Black Market

by Donald E. Zlotnik

  Arnason nearly knocked Shaw down as he entered the battalion headquarters building. Shaw reached up and buttoned the top button on his fatigue jacket in an unconscious move to secure the checks. He didn’t feel comfortable when Arnason was around.

  “I’m going to be stopping by to draw some special equipment in the morning.” Arnason didn’t waste any words in a greeting.

  “I don’t think I have much left. That storm wiped me out of a lot of items.” Shaw forced a smile.

  Arnason squinted his eyes and glared at the crooked supply sergeant. “I think you’ll find something. The captain is going out with me on a mission.”

  “Uh … well in that case, I might have some stuff in stock.” Shaw smiled sheepishly. Arnason wanted to use his pistol on the bastard.

  “See if you can dig up four silenced pistols—HI-STANDARDs if you have a choice—and eight of the new strobe lights that attach to the straps on your web gear … Oh, while you’re shopping around, get me eight sets of those STABO rigs the SF guys use.”

  “Where in the hell do you think I can find all that shit!” Shaw’s face turned red. “I’m only a Company supply sergeant!”

  “I think you’ll find a way to locate the stuff.” Arnason looked at Shaw out of the corner of his eye. “Or I might have the opportunity while I’m out there on patrol with the captain to tell him about your infantry background.” Arnason let the screen door slam shut behind him and added, “We always need good infantry team leaders on the teams, and seeing that there are three extra supply sergeants—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Arnason!” Shaw’s face was bright red.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Supply Sergeant!” Arnason walked down the narrow hallway and could see Captain Gouch sitting behind his desk looking into a small cardboard box. The captain wore a look of confusion and fear on his face and glanced up just as Arnason passed his open doorway.

  “Hello sir! Has Shaw talked to you yet?”

  “Shaw?”

  Arnason could see that mentioning the supply sergeant’s name increased the fearful look on the officer’s face and the captain slammed the top of the cardboard box closed. “Yes sir. I talked to him about”—Arnason looked both ways down the hall before continuing—“those checks you wrote and he told me that he would work something out with you.”

  “Oh! Yes! We’ve worked something out. Thank you for your help … Excuse me, but I’m real busy right now.” Captain Gouch reached for a single piece of paper that was in his IN box.

  “Sure, no problem sir, I’m just glad that you worked out a solution.” Arnason left feeling that there was something going on that he couldn’t quite put his finger on—yet.

  The S-3 operations sergeant was sitting behind his desk making an overlay of the new First Brigade’s operations area when Arnason stopped in front of his desk. He looked up and smiled. “Hello Dwight, are you ready to take your new team out in the field?”

  “Yeah, they’re looking pretty good in training. I think I’ve got something with the new replacements.”

  “That Polish kid looks like a damn mountain!” The sergeant continued moving the grease pencil in his hand as he talked. “I definitely wouldn’t want to have him mad at me!”

  “Actually, Sanchez is the tough one.” Arnason picked up a comer of the map the sergeant was working on and tried identifying the terrain without looking for a city.

  “Really? The Mexican kid?”

  “He’s a karate expert and one hell of a good street fighter.”

  “Now you’re going to tell me that skinny boy is an assassin?” The NCO laid his grease pencil down and picked up a small tab to glue to the map. “I’ve got to get the battalion commander’s map ready for tomorrow.”

  “No, but I’ll tell you one thing about little Warner: you let him glance at that map you’re holding and he’ll memorize it almost instantly!”

  “Shit, no wonder you don’t want to break up that team!” He folded the map and slipped it back into the canvas case.

  “Who told you that they were going to break up my team?” Arnason instantly became alarmed.

  “Easy! That was the talk before your new CO laid into the operations officer and stopped that shit cold.”

  “That’s nice to know.” Arnason looked over at the operations board. “Do you know where we’re going in at?”

  “Yes.” The operations sergeant fumbled through a stack of messages on his desk and found what he was looking for near the bottom. “You’ll be inserted north of Highway 19, just outside of Due Co. Let’s look at the big map.” He led the way over to the 1:50,000 scale map on the wall and pointed to a narrow passage between two rises in the ground. “Twenty-three hundred meters … hmmm … you’re going to have a little rough going back in there.”

  Arnason leaned forward so that he could study the contour lines on the map. There were a number of places where the brown lines touched, forming steep cliffs with very rugged climbing. “They don’t call them the highlands for nothing, I guess.”

  “Your AO is going to be ten square clicks.” The senior sergeant tapped the map. “By the way, have you heard anything about that Bamett kid?”

  “Yeah, Woods got a letter from him a couple of weeks ago. He’s doing fine at Walter Reed.”

  “I spent some time there for a cancer; it’s a damn good hospital.” The sergeant looked directly at Arnason before continuing. “I’ve heard through the staff that they’re putting him in for a Medal of Honor.”

  “The kid deserves it!” Arnason nodded his head. “I hope he gets it.”

  “I liked him too. He was a bit cocky, but a good field soldier.” The older NCO adjusted the cushion on his chair and sat down. He stood up again and readjusted the cushion to relieve the pressure on his hemorrhoids. “I’ll have your maps and intelligence package ready for you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Sarge.” Arnason squeezed the old soldier’s shoulder as he left the Operations Shop. Few people knew that the operations sergeant had been one of the Rangers who was at the beach during the Anzio invasion. He had been captured and tortured by the Germans and had been one of the few to escape and make it back to American lines. Arnason had a great deal of respect for the old soldier and showed it.

  The recon team sat on the edge of the PSP helipad in a neat line waiting for their choppers to arrive. Arnason leaned back against his pack and looked up at the cloudless sky. He felt his premission jitters settle in his stomach and swallowed the brassy taste in his mouth. Woods sat next to him holding his CAR-15 submachine gun between his legs pointed straight up in the air.

  “I’ve got to take a shit.” Warner leaned forward and struggled to his feet. The pack he was carrying weighed almost half as much as he did.

  “There’s a shitter back over there.” Arnason pointed with the short barrel of the CAR-15 Bamett had loaned to him until he got back to Vietnam. “Leave your pack and gear here.”

  Warner undid the front of his pistol belt and dropped it down on the PSP next to his pack. The olive drab web gear had been rigged up with the new STABO system a group of Special Forces sergeants had invented, and the helicopters assigned to the team were being outfitted with ropes and snap-links so that they could be used to pick the team up if need be.

  “I’m going to join Warner.” Koski dropped his gear and started jogging to catch up to the little man.

  “Me too.” Sanchez dropped his pack.

  Arnason waited until the men were out of hearing before commenting to Woods. “Does that bring back memories?”

  “You’re not going to get me to bash them ’cause they have the jitters. I’ve been there before and would be joining them right now if it weren’t for the no-shit pills I took last night.” Woods looked over at the shitter and saw the silhouettes of the three men inside the screened-in outhouse. “I should have thought about them and got some extra pills from the medics.”

  “Don’t worry about them. Once their feet touch the ground in our mission area, they’ll for
get about their fear and settle down.” Arnason looked back toward the company orderly room. “I wonder where the captain is.”

  The sound of arriving choppers drew Arnason’s attention to the helipad. He checked the row of equipment to make sure there was nothing that could be drawn up in the air when the helicopters landed.

  Captain Youngbloode heard the choppers coming in and left the orderly room through the back door. He carried his backpack in one hand and his M-16, in a German carry, in the other.

  “Here comes the captain!” Woods touched Arnason’s shoulder and pointed. “Look at that!”

  Arnason looked. Youngbloode was dressed exactly like the rest of the team in a set of Special Forces CIDG camouflaged tiger fatigues and he wore a matching camouflaged hat that had the wide brim modified. “I don’t think we’re going to have to carry him on this mission.” Arnason had already told Woods about the arrangement of command he had worked out with the captain.

  Arnason and Woods saluted when the officer neared the pad. “Morning sir.”

  Youngbloode returned the salute. “Morning, sergeants.” He reached up and touched the strobe light that had been attached and then taped to his web gear harness. “I like these … a good idea, Sergeant Arnason.”

  “Thanks sir.”

  “Where are the rest of the men?” Youngbloode could see the gear lined up on the steel planking.

  “Over there.” He nodded. “They’ll be back in a minute.”

  “There has been a slight change of plans…” Youngbloode looked up at the arriving choppers and raised his voice so that the sergeants could hear him. “We’re going to land at Due Co, instead of inserting directly in our AO…” The noise from the chopper engines drowned him out.

  Arnason looked over at Woods and shrugged his shoulders. The change in orders was odd, but not uncommon. He pointed at Kirkpatrick and then at the second chopper that had landed.

  Kirkpatrick leaned forward and stood up. He had been pissed the whole time since he had returned from R and R and found out that he would be going to the field the next day. If he could have screwed off just a couple of extra hours in Saigon, he would have arrived too late for the STABO rig training and would have missed the mission. It wasn’t fucking fair! His cock was still sore from all the activity it had had in Bangkok. Kirkpatrick slipped in backward on the chopper floor and sat with his legs dangling out on the struts. He glared at Arnason, but the effect was lost through the camouflage makeup.

  The three replacements came running up to their gear wearing sheepish looks. Their embarrassment was hidden also by the black, green, and tan makeup they wore. Arnason directed each one of them to the chopper he wanted them riding in and then looked over at the captain and nodded. They broke up with Woods riding in one of the choppers and Youngbloode and Arnason in the other.

  Warner sat in the open door with his feet dangling in the air current created by the chopper. The cool air felt good after the heat coming up from the steel helipad. He was thankful for the camouflage paint on his face because he knew the fear struggling to bust out inside of him was reflected there. It had been all fun and games going through infantry training and then the Special Forces RECONDO School, but this was the real thing: he was going into combat. Arnason didn’t have time to tell him or the other new men that they had had a change of plans and would be landing at an American-controlled base camp.

  The pair of helicopters used Highway 19 as a guide for their flight out to Due Co, which was due west of the An Khe base camp. The highway was open and was filled with olive drab trucks. Periodically a platoon of M-48 tanks would appear alongside the road or a platoon of ACAVs with infantry in their day lager positions as they guarded the convoys using the road during the day. At night the tanks and ACAVs would pull back into their bases.

  The flight was shorter than the three replacements wanted it to be. Woods leaned over and cupped his hands around Warner’s ear. “We’re landing at a Special Forces camp! Tell Koski and Sanchez!”

  Warner nodded and took a deep breath of relief. He passed the word to the other men and then for the first time since he had gotten on the chopper, he leaned back against his pack and relaxed to enjoy the scenery passing below his feet. Vietnam was a beautiful country, if you were flying in the right helicopter.

  The choppers were greeted on the long runway by the Green Beret camp commander who escorted the team into the briefing room of the teamhouse.

  “Thanks for coming out here to help us.” The captain nodded at Youngbloode. “We’ve got a little internal problem in this camp. There are NVA spies who have a way of finding out where we’re going to patrol and either avoid us altogether, or they attack and kick our ass.”

  Arnason didn’t like what he was hearing, especially when he was sitting inside of the camp, in the operations room that had bamboo mats for walls.

  The Green Beret captain continued his briefing. “Your operational area has been changed along with your mission. You will be walking into this area”—he tapped the map with his pointer—“and your mission will be to intercept any vehicles or people using Highway 19 during the hours of darkness.” The captain’s voice lowered. “There will be no friendlies using the road after it gets dark.”

  The Special Forces operations sergeant handed Youngbloode and Arnason new mission packets with 1:50,000 scale maps with their new mission AO marked out for them.

  “Stay within the boundaries marked on the map and you’ll be safe from friendly ambushes and H and I fires from the ARVN artillery.” The captain’s voice lowered. “Gentlemen … We are very sure that the NVA are running supplies from the coast to their units fighting in the highlands. I know … everyone thinks that the NVA units are being resupplied from the Ho Chi Minh Trail with their sources coming from Hanoi … but we’re sure that a large amount of special supplies are coming from the coast. The problem is how. We’ve set up ambushes all along Highway 19 and have failed every single time to catch anything, yet we know they aren’t using the jungle because the volume of the supplies is too great. They have to be using conventional means of transportation like trucks and motorbikes.”

  Arnason raised his hand.

  “Yes Sergeant?”

  “Why don’t your Special Forces people do this?”

  “Like I started this briefing … we’ve got a spy somewhere in our system … we’ll find him and handle it in our own fashion, but right now we want to try and stop the enemy from getting supplies from Amer—“ The captain caught himself just in time. “… aahem!” He cleared his throat and glanced over at the black captain, who showed with his eyes that his peer had almost blown it. “Anyway … we’ll have three China Boy Company sized units located here”—he used his pointer to tap the map—“and here … and here. They will be on call if you need a helping hand.”

  “But…” Arnason was about to protest. The three units were far to the west, positioned along Highway 19 right before it crossed the border into Cambodia. There was no way any of those units could get to his team in time to offer any assistance in a firefight.

  The Special Forces captain held the index finger of his right hand to his lips and shook his head slowly. He didn’t want Arnason to ask any questions. “The China Boy Companies are composed of Chinese Nungs, some of the best fighters in Vietnam, and as you can see, they’re no farther away than a thousand meters from your position.”

  Arnason understood what the captain was doing. They had posted the mission on the operations map and had used the original data he had been given for their mission. A spy inside the Special Forces camp would find a way to get access to the map and copy the camp’s future battle plans.

  “Now, I’d like to wish you good luck on your mission. You can reboard your choppers for your insertion. Thank you.” The captain nodded and smiled over at Arnason.

  Captain Youngbloode walked next to Arnason on the way back to the waiting choppers. “Interesting?”

  “Very.” Arnason grinned.

  “It ge
ts better or worse, depending on how you look at it.” Youngbloode’s statement told Arnason that the captain had been aware all along that the original mission had only been a cover for something much bigger.

  The chopper flew low, parallel to the old asphalt French-built highway that ran east and west across the southern half of South Vietnam, from the port city of Qui Nhon, west to Pleiku, and then southwest to the Cambodian border, where it continued until it intersected with the Cambodian Highway 13. The highway didn’t look like much compared to American standards, but in Southeast Asia, Highway 19 was an artery that was too important to both sides in the war to ignore.

  The lead chopper slowed down almost as if it had air brakes and dropped down in a small elephant grass clearing while its sister ship continued flying east. The lead ship barely touched down and started taking off while the second ship circled, pretending that it was looking at an object on the ground, and was replaced in orbit by the lead ship while it dropped back to the LZ and unloaded. The complete maneuver took only a couple of minutes, and to an NVA observer listening in the jungle, it sounded like a pair of hunting gunships that were common along the sides of the road.

  Arnason immediately took command of the team and pointed in the direction he wanted Woods to go. The new replacements fell into line and started moving quietly through the jungle. It was easy to stay parallel to the road because of the traffic. Arnason paced himself in the thick jungle and guessed the distance as they traveled. He knew roughly where the site was that had been marked on the map, but it was Warner who stopped the team and pointed to his right. The boy’s ability to locate himself accurately after just studying the map on the wall of the Special Forces team house was amazing. Arnason wondered just how much of the huge area Warner had memorized off the exposed map. He was afraid to ask.

  Woods made the turn and walked only a few meters before he could smell the dust from the highway. He stopped and lowered himself down to one knee. Arnason and Youngbloode slipped past the rest of the team members up the newly created trail to where Woods waited.