Tunnel Rats
Page 10
Shoot and scoot is the name of the game.
The fires burn out of control. Some NVC attempt putting it out with water from buckets, but it’s like spitting into the ocean. Sam knows that in just a matter of moments, the weapons and explosive depot is going to detonate. When that happens, he plans on being further inside the relative safety of the jungle. There’s no telling how much explosive they have stored inside the building. But if he had to guess, it’s a substantial amount.
He stops when he comes to the back of Channy’s shack. Releasing the empty magazine, he replaces it with a fresh one. Pulling back on the bolt, Sam takes aim at the rough wood plank wall, and fires at will. The bullets do what he intends them to do. They penetrate the wall and maybe, just maybe, take out Channy and his generals. At the very least, the live rounds will force them out into the compound, and the impending explosion can take care of the rest. To hell with bringing Channy in alive.
Having emptied half a magazine into the shack, Sam sprints further down the line. He fires into another crew of NVC terrorists, managing to kill them all. He then makes his way around the rectangle until he is back to the place in the jungle where he started. Breathing heavily, he peers onto the compound. He spots a shirtless Channy standing at the foot of the shack’s steps. The terrorist/POI has a semi-automatic gripped in his hand. He’s waving it in the air, barking out orders while his entire NVC world burns down around him.
Shouldering his AK-47, Sam takes careful aim on the lead terrorist, his finger on the trigger. He exhales a half breath, holds the rest of it in. He’s poised for a headshot that will end Channy’s life forever and ever. He pulls the trigger at the exact moment the entire compound blows sky high.
The explosion is so powerful, Sam is blown back into the jungle ten full feet. Sam tries to catch his breath and regain his bearings as he wonders if he was knocked out by the blast. It’s possible. Once, in a village not far from Kabul, he was situated within a couple of feet of an exploding RPG, and he thought he’d only passed out for a second or two when in fact it was ten full minutes. Or so his comrades in arms attested later on. Could this be one of those moments?
In the orange glow of the burning compound, he reaches for his AK-47. But it isn’t there. He pats the ground all around him. Nothing. How does an automatic assault rifle just go missing?
“Looking for something, Sam?” a voice in the dark poses. A familiar voice.
“Channy,” Sam says, sitting up straight. “You just won’t fucking die.”
“No,” Channy laughs, the barrel of Sam’s AK-47 aimed for the Sky Marshal’s face. “But you will.”
Two of Channy’s surviving soldiers drag the still dizzy Sam back down into the still burning, but now mostly smoldering compound. Even while being dragged, Sam can’t help but marvel at the job he did on the place. Everything is either burned to the ground or blown to bits. All that remains of Channy’s HQ shack is a concrete block basement, which Sam guesses is used for prison cells, judging by the iron bars that crisscross the window openings.
“Strip him and string him up to the poles,” Channy insists. “We’re going to teach Sam Savage a lesson he can take to his grave.”
Despite Sam’s resistance, the two men manage to tear Sam’s shirt off and strap both his arms to two parallel wood poles impaled in the hard ground. If Sam wasn’t so weak from the explosion—on top of no sleep, no food, and no water—he might have fought the two terrorists off. But now he finds himself hanging by two leather straps like he’s being crucified on a cross.
“Your knife,” Channy says to one of the two.
The soldier pulls a long knife from a utility belt-mounted scabbard and hands it to his leader. Channy grips the long, razor-sharp knife and smiles. His face is covered in dirt and grime, but his eyes are alive and dark, his teeth white and exposed. Like Sam, his chest is bare. While the Sky Marshal is in excellent physical shape for a man of early middle-age who also enjoys his beer, Channy sports a tight six-pack. His body fat is almost non-existent. Sam can’t help but stare at the terrorist’s lean muscles and the veins that protrude from his skin as if it were made of rice paper.
Sam pulls and yanks on the straps hoping to free one of his arms so he can take a shot at wrapping it around Channy’s neck. But in his gut, he knows there’s zero chance of that happening. He’s trapped, and Channy has the upper hand. Sam just destroyed everything the NVC terrorist has created. Now, the terrorist is going to kill him, slowly, agonizingly, creatively.
While the two surviving soldiers stand off to the side, four-square and silent, Channy approaches Sam.
“I gotta hand it to you, Sam,” he says, the same sly grin painting his face, “for a cardboard box salesman, you sure do know how to create some serious havoc. You not only destroyed my compound, but you managed to kill just about all my people. And you did so singlehandedly. When you think about it, that’s an amazing feat. I mean, I think you managed to out Rambo even Rambo.”
“Rambo is a pussy,” Sam says, lifting a famous line from one of the Sly Stallone Rocky movies.
Channy laughs aloud.
“And what does that make, Sam Savage?” he pleads. “Does it make you a God?”
Raising the knife, Channy swipes it at Sam’s chest. The tip of the blade catches the skin, cutting a long slice. A burning, searing pain tears through Sam, and he shrieks, his voice drowned out by the surrounding jungle.
“You motherfucker,” Sam spits. “How very brave of you to cut me while I’m tied to these posts. If you had any balls, you would fight me man to man.”
Channy raises his free hand, extends his index finger, moves it back and forth like a pendulum.
“Unh, unh, unhhhh, Sam Savage,” he says. “I’m not falling for that trick. You’re a militarily trained killer, and I’m simply a volunteer killer. I’d be crazy to fight you, now wouldn’t I?”
He turns to his two soldiers.
“What do you men think?” he asks. “Am I being a pussy by not fighting Sam Savage? Is that what you think of me? Is that what you’re going to tell your friends and family back home? That Channy Lin ran away from a fair fight?”
Sam gazes into the eyes of the NVC soldiers and what he sees is a real fear. Both their Adams apples are bobbing up and down in their throats. When Channy lifts the big blade and swings, he takes the first man’s head clean off. Then back-swinging the blade he slices the second man’s head off. Both heads drop to the ground before the bodies do. The decapitations were so sudden, Sam can see that the mouths on both heads are still moving, still trying to breathe, still trying to make noise while the life quickly drains out of them.
“Feel better, Channy?” Sam says. “You feel better now that you’re all alone? Now that no one is alive to tell the world what a coward you are?”
“You would think someone in your unfortunate position would know when to shut his mouth.”
Raising the blood-stained blade, Channy makes two more lightning fast swipes across Sam’s chest. Sam screams in agony while the blood begins to drip down over his abdomen.
“I will get you for this, you son of a bitch,” Sam barks.
“No, you won’t,” Channy says. “Instead, you are going to die slowly and alone, and I will go on to build my army again and rain down death and destruction on every American and Chinese soul that dare to cross the Vietnamese border. Do you understand me, Sam? No one can stop me. Not even a superman like you.”
He swipes the blade again and makes another cut. Sam not only feels the pain, he sees the pain in his eyes. It’s as if God has placed a red filter over both his eyeballs. He knows he can’t go on like this. That it won’t take a thousand cuts for him to slip into shock and die. It will take only a few strategically placed cuts, and it will be lights out for good.
“Now,” Channy says. “Let’s say we make things a little more interesting. How about we play a little game of happy ending? You remember happy endings, don’t you, Sam? The happy ending is your favorite thing in the
world if I recall correctly.”
The terrorist places the blade tip against Sam’s groin. He begins to press the blade forward, the tip piercing the thick jean material and poking Sam’s most sensitive of places.
“You bastard!” Sam barks through grinding teeth. “You sick bastard!”
Sam is doing his best to raise his legs. Maybe if he can raise them high enough and wrap them around Channy’s neck, he will have a fighting chance. But his legs are too heavy and weak. It feels like they’re filled not with blood, but instead, concrete.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Channy says. “Does this hurt, Sam? Is this not the kind of happy ending you were hoping for?”
That’s when Channy’s right hand, and the knife it was holding, drops to the ground.
Sam peers over Channy’s left shoulder at a sight he cannot believe. Cindy. She’s standing off to the side, an identical long knife gripped in her hand. Channy screams like a little girl and slowly turns to her.
“You fucking ruined me,” he cries. “Look at what you have done to me!”
His wrist is spurting blood. He’s desperately holding on to it with his good hand like his grip can somehow stop the severe hemorrhaging.
“No, Channy,” Cindy says. “It’s your bitter hatred that ruined you a long time ago.”
“I’m only doing what’s right for my people,” he says.
“Now, I’m doing what’s right for mine,” she says.
Lifting the blade high, she swings and takes Channy’s head off. When it drops to the ground, it rolls, stopping so that the eyes on the decapitated head stare directly up at Sam’s face. Channy’s dying eyes connect with Sam’s. The eyes blink, two, three times. His mouth moves like he is trying to speak. But his head is no longer connected to his lungs.
“Bye bye, Channy,” Sam says with a smile and a wink. “Give my best to the devil.”
Cindy limps to Sam, cuts both leather straps. He drops to the ground, his chest bleeding, his entire body on fire. Despite the pain and the bleeding, Sam can’t be happier.
“You’re alive,” he says, while managing to get himself back up onto his feet. “Or am I just dreaming you, Cin?”
Sam takes a good look at his asset. She’s dressed in a pair of NVC black pajama bottoms, the left leg of which has been cut off at the thigh to accommodate a bloodied bandage. She wears a filthy black t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Her long black hair is tied back in a ponytail. Despite her wounds and obvious exhaustion, she still looks beautiful.
“Yup,” she says. “I’m the real thing, Sammy.”
“You must have survived the InterContinental attack.”
“The thigh wound was mostly superficial,” she explains. Then, lifting up her t-shirt and exposing a thin but very effective ballistics vest. “And this vest cost me fifteen-hundred-dollars but obviously, worth every goddamned penny.”
“Remind me to buy one of those,” Sam says.
“They dragged the both of us to this jungle,” she says, tossing the machete to the ground. “They tossed you down in the tunnels and me into that basement jail under Channy’s jungle hut.”
“At least he made the mistake of keeping us alive,” Sam points out.
“That is, we make it out of this jungle with our lives,” Cindy adds. Then, “Come on, old man, let’s get you up.”
“It’s not the years, honey,” he says, while Cindy helps get him back up onto his feet. “It’s all those miles.”
“And you’re way beyond your fifty-thousand-mile check-up,” she says. “Can you stand?”
“I’m not an invalid, Cin,” he says.
She gazes at the long cuts on his chest.
“Lucky for you, those are only surface cuts,” she says. “We’ll have to get them cleaned and bandaged soon as we can.”
She places her arm around her partner, and he places his arm around her shoulders. Together, they start walking across the now destroyed NVC compound to an opening in the trees that appears to lead to a road. The road could very well take them out of the jungle. That’s what Sam is thinking anyway. With any luck, they will find a Jeep or a truck that will speed up the journey.
“You realize we’re gonna get chewed out when we get home, Cin,” Sam says as they slowly walk.
“It’s not my fault Channy’s dead,” she says. “You had to go and get yourself all tied up.”
“Oh, so it’s my fault.”
“That’s gonna be my story, Mr. Sky Marshal.”
“Means I’ve got to come up with a better story.”
“Just make sure it has a happy ending, Sam.”
Together, the two agents walk into the darkness of the jungle, the only sound to be heard—their laughter and the beating of their hearts.
THE END
If you enjoyed this Sam Savage Sky Marshal pulp thriller, you’re gonna love Dead Heading and The Empire Runaway.
About the author
Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel for MOONLIGHT WEEPS, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and AMAZON KINDLE No.1 bestselling author of more than 30 novels including THE REMAINS, EVERYTHING BURNS, ORCHARD GROVE and the soon to be released, THE DETONATOR. Zandri's list of domestic publishers include Delacorte, Dell, Down & Out Books, Thomas & Mercer, and Polis Books. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri's work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, Japanese, and Polish. Recently, Zandri was the subject of a major feature by the New York Times. He has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and FOX news. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri's, THE SHROUD KEY, as one of the "Best Books of 2014." Recently, Suspense Magazine selected WHEN SHADOWS COME as one of the "Best Books of 2016". A freelance photo-journalist and the author of the popular "lit blog," The Vincent Zandri Vox, Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, Writers Digest, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, and many more. He lives in Albany, New York and Florence, Italy. For more go to WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Vincent Zandri © copyright 2018
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www.vincentzandri.com
Cover design by Dark Unicorn Designs
Editing by Bridgette O’Hare of Plot2Published Editing
Author Photo by Jessica Painter
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published in the United States of America
The author is represented by Sam Hiyate of The Rights Factory