by Jeff Gulvin
Lai Khe base, or Rocket City because of how the VC used to lob mortars in every night. Just a little north of Ben Cat in Cu-Chi District, Vietnam. Nineteen years old and a volunteer for the 1st Engineer Battalion, intelligence and reconnaissance section, Tunnel Rats. He had been in Vietnam for over a year. He could have got back in the world after twelve months, that was the most they expected of you. But Harrison had volunteered for more. Looking back now, he was a punk kid with a hair stuck up his ass. He had seen the Rats, and heard about Robert ‘Batman’ Battens, and he volunteered for the underground work on two occasions. Batman was the number one man underground and the only NCO in Vietnam to be on the ten most wanted list of the Vietcong. Although there was always a Rat Six, the term given to the officer commanding the section, everyone knew that Batman led the Rats. Harrison had been told he was in his third full year in ’Nam. What he didn’t know, however, was that Batman got his date of estimated return from overseas before Harrison put in his second request to join them.
Harrison was the perfect size for a Rat, not too tall, wiry and showed them no fear. A lot of them were Cuban or Mexican, because of their size. There were no blacks—Batman wouldn’t allow it. The fact that Harrison was no longer a draftee impressed them and within two hours of arriving he was backing up the point man in a tunnel system deep in the Iron Triangle. Fifteen-minute standby from Lai Khe, they would be flown in by chopper and rappel down ropes to the ground. From there they would go into the tunnels and do what had to be done, one man on his own sometimes. Harrison had done that more than once, just your fatigues, your flashlight and gun.
During his first tour Harrison’s best friend, Eli Footer from Chicago, had been killed by a VC who popped out of a tunnel entrance and threw a US M-26 grenade that had blown him to pieces. Harrison remembered finding his hand. It had all happened so fast that he did not know it was Eli they got, but Eli had a diver’s watch and that’s what he found on the hand. He remembered their unit pulling out and the Tunnel Rats taking over. There and then he volunteered, but was refused because his own unit was down on men and they were about to make a big push to the north. They packed what they could find of Footer into a bag and carried him out in the dust-off. Harrison had seen the VC that did it; his face, his NVA helmet and the arc of his arm as he lobbed the grenade from the trap door to a tunnel. He never got another chance to transfer, so he volunteered for a second tour.
He approached the water culvert cautiously; booby traps, punji stakes and spears. He shook his head at himself. Salvesen had dug escape tunnels under that compound, somehow they were linked to the culvert. The entrance was snow-packed, but still Harrison checked for booby traps: in his mind’s eye the snow and packed ice around the lip was replaced by dust and sweating vegetation and the perpetual hum of mosquitoes. He looked for snakes and spiders in grass that wasn’t there, then squatted back on his haunches. For a moment he gathered himself, so many sudden images in his head, memories he didn’t remember having; the rest of the team, him the youngest by some four years. The way they talked about Batman and what had happened to the last Rat Six. Conversations he thought he had forgotten; people he had not seen since and would not see again.
He let it all sink through him, let his head clear, as the sun died in the sky and a new chill settled over the country. Then, taking his Mag-lite from his pocket, he crawled into the culvert. He crawled in water, just a dribble, but wet enough to soak through his clothing in seconds. He shone the light and the darkness of the pipework opened out in front of him. He stopped. The last time he had shone a light like that—the very last time—he had fucked up and that had been that. But he couldn’t think about it now. He clenched his jaws together, this was Idaho in ’98 and not Cu-Chi in ’69. He was almost forty-eight years old and this was FBI work. He could only see the drain and that somehow didn’t make sense: the piping was too narrow to do anything but crawl forward on your belly.
He backed out again and sat there thinking, ignoring the chill of the water on his knees. He checked the area immediately around the culvert for some other kind of entrance. He remembered hearing how the first of the tunnels in ’Nam were found. The army couldn’t understand how the NVA were getting inside the heavily guarded Cu-Chi base and shooting GIs in the night. Then one day, some guy out on the point sat on a scorpion and leapt ten feet in the air, only it wasn’t a scorpion, it was a nail in a wooden trap door bevelled into the earth.
Quietly he scraped around, not wanting to disturb anything, and then he was forced back to the lay-up point as Jesse’s patrol came riding round the fence on their snowmobiles. He knew then that he had been too eager, too lax in his approach, so he settled himself down and went to sleep until dusk. He woke to cloud cover and the threat of a storm, with the wind licking through the trees like it does in summer: nothing to begin with, that still, weighted air, and then all of a sudden the first rush of the storm. The trees were bending like that now, as if the sky threatened to break up in thunder. He checked the goon tower and knew that Jesse was now being that bit more vigilant, as a shadow moved across the white line of the sky. Harrison got his gun and his flashlight, his wire garrotte and knife, then he rose and moved back to the culvert. Again he crawled inside. He had missed it the first time, maybe subconsciously he did not want to find it. But now he spotted it, a flap of corrugated iron set on a rivet hinge in the ceiling.
21
HARRISON CROUCHED IN THE culvert and checked his gear. When he was ready, he eased himself up on his haunches and unfastened the metal clip on the culvert ceiling. The circular trap door dropped a fraction and he paused before revolving it back. His light was still switched off and he squatted there in pitch darkness, listening. He could hear the trickling of the water, but no sound from above. For a long moment he remained there with his mouth dry and his senses heightened in a way that they had not been for thirty years. He realized in that moment just how much he had forgotten. But he had not forgotten everything and gently he reached up and probed the rim of the hole with his knife. Only when he was satisfied there were no booby traps did he ease himself through. That had been the most dangerous time underground, moving up from one level to another. It was then you were at your most vulnerable. Normally, the point man would lift the door and fire off three rounds before you went on. But you never knew where the VC was: he could be sat right on top of you and drop a grenade in your lap, or just as easy—lean over and slit your throat.
Harrison eased the trap door back in place. No sound, he could see nothing ahead or behind, but he could feel the floor of the tunnel; not earth crawling with spiders but concrete. He switched on the flashlight for the first time and shone the length of it. Four-foot-diameter concrete piping. Salvesen had been clever. When they built this place and put the drains in, he made sure that a second layer of piping was laid over the first. One for sewerage and one for men to escape. Harrison looked after the beam of light, throwing out some thirty feet, and then he began to move.
He crawled on all fours, holding the flashlight ahead of him in his left hand. The Glock was stuck in the belt of his winter cam’ suit, the gilly he had left in the lay-up point. He knew from the entrance angle at the culvert and the dead straight run of the tunnel that he was travelling south-west. The hardness of the concrete pushed at his knees, making them ache before he had gone a hundred feet. The roof was close to his head, closer than he remembered. Those tunnels had been hard-baked earth and they twisted and turned, and every so often you would be probing with your knife for tiny little wires or tree roots that should not have been there. If you didn’t, you’d find yourself tripping a booby trap and that would be the last thing you did.
It all flooded back now, the silence of when he was working alone, or moving point. Two trap doors and the point man changed, that was always the rule. When somebody fired, or worse if a grenade went off, the sound was deafening. Two of the Rats, when he first joined them, had their eardrums burst and came out with blood spilling down the sides of t
heir faces. He remembered seeing it for the first time and wondering what it felt like. He only had to wait three weeks and then he was in hospital having grenade shrapnel dug out of his knees and with padding on both of his ears.
He moved forward quite quickly now, as silently as he remembered, with the flashlight beam bobbing ahead of him. The slightest sound and he switched it off, lay flat and listened. Only when the silence returned did he switch the beam back on and continue under the compound. He tried to gauge the distance in his mind as he moved, measuring out what would have been paces. If he did meet anyone along the way, they wouldn’t be expecting him, so surprise would be on his side. That’d be nice for a change. Most of the time in Cu-Chi, Charlie was up ahead there somewhere, with his AK47 cocked and waiting for you.
He crawled for about ten minutes and then he saw the first trap door above him, and a little way beyond it, the first junction with another tunnel. The door was right above his head and made of wood, bevelled to fit in the slot, just like they had been before. Now he paused and rose to his knees with his head bent over, listening. He listened and listened and the only thing he could hear was the rasp of his own breathing and he cursed himself for all the years he’d filled his lungs with smoke. His flashlight was off now, but he could make out the underside of the trap door through the gloom. Quietly, he pressed both hands to the base, twisted it slightly and lifted; so very slowly, no noise, holding the breath back in his chest. Nothing, no sound, but light, not bright but dim, as if it entered a room from outside.
Harrison lifted the door completely and moved it to one side. He dropped back into the tunnel and waited. If anyone was up there he would hear them. He heard nothing, but slipped his Glock from his belt. The action was already worked, a round in the breech with the trigger safety on; all he had to do was squeeze and he was firing. He squatted, listened and then rose up through the hole where the trap door had rested. He moved around on the balls of his feet and looked about him. He was in the middle of a room, maybe thirty by thirty, a row of chairs, two rows, ten in all. In front of them was a table with another, bigger chair behind it. Harrison climbed out of the hole and carefully replaced the trap door. He looked at the table and at the single chair which stood to one side. It looked like a meeting chamber of some sort, or an interview room, except there were the twin rows of chairs like an audience. He saw video cameras mounted on the walls. Two doors, one at either end of the room. He moved to his right and pressed his ear to the panel. He could hear nothing, so he opened the door very slowly. A passageway with another door leading off it. He knew he was facing away from the house now. This was the smaller of the two buildings, the one that backed on to the marquee before the armoury. The marquee was no longer standing, Salvesen having taken it down as he always did in the winter.
Beyond the door was an anteroom and then another small one with a glass wall in it. Beyond the wall was a desk and some headphones and all manner of radio equipment. It was obviously from here that Salvesen made his broadcasts. Harrison closed the door again and went back to the first room. The door in the far wall was locked and he assumed it joined the back of the marquee in summertime.
Back in the tunnel, he moved up to the intersection, shone his torch and went on. Now he was moving across the compound. He considered direction for a moment and decided that this tunnel would take him straight under the house. About thirty feet in, he came to a second trap door and again he paused and listened. He lifted it, a tighter fit than the first one, but he got it loose. Freezing cold air hissed at him and he knew it was outside, would’ve been under the marquee. He let it settle again and moved on. Sixty maybe eighty feet further, he stopped and looked up. The third trap door, this one would be right under the house, and from the angle he had approached he had a pretty good idea where it would bring him. His heart beat faster now; all thoughts of Cu-Chi and the past were banished. This was the here and now and a different task was appointed. He waited and waited, and when he was sure he lifted the wooden portal above his head. Darkness save a fragment of light, which came from under a door. He could see it as he got to eye level. He could smell leather and wood and he knew he was in Jakob Salvesen’s office.
He eased himself up and this time he left the trap door lying where it was. From outside in the hall, he heard voices, two of them, men speaking in soft tones. He crouched by the entrance to the hole with his gun in his hand and waited. He was behind Salvesen’s desk and still covered from view from the door. He looked about him in the gloom. Great iron helmets were hung on the walls along with huge pictures of ancient Nordic warriors. Harrison gently rose to his feet and cursed silently as his knees creaked. He could see shadows moving over the crack of light that came from under the door and he hovered before crouching again. Then the voices faded and the shadows drifted away and he stood once more in silence. He looked at Salvesen’s desk and saw books, the Bible, and two others whose titles he could not see. He did not dare risk the flashlight. One wall was a full glass door where Salvesen had stood speaking into his Dictaphone. He looked closer and saw papers and maps and a book with Hungary written in bold black letters, which he could see plainly enough. On the wall was a map of the world. He moved closer to it and saw plastic-topped pins stuck into various countries round Europe.
Then he heard footsteps in the hall outside and he ducked back down the hole. He had only just got the trap door settled when somebody came into the room. Harrison squatted cross-legged on the concrete floor of the tunnel, with both hands on his Glock, pointing directly upwards. Nobody came, nobody opened the door but he could feel the sweat dripping off his forehead. He looked ahead and then back the way he had come. He moved on; fifty feet further the tunnel branched right and he came to another trap door. Lifting this, he smelled food and refixed it. People were still moving about; he would not risk going into the house again. He followed this tunnel, due north now as far as it would go, and came to a trap door at the end of it. Beyond that, just earth like the dummies Charlie built in Cu-Chi. He tried to lift the wooden door, but it would not shift. It felt colder here and he was aware of a thin slice of air coming at him from around the crack. He moved back to the fork under the house, then, turning to his right, he crawled its length until he came to another trap door. He was deathly quiet, suddenly aware of just how cold he was. He could hear footsteps above his head. The bunkhouse, he told himself. He had mapped that from the air.
Now he retreated, the layout fixed in his mind. Back at the first turning, where he would go left to get back to the culvert, he stopped and looked right. The final bit, which hopefully would take him under the large building he called the armoury. He moved right, getting used to the concrete now and crawling with more freedom. Unless he was very very unlucky, he was not going to meet anyone. He came to the trap door and stopped. He listened again for a long time, the breath heightened in his chest. He raised himself to his knees and listened again. Then he lifted the door. He could smell it: gun oil, metal, weaponry.
He climbed out and stood in darkness. There were no windows in this building. He risked the flashlight and let go a low whistle. On specially manufactured wall racks he saw rows of M16 automatic rifles. He counted thirty in all. Next to them were grenade launchers, pump-action twelve-gauge shotguns, Beretta 40-calibre pistols, Colt 45s and Ruger 9mms. In a smaller closet with the doors standing open, he counted a further ten Ingram SMGs, like an Uzi but smaller. He looked at the boxes against the wall and lifted the lid of one of them. They were filled with dynamite and he counted ten four by four cartons. Metal closets were screwed to the walls and inside one, he found boxes of blasting caps, six to a box and over fifty boxes. In a separate closet on the other side of the room, he found thousands and thousands of rounds, Salvesen was preparing for war.
He moved to the far wall and tried the door, but it would not open. This building was on two levels, he remembered that. He moved to the other door and it did open. Now he was in a passage and he paused, listening like a hunting dog.
He saw a flight of stairs and another door above them. Immediately in front of him was a door which presumably joined with the house. He could see no light under it. He went up the stairs. The door was locked and heavy, made of armoured steel. Harrison frowned. The key was in the lock though and it turned easily enough. He opened it and it creaked very slightly at the hinges. Inside it was pitch-black. Again, no windows. He stood a moment, allowing his eyes to grow accustomed, but they did not. He switched on the flashlight and stared. The room was long and thin and split in half by a glass panel and a door on one side. Beyond the glass panel, a wooden platform and hangman’s noose.
He stood there and stared for a long time at the gallows. Six chairs were set out on this side of the panel. He let go a breath and felt a sickness deep in his gut. Slowly, he moved to the door and stepped on to the wooden platform. The trap door was open and below he could see the floor. The door downstairs was where one went to collect the bodies. He stood for a long moment and then turned. A new chill stopped the blood in his veins. Positioned above the door where he came in, a video camera was focused on the gallows.
Harrison left the tunnels, shaken and disgusted by what he had seen—so-called ‘patriots’ ready to mete out their own brand of ‘justice’ for those government agents they deemed to be unconstitutional. He crawled to the culvert, much on his mind, and as he made it to the portal he found himself whistling ‘Dixie’—softly, but there all the same. He stopped, cocked an eyebrow and shook his head at himself. Thirty years and he was still whistling ‘Dixie’. Every Tunnel Rat did that, to let the guys on the surface know exactly who you were when you reappeared from the earth with half a ton of mud on your head.
At the end of February, Joanne Taylor had looked over the apartment while the estate agent hovered in the background. It was OK, she thought; two bedrooms, quite spacious, a good-sized living room with a small open-plan kitchen.
