Missing in action part 2, p.3
Missing in Action Part 2, page 3
The intel officer shrugged. “I hear what you say, and I’ll make sure to mention it in my next report to MACV. It’s up to them to decide if any further action is required.”
The meeting broke up, the aircrew left, and to cover himself, he typed up a report on the teleprinter for dispatch to Tan Son Nhut. He was tired after a long day spent briefing and debriefing aircrews, and all he wanted was to get to his bunk and sleep. He’d done his duty, forwarded the report, and now it was out of his hands. Not that it would make any difference. Aircrews were always seeing things that weren’t there. Claiming kills for non-existent targets. He sighed to himself; most intelligence gathering was weeding out the bullshit from the good stuff.
* * *
While the teleprinter message from the Forrestal lay unread in a crowded tray on a crowded desk in a crowded office at MACV a few klicks away, another man was reading a message of an altogether different sort. Had he been wearing his uniform, he would’ve been identifiable as a captain in the PAVN, the People’s Army of Vietnam. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, not while he was undercover in Saigon. The message from the Politburo in Hanoi was long, and Captain Trinh Thuan scanned it from top to bottom, looked at it again, and read it carefully for a third time.
Communist spies in Saigon had reported to Hanoi the details of a planned reception for General Creighton Abrams to be held in the Presidential Palace. Although the Palace was heavily defended, the message instructed him to break through those defenses. To gather every available resource, every man and woman who could fire a gun, lead an attack on the Palace, and capture as many high-ranking prisoners as they could find. Especially the President and General Abrams, who were the primary targets. People’s Army Captain Thuan read through the message a fourth time. He was no fool, and he knew the most likely outcome would be the slaughter of him and all his men.
The message promised him accelerated promotion to Colonel on completion of the mission. He held the rank of captain, a bitter pill to swallow when so many of his contemporaries had reached the rank of major or even colonel.
If he survived, ‘Colonel’ Trinh Thuan would mean better pay, and perhaps even a staff job back in his beloved Hanoi. There was no mention of the consequences of failure. For the living, imprisonment or transfer to a punishment battalion was common. He put through a call to the commander of Vietcong forces in Saigon, and they met the following morning shortly after dawn, to discuss how to assemble their men and deploy for the attack. Including decisions on vital diversionary attacks around the city to draw off the ARVN Saigon Garrison.
“It’s a suicide mission,” Nguyen Duc Tho snapped when Thuan had finished speaking. Fourteen years before he’d left for the North after partition, but they’d sent him back to Saigon to organize and augment the local Vietcong. A battle-scarred veteran of numerous clashes with ARVN and American forces. So far, he’d managed to survive. He suspected that was about to change.
“Those fools in Hanoi will get us all killed.”
Thuan thought the same way, but he wasn’t about to voice it aloud. Tho was correct, a massacre was inevitable, but the Politburo had issued an order that couldn’t be disobeyed.
“It could succeed,” he replied, keeping his voice reasonable. Thinking of who could be listening, “Think about it, an attack on the Palace and the kidnap of the President and General Abrams would be devastating for the Saigon regime. A mighty blow, from which they may never recover. Enough to end the war at a stroke. We would be heroes. Our names trumpeted the length and breadth of Vietnam.”
Tho grunted, “More likely written on our graves.”
“If we do it right, we could pull it off and get away. With good planning and sufficient men, we could succeed.”
Nguyen Duc Tho doubted they had better than one chance in a hundred to pull it off. On the other hand, if they did succeed, the rewards would be huge for those who gave their allegiance to Hanoi. The 1968 Tet Offensive had decimated the ranks of the Vietcong, so they’d ceased to be a powerful force in South Vietnam. He didn’t doubt the Communists would achieve victory before too long, but it was clear that victory would belong to the men in the North, not those in the South. If he demonstrated his absolute reliability and devotion to their masters in the Politburo, it could make all the difference to his future prospects.
“Tell me what you need.”
Chapter One
The failed operation to track down and eliminate the unit that’d ambushed the convoy was still fresh in his mind. As well as the nightmare vision of soldiers who’d surrendered being slaughtered, in many cases hacked and slashed beyond recognition. The death of Herman Weiss was also fresh in his mind, killed while protecting Heller. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking they’d killed the wrong man. It should’ve been him. They called it survivor’s guilt, but he didn’t give a shit what they called it. He just felt bad.
He had a lot more on his mind. Like Second Lieutenant Cruz, whose behavior worried him. Up one moment eager to get into action, and other times morose, almost depressed, less than anxious to do the job they paid him to do. Lead a Recon Team into the field, locate the enemy, and kill them. Sure, Vietnam was enough to make any man morose and depressed, but they got on with it. Did their jobs. Went home when their tour was up. Dead or alive.
Then there was PFC Reggie Lynch, a black American with a chip on his shoulder big enough to block a major freeway. He told anyone who would listen he hated everyone. White folks, Vietnamese, and just about every other foreigner. Spics, gooks, rich people, poor people, and most blacks he’d met during his lifetime. He got on Heller’s nerves, got on all their nerves, and made no secret he wasn’t too interested in risking his black ass to fight a war for gooks and white men.
Heller was in the middle. His rank of Master Sergeant gave him a degree of responsibility, but Cruz was in charge. An officer he didn’t trust, and a member of the Team he didn’t trust. It was a shit way to fight a war. And now this.
He’d joined Recon to make a difference in Vietnam, at a time when so many things were going so badly wrong. Despite the hardships, the injuries, the blood, and the deaths, he preferred being out in the field. Searching for the enemy, doing his job and killing them. Last time out the Team had killed plenty of enemy soldiers, and the brass counted it as a success. Probably multiplied that figure by ten before they passed it on to MACV. He didn’t count it a success. Not with the loss of twenty-nine infantrymen. And not with the loss of Herman Weiss.
He glanced across the room and caught the eye of Herman’s replacement. His name was Tom Ripley, a corporal. So far, everything Heller had seen suggested he was good people. Calm, phlegmatic, a fighting soldier with a solid military record in Vietnam. A man like Heller who preferred being in the field. Doing what they paid him to do. Search and destroy. Kill the enemy, wherever you find them. Twenty-three-years-old, a soldier who was going places. If he stayed alive.
He was in with a good chance. Unlike many, he stayed focused on the mission. Didn’t talk, didn’t smoke dope, and did all the right things. Kept his weapons clean and didn’t go into the field wearing powerful aftershave. Before he joined Recon, Heller had seen him jogging around the base and once encountered him on the range. Took his job seriously, which is why he was in with a good chance. He looked tough, and he was tough. A good-looking guy, with dark brown, watchful eyes, and dark brown hair cropped short. Didn’t speak unless he had something worth saying. Heller felt comfortable with him there watching his back.
Ripley gave him a nod to indicate everything looked good. McGuigan was stationed in the hallway with Reggie Lynch, who despite having a slight limp after a North Vietnamese bullet tore into his leg, had surprisingly insisted on coming along. Collins and Akulov were on the first floor stationed in the entrance lobby, keeping an eye on people coming and going. Cruz, energetic and hyped up, was cozying up to a colonel, one of General Abrams’ staff officers. No surprise there. The senior officer was doing his best to ignore him. No surprise there either. Heller still puzzled over Cruz, couldn’t make him out. At times, he was a real, live firecracker, a gung-ho officer determined to get results. Other times, he seemed confused and unsure about what to do and where to go. Sure, he’d arrived with a good record as an NCO. Had earned his commission after he’d staged a heroic rearguard action in the face of repeated enemy attacks and kept fighting while his unit waited for reinforcements. His bravery had saved a number of lives. Just lately, it seemed like this was a different man.
He refocused. They weren’t in the field. Not wading through muddy paddies, not pushing their way through dense jungle. This was the Presidential Palace in Saigon, and he felt like a fish out of water. Assigned to bodyguarding VIPs, and right now that included the President of South Vietnam and the MACV commander, General Creighton Abrams. As well as many other glittering luminaries, together with their even more glittering wives and in a few cases, their mistresses.
He hated this duty, but orders were orders. They’d sent his Recon outfit to guard, or rather nursemaid, the movers, shakers, and high rollers in Saigon. To beef up the strong presence of ARVN soldiers in the gardens outside the Palace and spread throughout the first floor. The ARVN had been specially chosen for this duty, all Rangers, South Vietnamese Special Forces. Good men, for the most part, and he couldn’t work out why they’d insisted on dragging along his unit. Unless General Abrams and the staff of MACV didn’t trust the ARVN. He smiled to himself.
Now why they wouldn’t trust the ARVN?
He glanced around the room and almost choked on the suffocating, powerful odor of expensive perfume and aftershave. He regarded President Thieu sitting on a gilded throne, dressed immaculately in a white military uniform adorned with sashes and medals. His cold, dark eyes, set in a smooth, bland face beneath carefully trimmed and combed hair, surveyed the room. He betrayed no emotion. Next to him sat his hard-faced wife, Madame Thieu, dressed in expensive, richly embroidered silks and hung with enough jewels to pay off the national debt of the United States of America. Like her husband, her expression betrayed no emotion, but she didn’t need to. Nobody was in any doubt about her feelings. They’d nicknamed her ‘The Dragon Lady’ for good reason. She was as cruel and ruthless as her husband and loved nothing more than exercising the power accorded to her elevated position. She was peering through the jostling crowds and spotted McGuigan as he pushed his way into the room, heading toward Heller.
She pointed and shouted at him in a high, shrill voice. “You, over there! Fetch me another drink! Martini, now!”
The Irish-American spared her a brief scowl and without slowing mumbled something that sounded like, “Go fuck yourself and get your own drink.” He continued walking toward Heller, ignoring the stares of senior politicians and officers, and the look of outrage that had appeared on Madame Thieu’s face.
When he reached him, Heller asked him what was up.
“I came to say everything’s quiet, is all.” A grin appeared on his face, “And to grab something to eat and drink. Why should these bastards have it all?”
“If I were you, I’d be careful around Madame Thieu. You know her reputation.”
“Fuck her reputation. I’m going to get something to eat.”
He walked away. Heller strolled across to the President’s wife, who was red-faced with anger, probably working out whether to order the ARVN to hogtie him and roast him on a spit. He offered to get her a drink.
“I’m sorry, the soldier you spoke to is slightly deaf.”
She looked through him and turned to say something to her husband. He’d tried to smooth things over. Too bad, he couldn’t do anymore. He walked away, making a mental note to speak with McGuigan later. As he crossed the room, his attention was diverted by a cluster of pretty Vietnamese girls, dressed in beautifully cut ao dais so they looked like butterflies. They should’ve been a joy to behold, but they weren’t. Not to him. They reminded him of his Vietnamese fiancée and made him think of the plans they’d made for after they’d returned to live in the States. Until the Vietcong murdered her. Since then, he’d vowed to avoid serious relationships, in case he brought another girl bad luck. Bad luck, or why not call it what it was? Death. He hadn’t kept his vow, not entirely. He’d enjoyed a passing relationship with a North Vietnamese defector, an officer. Now she was dead too. Murdered.
He’d convinced himself he was a jinx on any girl he met in the future and reminded himself of his vow. Never again, not in Vietnam. Vietnam was death. He shook himself out of his reverie. The reception was in full swing, a small band at the far end of the room playing sixties ballads. Badly. A few people danced, but most were talking. Doing deals and arranging the business of South Vietnam to ensure they continued to profit from the war, and from the American largesse that kept the war going.
He spotted Cruz on the other side of the room, trying to engage another VIP. This time he was talking with, or rather at, a Vietnamese he recognized as Nguyen Huy Quan, the nephew of President Thieu. He was a slick dresser, his hair expensively coiffured. He wore a suit that must’ve cost as much as the average worker’s annual wage in South Vietnam. Beneath the suit, he showed a crisp, tailored, white, heavy open-necked silk shirt. He could’ve looked almost elegant. Except the expensive, hand-tooled, high-heeled crocodile boots made him look odd, if not absurd. He used his finger to repeatedly stab him in the chest to reinforce what he was saying. Quan’s expression was like stone, a red flush spreading across his smooth, plump face. No doubt things were about to get nasty.
To make things worse, Cruz looked drunk, and he started shouting at Quan. Heller quickened his pace to intervene. Too late. Quan pushed Cruz away, bunched a fist and punched him hard in the chest. Continued punching, and the Lieutenant responded with two left jabs. An ARVN Ranger captain rushed in to defend the President’s nephew and snapped a scything left hook that caught Cruz on the chin and caused him to stagger backward. Heller sighed. He’d have to intervene fast before things got any worse. He'd like to have stayed out of it and let Cruz fight his own battle, but he didn’t have a choice. He was here to bodyguard the likes of General Abrams, not a junior officer.
He reached the Ranger and pulled him away. The man responded by slapping him in the face and bringing his leg around to trip him. He fell, and as he lay on the floor, the guy delivered several hard kicks into his ribs. Heller got himself back to his feet, forcing himself to keep his temper, even though he’d like to have ripped the bastard apart. A crowd of VIPs had bunched up nearby to watch the show. He guessed they were enjoying it, taking advantage of the little fracas to relieve the routine boredom and enhance the night’s entertainment. More fun than the band.
They’d be waiting for him to react, watching from their ringside seats as the two military men slugged it out. He’d like to have obliged, but on this occasion, there was too much at stake. Stuff like diplomatic niceties and maintaining ‘friendly’ relations between allies. Getting into a scrap with a Vietnamese soldier was a lose-lose. Vietnamese had long memories and weren’t known for their forgiving nature. Known to enjoy a feud, to harbor grudges, and some said they made the Mafia look like amateurs. He pulled Cruz away in an attempt to stop things spilling out of hand, but the Lieutenant resisted.
“What the hell are you doing, soldier? Take your hands off me!”
He was fizzing with rage.
Shit.
“Lt, we don’t want any trouble. That’s not why we’re here.”
His face was red with anger, and a tick twitched in the corner of his eye. Like he wasn’t drunk but high on something, but that was ridiculous, no way would he be that stupid. Not here, not on this occasion, not under the nose of the commanding general.
“Sergeant Heller, I gave you an order. Let me go!”
He let him go but blocked him from getting back to Quan. He didn’t like it, cursed him, told him he shouldn’t get involved in a personal dispute, and he’d bust him back down to private soldier, more stuff like that. He just nodded. Didn’t agree, didn’t disagree. Just closed his mind off to the torrent of abuse. He’d taken more than enough stupidity from the idiots who called the shots in this man’s army, and he wasn’t going to give Cruz the satisfaction of acknowledging him. He was beginning to wonder about the Lieutenant. About everything. What was he doing here? Cruz, shoving a diet of shit at him from above, and Lynch and McGuigan shoving a diet of shit at him from below. He'd taken enough. Right there and then he made up his mind. When his tour ended, this time he was going home.
Home. A word that conjured up many things to many men. He wasn’t sure it would be a good thing or a bad thing when he got back. He was still contemplating the good and the bad when he heard loud noises from outside. It could’ve been explosions or gunfire, but that was ridiculous. They’d scheduled fireworks to start later that evening, so he assumed they’d just started early. Until the noise got louder, and he re-evaluated. It wasn’t fireworks. It was gunfire. Gunfire mixed with screams of pain. The screams of men and women who’d been hit. The screams of the wounded and the dying. In a matter of seconds, everything changed. People shouting in panic, more shooting, more screams.
We’re under attack!
People were running in panic, trying to get away. He ran toward Abrams, who stood near the President. He didn’t look fazed, more like he was sizing up the situation. Heller had already sized up the situation and he didn’t need to know more. Unless the ARVN had blown a fuse and gone crazy, it had to be the Vietcong or North Vietnamese Army. Probably both. Bad news.
He reached the General and the rest of his Recon Team rushed to join him. McGuigan and Lynch, with Cruz close behind. Akulov, Collins, and Ripley arrived, and they crowded around Abrams, who shouted at them to first take care of the President and his wife. They formed a ring around all three, the Thieus and Abrams, and hustled them toward the rear staircase that led down a narrow staircase to the Command Centre in the basement, known as ‘The Bunker.’ The center contained powerful communications equipment, together with a generator to keep everything running and even an air filtration system in case of a nerve gas attack.
The meeting broke up, the aircrew left, and to cover himself, he typed up a report on the teleprinter for dispatch to Tan Son Nhut. He was tired after a long day spent briefing and debriefing aircrews, and all he wanted was to get to his bunk and sleep. He’d done his duty, forwarded the report, and now it was out of his hands. Not that it would make any difference. Aircrews were always seeing things that weren’t there. Claiming kills for non-existent targets. He sighed to himself; most intelligence gathering was weeding out the bullshit from the good stuff.
* * *
While the teleprinter message from the Forrestal lay unread in a crowded tray on a crowded desk in a crowded office at MACV a few klicks away, another man was reading a message of an altogether different sort. Had he been wearing his uniform, he would’ve been identifiable as a captain in the PAVN, the People’s Army of Vietnam. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, not while he was undercover in Saigon. The message from the Politburo in Hanoi was long, and Captain Trinh Thuan scanned it from top to bottom, looked at it again, and read it carefully for a third time.
Communist spies in Saigon had reported to Hanoi the details of a planned reception for General Creighton Abrams to be held in the Presidential Palace. Although the Palace was heavily defended, the message instructed him to break through those defenses. To gather every available resource, every man and woman who could fire a gun, lead an attack on the Palace, and capture as many high-ranking prisoners as they could find. Especially the President and General Abrams, who were the primary targets. People’s Army Captain Thuan read through the message a fourth time. He was no fool, and he knew the most likely outcome would be the slaughter of him and all his men.
The message promised him accelerated promotion to Colonel on completion of the mission. He held the rank of captain, a bitter pill to swallow when so many of his contemporaries had reached the rank of major or even colonel.
If he survived, ‘Colonel’ Trinh Thuan would mean better pay, and perhaps even a staff job back in his beloved Hanoi. There was no mention of the consequences of failure. For the living, imprisonment or transfer to a punishment battalion was common. He put through a call to the commander of Vietcong forces in Saigon, and they met the following morning shortly after dawn, to discuss how to assemble their men and deploy for the attack. Including decisions on vital diversionary attacks around the city to draw off the ARVN Saigon Garrison.
“It’s a suicide mission,” Nguyen Duc Tho snapped when Thuan had finished speaking. Fourteen years before he’d left for the North after partition, but they’d sent him back to Saigon to organize and augment the local Vietcong. A battle-scarred veteran of numerous clashes with ARVN and American forces. So far, he’d managed to survive. He suspected that was about to change.
“Those fools in Hanoi will get us all killed.”
Thuan thought the same way, but he wasn’t about to voice it aloud. Tho was correct, a massacre was inevitable, but the Politburo had issued an order that couldn’t be disobeyed.
“It could succeed,” he replied, keeping his voice reasonable. Thinking of who could be listening, “Think about it, an attack on the Palace and the kidnap of the President and General Abrams would be devastating for the Saigon regime. A mighty blow, from which they may never recover. Enough to end the war at a stroke. We would be heroes. Our names trumpeted the length and breadth of Vietnam.”
Tho grunted, “More likely written on our graves.”
“If we do it right, we could pull it off and get away. With good planning and sufficient men, we could succeed.”
Nguyen Duc Tho doubted they had better than one chance in a hundred to pull it off. On the other hand, if they did succeed, the rewards would be huge for those who gave their allegiance to Hanoi. The 1968 Tet Offensive had decimated the ranks of the Vietcong, so they’d ceased to be a powerful force in South Vietnam. He didn’t doubt the Communists would achieve victory before too long, but it was clear that victory would belong to the men in the North, not those in the South. If he demonstrated his absolute reliability and devotion to their masters in the Politburo, it could make all the difference to his future prospects.
“Tell me what you need.”
Chapter One
The failed operation to track down and eliminate the unit that’d ambushed the convoy was still fresh in his mind. As well as the nightmare vision of soldiers who’d surrendered being slaughtered, in many cases hacked and slashed beyond recognition. The death of Herman Weiss was also fresh in his mind, killed while protecting Heller. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking they’d killed the wrong man. It should’ve been him. They called it survivor’s guilt, but he didn’t give a shit what they called it. He just felt bad.
He had a lot more on his mind. Like Second Lieutenant Cruz, whose behavior worried him. Up one moment eager to get into action, and other times morose, almost depressed, less than anxious to do the job they paid him to do. Lead a Recon Team into the field, locate the enemy, and kill them. Sure, Vietnam was enough to make any man morose and depressed, but they got on with it. Did their jobs. Went home when their tour was up. Dead or alive.
Then there was PFC Reggie Lynch, a black American with a chip on his shoulder big enough to block a major freeway. He told anyone who would listen he hated everyone. White folks, Vietnamese, and just about every other foreigner. Spics, gooks, rich people, poor people, and most blacks he’d met during his lifetime. He got on Heller’s nerves, got on all their nerves, and made no secret he wasn’t too interested in risking his black ass to fight a war for gooks and white men.
Heller was in the middle. His rank of Master Sergeant gave him a degree of responsibility, but Cruz was in charge. An officer he didn’t trust, and a member of the Team he didn’t trust. It was a shit way to fight a war. And now this.
He’d joined Recon to make a difference in Vietnam, at a time when so many things were going so badly wrong. Despite the hardships, the injuries, the blood, and the deaths, he preferred being out in the field. Searching for the enemy, doing his job and killing them. Last time out the Team had killed plenty of enemy soldiers, and the brass counted it as a success. Probably multiplied that figure by ten before they passed it on to MACV. He didn’t count it a success. Not with the loss of twenty-nine infantrymen. And not with the loss of Herman Weiss.
He glanced across the room and caught the eye of Herman’s replacement. His name was Tom Ripley, a corporal. So far, everything Heller had seen suggested he was good people. Calm, phlegmatic, a fighting soldier with a solid military record in Vietnam. A man like Heller who preferred being in the field. Doing what they paid him to do. Search and destroy. Kill the enemy, wherever you find them. Twenty-three-years-old, a soldier who was going places. If he stayed alive.
He was in with a good chance. Unlike many, he stayed focused on the mission. Didn’t talk, didn’t smoke dope, and did all the right things. Kept his weapons clean and didn’t go into the field wearing powerful aftershave. Before he joined Recon, Heller had seen him jogging around the base and once encountered him on the range. Took his job seriously, which is why he was in with a good chance. He looked tough, and he was tough. A good-looking guy, with dark brown, watchful eyes, and dark brown hair cropped short. Didn’t speak unless he had something worth saying. Heller felt comfortable with him there watching his back.
Ripley gave him a nod to indicate everything looked good. McGuigan was stationed in the hallway with Reggie Lynch, who despite having a slight limp after a North Vietnamese bullet tore into his leg, had surprisingly insisted on coming along. Collins and Akulov were on the first floor stationed in the entrance lobby, keeping an eye on people coming and going. Cruz, energetic and hyped up, was cozying up to a colonel, one of General Abrams’ staff officers. No surprise there. The senior officer was doing his best to ignore him. No surprise there either. Heller still puzzled over Cruz, couldn’t make him out. At times, he was a real, live firecracker, a gung-ho officer determined to get results. Other times, he seemed confused and unsure about what to do and where to go. Sure, he’d arrived with a good record as an NCO. Had earned his commission after he’d staged a heroic rearguard action in the face of repeated enemy attacks and kept fighting while his unit waited for reinforcements. His bravery had saved a number of lives. Just lately, it seemed like this was a different man.
He refocused. They weren’t in the field. Not wading through muddy paddies, not pushing their way through dense jungle. This was the Presidential Palace in Saigon, and he felt like a fish out of water. Assigned to bodyguarding VIPs, and right now that included the President of South Vietnam and the MACV commander, General Creighton Abrams. As well as many other glittering luminaries, together with their even more glittering wives and in a few cases, their mistresses.
He hated this duty, but orders were orders. They’d sent his Recon outfit to guard, or rather nursemaid, the movers, shakers, and high rollers in Saigon. To beef up the strong presence of ARVN soldiers in the gardens outside the Palace and spread throughout the first floor. The ARVN had been specially chosen for this duty, all Rangers, South Vietnamese Special Forces. Good men, for the most part, and he couldn’t work out why they’d insisted on dragging along his unit. Unless General Abrams and the staff of MACV didn’t trust the ARVN. He smiled to himself.
Now why they wouldn’t trust the ARVN?
He glanced around the room and almost choked on the suffocating, powerful odor of expensive perfume and aftershave. He regarded President Thieu sitting on a gilded throne, dressed immaculately in a white military uniform adorned with sashes and medals. His cold, dark eyes, set in a smooth, bland face beneath carefully trimmed and combed hair, surveyed the room. He betrayed no emotion. Next to him sat his hard-faced wife, Madame Thieu, dressed in expensive, richly embroidered silks and hung with enough jewels to pay off the national debt of the United States of America. Like her husband, her expression betrayed no emotion, but she didn’t need to. Nobody was in any doubt about her feelings. They’d nicknamed her ‘The Dragon Lady’ for good reason. She was as cruel and ruthless as her husband and loved nothing more than exercising the power accorded to her elevated position. She was peering through the jostling crowds and spotted McGuigan as he pushed his way into the room, heading toward Heller.
She pointed and shouted at him in a high, shrill voice. “You, over there! Fetch me another drink! Martini, now!”
The Irish-American spared her a brief scowl and without slowing mumbled something that sounded like, “Go fuck yourself and get your own drink.” He continued walking toward Heller, ignoring the stares of senior politicians and officers, and the look of outrage that had appeared on Madame Thieu’s face.
When he reached him, Heller asked him what was up.
“I came to say everything’s quiet, is all.” A grin appeared on his face, “And to grab something to eat and drink. Why should these bastards have it all?”
“If I were you, I’d be careful around Madame Thieu. You know her reputation.”
“Fuck her reputation. I’m going to get something to eat.”
He walked away. Heller strolled across to the President’s wife, who was red-faced with anger, probably working out whether to order the ARVN to hogtie him and roast him on a spit. He offered to get her a drink.
“I’m sorry, the soldier you spoke to is slightly deaf.”
She looked through him and turned to say something to her husband. He’d tried to smooth things over. Too bad, he couldn’t do anymore. He walked away, making a mental note to speak with McGuigan later. As he crossed the room, his attention was diverted by a cluster of pretty Vietnamese girls, dressed in beautifully cut ao dais so they looked like butterflies. They should’ve been a joy to behold, but they weren’t. Not to him. They reminded him of his Vietnamese fiancée and made him think of the plans they’d made for after they’d returned to live in the States. Until the Vietcong murdered her. Since then, he’d vowed to avoid serious relationships, in case he brought another girl bad luck. Bad luck, or why not call it what it was? Death. He hadn’t kept his vow, not entirely. He’d enjoyed a passing relationship with a North Vietnamese defector, an officer. Now she was dead too. Murdered.
He’d convinced himself he was a jinx on any girl he met in the future and reminded himself of his vow. Never again, not in Vietnam. Vietnam was death. He shook himself out of his reverie. The reception was in full swing, a small band at the far end of the room playing sixties ballads. Badly. A few people danced, but most were talking. Doing deals and arranging the business of South Vietnam to ensure they continued to profit from the war, and from the American largesse that kept the war going.
He spotted Cruz on the other side of the room, trying to engage another VIP. This time he was talking with, or rather at, a Vietnamese he recognized as Nguyen Huy Quan, the nephew of President Thieu. He was a slick dresser, his hair expensively coiffured. He wore a suit that must’ve cost as much as the average worker’s annual wage in South Vietnam. Beneath the suit, he showed a crisp, tailored, white, heavy open-necked silk shirt. He could’ve looked almost elegant. Except the expensive, hand-tooled, high-heeled crocodile boots made him look odd, if not absurd. He used his finger to repeatedly stab him in the chest to reinforce what he was saying. Quan’s expression was like stone, a red flush spreading across his smooth, plump face. No doubt things were about to get nasty.
To make things worse, Cruz looked drunk, and he started shouting at Quan. Heller quickened his pace to intervene. Too late. Quan pushed Cruz away, bunched a fist and punched him hard in the chest. Continued punching, and the Lieutenant responded with two left jabs. An ARVN Ranger captain rushed in to defend the President’s nephew and snapped a scything left hook that caught Cruz on the chin and caused him to stagger backward. Heller sighed. He’d have to intervene fast before things got any worse. He'd like to have stayed out of it and let Cruz fight his own battle, but he didn’t have a choice. He was here to bodyguard the likes of General Abrams, not a junior officer.
He reached the Ranger and pulled him away. The man responded by slapping him in the face and bringing his leg around to trip him. He fell, and as he lay on the floor, the guy delivered several hard kicks into his ribs. Heller got himself back to his feet, forcing himself to keep his temper, even though he’d like to have ripped the bastard apart. A crowd of VIPs had bunched up nearby to watch the show. He guessed they were enjoying it, taking advantage of the little fracas to relieve the routine boredom and enhance the night’s entertainment. More fun than the band.
They’d be waiting for him to react, watching from their ringside seats as the two military men slugged it out. He’d like to have obliged, but on this occasion, there was too much at stake. Stuff like diplomatic niceties and maintaining ‘friendly’ relations between allies. Getting into a scrap with a Vietnamese soldier was a lose-lose. Vietnamese had long memories and weren’t known for their forgiving nature. Known to enjoy a feud, to harbor grudges, and some said they made the Mafia look like amateurs. He pulled Cruz away in an attempt to stop things spilling out of hand, but the Lieutenant resisted.
“What the hell are you doing, soldier? Take your hands off me!”
He was fizzing with rage.
Shit.
“Lt, we don’t want any trouble. That’s not why we’re here.”
His face was red with anger, and a tick twitched in the corner of his eye. Like he wasn’t drunk but high on something, but that was ridiculous, no way would he be that stupid. Not here, not on this occasion, not under the nose of the commanding general.
“Sergeant Heller, I gave you an order. Let me go!”
He let him go but blocked him from getting back to Quan. He didn’t like it, cursed him, told him he shouldn’t get involved in a personal dispute, and he’d bust him back down to private soldier, more stuff like that. He just nodded. Didn’t agree, didn’t disagree. Just closed his mind off to the torrent of abuse. He’d taken more than enough stupidity from the idiots who called the shots in this man’s army, and he wasn’t going to give Cruz the satisfaction of acknowledging him. He was beginning to wonder about the Lieutenant. About everything. What was he doing here? Cruz, shoving a diet of shit at him from above, and Lynch and McGuigan shoving a diet of shit at him from below. He'd taken enough. Right there and then he made up his mind. When his tour ended, this time he was going home.
Home. A word that conjured up many things to many men. He wasn’t sure it would be a good thing or a bad thing when he got back. He was still contemplating the good and the bad when he heard loud noises from outside. It could’ve been explosions or gunfire, but that was ridiculous. They’d scheduled fireworks to start later that evening, so he assumed they’d just started early. Until the noise got louder, and he re-evaluated. It wasn’t fireworks. It was gunfire. Gunfire mixed with screams of pain. The screams of men and women who’d been hit. The screams of the wounded and the dying. In a matter of seconds, everything changed. People shouting in panic, more shooting, more screams.
We’re under attack!
People were running in panic, trying to get away. He ran toward Abrams, who stood near the President. He didn’t look fazed, more like he was sizing up the situation. Heller had already sized up the situation and he didn’t need to know more. Unless the ARVN had blown a fuse and gone crazy, it had to be the Vietcong or North Vietnamese Army. Probably both. Bad news.
He reached the General and the rest of his Recon Team rushed to join him. McGuigan and Lynch, with Cruz close behind. Akulov, Collins, and Ripley arrived, and they crowded around Abrams, who shouted at them to first take care of the President and his wife. They formed a ring around all three, the Thieus and Abrams, and hustled them toward the rear staircase that led down a narrow staircase to the Command Centre in the basement, known as ‘The Bunker.’ The center contained powerful communications equipment, together with a generator to keep everything running and even an air filtration system in case of a nerve gas attack.
