Black Market (9 page)

“I don’t think that I can justify…”

Shaw reached into the top pocket of his fatigue jacket and removed the folded light green check. “I thought we had an agreement?
You sign the requisitions and I give you back this piece of paper”—Shaw frowned—“unless you’ve changed your mind?”

Captain Gouch shook his head slowly from side to side and picked up his ball point pen.

Shaw watched him, wearing a sly grin on his face. He had the captain in the palm of his hand and even though he would give
the dumb officer his check back, he knew the man was hooked and could be used in the future.

“Here.” Gouch’s voice had lost all of its confidence as he shoved the pile of signed supply requests over the table.

“Thank you
very
much and here are your checks … three of them, I believe … Oh! You wouldn’t want to take MPC instead, would you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars in Military Payment Certificates for the checks.”

“Ten?”

“Yup … got it right here.” Shaw set the small cardboard box on the captain’s desk and opened it so that the young officer
could see the stacks of ten-dollar MPC notes.

The captain didn’t answer but nodded his head.

“Good! It’s going to be fun doing business with you!” Shaw put the checks back in his pocket.

“You say that you make all of your money playing poker?” Gouch was becoming suspicious after signing all of the supply requests
but wasn’t going to turn down a deal where he made two thousand dollars just trading his checks for MPC.

“No … I didn’t say that.” Shaw tapped the pile of requisitions on the edge of the captain’s desk and then slipped them back
into his briefcase. “It was fine doing
business
with you.”

Arnason nearly knocked Shaw down as he entered the battalion headquarters building. Shaw reached up and buttoned the top button
on his fatigue jacket in an unconscious move to secure the checks. He didn’t feel comfortable when Arnason was around.

“I’m going to be stopping by to draw some special equipment in the morning.” Arnason didn’t waste any words in a greeting.

“I don’t think I have much left. That storm wiped me out of a lot of items.” Shaw forced a smile.

Arnason squinted his eyes and glared at the crooked supply sergeant. “I think you’ll find something. The captain is going
out with me on a mission.”

“Uh … well in that case, I
might
have some stuff in stock.” Shaw smiled sheepishly. Arnason wanted to use his pistol on the bastard.

“See if you can dig up four silenced pistols—HI-STANDARDs if you have a choice—and eight of the new strobe lights that attach
to the straps on your web gear … Oh, while you’re shopping around, get me eight sets of those STABO rigs the SF guys use.”

“Where in the hell do you think I can find all that shit!” Shaw’s face turned red. “I’m only a
Company
supply sergeant!”

“I think you’ll find a way to locate the stuff.” Arnason looked at Shaw out of the corner of his eye. “Or I might have the
opportunity while I’m out there on patrol with the captain to tell him about your infantry background.” Arnason let the screen
door slam shut behind him and added, “We always need good infantry team leaders on the teams, and seeing that there are three
extra supply sergeants—”

“Shut the fuck up, Arnason!” Shaw’s face was bright red.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Supply Sergeant!” Arnason walked down the narrow hallway and could see Captain Gouch sitting
behind his desk looking into a small cardboard box. The captain wore a look of confusion and fear on his face and glanced
up just as Arnason passed his open doorway.

“Hello sir! Has Shaw talked to you yet?”

“Shaw?”

Arnason could see that mentioning the supply sergeant’s name increased the fearful look on the officer’s face and the captain
slammed the top of the cardboard box closed. “Yes sir. I talked to him about”—Arnason looked both ways down the hall before
continuing—“those checks you wrote and he told me that he would work something out with you.”

“Oh! Yes! We’ve worked something out. Thank you for your help … Excuse me, but I’m real busy right now.” Captain Gouch reached
for a single piece of paper that was in his
IN
box.

“Sure, no problem sir, I’m just glad that you worked out a solution.” Arnason left feeling that there was something going
on that he couldn’t quite put his finger on—yet.

The S-3 operations sergeant was sitting behind his desk making an overlay of the new First Brigade’s operations area when
Arnason stopped in front of his desk. He looked up and smiled. “Hello Dwight, are you ready to take your new team out in the
field?”

“Yeah, they’re looking pretty good in training. I think I’ve got something with the new replacements.”

“That Polish kid looks like a damn mountain!” The sergeant continued moving the grease pencil in his hand as he talked. “I
definitely wouldn’t want to have him mad at me!”

“Actually, Sanchez is the tough one.” Arnason picked up a comer of the map the sergeant was working on and tried identifying
the terrain without looking for a city.

“Really? The Mexican kid?”

“He’s a karate expert
and
one hell of a good street fighter.”

“Now you’re going to tell me that skinny boy is an assassin?” The NCO laid his grease pencil down and picked up a small tab
to glue to the map. “I’ve got to get the battalion commander’s map ready for tomorrow.”

“No, but I’ll tell you one thing about little Warner: you let him glance at that map you’re holding and he’ll memorize it
almost instantly!”

“Shit, no wonder you don’t want to break up that team!” He folded the map and slipped it back into the canvas case.

“Who told you that they were going to break up my team?” Arnason instantly became alarmed.

“Easy! That was the talk before your new CO laid into the operations officer and stopped that shit cold.”

“That’s nice to know.” Arnason looked over at the operations board. “Do you know where we’re going in at?”

“Yes.” The operations sergeant fumbled through a stack of messages on his desk and found what he was looking for near the
bottom. “You’ll be inserted north of Highway 19, just outside of Due Co. Let’s look at the big map.” He led the way over to
the 1:50,000 scale map on the wall and pointed to a narrow passage between two rises in the ground. “Twenty-three hundred
meters … hmmm … you’re going to have a little rough going back in there.”

Arnason leaned forward so that he could study the contour lines on the map. There were a number of places where the brown
lines touched, forming steep cliffs with very rugged climbing. “They don’t call them the highlands for nothing, I guess.”

“Your AO is going to be ten square clicks.” The senior sergeant tapped the map. “By the way, have you heard anything about
that Bamett kid?”

“Yeah, Woods got a letter from him a couple of weeks ago. He’s doing fine at Walter Reed.”

“I spent some time there for a cancer; it’s a damn good hospital.” The sergeant looked directly at Arnason before continuing.
“I’ve heard through the staff that they’re putting him in for a Medal of Honor.”

“The kid deserves it!” Arnason nodded his head. “I hope he gets it.”

“I liked him too. He was a bit cocky, but a good field soldier.” The older NCO adjusted the cushion on his chair and sat down.
He stood up again and readjusted the cushion to relieve the pressure on his hemorrhoids. “I’ll have your maps and intelligence
package ready for you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Sarge.” Arnason squeezed the old soldier’s shoulder as he left the Operations Shop. Few people knew that the operations
sergeant had been one of the Rangers who was at the beach during the Anzio invasion. He had been captured and tortured by
the Germans and had been one of the few to escape and make it back to American lines. Arnason had a great deal of respect
for the old soldier and showed it.

The recon team sat on the edge of the PSP helipad in a neat line waiting for their choppers to arrive. Arnason leaned back
against his pack and looked up at the cloudless sky. He felt his premission jitters settle in his stomach and swallowed the
brassy taste in his mouth. Woods sat next to him holding his CAR-15 submachine gun between his legs pointed straight up in
the air.

“I’ve got to take a shit.” Warner leaned forward and struggled to his feet. The pack he was carrying weighed almost half as
much as he did.

“There’s a shitter back over there.” Arnason pointed with the short barrel of the CAR-15 Bamett had loaned to him until he
got back to Vietnam. “Leave your pack and gear here.”

Warner undid the front of his pistol belt and dropped it down on the PSP next to his pack. The olive drab web gear had been
rigged up with the new STABO system a group of Special Forces sergeants had invented, and the helicopters assigned to the
team were being outfitted with ropes and snap-links so that they could be used to pick the team up if need be.

“I’m going to join Warner.” Koski dropped his gear and started jogging to catch up to the little man.

“Me too.” Sanchez dropped his pack.

Arnason waited until the men were out of hearing before commenting to Woods. “Does that bring back memories?”

“You’re not going to get me to bash them ’cause they have the jitters. I’ve been there before and would be joining them right
now if it weren’t for the no-shit pills I took last night.” Woods looked over at the shitter and saw the silhouettes of the
three men inside the screened-in outhouse. “I should have thought about them and got some extra pills from the medics.”

“Don’t worry about them. Once their feet touch the ground in our mission area, they’ll forget about their fear and settle
down.” Arnason looked back toward the company orderly room. “I wonder where the captain is.”

The sound of arriving choppers drew Arnason’s attention to the helipad. He checked the row of equipment to make sure there
was nothing that could be drawn up in the air when the helicopters landed.

Captain Youngbloode heard the choppers coming in and left the orderly room through the back door. He carried his backpack
in one hand and his M-16, in a German carry, in the other.

“Here comes the captain!” Woods touched Arnason’s shoulder and pointed. “Look at that!”

Arnason looked. Youngbloode was dressed exactly like the rest of the team in a set of Special Forces CIDG camouflaged tiger
fatigues and he wore a matching camouflaged hat that had the wide brim modified. “I don’t think we’re going to have to carry
him on this mission.” Arnason had already told Woods about the arrangement of command he had worked out with the captain.

Arnason and Woods saluted when the officer neared the pad. “Morning sir.”

Youngbloode returned the salute. “Morning, sergeants.” He reached up and touched the strobe light that had been attached and
then taped to his web gear harness. “I like these … a good idea, Sergeant Arnason.”

“Thanks sir.”

“Where are the rest of the men?” Youngbloode could see the gear lined up on the steel planking.

“Over there.” He nodded. “They’ll be back in a minute.”

“There has been a slight change of plans…” Youngbloode looked up at the arriving choppers and raised his voice so that the
sergeants could hear him. “We’re going to land at Due Co, instead of inserting directly in our AO…” The noise from the chopper
engines drowned him out.

Arnason looked over at Woods and shrugged his shoulders. The change in orders was odd, but not uncommon. He pointed at Kirkpatrick
and then at the second chopper that had landed.

Kirkpatrick leaned forward and stood up. He had been pissed the whole time since he had returned from R and R and found out
that he would be going to the field the next day. If he could have screwed off just a couple of extra hours in Saigon, he
would have arrived too late for the STABO rig training and would have missed the mission. It wasn’t fucking fair! His cock
was still sore from all the activity it had had in Bangkok. Kirkpatrick slipped in backward on the chopper floor and sat with
his legs dangling out on the struts. He glared at Arnason, but the effect was lost through the camouflage makeup.

The three replacements came running up to their gear wearing sheepish looks. Their embarrassment was hidden also by the black,
green, and tan makeup they wore. Arnason directed each one of them to the chopper he wanted them riding in and then looked
over at the captain and nodded. They broke up with Woods riding in one of the choppers and Youngbloode and Arnason in the
other.

Warner sat in the open door with his feet dangling in the air current created by the chopper. The cool air felt good after
the heat coming up from the steel helipad. He was thankful for the camouflage paint on his face because he knew the fear struggling
to bust out inside of him was reflected there. It had been all fun and games going through infantry training and then the
Special Forces RECONDO School, but this was the real thing: he was going into combat. Arnason didn’t have time to tell him
or the other new men that they had had a change of plans and would be landing at an American-controlled base camp.

The pair of helicopters used Highway 19 as a guide for their flight out to Due Co, which was due west of the An Khe base camp.
The highway was open and was filled with olive drab trucks. Periodically a platoon of M-48 tanks would appear alongside the
road or a platoon of ACAVs with infantry in their day lager positions as they guarded the convoys using the road during the
day. At night the tanks and ACAVs would pull back into their bases.

The flight was shorter than the three replacements wanted it to be. Woods leaned over and cupped his hands around Warner’s
ear. “We’re landing at a Special Forces camp! Tell Koski and Sanchez!”

Warner nodded and took a deep breath of relief. He passed the word to the other men and then for the first time since he had
gotten on the chopper, he leaned back against his pack and relaxed to enjoy the scenery passing below his feet. Vietnam was
a beautiful country, if you were flying in the right helicopter.