Ghost War (30 page)

The two New Zealander “Z-men” were waiting for him when he put down. They introduced themselves as Timmy and Terry, both sergeants, both friendly to a fault. They were at the end of a one-week sortie to the small base, and were looking forward to going back up to Cam Ranh. It wasn’t that doing time at Suk Deek was dangerous or even boring for the New Zealanders. Indeed the Minx hardly ever came anywhere near the place—or at least they didn’t anymore. The reason for this was not entirely clear.

The blokes laid out a MRE feast for Hunter, and then offered him a bunk to collapse on. He took to it appreciatively; they would leave early in the morning, and even he had to sleep every once and a while.

Lying back on the metal frame cot, staring out at the stars, listening to the water in the canal rush by, Hunter’s thoughts drifted back to where they always seemed to go in his rare, idle moments: to his love, the beautiful Dominique.

He had no idea when he would see her again—he’d given up trying to forecast such things long ago. Instead, he simply took the small American flag from his breast pocket, unwrapped it to reveal the dog-eared picture of her, and stared at it for five long minutes.

Then, her haunting image seared into his mind for the next few hours, he fell asleep and dreamt of harvesting hay.

The next morning dawned hot and rainy; it reminded Hunter of the hellish weather he’d experienced at the Khe Sanh.

They set out after a quick cup of coffee, heading down river in the Z-men’s small but heavily armed twenty-five-foot patrol boat.

Timmy and Terry couldn’t have been more at ease. Their guns were loaded, and they were ready for any eventuality, but they knew none was coming. And they promised Hunter that when they reached their first destination, he would know why they were so sure there were no Minx in the area.

They traveled the wide canals for about an hour before they reached the place called Lok Song Ly. It was large for a town this deep in the Delta, and heavily fortified too—Hunter counted at least a dozen artillery pieces in the immediate area, and twice that number of machine-gun posts. The place was even flying the multicolored flag of the Viet Minx.

But there was nobody around.

No one but the dead.

They tied up at the small movable dock and cautiously approached the village. Timmy and Terry had their Uzis up and ready, Hunter had his M-16 on Full Auto. But they would not need them. The last battle to ever be fought at Lok Song Li had taken place two weeks before.

There were skeletons everywhere. For the most part they were devoid of clothing. They had been picked clean of dried flesh, and left to bleach in the hot sun. Hunter counted at least two hundred of them, many of those were scattered amongst the huts and dikes of the place. He’d seen battlefields before, but never one like this. Each of the skeletons had either been decapitated, disemboweled, or had one or two limbs chopped off. Those whose heads were still attached to their bodies had had their skulls crushed. Judging by the amount of dried blood powder surrounding these skeletons, it was easy for Hunter to determine much of the head-crushing had taken place while the victims were still alive.

“You’re looking at a reenforced company of Minx, mate,” Terry told him, surveying the grisly scene. “There’s another half company out in those paddies beyond. All of them dispatched in the same, rather industrious manner.”

Hunter could only shake his head. “Who the hell did this?”

The Z-men both shrugged back on cue. “That’s just it, mate,” Terry said. “We don’t know.”

They followed the river further south, leaving the bleached horror of Lok Song Ly behind.

Hunter couldn’t get the vision of the skeletons out of his mind. No matter how despicable the Minx were—and stories of their atrocities were legion—they had obviously run into something worse. It was, he supposed, a case of just desserts. But getting one’s head crushed while still alive was a gruesome way for anyone to go.

It was almost noon before they reached their next destination, a place called Bang Mi. It was an anomaly for the Delta, a high set of cliffs of rock outcrop and vines, rising out of the flat watery plain.

The small village was nestled against the northern edge of the small mountain, purposely hidden in the shadows which provided relief from the searing heat and the monsoon rains.

This ideal location was not being utilized at the moment though. Like the ghastly scene at Lok Song Li, the village was deserted.

They went ashore, and Hunter felt the same chilling feeling on the back of his neck—it was ice cold, despite the broiling sun.

Terry and Timmy led him past several well-kept, yet abandoned huts, to a larger, more military-style corrugated-tin building. This had a sign written in Vietnamese which identified the building as a subdistrict headquarters for the Delta-South Command of the Viet Minx First Revolutionary Army.

Timmy expertly kicked open the building’s door. Laying beyond was another disturbing scene. At first they looked like nothing more than a pile of leaves, scattered on the dirt floor, maybe numbering 200 or so. But Hunter didn’t need a second look to tell him what the small leathery items were.

“Tongues …” he said. “That’s a bad way to go.”

Terry turned to him. “Who said anything about ‘going’ anywhere, mate?”

Hunter stared at him—then the real horror of the place began to sink in. The owners of the tongues were still alive, or presumably lived long enough to leave the building. Hunter grimaced at the thought of having one’s tongue cut out while still alive.

“Cuts down on the chatter in the barracks, doesn’t it?” he said.

Both of the New Zealanders laughed heartily. “Puts the dumper on the old appetite, too, don’t it?” Terry howled.

They left the building, returned to the boat and started out to the south again. Suddenly the whole river seemed to become a very chilling place, like the set of a bad horror movie. Hunter half-expected to see dozens of hacked-up bodies come floating downstream at any moment. The Z-Men were right—something very strange was going on down here. And it had his powerful inner psyche crackling.

Who
was
the baddest motherfucker in the jungle? Hunter wondered. The Viet Minx, or the monster that was hunting them?

Hunter shook off an uncharacteristic chill. He wasn’t too sure he wanted to know the answer.

They stopped at three more Minx outposts in the next six hours.

All of them were abandoned, all of them containing some evidence that an unspeakable horror had passed by recently.

One place, known as Cung Leek had a cemetery that contained nothing but dried human brains; more than 100 in all. In the nearby village of Sum Cung they found thirteen baskets filled with severed human digits—thumbs, fingers and toes. Once again, all indications were that the butchery had taken place while the victims were still alive.

Then at the bend in the river near a place called No Dinh they found a ditch where wild boars, birds and insects had been feeding. It contained the severed genitals of at least 150 men. Once more, they found evidence—a blood-stained butcher block, several broken hatchets—which indicated the atrocity had been performed while the men were still alive.

Thoroughly nauseated by this time, they skipped their evening meal and pressed on into the night, towards their ultimate destination: a place called Nieu Go. It was in this area that the large plane was reported to have gone down. Hunter had spent much time studying a topographical map of the place. Like the strange outcroppings at Bang Mi, Nieu Go seemed out of place in the flat marshy Delta.

It was an island really, spoon-shaped and built up with craggy brown rocks, stony beaches and a thick collar of jungle. Near its middle was a small rocky hill, elevation about 250 feet, which, according to the map, had a flattened top made by “unnatural means.”

Hunter asked the Z-men what they thought “unnatural” meant. Timmy theorized the hill had its top razed by a large bomb blast, maybe a weapon gone astray during the last big war. Terry relayed the local myth that the place had been flattened thousands of years ago, by some obscure death spirit in some equally obscure Eastern religion.

Either way, it was easy for Hunter to see that neither man wanted to be near the place for too long.

They arrived just before midnight.

If the Delta was a strange place in the daytime, it was especially eerie at night. Sound traveled very well across the wet plains and rivers, and the starkness of the terrain seemed to amplify every weird noise from the jungles and beyond.

Twice, Terry and Timmy scrambled for their weapons, certain that
something
was either coming up the river towards them or swooping down on the boat from the dark, moonless sky. Hunter had stayed cool both times—his inner senses warned him of such things way in advance, certainly long enough for him to spring into action. But just seeing the two veteran Z-men rattled that way was enough to cause a shudder or two.

Hunter had checked his M-16 four times by the time the small boat pushed up on the dark beach at Nieu Go. Terry and Timmy were making sure their Uzis were on full load, too. They quietly yanked the boat into some tall reeds and then made for a line of mangroves just up from the beach. Although the place seemed totally devoid of life, Hunter’s sixth sense was going off like a fire alarm.

“We better approach this very carefully,” he kept reminding the New Zealanders, “There’s something here that might not like us.”

The two sergeants gave no argument.

They made it to the mangroves, pressing on through their thick roots, and made the swamp beyond. Off in the distance, Hunter detected a series of mechanical sounds—a thumping, like machinery working. He also heard voices.

They stopped at the edge of the swamp and hunkered down near a fallen tree. Hunter was buzzing with all kinds of warnings now. Beyond them was a very dark tract of jungle, probably a quarter mile wide, which led to an open field that ended at the base of the flattened hill. It was an infantryman’s nightmare: if they don’t get you in the jungle, they’ll get you on the open field.

This is why the invented air support, Hunter thought.

If the key to the island was its flattened top, then that’s where they would have to go. Just from a vantage point alone, they would be able to see for miles around them once day broke. If there was the wreckage of a large jet anywhere within twenty klicks, they would be able to spot it easily.

But as it turned out, they wouldn’t have to look that far.

It was Hunter who saw it first. Just a glint of metal off about a half klick to their south. He stared at it for a long moment, his eyes getting seemingly conflicting signals. It was a huge dark shape, smooth in some places, jagged in others. It was definitely unnatural—just like the top of the hill on the island. He thought he could see wisps of smoke rising from it.

It hit him an instant later.

It was a C-5.

He nudged both Timmy and Terry and they soon saw the same dark shape in the gloom of the southern horizon.

“That’s a motherfucker, that is,” Terry observed. “We didn’t have to look very hard for it after all.”

“I’ve got to see this up close,” Timmy agreed.

But Hunter was already ahead of them, somehow crashing through the thick mangrove swamp while still maintaining a semblance of silence. The Z-men were soon right on his tail.

It took them ten minutes, but they finally made it to the bottom of the rise which held the wreckage of the enormous C-5. Hunter climbed up on a piece of wing and ran his hand along the battered fuselage. Even in the near pitch-blackness he could clearly see the elaborate scrolling which dominated the design scheme of
Crunchtime.
There was no doubt about it now, this was Crunch’s airplane.

“I guess everything we heard was true,” Timmy observed.

“This must have broke some glass coming in,” Terry observed. “Can’t imagine anyone living to tell about it.”

Hunter wasn’t so sure. True, the monstrous airplane was definitely a total wreck. Its wings had been sheared almost completely from the fuselage, and the entire rear half of the airplane had been gutted by fire, and was now almost skeletal.

But the forward section of the airplane, while battered and twisted, was still intact.

He turned and looked out onto the marshy delta. It was open for miles around. No swamps, rock outcrops or spits of solid land. Suddenly the vision of the big airplane coming in appeared in his mind’s eye. Flying low along the water, its engines smoking, overheated and running out of fuel, he saw it hit the water’s surface once, then twice, then a third time. With a master pilot at the controls, this action would have served to slow down the flying behemoth, maybe enough to make its impact speed into Nieu Go relatively nonviolent.

He turned back to the wreck and once again studied it from end to end. Most of the damage was done by the fire, and that could have taken hours to burn out. Even now, there were still wisps of black smoke trailing up from it.

If the airplane had slid in, instead of crashing, there was good chance that there were some survivors—or even no casualties at all.

But how could they know for sure?

The answer came just a few seconds later.

Hunter saw the burst before he heard it. A huge, fiery red explosion went off no more than 250 feet above their heads.

Hunter yanked both Z-men down with him, all three rolling to the cover of one of the C-5’s wrecked engines. There was another explosion, this one bigger and brighter, not 150 feet above them. Once more all three of them ducked lower, Hunter clamping his pilot’s helmet tight around his ears.

But at the same instant, he knew something was wrong here. The aerial explosions were frighteningly bright in flame and intensity, but their corresponding sonics did not match the visual, like the flares shot at them over Khe Sanh.

When the third explosion went off just fifty feet above them three seconds later, Hunter had already figured it out.

These were gasoline bombs exploding overhead—frightening to the nth degree, but, for want of a better word, harmless at such altitudes.