Casca 14: The Phoenix

by Barry Sadler

  "Keep me informed when any more info comes in. I have to know if Ho was snuffed."

  Gomez whispered under his breath. "I'm not sure that I wouldn't rather hear it was you."

  It was nearly 1500 hours when he had the call come in from the PSDF village that Romain was with them. Rushing out of the office he told the radio man to call the chopper pad and have one waiting for him when he got there. He couldn't stay in the office any longer. He had to know what had gone down.

  Gomez had the pilot land the Slick right in the center of the village blowing stray chickens into the air from the rotor blast. Casey was waiting for him. A South Viet officer gave him a hand getting into the bird, then turned his back to the whirlwind as the chopper lifted off.

  Gomez had the co-pilot radio HQ at Song Be that they were on their way back and Casey was all right. Yelling over the roar of the chopper, he asked, "How did it go? Are you okay?"

  Casey shrugged his shoulders. "We don't know for certain if we got Ho or not, but we damned sure fucked up a lot of his people and his camp."

  Gomez was almost pleased that Ho's death was not confirmed. That should give Tomlin a brand new set of nightmares for a while.

  Song Be was not the only military installation to receive a radio message that hour.

  The South Vietnamese officer made another call on his own radio. This time the message went to the Vietcong Command Center in the Parrot's Beak. He told them of the scar-faced American brought in by a party of Kamserai.

  Colonel Ho van Tuyen was given a copy of the message. His face blanched as his lips drew tight and pale. He gave the message to Troung, who had much the same response.

  "Comrade Troung, this has got to stop. Why is he still alive?" He stopped any response from Troung with an upraised hand in the form of a fist.

  "We must have an end to him once and for all. I do not know what keeps him coming back to us but I do know that he will come again. You!" He pointed his shaking finger at Troung. "You must see that does not happen. You will go after him yourself. Kill him, once and for all, kill him. Bring me his head. I will have to look in the eyes myself before I can finally believe that he is truly dead."

  He paused to try and regain control of himself. Sweat had broken out all over his body. His armpits stank with the superstitious fear of the unknown. "Go to Song Be! Go to Hong Kong. Go to the United States if you have to, but kill him." His voice rose to a near shriek. "Kill him, do you understand me. Kill him or I will kill you. Now go. Use any of our resources that you wish without restraint. But remember, my friend. Either he dies or you die. Now leave me."

  Tomlin was not at all pleased with the after action report given him by Casey. The not knowing if Ho was dead was driving him nearly crazy. He had to admit that the operation had been successful in many aspects, but he didn't care if they had wiped out the entire Parrot's Beak. He wanted Ho dead so he could finally get a full night's sleep and not expect to wake up and find his throat slit from ear to ear. Not knowing what else to do he dismissed Casey and Gomez.

  "For God's sake go and clean yourself up. Every time you come in here you look like a garbage can. Gomez, can you do anything about this man's appearance?"

  Gomez bit his tongue to hold back a response that would have sent him stateside in irons.

  Tomlin redoubled his efforts to find out if Ho was still alive. Rewards of a thousand dollars in gold were now offered to any of his agents who could confirm Ho's status, dead or alive. He had to know. If Ho was still alive, then he would still need Sgt. Romain. He didn't like the man. He didn't like anyone that his rank couldn't intimidate, or who didn't defer to him with the respect he felt was his right. This, however, went beyond his personal likes and dislikes. And Romain was still the only one he knew of that had even come close to killing that commie son of a bitch.

  Casey was returned to the transient barracks where Gomez left him alone. After a hot shower and meal he hit the rack to sleep the clock around twice. His body needed rest to heal fully. He slept dreamless and deep the two days till a pounding in his mind at last woke him. The pounding continued accompanied by a shout from Gomez.

  "Get up damn you. You've got company here and work to do."

  Groaning, Casey crawled out of his bunk, put on clean camouflage jungle fatigues to cover up the scars on his body and unlocked the door.

  Eyes still half stuck together, with sleep, he tried to focus on the face before him. The voice brought recognition of his visitor before his eyes did.

  "I say, you great bloody monster. Are you going to sleep your bleeding life away? There's a war to be fought and fair maids to rescue!"

  His arms went around the slender almost girlish frame of Van tran Tuyen. Van had long ago learned to imitate cockney vernacular when he had lived with his father in London. Casey wondered if Van were related in some way to Ho but then Tuyen was as common in Vietnam as Smith was in the States.

  Gomez grinned openly at the honest affection being shown for each other by the two men. He knew when to leave people alone. "Look you two. Go and get some chow then come and see me at HQ. I have some word concerning your little mission Romain. But it can wait an hour or two."

  With Van at his side, Casey led the way to the mess hall. Suddenly he was ravenous. While they ate canned meat warmed into some kind of a stringy mush on top of powdered potatoes and a nondescript gravy of indeterminate origins, Van dropped his Limey accent.

  "You don't look too good. But now that I'm here things will straighten out soon enough. I want you to fill me in on this thing with Colonel Ho. I just got in an hour ago and Captain Gomez said I should get it from you."

  Casey stuffed his face with cook's gunk and swallowed. He felt much better now that Van was here. He'd first met the small handsome man a few months ago during an attack on a Special Forces camp in the delta. Since then a bond had developed between them that usually occurs only after one has known the other for years. Van was the only Vietnamese he completely trusted. Between bites of the gunk which Van passed on, he filled him in on what had been happening. He had the uneasy feeling that it wasn't over yet. If it had been, Gomez wouldn't have wanted them to come around after eating.

  The day felt good. The sun was warm without burning into one's hide like a blow torch. He answered Van's questions as they crossed the compound to headquarters.

  Gomez motioned for both of them to take seats and closed his office door. Resting a hip on the corner of his desk, he lowered his voice to make certain that no one other than these two men could hear what he was going to say.

  "Ho is alive. He and his man Troung got out through an escape tunnel. One of our agents came to claim the reward that Tomlin put out. We even ran him through a sodium pentothal treatment to make sure he was telling the truth."

  He waited a second to see if they had any questions. Neither one looked surprised to hear that Ho lived. Continuing, he moved back to his own chair and leaned over his desk. "Ho is sending the Bo Doi captain called Troung here to get you, Casey. From what our agent has told us, Ho has nearly as bad a case of the blind shits as does Tonilin. I don't know what you've done to the man but it has him on the edge of madness."

  Casey volunteered nothing more and Gomez accepted it.

  "This is the case. We will know when Troung comes into town. We've got one of his main agents spotted. When he makes contact we'll know about it. Then it'll be up to you guys to decide what to do. We still have to get Ho if any of us are ever to get any rest again. I'll run whatever interference I can for you with the Colonel but he's paranoid as hell. I don't think he really trusts me anymore because I don't have blue eyes.... Is there anything else you need to help with this thing?"

  Casey looked at Van, thought a moment and said, "Yes. Bring me Phang. I think he deserves to be in on this operation all the way through."

  Gomez nodded. "Okay, I'll get him here in the next couple of days because that's all the time you have before Troung arrives."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 
Dai Uy Troung came into town dressed in the guise of a field-worker. A conical hat of woven straw held to his head by a band of faded black cotton accented his standard peasant's dress of worn, threadbare black pajamas and rubber sandals. On his shoulders he carried a yoke, balancing two large earthenware jars containing smoked carp, ostensibly for the town markets. He came in the morning when traffic from the outlying towns was the heaviest and the road the most crowded. To his front and rear were others, also in peasant dress, who carried weapons and grenades beneath their jackets or in their baskets. If he was stopped they were to intercede, even if it meant having themselves arrested, or by creating enough confusion with their weapons that Troung could escape.

  The security guards at the inspection posts never gave him more than a cursory glance. If they had, they might have noticed that his features did not have the worn-out, beaten look of reluctant acceptance of one's station in life that was characteristic of the peasants. That they didn't was just as well. One of the two security guards from the ARVIN on duty that day was a member of the local Vietcong Company and when he was not on duty for the Saigon forces he moonlighted for the Viets. If Troung had given a certain phrase at the inspection station the VC sentry would have killed his companion.

  A column of Armored Personnel Carriers passed him. They were filled with American soldiers heading for the field. He hated the sight of the pale, young, cocky faces, a cockiness that he knew would leave the first time they came under serious fire. These were not the real danger to his country. The young faces would go home or die here. The greatest danger, as always, came from the masses. Whoever controlled them controlled the country. And control came from more than money. A great portion of it came from fear and he had studied under a master. He would bring fear to this city and in so doing advance their cause.

  That was ostensibly his purpose, in coming to Song Be. Only he and Ho knew that what they really wanted was vengeance. Vengeance for the pain Troung had suffered and for the loss of face of his master. The attack on their camp was too great an insult to be tolerated. It should not have happened. Everything was the scar-faced sergeant's fault. He had given them more trouble than any of the American combat units or intelligence agencies. He had to be stopped. In the dark recesses of their minds both also knew they had to kill their own fear of the scar-faced man and the only way to end that fear was to face it. He would do that, but on his terms and with his weapons. When he had the American in his power then all the nightmares and pain he had suffered since that unspeakable offspring of a gutter dog had cut his hand off to get the briefcase would end.

  Once inside the checkpoint Troung together with his escort moved by a circuitous route through the streets and narrow alleys to make certain they weren't being followed. At different points a member of his escort remained behind to stop anyone who might have been tailing them. Troung reached his destination, a bakery which supplied the local American garrison with bread and rolls for their tables. Across the alley from the bakery was a welding shop where plows and wrought iron fences were made or mended and sometimes weapons for the local guerrilla forces were repaired.

  Colonel Tomlin called Casey and Gomez to him. There was a new secretary fresh from the States sitting at the desk. The Sp/4 had been reassigned to an Air Cavalry regiment and had been happily manning an M-60 light machine gun as a door gunner. Two days later he was in a body bag being sent back home. Heroes do not have much longevity.

  Tomlin was agitated, his movements quick and jerky. His ashtray was full of half-smoked butts. He lit another one as he locked eyes with Casey and Gomez.

  "He's here. The cock-sucker is here and I know he's coming after me,"

  They knew who Tomlin meant. Gomez spoke for both of them. "Where is he? How many are with him?"

  Tomlin put out his smoke. "He came in this morning. Right now Troung is at the bakery. One of the people there works for us. I just got the word ten minutes ago. Now I want you to take care of him and find out where Ho is and come up with some way to finish him off, once and for all. And that's a goddamned order."

  Both of them were pleased to hear the news and so were Van and Phang who were back at the transient barracks waiting for them. They would have to move fast. Since they'd made the hit on Ho's headquarters another sixty South Vietnamese big shots and eight Americans had been killed by Ho's Ke' sat Nhan squads. Now that Troung himself was on the scene the killings would probably triple.

  Gomez asked them if they wanted any help but it was refused. Phang had brought a few of his own men with him when he came in. This had been their party from the beginning and they would see it through to the end.

  Troung questioned his agents about where the one called Romain was. It was good to find out that the Kamserai leader Phang was with him. That way he could even all the scores at one time. For now he was tired. It had been a long march and he needed to rest. By tonight his men would have the scarred one located, and he would see that he was dead before the next nightfall, even if it took the lives of every agent in Song Be. But for now, he would rest a while in the bakery shop.

  Phang moved through the alley with the tottering steps of a man nearly blind drunk. His gray hair and posture were that of an old man who only found solace in his drink. The Vietcong in the white shirt and slacks watching the alley saw nothing unusual about the old man. He was just another example of the loss of dignity that had overtaken his people. He looked at the old man with disgust as Phang nearly lost his balance and went into a drunken sidestepping trot as if trying to catch his balance. He came close to the Vietnamese, his head hanging down, lips slack, eyes focussed on nothing.

  Slurring his words, Phang mumbled as he nearly bumped into the guard, "Toi hoan lai Ru cu Viang?"

  Raising his hand to push the drunk on his way, the guard told him, distaste dripping from his words at the sight of the old man, "I have no wine you old fool. Go away before you get hurt."

  Phang bowed his head even further at the abuse, "Xin Loi."

  He apologized then straightened up, his limp hand now filled with his knife. The blade sank up to the cross-guard in the Viet's throat. Phang leaned against him, pushing the man back against the wall holding him up as he forced the blade in deeper. Waving at Casey and Van he signaled with his arm for them to come over. Casey helped move the body out of sight behind the bamboo crates as Van stood watch.

  Casey would have preferred not to have killed the guard but that was the only safe way they could get close enough to the building to get a look inside. If it was necessary they'd take the body with them when they left and just let Troung wonder what had happened to his man. It was always possible he'd think that he'd been picked up by a roving patrol.

  Phang signaled for Casey to come closer. Pointing with the M-3 he showed Casey the window of the welding shop. From inside came a dim glow. He and Van moved silently to where they could get a look in the window. Behind them Phang and his Kamserai gave cover.

  Troung stood with his back to the window talking to the welder-blacksmith. One other man stood with them, an American M-1 carbine held in his hands. Casey motioned for Van to come closer to the window. He could hear the people talking but couldn't understand all that was being said. Van leaned his dark head closer to the window and listened. Moving back from the window he whispered. "The one called Troung says that he is going to see that you and Phang are dead by tomorrow evening. Then he will get on with the rest of his mission. He plans on being in the city three days, then he will return to Colonel Ho in order to bring him up to date on the progress of their operations in this area."

  Looking back at the window Casey sighed, "Well that's it then. We have to take him now before he gets away. If he gets out of the city and into the countryside we'll never be able to find him. Now, let's figure out how to do it."

  Phang smiled, showing his betel nut stained teeth. "Just be patient, my friend. The one you want will have to come out sometime. There are only two exits and we will have both of them covered. When he
does come out, we'll be waiting for him."

  That plan made as much sense as anything else. If they broke in shooting, Troung might get killed before they had a chance to interrogate him. Troung would have to be taken alive and it would have to be done quietly. As for the others he didn't care, except that noise of gunfire might bring help to the enemy.

  "All right, Phang, but it has to be quiet. When the door opens and Troung and his escort come out we'll take them, but I don't want anyone to start shooting. I'll take care of Troung myself. You and your men take out the one with the carbine and the blacksmith."

  Phang bobbed his head in agreement, "Xa Phai!" He left Casey to give the orders to his men. Their firearms were put on their shoulders and knives brought out. One man went to the rear of the welding shop to cover the door there. It was not likely that Troung would use that door as he was known to be sleeping at the bakery across the alley.

  Phang returned to the window to watch. Casey placed himself out of sight to the side of a door behind a stack of bamboo crates. Casey had Van change shirts with the dead Viet and take his place on guard. They were near the same size and, in the dark, from the back, Troung was not likely to notice the change until it was too late.