Minutes turned into eons as more and more NVA soldiers broke over the ridge and slipped down the hill to the stream crossing. The original group had passed over the bridge and disappeared into the jungle. The new group split and half of them stopped on the north side of the stream and dropped their packs, removing cooking pots. It looked to Paul as if they were going to take a meal break at the stream, or that the main body planned on stopping there for the night. Paul knew that he had made a big mistake setting up his ambush so early in the day. He felt his bowels tighten when a half-dozen NVA broke away from the main party and started walking directly toward his hiding place. The man in the lead was dressed in a pair of immaculate khakis; the men following him were very tall for Vietnamese. Paul pressed his chin down in the soft soil and listened to the older man talk to the group in Chinese.
Paul’s almost-shut eyelids popped open and then closed again almost as quickly. The group were Chinese advisors to a North Vietnamese unit! Paul squeezed the hand detonator gently in his palm—he wanted to blow the group away—but common sense stopped him from committing his team to a sure death.
One of the NVA soldiers broke away from the main group down by the stream and drifted closer and closer to Cooper’s hiding place as he looked for small pieces of dry wood for his cooking fire. Paul followed the soldier’s movement with his eyes and kept his head absolutely still. The enemy soldier stopped two feet short of where Coop was lying camouflaged from sight and unbuttoned his khaki pants, removing his penis and at the same time looking back over his shoulder as he made a dirty remark to his friends about how many women back in Hanoi had experienced his love-making.
A stream of dark yellow urine left the North Vietnamese’s body followed by the explosion from Cooper’s claymore mine. Paul instantly followed suit along with all of the team members. The commander of the NVA unit along with all of the Chinese advisors dropped instinctively to the 262
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ground, watching their soldiers die from the thousands of ball-bearing sized pellets filling the air. Confusion filled the faces of the NVA survivors as they crawled to their weapons and looked for the source from which the destruction had come. Artillery shells and even bombs from American B-52s gave a short warning before detonating. The NVA leader began yelling orders to his subordinates, gaining order from the confusion. Paul centered the front sight of his CAR-15 on the middle of the leader’s forehead and pulled the trigger. The NVA commander flipped over on his side from the impacting bullet and slapped the face of the Chinese advisor lying next to him with his dead right hand. Paul used his right thumb to change his weapon’s selector switch to full automatic and killed all of the Chinese advisors who remained lying on the open ground. He finished his first thirty-round magazine and started crawling backward, deeper under cover, as he changed clips. The recon team was raking the ambush site with a deadly volley of fire. The NVA were totally confused and failed to return fire. The ambush had lasted less than thirty seconds.
Paul gained his feet and started running deeper into the jungle. He could hear members of his team following him on both sides. Five minutes of hard traveling brought Paul to the base of a large tree, where he stopped long enough to assemble his team. Paul pointed to the north using his rifle barrel and started breaking through the undergrowth. The NVA soldiers had recovered from the shock of the ambush and were firing wildly into the jungle all around them, which was only allowing the American recon team to escape under cover of the noise.
The team stuck close together, with Paul leading them along a course parallel to the NVA highway. Voices filtered through the bamboo coming from a relief force of enemy soldiers, who were running down the highway to help their comrades. An idea flashed through Paul’s mind. He knew that for the next few minutes the advantage was on his side because of the confusion in the enemy ranks. He jogged along looking from side to side until he found a piece of high ground near the road with a small ravine to the rear. Paul stopped and assembled his team.
“We’re going to hit them one more time.” Paul’s eyes continued scanning the jungle while he talked. “They should be bringing their wounded back this way to the north. I want all of you to head for the landing zone marked number two after we hit them. Questions?”
Coop spoke, “You want us to hit the wounded?”
“We’re not after the wounded, but for every wounded NVA soldier it takes two healthy men to carry him. We should have them at a disadvantage, and if we allow that huge mob down there to organize, we aren’t going to make it out of here.”
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Paul spotted his men along the roadside, but this time he put them closer together. Without the claymore mines they would have to make a smaller kill zone.
They waited.
An hour had passed before they heard the voices filtering from the south of the roadway. A group of four NVA soldiers appeared, running in single file up the road. Paul let the messengers pass through the kill zone. He hoped that he had guessed right and that they would be sending their wounded north on the road. While Paul lay thinking if he had made a mistake, that the NVA wounded were being taken south, he noticed movement on the road at the very edge of his peripheral vision. A small group of walking wounded appeared. Some of them were using their weapons as walking sticks. Paul allowed them to pass through the kill zone. He wanted those who could still fight and who were able to chase his team through the jungle. The litter cases appeared on the road. Paul waited until his kill zone was filled with soldiers carrying wounded and then threw his last hand grenade. The team opened fire using grenades and small arms. NVA dead covered the surface of the road.
The ambush was a total success. There were no survivors. Paul fired the last round from his fifth magazine and jumped over the embankment and ran down the ravine. He knew the gunfire would draw the main NVA force within minutes—and this time they would be ready to fight.
Sergeant Cooper stopped and dropped down on one knee at the edge of the landing zone. Paul broke out of the jungle and joined him seconds later.
Air tore in and out of their lungs as they struggled to get their breath. The open field was crisscrossed with head-high tripwires attached to Chinese claymore mines designed to blow a helicopter out of the sky. Paul knew that at least a couple of mortar tubes were laid on the open field. Helicopters trying to pick up people in the clearing would be committing suicide. Paul checked the area for all of his team members. He saw two of the commandos hiding under a clump of bamboo. Cooper was next to him. The old Montagnard was missing. Paul knew that he couldn’t wait for him; he had to move fast. Paul yanked his URC-10 out of his side pocket and called the unseen FAC aircraft that was supporting his team.
“FAC Foxfire . . . RT Viper . . . over.”
Almost instantly there was a reply, “Foxfire . . . over.”
“Viper . . . request immediate extraction . . . Site two is hot . . . We must move inland and STABO rig out . . . over.”
“Roger transmission Viper . . . Select a site and I’ll call in a team ASAP . . . over.”
“Viper . . . over.”
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and wanted to go back to look for him. A look of pain covered his face as he made his decision: The old Montagnard had a better chance of surviving alone if he was still alive than any of the Americans did. Going back would only jeopardize all of their lives. Paul signaled his team to head west. The team moved silently through the jungle, listening to NVA soldiers firing signal shots to each other. The jungle overhead opened slightly and Paul stopped the team. He called the FAC aircraft and gave their approximate location.
Cooper held a small pen flaregun i
n his hands with the barrel pointed straight up through the trees. Paul nodded and Coop released the thumb firing pin. A soft whooshing sound filled the clearing and the tiny flare burst bright red a few meters above the treetops.
Paul pushed the talk switch. “Foxfire . . . see it?”
“No . . . fire another one . . .”
Cooper pulled another flare from the strap and screwed it into the barrel.
He fired the second round. It ricocheted off a large beech but continued its upward course to explode above the trees.
“Marked!”
Paul prepared his web gear, hooking the nylon straps between his legs and snapping them together. Cooper was having trouble untaping his “D”
rings, and Paul slipped over and helped him. Both of the men’s hands were shaking from the tension and fear building up inside of them.
The sound of helicopters filtered down through the thick vegetation to the waiting team. Paul forced his ears to block out the comforting sound of the choppers, and listen to the jungle. He desperately wanted to hear the old Montagnard moving through the bamboo.
The helicopters circled the site, giving Paul an occasional flash of silver light reflecting off the Plexiglas cockpits.
“Viper . . . Foxfire . . . over.”
“This is Viper . . . You’re almost over us. I’m flashing you with my mirror.”
“Marked, Viper . . . I’m bring in some fast movers to cover your extraction.”
“Roger . . .” Paul wiggled the small mirror in his hand a few more times just to ensure that he was marked by the FAC.
A pair of slicks hovered over Paul’s position and dropped sandbag-weighted nylon climbing ropes through the light cover down to the waiting team.
Paul looked back over his left shoulder and saw the old Montagnard break out of the thick cover. Blood covered his right leg. Paul unhooked himself from the ropes and ran over to the old man. He picked up the small-framed man in his arms and ran back to the dangling ropes.
Paul looked up and saw a solid stream of green tracers enter the chopper through the front of the Plexiglas. The helicopter banked away from the 265
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extraction site and crashed in a ball of fire. Pieces of the helicopter bounced off the trees above the team and fell to the ground.
Paul carried the wounded commando over to the single remaining dark-green nylon rope just as the chopper began lifting Cooper and the other commandos off the ground. The pilot saw Paul and lowered his chopper back down to within reach of Paul.
Lieutenant Bourne quickly hooked the old man onto the remaining life-line and waved up to the chopper pilot to leave. The man was shaking his head, but realizing the danger he pulled up.
Cooper hung helplessly from the string that held him ten feet off the ground. He heard Paul yelling to him to drop his rucksack and obeyed. He reached down for his knife so that he could cut himself loose and join his team mate on the ground, but the chopper pilot gunned his machine to escape a stream of tracers and the ground below dropped away.
Coop screamed down to Paul but the wind erased his words as they left his lips.
Lieutenant Bourne took a second to watch the helicopter disappear carrying his team and then grabbed Cooper’s rucksack and blended into the Jungle.
He was alone.
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Sergeant Cooper joined hands with the team commandos and spread his legs apart to stabilize his flight and prevent his single rope from twisting around and make him spin at the end. The tears pouring out of the combat-hardened sergeant’s eyes were air dried almost as soon as they had left his tear ducts.
Cooper hung suspended from the nylon harness and watched the shades of green jungle rush by under his feet. The river that they had forded appeared at his boot tips as a silver thread. Coop felt a sharp pain coming from his crotch and wiggled his legs to adjust the wide nylon band around his buttocks and better distribute his body weight.
Cooper looked up at the bottom plating on the chopper carrying him, and could see where a number of .51-caliber bullets had scraped and grooved the olive-drab paint. He sighed, thinking about the long flight back to Quang Tri hanging from the helicopter. Coop’s mind returned to the extraction site and Lieutenant Bourne, bringing an anguish that was deeper than any bullet could penetrate. He had left a team member alive on the ground—one of the most unforgivable sins a recon man could commit. The lieutenant had waved the chopper away so they would have a chance to escape, but Cooper felt 267
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that he should have cut himself free and fallen down to join Bourne. The grief was eased somewhat when Coop’s logical side took over. What if he had dropped back down to the ground from the climbing helicopter and broken a leg in the fall? He would have really placed Paul in trouble then. At least the lieutenant had a small chance to escape by himself until they could Brightlight a team back into the area.
Lieutenant Bourne was glad Cooper had heard him call and had dropped his rucksack containing the other half to the secure voice long-range radio and some extra food. Paul didn’t know how long it would take for a Brightlight Team to return and extract him; at least he could last for a few extra days now and communicate with the relay site at Hickory.
Single rifle shots echoed through the jungle coming from all around him. The NVA soldiers were getting organized and were sweeping the jungle looking for stray recon men and dead insurgents. Paul checked his CAR-15 and replaced the partially expended magazine with a full one. He analyzed his area map and decided that the safest route for him to take would be northwest. The highway ran basically north and south, and would be very well patrolled for the next week, until the NVA were satisfied that the area was again secure. Traveling east would be the expected direction any stay-behind would take and that area would be the most patrolled.
Northwest was the logical avenue to stay out of the NVA search net. Paul set a slow pace for himself, knowing that he would have a long way to go before calling in an extraction team. He did not want to sacrifice any American lives if he didn’t have to.
The helicopter hovered above the Quang Tri helipad and lowered the recon team slowly to the ground. The door gunner was leaning out of his open door, directing the pilot over the intercom system. Cooper unhooked his string and dropped down on his knees. The launch-site officer ran under the downdraft coming from the chopper and helped the sergeant regain his feet.
“The lieutenant is still back there on the ground!” Cooper almost screamed, “Get a Brightlight formed . . . I’m going back after him!”
The officer walked next to Coop toward the operations hut. “Take it easy
. . . I’ll send a message to headquarters and get a rescue started . . .”
Cooper eased down against the building, his legs lacking enough blood to support him. The officer ran inside the shack and grabbed his handset.
“Redhopper . . . this is . . . Bluehopper! . . . over.”
“Redhopper, send your traffic . . . over.”
The launch officer ran his finger down a list of surnames matched next to their code names and stopped when he reached Bourne.
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“This is Bluehopper . . . We have a piece of equipment still on a hot extraction site . . . code name Thor . . . I say again . . . code Thor . . . The rest of the equipment is at my location . . . over.”
Major Galviston was briefing Mister Michaels in the main operations center when the call from the launch site came over the radio.
“Get RT Coral ready to Brightlight.” Galviston automatically took charge of the rescue operation. Michaels stood against the far wall and watched the rescue scenario develop. There wasn’t any panic, only an increase
in activity as the duty officers began to execute their listed directives and make radio calls to various support functions. Galviston stepped back from the bank of radios and watched his men work.
“What’s going on?” Michaels approached Galviston.
“Thor is still on the ground at his team’s extraction site. We have to get him out of there soon or he’s a dead man.” Galviston took the handset from the radio operator and gave the launch officer instructions. The radio operator flipped through his code book and stopped his finger under Lieutenant Bourne’s name.
The reporter followed with his eyes and read the code name for Paul: Thor.
Lieutenant Bourne stopped next to the roots of a large mahogany tree and shoved Cooper’s pack against the trunk. He withdrew his map and plotted his position. Paul had figured that he had traveled at least a thousand meters from the extraction site, but he had actually covered closer to two thousand. He pulled his URC-10 from his pocket as an idea developed in his head. He was still alive and hidden safely in the jungle, and had an excellent chance of continuing his recon mission for a few more days while the area cooled off. Besides, he had an Article 15 waiting for him if he returned to the base camp so soon. The NVA would never suspect that a lone American had stayed behind in the jungle.
Paul gently squeezed the rubber-covered transmitter switch on his handheld radio. “Foxfire . . . Viper . . . over.”
“Viper! . . . I was getting worried about you!”
“This is Viper . . . listen closely, this is going to be my last broadcast for a while . . .” Paul’s eyes continuously scanned the underbrush. He felt as if he were yelling into the handset, yet his voice was barely above no sound at all.
“. . . Call base and tell them not to Brightlight . . . I say again . . . do not Brightlight . . . There are too many NVA down here and we’ll lose more ships and people than it’s worth . . . I’m safe . . . Do you have a pencil handy?”
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