The Point Team (33 page)

“So far as I can make out,” he told Campbell, “they’re telling us not to cross the mountains due west of this point. They
say we should travel north half a day and then head northwest, where we will be in territory not controlled by the Hanoi government.”

“Any reason we shouldn’t take their advice?”

“I’d take it,” Verdoux said.

“Done,” Campbell confirmed. “What else do they say?”

“That we stick to paths marked with blazes on tree trunks. I think we both know what that means.”

Campbell nodded.

They bowed in farewell to the two Montagnards. Mike
thought he detected a glimmer of amusement on their stone expressions—like they were thinking their equivalent of the Yanks
are back in town with their crazy goings-on, such as five mercs and twelve heavily armed children crossing the mountains from
Vietnam into Laos. Mike could see a grim humor in the situation.

Tranh Duc Pho scraped off the encrusted blood which was almost closing his right eye. He could feel with his fingers that
his right ear had been cut almost cleanly off his head by a bullet. He had dropped his rifle, he supposed, and staggered away—crazed
and blinded by the fierce pain coursing through his head. He had run wildly, trying to escape from the demon ripping his brain
and soul apart in an agony so powerful it took over his being like an independent spirit. Then he had fallen face down in
the pine needles—he remembered the way the dry brown needles looked two centimeters before his eyes—and screamed in pain into
the earth.

He was a soldier. Tranh Duc Pho was a warrior. A proud man. The essential part of that bargain with existence, in his view,
was that he die rather than accept defeat. It was a fighting man’s only excuse for failure—his own death offered in recompense,
along with as many enemy lives as he could bring along with him.

Tranh Duc Pho admitted failure. It was more serious than having his unit wiped out and his remaining as the only survivor—although
this was a disgrace in itself. He was in much deeper trouble than this. His orders from Hanoi were clear as a mountain stream—locate
the American invaders and inform military HQ so they could send a party-selected senior officer to finish them off and take
the credit. Of course, if the invading party turned out to be simply Hmong—Hanoi was still not accepting his word that Americans
were involved, even after Washington’s acknowledgement of the fact (party regulars were accus
tomed to regard all American news as CIA disinformation)—no army brass was going to bother to make the trip.

The lieutenant was tired of being a lieutenant. He had just seen half a year’s work with the Montagnards reduced to zero by
the slaughter of his mountain pioneers. Achievement in the field of battle was transitory … He had laughed before at suggestions
that he think of himself. For the first time, he had tried to do that. Claim the credit that was rightfully his. By not calling
in the reinforcements that the situation demanded. He had taken a chance. And failed. He would be held responsible. Now he
must die. Honorably.

Strangely to him, he felt no animosity to the American soldiers of fortune. They were like him, in a way—like every warrior
since history began, regardless of cause, of right or wrong. He channeled his hatred, he focused all his spleen and frustration
on a single target. Eric Vanderhoven.

He had to destroy this spawn of gold bullion, this grandson of a decrepit capitalist who could buy healthy men to do his dirty
deeds in impoverished countries. The boy was the larva of a greedy monopolistic toad, and he would metamorphose into a killer
adult.

What he was doing was comparable to spraying malarial swamps. He was ridding mankind of a potential future parasite. Tranh
Duc Pho would die a hero.

Tranh Duc Pho followed the Westerners and the children from the hill where they had slain his men. The rifles they had not
taken with them, they had damaged beyond repair. They left no grenades behind, and threw other weapons and ammunition among
the rocks. The lieutenant had lost his own rifle, but still possessed his 9-mm Pindad pistol, an Indonesian-made copy of the
FN Browning HP, which carried thirteen rounds in its magazine. He had seven spare magazines, a combat knife, and a canteen
of fresh water. He had all he would need.

One of the Western mercenaries kept a constant watch on their rear, and Tranh Duc Pho was careful to keep his
distance behind. There were so many in the group, they were easy to follow. He watched while they talked to two Montagnards,
apparently receiving directions from them, because now they turned north instead of continuing east. The lieutenant raged
inwardly at this treachery, for that advice was good. If ever he had armed men under his command again, he would return to
this place and destroy the village of those two Montagnards who had given assistance to foreigners. If ever he had men under
his command again …

They were moving now into territory hostile to the government, where the mountain tribesmen went to great lengths to maintain
their fierce independence. He should strike soon.

They came to a perfect place for his attack—great clumps of flowering bushes obscured vision, and often three and sometimes
five paths ran more or less parallel to each other. While the Westerners fussed over which path they would take and paused
at every branching of the ways to make new decisions, he caught up with them rapidly, took a path that branched off from theirs
and almost certainly rejoined it a little farther on. He would wait there, kill the Vanderhoven boy and disappear into the
bushes.

Tranh Duc Pho could hear them, perhaps only twenty meters away through the bushes on his right, as he sped silently along
the parallel path. His heart beat fast in anticipation. He felt a gentle pressure and then a snap against his ankle as he
broke the trip wire. He heard the bent-back tree branch spring loose, and for an instant he saw the five six-inch hardwood
darts, thick as his little finger and sharpened to a point at either end, fly in formation at his chest. Two glanced off the
tough cloth of his army shirt, three penetrated his chest the length of a finger deep.

The lieutenant’s agonized howl from so close by in the thick bushes caused the hair to stand up on the nape of
Campbell’s neck. Seconds passed before he even recognized it as a human sound. The dozen boys bunched close together and
looked around them with fear-widened eyes, obviously expecting to see some kind of Oriental demon bear down on them out of
the bushes.

The Montagnard village was the typical collection of thatched huts—these were well-made and cared for. Crops grew in the well-tended
fields about the houses. Domestic animals wandered freely all over the place, children ran up to look at them, women hurried
past with openly curious looks.

“Every man in the village is peering along the sights of a barrel at us right now,” Mike warned, “so keep your movements slow
and your hands off your weapons.”

A dried-up old man, though sprightly enough on his feet, emerged from one hut. Andre greeted him. He greeted Andre. They seemed
to be spending some time complimenting each other, judging by the old man’s smile and a wink to Mike from Andre. The Frenchman
was handling the village language well.

“He says he’s heard of us,” Andre finally informed the rest of them. “Apparently the Montagnards we and the Hmong killed when
we first crossed the border into Vietnam were some kind of procommunist renegades. Mike, you want to show him the ID you took
off the lieutenant who skewered himself on the booby trap?”

The old man looked at the papers for a moment. Mike wondered whether he could read Vietnamese—he certainly didn’t seem able
to speak it. The Montagnard’s face remained expressionless, and he went into the hut. They waited where they were in the hot,
dusty street of the village. The sun beat down but was not unbearably hot at this altitude. Baby pigs, dogs of all sorts and
hens competed with each other to sniff or peck at their feet. The children and women had by now formed a silent half-circle
about them, but for some giggling and pushing.

A young man now emerged from the hut, carrying the lieutenant’s ID papers. He was in traditional Montagnard dress, except
for a Los Angeles Angels T-shirt he had obviously just pulled on for their benefit. He smiled at them all and spoke fast to
Andre first in Vietnamese, then in his Montagnard language.

From him they learned that they were heroes because they were credited with the death of the notorious Tranh Duc Pho, who
had always promised to “bring progress to these backward communities.” They were given a feast, attended by the whole village,
of pork stew, rice, bamboo shoots, tubers and many unidentified odds and ends, followed by fruit and cheese. They slept the
night in hammocks strung in a large, clean hut and woke the next day never wanting to trek through the jungle and sleep with
night creatures on the forest floor again. The Montagnards provided them with two guides who would take them safely across
the border into Laos and two day’s march into that country along a mountain spur. As a parting gift, Mike presented the headman’s
two teen-age sons with an AK47 each. Every man in the village got some kind of gift—a knife, a pistol, a compass, ammo … They
had become quite loaded down before arriving in the village with the spoils of their victories and were happy to lighten their
load among friends.

They spent the two succeeding nights in Montagnard villages on their journey, and these basic, not to say primitive, comforts
buoyed the five mercs in both mind and body. The twelve- and thirteen-year-olds couldn’t have cared less if they’d been told
to sleep high in the trees. However, everyone’s good spirits slowly wore off after their two Montagnard guides left them and
they continued into the hot, jungle-clad hills of Laos. Mike reckoned they had a four-day march in front of them, all going
well, till they reached the Mekong river. Once they crossed the Mekong, they were in Thailand and home free. Four days, covering
twenty miles a day …

At an easy walk, over level open ground and with no need for concealment, a man can travel twenty miles in four hours. Crossing
hills, valleys, swamps, jungles, avoiding populated areas and chance meetings, plodding forward with equipment in equatorial
heat, a man traveling at the limits of his physical endurance can travel two miles in the same four hours. Things were not
that bad all the time. Only some of the time.

The worst parts were the swamps, where they waded through stagnant black water, raising clouds of mosquitoes from the aquatic
plants and feeling primitive life forms slither against their legs. Humid jungles were the next worst, because not only did
plentiful varieties of insects attack, but so did just about every kind of animal. They had to watch especially for a light
green snake with a white belly and orange eyes that curled up in the leaves of overhanging branches and dropped on its victims
as they passed beneath. Andre said its bite was deadly—he had known it in Cambodia, where it was called the
hanuman.

They had to avoid the coral snakes, whose venom glands were so large that in some they extended for one-third the length of
the body, displacing the heart backward to make room for them. The cobras were dangerous because they were so aggressive—they
did not bite in defense only, they came chasing after you. However, most of them were nocturnal, and since the group did not
travel in the dark, they did not come across many. Pit vipers were among many other kinds they had to watch for, but their
main problem was with kraits. These snakes ate other snakes, but struck at humans without warning and were highly venomous.
Murphy managed to stand on one over three feet long. He realized what he had done only when he looked down to see what was
hitting the upper surface of his boot. The snake was trying to drive its fangs through the leather, and Murphy jumped high
in the air like a Russian ballet dancer before the reptile got
around to trying his ankle instead. By the time Murphy came back to ground, the snake was gone.

Campbell’s mania was disease. He repeated his claim several times a day that in the tropics disease killed more soldiers than
enemy bullets. He doled out pills each night, and every morning he gave everyone a close look to search for telltale symptoms
of fever. Leeches were his special worry—he claimed they transmitted more disease than anything else. The leeches clung to
their bodies while they waded through water, they picked them up by brushing against damp leaves or long grass, and some,
like the deadly green snakes, dropped from branches overhead— and these slipped down inside the collars of their shirts to
begin their blood-sucking meal. Campbell didn’t smoke, but for hours on end he kept cigarette after cigarette going to burn
off these pests with its glowing tip.

There were also deadly spiders, leaves that caused skin rashes on contact, thorns whose punctures swelled into little abscesses,
dysentery, two of the boys sick with mild malaria, depression, exhaustion, at times despair …

For the first two days they saw no one. It was with a kind of savage delight that they surprised three armed militia men at
the edge of a settled area, mowed them down and took their valuables as well as their weapons to make it look like bandits
had attacked them.

Then they saw soldiers by the side of a highway they had to cross.

“They’re Vietnamese,” Andre hissed.

They seemed to be anchoring timber poles floating in the water to the edge of the small canal that ran alongside the road.

“They’re setting up an ambush,” Nolan warned.

“No,” Andre disagreed. “When rebels blow a hole in the road with explosives, they use these poles to bridge the gap and keep
the traffic moving. The Viets are very efficient at this, since they themselves invented most of the tricks the rebels now
use.”

In a short while the soldiers finished their work, paused to smoke a cigarette on the roadside and then mounted their bicycles
and headed south. After they had gone, Mike & Co. used the poles to cross the canal.