The Kit Carson Scout: The Special Forces Squad has been sent to Cambodia (Vietnam Ground Zero Military Thrillers Book 6) Read online

  For nearly an hour they jogged through the jungle. After only a few minutes at that pace, it felt as hot as the inside of a steam bath. Sweat poured from them, and their lungs screamed for oxygen, the pain in their chests almost unbearable. The men scrambled down the hillside, splashing across a small clear stream and leaving thick muddy stains in it. Finally they made it into dense jungle.

  They stopped, and Kincaid tried to arm the mechanical ambush. His hands were slippery with sweat. He rubbed them on his thighs, then continued to work on the grenades and claymores while Davis strung the trip wires and Parker kept a lookout for the enemy with the rest of the LRRPs.

  They finished quickly. The trip wires would jerk grenades with no pins from C-ration cans and explode in the center of the narrow weed-choked path. Others would fire claymore mines and rake the most likely hiding places with thousands of tiny steel balls. There were also a couple of special grenades with long-delay fuses that the VC might think were duds and put into their packs to use later. These grenades had chemical-fuse delays of an hour or more.

  Without a word to one another, they started running again until they reached the top of a hill that was only two miles from the Cambodian border. They stopped at the edge of the trees and looked out on a clearing sprinkled with stumps, dwarf bushes and other debris. Near them the jungle rose to nearly a hundred feet, but there was no sign that the VC or the NVA had ringed the clearing with bunkers as they sometimes did in South Vietnam.

  Kincaid took out the URC-10 UHF radio, extended the antenna and whispered, “Sidewinder, Sidewinder, this is Mamba.”

  There was a quiet crackle of static and then a voice said, “Mamba, this is Sidewinder. Authenticate.”

  “Sidewinder, I have whiskey, tango, tango, hotel, Yankee, uniform.”

  “Roger. Say message.”

  “Extraction. Code three-one-one-three. Immediate.”

  “Understood.”

  Kincaid collapsed the antenna and moved close to his two NCOs. “We’ll be extracted about dusk. Let’s spread out and see if anyone followed us.”

  Both men nodded and moved deeper into the jungle. The tiny force fanned out, looking for hiding places while they waited for dusk. Kincaid stopped at the edge of the clearing, settling into a shallow depression at the base of a huge flowering bush where he could watch part of the jungle and all of the clearing.

  The heavy beat of rotors told Kincaid that rescue was close. He extended the radio antenna and waited. There was a sudden scream of jet engines as two F-4 Phantoms buzzed the clearing, one of them passing so close that the heavy black smoke from the engines settled to the ground and the jet blast shook the trees.

  Both climbed suddenly to the west, broke around and came back. Far to the south, as the light was beginning to fade, Kincaid saw a C-130 orbiting. He figured it was probably still over South Vietnam and high enough to be out of effective range of small arms and 12.7mm machine guns. Kincaid wondered how far south those S-60s and ZSU-23s had gotten, and if they could get them back in time to throw some flak at the aircraft.

  Once again he was asked to authenticate and to give the condition of the LZ. Kincaid responded with the proper code and added, “The LZ is cold.”

  “Roger. Inbound. Will you throw smoke?”

  “I will throw smoke,” said Kincaid. He jerked the last smoke grenade from his pistol belt, pulled the pin and tossed the grenade into the clearing. A yellow cloud billowed upward, and Kincaid knew it would make a visible smudge against the darkening landscape.

  “ID yellow,” said the pilot.

  “Roger yellow,” said Kincaid. He collapsed the antenna and tucked the radio into a pocket. To Davis and Parker, he spoke in a stage whisper. “Chopper’s inbound. Let’s go.”

  The men moved to the edge of the clearing but remained hidden in the trees. They could just make out the helicopters, dark shapes in the rapidly blackening sky. Kincaid took his weapon off safe and listened to the jets as they circled the area, waiting for a chance to pounce on the enemy, searching the ground for a suitable target.

  As the helicopters crossed the last of the trees and began their final descent into the clearing, a landing light stabbed out, illuminating the ground momentarily, then was quickly extinguished. Kincaid leaped from the trees and jogged across the open field as the helicopter flared, the rotor wash hitting him like the wind from a dying hurricane.

  Davis and Parker followed their lieutenant, the rest of the LRRPs spread out behind them, watching for the enemy. As the chopper’s skids hit the dirt, there was a single burst of fire from a light machine gun. Green tracers flashed out of the jungle, some of them slamming into the side of a Huey like someone was banging on it with a ball-peen hammer. Return fire erupted from the door gun, and a three-foot-long tongue of flame licked at the jungle where the enemy was hidden, the ruby tracers disappearing into the blackness.

  Both jets peeled off, dived and then came back, their cannon raking the jungle in sustained bursts. From the south slope of the hill, .50-caliber machine guns returned fire, filling the sky with crisscrossing patterns of emerald tracers.

  Kincaid leaped into the cargo compartment of the helicopter as AKs opened up in the tree line. The muzzle-flashes looked like lightning bugs gone mad. He swung his own weapon around but held his fire.

  There was a piercing scream, and Davis went down, rolling to his back, one hand clawing at the sky. Parker skidded to a stop and ran back. He snatched at Davis’s hand and tried to jerk him to his feet. Another of the LRRPs grabbed at Davis, dragging him upright. The enemy firing increased. Green tracers bounced around them, some spinning into the sky. The door guns began to hammer steadily, the ruby tracers punching into the jungle, aimed at the muzzle-flashes.

  Kincaid dropped to the skid, felt a hand on his shirt and saw one of the crewmen grabbing him. The man jumped around Kincaid and ran to Parker and Davis as the enemy found their range. Suddenly the earth around them seemed to explode, and they all went down in a loose-boned fashion that suggested they were dead before they hit the ground.

  A bright flash partially lit up the trees, and a moment later a mortar round detonated in front of the chopper. The single burst brightened the ground for an instant. Kincaid heard the shrapnel rattling against the thin skin of the chopper’s fuselage.

  Two of the Vietnamese LRRPs fell. One got shakily to his feet, staggered two steps forward toward the helicopters and collapsed back into the scrub. Out of the corner of his eye, Kincaid saw another LRRP hit the ground. As he started to run toward the man, a VC, his face blackened by soot, raced from among the trees. He collided with Kincaid, knocking him down. Kincaid’s rifle was jarred loose from his hand, and as he scrambled around, trying to regain his feet, he grabbed at his knife.

  The VC was hunched over, his AK pointing at Kincaid’s stomach. Kincaid stepped inside the arc of the barrel, grabbed it and tried to jerk it from the enemy’s hand. The man held the weapon fast, swinging the butt around. Kincaid let go, ducked and came up with his knife. He thrust forward and felt the blade penetrate the soft skin of the man’s belly. The knife twisted in Kincaid’s hand as it encountered bone. The VC emitted a blood-curdling scream, his foul breath assaulting Kincaid’s nostrils. The enemy soldier dropped his weapon and grabbed at his belly, trying to hold himself together. There was a stench as the man’s bowels were ripped open.

  A burst of M-16 fire erupted to Kincaid’s right. Still hunched over the screaming man, he looked up to see three VC drop, riddled by one of the LRRPs. A moment later a machine gun began to yammer, filling the LZ with green tracers that ripped into the LRRP.

  Above the noise of firing and the popping of the rotor blades, Kincaid heard someone shout, “We’re pulling pitch. We’re getting out.”

  Kincaid spun, stood to grab his weapon and ran back to the helicopter, lighted in the strobelike flashes of the firing door gun. He stepped up on the skid and saw the last of the Americans fall in a hail of bullets. The crew chief was behind him, urging Kincaid t
o climb aboard. Kincaid could see the dark shapes that were the bodies of his men scattered in the LZ. He hesitated there, wondering if he should stay to help them — if he could help them.

  The crew chief hauled Kincaid into the chopper as the skids broke ground and they began a dash for tree cover. Kincaid twisted around so that he could look into the heart of the clearing where his men lay. The enemy’s tracers were streaking across the ground, some of them vanishing in the trees on the other side. Muzzle-flashes from enemy weapons winked among the trees. There were hundreds of flashes, as if a battalion of VC was scrambling up the hill toward the clearing. He saw a line of tracers climb into the sky, searching for the helicopters as they made their escape.

  The Phantoms rolled in again, this time using something heavier than their cannon. There was a sun-bright flash and then the rumble of an explosion as a small part of the jungle blew up and began to burn rapidly.

  Three more explosions followed, and all at once it seemed that the whole jungle was on fire. Hundreds of tracers climbed into the sky, filling it with a deadly green glow. Red ones lanced at the ground as the Phantoms tried to suppress the enemy fire, while the door guns of the choppers added to the assault against the VC.

  Kincaid heard someone open up right under them. He knew the rounds found the door gun because it suddenly stopped firing. Kincaid slid across the floor and looked into the crew chief’s well. The man lay against the gray soundproofing, his bloodstained hands on his groin. His eyes were tightly shut, and over the whine of the turbine and the popping of the rotors he could hear the man screaming, “My nuts. My nuts.”

  Kincaid pulled the first-aid kit from the fuselage, ripped it open and then tried to force the crew chief’s hands out of the way. As he got one free, there was a spray of blood that covered the man’s thighs and stained the soundproofing black in the fading light.

  “Sweet Jesus,” said Kincaid. He turned his head and felt his stomach convulse several times, but he didn’t throw up. When he stopped dry-retching, he looked at the man’s face. It had taken on a strange, waxy look, reflecting the red of the navigation light on that side of the chopper, and only the whites of the eyes were showing. Again Kincaid tried to move the hands so that he could bandage the wound. This time there was no spray of blood and no resistance. The man had bled to death, the blood flowing along the floor and out the door to be blown back along the tail boom.

  For a moment Kincaid stared at the dead man. It was the first American he had seen die at close range, almost in his arms. It wasn’t like seeing his men drop fifteen or twenty feet away, or like sticking his combat knife into the body of the enemy soldier. This was the messy death caused by multiple gunshot wounds that found their way under the chicken plate that was supposed to protect the man.

  He crawled forward to the copilot, who had turned in his seat to look at the body of the crew chief. Kincaid followed the gaze. He then looked out the door but could no longer see the Phantoms or hear any firing. In front of him, through the windshield of the aircraft, the twinkling lights of an American base camp appeared.

  He stared at his blood-covered hands and tried to wipe them on the front of his fatigue jacket. Someone touched his shoulder, and Kincaid turned back to face the copilot.

  “Are you hit?” the man shouted.

  Kincaid stared into his face, feeling dumb. The question seemed to make no sense to him, and then he realized what he was being asked. “No. No, I’m not hit,” he said, quietly at first and then shouting over the noise in the chopper. He shook his head. “I’m not hit, but the crew chief is dead.”

  “We’re going to land at the hospital at Chu Chi,” the copilot shouted. His face was drained of color.

  “I have to get to Saigon,” said Kincaid. To his own ears it sounded like a boy whining for his mother, but he repeated it. “I have to go to Saigon.”

  “Yes, sir. But we have to land at Chu Chi first. I’m hit. It won’t take long. Then we’ll go to Saigon.”

  “Okay,” said Kincaid. “Fine.” He sat down on the floor and looked out of the cargo compartment door. He had left his team in the field. Left his two sergeants, a PFC who had been in Vietnam for only a month and all the Vietnamese, one of whom had just saved his life. They were dead, he was sure, but he had left them nonetheless. He had done his best to try to help them, to get them to the choppers, but they hadn’t made it. He hoped to hell that the information was worth the cost. He realized that he would never know how important Saigon thought it was. The disastrous end of the mission was just something that he would have to live with.

  CHAPTER 2

  U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES CAMP A-555,

  SOUTH OF THE PARROT’S BEAK, RVN

  Tired almost to the point of exhaustion, U.S. Army Special Forces Captain MacKenzie K. Gerber slowly entered the plywood-and-tin structure that served as his quarters and office. One of the first things he noticed was a pile of mail sitting on his desk. He set his M-14 in a corner of the hootch, glanced at the official mail and then sat on the metal cot. He sighed resignedly as he shifted his buttocks on the inch-thick mattress that was covered by a camouflaged poncho liner. Nothing seemed to be going right, he thought, as he pulled off his boots, which were covered with red mud and black peta-prime, and dropped them on the dirty floor.

  Gerber reflected on the activities of the past night. It had been a long and trying one. The events of the past few hours seemed to have conspired against him. First there had been a patrol with the ARVN just outside the wire in an ambush that had been more of a training mission than a combat operation. The men had never been in the field at night, and they’d been armed with weapons that they had only had for two weeks. Gerber scowled as he thought of the drizzle that sometimes changed to a downpour, soaking everyone and everything. The results had been less than spectacular. One man had been hurt when he’d slipped in the mud and fallen on the stock of his weapon, cracking a couple of ribs. Another had been injured by a punji stake, and then had had to be evaced when it had been discovered that the VC had dipped the punji stakes in excrement. And a third had decided that being in the field, away from the camp, meant it was time to go AWOL.

  Gerber unhooked his pistol belt and let it fall to the floor. He rubbed at his face with both hands, feeling the stubble that suggested he should shave, but he wasn’t sure he could find the energy. He shivered in his wet fatigues and wondered if he was coming down with something. But the clouds had scattered near dawn, and the day was shaping up to be hot and humid.

  Forcing himself off the cot, he padded in his stocking feet over to a metal folding chair behind the tiny combat desk that could collapse to form a two-foot cube. When unfolded, it housed an unstable collection of drawers and shelves that was painted a hideous green. He opened the bottom drawer and reached for his ever-present bottle of Beam’s Choice, pulled the cap and took a deep drink. He felt the liquor burn its way into his stomach and pool there as liquid fire. He shivered once and then picked up the handful of mail.

  It was as he had suspected. Most of it was official. New directives about the operation of the camp, reports on the supply problems, a field maintenance directive about jamming problems with the new M-16, a request for an accounting of the ammunition being used, to be broken down into rounds used for training and rounds used in combat situations, and a warning about a possible Montagnard revolt.

  Gerber flipped through the pile quickly and then stopped when he came to an envelope with familiar handwriting. He immediately recognized the light blue ink and neat, feminine hand. It was a handwriting that he had expected never to see again. Maybe hoped never to see again.

  He felt a chill along his spine and a cold knot in his stomach. There was no name attached to the return address, but Gerber knew who it was from anyway. He laid it on the desk, then glanced at his metal wall locker, which stood open across from him. His gaze fell on the jungle fatigues, washed and pressed by one of the Vietnamese women. He looked at the ceiling fan that rotated slowly over his hea
d and then at the plywood walls that ended four feet from the floor. The rest of the hootch was enclosed in screen that theoretically kept the insects out and let the cool breeze in, except that the insects got in the door or through holes in the screen and there were never any cool breezes.

  Gerber realized he was being childish. He’d seen the hootch and its contents a hundred times. Why the sudden interest? Then it came to him. He was reluctant to open the letter. He picked it up, jammed it into the side pocket of his fatigue shirt, went to his wall locker for an unopened bottle of Beam’s and then hurried off in search of Master Sergeant Anthony B. Fetterman.

  Gerber found Fetterman in the Tai area nearest the gate, surrounded by a group of fifteen men. All wore U.S. Army issue fatigue shirts, black shorts that might have been VC issue and black combat boots. All held one of the new M-16 rifles. Fetterman, a small man himself, was barely taller than the strikers in the Vietnamese and Tai companies. He had black hair and a dark complexion, like many of the men sitting around him, but his face was Occidental. His cheeks were nearly blue; it was one of the rare instances when he needed a shave. And his eyes were definitely not Oriental, but a sort of blue-black, and they were as cold as the steel of a brand-new pistol.

  Fetterman had been with Gerber in the field all night, but his uniform looked fresh except for the sweat stains under the arms and down the back. Somehow he had managed to remain dry. His boots were recently polished and shined, the mud and peta-prime scraped from them. If he had taken time to shave, it would have seemed that Fetterman had stayed in the camp while Gerber had been falling in the mud on the other side of the wire.

  Gerber stood on the edge of the group, feeling dirty and uncomfortable, the sweat standing on his face and trickling down his sides. He glanced at the mud-stained front of his uniform and thought that he should have changed before venturing out into the camp.