South China Sea wi-8

by Ian Slater

  In the two pairs of runners, one man would cover while the other advanced in a tactical leapfrog until they reached their respective columns, all four messengers torn between the need for speed, quiet, and the fear of being mistaken by Echo or Foxtrot as an enemy scout sneaking up behind them.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  One of Larry King’s braces was twisted. He quickly readjusted it and was on air.

  “Good evening. Tonight we have Mr. Bruce Ellman, special aide to the President, and we’re going to be talking about the controversy that has erupted over General Freeman’s action in the Chinese-United States-Vietnamese-U.N. conflict. Specifically, Freeman sending a strike force into Laos.”

  “Ah, Larry,” Ellman interjected politely, “it isn’t a strike force. It’s a long-range reconnaissance patrol.”

  “Yes, but it’s a military force, right? That’s crossed the border into Laos?”

  “Well, we’re not a hundred percent sure of that, Larry.”

  “C’mon, Bruce, Freeman’s troops have either crossed the Vietnamese border into Laos or they haven’t.”

  “No, what I mean, Larry, is that the border areas around there—”

  “Around where? What part of the border?”

  “Around the area west of Dien Bien Phu. Often older maps show different border lines. It reflects the various national territorial claims.”

  King hunched forward. “Then you’re saying they’re not in Laos.”

  “No, I just, ah — I want people to know that often cross-border incidents are not always intentional.”

  “But you’re not saying Freeman made a mistake, are you — or are you? Are you saying the White House denies we have troops in Laos at this moment?”

  “No, I’m not denying it. But it’s a very complex issue, Larry.”

  “How so? Our boys are in Laos or they aren’t, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right, they’re in Laos.”

  Ellman agreed they were, adding, “They’re not all U.S. troops. Some are British.”

  “Does the White House support Freeman’s incursion?”

  “He’s the man in the field and he has to call the shots as he sees them.”

  “So he has the President’s full support?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s certainly getting high marks from the public. I don’t want to sound too cynical here, Bruce, but does the White House’s support of Freeman have anything to do with the polls showing the American public is over seventy percent in favor of Freeman making a preemptive strike in Laos?”

  “Well, first of all, Larry, there’s been no preemptive strike as yet. As I mentioned earlier, it’s basically a reconnaissance patrol. We’ve no reports of combat in the area. About the polls, Larry — I think you are being overly cynical.”

  King smiled. “Comes with the territory, Bruce.”

  Ellman smiled. “I understand, but to answer your question about the widespread public support for Freeman. That has no bearing, quite frankly, on how the administration views General Freeman’s action. This administration doesn’t govern by poll. The President was elected to exercise leadership.”

  “Fine, but you can’t deny, Bruce, that the widespread support for the President can’t do any harm in an election year?”

  Ellman shrugged as if the comment were irrelevant. “Perhaps, but the President supports General Freeman because he thinks the general has handled a delicate situation well.”

  “What’s delicate about it?”

  “Well, Larry, General Freeman had several options at his disposal. He could have called on the Air Force to spray defoliants on the border crossings the Khmer-led guerrillas are using.”

  “You mean using herbicides — something like Agent Orange — to denude the border crossings so they could be monitored, what — by satellite?”

  “Exactly, Larry. It wouldn’t be Agent Orange. There are other less toxic herbicides we could use, but we think General Freeman has shown both a great deal of concern for the people of Laos and great respect for the habitat. I don’t know if the public’s aware—”

  “Wait a minute, what public are we talking about here? Laotian or the U.S.?”

  “The U.S.”

  “Okay — sorry. Go on.”

  “Well, what I’m saying, Larry, is that General Freeman is extremely sensitive about the habitat. We made some awful mistakes during the Vietnam War using herbicides, and he doesn’t want to repeat them. And because of the thoughtless, greedy slash-and-burn tactics practiced by those in the region, deforestation, and the loss of rare species of mammals and birds, is horrendous. In Vietnam alone more than a thousand square miles of deforestation takes place every year. On top of that, the Khmer Rouge-led guerrillas are constantly raiding Vietnamese forests for teakwood, for which there’s a high demand. And all the time—”

  “Got to take a break,” King cut in, turning to the camera. “We’ll be right back. Don’t go ‘way!”

  After the intense barrage of commercials, King asked Bruce Ellman to take up where he’d left off on the topic of environmental protection.

  “I was going to say, Larry, that it isn’t just the destruction of over 240 species of mammals — deer, leopard, rhinos, et cetera — or the threat to the more than seven hundred species of birds that we’re concerned about, but the fact that deforestation has a terrible side effect on the people of the region, and here I’m talking about massive erosion on hillsides, massive soil erosion, destruction of water tables, with consequent flooding and the resulting—”

  “Hold on a minute, Bruce, you’re losing me. You say Freeman had all this in mind when he sent in troops rather than sending in machines — bombers, et cetera — to clear the area?’

  “Larry, you don’t have to believe me, just read the transcript of General Freeman’s press conference last night in Phu Lang Thuong.”

  King held up his hands in surrender. “Okay — and I ain’t gonna even try to pronounce that — what was it — Phu…?”

  “Lang Thuong.”

  “If you say so,” King joked, then, looking into the camera, he told his millions of viewers that after the break he’d be taking “your phone calls.”

  The first was from Tucson, Arizona, a young man, by the sound of him, telling Larry how much he loved the show, how he’d been trying for months and this was the first time he’d gotten through.

  “What’s your question?”

  “Ah, it’s for Mr. Ellison.”

  “Ellman,” King corrected him.

  “Yeah, Ellman. What are you gonna do about the French?”

  King and Ellman looked at each other, King’s lower jaw coming unstuck. “What d’you mean ‘about the French’?”

  “Well, it was on some news report or other. Some French guy blew the whistle — you know—”

  “Oh,” King interjected, “you mean the—” King snapped his fingers, trying to recall the name. “You mean the guy who broke the news about Freeman sending the Special Forces in?”

  “Yeah…”

  “LaSalle! Pierre LaSalle, right?”

  “Yeah, some name like that. Well, aren’t the French in this USVUN force? I mean—”

  “No,” Ellman cut in. “They’re not.”

  “Well,” the caller said, “that guy put our guys behind the eight ball — know what I mean? And I think we should do something about it. Teach ‘em a lesson.”

  King shrugged. “What do you want us to do — bomb Paris?”

  “It’d be a start.” King switched him off. “He has a point, though, Bruce, doesn’t he? I mean that was a pretty scurrilous thing to do. Putting our guys and the British in jeopardy. Now the Chinese have to know where Freeman’s force is.”

  “We’ve already sent a note to the French ambassador here in Washington.”

  The next caller said, “What we oughta do is stop buying champagne. That’d show the sons—”

  Larry switched him off, ad libbing, “We stopped buying champagne arou
nd here, the embassy circuit’d come to a dead stop, wouldn’t it, Bruce?”

  Ellman grinned. He was feeling great. The questioners’ talking about the French news blowing the Special Forces operation was taking all the heat off the White House. He hoped it’d keep up. But the next question was from a Greenpeacer from “London, Ontario, Canada.”

  “I never thought I’d be congratulating the military, but I have to tell you that finally we’ve got a general who’s using his head. Instead of blasting away with bombs and herbicides, attacking the environment, he’s sending in men — I mean military personnel — to assess the situation. I’ve read the reports of General Freeman’s press conference, and he’s the only military person I know of who’s concerned about the destruction of the habitat.”

  King pursed his lips, nodding. “He’s right, isn’t he, Bruce? Freeman’s the only one — I mean general — concerned about the environment, I mean putting it as a policy over and above purely military considerations.”

  Ellman politely disagreed. “No, Norman Schwarzkopf showed the same kind of concern over the oil fires in Kuwait.”

  “Yeah,” King said, “but I mean that happened after the Iraqi War had started. Here Freeman apparently took habitat damage into consideration before he sent in his special force. Next caller — Amsterdam. Hello.”

  It was a heavily accented Dutch voice. “Hello. I think it’s disgraceful, Larry, that the Americans and British are making war at all. This dispute between the Chinese and Vietnamese should have been settled peacefully.”

  “Well, sir,” King began, “that was tried in the U.N. Didn’t work. So now we have a U.N. mandate for USVUN to step in and protect Vietnamese sovereignty.”

  The caller was adamant. “There must be a way to settle it peacefully and—”

  King cut in. “So you believe everything can be settled peacefully?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish you were right, caller, but sometimes — however unpalatable it is — we have to get out the strap.”

  The last caller was a quiet-spoken woman whose phone number, showing up on the producer’s console, identified her as a previous caller, a Mrs. Mellin, but the producer, recognizing her soft, hesitant voice, let it through. She said that she was as concerned as anybody about the habitat, but surely the most important considerations behind General Freeman’s sending in Special Forces were to protect Americans and other USVUN members from attack from Laos and “to help free any MIAs.”

  Bruce Ellman saw his chance and took it. “I think the caller is absolutely correct, Larry. The MIA issue has always been important to this administration, and the President doesn’t want anyone to forget it.”

  “But,” Mrs. Mellin continued, “why is the MIA issue still not resolved? I’m the sister-in-law of an MIA — an Army nurse — and my husband has been missing since the beginning of all this.”

  “Ma’am,” King interrupted gently, “I understand about your sister-in-law being an MIA — you’ve called before, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Point I’m making, ma’am, is your husband’s not strictly speaking an MIA. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t he— isn’t he — one of those taken from one of the oil rigs?”

  “Yes, but he’s still missing and I—”

  “We know that, ma’am. Sorry, we’re running out of time. Bruce, administration’s on to this, right? Tracking down American nationals who were snatched?”

  “Yes we are, Larry.”

  “I mean,” Mrs. Mellin said, “they say some MIAs had been — you know — turned around by the Communists over there, but we still owe them our compassion until—”

  “You’re right, ma’am,” King cut in. “Point is, we owe every Vietnamese vet and MIA a hearing. We weren’t there. They were.”

  “Exactly,” a heartened Mrs. Mellin said.

  “Gotta run. Thanks, Bruce.”

  “Pleasure, Larry.”

  “Tomorrow night — another guest. She’s often nude, always naughty, and she’s a member of the Italian parliament. See you then.”

  * * *

  The President zapped the TV, its light dying as he beamed. He looked around at the Chiefs of Staff. “Well, what’s the consensus?”

  Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Reese was the first to respond. “I thought Ellman handled himself very well.”

  “I thought he did brilliantly,” the President said.

  There was no disagreement in the Oval Office. “Yes,” the President continued, “Freeman is riding high in the public’s opinion and we were right to support him. I think General Jorgensen acted a little hastily on this one.”

  “You want me to speak to Jorgensen?” the Army chief asked. “Straighten out any misunderstanding between him and Douglas?”

  “I’d appreciate that, General,” the President answered.

  “In any case,” Admiral Reese added, “Douglas is going to have his hands full with this breakthrough at Disney.”

  “Yes,” the President agreed. “I think that for Jorgensen to relieve him at the moment would be very unwise.”

  What they meant was that if someone had to take the heat for what all indications showed would be a disastrous defeat at Disney, it might as well be a popular public figure, at least a temporarily popular figure, like Freeman.

  And if anyone on Jorgensen’s HQ in Hanoi thought General Jorgensen would be offended by being overruled, albeit quietly, by the White House, they couldn’t have been more mistaken. Jorgensen, who’d had time to mull over his own earlier flash of temper in response to Freeman’s outburst, was in fact enormously relieved by the call from the White House. He was no fool, and also he’d seen the “Larry King Show.” If Freeman was that popular all of a sudden, then let him hold on to the field command of USVUN’s Second Army; let him get out of the terrible mess he was in on Disney Hill.

  And it was a mess, the armada of over 350 choppers carrying the American air cavalry Freeman had called in unable, except in a few cases, to disgorge their cargoes of men and ammunition because of heavy smoke being laid down by a PLA mortar barrage, the 82mm falling all along the base of the hill blinding the helo pilots and the Huey’s gunners.

  * * *

  The four troopers, two running to warn Echo, two for Foxtrot, were within fifteen minutes of reaching Leigh-Hastings’s column and Berry’s when the two most forward troopers, one running to Echo, one to Foxtrot, ran into spiked deadfalls, at different times. These were booby traps made of long, sharpened stakes protruding from a four-by-six-foot wooden box ‘suspended high in a tree by a cord or vine whose quick-release knot end is hidden by the undergrowth near a trail. When an enemy soldier passes underneath the tree, the knot is released and the whole spiked contraption falls on him. If he’s lucky, the spikes kill him outright, but in most cases the long spikes inflict terrible wounds all over the body.

  The two men hit this day were badly wounded, one with a punji stick penetrating his abdomen and exiting through his genitals. Their buddies had only two choices: to finish them off or leave them. Neither could carry a wounded man out, for their mission was to warn both Echo and Foxtrot columns that their position had been blown.

  One of the wounded man’s buddies took out his K-bar and, hand shaking, drove it into the man’s heart. He heard a noise behind him but was too late, AK-47 rounds blowing his head off, scattering its contents across the trail. Echo would not be warned unless the weather cleared and someone from high up in a tree managed to see the dots of descending Chinese paratroops over Dien Bien Phu in the far distance.

  The buddy of the man hit with a deadfall on the Foxtrot trail thought quicker and fired a wide, arcing burst as he went to ground behind the man who’d been spiked. He used the dead body and the bloodied booby trap as cover while he threw two “Willie Petes,” or white phosphorus grenades, into the green jungle on either side of the trail. He followed with long bursts from his Heckler & Koch, spraying twenty-five rounds of 9mm Parabellum in less than two seconds as he
leapt up and kept running down the trail, his eyes trying to take in the overhead canopy as well as the trail. He rounded a bend, saw a trip wire, jumped over it, and kept running, all his senses alert for danger. He heard something moving to his right and dove to earth. A bush quivered, and he gave it a three-round burst. There was a squealing noise, the wounded boar making it halfway across the trail before he slumped dead.

  Heart thumping, sweat coursing down his back, the Special Forces trooper, a U.S. Ranger, William Kacey, looked up the trail, saw a patch of ground with less dead leaves on it, and figured it was a punji stick hole. He guessed he was about ten minutes away from Colonel Berry’s Foxtrot Company. Whether or not the pair of troopers heading for Echo had gotten through, Kacey had no idea.

  After five minutes of staying stock-still, letting his pulse fall, his eyes constantly looking about, Kacey decided to stay a bit longer. Something else was moving. You could sense it from the bird noises, louder than usual, as if telegraphing one another a warning.

  Now Kacey heard movement coming toward him on the trail, but it was a careless sound, not the noise of someone trying to tread lightly.

  The girl was probably around seven years old, and when she saw the pig, gasped with fright and stood still, holding a bamboo stick by her side, as if wondering what to do. Kacey, as yet unseen by her, was also thinking what to do. If she spotted him, could he afford to let her run back to the hamlet or wherever she’d come from? It couldn’t be far away. She was standing upright, only her head bent forward as she looked down at the pig. Kacey’s brain was racing. Something wasn’t right. What did they say in the movies? “It’s too quiet out there!” It wasn’t quiet; the birds were making a racket. Was it the smell of the place? No, it was the usual damp, musty leaf odor of the forest.

  It was the way she was standing, as if she had a stick up her ass, a walking booby trap, an old Viet Cong trick: turn a kid into a walking bomb. It was only now that Kacey realized her left hand was bunched up. A grenade? Right then he knew he wouldn’t kill her even if she let go of a grenade or whatever — a homemade job with lots of nails and the gunpowder taken from an unexploded ‘Nam bomb? But he wouldn’t harm her — Jesus Christ, wasn’t that what he was over here for? As part of the USVUN attempt to show China that you wouldn’t put up with bullying? No, that wasn’t it. She was about the same age as his daughter.