Black Market

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  “We didn’t plan on leaving, not until Sergeant Cutter finishes explaining what happened to one of my recon men: Daryl Masters.” Youngbloode saw Cutter reaching under his jacket. “Go ahead … it’ll be one of the dumber things you’ve done today.”

  Cutter let go of the pistol and sighed. It was over.

  “Let’s go over to the colonel’s office and talk about it.” Youngbloode smiled. “This black ass has a lot of questions for you.”

  * * *

  Captain Rankin sat in his stateroom drumming his fingers on the top of the oak table he used for a desk. He looked over at the antique ship’s clock and unintentionally bit his bottom lip, drawing a little blood. Cutter was over an hour late. Doc McPeters had arrived forty-five minutes earlier and was down in the empty forward hold freezer. Rankin had pre-set the temperature that morning at twenty-five degrees below zero and figured that the doc would last only a few hours in there wearing his lightweight veterinarian’s jacket.

  The sound of an approaching speedboat brought Rankin to his feet. He was slightly nervous and still hadn’t figured out how he was going to convince Cutter to go down in the hold. It would be a lot harder than it had been getting the doctor down there. The vet was used to being asked to enter the freezers to inspect meat, but Cutter would be suspicious.

  Rankin left his office and walked slowly down the deck to the shipside stairs that led down to the portable docking facility. He was shocked to see that it wasn’t Cutter boarding the San Francisco Gull, but a team of military police carrying riot shotguns, and men wearing civilian clothes.

  The senior MACV agent held his pistol pointed down at the deck and read the ship’s captain his Miranda rights.

  Rankin realized that his black-market operation was exposed. “You’d better get down to freezer 16 right away and let Doctor McPeters out.” He looked directly in the eyes of the senior agent and tried smiling but lost the desire. Rankin knew that they would search the ship and find McPeters, but if they hurried he might still be alive, and he would face only a black-marketing charge, not murder.

  It wasn’t Captain Rankin’s lucky day.

  Sanchez sat on the edge of the steel Army cot and ate from the half-gallon container of chocolate revel ice cream with a plastic spoon. He scraped the bottom of the paper container and looked up at Koski. “Man, I could eat another one of these.”

  “Go get it. The colonel said we could have anything we want.” Koski had finished his half-gallon a few minutes earlier and had stretched out on the soft mattress. It was going to feel good sleeping on a real mattress. He folded his fingers together behind his head and looked up in the rafters of the hooch.

  The screen door opened and a skinny clerk stepped into the well-lit barracks that was being occupied by the recon team. “Excuse me, is Sergeant Woods here?”

  Sanchez looked over at the clerk and shook his head. He had a mouthful of ice cream and didn’t answer until he swallowed it. “He’s with Warner over at the MARS station making a call back to the States … Why?”

  “Oh, I just wanted to thank him for helping me out this afternoon…” Teddy’s eyes drifted over to Koski’s bare chest and jerked away when he saw the look in the big Pole’s eyes.

  “He should be back in an hour or so. Who should I tell him stopped by?” Sanchez shook his head and grinned. It was very obvious the clerk was the kind of fellow who chose boys over women.

  “Tell him it was Teddy … Ted.” He tried sounding more masculine, but it didn’t work. “I’m in the barracks two doors down, if he gets back soon.”

  Sanchez nodded his head. “I’ll tell him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, believe me, I’m sure!” Sanchez threw the empty container into the trash barrel.

  Warner sat behind the microphone in the MARS station and waited for the stateside shortwave radio operator to hook him into a long-distance telephone line. He wished that he could have a little more privacy, but this was the best they could do and it was important that he call back home.

  The telephone rang. Warner could feel his gut tighten up. It would be weird talking to his parents from Vietnam. He could picture the location of each telephone in their Bloomfield Hills mansion. The telephone kept ringing and Warner’s mind moved from room to room.

  “I don’t think they’re going to answer at that number … Do you want me to try somewhere else as long as we’ve already made a hookup?” The shortwave operator in the States knew how difficult it was to get through.

  Warner pushed the TALK switch. “Let it ring a few more times, will you? Over.”

  “Sure, I can do that. Over.”

  The telephone rang for another minute and Warner was about ready to give up when an out-of-breath voice answered.

  “Hello?” The line was filled with static. “Hello?”

  “Sis?”

  “Bobby? Is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can barely hear you!” She tried catching her breath. “I just got home and the phone was ringing.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Mom and him are over at the Oakland Country Club for dinner! Speak up a little!”

  Warner looked around the room and felt embarrassed but spoke louder anyway. “Sis … I’ve got something very important that I want you to do for me.”

  “Good! I can hear you better now.” She lowered her voice.

  “Sis, I want you to sell my Cobra—”

  “Sell your AC Cobra?” She raised her voice almost to a shocked scream. “You want to sell your Cobra! Come on, Bobby! You’ve got to be kidding!” She gave a short laugh. “I thought you would rather become a monk than part with that car.”

  Warner looked back over his shoulder and saw the radio operators smiling at him. He knew that the rest of the conversation was going to be listened to by everyone within hearing range of the speaker. “I left a power of attorney with Mom. I want you to sell the car for whatever you can get for it and send fifteen thousand to the following person.”

  Woods raised his eyebrows.

  “Bobby, that car is worth almost twenty thousand dollars!” She was becoming concerned over her brother’s request. “Are you in some kind of trouble over there?”

  “No, Sis! Just do what I ask! Please?”

  “Dad is going to crap his pants when he hears you want to sell your AC Cobra … Go ahead.”

  “I want you to send the money to the Koski family, they live in Hamtramck … and I don’t want them to know where it came from!”

  “Bobby! This is really weird! Are you involved in drugs?”—her voice changed to a threat—“because if you are, I won’t have any part of this!”

  Warner glanced around the room and felt like a fool, but he had to tell her the real reason why he was selling his car or she would never help him. “One of my teammate’s parents has cancer and they need the money for a series of operations…” He answered his sister’s next question before she asked it. “… they’re too poor to have insurance. Now will you sell my car?”

  There was a long pause before she answered. The shortwave operator thought he had lost the connection and started reaching for the dial when her voice came back over the airwaves.

  “You can bet that skinny little butt of yours that I’ll do my best!”

  “Thanks, Sis. I don’t know exactly where they live, but it’s somewhere on Conant Avenue and the railroad tracks.”

  “Don’t worry, Bobby … you know Dad … He’ll find them.” She felt the tears running down her cheeks. They weren’t for the people living in Hamtramck, but for her brother. When he had left for Vietnam he couldn’t have cared less about poor people. Bobby had been a selfish brat who cared only about his own self and his 427 AC Cobra.

  “Thanks, Sis … and tell Dad and Mom that I love them.” He tried whispering the last part of the sentence.

  “We love you too, Bobby!”

  The connection went dead.

  Sergeant Woods squeezed Warner’s shoulder.
There wasn’t anything that either of them could say. “Let’s go back to the barracks.”

  Warner nodded and got up to get his gear. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

  Woods turned as they were leaving the room and held his finger up to his lips. The radio operators nodded in agreement.

  The supply depot was well lit and the walk back to the barracks was peaceful with the sound of waves from the bay reaching them.

  “That’s really a nice thing you’re doing for Koski…” Woods kept looking straight ahead as they walked.

  “I owe him. He saved my ass when we were on patrol.” Warner’s voice was extremely soft.

  “I know he did, but…” Woods stopped walking and turned to face Warner. “You own an AC Cobra?”

  Warner nodded his head shyly.

  “A 427 AC Cobra!”

  “Yes! So what’s the big deal?” Warner was getting mad over Woods’s teasing tone of voice.

  “You really are a rich little shit!”

  “Get off my ass, Sergeant!”

  “That’s it! From now on your skinny little ass is going to be walking point!” Woods smiled.

  “Fuck you, Sergeant … Have you ever heard about fraggin’s?” Warner waved his finger at Woods. “You make Koski walk point!”

  They had reached the door to the barracks and Koski had heard his name mentioned.

  “What the fuck do you mean, me walk point?”

  Warner was in a good humor and laughed. “Yeah, you’re going to be the permanent point man for the team.”

  Koski looked at Warner out of the corner of his eye. “What have you been doing, smoking that weird shit?”

  “Maybe, Polack, maybe!”

  Sanchez leaned up off his cot on one elbow and broke up the conversation. “Sergeant Woods, a clerk from the depot stopped by to see you.” Sanchez batted his eyelids and spoke in a heavy lisp. “He wants you to stop by his barracks so that he can personally thank you for what you’ve done for him.”

  Warner started laughing over Sanchez’s rendition of a homosexual’s voice. Coming from the very macho Mexican, it was even funnier. Even Koski laughed.

  “This is no way to treat a noncommissioned officer!” Woods was getting a little pissed over the ribbing, and the men laughed even harder.

  The tension of weeks of war was draining out of them.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Shakedown Mission

  Captain Youngbloode sat in the back row of the brigade’s operations bunker and looked over the heads of the assembled company and battalion commanders. He could see the whole range of human emotion etched on the faces of the commanders as they waited for the brigade commander to enter the bunker and brief them on the upcoming major operation. Those who would be closest to the actual fighting showed the most fear. Youngbloode could pick out of the crowd the company commanders who belonged to the alert battalion for the week; they would be the first to air assault into a new area.

  “Hello, Youngbloode, are you ready for this one?” A gray-haired captain spoke to the recon company commander from his position against the sandbags.

  “Always ready.”

  The staff officer tapped his thigh with a rolled-up copy of the operations order the colonel was about to brief the commanders on. “You’ll have plenty of action this time.”

  “Do you know where the brigade is going?” Youngbloode glanced at the overaged captain out of the corner of his eye.

  The tired-looking staff officer leaned forward and whispered so only Youngbloode could hear him. “Khe Sanh.”

  A chill slipped down Youngbloode’s spine. The Khe Sanh Plateau was a notorious North Vietnamese stronghold. The Marine units that worked that area out of the large Vandergrift support base always found a fight when they entered the plateau. The Special Forces A-camp at Lang Vei was always under some kind of attack and was the only permanent American or South Vietnamese base on the large plateau.

  “Gentlemen, the brigade commander.” The colonel’s adjutant called the assembled commanders to attention.

  The brigade commander was a dignified West Point officer who had been the number one graduate in his class and was expecting a promotion to brigadier general as soon as he left his command. Youngbloode had been invited to a special officer’s call for West Point graduates and had met the colonel there. He smiled as he watched the senior officer strut down the aisle; even in war, the West Point clique operated at peak efficiency, making sure their contemporaries received the best commands and what they called their share of the awards and decorations. The clique was the one thing he didn’t like about the West Point Protective Society. He had been forced to make it on his own since he was a kid, and the survival instinct he had developed over the years served him better than any clique did, especially in combat.

  Youngbloode flexed his jaws when he realized that as he thought about West Point, he had been sorting out the graduates in the room from the ROTC types and the hated OCS officers. His eyes locked with those of a captain who had graduated from his class. The captain smiled as if he was still the team quarterback getting ready to leave the locker room after a pep talk from the coach. Youngbloode nodded his head but didn’t smile back. He suspected that the captain was the one who had sent the article about “Black Tiger” to the West Point alumni newsletter. He was sure he had been branded with the title for life after the article came out.

  The brigade commander turned on the raised podium and faced the assembled group. He wore a grim expression on his face and held the wooden pointer in front of him. “Gentlemen, it isn’t often that I have the chance to see all of you assembled together at the same time. War precludes our gathering together even socially…”

  Youngbloode felt a smile coming on and fought to control it. The brigade commander didn’t have any trouble assembling the West Point graduates for a social hour during war.

  “… but it was absolutely necessary that I assemble all of you together for at least a morning so that you can be briefed by my staff on our upcoming mission…” He tapped the map with his pointer. All eyes in the room followed the tip of the wooden stick as it slipped up over the map and stopped when it reached the Khe Sanh Plateau. The room was quiet and more than a few low sighs could be heard. The colonel smiled and continued, “As you all know, the Khe Sanh area has been a pain in the ass to the Marines since they were assigned there. They have suffered huge numbers of casualties, but”—the colonel frowned and scanned his officers—“Marines don’t know how to fight a guerrilla war like we do. Marines are specialized at taking beaches, not fighting an elusive enemy…”

  All eyes in the room, with the exception of the colonel’s, looked at the two Marine liaison officers that had been assigned to the brigade from the First Marine Division. Youngbloode was impressed; the Marines maintained their composure well.

  “Our brigade has been assigned the mission of opening Highway 9 from Vandergrift to the old French fort … here.” He tapped the map after locating the fort. “We have been assigned the task of providing security for the Marines until they can build a base near the old village of Khe Sanh … here.” He tapped the map again and turned to face the officers. “Youngbloode?” The colonel searched the crowd for his recon company commander.

  “Here sir.” Youngbloode raised his arm so the colonel could locate him.

  “Ah! There you are, hiding in the back of the room … our Black Tiger!”

  Youngbloode felt his face getting very warm.

  “Your recon company is going to be very busy! You have been assigned the AO to the far west side of the plateau. We plan on using your teams as an early warning system for the rest of the brigade. We need to know as soon as possible when large NVA units cross the river that divides Laos from South Vietnam.” He followed the winding course of the river with the tip of his pointer and stopped when he reached an area in Laos directly across from the Khe Sanh Plateau. “This area is going to be especially difficult for us: Co Roc Mountains in Laos.” The colonel
looked from the map over to Youngbloode. “I don’t need to tell you that what I’m going to say next is top secret. We have select Special Forces teams already over there reconnoitering that area. We think the NVA have a battery of 152mm artillery set up on the reverse slope of that mountain.” He continued staring at Youngbloode. “Our recon company will be stretched out along the basic route of the river from here … to here.”

  Captain Youngbloode held his breath. He was being given a strip of land 15,000 meters long! It would take every single man he had in the company, plus his clerks, to establish a river watch over that much territory.

  “Of course, you’ll have some help in this assignment from the Marine Force Recon Company…”

  Youngbloode sighed and the men in the room started laughing, not at him but with him. They had all realized that the strip of land was impossible for a small recon company to handle.

  “Thank you sir!” Youngbloode’s comment broke the tension even further and the officers laughed harder.

  The brigade commander raised his hands and brought the group back under control. “This is not going to be fun and games, gentlemen, but a real nasty assignment that we must not take lightly!” The colonel aimed his pointer at Youngbloode. “You can be excused from the rest of this briefing to inform your men. Your company will leave in the morning for LZ Stud near the Marine base at Vandergrift and then be deployed a few days ahead of the brigade.”

  Youngbloode saluted the colonel and left the bunker, followed by the gray-haired staff officer. The air smelled good after the condensed cigar smoke in the bunker. Youngbloode wondered why battalion commanders thought it was necessary to smoke cigars in combat. Maybe it was because of all the World War II movies.

  “Here’s your op orders, Captain.” The gray-haired officer always referred to West Pointers by rank if they were subordinate to him or his peer. He had been passed over three times and knew that when he left Vietnam after this tour of duty, he would be released from active duty. He had won five Purple Hearts and a dozen valor awards, but at the same time he had received an Article 15, which was a kiss of death to a career officer.