Above the Kratie Bridge, less than one hundred Cambodian Narcotics Police were available to report on Khmer Rouge troop movements and attempt to patrol the Mekong and Se Khong rivers for drug shipments. Most of the police boats were confiscated from the Hmong, but some equipment was being supplied by John Slaughter.
John Slaughter read the latest intelligence reports coming in from the field. The rivers were swollen and boat traffic was heavy. By 9:00 a.m. the Narcotics Police reported sinking two Hmong boats and shooting up one Khmer river barge.
“The Wing Commander will see you now,” the staff sergeant said.
“Thank you.”
The colonel looked up from his desk as John walked in. “Every time I see you, John, you want something. What is it this time?”
“I’ve got a sixteen-man team I need inserted on the Se Khong River at the Lao-Cambodian border. Can I get your people to fly us down there?”
“John, you’re a pain in the ass. What the hell are you doing down there, anyway?”
John dropped into a chair and smiled. “We’re going to attack a big dope shipment on the river. I need to get there to head it off.”
“Something the CIA is paying for?”
“Probably.”
The colonel picked up the phone and called the squadron commander at the 40th Air Rescue and Recovery Squadron (ARRS). “Mike, have you got anything you can put in the air on short notice? . . . Yea, combat insertion… One hour will be fine. Thanks, Mike.”
“Thanks, Colonel. You’re a real crime fighter.” John stood and started for the door.
“Say, John. I’m keeping two birds cocked at Ubon. As you may or may not know, Big Jake and Colonel Suwit are running a black op somewhere down that way. They’ve got A-teams all over the place down there. Just watch out that you don’t get an air strike called down on your head.”
“CIA inputting the air strikes?”
“You didn’t hear that from me. Just keep you GUARD up, if you catch my drift.”
John understood that he was to monitor the aircraft emergency radio frequency, called GUARD, to call off any air strikes called in on him. John nodded without smiling, then walked out.
John Slaughter and his fifteen-man team loaded their equipment, including two high speed rubber assault rafts, onto the HH-53 Jolly Green Giant helicopter for the one hour and twenty-minute flight south. Their route would take them south of Ubon, then east southeast to the Se Khong River on the border of Laos and Cambodia. A flight of four armed OV-10 Broncos flew overhead as their escort aircraft.
As they approached the river from the west, John put on a headset to talk to the pilot about where they should put down. He overheard radio traffic from the OV-10’s overhead.
“King, Ranger. That’s an Army Loach [OH-6 (Hughes 500) observation helicopter] and he’s north of you by two miles, on the river.”
“What the hell’s he doing way up here?” the co-pilot asked over the intercom.
“See if you can raise him on GUARD and find out who he is,” John interjected.
“Yea. Really,” the pilot said, then radioed the request to the OV-10.
The co-pilot brought up the GUARD frequency. “Air Force King Flight to Army Loach on the Se Khong.”
“This is the Loach, Air Force.”
“Roger, sir. Can you identify and state your point of origin?”
“We’re company out of Saigon. How you?”
“Fuck’en CIA,” John muttered.
“Air Rescue from NKP. Thought you may have been our signal.”
“Negative. Just arriving. We’ll be on the ground in a few minutes.”
“Roger.”
“Tell that Bronco to follow him and tell us where he puts down,” John said, then pointed north up the river.
The co-pilot relayed the message as they banked left and followed the river north.
Two minutes later the OV-10 came back on the radio. “He’s down about ten miles north of y’all in a small village. No. More like a camp with fishing boats.”
“How many people are on the ground and how many boats?” John asked over the radio.
“Two boats and maybe six or seven people in sight. Plus three from the Loach.”
“Place for us to set down?”
“Yea, there’s a place, but it’s too close to the boats. Your rotor wash will wreck them.”
“That’s your target,” John said over the intercom. “We catch weapons fire from any of them, return fire.”
“We don’t know what’s down there,” the pilot protested.
“Just Hmong and CIA. Believe me, they’re scared of this big thing.”
John then pulled off his headset and signaled his men to prepare to move out quickly.
The Jolly Green came in fast at just over one hundred feet above the trees and slowed to a hover above the clearing. The pilot decided that he could set down in the clearing next to the river. The Hmong hunkered down next to some bushes as the huge helicopter settled to the ground.
The 165-mile per hour rotor blast broke the mooring lines on one of the river boats and turned it over in the middle of the river. The other remained secured to the dock, but its thatched roof was blown off.
John and his men sprinted out the back of the chopper. One squad of five secured the unmanned river boat. Another squad ran to the Hmong and took their weapons from them. John led five men to the Army chopper where two Army warrant officers and a civilian stood.
“You CIA?” John asked the civilian, who was dressed in a tan safari suit.
The man puffed on his pipe a time or two, then said, “Could be.”
“I’m John Slaughter, BNDD. What’s your name and what are you doing here?”
“Right and need to know,” he said, clutching his pipe in his teeth.
John turned toward the river boats and the squad leader signaled that they had a boat load of brick opium.
“Now for the second question. What’s your name?” When he gave no answer, John continued, “You were going by John Tully six weeks ago. What name are you using now?”
He shrugged. “Bond. James Bond.”
John snatched the pipe from the CIA man’s teeth and the CIA man reacted by grabbing John by the throat. An instant later the CIA man hit the ground on his face with his arm bent around the back of his head and John kneeling on his back.
The two warrant officers started to pull their .45 automatic pistols from their shoulder holster, but stopped when four CAR-5’s [short M-16’s] and a pump shotgun where leveled at them.
“You’re under arrest, asshole,” John said, loud enough for everyone at the Army chopper to hear. “So, any further efforts at resistance on your part will be used as an excuse to blow your worthless, dope peddling ass away on my part. Do you understand that, shit-for-brains?”
Thirty minutes later, John’s team had the bricks of opium loaded in the Jolly Green along with the CIA man. They released the two Army pilots to return to Saigon. John boarded the Jolly Green so he could process the CIA man and get him returned to the States. His fifteen-man team remained on the ground to join up with the Cambodian Narcotics Police and help interdict the flow of opium.
The Jolly Green lifted off and swung out over the river when five Hmong river boats opened fire on them with AK-47’s and M-16’s. In less than five seconds the firefight was over. A crewman manning one of the three mini-guns returned fire on the boats. The mini-gun’s 5,000 round-per-minute rate of fire dissolved the five wooden boats into splinters and their Hmong crewmen into a spray of red mist settling onto the surface of the river. The pilot did not even alter his departure for the brief fire fight.
The Hmong left standing on the river bank would tell others what a fire-breathing monster this Jolly Green Giant really was. The Hmong would not make the mistake of again firing on one of these helicopters.
The Jolly Green landed at Ubon to refuel and John went to see the base lawyer. He was carrying the Probable Cause form he needed to hold the CIA man.
Captain Carl Lavinder listened to John explain the circumstances surrounding the arrest of the CIA man. He asked a few questions, then said, “Well, you’ve got to turn him loose.”
“Say what?”
“Turn him loose. You don’t have probable cause to hold him.”
“What the hell are you talking about!? He was right there.”
“He was nowhere near that boat where you found the dope. And he wasn’t even in contact with the Hmong from the boat. He had just stepped out of the chopper.”
“So, if I had let the Hmong get to where he was at the chopper we’d have had a case?”
“No. Not even then. You could place the Hmong in possession of the dope since it was their boat, but talking to a man on the street does not become an offense just because the man you’re talking to has a house or a car or a boat full of dope. You have to be on the boat where the dope is to prove possession.”
“What about conspiracy?”
“To do what? They didn’t talk. If they agreed to meet, show that the meeting was for some illegal purpose. How do you know he wasn’t there to collect intelligence information? That’s what we have a CIA for, you know.”
“Shit!” John hissed, then stood up. “So, what do I have?”
“An illegal arrest.”
“Ah, damn. I can’t just cut him loose.”
“You’d better. Because that’s what I’m recommending.” Carl checked the block that indicated that no probable cause existed to hold the man, then wrote, “ORDER IMMEDIATE RELEASE.” He signed the form, pulled off a copy for his files, and handed the form back to John.
“Who else can I talk to?”
“Call any lawyer the AUTOVON network connects to. Call the embassy. But it all comes down to this. Probable cause amounts to more than mere suspicion that an offense has been committed, but less than the level of proof necessary to obtain a conviction. That’s the standard. And I’d say you haven’t even reached a healthy level of suspicion, yet.”
“Hey, fuck you, Carl.” John then turned and stormed out.
Back at the Jolly Green, the pilot asked John what was wrong. John explained his conversation with the lawyer. “Yea, I’ll let him go, all right. Right out the back door on our way to NKP.”
“Wrong. Not out the back door of my bird you don’t. He gets off right here at Ubon and I mean right now. And if you don’t like that, you can get off here, too.”
Angry as he was, John released the CIA man and he flew back to NKP with the crew.
Through the end of February, John Slaughter’s team reported a decrease in the number of loads of opium coming down the Se Khong River. His attacks on the drug supply boats acted as a valve. But the supply of opium built up in Laos. And the drug lords took the opium supply from the Hmong and gave it to Lao and Cambodian bandits. Tactics were changing rapidly.
CHAPTER FIVE
SE KHONG RIVER
NORTHERN CAMBODIA
22 February 1975
Big Jake led a flight of four F-4 Phantoms out of Ubon for a night air strike on bandits that were robbing arms shipments coming out of Laos into Cambodia on the Se Khong River. The river bend had a rocky outcrop that commanded the river and forced boats into the shallow waters on the opposite side. Near the outcrop river barges would be sunk. In the shallow waters they would be captured.
The flight arrived over the river with twenty minutes of extra fuel. Navigation radar painted the bend in the river and the near full moon lighted the river below.
Eddie Donevant led the second two-aircraft element. Jake and Eddie both felt uneasy about bombing these river targets. So, Jake sent Eddie in first to drop a single cluster bomb behind the rocky point to see what the reaction was. If nothing, Eddie’s wing man would hit the point on the next pass.
Eddie rolled over and dropped out of 20,000 feet and released a single cluster bomb over the wooded area behind the point. As the cluster bomb fell from the bomb rack it opened like a clam shell and released hundreds of small bomblets. The bomblets spread out like shotgun pellets and rained down on the trees, each exploding individually.
One man sat among the rocks at the point scanning the river below with his binoculars. Nothing was moving. The night was quiet and cool. Just enough of a chill in the air to make his jacket feel comfortable.
He checked his watch. It was 11:42. His relief would be up in less than twenty minutes. He thought about the hot cup of coffee that would be waiting on him, then made another scan of the river.
Suddenly from above him he heard the unmistakable sound of a jet fighter moving fast. He grabbed the binoculars and scanned the sky. There, the vapor trail from the wing tips reflected in the moonlight. He swung the binoculars to his eyes and saw the outline of an F-4 Phantom pulling out of a dive.
Recognition of the aircraft hit him just as the load of CB hit the trees behind him. The roaring explosions shook the ground and lasted for several seconds. He ducked down between two large rocks as pieces of wood and rock began to rain down all around him.
Inside the cave below, the ground began to shake under the explosions above. The radio man grabbed his walkie-talkie and yelled, “Earl, what’s going on up there? You okay? Can you read me? Answer me!”
The man pulled up his walkie-talkie. “Hell, no. I can’t hear you. I’m fuck’en deaf.”
“What happened?”
“An F-4 just bombed the trees behind us. Stupid fuck’en Air Force.”
John Slaughter grabbed the walkie-talkie from the radio man and told him, “Call ‘em on GUARD, quick!” As the radio man ran to the front of the cave with the aircraft band radio, John got on the walkie-talkie. “Get down here, Earl!”
“Na, I’m between the rocks. I’m okay.”
“Get the fuck outta there, Earl. You’re in big trouble.”
Eddie climbed back to 20,000 feet and rejoined the formation.
Jake radioed, “No reaction. Probably nothing down there.”
“You’re probably right. Two, drop down and leave one on the rocks.”
“Rog,” Eddie’s wing man answered.
He rolled over, dropped down, and released one of his cluster bombs.
The man between the rocks looked up and saw the white vapor trails coming off the wing tips directly above him. The sound of the engines did not even register in his mind. “Oh! Dear God–”
The radio man had just set up the aircraft radio at the mouth of the cave when the second wave of explosions shook the cave. This time they hit directly over head and some of the bomblets hit outside the mouth of the cave. The radio man was blown back into the cave by the concussion, but was not injured. His radio, however, would no longer transmit.
John grabbed a small survival radio and ran out of the cave. “Keystone Station to F-4’s at Se Khong River. Keystone Station to F-4’s at Se Khong River.”
Jake’s wizzo told Jake, “Hey, I’m getting a weak transmission on GUARD from the river.”
“Can you read him?” Jake asked.
“He’s weak. We’ll need to go down to pick him up.”
Jake radioed his intentions to the others, rolled over and dropped down to 8,000 feet. “F-4’s to Se Khong River on GUARD.” There was no reply. “F-4’s to Se Khong River on GUARD.”
“This is Keystone Station on the Se Khong to F-4’s. What the hell are you guys doing?”
“Keystone Station, identify yourself.”
“I’m John Slaughter, BNDD. You just bombed us.”
Jake lost the transmission as he moved behind the rocky outcrop, but Eddie still had a readable signal.
“We’ve got a good copy on you, John. You’ve got Eddie and Jake with you. You have any casualties down the
re?”
“Probably one. He was on top, directly under that last one you dropped. We’re going to check on him now. Just what the fuck are you guys doing?”
“Who’s across the river from you, John?”
“Blocker’s Bend. Cambodian Narcotics Police and some of my guys.”
“Okay. Tell ‘em to stay put. We’ve marked your locations. Bad intel from your buddies to the north.”
John Slaughter knew that had to be the CIA, his archenemy. Then he had a thought. If they were being hit, it could only mean that the stockpile of brick opium upstream was about to come floating down river.
“Can you guys hit an alternate target?” John asked.
“Where? We don’t have much fuel,” Eddie replied.
“Ten miles upriver, just inside Laos, on the west side of the river.”
The intercoms on all four F-4’s came alive at once. “We can’t operate inside Laos. And we’re not fragged for other targets.”
“Jake, I’ve got the coordinates on that location, the reccy photos, and the intel. It’s a good target. All the opium is stockpiled there.”
“It’s also a CIA outpost, partner,” Jake added.
“Pirates Pier. No doubt that’s where this sortie was fragged from. And they knew who we were to bomb. Our friends. Our own people.”
“It’s our ass if we do,” Jake’s wizzo told him over the radio for all to hear.
Jake thought back to the missions the CIA had already fragged against the narcs. It’s got to stop sometime, he thought. “Okay, guys. North over the target and drop on them. Get a good radar picture. We’re only going to have twelve minutes to bingo fuel, so make each pass a good one.”
“I ain’t fuck’en believing this, Jake,” his wizzo said over the intercom.
The Wrong Side of Honor Page 9
