Spencer picked a course through the swamp that would intersect with the path James would most likely take and dropped down from the oak tree. He started running a mountain man’s pace to cover the extra distance he needed to circle around and get ahead of James.
The military police and the infantry units took up guard positions around the courtroom building. Red Wolf Moore had killed twelve infantrymen and wounded another thirty-six before he was killed by the captain. The Supreme Minister would have been proud of him, except that he had failed to kill both of his assigned targets.
Major General Koch stepped out of the building and surveyed the carnage. “You mean to tell me that one man did all of this?” He couldn’t believe what the MP commander had told him.
“Yes sir.” The officer was visibly embarrassed. “We weren’t prepared for someone attacking from inside the camp, sir.”
“How did he get in here?”
Mr. Manning, from the FBI, spoke up. “He came in disguised as an MP escort to one of your board members.” “A board member!” Koch was aghast.
“He was briefing us about his involvement when it happened.” Mr. Templar, from the CIA, nodded toward the building across the street.
Koch’s eyes opened wide. Only one of the board members had been absent—Sergeant First Class Colorado. “He was helping him?”
Templar nodded. “But he had a change of heart and was trying to prevent the slaughter. We still have a lot of good information from Sergeant Colorado about the source of these attacks and I think he’s going to be very useful.”
“I’ll have him court-martialed!” Koch was livid.
“We’ve already promised him immunity, General. We have to move very fast if we want to break up this operation.” Manning tightened his jaws. “The FBI has suspected for a long time what Sergeant Colorado has confirmed for us… and it’s bigger than what you see here, General—much bigger.”
Spencer felt his lungs tighten and a burning sensation in his throat. He wasn’t used to running and his hospital stay had not given him the opportunity to develop his stamina, but he wasn’t going to let James escape.
James walked fast through the low shrubs over the thick layer of pine needles. Water oozed out of his shoes, making a sick gushy sound. He held his .45 tightly in his hand and kept looking back over his shoulder.
James whispered to himself, “Come on, motherfucker… come on and die!” If he had known that Spencer was unarmed, the chase would have been a short one, but he assumed that Spencer had picked up a weapon before following him.
The ground in front of James dipped but he could see that there was a wide strip of swamp between him and the high ground. James did not like the idea of crossing the waterway, especially after having seen the alligator. He paused and searched the area before taking a slow step into the brackish water. The water was tea colored but he could see the bottom, which made him feel a lot better. James was correct in thinking that the portion of the swamp he was wading through was a large depression in the ground that had been cut off from the rest of the swamp. If he had tried circling the water hole, he would have been able to stay on dry land but he would have had to fight very heavy underbrush. He didn’t mind the water as long as he could see the bottom and the area around him as he waded across.
The water reached a little bit above James’s crotch as he walked slowly through it. He tried walking on his tiptoes to keep his black pride from getting wet. Psychologically, the idea of his testicles and penis being submerged bothered him.
James looked ahead of him as he walked and saw that the bottom of the water-covered depression was covered with a thick layer of pine needles and decomposing oak leaves. A long, fat object appeared in the corner of his eye and he sucked in a lungful of air. He could see that it was at least ten feet long and wide—very wide. James pointed his pistol and fired three rounds before he caught himself. He was sure that it was a huge alligator swimming along the bottom. He fought the water against his legs and struggled out onto the bank. A shiver traversed his spine and he turned around and fired two more rounds at the submerged beast.
“Fuck you!” He shivered again. “You motherfucking bitch!” His voice was almost hysterical. James stood on the side of the bank and watched as the water calmed down from the impact of the bullets and his passage. The shape of a large, dead tree trunk appeared on the bottom of the tea-colored water.
“Damn you!” James was livid over being tricked and scared by a rotting tree.
Spencer heard the rounds. He paused and thought hard. He was sure that James had fired eight rounds from the Army-issue .45 caliber pistol. The clip held only eight rounds, so unless James had taken extra ammo from the MP, the gun was empty.
Barnett used the echoes from the rounds to locate James’s position in the swamp, and he smiled. James was slightly to his left rear, exactly where he wanted him. He would be far enough ahead to cut to his left in a few meters and ambush James.
The tracking dogs sniffed Spencer’s T-shirt and bayed. They wanted to get to work. Woods reached over and tried taking the M-16 out of the hands of one of the infantrymen standing nearby.
“Hey! Man!. you try that again and I’ll blow your ass away!” The paratrooper wasn’t about to part with his weapon.
“Trooper, give him your rifle,” Major General Koch’s voice left no room for argument, “and your web gear.”
“Yes sir.” The paratrooper obeyed.
Woods took the gear. “Thanks… That’s my buddy out there and I have to help.” His voice was apologetic.
“No problem, as long as the general said so.” The paratrooper wasn’t going to take on a general, and he was happy as long as his honor wasn’t fucked with.
The dog handlers unleashed the first two hounds, who shot around to the back of the building and paused only for a couple of seconds before they ran over to the Cyclone fence and started baying next to the pole and the disturbed concertina wire.
“They crossed the fence here.” The lead MP waved for an engineer holding a pair of bolt cutters to come over and cut a hole through the fence. They weren’t going to waste any time circling the whole camp and then having to walk a couple of miles through the swamp just to reach the same place.
Woods paused as he slipped through the hole in the fence and looked back at the Army ambulance that was loading up Sergeant Arnason’s body. He blinked back his tears. There would be plenty of time later to cry. Right now he was going to hunt down and kill James, and God help the man if anything happened to Spencer.
* * *
Spencer paused to listen. The swamp to his left had become quiet. He could hear insects and frogs to his right and behind him, but the area immediately surrounding him and to his left rear was quiet. He was sure that James was far enough to his left rear for him to cut over and get ahead of him.
James had slowed his pace. He was getting very tired. He stopped to rest in an open, sunlit spot on the ground and swatted at a horde of mosquitoes circling his head. The loud sound of a semitruck filled the swamp. James’s head snapped around to face the sound. He smiled and jumped up on his feet. He was within a few hundred meters of a road. The sound of the semi gave him renewed strength and he started running in the direction the sound of the truck had come from. James ran up against a solid barrier of brush and thick grass that bordered the wide ditch running parallel to the raised highway. He paused and looked both ways and saw that the thick band of vegetation went in both directions. If he wanted to reach the highway, he would have to break through the brush and wade through the ditch. The sound of a car passing by on the highway only a few meters away made up James’s mind for him. He was only a short distance from the road.
Spencer broke out of the brush and saw James’s muddy wet tracks on the pine needles. He looked in the direction the footprints pointed and realized that he had just missed him. He didn’t allow himself the luxury of becoming angry. Spencer was hunting and he had all his energy concentrated on the spoor of his pr
ey. He searched the area for an ambush and he crouched low to the ground before moving out after James.
The brush was so thick that James couldn’t see his feet. He felt the warm water flow over the tops of his low quarter military shoes and realized that he was nearing the flood ditch. He pushed aside the brush and saw the embankment of the highway on the other side of the twenty-foot-wide ditch. He figured that it would be deep and he would have to swim a couple of strokes, but that wouldn’t slow him down now that he was so close. James turned his head to look down the ditch but was too late to prevent the coiled six-foot-long cottonmouth from defending its territory from the intruder. It slipped off the log it had been sunning itself on and swam toward the creature who had disturbed its rest.
James saw the huge snake and realized that he could never make it back to dry land before the creature reached him. He locked in on the gleaming eyes as the cottonmouth swam with its head held high above the water.
“Get the fuck away from me!” James pointed his pistol at the snake and pulled the trigger. The click sounded louder in James’s ears than it actually was. He screamed and threw the pistol at the reptile. It landed a foot in front of the snake and only made the huge snake madder. It opened its mouth and showed James why it was called a cottonmouth.
Spencer heard James’s scream.
The snake bit into James’s leg three inches above his knee. James could feel the hot fluid pumping into his flesh. He used his fist to hit the snake’s head but succeeded only in pushing more of the deadly venom out of the snake’s glands.
Spencer arrived just in time to see the monster snake release its hold on James and swim downstream to another log to finish its sunbathing without being disturbed.
James saw Spencer approaching. “Help me! Please help me!” He thrashed the water.
Spencer stopped on the edge of the ditch and watched James struggle through the shallow ditch over to the embankment. The water had looked deeper than it actually was. Spencer looked for the snake before crossing after James. He found the Death Angel lying alongside the asphalt road, breathing heavily.
“Man! Put a tourniquet on my leg! I can feel the poison burning!”
Spencer dropped down in a Vietnamese squat and watched James struggling with his pants leg. He finally gave up and unbuckled his pants. He pulled the black web belt free of its loops and shoved his pants down below his knees. Spencer could see the swelling puncture marks of the cottonmouth’s fangs. A little excess venom oozed out of the holes.
“Help me!” James screamed.
Spencer watched.
A car drove past and braked hard, leaving rubber streaks on the hot asphalt. The driver threw the car into reverse and veered off to the side of the highway. He jumped from his car and ran over to where James lay screaming.
“What happened?” He looked first at James and at Spencer, who squatted there watching James die.
“Snakebite! Please help me!” James grabbed the man’s leg.
“Sure, son.... Let me back my car over here and I’ll get you to a hospital.”
“Leave him be.” Spencer’s voice carried so much threatening hate that the man felt a cold rush along his spine.
“Are you crazy?” He felt fear.
“Leave… him… be.”
The man stumbled back toward his car. “I’m going to get the sheriff!” He threw it in gear and drove off down the highway.
“Come back! Don’t leave me!” James screamed after the disappearing car. He rolled over onto his stomach and touched the hot road. “Oh! Help me…”
A shudder rippled through James’s body. The large dose of venom had started reaching his heart. He opened and closed his mouth in an involuntary muscle contraction.
Spencer remained squatting there, staring at James. He heard the sound of dogs baying back in the swamp and turned his head slightly toward the ditch. He saw the fat six-foot cottonmouth curled up in the crook of a huge log and stood up with a handful of small rocks he had picked up from the side of the road.
“Git!” Spencer threw a rock at the snake. It landed about a foot in front of the log. The cottonmouth raised its head off its coils and stuck out its tongue to sense the air. Spencer threw another rock and it bounced off a small branch on the log. The vibration from the rock got the snake moving into the water. It started swimming toward Spencer. He threw another rock in front of the reptile and it changed direction.
“You aren’t very smart for as big as you are!” Spencer chucked a couple of more rocks at the retreating cottonmouth.
The first dog broke through the underbrush and entered the water. She swam directly over to the side of the ditch Spencer was on and crawled out. She took one long sniff of Spencer, threw back her head, and bayed.
Spencer patted his leg. “Come here, girl.” He made a clicking noise with his tongue. The hound stopped baying and nuzzled his head. Spencer looked over at James and saw that he was going into convulsions.
The brush parted and Woods broke through the undergrowth with his M-16 held ready to fire. Sweat streaked his face and saturated his khaki uniform. He had stayed behind the dogs and was a good three hundred meters ahead of the rest of the patrol.
“Yo… David… up here.” Spencer waved to his teammate.
“You all right?” Woods gasped for breath.
“Yeah. Hurry up or you’ll miss it!” Spencer waved for Woods to run.
“Shit! I’m fucking dead!”
“Then you won’t feel the pain. Hurry up!” Spencer squatted again and scratched the dog behind her ears. She moaned with the pleasure the human hand brought her.
Woods struggled up the steep bank and saw James lying next to the road. “What happened?”
“Snakebite.” Spencer nodded downstream at the still-visible cottonmouth swimming slowly away.
James gagged and vomited.
“Shouldn’t we do something for him, Spence?” Woods didn’t like just watching and doing nothing, even for James.
“I am.” Spence smiled. “I’m watching him die an easy death.” He reached over and pulled a stem off a clump of wild grass and carefully cleaned it before slipping it between his teeth.
Dear Mom and Dad,
Well the trial is over and things are pretty much getting back to normal. Spence is fine and will be heading back with me.
You know sometimes things really got a little hairy, but we always made it through, and now that Spence and I are back together the Viet Cong better watch out.
Your loving son,
David
DEATH COMES HOME
With good training, luck, and raw courage you could survive the killing zones—but nobody can take away the scars, or prepare you for “The World.” Spencer Barnett had lived through a hellish NVA torture chamber despite the active collaboration of white-hater Mohammed James. Now James is standing trial in the States—and Barnett, struggling for his sanity, is the star witness against him. David Woods into a different kind of battle. A bloodthirsty black supremacist group has infiltrated the military base. They’re out to free Mohammed James—and kill their way to glory.
From the heartland of America to the heart of war, they were the friends, the enemies, and the true heroes of the place called “NAM”
COURT-MARTIAL
SURVIVOR OF NAM #4
An Authentic New Series on the War
About the author: A former Green Beret, Donald E. Zlotnik fought with Command and Control North, a Special Operations Group, and saw combat action throughout Southeast Asia, including the battles of Dak-To, Khesanh, and the Plain of Reeds.
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Court Martial Page 20