Black Market (13 page)

“I don’t need that shit, Koski!” Warner replied angrily.

Sanchez added a serious note. “Why are you so hot on killing gooks, Big O?”

Koski turned his back on his teammates and looked out over the no-man’s-land between the barbed wire and the first green strip
of jungle. “Because my grandfather served in the Polish army during World War II.”

“I don’t know if I would brag about that shit, man. Didn’t they charge German tanks with fucking spears?”

Koski turned back to look at Sanchez.
“Lances.”

“What the fuck is the difference—it was dumb!”

“You can learn a lesson, my Mexican friend.” Koski’s accent thickened as he talked about the world-famous Polish cavalry.
“The reason the Polish cavalry ended up charging tanks on horseback was because they were
too good
.” The big Pole smiled when he saw the puzzled look on both Sanchez and Warner’s faces. “Yes, too good. The Polish cavalry
was the best cavalry in the world after the First World War. There was nothing better, and because of that one fact alone,
the Polish High Command hesitated at disbanding their cavalry units and replacing them with the new mechanical weapons. It
was that simple—they had been too good and that is a very important lesson! A warrior must always remain flexible, willing
to experiment with new things, and he must
never
cement his ideas!” The anger in Koski’s voice was intimidating.

“Makes good sense to me.” Warner knew when to back off and change the subject. “What did your grandfather do during the war?”

“He was the commanding general of the Polish Airborne Brigade.” The respect the young Pole held for his grandfather polished
each of the words.

“A general?” Even Sanchez was impressed.

“Yes … and now … he’s a high school janitor.” Koski’s words carried the anguish outside his body. “A broken man who sits on
the porch all day and stares out in the street until he has to go to work, and when he comes home … he goes to his chair and
stares out in the street until he goes to bed.” Koski swallowed. “I told him before I came here that I would regain our family
honor.” He slipped the CIB in his pocket and dropped down through the hole in the roof. Warner and Sanchez could hear him
state, inside the dark interior, “AND I WILL.” The sound of a fist smashing against a sandbag echoed back up through the hole.

Arnason met Woods by the picnic tables outside the mess hall. Woods was sipping from a Styrofoam cup of grape Kool-Aid that
had been watered down in the huge pot by the melting block of ice that jutted out of the purple liquid.

“What did the captain have to say?” Woods spoke around the cup.

“He believes us.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“I don’t know.” Arnason grabbed Woods’s wrist and tilted the cup toward him. He shook his head. “You’d think they could get
it down pat, but they still fuck up even Kool-Aid in that fucking mess hall! I’m glad I’m on a C-ration diet.”

Woods grinned. He knew that Arnason refused to eat in the mess hall and lived totally off C-rations, sundries, and French
bread when he could get it. “What are you going to do when you get back to the States and have to eat
human
food?” “I’ll fucking worry about that when the time comes.” Arnason sat down on the edge of the wooden picnic table. “Did
you get put on Shaw’s resupply detail?”

“Yep, the first sergeant posted tomorrow’s detail list and Warner, Kirkpatrick, and I are on it.”

Arnason frowned. “Is Kirk still selling dope with Simpson?”

Woods shook his head. “No … I don’t think so. His buddy from New York’s death has really shook him up. You knew that. Wherever
you saw Brown, there Kirkpatrick was. Shit, I think they even shared the same women down at the steam baths.” Woods finished
the little grape drink remaining in his cup and added, “Of course, not at the same time!”

Arnason chuckled. “You never know about those kinky New York types—”

“Speaking of steam baths, I think I’ll take Warner to one tomorrow if we have some extra time.”

“Fine with me. Just remember what you’re going along with Shaw for!”

“No problem. I’ve worked Shaw’s resupply detail before, remember?”

“I want evidence, David … evidence!”

“I know that Shaw had something to do with Daryl Mas-ters’s death, or that guy who was up in the tower did!”

“Don’t you remember what he looked like?”

“No, but I’ll never forget his voice. It sounded like someone rattling pebbles in a tin can. Real rough and wavering.”

“That’s nice to know, but Shaw knows his name.” Arnason looked around the area for anyone who might be eavesdropping on their
conversation.

A sergeant from one of the other teams left the mess hall through the side door. “Hey, Arnason. That was a good mission you
guys pulled off up at Due Co. Whatcha trying to do, show off for the old man?”

Arnason smiled. “Gotta make my brownie points somehow.”

“I hear the old man is letting your team wear a special kind of headgear.”

“Yeah, black
drive-on
caps.”

Woods tapped Arnason’s shoulder. “I’ve got to get back to the bunker.”

Arnason nodded but gave Woods a sharp look. “What time are you leaving for that detail?”

“First light.” Woods talked as he walked. “I want to try and catch some sleep this afternoon before guard duty tonight.”

The sergeant who had been talking to Arnason set his cup of strong coffee down on the edge of the picnic table. He waited
until Woods was out of hearing range. “The first sergeant told me that you made sergeant first class this month.”

“Shit!” Arnason huffed. “I’ve only been an E-6 for a year.”

Jealousy was in the sergeant’s voice. “That’s the rumor … You made E-7 and you’ve only got a year in grade. The division commander
went to bat for you up at MACV.”

“Rumors will get you fucked up.” Arnason glared at the staff sergeant.

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Arnason.”

“Sure.” The tone in Arnason’s voice ended the conversation. He didn’t like gossip and he had never liked the NCO talking to
him. The man was unreliable and there were rumors that he would report false locations when he went out on patrol. He would
say that he was in his assigned AO and would really be just outside the camp or in a safe area. The NCO drifted away toward
the NCO Club and Arnason sat on the picnic table thinking about his debriefing on the Due Co mission.

The team had performed perfectly and he was very proud of them. Captain Youngbloode had put the whole team in for a valor
award and had convinced the battalion commander that Koski deserved a Distinguished Service Cross. It had been an uphill battle
because the battalion commander wanted to give him the award for leading the team. Youngbloode turned the coveted valor award
down and Arnason knew why; he had not led the team. The agreement he had made with him was secret, and Arnason and Woods had
been the team leaders. Arnason really admired the captain because a DSC would have really cemented his career and would have
placed him ahead of his West Point peers. It took a lot of guts to turn the award down and fight for an enlisted man to get
it.

Arnason relived the firefight in his mind for the hundredth time. He knew that he couldn’t have done much differently and
they hadn’t lost a single man. Luck had been riding on their side and he knew it. The decision to let Warner take the point
was the smartest thing he could have done. That boy was amazing, and the story of his direction-finding ability was already
becoming a legend in the brigade.

The American medical supplies on the NVA truck really bothered him, and the new piece of equipment they had recovered was
even worse. American units hadn’t even been issued the new starlight scopes—a sniper scope that could turn night into virtually
a light green daylight with just a little help from the stars. The scope would change the way the NVA attacked camps at night,
and it would definately end the night probes by sapper units. What bothered Arnason was that the North Vietnamese had the
scopes
before
the American infantry units!

Arnason smiled to himself.

He was very proud of his team. He had a real rainbow recon squad that represented America almost to a T: A Polack, a Mexican,
a black Puerto Rican, a WASP, and a college dropout. The team didn’t look like much, especially Warner, but they damn sure
could function and fight!

The Special Forces commander at Due Co had sent the China Boy Battalion to sweep the area the firefight had been in and they
had found thirty-eight dead NVA and a grave that contained another seventeen bodies a couple of miles away. The truck had
burned to a cinder and there wasn’t anything left to recover, except the scope that Koski had hidden in the bamboo. The prize
of the whole mission was the map the NVA officer had been carrying in the truck. It showed the secret NVA highway drawn neatly
in black ink. The NVA road wove around major American and ARVN bases and when it could, it touched Highway 19 and they used
that until they came to another outpost. The map also showed a major north-south highway that linked in with the Ho Chi Minh
Trail farther north.

The American command in Saigon had already launched major air and ground attacks against the roads and the NVA losses in supplies
and men were staggering. The capture of one little map had caused it all.

“Sergeant, whatever you’re thinking about
has
to be good!” The deep voice came from over his shoulder.

Arnason turned on his seat and looked at one of the blackest Marine lieutenants he had ever seen. The officer wasn’t a little
black, he was
black
black. “Morning sir.” Arnason slipped off his seat and saluted the officer.

“By the looks of that smile you were wearing, you must have been thinking about your wife or girlfriend…”

“Neither, sir … something better.”

The lieutenant raised his eyebrows in mock shock at what could be better than women and decided it would be wiser to change
the subject, to the reason he had come to An Khe. “Could you tell me where a Captain Yakub Youngbloode works? He’s supposed
to be assigned here at An Khe.”

“Yakub?”

“Yes, our father had an imagination. He named me Firecracker because I was born on the Fourth of July.”

“Captain Youngbloode is your brother, sir?”

“Yes. I’ve got a free day and don’t have to report in to my unit up in Da Nang until tomorrow. I thought I’d try and look
him up.”

“He’s my commander. Come on and I’ll take you to his hooch.” Arnason nodded in the direction of the orderly room.

“Thanks a lot, Sergeant! I thought that I would miss seeing him.”

“You’re lucky sir. He just got back from a mission.” Arnason led the way over to the building and stopped in front of the
captain’s private entrance. “Here it is.”

The lieutenant looked up at the wooden nameplate. “The Black
Tiger
?”

“Yes sir … one bad ass, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

The door to the hooch flew open and Captain Youngbloode rushed out. He had heard his younger brother’s voice from inside his
office. “FIRE! Man is it good seeing you!”

The brothers hugged each other and Arnason quietly walked away to give them a little privacy.

Sergeant Shaw walked back and forth between the rows of stacked supplies and bundles of jungle fatigues in the back of the
company supply room. He was livid with anger after receiving the message from the first sergeant about the captain’s request
to review all of the money order requests for the company for the past two years. The captain had to be on to something. Shaw
paced and frowned. He knew something had to be done to stop the officer, because a cursory review of that file would reveal
that he had shipped hundreds of thousands of dollars to banks back in the States. Poker was legal in Vietnam, and all poker
winnings a soldier wanted to ship back to the States had to be approved by a commanding officer and verified. Shaw had used
the excuse that he won the money playing poker to ship back his black-market profits, but an investigation would reveal that
he shipped back more money a month than the recon company’s payroll.

“Relax, Sarge.” Simpson was stretched out on a bundle of light blankets with his arms folded behind his head. “So he checks
back a couple of months. So what! You’ve a reputation for playing a lot of poker. He has to
prove
that you’ve done something wrong.”

“Prove, shit!” Shaw bit his cigar in half and spat the fine pieces of tobacco onto the wooden pallets he used for dunnage.
“All he has to do is reassign me to one of the recon teams and my operation is finished!”

“You
are
an infantryman, Sergeant.” Simpson grinned like a caged gremlin.

“And you are a drug pusher!”

“Let’s not get too personal there, Sergeant.”

“Fuck you, Simpson.” Shaw knew the drug dealer’s enforcer had been shipped back to the States and besides that, the two of
them were dependent upon each other.

“You know, when I was running with Young Boys Incorporated we would have killed your white ass for saying something like that.”
Simpson’s words were bare of emotion; he was simply stating a fact.

“Yeah! Well you’re not back in Detroit and you’re
not
with that punk kiddie gang anymore!”

Simpson glared at the NCO.

“Where’s Kirkpatrick?” Shaw looked at his watch.

“He’ll be here.” Simpson heard someone enter the front of the supply room and rolled over on his side to look and see who
had entered. “Well, speak of the devil…”

Kirkpatrick walked slowly back among the stacked supplies. “What do you want me for?”

“We’re
partners
, aren’t we?” Simpson sat up on the bundle and lit a cigarette.

“I told you after Brown got zapped that I wasn’t working no more drugs.” Kirkpatrick moved back a step so that he could keep
both Shaw and Simpson in his sight.

“Relax! We aren’t going to mess with you. We just want some information.” Shaw peeled the cellophane off another cigar and
shoved the unlit tobacco in his mouth. “What happened when your team was up at Due Co?”