"Roger, Dash One. Stand by," the firebase R. T. O. said quickly.
Zingo's Blackhawk hovered over the town, and they watched in amazement. Building after building caught fire from the intense heat. Men and women ran into the street, their clothes and bodies burning.
"Mother-grabber," the pilot said in dismay.
Admiral Zoll had heard the explosion and had climbed up into the gas chamber tower in Center Block. He looked out of the window, and with binoculars he could see the huge fire burning across the lake. Occasionally something over there would explode. He listened to Zingo describe the devastation on the radio. He knew he had no choice.
Admiral Zoll had wiped out entire Cong villages from behind the joystick of his Intruder. He hadn't liked it, but back then, he came to accept the fact that some missions were ethically more difficult than others. He triggered his handset and came on the radio; his voice was surprisingly calm. "Dash One, this is Firebase. The situation has progressed beyond contain," he said, slowly. "Collateralize the area, begin Charlie Fox-trot."
Nick Zingo had never turned down an order, but now he hesitated. There was a moment of static on the radio, followed by a squelch. Then he heard Zoll's sandpapery voice. "I know," the Admiral said sadly, responding to Zingo's silence, "but do it anyway, goddammit!"
Chapter 12
They had left Vanishing Lake quickly when the soldiers poured in. They found a footpath in the hills, and climbed up into a wooded valley a few miles beyond. It had taken several hours. It was just after dusk, and for the last ten minutes, they had heard the sound of the two Blackhawks miles away. The engines alternately roared and whined, while the distant rotor blades changed pitch as the helicopters turned.
The two hobos were sitting on their bedrolls, resting, to catch their breath before moving on. Lucky still hadn't been able to get a bottle since he'd been thrown off the train, and he was beginning to feel the onset of delirium tremens. Colors seemed too bright, his skin felt crawly. He could always feel things walking on his skin before he saw the bugs and spiders with their probing antennae and spindly legs making the hair on his body stand on end. While his flesh crawled, he sat very still, awash in a wave of self-pity. "Shit," Lucky said. "We need some money for wine."
"We ain't gonna get any money up here, man."
"Then we gotta steal us somethin', car radio, or something we can sell," Lucky mumbled.
Then they heard the first concussive "ca-whump," coming from far away down the valley.
"What the fuck was that?" Mike blurted, jumping to his feet.
"Beats me." Lucky was still sitting on his bedroll, with his back against a tree. He knew from experience that if he didn't get a drink, he would soon plunge into a terrible delusional nightmare.
Then they heard two more loud "ca-whumps," and Lucky looked off toward the sound. "You know what that sounds like?" he finally said.
"Uh-uh," Mike answered.
"It's like when you turn on the gas and it won't light, and you leave it on, and 'whomp,' it finally catches."
"Fuckin' A," Mike said, nodding. "That's exactly what it sounds like."
Then they heard distant machine-gun fire, followed a few moments later by a loud crash and a huge explosion. The sound rolled like thunder up the valley. Lucky jumped to his feet as well. "That sounded like a chopper crash," he said, his mind momentarily distracted from the oncoming D. T. S.
Then they heard several smaller explosions, almost like distant fireworks.
Mike was scratching some mosquito bites on his arm, and they began bleeding. He wiped his arm against his pants and looked. over at Lucky, who was now moving farther up the hill.
"Where you going?"
"Up there, to that bluff. I wanna see what's going on."
They both climbed farther up the mountain until they got to a mesa. Lucky moved across to the eastern edge, and from there he could see down to the town, almost three miles away. What he saw shook him badly. The whole shoreline was an inferno. One Blackhawk helicopter was still buzzing around down there like an angry dragonfly, moving out of the dark into the flickering firelight, then disappearing again into blackness. The distant whine and roar of the engine seemed far away on the night air.
"Son-of-a-bitch," Lucky whispered. "They blew up the fuckin' town."
While they were watching, the hardware store's roof crashed in. It took almost five seconds for the sound of the falling beams to reach them. Then in the distance they heard the sound of chattering gunfire.
"Must be bullets exploding in the hardware store," Mike said.
"Uh-uh," Lucky said, remembering his Marine training. "That's fifty-caliber. Like they got in the nose guns on that Blackhawk." He couldn't understand why that would be happening unless it was some kind of new alcoholic figment. "You see all this too, right?" he suddenly asked Mike.
"Of course," Mike said, startled at the question.
Suddenly, the gas station at the end of town went up in a ball of flame as the underground tanks blew. The explosion rattled their eardrums.
"You know what I think?" Lucky said slowly.
"What?"
"I think it's time for us to catch out."
"I can make it," Mike said, feeling his sore ribs.
Lucky and Mike climbed back down the hill and picked up their bedrolls.
"Shouldn't we do something?" Mike whispered in the darkness.
"Whatta you wanna do, throw rocks?" They started climbing across the moonlit slope toward the Southern Pacific railhead, which was two miles away.
"We're better off just gettin' outta here. We should take the SP up to Waco," Lucky said. "I need ta get my hands on a bottle… I'm gettin' one a' my whaddayacallits."
Mike nodded his head. He'd been through one set of the D. T. S with Lucky, and it had scared the piss out of him.
"Or maybe we catch out on the UP to California," Lucky said.
He was talking again, trying to keep his mind off the imaginary spiders, as well as the horror of the fishing village on fire. Why was the chopper strafing the town? he wondered.
One thing Lucky knew was that he was through being a hero. Then they heard more machine-gun fire directly up ahead.
"What the hell is that?" Mike asked.
"Shhhhh. Stay here," Lucky commanded, some remembered piece of his old life taking over. Lucky dropped his pack and moved toward the sound. It took him almost two minutes, forging through the thick forest, trying not to rustle leaves or branches or give away his position. Then he came to the edge of a tree line. In a meadow, about a hundred yards below him, he could see thirty armed men. They were shabbily dressed and looked to him, from a distance, like hobos. The headlights of an Army jeep, which looked like it had just had its tires shot out, lighted all the men. Two uniformed soldiers were lying facedown on the ground, while several of the hobos held guns on them. While Lucky watched, a tall, silver-haired man moved up to one of the facedown soldiers. He appeared to be talking to the man for a minute, and then, without warning, he pointed his pistol down and shot the soldier in the back of the head. The second soldier tried to rise, but the tall, silver-haired man put his foot on the back of that soldier's neck, pushing his face into the dirt. Then they appeared to have a lengthy conversation, all of it too far away for Lucky to understand. The prone soldier seemed to be talking fast, telling the silver-haired man something important. Then the man took his foot off the soldier's neck, stepped back, and shot him.
Lucky was frozen by the two cold-blooded murders. He could still hear the remaining chopper wheeling, turning, and strafing the burning village. He wondered again if the whole thing was some sort of never-before-experienced hallucination, some alcohol-induced mind trick that was turning his world into an apocalyptic nightmare. Then, as he watched, the silver-haired man stood over the two dead soldiers and lifted his hands to the sky. It looked to Lucky as if he was praying over the bodies of the men he had just executed. It was crazy. He scrambled back to where Hollywood Mike was waiting.