Black Market (11 page)

Arnason looked at the captain and whispered back. “If it’s only one vehicle.”

Youngbloode nodded and leaned forward. “If you agree, I’ll slip around behind those gate guards with Sanchez and take them
out when the truck starts moving again.”

“Go!”

Youngbloode tapped Sanchez and started slipping back around the rear of the ambush team. The truck jerked and then started
moving slowly down the highway. Arnason could see a person riding shotgun holding a map up to the window so that he could
read it in the light. He assumed there were at least two more guards riding in the back of the covered vehicle.

Arnason closed his fist. Kirkpatrick had been watching him and turned to wait until the truck was centered in the claymore
kill zone before detonating his claymores.

Warner kept twitching his nose as he waited with Woods. They could see the NVA truck and they had seen the guards come out
of the jungle, but they couldn’t see Arnason. They had to wait until they heard Kirkpatrick’s claymores go off as the signal
to execute the ambush. There would be only a couple seconds’ delay before they would fire theirs.

The truck slowed down almost on cue in front of Kirkpatrick and he fired his claymores. The first mine tore through the passenger’s
door and the second mine blew the rear tires to shreds.

A light Russian machine gun opened fire almost instantly from a position next to the secret entrance to the highway and was
answered by Warner’s redirected claymore. The machine gun stopped firing.

Captain Youngbloode and Sanchez had passed Woods’s position and the captain had used hand signals to tell the NCO what he
was going to do. The NVA guards were scrambling for their weapons when Youngbloode and Sanchez smelled the smoke from the
cooking fire. The NVA had been eating when the truck had disturbed them. The machine gun crew had stayed behind and finished
eating before they returned to their weapon. War was filled with luck, and today the majority of the luck was going to the
Americans.

Youngbloode crouched and opened fire, killing one of the NVA soldiers instantly and wounding his partner. Sanchez threw a
hand grenade that took out two more on the hidden trail and killed another soldier sleeping in a hammock on the side of the
trail.

“I think we’ve got them all, Captain.” Sanchez risked speaking.

“I only saw four when they opened the gates, but let’s not take any chances and quickly sweep the area around the entrance.”
Youngbloode thought for a second and added, “Look for documents.”

Sanchez nodded and lowered himself into a combat crouch before stalking along the edge of the trail.

Arnason was the first one out to the truck. The driver and his passenger were both dead. Koski flipped up the back cover on
the truck and saw that it was filled to the tailgate with boxes. He reached up with his free hand and pulled the first row
out onto the road, checking to see if any NVA were behind them. He wasn’t taking any chances. Kirkpatrick nervously scanned
the jungle bordering the highway. He didn’t like being out in the open.

Arnason tore the folded map out of the passenger’s bloody hands and shoved it into his side pocket. He searched the cab for
anything else that might be of value and saw that the dead passenger was wearing a Russian pistol. He started reaching for
the man’s belt buckle and then decided against it; he could always come back for it. Arnason backed away from the cab, spun
around and checked the jungle, and then slipped back to join Koski and Kirkpatrick. He saw the boxes on the road and the back
of the truck filled with similar containers. A small stack of black cases caught his eye and he jumped up to reach them. As
the top case slid down he grabbed it and broke its fall to the ground. A cloud of red dust billowed up over the shiny steel
case.

“Kirk … open it up while we guard you.” Arnason was becoming very nervous.

Kirkpatrick leaned his weapon up against the side of the truck and opened the latches on the long case. “Shit! Look at this
stuff!”

Arnason glanced into the case and saw a long black scope. It looked like the kind you would put on a sniper rifle, but it
was too big around. “What in the fuck is it?”

Kirkpatrick picked up a small pamphlet and read the title of the instrument. “It says here that it’s a starlight scope.”

“You read Vietnamese?” Arnason risked another glance away from the jungle to what Kirkpatrick held in his hand.

“Fuck no! It’s in English.”

Arnason’s eyes focused on the side of one box lying in the road and he read a felt tip marker message:
RECON CO/IBDE/ICAV
. He spun around and looked at the boxes inside of the truck. Half of them had the same markings and all the rest had marker
notes written on them designating other American units. He felt the anger welling up inside of him as he turned the boxes
around to read their contents: everything he could reach was medical supplies.

“Motherfuckers!” Arnason removed his fighting knife and cut the felt tip marker notes off two of the boxes and stuffed the
pieces of cardboard into his pockets. He reached back in the truck to pull out another box when the jungle erupted in a volley
of automatic rifle fire and hand grenades.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here. Koski! Frag the truck! Use white phosphorus!”

Koski obeyed. He removed the grenade off his web gear and pulled the pin, tossing the live explosive into the back of the
truck. He paused, saw the black case containing the scope at his feet, and reached down to pick it up by its handle before
running down the road to join Arnason and Kirkpatrick. The truck went up in a fireball with only a small secondary explosion
from the gas tank.

Youngbloode and Sanchez had walked side by side down the narrow trail about fifty meters back into the jungle and were just
about satisfied that the trail was empty when an NVA platoon came from out of nowhere. The relief force had been hidden in
a bunker complex a hundred meters away from the secret entrance onto Highway 19. The bunkers had been built close enough to
the road to protect them from arc light bombing and artillery fires at night. The NVA knew that the Americans were not going
to bomb a road they used.

Sanchez’s reflexes were slightly faster than the captain’s and he opened fire with a long burst killing the first five NVA
soldiers before they could fire back. Youngbloode’s burst caught the second group, and the rest of the NVA platoon scattered
into the jungle.

Woods and Warner heard the firefight and looked over at Arnason before tapping Warner and taking off in the direction the
captain had gone. Woods wasn’t about to repeat what had happened to Spencer Barnett; he would
never
leave another teammate behind on the battlefield, regardless of what they were up against.

Woods saw Youngbloode before the captain could see him and opened fire to the captain’s left, killing a pair of NVA who had
flanked the two-man team’s position. Youngbloode looked behind him and saw Woods and Warner. He smiled. Woods used his hand
and pointed back toward the truck. He was ordering a withdrawal. Youngbloode nodded, and according to his agreement with Arnason,
he obeyed the second in command of the team. Sanchez followed, walking backward and firing his M-16 at anything that moved.

Less than ten minutes had passed since the claymores had been detonated, but the time span seemed like years. A light machine
gun opened fire to the team’s left, but the gunner was firing high as he searched for the Americans.

Koski pushed the black case under some matted bamboo next to the road and pointed in the direction Youngbloode and the rest
of the team had disappeared in.

Arnason nodded. They would link up with the rest of the team and fight their way back to the Special Forces camp if necessary.
He wasn’t going to try and call back for reinforcements until there was a lull in the fighting. Right now the team needed
every working gun it could muster.

Koski was the first to see the team coming through the jungle and he alerted Arnason. The linkup was smooth. Arnason counted
heads; they were all there without any wounded, but the jungle was crawling with NVA.

“Back to Due Co … or as far as we can get before it gets dark.” Arnason reached up and placed his hand on Warner’s shoulder.
“Bobby, you take point and get us back to Due Co.” Arnason glanced around at the thick growth of bamboo and elephant grass.
“Reading a map and compass in this shit is impossible. Do you think you can do it?”

Warner swallowed and his dry throat hurt. The firefight had him scared, but he knew that he could get the team back to where
they had come from; he had
never
been lost in his life after having looked at a map. It seemed as if he had a special computer in his head that recorded the
map and his location on it; wherever he went on the map, he knew exactly where he was. He was scared, but he calmed down almost
instantly when Sergeant Arnason called him by his first name. Up until then it had been “Warner.” He nodded his head.

“Good!” Arnason pointed west. “Woods, follow him and cover his ass!”

A rifle fired a single round to the north of the team and was answered by a rifle firing in the direction Arnason had pointed.
He knew what that meant: the NVA were surrounding his team, and if they could keep a rescue team away from them until it got
dark, they could wipe out the Americans.

Youngbloode caught the look in Arnason’s eyes and winked. He knew how serious the situation was and didn’t need to be told.
The only thing that bothered Youngbloode was that it would be a waste to die on his first mission. He couldn’t let that happen;
it would look bad.

Koski poked Arnason and pointed back toward the burning truck. A column of black smoke billowed straight up in the windless
sky. The Special Forces camp would have to see it. He couldn’t risk taking the time to make a radio call back to the camp
until they had stabilized the situation.

“Let’s go!” Arnason pointed with the barrel of his CAR-15.

Warner started breaking trail, moving slowly and ready to use his rifle any second. The task was nerve-racking. The NVA were
nearby and closing in around them. It had been a near miracle none of the team was wounded. Sanchez had a couple of deep cuts
on his cheek from running through a patch of elephant grass and Koski was holding his right shoulder down a little and could
have taken a flesh wound, but the rest of the team was functioning superbly.

A single round went off in the jungle a couple hundred meters in the direction the team was moving. Warner paused for a second
and changed course. He headed directly north. Woods frowned and glanced back over his shoulder at Arnason. The team sergeant
nodded his head in support of Warner’s decision. He had told the boy to get them back to Due Co and he trusted that the kid
knew where he was going. In fact, Warner knew exactly where he was headed. He remembered a tiny knoll that had been marked
on the map in the Special Forces operations room that had been used by the First Cavalry Division as a company outpost. The
site was only a few hundred meters away and he figured if they could reach the old position, there would be some foxholes
and fighting bunkers from which they could defend themselves. More importantly, the Special Forces team knew
exactly
where the outpost was, and with a little luck they would still have the position’s defensive fires on file. Warner was banking
on the fact that if they thought enough of the site to keep it on their maps, they would keep the rest of the data.

Captain Youngbloode worked the rearguard position for the team and had dropped back about twenty meters so that he could listen
to the sounds of the jungle. He could hear the NVA soldiers breaking through the bamboo and then it became quiet. They had
either stopped, or they had found the team’s trail and were using it. Youngbloode assumed the latter and decided that he would
make sure. He slipped off the trail when it curved slightly with the contour of the land and watched. He planned on waiting
for only a few minutes and then catching up with the team. He didn’t have to wait that long. The first NVA soldier appeared,
walking at a low crouch with his AK-47 sweeping the sides of the trail left and right. The NVA point man was a professional.
Youngbloode was thankful that he had held his M-16 at the ready and had it pointed down trail. He opened fire, killing the
point man instantly.

The NVA soldier’s backup man appeared firing an RPD light machine gun. Youngbloode felt the round nick his collarbone and
the flash of pain that he chose to ignore. He opened fire again, but this time he was aiming and the RPD man fell backward
off the trail. Youngbloode removed two hand grenades off his web gear and threw them high in the air so that they would clear
the elephant grass and matted bamboo. The stunt worked and he could hear the NVA wounded scream.

Captain Youngbloode had been a running back at West Point, and he figured that now was the time to make good use of that talent;
he ran down the trail. He was hoping that the team wouldn’t panic when he caught up to them and waste him by accident, but
he couldn’t take the chance of slowing down. Chicom grenades exploded in the grass where he had been hiding only moments before.
He had covered the length of at least two football fields on the trail and was wondering where the team was when he broke
out of the thick green vegetation into a clearing.

Arnason had been hoping the captain would make it and had been watching for him. He stood up in the foxhole and waved. Youngbloode
saw him and sprinted to join the team. At the same time Kirkpatrick and Sanchez saw the NVA break out of the jungle behind
the captain and they opened fire. The jungle erupted. The NVA company had been only meters behind the team. Warner’s decision
to detour to the old lager site had saved the whole team from an NVA slaughterhouse ambush that had been waiting for them.

The NVA truck had been traveling alone without guards because the driver knew that one of his division’s battalions was bivouacked
in the jungle bordering the road. The unit had crossed over from Cambodia the night before and was waiting until dark to use
the highway to march to a site near Catecka, where they were going to participate in a major assault on the highland city
of Pleiku and the large American helicopter base at Camp Holloway.