by Ron Lealos
The lead VC fell to the ground with a small bullet hole just above his right eye. No blood spattered the jungle, just a red circle like an ink stain. Before the dead VC touched the clay, the second dink stopped and began to raise his M16. He was dead by the time the rifle reached his waist. The third was already gagging on his own blood from the blade of Luong’s knife. Luong’s hand covered the NVA’s mouth from behind, a smile on his Montagnard lips. He dragged the soldier into the brush, legs in their final death mambo. Within seconds, the bodies were hidden, no trace of the killing on the trail. The jungle had only heard two phupps and a slight groan from Luong’s victim. We were moving immediately, the three dead soldiers not even a distant memory.
This time, at the termite hill, Luong stood behind a marabou tree, on the opposite side from where I squatted in a thicket. They must have wanted us badly to come out of the hole in daylight, usually the kingdom of the grunts, when the VC were fucking, sleeping, and eating. The tunnel entrance had already been repaired, but more likely, abandoned. The VC dug tunnel entries in a triangle, approximately fifty meters equidistant. We had already scouted the area, finding no other trap doors. Not surprising, since the VC had mastered concealment to such a degree that you could swear you knew the spot where a VC disappeared and not find it for hours. A two-hundred-pound bomb could fall directly on the slanted entry and the damage would be contained to the first ten meters, usually a water trap anyway. Through a system of layered bamboo, dirt, and husks, the passages were nearly impregnable. We didn’t find any trails other than this one either. With nightfall, the VC would creep out and begin the mayhem of darkness. We would wait for them here.
“GI number ten. Number ten pussy. Fucky-fuck number ten. Number ten sister virgin.” Number ten. The mantra of Vietnam heard in every town. Colleen was number ten. Now, number ten would be the number of VC dead before I would di di from this killing ground. Luong knew and was only disappointed that it wasn’t ten more. Ten dead VC or NVA wouldn’t nearly equal one Colleen.
Discipline was the one gift the Colonel had given me. It always had a touch of respect and honor. Those traits began to fragment the minute I stepped onto the tarmac in Da Nang. I was a trained killer in an insane asylum called ’Nam. Rules and regulations were trite, stupid, and dangerous. The only rule that mattered was getting through your tour with your dick still attached. And your buddy’s. Hair, uniforms, salutes, drugs, rules of engagement, noncombatant rights, all the normal rules of war were forgotten. My orders were only complete with the words “terminated” written with red grease pen over the photo attached to a classified file back at the rear. But I never said “terminated.” “Greased” was too perfect, even if it meant a body bag trip to The World for a maggot like Viper. There was no discipline. Only survival. And revenge. I popped a yellow jacket and waited for the night.
Darkness comes early in the tropics, especially when there is a canopy of jungle to block the sun. Fruit bats were making their early evening dives to gather bugs. The few birds had gone to nest, and a slight breeze rustled the palms. The temperature had dropped to a cool eighty-five degrees. Somewhere near, a tunnel vent released the faint smell of cooking rice and fish balls. A firebase in the quadrant was beginning its nightly shelling in an attempt to keep from being overrun. Two black-and-orange centipedes tried to crawl up my boot, and I crushed them with the butt of my M16.
Everyone had limits. While mine were expanded by my job description, there was a line I wouldn’t cross. That line led underground to a world inhabited by poisonous snakes tethered to vines, sharpened punji sticks smeared in shit, hidey-holes in the walls manned by dwarf assassins waiting with razor-sharp bayonets, ink-black water traps that had to be swum to get further into the tunnel, trip wires ready to set off grenades that would imbed my skull fragments into the packed laterite clay, and scorpions, centipedes, and rats hungry for my flesh. The tunnels were nearly always the same, like some demented engineer had written a nightmare manual. Always around a meter wide and nearly two meters high. But I had only heard this from tunnel rats. Even if I were ordered to descend into this hell, I would refuse. If pushed, the officer would take his last breath while he watched the frag roll across the floor of his bunker. I would rather get an extended holiday in LBJ, Long Binh Jail, than face the underground world. Or die.
Luong and I had discussed strategy in our own language of grunts, hand signs, pigeon Vietnamese-English, and eye movement. If one VC approached, we would let him go. He was the scout, soon to be followed by his comrades. If three or four showed their blackened faces, we would take them out as quickly and quietly as possible and await more of their brothers until the body count reached ten. Plus a few more if necessary. Not less. But if a bigger squad came in our direction, we would have to follow silently and work our way from back to front, a much more dangerous plan. In order to be successful, noise would be the enemy.
The first sound was a muffled cough. Close-quarter life in the tunnels caused many VC soldiers to die from tuberculosis, rather than a bullet or Arc Light bombing. My eyes had already adjusted to the darkness, and I counted four VC coming around the termite mound. Again, I would take the first two or three and Luong would grease the rest.
The outcome of the action was much the same as the afternoon’s. I stepped from the bush and shot the first two in the head. This time, Luong used his Hush Puppy, since his KA-BAR might not have been fast enough. We dragged the bodies off the trail and went back to waiting. It was over in seconds. The cicadas resumed their symphony while I hummed “Sympathy for the Devil” under my breath. There would be more.
Relationships were not part of my history. Like a foolish romantic, I let the dream of a future blank out the madness that surrounded me. Colleen was an ice-cold bottle of Bud on a blazing afternoon in the Delta. A long shower next to the latrine, washing off weeks of red clay that seeped into every sunburnt pore. A shot of morphine to take the edge off. She wasn’t a letter from home. I didn’t read the few that arrived. I sent them back to Mother unopened marked RETURN TO SENDER. ADDRESSEE LOST. The Colonel and Mother were my only role models. Relationships led to barrenness tolerated only by Jim Beam and sleep and obedience. Career came first. I knew the Colonel laid on top of Mother and ordered her to conceive a soldier. This was not a land that cultivated hope. For a mad minute, I ignored everything and dreamed that there was a future. A future with a green-eyed Irish lass. Now, she was buried in the bush, and I awaited a chance at vengeance.
The last VC in the line of eight limped. He was struggling to keep the assigned interval of five meters between each gook. Luong would take care of him first. We would leapfrog the rest, using our knives, a hand over the mouth, to kill the remaining soldiers. Worst case, if discovered, we would have to open fire with M16s and grenades. But we were professionals. Luong moved from behind the marabou tree, and I passed next to him just as I heard his KA-BAR swish across the limping VC’s jugular.
A talent I had learned and mastered was silence, a major requirement of my career. Luong didn’t need any practice. We could sneak into a bedroom with a dozen sleeping Vietnamese in the other room and guards patrolling, snuff the target, and steal into the night without even awakening the dog. I didn’t hear the VC’s body hit the ground or any final prayers or gurgles. I could feel Luong’s black-toothed grin behind me. The next man was now fifteen meters ahead, and his silhouette was almost hidden in the darkness. At least they were forced to go slow. As quickly as possible, I reached him and slit his throat with the knife in my right hand, palm over his mouth with my left. His weight sagged against my fatigue blouse, and I eased him to the clay. Luong stepped around me without any acknowledgment, his sense of purpose defined by the burning of his village and rape of his eleven-year-old daughter. I felt rather then heard the next VC slump to the ground. I would have to pick up the pace to stay with Luong. Three down and five gooks to go.
The VC in front of me had stopped and faced back in the trail. He whispered, “Nguyen. Nguyen.”
I stooped to appear five-feet-tall rather than six and murmured, “Hien tai.” Here. When I was in front of him, I buried the knife into his throat, reaching behind to catch his fall. Luong silently loped past. This time, there was noise from Luong. It was a grunt and the sound of metal on metal. The VC must have heard me stab his comrade and put his AK up before Luong could waste him. I screamed “Xuong! ” Down. Every fifth round from the M16 that had been strapped over my shoulder was a tracer, and the jungle was immediately lit by beams of green light. Before I could take aim at the furthest VC running away down the trail, I saw Luong throw a grenade. I hit the ground firing. Smoke filled the trail, and branches fell from the tree line, but no return fire. We counted four more dead and one escapee. I had an idea Colleen might not approve of this revenge, but I didn’t care. It was for me.
We couldn’t take the trail any farther. We slipped into the bush. In an hour, we found a small cave made by the roots of a huge banyan tree and bivouacked for the night, cutting brush to hide behind, neither of us sleeping, and my thoughts only on dead possibilities.
The base camp had taken artillery fire for the last two nights. Luong and I passed through the gate in late afternoon, after sleeping in the bush, laagered a few klicks from Colleen’s grave. Alongside us, a line of filthy grunts, eyes on the clay, stumbled like they had just received their “Greetings from the President” letter. One soldier, a crimson-stained bandage across his forehead, dragged his right leg and was supported by two other grunts. We blended in, just as dirty and tired and numbed by the pointless conquer of a small patch of clay that would have to be retaken again tomorrow. And the cost of that dirt in lives.
Soldiers moved ammo to the howitzers, cleaned M16s, patched bunkers, burned turds, and sat on sandbags, shirtless, smoking C-rat Camels, dog tags dangling on their chests. No one made eye contact as we crossed the camp to the Phoenix compound, a no-man’s land that spooked the grunts even more than Charlie crawling through the wire in the night. At least they knew what Charlie was up to, rather than the voodoo image groomed by Phoenix. Rumors were that Phoenix assassins were not limited to suspected VC targets. That any who violated the whimsical rules might not wake up from the nightmare that surrounded them.
Luong went to the thatched-roof huts reserved for Montagnards, and I entered my barracks. Comer was waiting, the little shit’s snakeskin boots spit-shined, not a speck of dust spoiling their gloss. The belt buckle on his Levis reflected the late-day sun that came through cracks in the plywood walls. Today, he wore a striped cowboy shirt, fastened at the neck with one of those silly string ties. He looked ridiculous, a white Stetson hat topping his skinny five-foot-tall body. The other agents were out slaughtering suspected VC, because no one else was in the barracks. Comer’s black unmarked helicopter must have been parked behind the barracks. I hadn’t noticed it on my way in. He touched the pearl-handled Colt on his hip.
“Home from the range, podner,” he said. “Wrestle any steers while you were on the trail?”
Not even the sight of Doc trying to hold in the wormlike coils of oozing intestines leaking from a gutshot grunt made me more nauseous than this dwarf. I dropped my pack beside my cot and rested the M16 next to it. I didn’t put away the Gerber or Hush Puppy. He might be Mickey Rooney size, but he could shoot out a burning match at the distance between us.
“If you mean did I complete my mission,” I said, “the answer is yes. Does the phony cowboy bullshit make up for the fact that you’re shorter than the gooks you order me to grease? And uglier than the toothless milky-eyed mama-san begging for p outside the gate?”
Comer’s smile was evil. No joy. No love. No hope. Dead. His eyes were blacker than any Cong I had seen. His twisted grin could make babies scream in terror.
“Ten paces behind this shithole at high noon?” he said. “Is that the way it’s gonna play, Morgan?”
Nothing I would have liked more than to fill his scrawny hide with 9mm slugs. The Gerber was still strapped to my waist, and the handle was cool on my fingers.
“What the fuck do you want?” I asked. “Tell me, then you can mount your chopper and ride on outa here.”
He flipped the string tie hanging from his neck.
“Well, podner,” Comer said, “I think you been in the saddle a might too long. How about a week in Bangkok? Meet some a’ them purty señoritas.”
“Jesus, Comer. You ever seen a drunk grunt after the Hueys dropped a load of Bud, spewing his shit further than your tiny dick can piss? When you talk that way, I feel just like that grunt. Talk fucking English.”
“Well, son, your brain must have gotten boiled in the sun for you to speak to old Comer like that. Too much more of it and you’ll be hitchin’ a ride back to The World in the cargo hold with a plastic wrapper holdin’ yur body parts together.”
“You can’t stop. All right, just tell me when the plane’s taking off. Then you can quit ruining another glorious day in Vietnam.”
“As soon as you stow your gear. You don’t even have to put on clean fatigues. But, first, a few questions.”
“Yes, he’s dead. Not even a whimper from his dog.”
“Ain’t that sweeter than a waterhole on a Jewwlie roundup? I ain’t interested in that. One dead gook is the same as another. Got a few doubts about you, though. You were supposed to be back at the ranch two days ago? Where you been. Chuggin’ tequilas down on the border?”
“We ran into a little trouble. Since I don’t have a black Huey to fly me around, and you wouldn’t give me a jeep, we had to hump it on foot. If you ever got your boots dusty, you’d know.”
“You’re saying there’s Indians out there? Well, hell, boy, we better circle the wagons.” Comer chuckled, the grin showing his crooked teeth, yellow from the cheroot that was always in his mouth. “Quit your whinin’ and tell Comer more.”
“What the fuck do you want to know? We got ambushed. Twice. The target wasn’t in when I rang. We had to recon until he came home.” There was no way I would tell Comer or anyone about Tran and Colleen. Or the targets still breathing.
“I think you lie more than a Mex’cun cattle rustler,” Comer said. “When I send you out, boy, part of the orders is that you report back in the time I give you. Not spend it at the saloon. Followin’ my command is how you earn your paycheck.”
“I don’t suppose you can read, Comer, but Newsweek just ran an article about how the Thai and Philippine soldiers you and your kind have been trumpeting here to fight the red tide are paid twenty times more than a grunt. Two hundred times more than they get to defend their own countries. Now, who do you suppose foots the bill? All they’ve been doing anyway is sitting around their camp drinking Tiger beer on ice, compliments of Uncle Sam. Another PR lie about the same as the pacification program. Don’t talk to me about paychecks.”
“That fuckin’ commie Fulbright and his fat, Jew-boy mouth. We had to send those cowboys home after he leaked the story. But, hey, it worked for a while.” Comer tipped the bill of his Stetson. “You’re trying to change the subject on me, Morgan. Ain’t gonna work. You were only going a few klicks. Can’t take that long. You moonlightin’?”
“Yeah, Comer. I hire myself out on the side as an assassin. What I do for you is my patriotic duty. You know, grease a gook for Dick. That’s what I get. Dick.”
“It’s a trust issue, Morgan. Ever since Viper got wasted, I been wonderin’ what your role was. Maybe I oughta talk to that buddy of yours, Luong. But them Yards are tougher to make talk than a deaf Comanche. I suppose it wouldn’t do any good to call his balls on a field telephone. Make his nuts jump before I added one of his ears to my necklace.”
Unlike most of the REMFs, I knew Comer could and would kill. For all his stupid bravado, he was more than willing to back the words. I had seen it and often wondered how anyone could smile while the knife went in. His brief wasn’t only to direct our group. He was our example. And instructor. I hated him for it.
“If you so much as breathe on Luong, I’ll hunt you dow
n, Comer. You won’t enjoy having some of the tricks you taught me used on your slimy body.”
“What’s wrong with us, Morgan? We never seem to ride the same trail. We just dance the Texas two-step. I won’t touch a black hair on that Yard’s skull. Not because of your threat. He’s the best roper in the camp. And so are you. On the other hand, I could sure use that reward out on your head. Need another hat. This one’s gettin’ sweat stains on the band.” He took off the Stetson and rubbed the inside.
Guys like Comer always had an agenda, and it was harder to find a tunnel entrance in the dark than figure out what they wanted. Or why. I sat down on the cot and started to untie my red boots, caked in the mud of Delta clay.
“Vietnam is a better place without Viper,” I said. “Even someone like you has to admit it. What do you want, Comer? I told you what happened on the mission. The target is terminated. I don’t know anything about Viper other than he’s in hell. It’s time I catch some z’s.”
I laid down on the cot, hands behind my head.
Comer put his hat back on and walked across the room closer to me.
It was getting dark. A breeze blew through the open door and the cracks in the walls. Flies circled, and the gecko sat unmoving in his regular post on the ceiling. One of the other agents had pinned a picture of a white woman who must have been his wife or girlfriend to one of the wooden beams with a bayonet. Her eyes were gouged out. He had used a red grease pen to scrawl DEAD on the bottom of the photo. Comer touched the picture and smiled.
“Another Dear John letter,” he said. “I pray that you boys can learn to adjust to civilian life when you get back to The World. You know, understand that love is what makes the world go ’round.” Comer laughed so hard his Stetson fell to the dirt floor when he doubled over.