Men in Green Faces (11 page)

Jim stood. “Tong’s family?”

“Raped, mutilated, then shot.” In his mind, the children, Tong holding his wife, the sound of his heartbroken weeping. He felt his chin tremble and focused intently on the table. Brown…hard…doesn’t bend…two inches thick…

“Tong?”

“At the KCS camp.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“No. No casualties.”

“Can you estimate how many NVA?”

“About fifty. At least.”

Jim nodded. “You look beat. Why don’t you try and get some sleep? Couple of hours, maybe.”

“Soon as I see Johnny, over at NILO, I will.” He turned away. Jim might look like a kid, but there was a lot of man behind that boy’s face. A hard man, but a good one. He took three Pabst Blue Ribbon beers out of the refrigerator and went to report to Johnny.

Later, he rejoined Jim, the feelings of deep weariness, of unwellness, put aside again. “We’ve got another op. You want to be my assistant PL?”

“Be glad to,” Jim said. “What do you have?”

“Intel reports,” Gene said, “indicate a weapons factory down one of the Twin Rivers about four miles from here. The factory is guarded by NVA and Viet Cong. They send out B-40 rocket teams to protect the rivers from Navy riverboats going up and reconning. We’ve inherited the problem.”

Jim lit a cigarette. “What’s happened so far?”

“Nothing good. The riverboat people have been taking a real beating. They’ve sent boats down numerous times, only to have them blown out of the water or, if they do get back to base, they come in crippled and smoking, with high casualty rates.”

“Bad.”

“Real bad. On one riverboat attack, trying to get farther down the rivers, they sent a zippo, a mike boat with a flamethrower, down with the Swift boats and PBRs. The plan was to have the Swifts and the PBRs draw fire, at which point the zippo would come in on step and barbecue the enemy doing the firing. This is how bad it is. Not only did the Swifts and PBRs draw fire, but the zippo was blown to hell. High-order.”

“Obviously their tactics aren’t working.”

He watched as Jim drew long and carefully on his smoke. He had a contest going with himself over how much of a cigarette he could smoke without the ash dropping off. It was a little over an inch long now. Gene eyed it. “Not going to make two inches.”

“A PBR it does.”

“Patrol Boat, River, or can of?”

“Can of.”

“Done. Anyway, Twin Rivers is ours to deal with now.”

“What do you have in mind?” The ash fell off. “Damn.”

“Told you so.” Gene grinned. “Hand it over.”

Jim took a can from the three he had left and gave it to Gene, who opened it and took a long drink.

“Good stuff,” he pronounced. “Okay. We need, first, to cut off all food and medical supplies to the Twin Rivers area. I’ve got info that they’re crossing from the smaller river on one side of the Son Ku Lon, directly across it into Twin Rivers on the other side. Means we have to watch both banks of the little river where it forks, because we don’t know which waterway they use.”

“First thing is to monitor what the sensors show.”

“UDT personnel placed sensors on the north side of the Son Ku Lon weeks ago, so we have that intel.”

“Right.” Jim dropped his cigarette butt in an empty can. “With the sensors, we’ll know if anybody tries to enter Twin Rivers by land or water. Have to cut them off from the outside and any support. If we can stop communications, food, and medical supplies, they’ll starve. “They won’t know what’s happening. We’ll play games with their minds. After a while, we’ll be able to find and penetrate their safe haven.”

Gene nodded. “Exactly. And once they’re located, and info is gathered, we can go back in and search and destroy.”

“Sounds like a good op to me.”

“Thought you’d think so.” Gene finished his beer and stretched. “Guess I’ll get it under way.”

Johnny’d said the sensors had been going off night and day. After studying the situation another twenty-four hours, Gene met with Jim again.

“Two things,” he said. “This afternoon, the sensors showed movement on the north bank of the Son Ku Lon, but no crossing. It appears to be a scout element. And I’ve just received intel that a major crossing is going to take place somewhere between 0100 and 0400 hours, day after tomorrow.”

He took a breath to relieve the familiar but still slight tension building within him. They’d be operating. Soon.

“Johnny says they’re planning a diversion. They’ll have a smaller crossing take place between Seafloat and the major crossing site. They figure the riverboats will take the smaller crossing under fire. They’ll use those five or ten minutes to make the major crossing of the Son Ku Lon from the small river to Twin Rivers, where they’ll have rocket team protection.”

Jim nodded and rubbed an imaginary headband.

“Johnny also said his intel was that the major crossing will involve eight to ten large sampans, loaded with food and medical supplies.”

“We go.”

“Yes. With the sensors going on and off, and with the probable point element out there this afternoon, the intel seems accurate. I’ve cleared the op already.”

He left Jim to clear their area of operation with the TOC, Tactical Operations Command. Johnny would help. He wouldn’t need to make a visual recon of the area. The SEALs knew the territory almost as well as Charlie. The patrol would insert tomorrow, pre-dusk, then patrol to the small river directly across the Son Ku Lon from Twin Rivers, and set up an interdiction site while there was still light to see by. Due to the size of the target, they’d need to use claymores. Not only for use in the interdiction but for their own security. The sensors showed large troop movement.

At 0930 the next day he ran into Willie, who’d just returned from an op about one and a half or two miles from where they’d be going.

“I’m heading over to the KCS camp for an interrogation,” Willie said. “Y’all interested in going over with me?”

Intel could come from anywhere. “Sure.”

They left Seafloat on a Whaler and crossed to the KCS camp on the riverbank. By the time they arrived at the hootch, the military advisor, Sean, face shiny with sweat, was already there, observing. So was Truk, the KCS camp chief.

The KCSs conducted all interrogations of their own people. They used procedures Gene hated. He knew of many cases where the KCSs ended up killing a POW during questioning, especially if they believed the man was a VC. They’d arrange kangaroo courts and, afterward, blow the POW’s head off. Once the KCSs had
chieu-hoi’
ed, and Charlie or the NVA got word of it, their families, as Tong’s had, would be killed in ungodly ways to prevent anyone else becoming a
chieu-hoi.

Gene took one look and braced himself, knowing Sean could only attempt to control the interrogation if the KCSs went overboard, but couldn’t interfere.

The POW was tied to the horizontal flat surface they called a waterboard. Several pails of water sat nearby on the dirt floor, along with a pile of rags.

“Ask him again what village he’s from,” Sean said to the interpreter.

The POW refused to speak.

Tong wet a rag, placed it over the POW’s mouth and nose, and slowly poured water on it. The POW tried to breathe, sucked in water, but no air. He struggled, gagged, in panic.

Gene gripped his 60. The POW would drown if he didn’t talk, and if he did talk, he’d probably be shot anyway.

Tong lifted the rag. The interpreter repeated the question. Breathing hard and coughing, the POW remained silent. The rag descended. Water trickled upon it from the uplifted pail in Tong’s hands.

Repetitions provided nothing. No solid intel would come from this POW, Gene knew. He’d die. And he himself had an op to run. “See you later,” he said to Willie. They touched each other’s shoulders, and he left to set up the Warning Order and Patrol Leader’s Order with Jim, glad to be gone.

In the late afternoon, with Brian at point, Doc at rear security, Gene’s squad inserted into the jungle. In silence, they patrolled north of the Son Ku Lon, up a small river. Their interdiction site was located at the base of the V-shape formed by a fork in the river. The sampans would come down one of the branches and attempt to cross the Son Ku Lon to enter Twin Rivers on the opposite shore.

In the dark green shadows under the triple canopy, Gene used hand signals to direct the placement of claymores along the banks of both of the small rivers’ branches. Motionless and silent, the hidden SEALs sat almost back-to-back, but both locations had to be covered. No matter which river the enemy used, every member of the squad could bear down within a split second. He couldn’t take the chance of choosing just one branch of the river for the interdiction and having the sampans pass undetected on the flip side, nor risk having them come in on their rear.

He looked up, around, and to his sides. Heavy jungle. Wet. Dark, thick, and shadowy, it engulfed them. On his right sat Roland with the radio. Cruz crouched next to Roland. On his left, Doc was still as a rock. Behind them, three steps away, Alex, Jim, and Brian guarded the smaller branch of the rivers. Near both groups were the claymores, positioned not only to face the river but also to cover their flanks.

They waited. Silent, unmoving. Listening. Watching. Forty-five minutes before sundown, dusk began to settle with ever-lengthening shadows. Insect hum blended with the water sound of the rivers. The air smelled of the river, rank with growing things, of wet mud. They listened to footsteps that weren’t. Eerie footsteps, made by lungfish moving. The sound the lungfish made could be distinguished from human steps only by the absence of the sucking sound of feet pulling loose from that mud.

High in the trees, the breeze freshened. Gene frowned. Not just wind sound. Other sounds. Far off, but coming closer. He tensed, flashed quick looks at the others. They heard it too. Cruz handsignaled that he saw VC.

Gene looked where he pointed. About fifteen feet into the jungle on the far bank, two shadowy forms moved down toward the Son Ku Lon. The low roar that wasn’t wind got closer. At his signal, Jim, Alex, and Brian slowly moved to come on line with them.

Eyes wide, they listened to the sound of trees breaking in the distance, the increasing volume of the low thunder still heading their way.

Gene’s chest and throat tightened. Adrenaline pumped. Never, ever, had he heard anything like whatever it was that was coming at them. He could feel the others turning granite, frozen in place like rabbits caught in headlights. Frozen, yet ready to explode in fight or flight, and still the terrible sound closed upon them.

Like tanks coming, he thought. Plowing down hundreds of trees. Moving closer every second. The two across the river had to have been advance scouts. But for what size force?

He tapped Roland, who got the TOC on the radio. “Tell them,” he said, his whisper hoarse, “that we have a very large force coming into our area. Warm up the Sea Wolves, have riverboats stand by. Things are going to get hot.”

The terrible sound rolled over them, got louder and louder. Unstoppable, unknowable. On the far bank, more VC were spotted. He signaled,
Let them pass.
They wanted the sampans, the supplies.

The roar increased, with the sound of breaking trees.

“If the boats come right now,” Gene whispered to Jim, “we’re still out gunned, even with the element of surprise.” He turned to Roland, lips next to his ear, to whisper, “Scramble everything. Tell them to open up on targets given by voice command over the radio.” He’d direct fire, then get them extracted. If they weren’t going to get the sampans, then, by God, they’d get a large body count.

“Jesus,” whispered Doc. “Listen to that!”

“You can bet your ass I am,” Brian replied, just as softly.

The boats ought to be close, Gene thought, turning toward the oncoming roar. It was worse-sounding than a freight train. The trees were going down like firecrackers exploding. Whatever was causing it would hit them before the Wolves were overhead.

On line, beside him, Roland’s words were soft and heartfelt. “Everything’s all fucked up.”

The entire squad looked upriver, to the north, where they could plainly see trees starting to bend, then cracking and breaking.

Couldn’t be tanks, Gene thought. No motor sound. The roar was tremendous.

“Where’s our support?” Jim’s face was devoid of color.

“Will you fuckin’ look at that!” Brian whispered hoarsely.

They stared in awe.

Across the river, directly in front of them, thousands of monkeys leapt from tree to tree. Branches swayed, bent, snapped, and broke under their weight and number.

“Roland! Call off support!” Gene ordered softly. “If they’re close, tell them to keep going, but do not come into target area. Do
not
come into target area.”

Fascinated, delighted, the men began to silently laugh. They watched the monkeys, grinned, shook their heads, and continued to laugh soundlessly, both at the sight and in relief, glimpsing the white of one another’s smiles in the gathering darkness, then looking back at the wonderful spectacle above them.

Holy shit, Gene thought. Unbelievable. And he realized the first sighting of supposed VC had to have been large monkeys, walking in front.

“By God!” Cruz whispered. “Did you ever see anything like this?”

“Look there!” Doc pointed. “Look at that big one go!”

“You see that leap?” Alex lost all reserve. “Look at that! Just look at that!”

Gene was fascinated. “Never saw anything like this before,” he said. “Never.”

The main body passed, and the monkeys grew smaller. Young ones brought up the rear. Toward the end of the pack, several of the smaller animals were attempting leaps from high in the trees to trees on the opposite side of a little stream branching out from the river, but not making it. Either they lacked the strength, Gene thought, or they just weren’t large enough, and they fell to the stream below. He shook with silent laughter at their screeching down to splash into the water and scramble out, dripping wet, still chattering.

“Hoo-boy,” Jim whispered. “I don’t even want to hear the shit Dev is going to hand me when we get back to Seafloat.”