Men in Green Faces (4 page)

“If need be, we will set up our claymores.”

Gene’s fingers tightened on the 60. The whole world would be coming after them, all right.

“We have our 40 Mike-Mike and grenades to help break contact as well. If we all maintain our personal discipline throughout our patrol, we should be able to avoid any contact.”

Personal discipline, Gene thought. The bottom line of training. If you’re shot, make no sound, die silent. If you’re terrified, do your job, stay silent. Controlled breathing, controlled thoughts, controlled emotion. Do it, make no sound, execute the plan, become a machine to keep yourself and the other SEALs alive and achieve the mission objective.

“If a secondary target should arise, we will take the same actions as at the danger area, bringing up Gene and Alex to the flanks of the objective, and eliminate the secondary target. Silently, if possible. If this cannot be done silently, we will avoid the contact. The elimination of the ninety officers, and the abduction of one, is of high priority.”

Very high priority, Gene thought. Good officers were damned hard to replace, that level of intelligence hard to get. He shifted on the hard metal chair. His bandoliered ammo was uncomfortable to lean against over a long period.

“If we encounter any patrol as we draw near the objective, I will signal by putting both hands out from my sides, waving you into the jungle, on line, as you are, allowing the enemy patrol to pass. We will not take them under fire unless we’ve been compromised. If we are compromised at any time on this operation, prior to getting to our objective, we will abort the mission.”

Jim continued to pace. “If we make contact on either flank, use fire and maneuver. If we make contact head-on, use the Australian peel-off: Point will open up, fully automatic. Once his rounds are out, he runs down the side of the patrol and the next man opens up, fully automatic, straight in front. The point man goes to the rear of the patrol as I open up. When my magazine is empty, the next man opens up, fully automatic, then he goes to the back of the patrol. So it keeps leapfrogging backward in line. While everyone else is firing, the man at the end of the line is reloading his weapon.”

Gene grinned. Shit-hot, that tactic.

“
Rally points and acts at rally points
will be determined in the field as the patrol is en route to and from the objective. If we are in a file formation, everyone will maintain their fields of fire. If we are called in on a circular formation, I will place each man personally into a location with your backs toward the center of the circle where myself and Roland, with the radio, will be located. This will enable us to have a 360-degree field of fire.

“MSSC people, you’ve been given our insertion coordinates, 9.4 miles up the river. Once we’re off the boats, we want you to go back downriver and bank close to the mouth of the Dam Doi River, on the Son Ku Lon river.

“Sea Wolves will remain on Seafloat and be ready to cover our extraction if necessary and/or be in support of emergency extraction.

“We will maintain radio silence during the entire operation. Our primary frequency is 3570. Secondary is 4085. Our call sign is Tobacco Road. The boats’ call sign is Rolling Papers.

“
Passwords:
If at any time the patrol is broken up, or we send out a search element to check out a particular area, to avoid opening up on our own people, believing that they may be the enemy, our passwords will be Bloody Mary. The stationary group will initiate when they hear the movement coming in by challenging with ‘Bloody.’ The returning party will reply ‘Mary.’ The challenge will be given two times. If we do not get the proper response or reply, we will take those individuals under fire.”

Gene watched Jim rub both sides of his olive-green headband. He was getting ready to go.

“
Emergency signals:
During the patrol, we will maintain radio contact by using the squelch method. We will initiate contact by three squelches on the radio. If you read loud and clear, you reply with two squelches. This will be done every hour on the hour. If we’ve lost communications, and we’re ready for extraction, we will send up two green pop flares. After five minutes, if we’re too far away for you to see the green flares, we will continue to patrol south until we make radio contact or the flares are visible to you.”

Gene studied Roland’s face. A damned fine radioman. The MSSC people looked like they had no problem, like they understood. They’d better.

“As the boat moves up the Dam Doi River to our extraction location, we will be able to make radio contact and bring you in on our location by using a series of short flashes of a red-lensed flashlight and voice communications. If it’s an emergency extraction, we will send up two red pop flares. If you see the red pop flares, scramble the Sea Wolves.”

Crazy, hot pilots. Gene studied them. Really awesome to watch.

“Come up the Dam Doi on step. Full bore, opened up. When you’re close enough to our location, and we make radio contact, we will direct you into our location.

“If emergency extraction is required, we will need all guns bearing on location, as directed by radio communication. By that time, Sea Wolves should be overhead, and we will direct rocket fire into the target area.”

Almost finished now. Jim adjusted his headband again. Gene leaned slightly forward.

“Once more,” Jim said, “I want to state that our primary objective is the elimination of the officers’ R&R Center. This will have a direct impact on enemy operations throughout the Mekong Delta. We will avoid contact at all costs which could jeopardize this operation.

“Safety is paramount,” he said, pronouncing each word distinctly and with emphasis. “If we don’t get them today, we can still get them tomorrow.

“
Rehearsals:
We will go over the blackboard again, showing the locations where everybody will be, as it was stated earlier in this briefing. Are there any questions?”

During the long pause, Gene had watched the men shake their heads in answer to Jim. No questions. They’d been ready to go. Bulky with ammunition and weaponry, faces, hands, arms, necks, every inch of exposed skin, covered with green and black face paint, everything taped down, the squad had risen to study the blackboard and situation map.

From the moment that they’d left the briefing room to board the boats transporting them upriver, they had been operating off safe, locked and loaded. Now, hours later, out in the jungle, the eerie fort relegated to future nightmares, Gene concerned himself only with achieving the objective, the R&R Center, without dying along the way.

A
SEAL SQUAD ON
patrol moves in silence, at the speed of its slowest man. Carrying his heavy 60, bowie knife strapped low on his right hip, and with fifty-six pounds of bandoliered ammo body-fitted around his hips and crisscrossing his chest, Gene set the pace, glad to leave the fort behind.

The wet heat, even in the deepening green shadows of the jungle, maintained its intensity. Drenched with sweat, Gene slogged through mud a foot deep, making sure he didn’t trip or get a boot caught among the roots that snaked out from the trees. Automatically he sorted out the sounds of the jungle, listening for those of NVA or VC patrols. A single metallic click, and they had a target, or were one. Instantly the squad would fire, tearing up the jungle and any other living thing within range.

Their wagons were circled even when they walked one behind the other, Gene thought. At point, Brian’s field of fire was 180 degrees, from side to side. Behind him, Jim took the field of fire to the left. The radioman, Roland, aimed right, Gene left, Alex Stochek right, Cruz Bertino left, and Doc Murphy secured the 180 degrees at their rear. Together, they could pour five thousand rounds a minute into their kill zone. Establishing immediate fire superiority was crucial. Failure meant they died, unless they broke contact with the enemy fast. The last thing they wanted was any unexpected contact with the enemy. A sudden firefight would abort the mission.

Gene, who hated snakes and creepy-crawlies, kept an eye out for signs of the enemy—the outline of a hidden shoulder, a glimpse of a gun barrel—as well as bushes covered with the fiery ants called
dau-dits.
Drawn by body heat, they dropped like mist to the man or animal below. A
dau-dit
attack, with its instant welts and excruciating pain, would stop the squad on the spot. He had gone into a shit ditch, ammo and all, the time they got him.

He blinked, clearing sweat from his eyes, watching for movement, for trip-wired booby traps on the ground, for grenades, and for the bamboo vipers that hung from branches about head height. They called the vipers two-steps because you were dead before you could take the third step. The rest of the patrol was doing the same.

Freeze.
Brian, at point, signaled. He had run into impenetrable brush and would have to search for a way through. He faded into the tangled dark greenery and disappeared.

In the deep shadows, Gene, like the rest, maintained position, waiting. They were well inside a Secret Zone, places no American had ever entered. The NVA and Viet Cong considered them secure. They were not far now from the NVA R&R compound. All through the Secret Zone, Charlie patrolled in force. Had to avoid him, get to the objective. Afterward, they’d
didi-mau
to the Dam Doi River for extraction.

Ten feet ahead, the radioman, Roland Garson, signaled
forward.
Gene passed the signal to Alex Stochek, ten feet behind him, and moved out, still thinking taking a hostage would be dangerous. He’d rather KISS—Keep it simple, stupid—just eliminate the ninety officers, plus the doctors, plus their security people.

He stepped over and around tree roots, weaved under and between low-hanging vines and branches, ignored the eight-inch-deep sucking mud, and trudged on. The air hummed with insect sound. Eerie, that fort, that dead-quiet clearing. Movement caught his attention. Gold butterflies just covering that bush ahead…like little bits of sunlight fluttering away. They were making good time in spite of the damned mud and roots. Just a couple of miles more.

Ahead, Roland’s fist was in the air: Halt. He cupped his ear: Listen.

Gene froze, signaled back to Alex, and listened. Soft voices. Somebody out there…over there. He pointed: There! Roland looked back. Gene signaled: There. Roland gave the thumb-up I-understand signal and turned away to signal Jim, ahead of him.

Jim, Gene knew, would send Brian out to search and identify while the silent squad maintained their stop, look, listen position exactly where they were. For a second, a series of images flashed through his mind, triggered by the yellow butterflies: a golden sunset he’d swum into, back in The World, during SEAL Team training on Coronado’s Silver Strand. San Diego’s skyline was across the harbor, golden too, at sunset, as gold as the lining of Tommy Blade’s blue and gold instructor shirt during Hell Week, and—

Signal from Jim: Retreat.

The seven moved back and away, deeper into the jungle. Jim silently pointed them into position. Gene watched the PL motion the squad members to his position, one by one, while the rest set security, relaying Brian’s report and what the tactics would be. There was no debate. “SEALs,” Tommy Blade had stressed, “don’t argue tactics.”

“B-40 rocket team,” Jim whispered when Gene moved up. “Three VC, setting up a night ambush on the riverbank two hundred yards out on our right flank.” He shifted the position of his Stoner and smoothed his green bandana, first on one side, then the other.

Gene waited, then leaned in again, his cheek against Jim’s to hear the next barely audible words.

“We’ll sneak up behind them. SOP. You and Alex on flank; Brian and me, center front with the Hush Puppies. Roland, Cruz, and Doc will maintain rear security. Soon as we eliminate them, you’ll all guard our backs while we conceal the bodies.”

Gene nodded, moved back to his position, watched Jim signal Alex up.

They moved out at twilight, barely able to see each other. But then, he thought, they didn’t need to. The positions they were taking were SOP. Each knew where the others would be, what they’d be doing. Moving left to the flank, peering through the dimness, he spotted the B-40 ambush team. Joe Shit, the ragman… VC. The three Viet Cong, scrawny, wearing dingy black pajamas, barefoot and hatless, squatted side by side, looking out through a screen of bushes at the river. Still talking, the
dau-mau-mee
, the motherfuckers.

One slow and careful step at a time, he moved toward a thicker area of trees and brush ahead and to the left. Once set, he aimed the 60 to position the three VC directly in the center of his kill zone. No matter what happened now, the B-40 team was dead.

Through the concealing foliage, he watched Jim and Brian slowly moving closer and closer behind the three VC to get clear shots. A branch cracked. Adrenaline sparked through his body like an electrical charge. The right VC’s head began to turn. The Hush Puppies coughed softly, simultaneously. Two heads exploded. With two bodies in spasm beside him, the third VC’s eyes were wide with shock as he spun around. A third round killed him.

Gene doubted the VC saw the source of his death, it came so fast. And now Brian and Jim walked to the bodies. The Hush Puppies coughed three times more, making sure. SOP. He turned his back then, watching outward, but hearing the sounds of the bodies and the rocket launcher being dragged away and covered with mud and brush.

Had to eliminate them, he thought, straining to see through the gathering darkness. Could have blocked the squad’s extraction, blown up the two MSSC gunboats coming to take them back down the river. Once the squad hit the R&R Center, everything in the area would be coming after them. God, it was getting dark. The black of night was like no other black, in the jungle.

Silently the squad re-formed and moved forward, each SEAL with his hand on the life-jacket-covered shoulder of the man in front of him. There was no other way. Gene could barely see anything and knew nobody else could either. They stopped. The pale tinted glow of Brian’s green-lensed flashlight moved against the map in his hand, then went out. They continued, one careful step at a time. Pause. Stop, look, listen. Go again.