He looked up at the sound of helo transports. Two Chinook helos were coming in to take the POWs away. They couldn’t be kept at Solid Anchor. Let V Corps interrogate the rest, he thought. The SEALs had the old man. He’d stay here. For now anyway.
Gene stood up and walked over to Johnny’s hootch. He knocked on the door. “Johnny? You in?”
“Door’s open.”
When he entered, Johnny put down the western novel he was reading. “What’s up?”
“Any word?”
He frowned. “About what?”
“Give me a break, Johnny. Who hit Willie?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Who? The colonel?”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
“Have you located him?” His voice sounded in his ears like gravel crunched under boots in winter.
“I think so,” Johnny said, “but I’m checking it out.” The ring glinted as he ran his fingers through his hair. “The last word that came in was that he’s northeast of here. Maybe twenty or thirty miles. He’s picked up more men. Possible training camp up by Five Sisters.”
The edge of the desk cut into Gene’s thigh as he leaned forward. “Yeah.” Five Sisters. Five large rivers feeding down into the Mekong Delta. Not far from the Secret Zone where they’d hit the R&R Center. Son of a bitch! They’d just been there. “Yeah,” he said again. “Keep me posted,” he added, and left.
He didn’t tell Johnny they’d seen what must have been the training camp. Didn’t want anybody else going after the colonel. Wanted him for himself. The colonel belonged to Lima.
Just before 1100 hours, Jim called the squad together for a debrief. Everything, from the time they’d left Seafloat until their return, was covered. The details of what they’d seen, heard, and smelled were given by each of them. After the debriefing, the reports would be sent to SpecWar Headquarters in Saigon, with copies to Johnny. They’d get them all. Except one. The intel on the training camp.
In charge of intel for Lima, Gene secured that bit of information in his footlocker before deciding he’d better go to chow. He didn’t know how long he’d be out with the KCSs. The op might be short and sweet—go in, kill them, get the money, go home—or it could be another long one. A possible dick-dragger.
It didn’t matter, he thought, walking around a work crew on his way to chow. His 60 was cleaned, oiled, loaded, and ready to sing.
By the time he arrived, the line was short and almost every seat was taken. When he reached the serving line, he realized that, standing in front of him, was Freddy Fanther.
Gene opened his mouth, then shut it. Nobody liked the poor bastard, for all kinds of reasons. Still, he was one of them. And maybe, this op, he’d come back in a body bag like Willie had. It was time to let bygones be bygones, clear the situation, and leave as few bad memories as possible.
Good old Freddy. Didn’t look around to see who was next to him. Too busy piling on the food.
“Are you going to eat all that or sell it to the Montagnards?”
Freddy jumped at the sound of his voice. “Just leave me alone.”
“Hey, mellow out, man.”
“Dammit, just stay away from me.” He took a step backward, then hurried off to a table.
Gene felt a flood of guilt. The freckled SEAL was scared to death of him. What if Fanther got killed on his next op? He had to settle this thing. Or at least try.
Gene took the makings of a sandwich, some veggie sticks, a glass of milk, and a cup of coffee. Wending his way past tables and chairs, he spotted Freddy. A vacant chair sat next to him.
Freddy glanced up, then lowered his head, looking as though he were silently saying, Don’t sit here . .. please don’t sit next to me.
Gene pulled the chair out. “You mind?”
“Would you go if I said I did?”
“No. Just thought I’d be polite and ask before I sat down.” He put the tray on the table and took the chair. “Mind if I say something?”
“It’s a free world.”
“Let’s bury the hatchet. You’re not the enemy. Listen. You’re a Teammate. You made it through Hell Week and training. You did your time.” Gene sighed. “I might not like everything you say or do. Your timing is shitty. But you’re still a Teammate. Life’s too short. There’s plenty of enemy out there. Just friends. Okay?”
“Sure,” Freddy said, beginning to smile. “Why not?”
Gene was relieved. “So how have things been going?”
Freddy began telling about being on the Mighty Mo.
Gene took a long drink of milk. Freddy hadn’t been on the Mighty Mo. Don’t hit him, he told himself. It’s not worth it. But he couldn’t listen to him anymore. “I’ve got to run.” He picked up the rest of his sandwich. “See you later.” He fled.
Gene had just cleared the door when Marc came up.
“Let’s go. Briefing room.”
“Okay.”
When they entered, Sean was up front at the maps. Seated before him were four KCSs and a man in his forties, who was dressed in black pajamas. Ralph, one of the SEALs from Delta Platoon, sat against the wall. Gene took his usual chair at the back, and Marc sat down next to him. Sean was giving the mission directive.
“This is Yen.” He nodded at the man in black pajamas. “Yen will lead us to the tax collectors, for saving his daughter’s life. Normally, once on board, he and his daughter would be sent to Binh Thuy and relocated, but for now, his daughter is being taken care of, and he will lead us in. We’ll use one large sampan. Everyone will be covered. In the bow will be two KCSs and myself. Marc, Gene—Ralph will carry a Stoner—you three and two KCSs will be concealed beneath one of those hinged, thatched roofs. It will have tarps over both ends.”
Gene looked over at Ralph. He seemed relaxed.
Sean cleared his throat. “Gene, Ralph, keep your guns on him.” He motioned toward the guide. “Anything happens, kill him.”
Ralph glanced back at Gene, then away.
Sean looked at one of the KCSs. “Let Yen know that if he leads us into an ambush or trap, he’ll be the first to die.”
The KCS translated.
“No! No!” Yen protested. “I take you in. You saved my daughter. Viet Cong would let her drown. I take you in.”
Sitting with his chair tilted back against the wall, Gene listened to the rest of the PLO covering the details of the op. They’d be going into a remote Secret Zone east of Seafloat and south of the Son Ku Lon. No Americans had ever been there.
“Any questions?” Sean scanned the room. Silence answered. “Be at the boats in thirty minutes, locked and loaded.”
Back at the hootch, Gene gathered his weapons and gear, then double-checked to make sure he had Willie’s cross in his pocket. It felt hard and sharp-edged in his hand.
“Marc, you ready?”
“Yeah, but give me a minute. Okay?”
“Okay, but let’s hurry.”
A few seconds later, he was ready. “Let’s go.”
The Swift boats were warming up. One had a large sampan tied to its port side. With everyone on board, Sean gave the signal to cast off. Slowly they began moving east down the Son Ku Lon. The ride would take a good forty-five minutes before they headed south.
Gene smoked a cigarette, drank some water, and took two salt tablets. The day was steaming hot and clear. His skin was wet-slick, oiled with sweat. Great patches of it darkened his cami shirt.
They turned down a river. He estimated it was twenty feet wide.
“Now, load the sampan,” Sean ordered.
With two of the KCSs, Sean climbed in the boat’s front end. They covered themselves with plastic tarps. Gene followed Ralph and Marc beneath the thatched roof. There he made it clear to Yen that both his 60 and Ralph’s Stoner were trained on him. Marc sat at his back.
Their sampan cast off from the Swifts. Hidden aboard, they would wait at the river’s mouth, where it emptied into the Son Ku Lon, until insertion time.
Dripping wet,
Gene sat immobile. With the sides draped, the crowded area under the thatched roof was a steam bath. It stank with the smells of gun oil, sweat, the dankness of the jungle and river, and the body odor of the KCSs sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with him.
It was important to eliminate tax collectors and to seize any money they’d taken from the villagers. Without money, Nguyen couldn’t buy food and medical supplies. Without food supplies, people would starve. Without either food or medical supplies, they’d have to move. Forced into action, mistakes could be made. And if Nguyen screwed up, they’d get him.
When insertion time finally came, Yen restarted the sampan’s small 3.5-horsepower motor, and they proceeded farther down the river. Gene and Ralph watched his every move. After several miles, the river narrowed to a mere five feet. Yen guided the sampan into a small stream to starboard.
Gene tensed, knowing their objective was to the left—the port side—not starboard. He pushed the 60’s barrel through a small opening in the drape over the hinged roof above, and aimed it at Yen.
About five feet downstream, the guide stopped and backed their sampan out. He then continued south on the river for five hundred meters before turning into another small stream. This time on the port side.
At least they were headed in the right direction, Gene thought, and pulled the nose of the 60’s barrel back inside. Peering through an opening in the drape, he saw the small stream was still about four or five feet across, running through heavy brush under triple canopy.
The sampan’s motor stopped. Yen lifted it out of the water, took a long pole, and started poling them along. The tide was running out, and the stream wasn’t deep enough for the motor. With all their weight aboard, the waterline was about a quarter of an inch from the sideboard.
The last thing in the world they needed was to be grounded. Gene lifted the 60, just a bit. The stream got narrower as the tide kept running out. Again Yen pulled right, into another stream, only to back out. Then he did the same, a third time.
It was too much. Gene prodded Yen with the tip of the 60. Eyes wide, shoulders hunched, Yen turned to stare at him.
“What the hell are you doing, going in and out of these streams?” Gene whispered harshly.
“They watch,” Yen whispered back. “We no go in and out, they know we not friend.”
Gene nodded and pulled the 60 back.
“You get ready,” the guide whispered. “We close around next bend.”
The sampan crept through the water. If they got hit now, the boat couldn’t be turned around. They’d have to take it out backward, which would take a lot longer, since its rear was flat. Nor could their Swift boats come after them with the stream so shallow. The jungle was too thick for air support, and they knew, from the PLO and the guide, that hundreds of VC and NVA occupied the Secret Zone surrounding them. But where they were, nobody knew.
Gene froze. Voices were coming from the port side. Three men in black pajamas, he saw through a small opening, were calling and motioning for Yen to pole the sampan to them. Gene blinked sweat from his eyes. Yen moved the boat closer and closer. The three were saying something about the sampan, but he couldn’t understand all of it. Two of the three had AK-47s slung from their shoulders.
The unarmed one frowned. “What kind of sampan is that?”
“This is a business-type sampan!” one of the KCSs up front yelled as he threw off his plastic cover and opened his M-16 up on full automatic. Instantly Sean and the other KCSs opened fire as well. Even as they did, Gene, Marc, and the rest bolted from their seats and threw up the heavy thatched roof to begin firing. The roof slammed straight back down on their heads. Violently they threw it back up. It rebounded hard, a split second later, almost knocking them to their knees. They threw it up a third time with such force it tore loose and landed in the heavy, overhanging brush on the bank.
By then, it was too late. Sean and the KCSs at the sampan’s front end were howling with laughter.
Gene saw stars. The firing was over. Two of the VC lay dead on the bank. The third had escaped, leaving a wide blood trail.
Ralph stepped out of the sampan, only to see the Stoner box holding his ammunition fall out of his weapon and into the mud.
Setting security, Gene gasped. “Jesus!” Ralph could put it back in and fire if he had to. And he’d better. They had at least seven miles of tiny streams to go before the Swifts could come down and pick them up. They damned sure couldn’t afford to throw ammo away.
As Ralph picked up the fallen Stoner box, Sean and two of the KCSs left the sampan for the bank. They began to search the bodies and the area.
Sean found a small money bag on one body. “Not even enough cash to buy a week’s supply of food for the KCS camp,” he announced after looking inside. “Everyone out of the boat,” he ordered. “Turn it around.”
Disappointed over the risk taken for so little return, Gene slung the 60. Using brute force, they lifted the sampan. Slipping in the mud, trying to keep their footing in the stream, they managed to face the boat in the other direction.
The second they had, Gene pulled the 60 around into firing position and scanned the green wall of jungle intently. With all the gunfire, enemy would sure as hell be coming.
“Now, one with an AK-47 got away, but with that kind of blood loss, he’s a dead man.” Sean climbed into the sampan. “Load up, and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Aboard, Gene glanced around. Satisfied everybody was there, he concentrated on the jungle in his immediate area. They staggered fields of fire, so both sides of the sampan were covered, but with the drapes and the thatched roof gone, they were completely exposed. Hunched down, he tried to make himself as small as he could. Ralph and Sean were doing the same.
Be ready for an ambush, going out,” Sean warned. “You all know they’ll be coming.”
Only too well, Gene thought. He could reach out and touch the impenetrable brush, it was so close. If they got hit, it would be at point-blank range. The only thing they’d be able to do would be to return fire and hope the sampan cleared the enemy’s kill zone before they were all dead.
Listening, watching intently, he suddenly remembered his very first kill. He could still see the young boy in a sampan. He’d put a bullet right between the boy’s eyes. Afterward, he had spent a long time vomiting, knowing he’d never forget that young kid. He hadn’t. Now it was their turn to be the ones in the sampan. If the enemy managed to reach them before they could escape, they had as much chance as that boy.
The stream widened about three feet on each side as twilight approached. Suddenly one of the KCSs fired.
“Ambush left!” Scan yelled.
Every one of them opened up, firing left. The gathering darkness sparked with muzzle flashes bright as the sun. The volume of fire was such that it moved the sampan to the right bank.
There was no return fire. No ambush. The KCS had fired a round accidentally. It wasn’t the first time, and wouldn’t be the last, Gene knew. No sense in getting mad. The tension and the fear were such that he’d done it himself when he’d first come to Nam. They all had. Then, from the rear, he heard firing, knew the enemy was reconning and looking for them.
Sean got on the radio. “Scramble Sea Wolves!”
Smart, Gene thought. They still had some distance to the larger river where the Swifts would pick them up. But right now they were amidst a lot of enemy, and everybody was on the edge of opening up again. The KCSs weren’t SEALs. They didn’t have the discipline. Pulling the trigger would come as a relief to them.
He listened to Sean radio the Swifts to come down and realized Sean hoped to time it so that their boats would arrive at the extraction point the same moment they did.
Sean’s plan didn’t work. When they reached the pickup point, the Swifts weren’t there. Gene looked up and saw the Sea Wolves overhead. He watched them fly just a little south of their location and draw fire. Heavy automatic weapons fire. The Wolves opened up with .50-calibers, 60s, and rockets.
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br /> “Emergency extraction!” Sean radioed to the Swifts.
“Cannot suppress fire. Get out of there,” the Wolves radioed down. “We can’t stay any longer. Return fire is too heavy.”
Gene heard the Swifts before he saw them. They came into sight at full speed, then banked at their feet. They loaded fast, and once they were aboard, Sean dropped a grenade into the sampan. The Swifts turned and headed out on step. Barely out of sight around a curve in the river, Gene heard the explosion as the sampan went up.
When no further enemy contact was made, Scan suddenly announced loudly, “This is a business-type sampan!” They laughed hysterically.
“Bang, bang—you’re dead!” Ralph yelled, and Gene listened to them laugh again.
They reached Seafloat a little after dark. The money they’d recovered would be given to the KCSs for clothing and food. They had three enemy KIA. The bleeder wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes. More important, Gene thought, climbing out of the boat, the enemy had more proof that they weren’t safe anywhere. It didn’t matter how far into the jungle they went, or how many of them there were. The SEALs could and would penetrate their private domain. The psychological impact of that would cause the NVA problems. From an intelligence point of view, the op had been a total success. Most important, they’d all got back alive.
Later, after reporting to NILO, Gene stood alone at Seafloat’s edge. In his pocket, his fingers traced the angular shape of Willie’s cross. Sorry, my friend, he thought, I didn’t make a kill for you this op, but three of the bastards joined their Maker anyway.
Gene stared out into the night, still tense. Some ops were like that…get all pumped up, go out, and next to nothing actually happened. Get back and feel…half-grateful, half-angry, he guessed. But there was always the next time. At least for him. He’d be going out again, bright and early. He took a breath and headed to the cleaning tables to get his gear ready.
By the time he hung the 60 in the sling on his rack, it was 2130 hours. Card games were going on in the hootch, all around him. Gene leaned against the metal bedpost. He was going on ninety-six hours with no sleep. Probably should try and get some. Stretched out on his rack, he closed his eyes but couldn’t stop the hell he’d seen in Vietnam from running through his mind.
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