Walk on the Wild Side Read online

  VICINITY PARROTS BEAK,

  SOUTH VIETNAM

  Kane peers through the night vision scope at the tree line across the pungent rice paddy. Nothing moving.

  He turns it off and hands it to Thao, closing his eyes for a few moments to rest them from the strain. The small squad consisting of the American Kane, the Montagnard Thao, the translator Ngo, and fifteen South Vietnamese CIDG—civilian irregular defense group-- has been lying in ambush since just after dark the previous evening. An intelligence report has warned of NVA infiltrators and the goal is to ambush them before they get close to the A-Team Camp and the South Vietnamese village, three kilometers to the rear of Kane’s position.

  They are in the Parrots Beak, the portion of Cambodia that pokes into South Vietnam, just sixty-five kilometers from Saigon. Kane, who is fond of maps, isn’t so fond of the arbitrary lines drawn on them delineating where he can fight and where he isn’t supposed to go. Which is the tree line they’re observing. It’s in Cambodia and home to staging areas for Viet Cong and NVA to retreat in safety and regroup, resupply, and launch cross border attacks.

  Kane, and the other members of his A-Team stationed at Camp 4414, know that there are those very high in the U.S. military and government who do view the international border as arbitrary. Last month, beginning on the 18th of March, they’d heard the unmistakable sound of an Arc Light near the Fish Hook, which is north of their camp. B-52s carpet-bombing suspected enemy base camps in Cambodia. The bombings on the other side of the border have continued, on and off, for the past month. There’s nothing about it on the news back in the United States because only a select few know. The B-52 crews only learn of their true target once they’re airborne and all records are destroyed when they return to their air base at Guam. Oddly enough, the North Vietnamese aren’t making it public either, given that their forces are in Cambodia illegally. A savage part of the war being fought in secrecy.

  Despite the heavy ordnance from on high, it still requires, as it has throughout history, boots on the ground and that is why Kane, Thao and the others lay here in the jungle watching for movement.

  Where and who the intel report came from wasn’t part of the mission briefing, as it rarely is. A result of compartmentalization and other ‘happy horseshit’ as designated by Sergeant First Class Merrick, the team sergeant. The Americans spend as much time and effort keeping intel and operational status from the South Vietnamese as they do the NVA and VC . People back in the States might believe this war is being waged against communists, but there are sides within sides and angles not running parallel with the war effort. It is not as envisioned by those who see the world as white hats versus black hats and have watched too many John Wayne movies.

  The intel also doesn’t include pesky details such as size of the force, intent or direction. Often Kane wonders if these reports are randomly generated by some REMF, rear-echelon-motherfucker, sitting behind a desk in a secure place, with air-conditioning, who has a quota of such reports to deliver and a vivid imagination. More often than not, they are bogus and a waste of time.

  For Kane and Thao, this is a low-key mission as compared to illegally going cross-border by helicopter for a recon, but any trip beyond the wire is fraught with possibilities, all of them bad.

  Two hours after midnight, Thao whispers: “Dai Yu.” He passes the bulky scope.

  Kane presses the rubber against his eye and spots what alerted Thao: movement in the tree line. Green shadowed figures flitting through the trees. They’re moving on an angle which will take them in the vicinity of the camp and village. And they’re crossing the border. At least squad sized, likely more.

  Kane passes the scope to the interpreter Ngo. He stares for a few seconds, then hands it back to Kane without comment. Kane’s Vietnamese is limited, as is Thao’s, who is from the Montagnard mountain people, so Kane relies on him to pass orders to the CIDG troops.

  Kane puts a hand out and Thao, who has the radio in his rucksack, hands him the handset for the radio. It’s covered in plastic to keep it dry. The ruck is lying on the ground between the two men.

  Kane keys it. “Tango Victor Three, this is Six. Over.”

  The response is static.

  “Tango Victor Three. This is Six. Fire mission. Over.”

  Kane wants the camp’s mortars to initiate the ambush on a pre-plotted position in the middle of the field. It’s totally out of character for Merrick to be slow to respond.

  Kane glances to his right at Thao. Looks through the scope again.

  “Get ready,” Kane whispers to Thao and then Ngo, who passes the word to the militia.

  Kane keys the radio. “Tango Victor Three. This is Six. Fire mission. Target Alpha-Two. Fire for effect. Troops in the open. Over.” He gives where he wants the rounds on the off chance that the camp can hear him but he can’t hear them. He’d conducted a radio check as soon as they were outside the wire and the commo had been fine.

  Murphy’s Law: what can fuck up will.

  The first of the enemy are spreading out across the rice paddy. Kane rolls, slips the straps of his ruck over his shoulders and Thao does the same with his. Kane turns back on his stomach, weapon at the ready. “Thao. Thump ‘em.”

  “Roger, Dai Yu.”

  Thao takes the M-79 grenade launcher off the snap link connecting it to his LBE. Puts it to his shoulder.

  “On the grenade,” Kane orders and it’s passed to the others, who ready their weapons.

  The M-79 makes a popping noise as it launches the 40mm high explosive grenade. Thao is already reloading, breaking the weapon open like a shotgun, before the round strikes in the midst of the enemy. As it explodes, Kane and the others open up with their rifles, pouring bullets into the enemy. The NVA promptly go to ground.

  Kane fires his last round. He drops the magazine and inserts a fresh one. He stands. Fires three rounds. “Forward,” he orders and Ngo echoes in their language.

  He’s impressed as the South Vietnamese villagers advance with him on line. Thao hooks the M-79 back on his LBE and fires his M-16. Kane glances left and notes that Ngo isn’t firing, but is doing something with his rifle.

  Kane stops firing, takes the handset from Thao, and they keep advancing as he tries the radio one more time. No response from the camp.

  The first green tracers scream out of the tree line, high, but that weapon is quickly joined by a chorus of others. Kane, and his patrol, hit the deck, returning fire. The chatter of a light machine gun joins, arcing a string of green just above their heads.

  What sounds like a hellish racket to the uninitiated is a symphony of combat to Kane who can separate out the instruments and their quotient of lethality. Two more light machineguns. At least two dozen AK-47s. He’s outgunned. Not a squad. At least a platoon.

  “Fall back to the ERP,” Kane yells.

  Ngo translates the order. The militia have done all that can be expected of them and scramble back.

  One of the South Vietnamese is hit. Kane grabs his LBE and drags him. Thao provides covering fire as the rest scamper back, through the ambush position and to the location Kane had designated the previous evening before they moved forward to the ambush site. It’s a dike along the edge of the rice paddy, giving them a linear defensive position. Kane pulls the wounded man up and over the top.

  The enemy fire lessens, then ceases.

  Thao begins working on the wounded man. Kane tries the radio again; still no response.

  Kane peels back the Velcro covering the face of his watch and checks the time. Several more hours of darkness. He decides its safer to hold this position than try to go back through the wire with no communication and an enemy unit afoot. He hooks the handset on Thao’s LBE as the Montagnard continues to minister to the wounded man.

  “What happened to your rifle?” Kane asked Ngo.

  “Jammed,” Ngo says. “Clear now, Dai Yu.”

  Kane slides down to Thao. “How is he?”

  Thao removes his bloody hands from the soldie
r’s chest. “Dead, Dai Yu.”

  Kane returns to the dike. Scans with the scope. He’s surprised to see at least seventy-five shadowy figures advancing across the paddy. A company? This is getting out of control.

  Kane pulls a flare out, pulls the cap, putting it on the base, then slams it into the ground, aiming above and beyond the advancing enemy.

  The red flare screeches up and over, then pops, bathing the field in its glare. His estimate was low. There are at least a hundred NVA .

  He shoots, the others joining in. The advancing NVA return fire. There are many more green tracers coming their way then red going out.

  One of the villagers screams in agony.

  The NVA have gone to ground, but continue to fire. Out of the corner of his eye, Kane sees the head of one of the militia punched back with a bullet through the forehead. The body tumbles into the muddy water behind them.

  Kane looks left and right. If the NVA flank, enfilading fire will wipe him and his men out, besides cutting them off from camp.

  Kane tries the radio. No reply. He never planned on holding this position without mortar support, nor against such numbers. He knows what Charlie Beckwith, his final phase Ranger School instructor years ago, would say about that.

  Kane grabs Ngo’s shoulder and shouts the order to be translated, while he points. “We go along the dike. That way.”

  Right is away from the camp and village; the NVA won’t expect that.

  Kane leads with Thao taking trail. As he goes by, Kane grabs a villager, shoves him in the desired direction. Gestures to the others as Ngo relays the order. They leave behind two bodies. Keeping their heads down, they slither along the dike. The green tracers are concentrating on their former position, so the movement is as yet unnoticed by the enemy.

  A raised dirt road is ahead, bisecting the dike and the rice paddy. It will give them cover in two directions. But just before they reach it, a squad of black clad NVA charges over the dike, a flanking element, as Kane feared. They are surprised to run into Kane and his men.

  Kane fires first, killing two, then the units are among each other in an all-out deadly brawl, every man for himself. Kane’s M-16 is knocked out of his hands as a NVA jumps on top of him; the two tumble and splash into the rice paddy. The man is choking him, his eyes crazed. Kane is able to get to his knife with his right hand as he shoves his left into the enemy’s face, fingers tearing at the man’s eyes. Kane blindly stabs, feeling the blade go into flesh, strike a bone and angle inward. He punch-stabs several times in a frenzy, half-submerged, until the hands around his throat release.

  Kane shoves the body aside and gets to his feet in knee deep, dirty water. He draws his forty-five. It’s difficult to tell who is who. He sees Thao carving his way through the NVA with his machete. Kane clambers up the slope. Shoots a black-pajamaed man entangled with a CIDG in the side of the head, producing a dark blossom of brain, blood and bone. There is screaming, grunting, cursing in Vietnamese, a cry for help, someone begging over and over and despite the language barrier Kane realizes the man is calling out for his mother.

  As suddenly as the fight began, it’s over, the surviving NVA scurrying back over the dike and into the night. Kane turns to and fro, forty-five at the ready.

  “Ngo?” Kane calls out. “Head count!”

  Thao answers. “Six dead, three wounded, Dai Yu.” He holds out an M-16.

  Kane takes it. He fires a flare toward their old position. A green burst of light illuminates the night.

  A desperate last-ditch message he’d coordinated with Merrick.

  Within seconds comes the welcome sound of mortars popping rounds from the camp. Several seconds later they crump into the Emergency Rally Point which has been over-run farther down the dike.

  The NVA firing dwindles. The main body is dispersing.

  Several mortar rounds impact in the rice paddy, ‘walking’ toward the treeline in Cambodia.

  Silence, except for the man calling out for his mother, although it’s gone from a scream to frenzied murmur, a primal prayer of the dying to return to the womb, common to every battlefield in history.

  Ngo appears. “Dai Yu?”

  “Where were you?” Kane asks.

  “Covering the rear,” Ngo explains, pointing back the way they’d come.

  Kane sees Thao kneeling next to a wounded man, holding a clamp knuckle deep in the CIDG’s thigh. It’s a slippery job, working entirely by feel to find the slender, severed blood vessel. There’s no place above the wound to apply pressure to stop the bleeding.

  The man stops his maternal plea.

  “He’s dead,” Kane says to Thao.

  Thao continues to work.

  Kane puts a gentle hand on Thao’s shoulder. “Sergeant. I’m sorry. He’s dead.”

  They return to the A-Team camp just after dawn. The bodies are wrapped in ponchos, attached to poles. It takes every man, including Kane, Thao and Ngo to carry them, given their walking wounded.

  Women and children from the village are waiting outside the wire. The families of the CIDG. Kane stops the patrol as women learn they are widows and children that they are orphans. Their cries of anguish pierce the morning quiet, in some ways worse than the cry of the dying wounded.

  Merrick comes out of the gate to greet the patrol. He slaps the Captain on the shoulder, an unusual sign of affection for the gruff sergeant. “Welcome back.”

  Kane nods. “Good to see you too, Lew. What a clusterfuck.” He watches the grieving families. Thao assists as the team’s two medics hustle the wounded inside the camp to the infirmary. Merrick looms over Kane at six-four. He’s solidly built with thick red hair, an experienced Special Forces soldier.

  Merrick indicates the distraught families. “I’ll take care of it.” He has a wad of Vietnamese currency which he gives to Ngo to pay off the families of the dead men.

  “How much is a life worth now?” Kane asks as the villagers carry off their dead.

  Merrick ignores the question. “What happened? Never heard a peep from you. Once the shooting started, I was on the horn for hours trying to get the B-team to scramble the Mike Force. They couldn’t send them ‘cause they were engaged near the Fish Hook. I thought you’d been wiped out. Especially when I saw the green star cluster.”

  “I radioed all night,” Kane says. “No reply.”

  Merrick shakes his head. “We had a five by five when you left the wire. I was on top of comms all night. Nothing. I ordered the mortars when I saw the green. Come on.” Merrick indicates the gate. “Let’s get inside.”

  Kane and Merrick go to the commo bunker. Kane shrugs off his ruck. He notes that Thao’s ruck, blood-stained, is resting on the wooden table.

  Merrick opens the top and checks the radio. “What the fuck! You’re on the wrong frequency.”

  “Bullshit,” Kane says. “You said it: we had a good commo check when I left. I never changed freqs. I didn’t touch the radio. Thao wouldn’t change it.”

  “Look for yourself,” Merrick says.

  Kane believes Merrick but it’s so outrageous he has to see. Wrong freq. “I don’t understand.”

  “Who had access to the radio other than you and Thao?” Merrick asks.

  “No one,” Kane says. He thinks. “But we had rucks on the ground when we were in the ambush. I don’t know.”

  Merrick looks at the entrance to the bunker and lowers his voice. “Why would Thao change freqs?”

  “He wouldn’t,” Kane says with certainty.

  “Someone did,” Merrick says. “We got a problem.”

  “Thao wouldn’t,” Kane insists.

  Merrick reaches out and Kane flinches, but he allows his team sergeant to remove something from his face.

  A piece of brain matter.

  3

  Wednesday Morning,

  10 August 1977

  MEATPACKING DISTRICT,

  MANHATTAN

  Kane left a shaken old man with a cup of ‘tea’ in his kitchen and a young corpse tightly
wrapped in a blanket hidden in the garden. He exited onto Jane Street in Greenwich Village, pausing at the top of the steps to street level from his apartment to scan both directions. No sign of the car or any of the other Hard Flint Boys, the adopted sons of rich Texas oilman Boss Crawford. He wondered if their ‘code’ required they come at him one at a time, because if all five of the surviving ones attacked, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Instead of turning right, as usual, to head to the diner, he changed his routine and crossed the street. He glanced at the small plaque on the wall of a brownstone that marked the location of a long-gone house where Alexander Hamilton had died after being rowed back across the river after his infamous duel. Kane briefly considered the fact that there’d be no plaque placed wherever he died and decided it didn’t matter. Dead was dead. He turned left, instead of his usual right.

  He reached Greenwich Street and took a left, heading north. Crossed Horatio, arrived at Gansevoort and cornered onto it. The streets were paved with cobblestones, and passing cars vibrated a unique sound. It was early and the city was shifting gears from night to day, an intriguing transition, especially in this neighborhood. Greenwich Village hosted as many night denizens as day. Not just hookers, thieves and assorted low-lifes, but also aspiring artists and truck drivers from the remaining meat-packing warehouses along the High Line rail line. There were also those who worked in the few surviving businesses and stores. Garbage overflowed the occasional trash cans optimistically emplaced by the city along the streets. He passed a pay phone, the Plexiglas covered with graffiti, the handset torn away, the silver box on the bottom jimmied open and the coins long gone. A homeless man covered in unfolded newspaper lay in the doorway to a shuttered deli, so still he might well have been dead, but no one stopped to check. Kane, like the few people who hustled past, avoided eye contact with others, but he was scanning, on the lookout for a Flint Boy.

  The amputated end of the elevated High Line rail line was on the northwest corner of Gansevoort and Washington while Vic’s Diner occupied the southeast. The fading sign facing each street above the diner’s windows proclaimed: