Not a good idea. It was superbly camouflaged, sure, but it wasn’t undefended. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, to the tiny variations of green, some natural, some man-made, he saw them. Four machine gun posts, one on each corner, north, south, east, and west. Anyone who failed to spot them would walk into a storm of enemy bullets. Three aircraft were parked at the edge, two MiG 15 interceptors and an ancient Soviet-designed biplane, an Antonov An-2. A good sign. It meant the hidden camp could be close. If Quan was here, this was the kind of aircraft they’d have used to spirit a high-ranking prisoner, a VIP, away from South Vietnam and into the North.

  He almost missed her, but at the last moment, he saw Vien rushing toward the airfield. She hadn’t noticed the guns, and he sprinted after her and brought her down with a football tackle. She fought back against the sudden attack, hooked her fingers into claws, and went for his face with her nails.

  “Vien, it’s me,” he hissed, “For Chrissake, cut it out.”

  “What do you think you’re doing!”

  “Saving your ass.”

  She calmed down and stopped fighting, which gave him a chance to point out the machine guns. “I hadn’t noticed. I want to look at the plane. I’ve always wanted to fly one.”

  “I doubt they’d be willing to give you permission. You could try them, but you’re more likely to get a bullet in the head.”

  “You’re right, but I’d still like to have got closer for a look.”

  “If I were you, I’d take a rain check.”

  They rejoined the Team and skirted the airfield, finding another well-trodden path that led through the trees. It was still well-trodden, and they had to duck into the bushes to avoid a patrol. After the airstrike, it looked like the Viets were getting a tad tetchy. Like they suspected something might be going on. They waited for the eight soldiers to walk past, gave them ten minutes to make sure they’d gone, and emerged back out on the path. Several minutes later, they had to duck into cover again when they heard more soldiers approaching. Once again, they gave them time to get clear before they emerged. Only to have a narrow escape when they almost ran into yet more soldiers.

  While they crouched in the bushes, McGuigan opined there was no way through. “For fuck’s sake, they’ve got half the North Vietnamese army camped out around here.”

  “Probably to guard the camp,” Heller pointed out, “It must mean we’re close, very close.”

  He snorted. “Sure, close to getting killed. Face it, we’re not gonna get past them. Not in a million years.”

  “There has to be a way,” Vien said urgently, “My husband could be there. We must get to him.”

  McGuigan sneered. “You want to see him, just walk up to a patrol with your hands in the air. Tell them you surrender, and they’ll take you to join him.”

  “He’s right.” They looked at Cruz, and he looked like shit, as if there was nothing left to live for. His olive skin had turned a pasty color, and his eyes were narrowed through yellowed eyelids, “We’ve come as far as we can get, and there’s no way we can make any further. We don’t have any choice. We have to abort.”

  “No!” Vien wailed. “Dao, tell them, there has to be a way.”

  He pursed his lips, thinking. “Well, we could perhaps make it through the trees. I don’t mean on the ground, but they appear to be close enough we could swing from one to the next. It might work…” His voice faded. He didn’t believe it any more than they did, “The only one way through is over the top, under the ground, or straight through the middle.”

  She brightened. “Over the top, we could use the aircraft. I could take off and…”

  “And land where? The camp will be beneath dense jungle. What were you thinking, we could parachute in?”

  She flushed. “No.”

  For the first time, Heller’s optimism began to fade. If Dao was right, and he had no reason to disbelieve him, they were led by an officer with an out-of-control coke habit. He was doubtful about the reliability of his men, McGuigan and Lynch. He wondered how Cruz was getting his coke. Had he brought it with him, or was one of the men supplying it? If so, he doubted he’d find out who it was. Assuming it wasn’t Ripley, Collins, or Akulov, the most he could rely on was half the Team. Maybe Dao, who hadn’t given any sign he couldn’t be trusted, which could be said for Vien. Desperate to find her husband, and he couldn’t blame her for that. Except she was liable to do something stupid and get them all killed.

  What would a sensible man do, and where would he go? The answer was obvious. They’d come this far, and they had to be within spitting distance of the camp. Yet the enemy had surrounded it with a ring of steel, so they couldn’t get any further. The answer was to abort, and almost as he had that thought and dismissed it, Cruz said, “We have to abort.”

  “Too right,” McGuigan and Lynch grunted agreement.

  They were staring at him, waiting for him to agree. He said nothing, he was thinking. Trying to estimate the distance to the camp, working out if there was another way in. Looking back toward the airfield, wondering about the Antonov. Even if they managed to take off without being shredded by machine gun fire, there’d be nowhere to land. Yet something was at the back of his mind. Something about two ways to skin a cat. Landing a fixed-wing aircraft required a runway of some sort, to avoid crashing and to be able to take off afterward. But suppose you didn’t need to take off afterward? That was a different equation.

  He looked at Vien. “You said you could fly the Antonov, correct?”

  A brief hesitation. “Yes.”

  “Would it be possible to crash land in such a way that we survive?”

  Once again, she hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  He was getting the distinct impression she didn’t know much, at least, about aircraft. About getting them off the ground and back on the ground. They were getting nowhere, and they had to do something. The way it looked they weren’t going to make it to the camp. While he was thinking, yet another patrol marched past, eight more soldiers, and they were looking everywhere. Like they expected to find something untoward, something like them.

  They’d almost reached the camp where the Viets were holding American prisoners, many of them so-called MIAs. As well as Quan, Vien’s husband. The Saigon President and his wife had made it clear if they didn’t get him back, the situation in Vietnam was FUBAR. Fucked up beyond all recognition. There was one hell of a lot riding on this mission, and Heller regarded getting those men out as the priority. Finding Quan wasn’t. He didn’t give a shit what President Thieu said. Kick them out of Vietnam? Not a bad idea, and not one to lose too much sleep over.

  He looked up as Ripley crawled next to him. “More gooks heading this way, and they’re not on the path. They’re moving through the bushes, not making much noise. They’re being thorough, so they must suspect we’re in the vicinity.”

  He heard them then, the sound of men brushing against branches and vines. No orders, no shouted orders. Whoever was in charge knew his business and planned to sneak up and catch them unawares. They were coming from the north, and they’d be on them in minutes.

  He tapped Cruz on the shoulder, and the Lieutenant almost jumped at the contact. “What gives?”

  “Keep it down, they’re close. Hunting for us.”

  “I don’t hear them.”

  “They’re there, no question. We have to move out right away.”

  “Which way?”

  “Back toward the airfield. We’ll work things out when we get close.”

  When the path was clear they rejoined it, and he forced a fast pace back to the airfield. There was no sign the hunters had followed, giving them a small window to make their next move. Cruz was in no doubt. He insisted they had to pull out, and right then it seemed sensible. If it wasn’t for leaving behind a bunch of MIAs. Although if they were dead, there was no way they could do anything.

  Things were happening around the airfield. Maybe it was the airstrike, or maybe they’d found their tracks or some other traces they were in the area. A soldier, probably an officer, was jogging around the airfield. He was visiting the machine gun posts, probably to issue fresh orders. The crews waited for him in the open, and so for a short time the guns were unmanned. He chewed up the problem for almost a minute, and the more he thought about it, the more it sounded like a good idea. Getting out on foot wasn’t an attractive proposition, not with Christ knew how many enemy soldiers hunting them. There was always the plane.

  Cruz was out of it, and he left him huddled on the ground, his arms wrapped around his head.

  Maybe he’s meditating. Probably not.

  He gathered the Team around him and explained what he had in mind.

  “We count four gun crews, and we’re gonna take care of them all. Shut up, McGuigan!” he hissed, keeping his voice as low as possible, “I want you to take the one closest to us. Lynch goes with you. Ripley, you and Collins the right flank. Akulov and Dao, the left. I’ll handle the last one.”

  “What about the guy running around handing out orders?” Cruz asked.

  “He’s all yours. Lieutenant Cruz, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, but it won’t work. Even if it does, how do you plan on getting out of here?”

  “We fly out. Vien, if you have any doubts about flying the Antonov, now would be a good time to tell us.”

  “I can fly it, but we’ll have to remove the camouflage nets.”

  “As soon as we’ve taken down the machine gun crews, we pull aside the nets. One more thing, there’re two MiGs on the tarmac. Before we leave, each one gets a grenade.”

  “It won’t work!” Cruz repeated, “It’s crazy.”

  “Lieutenant, do your part and kill the officer. The rest of you, any questions?” Dao coughed, about to speak, and Lynch snarled there was no way he was going to get his ass shot off. He shut them both down, “No? Good. One more thing. We each have a target. For this to work, we must get them all. Miss one, and we’re all as good as dead. That’s all. Let’s do it. Ace the suckers.”

  He didn’t wait for anyone else to ask a question, didn’t stop to check they were following. If they weren’t, everything would fall apart, and they’d be dead. It was that simple. He’d considered the options and estimated there was no way they could penetrate the ring of steel surrounding the presumed location of the camp. Cruz, McGuigan, and Lynch had a valid point. It was time to abort the mission. He couldn’t disagree with them, but neither did he agree. He felt convinced there was a way, there was always a way. Just that so far, they hadn’t found it.

  Taking off in the Antonov wouldn’t solve their problems. They’d have a long way to go to reach safety. In the meantime, the Viets wouldn’t take kindly to somebody pinching their aircraft, and they’d come after them like a pack of baying wolfhounds. The trick would be to make sure they didn’t find them. He had an idea, but best not run it past them. Not just yet.

  He closed in on his target, the three-man machine gun crew. Crouched low, waiting for the shooting to start, and he didn’t have long to wait for the first burst of automatic fire. Somebody, it had to be McGuigan and Lynch, had reached their target, and he had to assume they’d been successful. His target, the three soldiers, looked away and stared across the strip, unsure about what’d happened. He took them down in a single, long burst that emptied his assault rifle. Rushed across, kicked away their weapons, and made sure they were all dead.

  Bursts of firing came from the locations of the other machine gun posts, and that left the officer who was now running toward him, pistol in hand, firing repeatedly. Before he could return fire, a bullet whined past his head, and he threw himself to the ground. Looked around at Cruz and threw himself to one side as he squeezed off a second shot.

  The bastard’s shooting at the wrong man!

  He snatched up an AK dropped by one of the men he’d just killed and snapped off a burst at the North Vietnamese officer. Shouted at Cruz to stop shooting and ran to intercept Vien, who was sprinting toward the Antonov.

  There were no long bursts of incoming fire, so it looked like they’d got them all. A dozen men were tumbling out of a wooden hut at the side of the airstrip, so they’d be the pilots and ground crew. Two raised their rifles, took aim, and squeezed off a few shots that narrowly missed her.

  “Vien, hit the deck!”

  She just kept running. Maybe didn’t hear him, and he cupped his hands to call again. It wasn’t necessary. A machine gun opened up, he afterward discovered it was Dao, and scythed a hail of bullets into the running men. The two shooters went down along with the rest of them. She made it to the Antonov and disappeared into the cabin. If any defenders were left on the airfield, they weren’t in evidence. He breathed a sigh of relief. So far it had gone like a charm, but there was plenty more to do. Like shifting that camouflage net so they could take off, and Vien working out the controls of the Antonov. He didn’t like to think what would happen if she failed to start the engine. Ripley and Akulov took a MiG-15 apiece, tossing grenades into the cockpits, and ran to help McGuigan and Lynch, who were slashing through the ropes holding the nets in place.

  They weren’t getting far, and he ran to lend a hand. Before he got there, he saw Lynch racing toward a small fuel tanker parked beneath part of the netting that’d sagged almost to ground level. To his astonishment, he leaped on top, opened the steel hatch above the tank, and tossed in a grenade. Leaped off and rolled away as the grenade detonated in a spectacular display of fireworks. The inevitable happened. The fire reached the camouflage netting in a matter of seconds, and in a few seconds more, the conflagration spread like wildfire.

  He ran to Lynch to pull him away before the flames engulfed him. Dragged him toward the Antonov, shouting and protesting. “Let me go, for Chrissake. I had to do it. There was no other way to clear that netting. The damned ropes were tied so tight it was impossible to free them.”

  His uniform was smoldering. He rolled him over on the ground and threw dirt over him to stop his clothes from bursting into flame. When he looked back at the fire burning above the fuel tanker, it wouldn’t be enough. A quarter of the canopy had caught, but it was spreading too slowly. Ominously, the flames were spreading toward the Antonov, and it was likely the ancient biplane would be consumed by burning camouflage netting before they had a chance to get off the ground.

  He was trying to work it out when a secondary explosion threw more flame into the air. After they’d tossed grenades into the two MiGs, the blast must’ve breached the fuel tanks, caused jet fuel to leak out and explode. The blast consumed another section of the overhead canopy, then the second MiG went up, and everything changed. Huge sections of netting burned like crazy, and burning debris fell to the ground. Half of the camouflage netting was on fire, accelerated by burning fuel, exposing a big chunk of the sky.

  It was like a scene from Dante’s inferno, engulfed by flames and smoke, with incoming fire starting to pepper around them. Lynch was still protesting, but his uniform was no longer smoldering, and he pulled him to his feet and hustled him toward the aircraft. They arrived at the same time as McGuigan, Akulov, Ripley, and Collins and climbed into the cabin. Vien must’ve been in the cockpit, for the engine suddenly coughed and roared into life. But there was no sign of Cruz or Dao.

  “Where are the others, Cruz and Dao?” he shouted.

  They returned blank looks. Except for McGuigan. “A gook and an officer, who gives a shit?”

  He jumped back through the door, onto the ground, and looked for them. The engine crescendoed, and above the din, Collins shouted that Vien said she was ready to attempt to get off the ground. “Tell her to wait!”

  He ran toward where he’d last seen Cruz, and he found him with Dao, who was trying to persuade him to get up. The Lieutenant was a gibbering wreck, huddled on the ground, his arms wrapped around his head, and when Heller told them to haul ass, he screamed he couldn’t do it. “I can’t go on, not anymore! Where’s Lynch?”

  What the fuck does Lynch have to do with anything? Unless… Shit, Cruz has come down hard from a cocaine high, and he needs Lynch, who must be supplying him with coke. Of all the times, and all the places, he chose here and now to crash.

  “Forget Lynch, we’re leaving. Dao, lend me a hand.”

  He grabbed his arms, the Vietnamese his legs. They carried him across the airfield, dodging scraps of burning netting, and reached the Antonov. They tossed him through the cabin door like a sack of potatoes and scrambled in after him. He shouted for Vien to get them into the air. The engine went to full power, but for several seconds, nothing happened. It had to happen, and now! Bullets were chewing through the thin aluminum skin of the fuselage, and it was only a matter of time before someone got hit.

  He dived into the cockpit. “Vien, what’s happening? Get us off the ground!”

  “I’m trying,” she wailed, “But nothing’s happening. Except the tail is trying to lift.”

  “What the fuck! I thought you said you could do this.”

  She flashed him a vicious look. “I thought I could, but every button, every lever, and every control is labeled in Cyrillic. I never said I could speak Russian!”

  He climbed into the co-pilot’s seat and looked desperately for the solution. Found it almost at once. The wheel brakes were still on, and the operating lever had broken off, so it was almost out of sight. He grabbed hold of it and pushed all the way forward. Immediately, the Antonov started to move. They were heading south, in the same direction as smoke from the burning fires. He didn’t know anything about flying a Soviet antique, but he knew a downwind take-off would be a recipe for disaster. Especially with such a short takeoff run.

  He tapped her shoulder to get her attention. “You need to turn to get us off the ground.”

  “I know that!” she snapped, “Leave me to fly this thing, I can do it.”

  Yeah, right.

  She reached the end of the strip, throttled back, and executed a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. They were pointing in the right direction, and she pushed the throttle lever all the way forward. The engine roared, and the Antonov accelerated. They were still shooting at them, and a bullet smashed through the cockpit side window. Another bullet thumped into his seat, and yet another came from the rear and tore through the windshield.