Eagles Cry Blood

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  “Roger, Viper . . . send your traffic . . .” The FAC pilot held his pencil above the writing pad strapped to his leg.

  “Take my birthday: month, year, and day . . . add them together and then add the digits of the sum together . . . that is the time I will send a blind transmission . . . got to run . . . out.”

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  The pilot triggered his mike and spoke to Paul on the ground. “We’ll have you covered as long as you’re there.” He banked his airplane, looking down at the jungle canopy, hoping Paul had been listening. He had. Paul slipped his radio into his side pocket and took a compass reading before heading northwest away from the tree.

  Traveling through the jungle without having to worry about taking care of other people was almost a relief to Paul, who took the lives of his people very seriously, almost to a fault. He moved around thick groves of bamboo, always taking the easiest route he could, so that he wouldn’t burn up energy he might need if he were discovered by enemy patrols. Paul located a cave area at the base of a long ravine late in the afternoon and stopped to rest. He laid his head back against Cooper’s rucksack and allowed his body to recover from the morning’s activity and the walk through the jungle. Suddenly he didn’t feel very brave. He was alone, in a very hostile jungle where he could vanish without a trace in a matter of minutes. Paul stood and busied himself with his packs to keep from thinking about the fear that was creeping around inside him. The gentle, comforting sound of running water reached his ears.

  He hefted his canteen and found it almost empty. Paul smelled the uncapped canteen and realized that his body craved water.

  The area surrounding him was pocketed with small caves and huge boulders that could afford cover to any number of hostile jungle creatures. Paul picked up his CAR-15 from the pack where he had placed it earlier and walked up the ravine, leaving his rucksacks stashed in a small hole at the base of the ravine. He walked parallel to the ravine wall, looking for a cave that would be large enough to hold all of his gear and that would also have enough room for him to sleep in during the night. Sweat stained his jungle fatigues from the exertion of walking and crawling over the rocks. He spied an opening tucked behind a bunch of chipped boulders and scrambled over to examine the prospective lager site. The cave was perfect. Paul carried a number of large rocks from the lower base of the ravine up to the cave site. He filled in all but a small crawl space at the entrance of the cave. When he stood back to inspect his work he was happy with the camouflage job he had done.

  The rocks served two purposes; one was to camouflage the cave entrance, and the second was to give him some protection from attack by night animals while he slept. He smiled and returned back to where he had stashed his gear, making one quick stop at the mountain stream to drink and fill his canteen.

  He hauled the rucksacks up to the hidden cave after spending ten minutes trying to find it again. He had actually walked fifty meters past the small opening before he had realized his mistake and returned to the site. He was very pleased with his labor, knowing that if he had a hard time finding the opening then any NVA soldiers looking for him would also have difficulty locating 270

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  him once he was hidden inside. Paul removed his silenced .22-caliber pistol from his pack and the extra box of shells. He knew that if he had a chance encounter with a wild animal, his CAR-15 would make too much noise.

  He had found the perfect hiding place in the jungle. Water was close to his cave, along with a high place on the crest of the ravine, from where he could set up the secure voice radio. Paul looked up at the sunlight breaking through the trees and then checked his watch; he had two hours of good light still left in the day and decided to reconnoiter the immediate area surrounding his hidden cave. He started moving in a large circle around the ravine, listening to the sound of the jungle as he slipped past insects that became quiet the instant he violated their boundaries and resumed their conversations with his passing. The jungle almost blended into a single living creature. He listened for the jungle ahead of him to change and become too quiet or too loud. Paul traveled for over an hour before stopping. He figured that he was located at the very northwestern corner of his map sheet. If he kept going in that direction, he would lose the benefit of his detailed map. Paul tugged his canteen out of its case and took a long drink from it. The canteen was still touching his lips when a clear voice reached his ears, followed by an answering deep male voice. A conversation developed between the two men that was calm and didn’t reflect any alarm. Paul returned his canteen to its carrying case and snapped the flaps shut. He took his pistol out of its holster and crawled slowly through the jungle. Paul paused and pushed a bunch of dust-covered bushes aside and peered down a narrow mountain trail. He remained flat on his stomach, but slipped forward so that he could look both ways on the hard-packed surface. The trail split ten meters to the north, creating a small delta where three North Vietnamese soldiers sat around a twig cooking fire. Three rifles were stacked in a military tripod five feet from the group.

  Paul adjusted the front sight on his pistol between the eyes of the enemy soldier who was sitting facing him but looking down at the small cooking pot.

  The sound coming from the pistol was barely audible. The soldier slumped forward, knocking over the metal-and-bamboo stand that held the cooking rice. The NVA soldier who had been talking turned to see what had caused his comrade’s unpredicted act and caught a bullet just above his right ear. The remaining soldier scrambled for his rifle but died with a bullet passing into his cranium from the base of his neck.

  Paul slipped along the path, staying next to the thick jungle growth just in case there were more enemy soldiers nearby. He checked the dead for documents and then went over and opened the three rucksacks that had been lined up neatly by the rifles. He removed all of the food, papers, and extra ammunition the NVA had been carrying in their packs. Paul was puzzled when he noticed that one of the packs contained magazines for an American weapon. He looked 271

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  over at the stacked rifles and noticed for the first time that two of the weapons were Russian SKS rifles and the third an M-16. The American rifle had a hand-painted short-timer’s calendar painted on its stock. The American owner had all of the tiny boxes representing days marked off except for the last sixteen. Paul snatched up the three weapons and the pot of cooked rice and melted into the jungle. He stashed the rifles and headed back to his cave carrying the heavy NVA rucksack on one shoulder and his CAR-15 cradled under his right arm. The food in the pot smelled good and he hurried to reach the safety of his hiding place so that he could eat. The dead NVA would be found with their weapons and food missing, which Paul hoped would be blamed on local bandits.

  The last glimmer of daylight was flickering through the trees when Paul reached his cave. The rice pot was still warm, and the food tasted good as he filled his mouth using his hand for a spoon. He wolfed down the small pot of fish and rice and wiped his hand clean using his pant leg for a napkin. Paul opened the tie-straps on the rucksack and sorted through the small bundle of papers, finding most of the items to be letters the enemy soldiers had written and were waiting to send back to their homes. Paul tore open the last envelope and removed the color photograph of a woman with two children. The letter was being forwarded to some NVA line soldier, probably fighting in the southern part of Vietnam. Paul shoved the picture back in the envelope and took out a thick folded bundle and opened it. A beautifully hand-drawn map of the surrounding area was revealed in the fading light. The detail on the map was much better than the official military map Paul carried. A trail scaled to the river was drawn leading to an intricate complex of neatly drawn squares. Paul stared at the map in the poor light trying to locate a familiar landmark. A trail junction at the very bottom h
ad three names written by it in pencil. He guessed they were the names of the guards at the trail junction. A Vietnamese word was written in the center of each of the squares located in the complex. Paul frowned and tried recalling his Vietnamese. Phao-bin was a word he had heard before, and then it dawned on him—artillery. The square represented a storage area for artillery ammunition.

  Paul had stumbled on a huge secret NVA ammunition depot.

  Jay ran from his hooch over to the operations center after he had heard from one of the other recon team leaders about Paul’s being left behind on the ground alive. Major Galviston was standing by the radio shaking his head and talking to Lieutenant Colonel Clewell.

  “Damn it! What in the hell are we going to do about him?”

  Clewell rubbed his chin and then answered. “Remember, Galviston . . .

  the man on the ground calls the shots! If he says that it’s too hot to extract him . . . then, damn it, we wait!”

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  “What’s going on, sir?” Jay broke into the senior officers’ conversation. He knew that they had to be talking about his friend.

  “Lieutenant Bourne has just contacted his covering forward air controller and told him not to Brightlight because the area was crawling with NVA with heavy antiaircraft weapons.” Galviston shook his head.

  “Sir! We have to go after him . . . send me! I can take my team and insert twenty clicks away and run in!” Jay grabbed the major by his elbow and turned him around. “Sir, we just can’t leave him down there alone!”

  “Calm down, Loveless. You know the rules—Bourne calls the shots as long as he’s in his AO.”

  “I know all of that bullshit!”

  Clewell entered the conversation. “At ease, Lieutenant.” He felt as helpless as the young lieutenant standing in front of him clenching his fists. “Let’s see what Bourne has to say during his blind broadcast before we do anything else.” The commander looked at his deputy. “Galviston, I want all broadcasts going into the Hickory relay site transmitted here.”

  “Done, sir,” Galviston nodded in agreement. “I’ll have the communications officer get on it right away.”

  “Lieutenant Loveless, I want you to monitor the radios tonight in case Bourne needs to improvise a code. You probably know him better than anyone else in camp.”

  The jungle night was a sheet of total blackness. Paul lay back against his rucksack and stared out of the small opening unable to distinguish anything. He looked at the extremely bright face on his Rolex watch, then tore off a piece of green tape that he always carried wrapped around a portion of his pistol belt and covered the luminous dial with it. The area-studies officer back at CCN had told him that he would have the benefit of a full moon during his patrol. A heavy cloud cover must have slipped in during the early evening hours and blocked out the moonlight temporarily. Paul decided that he would take the secure voice radio to the top of the ravine and risk sending a message back to the Hickory relay site before his preplanned blind radio broadcast. The discovery of the enemy main-supply depot was too important of an item to wait on sending back its exact location.

  Paul closed his eyes and the photograph of the North Vietnamese family appeared. He opened his eyes and stared out at the blackness of the cave. His thoughts slipped to all of the enemy soldiers that he had killed. He knew that all of them had families and loved ones; they weren’t any different than American soldiers. The killing was really starting to get to Paul. He had loved hunting animals since he had been a small boy but he could feel that he was losing his desire to kill. He would rather just watch wild animals now than track them down and kill them.

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  Bright moonlight burst through a hole in the dispersing clouds, giving Paul enough light to locate his radio sections and place them all together in his rucksack. He crawled out of the narrow opening and stretched the stiffness out of his sore muscles. Paul checked the ravine very closely before he left the safety of the cave. He was more concerned over running into a hunting tiger than he was about stumbling into a night-moving NVA patrol. The walk to the top of the ravine took him the better part of an hour as he wove his way between the boulders, selecting the best route to the top carrying the heavy backpack. He strung out the heavy copper antenna for the radio and attached the components of the set together. Paul turned the switch on and watched the small lights on the dials emit a soft friendly glow. A rush of static coming through the handset startled Paul and he turned the volume down. He checked the surrounding jungle to see if the noise had alerted anything within hearing distance. He acted out of reflex more than from a need. He pushed the transmitter switch and whispered so softly that he could hardly hear himself.

  “Foxfire . . . Viper . . . over . . . Foxfire . . . Viper . . . over . . .”

  Static answered his call. He waited five minutes and tried broadcasting again without receiving an answer. He waited.

  “Viper . . . Hickory . . . send your traffic . . . over.”

  The voice startled Paul. He realized that he was operating with a bundle of raw nerves coursing through his body.

  “Hickory . . . glad someone is minding the store tonight . . .”

  “Roger, Viper . . . we’ll be monitoring all of your assigned pushes from now on.”

  Jay had fallen asleep with his head resting on top of his folded arms.

  When Paul’s voice coming over the radio’s speaker had filled the room, Loveless had almost fallen backward out of his chair. Mister Michaels stepped through the open doorway holding a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. He offered Jay a drink and took a seat next to the recon team leader and listened intently to the broadcast.

  “Hickory . . . I have some top-priority traffic for your higher . . . are you prepared to copy?”

  “Send your traffic . . . over.”

  “Grid 376282 is the center coordinates of a huge NVA ammunition depot.

  Divert all B-52 missions to that location tonight!” Paul sucked in a lungful of air and continued whispering. “The place is big, so blow up anything within four thousand meters of that grid and you’ll be taking out something!”

  “Grid 376282? . . . over.”

  “Good copy . . . I don’t know when I can contact you again . . . but thanks for monitoring my frequency . . .” Paul scanned the dark jungle and added, “. .

  . nice talking to you . . .”

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  “I have a message to you from Loveless. He said that he knows for sure now that you’re a closet leg . . . ‘cause you’re afraid to ride a STABO rig . . .”

  “. . . sure . . . believe that shit!” Paul released the push-to-talk switch and felt the loneliness engulf him.

  Jay smiled. The operator out at Hickory had made up the message about being a leg to cheer up Paul. It had worked, both for Paul and for Jay.

  Lieutenant Bourne started disassembling his radio as fast as he could.

  He had spent too much time out in the open and wanted to get back to the security of his cave. The comfort he had felt talking to a friendly voice had only succeeded in accenting his loneliness. He started down the mountain, taking advantage of the downhill slope. The B-52 bombers should be arriving at any time to hit the waiting supply depot. The NVA couldn’t do anything to save the huge base, even if they had monitored the broadcast.

  Jay picked up the yellow piece of paper from the desk he had used to copy the grid coordinates on and went over to the big wall map to plot the location.

  Jay spoke over his shoulder to the newsman. “Would you go over to the room next door and wake Major Galviston . . . also get Colonel Clewell . . .

  this is big!”

  “Sure . . . Damn! I feel like a soldier!”

  Jay glanced from the map to the back of the r
eporter. “You have a hell of a long way to go before you can claim that!” Jay smiled.

  Major Galviston stepped into the command center blinking the sleep from his eyes, followed by Colonel Clewell who was wearing only a pair of fatigue pants.

  Galviston spoke, “What’s up, Loveless?”

  Jay briefed the senior officers on Paul’s message and showed them the location of the depot on the map.

  “Damn, we’ve been trying to locate that site for years.” Galviston tapped the map sheet with his pencil and added, “We’ve missed it because our west-ernmost boundary doesn’t extend that far. It’s interesting that it falls less than a thousand meters outside our search areas.”

  Clewell frowned. “I wonder what else is located just outside of our operating areas?”

  Galviston grasped what the commander was leading up to and hissed out the words, “. . . a double agent?”

  “Could be . . .” Clewell shifted his gaze to his deputy. “Let’s check it out with our people . . .”

  “Leave it to Paul! If anyone could find it, he could!” Jay spoke in jest, but all of the men listening in the room nodded their heads in agreement.

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  “Damn! He’s one hell of a good recon man!” Clewell shook his head. “Get me General Pick’s deputy on the line.”

  Twenty minutes passed.

  “Redhopper . . . this is Dragon Six . . . over.” General Pick’s voice filled the command center after the secure voice light went on next to the speaker set.

  “Clewell, this is Pick. I’ve arrived back from Washington early. I’ve heard rumors that something big is going on in your area of operations.”

  The secure voice system filled with static and Clewell waited for the system to clear before trying to answer the general’s questions.

  “General, we’ve located the largest NVA supply depot of the war. We will need your personal support to divert all of the Air Force’s B-52 strikes tonight to the area we have located.”