Men in Green Faces (7 page)

He listened as each individual discussed what he’d seen during his portion of the op, and then the usual questions were asked: Had they picked up another man? Had anyone been able to catch the identifying marks on enemy uniforms, so they might identify exactly which NVA force or forces were in the area? Had anyone found any defecation? If so, a sample brought back could be analyzed to learn what the enemy’s main food staple was. Had anyone seen any of the NVA coming in on them?

Gene knew beforehand the answers would all be no, except for the last, when they’d seen the enemy across the river. Once the R&R Center blew, they’d outright booked, and the enemy never caught up with them. Thank God.

Jim continued with the debriefing, and Gene listened intently in spite of increasing weariness, as did the rest.

“Did anything go wrong?” Jim took his time looking around the room.

No, again. It was a successful op. If there’d been a breakdown, Gene knew Jim would ask if the op hadn’t been covered well enough in the PLO, why there’d been confusion out there, and what they could have done to prevent an adverse situation. So the debriefing was relatively simple because they achieved all they’d set out to do, plus taking out a B-40 team on the way into the objective.

They’d actually had two ops, is what it boiled down to, he thought, yawning and shifting in the metal chair. The R8cR Center and, coming out, the B-40 rocket team.

“We’ll be sending a Vietnamese SEAL out to one of the local villages around the R&R Center, to listen and bring intelligence reports back,” Jim said. “In three or four days, we’ll have the total numbers of enemy killed in action and wounded in action.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s it. Good job.”

Amid the screeching of chairs being shoved back as the men stood, Gene rose and opened the door. Time to get some sleep.

Back in the hootch, he unstrapped the bowie, hung it on the bedpost, kicked off his shower shoes, and vaulted into the top bunk above Brian’s. Lying on his back, mosquito netting pulled down around him, he ached to be standing at the edge of the pines in the Laguna Mountains, east of San Diego, looking out over the endless, golden sweep of desert below. The space of it…hawks freewheeling above…

He fell asleep to the sound of the droning fans and the voices of Brian and Roland talking about Manhattan.

He woke, with no recollection of dreaming, at 1750 hours, in time for evening chow. The hootch was comparatively quiet. Four SEALs from Delta Platoon were playing poker on a bunk at the other end. Alex and Roland were still asleep. Nobody would bother them. Nobody ever disturbed anyone sleeping without damned good reason. First, it was a courtesy. Second, you could get hurt waking somebody.

Standing at the side of the bunks, he put on insect repellent, swim trunks, his blue and gold SEAL T-shirt, the bowie, and the dry pair of his two sets of canvas jungle boots. He went then to take care of another one of his jobs…that of Lima’s intelligence petty officer.

He opened the door of the Naval Intelligence logistics officer’s hootch, and found NILO Lt. Jonathon Blake still at his desk. A good man, Johnny Blake, but very serious. He respected the SEALs, loved to associate with them. Johnny’s responsibility lay in receiving and disseminating intelligence reports from all investigations or intel sources.

Gene liked the fact that Johnny worked well with all the U.S. military as well as the South Vietnamese military. Not an easy job. Too, Johnny would often clear the SEALs’ AOs with both the foreign and domestic military commands, and with local and province-level political personnel. When the SEALs inserted, their area of operation became a free kill zone. Damned important that no friendly forces be in there. Whoever they contacted out there died. Johnny made sure no friendlies were around.

“Well, hello, Gene,” he said, half standing and extending his hand. “Congratulations. I was glad to hear everyone returned safely, and with a POW. Any intelligence from an NVA officer is useful. What can I do for you?”

“Anything further come in on the NVA advisor, Colonel Nguyen, since the flash report?”

Johnny smoothed his brown, carefully brushed hair. The gold of the Annapolis class ring on his left hand glinted. “Nothing since then. Sorry. You have a special interest?”

“No,” Gene replied. “Just doing my job. But this damned colonel, the flash said, wipes out entire villages—people, hootches, everything—in his forced recruitment campaigns. Personally, no special interest. Professionally, yes. Terrorist tactics work. He has to be stopped. We want the bastard bad.”

With a sigh, Johnny straightened an already orderly stack of papers at the left front of his desk before looking up, his brown eyes tired. “It’s true. His tactics do work. Too well. But no, we don’t have further intelligence on the colonel.”

“If any comes in, let me know right away, if you would.” Gene started out the door, then turned back. “By the way, you have any intel on tonight’s movie?”

Johnny smiled his broad smile. “Word is that it’s
Bullitt
with Steve McQueen.”

“Hoo-Ya! It finally came in?”

“Rumor has it.”

“Rumor had it before.”

“True. Hope and such springs eternal.”

“Yeah. Well, thanks, Johnny.”

A few minutes later, standing in line at the chow hall, Gene noticed two things: Willie’s waved invitation to join him at the table, and Freddy Fanther, third man in line in front of him. He nodded an okay to Willie, then glared at the back of Fanther’s head. Goddamned slipknot. What an asshole. Alligator mouth and parakeet ass. Delta Platoon’s pretty boy. Talked all the time about how his looks were going to make him millions. He’d be the new Marlboro man. The asshole was a skate as well. Any work to be done, he found a way to skate out of it. Never volunteered for possible heavy-contact ops. Had to protect his face.

On the way to join Willie, he saw Fanther settle down at a table near the door. No Marlboro man had
that
many freckles. More than a kid with chicken pox. Not only that, Fanther might be a decent operator when he did decide to go, but he didn’t like the way Fanther used his weapon. Something about the way he handled that 40 Mike-Mike…

“Rumor has it, my friend,” Willie said as Gene sat down, “that
Bullitt
has come in at last.”

Gene grinned. “So I heard.”

“Who told y’all?”

“Johnny Blake, over at NILO.”

“I told Johnny.”

“Well, hell, Willie, who told you?”

“Half a dozen gentlemen.”

Gene laughed. “So what else have you heard?” He waited while Willie forked up a bite of steak, chewed, and swallowed. A southern gentleman never talked with food in his mouth.

“Heard y’all had a real testicle-cruncher of an op. Not like going after the B-40s on the Mighty Mo.”

Willie loved to talk about the Mo. Particularly about that trip.

“Well,” Willie was saying, “with the B-40 rocket teams, up in the Secret Zone on the Dam Doi…there surely was no way to go up the river safely. And, as y’all knew, we had to go up to recon, so—

“So
we
went up. Inserted. Made contact and killed those three armed VC. God, I never will forget the one.” Gene shook his head in disbelief. “Kept getting up after being shot. Must have been so loaded with whatever he was on. I don’t know how many times he got shot, and still he ran off. Finally followed his blood trail and used the 60 to take him out. God.”

“And then, Lordy, in comes the Mighty Mo to extract you.” Willie laughed. “What a sight that lady is.”

“One look at her”—Gene laughed—”and any enemy with the brain of a gnat knows to stay low.”

“Only mike boat I’ve seen that carries that kind of firepower. Armored like a battleship. A fortress. Painted black. Never saw one painted black before. Have you?”

Gene shook his head. “Only the Mo.”

“Only the Mighty Mo’s crew would do what they did either.” Willie grinned. “I sure do wish I could have seen that.”

“Heard it, you mean.” Gene rubbed his left shoulder, which was still sore from the weight of ammo and the 60, then swallowed the last of his milk. “I’ll never forget heading back down the Dam Doi, with those loudspeakers just blaring, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ by the Beatles. I yelled, ‘What the hell you trying to do? Draw fire?’ “

Their laughter turned heads.

“Worked too,” Willie said.

“Sure did. The first time she drew fire, the Mo returned it. The 105 cannon with flechettes. Awesome. You should have seen it. Blew a fifty-foot path right through the tree line. Good-bye, B-40 rocket team. Played that song full volume all the way back to Seafloat.

“One of the things I most want to do before I leave here is go out on the Mighty Mo.”

“With music?” Gene asked.

They walked out together still chuckling and went their separate ways. Willie to NILO, Gene back to the hootch housing both Lima and Delta platoons.

“Going out tomorrow,” Jim told him when he stopped on the way to his rack to get a PBR, “with Delta. On a recon.”

“Oh, yeah? Whose squad?”

“Walker’s.”

“Yeah? Okay. Sure.” Gene allowed himself a small smile, watching Jim walk away. Had been a while since he and Delta’s big man, Marc Kenau, operated together. He vaulted up on his rack, opened a can of beer, and stretched out. Kenau meant War Eagle. It fit. Eagle was big. Six one, 210 pounds. An archery champion. Hot-tempered. Man, was he hot-tempered. Fight, right now.

He took a long swallow of beer. And if Kenau got drunk, he was dangerous. Took five or six SEALs to bring him down. They’d been…still were…like brothers. Taught hand-to-hand combat together back at SEAL Team.

Grinning, he heard Eagle yell out “Hoo-Ya!” down at the end of the hootch, having just won a poker pot. Nobody else called him Eagle. He’d bet there was a lot more to Marc Kenau than that warped sense of humor of his, which was about all the rest got to see. Unless he was drunk, of course.

He turned on his side, propped himself up on an elbow, and had another swig of beer. The only man he feared in a fight was the Eagle. The only man Eagle feared was him. The rest feared them both. Yeah. Be good to operate with the Eagle again. But now…

Finished with the beer, he lofted the empty into the garbage can, then braced his pillow against the wall at the head of his bed and leaned back against it while he took out pen and paper.
Dear Karen
, he began, and stopped. It was hard to write home when the only thing he’d done was take people’s lives. He couldn’t tell her what he really did, with her alone and pregnant with their baby.

He took a deep breath. I thank you for the letters.
I love you
, he wrote,
and I miss you so much. I’m counting the days until I can hold you again.
He blinked and changed the subject.
It’s hot here. Mosquitoes everywhere. The repellent we use helps a lot. If you can, please mail me a CARE package with some chocolate chip cookies and as many cans of tuna fish as you can send. I’d really appreciate it.

He paused to think what to say next.
Thank the church members for their prayers and tell them they’re in mine, every day. And so are you and our baby. How are you feeling? I hope, okay. I wish I could be there too, to rub your back and hold you when you’re tired. Some of the men here are playing their radios and tapes and I just heard that song we danced to the last time I was home. The one I never remember the name of. I love you. You are the sunshine of my life and the rainbow of my dreams.

He swallowed. There wasn’t anything more he could really say.
Your loving husband, Gene. P.S. Pray for me.

For a few minutes after sealing the envelope, he let himself remember how her body felt under his hands, her lips against his, the silk of her hair sliding through his fingers, the way her eyes shone when she smiled at him. His eyes stung. He slammed memory’s door shut.

Dropping lightly to the floor, he let the letter fall into the outgoing mail sack.

The hootch was alive with most of its twenty-eight resident SEALs trying to be heard over a dozen radios turned to different stations. People in card games yelled their bets over the pounding beat of rock, the horns of jazz bands. Others argued, laughed, kidded each other against wailing voices and steel guitars competing with the classical music Marc Kenau had on. He opened another PBR. A couple more minutes and the movie would start.

Outside, between the SEALs’ hootches, the projector was being set up. It faced a sheet hung on a line across the center of the walkway. Chairs sat in rows on both sides of the sheet. Since the film showed through, it didn’t matter which side people sat on, but he wanted to sit on a chair, not on the cleaning table or an ammo box. Especially if
Bullitt
really had come in at last.

“
The Bride of Frankenstein!
Who was the fucking asshole who started that fucking rumor?”

Gene grinned. Sounded like You-O was disappointed. The film was half through when Willie tapped him on the shoulder and called him aside.

“A new Kit Carson Scout just arrived,” he said. “Name’s Tong. He’s seen Colonel Nguyen. I’m on my way over to the KCS camp for the interrogation. You want to come along?”

Five minutes later, bowie strapped on, carrying his 60, Gene followed Willie through the Kit Carson Scout camp. They’d taken a boat, a Whaler, from Seafloat to the riverbank. The camp, smoky with cooking fires, teemed with the KCSs and their families. All around them, people milled amid yelling children playing and chasing each other before settling for the night.

Inside a small, guarded hootch, Sean Browning, SEAL military advisor on his third tour, and three KCSs, one of them an interpreter, waited. The oldest KCS was Truk, the camp’s chief, one of the few that Gene trusted. Truk was in his early fifties. He’d been there the longest of all. They acknowledged each other’s presence with a nod.

Tong, responding to questions, began to tell his story.

Two days earlier, Colonel Nguyen had come into Tong’s village around 1600 hours with about sixty armed NVA soldiers. They’d rounded up every man, woman, and child.

“How many in the village?” Gene asked the interpreter.