the Last Run (1987) (29 page)

Wade rose, having seen his target crawl into the grass. He brought his rifle up just as the man sprang to his feet and began to run. Wade aimed carefully and fired.

The :556-mm copper-jacketed bullet flew for only a millisecond before it ripped through soft flesh, flattened slighdy, and penetrated the back of the skull. The mangled hot metal halted its path of destruction only after passing through mushy gray matter and striking the other side of the skull. Le Xuan Can felt nothing. Death came instandy as his body toppled over.

Wade brought the recoiling weapon back to his left and shot again. His team hosed the trail with merciless fire.

In seconds it was over, and the bodies lay in grotesque positions. Russian rose first and nodded to the others. Wade walked to the man who ran from him and bent over, picking up his wide- brimmed hat. It was, as he'd thought, a French legionnaire hat, like ones he'd seen in pictures. He took off his boonie hat and tried the other one on. It fit perfectly.

Thumper turned the last body over and stood. "They're all dead, Matt."

The sergeant spit out a stream of tobacco juice. "Police up all the documents and weapons. Preacher, if ya wanna say some words over 'em, do it now. We gotta radio call to make."

Chapter 13

Steer left . . . on course. LZ, one klick out. . . 800 . . . 500 . . . 250 . . . start flare now . . . ya see it?"

"Yeah, I got it, J. D. Good job," responded Lieutenant Avant over the radio.

J. D. Gibson was flying in the back seat of a small L-19 spotter plane, directing the other bird dog into a landing zone as if it was a chopper. And he loved it.

That morning, Major Shane had shown them the technique on a blackboard. It was simple. The plane flew at two thousand feet and directed a Slick helicopter, flying at treetop level, into a landing zone. Choppers flew at max speed at that level, and their pilots couldn't see an LZ miles away, so spotter planes acted as their eyes.

Shane had introduced the two L-19 pilots to Gibson and Avant, then sent them up to practice on one another.

Gibson had found it more difficult than it looked, and keeping the radio toggles pushed to the right channel was very complicated. Warrant Officer Gilbert Perry, the pilot, who had been flying Ranger missions for three months, had talked Gibson through several missions, and then had let him try the last on his own. Gibson had done it perfectly.

Perry, sitting in the front seat of the plane, pressed his talk button on the control stick. "That was super, J. D.!"

Gibson sat in the back seat and pressed a button on the floor to activate his transmitter. "Thanks, Gil. I had a good teacher. I don't know why you need me. You seem to know this stuff."

Perry laughed. "You've just gotten started. This was the easy part. When we've got teams out it's a lot different. You're going to have to talk to the teams on their frequency and the choppers on theirs. Then you throw in the gunships, the artillery, the Air Force air controller, and report to your TOC all at the same time. I'm here to fly this thing, and you're here to talk and keep everybody informed. You also have to know how to read a map. What's the location of that bare hilltop below us at your one o'clock?"

Gibson oriented his map and found the hill easily. "It's at GD986366."

Perry checked the coordinates on his map and hit his talk button. "Yeah, you got it."

Perry was impressed. The gray-haired officer was a natural. He'd never seen anyone pick up the knack as quickly. It was probably Gibson's six months of experience on the ground that made the radio procedures easy for him. His map skills were excellent, too, and obviously came from plenty of practice.

"J. D., say you have a team in contact on the FM frequency. The guns are on UHF and the Slick's on VHF. Remember, now, the radio is the team's life. You have to talk to the team, but you also have to get the Guns and Slick to the point of contact. What do you need to vector the Guns and Slick to the team for extraction?"

Gibson thought a few seconds, recalling Major Shane's instructions, before depressing his floor button.

"We gotta have a checkpoint, a point of reference that all of us know. From there, I can give them a direction, until I see them and guide them to the team pickup zone."

"Damn, J. D., that's right! For an Aggie, you're not so bad."

"Thanks. You don't do bad yourself for a fly guy. 'Course, if I got paid flight pay, I'd be smart, too."

"Uh-oh."

"What's wrong, fly-boy?"

"You are! You're another one of these smart alec Rangers!"

The small plane plunged suddenly. Gibson held on, dropping his map to the floor.

Perry laughed and depressed the button. "You're gonna appreciate my flight pay, Aggie! I'm gonna see what you had for breakfast before we're through!"

Wade leaned back on his ruck in the shade of the bamboo as a Fourth Division platoon hauled equipment and rice from the underground headquarters. A division military intelligence team had also been choppered out and was sorting through the stacks of documents and maps. Wade looked at his team members sitting around him and felt a tingling sensation run up his spine. It was pride.

Rose was showing Preacher how to operate the K-54 pistol, when Wade cleared his throat for attention. "Guys, you all did good. There's not a thing I could say that any of us screwed up. We worked as a team and everybody did his job. Woodpecker, Preacher, you both acted like old veterans. Looks like Three-one got even better today. I'm proud to call you team members." Wade held his hand out palm up.

Woodpecker slapped his hand into Wade's. "Three-one!"

Preacher felt so much pride he shook as he put his hand on top of the redhead's with a loud "Three-one." He had at last been fully accepted as a team member.

Thumper and Russian both sat up and joined their hands to the group with a "Three-one!"

Rose stood and put his arm around Preacher and his other hand on top of the stack. "Three-one! The baddest news the dinks ever seen, man."

"Fuckin' A," responded all the others except for Preacher, who smiled and said, "Amen."

Just then, an obviously excited captain ran over to the team holding an unfolded map. "You Rangers found the district headquarters . . . and this map shows the exact location of the provisional headquarters!"

Wade exchanged glances with Thumper as if to say 4 'so what.''

The captain held the map out, pointing to a red dot. "There it is. A place they call Kim Suu."

Wade sat up and looked at the Vietnamese map, but couldn't tell heads from tails of the strange markings and style of the map. Wade smiled politely and sat back. "Sure enough, sir. Your people will be able to do it a damn damn."

The captain hurriedly folded the map and yelled to his radio operator, "Simmons, get me a chopper in here ASAP!"

Thumper motioned toward the complex. "Sir, how come it took so long to find this place. Surely you've been looking for it?"

"Hell, yes, we've looked for it, but they never transmitted any radio messages so we couldn't triangulate. This district headquarters only received messages over normal AM airwaves from Radio Hanoi or the Liberation Radio station. They had to travel to their province headquarters to transmit and then they used roving radios so we couldn't pinpoint them. By finding the exact location we can destroy their relay station and set them back months, possibly a year. The only problem is we have to do it right now before they find out you've found their district headquarters."

"Sir, the bird is on its way!" yelled the radio operator.

The captain spoke to Wade. "My people will be here until more choppers come out to pick this stuff up. You and your team can go with me and I'll drop you at Mustang."

Wade quickly got to his feet. "You bet, sir!"

Major Shane had picked up Colonel Ellis at noon from the airfield. They were'both now in Shane's office, looking at a map the Corps G-2 had spread out on his desk. Colonel Ellis pointed to the map. "You can see it's an extensive area to search. That's why your Ranger teams are needed. Somewhere in that one- hundred square miles is the Second NVA Division. If your team can find the base camp, we'll call a B-52 strike on top of it."

Shane leaned closer to study the terrain when the phone rang. He reached for the handset and put it to his ear while looking at the map. "Major Shane ..." His eyes enlarged suddenly and he snapped upright. "Yes sir! . . . Yes, I'm aware one of our teams found a VC headquarters and . . . Yes, sir. In fact, Colonel Ellis, the Corps G-2, is here in my office and . . . Yes, sir."

Shane held the handset out to Ellis, covering the mouthpiece. "It's General Larose from the Fourth Division. He wants both of us to come to his headquarters right now, but he wants to speak to you first."

Ellis took the phone and spoke to the general for several minutes before hanging up and looking at Shane's anxious face. "Looks like your Rangers have stirred up a hornet's nest. It seems the intell people found a map with the exact location of the provincial headquarters and they need your help."

"Sir, they don't need us. Christ, we're trying to train our people," said Shane, knowing Colonel Ellis had to release his company to the Fourth's commanding general.

Ellis shook his head. "This is big, Ed. We don't get many chances like this. I think General Larose is right. An immediate strike is necessary. You'd better call your operation off and get your teams ready to go."

"Sir, we only have four teams in; the rest are in the field. Can't the Fourth handle it?"

The colonel folded his map. "Larose wouldn't ask if his people could do it. At least get your four teams ready, and we'll listen to what he has to say. I'll make the decision whether Corps releases you to his control after we hear him out."

Shane put on his beret and hollered toward the door, "Pete!"

The bespectacled Pete opened the door seconds later. "Sir?"

"Get the jeep. We're going to Fourth Division Headquarters."

Wade washed the last of the camouflage greasepaint from his face and stepped out of the makeshift shower. The fifty-gallon drums of water overhead only released a trickle of water, but at least he'd gotten the grime off. He'd let the rest of the team go ahead of him, and ensured that Rose went first to wash the dried blood from his arms and hands. Rose was dancing buck naked to the beat of the transistor radio as Thumper and Woodpecker clapped their hands, egging him on. A group of South Vietnamese ARVNs gathered around, giggling and pointing at the well- endowed black soldier as he gyrated back and forth in perfect rhythm.

"Dig it, litde people! You checkin' out the Detroit Dy-na-mol Yeah! Jeremiah was a bullfrog ... he was a good friend of mine ..."

Rose grabbed Black Eagle and began dancing around him, laughing. The small Indian rolled his eyes at Wade and shrugged his shoulders. Rose tapped the Indian's chest. "Come on, Preacher, loosen up, man."

Black Eagle looked skyward and began a chant while moving his feet. Soon he was in a full victory dance, stealing the show. Rose stopped in shock, then began imitating him. Thumper and Woodpecker joined in.

Childs walked out of the TOC with Lieutenants Gibson and Avant, who had come out to the fire base after they'd finished flying. The three men stood in disbelief just as Wade and Russian joined the other team members chanting and dancing around in a circle.

Childs looked at Gibson, shaking his head. "Ya see what I gotta put up with? A bunch of crazies."

"Hell, Saige, they gotta be crazy to be in the Rangers."

Avant began shuffling his feet. "Catchy dance. Wonder what you call it?"

Childs snickered. "Dancin' dumb-ass, if you ask me."

Gibson patted the sergeant's shoulder. "Come on, Saige. Four of your teams are in with kills. You should be happy your training paid off."

The radio operator yelled out from inside the TOC. "Sergeant Childs, Major Shane is on the horn for you!"

Childs walked back inside as the officers watched more of the teams join in on the dance. Minutes later Childs jogged out of the TOC and hollered out, "Team leaders, get over here!"

"What's up?" asked Gibson.

The sergeant spoke gruffly over his shoulder. "We gotta get ready for another mission."

Major Shane and Colonel Ellis were escorted back into a smoke-filled room where the Fourth Division commander and his operations officer, G-2, and Aviation Battalion commander stood over a map. General Larose quickly introduced his assembled staff, then got right down to business.

"Colonel Ellis, the situation is this: My intell folks have pinpointed the province headquarters in this small valley only twenty kilometers away from the district headquarters the Rangers found this afternoon. The province headquarters is located in thick scrub vegetation with no helicopter landing zones anywhere close. It'd take at least a full day for a company to march over this terrain to get to it. We don't want to bomb it, or we'll lose valuable intelligence. I propose the Rangers go in right on top of it and rappel in. They have the training and men to do it. If needed, I'll follow up with a unit of my own men climbing down from a rope ladder out of a Chinook. We need a sudden strike to catch them with their shorts down so we can capture their radios and codes."

Colonel Ellis studied the map for a moment. "What about enemy strength, sir? The Rangers will be big targets dangling from ropes."