P. O. W. (20 page)

“I think you’ve done an excellent job, regardless… we can’t control the luck factor.” Seacourt sipped his coffee, and then
realizing that he was using bad manners, added, “Would you like a cup?”

“I’d love one, General. That’s my biggest vice… coffee.” McDonald took a seat at the same time. “What’s the intelligence on
A Rum?”

“There’s been quite a bit of traffic lately. It seems that the Montagnards have pulled out of the village lock, stock, and
barrel.” Seacourt frowned. “G-2 doesn’t know what to make of it.”

“It’s not a warning that they’re going to switch camps… is it?” McDonald felt his stomach turn. He didn’t want to lose Barnett
now that they were so close to freeing him.

“We don’t know, but we’re not taking any chances.” Sea-court tapped the edge of the table with the fingers on his free hand.
“We’ve cut your Philippine trip back to
one
day.”

McDonald nodded in agreement. The training would have been perfect, but it wouldn’t be worth shit if the NVA moved the POWs.

The general and the sergeant listened to the incoming radio traffic for a few minutes, then the general slapped his leg and
smiled. “I almost forgot! If you want to make a telephone call home to your wife, go ahead and use the airborne tele-link
system. We’ve got a couple of hours to kill.”

McDonald looked down into his coffee. “Thanks, General… but I don’t have anyone to call…. Do you mind if I let the men use
the system?”

“Sure! Go ahead!” Seacourt felt his face turn a little red. He didn’t know why, but he felt that he had said the wrong thing
to McDonald.

Seacourt moved to the second command pod and gave the men a little privacy for their calls home. The tele-link was a regular
AT&T airborne hookup, so the men had the normal privacy and clarity of a telephone call. McDonald had allotted ten minutes
per person and had instructed each of them that they were not allowed to talk about the mission or where they were calling
from, except that they were still in Vietnam. The rest of their conversations was their business.

Arnason passed on making a call back to the States. He sat in the wide luxury seat and chain-smoked. The small ashtray in
the arm of the chair was full, and he used a paper coffeecup to flick his ashes in. McDonald sat next to Arnason. It was ironic
that both of the American warriors had lost their families, one through a tragic accident and the other through a tragic divorce.

McDonald let his thoughts wander back to the past. He recalled how his son would climb trees when he was four years old and
jump down to him from the limbs. The boy had total trust in him. McDonald smiled. He was remembering the day he had been cutting
his lawn and a neighbor stopped by to borrow a sander. He had taken a break and they were both drinking a beer and walking
around his front lawn talking about the best way to grow grass. He had heard a voice in the back of his mind but had ignored
it. The next thing he saw was a small body falling down from the tree he was standing next to. He dropped his beer and tried
catching him, but it was too late. His son landed on the grass at his feet. McDonald caught himself breathing hard again as
he sat in the aircraft recalling the incident. He thought his son had broken his neck, but the boy shook his head and struggled
to his feet and gave him a look that he would never forget, followed by, “You were supposed to
catch
me, Dad!” That had been the first and last time that he had ever let the boy down.

“Whatever you’re thinking about must be pretty good.” Arnason leaned over and spoke to McDonald. “You’re smiling like a Cheshire
cat.”

McDonald nodded his head. “You’re right… it is pretty good. Aren’t you going to call home?”

“Naw… There’s nothing back there for me…. I had a bad divorce.”

“That seems to be going around a lot lately.” McDonald looked over and saw the last man enter the communications pod for his
call back home. He checked his watch and saw that they had about half an hour before arriving at the military airstrip on
Palawan.

Woods picked up the regular telephone and looked down at the touch-tone numbers. He blinked his eyes trying to recall his
area code back home and his telephone number. He started to panic and then remembered the numbers. There was a short pause
as the linkup was made, and then he heard a telephone ringing on the other end.

“Hello?” It was his dad’s voice.

“Hi, Dad…”

A long pause filled the airwaves. “David?”

“Yep.”

“David! Where are you?”

“Still in Vietnam. We have a special telephone hookup here, and the sergeant said I could make a short call…. How you doing
back there in America’s heartland?”

“It’s cold… we had some snow… but I’m doing well… just closed a big insurance deal, so your brother can stay in med school
another year.” His father was rambling, but David loved it. Just hearing his comforting voice had a calming effect. “Oh, your
mother is going to die when she finds out you called! She’s at the post office…. She’s working a lot of overtime… but that
will be good for Christmas… more presents for you kids.” He swallowed hard and stopped rambling. “How are you doing, Davey?
Are you safe?”

“Sure, Pops! I’ve got a lot of rear-area duty…. Some time in the field, but we’ve got super NCOs and officers in the Cav!”

“I’m glad to hear that…. Your mother goes to Mass every day and prays for you, son.”

David nodded his head and felt the tears rolling down his cheeks. He fought hard not to let his voice break. “Tell her thanks….”

“I saw one of your old professors from Lincoln Community College and he asked about you. He said that he’s looking forward
to your coming back…. You were one of his best students…. I forgot his name.” The middle-aged man fought back the tears. He
didn’t want his son to know that he was going to cry.

“Yeah, I’ll probably do that, Dad…. When I get back… Maybe I’ll go to Georgetown and be on the same campus as Skip….”

“You
will not
!” The tears rolled down his cheeks and he fought to hide the emotion in his voice. The last thing he needed was to let David
know that he was crying. “I can’t afford to have
two
sons going there!” He tried to laugh. David knew that his father would work sweeping the streets to send him to Georgetown
if he wanted to go there.

“Well, Pops… I’ve got to go…. There are other guys waiting to make a call.”

“So soon?”

“Yeah…” Woods wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Tell Mom that I love her….”

“We love you too, son… a lot.”

“I know… Gotta go. Love you, Dad.” David hung up the phone.

The middle-aged man dropped down in the chair next to the telephone and wept openly. He held his head in both hands. Now that
his son had hung up, there were a million
important
things he wanted to tell him. He couldn’t believe that he had wasted the call by telling him such dumb things! He picked
up the telephone and dialed his wife’s number at work.

The C-141 Starlifter banked over the long, pencil-shaped island and lowered its landing gear. All of the team members sat
in their seats facing the rear of the aircraft. Woods could feel the wheels touch down and the engines roar as they helped
brake the huge jet.

McDonald was the first one off, and he directed the team onto a military bus that had been provided for them by the Philippine
Army. The ride to the secret training area was less than an hour from the airbase. Woods watched the scenery as they drove
down the hard-packed dirt road and noticed that there was little difference between the Philippine jungle and that of Vietnam.
The bus stopped and turned into a military-controlled area that had guards at the gates. The bus was searched by a Filipino
lieutenant and two soldiers and then was allowed to enter. Woods looked over at Sergeant McDonald, who remained sitting at
the front of the bus, smoking casually.

Kirkpatrick leaned over and whispered to Woods, “Do you know what the fuck is going on?”

Woods shook his head in the negative and shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

The bus pulled up to an open area and stopped. McDonald stood and turned to face the team sitting on the light green seats.
“We’re only going to be here for the day. We’ll be flying back tonight. We had planned on having three days here for training,
but things are beginning to deteriorate, and we are going to have to move fast or not at all.”

“They haven’t moved the POWs, have they?” Lieutenant Nappa from CCN asked the question.

McDonald frowned. “To be honest, we don’t know….”

“Let’s go!” Woods picked up his gear and started leaving the bus. “Let’s not waste any time.”

McDonald led the team over to where General Seacourt sat waiting under a thatched open-air cabana. The men lined their gear
up along the back of the classroom and took seats on the logs that had been provided for that purpose.

“I know that we’ve kept you in the dark so far.” Seacourt stood with his hands on his hips and his thumbs hooked around his
black leather pistol belt. “So now’s the time to clear up any questions you might have.” He walked over to a large blackboard
with buildings drawn on it. “This is an exact replica of a village in Laos called A Rum.” He pointed to the drawings and then
stepped back so that the team would have an unrestricted view of the buildings that occupied the clearing behind the general.
“And that is an exact mock-up of the village and what we think are POW long-houses….” He pointed.

Woods was very impressed. They had made an exact, life-sized replica of the POW camp in the Philippines!

“I am not going to waste any more of your time… it’s precious right now. We’ve cut your training time drastically, and you
need to run through the actual assault at least a couple of times before we fly back to Vietnam.” Seacourt looked at the team
leader. “Master Sergeant McDonald… let’s get on with it!”

The Philippine Army had provided assault and transport Hueys for the training, and the team had practiced their landing and
assaults on the mock-up for over six hours straight without taking a break. None of the men wanted to stop until the mission
had been executed perfectly. McDonald had even thrown in a couple of examples of the unexpected in the training by moving
the POWs from the longhouses to locations in the surrounding jungle. He had missed nothing in the training, and they practiced
the assaults and then the different methods of searching for the POWs—first through the buildings in the village and then
by cloverleafing around the village from the jungle in two-man teams, with a small force acting as a reserve force. All of
them had the new URC-10 hand-held radios that made communicating easy and control superb.

McDonald called for a break, and the men dropped down near exhaustion under the shade of a banana grove. Woods sipped from
his canteen of water and lay back against his rucksack. Everyone had been giving a hundred percent and was feeling good. They
were a
team
and were beginning to sense how one another operated.

“Woods… don’t forget when you’re going around the edge of a hut to go in low first and
then
stand up. Any NVA waiting for you will fire about chest high and won’t be expecting you to look around the corner of the
building from the ground.”

Woods nodded.

“Kirkpatrick… full automatic on your CAR-15… we’re going to need a lot of firepower.”

Kirkpatrick nodded.

“Lieutenant Reed… more aggressive—we can’t hold back at all.” McDonald remembered the cutthroats. “If we hesitate for even
a minute, they’ll kill the POWs before they’ll let us rescue them… that’s why we can’t
hesitate
! We leave the choppers running and we don’t stop until we find the POWs!”

Reed nodded.

“And… we will not take any prisoners—
none
. We don’t have time to mess with them.” McDonald didn’t like that part of the mission, but they weren’t equipped to take
prisoners and there just wasn’t enough time to tie up even one man.

McDonald struggled to his feet. “One more time, and then we head back to the plane.”

*   *   *

Brigadier General Seacourt sat in the command pod deep in thought. He looked weird sitting in the dark with only the red lights
from the radios illuminating the pod. The last radio message from his intelligence people had him worried. The door opened
and McDonald stepped into the dark chamber.

“I’m glad you’re awake.” Seacourt offered the sergeant a seat next to him.

“Something wrong, General?”

“I’ve just received a message that affects our mission in a serious way.” Seacourt’s fingers drummed the top of the table
next to him as he talked. “A group of about fifty Bru Montagnards arrived at the A Shau Special Forces camp yesterday and
volunteered for duty as camp commandos. The story they brought with them involves two American POWs being held at A Rum.”

“Two for sure?” McDonald wanted to confirm that Barnett was still there.

“Two POWs and a third American who is an
NVA soldier
.” Seacourt lowered his head and looked at the sergeant over the rims of his glasses.

“James?”

Seacourt nodded his head in agreement. “We want him, too.”

McDonald leaned back in his chair. “Dead or alive?”

“Dead or alive…” Seacourt stopped tapping the top of the table with his fingers.

The reports coming in from the whole district as far away as the village of Tala to the west were a disaster. NVA soldiers
were being ambushed and killed by Montagnards. Their weapons were being taken and used to kill more NVA soldiers. All of the
bodies had been found impaled on bamboo stakes.

Lieutenant Van Pao paced back and forth in her small office. The general was furious with her and had ordered the division’s
intelligence officer to replace her and move the POW camp to a new location. All that had been because of the American POWs’
escape, along with the new deaths of the NVA soldiers. Van Pao was now afraid for her life. She couldn’t get his name out
of her thoughts:
Spencer Barnett
. He was the cause of all her problems.