P. O. W. (12 page)

“Fine. When?” McDonald felt very tired and wanted a few minutes alone.

“Right now.”

“Let’s go and get it over with. I’m tired.”

The isolation area was set aside from the rest of the buildings and surrounded by a solid wooden fence so that no one could
see in or out. A team would be sent into the isolation area a couple of days before its members were inserted in their operations
area, and during that time they weren’t allowed to talk with anyone outside of their own Area Studies Team and senior officers.
Everyone entering and leaving the isolation area was searched, with their name and purpose for being there logged in. The
whole procedure had been established to protect the teams from double agents and informers. CCN had gone through a really
bad period when they had lost seventy percent of their teams after they had been inserted in their AOs, and that didn’t include
all of the helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft lost in support. The NVA spy network was uncovered after a great deal of difficulty,
and CCN had been shut down for three months. All of the double agents and supporters of the spy network were found in a thousand-meter
area of North Vietnam. In their escape attempt from South Vietnam, none of their parachutes had opened.

McDonald took a deep breath before stepping through the gate and leaned against the wooden wall that had been erected for
that purpose. He was searched and everything was emptied from his pockets and placed into a large manila envelope that would
be held for him until he left the high-security area. The hallway and rooms were painfully familiar, and McDonald felt an
old fear returning, in the form of a claustrophobic reaction. He had never entered the isolation building without leaving
directly from it on a mission. This would be his first time to enter the building and walk back out the front door.

The lieutenant colonel smiled when McDonald walked into the brightly lit room. “It’s really good to have you back.” He held
out his hand and shook the senior NCO’s with sincere vigor. McDonald had been the best recon team leader CCN had ever produced,
and he was missed.

“I don’t know if I can say the same thing, sir.” McDonald’s eyes flashed around the room, absorbing every old detail.

“I can’t say that you don’t have cause… but things have changed here.… We’ve… ahhh…
broken up
the NVA spy operation.”

“I heard about that, sir. What really puzzles me is how they could have done everything they did after they were neutralized:
breaking into a parachute riggers’ shed at Da Nang Air Base; stealing a C-130 and flying it to North Vietnam; parachuting
out when they could have
landed
the aircraft and really become national heros over there.”

“Yeah… that was weird… real weird.” The lieutenant colonel shook his head in wonder. “But that’s what war is all about…. Sometimes
stupid mistakes can cost you.”

McDonald took a seat. “So tell me, Colonel… what have you found out?”

“A
lot
. I don’t think that we’ve ever had better intelligence on a POW camp location.” The officer opened a medium-brown Army-issue
leather courier’s briefcase. The handcuff that the lieutenant colonel had removed earlier from his wrist bumped against the
tabletop. McDonald watched the officer unbuckle one of the brass fasteners and then the other one. Something was going on
that was extremely important, more important than a normal POW snatch. The officer removed a standard brown envelope and opened
it. “Here; but before you look at it, I’ve got to warn you that the material is
very
emotional.”

McDonald took the eight-by-ten black-and-white photograph and looked at it. A few seconds passed as he oriented the people
in the photo. The person wearing only black pajama bottoms was hanging upside down from a bamboo pole and tied up in a bundle.
The man wielding the bamboo cat-o’-nine-tails was black.

The CCN commander watched for a reaction from the sergeant, but was still taken by surprise when it came.

“James!”
McDonald hissed between his teeth.
“James!”
He turned the photograph around until it was upside down and stared hard at the pain-twisted face of the soldier being tortured.
“My God… oh my God… it’s Barnett.…”

“Do you know these men?” The officer was shocked. He had not expected that McDonald would be personally familiar with the
men in the secret photograph.

McDonald dropped the photo down on the table and stared across the room.

“Do you
know
these men?” The lieutenant colonel was becoming angry.

“Yes… I know both of them. They were students of mine at the Recondo School….” McDonald felt tears oozing out of his eyes
and getting trapped in the wrinkles. He didn’t give a damn if the lieutenant colonel was angry or if he saw him crying. He
didn’t give a damn! “It’s really ironic… fucking
ironic
!”

The CCN commander sensed that there was a lot more to McDonald’s coming up to Command and Control North than met the eye.
“What’s so ironic?”

“Barnett rescued three American POWs when he was on patrol in the Ia Drang. He actually disobeyed orders to do it and risked
his ass…. Now
he’s
a POW in an NVA camp….” McDonald picked the photograph back up and stared at Spencer’s face. The old sergeant could almost
hear the scream coming out of the soldier’s mouth. “Do you know he’s only seventeen years old? Seventeen!” McDonald kept staring
at the picture. “He’s a
baby
! And we have
senior
NCOs stacked up in supply rooms throughout this whole damn country, who are on medical profiles and can’t fight or hump the
jungle…. We send seventeen-year-olds out there instead.”

McDonald’s comment struck home with the field-grade officer. He had twin eighteen-year-old boys in college, and secretly he
was glad that they had a college deferment and were protected from the draft. There was no way he wanted his boys fighting
in this jungle. “What about this guy named James?”

McDonald snapped his head around and faced the officer. “He is a fucking traitor! And a murderer.” The sergeant shifted his
eyes from the officer back down to the picture. “There was an incident during the recondo class. Barnett, Woods, and James
were all trainees. One night I went to the latrine and on the back of a
freshly
painted shitter door was written I
KILL HONKIES
. We thought someone was playing games, but I matched the handwriting against their bedding cards and reduced the suspects
down to two men: James and a kid named Billy-Bob Fillmore. Billy-Bob was a southern white, and James came from Detroit—a black
ghetto in Detroit. I almost got James to admit that he killed white soldiers on patrol, and there was an incident during the
Recondo School’s seven-day patrol where we ran into some NVA and I lost a man…. He was killed by an M-16, and James was the
only one who had fired an M-16 during the firefight; Barnett had an M-60 and a couple of the others used M-79s, but no one
but James had fired an
M-16
. James claimed that he saw a couple NVA carrying M-16s running through the jungle. I’m
sure
he shot the kid in the back. I reported the incident to the commandant, and he said that he would handle it because the implication
was so awesome—blacks killing white Americans on patrol!” McDonald stopped talking and looked at the pleasure written on James’s
face in the photograph. There was no way the photo could have been staged. James had turned coat and was helping the NVA!

“That’s a really unbelievable story, Sergeant McDonald, and if anyone but you had told it to me, I would have called him a
liar.”

“There was a little doubt back during Recondo School, but I don’t have
any
doubt now.” McDonald’s eyes narrowed. “We don’t have any time to screw around. I need a team formed, and we had better start
training
tonight
! If the NVA move Barnett before I can get there, I’ll never forgive myself…
never
. This is one boy I’m not going to fail!” McDonald tapped the photograph hard with his index finger. “You tell your men that
I don’t need any candy-asses on this mission…. A prisoner snatch is difficult under the best of conditions, and this is going
to be one nasty mess.” McDonald stood up, signaling that he was done talking. He paused in the doorway and looked back over
his shoulder at the commander. “When you pick your men, I don’t want
any
married men with kids on this team… only
lean, mean
killers… killers all. I’m going to turn that camp into a meat market before a single NVA soldier can lift a finger.” McDonald’s
voice lowered to a gravel rattle. “There aren’t going to be any
throats cut this time
!”

The lieutenant colonel watched Master Sergeant McDonald leave the isolation building and jog over to the TOC. He was glad
that the man was on his side. He didn’t know why the old sergeant cared so much about this Barnett kid, but he knew that the
young soldier couldn’t have a better man to plan his rescue.

Sergeant Shaw slowed the vehicle down in front of his supply room. A military police jeep with an M-60 machine gun mounted
in the back of it was parked next to the tent. Simpson started scrambling for the back of the truck over the wooden divider
that separated the cab from the bed. Shaw reached up and pulled the black soldier back down on the seat.

“Don’t fucking panic!” The supply sergeant’s heart was pounding its way up his throat. He knew the load of supplies he was
hauling was supported by bogus paperwork that wouldn’t stand a cursory inspection, but what really worried him was the duffel
bag full of heroin and marijuana that Simpson had picked up on their way back from his Vietnamese suppliers.

David Woods sat on the pallet of sundry packs and smiled; it was about time Shaw and Simpson paid their dues. A tall MP sergeant
stepped out of the front screen door of the framed tent at the sound of the truck engine. He waved for the truck to pull over
and park.

“I’m going to waste the motherfucker if he mentions a search!” Simpson flipped the safety switch off his M-16.

Woods directed the barrel of his CAR-15 around until it pointed at Simpson’s back, which was separated from him only by a
canvas divider. There would be no killing of any military policemen while he was on the truck.

“Is Specialist Woods on this truck?” the sergeant called up to Shaw.

The supply sergeant took a deep breath and released it before answering. “Yeah…” He pointed with his thumb to the rider in
back.

The MP sergeant beckoned for Woods to hop down off the truck. Simpson pushed his safety back on and smiled over at Shaw. The
MPs had been waiting for Woods and not them.

“You’re wanted up at Brigade HQ… ASAP!” The sergeant led the way over to the jeep.

As soon as the MP jeep pulled away, Shaw fell against the steering wheel of the truck and closed his eyes. “Man! That was
fucking close!”

“Shit! That wasn’t
nothing
! When I worked for a gang in Detroit called Young Boys Incorporated, we used to deal right next door to a police precinct
headquarters!” Simpson sighed. He had been scared too; he wasn’t a teenager anymore, and getting busted would put him in jail.
He was too rich for that kind of harassment.

*   *   *

Brigadier General Seacourt waited in the First Brigade commander’s office. He had been briefed on Woods and Arnason by the
senior brigade staff and had ordered that five members of the brigade’s recon company be assigned to him for a special mission.
They were waiting for Woods to return from his supply detail before leaving for Da Nang. The brigade commander was getting
very nervous having the high-powered general waiting for a low-ranking enlisted man and had ordered the MPs to the tent to
pick him up as soon as he arrived back from Da Nang. Seacourt had enjoyed the wait, talking to Sergeant Arnason about Barnett,
James, and Woods. The general felt as if he already knew Specialist Woods when the young soldier walked into the operations
bunker.

Woods looked around the crowded planning area and saw Arnason talking to a man who had his back facing the door. David went
over to sec what was going on from his sergeant and noticed that everyone in the bunker started staring at him. He reached
down to feel if his fly was open.

“David!” Arnason looked over and saw him approaching. He waited until Woods stopped next to the officer before introducing
him. “General, this is Specialist Woods.”

David saw the black stars on the officer’s collar at the exact instant Arnason had said the word
general
. Woods saluted.

“I’ve been waiting to meet you, Specialist.” Seacourt returned the soldier’s salute, even though they were indoors, and then
held out his hand. David took it and shook, awkwardly. He felt very uncomfortable talking to a general.

Seacourt understood, and eased Woods out of his predicament. “Now that we’re all here, let’s load up.”

Woods looked to Arnason for an explanation and received only a puzzled look.

“Don’t worry about your gear. You’ll be issued whatever you need when we get there, including weapons.” Seacourt nodded to
the captain who had accompanied him from Saigon.

Woods pressed his CAR-15 against his back using his elbow. The weapon hung upside down over his right shoulder. He wasn’t
going to part with it, even for a brigadier general.

Seacourt caught the gesture and smiled. “Of course, you can bring your weapons if you like.”

“Where are we going, sir?” Sergeant Amason asked the question as soon as the group had cleared the bunker.

“Da Nang… I’ll brief you and your men when we get there as to what’s going on. This mission will be voluntary, but once you’re
briefed, you’ll have to stay in isolation until the rest of the men return—that is, if you decide not to go.”

The small convoy of vehicles drove over to the runway and pulled up next to a parked CV-2 Caribou that was waiting to take
off, its engines running and its tailgate dropped, ready to load up. General Seacourt led the way onto the aircraft and took
a seat up near the cockpit. One of the crew offered the general a cup of coffee and the senior officer accepted, but he made
sure that all of the men were offered something to drink before he took a sip from his Styrofoam cup.