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  Kane glanced over his shoulder. Went to where the initial attacker had come from the side. There was a hatch there which led to the ladder descending to the engine room. It was unlatched. Kane pushed it open and flipped on the light.

  The bomb was just inside, on the edge at the top of the ladder. A red light was flickering on top of the bundle of C-4, then it turned green.

  2

  Wednesday,

  19 November 1967

  HILL 875, DAK TO, VIETNAM

  “Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus.”

  “Amen,” Kane whispers under his breath while he studies the topographic map spread on top of his rucksack with his platoon sergeant.

  “Finding God in the foxhole, L.T.?” Sergeant Carter asks.

  “He’s omnipotent,” Kane says. “He can find me if He wants to. Even here.”

  Forty feet away, Father Watters winds up the abbreviated service, holding his hands over the cluster of paratroopers kneeling on the jungle floor around him. “Ite, missa est. Go forth. And be safe, my sons.”

  The most important aspect of the mass in the midst of the jungle, as far as Kane is concerned, beyond the comfort it gives those who believe, and those who don’t but wish they could, is the large number of soldiers in the cluster. More than ever before. An indicator of the pervading fear that this op isn’t going to be an easy one.

  “Hey diddle, diddle, right up the fucking middle,” Sergeant Carter complains about the operations order in a low voice only Kane can hear. “They teach that at West Point?” Carter is from Detroit, made his latest rank in Germany and this is, surprisingly for the stripes, his first tour in Vietnam. But he gets some experience points for his tough childhood.

  “They taught us Caesar, Napoleon, Grant and MacArthur, to name a few,” Kane says. “They all did right up the middle one time or another.” And Kane remembers from his lessons that Grant in his memoirs regretted only one order out of all the carnage he commanded in the war—the final, frontal assault at Cold Harbor; right up the middle.

  Kane looks at the objective; he can see as far as the dense surge of green that marks the base of Hill 875. “Not much choice.”

  “Why are we taking the hill, sir?” Carter asks.

  “Because it’s there.” Kane regrets the flippant answer. Carter, and the rest, are putting their lives on the line. He tries to explain. “A Special Forces CIDG company made contact on the hill. The general wants us to take it.” As far as the plan, Kane isn’t thrilled. Two companies, Charlie and Delta up, with Alpha in the rear, two up-one back, classic army tactics since men had been whacking at each other with swords. Except the NVA are anything but classic.

  “Why not just blast it with arty?” Carter asks.

  Kane tires of the questions to which there are no answers. After five months Kane is a veteran. He has more time in-country than Carter and most of the men in the reconstituted company of mostly replacements.

  Kane looks at the trail that runs through the position. They’d marched on it this morning and the attack is going to follow it up the hill. “I want an OP with an M60 behind us,” he orders Carter.

  Carter frowns and Kane knows he’s thinking his platoon leader is putting a valuable machinegun pointing in the wrong direction. But memories of Ranger School always hover in Kane’s brain. He can practically hear Chargin’ Charlie Beckwith screaming: ‘Don’t be stupid!’

  “Get the OP out with a 60 and check the men, sergeant.”

  Kane was moved to Alpha company after the disaster at Hill 1338 in June. He’s the senior platoon leader in the company. It’s disconcerting that he’s commanding Ted’s old platoon but no one in it remembers Ted.

  Kane is a very different man from the one who’d experienced his first combat that day. Physically, the change is startling. He’s lost weight that hadn’t been apparent he could lose. He has practically no body fat, his body is all lean muscle. But it’s in his mind that he’s changed the most and the window into it, his eyes, are deep and withdrawn.

  As Carter heads one way, Kane goes to the other end of the platoon. He kneels between two men. “Canteens full?”

  Both young soldiers nervously nod, eyes wide.

  Kane looks over their gear. Both are FNG, fucking new guys. Kane doubts either of them shave. He inspects their weapons. “Listen to your squad leader. He’ll take care of you. Do what he says and you’ll be fine.”

  The FNGs nod.

  Kane moves down the line dispensing advice and as much encouragement as he can muster, which is almost nonexistent.

  Why are they taking this fucking hill?

  Because it’s where the enemy is.

  Fierce fighting ahead has been going on for an hour at the head of Alpha company. They’d been going uphill behind Charlie and Delta which have been engaged for even longer. In trail position, Kane’s platoon has not made contact yet. But that changes in an instant.

  Bugles blare behind them and Kane instantly knows what that means.

  It’s a trap.

  The sound of the firing intensifies. Kane recognizes the sound of B-40 rockets and recoilless rifle fire, which means the NVA are dug in. Jets scream overhead, dropping heavy bombs on Hill 875. Artillery fills the gaps between air strikes.

  Kane is behind a log, firing his M-16 on semi-automatic, actually aiming. He sees the enemy occasionally, a rarity. Khaki figures flit among the undergrowth and broken jungle. He implicitly understands they can also see him, but he’s always known they can see him. It is usually their advantage having the Americans blundering into them. But now they’re attacking.

  He hits some of those figures, but it’s not something to spend a moment on in the heat of battle.

  Keep shooting. Issue orders. Hold it together. Updating the company commander on the radio.

  Kane glances left and right, checking his men. Two soldiers are fetaled in their hole, not firing. “Carter!” Kane yells, getting his platoon sergeant’s attention. He points at the two.

  Carter slithers through the mud and undergrowth to the hole.

  Kane can barely hear the radio over the sound of battle; the new company commander is calling in fire. Danger close. ‘Grab them by the belt buckle’. That’s the NVA’s tactic to reduce the American’s artillery and air power superiority. Get so close to the Americans it can’t be used.

  Except in the direst of circumstances.

  NVA pour out of tunnels and advance through the jungle.

  This isn’t the Sky Soldier plan.

  This is the NVA plan, long prepared, waiting for the Americans to blunder into the trap. The paratroopers are in the midst of tunnels and bunkers and long-planned fields of fire. Surrounded. Charlie Beckwith would be swearing up a storm at the stupidity.

  The NVA charge, some of them screaming, some insanely laughing, firing their AKs. To the left, a platoon CP, command post, is overrun, all the Americans killed at close range.

  The company commander is standing, firing his pistol into the air to keep men from running; to prevent a complete rout.

  Kane drops a magazine, slams another home. Eighteen rounds, he thinks as he starts firing, one part of his brain counting rounds, most of it considering the diminishing tactical options. The perimeter is dissolving, men fading uphill toward the dubious safety of Charlie and Delta.

  “Hold the line!” Kane screams, but his voice withers beneath the screaming of bullets, artillery and jets.

  There are too many NVA.

  An M60 machinegun is firing nonstop thirty yards away, farther down the trail at the OP. It’s the only thing saving Alpha from being completely overrun. Someone is making a stand.

  For the moment.

  “Hold the line!” Kane yells.

  The handset jerks out of Kane’s hand. He turns to see the cause. Blood is pumping from the ragged, gaping hole in the center of what used to be the RTO’s face.

  The RTO’s wound saves Kane’s life as a round snaps underneath the front lip of his
helmet and plows along the right side of his head and punches a hole through the rear of the helmet.

  Stars explode in Kane’s brain and he’s knocked off his feet, steel pot flying.

  Kane falls on top of his RTO. Kane is barely conscious, his head ringing. Although his ear is only inches from the soldier’s mouth, he can’t hear the man’s desperate, whispered prayers. He does feel the RTO’s final breath.

  Kane’s blood mixes with the RTO’s.

  Kane looks up. Jungle, a tiny patch of sky, the canopy shredded by the artillery. Blue sky. A bird flies past. Kane envies it. He can’t get his body to respond. A fire alarm is ringing in his head.

  The sky is blocked by a brown face. Strangely, the Vietnamese smiles, revealing a gold tooth in the center. The Vietnamese says something but Kane can’t hear him. He can only see the lips moving.

  Bullets snap overhead. Artillery thunders. Kane hears that distantly, on another stage. The M-60 is still burning rounds, a last stand.

  He’s going to die. He knows it. The Vietnamese looming over him is going to kill him, just like Ted. He pulls his West Point ring off. Drops it into the blood and piss-soaked mud.

  The brown face disappears and Kane feels a tug on his LBE. He’s being dragged. Uphill.

  He realizes the man is a Montagnard CIDG. Kane tries to help, to push with his feet, but his body isn’t working.

  The M-60 goes silent.

  “Friendly!” the Vietnamese is calling out and Kane finally hears the word.

  They’re passing bodies. American corpses litter the trail that runs uphill toward Charlie and Delta.

  “You not too heavy,” his savior says, pauses, smiles once more. He raises his voice. “Friendly!”

  Bullets going in both directions crack past the retreating Americans. Alpha has fallen apart.

  Kane wants to stand, to issue orders, save his platoon, save the company. Save his men. He can’t get to his feet.

  He’s pulled once more. Through the mud, broken vegetation. Over an eviscerated body smearing blood and gore.

  “Friendly!”

  They pass between two wide-eyed, frightened paratroopers. They’re pointing their M-16s downhill. This is the perimeter of Charlie and Delta.

  Another five meters. Stops. The brown face is in front of him again. Grabs him by the shoulders and sits him against a tree, facing uphill. Fingers probe the side of his head. He can barely feel them.

  “My arm! My arm!” someone is screaming close by. “Where’s my arm?”

  Artillery. Bombs explode, the earth shakes.

  What circle of hell is this?

  “Mom. Mom. Mom.” The voice is insistent.

  Kane wishes it would stop. His right eye fills with blood. The casualty collection point is thirty feet away, near the company CP. Too many bodies. Too many.

  Father Watters pulls a paratrooper to the collection point. Someone tries to get him to stop, to make him get down, but Watters shrugs him off and heads back to the perimeter.

  “Dai Yu?”

  Kane focuses on the CIDG.

  The man taps his chest. “I’m Thao.”

  “Thao,” Kane whispers.

  Thao points at the wound. “Lot of blood, but head strong. You be okay.”

  “’Okay’?” Kane repeats.

  A chopper flits overhead, cases of ammo and medical supplies tossed out, and away fast, bullets following, tattooing the metal.

  Kane puts one hand against the tree. Tries to get to his feet, collapses.

  Thao points to the casualty collection point. “I get bandages. You stay. Okay?”

  “Right.” Kane’s not sure he actually says the word. Everything is echoing.

  Thao scampers off, dodging wounded, empty ammo cases, the dead, broken tree trunks, discarded helmets and other debris of war.

  His men need him. Kane has to get back in the fight. He tries to wipe the blood out of his eye but his hand has little strength.

  Thao is back. “Easy, Dai Yu.” He wets a piece of cloth with his canteen and wipes Kane’s face, surprisingly gentle amidst all the violence.

  Thao has a syringe of morphine.

  “No,” Kane tries to wave it off. He has to stay alert. Lead his men.

  He doesn’t feel it when Thao hits his thigh with the morphine.

  Thao clears Kane’s eye of blood. Father Watters is on his knees fifteen meters away, cradling a dying soldier in his arms, his head next to the man’s ear, whispering Extreme Unction.

  A jet screams by, angled across the axis of the hill, drops its bomb.

  Danger close.

  The ground convulses. More screams.

  “Weapon,” Kane says to Thao. “My weapon.”

  Thao nods. “Many weapons here. Wait, Dai Yu.” He doesn’t have to go far. He returns with a blood smeared M-16.

  Thao points toward the sound of the bugles and the AKs and the screams. “I get more wounded.”

  How can anyone be alive there?

  How can anyone be alive here?

  Kane grasps the M-16, uses it as a crutch to get to his feet. The surviving officers are gathering near the casualty collection point, coordinating the defense. Kane takes a step in that direction. Feels a whisper of something along his spine. Stops and looks up.

  A jet is inbound. But it’s coming from the wrong direction, along the axis of the ridge instead of across like the others.

  The last thing Kane sees, silhouetted against the flash of the exploding bomb, is Father Watters making the sign of the cross over a dying soldier.

  3

  Friday Morning,

  5 August 1977

  MEATPACKING DISTRICT, MANHATTAN

  Kane placed the five spot on the table in the corner of the diner while he put his green, stained map case bag against the wall.

  “How are the hands?” Morticia asked as she placed a cup of coffee and glass of water with two ice cubes in front of him. She’s been working at Vic’s Diner for sixty-two days, which sometimes seemed like an eternity to Kane, given her constant suggestions on how to upgrade the place once she’d found out Kane and Thao, the cook, owned it.

  “At the end of my arms,” Kane said. He held them up to prove his point, exposing the pinkish scars on his palms from the rope burns acquired in the old Nabisco Factory three and a half weeks earlier. There were also marks around his wrists from the handcuffs by which he’d initially been hung. The ring of red around his neck from where he’d subsequently been hung was almost gone. He’d had better nights.

  He had a bronze Montagnard bracelet around his right wrist along with a watch on a wide green nylon band secured with Velcro and a flap covering the face so that the glowing hands couldn’t be seen at night unless it was peeled back. The band was smudged and no matter of soaking or washing would get the bloodstain out, not that Kane had any desire to since it was a connection to his best friend, dead ten years.

  “Still the funny man,” Morticia said. “Not.” Six feet tall, she sported a long black wig with a silver streak in it. She wore a tight black dress on her slim figure. It went to her ankles and when she walked, it appeared more of a glide. “The leg?”

  “Healing,” Kane said. “It hurts when I laugh.”

  “Then you’re not suffering,” she said.

  Kane feigned mock outrage. “Hey, I tried.”

  “Yeah. Okay. A point.” She put a folded meal ticket on the table. “From Thao, as usual. Don’t you have a phone at home? Do you have a home? Or do you live in a cave?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she moved on to serve a quartet of meat truck drivers entering for breakfast after their late shift delivering fresh cut to butchers in the outer boroughs. There were several ladies of the night at the end of their tour of duty eating at the counter. Thao, the cook and Montagnard who’d saved Kane’s life in Vietnam, appeared out of the kitchen to top off their coffee and bring them the plates he’d just prepared.

  The diner boasted new covers for the booths; red with white stripes. Kane cou
ldn’t quite recall what color the old ones had been, other than worn and torn. He didn’t like the new ones; too stiff and too bright. Kane and co-owner Thao had drawn a line in the tile on one of Morticia’s prime ambitions for the diner: renaming it. The faded signs facing Gansevoort and Washington, the southeast corner of which the diner was perched, would remain the same:

  VIC’S DINER

  GOOD FOOD!

  There was a new jukebox, which didn’t make sense to Kane since who wanted to listen to music in the morning? It was quiet at the moment, which proved his point. He’d drawn her attention to that several times before her glare made it a negative return on the effort.

  Kane was seated in the rearmost booth, adjacent to the kitchen door. From this perch he could see the booths along this wall, the counter and through a window in the swinging door into the kitchen where Thao worked the stove. Most importantly he could survey both outer doors, one on either street.

  Kane unfolded the ticket revealing a short message encrypted in two five letter blocks. Kane took the moleskin notepad out his shirt pocket. Opened it to the trigraph and ran the letters through it using the diner’s sign as his and Thao’s personal one-time pad.

  TONIA TTENW INDOW SONTH EWORL DXXXX

  Not exactly the biggest secret when and where to meet Toni and in need of encrypting. Kane sometimes wondered if Thao did it as training, since he had the trigraph memorized or to keep Kane fluent in his old Special Forces skills. He struck a match from the book next to the ashtray and burned the ticket, stirring the remnants to dust in the tray, part of his morning blocked in.

  It was the only thing on his schedule other than his usual run over the Brooklyn Bridge to Gleason’s gym to work out.

  The Kid came in the Gansevoort door, smiling, but watchful. He was accompanied by a rare sound: a train horn from the elevated High Line, the end of which was caddy-corner from the diner. Traffic was down to a couple of times a week on the dying, elevated rail line that ran along the lower West Side of Manhattan.