Phantom Leader Part 4

He had beaten the charge when it had turned out the trawler was armed and had shot at Frederick two days in a row while he had been leaving the target area.

WHAT U LOOC LICE, he asked Frederick.

SHORT, SQUATTY. THIC SHOULDERS. BLAC HAIR. BROWN EYES. SORT OF APEY.

Flak paused and formed a picture in his mind. He was having a hard time keeping the mosquitoes off him. The pain was returning to his body as his initial flush of adrenaline wore off. He asked Ted Frederick what clothes and goods he was supposed to have.

EEL.

PJS s.h.i.tCAN MOSQ NET CUP SPOON STRAW MAT, Frederick tapped.

NO HAVE NET CUP SPOON MAT OR PJS.

THEY NO LICE U.

Flak digested that bit of information. So far he had always had to eat with his fingers from a bowl, and at no time was he protected from the mosquitoes. He found some solace that this was the cool time of the year and the mosquitoes were not too thick. The only clothes he had now were the rough blue shorts he wore, and at night he was often cold.

He had been issued some maroon-and-gray pajama-style shirt and pants. He wasn't sure what had happened to them.

He had a vague memory of their being blood soaked and torn from his body.

Maybe they didn't "like" him. His interrogation had taken many zigs and zags. At first he had been treated with incredulity as he had been trekked up to Hanoi through every village along the route from Vinh. The soldiers had led him by a rope around his neck. The peasants had spent a lot of time touching and rubbing him as if he had something on his skin that would rub off. Flak Apple had figured it out. The only black men they had ever seen before, if any, were the Senegalese in the French Foreign Legion that had fought their Indochina war thirteen years before.

At each village, after Flak had been exhibited, one of the men in the entourages political officer, Flak finally reasoned-would begin speaking to the peasants. Beginning with normal cadence and gestures, the man would build up to a frenzy of words and wild gestures. Under his guidance, the crowd would become a screaming ma.s.s that would then begin hitting Flak with sticks and stones and pummeling him with their fists.

As it would almost always happen, the soldiers would have to hustle him away so he wouldn't be killed.

The soldiers couldn't believe that Flak was an officer and a pilot. They knew the blacks were downtrodden and used as slaves in America. Once he was in Hanoi, the more sophisticated Vietnamese probed him for antiwhite and hence anti-American sentiments. He made it abundantly clear he came from a country that believed in meritocracy. White or black, work your a.s.s off and you will profit.

At first they were easy on him as they a.s.sessed his potential as a propaganda tool. They presented stilted antiwar statements they wanted him to sign, and said he could make a tape recording to his loved ones at home if he did as they wanted. Certainly he could get better medical attention for his arm and leg, and burnt face. (They had made the most perfunctory attempt to doctor his wounds. The result was he had thick scabs on his arms and leg. He had no mirror so he didn't know about his face, but it hurt, felt puffy, and was terribly tender.) They told him he could meet with various American and European "peace groups." They even hinted at letting him go home if he was "cooperative." When he was not "cooperative" by his third week in captivity, that was the end of their a.s.sessment. He was a hard nose, so they put him in a dark hole for three more weeks, and started progressive torture that culminated in the ropes and his signed "confession."

He had broken in the ropes. To even think of the torture brought sweat to his body and curdling fear to his stomach.

A torturer with small pig eyes had used ropes and straps to tie and stretch him into a ball of shrieking pain. He had been fed his own toes while his arms were tied flat together behind him, nearly dislocating his shoulders and causing his sternum to feel broken. He doubted if he could take it again without losing his sanity.

He rolled to the wall and tapped to Ted Frederick.

ANYBODY ESCAPE. Before he could hear an answer, his cell door burst open.

"No talk, no talk," a guard screamed at him. He ran to Flak and grabbed him by his badly healed broken arm and shook it.

Flak roared in agony. "AHHH. STOP, AH G.o.d, STOP."

A Vietnamese in civilian black pants and white shirt entered behind the guard. After he spoke a few fast words, the guard stiffened and went out the door. The man stood next to the slab, looking down at Flak Apple.

"Did you enjoy your conversation with that criminal Frederick?" he asked.

Flak Jay sweating and trying to stifle his moans. He looked up at the man in the dim light and said nothing. He could see the Vietnamese had prominent front teeth and a pulled-up nose. He looked like a rabbit. The rabbit spoke again.

"Oh, yes. I know you knock on wall to each other. He will be punished because of you. You are new, so I make special privilege for you. You want talk, I have someone for you to talk." He stopped and pulled his lips back, exposing his yellow teeth in a grotesque smile. "Someone is here from United States and they want talk to you. You will like. They have black skin just like you."

0645 HOURS LOCAL, SUNDAY 28 JANUARY 1968.

JOHN F. KENNEDY SQUARE, SAIGON REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Wolf Lochert stood in front of the Catholic Cathedral in John F. Kennedy Square in Saigon. In his late thirties, Lochert, whose christened name was Wolfgang Xavier, was a broad-shouldered, stocky man of medium height, with dark hair shaved so close to his skull it looked like a dusting of black powder. The sleeves on his blue sport shirt were rolled up sausage-tight on his thick biceps. His muscled forearms were matted with dark hair.

Next to him was a thin Vietnamese man named Huey Dan.

He wore a white shirt and baggy black pants. The twin spires of the red-brick cathedral rose high in the heavy dawn air behind them, pointing like fingers to the low black clouds scudding furiously across downtown Saigon. The morning wind had picked up, and blew bits of papers and leaves around in tiny cyclones. Thunder over the city muttered nearby.

"What did you want to show me, Bee Dec?" Wolf Lochert said, his bushv brows knotted. Both men were gaunt and hollow-eyed. 'they had returned the day before from a longrange patrol in Laos that had lasted four weeks: a patrol that had been more harsh than productive. Good men had been killed; a main mission objective to set up a pilot-rescue net in the mountains and on the plains of Laos had not been accomplished. There had been too much fighting with the enemy when there should have been contacts and arrangements made with the friendlies. Wolf Lochert wasn't used to failure, and he was raging and searching inside himself for the clues as to why. Was his leadership at fault? Was he losing his trail craft?

Wolf had been on many operations with Huey Dan, a former Viet Cong soldier who had rallied to the Saigon Government under the Chieu Hoi program years before.

Wolf had judged him intelligent, loyal, and extremely competent. Huey Dan had saved his life on their first patrol.

Another time the two of them had served together as altar boys at a Catholic Ma.s.s held in a Special Forces camp. But the Vietnamese had been acting increasingly strange as of late. On the patrol just ended, he had been less than cooperative, and had once disappeared for several hours. Several critical hours, it had turned out. A North Vietnamese patrol had savagely mauled Wolf's team before they could escape.

His team, call sign Dakota, had been there to find downed American crewmen, as well as try to set up a rescue net. They had not been on a search-and-destroy mission; they were to fight only if cornered. Huey Dan had returned after the attack, saying he had been cut off. It was this incident that had started the uncomfortable feeling in Wolf about Huey Dan. Or was he suffering paranoia and blaming external forces for his own failure? Wolf didn't know. He only knew that under no circ.u.mstances would he allow a man he could no longer trust to be on patrol with him.

Immediately upon return from the mission yesterday, Wolf had been debriefed by his boss, Colonel Al Charles, a barrel-chested black man with a square face. Several others had listened in a small room at the rue Pasteur headquarters of the Special Forces unit called by the innocuous name Military Advisory Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group, or simply MACSOG. Wolf, standing over his map, had concluded his debrief with his reservations about Huey Dan. An older man in civilian clothes who had not spoken nodded as if familiar with the case. Although Wolf had never seen him before, he had been treated with deference by Al Charles. After a nod from the man, Charles told Wolf to terminate Huey Dan's contract, that his services were no longer required. No explanation was given. Wolf an eyebrow raised nodded, and said, "Yessir."

Late that afternoon Wolf had told the Vietnamese Huey Dan he no longer had a job with the United States Studies and Observation Group. Huey Dan had nodded, said he understood, and had quietly asked Wolf to meet him for seven o'clock Ma.s.s the next day at the big Catholic church in Saigon, that he had something interesting to show him.

"What do you want to show me?" Wolf repeated. The first spatterings of heavy raindrops stained the pavement.

Huey Dan motioned with his head and started across the square to one of the many trees lining the sidewalk. Wolf thought Huey Dan walked as if he were on a patrol about to be ambushed. "Over here, Trung Si," Huey Dan said, his eyes as expressionless as gutter water at midnight. Wolf caught up to him by one of the large tamarind trees that lined the sidewalks.

Huey Dan pointed to the base of the tree. "There," he said. "Down there." The rain started to fall with increasing power.

Wolf bent over to get a better look, then abruptly twisted sideways as he sensed rather than felt a quick movement made by Huey Dan. He turned his head to see the Vietnamese thrust a stiletto directly toward his groin. Reaction based on his years of combat tensed Wolf's entire body, and jolted his system with a rush of adrenaline. He whirled to face the attack, trapped Huey Dan's outthrust arm against his body with his right arm, and threw his left knee into his groin as he tried to lever the Vietnamese against the tree. In a flash Huey Dan ducked out of the hold and, rising like a striking snake, thrust up again with the rapier-thin blade.

Wolf leaped to one side, slammed into the tree, and fell off-balance as Huey Dan's lunge continued. As he fell, Lochert deflected the thrust with a sideswipe of his left hand, slid his right hand over Huey Dan's outthrust arm, clamped onto his wrist, and pulled the Vietnamese down with him. As Wolf hit the ground, he twisted out of the way-still holding Huey Dan's slender wrist-and plunged the stiletto into the falling man's stomach. The force of the impact was so great, the point of the stiletto protruded from the back of the Vietnamese as he slammed to the ground.

In one motion Wolf rolled to his feet. He stood for a moment, panting.

Hard rain smashed the streets, and the trees and the leaves, and water ran down his face. With his toe he turned the man over and looked at his face. He squatted next to him and slowly pulled the b.l.o.o.d.y stiletto from Huey Dan's stomach. He nodded slowly as he remembered he had been told over a year ago that Huey Dan had picked up a knife near Wolf, just before they had ridden out of an ambush zone on a rescue helicopter.

"You took this from me on that first mission, didn't you?"

He looked at the tree, and back into the face of the dying man, comprehension dawning. Huey Dan's eyes slowly focused on him, and flickered with hatred and loathing. He spoke with effort. "You will die by that knife. Someday you will die by that knife. 1, Than Lan, the Lizard, say this."

Suddenly Wolf knew. A year earlier he had killed a young man who had just exploded a bomb in the Catholic church.

He had killed him with the same stiletto and at very nearly the same spot on this street. "What was he to you?" Wolf demanded.

The black eyes flared. "My seed," he whispered, "my son." Slowly his mouth collapsed and went slack, and his eyes became dusty. His body seemed to flatten and shrink into the ground. The eye sockets started pooling with liquid, distorting the pupils, making them look alive and flickering.

Wolf Lochert glared at the stiletto, then at the dead face, He savagely wiped the blade on the gra.s.s and tucked it into his sock. It all became clear. The death of Menuez on that first patrol, the failed missions, the deaths of others, maybe even the C- 1 30 that had disappeared after flying the Dakota team to a night drop zone in Laos.

Comprehension turned Wolf Lochert's face into a raging mask as the rain pelted him with stinging fury. Thunder detonated in his ears and crashed in his head.

"You killed my men," he said slowly. Then louder, "You killed my men. "

In a frenzy he s.n.a.t.c.hed the body from the ground and held it over his head with both hands, then crashed it into the tree. "YOU KILLED MY MEN," he roared. The body fell to the ground like a half-filled sack, head and arms at impossible angles, legs doubled over, a huge red circle in the center of the white shirt that clung wetly to the thin body.

A movement caught the corner of his eye. He spun and crouched, hands up as claws, ready to kill again. A terrible grimace had transformed his face into that of a predator who has just made a blood-l.u.s.t kill. He focused, and glared into the narrow eyes of an older Caucasian man in a safari suit who stood next to a Vietnamese who was framing Wolf in the lens of a whirring movie camera. Behind them at the curb stood a tan Land-Rover with the International Telecasting Company sunrise logo, and a third man behind the wheel.

Wolf started toward the two men, perception flooding his mind, "Get in the truck, quick," the Caucasian yelled to the cameraman, never taking his eyes off the advancing Wolf Lochert. Rain ran off the man's crumpled, floppy jungle hat.

He had small eyes that peered out from under bushy eyebrows and from over a red nose that had been broken once too many times. He was thick around the middle. Ignoring the rain, he thrust a h.o.r.n.y hand at Wolf Lochert. The cameraman jumped into the truck.

"Mal Hemms, ITC," he said in an articulate but rumbling voice. The Land-Rover engine started.

Wolf ignored his hand and brushed past him toward the Land-Rover. Hemms signaled the driver of the Land-Rover, who immediately let the clutch out and sped off into the heavy rain, sending up a silver bow wave.

"Let's talk about you," Hemms said. "What is your name?"

When Wolf made a move to grab him by the lapels of his safari suit, Hemms ducked and popped up outside of Wolf's arm reach. When Wolf advanced, hands flexing and moving in front of him like two fighting snakes ready to strike, Hemms ducked, bobbed, and weaved, but did not retreat.

He did not swing or try to fight. The rain had turned his safari suit into a sodden ma.s.s. He started to dance around Lochert.

"You won't tag me," Hemms said. "Believe me. Fifteen years in the ring, Golden Gloves to light-heavy semi-pro.

Rarely tagged, never bagged. Just tell me your name." His eyes lit up as he stepped in close, then away from Wolf Lochert in a daring pa.s.s.

"Just tell me your name."

Wolf Lochert stopped dead and stood flat-footed, rain streaming down his face. He put his hands at his sides, then suddenly brought his palms together in front of him with a clap as crisp and as loud as a rifle shot. When Hemms' eyes involuntarily followed the motion, Wolf aimed a kick at his crotch. Hemms caught the movement and turned sideways just in time to deflect the kick off his left outer thigh. As he absorbed the blow, Lochert closed on him, grabbed his right wrist, and, turning, brought it up to a sharp angle behind Hemms' back. Hemms did not resist and seemed strangely slack. His upper torso was bent nearly parallel to the ground under the painful pressure. He managed to keep his head up, looking at something. Wolf followed his gaze. The ITC truck was back at the curb, the Vietnamese was filming the action through the open window. Wolf flung the man to one side and turned away. He wasn't sure if the film had caught his face or not.

He scanned the area. He saw small groups of Vietnamese, huddled under umbrellas, watching. He looked back over his shoulder. Two Quan Canh, Vietnamese policemen, were bent over the body of Huey Dan. A third QC was flagging an American Military Police jeep splashing through the Square.

"So then what happened?" Al Charles said an hour later, his face tense with concentration. They were sitting in his office at MACSOG. He and Wolf Lochert had been pals since their time together in the 10th SFG at Bad Tulz, Wolf Lochert shook his head slightly. "I couldn't refuse to show the MPs my identification. They picked me up and here I am."

"Could you have run away?"

"Never occurred to me."

"What happened after the MPs picked you up?" Charles asked. He turned to a fresh page on his yellow legal pad where he had been taking notes.

"We went to their post, where I told them exactly what had happened. I guess they knew who I was. All they did was fill out an incident sheet, called it self-defense against a terrorist attack. They drove me back to my jeep."

The white telephone on the desk of Al Charles rang. He picked it up, said "yessir" twice, listened some more, then said, "No, not exactly, Colonel Dail, but I have Wolf Lochert right here ready to go back with you. He has a relief plan all worked out." Wolf heard some words crackle through the receiver. Charles said, "Yes, sir, right away," and hung up. Colonel Bull Dail was the commander of the 5th Special Forces Group at Nha Trang. The 5th was in charge of all the SF men in Vietnam.

"That was Bull Dail from MACV. He just flew down from Nha Trang.

There's some bad news about our troops at Lang Tri. They need help bad.

The camp is being ground down and those G.o.dd.a.m.n jarheads won't do anything about it. Bull has an Air America Beech ready to run him back up north. He's been arguing with General Westmoreland about not getting relieffor Lang Tri. He wanted to know ifwe have any a.s.sets in the area.

I told him no, but you were all set with a reliefplan." He looked at his watch. "It's nine o'clock. Bull is holding his airplane for you to go back with him and brief him on your plan."

"My relief plan?" Wolf echoed. "What relief plan?"

Al Charles stood up and grabbed his green beret. His black face split in a beatific smile. "I'll run you out to Tan Son Nhut. We'll cook up your plan on the way out."

The rain had stopped as the two men piled into a jeep and splashed out the gate and turned up rue Pasteur toward Tan Son Nhut Air Base.

1845 HOURS LOCAL, SUNDAY 28 JANUARY 1968.

NVA camp WEST OF LANG TRI REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM It was not quite dark in the craggy hill country around Khe Sanh and Lang Tri. Rocket, mortar, and artillery fire had been booming and thudding in the distance for the last twenty-four hours. Toby Parker sat with his back grating against the rough bark of a tree. His arms were bent behind him around the circ.u.mference of the tree and tied with a loop of rope. He was conscious but felt a raging thirst. His head still ached and he felt partially deaf from the explosion when the soldier had pulled the trigger of his AK-47 a.s.sault rifle next to his ear three days ago at the crash site. His feet were swollen and b.l.o.o.d.y.

Both big toenails had been ripped off while walking barefoot through the jungle. Between his legs was a bowl of thin gruel. For an hour he had been trying to shimmy his arms down the tree far enough to shift his whole body to one side of the bowl, then bend down, hanging from his arms, to place his face in the bowl. For each of the last three nights he had faced the same problem.

At first, when he had been captured, the squad had seemed in a hurry.

Toby had been dragged and pulled up and down the rugged hills until his knees were buckling with exhaustion. Then, on the second day, after some words on a backpack radio, the Viet Cong had slowed down. The lead man had checked a map frequently, as if he had a rendezvous.

Toby was treated somewhat better. He was given a pair of Ho Chi Minh rubber sandals to put on his ravaged feet, and more water.

At night they liked to watch him struggle to eat. They seemed to find just the right-diameter tree to make him strive for his food each evening. The first night he tried to bend his body down so that he could place his head between his knees. He had had no luck. Even if he could get his arms down, he knew it would be impossible to flatten his body down between his knees. Then he realized that if he could shift to one side, placing his legs to one side of the bowl, he could bend down and put his face in it. It was only last night that he had been able to stretch his body down far enough to get his face into the liquid. When he had, it had been sour, with lumps that had made him retch. But he had sucked it up and swallowed because he knew he had to, or die.

Tonight was one of his lucky nights. He got his face into the bowl and slowly sucked up the liquid. It was slow going, for he was bent in such a way he could not easily swallow.

At the end, there was a layer of liquid he could not get to, and two chunks of something rubbery. He picked up one chunk with his lips and sat back. He worked it into his mouth. It was cold and the gristly texture caused waves of painful retching. He swallowed it whole and bent over for the second piece and forced it down. Then he picked the bowl up in his teeth and let the remaining fluid slide down his throat.

When it had, he dropped the bowl and leaned back against the tree. His flight suit was torn and caked with mud, there was dried blood on his face, and his hair was matted and wild.

He watched the twelve-man VC patrol prepare the camp for nightfall.

Under triple canopy, there was no gradual dimming of the sunlight.

Rather, it was a sudden grayness as the sun angled down to the far treetops, then quick blackness as it set beyond the trees, Their uniforms consisted of green baggy shirts with two pockets, floppy slacks, and black rubber sandals made from old truck tires. Toby could see no rank badges, though one man was clearly in charge. They wore green pith helmets and floppy rucksacks on their backs. Each man removed the branches and leaves he had cut that morning to attach to his helmet and backpack for camouflage, and threw them into a central place where the soldier who prepared the one meal a day lit a small smokeless fire. The fire was short-lived. Just long enough to boil water for tea, then doused before complete darkness. Each man contributed a pinch Of tea to the main pot that, Toby estimated, couldn't have held more than four quarts of water. Sometimes if a soldier caught a tree toad or a lizard, he would spit it on a stick and hold it in the flames until roasted. Their main staple came from the rice they carried in their packs or in cloth tubes slung round their necks.

Toby felt an ache in his bladder. During the days he was unbound long enough to use his hands to urinate, but at night he was on his own. He had worked out a system so that at least he didn't have to sleep in the liquid. He had managed to pull the bottom zipper of his flight suit up a few inches.

Now he squirmed a few degrees around the tree and twisted his body to one side. He swung one leg over the other and propped 'himself up with that foot. Then he jiggled and shook his torso until his p.e.n.i.s-acorn size now-was close to the opening. Then he let the dribble fall to the ground.

Due to his dehydration, there wasn't much. As before, most of it went into his flight suit and boxer shorts that were rancid and putrid with sweat and urine. He had had no urge for a bowel movement the entire three days. Yet he knew it was but a matter of time until his bowels erupted in protest at the water and food he had ingested. When he finished, he twisted back to his former position.

The soldiers had finished their meal and strung their hammocks. They were gathered in a semicircle around a man other than the leader. He seemed to be lecturing and exhorting them about something. Toby heard his voice rise and fall, saw his arms wave to emphasize a topic, even point at him once. This was the last event of each evening, so Toby guessed it was the political officer expounding on the joys of communism. Then it was dark. The perimeter guards were in place; the patrol was bivouacked for the night.

Toby fell in and out of a fitful sleep. Crawling insects investigated all parts of him, twigs became hot spots under his b.u.t.tocks; when he moved his swollen arms and hands, needles of pain shot up through his shoulders. His thoughts drifted from his takeoff last Friday morning to the shot he had heard inside the airplane. On one hand he was glad Mel Brackett was dead and didn't have to go through this torture. Then he would curse himself for agreeing to the flight, and blame himself for Brackett's death. There was no moon, no breeze, no sounds except of the night animals. Distant gunfire erupted sporadically.

Shortly after two in the morning Toby awoke to feel he was being strangled. Something clasped the back of his head and pushed his face into a thick padding of cloth. He struggled, then lay still as he heard a whispering in his ear. Whoever it was touched his ear with his lips, actually had his lips inside Toby's ear, He listened to the words.

"Lie still; I am an American. Lie still; I am an American.