Page 73 of Cry Havoc (Tom Reece #1)

Laos

He turned his head to the left and looked inside the spacious compartment at the two American SF soldiers and eight Montagnards, then up toward the front where he could see the pilot’s and co-pilot’s feet in the raised cockpit.

Without his team, Tom was a straphanger on this op.

RT Idaho had volunteered to be the lead assault element.

Both the One-Zero, Robert J. “Spider” Parks, and the One-One, John Stryker “Tilt” Meyer, had operated with and respected Quinn.

They wanted to be the first team on the ground.

They had been joined by Mang and Tuan of RT Havoc.

In the three trailing helos were Doug “The Frenchman” LeTourneau, Pat Watkins, Lynne M.

Black Jr., John Plaster, Larry Trimble, Eldon Bargewell, Gene Pugh, and Dick Thompson along with their ’Yard teammates.

Jerry “Mad Dog” Shriver and Bob Howard had jumped in as well even though they had just returned from missions across the fence and were on stand-down.

No one wanted to be left out of a mission where the lives of American POWs were on the line.

Hours earlier, Tom had broken free from medical on a steady diet of penicillin.

He had six stitches in his arm, and his ribs were wrapped in an ACE bandage that didn’t seem like it did much.

An IV in the medical tent and a meal at the Green Beret Lounge, where he answered a constant stream of questions from his SOG brethren, had reinvigorated him.

His next stop had been supply followed by the armory.

Drawing gear and weapons helped keep his mind off Quinn.

Rucks, usually weighed down with a hundred pounds of gear, were left behind for this op. This was a quick in-and-out POW rescue mission, not a recon mission where they would expect to spend days on the ground without support. This was different. They needed to move fast.

The Kingbees out of Da Nang and Hueys out of Nha Trang landed at Phu Bai for a premission briefing just before dusk.

The Kingbee pilots wore distinctive black flight suits and baseball caps.

Leather belts and holsters with revolvers hung low on their thighs like gunslingers of the American West. Their American Air Force counterparts flying the Huey gunships wore green fatigues with Smith flying into Laos at night on an unauthorized POW rescue mission could end the careers of everyone involved.

Not one person blinked an eye. Most thought they were not making it home from ’Nam anyway, so rescuing American POWs was as good a way to go out as any.

He then turned the briefing over to Tom for a more detailed assessment of the mission objectives and tactical picture.

The Frogman used a hastily constructed sand table with beer cans as guard towers, web belts as fence lines, bottle caps as vehicles, and cigarette packs as hooches to walk the assault force through the target area.

Forty-millimeter rounds represented the known AA site, and smoke grenades represented suspected AA sites.

Next up were the RT One-Zeros, who talked through their actions on the objective for their specific teams.

A fake Prairie Fire Emergency would be called in when the helos were twenty minutes from the target.

Timing was essential. If a fast mover with napalm could not get to them for forty minutes, the helos would loiter for twenty minutes before continuing.

The idea was for the Huey gunships to be just behind the jets or Skyraiders that would blanket all four sides of the valley with napalm, taking out any hidden AA sites just before the gunships hit the guard towers.

Those Hueys would go into a pattern to provide close air support for the teams on the ground.

The Kingbees would then drop into the center of the compound and insert their assaulters before immediately moving off to loiter nearby where they would await the call for extract.

Following a round of questions, it was time for team gear inspections. They would launch just after midnight for a time on target, air cover dependent, of around 0200, when it was thought the camp would be at its least alert.

Before boarding the birds, every team member test-fired a single round into a fifty-five-gallon drum filled with sandbags at the edge of the helo pad and placed tape over their muzzles to prevent mud and dirt from obstructing the barrels.

Tom felt something drip onto his neck, bringing him back to the present. He reached back, his gloved fingers returning stained with drops of fluid from a hose above.

Good. The bird had not run dry.

Even at altitude screaming toward their target, Tom could smell the hydraulic fluid.

It mixed with the hot exhaust fumes emanating from the nine-cylinder radial engine in the odd-looking bulbous nose.

The crew carried cases of the pink liquid with them, knowing that if they fed the machine, she would get them home.

The crew chief leaned over and let Tom know they were twenty minutes from target.

The two Hueys leading them in banked to the left and radioed Colonel Backhaus that it was time to call in a Prairie Fire Emergency.

The helos circled for five minutes and then continued farther into Laos, the crew chief giving Tom a thumbs-up and a big smile that highlighted his missing teeth.

It was a go.

Tom turned and flashed a thumbs-up to Spider Parks in the compartment behind him. The One-Zero returned the hand signal.

Tom looked down. Just days prior, he was on the ground traversing the terrain over which he now flew.

He had failed Quinn. Failed his brother-in-arms.

He tried in vain to push visions of Quinn and the Soviet advisor from his mind.

Quinn against the tree. The disemboweling.

Use it as fuel, Tom.

From the door, he saw a shadow of a blacked-out Cessna O-2A Skymaster Covey aircraft pass by and wave its wings. Its job was to mark the one known AA site for the fast movers or AC-130 gunship overhead.

This just might work.

A few minutes later, the Kingbee popped up and rapidly gained altitude.

Here we go.

The night was abruptly illuminated as A-6 Intruders from the USS Kitty Hawk dropped their ordnance, the napalm lighting up the night. They were followed by the Huey gunships who obliterated the guard towers with their rockets and miniguns.

Hold on!

No matter how many times Tom had done it, the Falling Yellow Leaf maneuver never failed to convince him they were going to crash.

From altitude, the Kingbee pilot adjusted the aircraft so that the right-side door was facing the ground.

He then set the engine to idle and began a terrifying autorotation toward the target, spiraling down from the heavens.

It was the fastest way to put a team on the ground.

Tom was always astonished with how quiet it was, and by the fact that everyone didn’t tumble out the door—some principle of physics he supposed.

It was what he imagined it would be like to fly in a glider, but instead of floating on wings, the Kingbee corkscrewed downward.

Tom felt the wind in his face and wondered if they would actually crash this time.

At the last second, the Kingbee pilot revved the engine and flared into a landing.

Tom bailed out the door, his CAR-15 and an L-shaped green military flashlight in hand.

He took a knee as RT Idaho disembarked behind him, the helo quickly lifting off to make room for the second Kingbee.

The rotor wash threatened to blow them off their feet as they stood and broke into two groups, sprinting to their target building, the structure that had housed Hiep and the three other Americans.

RT Idaho carried axes, sledgehammers, and crowbars for mechanical breaching.

The door to their targeted hooch was open.

Tom entered first. He could hear the second helo taking off to make room for helo three as he burst through the door.

Fighting in the jungle was often done at close quarters, and every SOG operator was adept at point shooting from the hip. Tom entered the hooch and moved to the left, making room for the man behind him to go right. He thumbed the button of the flashlight, sweeping the room from left to right.

Six straw mats were arranged on the floor, three on each side of the hooch. They were empty.

Tom turned and ran to their secondary target building. Tilt beat him to the door. They entered with Tilt going left and Tom going right. Four straw mats were on the floor. A round table and three chairs were against the far wall. The vacant room smelled of pungent thuoc lao tobacco.

Tom looked at Tilt, who shook his head.

The SEAL rushed back outside and saw the other RTs moving to their secondary buildings and vacating with the same sullen looks. Empty.

They were too late.

Tom looked across the compound where the cargo trucks that he destroyed still rested, now just useless heaps of metal. As the other One-Zeros exited their buildings they looked to Tom and shook their heads.

Dry hole.

Hiep and the Americans had been moved.

You failed again, Tom.

He saw the RTs start to converge on a tree in the compound’s center. Before he saw it, he knew what it was. The Soviet advisor had left a message.

As Tom approached, he could hear the whispers and prayers of his SOG teammates.

A body was strapped to the tree. Barbed wire held it in place, running under the arms and across the chest. A pile of burnt intestines was on the ground nearby.

Tom swallowed and kept moving toward the body. His friend was missing his head.

The SEAL stood before what was left of his teammate.

Quinn’s head had been chopped off at the neck and stuffed inside his stomach cavity. The head rested there, face looking out, a face that had the eyes pecked out by birds. Parts of the lips and nose were missing, also gone to creatures of the jungle.

If any of the SOG operators said anything, Tom could not hear them.

An object was embedded in the tree where Quinn’s head used to be. It was a tomahawk; Quinn’s tomahawk, its blade tarnished with blood. Something dangled from its handle. A rosary. A rosary affixed with the Croix de Lorraine.