P. O. W.

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  James folded the overlay and looked at the map on the wall behind him. A large block-letter sign read TOP SECRET on the black vinyl drape covering the battle plan. James looked slowly around the room and saw that the captain who had given him a hassle when he had entered was gone. He smiled and decided to risk it. James picked up another piece of overlay paper and some paper tape and approached the top-secret map. He had lifted a corner of the vinyl cover and was trying to pin it back when a heavy hand grabbed him by his shoulder.

  “What do you think you’re doing!” The Marine lieutenant colonel pulled James around until the black soldier was facing him. “Can’t you read? That’s a top-secret battle plan with a special ‘need to know.’… Do you have clearance?”

  “Yes sir! I’m supposed to get copies of everything in the I Corps Tactical Zone….” James tried bluffing his way.

  “Who said the plan was in I Corps?” The lieutenant colonel wasn’t about to be bullshitted.

  “I just assumed.”

  “An assumption is the mother of a fuck-up, Captain… and you just fucked up. Now get out of here.” The more the Marine office looked at James, the madder he got. The captain was just too arrogant.

  “Sure… sir.” James dropped his eyes down to the floor. “I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

  “You have… now move your ass!” The Marine looked James’s shoulders for a unit patch and saw that there wasn’t any sewn on. “What unit you from?”

  James hesitated before answering, “The Cav.”

  “What unit, Captain?”

  “First Brigade, Recon Company, First Cavalry Division, Airmobile… sir!”

  “Don’t be a smartass, Captain, or I’ll have the MPs escort you out of here!”

  “Yes sir!”

  The Marine lieutenant colonel turned away in disgust. He was going to mention the captain to the Army general he worked for. He didn’t care what the general did about it, but he wasn’t going to work for the Army and take shit from junior officers. “What’s your name, soldier?”

  “James—” James caught himself. “Ben Arnold, sir.”

  “James Ben Arnold?” The lieutenant colonel became very suspicious. He sensed something was very wrong. “Let me see your ID card.”

  James removed his wallet and pulled his NVA-forged ID card from the protector and handed it to the officer.

  The Marine looked at the picture and down at the card a half-dozen times before staring at James, who looked away. “You stay here. I’m going to have the MPs check you out. There’s something very fishy about you.”

  James felt his stomach turn sour and squeezed his left upper arm against his side to make sure the 9mm pistol was still there. He had checked his .45 in with the MP at the duty desk according to Corps procedures.

  “Sir! We need you right away in the general’s briefing room! It’s important. Brigadier General Seacourt is in there, and they want you.”

  The Marine lieutenant colonel looked down at the ID card and back at James. “Here! And the next time I see you, you’d better have a decent haircut!” He handed the card back to James and hurried after the staff lieutenant.

  James left the plans room and stopped out in the hallway to catch his breath. That had been too close a call. He felt the sweat running down his sides. His eyes focused and he read the sign with the black arrow pointing to the left that showed the direction of the snack bar. He felt hungry after all of the pressure and decided on having something to eat before heading back to his camp. He had already lined up a helicopter ride out to the Marine forward base called The Rockpile. He could walk to his contact point from there.

  The Vietnamese woman who operated the counter at the snack bar took the ten-dollar MPC note from James and paused to look at the dark brown spot that covered a third of the bill. She didn’t know if she should take the damaged money and called the club NCO over to her counter.

  The staff sergeant looked at the note and then at James. “What happened to it?”

  “You got me, Sarge; I got it from the PX like that…. Maybe somebody spilled some paint or ink on it.” James shrugged his shoulders.

  The sergeant looked at the MPC certificate again and frowned. He handed it to the woman. “Take it.”

  James took his tray and found a seat near the wall. He knew the stain was dried blood from the American soldier’s body it had been removed from by the NVA.

  The longer James sat there eating, the more pissed he became. He had told Lieutenant Van Pao that the cover name Ben Arnold would cause more problems than the insult was worth, but she had insisted his ID card and other papers have that name on them. She found the name of the American Revolutionary War traitor a perfect form of irony for James’s cover. He was going to cause some hell when he returned to the camp over the money with dried blood on it; there was no excuse for that kind of carelessness—none!

  Woods sat in the armchair outside of the office McDonald was in with Sergeant Cooper. Brigadier General Seacourt was inside the room with them getting briefed on the POW snatch operation. He had been in there, but all of the cigar smoke was making him sick, so he slipped outside to catch his breath. Besides, there wasn’t anything going on in there that he didn’t know by heart.

  A command sergeant major walked by and then stopped and backed up. “There’s a small snack bar right around the corner if you want a soda or a hamburger, young man.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant Major.” Woods nodded and smiled.

  “No problem. The hamburgers are good, though….” He patted his stomach. “Too good!”

  Woods looked over at the closed door and figured they would be in there a few more minutes, long enough for him to get something to eat. He stopped by one of the clerk’s desks before leaving and asked the guy to tell McDonald where he had gone in case they came out early.

  James finished his food and stepped out of the door into the hallway. He looked to his left and saw the exit door leading out onto the quadrangle and the parked staff vehicles. He figured he could hitch a ride to the Marine helipad easily enough. Whites were stupid.

  Woods turned the corner and saw James staring directly at him. He stopped and blinked his eyes. It was James, but he was wearing captain’s bars on his cap and collar.

  “James!” The single word coming out of Woods’s throat echoed down the narrow hall like a cannon shot.

  James turned away from his ex-teammate and hurried to the exit door. Once he stepped outside, he started running as fast as he could. His briefcase smashed against his leg.

  Woods took a few seconds before he reacted. He was sure the officer was James, but the way the black officer had reacted, he could have been wrong. He put his hand on the snack bar door and paused. He was sure the man was James; he was sure! Woods hurried down the hallway to the exit and stepped outside. The black officer was gone. He walked a few steps toward the parked vehicles and then changed his mind. Maybe the officer just looked like James. He had been thinking a lot lately about the ambush and the A Shau Valley, where James had been with them. He was probably just seeing things. The smell of frying hamburgers drew him back inside and over to the snack bar.

  Cooper kept twisting his lips as they drove back to the CCN compound. He was deep in thought and drove the jeep slower than he normally did. McDonald kept his eyes locked on the Vietnamese houses lining the right-hand side of the road.

  Woods kept playing with the selector switch on his CAR-15, flicking it on and off full automatic. A dozen times he started to tell McDonald about what had happened at the XXIV Corps snack bar, but each time he stopped himself.

  McDonald turned around sideways on the canvas seat and looked back at Woods. “You know, everyone gets nervous before they go out on patrol…. This mission is no different, Woods.”

  Woods stopped flicking the selector switch and decided that he was going to tell the sergeant and take the ribbing. “It’s not the mission, Sarge…. I—I saw a captain who looked like… James.” Woods shook his head and c
orrected himself. “You might think I’m fucking crazy… but… it was James, dressed up like a captain!” Woods couldn’t believe what he had just said to McDonald.

  McDonald stared hard at Woods and frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “Sarge, I told you that you’d think I’m fucking crazy…. I know what James looks like, but man, you know his… eyes.” Woods swallowed. “Someone can look like James, but nobody can have the same look in his eyes.”

  McDonald knew exactly what Woods was saying. “Turn around!” He grabbed Cooper’s arm. “Turn around… now!”

  The drive back to Corps Headquarters took them half the time it had taken getting there the first time. Cooper wove between the traffic like a Philippine taxi driver. He paused at the main gates to the complex just long enough to get checked in. The MP remembered them from earlier, because of the black-painted jeep, and rushed them through the checkpoints.

  McDonald entered the exit door first, followed closely by Woods. “Where did you see him?” McDonald turned to face Woods.

  “He was standing over there by the snack bar door.” Woods pointed and McDonald ran to the spot.

  The master sergeant looked inside the bar, hoping that James would have returned, and saw only a couple of staff officers drinking coffee. He turned to leave and his eyes locked on a stained sign hanging above a closed door: PLANS. Everything fell together for him as he ran to the door and entered the classified area. The duty captain stopped him at the door and asked for his ID. McDonald produced it and at the same time scanned the room and the maps hanging on all of the walls. He was sure now.

  “Did a black captain—say, in his early twenties—come in here this afternoon?” McDonald felt his breath catch in his throat.

  “Hey, Sergeant… do you know how many officers pass through here in one day?” The captain looked at McDonald as if he were nuts to ask such a dumb question.

  “It’s very important, sir! Very important!” The tone in McDonald’s voice drew the attention of a Marine lieutenant colonel who had been reading a complex battle plan. The officer looked up from his desk and recognized the sergeant who had been in the briefing earlier with General Seacourt. “Sergeant McDonald?”

  “Yes sir…” McDonald left the duty officer’s desk and went over to the lieutenant colonel’s, followed closely by Woods.

  “Did you say a black captain?”

  “Yes sir… thin… about twenty years old… hard eyes.”

  “Does he have a budding Afro hairdo?”

  “Could be…”

  “He was here, right before the meeting with General Sea-court. I was going to have the MPs run a check on him, but the meeting took precedence.”

  “Shit! If only you would have!” McDonald slapped the lieutenant colonel’s desk. “Shit!”

  “What’s going on?”

  McDonald looked around the room. “Did he get any op orders? Overlays? Anything!”

  “I watched him copy the battle plan of the I Corps map, and then he went over there to copy the top-secret op plan, and I stopped him.” The officer pointed to the black vinyl with the red letters stenciled on it and the cardboard sign above it.

  “That’s our plan?” McDonald questioned the officer.

  “Yes.”

  A cold chill slipped down McDonald’s spine. “Did he see it… even for a second?”

  “I doubt it. He lifted the bottom corner and I stopped him.”

  “Come and show me.” McDonald led the way over to the map that had the POW snatch laid out on it.

  The lieutenant colonel lifted the corner of the cover a little higher than James had and looked at the sergeant.

  “Hold it right there.” McDonald squatted down and viewed all of the map that had been exposed. It showed the lower half of Laos, with a bit of the operational area exposed. “Man, that’s risky!”

  “What in the hell is going on?” The Marine lieutenant colonel was confused and getting angry over being kept in the dark.

  “James… or… what did he call himself?”

  The Marine thought for a second, and then a light came on in his eyes. “He called himself James at first! Then he caught himself and said his name was…” The officer’s eyes opened wide as he realized the irony in the name he was about to say. “Ben Arnold.”

  “He’s got a set of brass balls!” McDonald looked at Woods and shook his head. “James was captured by the NVA only a few months ago… less than that… and we think he’s turned coat. He’s working as an NVA spy and saboteur.”

  “What was his rank?”

  “Specialist Fourth Class… why?”

  “I knew there was something about him that didn’t make sense…. He wore captain’s bars, but didn’t act like a captain.” The Marine officer wrinkled his lips until they turned white. “I should have followed my gut instincts!”

  McDonald looked at the Marine officer and grinned. “We might just make this work for us, sir. If the NVA know our op plans, they might just take advantage of that opportunity… right?”

  The officer took only a second to grasp what McDonald was leading up to. “You’re right! We can change the plans and be waiting for the NVA to attack our weakest points.” The lieutenant colonel nodded his head. “Good work, Sergeant!”

  “It was Specialist Woods who saw him.” McDonald gave the credit to the young soldier.

  “Well, there will be some kind of award for this! A lot of American lives have been saved, plus a traitor exposed, and I hate to think how much damage James could have done! I mean, nobody would ever suspect a black soldier. A white GI could be mistaken for a Frenchman gone renegade, but a black soldier could go just about anywhere in this country and never be questioned for being there.”

  “I’d get the word out to the rest of the planning people in the other Corps if I were you, sir.” McDonald turned to leave.

  “Believe me! By tomorrow night, James’s picture will be in the hands of every commander in Vietnam…. He won’t be able to show his face to an American again!”

  James ran behind the building and stopped to check if Woods had followed him. He saw his ex-teammate pause near the row of vehicles and then go back inside the building. Sweat dripped off his chin. He waited until his breathing slowed down before walking over to the helipad. He had to get out of Da Nang as soon as possible.

  The noise from a jet engine reached him, and he started running again. A Huey slick was starting to warm up. James ran over to the crew chief and asked where they were headed, and the man told him Con Thien and then out to Khe Sanh, a new area the Marines were opening up. James asked if they were going to stop at the Rockpile, and the crew chief ran over and asked the pilot, who was a black warrant officer.

  The pilot beckoned James to come over to his window and yell above the noise of the engine so James could hear him. “Hop on board…I’ll drop you off!”

  James gave the brother a thumbs-up and scrambled onto the nylon mesh seat. He kept looking back for Woods until the skids left the ground, and then he relaxed against the seat and smiled as he patted his briefcase that contained the overlays of the big combined arms operation. There was going to be a number of surprises during that operation that the Americans would never forget!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Fool’s Gold Escape

  The hut was clean and smelled of freshly split bamboo and new thatch. Colonel Garibaldi looked down at the woven mats covering the floor and saw that they were also new. The hut had never been used before. There were two cots, one at each end of the ten-by-eight-foot building. The only sign that the hut housed POWs was the chain with the leg brackets that was attached to one of the main bamboo poles next to each bed.

  “Look at this!” Barnett held up the new metal plate in one hand and the knife, fork, and spoon in his other hand.

  “Something is going on that doesn’t make any sense.” Garibaldi shook his head. “First, the new hooch with a roof!” He looked up at the shade-producing cover and closed his eyes in silent prayer. �
�It’s going to feel good sleeping at night and not get rained on or bake all day in the sun.”

  “Why do you think they’re doing this?” Spencer sat down on his cot.

  “I don’t know….” Colonel Garibaldi sat down across from the soldier. “I’ve been in a half-dozen of their POW camps, and I’ve never even heard of them allowing two prisoners to live together, much less given them all of these luxury items!” Garibaldi let his eyes sweep over the new blankets, eating utensils, spare clothes, water cans, and even a wash basin with a mirror attached to the wall of the hut.

  “Well, I don’t know what they’ve got planned, but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts!” Spencer stretched out on the bamboo-framed cot that had been padded with thatch.

  Colonel Garibaldi jumped to his feet. “Someone is coming….”

  Lieutenant Van Pao stepped through the low doorway and entered the hut smiling. She was followed by a small man wearing steel-frame glasses and carrying a dark brown leather satchel. “How are my Americans feeling today?” Van Pao’s smile spread out over her face.

  “Very good, ma’am.” Colonel Garibaldi tilted forward slightly as a sign of respect and submission. He knew how to play the survival game well.

  Barnett started getting up off his cot, but Van Pao stopped him by holding out her hand. “You may stay there, Spencer Barnett.” She had begun calling him by both of his names since he had survived the whole night in Mother Kaa’s cage without screaming even once. “Dr. Tam is going to examine you and the colonel and see if you need any special medical attention.” She motioned for the North Vietnamese doctor to start examining Barnett.

  The doctor used Van Pao as an interpreter and asked numerous questions about his health and how he was feeling as he conducted the examination. He had Spencer strip down to his new black pajama pants and checked his heart rate and lungs. The doctor barked a set of orders and looked at the lieutenant. She smiled and closed her eyes halfway before translating the order into English. “He wants you to stand up and lower your pants.”

  Spencer didn’t hesitate. He wasn’t going to give Sweet Bitch a second of pleasure by acting modest in front of her. He knew that she often hid near the POW latrine pit and watched them relieve themselves. She had a definite problem. Colonel Garibaldi had told him earlier that he thought she secretly wished she were a man and was extremely jealous of male sex organs.