Page 3 of Cry Havoc

He slowed his breathing.

Steady…

Tom gently removed the integrally suppressed .22 caliber High Standard H-D semiautomatic handgun from the holster on his belt. The World War Two–era pistol had been modified by Bell Laboratories for the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA. With the type of ammunition that made up the ten rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber, it suppressed the shot to 20 decibels, or the sound of a light cough. The longer Tom’s team could go without revealing their exact location, the better.

Tom brought the pistol up as deliberately as he could. Havoc’s advantage was stealth. The NVA had to move to find them, making noise, while Havoc could remain still, silent, and camouflaged.

Get ready.

The barking was getting closer, now from the flank.

Havoc’s claymores were set up facing the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was to Tom’s twelve o’clock. The dog was approaching from his right flank, so the .22 would have to do.

The barking stopped, but Reece could hear movement. An NVA tracker would not be far behind.

You won’t see him until he’s almost on you.

In SOG they treated the dogs the same way they treated the NVA, as an enemy to be dispatched.

From Tom’s position on the jungle floor, the dog appeared much larger than it actually was as it materialized out of the brush. The hound registered the prone American at the same instant a .22 caliber round left the pistol’s muzzle without so much as a whisper. It was followed by four more. From experience Tom knew that dogs, and humans, could soak up a few rounds before going down.

The brown and black–colored bloodhound dropped inches from Tom’s face.

Sorry, friend.

What was not expected was for his handler to appear right behind him as quickly as he did.

The sound of the approaching dog had disguised the noise of the tracker.

Reeling in shock at the sight of his dead dog, the NVA soldier’s eyes went wide as the jungle floor came alive at his feet.

Tom put a .22 round into his neck and another in the underside of his chin. At the same instant, the man’s finger depressed the trigger of his Kalashnikov, sending a burst of 7.62 × 39mm rounds into the dirt just to the left of Tom’s head.

He stumbled and fell on top of the SEAL, who put two suppressed rounds into his temple and another through his ear. More than one SOG operator had been killed by men they believed were dead.Learn from the mistakes of the departed.

Once the shooting started, if you weren’t moving, you were dying. The NVA with their superior numbers would flank you in a heartbeat. Hence the toe poppers and frag grenade trip wires.

And now, the shooting had started. The jungle in front of Tom and his team erupted in automatic fire all concentrated in the direction of the dead dog and handler.

There was no need to yell “contact” or “fire in the hole.” Havoc knew what was coming next.

Tom depressed the claymore’s trigger, sending three volts of electricity down the firing wire into a blasting cap embedded in C4. This caused the detonation of a shaped charge that propelled the embedded steel ball bearings into a directional sixty-degree arc of pain, tearing through the jungle foliage and the enemy marching through it.

The backblast felt as though it dislodged Tom’s teeth from his skull when the shock wave passed through his body, compressing his brain and internal organs in a nauseating surge of violence. The concussionand smoke were accompanied by a barrage of dirt, rocks, leaves, roots, and branches that showered the Americans and their Montagnard teammates with the vestiges of death. The explosion immediately robbed them of hearing, which quickly returned as a piercing ring that would follow them like devils on their shoulders. It was as if the universe suddenly inverted and just as quickly set itself straight, now a few souls lighter.

Time to move.

One thing to do first.

Tom reached into his gas mask pouch and retrieved an AK mag, a special Eldest Son AK mag with a bullet six rounds down modified to contain a high explosive in place of gunpowder. Certain to destroy the rifle firing it, the bullet was also capable of maiming or even killing the shooter. Tom quickly removed a magazine from the dead man’s canvas chest rig, secured it in his gas mask pouch, and replaced it with the Eldest Son mag, making sure to refasten the wooden toggle.

Tom then slapped the Montagnards to his right and left. Staying as low as they could, they turned and moved through Quinn’s squad, setting up about 20 yards behind and offset in the direction of their primary extract point.

With any luck this was a small NVA element, and those claymores had decimated most of them.

Luck…

Was it bad luck that an NVA patrol had appeared on the road just as RT Havoc had been removing their wiretap? Or was it something else?