Page 65 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)

TOM’S FIRST AND ONLY bullet entered just below the cheek of the man closest to his side of the trail, blowing through his upper jaw.

That soldier’s hands immediately left the handlebars and went to the source of the pain, a movement that caused the front tire to catch a rut and turn sharply to the right.

The sudden shift in direction and balance brought the bicycle and its rider to the ground.

His partner on the other bike turned his head to the right in time to see a demon emerge from the tree line at a full sprint mere feet away.

He opened his mouth to scream but was taken out of his saddle by a shoulder that caught him just under his arm.

They landed on the ground in a heap with Tom on top of the smaller man.

Kill him before his friend can unsling his AK.

Tom saw the man he shot out of his peripheral vision writhing in pain in the dirt, blood flowing freely through his fingertips pressed to the right side of his face.

You just have a few seconds before he realizes he needs to get on his gun.

Tom held the High Standard by its integral suppressor, bringing it down again and again, smashing the heel of the pistol into the temple of the man beneath him, his own ribs crying out in agony from the repeated battering.

This was a bad idea.

You are committed now.

He remembered the advice from the men who had taken time with him on the ranch in Colorado. Men who had trained with Fairbairn, Sykes, and Applegate: don’t stop fighting until the threat no longer exists.

A company could be right behind these guys. You are on the clock.

Tom’s left hand went to the man’s throat, crushing off his air supply while pinning him to the ground. He had hoped for a quick knockout blow. That was not to be. When a human being is facing an opponent set on extinguishing the gift of life, fires burn, regardless of the level of training.

The SEAL noted that the man he had shot was struggling to his knees.

Finish this.

This guy must have a knife.

Tom let up just enough to allow the man to spin in an attempt to scamper away.

There it was. Next to the canteen on his belt. A sheathed blade.

Tom cracked him on the back of the head with the butt of the pistol and then dropped it and went for the blade, grabbing the back of the man’s neck and smashing his face into the dirt.

Kill or get killed.

His right hand unsnapped a strip of leather securing the blade in a crude canvas sheath, wrapped his hand around the handle, and jerked it free. Even in the throes of combat, he recognized that it was a makeshift, homemade knife. He prayed it was sharp enough to do the job.

It was.

With his opponent on his stomach, Tom dropped his body to fully cover the soon to be dead man and thrust the blade up under the ribs on his right side.

It slid through the soldier’s light clothing and entered his body.

Tom applied more pressure to the back of his opponent’s neck to ensure he kept eating dirt and prevent him from screaming out.

He withdrew the blade and reinserted it in repeated stabs in order to do as much damage as possible.

Get to his heart.

Tom used the blade to flip the smaller man over and then violently thrust it through the muscles of the intercostal spaces between the ribs, penetrating the heart. He quickly moved the blade to the soldier’s neck and slit his throat.

Get to your other opponent before he can get a shot off.

The second man was now on his knees, coughing blood and fighting to breathe.

He struggled with the sling of his AK, attempting to bring it around from where it was positioned on his back.

As he choked on his own blood, splintered bones, and shattered teeth from his face wound, he pulled the rifle around in front of him.

Tom was on him in an instant. Scurrying the few feet between them, his left hand grabbed the barrel of the AK as it swung forward, jerking it at the same time to keep the man from firing.

He saw the terror in the soldier’s eyes as he let go of the rifle and brought his hands up to shield him from the apparition who had appeared out of the jungle.

Tom caught him with the knife’s pommel to the side of his temple and then sliced across the neck.

Not deep enough.

The Frogman slid his hand from the rifle to the back of the man’s head and jerked him forward and down, using the man’s knees as a pivot point.

He then rotated to the man’s back and positioned the knife adjacent to the collarbone, reaching across with his free hand so both were on the handle of the makeshift blade.

He then sunk the blade through the muscles, ligaments, and subclavian artery, the main artery supplying blood to the upper extremities, ratcheting the blade back and forth to do as much damage as possible.

After extracting it, he slid it through the man’s neck, cutting through the trachea, carotid, and jugular.

Tom held him down for a moment even after the man stopped squirming. He then pushed himself off and looked up and down the dirt trail, his ribs screaming in a pain he had never before experienced.

Clear.

But for how long?

He had gambled big, with his life and the lives of Quinn and Hiep.

Tom swore. Not at the two men he had just killed, but at the men in Hanoi and Washington who had put them on this patch of dirt.

Don’t get distracted.

Clean this scene.

You don’t have much time. Someone could come around the bend in the trail at any moment.

Is your luck going to hold?

Tom stood and hurled one of the two bicycles as far as he could into the jungle. The pain emanating from his broken ribs almost put him down.

Settle down, Tom. Be smooth. Be efficient and then get moving.

He unslung the rifle from the man he had just killed. He recognized it as an AKM. He ensured it was loaded and checked its thirty-round magazine.

Full.

He reinserted it, locking the magazine in place with the distinctive click of the AK’s magazine catch.

Next, he surveyed the scene.

What a mess. Work quickly.

Tom chose the larger of the two men and unslung his canvas messenger bag.

It was full of what appeared to be letters and documents.

He dumped them on the ground and filled the bag with the items from the pockets of his uniform: signal mirror, notebook and pen, map, morphine, pen flare, whistle, marking panel, and the claymore that was attached to his chest. He used the Swiss Army Knife in his pocket to cut its own paracord lanyard and deposited that in the satchel as well.

Faster.

Tom tore off his shirt and removed the AK chest rig and black pajama top from the larger soldier.

Luckily it was baggy on the dead man, which meant it was tight on Tom but still wearable.

He then inspected the chest rig. Made of green cotton, there were three pouches across the front that held two magazines each.

The pouches were secured with wood toggles.

Along with the magazine in the weapon, Tom now had 210 rounds of 7.

62 x 39mm. A side pouch held a crude Vietnamese version of a ChiCom stick grenade.

Tom inspected it with skepticism. A metal head held the explosive and was attached to a wooden handle with four small nails.

A pull string crept from under the head connected to the handle with wax.

Well, it’s made it this far.

He reached into the second side pouch, expecting to find gauze or a cravat.

Instead, he pulled out a black-and-white photo of the man he had just killed. His arm was around a beautiful young woman who cradled a baby in her arms. The man and woman were smiling.

He stared at it and then stuffed it back in the pouch, though he did not really know why.

I’ll probably be joining you soon, he thought.

Tom struggled into the chest rig and adjusted it as best he could.

He pulled off the dead man’s pants before untying his own boots, kicking them off, and stripping off his pants.

He replaced them with those of the enemy.

They wouldn’t quite button at Tom’s waist, so he used the 550 cord from his Swiss Army Knife lanyard to secure it.

Neither of the Vietnamese men’s boots were going to fit him, so he put his jungle boots back on.

He picked up a boonie hat that had fallen off in the melee and was surprised that it fit.

He then wrapped the man’s brown scarf around his neck.

He tested the sharpness of the blade he had used to kill both men.

It was an improvised tool that looked like it had been made from a vehicle’s leaf spring.

Its soft metal would be convenient to sharpen quickly in the field.

It also dulled easily, and after the work it had just done, it more closely resembled a butter knife.

Tom looked at the smaller of the two men, the one he had shot in the face. He turned the soldier over to discover that he too had a knife, and this one was sharp. Tom threw the dull blade into the tree line.

Hydrate.

He pulled the smaller man’s Type 65 Chinese aluminum canteen from where it was slung across his shoulder, unscrewed the cap, and took a long drink.

Odds were that he would soon regret it, as it almost certainly came straight from a stream and was not treated with iodine or halazone.

After downing half its contents, he pulled it from his lips and read the writing across the aluminum body that had been hand painted in camouflage: ?áNH TAN GI?C M? XM L??C. Defeat the U.S. Invasion.

He knelt and removed the magazines from the other man’s chest rig and put them in the satchel, along with the one from the man’s weapon.

He ejected the round in the chamber and inserted it atop the magazine before tossing the AK off the road.

That man had a grenade as well, and Tom placed that in the satchel.

He didn’t look in the other small pouch, not wanting to find another photograph.

Four hundred twenty rounds, one claymore, two grenades, and one blade.

Not bad.

He took the untouched satchel, which was also filled with documents and letters, and he stuffed it with the contents he had dumped on the ground earlier along with his shirt and pants and hurled it into the jungle.

Then he dragged both men as far into the rainforest as he could before going back and kicking dirt over the blood and drag marks.

He picked up the bicycle and pushed it over the site multiple times to try and remove any clues of the struggle.

Any not-so-skilled tracker would find sign, if they were looking. With any luck, this deep into Laos, anyone on the trail would not be as alert as they were closer to the border, and with additional luck, these two messengers would not be missed for a while.

That’s a lot of luck.

I’ll take what I can get.

Tom slung the AK, turned his bicycle around, and took one final look at the scene.

That will have to do.

He threw his leg over the saddle and pedaled north.