Bayonet Skies

by John F. Mullins

  “Just as well,” General Miller said. “At least with Y Buon Sarpa we know the one with whom we’re dealing. And we have a man to whom he owes his life. That should count for something, shouldn’t it, Bentley?”

  “Don’t know if it will or not, General,” said Sloane. “But it’s worth a shot.”

  Thought he was just an aide-de-camp, Jim mused. General almost sounds like he’s deferring to him. Better watch my ass. And what shot were they talking about? Whatever it was, it was not likely to be pleasant. More likely it would be dangerous as hell.

  He felt the old familiar tingling at the pit of his stomach. It felt good.

  “What’s this all about, General?”

  “You follow the news, I’m sure,” Sloane answered, effectively taking over the briefing. “You know that Saigon has at most a few weeks left. The whole damn country is collapsing. We won’t have any presence at all left in that part of the world. Likelihood is that the North Vietnamese will consolidate for a while, then start to move on other countries. Our information says that the first target will be their erstwhile allies, the Khmer Rouge. They already control most of Laos. After that, probably Thailand, then Burma, Malaysia.”

  “I thought we had given up on the domino theory,” Jim said.

  “Some of us haven’t. The people who think, anyway. The North Vietnamese are an expansionist bunch. Somebody once called them the Prussians of Southeast Asia.” Sloane laughed. There wasn’t a great deal of humor in it.

  “In any case,” he continued, “the Communists aren’t likely to be any more supportive of the Montagnards than were the South Vietnamese. We have fairly good evidence that already the massacres are taking place. Whole villages wiped out, anyone who served in the Civilian Irregular Defense Group formations sent to ‘re-education camps,’ the principals of FULRO hunted down and killed.”

  “Big surprise,” Jim said, earning a look of reproof from the general. The hell with him, Jim thought. The hell with the lot of them. “The poor bastards. The French used them, then left them to the tender mercies of Saigon. We used them, told them we’d always be there, then we take off and let them fend for themselves. They’ve been betrayed by everyone. And now they’re probably all going to die.”

  “Yes, well, that seems to be their conclusion as well. They certainly don’t trust anyone, anymore. Especially not us. Yet it’s in our best interests to keep them fighting. The more the Vietnamese are held down trying to pacify them, the more time we can give Thailand and the other countries in the region to get ready to resist.”

  “And what makes you think they’ll want to?”

  “They really don’t have a great deal of choice. And besides, they’ve told us they do. We got a message last month from one of the contacts we still have in place. It came from your old friend Sarpa, who is now leading what’s left of the Bahnar, plus some of the other tribes who’ve allied themselves with him. He’s asking for help: arms, ammunition, medical supplies. Says they can hold out forever if we just give him what he wants.”

  “So why don’t you do it?”

  “It’s not that easy. Suppose instead of fighting the Communists they decide they want to carve out a place for themselves somewhere else, like the Nationalist Chinese did in the Thai-Burmese border region? More practically, we don’t have any idea of their capabilities. Would we be sending in a great deal of material to someone who can’t use it? We would be running a hell of a risk, you know, making those air drops. Oh, we’d do it using black assets; Nationalist Chinese pilots, probably, but still it’s going to take a lot of time, effort, and money. No, we can’t just send it in blind. Against every principle of covert ops.”

  “What you mean is that the politicians won’t let you,” Jim said, earning another disapproving look from General Miller.

  “Got quite a mouth on you, don’t you, Captain?” the general said. “I suppose I should have expected it, from someone of your background. But that’s essentially correct. We need someone who can make sure the stuff gets to the right people, and that it’s used correctly. We think that man is you. Sarpa is unlikely to trust anyone else. You’re an essential part of this plan.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but I don’t buy it,” Jim said. “Yeah, possibly Sarpa will listen to me. That’s not to say he’s going to agree with what I have to say; almost certainly isn’t going to follow any orders I give.”

  “He will if it’s in his best interests,” Sloane replied. “Our plan is to send you in with a couple of other people. A radio man for sure, a medic, possibly a demolitionist. Full half of an A-team if you want it. No more than that, though. Too many people would attract too much attention. The general tells me you have some pretty strong ideas about guerrilla warfare. This will give you a chance to put them into effect. You stay with them a month or two, see if they really have the capability to do some good. Help them out with some of their tactical operations, set up the procedures for resupply. Once they start depending upon us for their support, they’ll do what we ask.”

  “I’m sure it’s occurred to you what would happen if the North Vietnamese capture or kill one of us,” Jim said, knowing what the answer would be.

  Sloane looked at the general, who nodded his assent. “You’ll be going in sterile, of course. No attributability. Your records will be taken out of the personnel center and kept in a special file. Only the general and myself will have access.”

  “So, let me guess. If something happens, we’ll be called rogue. Freelancers who got themselves into the wrong place at the right time. The U.S. government will be shocked that any of its citizens would be doing such a thing.” Such things were not all that uncommon in the Special Forces. Hell of a deal, Jim mused. Not only does your government ask you to go get your ass shot off for God and country, but they deny knowing you when you do.

  “Close,” Sloane said. “Actually, we’ll deny that you were even American.”

  “That does it,” Jim said. He felt like laughing. This was just too much. “You want us to go in and make a man who, if in his right mind, would never have anything to do with you, follow your orders. You want to control a movement you abandoned, and a people you left to the dogs. You want to do it with American soldiers, who you will promptly abandon as well. You want a lightly armed force of tribesmen to take on the largest, most battleworthy, and now best-armed force outside the three superpowers. And you expect me to agree to it.

  “With all due respect, gentlemen, are you out of your fucking minds?”

  God, he thought, how could they even ask? Maybe, back in the old days, when the only person he had to care about was himself, he might have done it. It was just crazy enough to appeal to him, but then he had been accused of having a death wish a mile wide anyway.

  But they had to know he was married, that his wife was expecting a baby. Did they care? How can you even ask, Jim? You know goddamned well they don’t.

  Well screw them! They could go find someone else to do their dirty work for a change. Yeah, he knew Sarpa, and that would have been a help. But it could be done by others. If it needed to be done at all.

  Actually, it would probably be better in the long run if it wasn’t. They had abandoned the Montagnards before; they would again. A new administration, new policy, and the men who were fighting at such cost to themselves and their families would again be given away. Better to let them go now. Perhaps they could come to some accommodation with the new rulers. And if they couldn’t, they wouldn’t be any worse off.

  He took comfort in the thought that they couldn’t just order him to do it. Such a mission required a volunteer. Otherwise it would be easy to blow the whistle. A phone call to the New York Times and the plan would be all over. Nice to deal from a position of strength, for a change.

  No, he would go back to Bad Tölz, be with Alix and the new baby, become the husband and father he knew he could be. Hell, maybe he’d even make a serious attempt at the S-4 job. And if he couldn’t get it, there was always the option of leav
ing the Special Forces. He was suddenly very angry. How could they ask it of him? Because, Jim, the answer came, they know they can. They’ll use the guilt you feel, the sense of hopelessness, the sudden spurt of feeling of being once again useful, and manipulate you. Well the hell with that! I’m tired of carrying this thing around with me. Time to get rid of it.

  “There’s one other thing,” Sloane said, seeing how it was going. “One part of the message we haven’t yet told you about. Sarpa said his forces overran a jungle prison camp. And that he’s holding two American POWs. People the North Vietnamese didn’t send back with the others in 1973. And that he’s not going to give them back unless we help him.”

  “And you believe him?”

  Sloane nodded. “He sent evidence.” He opened a folder, took out some documents and a photo. “Fingerprints, detailed descriptions of the men,” he said. “It all checks out.”

  “And our goddamned government’s official position is that there are no more POWs in Southeast Asia,” Jim cursed. “I knew that was a fucking lie. Who are these guys?”

  Sloane passed him a photo.

  Staring out, older now, bearded, but unmistakably him, was Major Willi Korhonen, U.S. Army Special Forces. Listed as missing in action on December 7, 1968, and declared dead two years thereafter. The newspaper he was holding in the photo made it clear that, as Mark Twain had said, the news of his demise was somewhat exaggerated. The date on the newspaper was barely six months ago.

  Chapter 5

  “I suspect you remember the incident in which Major Korhonen was lost,” Sloane said. Indeed I do, Jim thought. Major Willi Korhonen had been flying Covey on an SOG team insertion across the border in the Prairie Fire area. The team had been hit shortly after insertion, had declared Prairie Fire emergency. Such calls were not casually made. It meant you were in imminent danger of being overrun, you had exhausted all your own options, and unless you got some outside help you were going to die. Probably within a very few minutes. All assets were supposed to drop everything and rush to the aid of the team. It sounded good in theory, but in practice there were precious few assets upon whom you could call. If you were lucky there were fighter-bombers who were in the area to pound traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, or helicopters infiltrating or exfiltrating another team. Maybe, if there was time, you could get a Spike team from CCN headquarters in Danang, or FOB-1 in Phu Bai. There was seldom enough time.

  Jim knew the drill well, having had to call a couple of Prairie Fire emergencies himself. He also remembered the gut-watering fear as the enemy closed the circle around you, the knowledge that you were going to die, probably within the next few seconds, then the overwhelming relief and gratitude you felt when, after all hope was gone and you had resigned yourself to death, help came from an unexpected quarter.

  Needless to say, those who had been in the same situation were the ones who would move heaven and earth to come to the aid of the ones in trouble. Willi Korhonen had been there many times.

  In a unit filled with legends, Major Korhonen was one of the most celebrated. Sixteen years old and a student in the military academy when the Soviets invaded Finland in the Winter War of 1939, he had led his fellow cadets in a slashing campaign through the Russian rear that had killed hundreds of the Red invaders and tied down thousands more. Dressed in white, moving cross-country on the skis they had used since childhood, they would pop up and destroy an ammunition dump one day, and the next ambush a supply column fifty or sixty miles away. He’d made such a name for himself that the Russians, finally made victorious by the tactic of piling hundreds of thousands of troops against the numerically inferior Finns, had demanded as a part of the truce that he be jailed by the newly installed puppet government.

  Korhonen had escaped that jail, made his way alone across the frozen land all the way to East Prussia, where he had made his services available to the Germans. While he hadn’t particularly cared for the Nazis, he saw that they were the only ones ready to fight the hated Reds. He’d risen to the rank of captain by the end of the war, having taken part in most of the campaigns in the east.

  At the end of the war he had returned to his native Finland. The Finnish government, again at the behest of the Soviets, had arrested him once more. Again he escaped, this time making his way to distant South America. He became a moderately successful businessman in Venezuela, but his purpose in life was not being fulfilled. His enemies were the Communists, the men who had raped his land and even now held Eastern Europe in thrall. He bided his time, and when the United States opened its doors to those who would help fight its erstwhile ally he was one of the first to apply.

  He entered the United States Army in 1952, quickly joined the newly formed Special Forces. His combat experience, tactical knowledge, and field savvy were invaluable in the training of this highly specialized unit.

  He took part in most of the campaigns conducted by the Special Forces in the 1950s, and when they became involved in Southeast Asia went there as well. There were no pine forests, no skis, no snow, but there were Reds, and that was good enough. Wounded more times than one cared to count, decorated for valor on numerous occasions, he was a mainstay for the unit.

  Thus it was no surprise when, after the team called Prairie Fire emergency, he chose to go back in to direct the effort to get them out. The weather was closing in; there were those who said the team should not have been inserted in the first place under such marginal conditions. He’d directed the pilot of the small plane down through holes in the clouds again and again, trying to find the team, trying to get helicopters in to them.

  Then radio signals from the plane had abruptly ceased. Nothing was heard from them again. The team fought on for a little while. The last message heard was of the one-one, the assistant patrol leader. Everyone is dead, he said, except me. Good-bye.

  It was assumed that the light plane carrying Korhonen and the pilot had crashed into a mountain. Old-timers in the Special Forces had predicted for years that sooner or later Korhonen would come walking out of the jungle. He was indestructible, they said. He’s gone through entirely too much to die this way.

  Now, it appeared, they had been right.

  “How long have you known he was alive?” Jim asked.

  “We didn’t know for sure for a long time,” General Miller said. “We heard rumors. Agent sightings, that sort of thing. Then some of the people who escaped by boat started bringing out stories. About camps across the line in Laos, where lots of the missing persons were kept. A lot of those stories were discounted. Some could not be. Such was the case of Major Korhonen.”

  “And how many more are there?” Jim demanded. “That can’t be discounted?”

  “A few,” General Miller admitted. “We’re checking them out, rest assured.”

  “Then how is it the U.S. government can come flat out and state that there are no more live Americans in Southeast Asia? When we know there are.”

  “Because the sons of bitches are trying to blackmail us!” the general exploded. “We were told, shortly after the prisoners came back in 1973, that if we wanted any more, we were going to have to pay for them. Oh, the cynical bastards said it wasn’t for themselves; claimed that some of our folks were being held by independent groups, people they had no control over. You know what a line of bullshit that is. They damned well have control over the Pathet Lao, and that’s where most of the sightings take place.

  “They put a price on each man’s head. One million dollars. Payable to numbered accounts in Hong Kong. For the bones of those who are dead, we get a real bargain. Half a million.” The general was clearly disgusted with such venality.

  “We spent a hell of a lot more than that, for less,” Jim said. “And will be doing it again, if I agree to what you ask. I don’t know what a mission of this sort is going to cost, but it has to be a hell of a lot more than a million dollars.”

  “The president, and very rightly so, I might add, set a policy at that time that we would not give in to blackmail. That po
licy continues in this administration. It’s a policy that is likely to be continued, no matter who becomes president in the next election. Key senators support it as well, and they’re not likely to let it be changed.

  “Can’t you see what would happen if we gave in?” the general asked, seeing that his argument was having little effect on the captain. “Americans become fair game for anyone in the world who needs a little money. Hell, it’s almost that way now. Can’t you see what it would be like if we didn’t at least try to stand up to them? Would you want to be the politician who was responsible for the wholesale blackmail of the American people? No? And neither would anyone else.

  “You ask about costs. Of course this will cost a hell of a lot more than a million dollars. But we will spend any amount of money, and make any sacrifice, to reclaim our people. We will do it so that the enemy knows they will not be rewarded for their crimes; will, in fact, suffer for them.”

  It was a good speech, Jim thought. I wonder how much of it is true.

  Not that it mattered, he decided. Korhonen was a hero, and deserved to be rescued, but someone else could do it as well as he. There were probably hundreds of Special Forces officers who would jump at the chance—all of them feeling just about as useless as he did in this peacetime Army, and many who wouldn’t have a pregnant wife. Or any family at all. As for his relationship with Y Buon Sarpa, obviously it would make such a mission easier. But not impossible for someone who had never met the man at all.

  Time to give it all up. Resign himself to the reality of the situation. Become a responsible adult. Damn! What a thought.

  A thought hit him.

  “You said there were two,” he said.

  “Pardon?” The general looked puzzled.

  “You said Sarpa was holding two Americans. Who’s the other one?”

  Sloane, who had been watching the play of emotions on Carmichael’s face and sensing that his decision was likely to go against them, suppressed a smile of triumph. Time to play the hold card.