CHAPTER SIX
Vietnam
July 30, 1968
"What is that thing?" Boston yelled over the sound of the chopper blades.
Face glanced up, and smiled as he held up the oddly shaped pistol. "It's called a Gyrojet," he answered. "Fires a 13mm mini rocket at 13-hundred feet per second. Neat, huh?"
Hannibal raised a brow. "Where'd you get it?" he asked.
Face gave him a smile, but before he could answer, the unfamiliar pilot's voice came through the intercom. "Hey guys, check out the pretty lights."
They all turned, staring out the side of the Huey as the chopper swung around and gave them a clear view. On the horizon, beneath the formations of the B-52 bombers, the jungle was in flames. Face sighed, his mood instantly soured by the reminder of what his first official mission with this new team entailed. Bombing Damage Assessment was quite often a useless waste of time. Not only that, it was a good way to get a whole team massacred in one go. He'd only experienced one BDA firsthand, and that had been more than enough. The number of horror stories he'd heard - all of them much worse than his own firsthand account - had been sufficient to convince him he never wanted to do another.
Focusing his attention on the dying fires as they approached the area hardest hit by the bombs, he tried to steel himself. The craters were deep and still smoldering. Trees on the outskirts of the damaged area were still burning. The earth was shredded, loose clay in waves that had rippled out from the bombs, the ridges overlapping each other. What could possibly have survived that?
Of course, he knew chances were pretty good that a shitload of very pissed off enemy soldiers had survived that. Although it seemed the concussions would have caused cave-ins enough to bury the entire underground structure, it was amazing how many of them seemed to wait out these bombings in those hand-dug tunnels. What creation by human hands could possibly stand up to a 500-pound bomb? Or two thousandof them… But they did. And they would come swarming out of those tunnels like termites from a damaged mound just as soon as they had a target on which to direct their anger. BDA teams were sitting ducks out there, all for the chance to wander around and confirm, "Yep, we bombed the ever-loving shit out of this spot of land."
Face fucking hated BDA…
"Circle around, will you, Prost?" Hannibal called through the intercom.
"I'll have to anyways; the LZ's on the other side." The pilot paused. "Unless you just wanna bail out right in the middle of all that."
Face gave a lingering, wary glance at Prost, then moved to the edge of the chopper and sat with his feet down on the skid, surveying the damage. Twenty minutes later, the team of four Americans and eight Vietnamese soldiers set down in the LZ, near Laotian Highway 96. Without a word, they moved quickly away from the chopper as it took off again. Face didn't watch it go. For the pilot, it was routine - easier than normal, actually. The enemy was neither interested nor prepared to deal with the helicopter. Not after all this. But they would sure as hell be interested in the team that the helicopter dropped off.
It took five minutes.
They'd barely gone a hundred yards from the LZ when the first shots rang out, and they all hit the dirt as they realized that they were being rushed by an entire company running hell bent for leather over the badly damaged terrain. "Fight it out!" Hannibal yelled.
It was suicide - the exact sort of thing that made previous teams question Hannibal's sanity. Nevertheless, within seconds, they were returning fire.
Over the sound of the rattling guns, Hannibal shouted orders. "Face, you three, go left! Boston, take those three right! Flank them on either side! Cipher with me!"
Still firing in short, three second bursts, Face moved. He could still hear Hannibal's voice, carrying over the cries of wounded men and firing guns. "Move in! Move in!"
As they pressed in, the enemy gradually began to fall back. Just a few feet to Face's left, one of the Vietnamese allies was torn to shreds by incoming fire. Gritting his teeth, Face ducked his head behind the ridge in the loose earth. The enemy had a fix on their position.
Grenades. He pulled the pin, gave a quick glance back to gauge the distance, then lobbed it as hard as he could in their direction. He couldn't hear Hannibal anymore. He could only guess that the orders had not changed. After another grenade, he reloaded his CAR-15, then turned and opened fire again.
There was a wounded ally out there in the midst of the bloody bodies. Face saw him immediately, and saw the man lying beside him, too. They were both Vietnamese, but they were in American uniforms. And they were alive, struggling to crawl back the way they'd come. Back to where Hannibal was no doubt still trying to advance. He wouldn't be able to go much further before he was nose-to-nose with them. They weren't falling back anymore, although their numbers were drastically diminishing.
Still, those men were dead without someone to retrieve them. Face didn't even think about it. He just moved. Firing with his right arm, he pulled a tape-covered grenade pin with his teeth and threw with his left. It startled the enemy, just for a second. A second's time was all he needed. He used his free arm to lift the man, threw him over his shoulder, and turned back. He barely had time to see the second wave of enemy soldiers running at him - reinforcements.
He dropped the bleeding, wounded man on the ground without thought and hit the dirt as the first bullets whizzed past. Another grenade, and he cut down the front lines of their ranks with bullets. He'd almost forgotten about the Gyrojet pistol until he realized he was running out of ammunition. He hoped to God that an extraction was on the way. Their chopper couldn't have gotten far. But they would still have to make it back to an LZ. No way it could land in the middle of this. No way a pilot would even try.
More NVA were flooding from the trees. Desperately outnumbered and out in the open, Face had a choice to either leave the man and scramble for safety or to stay there and die. The tiny rockets from the Gyrojet smashed into the chests of the enemy soldiers like .50-caliber machine gun slugs. Through the ringing that echoed in his ears, he could hear planes overhead. He looked up, and his eyes widened. They were dropping more bombs.
"Fuck!"
He grabbed the arm of the man he'd managed to retrieve, still shooting at the enemy with his other hand, and dragged him through the mud. The enemy's attention was diverted slightly by the whistling sound overhead, and Face threw himself and the wounded soldier into one of the craters as the first bombs hit no more than thirty feet away. The ground shook violently as the heat and flames whooshed outward from the impact. Face was still rolling down the side of the crater when it hit, and by the time he came to a stop - lying on his back with his gun across his chest - he could hear the screams.
For a moment, he just lay still, dazed. But only for a moment. Then, with a vicious determination, he jerked himself back up to his feet and looked around for the wounded man he'd gone out to retrieve. He was there, covered in mud, wide-eyed and bloody - but breathing.
Taking a moment to reload - he was officially low on ammo now - Face then bent down to hoist the man up, throwing him again over his shoulder. The ground quaked with every hit from the air strike. Twice, he fell before he saw Boston.
"You okay?" Boston yelled in a way that made it clear he was just as saturated with adrenaline as Face was.
"I'm fine." Was he fine? He had no idea. He knew there was no way he'd be able to feel pain right now. "Why the fuck are they bombing?"
Boston ignored him. He took the man, and Face stumbled on ahead to the bloody scene on the ridge where Hannibal was posted. The falling bombs had scattered the enemy, and he only had a few stray rounds to dodge on his way to the hill. For just an instant when he reached it, he felt a flash of panic until he saw Hannibal. Then he saw Cipher. They were both alive. They were also both very busy, trying to keep an allied Vietnamese from bleeding to death. Face dropped to the ground beside them and took over for Hannibal, pressing his hands into the bloody wound. The man's thighs and groin were shredded.
"What the hell happened?" Face demanded as Hannibal hastily wrapped the man's legs as tightly as he could.
"RPG," Hannibal answered quickly. "Cipher got hit, too."
Face turned and saw that Cipher was indeed bleeding from his back - though the wound was nothing compared to the amount of blood pouring from the man on the ground. Face could feel it pump every time the soldier's heart beat, spilling out onto his hands - hot and sticky.
"We gotta get out of here." Face could hear the tension in his own voice - a sound that might have been panic if he had been anyone else.
"I called the strike," Hannibal said, between gasped breaths, "and an extraction. But we gotta make it back to the LZ."
Hannibal finished with the left leg, and Face jumped back as he switched to the other side. The bandages wouldn't stop the bleeding. The one he'd just finished wrapping was already soaked. But without the pressure, the man would surely bleed out within minutes. Face crawled back towards Cipher and Boston - who were both huddled over the radio. The man Face had dragged to safety was lying still on the ground - unconscious or dead, Face couldn't be sure.
"We're going to try and make it back to the LZ?" Face yelled over the sound of the screams and explosions.
"No!" Cipher shouted back as Boston screamed coordinates into the radio. "FAC says he won't call an extraction here!"
"What!" Face cried, alarmed.
"Boston is talking direct to Prost!"
Face's heart sank. He was never happy to learn that their lives were contingent on a dangerous extraction, and the willingness of a pilot to pull it off. Few chopper pilots would risk an extraction in a place like this. Especially if the FAC was in their ears telling them it was too hot.
They were screwed.
Boston looked up suddenly. "Pop smoke!"
Without thought, Face sent up a cloud of WP smoke. Seconds later, he could hear the chopper blades, and he scanned to see the Huey returning, escorted by two gunships.
The ground was too damaged to land. The chopper hovered, ignoring the rounds from the soldiers who'd not been cut down by the B-52s. They had RPGs - the pilot had to know it - but he stayed steady as the crew chief dropped a woven ladder out of the side of the chopper. Face knelt to pick up the wounded - dead? - Vietnamese as he shouldered his weapon, leaving Boston to carry the one Hannibal was still trying to patch up.
Face went up first. Four other Vietnamese - two of them wounded but still walking - pulled themselves into the chopper. Then Boston with the badly wounded man, and Cipher, and finally Hannibal. "Go! Go!" Face yelled as Hannibal climbed in and Cipher dropped, face down on the floor. Suddenly, Face realized how much blood he was losing.
"What the hell happened down there?" Prost yelled.
He was ignored.
Dropping to his knees beside Cipher in the cramped space, Face grabbed him roughly by the shirt. "Get up!" he shouted. "Now!"
He didn't wait for compliance. Still drugged with adrenaline, he stood and jerked the man up, onto his knees. Face could tell by the look in his eyes that he was disoriented. Without thought, Face shrugged the gun off of his shoulder and set it down, then grabbed Cipher's shirt on either side of the buttons and pulled hard. It split. "Boston! Give me a hand!"
With shaking hands, they pushed his shirt back and turned him to look at the wound. His flesh was mangled from his left shoulder to the bottom of his right ribcage, and it was pouring blood. "Hannibal!"
"Busy!"
"Get over here!" Face ordered, with no regard for rank. "Now!"
Hearing the urgency, Hannibal stumbled through the crowded cargo area of the Huey. His eyes widened as he saw the bloody mess on Cipher's back. Bending down, he grabbed the blood-soaked shirt that they'd stripped from him, thrusting it into Face's hands. "Put him face down and get pressure on it," he ordered quickly. "Try to stop the bleeding, keep him conscious. Prost!"
"Yeah?" the pilot called back.
"What's the nearest field hospital?"
It took him only a few precious seconds to answer. "Uh... LZ Evans."
"You got enough fuel to make it there?" Face demanded, taking over the shirt from Hannibal. He held it hard against the blood and mashed flesh on the man's back.
"Yeah, I should," Prost confirmed. "You want me to change course?"
"Yes," Hannibal snapped. "And step on it."
Fort Bragg
December 25, 1971
It was always the "solitary" part of solitary confinement that got to BA. This wasn't his first time in a cell, locked up safe in a tiny little room with nothing but his racing thoughts to keep him company. He didn't like where those thoughts took him. Over the past few months - years, maybe - the silence was always filled with memories and soaked with fear. He never felt it on the battlefield the way he felt it here, locked up and unable to move. The walls closed in and the silence made it hard to breathe. His memories would be the death of him.
Without thought, he rolled his shoulders and felt the scar tissue pull. He'd thought for sure he was a dead man when he took that bullet. They all had those scars - the ones that should've killed them. The ones he couldn't see were worse than the ones he could. Those were the ones that still stalked him, hiding in his dreams, threatening to cut his throat while he slept. He had no idea how many people he'd killed - and not just men. A soldier expected to kill men in a war. Killing women was another matter, and some of those soldiers hadn't qualified as any more than children. Haunted by their ghosts, he stared at the cement floor under his feet and wished for a window in this claustrophobic room.
The snow was falling outside, he was pretty sure. If he'd managed to count the days right, it was Christmas. Mama would have a tree - a fake one, since he hadn't been there to drive out into the country and cut her a real one. She'd probably be used to a fake tree by now. He hadn't been home for a long time. But it would still be decorated with all the ornaments she'd collected for him over the years. It would sparkle and glimmer with twinkling lights and memories of the good years and the bad. She'd sit on the sofa and drink hot chocolate - maybe she'd even leave one out for him, just as a symbolic reminder - and think about those memories instead of talking about them. She had no one to talk to either. He wondered if she'd spent all these years as lonely and trapped as he felt right now. There was no measure of guilt - not over the Hanoi bank job, the dead VC, or anything else he'd done over the years - that could compare to the thought of condemning his mother to that.
It was strange being here, knowing that on the other side of the brick walls, it was a white Christmas. He'd seen neither snow nor Christmas since he'd first set foot in Vietnam. Most of the people he'd known over the past few years were still over there, in a world with no Christmas. At least, that's where the few who survived would be. The others were either dead or locked up here with him. Where was Hannibal anyways? How long would it be before he saw someone he knew again? Surely they couldn't expect to keep them separate forever. Maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe they just thought that now, there was no need to keep the team together. When this was over, were they all supposed to take their discharge papers back to their families? BA wasn't even sure Hannibal and Face had families to go back to. And even though he knew Mama would welcome him back with open arms, he was pretty sure he didn't want to go anywhere near her until he was back to normal - whatever that looked like now.
But as soon as he thought it, he knew how ridiculous that thought was. Things would never be normal again. Not in his head. Every time it got quiet, he would remember the sound of the monsoon rain on the roof. He'd remember the weight of wet fatigues, and what it felt like to carry a dead or dying ally. Most of all, every time he moved his arm, he'd feel that scar pull. They were all changed forever, and those scars would never go away.
Vietnam
August 2, 1968
The rain on the tin roof was deafening. How could anyone sleep through that racket? Yet most of Camp Evans was dead asleep. Boston was keeping watch over Cipher while Hannibal tried to get a few hours of shuteye. But instead of sleeping, Hannibal found himself absently watching as Face cleaned his CAR-15 by the light of a small kerosene lantern. His thoughts wandered as he blinked slowly, one arm curled under his head and the other tucked around his own weapon, pressed against his chest on the small cot.
If not for the torrential downpour clanging on the roof above him, the atmosphere would have been perfect for sleeping. The rain cooled things slightly - not by much, but enough to make the night bearable. Hannibal was exhausted from his vigil over his injured sergeant, and there were only so many hours before dawn. But still, he couldn't sleep.
"Hey, Hannibal?" Face suddenly asked without looking up.
Hannibal closed his eyes, debating whether or not to answer. Face knew he was awake. There was no getting around that. But whether or not he wanted to talk was still a matter that had yet to be determined. Finally, with a sigh, he opened his eyes again. "Yeah, kid?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
Uh oh.
"You can ask..."
The implication - that asking didn't necessarily mean he'd get an answer - made the young sergeant chuckle. As he snapped his gun back together, Hannibal watched him out of the corner of his eye. "What did you do before this?"
"Before what?"
"Before Vietnam." Face set the gun on the floor beside his bed - well within reach - and pulled his legs up onto the bunk, Indian-style.
"I was in Korea."
"No, I mean right before this," Face clarified. "Where were you before SOG?"
Hannibal sighed and turned onto his back, staring up at the bunk above him. "I was always with SOG."
"Uh huh." Face's voice rang with skepticism. "But SOG as an entity wasn't formed until January of '64. Before that, it was an Agency operation, not a military one. So unless your entire military career led you to work for a civilian government agency..."
Hannibal sighed audibly, and closed his eyes for a moment, not sure what the kid was scrounging for. Face's reputation preceded him - he was good at mind games. Hannibal couldn't make himself forget the way Face had handled him the very first time they spoke - withholding information until he had everything he wanted out of the conversation. Although Hannibal didn't find it offensive or threatening, it did tell him a lot about the kind of person that the kid was. Face played his cards close to his chest. And knowing that made Hannibal inclined to play much the same way. Hannibal knew that game too.
Hannibal could feel his eyes on him and after a long moment, he finally turned his head to meet his gaze. Face didn't look away. "The way you are out there," Face finally said, quietly. "You're different from any other One-Zero. I can't say why, but it just feels different."
With a grin, Hannibal rested his head back again and closed his eyes, offering nothing. The kid didn't hesitate on his orders to rush the enemy, and certain death. Hannibal wondered if it was because he had a suicide wish or because he trusted his One-Zero's instincts. Either way, it didn't make much of a difference. But the fact that he was clearly thinking about it after the fact put the odds against the suicide wish.
"Everyone knows it - including you," Face continued. "So don't act like you're surprised to hear me say it."
"I'm not surprised," Hannibal responded.
"I've been on thirteen drops - not including the one with you - and already people were looking at me like 'why aren't you dead yet?' How many drops have you done? Twenty? Twenty-five?"
Hannibal didn't answer. He didn't even keep track anymore.
"You take insane risks," Face went on when he didn't get a response. He wasn't going to give up so easily. "There's no way we should've lived through that today."
"But we did," Hannibal pointed out.
"You always do," Face continued, unflinching. "So is that luck? Or do you know something we don't?"
The cryptic accusation caused Hannibal to raise a brow. "What do you mean?"
"It's like you knowhow Charlie is going to react," Face explained. "You've got the playing field memorized and you know how the enemy is going to use it. You second guess them, and when you do, you're right. That's something other guys can't do. I can't do it."
"You said yourself, I've had a lot of drops," Hannibal answered dismissively. "You learn things."
"Yeah, that's not good enough," Face replied. Hannibal smiled to himself. The kid knew how to fight for the answers he wanted, that was for damn sure. "What did you do before SOG? How long have you really been doing this?"
Hannibal sighed. His past was highly classified, but Face's level of clearance was just as high as his own. And, need-to-know or not, maybe the kid deserved an answer. After all, he was the one counting on Hannibal's expertise to make the right call in life and death situations.
"Way back in the 1950s," Hannibal finally started, "we sent men over to help the French. Then the French pulled out on us. Left us holding the bag."
"I'm familiar with the history," Face said coolly.
"Are you also aware that we were operating in Laos and Cambodia before we were ever in Vietnam?"
Face didn't flinch, but he didn't confirm either. He hadn't known that part. Hannibal sighed as he relaxed back again, staring up at the bunk over his head for a long moment before he closed his eyes and breathed deep. "They were known as the Out-There-Boys, because once they left the US, they were just 'out there' on Temporary Duty Yonder. Nobody knew where."
He paused for a long moment, closed his eyes, breathed deep. The memories flooded back, unbidden. "Imagine a recon drop that lasts six months at a time, Sergeant," he whispered. "Six months, not five days." He glanced over at Face, and saw him imagining it. "You live in the trees. You kill and eat whatever you have - snakes, bugs, birds. You starve if you don't. You have nothing - your weapons run dry, you kill for new ones. Boots wear out, you take a new pair off of a dead enemy soldier." He sighed as he closed his eyes again, turning his head away. "You're always wet. Always. This monsoon rain starts and you won't be dry for months. Talk to Covey every night. It's the only contact with the outside world you have. For months. And months."
"What were you doing out there?" Face asked.
"Everything SOG does now." Hannibal paused. "Originally, we were supposed to be stopping arms shipments out of Russia and China. But once the US officially showed up in the area, we ended up doing everything - POW rescues, NVA Snatches, Bright Light... Just out there with a handful of Yards." His mind wandered, and he smiled faintly. "You got to know the Yards. Got to trust them. I'd take one of them over an ARVN soldier any day."
Face nodded slowly. "Did you ever come into Vietnam?"
"I was in Vietnam once before '64. It was back when we..." He trailed off, and shook his head. "They sent me to raid a whorehouse. Kill the VC women." Very slowly, he turned his head. "You ever shoot a woman, Face? Look her in the eyes and pull the trigger? Blow her fucking head off right there?"
"Not yet," Face answered flatly.
Hannibal swallowed hard and nodded, pushing the memory back into the blackness where it belonged. "When I signed on," he continued quietly, "I took six kids straight outta jungle warfare school in Venezuela. Kids - like you. I watched them die, one by one. And a whole lot of Yards. We didn't have a designation, a unit. We didn't have a clear chain of command. Just the Out-There-Boys."
"What about your CO?" Face asked. "Where was he from?"
"My CO flew overhead in a B-52 every night. I never knew his name. I never knew his rank. I never knew a damn thing about him except that he was the only contact I had with anyone out there."
"Who did you report to? Ultimately?"
"General Westman."
"All of you?" Face asked, surprised. "Directly to him?"
"We reported to Covey," Hannibal corrected. "I knew Westman from before the war. I asked for the assignment, and I reported to him when it was over."
A slight, disbelieving laugh escaped Face. "You asked for that?"
"Yeah," Hannibal muttered. He sighed deeply as he turned and cradled his weapon again. "You're right that SOG has its official beginnings in the Agency. They were sending teams - Ares, Atlas, Castor -"
"I've heard of them," Face interrupted, not wanting to get off on a tangent.
"But by the time the Agency got involved, they were sending those teams into North Vietnam. That was well after we were operating. Our teams - the Out-There-Boys - were Westman's idea, along with General Wes Corbin, who retired in 65 and ate a bullet three days later."
Face shook his head slowly. "Jesus..."
"The two of them took the hundred or so of us, gave us a bunch of Yards, and dropped us in fucking Laos. And then they got caught. By Kennedy."
Blinking in shock, Face took a moment to respond. "You mean they didn't get it approved?"
"No," Hannibal replied. "And we knew it. They were as up front with us as they were with you when they looked you in the eye and said 'give me your dog tags.'"
Face smiled knowingly at the memory."So what happened?" he asked. "I would think that getting caught with something like that would've been enough to get both of them into some pretty hot water."
"Well, to Westman's benefit, it was 1961," Hannibal explained, "and neither Laos nor Cambodia had declared their neutrality at that time. He sold the idea of SOG to the President - to the Pentagon - and introduced the concept of Special Forces as we know it. While I was in the jungle in Laos, they were forming a school at Fort Bragg. Westman pulled me out in '64 and showed me what they'd come up with for SOG. He wanted me and the rest of the Out-There-Boys who were still alive to work with some British Special Forces guys and break them in." He paused. "Did you ever wonder who taught the first SOG units, Face? The very first One-Zeroes?"
"I had instructors all the way back from WWII," he replied.
"Did they teach you the real important stuff?" Hannibal challenged. "To keep a machete over your spine? How to wrap your grenades in tape? When leave a body behind?"
"No," Face admitted. "You learn that by experience."
"From your One-Zero," Hannibal clarified. "Who learned it from his."
Face didn't respond or press for any more. After a long moment of silence, Hannibal finally opened his eyes to study the younger man. "I've been in the jungle a long time, Face," he whispered. "A long time. Sometimes I'm not sure what I'll do when this war is finally over. Because I can't go back home. This place has made a killer out of me." He shut his eyes again, and took a deep, slow breath, pushing the memories back down into the safe places where he couldn't feel them and didn't have to acknowledge them. There was so much blood on his hands…
For a long moment, Face was quiet. Finally, the kid nodded and lowered his head. "Yeah," he said quietly, seriously. "Yeah, I know that feeling."
Hannibal breathed deeply, and realized the lightheaded, disoriented feeling that warned him he was close to sleep. As the rain continued to pound the tin roof, he felt himself slipping away.
"Hannibal?"
He opened his eyes, but didn't bother to bring himself back to full, conscious awareness. He was tired. It was time to sleep.
"Thank you."
He smiled faintly, and closed his eyes again. "Get some rest, kid," he whispered. "As soon as Cipher's healed up, we'll be moving again."