Danger Beyond Intrigue: Volume One

by H. L. Valdez

  Flying over ridges, mountains, streams and lush tropical canopies, she reflected on her days attending Hollywood High School in Los Angeles, and her times with her Uncle Woody who was a coroner for the County. Often, they would visit crime scenes and discuss homicide cases under police investigation. Observing autopsies, she gradually became familiar with forensics. But, it was her father; a national fast draw and trick-shooting champion, who taught her to shoot, and encouraged her to enter pistol competitions, and quick draw matches. Her bedroom was filled with trophies, ribbons, and plaques. A graduate from the University of California at Los Angeles, she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

  "Are you alright, doc?" the pilot shouted, breaking her mood as the helicopter's massive blades swirled, vibrating in a loud roar.

  "I'm fine, I'm fine!" she shouted, giving the okay signal with her thumb. Retreating into private thoughts, Rita worried about the upcoming meeting. Taking an inventory of her life, she knew she was a drug addict. She understood the powerful impact of drugs and rationalized that taking amphetamine preparations was her way of gradually withdrawing from her habit. She was aware that drugs made smart people average, average people dull and dull people dumb.

  “It's over. Just hang in there; almost home," she assured herself.

  “Shit, what a mess,” she mumbled, realizing her life was crumbling before her eyes. She had burned her bridges; there was a kind of treason, and disloyalty that could never be made good again. Meanwhile, Laos operatives were increasing their role in the narcotics trade, and small armies of traffickers were paying faithful homage to their bosses. Drug traffickers were making deals with U.S. military personnel to deliver heroin consignments in and out of the country. Business was good; the alliance however, was transient and dangerous. Power was elusive. Karl’s life is in danger. Rita’s life is in doubt.

  “Are you leaving Nam for good?” asked the pilot while steering the craft effortlessly toward the South China Sea.

  “Seems that way.”

  “Every change has its own rewards.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s your next assignment?”

  “Not sure?”

  “What’s your first choice?”

  “Home.”

  “Home!” he laughed.

  “Yes, home.”

  “Back to your husband?”

  “Back to my sanity.”

  “There is no sanity. Insanity is the norm. Just be your own sanity, and let the rest go.”

  “The rest of what?”

  “The rest that doesn’t fit you, the rest that isn’t the real you.”

  “That’s dangerous.”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  “Finding your own alternative.”

  “That’s the real you! That’s what I’m talking about!”

  “All right, cut the chatter. Keep flying,” she shouted, holding up her hand to stop talking.

  “Sure,” he replied glancing at her, attentive to her brooding mood.

  “Keep flying toward my destiny,” she mumbled, glancing at the shoreline below, engulfed in ambiguity. Absorbed in self-serving desire.

  The Ambush

  2 July 1964. The Laotian Frontier along international boundaries. In the pre-dawn light, Marine Lieutenant Primo Pascal and two Australian Army aborigine trackers, Bone and Fly, stumbled from the dense virgin forest at the Laotian border. Large black birds circled in the lingering fog, echoing their kgee-kgee-kgee songs in strong nasal repetition. The air was filled with ominous sounds.

  “My whole life has been an alibi!” Primo shrieked shaking all over. “It’s fake! It’s all fake!” he screamed like a ruptured monkey, emotionally hemorrhaging, and dropping to his knees, his eyes fixed on the dense gray-black clouds. After fourteen months as an intelligence officer in Laos and Vietnam, Primo questioned his pessimistic attitude, wondering if the emotional readjustment of his ordeal would ever be complete. He came to believe what turned the key of life was human grief.

  “We never had a chance,” he cried, flashing back to the killing zone where his multinational team had been destroyed piecemeal from the flanks and rear by an L shaped ambush. The moment was surreal as Bone and Fly knelt beside him, their arms joined around his waist in a revelation of human failing.

  “Perhaps we have wounded each other too deeply,” Bone said as Primo began shaking, psychologically withdrawing and experiencing the classic reactions of disaster victims. The imprint of death, with its scenes of disaster, was replaying in Primo’s mind. Sinking into psychological quicksand, he began mentally disassociating from the present, believing that he had eighty-five percent of his karmic debt paid.

  Closing his eyes, Primo started to recall the eerie uneasiness that was spreading through his special operations forces as they looked at each other in disbelief, suspended in a state closer to death than life. It was his second 48-hour patrol in five days where he and his men would spend hours hunting down well equipped Vietnamese death volunteers who were carrying out the most dangerous missions with the almost certain prospect of death. Each man understood that midnight reconnaissance was a contest of wills, raw courage, and a desperate escape from death.

  “You have to know what to get angry about," Primo incited his men. "Get hyper! Get hyper! Beast is about to meet beast!” He shouted, encircled by his men, mostly eighteen-to-twenty-one years old.

  “Lieutenant, I’m afraid,” an inexperienced private said in a shaky voice, with beads of sweat rolling over his cammie paint while staring at the clandestine members of the deep penetration unit.

  “Steel up to it, you can make it," Primo replied, observing each man's reaction.

  "Life is a trial by ordeal. Tonight, you have to man-up real quick,” he said, grim faced.

  “These death squads are scary, we need all the details," a Staff Sergeant blurted, as Primo searched for meaning.

  "We face the enemy as we are. We challenge him as he is," Primo encouraged the men straight-faced. Only his carefully camouflaged face hid his true emotions and expression. At times, he could be a pugnacious bully, but his rumpled appearance hid an overwhelming energy and shrewd intelligence.

  “Let’s not tremble or stutter. Life is a pilgrimage, but nature has a built-in system of checks and balances," Primo lectured. "There is no definition for heroes. Surviving is the greatest reward,” he stated, with assured belief.

  “Okay! Let’s not be a witness to our own pity party. The sooner we leave, the sooner we return,” the Staff Sergeant shouted, wearing the same black peasant clothes of the Viet Cong. With shaky optimism, the patrol checked their weapons in cooperative silence.

  “Let’s move out!" Primo ordered, "Stay alert, this is your moment, and we play it for real; it’s tough, but it's clear cut,” Primo shouted, thinking that the hour brought forth the man, and that his team had come of age before their time.

  As the reconnaissance team trudged into the dark jungle, Primo began recalling memories of a New Year’s Eve in New York City where he and his wife had watched the glowing ball on the Allied Chemical Tower slide down the flagpole at midnight. Thousands cheered as the conformity of the 50s led to the idealism of the 60s. A forward-looking offensive spirit had come to America, and President Kennedy was determined to squash revolution anywhere. Guerrilla warfare forces could now play the lethal game of counterinsurgency. There seemed to be an outbreak of insanity. Who ruled in Saigon was what the war was all about. Action was about to replace inaction, yet the thought of death rearing its ugly head was unacceptable to Primo. It was this sense of indispensability that gave him so much forward momentum. His softness and sensitive inspiration came from his three sisters. His passion could create a new situation and a sense of warmth while not hesitating to venture into the deep maternal sea of the unconscious.

  Naval bombardment began pounding the distant hills, startling Primo out of his trance. Bone, a full-blooded aborigine tracker, sat embracing Primo as
death-guilt sighs oozed out of him. His guilt and remorse over the ambush was overwhelming. Primo concluded that his escape came at the patrol’s expense. His bereavement dragged him through shock, denial, depression, and anxiety.

  "Why God, why?" Primo screamed, as Fly, an expert aborigine hunter with shoulder length wavy black hair, rested his head on Primo’s shoulder. Primo felt trapped by the truth that corruption was rampant in the Vietnamese government and army. The desertion rate was the highest in the world. There was no will to fight, for there was nothing to fight for. All the old cultural myths could not stand up to Western military techniques, which in turn were leading to a constant underestimation of the enemy.

  “Come on boss. Let’s walk,” Bone suggested, rubbing Primo's shoulders. Fly, a cautious tracker, prudently stood-up, surveying the ridgelines of the mountains, scanning the terrain from left-to-right and right-to-left, up-and-down. After several quiet moments of observation, he nodded all clear to Bone.

  “Your tour is almost over, and we’re alive," Fly said sadly, rubbing his dark broad nose.

  “We were always successful in the past,” Bone said, as Primo began shaking his head as though reaching some inner knowledge. Bone, tall and skinny, stood up as Primo knelt in the dirt clutching clumps of earth, staring at the clouds with emotional detachment.

  “We are one. We are one,” he wept, extending his arms toward the dark sky amid an encircling wind sweeping away the red clay from his open palms.

  “Come on Boss,” Fly suggested, as both men lifted Primo to his feet.

  Hours Later

  Within the perimeter of the Special Forces border-surveillance camp, Primo sat in a dusty tent analyzing the ambush. Proud of his leadership and combat skills, Primo took a deep interest in the morale and welfare of his men.

  "Marines and Soldiers don't just die," he mumbled, his head hanging low in despair. "It's the result of oversight and poor planning,” he grumbled, blaming himself, feeling emotionally depleted.

  "Why me? Why isn't life easier?" he muttered exhaling, rubbing his face, as his mind raced with violent images of the ambush.

  "Lieutenant Pascal!" Colonel Cropp said in a firm voice entering the hut, surprising a hyper-vigilant Primo out of his jittery mood. "We need to talk," he suggested, reading Primo's disposition. "I know it’s a bad time, there is no good time, but you need to refocus," he ordered, as Primo rose to attention, mentally numb, thinking of his men, trying to avoid the intrusive thoughts of combat.

  "Relax. Stand at ease. Look, don’t blame yourself. Normal platoon strength is forty-nine people, your squad had twelve men,” Colonel Cropp said, lighting a cigarette, and handing it to Primo.

  “We were caught in an ambush, sir," Primo said lifelessly, accepting the cigarette. "Rifle fire ripped through us from every side. It was a perfect ambush. There was no place to hide," he replied, staring at the Colonel, and taking a deep drag from the cigarette.

  “The VC are clever,” the blue-eyed Colonel said, lighting a cigarette.

  "They opened up with machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades," Primo explained, exhaling the smoke, lethargically staring down at his weapon. “I tripped into a ditch.”

  "Lieutenant, anyone else would go insane trying to balance the fragmentation, paradoxes, and psychological disjunction that combat creates,” he said, as Primo looked up at the Colonel's rugged face. "Besides, we don’t have problems, we have situations. And you survived to fight another day."

  "Well sir, I'm having a problem with this situation," Primo said, upset. "I'm burned out with this war," he blurted, trembling as he spoke.

  “Everyone is burnt out! That's a common reaction to combat,” the white haired Colonel snapped. "You're not the only leader to lose combat skirmishes," he said, pacing.

  "I don't like losing," Primo said softly, pointing to himself, his eyes welling with tears. “I feel like a coward. I shouldn’t be alive.”

  “If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not trying anything. It’s your problem, but not your fault,” he countered, trying to negotiate Primo’s attitude.

  "I'm a failure! It was a tragic screw-up and a waste of good lives. My men trusted me!" He cried shaking with grief.

  "It's not a trust issue Lieutenant," the stocky, seasoned Colonel declared. "But, we feel our loss every single hour. In combat we must expect and accept casualties. That's why it's called war.”

  "Easy to say, harder to accept," Primo said, rejecting the advice, wiping his face with his dirty fingers, puffing his cigarette.

  "The memories will never go away. But you have to disconnect your feelings from the event."

  "Easy to say, harder to accept," Primo repeated, stoically, sweat dripping from his forehead.

  "It takes time to heal. But if you can feel it, you can heal it," the Colonel suggested, taking a drag from his unfiltered Pall Mall cigarette.

  "Why are you here, sir?” Primo asked, intensely. "With your permission sir, I would like to be alone with my thoughts," he said, watching the Colonel adjust his brown shoulder holster.

  "I'll be brief," he replied, carefully unfolding the official message. "The Fleet Command Post onboard the Admiral's Flag ship sent a message. The President of the United States has a new global drug interdiction plan and a covert Crisis Response Team is waiting to interview you."

  "Interview me for what?"

  "I don't know,” he said, dropping his cigarette on the dirt floor, and grinding it out with the tip of his dirty black boot.

  “If you don't know, I don't know,” Primo answered, throwing his cigarette down on the dirt floor, and picking up his modified Remington100 semi-automatic shotgun with a 14-inch barrel.

  "This is what I trust," he said, gripping the deadly shotgun in one hand. "My Lady Remington," he said, clutching the rifle stock in one hand. "This is my life insurance,” he said raising the weapon. "Never again, never again,” he said with bitterness, kissing the rifle.

  "You need to improve your attitude, Lieutenant."

  “I understand, sir.”

  “You won’t get a rise out of me Lieutenant; I’m not your enemy.”

  "Better days are ahead," Primo replied, with a distant stare.

  “Pack your gear. You won’t be returning," Colonel Cropp informed him sternly, folding the message and placing it into Primo’s shirt pocket. "A chopper is waiting. Just leave when you’re ready,” he said, turning and leaving the hot tent.

  "Am I being removed from the unit because of this incident?" he blurted, feeling ashamed.

  "You're a good man. And, I don't like losing good men.” He replied dryly, turning around. “But this is beyond my span of control," he said, clutching the canvass door-flap.

  “Yes, but?”

  “No buts, on paper it looks like an ordinary rotation to a new command. No red flags,” he said calmly. “Our President has some new ideas.” He smiled, leaving the dusty hut.

  “The President?” Primo asked himself, sitting on a black footlocker, rubbing the wooden stock of his Remington with a soft cloth moistened with linseed oil, contemplating his sudden removal from the unit…and suicide.

  "Maybe it's for the best," he sighed with a shrug in resignation, moping across the tent to another small splintered wooden footlocker. Resting his weapon against the tent pole, he picked up a bottle of the colonel’s Scotch whisky, and then began filling his canteen and cup.

  "Four for the Corps -- no more," he grumbled, brooding about his life, searching for meaning and psychological replenishment.

  "This is bad, real bad," he blurted, and then took a steady sip of scotch from the bottle. “I feel guilty as hell. Why God? Why am I alive?” he questioned, then began sobbing. “Why did you let them die? There is no God!” he cried, covering his face with both hands, as Bone and Fly peeked at him from behind the thick canvass door flap.

  Hours Later

  As a helicopter passenger, Primo was flying over Saigon half drunk. With shattered confidence, he glanced down at a wide boulevar
d where a Buddhist priest was burning himself to death with gasoline. During his tour in Vietnam, Primo worked as an intelligence officer specializing in Asian affairs and was trained to predict an opponent’s actions that required an in-depth understanding and analysis of his politics, economics, culture, language, history, geography, traditions, and military capability.

  “So long people!" Primo slurred to the French colonial town below with its tile-roofed villas, paved courtyards, pleasure lakes, and parks.

  "You've reached the beginning of the end," he slurred, extending his middle finger at the city.

  "Anything wrong sir?" the pilot grinned, glancing at Primo, retreating inward, and rocking back and forth.

  "Everything is wrong," he said droopy-eyed, turning to the pilot, unknowingly prolonging and pointing the phallic symbol toward the city as he answered.

  "I'm okay, you're okay," the pilot said smiling, shaking his head, looking straight ahead.

  “Goodbye!” he muttered, as the pilot watched Primo holding up both hands, flipping the finger to the city below.

  “Try and stay calm, sir.” The pilot said with an understanding nod.

  “I need a new life God. I need a new challenge,” Primo garbled, closing his eyes recalling childhood images of his father, a former member of the United Nations Security Council responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. In autumn, when the General Assembly met in their regular annual session, his father would take him into the oval Assembly Hall where he would peer from glass-enclosed booths reserved for interpreters who worked in the five official languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese. Primo was intrigued by the Chinese language, gestures and patterns of speech, and spent most of his time in the booth reserved for Chinese reporters and interpreters. The staff treated him like a mascot, taking him to restaurants in the immigrant neighborhoods of New York’s Chinatown. There, he listened to old Chinese men discussing the Tong Wars fought by rival Tongs to win control over opium dens and gambling in New York before 1910. These early childhood experiences with old Chinese men speaking in broken Chin-glish and obscure Chinese dialects would one day save his life. The new challenge he requested from God was about to be granted.