by Eric Helm
They hailed a cab, and as soon as they were in the back seat, Lockridge tried to slip his hand up Le Tran’s skirt again. She shifted around, giving him the freedom to do it.
And then they were at the house. Lockridge tossed the money in the driver’s window, for once not arguing with the price, which was much too high. He grinned at the driver and spun around. The house was ablaze with light.
“What’s going on?” demanded Lockridge.
“My mother is here. She came for a visit.”
Lockridge felt his shoulders slump, and he moaned in anguish. A mother in the house meant there would be nothing but tea.
Le Tran turned to him, leaned her head on his chest and let her hand wander over his crotch. “We can do nothing with my mother here. Nothing.”
“I know,” said Lockridge, his frustration mounting.
“You tell me your schedule and we can meet somewhere and have some fun.”
Without a thought, Lockridge began to give her the entire schedule of the guards at the embassy, including the times the guards changed, when the slack periods were and how many men would be off each day of the Lunar New Year. He told her how she could sneak around the embassy to see him and where the most vulnerable points on the walls were. He told her everything he could remember, never thinking of the military value of the information he was handing out.
And there had been no protests from Jones this time because he was standing in the shadows, his hand inside the blouse of Le Tran’s sister. His attention was drawn to the rock-hard points of her nipples as her tongue probed his mouth and her hand felt the swelling in his pants.
A light at the front of the house snapped on, and both couples jumped apart. An old Vietnamese woman, bent with age, appeared in the doorway and waited. Le Tran squeezed Lockridge’s hand. “I shall see you soon.”
“I know you will,” said Lockridge, not knowing how soon it would be.
CHAPTER 9
WIRE SERVICE BUREAU, CITY ROOM, DOWNTOWN SAIGON
Robin Morrow was only half-awake when she walked into the city room. The air was heavy with the aroma of coffee, and the air-conditioning was drying the sweat from her face and body quickly. She moved to her desk, and let her camera bag drop onto the floor, wishing someone would close the blinds on the windows. With a groan she sat in her chair, then leaned forward, her head in her hands. For some reason, she wished she was still in bed. It was just one of those days when it was too early to do anything.
As she sat there thinking about life in general and her place in it in particular, Mark Hodges left his office and moved among the desks, weaving his way toward her. He stopped short of her desk. “You okay?”
She looked up and blinked, as if seeing him for the first time in her life. “I’m fine. I’m just tired. I wish just once it wouldn’t be so hot outside and so damned cold inside.”
Hodges held out a piece of teletype paper. “This might make you feel better.”
Without a word, she took the paper and scanned it. Marines at Khe Sanh had been attacked by a large force of Viet Cong and NVA. They had been heavily mortared and rocketed, and it seemed that the enemy was trying to turn Khe Sanh into another Dien Bien Phu.
“Why should this make me happy?”
Hodges parked a hip on her desk and looked down at her. “You must really be in bad shape. This is the great battle that you predicted. You said the enemy was planning something, and this is it.”
Morrow smiled weakly. “But.”
“But,” agreed Hodges. “This is their last gasp. They’re trying for something spectacular so that when they hit the negotiating table, they’ll have something to bargain with. Not much, but something.”
“No,” said Morrow. “This isn’t it. This is the beginning, but this isn’t what I’ve been worried about.”
“Jesus, Robin. It looks like they’ve put all their eggs into one basket for this final attack. If the Marines beat it back, it’s going to be all over but the shouting.”
Morrow rocked back in her chair and studied her editor. Here was a man, she felt, who had no idea about what was happening. He made decisions, wrote articles about the war, expounded on his opinions, but had no idea what was going on around him. Maybe it was because he spent all his time in Saigon listening to career soldiers who had turned into politicians, telling him what he wanted to hear so that it would get printed at home. Men who were thinking of jobs after the Army and men who knew exactly what the President and his cabinet wanted to hear. Men who knew that high rank didn’t come to those who rocked the boat.
But all that was garbage. Morrow knew it because she hung around with Mack Gerber and the lower ranking men at MACV Headquarters. Gerber had told her things he had observed on his trips into the field, not the classified observations that went into secret reports, but unclassified information that the media people didn’t bother to ask for. Gerber had told her to read between the lines of reports, to see that the big battle in the Hobo Woods meant there were hundreds of enemy soldiers being infiltrated into the area. If the enemy had been abandoning the war, those men wouldn’t have been there.
She sat up, opened a drawer, took out a tissue and slowly wiped the sweat from her face. Tossing the napkin into the wastebasket, she shook her head. “Mark, you don’t understand. There’s something big going down.”
“Okay, Robin, have it your way.” He straightened and looked at her as if she were a not-too-bright child who refused to listen to reason. “Since you won’t listen to me, I want you to head over to the American embassy for the press briefing on this situation that’s developing at Khe Sanh.”
“What about Song Be?”
“That’ll have to wait. Khe Sanh is more important now. That’s why I want you over at the embassy.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to go to Khe Sanh in person?”
“Someone will cover that. Your job is to go to the embassy.”
Morrow nodded and leaned forward. She could outline some of the things that Gerber had told her, but decided that Hodges wouldn’t listen. She’d just have to wait until the situation blew up and it was too late for him to deny that it was happening. When the enemy made its move, she would have her story.
“What time’s the briefing?” she asked wearily.
“At eleven. Take your camera and get us some good art. That building is fairly new, and we don’t have any good pictures of it. Maybe we can work up a feature about it, if there’s nothing else happening.”
“You got your ticket yet?” she asked sarcastically.
“Ticket for what?”
Morrow stood. “Your ticket for the ride home. You must be leaving soon.”
The look on Hodges’s face hardened. “You just worry about yourself, Morrow.”
“I’ll be at the embassy in case anything important happens,” she said sweetly.
The attitude in the team house was one of expectation. Jewell had let his men interrogate the prisoners until they had every scrap of evidence they needed. They had learned as much as the two men knew and they were going to put it all to work for them. They had been lucky that the men they captured had been Viet Cong from the local infrastructure and not NVA regulars who had come down from the North to assist the locals in their fight against the Americans. If the prisoners had been NVA, they wouldn’t have known much that was useful.
Jewell sat on one of the tables in front of his men. “We’ve learned one thing that has been reported to Nha Trang in the past hour. That’s the size of the NVA force now in our area. The increase is significant and suggests something is coming. There’s going to be some kind of push by the enemy.” He grinned at them and added, “No, I don’t care to guess about it right now. Besides, that’s not our immediate concern.”
He pointed toward the rear of the room. “Now, for those of you who don’t know, we have a couple of men in from SOG.”
He waited while Gerber and Fetterman stood and then sat back down.
“All right. Here’s
what we know. Sergeant Thompson was on a normal swing through the countryside yesterday. Given the civic action programs demanded by MACV, and the fact that the area around here has been fairly quiet, Thompson was traveling alone in the middle of the day. Apparently the local infrastructure decided that his presence in a jeep by himself was too much of an insult. How can they control the population with lone American soldiers ranging far and wide?”
Jewell shifted his position and stared at the floor. He gripped the side of the table with both hands, the knuckles turning white. He swung his legs back and forth.
“Now apparently someone in one of the villages that Thompson passed through alerted the locals and they set up the ambush. They stopped his jeep outside of Ap Tan Hoa. He held them off until he was out of ammunition. They then advanced on him, took him prisoner and—”
Jewell’s voice broke then, and he was quiet for a moment. No one in the small, dark, warm room spoke. A few watched the team commander as he fought to regain his control. They watched his chest heave and his breathing even out from the ragged gasps it had been. Each of them understood the emotion and none of them was embarrassed by it.
“They took him prisoner, shouting that he should surrender and he would be a prisoner. With no ammo, his radio shot to hell and his jeep disabled, he had no choice. He did as they advised and surrendered to them.”
Again Jewell fell silent. He looked at his men. “From all appearances, they played the terror game with him. Held a pistol behind his head and fired it as he knelt there. A bullet into the ground or into the air. Thompson didn’t react right. Seemed to be too brave. Maybe he believed they wouldn’t really shoot him.”
Now Jewell laughed, shaking his head. “I would have been shaking, but Thompson didn’t even jump when the pistol was fired. A hell of a thing. Anyway, that pissed them off, so the leader shot him in the back of the head. Just like that. Killed him in violation of the rules of land warfare.”
There was a moment of silence, then Jewell continued. “We know the name of the leader of the local cell — Tran Tri Van. I’ve seen him around the villages acting important. Some kind of elected local wheel and the head of the Viet Cong infrastructure. Now no one’s said that he pulled the trigger, but he’s the leader and he’s the one who’s going to pay.”
Jewell turned and picked up a photograph off the table beside him. He held it up. “Sergeant Thompson got this picture of the man several weeks ago. He’s average, about five-five and about a 120 pounds. But he’s easy to identify. He has a knife scar that runs across his face. The tip of his nose is missing.”
“What are we going to do, Captain?” asked one of the men.
“I’ve spoken to a couple of you already and to our visitors. Because they were ambushed along with Sergeant Albright later, they’ve asked to go after Van. I’ve decided that they should.”
“Captain,” said another man, “I’d like to be included on that mission.”
“Sorry, Prewitt, the team’s been designed. Captain Gerber’s made a good point. He suggested that he and Sergeant Fetterman should be included because they’re from Saigon. Teaches the enemy that Special Forces soldiers from all over Vietnam will come to avenge the death of a fellow.”
“He was my friend,” said Prewitt.
“I know he was,” said Jewell. “But listen to the plan. I think you’ll approve of it.”
He waited for a minute, looking from face to face, trying to gauge their reactions. He then launched into a detailed description of the plan based on information given to them by the prisoner. Since it was something that was going to be carried out in the next few hours, it was decided that the prisoners would be held in a small hootch by themselves with no contact with any of the Vietnamese except the camp commander. Once the mission was over, they would be put in with the general POW population.
After he described the plan, he asked for questions. There were a few, but most of the men realized that the plan was good. Just a quick helicopter flight to Hiep Hoa and then a quiet hike through the swamps until they were close to Ap Tan Hoa Three where Van often spent the night. He was there three or four nights a week, usually with two or three of his most trusted soldiers and lately with the higher ranking members of the NVA. The women there entertained them through the night, and they often stayed until close to noon.
When Jewell ended the meeting, all the members of the team talked to him privately, each explaining why he should be included on the team. Jewell told each of them why they weren’t going to be included, but that they must maintain a low profile so that the local Viet Cong wouldn’t report anything to their superiors.
Gerber, Fetterman and Albright hung back until everyone else was gone. Then all of them walked into the bright morning sun.
“How soon do you want to leave?” asked Jewell.
“It’ll take us a couple of hours to get through the swamps, but we don’t want to leave too early. Get us a chopper in here about one and then we’ll head over to Hiep Hoa,” replied Fetterman.
“And I’d like to suggest that someone put a patrol out from the sugar mill,” said Gerber. “A routine ambush patrol that will help us cover our movements.”
“That’s no problem,” said Jewell. “I’ll get on the horn and arrange it.”
“Then we’ll hit the field about three this afternoon and we’ll be able to get into position by eight or nine tonight. If we stick to the swamps and the cover, they won’t see us coming.”
“Good.”
They all walked on until they reached the perimeter. There, they stopped and stared into the distance to the west. Gerber wondered if the other men were sharing his thoughts, that their target was undoubtedly telling the villagers that the Americans and the puppet soldiers from Saigon would be there to kill them in retribution for the death of their friend, that the Americans would kill them because all Vietnamese looked the same to them. He was in for a real surprise, Gerber knew.
Throughout the night there were sounds in the jungle around them. First there was the buzzing of insects, then the noise made by animals as they stalked or tried to avoid one another. From the distance came the boom of artillery or the rumble of bombing, including an Arc Light, which Tyme felt rather than heard. And finally there was the barely audible noise of the enemy slipping through the jungle searching for them.
Tyme had spread the men out, facing in opposite directions with their feet touching so that they could cover the whole area around them. He had told them to remain quiet, that the slightest movement or sound could be heard by the enemy and lead right back to them.
With the wounded man looked after, Tyme had settled down to wait for morning, knowing it was unlikely the enemy would find them if they were quiet. He spent the night with his eyes shifting over the ground in front of him as he tried to memorize the locations of the bushes, trees and fallen logs, all the while listening to the rustling of the leaves as the night breezes blew through the jungle. But despite the wind, the heat remained, held in by the thick cover of the trees, and with the humidity running high, it was like lying on the ground wrapped in a wet blanket. All in all, it was an uncomfortable night, with the sweat dripping and the desire for water growing.
Tyme ignored his thirst for most of the night. Once, he rolled to his side slowly, being careful not to crush any of the vegetation. Then he undid the buttons on the fly of his jungle fatigue pants. Zippers made noise, but the buttons popped open without a sound. He urinated, letting the liquid trickle out slowly and without a sound. It was a slow, irritating process, but it was better than getting killed because he couldn’t take a little discomfort.
When morning finally arrived, heralded by monkeys squealing in the treetops and birds shouting the news, Tyme checked the men around him. All of them had been quiet throughout the night, probably using their fear to keep them awake. Who could sleep with snakes crawling around looking for food? Tyme hadn’t told them that few snakes would hunt at night.
Slowly he extricated himself
from his hiding place, moving carefully because of the stiffness of his muscles. He stood upright next to a teak tree, one hand on the smooth trunk, searching the ground in front of him. But there was no sign of the enemy. With the sun, Tyme felt better. Charlie would be in hiding now, afraid of American air power.
Tyme headed back to the wreckage of the chopper with the flight crew. As he approached, he heard a voice speaking quietly. He waved the men down, pointed to positions and used sign language to tell them to remain in place. Then he crawled forward, easing his way across the dank jungle floor, the odor of rotting vegetation and wet earth in his nostrils.
As he neared the chopper, he heard the voice again, speaking in Vietnamese. He worked his way around until he was near the base of a palm tree. From his position he could see four VC, all dressed in black pajamas. Scrambling over the chopper and pulling at the equipment left behind, they were wearing Ho Chi Minh sandals and web gear, the latter including a chest pouch that held banana clips for AKs.
Tyme searched for signs that there were more than four. They piled the stolen equipment near the cargo compartment door, seeming to take it for granted that the crew was gone and that no one would be back. There was no sign that they had posted guards.
He slipped his thumb forward along the side of his M-16 and flipped the safety to the automatic position. Then he turned the weapon slowly until the barrel was pointed in the direction of the enemy soldiers.
As he watched, they yanked something out of the cockpit and then two of them carried it to the pile. One of them held it in his hand while the other stood slightly behind him, looking over his shoulder. The man holding the device raised his voice and called to the others. They approached, and all four of them stood there talking about the object.
Tyme couldn’t believe his luck — all four of them grouped together! He raised his rifle to his shoulder, put his sights on the chest of the man on the right and took a deep breath. Letting half of the air out, he pulled the trigger. The burst crashed into the stillness of the jungle. Birds flashed from their perches. Monkeys screamed in terror. There was a single shout and a cry of pain.