Danger Beyond Intrigue: Volume One

by H. L. Valdez

  “Oh God, oh my God, oh God. Please help me. Help me. Help me,” Primo cried in agony, shivering, dropping his weapon.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” the Marine pleaded as his body began jerking into convulsions. Primo stared at the Marine, and began having intense flashbacks of his last ambush.

  “Semper Fi, Lieutenant. Do the right thing.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry,” Primo sobbed in grief, guilt, and remorse. Grabbing his pistol, his hands were shaking as the Marine smiled as Primo paused, touching the Marine’s bloody face, looking into his glassy eyes.

  “Semper Fi, Marine,” Primo said sadly, then shot him once in the forehead then collapsed on top of the dead man’s bleeding body. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Primo sobbed, hugging and tightly clutching the dead Marine.

  “Boss! Boss!” Fly screamed, rushing up to Primo. “Gather yourself! Gather yourself!” he shouted, violently yanking Primo off the body.

  “Everybody, face down! Down now!” screamed Meo tribesmen, as Primo fell face first into the blood saturated dirt. “Everybody down, now!” they yelled, firing four hundred 9-mm rounds from their two Swedish K submachine guns. Bullets zinged dangerously close to Primo’s head, as he lay in the dirt staring at the dead Marine, and feeling the heat of the hot rounds flying overhead at fourteen hundred feet per second. Soaked in blood, Primo began taking deep breaths to re-focus. VC all around were screaming, getting hit and dying under the intense fire. The Pathet Lao and Vietcong were being killed at close range and cut down as they attempted to escape. After three minutes that seemed an eternity, the shooting stopped. The remaining communists retreated, but reaching the processing lab carried a price. Three of Primo's men had died and four had been wounded.

  Early Evening

  In the misty, densely forested region near the Laotian border, Marines quickly volunteered to help Primo and his fatigued men limp under the shrapnel-riddled gatepost leading to the Special Forces fighting camp located among several rugged mountain ranges. Hyper-vigilant guards stood watch from behind bullet riddled sandbagged bunkers, their defense against nightly raids and firefights. Fly and Bone stayed close to Primo, anxiously passing a light machine gun bunker and a sentry looking through night vision binoculars surveying the lush terrain. The camp was constructed to withstand an enemy attack and was defended by claymore mines, barbed wire, mortars, 105 mm howitzers and open trenches. A sense of security filled the men who were filling and stacking sand bags around sleeping areas, ammo bunkers, and the first aid station.

  Covered in filth and dried blood, Primo reached the entrance of the Camp Commander’s bunker. Facing the Commander, Primo stared at the suave, clean-shaven, blue-eyed Colonel Cropp watching him light a Camel cigarette. Remaining silent, the Colonel steadily exhaled the smoke, and then opened a black wooden footlocker, removing a bottle of Jack Daniel's whisky and four small metal cups. Closing the lid, he placed the cups on top of the footlocker, half-filling them.

  “So, we meet again,” Colonel Cropp stated, handing whisky to the men.

  “Thank you sir,” Primo answered, accepting the drinks, handing the spirits to Fly, who handed it to Bone.

  “You look terrible, Lieutenant. Here’s to your health,” he chuckled, sipping the smooth whisky.

  “This will help,” Primo replied, then sipped the whisky. Fly and Bone, holding the metal cups in their dirt-caked hands, sniffed, and nodded their approval, but did not drink.

  “Lost a few men out there, huh?” the Colonel asked solemnly.

  “Three dead, four wounded sir,” he answered with a dejected expression, handing the metal dogs tags to the Colonel.

  "Bullets are dangerous," he said, holding the tags, and reading their names.

  "Yes sir," Primo answered, uncomfortably.

  “Pisses you off when it happens, huh?”

  “It’s never easy sir,” Primo replied.

  “Happens every day out here. We take turns ambushing each other,” he said, with the tags hanging from his hand, inhaling cigarette smoke deep into his lungs, looking into Primo’s somber eyes. “You know how it is Lieutenant?”

  “Sure do, sir,” he said, swallowing the remaining whisky.

  “So, tell me. Did you find anything?”

  "Bits and pieces. I'm not sure what it all means."

  "You’re a smart guy, you'll figure it out," the Colonel replied, steadily finishing his remaining Jack. "You’re a long way from Camp Pendleton,” he replied, pouring them another drink.

  “Wish I were there now.”

  “Do you live there?”

  “I have a small house in Fallbrook,” Primo answered, looking glum.

  “So, you’re married?”

  “Well sir, I got a Dear John. I guess the marriage is over.”

  “Too bad. Being a family man means staying home with your family,” he stated, steadily puffing the unfiltered cigarette. “Can’t make love to a wife if you’re in the boonies.”

  “I guess so,” Primo answered, staring into the cup, swirling the amber liquid in small circles, thinking of his wife.

  “Will you ever love again?”

  “Hurts too much to love.”

  “Will you ever find love or happiness again?”

  “I’m too depressed to think about it, sir.”

  “Well, just don’t look at the relationship, that’s too confusing. Instead, acknowledge what’s been of value to you. Be happy that you both shared love and something wonderful and of value happened to both of you. Just keep moving forward,” he said in a fatherly tone, a quality that made him a natural leader among the young troops.

  “I’ll try,” Primo said, taking a deep breath.

  “You’ve had a tough day, Lieutenant. Take a break. You and your trackers clean up, get some food and rest.”

  “Thank you,” Primo said, hesitantly. “But sir, I guess you know why I’m here?” Primo said, shifting the mood and tone of the conversation.

  “Not real clear. Spook stuff I imagine,” he stated, puffing his cigarette. “Seems like you’re a busy man these days. But if you’re crazy enough to be out here, it must be something worth dying for,” he added, exhaling smoke in a steady stream.

  “We’re interested in the opium lab you found and heroin trafficking in this area,” Primo informed the Colonel glancing at Fly and Bone sitting on sandbags.

  “Lots of labs in the Triangle. Heroin is financing the war. It’s paying all the bills,” he answered skeptically, sipping his drink.

  “Any Intel data retrieved from the raid sir?”

  “Got a few heroin bricks. A few escape and evasion maps.”

  “May I have the maps?

  “Roger that.”

  “Any prisoners?”

  “We don’t take prisoners, Lieutenant," he snickered. "The degree of trauma is severe enough around here,” he answered, dropping the cigarette butt onto the dirt floor, snuffing it out with the tip of his boot.

  “I understand. Well, anything else, sir? Anything unusual?” Primo asked in quiet despair.

  “Unusual? Every day is unusual when folks are getting zapped,” he replied sipping his whisky, studying Primo’s face, gauging his mood. “But, I had two sentries get shot a while back. That doesn’t usually happen."

  “I see,” Primo replied guzzling back the whisky. “Any other unusual occurrences, anything out of the ordinary, sir? Anything at all you can think of?” Primo asked, as the Colonel lit another cigarette, contemplating recent events.

  “Well, if you want me to pull something out of my butt, a while back my men were sweeping the area south of here for security breaches and sniper hideouts when they found a tunnel complex. Our tunnel rat checked it out, and found my XO, Colonel Rose and Doc Messner,” he said snickering, shaking his head, bewildered.

  “That’s really weird. That’s no accident,” Primo said, setting the cup down.

  “What they were up to is beyond me,” the Colonel said pensively, inhaling smoke. I expected them back,” h
e said, rubbing the metal cup back and forth, between the palms of his hands. “I thought they were with joy girls,” the Colonel answered, deep in thought, pondering the situation, puffing his cigarette.

  “Joy girls, sir?”

  “Joy girls are Vietnamese prostitutes devoted to the sexual gratification of the troops. They serve with the Satisfaction Support Unit, but they only service high-ranking Vietnamese,” he said, refilling the cups.

  “So Colonel Rose was a ladies’ man?”

  “Colonel Rose was pretty vaginally directed, and somehow he got hooked up with these women,” Colonel Cropp grinned, shaking his head as Fly and Bone looked at each other, surprised.

  “How did he meet the prostitutes?”

  “Rose was always busy. He spoke Vietnamese fluently, had friends in the Vietnamese Army, the Vietnamese Government, and Saigon Police. He was involved with Black Ops and worked closely with the CIA.”

  “Was he murdered?” Primo asked, as Fly and Bone looked at each other, and then stared at the Colonel for his reply.

  “That’s your job to find out, not mine. I have enough problems taking care of the living. Besides, they knew the risks and the consequences. I don’t gamble with my life. But my Intelligence Officer found a bullet in the ground near burnt leaves, and cigarette butts near the tunnel entrance. Doc and Rose didn’t smoke,” the Colonel stated, reaching for a small pouch then handed him a small envelope with the evidence and the date it was found.

  “Why did you save these?”

  “Chain-of-custody procedures, plus I’m a pack rat. I save everything, including bad memories.”

  “Had the XO and Doc Messner ever disappeared in the past?”

  “Yeah, yeah, they disappeared quite a few times, but guys come and go all the time. It’s not unusual to not see someone for a week,” he answered, puffing his cigarette.

  “I understand that concept,” Primo replied, recalling his times spent in the bush. “What happened to the bodies, sir?” he asked, sipping his whisky.

  “Sent them home.”

  “Was an autopsy performed?”

  “Look at this place. You tell me,” the Colonel laughed.

  “How about a corpsman? Was there a corpsman on duty at the time?”

  “There was,” he said hesitantly, pointing in the opposite direction with his cigarette.

  “Also sir, I’d like to examine the XO’s sleeping area if you don’t mind.”

  “Roger that!” he said, granting his approval then gulped the whisky. “We didn’t touch their sleeping areas, too busy.”

  “Do you have a Med-Evac helicopter?"

  “One helo is flying in tomorrow.”

  “Me and my men would like to be on the chopper, if that’s okay."

  “Yeah, yeah, roger that,” he replied, dropping the burning cigarette onto a small board on the floor filled with burn marks. Primo studied the Colonel's behavior, trying to figure out why he was so jittery.

  “Thanks for your cooperation, sir, and for the drinks,” Primo said, light headed, setting the cup on the footlocker, hesitating for a moment. The Colonel returned Primo's stare, both men stood silent for an awkward moment. “Sir, don’t you care that your men are dying?” he asked skeptically.

  “Sure I care. But I can’t get emotionally invested in every casualty. Besides, I need to emotionally and mentally survive. I need to stay psychologically resilient. It's stressful when you're being shot at every day."

  “I see your point, sir,” Primo said quietly, taking a deep breath, thinking about the men he lost in combat.

  "Yup, you may see my point, but do you accept it," he asked, as Fly and Bone looked at each other wide-eyed then set their cups of whisky on the footlocker.

  "I'm not in your skin sir, but I accept what you're saying," Primo answered. "Right now I'm dealing with my own stuff."

  "Yup, we all are. Take care of yourself Lieutenant. Contact me if you need help. We’re in this together."

  "Semper Fi," Primo said, leaving the sandbagged bunker.

  “Do or die, Lieutenant,” the Colonel responded, slowly rubbing the metal dog tags back and forth between his hands, mumbling the names of the dead Marines, shaking his head in despair with a heart filled with grief.

  Primo feeling light headed from the whisky, walked with Bone and Fly in silence to an isolated area of the camp where a corpsman was tending to the bodies of dead Marines and completing paper work for the killed-in-action reports.

  “Corpsman, I’m looking for the sleeping area for Doc Messner and Colonel Rose.”

  “Yes sir, straight ahead,” replied the dish-water blond Master Chief Corpsman, busily inspecting a corpse lying next to other bodies wrapped in ponchos, as Fly and Bone twitched their noses at the foul smell of rotting flesh.

  “Oh excuse me; you’re a Master Chief and a woman!” Primo said surprised.

  “That’s a superior grasp of the obvious,” the crusty Master Chief replied.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Let’s see, my junior corpsman was killed in a mortar attack, my Petty Officer First Class corpsman was also killed in the same attack, the medical officer and the XO, who are also medical officers, were killed,” she informed him, squatting next to a body, inspecting a wound. “Seems like we ran out of medical personnel.”

  “Why you?” Primo asked somewhat perplexed about a woman in a combat zone.

  “I’m a Physician’s Assistant and I’m the senior corpsman. I’m attached to the hospital ship floating out there in the big ocean,” she said with a faint smile. “I’m back up.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Lieutenant, I got my hard hat on. Besides, the Marine Corps is under the Department of the Navy. I’m Navy,” she said with a bit of sass and vinegar to her tone. “Besides, I got you to protect me. By the way, who are the Go-Go Girls hanging around you?” she asked, sarcastically looking at Fly and Bone wearing leather loincloths, beads, with long hair.

  “She act like man,” Bone said.

  “She look like man,” Fly replied.

  “Funny woman,” Bone observed.

  “By the way,” Primo said, sarcastically. “Did you inspect the bodies of Colonel Rose and Doc Messner?”

  “Yes sir, I did. Any problems here?” the Master Chief replied, moving to inspect the next corpse.

  “How did they die?” he asked, as Bone and Fly closely surveyed the jungle terrain, having a side conversation.

  “This place is trouble,” Fly said, staring cautiously at the trees.

  “No safe place,” Bone replied. “Vietcong are smart.”

  “I prefer Queensland,” Fly said. “Much safer.”

  “In the rainforest,” they replied in unison, smiling.

  “I miss the waterfalls,” Fly reminisced.

  “I miss the fishing,” Bone added, peering into the dark forest, feeling uneasy.

  “The Colonel had a bullet in his femur; his face was also really swollen,” she answered, unzipping a black body bag, unlocking an overwhelming stench, exposing a decomposing cadaver.

  “His femur?”

  “His upper leg sir,” she stated, writing information from a metal dog tag. “Seems like scorpions had his face for lunch,” she giggled impersonally, clicking her black, government issued ballpoint pen.

  “So he was poisoned to death by the scorpions?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What about the Doc?”

  “Doc Messner died from a snake bite.”

  “A snake bite? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Sir, there could be other causes. I don’t know? I do the paper work, then stitch em’, bag em’, tag em’, route em’. I don’t perform autopsies, just the initial examination,”

  “Where’s the bullet? Did you dig it out?” he asked, holding a bandana over his nose.

  “I saw it, but left it intact.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s a chain-of-custody procedure. The bodies are autopsied and dressed at either
Tripler Hospital in Hawaii or Travis Air Force base near San Francisco,” she replied, rising from her squatting position, looking the Lieutenant in the eyes, revealing a large scar from her hairline, down her forehead and over her nose.

  “Why those two places?” Primo asked quietly, studying the rugged ugly scar.

  “Just depends on where the guy is from. Home of record, you know?”

  “Got it,” he answered, as the Master Chief crouched beside another body in a bag.

  “What a mess!” she observed, grimacing at the disfigured Marine.

  “Where do the bodies go from here?”

  “Saigon. Then they’re separated according to home of record, then put into cheap wooden coffins, then cold storage containers, then put into cargo planes, and off they go.”

  “Thanks,” Primo said, holding his thumb up and walking toward the tent.

  “Same stars in the sky,” Fly said, looking up and following Primo.

  “The same earth,” Bone replied, nervously walking up to the tent. Primo stood for a moment studying the dark room as Fly tied back the canvass flap covering the entrance.

  “Boss, is that woman or man?” Bone asked.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. Don’t ask.”

  “We won’t tell,” Fly and Bone said in unison, giggling.

  “Bone, tie back those window flaps,” Primo suggested seriously, pointing at the dusty canvas flaps.

  “Moonlight is good,” Fly said approvingly, lighting the hanging oil lamp.

  “Bad feeling,” Bone stated, tying the thick straps.

  “Check everything,” Primo instructed.

  “I sense death,” Bone replied, looking around the room, as Primo carefully searched a small satchel resting on top of a chair.

  “Big bag here with lock,” Fly announced. Primo turned and watched Fly pull the bag from under the canvass cot.

  “Won’t open,” Fly said, tugging at the lock.

  “I’ll open it,” Primo said, walking toward the bag while pulling his commando knife from its sheath. "Stand back," he said, stabbing the large sea bag, slicing a long and even cut into the thick green canvass.