, I suggest you find another way.” He grinned, “Maybe there’s a bus service.”
He knew the distance was around one hundred and fifty klicks, through territory infested with the Vietcong and even North Vietnamese regulars. “Is not practical, Sir.”
“I couldn’t give a shit. Now get out of my sight, Yeager.”
“Colonel, one more thing. If we’re to make Quang Tri, I could do with some backup. I’ve worked with Sergeant Ray Massey before, so…”
“Army Ranger, yeah, take him along if you need a wet-nurse. I’ll mention it to his platoon commander.”
“Yessir. Thank you, Sir. About transport to Quang Tri, do you have anything available?”
He sighed with impatience. Men were queuing up to speak to him, and he snapped, “Take a jeep from the motor pool. Now get out of my face.”
An hour later we drove out of Da Nang. I took the wheel with Ray riding shotgun in the passenger seat. Lam sat in the rear, and the M-151 they’d given us was probably the worst maintained jeep in Da Nang, possibly in Vietnam. The engine constantly misfired, there was no canvas roof, and to add to our misery, we’d driven no more than ten klicks when it started to rain. Rain in Vietnam was something special, once experienced never forgotten. After the first few minutes we were drenched.
Ray Massey chuckled. “The rain’s no problem. At least we have the windshield wipers. Unless they pack in, but they look okay.”
A minute later the wipers stopped working, and I gave him savage look. “You should have kept your mouth shut. Look what you’ve done now, tempting fate.”
He gave a one-word reply. “Shit.”
I had to slow down, peering through the windshield, until the rain beat down even heavier and I couldn’t see more than two meters ahead, which forced me to stop. I found an old building at the side of the road. It had probably been a store or warehouse many years ago, and over time they’d ripped away the corrugated panels, but the roof was still largely intact, and I drove in out of the rain.
We sat sipping water and munching on MREs, our clothes steaming with condensation as they slowly dried out from our body heat.
“What’s the plan?” Ray said suddenly, “I mean, when you reach Quang Tri, where do you go from there? Who’re you looking for?”
I explained we’d been almost kicked out of Saigon, and Colonel Bader had sent us north to get us out of the way of the Saigon cops. “I don’t have a plan.”
His brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Yeah, but you’re an Army CID investigator. You must have somebody in mind?”
It came to me then; I’d been going about this all the wrong way. I explained about the conspiracy to unseat the government by certain unnamed individuals, and the downing of the aircraft full of investigators. “I don’t know who I’m looking for.”
“There has to be someone.”
“Ray, we’re talking about ARVN generals, about ministers and senior politicians.”
He shook his head. “Carl, you’re talking about murdering the President of South Vietnam. You’re talking about the murder of the men sent to investigate the plot.”
“That’s right.”
“What you’re missing is there has to be one man doing the killing. It takes one man to plant explosives on an aircraft. One man to plant the bomb or user sniper rifle to take out the President. That’s the guy you’re looking for.”
He was right. I hadn’t focused on what really counted. Find the perpetrator, the bomber, the shooter, and get him to talk, except there was one problem. “I don’t have a name.”
Lam gasped. “Of course.”
I turned to look at her, hair bedraggled, and despite the heat and humidity, she was shivering. “Of course what?”
“Bao Ninh. My sister Le mentioned the name in connection with a CIA operation, the Phoenix Program.”
I recalled the name, and a CIA initiative against Communist leaders, both Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army. The operation was something new, an operation to identify and destroy the Vietcong by means of infiltration, torture, capture, counterterrorism, interrogation, and assassination. Assassination was the primary method, and the operatives involved had struck terror into the heart of the Communists, arriving in a town or village, and leaving dead bodies of important leaders when they left.
“And this Bao Ninh, what was his involvement?”
“He was a captain of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces. He had a reputation as the most formidable of their operators, and then he disappeared. Some people said the Vietcong or the North Vietnamese had killed him, and others said he’d been recruited for the Phoenix Program. Bao Ninh was an expert marksman, skilled in all aspects of hand-to-hand fighting and explosives. There is one more thing. Before he joined our Special Forces, he was a policeman in Saigon, attached to the National Police Field Force. He reported to General Phan Trong Kim, who was then a junior officer.”
“You think this guy could be the killer?”
“It is very possible. There is no man inside South Vietnam more skilled than Bao. Unfortunately, the person who may know for sure is my sister Le.”
Massey had been listening intently. “You know what this means?”
I knew what it meant, and I didn’t want to know what it meant. “We’re going the wrong way.”
“Right. The answers are all in Saigon.”
“It’s around one thousand klicks to Saigon, Ray. And all we have a jeep.”
He shrugged. “At least we’ll see something of the country.”
“I don’t want to see something of the country. I want to get this done.”
“In that case you’d better start driving.”
The rain was still hammering down. “Without wipers?”
“I’ll take a look.” We both stared at Lam, “When I first joined the police they trained me to be a vehicle mechanic, until I transferred to a regular unit.”
She flipped up the hood like a professional, played with wires, searched for spare fuses, and evidently found what she wanted. “Try it now.”
I started the engine and flipped the switch the wipers. They came on right away. She closed the hood and climbed back into the vehicle. “I found the fuse. It had fallen out so all I had to do was replace it.”
We were both too surprised to reply, so I put the jeep into gear, and we drove away, back out into the rainstorm. Within seconds our clothes that had become damp and clammy were once again soaking wet. I picked up some speed along the QL1A, the main highway, and soon we were driving past Da Nang. There was no sound of machine guns or mortar shells, so I assumed the battle was over, at least for now. The journey was terrible. We became cold as the rain continued to soak through our clothes, and we had more than the rain to contend with.
“It’ll be dark inside an hour,” Ray suddenly said.
I glanced aside, and I’d clean forgotten. “The Vietcong.”
He nodded. “The Vietcong. We can’t travel through the night. We’re sure to run into them.”
Lam leaned forward to interrupt. “Saigon is a long way. If we stop during the hours of darkness we’ll lose half a day. Half a day could allow Bao Ninh time to arrange the assassination.”
“Assuming it is Bao Ninh. All we have to go on is what your sister told you. It would be useful to talk to her and clarify what she knew, but she’s stuck in a cell, so that isn’t gonna happen.”
“She could have valuable information.”
“Lam, she could have the keys to Fort Knox, but we can’t get near her.”
“I can. Don’t forget, I was a cop. Maybe I can get in there.”
It made sense, but we had too many maybes. Could we continue driving through the night, when we’d be lucky to avoid the Vietcong? Could Lam get inside Police Headquarters to talk to her sister?
There was something else. “Don’t forget the Saigon cops are looking for us, and they’ll have thrown
a dragnet around the city. I’m not sure any of this is a good idea.”
“Do you have a better one?”
A pause. “No.”
I carried on driving, and darkness began to fall. Ray ratcheted a round into his rifle, and I heard Lam cocking her pistol. I drove on with every nerve jangling. I had to use the headlamps. Otherwise, I’d have run the vehicle off the road, but we were inviting a Vietcong ambush. By 03.00 I was still driving, and we hadn’t come under attack. I was even beginning to think we might make it when Ray snarled, “Hold it! Pull over.”
I stood on the brakes, and the tires skidded on the wet road. The rear fishtailed, and I just about managed to keep control as we slewed into the side of the road.
“What is it?”
He didn’t answer at first. He was glancing around, peering into the darkness, and sniffing the air. The rain had stopped, and visibility had improved. We stopped in a place where the jungle encroached on either side of the road, so ahead was like a dark tunnel. The trees and vines had become entangled, effectively blocking out the moon and starlight. I realized what had changed. So far the headlamps had lit up the road ahead, but we’d had the moonlight to give some dim illumination of the ground either side, until now.
“If I was planning to ambush a vehicle on this road, this is where I’d do it.”
“You think they’re here?”
He sniffed the air again. “I know they’re here. Can you smell it?”
I tried sniffing the air like him, but all I got was the rank stench of wet jungle. “No.”
He grimaced. “I caught it just before we stopped. Unwashed bodies. Vietcong don’t wash.”
“Most Vietnamese don’t wash, Ray. They stink.”
I felt Lam shifting on the rear seat, and I guessed she didn’t take kindly to that assessment of her fellow countrymen’s hygiene.
“I think it’s them. We’ll leave the jeep here and go forward on foot. Lam, stay in the vehicle.”
“I can come with you.”
“No, you need to stay to guard the jeep. If anyone comes close, you know what to do.”
“I know. I was a cop, remember?”
“I didn’t mean for you to arrest them.”
“That wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Her answer was sufficient, and we grabbed our rifles, climbed out of the jeep, and started walking forward. We stayed off the blacktop, and Ray led us through the thick jungle, finding a path that looked like it had been recently cut. He turned, looked at me, pointed to the path ahead, and put a finger to his lips. The meaning was clear. They’d hacked this path through the jungle to allow them access to a suitable ambush point and a means of making a quick getaway if they ran into trouble.
I almost walked on tiptoe, feeling my heart hammering in my chest. In front of me Ray crept forward like a panther stalking its prey, silent and his head craned forward, occasionally glancing from side to side, looking for the enemy. We walked around five hundred meters, and I was sure he’d got it wrong, when we found them. He was right. They were waiting in ambush, and it was clever. They’d cut through the trunk of a tree, and it was suspended at a steep angle above the road by a thick rope. When a vehicle approached they’d cut the rope, the tree would fall, and the vehicle would have to stop.
I counted ten of them, and they looked supremely confident. They were sitting close to the road, smiling at each other and eating a late supper from crude wooden bowls. It looked like rice and chunks of fish. Fish that was anything but fresh, and the stink may have been what alerted Ray when we approached. While they ate, they chatted as if they didn’t have a care in the world. All they need do was wait for the stupid round eyes to arrive, and they’d drop the tree trunk over the road to block it. When the vehicle stopped, they’d step out, and hose it down with their AK-47s.
“We have to take them all,” Ray murmured, “There’s just the two of us, so we need to do this right.”
“Three of us.”
I looked behind me, and Lam had crept up unnoticed. “I told you to stay with the jeep.”
“It doesn’t need guarding, and you need me here. What’s the plan?” A fair question, and the truth was I didn’t have a plan. Neither did Ray. She recognized our indecision and pushed past both of us to get closer to the Viets, snaking along the ground, and after a brief hesitation we followed. We were close; around ten meters away, and she stopped and looked back at us. Her voice was a low murmur. “They’re bunched up together. We need to hit them in a single, coordinated attack.”
I looked at Ray, and he at looked me. “Okay.”
She carried the Colt I’d loaned her, and I recalled she’d cocked the action before we left. Ray and I carried M-14s, and right then I wished we had something that could fire on full auto like the AK-47.
“I’ll go first. Wait until I open fire.”
He slid away, and I followed with Lam right behind me. Ray didn’t hesitate. He got halfway to the VCs, got slowly to his feet, took aim, and started blasting. A flock of birds flew into the sky, and I heard the patter of small animals racing away into the dense foliage. By the time I was ready to fire he’d already taken down four of the enemy, but the other six reacted like scalded cats, grabbing their weapons and leaping to their feet. The bowls of rice were discarded on the ground, and the smiles had vanished. They were all business, no doubt veterans of frequent attacks on our men, and we were almost too slow, but only almost.
I joined Ray, squeezing the trigger of my rifle repeatedly and pumping out 7.62mm, some of which found targets in the milling Vietcong. They were going down like pins in a bowling alley. Lam was next to me, leveled my shoulder, M1911 raised, and she was doing it justice. One man tried to break away into the jungle, and she took a quick step toward him, arm outstretched, and squeezed off four shots. She may have scored with a single round or with all four, but the effect was the same, and the guy threw up his hands and went flat on his face. She raced after him, stood over him, and put a final bullet into the back of his head. Just in case.
Me and Massey went forward using extreme caution to check out the men that we’d shot. Nine bodies lay on the ground, and they weren’t all dead. At least they weren’t until we went to the three severely wounded and gave each of them a mercy shot. The night that had suddenly erupted into chaos was silent. Even the insects had wisely decided to stay quiet. We checked the remainder of the bodies, but none were talking. They were all dead. Our final task was to check their pockets for documents, and I pulled out several folded sheets of paper filled with Vietnamese writing.
I stuffed them into my pocket, and we had one final chore to carry out. First we removed the weapons and ammunition. Bullets went into a nearby stream, followed by the rifles after we’d smashed the firing mechanism beyond repair, and we left the bodies where they lay. The wild animals that infested jungle were about to have something of a feast. I ran back for the jeep, drove past the ambush site, and Massey let go the big tree trunk. It fell across the road, and he lashed the rope still attached to one end to the tow hitch of the jeep, and I pulled it out of the way. They climbed aboard and we drove on.
Lam was chuckling. “With luck we won’t to meet any more trouble before we get to Saigon.”
“That’ll take a lot of luck, but don’t forget when we reach the capital what it means is we tangle with a different enemy.” I suddenly remembered the documents I’d retrieved, and I took them out and passed them back to her, “Take a look at those and see what you think.”
I drove on, leaving her to it. I was thinking about how we’d handle things when we reached the city. We were wanted by the cops, and if they weren’t aware we’d left Tan Son Nhut, they’d have every cop in Saigon looking out for us. They believed Lam had information passed on to her by her sister, and I’d helped her escape the net, in the course of which I’d shot up their police cruisers. They’d want revenge, and they’d also want to know what information Lam possessed in her head. Somehow, we needed to work out how to avoid the
m.
I was still thinking when Ray tapped me on the shoulder. “They’ll be wondering how come we didn’t reach Quang Tri.”
I grinned. “Probably, but I couldn’t give a damn. They’re probably hoping we were killed in a Vietcong ambush, so we’re out of their hair.”
“You’d better hope so. Carl, don’t you know it means? As well as the Saigon cops, we could have our own military searching for us. When we failed to reach Quang Tri, they could have reported us as deserters.” I didn’t reply. Couldn’t think of a reply. Nothing that would make any sense, “Which means they’ll be on the lookout for this jeep. We’ll have to ditch it before we get there. There’s something else. Once they know we’re missing, they may suspect we’ll try to reach Le. They’ll double the guard, and it could be impossible to get to her. There is another possibility.”
He didn’t need to spell it out. If they were scared of her talking, there was a permanent way to shut her up. A single bullet in the back of the head, but I didn’t make anything of it. Not with Lam in the rear seat listening intently.
“Yeah, I get that.”
We drove on, and it was nearing dawn when we hit more trouble. I’d circled to the west of the city, and we were approaching Newport Bridge when we passed a bunch of ARVN walking along the road. They were South Vietnamese Marines, and yet something about their appearance made me uneasy. Sure, they weren’t United States Marine Corps, but even so I recalled those guys as being tough and proud soldiers. This lot looked sloppy, the uniforms ill fitting, and the rifles were all wrong.
I looked Ray. “What is it with those guys?”
He’d been deep in thought, and he suddenly looked up and swept his gaze across the marching Marines. The rifles with the banana-shaped magazines, the uniforms that didn’t fit right, and the uneasy glances they gave us clinched it.
“They’re not ARVN. Jesus Christ, they’re Vietcong, dressed up to look like our guys. What’s up ahead?”
“Newport Bridge.”
“It’s an attack. Pedal to the metal, Yeager. We need to warn the defenders on the bridge. Damn, it’s Tet, round two.”