Ghost War

by Maloney, Mack;

  And now he wanted it very much for himself.

  He poured himself another cup of tea, and took a sweet biscuit from his breakfast tin. Soon it would be time for him to write up a bill for the conquest of Khe Sanh and present it to the Minx High Command. He’d already added up the figures in his head. The operation had cost him 4,100 troops so far. High casualties were not unexpected in human wave attacks—he was due then a rebate the equivalent of $500 per man. Equipment losses equaled about half the dead-troop fee, and he figured he could charge off at least half his ammunition expenditures as expenses to the High Command. Extra food and water he had to pay himself.

  The whole one attack-a-day operation was in the black so far—and he had to do everything in his power to keep it that way. This was why he was trying to take Khe Sanh a little bit at a time, using only light infantry troops, without long-range artillery or air support. Those luxury items were available, but expensive, and the bottom line was what was important in this war. CapCom was a demanding employer, and the competition for lucrative conquests among the other independently-run Minx units was fierce, so holding the line on costs was the only way to go if a commander wanted to turn a profit.

  Dong slowly sipped his tea and then turned back to the latest front line reports.

  It was time to get back to work.

  Bad news walked in the door five minutes later.

  It was one of his command staff aides, and the man was visibly trembling. Dong asked him what he wanted and the man let loose with a burst of apologies. Then he got to the doom and gloom: Not only had their most recent attack on Khe Sanh failed to finally overrun the base, there were reports that two large cargo planes had crash-landed on the airstrip, and they had brought some measure of reenforcement to the embattled defenders.

  Dong dropped his tea cup onto his lap. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He began ranting. Who the hell would be flying reenforcements into Khe Sanh? Who the hell cared about the people dying there?

  The aide was frozen with fear. “There are unconfirmed reports, sir,” he gulped, “that they might be Americans.”

  Dong felt his eyes go wide with fear and befuddlement.

  “Americans?”

  The aide could barely speak at this point. “Our intelligence people say the airplanes are of American manufacture,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “They are painted in strange, garish ways, typical of aircraft flown by the Americans these days.”

  Dong was simply astonished. “Why would the Americans come here?” he asked, more to himself than the aide. “For what reason would they want to become entangled in this?”

  The aide didn’t know what to do, so he just shrugged. He was certain that Dong would execute him on the spot. This was the usual response of Minx commanders when they were given bad news.

  But Dong surprised him.

  “Americans are always trouble,” he said, pulling on his chin in gloomy thought. “And bad for business. Maybe they want to take over the place themselves, and then the highway beyond. Maybe they want a cut of our action, or maybe make a separate deal with High Command …”

  The aide just shrugged again. “We should wipe them out quickly, sir,” he offered.

  “We must ascertain their intentions first,” Dong said. “That makes the most business sense. We must learn if they are here to stay. And more importantly, whether more are coming.”

  “What shall I do, sir?” the aide asked.

  Dong was quiet for a long moment. “Bring me the fastest, most intelligent, most decorated soldier in our corps,” he said finally. “He will volunteer to get very close to the enemy base and be my eyes and ears. I must learn more about these Americans even as we are destroying them.”

  Relieved, the aide heartily agreed. “I can process the new orders, sir …”

  “Do that,” Dong replied, unsteadily returning to his tea cup, “and then report to the front line. You will take your place in the next human wave attack.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Khe Sanh

  IT HAD BEEN A hell of a run.

  Hunter, Geraci, and Frost had made their way back across the open 500 yards to the perimeter of the trench works by using the favorable shift in the wind and Hunter’s smoke grenade technique.

  Once they were back within range, the enemy sniper and mortar crews opened up on them every time they could be seen through the thinning smoke. It had been another crouch, run, and dive exercise, with each explosive thud hammering home the extremely dangerous situation in which they now found themselves. More than once, Hunter’s finely tuned sixth sense saved them from being hit by incoming mortar rounds.

  Finally, they made it to the rotting hull of the Globemaster. Hooking up with the waiting rifle squad, they dashed into the deeper trenches. Weaving their way back through the web of defensive positions, they soon reached the shattered hulk of Bozo.

  It was now the most heavily fortified position on the base. Weapons were poking out of every conceivable orifice; so many, it was almost comical, especially with Bozo’s wild circus color scheme and scrolling designs.

  Inside the wrecked plane’s great hold, though, it was all business. The crew was working at a feverish pace, as always. Some were adjusting the new gun positions and running ammo or powder or both to the weapons’ systems. Others were posted on the portholes that now lined both sides of the fuselage, machine guns and M-16s at the ready. It was obvious that the Bozo crew was ready for whatever the foreseeable future held for them.

  After a brief reunion with the Bozo gun crew, Hunter, Geraci, Ben, and Frost climbed up to the shattered flight deck and quickly got down to work.

  Ben started off, flipping through the pages of his flight notebook, and gave a grim update of the situation aboard Bozo. About 50 percent of the electricity and hydraulic power had been restored, and all the heavy weapons would be working or will be working within two hours. Cutting out the new gun ports and the reconfiguration of the weapons around the interior of the hold was finished. Some measure of 360 degree firepower was now available. There was 65 percent of the on board ammunition left. And despite the hellish battle on the runway the previous day, all thirty-six men of the gun and flight crews were in fairly good fighting shape.

  It was now Geraci’s turn.

  “I’ve got a total of 100 men,” the combat engineer began. “We’ve got six bulldozers, a backhoe, two front-end loaders, and two medium-size cranes. As far as weapons, besides our small arms, we’ve got five TOW launchers, a half dozen 105-mm field howitzers, and about thirty heavy- and light-machine guns. We’re at 100 percent ammo for all of them at the moment. We’ve also got a half ton of TNT, Semtex, and C4.”

  Hunter was next.

  “What can I say?” he asked with no small irony. “We’re totally pinned down by those fuckers that attacked us yesterday. They hold the hills on three sides and we’d never make it over that mountain behind us—not all of us, anyway. We are, in a word, trapped: there’s really no way out.”

  The other men on the flight deck could only shake their heads in agreement.

  “And the guys running the show here are really that nuts?” Geraci asked after a long pause.

  Both Hunter and Ben gave a grim laugh.

  “Worse,” Hunter replied. “It’s really looney tunes.”

  He quickly repeated some of the unintentionally humorous events they’d witnessed inside the Legion bunker—but stopped in midsentence.

  “Something’s up …” he said enigmatically.

  At that moment, they heard a low whistle from below. Hunter went to the cockpit and stuck his head out of the smashed window. Below were two of the sentries posted forward of the C-5’s nose. Between them was a French Foreign Legion officer. Hunter immediately recognized him. It was the officer with the long scar on his face that they had seen inside the Legion bunker.

  “We caught him poking around our perimeter,” one guard reported.

  “I am Captain Jacques Zouvette,” the Fre
nchman called up to Hunter. “I must talk with you.”

  Hunter thought it over for a moment, then gave the sentries the high sign.

  “OK, bring him up.”

  Five minutes later, the Legionnaire officer was standing before them. His uniform was in slightly better shape than the Legion soldiers in the line trenches, but he was just as thin and haggard. He was sweating profusely—it was getting hot outside as the blazing sun rose higher in the sky.

  “My apologies to you all,” he began in thick English. “I don’t think you saw a true representation of the defensive forces here. I would like to correct that if I may.”

  Hunter eyed him closely. The haunted eyes and the scar running the length of his left cheek spoke volumes of this man’s combat experience. There was something honest-looking about him.

  “Can you tell us exactly what is going on here?” Hunter asked him.

  The Legion officer gratefully sat down.

  “I can try,” he said.

  As they listened to his story for the next ninety minutes, there was no disagreement among them—they had landed in one of the most indefensible positions imaginable. The ridges to the west and the jungle-covered hills to the north and east were held, not by the Viet Minh, as the colonel in the bunker had called them, but by “liberation” forces, nicknamed the “Viet Minx.” The Minx were a collection of well-equipped fanatical armies, subcontracted by a partnership of ruthless Asian warlords called “CapCom.” These warlords stopped at nothing in their quest to conquer the entire country—and, ironically, in the face of their Marxist predecessors, make a profit doing so. Many of the long-rumored offshore oil and gas deposits in and around Vietnam had been found in the past five years—now the country had the potential to be the Kuwait of Southeast Asia. And even in the unstable conditions around the world, oil was still king.

  As Zouvette told it, the base here stood in the way of the Minx’s attempt to secure this part of the valley and a section of a battered highway beyond called Route 9. That is what the Minx and, ultimately, CapCom wished to own, for it would expedite the conquest of the prosperous cities to the south. When those objectives were taken, the Viet Minx would control the top third of the country. This, coupled with the impending large attacks in the Middle Highlands and the southern Mekong Delta area, was expected to lead to the fall of the entire country. Only the stubborn resistance by the Legion for the last six weeks had prevented the Minx from rolling over the base and moving on.

  As Zouvette explained it, it had been six weeks of hell.

  From an original force of 12,000 paratroops—a multinational force of Legionnaires and mercenaries airlifted from what was once called India—all that remained after the nonstop brutal onslaught were about 150 men. And now they were all in a state of shell shock, barely capable of concerning themselves with anything but basic survival.

  But that was not all.

  “The entire medical staff is dead,” Zouvette went on. “The direct result of a complete lack of respect by the Viet Minx for the big red cross. We have no medical facilities. The distribution of supplies is nonexistent.

  “Though it rains buckets everyday, the drinkable water supply is drying up very quickly. Just two days before your arrival, a nearby spring that we drew water from was poisoned by the Viet Minx. My men also do not have much in the way of food. Most of them have been hanging on by sheer willpower alone.”

  There was no doubt that these defenders were fortunate that Bozo had come when it did, Hunter thought. Otherwise, the last assault would probably have turned into a complete slaughter, and the base finally overrun.

  But the unspoken grim conclusion by everyone in the meeting was that the American’s sudden arrival had simply forestalled that outcome—by only a few days at the most.

  Zouvette took a deep breath and went on. “We are surrounded by a seemingly bottomless reserve of attackers. Though they lack air power and heavy guns, the base is constantly pounded night and day by mortar and covered by sniper fire, as you have probably noticed. As soon as the monsoon season started, we were faced with human wave assaults—exactly like the one you landed in the midst of. Every time the heavens open up and the rains pour down, they attack. Whenever the downpour stops, so does the attack.”

  Hunter just shook his head.

  “But that seems ass-backwards,” Ben said. “Why attack constantly and then withdraw completely? If they continued, they could at least hold some territory—there seems to be plenty of them.”

  “They do many strange things,” Zouvette agreed. “Each assault succeeds in overrunning one or two forward positions. Before they withdraw, they fill it with mines, poison, or even toxic waste to make it completely unusable for us again. It’s actually very clever, the little bastards. With each attack the perimeter shrinks, as does our force total. We will soon have our backs against the wall,” Zouvette said, indicating the small mountain about 100 yards behind Bozo. “This base was once three times as big, covering almost a hundred acres. Now, all that is left is this area here, a battered collection of bunkers, foxholes and trenches, most of which are over thirty years old. And I am sad to say that all of them are in shambles. Unfortunately, our resources are so depleted that nothing can be done to strengthen them or build new ones.”

  And Zouvette confirmed one more thing for them. There was absolutely no command structure at the base. The commander, Colonel LaFeete, was quite insane.

  “His orders have no ground in reality, either in a military sense or in his regard for the welfare of his troops,” Zouvette said quietly. “For this last assault, we only had just enough strength left to wait for them to walk into our bunkers. After that …” His voice trailed off and his eyes misted over as he thought of what might have happened. He tried to apologize for not having the ability to come to the rescue of the besieged C-5.

  But Hunter would hear nothing of it.

  “You’ve already gone above and beyond the call of duty, my friend,” Hunter told him.

  “My thanks to you, sir,” Zouvette said. “To all of you. Your timely arrival has saved us from being completely overrun. We are most grateful.”

  Ben mixed up a pot of hot coffee; its aroma quickly filled the small space. Now close to noon, it was getting hot outside and in.

  Zouvette took a long deep sip. Then his face brightened slightly. “Can your planes be fixed?” he asked hopefully.

  It was up to Hunter to deliver the bad news.

  “While the runway is basically in usable shape, it is a moot point.” He paused and looked at Zouvette. “Neither of our C-5s are going anywhere—they are not in flying condition. Nor could they be made so—we just don’t have the gear, the spare parts, or the capability.”

  Zouvette’s expression instantly changed from hope to despair.

  “Then we die here,” he said gloomily, staring into his coffee cup. “As will you, my friends.”

  No one could disagree.

  All in all, it was a bad state of affairs. Hunter knew from the radio transmissions picked up on the way in that they were not the only ones in desperate straits. The whole country of Vietnam was in big trouble, and the likelihood of someone coming to their rescue was practically nonexistent. As far as he knew, the people back at Edwards had no idea where any of them were. And even if they did, there was little they could do about it.

  “The way I see it, we have two very clear objectives,” Hunter slowly began, using a real map of the area brought by Zouvette. “First, we have to defend ourselves. We have to secure the area. We can rebuild the bunkers and shore up the trenches with the heavy machinery on NJ104. We should also repair the wire, and contract our defensive area into a triangular formation. This way we can use the guns from Bozo for interlocking fire to the three main bunkers at the points of the triangle. We need to maintain these close-in positions as well as monitor the status of the entire outer perimeter. If the Minx continue to attack and make useless any forward positions, as Captain Zouvette has told us, we need to
be updated constantly on the situation.

  “Water supplies should be put on strict rationing,” Hunter went on. “Luckily, though, food isn’t a problem right now, as both Bozo and NJ104 are loaded with MRE packs—we will supply the Legion with our surplus immediately.”

  Hunter looked at each of the officers as they passed the coffee pot around the flight deck. Despite the dire situation, not one of these men showed the slightest hint of resignation. Instead, Hunter saw what might be considered as a contradictory vibe: a grim “can do” attitude. He’d been through a lot with them—especially Ben and Frost. But their demeanor never changed. He was proud of them, and proud that he could call them friends. And he knew that because of these men, and the men that served under them, ideas like freedom and democracy would prevail, no matter what the odds.

  “Then,” Hunter continued, “The second thing we have to do is start thinking of ways to get out of here.”

  Each man stared up at him, the expressions a mix of surprise and concern.

  “How will we do that?” Frost asked.

  Hunter just shrugged; he really had no idea. Yet.

  Suddenly, they all heard the spatter of raindrops begin to splash onto the hull of the C-5. Now understanding what it signaled, they all froze—but just for a second. The Minx were about to attack again. They quickly grabbed their weapons.

  “It’s time to take a closer look at who we’re fighting,” Hunter called over his shoulder as he climbed down into the hold.

  Then he leapt from the port-side hatch and ran out into the intense downpour.

  Not five seconds later, more than a thousand screaming, bugle-blowing, flag-waving Viet Minx emerged from the treeline 300 yards away and began a charge towards the base. This human wave was more than 200 yards wide and half as deep. Its obvious target was Bozo.

  Hunter looked back towards the battered airplane and saw the gun crews inside were scrambling to their positions. Off to the left, a small stream of tattered Legionnaires and their mercenaries were running through the trenchworks near the main bunker, manning what was left of their meager defense line. The arrival of Bozo seemed to have infused some hope into these desperate defenders.