The point and PL moved toward the jungle, and as they passed, the other members of the squad fell in behind them. In patrol formation, they disappeared into the dark of the jungle.
No one heard, Gene thought. No one knew that, in just a few hours, they’d find they needed a new chief. Smooth and silent. Exactly the way their ops were meant to be. Perfect. So far. He ducked under a branch. Vines slithered across one shoulder and the side of his neck. At least, he hoped they were vines. His stomach lurched. For a moment, his shoulders hunched, but he walked on, putting his concentration on making each step silent.
When they finally reached the sampans, it took less than a minute to get them back in the water. They boarded and started paddling out as silently as they’d paddled in.
Gene’s thoughts were still with the hit. He knew what it must have been like inside the hootch. He’d executed the same kind of op himself. Go into the dark, he thought. Try to focus. Count the sleeping bodies of wife and children. Locate the target. Take the angle and squeeze the trigger. Puff. The round goes off. The body twitches slightly.
And, he thought, the people sleeping would be shocked when they awoke. They’d wonder how it happened. They’d seen nothing, heard nothing. He dipped his paddle carefully, watched it cut into the dark water with barely a ripple.
The only problem he’d had running that type of op had occurred when the target, like this one, had a wife and children. It had bothered him, imagining how the children would respond—their sorrow and hurt over a father dead. But he couldn’t dwell on that, or it would chew him up inside. He had to focus on the need for the mission. The hit would save lives. Personal feelings had to be put aside.
Gene snapped out of reverie. They’d almost reached the MSSCs. The radioman made contact to let them know they were coming into the boats’ position. If for some reason they couldn’t have made radio contact, they’d have used blinking lights. They could not just paddle up to them without warning. The MSSCs would consider the squad enemy moving in and open up.
But things had gone well, gone as planned. Just as they did on most SEAL ops. And Freddy Fanther—skate that he was aboard Seafloat—hadn’t made a wrong move out in the bush, he thought as he helped get the sampans aboard the boats so they could head home.
Sitting on one of the benches as they neared the Son Ku Lon, Gene realized how comfortable he’d become in the bush. It had become part of him, as it had, he guessed, for others who had been there before him and all who would follow—no matter what branch or unit. If they lived long enough.
When they reached the Son Ku Lon, the MSSCs opened their engines up to full speed. Gene asked the boat personnel next to him for a cigarette and lit up. He thought about the next op and wondered how long it would be until he’d be back out. He just needed to find out who’d be going. It would be at least twelve hours more before the pills wore off. Until then, he’d be wired.
He stood. The boats were flying down the river. The surface was like glass, with no chop. The air rushed past his face and through his hair. It felt good. It was still warm, still sticky, but somewhat cooler out on the water. Seafloat lay just ahead.
The boat pulled into the Float and docked. Gene strolled into the briefing room, with the rest of Delta, for their debriefing. That would be short and sweet too, he thought, just like the op. And yet, same as with the business-type sampan, he had a feeling of incompleteness. It was frustrating. He’d been hyped to kill and hadn’t. Not one fucking round had he fired. Should be glad, but he wasn’t.
The debriefing over, he went to the cleaning table and sprayed some WD-40 on the 60, then tiptoed to his rack. Inside the hootch, everyone slept. Brian was curled up on the floor, the old man fast asleep in Brian’s rack.
Gene shook his head. Knowing the old man, he probably didn’t fall asleep. Probably passed out. The old coot sure could put hard liquor down. No doubt Brian wanted to make the old man’s last night the best possible. He sure did have a liking for Raggedy.
As quietly as possible, he took off his ammo belts and set them next to the 60. They’d stay there until he could find someone to go out with. The sun was starting to rise, and he could smell bacon and coffee.
He left the hootch and headed for the chow hall.
“Hey, Michaels,” the cook yelled, “where you been? Haven’t seen you in days.”
“I’m still here, Cookie,” Gene answered. “Been busy.”
He picked up a tray. Cookie was one big man. Stood six foot eight and black as midnight.
“How do you want your eggs?”
“You mean you’ve got real eggs and not that powdered crap?”
Cookie grinned. “Sure do.”
“How about two over easy?”
It wasn’t long before Cookie walked over and handed him a plate with four eggs on it. Fresh eggs were a real treat, and when they did get their hands on some, it was usually two to a person.
“Thanks.” Gene looked down at the eggs and then up at the big cook. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Don’t mention it,” Cookie said. He leaned forward, big hands resting on the table. “By the way, do you think you could get me a North Vietnamese flag to take home?”
Gene grinned. So that’s what it was all about. “Good as done. I’ll bring you one down myself.” When they did bring flags back from an op, they sold them for forty or fifty bucks each in Binh Thuy. There were a couple in his locker. God, but bacon, eggs, and hot coffee smelled good. Worth a flag any day.
By the time he’d finished eating, people were standing in line outside, waiting for the chow hall to open. A new day, he thought, and wondered who he’d be going out with. The sooner, the better. He was ready.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LESS THAN FIVE HOURS later, Gene was back in the jungle carrying the 60 for Sean and his KCS patrol again. Just hours after returning, he filled in for a still-sick Marc on an overnight observation op. There’d been an encounter with some VC on their way out. He remembered cutting one of them in half with the 60, but not much more. When he’d gotten back from the second op, he’d popped some more pills and pulled an overnighter with his own squad—an interdiction. Then they’d booked, and after a brief firefight at the pickup point, arrived back at Seafloat both muddy and bloody.
Days and hours got all mixed up. Gene began to mark time by whether he needed some more pills, or how long he had until next Warning Order or Patrol Leader’s Order. All that mattered was the next op and how many enemy had been eliminated during the one just finished. Willie’s death cut deep. That he hadn’t been with his friend on that last and final op was a torture. A lifetime of belief in God had died that day.
Karen’s letters continued to be dropped unread into the footlocker. They covered the Bible. Gene no longer even wanted to see it. The driving need to operate kept him careful around Jim, who thought he was sleeping between ops, and who thought he was eating when, in fact, he left most of his food untouched.
It was an effort to try and seem normal around the squad. In SEAL training he’d learned to be impassive and to conceal emotion. He’d put that training to use many times, but never as rigidly as after Willie’s death. With little food and no sleep, training and the desire to kill sustained him—and pills.
Hatred grew each time he put on green face. In the jungle, he killed any enemy holding a weapon that he could, so long as neither mission nor patrol was endangered. The record for silent kills was his. He ached to find Colonel Nguyen and watch him die. Johnny, at NILO, avoided him, knowing what he wanted and having no hard information to give.
In the hootch after one op, Alex showed him a snapshot just received from his mother. It was a photo taken shortly after SEAL graduation. None of them looked old enough to buy a beer. They hadn’t been, and most of them still weren’t. Later, while shaving, Gene had looked at himself and realized he’d aged ten years in the five and a half months since their arrival on Seafloat. The photo had depicted a boy’s face, a huge smile. Now he shaved
a lined face gone cold and hard, the dark eyes darkened further, reflecting death. His way of life. He wondered what he’d look like at the end of the next two weeks, when their six-month tour of duty was up. They’d be flying back to The World then. There wasn’t much time left to find Nguyen.
Gene looked out over the black mass that was the jungle at night. Behind him, faint sounds of music came from the hootch. His fellow SEALs, over the past nine days, had been constantly busy, either on ops or drinking and playing cards, before going back out into the bush for yet another op. None had noticed that he hadn’t slept. They knew he operated with anyone going out and were used to seeing him coming and going. Only two had sensed something amiss.
Leaning against the hootch having a cigarette a couple of nights earlier, he’d heard Tommy ask, “What’s up with Gene?” and Roland had answered, “Nothing. He just loves to operate.” Murmurs of agreement had come from the rest of the squad. Tommy had replied, “Oh, yeah?” and his tone let Gene know he’d got the answer he had expected, but wasn’t comfortable with it.
Marc knew what was going on. Still, he’d kept his promise and said nothing. As the days passed, Gene was aware that the Eagle, though silent, was watching.
Moonlight reflected off the water. The Dexies were working. In a short time, their squad would be going out again. Just after midnight, they would be running a search and destroy mission to take out a weapons cache. Cruz had gotten the info on their hard target and had the okay from Jim to run the op. It would be Cruz’s first time as their patrol leader.
And that was fine, Gene thought, running his thumb along the edges of Willie’s cross. The squad had complete confidence in Cruz. They’d never question his abilities. He was a great operator. If shit hit the fan, Cruz would do what he had to do and would be mentally capable of handling anything thrown his way. He’d asked Jim to be his APO. Together, they were busy preparing for the early morning hit, planned to occur under cover of the darkness just before sunrise.
Intense, shaky, itchy to go, Gene studied the jungle and the river and waited. The Warning Order had gone down. The PLO was set for 0100 hours. The squad had prepared their equipment and, except for him, had gone to bed. Over the last seven days he’d allowed the pills to build up in his system, and before they wore off, he took more. He couldn’t sleep. He waited, and paced Seafloat’s deck when he couldn’t stand still.
He scanned the river once again, then went back to the briefing room to study the map. Not the map of the combat area he’d be following Cruz into, but a map of the northeast. Colonel Nguyen’s area. Impulsively he took Nguyen’s shoulder patch out of his pocket, stuck it on the map with a black pushpin, and hung Willie’s gold cross over it. Intently he studied all possible areas in which the colonel might be found, comparing intelligence reports in relation to the many sightings reported.
Sometime later, Jim and Cruz entered, to set up for the PLO. Before they could cross the room, Gene had put the shoulder patch and cross back in his pocket.
“Anything I can do, You-O?” he asked.
Cruz shook his head.
Gene left them, and went back to the hootch to get ready for the PLO and into combat gear and green face for the op. When he entered, the squad was getting dressed, donning their operating gear and painting their faces. The paint had become a weapon in and of itself. The sight of green faces streaked with black horrified people of the Mekong Delta, keeping them in constant fear of those who wore it, and who always left dead and wounded behind.
The rest of the squad left for the PLO. Gene, hand on the light switch, looked around the hootch. In Delta’s half, Marc and his fellow squad members slept. Their area was dark, the nets pulled down around their beds. That half of the hootch had an empty look. Almost all of them had their equipment packed and staged outside. In less than forty-eight hours, they’d be on their way back to the good old U.S.A.
In full combat gear, Gene turned off the light and started to leave the dark and silent hootch, then stopped. Walking soft, he went to the Eagle’s rack. For a moment he stood and listened to the regular breathing that told him Marc was in deep sleep. His whisper was barely audible. “In case, my friend, I don’t see you before you leave, thanks for your silence.” They’d faced death together many times, seen the devil’s face in the fiery hell, and walked out laughing with their weapons still smoking. “I’ll miss you, Eagle. Take care. God be…”
Gene went silent. He couldn’t finish the sentence. “Take care, my friend.”
Silently he left the hootch.
When he reached the briefing room, Cruz stood at the front, ready to give his Patrol Leader’s Order. Jim sat at the back of the room next to the chair Gene always took. They acknowledged each other with a look before giving Cruz their full attention.
“Tonight’s mission,” he began, “is to search and destroy a weapons cache located two rivers west of Twin Rivers.” He pointed to the map and gave the exact coordinates of its location. “Intel,” he continued, “has been received by interrogating POWs that came out of the area. Intel states that about twenty NVA remain.
“They’ve been staging the weapons to the west in an attempt to get them moved to the north. The weapons are under the seventh grave site on the left side of the graveyard.”
Shit, Gene thought, and glanced at Jim, who grinned at him, then motioned toward Doc, who had suddenly sat straight up in his chair. Cruz continued.
“The enemy’s camp is five hundred meters to the south and the west. Back here.” He pointed to the location on the map.
Gene shifted the 60’s position slightly, listening as Cruz went on to cover every detail, everyone’s actions expected, and what to do under different conditions they might encounter. You-O, he thought, is standing tall up front. You’d never know it was his first PLO.
“No friendly forces,” Cruz said. “There is air support and boat support if needed. They’ll be standing by.”
When he’d covered everything, he added, “Any questions?” and when there were none, he smiled and said, “Well, what are you sitting there for? Let’s go kick ass and take names.”
Outside, the squad jumped up and down again, to see if anything they wore rattled or came loose. Then they boarded the boats that would take them to their insertion point.
Gene checked his watch. It was 0215. Moving down the river made the night seem cool. Cool for Vietnam anyway, he thought. The sky was clear and star-studded.
Cruz passed the word. “We’ll be heading down Twin Rivers in a few moments. Everybody stay down. Have your weapons ready. No noise.”
Gene looked up. By watching the stars, he could see the change in direction to the left that the boats made. He couldn’t help but wonder just how safe Twin Rivers would be. So many had died trying to get into the area. He stayed low and waited.
When they reached the fork that split the river into two, they took the one to the right. He thought of Raggedy for a second, whose village and the factory had been to the left. To his knowledge, this was the first time anyone had taken the river to the right. All other ops had either been blown to hell before that point or taken the left fork to try to find the weapons factory and then were hit.
Gene shifted position slightly to keep his legs and feet from going to sleep or cramping. So far, so good. He glanced around. Everybody was facing outward. Three to port and four to starboard, they were ready to rise from below the bulkheads and return fire instantly if they got hit.
The boat moved slowly down the steadily narrowing river. The banks were so close, the trees on each side were joined over the water.
“Get ready,” Cruz whispered.
The boat turned into the west bank and stopped. One by one the SEALs inserted. They moved immediately into the concealing bush and set security until the boat moved back out.
Concealed in the foliage, Gene looked around and listened to the sounds of night. He took careful breaths, smelling the air, making sure no one was near, hoping no one saw them insert. T
wo finger snaps caught his attention.
Cruz waved, signaling move out.
Gene watched Brian take point, moving on the compass bearing given during the PLO. With the rest, he dropped into file formation. Slowly, silently, they snaked through the heavy bush.
The clear night had brought out every bug. The air was so full of flying creatures, it was like walking through massed spiderwebs. Gene breathed slow and easy, trying hard not to inhale any of the tiny insects. Keep moving, he told, himself. Just keep moving.
They rested about every hundred meters, listening, then moved on.
The terrain was a bitch to patrol through—a virgin area. Gene doubted that other humans had ever come into it. It was too hard to move. Passage was too slow to be of any use—except to SEALs. The enemy would never expect them to come this route.
Finally the jungle opened up a bit more, and the mud grew less deep. The patrol halted. Brian and Cruz disappeared into the bush ahead. When they returned, Cruz went to each man to say they’d reached their target. Back in position, he gave the sign to move in.
Gene stepped out of the jungle and into the graveyard. The left fork of the river flowed slowly by. Cruz and Brian had been right on the money. With all the weaving in and out they’d had to do to get there, they were right on the target. Lucky. In almost all the other ops, they’d hit the right place but had to shift one way or the other to move into the target area.
From fifteen grave sites away, Gene watched Brian, Cruz, and Roland at the seventh grave. They were using their knives to probe for possible mines that might have been laid to protect the weapons. Finding none, they began to remove earth from the grave. The one thing they didn’t know was how deeply the weapons were buried.
Setting security, Gene was closest to the river, and to the south of their area, where he could look in the direction of the NVA camp. Nearby, Jim, Alex, and Doc, the rest of the squad’s security element, also watched for anyone who might come in.
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