Under Fire

by Eric Meyer

  He was addressing a half-dozen men who had their eyes fixed on him, and in the darkness and blocked by his squat body they hadn’t seen us. This was our chance, and although we had yet to find Tam, I could pop this bastard before we went any further. I crawled back to where Jamie Erskine waited.

  “I need the rifle.”

  “Is that the guy you’ve been looking for?”

  “That’s him.”

  He handed over the rifle. “As soon as you put him down, we’ll need to get out fast. They’ll come after us like the hounds from hell.”

  “You’re not kidding. Give me a moment.”

  I crawled forward again and took aim with the AK-47. It was then I noticed the booby trap. A grenade inches from the roof, and this one was more cunning. On the floor the earth was discolored where they’d rigged up a second deadly trap for the unwary, this one a punji trap. If someone spotted the punji trap and missed the grenade they’d be dead. If they spotted the grenade and stepped into the punji trap, they’d still be dead. I had to take it carefully, threading my way over the trap and ducking beneath the communications wire fastened to the grenade. It was a slow business, with sweat pouring from every pore in my body. So slow that when I got past the booby traps, Trinh had moved.

  Instead of standing with his back to me, he’d walked into the center of his men who were applauding whatever it was he’d told them. I cursed missing the perfect opportunity to nail him, and now I had no choice but to do it the hard way. Flipped the selector on the AK to full auto, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. A full magazine of thirty rounds slammed into the Vietcong, and most of them went down. Two were left standing, and one was Commissar Trinh. They were staring at me in shock, finding it impossible to comprehend the sudden attack that had cut down most of their number. If I’d had a spare magazine, I could have reloaded and finished them while they were still stationary.

  I didn’t have a spare magazine, and left with no choice I dropped the rifle, snatched out the tiny PSM, and ran forward. They were starting to recover, and the guy with Trinh snatched up a rifle, but I put him down with a single shot and followed up with a second to make sure he stayed down. Trinh stared at me, his dark eyes blinking in shock and incomprehension. Then he looked down at the gun and looked up again. Stared into my eyes, and his expression was savage enough to knock down an elephant.

  “Madame Vo. You killed her.”

  I enjoyed seeing him so shocked. Sure, it was cruel, but I wanted to hurt him, to punish him. I wanted revenge.

  “Sure, I killed her. You’re next, pal.”

  His expression didn’t change. “If I die down here, you will die with me.”

  “You mean like the double booby trap I just came past?”

  He blinked. “There are many more things you have no knowledge of.” His lips formed a smile, “We will die together, American.”

  There was something wrong. He was too cocky, too confident after the shock of seeing the gun. As if…I whirled, and I thought Jamie wasn’t there, when I saw his body lying on the tunnel floor. Someone was kneeling over him, and I recognized her even in the deep gloom. She held a gun in her hand, and the muzzle was aimed at me.

  “Tam! What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry, Private Yeager. I didn’t have any choice.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  She sighed. “When they captured me before and held me prisoner, I wasn’t entirely truthful about how things went. Sure, I wanted revenge for my brother, but while I was down here a man saved me from my fate. They were going to kill me, but he interceded with Trinh and kept me under his protection until it was possible to help me escape. I owe him my life.”

  I thought back to everything she’d told me, and the answer came in a rush. “The doctor.”

  “Doctor Trung Kieu, yes. He is here, and when they brought me in with Jamie, he interceded again to save my life. He told them he planned to marry me. It was a lie, but a lie that saved me from execution.”

  “It was you and him screwing in the hospital back there.”

  She had the grace to look away for a fraction of a second. “Yes. I’m so sorry. Private Yeager, please drop the weapon.”

  “Why did you have to kill Jamie?”

  The gun didn’t waver. “I thought he was armed, and I couldn’t take a chance, so when you opened fire on those men the noise covered my approach. I was able to get close enough to use my knife. Drop the weapon.”

  I looked back at Trinh, and he hadn’t moved. He was grinning from ear to ear, totally pleased with the way things had worked out. I knew if I dropped the gun, I was dead. Sure, I was probably dead anyway, not yet. As long as I had that tiny automatic in my hand there was a chance.

  “Tam, you don’t need to do this. I can kill Trinh and leave this place. You’ll be alive with your boyfriend, and Trinh will be dead.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have any choice.”

  “You don’t?”

  “The doctor, Trung Kieu, his sister is Trinh’s wife. When he saved me again, he made me promise to put aside all thoughts of revenge. I believe he really does want to marry me, and I am to become his wife.” She frowned, “I cannot start my married life by killing his brother-in-law.”

  My inclination was to end her married life before it started. To put a bullet into the treacherous bitch, but I still had the automatic trained on the Commissar, and I didn’t want to give her an excuse to shoot. Not until I’d worked a way out, and right now it didn’t seem likely. I was still thinking about how to play it when it happened. So fast it took all of us by surprise. First, Jamie groaned and lifted his head. He wasn’t dead, not quite, although beneath his chin he displayed a terrible, bloody gash where she’d slashed through his throat.

  It was enough to divert her attention for a split second. Enough time for me to whirl and snap off a shot that took her in the center of her chest. Dr. Trung Kieu was behind her, and with an agonized cry he crawled forward and took her in his arms. I had the gun back on Trinh, and the doctor snatched up the gun Tam had dropped and aimed a shot at me. Screaming abuse, his mind tortured by the death of his fiancée, he fired and missed. He was a lousy shot, and I took a chance to take my eyes off him for a second and pop a bullet into Trinh. It took him low in the belly, which was no accident. I wanted him out of action, but not dead. Not yet.

  He fell screaming in agony, and I ignored his screams and turned back to the doctor. He was crouched behind Tam’s body, trying to get off another shot with the gun he’d taken from her. Still spitting threats and abuse in their strange language, I couldn’t get a clear shot at him. I was exposed and out in the open. In desperation I lunged to the side to avoid the bullet he fired. The floor of the room was slick with blood, Trinh’s blood. I tripped and fell. Lying there, staring at my death, he came forward and stared at me in a way that left me in no doubt. He’d make sure the next bullet would be the one that killed me.

  Trapped between two extremes, the guy in front of me about to snuff out my life, and the guy behind me, Commissar Trinh, still alive, though screaming and writhing in extreme agony. Jamie groaned again, and I had to do something to save him. Couldn’t let him die down here in this stinking pit with these treacherous, evil bastards. I had to do something, but it was Jamie who seized the initiative.

  His head came up and he looked at me. Panting for breath, his windpipe almost severed, and he’d lost more blood than I cared to think about. Yet still he displayed bravery beyond belief. Somehow, he managed a ghastly smile, and I shuddered to think of the effort that had cost him. He spoke, and his words were barely audible so I had to strain to listen to what he said.

  “So long, Yeager.”

  We all three stared at him, Trinh, the doctor, and me. Failing to understand until I saw his hand reach up to the almost invisible communication wire, and he took a firm hold.

  “No! Don’t do it!”

  It was his last act before he died. Whether from the terrible wound or the e
xploding grenade made no difference, he was already as good as dead, and he knew it. I pressed my face into the muddy floor. The explosion punched a huge shockwave through the tunnels, like a giant hand slamming into me. Shards of hot metal tore through the doctor, inches away from the exploding grenade. When the smoke and dust cleared what remained was a ghastly, bloody mess. He was lying on top of the woman he planned to make his bride, with an almost severed arm flung around her; perhaps a last, desperate effort to prevent her body being torn apart in a last act of desecration.

  Jamie was dead. The grenade had exploded over him, just as he’d intended. A quick death, and at least he hadn’t gasped and choked his last on that muddy floor. Trinh wasn’t dead. I looked around, and incredibly he was dragging himself toward another tunnel exit. I went after him and my right leg folded under me. A fragment from the grenade had sliced through muscle and bone in the upper leg, and no way would it hold my weight.

  I crawled after him, and he was leaving a bloody trail as he slithered along on his belly like a wounded snake. How he managed to keep up such a speed I’d no idea, and maybe it had something to do with his long arms and his baboon-like strength. He reached a shaft that led upward and began to climb a bamboo ladder, grunting in agony as blood still poured from the wound in his belly.

  He reached the top, and I went up after him, pulling myself up and pushing with my uninjured leg. I reached the surface, and he was on his feet, disappearing into the jungle. Limping badly but still making good time. I followed him through a tangle of vines, and although he’d disappeared, the trail of blood was like an illuminated sign pointing in the right direction.

  I nearly fell for it. Unnoticed by me he’d acquired a handgun, and he’d circled back to wait for me. The shot came out of nowhere and tore through my wounded leg. I half fell and half dived for cover, and began inching toward the place the bullet had come from. Two more shots whistled out, and one tore a strip of skin from the side of my head.

  Blood was trickling past my ear, and I ignored it, dragging myself closer until I saw him. Barely visible inside a dense thicket, it was the movement of the gun I noticed first. A black metallic shape in a place where there should be no black metallic shape. I fired and heard a grunt of pain. When I reached him, I saw my bullet had slammed into his shoulder, and along with the belly wound, he was in a bad way. With difficulty, I staggered up, managing to stand on my good leg.

  “Get up!”

  “I’m wounded.”

  “Not everything in this war is bad. I told you to get up.”

  “I can’t.”

  “If you stay there I’ll shoot you like a dog. Get to your feet, and take what’s coming to you.”

  “No.”

  The voice came from a short distance away. “Yeager, what’s going on?”

  I whirled, and LeBlanc was coming toward me with Mark Butcher right behind him.

  “He’s here. Trinh. I’ve got him.”

  The Sergeant must’ve heard something in my voice; something that told him what was about to happen next. “Be careful what you do. Butcher is with me.”

  “I don’t care if the entire United States Supreme Court is with you. He gets what’s coming to him.”

  “I’m writing this down!” Butcher shouted, “The whole world will know what you’ve done.”

  “Good.”

  I looked down at the man lying on the jungle floor, and I didn’t see a man. I saw a poisonous slug, a virus, an infection if left untreated would spread. Not a problem, I had the vaccine ready to treat the infection.

  “This is for the men you slaughtered and hacked to pieces in that well.”

  At the last moment, he didn’t flinch. “They were Imperialist aggressors. They deserved everything we did to them.”

  “No, they didn’t. But you do.”

  I took careful aim and put a bullet into his head. He slumped and lay still. Insects were already starting to crawl over the corpse, and they were welcome.

  LeBlanc arrived with Butcher in tow. The Ranger looked down at the body and nodded. “Wherever those guys are they can rest easy.”

  Butcher was having none of it, and he grabbed my sleeve to get my attention.

  “Pulling that trigger was cold-blooded murder. You’re finished, Yeager. Finished, do you hear me? Your name will be in every headline across America. Carl Yeager, war criminal.”

  I didn’t care, and I brushed him off and started walking away. LeBlanc caught up with me. “We bumped into some of our guys back there, and they had a radio, so I called for a Huey to get us out. What about Jamie?”

  “He won’t be coming.”

  “Tam?”

  “Same place as Jamie.”

  He nodded. “You did what you came here to do. They all wanted him dead, and you’re the guy who did him. I guess that puts you in the clear, so we should head toward the LZ.”

  Butcher ran behind us, and he was ranting. “War criminal, that’s what you are!”

  LeBlanc stopped and looked at him. “Mr. Butcher, the helicopter is due to land over there.” He pointed to a place several hundred meters away, “Yeager is wounded, so I’ll help him along, but he’ll be slow. Why don’t you go ahead and tell them we’re on the way?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that. We don’t want to miss it. Which way was it?”

  He pointed again, and he ran off, disappearing further along the trail. LeBlanc waited a few moments and then turned in the opposite direction. “Like the guy said, we don’t want to miss that helicopter.”

  I looked in the direction Butcher had gone. “You said it was over there.”

  He returned a look that was pure innocence. “I did? It’s this way. I must have been confused.”

  * * *

  I was sitting inside a coffee bar in Saigon, and somehow I’d survived and completed my tour. After the debacle inside the Iron Triangle I’d made it back with LeBlanc, and Lieutenant Colonel Edgar Harris took everything into consideration. He concluded I was guilty of nothing more than a minor misdemeanor, which they overlooked. Especially since Commissar Trinh who’d set out to severely undermine the morale of our troops was just a bad memory.

  Against my advice, my wife Gracie had come over to Vietnam, insisting she wanted to see the country where I’d spent a year of my life. Her flight landed and she called me. We agreed to meet at the restaurant, and I was on my way when I heard the explosion. She’d found a parking space outside as a Honda motorcycle roared past. The passenger on the back tossed a satchel charge toward the restaurant. It missed the open window, bounced off the wall, and back into the street next to her hire car. The explosion tore it into a mass of twisted metal with the remains of her body still inside, unrecognizable.

  My life had ended, and I spent a month drowning my sorrows, drinking every bar in Saigon dry. Drowning in enough alcohol to poison a buffalo, until I’d had enough. In a moment of madness I decided my place was to remain here. I had unfinished business with the Vietcong, although I thought of it in a different way. Revenge. Back home I had nothing, so I re-enlisted for a second tour. Apparently, my single-minded determination to locate and take down Commissar Trinh had made me something of a celebrity in some circles, and so they put me where they thought I would be most useful. They made me a Warrant Officer and I became an Army Investigator.

  I didn’t object. My plan was to do the job they paid me to do. At the same time I’d search for the people who’d murdered Gracie and deliver the ultimate payback. It wouldn’t bring her back, and it wouldn’t heal the aching wound inside my soul. But it had to be done.

  And I’d make damn sure I did it.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve