“Move only at night, avoid all contact with civilization as much as you can, and move during daytime only long enough to get oriented, then get back into deep hiding,” Wohl went on. “Make your way to a pickup point, but stay away from roads, railroads, rivers, or streams—that’s where the bad guys will be looking for you. Trying to blend in with the locals is a Hollywood stunt, not a valid escape-and-evasion technique. Don’t make contact with anyone unless You’re hurt, but I goddamn guarantee that you better be hurting real bad, because if you ask someone for help you’ll likely be captured and tortured and then the pain will be unlike anything You’ve ever experienced.
“When you get to a pickup point, don’t just march right into it—take a few hours and check it out first. If you’re able, backtrack and check your rear—we don’t want the ragheads setting up any ambushes for Your rescuers. And remember to preserve the pickup points for other unlucky saps who ‘night need it in the future. Don’t just bolt out of a spider-hole when you see the angel coming down for you if the bad guys aren’t on your tail, police your area and recamouflage everything before the pickup to make it tougher for the ragheads to find the hiding Spots. Okay.
What are your questions for me?” No responses.
“Good. I got one more thing to say,” Wohl went on. “We got three guys hurt on the last sortie, including the FNG, Major Briggs.
They’re all right, but they’ll be out of action for a few weeks. I wanted to remind all you swinging dicks that sometimes no matter how much you shake your snake, that last drop can still roll down your pants. The latest prelaunch intel had the antiaircraft stuff moved off the Tumb Islands onto Abu Musa; we didn’t know they had put more stuff on Lesser Tumbs until it was too late. Shame on us. Shit happens.
Forget about the last mission and concentrate on this one. Don’t let it get you down. We’re here to find Colonel White and our shipmates and bring ‘em back alive.
“We got some help tonight—apparently some other ISA cell is going to stir up some shit for us tonight,” Wohl said. “Maybe it’ll keep the ragheads off balance, maybe it won’t. Forget about them and concentrate on your work tonight. Our job is to go in, check the escape-and-evasion areas, rescue anyone that might be out there waiting for us, and come back alive. Let’s get loaded up.”
Wohl had picked the men personally for this patrol, so he really was not looking into each individual’s face as he went down the line just before boarding the chopper—he could usually recognize each man by his build or choice of weapons or voice or attitude.
He came to the last and most senior man in his squad, the “wheel,” who would coordinate the flight crew’s activities with the ground team. Monroe had his balaclava on, shielding his face against the freezer-like chill of the hangar. “Ready to do it tonight, Monroe?” he asked him. No response, just a thumbs-up and a rather nervous shuffling of the feet. Wohl looked and saw the man’s right finger extended out of his mitten, covering the trigger guard of his suppressed IAI Uzi .45 submachine gun—this bad boy, he thought, was ready to go …
… but unfortunately, he wasn’t going to go! “You are one stupid son of a bitch, Briggs,” Gunnery Sergeant Chris Wohl said in a low voice. “You are just too stupid for words. Did you really think I wasn’t going to notice you on my aircraft?”
Hal Briggs pulled off his balaclava. “How’d you know it was me, Gunny? You didn’t even look at my face or my eyes.”
“You’re the only one who always sticks his trigger finger outside your mitten and covers the trigger guard when he gets nervous,” Wohl said. “I noticed it the first mission we flew. Now, what the hell are you doing out here? I thought the flight doc ordered another week of bed rest.”
“I’m sick of bed rest,” Briggs said. “I’m fine. I’m ready to go.”
“The doc didn’t sign you off yet.”
“Fuck the flight surgeon, Gunny,” Briggs said. “I’m ready to go on this patrol—hell, I’ve got to go on this patrol or I’ll go nuts.”
“You were ordered to stay in bed, sir,” Wohl said. “The doc ordered it, and I ordered it. Sick or not, sir, I’M-going to kick your ass if you don’t start obeying orders.”
“You can do an operational evaluation on me,” Briggs suggested.
“Plenty of room in the Pave Hammer. Besides, Monroe can’t fly tonight—he’s got a cold or a sinus infection or something.”
“Bullshit,” Wohl said. “Stop treating me like your senile old aunt baby-sitting you when you want to sneak out to the drive-in, Briggs. You wanna override doctor’s orders and go on a patrol, just come out and say it.”
“I’m saying it already, Wohl,” Briggs said. “I want to go.”
“Disapproved,” Wohl said quickly. “You look OK to me, but I did talk to the doc today—he said he found blood on a towel in your room. You been hiding shit from the flight doc, Hal?”
“Dr. Sabin checks the towels in my damned room?” Briggs exclaimed angrily. “I want him to stay the hell out of my room.”
“Did you or didn’t you?”
Briggs didn’t reply. Instead, he asked, “How do you feel, Gunny?”
“I feel fine.”
“You sure?”
“Stick your tongue up my ass and take my temperature if you really care,” the Marine said irritably.
“Otherwise, get out of my face.”
“Why didn’t you get hit, Wohl? We were standing side by side, less than an arm’s length away from each other. Three guys went down when that antiaircraft artillery site opened up on us—two guys on one side of you, then me on the other side of you. You’re sitting in the middle and don’t get a scratch. Why the hell not?”
“Because a Marine sucks in a triple-A and spits out fire, Briggs,” Wohl said with a perfectly serious expression. “We eat barbed wire and piss napalm.”
“Yeah, yeah, hoo-rah and all that jar-head shit.”
“it aren’t jar-head shit, Briggs,” Wohl said earnestly. “I don’t know why I didn’t get hit, Briggs. Maybe I’ll get it on this trip—would that make you happy, Briggs?”
“C’mon, Gunny, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just bored and ready to get my ass in the air again, and I can’t believe I got hit by the golden BB. I’m too young and too good-looking to get nailed by a triple-A site older than my uncle”
“I’ll tell you what I believe, Briggs: I truly believe I won’t get hit because I’m a U.S. Marine. I truly believe I’m too tough and too strong and too dumb to get hit by a little Iranian Zeus-23/4.”
“Give me a break, Chris “I’m serious as a stock market crash, Hal,” Wohl said. “You see, you’re smart, a real college boy, not a correspondence-course college boy like me. You knew it was a ZSU-23/4, knew about how deadly it is to low-flying aircraft that stray within lethal range … hell, you probably know its rate of fire, its reliability, its crew complement, its maintenance procedures.”
“Yeah, I do. So?”