Finding Jack

by Gareth Crocker

  “Lieutenant!”

  “He’s going to get himself killed!” Fletcher cried.

  Together they chased after him. They hadn’t covered more than fifty yards when Jack suddenly sprinted ahead of them. His sudden burst of acceleration caught Fletcher by surprise, and the leash slipped out of his hand. “Wait, Jack!”

  But the Labrador had made up his mind. When he was close enough, he leapt up and bit Rogan on the arm. It was enough to throw him off balance and send him crashing to the ground.

  “Release, Jack! Release!” Fletcher shouted.

  Rogan shoved Jack away and reached for his gun.

  Jack, growling now, stood over the lieutenant. He looked ready to attack if Rogan made a sudden move.

  “Retreat!” Fletcher commanded as he and Mitchell drew up alongside them.

  Rogan’s eyes were reduced to thin slits as he stared at the dog. His right arm, muddied and bleeding above the elbow, was fully extended, and his gun was only inches away from Jack’s face.

  Fletcher moved up alongside the Labrador and gently grabbed him by his collar. “Easy, boy … easy.”

  Rogan looked at Fletcher, as if disoriented, then began to sit up. Jack suddenly leapt at him. This time he snapped at Rogan’s face, drawing blood on his cheek.

  “Pull your fucking dog back! Now!”

  Fletcher battled to restrain Jack. His claws fought for purchase in the mud. Rogan again started to get up, when Mitchell noticed something. “Don’t move. Stop!”

  Stretched across Rogan’s head was a thin trip wire.

  “Slide back slowly and keep your head down.”

  Rogan did as instructed. Mitchell carefully took hold of the trip wire and gently returned it to its position.

  Jack immediately relented, the fight gone out of him, and sat down at Fletcher’s side, panting happily. By now, the rest of the platoon had caught up to them and had witnessed the incident. The wire was linked to a cluster of hand grenades fixed to the base of a small tree less than ten yards away from them. Another length of wire connected a further eight trees down the path, each with their own cargo of explosives. Had the wire been crossed, it was designed to take out a hundred yards of jungle. It was a platoon killer.

  In his first assignment with the Fat Lady, Jack had saved them all.

  Thirty-two

  Ignoring what had just happened, Rogan returned to point and continued to push forward. Although this time, he moved at a more sensible pace and was accompanied by both Mitchell and Fletcher. What little light remained was rapidly disappearing over the trees. Within minutes, a cloying darkness would descend over them. The night’s thumbnail moon would do little to help their cause.

  Based on their information, the tunnel complex was now just over a kilometer away. They would soon have to find somewhere to hide until it was time to go in. Once their orders had been executed—all too literally—they would immediately begin their hike back down the path toward the pickup point. Despite the darkness, they would be able to move relatively quickly, as they had disengaged most of the traps on the trail and plotted out the remaining ones on a map. However, plotting the traps was hardly an exact science, and much of the responsibility would again rest on Mitchell and Jack to negotiate a safe passage for them.

  As they rounded a bank of trees, Rogan pointed to a slight declivity away from the path that would safely conceal their position. One by one, they filed down the embankment and settled under the dense foliage.

  Rogan, Mitchell, and Fletcher sat down together to go over the plan.

  “Pearson, we need to review the sketch of the complex. Get over here,” Rogan instructed.

  Gunther crawled over to them and shone his torch down onto the creased paper. “If our intelligence is accurate, the entrance to the complex is some three or four hundred yards ahead. It’s marked by a short wooden stake located between two trees. A trapdoor takes you down about twenty feet to a small crawl space that feeds the main corridor. This corridor runs some five hundred yards south. Off here, you’ll find supply rooms, a kitchen, a hospital room of sorts, and the soldiers’ barracks. The officers’ dormitory lies behind the barracks.”

  “Okay,” Rogan began, removing his pack, “we know that the best time to infiltrate is around 0300. We aren’t expecting any heat around the entrance, and if we’re lucky, we should be able to get into the main corridor without being detected. The problem comes after that. We don’t know how many soldiers are in that room or how difficult it is going to be to access the officers’ dormitory.”

  “We also can’t rely on the fact that they’ll all be sleeping like angels. Fletch, you’re going to have to be pretty sure that none of the soldiers are awake before you go in,” Mitchell added.

  “And if some of them are?”

  “You’ll have to wait it out. We’ve built in a bit of extra time for this, but not much. You’ve basically got an hour to get in and out. If we exit cleanly by 0400, that gives us probably an hour head start. We can’t risk anything less than that,” Rogan insisted.

  “Where will you two be?”

  “Making sure no one comes up behind you, but we won’t be shadowing you as close as we’d like. It’s too confined in there.”

  Fletcher knew he was asking the obvious, but proceeded anyway. “What happens if someone raises the alarm?”

  Rogan rested his arms on two hand grenades that were secured to the front of his jacket. “We’ll take out as many as we can. Make sure the survivors sleep with one eye open for the rest of their goddamn lives.”

  Fletcher was about to reply, when Jack’s ears pricked up.

  “Kill the torch,” Rogan ordered.

  “What is it—?” Gunther began, but was quickly hushed.

  For a while, there was nothing. Then slowly they heard it.

  Faint voices, like the scent of a dead body in the breeze, wafted toward them.

  Thirty-three

  The Fat Lady immediately assumed a defensive ring, fanning out as a shadow of the skeletal moon above them. In the purple glow between day and night, the soldiers dropped onto their stomachs, their rifles poised ahead of them.

  The voices were coming from the trail, not far away.

  In the fading light, Fletcher could see the unease on Rogan’s face. It was a concern that extended beyond the voices. The strain of what had happened earlier in the day was clearly still weighing on him. It twisted and churned beneath his skin.

  Then, inexplicably, the sound of the approaching men shifted. They no longer appeared to be coming from the trail, but rather from the dense vegetation to their left. They quickly moved around, a blustery wind adding to the deception. They had just adjusted into their new positions when the voices shifted again, except now, impossibly, they seemed to be coming from the earth itself.

  Rogan snatched Gunther’s torch away from him and shone it onto the ground. The pale yellow orb drifted over a wide square opening covered with a bamboo grid.

  It was one of the tunnel’s air vents. The voices belonged to the soldiers below.

  Rogan quickly signaled for the men to move away from the vent. They quietly slipped farther down the slope, a safe distance away.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Gunther murmured.

  “Why don’t we just drop a few friendly grenades down the vent?” Kingston suggested.

  “No good. According to the sketch, the vents are built in an exaggerated S structure. The grenades will get caught in the first loop, and all they’ll do is collapse the top portion of the vent,” Gunther explained. “They won’t get anywhere near the men.”

  “Let’s remember why we’re here,” Rogan interjected. “This is surgical. We’re not straying from our orders. In a few hours, we’ll take out our marks, and hopefully that’ll be the end of it. We’ll go in quietly and come out clean. We should be miles down the track before they even discover the bodies.”

  “Then back home … and thank God for that,” Wayville added, cupping his hands together in a mock
prayer.

  “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, Rex,” Rogan said. “Lord is going to take you through his notes and markings. It’s just a contingency, but if he doesn’t make it out, it’s your responsibility to get the men safely back down the trail.”

  Wayville’s expression soured. “How many traps are we talking?”

  “Thirty-seven,” Mitchell replied.

  “Thirty-seven? You sure? Not thirty-eight or thirty-nine?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Any advice?”

  “Yeah, don’t step on any wires.”

  “Funny. Six months we’re out in the field together, and now you tell your first joke? Just make sure you do what you have to and get the hell out of there.”

  “Don’t worry, if worse comes to worst, you’ll still have Jack here to guide you home.”

  Jack looked up at Mitchell and all but smiled at the mention of his name.

  And in a wink, twilight was gone.

  Thirty-four

  Fletcher’s cheek brushed up against the side of the tunnel. It felt warm and moist against his skin. Apart from the stench of natural decay, he was able to discern a number of other pungent smells, such as stale tobacco, cordite, urine, and even sweat—although most of the latter was probably his own, he thought. Despite the reported size of the complex, the crawl space linking the various areas was minuscule; he had to tuck his elbows in tight against his chest just to squeeze through the opening that joined the entrance section to the main tunnel corridor. He had expected to encounter some form of resistance by now, but so far, the chamber was empty. This wasn’t a case of someone shirking his duty, he knew; it was an indictment of how the U.S. was losing the war. Charlie was simply convinced that U.S. troops would not venture this far up the Chi San trail. It was a sign of his growing confidence, his increasing bravado. It was an assumption at least two of his men would pay for with their lives.

  Lying at the entrance to the main corridor, Fletcher remained still for a moment, listening for movement. All was quiet. The corridor itself was twice as wide as the entranceway and would allow an average Vietnamese soldier to walk upright. He, however, had to crane his neck and walk with a stoop. He quietly got to his feet and headed toward the faint glow of a lantern some forty yards away. According to their information, the fourth tunnel off to the right of the corridor was the main soldiers’ barracks. Behind this area was the officers’ dormitory.

  He quickly moved toward the pale light and was amazed by how clean and well constructed the complex was. Thick wooden struts supported the roof every few yards. He felt as though he were wandering around a mine. As he neared the lantern, he realized it was hanging on the wall outside the first room. Again, true to their information, it was a supply room. Farther down the corridor was the kitchen. Then a makeshift though empty hospital ward. Until finally, almost two hundred yards farther on, the soldiers’ barracks.

  Standing alongside, just out of view of the open entranceway, he waited to hear if anyone was talking. Another lantern was positioned on the wall opposite the room, and it cast a soft yellow glow over the sleeping soldiers. There were at least thirty souls lying on the floor, side by side. Strangely, not a single one of them was snoring, or even stirring. They hardly appeared to be breathing.

  There’s no room to walk, Fletcher suddenly realized.

  It had never occurred to him that the men would be lying so close together.

  Staring at the sea of bodies, he weighed his options. He could see a door at the back of the room, which he assumed led to the officers’ sleeping quarters.

  It was some twenty-five yards away, maybe farther. He debated trying to step between the men, but knew there was a strong likelihood that he would get stranded at some point with his path blocked. Or even worse, he might lose his balance and step on one of the men. It was too much of a risk. There remained only one other option.

  As part of the support structure of the roof, a single steel beam with a narrow inner railing, much like a railway track, ran the length of the room, ending a yard or so to the right of the back door. Straining his eyes, he studied the steel beam’s structure to ensure that there was enough space for him to grip the bar adequately. Although not particularly confident of his assessment, it seemed sufficient. He would climb over the men.

  He glanced down at his watch: 0323. He’d been in the complex for more than a quarter of an hour already. Time was running out. He took a deep breath, checked that his gun was properly secured, and grabbed hold of the railing. Without giving it any further thought, he hoisted himself up and began to swing forward. It reminded him of how Kelly used to hang from the monkey bars at her school. He quickly banished the image. Part of him recognized, at least on some level, that what he was doing was either incredibly brave or extraordinarily stupid. The latter seemed more likely.

  He had made it almost halfway across the room when the first beads of sweat began to rise up on his forehead. The complex was oppressively hot. A few moments later, he could feel the perspiration dripping off his face. His fingers and hands were showing signs of strain. His shoulders were beginning to tremble.

  Below, a soldier stirred and then sat up.

  Thirty-five

  Fletcher gritted his teeth and lifted his knees to his chest. His fingers were burning with exertion and beginning to slide on the sweat-slicked steel. The soldier looked around the room, muttered something in Vietnamese, and lay back down. A few moments later, he rolled onto his side and was back asleep.

  Fighting away the cramp and pain, Fletcher continued forward. Every new reach sapped away his strength. His legs felt like concrete pillars. As he closed in on the back of the room, he was convinced he was going to drop down.

  Five yards.

  Four.

  Three.

  Suddenly he lost his grip. Instinctively, he opened his stance and landed with both feet on either side of a soldier’s head. He immediately pulled out his gun and pointed it at the man’s face. Miraculously, the man remained asleep. Fletcher quickly spun around to check that none of the other men had woken up.

  They hadn’t.

  He couldn’t believe his good fortune.

  Two inches to either side, and the alarm would’ve been raised.

  He straightened up and carefully stepped over the remaining soldiers. He waited a moment to catch his breath before quietly opening the crudely fashioned bamboo door guarding the entrance to the officers’ dormitory. As he moved inside, it felt like he was wading through a pot of black ink. He withdrew his torch, pulled his shirt over the lens to diffuse the light, and switched it on. The room lit up dimly in a sickly green glow. To his surprise, the chamber was almost as big as the soldiers’ barracks he had just come through, but housed only the two commanding officers. His marks. This was good news. Even more surprising was that they were both sleeping in a type of bunk bed arrangement at the back of the room.

  Perfect, he thought.

  Throughout all the planning, his main concern was that, despite the silencer, the sound of the first shot might awaken the second officer before he could get to him. This was now less of an issue.

  As he approached the beds, he was gripped by a terrible image.

  The cots were so small, it was as though he were preparing to murder a pair of children. In the far reaches of his mind, he felt a smothering, almost overwhelming sadness pass over him. In a matter of months, he’d gone from pushing his daughter on a swing and teaching her to ride her bike to now standing over the bodies of two strangers he was about to murder. Did they have children? Did they deserve to be gunned down in their sleep? Fletcher’s precarious world was again threatening to spiral out of control. More often than not, his universe seemed like a basketball spinning on a finger. Just one bump, and the balance would be lost.

  He cocked the gun and knelt down next to the man sleeping on the lower bunk. He wrapped a small towel around the barrel to further muffle the sound. His last thought was to wonder what the man was dreamin
g.

  He hoped it was a good dream.

  Thirty-six

  Closing his eyes, partly out of respect for a dying man and partly for more practical reasons, Fletcher felt his arm recoil and warm blood splatter up his hand and onto the side of his face. The shot sounded like a heavy book dropping off a table—far too loud for the confined space. The second officer shifted around in the bunk above him. The sound of his voice thrust Fletcher into action. He dived on top of his first mark, pressed his gun into the mattress above him, and fired twice.

  Blood seeped through the holes.

  Taking short, sharp breaths, Fletcher could feel his pulse gallop in the side of his neck.

  He was now a murderer, whether it was a war or not. He had only ever killed before in open combat. What he had just done sickened him. For a while, he battled to contain a thick, viscous nausea that churned in his stomach. After what felt like a long time, he eventually managed to lower his gun. His arm was shaking violently. Wiping the syrupy blood off his hand, he reached for his flashlight and checked his watch. He was out of time. He had to get moving now. He sat up and climbed off the dead man.

  See the basketball spin, he thought.

  With his entire body trembling, he hurried out of the room and slipped back into the soldiers’ barracks. Still the men slept peacefully. He looked up at the railing on the ceiling and gathered himself. He placed his fingers into the thin steel groove and hoisted himself up. Surprisingly, his body felt light, and his arms and hands strong—most likely on account of the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He wasted no time and quickly began to swing back across the room.

  He was approaching the end of the railing when he noticed something strange ahead of him. In what had been a continuous expanse of bodies covering almost every inch of the floor, there was now an open space about three or four yards from the front of the room.