So come on, you bastards.
What are you waiting for?
Then he saw one. It was the hunter’s thrill after the long stalk, that magical moment when the connection between hunter and hunted, fragile as a china horse, first establishes itself. Blood rushed through him: old buck fever. Everybody gets it when they see the beast they will kill and eat; that’s how primordial it is.
I will not eat you, he thought, but by God I will kill you.
More emerged. Jesus Christ … the first thin line of sappers in cloth hats with foliage attached, rifles at the high port, eyes strained, at maximum alertness; more tightly bunched, an infantry platoon, battle ready, caped and pith-helmeted, chest web gear, green Bata boots and AKs, Type 56, and no other identifying insignia; the platoon leaders at the front; behind them in a tight little knot the staff, their ranks unrecognizable in the muddy uniforms.
You never saw this. A North Vietnamese infantry battalion moving at the half-trot through a choke point in tight formation, not spread out for four thousand meters or broken down and moving in cells to reassemble under dark. The pilots never saw it, the photos never got it. The NVA, goddamn their cold, professional souls, were too quick, too subtle, too disciplined, too smart for such movement. They moved at night, in small units, then reassembled; or they moved through tunnels, or in bomb-free Cambo or Laos, always careful, risking nothing, knowing surely that the longer they bled the American beast, the better their chances became. Possibly no American had seen such a thing.
The CO was pushing them hard, gambling that he could beat the weather, whack out Arizona and be gone. Speed was his greatest ally, the bleak weather his next. The rain fell harder, pelting the ground, but it did not stop the North Vietnamese, who seemed not to notice. Onward they came.
He snicked off the safety, and through the scope hunted for an officer, a radio operator, an ammunition bearer with RPGs, an NCO, a machine-gun team leader. The targets drifted before him, floating through the crucifer of the crosshairs. That he was about to kill never occurred to him; the way his mind worked, he thought only that he was about to shoot.
Finally: you, little brother. An officer, youngish, with the three stars of a captain lieutenant, at the head of an infantry platoon. He would go first; then, back swiftly, to a radio operator; then, swing left as you run the bolt, and go for the guy with the Chicom RPD 56, put him down, then fall back. That was the plan, and any plan was better than no plan.
The reticle of the Redfield scope wobbled downward, bouncing ever so slightly, tracking the first mark, staying with him as the shooter took his long breath, hissed a half of it out, found bone to lock under the rifle, told himself again to keep the gun moving as he fired, prayed to God for mercy for all snipers, and felt the trigger break cleanly.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Gooooooood morning, Vietnam,” said the guy on Captain Taney’s portable, “and hello to all you guys out there in the rain. Well, fellas, I’ve got some bad news. Looks like that old Mr. Sun is still AWOL. That’s UA, for you leathernecks. Nobody’s gonna stop the rain today. But it’ll be great for the flowers, and maybe Mr. Victor Charles will stay indoors himself today, because his mommy won’t let him outside to play.”
“What a moron,” said Captain Taney, Arizona’s XO.
“The weather should break tonight, as a high pressure zone over the Sea of Japan looks like it’s making a beeline for—”
“Shit,” said Puller.
Why did he put himself through this? It would break when it would break.
Standing in the parapet outside his command bunker, he glanced around in the low light, watching the floating mist as it seethed through the valley that lay beyond.
Should he put an OP out there, so they’d know when the 803rd was getting close?
But he no longer controlled the hills, so putting an OP out there would just get its people all killed.
The rain began to fall, thin and cold. Vietnam! Why was it so cold? He had spent so many days in country over the past eight years but never had felt it this biting before.
“Not good, sir,” said Taney.
“No, it isn’t, Taney.”
“Any idea when they’ll get here?”
“You mean Huu Co? He’s already here. He pushed ’em hard through the night and the rain. He’s no dummy. He wants us busted before our air can get up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have that ammo report ready, Captain?”
“Yes, sir. Mayhorne just finished it. We have twelve thousand rounds of 5.56 left, and a couple more thousand .30 carbine rounds. We’re way low on frags, seventy-nine rounds and belted 7.62. Not a Claymore in the camp.”
“Christ.”
“I’ve got Mayhorne distributing the belted 7.62, but we’re down to five guns and I can’t cover any approach completely. We can set up a unit of quickmovers with one of the guns to jump to the assault sector, but if he hits us more than one place at once, we screw the pooch.”
“He will,” said Puller bleakly. “That’s how he operates. The pooch is screwed.”
“You know, sir, some of these ’Yards have family here in the compound. I was thinking—”
“No,” said Puller. “If you surrender, Huu Co will kill them all. That’s how he operates. We hang on, pray for a break in the weather, and if we have to, go hand to hand in the trenches with the motherfuckers.”
“Was it ever this bad in sixty-five, sir?”
Puller looked at Taney, who was about twenty-five, a good young Spec Forces captain with a tour behind him. But in sixty-five he’d been a high school hotshot; what could you tell him? Who could even remember?
“It was never this bad, because we always had air and there were plenty of firebases around. I’ve never felt so fucking on my own. That’s what trying to be the last man out gets you, Captain. Let it be a lesson. Get out, get your people out. Copy?”
“I copy, sir.”
“Okay, get the platoon leaders and the machine gun team leaders to my command post in fifteen and—”
They both heard it.
“What was that?”
“It sounded like a—”
Then another one came. A solitary rifle shot, heavy, obviously .308, echoing back and forth across the valley.
“Who the fuck is that?” Taney said.
“That’s a sniper,” said Puller.
They waited. It was silent. Then the third shot and Puller could read the signature of the weapon.
“He’s not firing fast enough for an M14. He’s shooting a bolt gun, and that means he’s a Marine.”
“A Marine? Way the hell out here in Indian Territory?”
“I don’t know who this guy is, but he sounds like he’s doing some good.”
Then came a wild barrage of full automatic fire, the lighter, crisper sound of the Chicom 7.62×39mm the AKs fired.
Then the gunfire fell silent.
“Shit,” said Taney. “Sounds like they got him.”
The sniper fired again.
“Let’s run the PRC-77 and see if we can pick up enemy radio intelligence,” Puller said. “They must be buzzing about this like crazy.”
Puller and his XO and Sergeant Blas and Y Dok, the ’Yard chieftain, all went down into the bunker.
“Cameron,” Puller said to his commo NCO, “you think you’ve got any juice left in the PRC-77?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s do a quick scan. See if you can get me enemy freaks. They ought to be close enough to pick up.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, if air comes and we need to talk ’em in—”
“Air isn’t coming today, Cameron. Not today. But maybe someone else has.”
Cameron fiddled with the radio mast on the PRC-77, snapping a cord so that it flew free above the wood and dirt of the roof, then clicked it on, and began to diddle with the frequency dials.