Chapter 15
The Thai recon team spilled out of the helicopter, dragging a bound and blindfolded prisoner with them. Finn noted in approval that they looked matter-of-fact, didn’t have that wild-eyed fear-generated look so many of the Vietnamese STD teams had come back with after Saigon had started restricting cross-border operations to Vietnamese only.
They were armed and equipped much as the recon teams from SOG had been, CAR-15 carbines, some of which had the M-203 40mm grenade launcher slung beneath the front handguard, web gear loaded down with extra magazines and grenades, various signaling and survival gear stashed away in various pockets and pouches. Of course, they’d been trained and equipped by 46th Special Forces Company, so why wouldn’t they have been? You messed with the tried and true only after something else had been well and truly proven.
This particular team had used little of their ammunition and few grenades. Their mission had been prisoner snatch, a task they’d accomplished with remarkably little fanfare. They’d moved as close as they dared to a large encampment, determined the patterns, looked for weaknesses, and finally decided on grabbing a member of one of the watering parties that left the perimeter carrying big plastic jugs down to the network of streams that fed the Mekong. Such parties usually consisted of six to eight soldiers, with only two of them serving as guards.
The Thais had ambushed them near the stream, killing the two guards with sound-suppressed M-3 Greaseguns firing the well-tested .45 ACP cartridge. Earlier uses of sound-suppressed weapons had shown them not to be all that useful—the suppressor bled off so much of the propellant gases that smaller rounds depending upon speed for their effect had proved not so effective after all. The .45 with its greater mass than the 9mm (over twice the weight of bullet), and orders of magnitude greater mass than the other choice, the .22, still had enough lethality to give one-shot stops even after the bullet had been slowed by one-third. It was like getting hit with a good-sized rock, a rock moving at seven hundred feet per second. Inasmuch as the old .45s and .44s used in the American West hadn’t been moving much faster than that, and had proved themselves in hundreds of gunfights, it didn’t seem like much of a sacrifice to give up a little bit of speed.
The ambushers had then set their sights on the other members of the watering party, killing all but one. The mathematics of it was implacable. A recon team of six men couldn’t control more than one prisoner and maintain its own security.
They’d then evacuated the ambush site, moved several hundred yards away, and had called for extraction. The Hueys, flown by crews who had also been trained by the Americans and who had, during the campaigns in Laos during the war, gained invaluable experience in just such operations, had them picked up and back over the border within minutes.
They’d radioed ahead, alerting the FOB to the presence of the prisoner, giving Finn time to roust the Vietnamese interpreter he’d managed to recruit from one of the many refugee camps that were increasingly a feature of the Thai border area.
Finn took possession of the prisoner, telling Bucky to get him into the interrogation tent, and turned to congratulate the team. In Thai he praised their performance, told them that the beer was on him at the club they’d hastily reactivated, and dismissed them to their own debriefing. They’d be getting good and drunk tonight, he knew. Trying to chase away, for a little while, the thought that although this mission had gone exceptionally smoothly, there would be others. And they couldn’t all be like that.
He’d done the same thing, many times.
In the interrogation tent Finn told the interpreter, a Mr. Quan who had last worked in an A camp in the Delta, to take the prisoner’s blindfold off.
The young Vietnamese, a baby really, Finn thought, physically recoiled at the sight of the Americans. He would, Finn knew, have been told all sorts of stories about how the Americans butchered their prisoners, cutting off various portions of their anatomies and force-feeding them to the unfortunate men.
Such tactics, ironically, worked in favor of the questioners. The interviewee had to be convinced that his situation was hopeless, that to resist was only to bring unnecessary pain before inevitable death.
Then when, instead of the beatings he was expecting, you acted like a human being, the gratitude was such that you wanted to do just about anything to please your surprisingly kind captors.
“Ask him if he’s thirsty,” Finn told Quan, who translated it quickly into Vietnamese.
Bucky Epstein, who spoke Vietnamese so well that when he’d used it over a captured radio the Viet Cong had thought him one of their own, nodded to Finn. The interpreter was saying exactly what he was supposed to. Not adding or subtracting, not putting in his own fillips. Interpreters always had to be checked, first for accuracy (since being an interpreter for the Americans had carried such financial benefits, anyone who spoke even a few words of English advertised himself as a linguistic expert), and then for reliability. The fact that someone spoke good English didn’t necessarily mean that he was your friend. Far from it. The VC had even run their own language school, attempting to put their graduates into positions from which they could report back everything they learned. After all, the interpreter was always going to be in on any planning sessions and briefings, and would learn far more than even the commanders of Vietnamese units working with the Americans.
When their prisoner registered first surprise at the question, then hesitant gratitude, Finn untied his bonds and Bucky gave him a canteen cup full of water. The North Vietnamese sat for a moment rubbing his wrists, looking at the water, clearly longing for it, but afraid to take it.
Bucky took a sip, then offered it again. The young man grabbed it, his throat working frantically as he downed it to the last drop.
Fear and adrenaline always had that effect, the body telling the brain that it needed water, and needed it badly. Even if you’d filled your belly with it only moments before.
The Vietnamese handed the cup back to Bucky, who signaled, More? The Vietnamese nodded and Bucky filled the cup again. This time he only drank about half of it.
The Vietnamese looked longingly at the tent flap, then at the men around him, and Finn thought he could almost see his mind work. Try for an escape? After all, he had his hands and feet free.
There was absolutely no chance of that, and the prisoner would recognize it for himself. None of the men in the tent were armed, eliminating the chance to snatch a weapon. The two Americans outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. Even if he managed to get out of the tent he was still in enemy territory, surrounded by hundreds of Thai troops who would, unlike those in the tent, be armed and would be positively happy to shoot a fleeing prisoner.
Seeing his shoulders slump in resignation, Finn started the questioning. He started from the simple: name, rank, unit. Under the Geneva Accords the prisoner didn’t have to answer the last question, but Geneva didn’t say you couldn’t ask it. Besides, though the United States honored the provisions of the accords it had never been a signatory. The Vietnamese had been signatories, but had never honored it.
Within just a few moments they had the information that they were in possession of one Dinh Thuan, private soldier of the Vietnamese People’s Army (VPA), and that he belonged to the 328th Infantry Regiment. Private Dinh had absolutely no combat experience, being a new draftee and having undergone basic training only a few weeks before being transported by truck through the Mu Gia Pass, down the Ho Chi Minh Trail (which was now achieving the status of near-superhighway) and joining the 328th.
The combat-hardened sergeants, corporals, and senior privates that made up the 328th had given the new draftees pure hell. Impugning their patriotism for not joining sooner, although Dinh was barely seventeen. Putting them through endless drills that Dinh and his comrades privately thought were designed more to make them miserable than to serve any real tactical purpose. Assigning them the shit details, one of which had been the water party. And horrifying them with their tales of combat, of having to live in muddy caves for m
onths while the American bombers prowled overhead, of being wounded and having to depend upon maggots to clean the wound out because there was no medical help, of watching comrades die in agony.
Something the new recruits would never have to experience, the older men said. Because the victorious VPA would sweep away all opponents, and the Americans were afraid to come back because their own people wouldn’t stand for it. Implying that the young men would be the less for not having experienced the true horrors of war.
The unit had been, as far as Dinh knew, brought up to full strength, replacing the casualties suffered on the victorious march through the Central Highlands all the way down to the city now known as Ho Chi Minh. It had also been re-equipped, with the weapons modern, the transportation sufficient, the artillery taken from the South Vietnamese puppet army refurbished and repaired with the spare parts of which there had been warehouses full.
They were, Private Dinh told them, not without a certain amount of pride, fully ready for combat.
When finally Finn had decided they’d gotten all out of the prisoner they could, he summoned the Thai guards and had them take Private Dinh away. Within an hour he’d be on a plane to Bangkok, there to undergo yet more interrogation, this time by some true professionals. After that, who knew? After all, Thailand and Vietnam weren’t at war. What the Thai recon team had done was, technically, illegal by international norms. Finn would bet that the Viets would claim they were in Laos at the invitation of the Laotian government.
That was, if the Viets made a protest. Somehow Finn didn’t think they would. They had bigger fish to fry.
Thailand and Vietnam weren’t at war. Yet.
“You find ’em?” he asked Bucky, who was going through the North Vietnamese army order of battle book.
“Yep,” Bucky replied, slamming the book shut. “Thought I recognized the designation. The 328th is a part of the 2nd VPA Division. The Yellow Star.”
Finn, who had been fairly certain he’d recognized the designation as well, was dismayed to hear he had been right. The Yellow Star was one of the NVA’s best. Bloodied in numerous battles with American and Vietnamese troops, the most notable battle of which had been the operation called Crazy Horse, the 2nd VPA was first-rate.
“Wanna bet a bottle of good scotch the Yellow Star isn’t the only one out there?” Finn said.
“You oughta know by now I don’t do fool’s bets,” Bucky replied.
“Didn’t think so. Let’s go see if any of the other teams have come in yet.”
Chapter 16
The walk back into camp was nerve-wracking. They took a roundabout route, avoiding any chokepoints and trails, but still the thought that the enemy had a pretty good fix on them was bothersome. Not to mention the fact that the claymore ambush could have been heard for several kilometers, and they had no idea how close the NVA patrol had been to their link-up point.
Still, after a number of alerts that caused them to change direction again and again, fading back and splitting up at one point only to link back up at a predesignated rally point later, the trip was uneventful. Or as uneventful as it could be here where the fantastic shapes of the weathered karst formations gave vent to over-vivid imaginations.
After seeing what he’d thought might have been a tank, which turned out to be nothing more than a rock outcropping with a fallen tree braced against it, Jim decided that he was getting entirely too old for this shit. Occasionally he liked to torment himself with the fantasy of lying with Alix under their down comforter, feeling her warmth, touching the softly growing belly that hid their child.
Could have been there, he thought. Dumb-ass.
Better concentrate, he told himself after stumbling over a root. That could have been a tripwire. His first Purple Heart had been acquired thus. At least it hadn’t been he who had tripped the mine. Had it been, he wouldn’t be here now. As it was the first four people in front of him had been mangled beyond recognition, and the point man who had done the deed had been virtually vaporized.
He’d only had his eardrums blown out, and had been the unhappy recipient of some twenty to twenty-five pieces of shrapnel—the doctors had never been really sure just how many—some of which had pierced his stomach wall and lodged in his intestines.
Three others had transfixed his penis to his thigh. Later, at the field evac hospital to which he had been evacuated, the nurses had found it vastly amusing to come in and throw back the sheet to show their friends his enormous, swollen, blackened appendage.
And of course, Special Forces men being the sensitive, caring individuals they are, they had given him a nickname he’d spent years living down.
“Hey, Piccolo,” the greeting went. “How do you piss out of that thing? Play it like a flute?”
His thoughts were suddenly jerked back to the present. The point man was signaling a halt.
The ’Yards faded into the underbrush, becoming as one with the leaves and branches. Someone could walk within inches of them and never see anything more than, perhaps, their glittering eyes. Of course, if you were close enough to see their eyes, you were moments away from dying.
Korhonen, ahead of him, signaled “Look,” forked fingers to the eyes, then the same fingers pointing in the appropriate direction.
Just to the other side of an abandoned slash-and-burn field, he saw them. Moving casually, weapons slung. Why not, he thought. It’s their backyard, after all. And they’re sure as hell not worried about the likes of us.
Had to be at least a battalion of troops. Marching in a column of twos. As at ease as they might have been back in Hanoi.
They waited a good half-hour for the troops to pass, then took a slight dogleg and proceeded. Once safely out of range, the patrol leader called another halt. At his signal Jim and Willi Korhonen joined him.
“I think they look for our camp,” he said.
Korhonen nodded in agreement. “We have big problem,” he said. “When they didn’t know where we were, we could ambush them, draw them away, keep them confused. Never let them mass enough troops to attack.” He looked at Jim Carmichael, and the look was clearly accusatory.
Not my fault, Jim thought. But try and explain that. Right now he was longing for the support upon which he could once have called. Put a B-52 arclight strike on those assholes and we wouldn’t have to worry about it.
They’d taken several FM radios from the ambushed NVA patrol and had tuned their own radios to the frequencies they’d found. The traffic had indicated that the patrol had been very efficient at passing on the information they’d found. Sarpa’s camp had been well and thoroughly compromised.
“You have ideas, Captain?” Korhonen demanded.
“Pretty simple,” Jim said. “Get back to Sarpa, warn him, get that place evacuated. He can’t stand against the entire goddamn North Vietnamese army, because that’s what he’s going to get, once they get their people in place. Split up, regroup somewhere else. Get our resupplies, take the time to build up your forces, fight them at a time and place of your own choosing.”
Korhonen thought for a moment. “I agree,” he finally said. “But you’re going to have a hell of a time selling that to Y Buon Sarpa.”
“Doesn’t believe in living to fight another day?” Jim asked.
“Quite the opposite,” Korhonen replied. “Sarpa believes in fighting to live another day.”
Sarpa had a simple answer.
“We attack,” he said.
Jim looked at him in question, wondering if the pressure had finally gotten to the Montagnard leader. Clearly he’d lost his mind.
“We sit here, they come with more and more people,” Sarpa explained. “The one battalion becomes two, then a regiment. With artillery. Aircraft. Do you think we can survive that?”
“There’s another answer,” Jim replied.
Sarpa snorted. “I know your answer before you say it. We move, right? Give up this position, find another. How long do you think it will take them to find it? And what happens to the vill
agers who depend on us? You want them to move too?” He shook his head.
“We’ve moved enough. It is time to fight.”
“You’re going to lose, you know,” Jim said.
Sarpa smiled, and it was a smile of resignation.
“If we lose, we die. If we win, maybe we die too. But we die with honor. Your country once understood honor. I have read much of your Civil War. I think your General Lee, he knew he was going to lose. But he fought, anyway. Now what do you do? You declare ‘Peace with Honor,’ and you leave. Do not tell me what I must do, Captain. You do not have the right.”
Sarpa turned on his heel and walked away.
“You’ve got to talk some sense into him,” Jim said to Willi Korhonen.
Now it was Korhonen’s turn to snort in derision.
“Even if I could,” he said, “I wouldn’t. Let them come.” He was silent for a moment, perhaps thinking of all the combat he’d seen, the lives lost, the honor of which Sarpa had so eloquently spoken given away by politicians far away. Men who would never really know what the word meant.
“Maybe I’ve lived too long anyway,” he said. “If it’s time, it’s time.”
Jim shook his head. Sarpa’s words had stung. But they’d been nothing more than he’d once said, himself.
In truth there was little he would have liked better than to join in the fight. But he had other responsibilities. He’d come to get Korhonen and Parker out. Korhonen refused to go. So be it. That didn’t end the mission.
Besides, he had two NCOs to think of, and while they too would probably like nothing better than a good fight, that was a decision they’d have to make on their own. He would get them out, back home. Just as he’d promised—God, was it only three days ago!—in Thailand.
And last, but certainly not least, there was Alix. Ruefully he admitted to himself that what he’d said so many times—that a warrior should never take a wife, never become hostage to family and the responsibilities it entailed—was undoubtedly true.
Bayonet Skies Page 20
