Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  “He got away,” Goldberg said bitterly. “Damnit, I missed him. He twisted at the last moment and my shot went wide.”

  “That’s war, Colonel,” Paul said quietly. “Let’s see how we can retrieve the situation.”

  He was always the same, unflappable, I don’t think I’d ever seen him any other way.

  “He went through that doorway, it’s some kind of a hatch,” Diem said.

  We went and looked at it, it wasn’t particularly solid. We could hear someone moving around on the other side of the door, it obviously wasn’t another tunnel exit, at least Phuc was boxed in.

  “Maybe we can negotiate,” Diem said. “He can become a prisoner, at least he gets to live.”

  Before anyone could comment, he stepped in front of the door. “Phuc, you can’t get out, give it up and you’ll live,” he shouted.

  The vicious chatter of an AK47 was his reply, the bullets smashing holes through the door.

  “I think that was your answer,” Ritter said wryly.

  “He knows he’s only got to hold out until some of his people come along, then we’re finished,” Paul said.

  “So what the hell do we do?” Goldberg asked. “We must nail this guy, otherwise it’s all for nothing.”

  I had an idea.

  “Phuc,” I called through the door. He must be able to hear more clearly now, with the holes he’d blown in the woodwork. “How about a good payment, the Americans would pay heavily if you came over to them, it’s better than dying.”

  There was a silence. “Jurgen?”

  My God, he had Helene with him.

  “Are you ok?”

  “I think so,” she said. Phuc spoke furiously to her and she was silent. I turned to Goldberg. “This changes everything, Colonel. That’s my wife in there, we can’t just bust in and take him.”

  “I’m sorry, Hoffman, we may have to, this mission is vital.”

  “Nothing doing, Colonel, we’ll get her out but not with a direct assault.”

  He checked his watch. “I’ll give you five minutes, after that we’re going in there. Don’t try and argue with me, Hoffman, that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  I looked at the door again. How the hell could I prise that Viet Cong bastard out of there without injuring Helene? It was so cruel. We’d come so far, then found her only to have the prospect of rescue almost snatched away. Then I had another idea.

  “Phuc!” Goldberg shouted. “You’re wasting your time with that woman, I’ve just had to kill her husband for trying to stop us.”

  I heard a cry from inside the room, Helene, distraught. But it had to be.

  “We’re leaving, Phuc” Goldberg ignored her. “We’re setting fire to the tunnel complex. We’re also placing charges, when we leave it’ll blow as well, so anyone that the smoke doesn’t kill gets caught in the explosion. You can come with us as a prisoner or stay there and die with the woman, it’s your choice. I couldn’t care less either way.”

  There was silence from inside the locked room, then I heard the sound of sobbing, my heart plunged.

  “Ok, I’ll take that as a no, my friend. Major, fire the place, we’re out of here. We’ll see you in hell, Phuc.”

  The Vietnamese produced a lighter and set fire to a pile of papers while Ritter and Paul smashed the chairs. They threw lumps of wood onto the flames and before long it was burning merrily with smoke filling every available space. It was time for stage two.

  “Let’s go,” Goldberg said.

  We piled back into the tunnel and away from the smoking charnel house, one of the corpses was too close to Diem’s fire and the clothes had caught, the sweet, terrible smell of burning flesh started to fill the tunnel. We donned the respirators that had been stacked in the kitchen.

  At first, nothing happened, there was just the sound of coughing from the other side of the locked door. Then it opened cautiously and Phuc peered out. He had a cloth wrapped over his face and his eyes were streaming with tears. He poked the barrel of an AK47 into the room and looked around, but in truth he could barely see anything, the thick, choking smoke had all but blinded him. Then he came out into the room, pushing Helene in front of him. This time there was no mistake, Goldberg took him with his first bullet, it struck him through his mouth and upwards into his brain, he keeled over, dead. Helene cried out with fear and confusion until she saw me. Her eyes widened, then she recognised me.

  “Jurgen, thank God.”

  We fell into each other’s arms, I held her tightly. Although I’d worked hard to locate her, there had been times when I’d thought I would never see her again. I felt tears pricking at my eyes, I wiped my face and kissed her long and passionately. Her face was wet with tears too, but I suddenly remembered the gas, of course. Paul came up behind her and fastened a respirator to her face, she recoiled at first and then started breathing more normally, she gave him a smile of thanks.

  “We’re all finished here, Hoffman, bring your wife and let’s get out and blow this place,” Goldberg said abruptly.

  Helene heard him and even through the mask I could see her glare. “You can’t, Colonel, my patient is in there, he’ll die.”

  “Which patient?” he asked her.

  “He’s an officer, a major in the North Vietnamese Army.

  Goldberg shrugged. “Then I guess he can stay here with his buddies.”

  “He’s the son of Vo Nguyen Giap,” she said quickly.

  We just stood there, frozen. “Are you sure?” I asked her.

  “His name is Nguyen Tang Son, he is supposedly the illegitimate son of Giap. They’ve been looking after him like he’s the new Messiah, yes, I’m perfectly sure. He is also my patient.”

  “So he’s the guy you were tending to in Cholon when they took you?”

  She nodded. “Yes, that’s right. They were so terrified of anything happening to him that they took me along when they retreated, just to tend his wounds.”

  We didn’t have much time, the smoke was swirling around the tunnel system, before long the Viet Cong would be along to check it out. I looked at Goldberg.

  “He would be a valuable asset, Colonel.”

  “Yes, he would. Can he be moved?” he asked Helene.

  “Yes, of course. If he stays here and you blow the place up he’d die anyway, but he is recovering well, we can move him easily.”

  “Right, we’ll take him with us. Sergeant Bond, would you bring the prisoner. Hoffman, would you help him?”

  I nodded and Jack Bond joined me and Helene, we went into the room which proved to be a tiny infirmary. Major Son was lying on a gurney, coughing, his eyes streaming. He held a pistol but he couldn’t see well enough to aim it. Helene relieved him of it and put it to one side. I looked at her.

  “He looks familiar, I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere before, but I can’t work it out just now.”

  “Yes, he is familiar, I think I might know the answer to where you’ve encountered him in the past.”

  “You mean Giap? He doesn’t look much like him.”

  “No, not Giap. I’ll discuss it later. She bent over him. “Son, we’re taking you out of here.”

  She put the pistol to one side and waited while Jack and I picked him up and started to carry him out.

  “Be careful with him, he was badly hurt,” I heard Helene say. He was still coughing and I found a spare mask and put it on his face.

  “Thank you, Jurgen,” she said sweetly. “Be gentle.”

  “Yes, doctor,” I replied. She smiled.

  We dragged him along the tunnel, it was too low and too narrow to carry him. He moaned and groaned in pain, there was nothing we could do to prevent the bumps and knocks.

  “I’ll give him a shot of morphine when we get out,” my wife said.

  I didn’t reply, in truth we had a lot of other things on our minds. We were deep in enemy territory with the son of General Giap, the commander of the military in the North and regarded as almost a God even in the south, at least, by the communis
ts. I remembered a previous mission where we had kidnapped a VIP and been relentlessly pursued across North Vietnam, almost all the way to Hanoi, while it was still French. I expected no less of a hue and cry once they knew that their General’s son had been taken. We crawled through the first part of the tunnel, then finally reached the shaft where we had left Abe. Major Diem poked his head carefully through the top of the tunnel.

  “All clear, no trouble.”

  One by one we climbed out, when Abe saw the wounded Vietnamese officer he did a double take.

  “What the hell is this?”Then he saw Helene. “My God, you really scored, Helene it’s wonderful to see you. But why the prisoner?”

  Goldberg explained to him and we watched his expression change to astonishment.

  “Giap? My Christ, it’s incredible. We have to get him back, my people in Langley will want a word with this gentleman.”

  I didn’t pity Son if he fell into the hands of the CIA ‘interrogators’ that I’d encountered in Vietnam. Some were reasonably humane, others were not. But that wasn’t my problem, we were deep in enemy territory and the only thing on my mind was getting out. Especially now that I had Helene back, it made it doubly, trebly important.

  “I’m sure they’ll enjoy talking to him, Abe, but in the meantime, would you make sure the charges are all set.”

  “Already done,” he said. “I kept busy while you were down there.”

  He handed Goldberg a switch at the end of a thin wire. I saw Goldberg’s intention and I lunged to stop him but it was too late, he hit the switch and there was a long, low rumble from deep in the ground as the charges ignited. A jet of smoke, flame and dirt shot up into the night sky.

  We were silent for a few seconds. There was only one possible way out of here now that Goldberg had literally told the Viet Cong that we were here.

  “We need to retrace our steps to the house of Le Van Ho,” I said to them. “Abe, you’re good at hiding our backtrail, can you take rearguard, Paul, will you help out?”

  “Glad to,” he said. Goldberg looked rather taken aback that I’d taken command.

  “Hoffman, I’ll organise this, we’ve got a perfectly good escape plan.”

  “Colonel, you’ve just stirred up a hornet’s nest firing off the charges prematurely. How soon before your people can come in and get us out?”

  “About thirty minutes after we all them, no more than that.”

  “We’ve got ten minutes at best, then there’ll be at least a battalion of Viet Cong turning up to start shooting at us. They’ll have anti-aircraft guns deployed in this area and they’ll be itching to use them. If you call those choppers in here now they’ll be shot out of the sky.”

  He was silent for a moment, realising the magnitude of the tactical error he had made. Finally he nodded. “Ok, you’re right, I guess. Let’s go.”

  “The whole area will be buzzing with the enemy, so we need to make as little noise as possible.”

  “What about the Major?” Diem pointed out. “If he thinks his friends are nearby he will shout to them.”

  “You’re right. Helene, give him some more morphine to knock him out. Otherwise we’ll have to kill him.”

  She looked shocked, but she broke the end from an ampoule and injected him.

  “Right, let’s go.”

  We surged along the narrow path that led back to Trang Bang and the shelter of Le Van Ho’s house. I estimated we’d gone half way before a stream of machine gun bullets hammered over our heads.

  “Cover, take cover,” Goldberg shouted. We flung ourselves into the jungle at the side of the path, Goldberg lay next to me.

  “It must be some sort of a fixed sentry post, the tunnel explosion woke them up, we’ll have to deal with that machine gun, we need to get past them quickly.”

  “It’s my responsibility, I’ll deal with it,” Goldberg said grimly. He took two grenades off his webbing and started to crawl forward.

  “Do you need any help, Colonel?” I asked him. He shook his head and kept on crawling.

  Another burst sprayed over our heads. I assumed they knew we must have Son. To kill him with a stray bullet would be tantamount to a death sentence for the man that pulled the trigger. After about a minute there were two huge explosions and Goldberg came running back.

  “They’re gone, we can move out.”

  I stood up and called to the others. We picked up the pace, as much as we could carrying an unconscious man. We were about half a mile from our destination and I was beginning to think we’d make it, at least that far, when we ran around a bend in the path and we were finished. In the moonlight we could see a Soviet made Degtyaryov machine gun was set up on the ground, the gunner and crewman lying grimly on the ground behind it. They were flanked by a group of soldiers, North Vietnamese regulars, the familiar solar topee helmets marking them as different to the Viet Cong. In front of them stood an officer holding a pistol in one hand and a loudhailer in the other. Suddenly a searchlight clicked on and we were flooded with dazzling bright light.

  “Drop your weapons or we will shoot,” he barked in good English.

  “They won’t shoot with Son here,” Goldberg whispered. “We can take them.”

  I was amused at how little he understood the communists.

  “Colonel, even Giap would shoot his son if it was the only way to beat us. We’re out of options, it’s over.”

  He slumped, realising the truth in what I said. These people were no respecters of human life, for sure. We threw our weapons to the ground. Six soldiers ran up and picked them up, four more came up and covered us with their assault rifles. The officer walked up to us.

  “I am Major Ho Van Ba, where is Major Son?”

  Helene stepped forward. “Son is well, Major Ba. I gave him a shot to ease the pain, but other than that he is fine.”

  “Ah, the French doctor, yes. So you were escaping with these men, were you?”

  She said nothing, just stood looking at him with icy disdain. I admired her more than ever at that moment, she was totally unfazed by the armed Viets surrounding us. Ba looked at her and then nodded.

  “It is as well for you that Major Son is unwounded. Release him, my men will escort you into custody.”

  We followed a group of soldiers, several walked behind us, their assault rifles cocked and ready to fire, they made a big show of showing us how ready they were to shoot.

  They herded us into a stone building in the middle of the town, before we went in they frisked us one by one and found some of the weapons that had been hidden in our uniforms. Abe Woltz had a small automatic hidden in an ankle holster and Colonel Goldberg a combat knife in a sheath behind his back. Both men received a series of heavy blows to their heads for their pains. Our prison was probably a secure storeroom once upon a time, there were no windows and the door was made of thick timber, reinforced with iron slats. The roof was corrugated iron, at first glance there seemed no way out of it, other than the door we’d come in. Helene tended to Goldberg and Woltz’s cuts and scrapes as we discussed the situation.

  “Any ideas?” I asked them quietly. They all shook their heads. “Major Diem?”

  He smiled. “I’m afraid not, it would seem this is a good time to pray.”

  “The only praying I’ve ever done was with a large gun in my hand,” Ritter said angrily. “Or even better the fire buttons of a Messerschmitt’s cannon and machine guns. We’ll need to do better than praying.”

  “But we don’t have a large gun, or a Messerschmitt 109, my friend,” I chuckled.

  “Not yet we don’t, but maybe we’ll see an opportunity to grab a gun, you never know.”

  Goldberg snorted. “I wouldn’t count on it, these guys seem to know what they’re doing.”

  I had to agree with him, they weren’t likely to drop their guard, but there was always hope. Then the door opened. Major Ba stood there, flanked by four of his men with AK47s pointed at us. “Who is in charge here?” he demanded.

  Goldberg steppe
d forward. “That’d be me.”

  Ba eyed him for a few moments. “Good. You will come with us.”

  Goldberg walked forward and was seized by two soldiers. They marched him out and the door shut again with an ominous crash. We looked at each other in the gloom, then settled down to wait. The screams started about fifteen minutes later, the screams of the Colonel being tortured. It was searing, drilling through our minds like a red hot needle.

  I was holding my wife tightly, in spite of our capture her nearness was something that I could treasure, I was certain she felt the same too. But it would be perfect if we could get back to our home and out daughter in Saigon. I was working on it already, calculating, looking at guard routines, activity around the building, looking for cracks and crevices in their security. Helene was sobbing, shaking with despair, rescued and recaptured within the hour, hope dashed and replaced by the agonised sounds of Goldberg’s torture. She whispered to me, her voice strained and hoarse. “Will we ever get out of here, Jurgen?”

  “I’ve got out of worse,” I said, trying to make light of a desperate situation.

  But she was too clever to be deceived, she just smiled wistfully. We could hear shouting, the sound of heavy blows on human flesh, a Vietnamese voice screaming questions, Goldberg’s voice in reply, loud, defiant. Then a short pause before his screams started again. I vowed there and then that I would find the bastard that was doing it and put a bullet in his head if it was humanly possible. War was brutal, but there was an awful inhumanity in what they were doing to the Colonel. The screams stopped and a few minutes later the door crashed open. Two soldiers dragged in Goldberg’s limp body, threw it to the ground whilst two others covered us with AK47s, then turned and left, the door crashed shut and the heavy lock rattled. Helene rushed over to check out Goldberg.

  He had been branded with a hot iron, his body was stripped to the waist and burned to the bone in parts. He was suffering badly, his mind almost lost in the hell of the agony he was suffering. He was muttering, “I don’t know anything, nothing. Please, no..”