P. O. W. (11 page)

Simpson sat thinking on the passenger seat. The THC from the marijuana cigarette had mellowed him out. He reached into his
pants pocket and removed a bundle of MPC ten-dollar notes, counted out two hundred of them, and replaced the thick rubber
band around the rest. He turned around on the seat and handed the money to Woods. “Here, make out a money order and send this
to those kids. Tell the colonel to buy them something nice and let them know that it’s from Tousaint Simpson….” He thought
for a second and added, “Have him ask them if they still remember me from An Khe.”

Woods took the money. “Thanks! I’ll do that!”

Shaw looked over at Simpson with an expression on his face that said the soldier had just thrown two thousand dollars out
of the truck.

Colonel Sinclair left the hospital and drove back to the XXIV Corps Headquarters where he was staying while he was in Da Nang.
He was sharing a room with one of his classmates.

The colonel spoke to the driver. “Drop me off in front of my BOQ and you can turn the jeep in to the motor pool…. Thanks.”
The soldier nodded his head and smiled. He had a trip ticket that was good for the rest of the day and he was going to use
it. A steambath and a couple of cold Ba-Moui-Ba beers would hit the spot.

Colonel Sinclair hurried over the cement sidewalk to the building, saluting a group of NCOs on the way. He entered through
the rear door and nearly knocked his roommate down.

“What’s the rush, Reggie?”

“Sorry, Clyde…. I want to change jackets and find a secure voice radio. Do you know where I could use one?”

“Sure… We’ve got a couple secure radios in the G-3 shop…. Who do you want to call?”

“I need to talk to Jack Seacourt back at Pentagon East.”

“
Brigadier General
Jack Seacourt?”

“Yes… he’s been given the mission for POW recovery, and I need to talk to him.”

“I can do one better for you.” The lieutenant colonel nodded his head toward the door. “Let’s go over to my shop; I have a
direct secure voice land line to the J-3 in Saigon.”

“That’s great, Clyde!” Sinclair pulled on his clean jacket and followed his classmate out of the building. The sidewalk was
lined with banana plants and allowed for the officers to walk in the shade to the large, two-story Corps Headquarters building.
The entire structure was made out of wood, screening, and cement-covered sandbags.

Colonel Sinclair took a seat in the private office and placed his call to Brigadier General Seacourt. The general was the
highest-ranking member of his graduating class and had been promoted below his promotion zone ever since he had been a second
lieutenant. Sinclair had done extremely well and had received numerous accelerated promotions also, but Seacourt was the master
politician.

The land line crackled with a little static, and then Sea-court’s voice filled the wire. “Reggie! It’s good hearing from you
again!”

“Hi, Jack. Congratulations on your assignment.”

“Well, I don’t know if congratulations or a sympathy card is in order. You know, we’ve never had a successful POW snatch,
and there is a lot of pressure on this particular program right now.”

Sinclair smiled to himself. He knew that Seacourt had too much political savvy to take on an assignment that would end up
making him look bad, especially a combat one. “Well, I’m sure you’ll be able to work something out.”

“Say, Reggie… I left an important meeting to take your call. Is there something I can do for you?” Seacourt waved his hand
at the captain, who was signaling him that his staff was waiting.

“Yes, Jack. I need some information on a missing soldier who we think has been captured by the NVA in the A Shau Valley.”

Seacourt adjusted the receiver he was holding in his hand against his ear and became very interested. “You say he was captured
in the A Shau?”

“Yes… about a month ago…. His name is—”

“Spencer Barnett.”

Sinclair was shocked that the general knew the name of the soldier.

“Or is it Mohammed James?” Seacourt’s voice dropped in question.

“No, it’s Barnett.” Sinclair became very cautious. “He was one of my son’s teammates in the First Cavalry Division.”

“How’s Reggie Junior doing?”

“Fine. He lost a lung and is going home to be discharged.”

“Sorry to hear that…”

“He’s alive, Jack; my wife and I are thankful for that.”

“So! What do you want to know about Barnett?”

“Well, has he been taken prisoner, and is he still alive?” Colonel Sinclair looked over at his classmate, who was trying to
act busy, but was very interested in the conversation. “And are you going to try and form a snatch team?”

“You know, Reggie, this is a very interesting telephone call. I know you work for the chief of staff back at the Pentagon,
but Barnett and James are
very
hot items right now in-country.”

“We’re on a secure line, Jack, and I have a clearance that is about as high as you can get….” Sinclair left the sentence open.

“Oh! I’m not worried about that, Reggie!” There was a pause and then Seacourt sighed over the line. “Shit! Let me brief you
quickly on it. My staff can wait a few minutes.” Seacourt’s voice settled in for the story. “Last week a young Montagnard
boy—about ten years old, maybe younger—came out of Laos to the Special Forces camp at A Shau. He demanded to see the American
camp commander and presented the captain with a Polaroid snapshot of Barnett and James.”

“A photograph? Were they alive?”

The general paused and then spoke in a very low tone. “Yes, they were alive. Barnett was tied to a bamboo pole and James was
whipping him with a bamboo rod…. At first we thought the photo was an NVA-staged shot, but experts have blown the photo up,
and you can see the actual pain on Barnett’s face and…” The general paused to swallow. “And the… expression of sheer enjoyment
on James’s face.”

“Enjoyment?”

“I’ve had a lot of experts look at the photograph, and
all
of them agree that James would have to be one hell of a good actor along with Barnett to pose a picture like that. We had
the portion where Barnett’s feet were exposed—actually, we could only blow up a portion of his left heel up to the ball of
his foot, but it was enough to see that Barnett’s feet had been severely beaten.”

“How did the Montagnard boy get the photograph?”

“This is
very
secret, Reggie… I don’t even know if I should say it over this secure telephone… but… the boy said an American gave it to
his grandfather and asked if he would deliver it to the Americans at A Shau. From the boy’s description, we think the American
was an Air Force colonel who was shot down quite a while ago.”

“Are you planning a mission?” Sinclair was getting excited.

“Yes. We think they’re being held near the Laotian village of A Rum, about three miles inside of Laos.” Seacourt nodded again
at the captain, who stood impatiently waiting. Sinclair had no way of knowing the meeting concerned exactly what they were
now talking about on the telephone. “I’ve got to run, Reggie. My staff’s been waiting for me.”

“Just one more thing, Jack… A
big
favor.”

“Sure. Ask it.”

“There’s a young soldier in the First Cavalry who was with Barnett when he was captured. It’s very important that he gets
on the mission team.”

“I’ll see what I can do. What’s his name?” Seacourt picked up a pencil.

“Specialist Fourth Class David Woods. He’s with the First Brigade’s Recon Company.”

“David Woods… got it. I’ll have him involved with the rescue operation in some way. I understand what’s going on…. I may be
a politician, but I still understand troops.”

“Thanks, Jack. I owe you one.” Sinclair hung up the telephone and felt good about his day’s work. He knew that he couldn’t
mention the telephone conversation to Woods because it was highly classified, but if he knew Seacourt, Woods would be picked
up before sundown and be briefed even better than Sinclair himself had been as to the extent of the mission.

Master Sergeant McDonald sat on the nylon mesh seat in the CCN helicopter and watched the trucks on Highway 1 passing the
PSP helipad they were landing on. He did a double take when a heavily loaded deuce-and-a-half’s front tires went off the asphalt
onto the dirt shoulder, sending up a cloud of red clay dust. He swore that the man riding on top of the load was carrying
a CAR-15 submachine gun. The chopper’s struts scraped the steel planking, and the rotor blade changed pitch as the aircraft
shut down.

A black jeep with the Command and Control North unofficial crest painted under the windshield pulled up and stopped. The driver
rested his arms on the top of the wheel and waited for the sergeant to unload. He was the only occupant on the chopper. McDonald
dropped his bag on the rear seat and slid his leg over the passenger seat. He could feel the heat coming off the canvas. The
jeep had been sitting out in the hot sun, and the seat was hot enough to be very uncomfortable.

“I’ll walk. Drop my gear off in the BEQ by the club.” McDonald didn’t wait for the NCO driver to comment. He was in no mood
to be fucked with, and the Green Beret sergeant sensed it.

“There’s a piece of cardboard in the back you can sit on.” The sergeant tried making up for the crude trick they played on
Saigon and Nha Trang staff personnel. The jeep had been left out in the sun intentionally. Most of the staffers would suffer
sitting on the hot seat rather than comment to the combat reconnaissance men that the jeep seat was too hot. McDonald had
called his bluff.

“I
said
that I’ll walk.”

The NCO knew he would be laughed out of the club if the master sergeant walked to the Tactical Operations Center. “Sorry,
but this is a top-secret area. You have to be escorted.”

“I have a TS,
Special Intelligence
clearance, with a ‘need-to-know’ about everything going on here at CCN. I’ll walk where I damn well please…. You can join
me if you like.” McDonald knew the layout of the compound better than the new NCO driver. He started walking down the sand
road.

The sergeant slapped his steering wheel and then pulled the jeep over to the side of the road before running to catch up to
McDonald. He could always tell his buddies that the jeep had broken down.

The CCN commander and his deputy watched through the Plexiglas window of his office. They saw McDonald cutting across the
sand compound with the NCO running to catch up.

“Didn’t anyone tell him about Mac?” The lieutenant colonel addressed his major.

“I guess not!” The major started laughing. “Dumb shit! I can’t believe he tried that hot-seat shit on Mac!”

“Get McDonald over to the mission prep area as soon as you brief him.” The lieutenant colonel left his office through the
back door and walked swiftly on the cement sidewalk to the TOC.

McDonald’s mind was filled with a lot of memories as he walked down the familiar sidewalks. A few new buildings had been erected
in the compound, but the basic layout was the same. He looked over and saw the row of 100-kw generators that old Felix had
scrounged up from the Navy Seabee detachment for a few NVA souvenirs and a couple of trucks. The Seabees had been transferred
to Quang Tri and couldn’t take the huge electric-making machines with them. McDonald passed the corner of a building and could
look back at the row of small hooches where the recon teams were housed, and a flood of mixed memories rushed through him.
He stopped walking and the NCO caught up to him.

“Are the Snake Teams still down by the sea?” McDonald didn’t look at the sergeant when he asked the question. He kept his
eyes glued on the row of buildings and remembered.

The NCO realized that the master sergeant knew too much about CCN to be a staffer. “Sorry about the hot seat, Sarge.”

“I didn’t like it when they pulled that shit when I was assigned here, and I like it even less now.” The look McDonald gave
the NCO would keep the man humble for months.

McDonald looked at the camp for a couple of minutes more without saying anything and then abruptly strode off toward the cement
TOC.

The major was waiting inside the air-conditioned building and smiled when McDonald entered through the heavy steel door. “Good
seeing you again, Mac!”

The NCO escorting the master sergeant felt like hiding in a hole. It was obvious that the NCO Master Sergeant was well known
at CCN.

“What happened to your jeep?” The major addressed McDonald.

“It broke down as soon as we started leaving the main gate. You’d better check your mechanics out for VC…. It looks like a
case of sabotage to me!” McDonald smiled.

“We’ve been having a lot of mechanical problems lately in camp.” The major went along with the master sergeant. “Let’s go
in the back room and I’ll brief you on what we already know.”

McDonald nodded his head and followed the major.

When they were gone, the NCO escort turned and spoke to one of the Area Studies team NCOs. “Who the fuck is he?”

The sergeant looked up from the AO map he was posting with information. “You don’t know McDonald? Shit… he’s a legend in his
own time. He’s only the
best
Project Cherry man CCN ever had—or will have, for that matter.”

The escort sergeant’s face turned white, and a soft sigh slipped out from between his lips. He had fucked up big-time, and
when the story got out he’d be teased until the day he left CCN.

The major took a seat next to McDonald in front of the large briefing map and turned down the room lights so that the map
lights would stand out. The briefing was short and to the point. A message had come from Saigon that confirmed a POW camp
near the village of A Rum in Laos, and satellite photographs confirmed the village had grown considerably during the past
six months. The NVA had camouflaged the area well, but the intelligence people had figured out where the POWs were being held,
down to a ten-meter guess.

“The boss wants to show you something over in the isolation area; it’s too hot to be discussed even in here.” The major was
impressed; even he hadn’t been briefed on what the lieutenant colonel was going to tell McDonald.