Page 62 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)

Laos

TOM AWOKE IN THE darkness.

Compromise. Firefight. Extraction. Helo down. Quinn.

He started by moving his fingers and toes. He could feel them both, which was a good sign. Then he slowly bent his knees and elbows. More good news. Both worked. He felt a throbbing in his left arm and reached across his body.

That’s going to need stitches.

Touching the deep slice also made him aware that his right-hand glove was gone. He brought his hands together. The left glove was ripped almost to shreds, but he decided to keep it, as any protection from the thorns and razor-sharp elephant grass of the jungle was better than nothing.

None of his bones seemed to be broken. The tree branches of the triple canopy had slowed his fall.

He deliberately pushed himself to a sitting position and winced in pain. Broken right rib. Shit. How many? He felt across his body with his left hand. At least one. Maybe two. If that was all, he was the luckiest son of a bitch in ’Nam.

You are not in ’Nam. You are in Laos.

How long have you been on the ground?

He twisted his left wrist and ran his thumb across the acrylic crystal of his Submariner.

The leather cover had been ripped away and the acrylic was scratched, but the faint glow from the tritium on the still-sweeping second hand confirmed that the watch was working.

It was just after three thirty. It was a no-date Rolex, so he could not be certain of the day, but there was no way that twenty-four hours had passed, was there?

Was anyone coming?

It’s pitch black. Our helos will be up in the morning looking for us. They won’t fly at night without intel.

Tom had only inserted via helo in the dark once, and it almost ended in disaster. It was one of the scariest moments of his time in Southeast Asia. Until today.

Now for the moment of truth.

Tom moved his head up and down, then from side to side. He rotated it first one way, then the other. He touched the right side of his neck, behind his ear where the assassin’s bullet had entered. He traced its trajectory down and over to his spine.

Being in the best shape of his life probably helped him survive the fall. His months of recuperation in Saigon had made him strong.

In the hospital, he was forced to cut out the cigarettes and booze, which he reluctantly admitted had aided his healing.

Nurse Maxwell had put Tom on a strict regimen of diet and exercise.

She was fierce in his defense, so much so that even Serrano didn’t want to end up on her bad side.

The venerable CIA man had refused to smuggle any contraband into the infirmary.

Tom felt like he could use a smoke and a drink now.

Nurse Maxwell had encouraged him to push harder in physical therapy and kept him on schedule. As he started to drive himself more intensely in the hospital’s rebab clinic, she would replace the dessert on his meal tray with extra chicken or fish for additional protein.

It took Tom a week to find out her first name was Loelia.

After two weeks of basic exercises, when he could stand without help, she arrived early one morning and roused him from his restless slumber.

“Get up.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

A car was waiting that took them to Cercle Sportif. Serrano had arranged it.

“They have the best pool in Saigon,” she explained. “We can use it before they open the club.”

“I need to see it.”

He didn’t need to explain to her what “it” was.

Nurse Maxwell helped him up the stairs and into the club where he was shot and Gaston DuBois was killed. It was slow going on his crutches, but when he made it down the long hallway to the dining pavilion, he stood in the doorway for ten minutes replaying the events of the attack in his mind.

Ella.

That was enough. He never went back to the pavilion. Each morning, they would go directly to the pool in the darkness. He would be in the water before the sun came up.

Maxwell explained that varying forms of aquatic therapy had been in use in the United States since at least 1911. Even Franklin Roosevelt used the therapy to help treat his polio. She told him that just last year the Social Security Act was amended to include aquatic therapy as a treatment option.

He started by walking in chest-deep water. The first week that was all he could do. Two weeks later, he ditched his crutches and was swimming laps. The next morning, Maxwell slipped into the pool beside him in a swimsuit that was made for racing.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Tom had thought that, as a SEAL and surfer, he was a strong swimmer. Maxwell put him to shame, her long lean body cutting through the water with ease.

“We’ll get you there,” she said, proceeding to give him advice on technique.

Every session she would give him something new to focus on.

He grew stronger. His times improved.

Maxwell told him that she swam competitively in high school.

She continued to swim in college, but, as there were virtually no sports scholarships for women like there were for men, she used the pool as a way to relax and stay in shape while earning her bachelor of science in nursing from Penn State.

After graduation she volunteered to serve, just as her mother had in the Army Nurse Corps after Pearl Harbor.

Morning pool sessions were followed by afternoons in the gym. Eventually, he began jogging around the club’s polo fields. Maxwell ran with him. She was almost as impressive on the track as she was in the pool. Almost.

At least twice a week, Serrano would stop by the hospital to check on his progress and let him read after-action reports from MACV-SOG missions. Teams were being compromised and disappearing with greater frequency. The KIA and MIA numbers were increasing. Those numbers drove him harder.

He once asked Maxwell why she was going to all the extra trouble for him.

She answered that of all the wounded men she saw pass through the hospital, she had seen very few who fought to stay.

And of those who did, none were allowed by their commands to remain in-country when they could be sent to higher level care in Germany, Okinawa, or the United States. Tom was different.

He also suspected Serrano was paying her with CIA contingency funds.

“I know what you are going to do when you are ready,” she said, as they hung to the side of the pool catching their breath after a morning sprint session.

“You are going back to SOG. I can mend your wounds. I can assist you with recuperation. But I won’t watch you die.

I’ve seen enough death. You’ll have to do that on your own. ”

Without waiting for a response, she pushed herself out of the pool to towel off.

Tom swam another lap.

Just before he left a month later, after having crushed the military PT test, she had given him a folded piece of paper with a stateside address.

“If you survive,” she had said.

“Thank you—for everything.”

“Physically, you’re ready. Emotionally, I know you are hurting. Be sure and take care of what’s in here,” she said, tapping his chest. “Look after it. It’s the most important part.”

Then she kissed his cheek, turned, and left his hospital room to care for others.

That was two months ago.

Tom was back in the jungle with Quinn shortly thereafter. Colonel Singlaub had seen to it.

Tom looked at his watch again: 4:40 a.m. The Rolex made him think of Ella and the stainless bracelet he never installed.

What was she doing now?

Would she know or even care if he did not make it out?

Not making it out was a distinct possibility.

Get your head back in the game, Tom.

Did the enemy see you fall from the helo?

Unlikely. Otherwise, you would be a prisoner. Or you’d be dead.

Were Quinn and the rest of the team alive? The pilots?

The enemy would execute those who couldn’t move and take prisoner those who could.

Quinn would never allow himself to be captured. If they had him, he must be in bad shape.

Should I try and find the crash site in the dark?

Moving in the jungle at night was not advisable. It was next to impossible not to make noise—noise that would alert a waiting enemy to your presence. The jungle did not choose sides.

The jungle is neutral.

Even if he did manage to find an enemy encampment, its sentries would hear him coming and snatch his soul before he knew what hit him.

As difficult as it was, he needed to sit tight and move at first light.

I’m coming, Quinn.

It would be early nautical twilight in a few hours, not that it would make much difference beneath the triple canopy. As soon as the sun was high enough that light began to filter through from above, he would work his way to the crash site.

Crash site. Where the hell was it?

He remembered dangling under the Kingbee when he saw the downed bird and made the decision to cut himself free. He would find it. He was good in the woods.

He thought he could smell it, the distinctive odor of burning fuel. That would help guide him. There was another smell too, one he pushed from his mind, the unforgettable odor of charred flesh.

Would the enemy wait for him?

No, they don’t know you are here.

Might they set up an ambush for a rescue and recovery mission in the morning?

Possibly. But, in all likelihood, they would take this win and move any prisoners north, knowing that come sunup, the skies would be stacked with American airpower.

If any crash survivors had been captured, the NVA would have guarded them through the night and would be moving soon.

They would take the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Tom ran through the options in his head.

Can you find them, kill a sentry, take his weapon? Can you rescue them?

What gear do you have?

Tom took stock of his situation, stopping every few moments to listen.

If you listen, the jungle will tell you things.

His second- and third-line gear had all been torn away as he was pulled through the trees under the helo.

His RPD had been sacrificed to the gods of the jungle as had his Frank there were no rounds to unload and count.

The magazine was empty. By feel, he confirmed there was one in the chamber.

Okay, one. Better than zero. Still, a .22 caliber pistol was not going to do much against a company of NVA or Pathet Lao.

You’ve got the claymore.

You need a team.

You are on your own.

Tom went through the pockets on his modified uniform. He still had his signal mirror, notebook and pen, map of the target area, morphine syrettes, pen flare, whistle, and an orange marking panel for signaling aircraft. His Swiss Army Knife was still in his pocket.

He took a deep breath, which caused him excruciating pain in his right side from the broken ribs.

You can sit here, wait until you hear aircraft overhead in the morning, and signal with your flare. You can survive.

That lets the NVA get farther away with Quinn.

If he’s alive.

If.

You need to get to the crash site.

If they are all dead, you can wait for the cavalry.

If any bodies are missing, you will need to track them.

Track them all the way to fucking Hanoi, if that’s what it takes.

Then what?

Don’t think that far ahead.

Your first priority is finding that crash site.

The best chance they have is for you to track them and then get back to Phu Bai to lead a rescue team in after them.

There has yet to be a successful U.S. POW rescue mission in the war. The military knows where prisoners are and has not launched into North Vietnam to get them. You need to hit them in Laos under Colonel Backhaus’s orders before they are moved closer to Hanoi.

Find them and then get back to Phu Bai.

That is your mission.

Maybe God spared you so you could save these men.

Maybe. Or maybe you are just lucky.

I’d rather be lucky than good.

Be both.

Light began to sift through the triple canopy above. Tom looked at his watch. Just after 5:00 a.m. It was time to get to work.

Tom pushed himself to his feet, unholstered the .22 caliber High Standard with its one cartridge, and followed the stench of burning fuel and flesh deeper into the jungle.