by Ron Lealos
The peasant women and children stayed under the palm tree away from the VC. When the baby cried, the young woman raised her pajama top. The boys clung to the women, black eyes wide and frightened. The old woman tugged on a wisp of silver hair that grew on her chin, her mouth moving slowly like a cow chewing its cud.
More and more, the gangrene of conscience blackened my soul. Every mission brought doubts, especially this one. An old woman and a young one, with three small children, alone in a deserted vil. No men in sight. VC chiefs meeting in broad daylight. A possible woman leader. One pig, three chickens, and one water buffalo. Too much merchandise for these solitary peasants. Props for an ambush. Nothing made sense. Even if we waxed these VC, there were ten more to replace them. They were everywhere. Like snipers in the trees.
One thing I was sure of, if we could surprise Charlie’s party, the firepower we packed would waste a regiment. The Rangers carried two M60 “pig” machine guns and enough ammo to fire until the barrels melted into the clay. In seconds, the 7.62mm slugs, a full metal jacket, would rip the vil to shreds twice over. Nothing would survive from the short distance from which we would be firing. If the pigs didn’t end it, the M79 grenade launchers would. We had three of these “bloop guns” loaded with forty-five flechette darts in each round. The flechettes went in so fast that a hit body didn’t even bleed. When combined with the pigs and a steady rain of well-aimed M16 rounds, the bloopers brought beaucoup hell to the paddies in a flash. After we went in for the body count, we’d light their fire with the flamethrower to sanitize the vil.
Another tap on my shoulder. This time the finger pointed me to the line of trees that bordered the rice paddies. A dozen VC walked toward the vil. The Rangers behind me tensed. Almost showtime. The ARVN silently spread out in the jungle on both sides to give a clear field of fire. The leaves stuck in the webbing of the Rangers’ helmets and camo fatigues made them invisible even when they moved.
No one would shoot until I gave the order. Disobedience didn’t go down well with Rangers. It was an on-site death sentence with no right to appeal.
The rain began as the second unit entered the vil. Drops as big as eyeballs fell from the green canopy and ran down the back of my fatigues. In the Delta, this time of year, it was either wet or wetter. Today, the rain might help. The VC would probably take shelter under thatched porches, shrinking the field of fire even more. The monsoons would drown any noise my detachment made.
All twelve VC men in the second squad wore black-and-white checkered scarves around their necks above the black pajamas. Combat boots were thick with mud. AKs at their waists, the VC spread out slowly through the vil. They were obviously well-trained regular troops, not the “volunteer” army of locals made of farmers and merchants. The VC already in the vil stood at attention.
If the intel was right, I would soon see a woman take charge of this get-together. But neither of the two women in the first cell was likely to be Liem. They were too young. No women were in the second group of VC.
The Rangers waited for my hand sign while the rain sounded louder than on the roof of a two-poncho night bivouac in the bush. Across the paddies, a brilliant rainbow marked the distance. The peasant women and children stayed huddled under the palm tree, puddles forming at their feet. Smoke from the cook fire turned gray as the rain sizzled on the coals. Behind us, a monkey shrieked at the wet that spoiled his afternoon nap. Steam rose from the warm soil barely dry after the last shower. The flies disappeared into the mist.
Finished with their recon of the vil, the VC greeted each other with bows in two of the hootches. No salutes. No jive handshakes. No smiles.
I raised my right fist. Lock and load. M16s, bloopers, and pigs were aimed at the two huts. I turned to the pig operator on my left and pointed to the furthest hootch. The pig on my right was already focused on the nearest hut. The Rangers didn’t need more signals. They would wait until I fired my M16.
The plastic on the handle of my rifle was slippery with rain. I sighted in on the VC who was doing most of the talking. He had a thin mustache and Alfred E. Neuman ears. A fresh, pink scar ran from the corner of his mouth to a right eye that drooped out of its socket. His AK dangled from his shoulder by a ragged leather strap, muzzle pointed to the clay. Two RKG grenades were stuffed into the ammo belts crisscrossing his chest. I aimed at the one over his heart and fired.
Bamboo, palm thatch, hardwood chunks, clay pottery, chicken feathers, dirt, and body parts exploded into the cloud of rain. Both the hootches took direct hits from the bloopers. The pigs shredded everything still in solid form. M16 bullets rat-a-tatted into bodies as they vanished into the ozone. The noise was louder than a 105mm howitzer barrage. But it only lasted a few seconds. I signaled cease-fire with my hand. No return fire. The VC were vaporized. The mist turned red with swirling blood. Nothing moved but the smoke and scraps that danced on the wind current from the grenades. The only sound was the loud whimpering of the peasants under the palm tree.
The Rangers followed me out of our hiding spots in the canopy and into the Armageddon of the vil, M16s on full auto. We searched for any survivors or documents the intel analysts could use. A blackened fingertip lay next to the head of the doll. Nothing but scraps oozing flesh. I motioned for the flamethrower to burn the huts in the back that still stood. As I watched the Rangers torch the hootches, four quick shots snapped from behind. I turned in time to see the peasant women and children fall to the clay, blood seeping from holes in the middle of their foreheads. The baby-san cried. One more bullet and it was quiet. We moved out.
* * *
On the march south to Liem’s villa, I tried to understand the afternoon’s action. Intel had also said the villa would be the secondary target. The VC had gone to a lot of effort to make the deserted vil seem alive. Stock it with women, children, food, and animals. Have them work the paddies. Props to convince the Americans that it was just another innocent, worthless vil. No threat. But Charlie must have been using it for a meeting spot. That meant the women were VC too. Somebody high up in the National Liberation Front’s local command must have ratted the position. The Rangers figured it out in an instant, and the women and children died for their supporting role in the drama. Intel was right about the vil. But the Phoenix program had become Murder, Inc., doing the bidding of every corrupt ARVN general and South Vietnamese politician with a hard-on for gore. Civilians were killed for being overdue a few piasters on the latest bribe or smiling at the wrong mistress. In Hue, a barber was executed by Phoenix operatives because his trembling hands nicked a general’s scalp. No telling what crime Liem had really committed.
The squad made it to the villa before midnight. Being in Indian country slowed us, but the Rangers knew the shortcuts. We hunkered down in the bush that surrounded the crumbling French mansion and watched. Since Liem hadn’t been caught in the slaughter at the village, plan two was for me to put a silenced bullet in her head. We waited.
The garrote fit snug in my hands, grooved plastic handles cool on my mud-caked fingers. Kerosene lamps lit the old French villa fifty yards in front of my squad. No one had passed the windows in the decaying villa for more than an hour. It was almost time to move out. The Beast, what black grunts named the US war machine, needed to be fed.
The carbon fiber of the garrote slid as smooth as a round down the barrel of an M1 mortar. The boys at the CIA lab inside Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, had made murder by strangulation much easier. Steel rusted in the jungle humidity. Carbon was lighter and just as strong. Wood handles rotted and got coated with sweat. And blood. Besides, steel was too sharp. The objective wasn’t to decapitate the target. Too loud and messy. Just crush the jugular and Adam’s apple, strangling the victim fast. The retractable carbon line avoided stuffing loose, bloody wire into a fatigue pocket. Phoenix operatives called the garrotes “bow ties.”
“Did you wear your bow tie to the dance last night?” The answer, “Right on. Got two twists and a herky jerk.”
Crickets and nigh
t birds played the jungle symphony. Wild pigs and dogs scavenged in the bush. Yellow eyes peeked through the leaves like mini-flashlights with low batteries, and kraits slithered across the jungle floor in search of mice. The moon was covered by clouds, and the smell of the night’s rice and fish ball dinner lingered in the trees.
Next to me, First Lieutenant Thieu whispered to one of his squad of Hoa Hao Rangers. The op called for the Rangers to detail on the other side of the villa in the rubber plantation where there was sure to be VC. Westmoreland had given a general order Vietnam-wide. No firefights in the rubber plantations. No shooting into the rows of trees. Rubber was off-limits, but not tonight. The plantations were thick with VC tunnels, and the ARVN weren’t bound by Westmoreland’s order. The Rangers would create a diversion while I waxed Liem. We would meet up here and ricky-ticky back to base camp.
“Tot di san,” Thieu said. Good hunting. No smile. No warm embrace.
The Rangers moved out, Thieu at point. They were as silent as the little green lizards that crawled into my pack in search of Hershey bars. Ten yards away and the squad was invisible.
The jungle here wasn’t thick. Not the dense foliage around the vil we had taken off the map earlier in the day. Slaves of the French colonialists who built the mansion must have thinned the bushes that were, again, getting the upper hand. The night gave the cover we needed.
Fifteen minutes and I was on stage.
A fire ant nibbled on my leg. Shit, if there was one, his brothers would soon be feasting on my flesh. Another bite. Three more. I mashed as many as I could and moved quickly to the base of a palm tree fifteen yards to my left. Already, the little fuckers were making my skin a dartboard, injecting their poison into my blood. Another minute and I’d have to move again or the bastards would be back. Still, the ants were better than the slimy, cocksucking leeches. In the daylight, in ambush position, I would have had to let the sons of bitching ants have their way. Not tonight. There were no patrols out.
Things didn’t add up. If Liem was really a local honcho, there would be guards and patrols. Not enough to raise suspicion, but more than zero. VC chiefs rarely lived in mansions. They were in the bush with other little people soldiers. Or holed up in tunnels. The Sorbonne? Foreign-educated Vietnamese were always suspected by the VC. Tainted by capitalism. Spies. Executed. Women were allowed to pack rifles and supplies. To die. Few were in command positions. Could be counterintelligence to prove that the intel was right by having us blow away a mock vil used for VC powwows. A cover for the real target. Liem.
The bounty on my head was a hundred thousand piasters. The VC knew of the assassins run by Phoenix, and the VC hung posters of a face that looked something like me on barbiturates in towns all over the Delta. But, to the Vietnamese, all long noses looked the same. They knew my MO. My name was “gan con ran.” Night Snake. Sector commanders, or anyone else my masters picked out, had a tough time catching z’s unless they were hidden in a tunnel. I’d never greased a woman with a silenced bullet. A gook with no legs, okay, but not a mama-san. Besides, that Charlie was in his wheelchair drinking tea and working on map coordinates when I pressed the Hush Puppy to his neck. The papa-san was in the hootch next to his bicycle shop that served as the communications center for civilian VC. Or so I’d been told.
Little dink fucker shit his pajamas. My dreams weren’t of heads with mangled brains and holes at the base of the skull, but of naked faceless yellow people drenched in shit jamming me against the clay walls of a pit lined with shit-dipped punji sticks. The smell woke me gasping for air in the night and squeezing my nose shut.
A shadow moved across the porch of the villa. Vines and Rangoon creepers grew to a rotting roof and blocked a clear view. The shadow was outlined by the lamps. A match flared. The face of a shirtless man.
Ten minutes till showtime. The green dials on my watch shown like Day-Glo. Time to get up close and personal. The man had to be wasted first. Liem or anyone else who got in the way next. I propped my M16 against a lime tree and started toward the villa. The sparse bush and moonless night hid my silent approach.
A skill drummed into me at Benning and in the jungle of the Mekong was how to move like a hunting tiger. No boot touched ground without the foot transmitting an “all clear.” I could walk for hours on the balls of my feet, heels never feeling the clay soil. No sound. All senses on receive. It was as natural to me as a stroll in Central Park.
The man’s elbows rested on the porch railing, cigarette in his right hand. Smoke curled above his greasy black hair with each drag. He stared toward the muddy road that led to Pha Than. Glasses, frame held together by dirty, white tape, sat on the bridge of his nose. I could smell his sweat from my position three feet away and just below the rusted iron railing.
The Hush Puppy was jammed into my ammo belt, the garrote in my left hand. I slid closer. In one motion, I pulled the carbon wire from the handles and looped it around the man’s neck, overlapping my wrists and twisting. The cigarette fell into an orchid bush. The man’s hands went to his throat. I jerked down, but not enough to pull him over the railing. Just enough so he wouldn’t kick his feet against the mahogany boards of the porch.
Noise was the enemy of the assassin. That’s why I didn’t use the Hush Puppy. Even the pphhuupp sound of a silenced bullet was like thunder in the peace of a jungle night.
Our noses touched as the man fought to suck in a breath. I balanced his body on the railing while his feet flailed in the last death kick. A mole sprouting black hairs on his cheek. A wad of white sleep scum was lodged in the corner of his eye. As his hands loosened and his body went slack, I heard the shit trickle from his pajamas. The foul smell coated my nostrils. Back in the dream. I shook my head and let the man drop slowly before the noise awoke the villa. The garrote went in my pocket. The Hush Puppy came out. Five minutes.
Moving silently through the jungle was second nature. Walking quietly through a villa, decaying in the tropical humidity, without the creak of a rotting board was dicey. Every footstep had to test whether it would bear weight without a groan. Doors had to open without a squeak, Hush Puppy leading the way.
The villa smelled of mildew and cooking oil. In the dim light, sheets on the furniture looked like dirty robes on Buddhist monks. Silverware and plates sat on the dining room table next to empty wine glasses, waiting for a breakfast that wouldn’t be served.
The first two bedrooms were empty. One more at the end of the hall. I moved like a krait. The door was open a few inches. Inside, a muted lamp burned to the side of a bed covered in mosquito netting. Long, black hair was splayed across an embroidered pillow. A porcelain washbowl and a white towel sat on a wooden table next to the canopied bed. Paintings of the French countryside dotted the walls. Cracks zigzagged across the plaster ceiling. Two geckos crawled slowly up the far wall. The smell of kerosene replaced the dead man’s shit. I walked softly on the frayed rug.
A young woman slept, a flowered sheet over her body. Her skin was light brown and shined smoothly in the dim light. A small nose came to a rounded tip. Full lips were turned up in a slight smile. Black lashes were closed below thick eyebrows. Simone Signoret chin. No wrinkles. No scars. No drool. Drop-fucking-dead gorgeous.
Two minutes. The muzzle of the Hush Puppy easily parted the mosquito netting. I pushed the barrel into the woman’s throat and asked “Liem?” Her eyes blinked open. “Vang,” she said. Yes.
The eyes. Emerald green. No fear. Not even surprise.
“O tren,” I said. Up. “Mau le.” Quickly.
The Hush Puppy still at her throat, I grabbed her hair with my left hand and jerked her from the bed. I was breaking every commandment of special ops. Liem should already be dead. But I couldn’t do it. Not in bed. Not another one.
Silence. “Lam cho,” I hissed in her ear as I dragged her toward the door. No struggle. No noise. Lamb to slaughter.
In the hall, I moved Liem in front and nudged her toward the door, pistol to her skull. The Gerber fighting knife usually s
trapped to my calf was in my left hand. We walked out the front door and down the steps of the porch to the start of the bush.
Two grenades went off in the rubber plantation, followed immediately by M16 rounds and the tearing sound of trees being ripped apart by the pig machine guns. AK-47s answered. The house was backlit by fire from the rubber trees.
I shoved Liem to the ground. Flames danced in her green eyes. She smiled. Liem’s long, thin nightgown rode up on her thighs. Small breasts poked through the silk. She lifted her head and looked at me. A red bruise was already starting where I had jammed the Hush Puppy into her neck. Her legs were curled under her hips. A strap fell off her shoulder, and black hair covered the left side of her face. I put the end of the silencer between her green eyes. Liem smiled.
It wasn’t a plea. “Cam on,” she whispered. Thank you. It was forgiveness.
The rhythm of the firefight picked up. Short bursts of the Soviet-made RPD light machine guns answered the death sentence of the pigs.
The Hush Puppy shook in my hand. Bone and skin rubbed against the tip of the silencer. My knees felt like they couldn’t support the weight of all the killing tools on my body. A drop of sweat, blackened by greasepaint, fell on the breast of Liem’s white nightgown. I blinked, but the green eyes were still there.
“Lam long,” Liem whispered. Please.
The tip of my bush combat boots touched Liem’s calf. Through the nylon webbing, I could feel Liem’s relaxed muscles. I flexed my knees to keep from falling. The fighting knife hung slack at my left side. Shadows from the fire in the plantation flickered through the orchid bushes and banyan trees. Cordite fumes drifted across my face.
“Lam long,” Liem whispered again. Only her mouth moved. Liem’s hands lay on the flatness of her stomach. A glitter of orange flame reflected from a gold band on her finger.
Within seconds, Thieu would be back.
“Nay?” Why? I asked. Sometimes, I could still feel goodness. Not even the evil that surrounded me every day could dull the sense. Liem was good.