by Eric Helm
As he approached her, a dozen things ran through his mind. Things to say, orders to give, a feeling that he was arming an enemy soldier with the best of the new rifles. Instead of any of that, he simply said, “Good morning, Kit.”
She turned and looked at him, smiling warmly. “Good morning, Captain. I trust you slept well.”
“Yes,” he said. “And you?”
“As well as could be expected in a new place, with people who do not trust you. Your guards made very little noise as they rotated last night.”
“That was for your protection,” Gerber said, a little too quickly.
“If you say so.”
Gerber was mildly embarrassed that she had picked up on the guards so quickly, but to him it was just a sensible precaution. Before he could say anything about it, there was a shout from the camp, and he turned. Morrow, wearing jungle fatigues, her pistol belt with canteens, knife and first-aid kit, and carrying a large camera bag, ran through the gate.
“Hey, Mack! Wait!”
Gerber looked at the four remaining helicopters, their blades spinning slowly at flight idle, and wished that he could just leap on one to escape. He faced her, and over the noise of the helicopters said, “Good morning, Robin.”
“Thought you were going to get away without me, didn’t you?” She stopped two feet from him and set her bag on the soft, red dirt at the side of the runway.
“Didn’t think a thing about it since you’re not going,” said Gerber.
“What do you mean, not going? Of course I’m going. I always go—”
“Not on this one,” said Gerber.
“Then I’ll just have to get on the horn to Saigon and talk to General Crinshaw about it. He’ll clear me,” she said.
“That I seriously doubt. First, you’re not one of his favorite people anymore, and second, the nature of this mission dictates that we operate only with combat-experienced troops.”
Morrow pointed at Kit. “You’re taking her.” Morrow’s voice was filled with derision.
“I’m taking her because she’s combat-experienced, she knows the area, and I was ordered to take her. All three things work for her, but not for you.”
Morrow stared at Kit with hate-filled eyes. “I could force my way on this little mission.”
“No, you can’t. I’ll have you forcibly removed and restrained if I have to. Robin, be reasonable. You know there are missions where we can’t have amateurs, even well-trained amateurs, with us. This is one of those times. When we return, I’ll give you the full details and you’ll have your story. But you can’t go.”
“I don’t like this, Gerber. I thought we had a deal, an arrangement.”
“We did. Do. I try to respect your job. You’ve got to respect mine. There are times when our jobs work against each other. This is one of those times that you’ll just have to trust me.”
“Thanks,” she said sarcastically, “for pulling that trust routine out like that. Shit. Okay, Gerber, you win this one. You just watch your butt and not hers.” She grabbed her camera bag, spun and stomped up the road.
“What did all that mean?” asked Kit.
“Never mind,” snapped Gerber. “It’s none of your business.” Then he softened and said, “Sorry.” Before he could say more, he noticed that the pilot of his aircraft was waving at him. The rest of the men had boarded the ships. “Come on, let’s go.”
They climbed aboard but didn’t strap in because Gerber wanted to be ready to get out the instant they touched down in the LZ. Over the increasing noise of the Huey turbine, he felt like shouting, “This is it,” but realized it sounded like a bad line from a hundred war movies. Instead, he leaned back against the soundproofing and thought of the letter from Karen Morrow. He didn’t feel right about leaving it at the camp, especially with Karen’s sister running around. Reporters had a tendency to go snooping. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it now.
He felt the chopper break ground and couldn’t help himself.
“This is it,” he said.
CHAPTER 6
ABOARD A HUEY HELICOPTER, WEST OF TAY NINH CITY,
EAST OF THE CAMBODIAN BORDER
Fetterman studied his map closely, checking it against the landmarks that were readily visible in the early morning sunlight. He was surprised at the size of Tay Ninh, a city with more than a million inhabitants. The streets were wide, with high buildings and countless cars. He identified the Cao Dai Temple, an impressive structure, which it was claimed had more than a million dollars’ worth of gold statues, artifacts and treasures. On the west side of the city, they passed the American base, a sprawling complex of red dirt that looked like a badly infected sore in the bright green of the jungle and rice paddies surrounding it.
To the northeast, dominating the landscape for miles around, was Nui Ba Den, the Black Virgin Mountain. It was a name that fit because the mountain rose from the verdant landscape around it like a giant black blemish. From the top, observers could see almost to the South China Sea and into the interior of Cambodia.
They continued to the northwest, flying over rice paddies that gave way to swamp in the south or forests and jungle in the north. Fetterman saw the point where the Suoi May and the Song Vam Co Dong met. There was a road that crossed one of the rivers and turned almost due north, avoiding Cambodia. Jungle grew around it, some of the trees nearly two hundred feet high. The canopy was becoming thicker so that Fetterman rarely saw the ground, just a sea of green broken by rice paddies to the east and some swamp to the west. Finally he spotted the LZ, a large open area bordered by tall teak, mahogany and palm trees and carpeted with scrub brush and grass.
They circled it once at fifteen hundred feet so that Fetterman could get a good look at it. Then they broke out of the orbit, moving farther to the north. Fetterman instructed the pilot to circle a couple of other areas, just in case there was an audience.
Once they had moved off far enough, Fetterman requested a radio linkup to the other pilots at the camp to tell them it was time to take off if they hadn’t done so already. He then sat back on the troop seat and watched as the sun rose higher, burning off the mist.
He was staring at the LZ when there was a single flash of fire and a gigantic white plume, smoke rolling upward from the center. He lost sight of it when the helicopter banked, and then it reappeared on the left side. Now the LZ was hidden under a cloud of brown dirt and dust thrown up by the artillery rounds detonating in it. A silver column flashed in the sunlight, water exploding upward under fire from the 105mm artillery pieces.
There was a moment’s hesitation, and then another six rounds detonated. They added to the smoke and dust that was drifting off to the east, obscuring the ground but marking the LZ. Then, far to the south, avoiding the gun target lines of the artillery at the fire support base, Fetterman could see the tiny black shapes of the other Huey helicopters.
Fetterman’s chopper broke back to the west, skirting the Cambodian border, trying to avoid the gun target lines. They joined up with the other four helicopters and orbited south of the LZ. From the right, two Huey gunships, each with two seven-rocket pods and two XM134 miniguns, appeared.
When the flight was formed, they turned north, heading toward the LZ. Through the windshield, Fetterman saw flashes of light twenty-five to fifty feet high. He knew they were the last six rounds, exploding in the air. They would rake the ground with shrapnel and detonate any small booby traps that might have escaped the heavier bombardment.
In his mind, Fetterman could hear the radio communications between the pilots and the arty officers. The pilots would be told that the last rounds were on the way, and they would then report that the rounds had hit the ground. Someone at the far end would say that the tubes were clear. The ritual was designed to prevent the pilots from flying into the last six rounds of the arty prep. A check against a check, and since Fetterman had seen the results of an artillery round exploding too close to an aircraft, he approved of it.
Normally there w
ould have been a gunship to lead the flight in. It would hover through the LZ, and someone would toss a smoke grenade out of the cargo compartment. This time, without a C and C directing the mission, the lead ship would shoot the approach with the other ships following. Both gunships were on the west side of the flight now where they could use their weapons for suppression. There had been no indications that Charlie was in the area, but that didn’t matter. They would hose down the trees in an attempt to keep anyone who happened to be around from shooting at the flight.
As they neared the LZ, the lead gunship’s nose dropped, and it dived at the trees, clouds of smoke erupting from the rocket pods as it fired. From his vantage point, Fetterman saw the tiny yellow flames of the rocket motors until they disappeared into the dense vegetation. He lost sight of them for only a second. Then, through gaps in the jungle, he saw an orange flash as the warheads exploded, and an instant later a column of smoke boiled upward. There were more flashes in the jungle as other rockets hit. Then that ship broke away from the flight, the door guns hammering and the ruby tracers slamming into the trees as the second ship began its firing run.
Fetterman turned his attention to his own ship. The crew chief and door gunner both opened fire with their M-60 machine guns. Even over the whine of the engine, the roar of the wind and the popping of the rotor blades, Fetterman could hear the hammering of the M-60s. To the left, a line of tracers smashed into the base of the trees as the choppers got close to the LZ. Dirt splashed upward like water slapped by a giant hand. Leaves and bark stripped from the branches rained on the ground. Ruby-colored lights flashed into the dark green of the jungle and disappeared.
But there was no return fire. No higher, flatter staccato bursts from AK-47s or yammering from .30-caliber machine guns.
They were flying close to the ground now. Fetterman could see it rushing under his aircraft, a blur of greens and grays. He reached up and buckled the chin strap of his helmet so that he wouldn’t lose it as he leaped from the back of the chopper. He slipped off the safety of his weapon with his thumb as he moved from the troop seat to the edge of the cargo compartment, crouching in the doorway so that he could leap out first.
When the aircraft flared, a maneuver that killed the forward motion, Fetterman put a hand out against the edge of the troop seat to steady himself. A second later the skids leveled, and they dropped the last few feet to the ground. The instant the skids touched the earth, Fetterman was out, moving rapidly through the thick brush, thorns grabbing at his uniform. Once he put some distance between himself and the aircraft, he dropped to his stomach, watching the trees, waiting for the enemy to open fire.
Each of the helicopters lifted off then, their door guns momentarily silent. Once they were clear of their human cargo, they opened fire. Five M-60s opened up at the trees as the gunships roared overhead. The miniguns made a sound like that of a buzz saw, firing so fast that the tracers formed an unbroken line.
In seconds the gunships had peeled away, taking up a station to the south, waiting for their release. It was suddenly silent again in the LZ. The quiet seemed overwhelming after all the noise of the combat assault. Fetterman hesitated where he was, watching the jungle, waiting for the trap to spring, but there was no trap, no enemy. It was a typical, cold LZ.
Without waiting for a command, Fetterman was up and moving. He didn’t speak to the men. They followed him, spreading out as they swept toward the trees. He glanced to the south and saw that Gerber was moving, too, his weapon held at the ready. Kit was near him, almost as if she was guarding him. Anderson was close by. Spread farther to the south were Bocker, Washington and Kepler. Krung and his four Tais were on the far end. Fetterman turned and watched as Tyme and the other two Tai diverted around a bush and entered the trees.
Once they had gained the trees, the line collapsed toward the center. Fetterman made sure that security was out and then stepped close to Gerber. Kit was right beside him.
Gerber crouched and pulled his map from the pocket of his fatigue pants. He opened it and then refolded it so that the patch of jungle where they stood was in the center of the map. There was nothing marked on it, no routes drawn in, no proposed campsites indicated. Absolutely nothing on the map that would prove useful to the Viet Cong if he was captured, or if he lost it.
“We’re here,” said Gerber, tapping the map with a forefinger.
“Route due west would put us into Cambodia the fastest, but we’ve got some swamp to cross and one river. If we swing north and then west, we can slip in between a couple of the swamps,” said Fetterman.
“Kit?”
“The sergeant is right. There is a good place to cross the border, but we used that before I quit the VC. It is a dry area of no swamps, and the river there is shallow and wide.”
“So, if we try to make the crossing there, you’re saying that we’ll run into the VC?”
“It is possible.”
“Tony?”
“We’re supposed to be looking for Charlie. It might be a good place to look for him.”
“What’s the cover like?” asked Gerber.
“Light jungle,” said Kit.
Gerber held the map closer to his face and studied it. The grids were about ten klicks on a side. That meant the area was maybe two klicks across. In light jungle that was plenty of space to get lost in. If they moved carefully, quietly, assuming that the enemy was all around, they could probably get through it, if Kit wasn’t lying. And there was no real reason to suspect that she was.
“Tony,” said Gerber, “take the point. Kit, I’ll want you up there with him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be in the center of the patrol with Bocker, but not real close to him. I’ll have Krung and Tyme bring up the rear.” Gerber consulted his watch, surprised that only an hour had passed from the time he had stepped onto the helicopter to this point. “Let’s move out.”
They began marching through the jungle, an area that reminded Fetterman of a landscaped park. The trees here were over a hundred feet tall, their branches woven together lightly. There were shorter ones with broad leaves. Some scrub grew around their bases, and thick vines spiraled upward around the trunks, but the ground was relatively clear. A thick carpet of dead leaves lay piled high, moist with the humidity of the jungle. There were some obvious paths, chopped by farmers moving to their rice paddies, and some game trails. But the jungle was light enough, so Fetterman avoided them in case they were booby-trapped.
He checked his compass, moving to the northwest at a fairly rapid pace. In minutes Fetterman was covered with sweat. He could feel the beads dripping from his face and running down his sides. Drawing one sleeve of his fatigues across his face to dry the perspiration, he tossed a glance over his shoulder. Kit was right with him, moving like a feline in search of prey. The heat didn’t seem to be bothering her. Fetterman could see no evidence that she was even warm.
They skirted one deserted village, but the mud-and-thatch structures were too dilapidated to suggest any habitation. Fetterman stopped long enough to see a few pockmarks in the mud walls, some scorch marks on the ground and a couple of craters that suggested a firefight, but not in the recent past.
Fetterman held up his hand and let the men take up firing positions around him. Using the break, he drank some water, but he didn’t empty the canteen as he normally would have. There was no telling how long it would be before they came to a stream where they could refill, and he didn’t want to waste the water. In daylight it wasn’t quite as important to maintain absolute noise discipline.
Before they moved out again, Fetterman circulated among the men. The captain was sitting with his back to a tree, sipping at his water, letting some of it trickle onto a go-to-hell rag around his neck. His face was sweaty, but he didn’t look very tired. He smiled at Fetterman and pointed at Bocker.
The commo sergeant was on the ground, propped up in an uncomfortable-looking position on his rucksack. His uniform was drenched with sweat, giving it an al
most all-black appearance. He had put his helmet on the ground next to him and held a canteen in the right hand, but he wasn’t drinking.
Fetterman moved toward him, crouched and asked, “You going to be okay?”
Bocker opened his eyes and said, “I knew there was a reason that I didn’t go out on these things — too much work.” With a Herculean effort, he looked at his watch and groaned. “Good God! It’s not even noon. Tony, promise you’ll bury me at the side of the trail. I don’t want to be eaten.”
“Sure,” said Fetterman, grinning. “We’ll just plant a bush over you so that we can find the spot.”
“That’ll be fine. Maybe add a nice stone after the war, so I don’t have to worry about the VC smashing it.”
Like Kit, Krung and his men didn’t seem bothered by the heat. They were facing in opposite directions, scanning the jungle all around them. When Fetterman approached, Krung said, “Sergeant Tony. I think someone behind us. I think VC near.”
“You see anything?”
“No. I just believe they there.”
“Then keep your eyes peeled, but I don’t want you shooting any of them. If you finally see them, you alert me or the captain. We’ll want to deal with anyone behind us quietly if we can.”
“I understand. Let’s go.”
The group descended into a thicker patch of jungle where the canopy blocked out the sun and the surroundings were lost in a perpetual twilight. The humidity hung in the air, choking them, making it hard to breathe, and everything appeared hazy. Fetterman pushed his way through the tangle of undergrowth, his pace slowed until he was only moving a couple of hundred meters an hour. He didn’t want to hack his way through, clearing the vines and bushes with a machete, because that left a definable trail for the enemy to follow.
They started up again, climbing the gentle slope as the jungle thinned and the traveling became easier. They reached the top where they had a good view of the surrounding countryside. Fetterman halted, and the men spread out around him in a makeshift perimeter.
