Page 66 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)

DON’T MAKE RASH DECISIONS.

Fortuna Favet Fortibus.

His father had whispered that over cards one night as he examined his hand and sipped a whiskey.

Fortune Favors the Bold.

Tom pedaled onward. The Peugeot bike was awkward and certainly not built for speed, but it handled the trail surprisingly well. The trail reminded Tom of some of the fire roads he had explored on foot and horseback in the Rocky Mountains of his youth.

If he could just make up some time and not run into any enemy patrols or supply convoys. He needed to get closer to Quinn and Hiep. Then he would ditch the bike and parallel them on foot in the jungle.

And what happens when those two messengers don’t show up at their destination?

You really didn’t think this through.

Make up time and get off the trail.

What happens when you run into a patrol? No one is buying that you are Vietnamese even in this uniform.

It might cause confusion and give you an extra second or two.

And what then?

Just pedal.

Point men on Havoc and other SOG Recon Teams would sometimes wear NVA uniforms and carry Kalashnikov rifles.

The thought being that the confusion caused by an NVA running into someone dressed in a similar uniform would give the point man that extra fraction of a second that might give him the edge.

Tom was hoping that if he took a corner and pedaled headlong into an NVA convoy, he might be able to keep his head down and pass right by.

Who would think that an American service member would be pedaling a bike up the Ho Chi Minh Trail toward Hanoi?

That was too crazy to contemplate. He just might be able to pull it off.

He pedaled harder.

Even from the seat of the bicycle, he could track the two sets of bare feet heading north.

I’m coming, guys.

He heard the ominous sound of thunder. The southwest monsoon would soon wash away their tracks.

Then what?

The road began to widen, and the dirt became hardpack, making it more difficult to find spoor.

Were they doing construction? Construction that had stopped at the onset of monsoon season?

He scanned the trail ahead and turned to look behind him.

Still clear.

The hardpack led him to a T with the intersecting section of the trail now paved and wide enough for trucks. To his right the new trail led to the northeast. To his left it led to the southwest. Tom’s spirits plummeted as the footprints disappeared onto the crudely paved asphalt.

Tom had seen paved sections of the trail before. What he had not seen was a small pumping station consisting of pipes and pressure valves attached to a pipe that paralleled the paved road. Were the North Vietnamese pumping fuel into the South through Laos? That was new.

That also meant maintenance crews.

You are going to need to get off this road ASAP, he thought.

It started to rain. He was going to lose them.

Keep going, or get off the trail and make your way back to Phu Bai to report on their direction of travel and turn what you know over to the intel shop.

You do that, and you seal Quinn and Hiep’s fate.

Tom was thankful that he had paused to evaluate the trail.

Had he been on the move, his heavy breathing and the squeaking of the rusted bike chain may have prevented him from hearing the rumble of vehicles approaching from the southwest, the noise from their engines blending with the ominous sounds of thunder.

Jumping from the saddle, he shouldered the bike and scrambled into the tree line just up a short embankment and disappeared into the jungle.

Moments later the convoy appeared. GAZ-63 Soviet-built cargo trucks.

The four-wheel-drive trucks were painted green and had wood sideboards that were also painted green.

They appeared to be empty and must have already dropped off their cargo deeper into Laos or South Vietnam.

They were taking advantage of the low cloud cover of the monsoon to travel during daylight hours, as they usually only traversed the roads at night to avoid detection.

Tom had read intelligence reports stating that the lead convoy drivers had the roads committed to memory, which allowed them to traverse the Trail under very little illumination.

Maybe they are traveling during the day because someone in Saigon is passing them intel and letting them know that there are no bombing missions scheduled for today.

Tom counted six trucks. The lead and trail vehicles had a driver and passenger, while the middle vehicles only had single drivers. He noted that there were no gun trucks for security.

They feel comfortable here.

Tom looked at the bike. At least it had gotten him this far. But if the NVA was using paved roads during daylight hours on his section of the trail, there could be more.

If it’s paved then maybe they are just using vehicles, and you will be able to hear them before you see them or, more importantly, they see you. With the bike you might not be able to get it off the road in time, but on foot, maybe you can use the roads and get off them when you hear a truck.

He left the bike in the jungle, hit the pavement, and started running north.