Black Market

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  Captain Youngbloode worked the rearguard position for the team and had dropped back about twenty meters so that he could listen to the sounds of the jungle. He could hear the NVA soldiers breaking through the bamboo and then it became quiet. They had either stopped, or they had found the team’s trail and were using it. Youngbloode assumed the latter and decided that he would make sure. He slipped off the trail when it curved slightly with the contour of the land and watched. He planned on waiting for only a few minutes and then catching up with the team. He didn’t have to wait that long. The first NVA soldier appeared, walking at a low crouch with his AK-47 sweeping the sides of the trail left and right. The NVA point man was a professional. Youngbloode was thankful that he had held his M-16 at the ready and had it pointed down trail. He opened fire, killing the point man instantly.

  The NVA soldier’s backup man appeared firing an RPD light machine gun. Youngbloode felt the round nick his collarbone and the flash of pain that he chose to ignore. He opened fire again, but this time he was aiming and the RPD man fell backward off the trail. Youngbloode removed two hand grenades off his web gear and threw them high in the air so that they would clear the elephant grass and matted bamboo. The stunt worked and he could hear the NVA wounded scream.

  Captain Youngbloode had been a running back at West Point, and he figured that now was the time to make good use of that talent; he ran down the trail. He was hoping that the team wouldn’t panic when he caught up to them and waste him by accident, but he couldn’t take the chance of slowing down. Chicom grenades exploded in the grass where he had been hiding only moments before. He had covered the length of at least two football fields on the trail and was wondering where the team was when he broke out of the thick green vegetation into a clearing.

  Arnason had been hoping the captain would make it and had been watching for him. He stood up in the foxhole and waved. Youngbloode saw him and sprinted to join the team. At the same time Kirkpatrick and Sanchez saw the NVA break out of the jungle behind the captain and they opened fire. The jungle erupted. The NVA company had been only meters behind the team. Warner’s decision to detour to the old lager site had saved the whole team from an NVA slaughterhouse ambush that had been waiting for them.

  The NVA truck had been traveling alone without guards because the driver knew that one of his division’s battalions was bivouacked in the jungle bordering the road. The unit had crossed over from Cambodia the night before and was waiting until dark to use the highway to march to a site near Catecka, where they were going to participate in a major assault on the highland city of Pleiku and the large American helicopter base at Camp Holloway.

  Arnason held the handset to his PRC-77 radio up to his ear and yelled into the black transmitter. “Rabid Dog … Rabid Dog … this is Bad News Six … over.”

  He was answered instantly. “This is Rabid Dog Six … over.”

  “We’re surrounded by a large NVA unit. I don’t know my grid but we’re at an old company-size lager site. From the looks of it, they had stayed here a couple of weeks.”

  The Special Forces captain knew exactly where the team was. He had seen the column of smoke and had already plotted the location. Arnason’s description had to be the old Cav site. “I have you located and artillery fire is available … Also, I’ve fast movers two minutes out that are carrying napalm …advise!”

  Arnason pressed his switch. “Fire the final protective fires for this location if you have them!”

  “Roger!” The captain was again one step ahead of Arnason and had the artillery battery that supported his camp pull all of the prefired artillery DEFCONs—defensive concentrations—that were used to support units patrolling the highway. The old final defensive fires for the company position were still in the artillery unit’s FDC and computed.

  Artillery rounds began landing within a minute after Arnason had called. The first F-4 jet fighter’s low-level pass caught the recon team off guard and scared them as much as it did the NVA, except the NVA received the presents the aircraft was carrying for them. The Special Forces captain had taken the liberty of directing the fighters from his command bunker. He had been at Arnason’s present position a number of times on patrol and knew it well. The captain had saved the team by reacting so fast. The NVA assault platoon hiding in the jungle had been turned into a bunch of crispy critters by the napalm.

  The recon team was still in trouble. A group of twenty NVA had reached the edge of the team’s defensive perimeter and were too close in for the jets to take them out with their 20mm guns without risking American casualties.

  Youngbloode saw the threat and the NVA flanking movement on the small team and opened fire. He emptied a magazine and reached for another when the first NVA reached his position. He dodged the bayonet thrust and jabbed the barrel of his M-16 into the crotch of the charging soldier. The man’s eyes widened and he gasped, lowering his AK-47. Kirkpatrick used his bayonet on the enemy’s chest.

  Warner dropped down to one knee in his foxhole and tried removing a grenade from his web gear. A fire team of NVA were maneuvering against his foxhole. The NVA sergeant saw Warner duck down and signaled for his team to assault. Koski saw the maneuver and the threat to Warner. He jumped up from his prone position and screamed at the top of his lungs. The sound came out as a bull bellow. He dove at the lead NVA soldier and grabbed the man’s rifle by the front grip, forcing the soldier to hold onto it tighter, and then he reached for the man’s leather belt and swung him up over Warner’s foxhole and into the jungle a good twenty feet away. The momentum of the soldier’s charge and Koski’s enormous strength added to the distance the NVA sailed through the air above his comrades.

  Warner had removed the hand grenade and had pulled the pin but there wasn’t a target for him to throw it at. He watched Koski standing in front of his foxhole waiting for a charging NVA to reach him with the bayonet on his AK-47 fixed and gleaming in the soft sunlight. Koski sidestepped the thrust. The NVA had made the mistake of thinking the American had been paralyzed with fear and wanted the pleasure of running his steel bayonet through his body. He should have shot him. Koski’s hands moved like cobra strikes and yanked the weapon out of the NVA’s hands. The soldier’s eyes opened in terror with the loss of his weapon. Koski used the side of his boot to kick in his face.

  Warner looked over at the rest of his team. They were all engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. He looked back over at die edge of the clearing and saw three NVA kneeling down watching the fight. The one in the center held a pistol in his right hand. Warner had found a target for his grenade. The explosion was lost in the roar of artillery shells exploding all around the team’s location.

  The fighting stopped.

  Kirkpatrick was out in front of his foxhole on all fours. He was panting and sweating profusely over the open-mouthed body of a dead NVA. “I don’t need this shit! I really don’t need it!” No one heard him. The artillery rounds were still exploding in the jungle a hundred meters away. Occasionally a hunk of shrapnel whistled over their heads. A single wild shell exploded in the clearing that sent the team scurrying back into their foxholes.

  Koski landed on top of Warner. “Sorry!”

  Warner sighed. “That’s all right, believe me! I LIKE YOUR COMPANY!”

  Captain Youngbloode sensed that the NVA force had been broken and that they wouldn’t be coming back again. The firefight was over. He laid his neck against the edge of the foxhole and looked out at ant level over the battlefield. The jungle was burning across the front of his position. He could see a half dozen burnt and twisted bodies. A small secondary explosion went off in the flames from some NVA soldier’s ammo. Youngbloode didn’t duck. He just watched the results of what he had been trained for.

  A large king cobra slipped out of the jungle at the edge of the flames and moved swiftly out into the clearing. Youngbloode watched the creature raise its head four feet off the ground and sense the air. The snake crawled over a dead NVA soldier and jerked its head back when it touched
the still hot barrel of the man’s AK-47. The cobra changed direction and started crawling into a collapsed fighting bunker. Youngbloode smiled; today the snake would live. There had been enough killing.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Yardmaster

  Captain Youngbloode sat behind his desk and flipped the fifty-caliber shell he used as a paperweight from end to end, as he thought. Sergeant Arnason had just left his office after briefing him on what he knew about the black-market operation that Shaw was running out of the company supply room. Woods’s remarks about the death of Masters had shaken him the most. Even though it was only circumstantial evidence that linked Shaw to Masters’s death, it was very strong circumstantial evidence.

  He reached up and tilted the pieces of cardboard that Arnason had cut off the boxes before Koski blew up the NVA truck. There was no mistaking that the medical supplies had been destined for his company, but that didn’t make any sense. Just one company could never consume that amount of drugs and bandages.

  A knock on the frame of his door brought Youngbloode out of his trance. “Come in!”

  Captain Gouch pushed the door open and stepped into the sunlit office. “How are you doing, Yakub?”

  “Good, I feel real good now that I’ve had a full night’s sleep.”

  “I like that sign your troops nailed over your door.” Gouch pointed back over his shoulder using his thumb. He was referring to a hand-painted sign above Youngbloode’s private entrance that read THE BLACK TIGER.

  “I don’t know who put that up there, but it adds a little to my command mystique.” Youngbloode tried making light of the sign, but he had really been impressed the first time he had seen it, and he knew exactly who had nailed it above his door and who had picked it up from the Vietnamese sign painter.

  “Did you want to see me about something? I’ve got to get back to my office.” Gouch kept glancing around the room.

  “Yes I do.” Youngbloode leaned back in his chair and looked out of the window and then over at the junior captain. “What do you know about a massive shipment of medical supplies to my company?”

  Gouch twisted his mouth up and shrugged. “Nothing … why?”

  “Well then, someone is forging your signature on documents. The requisitions have all been signed off by you.” Youngbloode looked hard at the young captain.

  “Uh … could be.”

  “I’ll have the intelligence people check that out.”

  “… but then again, I might have signed those documents without really checking the quantities. There’s a lot of paperwork that goes across my desk … you know.” Gouch couldn’t look directly at the recon commander.

  “Yeah, I understand that! I had a staff job that generated my weight in paper every day!” Youngbloode smiled. “I hear you got your ass kicked in a poker game a couple of weeks ago? You’ve got to watch those NCOs, Larry. They are sneaky!” Youngbloode stood and walked around his desk. ‘Thanks for stopping by … You’ve answered a lot of questions for me.”

  Gouch sprang to his feet and left the room without saying good-bye. He was near panicking and almost went straight over to Sergeant Shaw’s supply tent before he caught himself. He turned, looked back toward Youngbloode’s office, and saw the tall captain’s silhouette standing in the screened three-foot-high window that went all the way around the hooch.

  Sweat sprang out all over Gouch’s forehead. He was terrified. Youngbloode knew! He was sure that the man knew what had happened. He had even mentioned the poker game! Gouch mumbled under his breath as he hurried toward his office. “He knows! Oh damn—he knows!”

  Sergeant Arnason left the shadow of the building he was standing next to and went back over to Captain Youngbloode’s office. He entered the room without knocking and smiled at the captain. “He’s shook, sir. There’s no doubt about it; he’s in on it somehow.”

  “I figured that … Go on back to your team. Thanks, Sergeant.” Youngbloode rubbed his lips softly with the knuckle on his right index finger as he plotted his next move. “Have the first sergeant come in here, would you please?” He glanced up at Arnason and added, “And don’t forget what I told you about those unauthorized ‘Bad News’ caps. Your team can only wear them on patrol or when they’re in or on their bunker. You wear your helmets like everyone else when we have senior visitors in the area.”

  “They’ve been told sir, and thanks for letting them—”

  Youngbloode cut Arnason off before he could finish his sentence. “They earned that privilege. Don’t forget to send in the first sergeant.”

  Arnason nodded and left the office. The first sergeant appeared at the door seconds later. “Yes sir?”

  “First Sergeant, I’d like to see all of the money order letters of authorization the Company has issued for the past two years, especially Sergeant Shaw’s.”

  “Yes sir, but I don’t think they’ve kept them on file that far back.”

  “Try, First Sergeant.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The company first sergeant left the commander’s office and went over to his desk. He laid his hand on the company land-line telephone and looked back at the captain’s closed door. He owed Shaw over six hundred dollars in markers. The old sergeant smiled to himself. Maybe he could work something out where those markers would be torn up. A favor should be worth a measly six hundred dollars, especially if it was worth much more.

  Youngbloode watched his first sergeant through a narrow crack where the door and the frame didn’t join together completely. He shook his head and pressed his lips together. He had hoped the senior NCO was clean, but it was obvious that greed was a powerful master.

  Koski sat on the edge of the bunker and rubbed his thumbs over the silver-and-blue medal he held in his powerful hands. He ran one thumb slowly over the silver rifle and then over the wreath that surrounded it. A Combat Infantryman’s Badge didn’t mean that much to a lot of people in the Vietnam War, but to Koski it was higher than the Medal of Honor. The badge proved that he was a warrior who had fought an enemy. He had joined a long line of his ancestors.

  “You sure like that thing, Otto … You’re going to wear the finish off and then you’ll have to polish it.” Warner leaned back against the roof wall of sandbags that had been stacked three high. He fixed his muscles in the warm sun.

  “It is important to me.” Koski smiled.

  Sanchez tilted his head back and finished the can of cherry soda. “I hear the captain has put the whole team in for Bronze Stars with ‘V’ devices.”

  “One of the clerks told me that he typed up the orders, and he also told me that Captain Youngbloode was recommended for the DSC by the battalion commander and he turned it down!” Warner leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his knees.

  “Why?” Koski frowned. It didn’t make sense to turn down a high valor award.

  “The rumor is that he feels he doesn’t deserve a DSC when”—Warner looked over at Koski out of the corner of his eye—“you’re only getting a Bronze Star. He doesn’t buy all that officer crap.”

  Koski tilted his head to one side and made a so what? expression. “He is an officer.”

  Warner’s face turned a bright red. “I know I haven’t said thanks yet, Otto … but thanks for what you did for me out on patrol.”

  Koski stood and stretched. The muscles covering his shoulders rippled and fluttered. “It was nothing. It’s not your fault that you’re so fucking skinny.”

  “I don’t need that shit, Koski!” Warner replied angrily.

  Sanchez added a serious note. “Why are you so hot on killing gooks, Big O?”

  Koski turned his back on his teammates and looked out over the no-man’s-land between the barbed wire and the first green strip of jungle. “Because my grandfather served in the Polish army during World War II.”

  “I don’t know if I would brag about that shit, man. Didn’t they charge German tanks with fucking spears?”

  Koski turned back to look at Sanchez. “Lances.”

>   “What the fuck is the difference—it was dumb!”

  “You can learn a lesson, my Mexican friend.” Koski’s accent thickened as he talked about the world-famous Polish cavalry. “The reason the Polish cavalry ended up charging tanks on horseback was because they were too good.” The big Pole smiled when he saw the puzzled look on both Sanchez and Warner’s faces. “Yes, too good. The Polish cavalry was the best cavalry in the world after the First World War. There was nothing better, and because of that one fact alone, the Polish High Command hesitated at disbanding their cavalry units and replacing them with the new mechanical weapons. It was that simple—they had been too good and that is a very important lesson! A warrior must always remain flexible, willing to experiment with new things, and he must never cement his ideas!” The anger in Koski’s voice was intimidating.

  “Makes good sense to me.” Warner knew when to back off and change the subject. “What did your grandfather do during the war?”

  “He was the commanding general of the Polish Airborne Brigade.” The respect the young Pole held for his grandfather polished each of the words.